Every country, every subnational government, and every district has a designated
population, and this has a bearing on politics in ways most citizens and policymakers are …

Monarchy was the dominant form of rule in the pre-modern era and it persists in a handful of
countries. We propose a unified theoretical explanation for its rise and decline. Specifically …

This paper considers the contribution of population growth and urbanization---key processes
of modernization---to political competition and the characteristics of political representatives …

This paper considers the political consequences of the dramatic expansion of British
overseas trade beginning in the late 16th century. Using an original individual-level dataset …

Insofar as democracy is a product of long-term diffusion, scholars generally focus on
colonialism (especially English) or religion (especially Protestant). Here, we focus on a third …