Analytic Narratives

Robert H. Bates; Avner Greif; Margaret Levi; Jean-Laurent Rosenthal; Barry R. Weingast

Published by Princeton University Press 1999

Analytic Narratives

Robert H. Bates , Avner Greif , Margaret Levi , Jean-Laurent Rosenthal and Barry R. Weingast

https://doi.org/10.1515/9780691216232

Overview
Contents

About this book

Students of comparative politics have long faced a vexing dilemma: how can social scientists draw broad, applicable principles of political order from specific historical examples? In Analytic Narratives, five senior scholars offer a new and ambitious methodological response to this important question. By employing rational-choice and game theory, the authors propose a way of extracting empirically testable, general hypotheses from particular cases. The result is both a methodological manifesto and an applied handbook that political scientists, economic historians, sociologists, and students of political economy will find essential.

In their jointly written introduction, the authors frame their approach to the origins and evolution of political institutions. The individual essays that follow demonstrate the concept of the analytic narrative--a rational-choice approach to explain political outcomes--in case studies. Avner Greif traces the institutional foundations of commercial expansion in twelfth-century Genoa. Jean-Laurent Rosenthal analyzes how divergent fiscal policies affected absolutist European governments, while Margaret Levi examines the transformation of nineteenth-century conscription laws in France, the United States, and Prussia. Robert Bates explores the emergence of a regulatory organization in the international coffee market. Finally, Barry Weingast studies the institutional foundations of democracy in the antebellum United States and its breakdown in the Civil War. In the process, these studies highlight the economic role of political organizations, the rise and deterioration of political communities, and the role of coercion, especially warfare, in political life. The results are both empirically relevant and theoretically sophisticated.

Analytic Narratives is an innovative and provocative work that bridges the gap between the game-theoretic and empirically driven approaches in political economy. Political historians will find the use of rational-choice models novel; theorists will discover arguments more robust and nuanced than those derived from abstract models. The book improves on earlier studies by advocating--and applying--a cross-disciplinary approach to explain strategic decision making in history.

Author / Editor information

Robert H. Bates is the Eaton Professor of the Science of Government and Faculty Fellow of the Institute of International Development at Harvard University. Avner Greif is Associate Professor of Economics at Stanford University. Margaret Levi is Professor of Political Science and the Harry Bridges Chair in Labor Studies at the University of Washington, Seattle. Jean-Laurent Rosenthal is Professor of Economics at the University of California, Los Angeles. Barry R. Weingast is Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution and Ward C. Krebs Family Professor of Political Science at Stanford University.

Reviews

"Analytic Narratives showcases cutting-edge work in the comparative and historical application of rational-choice theory."—Mark Lichbach, University of Colorado at Boulder

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
Acknowledgments Publicly Available Download PDF	ix
Introduction Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
One. Self-Enforcing Political Systems and Economic Growth: Late Medieval Genoa Avner Greif Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	23
Two. The Political Economy of Absolutism Reconsidered Jean-Laurent Rosenthal Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	64
Three. Conscription: The Price of Citizenship Margaret Levi Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	109
Four. Political Stability and Civil War: Institutions, Commitment, and American Democracy Barry R. Weingast Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	148
Five. The International Coffee Organization: An International Institution Robert H. Bates Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	194
Conclusion Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	231
Appendix Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	239
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	243