Territorial Inequalities : A Note on State Discontinuity

When the state does not reach with the same effectiveness everybody and everywhere, it creates pockets of exclusions and hampers the opportunities of individuals belonging to the excluded groups to participate fully economically, socially, and politically. This paper develops an index to measure state discontinuity, defined as the uneven presence and responsiveness of the state across the territory. Different layers of capacity, service provision, and responsiveness determine the density of state presence. By examining the discontinuity of the state in 32 developing countries using extensive data sets from the International Integrated Public Use Microdata Series International and the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project, the paper explores the underlying drivers of this discontinuity and identifies potential policy intervention points.