Construyendo la estabilidad en un Weak Stateel caso de Venezuela

Abstract

There is an ever-increasing number of States going through situations that are specific to Weak States. A States' weakness has been associated to its lack of "capability" or "willingness" to carry out critical roles like delivering public goods and services (collective consumption). Nonetheless, determining whether a State is weak or weakening solely based on the level of compliance and delivery of a set of goods and services is insufficient, due to the fact that we would have to consider the reasons behind the non-compliance, that is to say, we would need to know if it is because of a lack of capability and/or a lack of willingness by the State political administrative bodies, or a lack of capability and/or a lack of willingness by the citizens, or maybe for the conjugation of both key elements, or if it is due to an overburdened State. People tend to think that the State, rather than just setting the conditions to achieve a common well-being (minimum of justice), has the obligation to providing and managing all the basic goods and services, as well as whatever may be needed to live better, needs that stem from people's appetite, fantasy and feelings (beyond the minimum of justice). The results from this qualitative study show that the State functions must be primarily focused on providing public good and services to satisfy human needs, and then, if technically and materially feasible, to satisfy desires and preferences in trying to avoid the State weakening as a consequence of the unbalance between society's tax-paying capabilities and the expectations of goods and services in return. The wide-spreading and sometimes distorted vision of the State functions, as well as the narrow perception of what the State actually is, together with the prevalent confusion between needs and desires and the poor sense of joint responsibility between the governors and governed are determining the weakness of States from the Global North, and furthermore from the South, as in Venezuela, thus promoting a Kidnapper State.