3.2 Discussion

The foregoing analysis exhibits the structural equation model format as deterministic of country vector through time, and also through sequential phase transitions of the international political, governmental and market regimes. Hence, country readiness for biometric authentication inherently situates the idiosyncratic country historical factors as determinative of both country (i) transitivity and (ii) trajectory. This final section considers the spectre of regime contestation.

3.2.1 Hybrid Regimes

As states contend with the open-government demands of regionalisation and internationalisation they are invariably confounded by the legacy of authoritarian disturbances and dislocations that bear continuing repercussions in the overarching domestic and political regimes operating to delimit the negotiation space of the sovereign state. Instead of a simple linear continuum of authoritarianism to democracy, the country experience of hybrid states is characteristically pre-configured by multi-dimensionalities that are based on competitiveness, civil liberties and tutelary inferences [66]. Notwithstanding, country outcomes on the BRI tend to favour countries of formerly illiberal hybrid regimes such as Thailand, Chile and Turkey which yield higher scores than formerly tutelary liberal hybrid regimes such as Sri Lanka, Colombia, Indonesia and Russia. These data therefore indicate that the prevalence of hybrid regimes attest to the fact that democracy is not an essential requirement for economic progress. However, hybrid regimes are also characteristically beset by mitigating conditionalities that operate to deter programs of development, these include; (i) the use of diversionary force, by both small and large states [67]; (ii) the cooptation of power and private goods by the hegemonic state in order to increase satisfaction of allies which tends to be obfuscatory [68]; (iii) and empirical data revealing that leader age is correlated with likelihood of militarised dispute initiation and escalation [69].

3.2.2 Democratic Transitions

Changes to the nature, form and/or stability of the political order may lead some partial states toward a democratic transition. Nonetheless, it is generally known that the modernisation hypothesis of industrialisation and urbanisation does not necessarily result in democracy, although the consequences of economic growth are likely to create stability promoting practices that secures the persistence of democracy once it is attained [70]. To this end, the era of nationalism is clearly significant to democratisation, applicative as a case study in the rise of post-colonial states, most notably the Tiger economies of Southeast Asia whose economic growth served as the trigger of their own transition to democracy (ibid). However, as is demonstrated by the case of South Korea, the shift in mass political thinking occurs over longer time-frames, empirically documented as an inter-generational time-lag [71]. Democratic transitions are also brittle, possibly fragile. For example, while the major democracies formed alliance in the post-war environment, regime markers indicate that third generation democratic governance based alliances are formed absent a sufficiency of cultural affinities and similarly, regime markers also elucidate unstable cultural and institutional differences [72]. In spite of deteriorating support for the international human rights regime in the US and other advanced states, institutions of democracy are resilient and robust over the long-run [73].

3.2.3 Market Transitions

Coincident to the impetus for economic development and the biometrics regime itself, technological advancement of the world economy has been predicated on a cultural divide between public and private sectors [74], both government spending behind the technology sector and since mid-20th century, the provision of discounted loans to venture capital. As a result, the proliferation of private sector outsourcing necessitated indemnification in order to assure viability of venture capital as the pivotal public-private nexus that impelled the surge of the world economy and invariably, the market result of sovereign states. Therefore, market transitions proceed when there is technological change and the market shifts to high powered growth regions [75] often, unwitting to the need to moderate the public perceptions of pro-growth regimes [76] such as to allow for non-monetary social values. At the same time, the international market itself has evolved as technically neutral and highly regulated to the point of predictability of the monetary regime [77], and the business cycle [78].

Ultimately however, market transitions exhibit recursion based on Verhulsts’ Logistic [79]. This logistic (shown above) argues that based on growth levels and income elasticities, countries will eventually converge to a flex point (universal point) which aligns with the median voter demand equation. Thus the array of country vectors exhibit an apparent propensity for long-run country convergence to a point of universal e-readiness, intrinsically correlated to overall sovereign capacity for fiscal consolidation.

SUMMARY

The innovation of a country vector composite index is to be interpreted as a structural equation model form contingent to the formulative duration world model. This infers that e-governments are, to varying degrees – depending on their transitive placement – ready for biometric authentication. The rationale for readiness involves both formal obligations (of contracting entities) and informal rules (of regime participants). The value streaming for technological leverage and risk-benefit trade-offs represent focus areas for creating greater public value.

cf. Biopolitics References

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[66] Gilbert & Mohseni, 2011; [67] Pickering & Kisangani, 2005; [68] Bussmann & O’Neal, 2007; [69] Horowitz, 2005; [70] Epstein, 2006; [71] Shin & Jhee, 2005; [72] Geva & Hanson, 1999; [73] Harrelson-Stephens & Callaway, 2009; [74] Rothkopf, 2002; [75] Brooks & Katsari, 2005; [76] Clarke, 2001; [77] Bansal et al, 1999; [78] Birchenhall, 1999; [79] Florio & Colautti, 2005

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