To paraphrase economist Robert Solow, once you start thinking about state capacity, it’s hard to think about anything else. Or, at least, that’s been the case for Jennifer Pahlka, the founder of Code for America, a deputy CTO during the Obama administration, and the au­thor of Recoding America, a scintillating new book about how government services are actually implemented. Pahlka’s camp of policy wonks (of which I am a member) is broadly concerned with improving state capacity, the ability of the government to accomplish its policy goals. Pahlka is most interested in what happens when policies get implemented…

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