How Well Are States Governed? The Governance Performance of US States 2005-2025 and the Future of American Democracy
What makes governments effective—and what happens when the institutions that underpin effective governance begin to weaken?
On Tuesday, October 20, two weeks before the midterms, Columbia World Projects, the Committee on Global Thought, and the European Institute will host Helmut K. Anheier, Principal Investigator of the Berggruen Governance Index at UCLA Luskin, for the release of a new assessment of the governance capabilities of all fifty states. Since 2000, Anheier and his collaborators have tracked 145 countries across three linked dimensions of governance: democratic accountability, state capacity, and public goods provision. The new report applies the same framework to states in the US.
Anheier will be joined by Adam Tooze, Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Professor of History at Columbia University, and Robert Y. Shapiro, Wallace S. Sayre Professor of Government and Professor of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University. Together, they’ll explore what these state-level findings reveal about governance in the United States, and the relationship between democratic accountability, state capacity, and the provision of public goods. The discussion will be moderated by Lisa Anderson, Special Lecturer and James T. Shotwell Professor Emerita of International Relations at the Columbia University School of International and Public Affairs.