Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-2pzkn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-06-12T20:26:40.982Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Can Nations Succeed?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 March 2013

Margaret Levi*
Affiliation:
University of Washington and the University of Sydney

Extract

We are in an era of Big Books, books with a magisterial sweep of the history of the world. All share the desire to explain why some countries flourish, why some start and stall on the path to development, and why others seem never to find the path at all. In sociology, Big Books date back at least to Karl Marx and Max Weber. Their publication has been more or less regular ever since, and their authors tend to elaborate the sort of grand and general theories that have come under increasing attack in recent decades, given methodological advances that have transformed analytic tastes.

Type
Review Essay
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 2013 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Acemoglu, Daron, Johnson, Simon, and Robinson, James A.. 2001. “The Colonial Origins of Comparative Development: An Empirical Investigation.” American Economic Review 91(5): 1369–401.Google Scholar
Acemoglu, Daron, Johnson, Simon, and Robinson, James A.. 2002. “Reversal of Fortune: Geography and Institutions in the Making of the Modern World Income Distribution.” Quarterly Journal of Economics 117(4): 1231–94.Google Scholar
Acemoglu, Daron, Johnson, Simon, and Robinson, James A.. 2005. “Economic History and Political Science: Clarifying Questions, Methods and Answers.” Political Economist 12(3): 4–5, 7, 11–13.Google Scholar
Acemoglu, Daron, Johnson, Simon, Robinson, James A., and Yared, Pierre. 2008. “Income and Democracy.” American Economic Review 98(3): 808–42.Google Scholar
Acemoglu, Daron, and Robinson, James A.. 2006. Economic Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Aston, T. H., and Philpin, C. H. E.. 1987. The Brenner Debate: Agrarian Class Structure and Economic Development in Pre-Industrial Europe. London: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Bartels, Larry. 2008. Unequal Democracy: The Political Economy of the New Gilded Age. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.Google Scholar
Bates, Robert H. [1991] 2005. Beyond the Miracle of the Market. 2nd ed. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Bates, Robert H. [1991] 2001. Prosperity and Violence. New York: W. W. Norton.Google Scholar
Bates, Robert H. [1991] 2008. When Things Fall Apart. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Bendix, Reinhard. 1978. Kings or People: Power and the Mandate to Rule. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Coase, Ronald H. 1937. “The Nature of the Firm.” Economica 4(3): 386405.Google Scholar
Coase, Ronald H. 1960. “The Problem of Social Cost.” Journal of Law and Economics 26: 122.Google Scholar
Collier, Ruth Berins, and Collier, David. [1991] 2002. Shaping the Political Arena: Critical Junctures, the Labor Movement, and Regime Dynamics in Latin America. South Bend, IN: Notre Dame University Press.Google Scholar
Diamond, Jared M. 1998. Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies. New York: W. W. Norton.Google Scholar
Eisenstadt, S. N. 1993. The Political Systems of Empires. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers.Google Scholar
Evans, Peter, Rueschemeyer, Dietrich, and Skocpol, Theda, eds. 1985. Bringing the State Back In. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Fukuyama, Francis. 2011. The Origins of Political Order: From Prehuman Times to the French Revolution. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux.Google Scholar
Gandhi, Jennifer, and Lust-Okar, Ellen. 2009. “Elections Under Authoritarianism.” Annual Review of Political Science 12(1): 403–22.Google Scholar
Geddes, Barbara. 1994. The Politicians' Dilemma. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Geddes, Barbara. 2003. Paradigms and Sand Castles in Comparative Politics of Developing Areas. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.Google Scholar
Greif, Avner. 2006. Institutions and the Path to the Modern Economy: Lessons from Medieval Trade. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Hacker, Jacob S., and Pierson, Paul. 2010. Winner-Take-All Politics: How Washington Made the Rich Richer—and Turned Its Back on the Middle Class. New York: Simon and Schuster, Inc.Google Scholar
Helmke, Gretchen, and Rosenbluth, Frances. 2009. “Regimes and the Rule of Law: Judicial Independence in Comparative Perspective.” Annual Review of Political Science 12(1): 345–66.Google Scholar
Hobbes, Thomas. [1651] 1985. Leviathan, ed. MacPherson, C. B.. London: Penguin Classics.Google Scholar
Holmberg, Soren, Rothstein, Bo, and Nasiritousi, Naghmeh. 2009. “Quality of Government: What You Get.” Annual Review of Political Science 12(1): 135–61.Google Scholar
Kiser, Edgar, and Hechter, Michael. 1991. “The Role of General Theory in Comparative-Historical Sociology.” American Journal of Sociology 97: 130.Google Scholar
Knight, Jack. 1992. Institutions and Social Conflict. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Levi, Margaret. 1988. Of Rule and Revenue. Berkeley: The University of California Press.Google Scholar
Lipset, Seymour Martin. 1963. Political Man: The Social Bases of Politics. Garden City, NY: Anchor Books, Doubleday.Google Scholar
Magaloni, Beatriz. 2006. Voting for Autocracy: Hegemonic Party Survival and Its Demise in Mexico. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Mann, Michael. 1986. The Sources of Social Power: A History of Power from the Beginning to a.d. 1760. Vol. 1. London: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mann, Michael. 1993. The Sources of Social Power: The Rise of Classes and Nation-States, 1760–1914. Vol. 2. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Michels, Robert. [1919] 1962. Political Parties: A Sociological Study of the Oligarchical Tendencies of Modern Democracy. New York: Free Press.Google Scholar
Moore, Barrington. 1966. Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy. Boston: Beacon Press.Google Scholar
North, Douglass C. 1981. Structure and Change in Economic History. New York: W. W. Norton.Google Scholar
North, Douglass C., and Thomas, Robert Paul. 1973. The Rise and Decline of the Western World. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
North, Douglass C., Wallis, John, and Weingast, Barry. 2009. Violence and Social Orders: A Conceptual Framework for Interpreting Recorded Human History. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Parsons, Talcott. 1951. The Social System. Glencoe, IL: Free Press.Google Scholar
Parsons, Talcott, and Shils, Edward. 1951. Toward a General Theory of Action. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Przeworski, Adam. 1985. Capitalism and Social Democracy. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Przeworski, Adam. 1991. Democracy and the Market. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Przeworski, Adam, Alvarez, Michael E., Cheibub, José Antonio, and Limongi, Fernando. 2000. Democracy and Development: Political Institutions and Well-Being in the World, 1950–1990. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Przeworski, Adam, and Sprague, John. 1986. Paper Stones: A History of Electoral Socialism. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Przeworski, Adam, and Wallerstein, Michael. 1982. “The Structure of Class Conflict in Democratic Capitalist Societies.” American Political Science Review 76(2): 215–38.Google Scholar
Przeworski, Adam, and Wallerstein, Michael. 1988. “Structural Dependence of the State on Capital.” American Political Science Review 82: 1130.Google Scholar
Smith, Adam. [1776] 2010. An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. Los Angeles: Indo-European Publishing.Google Scholar
Steinmo, Sven, Thelan, Kathleen, and Longstreth, Frank. 1992. Structuring Politics: Historical Institutionalism in Comparative Perspective. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Winters, Jeffrey A. 2011. Oligarchy. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Wood, Elisabeth Jean. 2007. “Modeling Contingency.” In Political Contingency: Studying the Unexpected, the Accidental, and the Unforeseen, ed. Shapiro, Ian and Bedi, Sonu. New York: New York University Press.Google Scholar