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What is a despotic Leviathan?
We characterize, say China right the way back since the first dynasty as a despotic Leviathan, where the operators of the state and the institutions of the state completely dominate society. Another possibility, the kind of stock opposite to that would be where society dominates the state. Now think of Yemen. In Yemen, there's never really been a centralized state, which has any authority over society. Society is kind of organized around kinship groups and tribes that are armed. They organize and provide public goods, completely independent of the state. And that's true of many parts of the world. In Sub-Saharan Africa, think of Lebanon, think of larger parts of the Philippines or Pakistan or Nepal. So that's not a strange anomaly, it's present in the modern world and it's very prevalent historically, so we call that the absent Leviathan. And so state dominate society or society dominates the state and in between, and this is the key to kind of liberty or creating what we call the shackled Leviathan, the third type of state is this balance between state and society.
What are the two types of institutions?
Robinson and Acemoglu said there are two kinds of institutions, extractive and inclusive. Understanding how they work creates a useful framework for figuring out why nations succeed or why they fail. We'll start with extractive institutions.
What is path dependence?
Path dependence, that once you get a particular constellation of institutions in a society, that does tend to reproduce itself. So that's why you have this divergence, not convergence. Now, of course, it's also true that societies do go out of the corridor. So particularly we talk about the German case. So I'd mentioned the Germanic tribes. So you might think, okay, Germany, Germany should be in the corridor and it is in the long run. But also if you think about German history, there's clear moments where they went south of the corridor. Think about the Nazi state. 15 years, there's a bottom up push out of the state. That's an interesting example of disillusionment with institutions, the inability of institutions to resolve conflicts, to resolve economic problems, the crisis of the depression and the hyperinflation.
What is a successful country?
Successful countries, in our view, are just countries that managed to generate high levels of living standards for their people and failed countries are countries that don't, where there's mass poverty and deprivation.
What is Big Brains podcast?
From the University of Chicago, this is Big Brains, a podcast about the pioneering research and pivotal breakthroughs that are reshaping our world. On this episode, James Robinson and the prosperity and poverty of nations. I'm your host, Paul Rand.
What book did Jared Diamond write about the failure of some nations?
Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond is certainly one of those books. It redefined the way we thought about human history by arguing that some nations succeeded while others failed because of their geographic locations and available natural resources.
When did apartheid start?
Apartheid really began in 1948, but separating black Africans from the white minority had long been a policy aim. Laws made white people officially superior, and the large black majority faced discrimination in every aspect of their lives.
