Periodic Reporting for period 1 - LEGACIES (LEGACIES : Understanding how historical states have shaped modern institutions and dissent)
Reporting period: 2022-06-01 to 2024-11-30
Today's political map is divided into approximately 200 sovereign states separated by clear, agreed upon borders. In the 18th and 19th century there were hundreds more states, most of which no longer appear on modern maps. What legacies have these historical states left on the modern world? How have the Sokoto Caliphate, Aceh or Annam shaped the trajectories of Nigeria, Indonesia, and Vietnam? Existing studies show that historical states have influenced modern-day peace, development and democracy, but make contradictory findings, which, we argue, reflect unsustainable assumptions about statehood and sovereignty that underpin current quantitative research on the topic. Moreover, researchers do not have a systematically collected, global map of historical states upon which to base empirical analyses. Researchers cannot answer basic questions like: how many states were there in 1823, and, where did these states rule? We simply don’t know where states in Africa, South Asia, and South-East Asia were, and, as such, cannot estimate their general impact on the modern world.
In the LEGACIES project, we will map historical statehood globally from 1750-1920 by building the most comprehensive dataset of sovereign states from 1750-1920 and a new method of mapping historical states that matches the realities of statehood in 18th and 19th century international systems. Our method is simple but powerful. We aggregate maps of historical states to create continuous measures of state presence that capture variations in the topography of statehood prior to the global expansion of the sovereign state system around 1920. Our method works because 19th century cartographers and 20th century historians and academics have rendered historical states with two-dimensional Cartesian methods using varying concepts of the state that produce different estimates of its extent. It’s only when we combine these efforts that a more complete picture of historical state presence emerges.
The historical system has never been mapped in this way and our simple, accurate and powerful method for doing so opens this possibility for the first time. Using the LEGACIES data, we will explore the largely unexamined topics of how historical statehood shaped anti-state resistance networks and democracy in the modern world, drawing on the new wave of data on protest, armed conflict, and democratization. These analyses are underpinned by a new theoretical framework for understanding how historical states have shaped modern institutions and dissent. We highlight the institutions, symbols, and elite networks that historical states can transmit to the modern world and the interplay between historical states, colonial states and modern states. The LEGACIES project will transform how scholars see and study the international systems of the 18th and 19th centuries and develop new knowledge on how old (and often dead) states have shaped the social and political contours of the modern world.
In the LEGACIES project, we will map historical statehood globally from 1750-1920 by building the most comprehensive dataset of sovereign states from 1750-1920 and a new method of mapping historical states that matches the realities of statehood in 18th and 19th century international systems. Our method is simple but powerful. We aggregate maps of historical states to create continuous measures of state presence that capture variations in the topography of statehood prior to the global expansion of the sovereign state system around 1920. Our method works because 19th century cartographers and 20th century historians and academics have rendered historical states with two-dimensional Cartesian methods using varying concepts of the state that produce different estimates of its extent. It’s only when we combine these efforts that a more complete picture of historical state presence emerges.
The historical system has never been mapped in this way and our simple, accurate and powerful method for doing so opens this possibility for the first time. Using the LEGACIES data, we will explore the largely unexamined topics of how historical statehood shaped anti-state resistance networks and democracy in the modern world, drawing on the new wave of data on protest, armed conflict, and democratization. These analyses are underpinned by a new theoretical framework for understanding how historical states have shaped modern institutions and dissent. We highlight the institutions, symbols, and elite networks that historical states can transmit to the modern world and the interplay between historical states, colonial states and modern states. The LEGACIES project will transform how scholars see and study the international systems of the 18th and 19th centuries and develop new knowledge on how old (and often dead) states have shaped the social and political contours of the modern world.
At the time of writing are close to completion of WP1 (identifying states) and WP2 (mapping states) and have made progress on WP3 (historical states and dissent) and WP4 (historical states and democratization).
The project team is approaching completion WP1. At the time of writing, we have researched 687 candidate states across Africa, Central, South, East, and Southeast Asia, the Americas, and Oceania, and will complete Europe by Y3, Q1. Detailed data on 540 polities has been collected, of which, 526 were independent states at some point between 1750-1920, the vast majority of which are outside of Europe and the Americas. This number will increase as we finish Europe and WP1.
For WP2 we have coded 11,391 polygons of historical states from 821 unique primary and secondary source maps, representing 448 historical states across Africa, Asia, the Middle East, and Oceania. We are on track to finish WP2 on schedule.
For WP3 we have developed initial theory and presented preliminary results at the International Studies Association (ISA) Annual Convention in San Francisco in April 2024.
For WP4, PI Butcher has presented new theory and preliminary evidence linking variations in historical state inhertances at the ISA annual convention in Montreal in March 2023, San Francisco in April 2024, the Peace Research Institute Oslo in December 2023, and the University of Zurich in December 2023.
Butcher and Griffiths have completed a book manuscript titled "Before Colonization: Before Colonization: Non-Western States and Systems in the Nineteenth Century", which has been accepted for publication with Columbia University Press and will be released in 2025. The book draws upon work completed in WP1 and WP2.
The project team is approaching completion WP1. At the time of writing, we have researched 687 candidate states across Africa, Central, South, East, and Southeast Asia, the Americas, and Oceania, and will complete Europe by Y3, Q1. Detailed data on 540 polities has been collected, of which, 526 were independent states at some point between 1750-1920, the vast majority of which are outside of Europe and the Americas. This number will increase as we finish Europe and WP1.
For WP2 we have coded 11,391 polygons of historical states from 821 unique primary and secondary source maps, representing 448 historical states across Africa, Asia, the Middle East, and Oceania. We are on track to finish WP2 on schedule.
For WP3 we have developed initial theory and presented preliminary results at the International Studies Association (ISA) Annual Convention in San Francisco in April 2024.
For WP4, PI Butcher has presented new theory and preliminary evidence linking variations in historical state inhertances at the ISA annual convention in Montreal in March 2023, San Francisco in April 2024, the Peace Research Institute Oslo in December 2023, and the University of Zurich in December 2023.
Butcher and Griffiths have completed a book manuscript titled "Before Colonization: Before Colonization: Non-Western States and Systems in the Nineteenth Century", which has been accepted for publication with Columbia University Press and will be released in 2025. The book draws upon work completed in WP1 and WP2.
For WP1, identifying states from 1750-1920 represents the most comprehensive and accurate register of independent states in the 1750-1920 period, correcting a Eurocentric bias in existing quantitative data efforts, providing a new picture of the evolution of the international system in the 18th and 19th centuries, and facilitating new and more accurate measurements of historical state inheritances. WP1 also provides the first picture of the international system in the 1750-1815 period based on systematically and transparently collected data. To the best of our knowledge, no project has been able to provide such a complete picture of the political evolution of states on a global scale.
Mapping states by aggregating primary and secondary source maps into estimates of state presence in WP2 represents a significant acheivement because our method overcomes the challenge of representing historical state presence where agreed-upon borders were uncommon and patterns of decentralized rule created indeterminate boundaries. In these cases, no single line can demarcate the territory of one state from another under and there is no single map that can accurately represent state presence. This significant achievement represents historical states as they were and not as 2D imaginaries may have rendered them.
Taken together, WP1 and WP2 transform our picture of the historical interstate system and open understudied regions of the globe in the 18th and 19th centuries to systematic, quantitative enquiry and testing. We have used the data so far to create grid-cell estimates of state presence, flexible estimates of historical state boundaries, and new indicators of the historical state inheritances of modern states. This is a substantial achievement as the historical international system has not been represented – in our view – as accurately as our method achieves. These spatial data enable us to develop never before seen images of the international system prior to – and on the eve of – European colonialism.
Our preliminary work related to WP3 and WP4 is promising. In WP4 we have connected fragmented disrtributions of historical states to higher average experiences with democracy with promising initial results. For WP3 we have generated new theory on how historical states might be related to nonviolent forms of dissent, which is a hitherto unexplored area.
Mapping states by aggregating primary and secondary source maps into estimates of state presence in WP2 represents a significant acheivement because our method overcomes the challenge of representing historical state presence where agreed-upon borders were uncommon and patterns of decentralized rule created indeterminate boundaries. In these cases, no single line can demarcate the territory of one state from another under and there is no single map that can accurately represent state presence. This significant achievement represents historical states as they were and not as 2D imaginaries may have rendered them.
Taken together, WP1 and WP2 transform our picture of the historical interstate system and open understudied regions of the globe in the 18th and 19th centuries to systematic, quantitative enquiry and testing. We have used the data so far to create grid-cell estimates of state presence, flexible estimates of historical state boundaries, and new indicators of the historical state inheritances of modern states. This is a substantial achievement as the historical international system has not been represented – in our view – as accurately as our method achieves. These spatial data enable us to develop never before seen images of the international system prior to – and on the eve of – European colonialism.
Our preliminary work related to WP3 and WP4 is promising. In WP4 we have connected fragmented disrtributions of historical states to higher average experiences with democracy with promising initial results. For WP3 we have generated new theory on how historical states might be related to nonviolent forms of dissent, which is a hitherto unexplored area.