Negative State Capacity: How States' Ability to Inflict Harm Fuels Conflict

The literature overwhelmingly treats state capacity as inherently positive for conflict reduction. But Decety's (2024) finding about corruption weakening military effectiveness hints at something important: what if we conceptualize "negative state capacity" - the state's efficiency at repression, extraction, and violence? This research would argue that states can be highly capable at inflicting harm even while being weak at providing services. The study would develop measures of negative capacity (efficiency of security forces, effectiveness of repression, ability to extract resources coercively) and test how this relates to conflict risk. This could explain why some states with low traditional capacity (like North Korea) maintain control while others collapse. The research would challenge the core assumption that state capacity is monolithic and inherently conflict-reducing, suggesting instead that we need to distinguish between positive and negative dimensions of state power.

References:

1. Fighting on Quicksand: How Corruption Weakens State Capacity in War. Nathan Decety (2024). The Journal of Intelligence Conflict and Warfare.