Was Weber Right? The Role of Urban Autonomy in Europe's Rise

2014 ◽  
Vol 108 (2) ◽  
pp. 337-354 ◽  
Author(s):  
DAVID STASAVAGE

Do strong property rights institutions always help, or might they sometimes actually hinder development? Since Max Weber and before, scholars have claimed that the presence of politically autonomous cities, controlled by merchant oligarchies guaranteeing property rights, helped lead to Europe's rise. Yet others suggest that autonomous cities were a hindrance to growth because rule by merchant guilds resulted in restrictions that stifled innovation and trade. I present new evidence and a new interpretation that reconcile the two views of city autonomy. I show that politically autonomous cities initially had higher population growth rates than nonautonomous cities, but over time this situation reversed itself. My evidence also suggests why autonomous cities eventually disappeared as a form of political organization. Instead of military weakness, it may have been their political institutions that condemned them to become obsolete.

2017 ◽  
Vol 39 ◽  
pp. 43
Author(s):  
Ricardo Borges da Cunha ◽  
César Augusto Ávila Martins

A afirmação dos processos eleitorais como uma das formas de organização política é objeto de investigação de várias ciências. No concerto das ciências, o Direito, a Sociologia e as Ciências Políticas destacam-se nas análises das eleições. As eleições como resultado de disputas entre determinados projetos, tem a função de eleger representantes para conduzir as instituições políticas. A perspectiva esta coadunada com o entendimento que as eleições são um dos momentos de manifestação de poder com diferentes graus de visibilidade, numa dada formação social com determinados regramentos e em cada conjuntura. O processo que articula determinados agentes pode ser compreendido em etapas e em seu conjunto. O artigo busca trilhar alguns dos caminhos da Geografia Eleitoral compreendida na Geografia Política, como um campo de análise geográfica das eleições, conhecendo sua evolução, apontando possibilidades e desafios. Metodologicamente, o texto realiza uma revisão de algumas das diferentes metodologias da Geografia Eleitoral, que são baseadas sobretudo na apresentação dos resultados eleitorais ao longo tempo e que tendem encerrar sua abordagem ao final de cada pleito. O texto advoga que a adoção de um modelo sistêmico, como uma alternativa para a compreensão de um pleito, integra os resultados das urnas e as suas consequências para vida política.ABSTRACTThis paper aims at introducing not only some of the directions of Electoral Geography in the light of Political Geography, as a field of geographical analysis of elections, but also its evolution, possibilities and challenges. Meaning is found in electoral processes as one of the forms of political organization which has become the object of investigation of sciences, such as Law, Sociology and Political Sciences. Elections, as the result of dispute among certain projects, play the role of choosing representatives to lead political institutions. This perspective agrees with the fact that elections represent a moment of power manifestation at different levels of visibility, with certain rules in each situation. Regarding methodology, this text reviews some proposals of Electoral Geography which are mostly based on the presentation of electoral results over time and tend to end their process at the end of each dispute. Among the selected authors, it is clear the growth of the geographical field with the quantitative methods, but the approaches did not connect the electoral process with the politics practiced in the perimeter involved leaving a gap to be completed. The text defends the use of the systemic model so as to understand the dispute as a moment of political life with integration among the phase that precedes elections, its results and its consequences for democracy.


2019 ◽  
Vol 44 (2) ◽  
pp. 262-278
Author(s):  
Brendon C Benz

The present study presents an alternative model of pre-monarchic Israel’s political organization in tandem with an investigation into the role of place in the preservation of memory that explains how and why the tradition of Hazor’s demise was included in the Bible. Corresponding to the type of decentralized political organization attested in the Amarna letters, the core narratives in Judges depict Israel as a confederation of independent entities whose concerns revolved around local affairs. As the identity of Israel evolved over time, the memories of the most significant of these affairs were retained, often with the aid of material remains in the familiar landscape. The apparent injunction against building over Hazor’s 13th century palace ruins during Israel’s subsequent occupation and the inclusion of Hazor’s destruction from competing perspectives in the Bible suggest that it was an important event in Israel’s history, even if the entirety of Israel was not involved.


Cliometrica ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pim de Zwart

AbstractThis paper adds to a growing literature that charts and explains inequality levels in pre-industrial societies. On the basis of a wide variety of primary documents, the degree of inequality is estimated for 32 different residencies, the largest administrative units and comparable to present-day provinces, of late colonial Indonesia. Four different measures of inequality (the Gini, Theil, Inequality Extraction Rate and Top Income Rate) are employed that show consistent results. Variation in inequality levels across late colonial Indonesia is very large, and some residencies have much higher levels of inequality (with, for example, Ginis above 60) than others (with Ginis below 30). This suggests that even within a single colony, levels of inequality may vary substantially and this puts some doubts on the representativeness of using a single number to capture the level of inequality in a large economy. In order to explain the variation across residencies and over time, this paper investigates the role of exports and plantations, so frequently mentioned in the literature. It is shown that both explain a part of the variation in levels of inequality across colonial Indonesia, but that only the rise of plantations can explain changes in inequality levels over time. This points to the importance of the institutional context in which global export trade takes place for the rise of inequality.


Author(s):  
Mario Daniele Amore ◽  
Margherita Corina

AbstractRecent literature shows that the spike in uncertainty during political elections harms firms’ investment. Bridging insights from international business and political science, we argue that the effect of political elections on firms’ investment activities is contingent on the country’s electoral system. In particular, we expect the negative effect of elections on corporate investment to be smaller for firms operating in plurality systems. We test our theory using a panel dataset of listed firms around the world, and a panel of US multinationals. Our results confirm that during an election period, firms in countries with a plurality system reduce investment less than firms in other countries. Additionally, we show that multinationals’ foreign investment is affected by elections abroad: their investment in a host country declines during an election in that country, though to a lesser extent if the election is held with a plurality system. Collectively, our findings provide new evidence on the role of political institutions for firms’ investment decisions.


2020 ◽  
pp. 40-74
Author(s):  
Steve Peers

This chapter examines the possible tension between democracy and effectiveness in the context of the EU’s political institutions: the European Parliament, the European Council, the Council, and the Commission. To this end, it examines in turn the composition, powers, and functioning of each of these institutions, comparing them to national systems and assessing their democratic accountability and the effectiveness of their functioning. It shows that the role of various EU institutions has evolved over time - in particular to strengthen the legislative role of the European Parliament, and that body’s control over the Commission.


2010 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 225-245 ◽  
Author(s):  
Melanie Lührmann

Abstract This paper investigates consumer expenditures of German households pre- and post-retirement. The widely observed distinct drop in spending upon retirement entry poses an empirical puzzle since life cycle theory predicts smoothing of the marginal utility of consumption over time. As one explanation, I explore the role of home production as a substitute for consumer expenses. Taking a combined look at consumer expenditures and time use pre- and post-retirement, I find a significant drop of about 17% of pre-retirement expenses at retirement which coincides with an increase in time spent on home production of an additional 89 minutes per day, accounting for 21% of average home production.


Author(s):  
Steve Peers

This chapter examines the possible tension between democracy and effectiveness in the context of the EU’s political institutions: the European Parliament, the European Council, the Council, and the Commission. To this end, it examines in turn the composition, powers, and functioning of each of these institutions, comparing them to national systems and assessing their democratic accountability and the effectiveness of their functioning. It shows that the role of various EU institutions has evolved over time - in particular to strengthen the legislative role of the European Parliament, and that body’s control over the Commission.


Author(s):  
Yochai Benkler ◽  
Robert Faris ◽  
Hal Roberts

This chapter examines whether the internet can—or cannot—contribute to democratization, and under what conditions. This chapter discusses five major failure modes that limit the benefits of decentralized digitally-mediated collective action. The first is the failure to convert from a moment’s surge of decentralized passion into a longer-term, sustained effort with competence to engage political institutions systematically over time. The second is the failure to sustain the decentralized openness in the transition to more structured political organization. The third failure mode of the internet and democracy refers to the power of well-organized, data-informed central powers to move millions of people from the center out, instead of the other way around. The fourth failure mode is that precisely what makes decentralized networks so effective at circumventing established forms of control can also make them the vehicles of repressive mobs. The final failure mode is the susceptibility to disinformation and propaganda.


2017 ◽  
Vol 9 (7) ◽  
pp. 179
Author(s):  
Pistoresi B. ◽  
Cavicchioli M. ◽  
Brevini G.

This paper analyses the determinants of a new index of central bank independence, recently provided by Dincer and Eichengreen (2014), using a large database of economic, political and institutional variables. Our sample includes data for 31 OECD and 49 non-OECD economies and covers the period 1998-2010. To this aim, we implement factorial and regression analysis to synthesize information and overcome limitations such as omitted variables, multicollinearity and overfitting. The results confirm the role of the IMF loans program to guide all the economies in their choice of more independent central banks. Financial instability, recession and low inflation work in the opposite direction with governments relying extensively on central bank money to finance public expenditure and central banks’ political and operational autonomy is inevitably undermined. Finally, only for non-OECD economies, the degree of central bank independence responds to various measures of strength of political institutions and party political instability.


2007 ◽  
Vol 48 (3) ◽  
pp. 349-373 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. CAMERON MONROE

ABSTRACTThe Kingdom of Dahomey has played a central role in our understanding of political organization in West Africa in the era of the trans-Atlantic slave trade. Research has focused on two major questions: whether or not Dahomey possessed revolutionary qualities that allowed it to maintain order in this turbulent era, and the role of militarism in fostering stability. Mounting archaeological evidence from the Republic of Bénin can contribute to our understanding of Dahomean political dynamics over time. Spatial patterns in royal palace construction, materialized regionally and architecturally, are examined in this essay. These data suggest that Dahomey achieved real administrative advances in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, including the expansion of regional control and the successful integration of a complex administrative hierarchy.1


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