Mind the Gap? The International Sources of Sovereignty and State Weakness

Abstract: 

Why have some developing countries faced persistent challenges at extending state authority throughout their territories? The consequences of incomplete governance are often severe in terms of public order, public goods, and economic growth, which raise the question of why ungoverned spaces remain without effective authority. Although there are many reasons why states leave broad swathes of their territory ungoverned, existing scholarship has overlooked the role of international politics. This dissertation demonstrates the importance of international factors in accounting for variation in state weakness, and argues that enemy states can subvert or deter the exercise of state authority near the borders of their neighbors. External interference can create or sustain ungoverned spaces in the target state, and yields policy benefits to the enemy state. Drawing on original data and a new measure of state authority, I support this argument with a cross-national statistical analysis that examines variation within countries, and a natural experiment from the case of Thailand that identifies the causal effect of hostile neighbors on state authority.

Speaker Bio:

Melissa Lee is a Ph.D. candidate in Political Science at Stanford University. Her research interests bridge the subfields of international relations and comparative politics, and include the international causes and consequences of state weakness; statebuilding; conflict and security; and political and economic development. Her dissertation asks why some developing states leave parts of their territory ungoverned, and argues that state weakness near state borders is a function of hostile regional neighborhoods. Specifically, she argues that neighboring states can subvert or deter the exercise of state authority, resulting in the emergence or persistence of ungoverned space. She employs a variety of methods in her research, including statistical methods, quasi-experimental techniques, geospatial analysis, archival research, and field interviews.

Her research is supported by the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program, the Center for International Security and Cooperation, the Freeman Spogli Institute, and other research centers at Stanford University. She is a former research consultant for the Global Commission on Elections, Democracy, and Security, a project of the Kofi Annan Foundation and the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance.