These essays focus on the growth of representative institutions and the mechanics of European state finance from the end of the Middle Ages to the French Revolution.

Conflict appears in many forms, from a dictator terrorizing his country to organized crime demanding protection money. Questions and issues addressed in this text include: the conditions which make conflict severe; whether voluntary agreements can avoid future conflict; how the outcome of one war will affect the incentives of countries to wage war in the future; and how dictators hold power. The book provides an overview of existing literature, applies the theory of conflict to new situations, and gives foundations for future work. It should interest both researchers and students studying political economy, public choice, international relations, and comparative politics.

How did today's rich states first establish modern fiscal systems? To answer this question, Political Transformations and Public Finances by Mark Dincecco examines the evolution of political regimes and public finances in Europe over the long term. The book argues that the emergence of efficient fiscal institutions was the result of two fundamental political transformations that resolved long-standing problems of fiscal fragmentation and absolutism. States gained tax force through fiscal centralization and restricted ruler power through parliamentary limits, which enabled them to gather large tax revenues and channel funds toward public services with positive economic benefits. Using a novel combination of descriptive, case study and statistical methods, the book pursues this argument through a systematic investigation of a new panel database that spans eleven countries and four centuries. The book's findings are significant for our understanding of economic history and have important consequences for current policy debates.

Monarchy, Aristocracy and the State in Europe 1300 - 1800 is an important survey of the relationship between monarchy and state in early modern European history. Spanning five centuries and covering England, France, Spain, Germany and Austria, this book considers the key themes in the formation of the modern state in Europe. The relationship of the nobility with the state is the key to understanding the development of modern government in Europe. In order to understand the way modern states were formed, this book focusses on the implications of the incessant and costly wars which European governments waged against each other, which indeed propelled the modern state into being. Monarchy, Aristocracy and the State in Europe 1300-1800 takes a fascinating thematic approach, providing a useful survey of the position and role of the nobility in the government of states in early modern Europe.

This Handbook re-examines the concept of early modern history in a European and global context. The term 'early modern' has been familiar, especially in Anglophone scholarship, for four decades and is securely established in teaching, research, and scholarly publishing. More recently, however, the unity implied in the notion has fragmented, while the usefulness and even the validity of the term, and the historical periodisation which it incorporates, have been questioned. The Oxford Handbook of Early Modern European History, 1350-1750 provides an account of the development of the subject during the past half-century, but primarily offers an integrated and comprehensive survey of present knowledge, together with some suggestions as to how the field is developing. It aims both to interrogate the notion of 'early modernity' itself and to survey early modern Europe as an established field of study. The overriding aim will be to establish that 'early modern' is not simply a chronological label but possesses a substantive integrity. Volume II is devoted to 'Cultures and Power', opening with chapters on philosophy, science, art and architecture, music, and the Enlightenment. Subsequent sections examine 'Europe beyond Europe', with the transformation of contact with other continents during the first global age, and military and political developments, notably the expansion of state power.

One of the great paradoxes of post-medieval Europe, is why instead of bringing peace to a disorganised and violent world, modernity instead produced a seemingly endless string of conflicts and social upheavals. Why was it that the foundation and institutionalisation of secured peace and the rule of law seemed to go hand-in-hand with the proliferation of war and the violation of individual and collective rights? In order to try to better understand such profound questions, this volume explores the history and theories of political thought of international relations in the seventeenth century, a period in which many of the defining features and boundaries of modern Europe where fixed and codified. With the discovery of the New World, and the fundamental impact of the Reformation, the complexity of international relations increased considerably. Reactions to these upheavals resulted in a range of responses intended to address the contradictions and conflicts of the anarchical society of states. Alongside the emergence of "modern" international law, the equation of international relations with the state of nature, and the development of the "balance of power", diplomatic procedures and commercial customs arose which shaped the emerging (and current) international system of states. Employing a multidisciplinary approach to address these issues, this volume brings together political scientists, philosophers, historians of political thought, jurists and scholars of international relations. What emerges is a certain tension between the different strands of research which allows for a fruitful new synthesis. In this respect the assembled essays in this volume offer a sophisticated and fresh account of the interactions of law, conflict and the nation state in an early-modern European context.

The Handbook of Social Choice and Welfare presents, in two volumes, essays on past and on-going work in social choice theory and welfare economics. The first volume consists of four parts. In Part 1 (Arrovian Impossibility Theorems), various aspects of Arrovian general impossibility theorems, illustrated by the simple majority cycle first identified by Condorcet, are expounded and evaluated. It also provides a critical survey of the work on different escape routes from impossibility results of this kind. In Part 2 (Voting Schemes and Mechanisms), the operation and performance of voting schemes and cost-sharing mechanisms are examined axiomatically, and some aspects of the modern theory of incentives and mechanism design are expounded and surveyed. In Part 3 (structure of social choice rules), the positional rules of collective decision-making (the origin of which can be traced back to a seminal proposal by Borda), the game-theoretic aspects of voting in committees, and the implications of making use of interpersonal comparisons of welfare (with or without cardinal measurability) are expounded, and the status of utilitarianism as a theory of justice is critically examined. It also provides an analytical survey of the foundations of measurement of inequality and poverty. In order to place these broad issues (as well as further issues to be discussed in the second volume of the Handbook) in perspective, Kotaro Suzumura has written an extensive introduction, discussing the historical background of social choice theory, the vistas opened by Arrow's Social Choice and Individual Values, the famous "socialist planning" controversy, and the theoretical and practical significance of social choice theory. The primary purpose of this Handbook is to provide an accessible introduction to the current state of the art in social choice theory and welfare economics. The expounded theory has a strong and constructive message for pursuing human well-being and facilitating collective decision-making. *Advances economists' understanding of recent advances in social choice and welfare *Distills and applies research to a wide range of social issues *Provides analytical material for evaluating new scholarship *Offers consolidated reviews and analyses of scholarship in a framework that encourages synthesis--

How did representative institutions become the central organs of governance in Western Europe? What enabled this distinctive form of political organization and collective action that has proved so durable and influential? The answer has typically been sought either in the realm of ideas, in the Western tradition of individual rights, or in material change, especially the complex interaction of war, taxes, and economic growth. Common to these strands is the belief that representation resulted from weak ruling powers needing to concede rights to powerful social groups. Boucoyannis argues instead that representative institutions were a product of state strength, specifically the capacity to deliver justice across social groups. Enduring and inclusive representative parliaments formed when rulers could exercise power over the most powerful actors in the land and compel them to serve and, especially, to tax them. The language of rights deemed distinctive to the West emerged in response to more effectively imposed collective obligations, especially on those with most power.

This volume argues that the crisis of the European Union is not merely a fiscal crisis but reveals and amplifies deeper flaws in the structure of the EU itself. It is a multidimensional crisis of the economic, legal and political cornerstones of European integration and marks the end of the technocratic mode of integration which has been dominant since the 1950s. The EU has a weak political and administrative centre, relies excessively on governance by law, is challenged by increasing heterogeneity and displays increasingly interlocked levels of government. During the crisis, it has become more and more asymmetrical and has intervened massively in domestic economic and legal systems. A team of economists, lawyers, philosophers and political scientists analyze these deeper dimensions of the European crisis from a broader theoretical perspective with a view towards contributing to a better understanding and shaping the trajectory of the EU.

Safeguarding public interest was vital to early modern state legitimacy in Western Europe and East Asia. Wenkai He identifies similar patterns in state-society interactions surrounding public goods provision and explores how conflicts over public interest led to calls for fundamental political change and to modern representative politics.