Collective Action in the Formation of Pre-Modern States

Front Cover
Springer Science & Business Media, Oct 30, 2007 - Social Science - 448 pages

Anthropological archaeology and other disciplines concerned with the formation of early complex societies are undergoing a theoretical shift stemming from the realization that the social evolution of complex societies was more varied and complex than imagined.

Given the need for new directions in theory, the book proposes that anthropologists look to political science, especially the rational choice theory of collective action. Collective action theorists propose that state formation results from the strategic behavior of rational and self-interested actors who make up the polity, including a political elite and those outside the official structure of the state. The theory proposes that the form taken by a state will depend on the “bargaining power”, of rulers and taxpayers. Where taxpayers have more resources with which to bargain, it is predicted that rulers will concede benefits to taxpayers and will agree to restrictions on their power.

The authors subject collective action theory to a methodologically rigorous evaluation using systematic cross-cultural analysis based on a world-wide sample of societies. The results presented here indicate strong support for most elements of the theory, but some results, in particular those pertaining to the control of ruler behavior, suggest the possibility that there are contexts in which collective action may play out in ways not anticipated by the theory.

While this type of theoretical modeling is commonly seen in political science research, this volume is unique in its approach from an anthropological and archaeological viewpoint.

From inside the book

Contents

Introduction
1
Selecting a Sample of Societies
4
The Social Actor in Collective Action
12
Archaeological and Historical Contexts
33
Figure
52
Local Histories of the Southeast Asian Societies
56
Figure
61
IndoGangetic Vedic Period and Early Historic Later Vedic Period Second Urbanism Phase
62
Figure A210
311
5
314
77
317
Bugada Figure A27
320
8
325
79
329
81
331
10
332

and rice production in South Asia
69
Figure A28
77
Revenue Sources
112
Operationalizing Internal and External Revenues Summary of Revenue Sources Coding Summary Nupe External Yoruba External Asante Mixed 62
119
68
120
73
129
Public Goods
133
74
149
Figure A29
150
Bureaucratization
165
75
167
Nupe Figure A21 Environment Agriculture and Area 14100 sq km Rural Society and Culture Market System Geography Population WorldEconomy...
195
Table
200
Modes of Control of Principals
203
Is State
249
Cultural Code or Rational Actors in the Evolution
256
Table 101
260
Table 107 Mean values and value ranges for public goods
262
Collective Action Processes at WorldEconomy
266
285
267
114
284
Table 111 Examples of kinds of state involvement in rural
286
Table 121 Bivariate correlation coefficients for public goods
293
12
338
89
340
90
345
15
346
92
347
94
348
98
350
17
352
19
360
107
363
Japan Figure A220
366
21
373
Rome Figure A223
380
limits of the Venetian polity
386
England Figure A225
388
113
396
114
403
Description of Coded Variables and the Coded
404
117
423
252
426
Author Index
439
Copyright

Other editions - View all

Common terms and phrases

About the author (2007)

Dr. Blanton is a professor of Anthropology at Purdue University. He is known for his research on the evolution of pre-Hispanic Mesoamerican civilization, especially in Central Mexico and the Valley of Oaxaca but has also contributed to several more general anthropological topics, including the economics of peasant households and household archaeology, the evolution of market systems in early civilizations, pre-modern world-systems, and cultural ecology. Blanton's recent theoretical and comparative research on the nature of early state formation and political economy is regarded as a new departure that is making a contribution to the current discourse on the evolution of complex human societies. He is a founding member of the Society for Economic Archaeology and has served as its president.

Bibliographic information