scholarly journals Early investments in state capacity promote persistently higher levels of social capital

2020 ◽  
Vol 117 (20) ◽  
pp. 10755-10761
Author(s):  
Jeffrey L. Jensen ◽  
Adam J. Ramey
Keyword(s):  
Social Capital ◽  
19Th Century ◽  
State Capacity ◽  
Capital Formation ◽  
Early State ◽  
Local Newspapers ◽  
Role Of The State ◽  
Long Run ◽  
Postal Network ◽  
The 19Th Century

Social capital has been shown to positively influence a multitude of economic, political, and social outcomes. Yet the factors that affect long-run social capital formation remain poorly understood. Recent evidence suggests that early state formation, especially investments in state capacity, are positively associated with higher levels of contemporary social capital and other prosocial attitudes. The channels by which early state capacity leads to greater social capital over time are even less understood. We contribute to both questions using the spatial and temporal expansion of the US postal network during the 19th century. We first show that county-level variation in post office density is highly correlated with a bevy of historical and contemporary indicators of social capital (e.g., associational memberships, civic participation, health, and crime). This finding holds even when controlling for historical measures of development and contemporary measures of income, inequality, poverty, education, and race. Second, we provide evidence of an informational mechanism by which this early investment in infrastructural capacity affected long-run social capital formation. Namely, we demonstrate that the expansion of the postal network in the 19th century strongly predicts the historical and contemporary location of local newspapers, which were the primary mode of impersonal information transmission during this period. Our evidence sheds light on the role of the state in both the origins of social capital and the channels by which it persists. Our findings also suggest that the consequences of the ongoing decline in local newspapers will negatively affect social capital.

scholarly journals Los espacios turísticos: producción, experiencias e imaginarios. El caso de la Araucanía andino-lacustre chilena, 1900-1940

2019 ◽  
pp. 219-246
Author(s):  
Pablo Martínez Riquelme
Keyword(s):  
19Th Century ◽  
Space Time ◽  
The State ◽  
The South ◽  
Material Production ◽  
Role Of The State ◽  
Tourist Experience ◽  
Siglo Xix ◽  
The 19Th Century

Los procesos de producción de espacios turísticos se expresan en sendas espacio-temporales, asociadas a una producción material, como las infraestructuras, equipamiento y conectividad, pero también en una producción inmaterial, basada en la difusión de imaginarios territoriales vinculados a la experiencia turística. Se busca analizar dicho proceso, en la Araucanía andino-lacustre chilena, entre 1900-1940, a partir de los relatos de los primeros viajeros con motivaciones turísticas a finales del siglo XIX y el rol de Estado como actor promotor de la turistificación del territorio en el sur de Chile. The processes of production of tourist spaces are expressed in space-time paths, associated with a material production, such as infrastructures, equipment and connectivity, but also in an immaterial production, based on the diffusion of territorial imaginaries linked to the tourist experience. It is sought to analyze this process, in the Chilean Andean-lacustrine Araucanía, between 1900-1940, based on the account of the first travelers with tourist motivations at the end of the 19th century and the role of the State as a promoter of the touristification of the territory in the South of Chile.

Euro-African Trade Relations and Socioeconomic Development in West Africa, 1450–1900

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joseph Inikori
Keyword(s):  
West Africa ◽  
19Th Century ◽  
Socioeconomic Development ◽  
Critical Role ◽  
Positive Contribution ◽  
Trade Relations ◽  
15Th Century ◽  
Long Run ◽  
Commercial Enterprise ◽  
The 19Th Century

Since direct contact between Europeans and West Africans was established in the mid-15th century by the Portuguese, Euro-African trade relations have played a major role in West Africa’s long-run socioeconomic development. This critical role was connected to two totally different kinds of trade conducted by Europeans at different points in time: trade in commodities (the products of West African labor and natural resources) and trade in human captives. The first 200 years (1450–1650) of European commercial enterprise in West Africa were dominated overwhelmingly by trade in commodities; trade in human captives overwhelmingly dominated in the 200 years which followed (1650–1867). Trade in commodities returned with a bang in the last decades of the 19th century (1870–1900). The respective effects of these two trades on the development process in West Africa were as different as the trades themselves. The early trade in commodities contributed positively to the process; the transition from the trade in commodities to the trade in human captives had a disastrous effect; the 19th-century transition to commodity trade made an immense positive contribution. The positive contribution was significantly enhanced by the ending of the socioeconomic crises engendered by the trade in human captives, and by the establishment of general peace (Pax Britannica) by British colonial rule, with its free trade policy. However, the failure of the colonial administration to take advantage of the general increase in real household incomes and purchasing power and encourage domestic manufacturing in the colonies prevented the transformation of short-term growth into structural transformation and long-run development.

2. Before the welfare state

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Garland
Keyword(s):  
Welfare State ◽  
19Th Century ◽  
Social Protection ◽  
Free Market ◽  
Moral Economy ◽  
Welfare States ◽  
Social Provision ◽  
Role Of The State ◽  
The 19Th Century ◽  
The Welfare State

Welfare states emerged in western nations at the end of the 19th century and were fully established in the middle decades of the 20th. But collective social provision in one form or another has been characteristic of societies throughout human history. ‘Before the welfare state’ outlines pre-capitalist societies and explains the social roots of welfare, the expanding role of the state, the end of the old Poor Laws, and the reaction against laissez-faire. By the end of the 19th century, the question of social provision was caught up in a struggle between two opposing principles: the logic of free-market liberalism versus the logic of moral economy and social protection.

Stories and Structures

Paper Trails ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 36-52
Author(s):  
Cameron Blevins
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
19Th Century ◽  
Institutional Arrangements ◽  
Late 19Th Century ◽  
Central Plains ◽  
Railway Line ◽  
The Us ◽  
Postal Network ◽  
The 19Th Century

Chapter 2 follows the story of four siblings as they migrated westward and the role of the US Post in their lives. From the time they were orphaned as children in Ohio, the postal network connected Sarah, Jamie, Delia, and Benjamin Curtis across space. The Curtis siblings joined a migratory wave of people that washed across the western United States during the late 19th century. No matter where they moved, from a railway line on the central plains to a mill town in northern California to a backcountry ranch in Arizona, they could rely on the US Post’s expansive infrastructure to communicate with each other. Across dozens of surviving letters, the US Post’s structural power comes into focus, giving meaning to how its institutional arrangements and wider geography shaped everyday experiences and conditions in the 19th-century West.

scholarly journals Słowiańszczyzna w podręcznikach. Studium socjologiczne nad możliwością budowania alternatywnych narracji historycznych o początkach państwa polskiego

1970 ◽  
pp. 315-334
Author(s):  
Andrzej Kasperek
Keyword(s):  
19Th Century ◽  
Dominant Culture ◽  
Historical Discourse ◽  
Early State ◽  
History Of ◽  
The 19Th Century

What has been undertaken in this study is the problem of narrations, alternative to the predominant historical discourse, about the beginning of Polish statehood. The considerations on the existence of such narrations are situated in the perspective “dominant culture – counterculture”. Some references are made to the research concerning the presentation in history course books and curricula of two events in the history of Poland: the christening of Mieszko I and the so called pagan reaction. What is suggested here is enriching the research conclusions with the issues of Romantic “revelation” and introducing Slavism into the 19th century culture as well as viewing the early state of the Piast dynasty in the Ciril-Methodius tradition. The author formulates the thesis that in the analysed coursebooks and curricula the narration about the early Polish statehood is subordinated to the evolutionaryrevolutionary model of interpreting history.

France and Russia from 1892 to the Present Day: Looking Back on a “Sinusoidal” Relationship

Istoriya ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (11 (109)) ◽  
pp. 0
Author(s):  
Marie-Pierre Rey
Keyword(s):  
19Th Century ◽  
October Revolution ◽  
Military Alliance ◽  
Cultural Proximity ◽  
Long Run ◽  
Political Relations ◽  
Key Word ◽  
The 19Th Century ◽  
Looking Back ◽  
De Gaulle

The contribution endeavors to demonstrate that Franco-Russian relations in the long run have never been linear and that despite a cultural proximity linked to the Francophonie and Francophilia of the Russian elites, political relations have been much more fraught and even conflictual. However, from the last third of the 19th century, a rapprochement took place which led to a military alliance that was brutally ended by the October Revolution.   Decades of distrustful and tense relations followed, before General de Gaulle, from 1965—1966, embarked on a policy of détente, understanding and cooperation beyond the differences of political regimes. It is this Gaullian “paradigm” that remains the key word in Franco-Russian relations to this day.  

Conclusion

Paper Trails ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 157-164
Author(s):  
Cameron Blevins
Keyword(s):  
Federal Government ◽  
20Th Century ◽  
19Th Century ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
The Us ◽  
Postal Network ◽  
American Society ◽  
The 19Th Century ◽  
American Geography ◽  
Society Today

This concluding chapter offers an overview of the US Post and the wider federal government from the early 1900s to the present. Both the US Post and the American state became more centralized and bureaucratic during the 20th century, but elements of the agency model and the challenges of American geography have continued to shape governance through the present. Today, the federal government’s “indirect” workforce outnumbers its “direct” workforce of salaried employees, while the US Postal Service’s ongoing fiscal crisis has seen the re-emergence of elements of the 19th-century postal network and its localized, semi-privatized workforce. The book concludes with lessons that the 19th-century postal system holds for understanding the kind of structural power wielded by technology companies and other large-scale forces that shape American society today.

scholarly journals The Consequences of Radical Reform: The French Revolution

2011 ◽  
Vol 101 (7) ◽  
pp. 3286-3307 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daron Acemoglu ◽  
Davide Cantoni ◽  
Simon Johnson ◽  
James A Robinson
Keyword(s):  
19Th Century ◽  
French Revolution ◽  
Positive Impact ◽  
Institutional Reforms ◽  
Rapid Urbanization ◽  
Radical Reform ◽  
Long Run ◽  
Economic Barriers ◽  
The 19Th Century ◽  
The French Revolution

The French Revolution had a momentous impact on neighboring countries. It removed the legal and economic barriers protecting oligarchies, established the principle of equality before the law, and prepared economies for the new industrial opportunities of the second half of the 19th century. We present within-Germany evidence on the long-run implications of these institutional reforms. Occupied areas appear to have experienced more rapid urbanization growth, especially after 1850. A two-stage least squares strategy provides evidence consistent with the hypothesis that the reforms instigated by the French had a positive impact on growth. JEL: N13, N43, O47

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