42 SOCIAL CONTRACTS FOR DEVELOPMENT
Notes 1. This is similar to the definition of the WDR 2017, which defines power as “the ability of groups and individuals to make others act in the interest of those groups and individuals and to bring about specific outcomes” (World Bank 2017, 3). 2. These three subindicators mirror the three dimensions of state capacity outlined in Hanson and Sigman (2013): extractive capacity, coercive capacity, and administrative capacity. 3. “Bureaucracy Lab,” World Bank, https://www.worldbank.org/en/research/dime /brief/Bureaucracy-Lab. 4. See also the concept of political settlement in the body of work by Khan (2010). 5. Trust and legitimacy are terms that are often used in the literature, although in many different ways. For example, Fukuyama (1995) notes that trust can have two dimensions: trust in the state and trust in the government of the day. Trust in the state refers to the extent to which citizens believe that “the state” (in this case, the executive branch of the state) has the expertise, technical knowledge, capacity, and impartiality to make good judgments; that is, that it has an adequate number of people with the right training and skills to carry out the tasks they are assigned, and to do them in a timely and professional manner. Trust in the government of the day, in contrast, is more about trust in the politicians that form the government. 6. The first limitation is data availability. Perception surveys, in particular, are available for relatively few years, usually coming in the form of waves and for selected countries. All data sources also come with their own biases and measurement errors. Another limitation comes from the use of secondary indicators as proxies. The selected variables were the best that were available but are imperfect; sometimes they capture broader effects than desired and sometimes narrower effects. These limitations were addressed as much as possible by considering a large number of data sources and many combinations of the indicators. New data sources and indicators are continuously being created, and the framework could gradually become more precise as these sources are integrated. Country-specific work can also allow for better measurement in a number of cases. 7. Although expert assessments and self-reported surveys both attempt to measure the same thing, it is generally recognized that one of the biases that affects perception surveys is related to the subjectivity of the perceptions relative to the expectations of the surveyed population. Combining these two sources thus provides some information on the state of both perceptions and expectations of citizens, which is a critical element of social contracts. 8. Data sources and measurement strategy are described in more detail in the relevant background paper for this report: Cloutier (2021). 9. The evidence for these findings is more thoroughly discussed in the relevant background paper for this report (Cloutier, 2021).
