The chapter examines the process of state building in the territory transferred from Germany to Poland in 1945, showing that mass uprooting shored up the demand for state-provided resources and weakened resistance to governance. It exploits the placement of the interwar border between Poland and Germany to estimate the effects of postwar population transfers on the size of the state. It then examines the political legacies of population transfers in post-1989 Poland.

The concluding chapter extends the book’s theoretical insights in three ways. First, it explores the extent to which the causal process elaborated here might travel beyond irregular civil war settings and reflect processes of institutional change in other threat-laden environments. Second, it revisits the theory’s scope conditions and discusses when we might observe the wartime emergence of state-bolstering or “reinforcing” rules, as well as whether different institutional logics can emerge in distinct policy arenas within the same state. Finally, it elaborates the broader theoretical, conceptual, and policy implications of this research. It focuses particular attention on what this framework means for state development amid armed conflict, the relationship between the state and organized crime in war, the theory and practice of post-conflict reconstruction, and understandings of “the state” more broadly.

The book’s evidence has implications for scholars of state-building and rural politics, as well as for policymakers concerned with improving state effectiveness in the developing world. I conclude by highlighting three of these implications.

In Chapter Six the tension between the global and the national scale of law is further studied through an analysis of the court reforms that are occurring a little everywhere. I inquire into the recent protagonism of courts in handling political conflicts and restructuring economies according to the Washington Consensus (the judicialization of politics), and analyze the impact this transformation has had on the judicial system itself (the politicization of courts). The globalization of the reform of the judicial system is thus understood as a form of globalization of law, particular attention being given to the contribution that the reformed courts may bring to democracy.First, I consider the global political, economic and ideological context in which the consensus of the rule of law and judicial reform and activism has developed. Second, I examine whether the role played by courts in the modern state is linked to the transformations undergone by the state itself. Third, I assess the prospects for democracy deriving from the worldwide focus on the rule of law and court reform.

This chapter examines the causes and processes of spontaneous revolutions, focusing on how state crises and weaknesses provide space and opportunity for localized expressions of political anger and other sparks for social movements. If, as encouraged by increased state vulnerability, missteps, and elite defections, these social movements grow into something bigger, a spontaneous revolution can ensue. These revolutions are initially without ideology and their leaders and outcome are not predetermined. The French revolution of 1978, the Russian Revolution of February 1917, and the Iranian revolution of 1978 can be classified as spontaneous revolutions.