Governments must sustainably raise sufficient resources to pay for their employees and policies, such as providing infrastructure and public services. They usually do so by collecting taxes.

The map, drawing on data from the UN, shows that countries differ greatly in how much taxes they collect. Here, this is expressed as government tax revenues as a share of gross domestic product (GDP).

In many European countries, tax revenues sum up to over a third of GDP. In France and Denmark, it is about half.

In most other countries in the world, it is much less. In a few, taxes make up only a few percent of GDP.

Importantly, differences in tax revenues only partially reflect different abilities to collect them. Some of these differences are also due to policy choices and political preferences for higher or lower taxation.

But because other types of revenues, such as natural resources and foreign aid, can be volatile, collecting taxes remains at the heart of countries’ ability to finance their actions.

To protect their citizens against internal and external threats, uphold the rule of law, and provide infrastructure and other public goods, governments need to control their territory.

This map shows how governments are doing in that regard, using data coded by country experts from the Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) project.

We see that most countries control all or almost all of their territory. In them, the government is recognized as the main authority practically everywhere and can assert its power — sometimes by force — over actors that reject its authority.

However, some countries do not control large parts of their territory. They are concentrated in West and East Africa and Central and South America. In parts of these countries, insurgent groups, criminal organizations, or other countries are the main authority. In these areas, national governments often struggle to implement their policies effectively.

Yet, this used to be similar in many countries that control their territory today. This shows that governments can increase the control of their territory.

Governments need to hire skilled and impartial public servants to enforce and implement their policies effectively. These public officials include soldiers, police officers, administrators, health workers, and educators.

This map shows data on the rigor and impartiality of bureaucracies in each country, using data coded by country experts from the Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) project.

We see that the bureaucracies of some countries are assessed as highly rigorous and impartial. These tend to be concentrated in Europe and the Americas but can be found worldwide. In them, public officials tend to refrain from corruption and enforce the rule of law.

In other countries, concentrated in Africa and Asia, public administration is more arbitrary. In them, nepotism, corruption, and discrimination are more common, according to V-Dem’s experts.

While the quality of bureaucracies matters, their effectiveness also depends on how many people work for them, and what they do. One core task is to collect basic information about a country’s population, such as who was born and who has died, through civil and population registries, population censuses, and statistical agencies.

The chart illustrates this by showing the State Capacity Index by researchers Jonathan Hanson and Rachel Sigman. The index aggregates 21 indicators, such as how much countries can control their territory, raise sustainable resources, and hire skilled and impartial security forces and public servants.

A large majority of countries across the world have improved their score over the last decades. This particularly happened in countries with previously lower levels of state capacity, such as Uganda and Vietnam. But it has even happened in those with already high capacity, such as Germany.

We can see this trend towards greater state capacities across all major world regions and income groups and in more specific metrics, such as territorial control, public administration and statistical institutions.

Still, some countries have deviated from the global trend, and their capacities have decreased. This has happened especially in those affected by conflict.

State capacity presumes the existence of a state. But for centuries, large parts of the world were not able to govern themselves. Instead, they were ruled as colonies by distant colonial powers in Europe.

The chart, using data from researcher Bastian Becker, shows that European overseas colonialism started in the 15th century with Portugal and Spain establishing colonies, especially in the Americas.

Colonization peaked in the early 20th century, with France and the United Kingdom ruling most colonies, mainly in Asia and Africa. Between the mid-19th and mid-20th centuries, a fourth to a third of the world’s population lived in European overseas colonies.

Decolonization, after a first wave in the Americas in the early 19th century, gained momentum after World War II and accelerated in the 1960s. The number of colonies declined rapidly, and independent countries increased significantly.

The end of widespread colonial rule has meant that now many more territories have far-reaching control over their own affairs and a say in the international community, such as at the United Nations.

Still, while dozens of countries have become formally independent, some territories continue to have formal constraints on their self-government until today, and the domestic and foreign policies of many others remain influenced by foreign countries.