Militarism and Statecraft

Poverty, Militarism and Civil War

This article summarizes an empirical investigation of the link between poverty and the incidence of civil war. The thesis examined is a simple one: at the individual level, low living standards tend to enhance militaristic nationalism and confidence in the armed forces and therefore, on average, more support for attempting military solutions to social conflicts. At the national level this means...

Public Health as Statecraft and Soul-Craft

State and Statecraft in Kautilya's Arthasastra

Kautilya's Arthasastra (4th century B.C.) is one of the most influential treatise in Political Science in the Indian Civilization. This work deals with virtually all aspects of governance in a monarchical state. In the Indian philosophy, the objective of every being is the pursuit of dharma. State, a human artifact, is constituted to get the human race out of the state of nature. State enables ...

Brand “piracy” and Postwar Statecraft in Guatemala

In this article, I analyze significant gaps between what branding means in Guatemalan Maya communities and how brands are understood in international projects of legal harmonization that are also about rebranding the Guatemalan nation. Following Guatemala’s internal armed conflict, neoliberal statecraft has involved policy approaches that amplify the presence of global brands while compounding ...

Statecraft, Social Policy, and Governance in Latin America

The paper develops an analytical framework designed to examine social policy as a strategic approach to issues of state-society relations and the problem of governance in Latin America. The paper argues that in Latin America and particularly Brazil social protection policy flowed from initiating capacity concentrated originally in the state, and specifically in a technobureaucratic elite connec...