Description
Book SynopsisThis book explores the politics of hinterlands in the developing world, showing that even in peripheral regions where the state appears weakest, it has significant power to transform society. The book challenges classic theories of state-building and provides lessons for policymakers promoting development in some of the world's poorest regions.
Trade Review'Using the case of Ghana to study state-society relations in the hinterland, Prof. Noah Nathan's excellent new book forces his readers to rethink common claims about the state. In particular, Prof. Nathan provides a fresh and compelling theory of when, how and why even a 'weak' state can have everlasting effects on core development outcomes such as inequality, elite capture, electoral competition, clientelism and political violence. This book should be a must read for anyone interested in developing countries' political and economic trajectories.' Guy Grossman, University of Pennsylvania
'In this theoretically original and empirically rich book, Noah Nathan reveals the outsized impact of rare state interventions on social, economic, and political relations in the hinterlands. Transforming the rhetoric and refocusing the analysis on the scarcity of the state transforms our understanding of governance and government throughout the world.' Margaret Levi, Stanford University
Table of ContentsPart I. Introduction: 1. The politics of state scarcity; 2. The large effects of scarce states; 3. Northern Ghana's scarce state; Part II. Societal Effects: 4. The origins of inequality; 5. Bottom-Up responses to scarcity; Part III. Political Effects: 6. Dynasties; 7. Invented chiefs and distributive politics; 8. Non-State violence as a state effect; Part IV. Extending the Argument: 9. Shadow cases; 10. The paradox of state weakness; Appendix: Qualitative interviews; Bibliography; Index.
