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State-Building, Collective Efficacy, and the Co-Production of Public Goods in Rural Africa

Natalie Wenzell Letsa & Martha Wilfahrt

Comparative Political Studies2026https://doi.org/10.1177/00104140261418613article
ABDC A
Weight
0.50

Abstract

Collective efficacy—the shared expectation that a community can coordinate around desired outcomes—is critical for understanding development in rural Africa, where villagers often shoulder the brunt of local development initiatives. We argue that distinct modes of state-building generated uneven endowments of collective efficacy in the hinterlands of African states: more interventionist state-building oriented political action upwards towards the state, undermining local collective efficacy. Using original data from the Ghana-Togo borderlands, we show that collective efficacy is systematically higher and collective action more common in rural Ghana, where state-building efforts from the colonial era onward have emphasized local action. In contrast, Togolese have faced a more interventionist state. This relationship is robust to several confounding factors, and we document similar dynamics across the Nigeria-Benin border, as well as sub-nationally within Ghana. Our findings hold important implications for both the current embrace of participatory development and recent scholarship on state-building and historical legacies.

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https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1177/00104140261418613

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@article{natalie2026,
  title        = {{State-Building, Collective Efficacy, and the Co-Production of Public Goods in Rural Africa}},
  author       = {Natalie Wenzell Letsa & Martha Wilfahrt},
  journal      = {Comparative Political Studies},
  year         = {2026},
  doi          = {https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1177/00104140261418613},
}

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Evidence weight

0.50

Balanced mode · F 0.40 / M 0.15 / V 0.05 / R 0.40

F · citation impact0.50 × 0.4 = 0.20
M · momentum0.50 × 0.15 = 0.07
V · venue signal0.50 × 0.05 = 0.03
R · text relevance †0.50 × 0.4 = 0.20

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