When Communities, Not States, Built Public Goods: Property Rights in Palestine

🧭 The Puzzle: State Weakness Without Anarchy

Developing states that lack a monopoly on the use of force are often judged as failing the Weberian sovereign ideal. This study argues that such weakness need not imply anarchy: devolving important state functions to subnational actors can be a rational and effective strategy for providing public goods.

🔎 How the Case Was Examined (1920–1948)

The Jewish Community of Palestine (1920–1948) is used as a case to show how subnational communities provided public goods in a setting where the central state was weak. The analysis exploits temporal and institutional variation across two agricultural communities to trace the relationship between institutional design and collective outcomes.

• Time period: 1920–1948
• Units of comparison: two agricultural communities within the Jewish Community of Palestine
• Research leverage: temporal and institutional variation across communities
• Focus: the role of property-rights arrangements embedded in local institutions

📈 Key Findings

• Institutionalized property rights had a causal effect on behavior: stronger property-rights arrangements within community institutions increased cooperation consistent with the provision of public and private goods.
• Subnational governance in these communities supplied important public goods in the absence of a fully sovereign state.
• Comparative variation across the two communities shows that institutional design—especially property-rights rules—shapes collective-action outcomes.

⚖️ Why It Matters

This case demonstrates one instance in which devolution of public-goods provision to subnational actors functioned as an alternative governance strategy when the central state could not fully provide key services. For scholars of state formation and policy makers in developing contexts, the findings suggest that strengthening local institutional property rights can be a practical path to better public-good provision even where the state’s monopoly on force is incomplete.