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Reflections on the Origins of the Polis

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Author Info
Carl Lyttkens ()
Abstract

From a beginning of small isolated settlements around 1000 B.C., the city-state (polis) emerged in Greece in the course of four centuries as a political, geographical and judicial unit, with an assembly, council, magistrates and written laws. Using a rational-actor perspective, it is shown how this process was driven by competition among the members of the elite. A crucial ingredient was the gradual consolidation of boundaries, which contributed to population growth, inter-state conflicts, colonisation and competition for power. Variations over time in the conditions for competition explain both the introduction of formal political institutions and their overthrow by tyrants. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2006

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File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/s10602-006-6792-z
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Publisher Info
Article provided by Springer in its journal Constitutional Political Economy.

Volume (Year): 17 (2006)
Issue (Month): 1 (03)
Pages: 31-48
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Handle: RePEc:kap:copoec:v:17:y:2006:i:1:p:31-48

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Related research
Keywords: Institutional change; Ancient Greece; City-state; Competition; D70; N43; P14; P16;

References listed on IDEAS
Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:

  1. Greif, Avner, 1994. "On the Political Foundations of the Late Medieval Commercial Revolution: Genoa During the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 54(02), pages 271-287, June. [Downloadable!]
  2. Douglass C. North, 1994. "The Historical Evolution of Polities," Economic History 9411007, EconWPA, revised 14 Dec 1994. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  3. Yoram Barzel, 2000. "Property rights and the evolution of the state," Economics of Governance, Springer, vol. 1(1), pages 25-51, 03.
  4. Greif, Avner, 1994. "Cultural Beliefs and the Organization of Society: A Historical and Theoretical Reflection on Collectivist and Individualist Societies," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 102(5), pages 912-50, October. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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This page was last updated on 2009-11-19.

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