This article reviews the literature on historical persistence in political science and the related
social sciences. Historical persistence refers to causal effects that (a) operate over time …

A recent wave of research in political science examines the past using statistical methods for
causal inference and formal theory—a field widely known as historical political economy …

We provide an abstract model of the interaction between culture and political institutions.
The model is designed to study the political economy of elites and civil society on the …

Understanding the political consequences of civil war exposure is a challenging task, given
the myriad of overlapping and at times divergent mechanisms involved. This article provides …

During the last millennium BCE, central places were founded across many regions of
western (non-Maya) Mesoamerica. These early central places differed in environmental …

Since the early years of the 21st century, economists have started to look for the historical
roots of current economic outcomes. In this article, we deal with this new approach (called …

This article serves as an introduction to the special issue devoted to historical continuities in
Eurasia and different conceptualizations of the communist legacies. It highlights the main …

Historical persistence refers to the idea that historical causes can have effects that persist
long into the future. There is a rich tradition of research on historical persistence in political …

Non-technical summary Cities in the distant past–as documented by archaeologists and
historians–provide an extensive record of urban successes and failures, yet this information …

For most of human history, free wage labor was uncommon compared to various coercive
institutions based on the threat of force. Latin America was no exception to this general rule …