State capacity

Instructions

  • For the data, right-click, “save/download file as…”
  • Open the data
  • Complete all of the tasks associated with that data and keep track of your answers / images
  • Once you are done, go on Canvas and answer the questions related to the assignment
    • the Canvas assignment is timed; if you open it prior to completing the tasks you will run out of time

Skills used:

  • Sorting/filtering
  • plotting

My awkward Google Sheets video tutorials are here

Control of territory

Let’s look at data from the Varieties of Democracy on their variable v2svstterr, which measures the percent of the territory that a state has effective control of.

  1. Look at the country you’ve chosen to look at at various parts in the class. Plot the change in territorial control over time. What is the overall trend? 1 point for plot, 1 point for discussion.

  2. Now plot all of the countries together and see how territorial control changes over time. Which country experienced the sharpest, most sudden drop in territorial control in the post-WW2 period? What happened in this country in that year? 1 point for country, 1 point for answer.

  3. Nicaragua and Colombia have had a dispute over the Archipelago of San Andrés, Providencia and Santa Catalina. At some points, Nicaragua has stated that they legally consider the islands to be their territory, but Colombia has maintained de facto rule for almost 100 years. Imagine a rebellion broke out on the islands; would this hurt Nicaragua’s VDEM territorial control score? Look up how VDEM codes this variable in their codebook to justify your answer (3 points for explanation).

Offshore wealth

A big challenge for states is that (wealthy) residents may hide their wealth abroad. Let’s look at data from the European Union Tax Observatory on offshore financial wealth.

  1. What is “offshore financial wealth”? Roughly speaking, how did the Observatory measure it? Where is the data coming from? Look at the codebook. 2 points.

  2. Which country in Latin America had the highest total offshore wealth in 2001? Which had the highest offshore wealth in 2022? (1 point)

  3. Which country attracted the second highest amount of offshore wealth? (1 point)