New Agendas in Historical Political Economy

Session Submission Type: Full Paper Panel

Session Description

Papers on this panel focus on historical development in Eurasia. The authors use novel subnational and individual-level data and quasi-experimental research designs to understand the causes and consequences of violent and repressive historical episodes, such as slave raids, indentured servitude, witchcraft trials, and violence against the national elites. They rely on the tools of historical political economy to revisit theoretical debates on the legacies of slavery and return migration, the origins of witchcraft accusations, and the relationship between repression and resistance.
The first two papers focus on economic development in Eastern Europe from 1500 to 1800. Charnysh and Lall trace the economic legacies of the Black Sea slave trade in the Poland-Lithuanian Commonwealth and the Russian Empire; Cirone and Cayton study the economic determinants of witchcraft trials in Poland. The remaining two papers focus on politics in the 20th century. Aggarwal, Chaurey, and Suryanarayan examine the effects of indentured migration on political competition in colonial India. Krakowski and Schaub investigate how differences in Soviet and Nazi repression against Polish elites during WWII impacted Solidarity-led protests in the 1980s.

Sub Unit

• Division 7: Politics and History

Individual Presentations

• Economic Consequences of the Black Sea Slave Trade - Volha Charnysh, Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Ranjit Lall, London School of Economics

• Economically Motivated Persecution: Witchcraft Trials in 17th Century Poland - Ali Cirone, London School of Economics; Frances Cayton, Cornell University

• Indentured Migration, Caste and Electoral Competition in Colonial India - Ashish Aggarwal, University of Warwick; Ritam Chaurey, Johns Hopkins SAIS; Pavithra Suryanarayan, London School of Economics

• Elite Murder and Popular Resistance: Evidence from Post–World War II Poland - Krzysztof Krakowski, King’s College London; Max Schaub, University of Hamburg

Chair

• Asli Cansunar University of Washington

Discussants

• Roya Talibova Harvard University

• Krzysztof Krakowski King’s College London