Stanford scholars introduce new measure of state power

Adjusted Nepal Census WP Dec13 Police in Nepal attempt to contain a civil protest.
A new working paper released by Stanford political science doctoral candidates Melissa Lee and Nan Zhang disentangles rival theories of civil conflict by introducing a new way to measure the concept of state presence over people and territory. The authors argue that their new approach provides a better measure of the extent to which state institutions, agents and rules influence the decision-making of citizens.