State Capacity and Local Governments in Challenging and Complex Times

The study of state capacities or capacity building of local governments is still an underexplored field in comparative political science. However, as local governments have been assuming increasing responsibilities, their administrative, technical, political-relational and institutional capacities have only increased in importance. The complexity and diversity of issues that fall under this sphere of government is increasingly significant (climate change, public health crises, immigration, population growth and social inequality and AI, to name a few). Analyzing how local governments develop their state capacities is associated with the way they can formulate and implement their political and public policy objectives in their territories. State capacities are associated with the conditions under which power is exercised at the local level. The panel seeks to explore how local governments have developed their state capacities, which opens up several avenues of research. Little is known about whether local governments strengthen certain sectors of public policy and not others and the reasons for these choices. It is necessary to know more about how local governments build their channels of political relationship with society. In line with the literature, it is important to know whether local governments have the institutional capacity to condition and constrain the behavior of economic and social actors whithin their territories. No less important is the bureaucratic, fiscal and technical capacities of local governments to face the complexity of the current problems affecting human societies. To analyze the role of national governments and the way they induce the development of state capacities at the local level is another underexplored field of study. The panel invites submissions of empirically oriented papers, national and/or comparative case studies, quantitative and qualitative research, as well as theoretical essays aimed at advancing the proposition of concepts for the study of state capacities at the local level.