Conceptualising State Capacity: Comparing Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan
| DOI | 10.1111/j.1467-9248.2004.00503.x |
| Published date | 01 December 2004 |
| Date | 01 December 2004 |
| Author | Sally N. Cummings,Ole Nørgaard |
| Subject Matter | Original Article |
Conceptualising State Capacity:
Comparing Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan
Sally N. Cummings
University of St. Andrews
Ole Nørgaard
University of Aarhus, Denmark
Strengthening the state is central to the post-communist reform agenda. Here, state capacity
combines organisational, material and social resources and is conceptualised along four dimen-
sions: ideational, political, technical and implementational. This conceptualisation is applied to
a comparative, survey-based analysis in 2002 of 125 medium-ranking officials in two post-
communist Central Asian countries, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. The findings reveal that although
Kazakhstan’s controlled economic reform programme and natural resources have placed it in a
stronger position to develop its state capacity, important ideational, political and implementational
problems pose long-term obstacles for reform. In turn, Kyrgyzstan’s early liberalisation in the
absence of economic and social resources may be serving to undermine its state capacity.
The 1997 World Development Report refers to state capacity as
the ability of the state to undertake collective actions at least costs to
society. This notion of capacity encompasses the administrative or tech-
nical capacity of state officials, but it is much broader than that. It also
includes the deeper institutional mechanisms that give politicians and
civil servants the flexibility, rules, and restraints to enable them to act in
the collective interest. (World Bank, 1997, p. 77)
In this paper, we will attempt to conceptualise state capacity, and we will do so by
unpacking the concept in the process of applying it to two post-communist case
studies: Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan.
The state is an actor with unique properties (it possesses a monopoly over legiti-
mate coercion and law-making capacity), but it is not the sole actor. As Skocpol
has usefully remarked:
states may be viewed as organizations through which official collectivi-
ties may pursue distinctive goals, realizing them more or less effectively
given the available state resources in relation to social settings. On the
other hand, states may be viewed more macroscopically as configura-
tions of organization and action that influence the meanings and
methods of politics for all groups and classes in society. (quoted in Evans
et al., 1985, p. 28)
In both cases, central here to our understanding of the state is its relation to par-
ticular kinds of socio-economic and political environments populated by other
POLITICAL STUDIES: 2004 VOL 52, 685–708
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686 SALLY N. CUMMINGS AND OLE NØRGAARD
actors with their own interests and resources. The behaviour of these actors is
partly shaped by the state’s own structures and behaviour, and the capacity of states
to lead, transform and enjoy legitimacy will in turn be shaped by its relation to
these other actors. The question then arises as to what particular state–society rela-
tions are best suited to particular socio-economic and political environments.
As Evans et al. (1985) and Weiss (1998) have emphasised, state capacity cannot be
measured without comparing it specifically across different policy or issue areas.
Although we acknowledge this to be the case and pursue this research agenda else-
where,1our aim here is to provide overall parameters of how a conceptualisation
might be best grounded in an empirical setting. As such, we aim not to offer a new
‘theory’ of the state or state capacity, but to offer a conceptualisation of the state
in its relationship to society.
This emphasis on the state’s relationship with other actors is informed by what
Hobson (2000) has usefully termed the two ‘state debates’. The first, which
emerged in the 1970s, was about the degree of autonomy enjoyed by the state in
its relationship with society. Defined, for example, by Skocpol (1979), Evans et al.
(1985) and Leftwich (1995, 2000), these neo-Weberians regarded the state as pos-
sessing a high degree of autonomy and that the key to successful economic per-
formance rested with strong or ‘developmental states’ imbued with high autonomy.
The second, by contrast, moved beyond a binary juxtaposition of the relative
strengths of state and society and contended that state power derives from the
extent to which states are embedded in society.2In the narrow definition of Evans
(1995) and Weiss (1998), it is the extent to which the state is embedded in key
corporate actors that matters. In his broader definition, Hobson, by contrast,
emphasises that
states are most effective when they are embedded across a broad range
of social actors rather than exclusively within the dominant class. ...
contra Evans’ grave-digger thesis, state autonomy is not undermined in
the long run as social actors strengthen their power but is enhanced.
(Hobson, 2000, p. 207)
He also usefully differentiates between domestic and international power. Stark
and Bruszt (1998) follow a similar line of argument in their analyses of transfor-
mation in Central and Eastern Europe, as does Seabrooke (2002) in his elabora-
tion of legitimacy and the state.
By developing a conceptualisation of state capacity, we aim to make a focused
comparison between the autonomy and (narrow and broad) embeddedness
hypotheses and therefore the relationship between state capacity and the nature
of state–society relations. We will do so by exploring the explanatory power of both
theories in two country cases – Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan – that epitomise the
dilemmas inherent in state–society relations, drawing on the insight from a recent
survey of administrative and political elites in the two countries. In the first section,
we will introduce a multidimensional concept of state capacity. In the second, we
will briefly present the country cases and detail the data collection. And in the
third, we will explore the survey results. In the conclusion, we will discuss the
competing hypotheses about state–society relations in the context of our two
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