The Deep History of States

Session Submission Type: Full Paper Panel

Session Description

As long as humans have lived in groups they have cultivated the art of politics to manage their affairs. Our political history is as old as our species, extending several hundred thousand years into the past. If one’s purview is limited to state forms of political organization that history extends back to the ancient polities of Mesopotamia, Egypt, and China, founded in the fourth millennium BCE.
Meanwhile, the social science disciplines focus steadfastly on politics in the contemporary era, occasionally extending their purview back to the nineteenth century. That is what we study. Likewise, the literature we build upon derives mostly from the postwar era. With the exception of a few acknowledged classics (Aristotle, Machiavelli, Weber, Smith, Marx et al.), it is rare to cite earlier work. Accordingly, our understanding of politics is based on a tiny sliver of political history, a mere two generations or – in “historical” studies – as many as seven generations. We stare obsessively through a tiny aperture.
In this panel, we take a close look at several aspects of the deep history of states.

Sub Unit

• Division 11: Comparative Politics

Individual Presentations

• The Rise of the Territorial State - Jacob Gerner Hariri, Department of Political Science, University of Copenhagen; Christoffer Cappelen, University of Copenhagen

• Leader Tenure through History - Lilian Cojocaru; John Gerring, University of Texas, Austin; Carl Henrik Knutsen, Department of Political Science, University of Oslo; Andrej Kokkonen, University of Gothenburg; Xin Nong, University of Texas at Austin; Jan Teorell, Stockholm University; Daniel Smith, Ohio State University; Cem Mert Dalli, University of Gothenburg

• Colonial Origins of Democracy and Dictatorship - Alexander Lee, University of Rochester; Jack Paine, Emory University

• How Monarchical Legacies Promote Democracy - Eileen McDonagh, Northeastern University

Chair

• David Stasavage New York University

Discussants

• David Stasavage New York University

• John Gerring University of Texas, Austin