In most of the recent literature on state capacity, the significance of wars in state‐building assumes that threats from foreign countries generate common interests among domestic groups, leading to larger investments in state capacity. However, many countries that have suffered external conflicts do not experience increased unity. Instead, they face factional politics that often lead to destructive civil wars. This paper develops a theory of the impact of interstate conflicts on fiscal capacity in which fighting an external threat is not always a common‐interest public good, and in which interstate conflicts can lead to civil wars. The theory identifies conditions under which an increased risk of external conflict decreases the chance of civil war, which in turn results in a government with a longer political life and with more incentives to invest in fiscal capacity. These conditions depend on the cohesiveness of institutions, but in a non‐trivial and novel way: A higher risk of an external conflict that results in lower political turnover, but that also makes a foreign invasion more likely, contributes to state‐building only if institutions are sufficiently incohesive.

中文翻译：

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外部威胁，政治流动和财政能力

在有关国家能力的最新文献中，战争在国家建设中的重要性是假设来自外国的威胁在国内集团之间产生了共同利益，从而导致对国家能力的更大投资。但是，许多遭受外部冲突的国家并没有获得更大的团结。相反，他们面对的派系政治往往导致破坏性的内战。本文提出了一种关于州际冲突对财政能力影响的理论，在这种理论中，与外部威胁作斗争并不总是一种公共利益的公共物品，而州际冲突可能导致内战。该理论确定了增加外部冲突风险会减少内战机会的条件，反过来，这会使政府的政治寿命更长，并有更多的动力来投资于财政能力。这些条件取决于制度的凝聚力，但以一种不平凡的新颖方式：发生外部冲突的风险较高，从而导致政治流失率降低，但也更可能导致外国入侵，只有在以下情况下才有助于国家建设：制度具有足够的内聚力。