How Cities Made States (and Vice Versa)

• In Event: Statebuilding and Consolidation

Abstract

Scholars have long debated the rise of states in the midst of powerful cities. In this work I examine the bargain present between cities and states empirically, regardless of municipal size, for the first time. I present a new dataset on historical municipal policy in the present-day United Kingdom and France, and use a dynamic Bayesian IRT model to estimate the ideal points of all municipalities claimed by the state in what are presently the United Kingdom and France. I use this evidence to argue that the bargain that rulers made with cities in order to secure political legitimacy had lasting implications on the political economy of the territorial state.

Author

• Emily VanMeter, University of Rochester