By Magnus B. Rasmussen and Carl Henrik Knutsen Some historical events turn out to have outsized legacies, with consequences reaching across the world and lasting for decades, even centuries. Well-known examples from modern history are the French Revolution, the 1885 Berlin Conference, and the Allied victory in WWII. These events shaped conflicts, political systems, and policy-making in … Continue reading Bolshevik Origins of Social Policies
Political scientists often measure state weakness as state absence: where we count fewer bureaucrats, where we see fewer roads that enable state penetration, or where citizens have fewer state-issued documents like IDs or birth certificates, it seems reasonable to assume states have more limited power to influence society. Zones of state absence become the “brown … Continue reading Scarce states are not always weak states
by Jeffrey Kopstein and Jelena Subotić We live in a culture profoundly influenced by the legacy of the Holocaust. More than seven decades after the fact, the Nazi extermination effort against the world’s Jews continues to provide the moral lens through which we judge political action. Debates about humanitarian intervention and foreign policy, democracy and … Continue reading The New Social Science of the Holocaust
By Jeffery A. Jenkins and Charles Stewart III We now have six speakership ballots, over two days, in the books. And we’re no closer to electing a Speaker of the House for the 118th Congress. This is our third post (the other two being here and here) on the subject, based on our analysis of contentious … Continue reading Back to the Future, Day 3
By Jeffery A. Jenkins and Charles Stewart III Yesterday, we provided some thoughts before the speakership balloting to the 118th Congress took place. It turned out to go more than one ballot — three ballots, in fact — something we’ve not seen in a century. Here are some thoughts about what has occurred and what is likely to … Continue reading Back to the Future, Day 2
By Jeffery A. Jenkins and Charles Stewart III The House of Representatives votes to elect its Speaker today—or, at least, that’s the plan. The problem is that the ostensible favorite, Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), has yet to line up a majority of the House to win the position. Five conservative Republicans have announced their opposition … Continue reading Back to the Future? Battling Over the Speakership on the House Floor
“We are often told, ‘Colonialism is dead.’ Let us not be deceived or even soothed by that. I say to you, colonialism is not yet dead.” With these words, President Sukarno of Indonesia (pictured) opened the Asian-African conference in Bandung, Indonesia in 1955. Gathered in the audience were the leaders from 29 African and Asian … Continue reading Why states colonize
The death of Queen Elizabeth II produced a record number of hot takes on the British Empire, most notable only for what they revealed about the ideology of the author. That of Fox news host Tucker Carlson was no exception: “When the British pulled out of India, they left behind an entire civilization, a language, … Continue reading How Colonialism Changed the World — for Better and for Worse
The origins of political divisions, for instance along center-periphery cleavages, have received scholarly attention in the studies by Lipset & Rokkan (1967), and especially by Rokkan in his subsequent analyses in the 1970s. In these explanations, the emphasis was on how modernization processes and distinct cultural characteristics (past institutions, language, etc.) shaped identity at the … Continue reading The Origins of Elite Splits
Ghana Accra Protests In February 1948, two thousand former soldiers who served in the Gold Coast Regiment in World War II (WWII) marched against the government they had defended three years ago. The veterans were incredibly well organized, coming from different regions of the country. They demanded “independence, a good living, and good pay.” When the British … Continue reading World War II Colonial Soldiers and the Demand for Independence