The ability of states to implement policy relies on citizens' readiness to voluntarily comply with state decrees. This willingness likely depends on citizens' prior experiences of state-citizen relations. However, we cannot assume that all citizens have identical experiences with the state. In recent years, Sweden, a state that relies on voluntary compliance, has experienced a large influx of immigrants from states where the exercise of power is based on violence and coercion. The interaction between these ancestral and present state-citizen relationships remains an unexplored but crucial question for the welfare of these individuals and the functioning of the state.

Using Swedish administrative data, we explore whether immigrants' ancestral institutions – defined as state capacity of their country of origin – explain compliance in their new home country, operationalized as participation in three different interventions for children's welfare: the National Child Health Services Program (CHS), and interventions by social services in accordance with the Social Services Act (SoL) and The Care of Young Persons Act (LVU).

The CHS provides an example of voluntary compliance, characterized by high levels of participation and tangible direct benefits. Voluntary care of children in accordance with SoL is an intermediary case, still non-mandatory and motivated by the child's best interest, but associated with stigma and a perceived risk for the parents, like subsequent loss of custody. LVU is a prime example of coercive state power, as it is devised for use in cases of non-compliance. This allows for comparing rates of voluntary, quasi-voluntary, and, non-voluntary compliance.