According to Joel S

According to Joel S. Migdal the capabilities of the states is to achieve the kinds of changes in society that their leaders have sought through state planning, policies, and actions. Capabili ties include the capacities to penetrate society, policies, regulate social relationships, extract resources, and appropriate or use resources in determined ways. Strong st ates are those with high capabilities to complete this task, while weak sates are o n low end of a spectrum of capabilities. Have states in the third world like Indonesia lived up to their billings in the generation since decolonization? Have they become strong states? Certainly, in terms of penetration. Indonesia have demonstrated impressive capabilities .changing every nature of institutional life even in distant villages and towns. However, the answer to the question for most is negative states when one looks at some other aspects of states capabilities, especially the abilities to regulate social relations and use r esources in determined ways. The bright hopes of those heady years surrounding decolonization have faded considerably. In all fairness, the standards set were unrealistic. As the depth of the problems to be solved became apparent, it became more and more difficult to sustain an image of these states societies preforming, as Albert Hirschman once put it, like wind-up toys lumbering single mindedly through various stages of development. Even by more modest standards, however, a good many states faltered badly in building the capabilities to change their societies in particular ways. The central question is why so many states have sputtered in amassing such capabilities dramatically. Beyond that question, that the failure of the states to have people in even the very coherence and character of the states themselves. What kinds of capabilities have third world states like Indonesia to achieve social change and what kind of limitation have they manifested? Scholars have described how states, for better or worse. Become constant and formidable presence in the most remote villages, especially in regions such as Lain America and East Asia. They have stressed how states reshaped societies by promoting some groups and classes w hile repressing others and simultaneously maintaining autonomy from any single group of class. Theories of corporatism and bureaucratic authoritarianism have emphasized the activism and strength of the state in regulating, even shaping, the eruptive conflicts that develop from industrialization and the mobilization of new social groups. The state according to James M. Malloy “is characterized by strong and relatively autonomous governmental structures that seek to impose on the society a system of interest representation based on enforced limited pluralism. A second perspectives, in contrast, has portrayed the state as almost totally impotent in the swirl of dizzying social change that have over taken these society , changes largely independent of any impetus from the state itself. Some scholars have viewed the dynamics of th ese changes within the country’s borders. While other have seen these uncontrollable forces coming from large power and the world economy. In both instances, the state’s image is weak.

According to Joel S

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