- •Contents
- •Preface
- •Acknowledgments
- •1.1 Introduction
- •1.3 The Logic of the Natural State
- •1.4 The Logic of the Open Access Order
- •1.5 The Logic of the Transition from Natural States to Open Access Orders
- •1.6 A Note on Beliefs
- •1.7 The Plan
- •2.1 Introduction
- •2.2 Commonalities: Characteristics of Limited Access Orders
- •2.2.2 Size, Boundaries, Trade, and Specialization
- •2.3 Differences: A Typology of Natural States
- •2.4 Privileges, Rights, and Elite Dynamics
- •2.5 Origins: The Problem Scale and Violence
- •2.6 Natural State Dynamics: Fragile to Basic Natural States
- •2.7 Moving to Mature Natural States: Disorder, Organization, and the Medieval Church
- •2.9 Natural States
- •APPENDIX: SKELETAL EVIDENCE AND EMPIRICAL RESULTS
- •3.1 Introduction
- •3.2 Chronology
- •3.3 The Courts, Legal Concepts, and the Law of Property
- •3.4 Bastard Feudalism
- •3.5 Bastard Feudalism and the Impersonalization of Property
- •3.6 The Typology of Natural States
- •APPENDIX
- •A Glossary of Technical Terms involving Land Use
- •Estimating Landownership Concentration in Medieval England
- •4.1 Introduction
- •4.2 Commonalities: Characteristics of an Open Access Order
- •4.3 Institutions, Beliefs, and Incentives Supporting Open Access
- •4.4 Incorporation: The Extension of Citizenship
- •4.5 Control of Violence in Open Access Orders
- •4.6 Growth of Government
- •4.7 Forces of Short-Run Stability
- •4.7.1 Elections, Party Competition, and the Civil Society
- •4.7.2 Market Competition
- •4.7.3 Implications
- •4.8.1 Sources of Change in Open Access Orders
- •4.11 Democracy and Redistribution
- •5.1 Introduction
- •5.2 Personality and Impersonality: The Doorstep Conditions
- •5.3 Doorstep Condition #1: Rule of Law for Elites
- •5.4 Doorstep Condition #2: Perpetually Lived Organizations in the Public and Private Spheres
- •5.4.1 Moving toward the Doorstep in Europe and the United States: Impersonality in Public and Private Organizations
- •5.5 Doorstep Condition #3: Consolidated Control of the Military
- •5.6 The British Navy and the British State
- •5.7 Time, Order, and Institutional Forms
- •6.1 Institutionalizing Open Access
- •6.2 Fear of Faction
- •6.3 Events
- •6.4 Parties and Corporations
- •6.5 The Transition to Open Access in Britain
- •6.6 The Transition to Open Access in France
- •6.7 The Transition to Open Access in the United States
- •6.8 Institutionalizing Open Access: Why the West?
- •6.8.2 The Transition Proper
- •7.1 The Framing Problems
- •7.2 The Conceptual Framework
- •7.3 A New Approach to the Social Sciences: Violence, Institutions, Organizations, and Beliefs
- •7.4 A New Approach to the Social Sciences: Development and Democracy
- •7.5 Toward a Theory of the State
- •7.6 Violence and Social Orders: The Way Ahead
- •References
- •Index
FOUR
Open Access Orders
4.1 Introduction
Although open access orders are far more peaceful than natural states, social scientists take this peace for granted. No models explain why violence is generally absent, whether in the form of coups, riots, rebellions, or civil wars. These societies are Weberian: the government holds a monopoly on the legitimate use of violence, which is subject to clear and well-understood rules. In open access orders, political and social arrangements identify a set of military and police organizations that can legitimately use violence and a set of political organizations that control the use of violence by the military and police. Control of the government, in turn, is contestable and is subject to clear and well-understood rules.
Open access orders exhibit a virtuous circle linking the control of violence and open access. The political system limits access to the means of violence; open economic and social access ensures that access to the political system is open; credible prohibitions on the use of violence to compete maintains open economic and social access; and political and judicial systems enforce prohibitions on the use of violence. Similarly, open access to organizations in all systems sustains competition in all systems. Competition in all systems, in turn, helps sustain open access.
Standard views about how developed societies operate and sustain themselves typically focus on one system, either markets or democracy, without considering the other. Economics takes open access as given and explores its consequences; explanations for market stability usually focus on the equilibrium properties of the economy. Because economics provides no explanation of why and how the political system defines property rights, enforces contracts, and creates the rule of law necessary for markets, economics
110
4.1 Introduction |
111 |
fails to explain an open access order’s stability. Similarly, political science explanations focus on democracy, taking open access and political competition as given, exploring their consequences. Political science fails to explain why open access orders maintain stable democracy while most natural states cannot, how democracy in open access orders sustains a market economy, or why democracy in natural states typically fails to do so. Political science, therefore, fails to explain the open access order’s wealth and productivity.
Drawing on the idea of the double balance, we show that open access in all systems is mutually reinforcing. Our argument has three parts. First, citizens in open access orders share belief systems that emphasize equality, sharing, and universal inclusion. To sustain these beliefs, all open access orders have institutions and policies that share the gains of and reduce the individual risks from market participation, including universal education, a range of social insurance programs, and widespread infrastructure and public goods.1 Moreover, because these programs widely share the gains of the market economy in a manner complementary to markets, they reduce citizen demands for redistribution in ways that potentially cripple the economy.
Second, political parties vie for control in competitive elections. The success of party competition in policing those in power depends on open access that fosters a competitive economy and the civil society, both providing a dense set of organizations that represent a range of interests and mobilize widely dispersed constituencies in the event that an incumbent regime attempts to solidify its position through rent-creation, limiting access, or coercion.
Third, a range of institutions and incentive systems impose costs on an incumbent party that seeks to cement its position through systematic rentcreation and limiting access: imposition of systematic rent-creation yields a shrinking economy and falling tax revenue. Mobile resources leave the country, and the country’s competitive position in international markets deteriorates. These reactions impose direct costs on a regime that attempts limited access and grants the opposition a competitive opportunity to attract votes to regain power.
1Bueno de Mesquita et al. (2003) show a similar result: in their approach, authoritarian governments tend toward private goods while democratic ones tend toward public goods. These scholars do not distinguish between democracies in open access orders and natural states, however.