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By Eric Grynaviski and Sverrir Steinsson How did the state become the dominant polity in the international system? The predominant theory of state formation, advanced by Charles Tilly, holds that states formed because of warfare and competition. Conversely, a new strand of research (e.g. Anna Grzymala-Busse, David Kang and Chin-Hao Huang) has argued that state … Continue reading A bellicist theory of diffusion: State formation in Northern Europe

Law and Political Development Students of political development often privilege the study of power over the study of law. As Charles Tilly reminds us, “the central, tragic fact is simple: coercion works,” for, as Francis Fukuyama adds, predation “arise[s] naturally out of people’s basic predatory instincts.” Yet raw power has its limits. As “state-in-society” theorists … Continue reading Law and Political Development: Insights from the European Union

Why should a scholar of HPE be interested in the medieval period? Many contributions on this site have made powerful cases about the importance of the period. The key benefit, I would argue, is that it addresses many problems of endogeneity that have long affected the analysis of institutions. For instance, perhaps the leading paradigm … Continue reading Medieval Institutions: How The Analysis of Origins Inverts Some Key Causal Models

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 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