State capacity, democracy and current global challenges
The concept of state capacity has recently experienced a rapid rise, achieving the status of a "key determinant of development" and leading to a flourishing body of interdisciplinary literature on the causes and effects of state capacity. However, the literature remains fragmented because the content of the concept is not only contested, but often confused with other concepts, such as the quality of governance, causing a lack of consensus on the mechanisms through which government capacity "delivers" socially important outcomes. Furthermore, the reasons why some politicians have higher state capacity but most are stuck in a low-capacity "trap" have remained understudied. Therefore, the main aim of this sabbatical project is to write a book that will synthesize the insights from existing literature with my own research of 10 years, and to provide answers to long-standing unresolved questions such as the relationship between democracy and state capacity and digitization of state capacity and how it affects the government's response to current global challenges such as the global pandemic. I am applying for the grant 1) to carry out research already at an advanced stage and produce a manuscript ready for publication; 2) collaborate with several of the world's leading researchers in these subjects at several US-based research centers.
Final report
Thanks to the financial support fromRiksbankens Jubileumsfond, I spent the 2025–2026 academic year on sabbatical leave devoted to research and scholarly collaboration. During this period, I completed nine of the twelve chapters of my monograph and prepared advanced drafts of the remaining chapters and the conclusion. The completed chapters of the manuscript are currently under review with a reputable international academic publisher. The monograph's table of contents is as follows:
1. Introduction
2. What is State Capacity? Conceptualizations and Measurements
3. What do you Get? Effects of State Capacity
4. State Capacity Building and Erosion
5. Towards a New Conceptual Architecture of State Capacity
6. How State Capacity Co-evolves along Other Institutions: a J-shaped Theory
7. State Capacity and Autocracy: the case of Rwanda
8. State Capacity and Democracy: the case of Estonia
9. State Capacity and Democratic Backsliding: the case of the Republic of Georgia
10. State Capacity and Democratic Backsliding: the case of USA
11. The Transformation of State Capacity and Wicked Global Challenges
12. Conclusion
The manuscript advances a new conceptualization of state capacity as the state's level of control over the effect of its indented goals. It argues that this control rests on two mails pillars: steering potential and system predictability. Steering potential determines the 'space' states have to design different courses of action, which naturally increases the probability that the chosen course will work. It is composed of: a) expected fiscal revenue; b) knowledge and information; c) territorial infrastructure; and d) the level of political concentration. The former three are non-power resources, while the latter is a power resource. The level of system predictability refers to the idea that the realization of the devised course of actions may be distorted by a) political or institutional stability (the volume and the characters of expected behavior of veto players), and b) environmental stability (external shocks, 'wicked problems', international interdependencies, etc.). The book develops its core argument that the the size of the constituent elements of state’s level of control over the effect of its intended goals (policy intent) is determined by the level democracy, and explicates this argument on five case studies, representing different levels and dynamics (democratization and democratic backsliding).
In view of the ongoing re-politicization of public bureaucracy and its implications for bureaucratic quality -- a central dimension of state capacity -- I have produced two academic works that are directly aligned with both my broader research agenda and the objectives of my sabbatical. First, I authored "The Future of Bureaucratic Merit" in a high-quality volume "Futures for the Public Sector", published by Leuven University Press (Nistotskaya 2025). This project brought me in touch with several leading scholars in the field, with whom I engaged in extended discussions and other forms of collaboration during my sabbatical and beyond, including research visits and initiation of new research projects. Second, I completed a research paper co-authored with Palina Kolvani from University of Oslo, which is directly relevant to the sabbatical’s focus on state capacity and has been published in a well-regarded economics journal.journal (Kolvani and Nistotskaya 2025).
During my sabbatical leave, I delivered research presentations at at University of Denver, Washington University in St. Louis, University of Pittsburgh, and University of Barcelona and the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, which contributed to the further development of the manuscript. My affiliation with the Center for Market and Governance at the University of Pittsburgh also gave rise to new collaborative initiatives, including a joint application for research funding.
Nistotskaya, Marina. 2025. ”The Future of Bureaucratic Merit”. In Geert Bouckaert, Annie Hondeghem, Trui Steen, Steven Van de Walle (Eds.) Futures for the Public Sector. Leuven: Leuven University Press. Pp. 289-307.
Kolvani, Palina and Marina Nistotskaya. On Mechanisms of Meritocratic Bureaucracy: Competence and Impartiality, Journal of Institutional Economics 21, e12
1. Introduction
2. What is State Capacity? Conceptualizations and Measurements
3. What do you Get? Effects of State Capacity
4. State Capacity Building and Erosion
5. Towards a New Conceptual Architecture of State Capacity
6. How State Capacity Co-evolves along Other Institutions: a J-shaped Theory
7. State Capacity and Autocracy: the case of Rwanda
8. State Capacity and Democracy: the case of Estonia
9. State Capacity and Democratic Backsliding: the case of the Republic of Georgia
10. State Capacity and Democratic Backsliding: the case of USA
11. The Transformation of State Capacity and Wicked Global Challenges
12. Conclusion
The manuscript advances a new conceptualization of state capacity as the state's level of control over the effect of its indented goals. It argues that this control rests on two mails pillars: steering potential and system predictability. Steering potential determines the 'space' states have to design different courses of action, which naturally increases the probability that the chosen course will work. It is composed of: a) expected fiscal revenue; b) knowledge and information; c) territorial infrastructure; and d) the level of political concentration. The former three are non-power resources, while the latter is a power resource. The level of system predictability refers to the idea that the realization of the devised course of actions may be distorted by a) political or institutional stability (the volume and the characters of expected behavior of veto players), and b) environmental stability (external shocks, 'wicked problems', international interdependencies, etc.). The book develops its core argument that the the size of the constituent elements of state’s level of control over the effect of its intended goals (policy intent) is determined by the level democracy, and explicates this argument on five case studies, representing different levels and dynamics (democratization and democratic backsliding).
In view of the ongoing re-politicization of public bureaucracy and its implications for bureaucratic quality -- a central dimension of state capacity -- I have produced two academic works that are directly aligned with both my broader research agenda and the objectives of my sabbatical. First, I authored "The Future of Bureaucratic Merit" in a high-quality volume "Futures for the Public Sector", published by Leuven University Press (Nistotskaya 2025). This project brought me in touch with several leading scholars in the field, with whom I engaged in extended discussions and other forms of collaboration during my sabbatical and beyond, including research visits and initiation of new research projects. Second, I completed a research paper co-authored with Palina Kolvani from University of Oslo, which is directly relevant to the sabbatical’s focus on state capacity and has been published in a well-regarded economics journal.journal (Kolvani and Nistotskaya 2025).
During my sabbatical leave, I delivered research presentations at at University of Denver, Washington University in St. Louis, University of Pittsburgh, and University of Barcelona and the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, which contributed to the further development of the manuscript. My affiliation with the Center for Market and Governance at the University of Pittsburgh also gave rise to new collaborative initiatives, including a joint application for research funding.
Nistotskaya, Marina. 2025. ”The Future of Bureaucratic Merit”. In Geert Bouckaert, Annie Hondeghem, Trui Steen, Steven Van de Walle (Eds.) Futures for the Public Sector. Leuven: Leuven University Press. Pp. 289-307.
Kolvani, Palina and Marina Nistotskaya. On Mechanisms of Meritocratic Bureaucracy: Competence and Impartiality, Journal of Institutional Economics 21, e12