Topic: State Capacity

Posts

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  The Feudal Origins of the Western Legal Tradition

  This paper draws a distinction between ‘communitarian’ and ‘rationalist’ legal orders on the basis of the implied political strategy. We argue that the West’s solution to the paradox of governance – that a government strong enough to protect rights cannot itself be restrained from violating those rights – originates in . . .

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  Returns to Scale, Not State Capacity

  Liquid markets are the basic prerequisite to industrialization and growth. But where do liquid markets come from? A naïve libertarian might say that markets are self-organizing, and economic growth picked up historically when governments simply stepped out of the way. While there are certainly some respects in which this is true, . . .

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  Myth and Modernity: A Review of Persecution and Toleration

  One doesn’t need much detailed historical knowledge to be struck by just how recent many of the most deeply held moral and political convictions in the modern West are. Prior to just a few hundred years ago, it would have been considered eccentric (at best) or seditious (at worst) to . . .