Significant variations in infection, testing, and mortality rates have exposed key differences in the initial COVID-19 response by Indian states. At the onset of the pandemic, states like Gujarat, known for its large economic output, suffered high COVID-19 case fatality rates, a disorganized response, and poor access to healthcare. In contrast, Kerala, a less industrialized state on India’s southwestern coast, experienced low infection rates and fatalities. The low case fatality rate was accompanied by widespread access to care, extensive testing, and an organized response by the state. The emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic provides an opportunity to compare how the Gujarat and Kerala models performed. Since 2000, the Gujarat model has emphasized industrialization and economic development, often at the expense of social development. In contrast, the Kerala model emphasizes social development, often at the expense of economic development. This article analyses the initial response to COVID-19 by Kerala and Gujarat and finds that the Kerala model and its emphasis on social development helped the state respond more effectively to the first wave of the pandemic compared to Gujarat.

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This article addresses the scholarly debate on the relationship between interstate rivalry and military capacity. We draw on Tilly's bellicist theory of state formation in early modern Europe and Thies’ modifications to predatory theory, which prioritizes the role of interstate rivalry on state building, to explain variation in military capacity. We unpack the rivalry mechanism into spatial and positional rivalries and test how these two types of rivalry affect military capacity, and how positional rivalries affect military capacity in the long-term. Using time-series cross-sectional data analysis, we find that positional rivalries increase military capacity in the long term. Also, we find that spatial rivalry influences military capacity in the long-term, but its effects are uneven across indicators of military capacity, and it has a smaller effect on military capacity in comparison to positional rivalries. We conclude that not all types of rivalries have a uniform effect on military capacity and that competition over regional dominance, that is, positional rivalries, are the most impactful on military capacity. This study offers a more nuanced test of Tilly's bellicist theory and Thies’ modified predatory theory on state capacity.