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Looking Like a State: Techniques of Persistent Failure in State Capability for Implementation

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  • Lant Pritchett
  • Michael Woolcock
  • Matt Andrews

Abstract

In many nations today the state has little capability to carry out even basic functions like security, policing, regulation or core service delivery. Enhancing this capability, especially in fragile states, is a long-term task. Countries like Haiti or Liberia will take many decades to reach even a moderate capability country like India, and millennia to reach the capability of Singapore.

Suggested Citation

  • Lant Pritchett & Michael Woolcock & Matt Andrews, 2012. "Looking Like a State: Techniques of Persistent Failure in State Capability for Implementation," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2012-063, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    • Handle: RePEc:unu:wpaper:wp-2012-063
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    File URL: https://www.wider.unu.edu/sites/default/files/wp2012-063.pdf
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    References listed on IDEAS

    as
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