Representation and Consent: Why They Arose in Europe and Not Elsewhere
@article{Stasavage2016RepresentationAC, title={Representation and Consent: Why They Arose in Europe and Not Elsewhere}, author={David Stasavage}, journal={Annual Review of Political Science}, year={2016}, volume={19}, pages={145-162} }
Medieval Western Europeans developed two practices that are the bedrock of modern democracy: representative government and the consent of the governed. Why did this happen in Europe and not elsewhere? I ask what the literature has to say about this question, focusing on the role of political ideas, on economic development, and on warfare. I consider Europe in comparison with the Byzantine Empire, the Abbasid Caliphate, and Song Dynasty China. I argue that ultimately Europe's different path may…
74 Citations
The Ecclesiastical Roots of Representation and Consent
- HistoryPerspectives on Politics
- 2018
Recent attempts to explain the development of medieval representative institutions have neglected a long-standing insight of medieval and legal historians: Political representation and rule by…
Medieval Origins of the Rule of Law: The Gregorian Reforms as Critical Juncture?
- History, Economics
- 2017
This article shows that there is an ascending consensus that the European Middle Ages were pervaded by a number of constitutionalist norms and institutions that facilitated the later development of…
Bringing the Church Back In: Ecclesiastical Influences on the Rise of Europe
- HistoryPolitics and Religion
- 2019
Abstract Recently, political scientists and economists have redoubled their attempts to understand the “Rise of Europe.” However, the role of the Catholic Church has been curiously ignored in most of…
The Political Economy of Feudalism in Medieval Europe
- History, Economics
- 2020
Why did enduring traditions of economic and political liberty arise in Western Europe? An answer to this question must be sought at the constitutional level. Within the medieval constitutional order,…
The political economy of feudalism in medieval Europe
- History, Economics
- 2020
Why did enduring traditions of economic and political liberty arise in Western Europe? An answer to this question must be sought at the constitutional level. Within the medieval constitutional order,…
Medieval representative assemblies: collective action and antecedents of limited government
- History, Economics
- 2018
Medieval monarchs in Western Europe responded to financial and military pressures by instituting representative assemblies. Three estates (classes; orders) were represented in these assemblies:…
Mirrors for Princes and Sultans: Advice on the Art of Governance in the Medieval Christian and Islamic Worlds
- HistoryThe Journal of Politics
- 2018
When did European modes of political thought diverge from those that existed in other world regions? We compare Muslim and Christian political advice texts from the medieval period using automated…
Violent Conflict and Political Development Over the Long Run: China Versus Europe
- Political Science
- 2018
Is the traditional logic by which violent conflict fosters long-run political development universal? To help address this question, this article compares Europe with China. While historical warfare…
Medieval Roots of the Modern State: The Conditional Effects of Geopolitical Pressure on Early Modern State Building
- Political ScienceSocial Science History
- 2018
The modern state arose in Western Europe and was transplanted to European settler colonies. The question about why Western Europe developed high-capacity states bound by the rule of law remains a…
The Collapse of State Power, the Cluniac Reform Movement, and the Origins of Urban Self-Government in Medieval Europe
- History, EconomicsInternational Organization
- 2021
Abstract Several generations of scholarship have identified the medieval development of urban self-government as crucial for European patterns of state formation. However, extant theories,…
References
SHOWING 1-10 OF 109 REFERENCES
Consent, coercion, and limit : the medieval origins of parliamentary democracy
- History
- 1987
In addition, he deals with the development of these concepts in Roman and canon law and in the practices of the emerging states of France and England and the Italian city-states, as well as…
The Origins of Democracy in England
- Economics, History
- 1991
This article uses a rational choice model of the origins of democracy to analyze the political history of medieval England from the Norman conquest to the Hundred Years War. Why did a country just…
The Feudal Revolution and Europe's Rise: Political Divergence of the Christian West and the Muslim World before 1500 CE
- History, Political ScienceAmerican Political Science Review
- 2013
We document a divergence in the duration of rule for monarchs in Western Europe and the Islamic world beginning in the medieval period. While leadership tenures in the two regions were similar in the…
The Feudal Revolution and Europe ’ s Rise : Political Divergence of the Christian and Muslim Worlds before 1500 CE
- History
- 2011
This paper documents a divergence in the duration of rule for monarchs in Western Europe and the Islamic world beginning in the medieval period. While leadership tenures in the two regions were…
Representation (Since the Thirteenth Century)
- History
- 1998
Political representation, based on the mandate bestowed on elected and responsible delegates, and applied at regional and national levels, can be considered as one of the major contributions of the…
Was Weber Right? The Role of Urban Autonomy in Europe's Rise
- History, EconomicsAmerican Political Science Review
- 2014
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…
The principles of representative government
- Political Science
- 1995
The thesis of this original and provocative book is that representative government should be understood as a combination of democratic and undemocratic, aristocratic elements. Professor Manin…
No Taxation of Elites, No Representation
- Political Science
- 2015
Does state weakness lead to representation via taxation? A distinguished body of scholarship assumes that fiscal need forced weak(ened) states to grant rights and build institutions. The logic is…
The inheritance of Rome : a history of Europe from 400 to 1000
- History
- 2009
The idea that with the decline of the Roman Empire Europe entered into some immense 'dark age' has long been viewed as inadequate by many historians. How could a world still so profoundly shaped by…
When Distance Mattered: Geographic Scale and the Development of European Representative Assemblies
- EconomicsAmerican Political Science Review
- 2010
Scholars investigating European state development have long placed a heavy emphasis on the role played by representative institutions. The presence of an active representative assembly, it is argued,…