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Author: | Lachmann, R. |
Title: | Elite Self-Interest and Economic Decline in Early Modern Europe |
Journal: | American Sociological Review
2003 : JUN, VOL. 68:3, p. 346-372 |
Index terms: | EUROPE THEORIES ECONOMIC HISTORY |
Language: | eng |
Abstract: | The paper answers the question why the leading economic power of its time loses its dominance. Competing theories are tested through a comparison of four historical cases-the Florentine city-state, the Spanish empire, and the Dutch and British nation-states. Institutional context determined social actors' capacities to apply their polities' human and material resources to foreign economic competition. Specifically, the dominant elites in each polity established the social relations and institutions that protected them from domestic challenges from rival elites and classes. But these relations and institutions had the effect of limiting elites' capacities to adapt to foreign economic rivals: Elites acting locally determined their capacities to act globally. |
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