Medición desagregada de la capacidad estatal: una arquitectura guiada por mecanismos
La capacidad estatal se emplea para explicar el desarrollo, la provisión de servicios, el conflicto y la estabilidad de los regímenes, y también interviene en los procesos electorales. Sin embargo, su medición comparada oscila entre indicadores únicos, que captan una sola propiedad, e índices generales que reúnen atributos heterogéneos en una misma puntuación. La pregunta de investigación es cómo construir medidas que correspondan al mecanismo causal examinado. La contribución es una arquitectura conceptual con tres bloques (universalismo en el acceso a empleos y negocios públicos, profesionalización e imparcialidad burocrática y alcance coercitivo-territorial) y un protocolo de decisión para seleccionar, agregar y validar indicadores. El análisis de componentes principales (PCA) se discute como técnica de agregación dentro de bloques y se ilustra con resultados de una investigación previa basada en indicadores del proyecto Varieties of Democracy (Barros, 2025). Se derivan implicaciones para los estudios electorales.
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