Is the traditional logic by which violent conflict fosters long-run political development universal? To help address this puzzle, this article compares Europe with China. While historical warfare was very common across both units, representative government only flourished in Europe. We suggest...

Autocrats use repression to deter opposition. Are they successful in the long run? I argue that state repression can have long-lasting alienating effects on citizens' political attitudes and coercive effects on their political behavior. I evaluate this proposition by studying the long-term...

I characterize modern social scientific studies of the state as comprising three generations: society centered, state centered, and the state-in-society approach. I then discuss how recent books by James Scott, David Stasavage, and Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson advance the literature by...

Ever since the Federalist Papers, there has been a common view that the lower the level of government, the greater is the extent of capture by vested interests. Relying on the analytical framework of relative capture, I challenge this view by arguing that interest groups have different...

I offer new data and methods to challenge the conventional wisdom that China's economic growth has been relied on coalitions between local politicians and businesses. Firms in the past 30 years have increasingly built connections with the central government, which is a more powerful and stable...

Rulers' long duration in the medieval period had contributed to the rise of Europe. But what explained premodern ruler duration? While the extant answers focus on formal, political institutions, I examine the role of marriage and inheritance norms in affecting ruler survival. Using a novel...