Applied Seminar

Speaker: Applied Seminar - Soren Henn (Newcastle University Business School)

Title: "Projecting Power: The Effects of State Expansion in the Democratic Republic of the Congo" (with Aimable Lameke, Christian Mugaruka, and Vincent Tanutama)

Format: Hybrid

Abstract: How do citizens react to the expansion of a weak state? We study a reform in the Democratic Republic of the Congo that extends state authority, via a population threshold, to small towns previously governed by traditional chiefs.  Using a regression discontinuity design, we find that state expansion increased citizens’ demand for the state even when such an expansion is fraught. Towns above the population threshold are more likely to have state security personnel, higher incidents of corruption and no improvement in development outcomes. However, citizens accept the state’s authority and increasingly turn to the state when resolving disputes, make more tax payments and respond to state appeals to public good contribution in behavioural games. This increased demand for the state comes at the expense of demand for traditional authority. 

Organiser: Uta

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