Political Order and Inequality
Their Foundations and their Consequences for Human Welfare

This book describes the foundations of stateless societies, why and how states emerge, and the basis of political obligation.

Carles Boix (Author)

9781107461079, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 16 February 2015

334 pages, 50 b/w illus. 2 maps 24 tables
22.9 x 15.1 x 1.8 cm, 0.49 kg

'Deploying cutting-edge analytic rigor, deep historical insight and sound quantitative evidence, Carles Boix has produced a wonderfully engaging book. The book reveals how inequality is the price we pay for our economic well-being and that material wealth is inextricably linked to the origin of the state. Specific forms of political obligation are shaped by how societies balance the tension produced by shifts in military technology and how they are harnessed by political organizations. Boix is equally deft at discussing the Neolithic revolution, the measurement of inequality through skeletal records, or the development of European cities. Political Order and Inequality should be required reading for anyone interested in the political economy of development.' Alberto Díaz-Cayeros, Stanford University, California

The fundamental question of political theory, one that precedes all other questions about the nature of political life, is why there is a state at all. Is human cooperation feasible without a political authority enforcing it? Or do we need a state to live together? This problem then opens up two further questions. If a state is necessary to establish order, how does it come into place? And, when it does, what are the consequences for the political status and economic welfare of its citizens? Combining ethnographical material, historical cases, and statistical analysis, this book describes the foundations of stateless societies, why and how states emerge, and the basis of political obligation. As a result of this inquiry, it explains the economic and political roots of inequality, describes the causes of the stagnation of the preindustrial world, and explores what led to the West's prosperity of the past two centuries.

1. Tabula rasa
2. Political order
3. Technological progress
4. Warfare
5. Inequality
6. Modern breakthrough
7. Conclusions.

Subject Areas: Comparative politics [JPB]