Sustaining state capacity in a modern state

Sustaining state capacity in a modern state: Citizen–state relations and voluntary compliance in Sweden. There are worrying signs of declining state capacity in Sweden. High-capacity states’ ability to implement policy depends on citizens’ compliance with its decrees, but Sweden has received many citizens from countries in which the state exercises its power through coercion and violence. We examine, by collecting survey data and analyzing register data on visits to child health controls, whether these persons are less willing than native born Swedes to comply with the state’s decrees. We also study how the state can build compliance and trust among citizens. We believe that interactions with frontline bureaucrats are crucial and we therefore conduct survey experiments in which we test whether bureaucrats’ characteristics affects citizens’ willingness to comply. In all, the project aims to improve relationships between citizens and the state.