本研究發現一個地區的經濟發展水平與當地居民對中央政府的信任程度負相關。 / 本研究包括定量和定性兩個部份。定量部份，普通最小二乘線性回歸(OLS)分析和雙層回歸分析的結果顯示：區域經濟發展水平與人們對中央政府的信任存在顯著的負相關關係。控制了個人因素變量，上述相關關係仍然顯著。定性分析部份討論了傳統文化與信息流通在發達地區和欠發達地區如何影響政府信任。這部份分析發現文化因素和信息因素是導致某一地區的民眾比另一地區民眾更不相信中央政府的重要因素，但必須與經濟發展因素相結合才能發揮顯著作用。文化與信息受當地的經濟發展水平影響：一個地區的經濟發展水平越高，傳統文化的影響力越弱，信息化程度越高；反之，經濟發展水平越低，傳統文化的影響力越強，信息化程度越低。定量分析與定性分析都支持研究假設。 / 把上述靜態觀察納入動態視角，從長遠看，區域經濟發展將削弱公眾對中央政府的信任。具體來說，假定目前的局勢延續，隨著中國越來越多的地區經濟得到發展，當地民眾對中央政府的信任會相應降低。據此推測，中國人的政府信任可能會經歷一個由“中央高、地方低再變為“中央低、地方更低的過程。 / This research shows that the level of economic development in a region has a negative correlation with local residents’ trust in the central government. / This study draws on both quantitative and qualitative analyses. In the quantitative section, both OLS regression and hierarchical linear modeling show that the level of regional economic development has a significant negative correlation with public trust in the central government, controlling for individual factors. Qualitative analysis suggests that traditional culture and the flow of political information affect people’s trust in government when they interact with economic development. In places where economy is underdeveloped, traditional culture has a larger impact and the flow of political information is less free. By contrast, in places where economy is more developed, traditional culture has a weaker effect and the flow of political information is freer. / Putting the finding of the cross-sectional analysis into a dynamic perspective, it is suggested that the development of local economy may in the long run weaken local residents’ trust in the central government. More specifically, assuming that the present situation continues, as more and more regions experience economic growth, local residents may develop weaker confidence in the central government. The pattern of trust in government may then evolve from the current “high trust in the central government and lower trust in local government into “low trust in the central government and even lower trust in local government. / Detailed summary in vernacular field only. / Detailed summary in vernacular field only. / Detailed summary in vernacular field only. / 呂書鵬. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2012. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 157-173). / Abstracts in Chinese and English. / Lü Shupeng. / 內容摘要 --- p.i / ABSTRACT --- p.ii / 致謝 --- p.iii / Chapter 第1章 --- 概論 --- p.1 / Chapter 1.1 --- 問題的提出 --- p.1 / Chapter 1.2 --- 相關概念 --- p.4 / Chapter 1.3 --- 研究方法 --- p.7 / Chapter 1.4 --- 研究框架 --- p.8 / Chapter 1.5 --- 研究局限 --- p.10 / Chapter 第2章 --- 文獻綜述 --- p.12 / Chapter 2.1 --- 政府信任 --- p.12 / Chapter 2.1.1 --- 政府信任的重要性 --- p.12 / Chapter 2.1.2 --- 政府信任的特點 --- p.20 / Chapter 2.2 --- 政府信任的影響因素 --- p.25 / Chapter 2.2.1 --- 經濟因素 --- p.27 / Chapter 2.2.2 --- 社會文化因素 --- p.28 / Chapter 2.2.3 --- 政治因素 --- p.29 / Chapter 2.2.4 --- 政府因素 --- p.33 / Chapter 2.2.5 --- 信息因素 --- p.34 / Chapter 2.3 --- 中國政府信任研究現狀 --- p.37 / Chapter 2.3.1 --- 中國傳統文化與政府信任 --- p.37 / Chapter 2.3.2 --- 規則意識與權利意識 --- p.39 / Chapter 2.3.3 --- 差序政府信任 --- p.40 / Chapter 2.3.4 --- 政府信任與政治參與 --- p.41 / Chapter 2.4 --- 本章小結 --- p.45 / Chapter 第3章 --- 數據描述 --- p.46 / Chapter 3.1 --- 數據介紹 --- p.46 / Chapter 3.2 --- 描述性分析 --- p.47 / Chapter 3.2.1 --- 政府信任在地區間的差異 --- p.47 / Chapter 3.2.2 --- 政府信任在地區間的分佈特點 --- p.52 / Chapter 3.3 --- 本章小結 --- p.54 / Chapter 第4章 --- 回歸模型分析 --- p.56 / Chapter 4.1 --- 單層線性回歸模型 --- p.56 / Chapter 4.1.1 --- 變量 --- p.56 / Chapter 4.1.2 --- 回歸分析 --- p.59 / Chapter 4.2 --- 雙層線性回歸模型 --- p.67 / Chapter 4.2.1 --- 個體層次變量 --- p.70 / Chapter 4.2.2 --- 分層次線性模型的構建 --- p.77 / Chapter 4.3 --- 本章小結 --- p.89 / Chapter 第5章 --- 討論 --- p.91 / Chapter 5.1 --- 政府信任影響因素在區域間的變異 --- p.91 / Chapter 5.2 --- 發達地區居民不相信政府的啟示 --- p.106 / Chapter 5.2.1 --- 傳統政治信任體系將難以為繼 --- p.106 / Chapter 5.2.2 --- 差序政府信任的產生和消亡 --- p.109 / Chapter 5.3 --- 作為自變量的政府信任 --- p.126 / Chapter 5.4 --- 本章小結 --- p.137 / Chapter 第6章 --- 結論 --- p.140 / Chapter 附錄一： --- 訪談對象列表 --- p.143 / Chapter 附錄二： --- 本研究所涉及的2008年China Survey的問題 --- p.147 / Chapter 附錄三： --- 73個縣/區以地方政府信任為自變量的截距和斜率 --- p.150 / Chapter 附錄四： --- 與論文相關的非學術性文檔列表 --- p.152 / 參考文獻 --- p.157

Borrowing money is a core instrument of governments to fund goods with high front costs andlong-term benefits. Scholars have, however, primarily associated public debt with shortsighted policies by office-seeking politicians. The three essays in this dissertation investigate the determinants and outcomes of popular preferences for investment-oriented public debt using novel voting, survey, and budgetary data. The first essay asks: Is a community more amenable to borrowing when its time horizon shortens?Existing theories argue that individuals with shorter time horizons, like seniors, have a higher inclination towards borrowing because they overvalue current consumption and discount future costs. I verify this assumption by studying how population aging affects support for debt-funded investments. Using novel data sets on U.S. state and local bond referendums over six decades, I show that, conversely, aging decreases support for debt-funded investments. Contrary to mainstream predictions, an original conjoint survey experiment further demonstrates that seniors do not have a greater preference for policies with longer repayment maturities and shorter benefit periods. Rather, aging lowers support for investments by increasing fiscal conservatism and shifting consumption away from capital-intensive goods. The effect of aging varies depending on which age groups cohabit with seniors. In particular, aging communities experiencing an influx of nonrelative children show greater opposition to new investments, while increased contact with relative children has no detectable effect on their support for investments. These findings suggest that population aging can complicate the construction of political coalitions over investments, particularly in communities with diverse age distributions. The second essay inquires: Do popular preferences affect how governments fund policies? Policy funding is often presented as technical and hardly influenced by voters. I study this assumption by investigating the effect of population aging on U.S. municipal budgets between 1970 and 2017 with the use of data on municipal finances and mayors’ characteristics. In contrast, I find that aging increases appetite for consumption-oriented policies, leading to more short-term budgeting. When a municipality’s population ages, it substitutes current expenditures for capital spending, shortens its debt maturity, and favors liquid revenues over long-term borrowing. Ultimately, this translates into lower indebtedness and higher property tax revenues. In contrast, its expenditure levels and distribution between policies remain stable as seniors’ fiscal conservatism constrains surges in spending, and seniors’ interest in property values limits cuts in municipal amenities. The effects of aging are not uniform, as municipalities ruled by elderly mayors implement debt policies more aligned with seniors’ preferences. These results contradict the dire budgetary predictions associated with aging and show that seniors’ ideological and economic motives can counterbalance their distributional demands. They also illustrate that the preferences of minorities are better represented when they elect politicians who resemble them. The last essay questions: Do voters care about how a policy is funded? Even if citizens can grasp the technicalities of public finances, policy funding may still not matter to them. Indeed, the Ricardian equivalence argues that people are indifferent about whether a policy is funded by debt or taxation because they internalize the future costs of debt repayment in their bequests. Using a novel dataset of 22,000 local referendums and two original conjoint survey experiments, I demonstrate that, conversely, voters prefer financing policies by small tax increases rather than borrowing. My surveys also reveal that respondents discriminate against policies with longer repayment periods. This result contradicts both the Ricardian equivalence’s assumption that people are indifferent to how policies allocate costs over time and the premise that people overlook future borrowing costs. Time preferences are important to explain opinions regarding debt and taxation, as each funding method distributes costs and benefits differently over time. Specifically, people’s resistance to long repayment periods lowers support for debt-funded projects. Variations in preferences between debt and tax remain after accounting for their temporal differences. My analyses indicate that preferences do not vary by policy content or relative to personal financial investments, although conservative individuals display greater support for borrowing than liberals.

In many economic applications, a collective outcome experienced by a group of people is determined by individual decisions made by its constituents. Hence, understanding how individuals make decisions in group settings is important, but empirical and observational analyses are often complicated by confounding factors. This dissertation contains three essays that use controlled experiments designed to isolate, and measure the impact of, mechanisms predicted to affect behavior. Chapter 1 studies behavior under digital anonymity. A distinctive feature of the digital world is the ability to calibrate or withhold one's identifier: a person can be identified by a string of letters, an avatar, their real name, or even nothing at all. That digital identifiers allow a person to mask their physical identity also makes it difficult to attribute digital actions to a physical person, even when the actions are observed. I embed these features in an experiment where subjects play a finitely repeated, linear public goods game. Treated subjects are identified in one of three ways—by their photograph, by a random number, or by a self-designed cartoon avatar—and their individual choices are revealed and either attributed to, or decoupled from, their identifier. In line with the previous literature, identifying subjects and increasing the precision of attribution increases contributions relative to a baseline condition without identifiers or revealed individual choices. Remarkably, however, the largest impact on behavior comes from having an identifier in the first place: for a given level of attribution, the experimental data suggest that being identified by a number or by an avatar is as powerful as being identified by one's photograph. Chapter 2 studies whether and how individuals imbue digital avatars with self image and social image considerations. While digital avatars have become more commonplace and sophisticated, they need not resemble the physical appearance of the person using it. This inconsistency raises the question of how an avatar induces image considerations, relative to a person's physical appearance. I embed avatars into a dictator game and conduct two experiments, one addressing self image and the other social image. The direction of the treatment effect in the dictator game for both experiments suggests that individuals do attach image considerations to their avatars, though the effects are not statistically significant. Additionally, I find that subjects create significantly more positively perceived avatars when they know that their avatar will be shown to another subject who will decide how to allocate an endowment with them. Chapter 3, joint with Alessandra Casella and Michelle Jiang, studies the impact of an alternative voting system on the minority's turnout and resultant victories. We start from the observation that under majoritarian election systems, securing participation and representation of minorities remains an open problem, made salient in the US by its history of voter suppression. One remedy recommended by the courts is Cumulative Voting (CV): each voter has as many votes as open positions and can cumulate votes on as few candidates as desired. Theory predicts that CV encourages the minority to overcome obstacles to voting: although each voter is treated equally, CV increases minority's turnout relative to the majority, and the minority's share of seats won. A lab experiment based on a costly voting design strongly supports both predictions. Chapter 3 was published in Volume 141 of Games and Economic Behavior, pp. 133-155, September 2023, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geb.2023.05.012.

This dissertation consists of three chapters exploring challenges that many developing countries face in augmenting state capacity and accumulating human capital. In particular, I focus on difficulties in developing state capacity and human capital induced by political violence, natural disasters, and over-reliance on income from foreign countries. The first chapter explores the effects of losing local politicians on the fiscal and personnel capacity of local governments using the outcome of the assassination attempts on mayors in Mexico. The second chapter investigates the effects of exposure to natural disasters on birth outcomes in Indonesia, using the Indian Ocean Tsunami as a natural experiment. In the final chapter, I use a cross-country analysis to study the link between reliance on remittances and the capacity of a country to collect taxes efficiently. The first chapter investigates the effects of losing mayors to successful assassinations on the capacity of local governments. By leveraging the randomness in the outcomes of assassination attempts against mayors in Mexico in 2002-21, I find that the loss of mayors negatively affects the fiscal and personnel capacities of the local governments. Municipal tax collection decreases by 29\%. The share of expenditure on primary services falls by 3 percentage points and is crowded out toward investment in construction. Municipal workers at productive stages in their careers leave the position. The back-of-the-envelope calculation shows that wages should increase by 13\% to retain them after assassinations. Organized criminal groups take advantage of the loss of mayors by increasing their presence in municipalities with successful assassinations. The results are not explained by non-political violence, levels of economic activities, or population changes. The results speak to the significance of leaders in maintaining fiscal capacity and retaining capable personnel in the workforce even in a violent environment. In the second chapter, co-authored with Elizabeth Kayoon Hur (Michigan State University), I evaluate the effect of in-utero exposure to the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami on short-term childbirth outcomes in Indonesia. Exploiting variation in the timing of exposure, I find that the probability of successful pregnancies drops by 5.9 percentage points (pp), while miscarriages increase by 5.5 pp for those exposed in the earliest stage of pregnancy. I find suggestive evidence that post-disaster health investments by households may have shielded later cohorts from harmful effects. The results suggest the importance of considering fetal loss in developing countries and highlight that facilitating household investment in health through various policies may mitigate negative birth effects in the aftermath of natural disasters. The third chapter investigates the relationship between a country's reliance on remittances from abroad and its ability to collect taxes from various domestic sources. Despite the increasing flow of remittances in volume and proportion, particularly among developing countries, their role in determining the state's capacity to collect taxes has received little attention. This chapter explores the link between remittances and various tax revenue categories using country-level data. Two-way panel regressions suggest that a 1 percentage point (pp) increase in the inflow of remittances explains a 0.12 pp rise in consumption tax revenues. The same estimate derived from IV methods proxying for migrant network strength and openness of borders increases to 0.9 pp. Decomposing this result reveals that the increase in household consumption expenditure explains all of the statistical association, not the efficient tax-collecting mechanisms such as VAT. Subsample regressions by income category suggest that the association between remittances and consumption tax revenue is stronger in countries with lower income.

Thesis (PhD) -- Stellenbosch University, 2002. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: During the last two decades of the twentieth century, the world economic order has passed through a transformation which can be characterised as a shift away from the idea of the "Keynesian compromise" to the idea or principle of greater openness and a revision of the role of the state in macroeconomic policy formulation. As a result, and to achieve the goal of global competitiveness, states have become more "outward" orientated. The last twenty years have also seen an increase in the levels of inequality within and between states, which means that the effect of economic growth on the reduction of poverty is much reduced. Critics of the "openness" principle point out that the policies of developing states should be more inwardly focused to ensure that economic openness contributes more directly to the alleviation of poverty and inequality. Southern Africa is a region where the problem of inequality (particularly within states) is prevalent. The Critical Theory ofRobert W Cox (CCT) suggests that one of the ways in which increasing levels in inequality can be observed and analysed is to determine how people are related to the dynamics (via their national economies) of the contemporary world economic order. Are they marginalised, in a precarious position, or integrated? Furthermore, Cox assumes that the marginalised are a social force which could bring about transformation "from below." Following on from this assumption a number of claims about the marginalised can be deduced from CCT: they are inclined to political protest, they are dissatisfied with the political economic system of their country, they are politically apathetic, they are prone to low levels of political efficacy, they have turned "their back on the state" and belong to self-help associations, they are more inclined to participate in the activities of civil society and they are critical of neoliberal economic policies. The study's primary empirical question investigates whether the attitudes which Cox attributes to the marginalised are accurate. This is done through a detailed exposition of his core theoretical framework and a thorough conceptualisationloperationalisation of the marginalised, precarious and integrated. The area which is focused on is southern Africa. The vast majority of people in the region belong to the marginalised and the precarious components of Cox's economic hierarchy. They derive little or no economic benefit from greater openness and outward orientated forms of state. The question is whether they can be mobilised into a "counter-hegemonic social movement" (as Cox foresees) and how they view the role of the state. The second question is theoretical and is concerned with the usefulness and strong points of Cox's explanatory framework compared to other approaches which either (1) ignore the state as a point of entry for analysis, (2) regard it as the primary actor in the international system, (3) or "bypass" it because they predict its demise in a future post-sovereign world. I argue that it is incorrect to associate Cox's approach with the work of Richard Ashley, Mark Hoffman, Andrew Linklater and Mark Neufeld and to group them into a Critical Theory of International Relations school. Two important differences between Cox and these scholars are his incorporation of the state in a flexible, multiple points of entry framework and his resourceful combination of a diverse number of sources. The theoretical question is addressed by a substantive literature review of Cox's major publications in English and a representative review of the contributions made by Ashley, Hoffman, Linklater and Neufeld. In the reading of Cox's work, I focused on the development of his thinking, his major influences and on the epistemology and ontology of his core theoretical framework. The empirical question was investigated through a nationally representative survey of seven southern African states (Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi, Namibia, South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe) which was undertaken by a research consortium of the Institute for Democracy in South Africa's Public Opinion Service during 1999-2000. In terms of Cox's theoretical expectations ofthe marginalised the study found that, in southern Africa; their political protest potential is lower than the integrated, they participate less in politics and in civil society, they are not more inclined to belong to self-help associations, they are inclined to accord slightly more legitimacy to the state than the integrated, their economic values cannot be summarised as generally unsympathetic to "market" orientated policies, and that the majority (significantly more so than the integrated) think that the state should be the major provider of social services. The marginalised are more tolerant of authoritarian political alternatives, but are not significantly more dissatisfied (relatively) with the economy than the other groups. We cannot, therefore, uncritically accept Cox's assumption that the marginalised will act as a potential source of transformation "from below." Furthermore, in the countries which were part of the survey, the marginalised still regard the state as the primary source for development assistance and social services. There was, however, strong support for the claim that the marginalised are inclined to be more politically apathetic and less politically efficacious. A close reading of Cox's work and comparison with Ashley, Linklater, Hoffman and Neufeld revealed that they share some tenets with CCT. However, they cannot be grouped with Cox in a school of critical thought because their intellectual debt is mainly located in the work of Habermas and the Frankfurt School of Critical Theory, while CCT is influenced by a variety of sources (cf. Braudel, Carr, Gramsci, Khaldun, Marx, Sorel and Vico). This is an important and essential distinction to make because the empirical results of the survey data analysis validate Cox's focus on the mutual influence between social forces, forms of state and world orders. It is, therefore, more accurate to regard CCT as a "critical realist" theory of International Relations (cf. Richard Falk, 1997). It is recommended that, in a world order which is characterised by increasing inequality and the outward orientated form of state, public policy practitioners in developing states must reconsider the standard TINA (There is no Alternative) response to the critics of the openness principle. A more balanced approach to addressing inequality and poverty, which requires an outward/inward policy orientation is essential. What is needed, is a form of state which creates opportunities for the integrated but protects and assists those who are marginalised. This essential inward orientation remains one of the state's primary responsibilities, even in a postW estphalian world where there are other centres of authority. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Tydens die laatste twee dekades van die twintigste eeu het die wereld ekonomiese orde deur 'n verandering gegaan. Hierdie verandering is gekenmerk deur 'n verskuiwing vanaf die "Keynesiaanse kompromie" idee, na die idee of beginsel van meer oopheid en 'n hersiening van die rol van die staat in makroekonomiese beleidsformulering. Gevolglik, en om die doelwit van globale mededingendheid te bereik, het state meer "uitwaartsgeorienteerd" geword. Die laatste twintig jaar is ook gekenmerk deur 'n toename in ongelykheid binne en tussen state. Hierdie ongelykheid het die impak van ekonomiese groei op armoede baie verminder. Die kritici van die "oopheid" beginsel wys daarop dat die beleid van ontwikkelende state meer na binne gerig moet word ten einde te verseker dat ekonomiese oopheid meer direk hydra tot die vermindering van armoede en ongelykheid. In die Suider-Afrikaanse streek kom die ongelykheidsprobleem (spesifiek binne state) algemeen voor. Die Kritiese Teorie van Robert W Cox (CKT, Coxiaanse Kritiese Teorie) doen aan die hand dat een van die maniere waarvolgens toenemende vlakke van ongelykheid waargeneem en geanaliseer kan word, is om te bepaal wat die verhouding is tussen mense en die dinamika (via die nasionale ekonomie) van die hedendaagse wereld ekonomiese orde. Is hulle gemarginaliseerd, in 'n onsekere posisie, of gei'ntegreerd? Daarby, is dit 'n aanname van Cox dat die gemarginaliseerdes 'n sosiale mag is wat "van onder af' verandering sou kon teweegbring. Voortvloeiend uit hierdie aanname, kan 'n aantal beweringe oor die gemarginaliseerdes afgelei word uit CKT: hulle is geneig tot politieke protes, hulle is ontevrede met hulland se politiek-ekonomiese stelsel, hulle is polities apaties, hulle is geneig tot lae vlakke van politieke doeltreffendheid, hulle het hul "rug gedraai op die staat" en behoort aan selfhelp-organisasies, hulle is meer geneig om deel te neem aan burgerlike samelewing aktiwiteite en hulle staan krities teenoor neoliberale ekonomiese beleidsrigtings. Die primere empiriese vraag wat die studie ondersoek is om te bepaal of die houdings wat Cox toeskryf aan die gemarginaliseerdes akkuraat is. Dit word gedoen deur 'n breedvoerige uiteensetting van sy verklarende raamwerk en 'n deeglike konseptualisering/operasionalisering van die drie ekonomiese kategoriee (gemarginaliseerd, onseker, gei'ntegreerd). Die fokus-area is Suider-Afrika. Die oorgrote meerderheid mense in die streek behoort tot die gemarginaliseerde en onsekere komponente van Cox se ekonomiese hierargie. Hulle trek min of geen ekonomiese voordeel uit meer "oopheid" en uitwaartsgeorienteerde staatsvorme nie. Die vraag is of hulle gemobiliseer kan word in 'n "teen-hegemoniese sosiale beweging" (soo Cox in die vooruitsig stel) en hoe hulle die rol van die staat beskou. Die tweede vraag is teoreties van aard en is gerig op 'n evaluering van die bruikbaarheid en sterk punte van Cox se verklarende raamwerk, in vergelyking met ander benaderings wat of (1) die staat ignoreer as 'n vlak van analise, (2) die staat beskou as die belangrikste akteur in die intemasionale stelsel, (3) die staat "omseil" omdat hulle die ondergang daarvan voorspel in 'n toekomstige post-soewereine wereld. Ek argumenteer dat dit verkeerd is om Cox se benadering te assosieer met die bydraes van Richard Ashley, Mark Hoffman, Andrew Linklater en Mark Neufeld, en om hulle saam te voeg binne 'n Kritiese Teorie van Intemasionale Betrekkinge denkskool. Twee belangrike verskille tussen Cox en die ander bydraes is sy inkorporering van die staat in 'n buigsame, veelvoudige vlak-van-analise raamwerk en sy vindingryke samevoeging van 'n diverse aantal bronne. Die teoretiese vraag is ondersoek deur middel van 'n uitgebreide literatuuroorsig van Cox se belangrikste publikasies in Engels en 'n verteenwoordigende oorsig van Ashley, Hoffman, Linklater en Neufeld se bydraes. Die evaluering van Cox fokus op die ontwikkeling van sy denke, die identifisering van diegene wat horn beYnvloed het, en die kennisleer en ontologie van sy kem-teoretiese raamwerk. Die empiriese vraag is nagevors deur die analise van 'n verteenwoordigende nasionale opname in sewe Suider-Afrikaanse state (Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi, Namibie, Suid-Afrika, Zambie en Zimbabwe). Die opname is ondemeem deur 'n navorsingkonsortium van die Instituut vir Demokrasie in Suid-Afrika se Openbare Meningsdiens tydens 1999-2000. Aangaande Cox se teoretiese verwagtinge van die gemarginaliseerdes, het die empiriese analise van die Suider-Afrikaanse data-stel bevind dat hulle politieke protes potensiaal laer is as die van die geYntegreerdes, dat hulle minder deelneem aan die politiek en 'n minder aktiewe rol speel in die burgerlike samelewing, dat hulle nie geneig is om aan selfhelp-organisasies te behoort nie, dat hulle geneig is om die staat as ietwat meer legitiem te beskou as die geYntegreerdes, dat hulle ekonomiese waardes nie veralgemeen kan word as onsimpatiek tot mark-georienteerde beleidsopsies nie, en dat die meerderheid (betekenisvol meer as die geYntegreerdes) die staat beskou as die belangrikste verskaffer van sosiale dienste. Die gemarginaliseerdes is meer verdraagsaam ten opsigte van outoritere politieke altematiewe, maar is nie betekenisvol meer ontevrede (relatief gesproke) met die ekonomie as die ander groepe me. Ons kan dus nie Cox se aanname, dat die gemarginaliseerdes as 'n moontlike bron vir verandering "van onder af' sal optree, onkrities aanvaar nie. Daarby beskou die gemarginaliseerdes, in die lande wat deel was van die opname, steeds die staat as die primere bron vir ontwikkelingshulp en sosiale dienste. Daar was egter beduidende ondersteuning vir die bewering dat hulle meer geneig is tot politieke apatie en politieke ondoeltreffendheid. Die bestudering van Cox se benadering en die vergelyking daarvan met Ashley, Linklater, Hoffman en Neufeld, toon aan dat die vier skrywers sekere beginsels met CKT deel. Nietemin, kan hulle nie saam met Cox in 'n skool van kritiese denke gevoeg word nie, omdat hulle intellektuele inspirasie uit Habermas en die Frankfurt Skool van Kritiese Teorie geput word. Cox, daarenteen, is beYnvloed deur 'n verskeidenheid denkers (bv. Braudel, Carr, Gramsci, Khaldun, Marx, Sorel, en Vico). Hierdie onderskeid is belangrik en noodsaaklik omdat die empiriese resultate van die opname data-analise, Cox se fokus op die wedersydse invloed tussen sosiale magte, staatsvorme en wereldordes, ondersteun. Dit is dus meer korrek om CKT te beskou as 'n "krities-realistiese" teorie van Intemasionale Betrekkinge (bv. Richard Falk, 1997). Die studie beveel aan dat, in 'n wereld wat gekenmerk word deur toenemende ongelykheid en die voorkoms van die uitwaarts-georienteerde staat, openbare beleidmakers die standaard DIGA (Daar is geen Altematief) antwoord, in reaksie op diegene wat die "oopheid" beginsel kritiseer, in heroorweging moet neem. 'n Meer ewewigtige benadering tot die aanspreek van ongelykheid en armoede is noodsaaklik, en dit vereis 'n uitwaartslbinnewaartse beleidsherorientering. Wat benodig word is 'n staatsvorm wat geleenthede skep vir die ge'integreerdes maar wat ook die gemarginaliseerdes help en beskerm. Selfs in 'n post-W estphaliaanse wereld waar daar ander magsentra voorkom, bly hierdie noodsaaklike binnewaartse orientasie een van die staat se primere verantwoordelikhede.