Violence and Social Orders: A Conceptual Framework for Interpreting Recorded Human History

by Douglass C. North , John Joseph Wallis , Barry R. Weingast

• ISBN13: 9780521761734
• ISBN10: 0521761735
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2009-02-26
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

All societies must deal with the possibility of violence, and they do so in different ways. This book integrates the problem of violence into a larger social science and historical framework, showing how economic and political behavior are closely linked. Most societies, which we call natural states, limit violence by political manipulation of the economy to create privileged interests. These privileges limit the use of violence by powerful individuals, but doing so hinders both economic and political development. In contrast, modern societies create open access to economic and political organizations, fostering political and economic competition. The book provides a framework for understanding the two types of social orders, why open access societies are both politically and economically more developed, and how some 25 countries have made the transition between the two types.

Table of Contents

Preface	p. xi
Acknowledgments	p. xv
The Conceptual Framework	p. 1
Introduction	p. 1
The Concept of Social Orders: Violence, Institutions, and Organizations	p. 13
The Logic of the Natural State	p. 18
The Logic of the Open Access Order	p. 21
The Logic of the Transition from Natural States to Open Access Orders	p. 25
A Note on Beliefs	p. 27
The Plan	p. 29
The Natural State	p. 30
Introduction	p. 30
Commonalities: Characteristics of Limited Access Orders	p. 32
Differences: A Typology of Natural States	p. 41
Privileges, Rights, and Elite Dynamics	p. 49
Origins: The Problem Scale and Violence	p. 51
Natural State Dynamics: Fragile to Basic Natural States	p. 55
Moving to Mature Natural States: Disorder, Organization, and the Medieval Church	p. 62
Mature Natural States: France and England in the Sixteenth, Seventeenth, and Eighteenth Centuries	p. 69
Natural States	p. 72
Appendix: Skeletal Evidence and Empirical Results	p. 75
The Natural State Applied: English Land Law	p. 77
Introduction	p. 77
Chronology	p. 79
The Courts, Legal Concepts, and the Law of Property	p. 87
Bastard Feudalism	p. 91
Bastard Feudalism and the Impersonalization of Property	p. 98
The Typology of Natural States	p. 104
Appendix	p. 106
Open Access Orders	p. 110
Introduction	p. 110
Commonalities: Characteristics of an Open Access Order	p. 112
Institutions, Beliefs, and Incentives Supporting Open Access	p. 117
Incorporation: The Extension of Citizenship	p. 118
Control of Violence in Open Access Orders	p. 121
Growth of Government	p. 122
Forces of Short-Run Stability	p. 125
Forces of Long-Run Stability: Adaptive Efficiency	p. 133
Why Institutions Work Differently under Open Access than Limited Access	p. 137
A New "Logic of Collective Action" and Theory of Rent-Seeking	p. 140
Democracy and Redistribution	p. 142
Adaptive Efficiency and the Seeming Independence of Economics and Politics in Open Access Orders	p. 144
The Transition from Limited to Open Access Orders: The Doorstep Conditions	p. 148
Introduction	p. 148
Personality and Impersonality: The Doorstep Conditions	p. 150
Doorstep Condition #1: Rule of Law for Elites	p. 154
Doorstep Condition #2: Perpetually Lived Organizations in the Public and Private Spheres	p. 158
Doorstep Condition #3: Consolidated Control of the Military	p. 169
The British Navy and the British State	p. 181
Time, Order, and Institutional Forms	p. 187
The Transition Proper	p. 190
Institutionalizing Open Access	p. 190
Fear of Faction	p. 194
Events	p. 203
Parties and Corporations	p. 210
The Transition to Open Access in Britain	p. 213
The Transition to Open Access in France	p. 219
The Transition to Open Access in the United States	p. 228
Institutionalizing Open Access: Why the West?	p. 240
A New Research Agenda for the Social Sciences	p. 251
The Framing Problems	p. 251
The Conceptual Framework	p. 254
A New Approach to the Social Sciences: Violence, Institutions, Organizations, and Beliefs	p. 257
A New Approach to the Social Sciences: Development and Democracy	p. 263
Toward a Theory of the State	p. 268
Violence and Social Orders: The Way Ahead	p. 271
References	p. 273
Index	p. 295
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