Conor O'Dwyer
POS 6933
Spring 2016
T 3:00-5:40 pm / Anderson 21
Office Hours: Tues. 2-2:50 & Thur. 2-3:40 (or by appointment) in Anderson 311
POS 6933: State-Building
Description
The modern state is of central interest to students of comparative politics, international relations, and
American political development. Whether condemned as an instrument of repression or elevated as an
engine of economic development, the state is inarguably the fundamental unit of national political
organization in the world today. Revisiting some of the foundational texts on state-building, this course
will examine the processes that produced the modern state in the region where it first appeared, Western
Europe. We will then analyze attempts to transplant this singular institutional innovation to Eastern
Europe, Latin America, the Middle East, Africa, and East Asia. We will address the following questions:
what is the modern state? In what historical circumstances did it originate? Can state-builders in late-
developing nations reproduce the institutional forms of the modern state, or are these institutions
inevitably altered in transit? When does state-building fail and why?
Texts
The following books are available for purchase:
• Birth of the Leviathan, Thomas Ertman (Cambridge UP: 1997)
• Blood and Debt: War and the Nation-State in Latin America, Miguel Angel Centeno (Pennsylvania
State UP: 2003).
• Bandits and Bureaucrats: The Ottoman Route to State Centralization, Karen Barkey (Cornell UP:
1997).
• States and Power in Africa, Jeffrey Herbst (Princeton UP: 2000),
• Violent Entrepreneurs: The Use of Force in the Making of Russian Capitalism, Vadim Volkov
(Cornell University Press: 2002)
• State-Directed Development: Political Power and Industrialization in the Global Periphery, Atuhl
Kohli (Cambridge UP: 2004).
• Ordering Power: Contentious Politics and Authoritarian Leviathans in Southeast Asia, Dan Slater
(Cambridge University Press: 2010)
• The Origins of Political Order: From Prehuman Times to the French Revolution, Francis
Fukuyama (FSG, 2011).
Week 1 (January 5): Introduction to the Course
Week 2 (January 12): Definitions and Concepts
• Francis Fukuyama, The Origins of Political Order: From Prehuman Times to the French
Revolution, Chapters 1-4 (pp. 3-79).
• Theda Skocpol, "Bringing the State Back In: Strategies of Analysis in Current Research," in P.
Evans, D. Rueschemeyer, and T. Skocpol (eds.) Bringing the State Back In (Cambridge: 1985): 3-
43. (XEROX)
• Stephen Krasner, "Approaches to the State: Alternative Conceptions and Historical Dynamics,"
Comparative Politics 16 (January 1984): 223-246. (XEROX)
• Timothy Mitchell, "The Limits of the State: Beyond Statist Approaches and their Critics," American
Political Science Review 85 (March 1991): 77-96.
• Otto Hintze, "The State in Historical Perspective," in R. Bendix et al. (eds.) State and Society
(Berkeley: UC Press, 1973): 154-69. (XEROX)
• Max Weber, "Bureaucracy," in Economy and Society (Berkeley: UC Press, 1978): 956-983.
(XEROX)
Week 3 (January 19): Theories of State-Building
• Francis Fukuyama, The Origins of Political Order: From Prehuman Times to the French
Revolution, Chapter 5 (pp. 80-94) & Chapter 30 (pp. 458-483).
• Charles Tilly, "War-Making and State-Making as Organized Crime," in C. Tilly Roads from Past to
Future (Rowman & Littlefield: 1997): 165-192. (XEROX)
• Michael Mann, The Sources of Social Power, Vol. II: The Rise of Classes and Nation-States
(New York: Cambridge UP, 1986): 44-91. (XEROX)
• Mancur Olson, "Dictatorship, Democracy, and Development," American Political Science Review,
87:3 (1993): 567-76.
• Bernard Silberman, Cages of Reason: The Rise of the Rational State in France, Japan, the
United States, and Great Britain (Chicago: University of Chicago, 1993): pp. 1-84, focus your
attention on pp. 34-84. (XEROX)
• A. Kohli, State-Directed Development, Introduction, pp. 1-24.
Recommended:
• Douglass North and Barry Weingast, "Constitutions and Commitment: The Evolution of
Institutions Governing Public Choice in Seventeenth-Century England," Journal of Economic
History (December 1989): 803-32.
• Charles Tilly, Coercion, Capital, and European States: AD 990-1990, (Basil Blackwell 1990):
Chapter 1 "Cities and States in World History," pp. 1-37.
Available for viewing on the internet:
An interview with Michael Mann as part of UC Berkeley's "Conversations with History" Series.
Week 4 (January 26): A Schematic Picture of European State-Building
• Thomas Ertman. Birth of the Leviathan. (Cambridge: CUP, 1997).
• Francis Fukuyama, The Origins of Political Order: From Prehuman Times to the French
Revolution, Chapters 16-19 (pp. 229-289) & Chapter 22 (pp. 321-335).
• Otto Hintze, "The Nature of Feudalism," in Frederic Cheyette (ed.), Lordship and Community in
Medieval Europe (New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1968): 22-31. (XEROX)
• Daniel Ziblatt (2004), "Rethinking the Origins of Federalism: Puzzle, Theory, and Evidence from
Nineteenth-Century Europe," World Politics 57(1): 70–98.
Recommended:
• Max Weber, "The Social Causes of the Decline of Ancient Civilization," in: idem, The Agrarian
Sociology of Ancient Civilizations (London: Verso, 1988): 389-411.
• Otto Brunner, "Feudalism: The History of a Concept," in Frederic Cheyette (ed.), Lordship and
Community in Medieval Europe (New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1968): 32-56.
• Otto Hintze, "Calvinism and Raison d'Etat in Early Seventeenth Century Brandenburg," in Felix
Gilbert (ed.), The Historical Essays of Otto Hintze (New York: Oxford UP, 1975): 88-107.
• Otto Hintze, "The Preconditions of Representative Government in the Context of World History,"
in Felix Gilbert (ed.), The Historical Essays of Otto Hintze (New York: Oxford UP, 1975): 302-353.
• Perry Anderson, Lineages of the Absolutist State.
Available for viewing on the internet:
An interview with Perry Anderson as part of UC Berkeley's "Conversations with History" Series.
Week 5 (February 2): State-Building on Europe's Periphery: The Ottoman Empire
• Karen Barkey, Bandits and Bureaucrats: The Ottoman Route to State Centralization.
• Francis Fukuyama, The Origins of Political Order: From Prehuman Times to the French
Revolution, Chapters 13-15 (pp. 189-228) & Chapter 19 (276-289).
Week 6 (February 9): Latin America
• Miguel Angel Centeno, Blood and Debt: War and the Nation-State in Latin America
• A. Kohli, State-Directed Development, Chs. 4-5, pp. 127-217.
• Guillermo O'Donnell, "The Browning of Latin America," New Perspectives Quarterly, Fall93, Vol.
10 Issue 4: 50-53.
• Francis Fukuyama, Political Order and Political Decay: From the Industrial Revolution to the
Globalization of Democracy, Chapters 17-18 (pp. 259-284). (XEROX)
Week 7 (February 16): Paper Prospectus Workshop
• Paper prospectus due in class.
Week 8 (February 23): Africa
• Jeffrey Herbst, States and Power in Africa
• A. Kohli, State-Directed Development, Chs. 8-9, pp. 291-366.
• Francis Fukuyama, Political Order and Political Decay: From the Industrial Revolution to the
Globalization of Democracy, Chapters 19-230 (pp. 285-312). (XEROX)
Recommended:
• William Reno, "Clandestine Economies, Violence and States in Africa," Journal of International
Affairs 53(Spring 2000): 433-59.
SPRING BREAK (March 1)
Week 9 (March 8): Asia
• Dan Slater, Ordering Power: Contentious Politics and Authoritarian Leviathans in Southeast Asia
• Atul Kohli, State-Directed Development, Chs. 1-3, pp. 27-123.
• Francis Fukuyama, Political Order and Political Decay: From the Industrial Revolution to the
Globalization of Democracy, Chapter 23 (pp. 335-353). (XEROX)
Recommended:
• David Waldner, State-Building and Late Development (Ithaca, NY: Cornell UP, 1999): chapter 6,
pp. 125-52.
• Alice Amsden, "The State and Taiwan's Economic Development," in P. Evans, D. Rueschemeyer,
and T. Skocpol (eds.) Bringing the State Back In (Cambridge: 1985): 79-106.
Week 10 (March 15): Postcommunist State-Building
• Vadim Volkov, Violent Entrepreneurs: The Use of Force in the Making of Russian Capitalism
(Cornell UP: 2002)
• Conor O'Dwyer, "Runaway State-Building: How Political Parties Shape States in Postcommunist
Eastern Europe," World Politics 56 (July 2004): 520-53.
• K. Darden and A. Grzymała-Busse (2006), "The Great Divide: Literacy, Nationalism, and the
Communist Collapse," World Politics 59(1): 83-115.
• Francis Fukuyama, The Origins of Political Order: From Prehuman Times to the French
Revolution, Chapters 25-26 (pp. 373-401).
Recommended:
• Preying on the State: The Transformation of Bulgaria After 1989, Venelin Ganev (Cornell UP:
2007).
Week 11 (March 22): Presentations of Paper Projects (Part 1)
Week 12 (March 29): Presentations of Paper Projects (Part 2)
Week 13 (April 5): Presentations of Paper Projects (Part 3)
Week 15 (April 19) Summing Up
• Atul Kohli, State-Directed Development, Conclusion, pp. 367-425.
• Francis Fukuyama, Political Order and Political Decay: From the Industrial Revolution to the
Globalization of Democracy, Chapter 26 (pp. 386-396) & Chapters 35-36 (pp. 506-548). (XEROX)
• Papers due on April 19 in class. Submit one hard copy in class and one electronic copy by
email.
