The Decline and Rise of Democracy: A Global History from Antiquity to Today

Copyright
Contents
List of Figures
Preface
Part I Early Democracy
	1 Origins of Democratic Rule
		Early Democracy and Modern Democracy
		Origins of Early Democracy
		Is Early Democracy an Appropriate Term?
		The Autocratic Alternative
		Why Europe Was Different
		The State Arrived First in China
		Islamic Rulers Inherited a State
		The Arrival of Modern Democracy
		Alternative Visions of Democracy
			Political Ideas
			Inequality
			Economic Development
		Democracy’s Future
			New Democracies
			Persistence of Autocracy
			The Future of American Democracy
	2 Early Democracy Was Widespread
		The Athenian Precedent
		Early Democracies outside the Greek World
			The Mesopotamian Kingdom of Mari
			Republics in Ancient India
			The Huron of the Northeastern Woodlands
			The Mesoamerican Republic of Tlaxcala
			Republicanism in Central Africa
		Examples of Early Autocracy
			The Third Dynasty of Ur
			The Aztec Triple Alliance
			The Inkas
			Mississippian Chiefdoms
			The Azande of Central Africa
	A Broader View of Early Democracy and Autocracy
			Political Participation
			Inequality
		Conclusion
	3 Weak States Inherited Democracy
		What We Mean by a Weak State
		Agricultural Suitability and State Formation
		Agricultural Variability and Early Democracy
		Exit Options and Early Democracy
			Circumscription versus Exit
			Population Density and Council Governance
	Military Democracy: When Rulers Needed Their People
	The Bureaucratic Alternative
	Origins of Bureaucracy
	Conclusion
	4 When Technology Undermined Democracy
	Understanding and Mapping the Soil
	The “Fish Scale” Maps of China
	Aztec Soil Glyphs
	Europeans Were Late to Understand the Soil
	Geometry and the Ability to Survey
	Agricultural Techniques
			Europeans Lagged in Agricultural Techniques
			Why Europe Lagged with Intensive Agriculture
	The Importance of Writing
			How Writing Started
			The Effect of Writing on Early Democracy
			Alphabets versus More Complex Systems
		Where Europeans Were Ahead: Firearms Technology
		Conclusion
Part II The Divergence
	5 The Development of Representation in Europe
	The Ancient Liberty of the Forest
	Tacitus on the Germans
	The Marklo Assembly
	The Roman Inheritance—Absence of a State
	Extensive Agriculture Favored Early Democracy
	The Carolingian Attempt at Bureaucratic Rule
		The Anglo-Saxon Exception
			Quod Omnes Tangit: A Theory of Consent
		The Communal Movement: Representation from Below
			Rediscovering Aristotle Did Not Produce the Communal Movement
			The Impact of the Commercial Revolution
			The Absence of a Central State Bureaucracy
		A Theory of Political Representation
		The Importance of Mandates
		Philip the Fair’s Attempt at Autocracy
			Philip the Fair’s Assemblies
			Philip the Fair Had No State
		The Prussian Alternative
		Conclusion
	6 China as the Bureaucratic Alternative
		The Shang Establishment of Autocracy
		The Zhou Dynasty and the Mandate of Heaven
		Why China Took the Autocratic Route
			Early China Was Not a “Hydraulic” Society
			High-Yield Agriculture Made a Difference
			Creation of a Bureaucracy
		A Consensual Route Not Taken
			Did Early Chinese Rulers Ever Rely on Assemblies?
			Theories of Merit and Abdication
	The Significance of the Qin and Han Unification
	The Imperial Examination System
	China Also Had a Commercial Revolution
	Mongol Conquerors Abandoned Their Assembly Tradition
	The Ming Restoration
		The Qing
		Conclusion
	7 How Democracy Disappeared in the Islamic World
		Early Democracy before Islam
		Shura as a Principle of Consultation
		The Umayyad Shift to Dynastic Rule
		Inheriting a State
		The Circle of Justice
		The Byzantine Inheritance
		Al-Andalus
		The Disappearance of Islamic Democracy
		The Question of Persistence
	8 Democracy and Economic Development over the Long Run
		Autocrats Did Well Early but Not Later
	China and the Caliphate Were Not the Soviet Union
		Possibilities and Perils of Autocracy in China
		Power and Prosperity in the Golden Age of Islam
		Weak Autocracy and Growth in Europe
		Early Democracy and Growth in Europe
		Conclusion: The Ambiguous Effects of Democracy
Part III Modern Democracy
	9 Why England Was Diferent
		The Roman Background
		The Hundred and the Shire
		Witenagemot
		The Normans Inherited a State
		Magna Carta Was Not a Big Deal (Initially)
		King John’s “Heavy Exactions” Were Not So Heavy
	Where England Really Did Pioneer: The Absence of Mandates
	Despotism and Good Government under the Tudors
		The Two Faces of Parliamentary Supremacy
			The First Face of Parliamentary Supremacy: High State Capacity
			The Second Face of Parliamentary Supremacy: An Autocratic Executive
		England versus the Dutch Republic
		England’s Failure to Complete the Transition to Modern Democracy
		Conclusion
	10 Democracy—and Slavery—in America
		Early Colonial Assemblies
			Massachusetts
			Virginia
			Maryland
		A Broad (White, Manhood) Suffrage
	Origins of American Slavery
		Developments Elsewhere in the Americas
			Latin America in Comparison
			The Case of New France
		The Arrival of Modern Democracy in the United States
			Representatives Were No Longer Bound by Mandates
			Elections Became Less Frequent
			The Center Gained the Power to Tax and Wage War
			Early Critics of Modern Democracy
		Connecting Citizens with a Distant State
		Conclusion: The Invention of Modern Democracy
	11 The Spread of Modern Democracy
		Charting the Spread of Democracy
		Democracy Comes to Europe
			An Expanding Blaze of Ideas?
			Did Europe Democratize Because It Grew Rich?
			A Legacy of Weak States
			A Legacy of Assemblies and Voting
			Expanding the Suffrage: One Man, One Gun, One Vote
			Voting Rights for Women
			Democracy Posed Less Danger to Elites than Feared
			French Peasants: The Original Deplorables
		Why Didn’t China Democratize?
			No Legacy of Assembly Governance
			The Legacy of the Imperial State
			A Commercial Revolution Did Not Bring Consensual Government
			The Chinese Communist Party Has Repeatedly Referred to Democracy
		Russia’s Failure to Democratize
			Early Rus sian Assemblies
			Building the Bureaucratic Alternative
	The World’s Largest Democracy
		How Democracy Spread in Africa
			The Suns of Independence
			A New Wave of Democratization
			A Legacy of State Weakness
		The Surprising Spread of Modern Democracy
	12 The Ongoing Democratic Experiment
		The Problem of a Distant State
			Maybe James Madison Was Wrong about Large Republics
			Distrust and Distant Government
			Dealing with Distrust
			A Return to Early Democracy?
		Fear of a Strong State
			The Risk of State Strength in the United States
			The Importance of Sequencing
			China as the Bureaucratic Alternative
		The Reasons for Optimism and Pessimism
Acknowledgments
Notes
	Chapter 1
	Chapter 2
	Chapter 3
	Chapter 4
	Chapter 5
	Chapter 6
	Chapter 7
	Chapter 8
	Chapter 9
	Chapter 10
	Chapter 11
	Chapter 12
Bibliography
Index