Confronting human trafficking: The role of state capacity

Robert G Blanton, Shannon Lindsey Blanton and Dursun Peksen
Additional contact information
Robert G Blanton: Department of Political Science and Public Administration, University of Alabama at Birmingham, USA
Shannon Lindsey Blanton: Department of Political Science and Public Administration, Honors College, University of Alabama at Birmingham, USA
Dursun Peksen: Department of Political Science, The University of Memphis, USA

Conflict Management and Peace Science, 2020, vol. 37, issue 4, 471-489

Abstract: While human trafficking occupies a prominent place on the global policy agenda, many aspects of this phenomenon remain empirically underdeveloped. We examine the role of state capacity in these illicit supply chains, positing that trafficking flows may persist because even well-intentioned states might lack the requisite capacity to take effective action. Along those lines, we assess the impact of two facets of state capacity, bureaucratic efficacy and fiscal capacity, upon the probability of a country being a source or destination for the two types of human trafficking, forced labor and prostitution. We find that state capacity, particularly fiscal capacity, is significantly related to reduced labor and sex trafficking at both the source and destination levels.

Keywords: Human security; human trafficking; illicit economy; state capacity (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0738894218789875 (text/html)

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:sae:compsc:v:37:y:2020:i:4:p:471-489

DOI: 10.1177/0738894218789875

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Conflict Management and Peace Science from Peace Science Society (International)
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().