A State must have certain capabilities to perform certain essential functions. It must have the capacity to maintain macroeconomic stability and ensure economic growth; to make long-term promises credible, and implement and enforce policies over time; and to ensure that policies are not captured by special interests. A particularly good list of State capabilities has been drawn up by Kent Weaver and Bert Rockman.¹ They identify ten:

1. To set and maintain priorities among the many conflicting demands made upon them so that they are not overwhelmed and bankrupt
2. To target resources where they are most effective
3. To innovate when existing policies have failed
4. To coordinate conflicting objectives into a coherent whole
5. To be able to impose losses on powerful groups
6. To represent diffuse, unorganized interests in addition to those that are concentrated and well-organized
7. To ensure effective implementation of government policies once they have been decided upon
8. To ensure policy stability so that policies have time to work
9. To make and maintain international commitments in the realms of trade and national defense to ensure the State’s long-term well-being
10. To manage political cleavages in order to ensure that the society does not degenerate into civil war. These State capabilities tie in closely with the key features of public policies discussed in this chapter. The State Capabilities Survey used in this study added a few items to this list:
11. To ensure policy adaptability when changes in circumstances require it
12. To ensure coherence across policy domains, so that new policies fit well with existing ones
13. To ensure effective policy coordination among different actors operating in the same policy domain.