Episode 5: A Multi-millennia analysis of Democracy with author David Stasavage
In this episode, we covered the history, first principles & formation of democracy in the world including examples of early democracy and institution-building in the Islamic world, China and Africa.
Did the Greeks actually ‘invent’ democracy? What do we mean by ‘democracy’ anyways? It’s always a caricatured term. How did the Rashidun Caliphates in the early Islamic empire demonstrate democracy? Why did democracy decline from the Abbasids onwards and in China too? Does adopting democracy automatically turbocharge economic development and innovation? Does democracy reduce inequality in society? What are the evidence for all the above claims and counter-claims?
My guest today spent the past 20+ years researching representative institutions and the evolution of democracy across different regions of the world and he’s got an interesting conclusion: democratic thinking even existed in pre-13th century Europe and pre-Magna Carta too.
David Stasavage (@stasavage) is the Dean of Social Sciences at New York University and Professor of Political Science who wrote the recent book The Decline and Rise of Democracy. We talk about in the podcast:
- the first principles and definitions of what we exactly mean by 'democracy'
- a compressed summary of the origins, and pre-17th century non-European early forms of democracy in the Islamic world, China, Africa.
- democracy, institution-building, and state development in early Rashidun Caliphates, Umayyads and Chinese empires.
- Does adopting democracy automatically lead to more economic development and innovation?
- The reasons for the development of late democracy in Europe.
- The reasons for the development of the democratic model in the United States.
- Technology and the future of democracy in the world.
You can listen to it by clicking on your favorite podcast platform of choice as below:
Here are the timestamps for the episode. On some podcast players, you should be able to click the timestamp for the episode.
(00:00) - Episode intro and key moments
(04:55) - Why David wrote a book on the history of Democracy across different regions?
(05:52) - Definitions and first principles of Democracy.
(07:10) - Is democracy a consensus-based system?
(07:45) - First-principles of early vs modern democracy
(08:58) - Examples of early democracy across the world
(09:32) - Compressed summary of the origins of democracy till today
(11:20) - The role of democracy between 7th and 13th CE Islamic world
(14:08) - How decentralized system of governance made democracy possible?
(15:15) - Democratic process of the early Rashidun caliphates
(16:30) - Standardization and unification of democratic policies
(17:11) - How is China's political development different from the rest of Europe and the Islamic world
(21:41) - How is democracy tied to the idea of economic development?
(24:30) - The role of democracy when it comes to technological innovations
(25:48) - Emergence of democracy in Europe
(28:09) - Why were Aristotle's democratic discussions more popular in Europe than in the rest of the world
(29:31) - Impact of Aristotle's democratic theory on early Europe
(30:23) - Does democracy help reduce inequality?
(35:50) - What is bureaucracy?
(37:49) - Mixtures model of democracy
(39:25) - Are there hierarchies in a modern democracy?
(41:54) - Does democracy change forms?
(45:04) - Is autocracy deeply rooted in the culture of political and state development?
(47:14) - Development of the democratic model in the US and the future of democracy
(49:48) - Outro
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