We are now seeing the beginnings of an answer to the question we started with. It isn’t that we are heading toward the end of history with the inexorable rise of liberty. It isn’t that anarchy will spread around the world uncontrollably. It isn’t even that all countries around the world will succumb to dictatorships, whether digital or just of the good old-fashioned sort. These are all possibilities, and this diversity, rather than convergence to one of these outcomes, is the norm. Nevertheless, there is also a glimmer of hope, because humans are capable of constructing a Shackled Leviathan, which can resolve conflicts, refrain from despotism, and promote liberty by loosening the cage of norms. Indeed, a lot of human progress depends on societies’ ability to build such a state. But building and defending—and controlling—a Shackled Leviathan takes effort, and is always a work in progress, often fraught with danger and instability.
Brief Outline of the Rest of the Book
In this chapter, we introduced the tripartite distinction between the Absent, Despotic, and Shackled Leviathans. In the next chapter, we present the heart of our theory, which concerns the evolution of state-society relations over time. We explain why the emergence of powerful states is often resisted (because people are afraid of despotism) and how societies use their norms, not just to mitigate the possibility of Warre, as we saw in Asante, but also to counter and control state power. We focus on how the Shackled Leviathan emerges in a narrow corridor where society’s involvement in politics creates a balance of power with the state, and illustrate this possibility with the early history of the Greek city-state Athens and the founding of the U.S. Republic. We also draw out some of the implications of our theory, emphasizing how different historical configurations lead to the Absent, Despotic, and Shackled Leviathans. We further show that in our theory it is the Shackled Leviathan, not the despotic sort, that develops the most and the deepest state capacity.
In Chapter 3 we explain why Absent Leviathans may be unstable and yield to political hierarchy in the face of the “will to power”—the desires of some actors to reshape society and accumulate greater political and economic power. We’ll see how these transitions away from stateless societies are a mixed bag for liberty. On the one hand, they bring order and may relax the cage of norms (especially when it is in their way). On the other hand, they introduce unrestrained despotism. Chapter 4 examines the consequences of the Absent and Despotic Leviathans for the economic and social lives of citizens. It explains why economic prosperity is more likely to emerge under the Despotic Leviathan than under either the anarchic conditions of Hobbesian Warre or in the cramped space created by the cage of norms. But we’ll also see that prosperity created by the Despotic Leviathan is both limited and rife with inequities.
Chapter 5 contrasts the workings of the economy under the Absent and Despotic Leviathans to life in the corridor. We’ll see that the Shackled Leviathan creates very different types of economic incentives and opportunities and permits a much greater degree of experimentation and social mobility. We focus on the Italian communes and the ancient Zapotec civilization in the Americas to communicate these ideas and also to highlight that there is nothing uniquely European about Shackled Leviathans. This last point notwithstanding, it is of course the case that most examples of the Shackled Leviathan we have come from Europe. Why is this so?
Chapter 6 explains why several European countries have managed to build broadly participatory societies with capable but still shackled states. Our answer focuses on the factors that led much of Europe toward the corridor during the early Middle Ages as Germanic tribes, especially the Franks, came to invade the lands dominated by the Western Roman Empire after its collapse. We argue that the marriage of the bottom-up, participatory institutions and norms of Germanic tribes and the centralizing bureaucratic and legal traditions of the Roman Empire forged a unique balance of power between state and society, enabling the rise of the Shackled Leviathan. Underscoring the importance of this marriage, very different types of states emerged in parts of Europe where either the Roman tradition or the bottom-up politics of Germanic tribes were absent (such as Iceland or Byzantium). We then trace the path of liberty and the Shackled Leviathan, which had considerable ups and downs and veered out of the corridor on several occasions.
Chapter 7 contrasts the European experience with Chinese history. Despite historic similarities, the early development of a powerful state in China completely removed societal mobilization and political participation. Without these countervailing forces, the Chinese development path closely follows that of the Despotic Leviathan. We trace the economic consequences of this type of state-society relationship both in Chinese history and today, and discuss whether the Shackled Leviathan can emerge in China anytime soon.
Chapter 8 moves to India. Unlike China, India does have a long history of popular participation and accountability. But liberty has been no more successful in taking root in India. We argue this is because of the powerful cage of norms in India, as epitomized by its caste system. Caste relations have not only inhibited liberty but also made it impossible for society to effectively contest power and monitor the state. The caste system has produced a society fragmented against itself and a state that lacks capacity, which is nonetheless unaccountable as the fragmented society remains immobilized and powerless.
Chapter 9 returns to the European experience, but this time to study why some parts of Europe and not others found their way into and stayed in the corridor. In the process of answering this question, we develop another one of the central ideas of the book: the conditional nature of how structural factors influence state-society relationships. We emphasize that the impact of various structural factors, such as economic conditions, demographic shocks, and war, on the development of the state and the economy depend on the prevailing balance between state and society. There are thus no unambiguous conclusions to be drawn about structural factors. We illustrate these ideas by discussing why, starting with similar conditions and facing similar international problems, Switzerland developed a Shackled Leviathan, while Prussia fell under the dominance of the Despotic Leviathan. We contrast these cases with Montenegro, where the state did not play much of a role in either conflict resolution or in organizing economic activity. We apply the same ideas to explain why Costa Rica and Guatemala diverged sharply in the face of nineteenth-century economic globalization, and why the Soviet Union’s collapse led to a diverse set of political paths.
Chapter 10 returns to the development of the American Leviathan. We emphasize that, although the U.S. managed to build a Shackled Leviathan, this was based on a Faustian bargain—the Federalists accepted a Constitution that kept the federal state weak both to appease a society that was concerned about the threat of despotism and to reassure Southern slaveholders who were worried about losing their slaves and assets. This compromise worked, and the U.S. is still in the corridor. But it also led to an unbalanced development of the American Leviathan which, even as it has become a veritable international sea monster, still has only limited capacity in several important domains. This is most visible in the inability or unwillingness of the American Leviathan to protect its citizens from violence. This unbalanced development also led to the American Leviathan’s patchy record in structuring economic policy to ensure equitable gains from economic growth. We’ll see how uneven state development has caused a distorted evolution of the power and capabilities of society, and paradoxically how it created room for the state’s power to evolve in unmonitored and unaccountable ways in some domains (such as national security).