State Capacity of Secret Surveillance

Thomas K. Duncan () and Nathan P. Goodman
Additional contact information
Thomas K. Duncan: Radford University
Nathan P. Goodman: Mercatus Center at George Mason University

Eastern Economic Journal, 2025, vol. 51, issue 1, No 3, 27-49

Abstract: Abstract The state capacity-civil society tradeoff model tends to treat the “state” and “civil society” as separate entities who move to constrain one another. However, this modeling technique leaves out the nuances of individual action within a collective setting by treating each as a relative black box. This article explores this balance in the context of the surveillance state that has arisen in the 20th and 21st century. As state capacity in surveillance increases it better allows the state to respond to threats to citizens from citizens. However, the increased capacity also lessens the ability of societal pressure to check authoritarian advances even in a nation with a thriving civil society presence.

Keywords: National security; Surveillance; State capacity; Civil society; Ratchet effect (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D70 F52 H56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1057/s41302-024-00278-1 Abstract (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pal:easeco:v:51:y:2025:i:1:d:10.1057_s41302-024-00278-1

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/economics/journal/41302

DOI: 10.1057/s41302-024-00278-1

Access Statistics for this article

Eastern Economic Journal is currently edited by Allan Zebedee and Cynthia Bansak

More articles in Eastern Economic Journal from Palgrave Macmillan, Eastern Economic Association Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().