(RSC) Relational State Capacity: Rethinking State Capacity and Welfare Delivery in the Developing World

Citizens' welfare depends on the state's capacity to generate public goods like health care, education, and safety. State capacity has traditionally been thought of as the state's ability to deliver to citizens; capacity is conventionally operationalized and measured by the presence of physical infrastructure (e.g. roads, planes, clinics), public servants (e.g. teachers per capita), or the state's technical capacities (e.g. having advanced disease surveillance abilities.

The Relational State Capacity (RSC) project builds on and draws in a range of disciplines in suggesting a new manner of conceptualizing what capacity in fact "is" - relational contracts, relations of trust and mutual accountability between citizens and public servants. In contrast with conventional approaches, this perspective brings the role of citizens - and their active participation in achieving policy outcomes - to the forefront (e.g. COVID vaccine uptake; citizen information provision to police to identify perpetrators and enhance public safety). RSC will be particularly useful in understanding the state's ability to produce welfare outcomes (and thus what can be done to improve citizen welfare) in the many contexts the state cannot just 'deliver to' citizens, but needs to 'work with' them.

Using quantitative (observational econometric analysis; meta-analysis; pilot interventions) and qualitative (interviews and case study process tracing) methods, this project will:
1) define RSC, develop methodologies and measures for the systematic study of RSC;
2) validate RSC's relationship with substantive welfare outcomes and
3) generate knowledge regarding how, and under what circumstances, RSC emerges and can be strengthened;
4) Catalyze the formation of an epistemic community engaging with RSC-related questions of both theoretical and practical relevance in efforts to improve the lives of some of the world's poorest citizens.