Petar Juršić: ideas and stories

Strong state, strong society

2 min read

Free societies need a strong state and a strong society at the same time

Hook

Too little state is not freedom, and too much state is not order. In between is a narrow corridor where state and society keep each other in check.

Claim

Liberty lasts only where an able state and an organised society hold each other in check.

Story

The Narrow Corridor (Acemoglu and Robinson) is usually summarised as a three-way map: a despotic Leviathan, an absent Leviathan, and a “shackled” Leviathan inside a narrow corridor where state and society grow together. Somaliland and Somalia are natural cases for the too-little-state end. Putnam’s study of Italian regions finds governments performed best where civic engagement was strong. No single person yet; the nearest is Somaliland’s elders.

Sources

Check before posting

  • The Wikipedia page for The Narrow Corridor returned 404, so the three-state summary is from reviews. Check against a review or the book before quoting.
  • Needs a person-level story.

Counterargument

The corridor metaphor is hard to falsify.

Post angles

Facebook (Croatian)

  • Premalo države nije sloboda, a previše države nije red. Između je uski hodnik u kojem država i društvo drže jedno drugo u ravnoteži. Gdje smo mi?
  • Somalija na jednom kraju, Singapur na drugom. Što drži zajednicu na okupu kad država nedostaje, a što kad je previše?

LinkedIn (English)

  • Free societies sit in a narrow corridor: a state strong enough to act and a society strong enough to hold it to account. Somaliland shows a negotiated order with a weak state; Singapore shows the other pull.
  • Too little state is not freedom and too much is not order. The hard part is staying in the corridor.

Graph View

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