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BaldBear_13 t1_j94deyi wrote

I have heard of a hypothesis that geography can determined development path.

The democratic tradition was present in Greece, Rome and Europe. All of these are peninsulas, with mountains or forests in the interior, and plenty of harbors along the coast.

On the other side, several major ancient civilizations were based along a river valley, and were fully autocratic: Egypt, Babylon, China.

Is there a connection? Could be it that river-based civilization made it easier to control movement of both goods and troops, leading to conquest by autocratic ruler?

Are there further examples of counterexamples? Did any actual historian think along those lines?

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laszlo92 t1_j94z636 wrote

The democratic tradition in antiquity is hugely overblown.

Athens of course being the prime example of a democracy, but it has absolutely nothing to do with democracy as we know it today. It’s a democracy based on privilege and wealth.

Same goes for Rome’s Res Publica, which was never a democracy. Just because something was a republic does not mean it’s democratic, and obviously Rome developed to an extremely autocratic state.

I’d argue it’s easier for civilizations to expand fast when connected to rivers. The larger a civilization the sooner it’s autocratic.

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Bentresh t1_j95seep wrote

Additionally, it is not uncommon for monarchies to contain democratic institutions at the local level. For ancient Near Eastern examples, see Andrea Seri’s Local Power in Old Babylonian Mesopotamia and Daniel Fleming’s Democracy's Ancient Ancestors: Mari and Early Collective Governance.

In any case, a geographic argument is rather dubious. It should be noted that early states in Greece like the Mycenaean kingdoms were in fact monarchies, and kingdoms developed in many regions without unifying rivers — the Canaanite city-states of the Levant, the kingdoms of ancient Cyprus like Idalion and Paphos, Elam and the other kingdoms of ancient Iran, the Anatolian city-states of the Early/Middle Bronze Age and the subsequent Hittite empire, etc., to say nothing of societies further afield like the Maya kingdoms of Mesoamerica.

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laszlo92 t1_j95sl9z wrote

Definitely true. If we look at how local cities were governed in the eastern part of the Roman Empire it was basically as democratic as you get in that time.

Organized in what was known as the Boulè, it was basically a democracy of the rich.

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TheGreatOneSea t1_j9564n1 wrote

It's important to remember three things:

  1. Historical democracy was generally diffrent from modern versions, being either exclusively available to aristocrats, or heavily weighed in their favor; and violence was pretty much always an option for deciding disputes if voting didn't go so well. As such, the difference between a kingdom with democratic elements and one without was often more academic than practical.

  2. Historical democracies often gave way to autocracy: Rome most obviously, but even Athens ended up becoming more of an argument against Democracy than for it given the wars it lost to autocrats.

  3. Democratic impulses aren't always obvious: China might not have voted for emperors or bureaucrats, but the idea of the public overthrowing non-virtuous ones is at least as old as Mencius (300 BC,) and massive popular revolts are a common theme in Chinese history. It may not be conventional, but then, western democracy was also built on incompetent autocrats getting overthrown by the people doing the actual work, so most of the world may just have never gotten the chance to do this once Europe started playing king maker.

As to why western democracy emerged and ultimately dominated, there are probably as many theories as historians, and the effect of trade is certainly a major one, but so is the branching effect of gunpowder coming to dominate warfare. There isn't really a simplified answer.

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elmonoenano t1_j98ayaz wrote

This is a version of environmental determinism. It basically comes out of the Victorian "race science" with things like phrenology and it's bunk. It starts from a bad assumption and then works backwards. So, it starts by assuming Anglo Saxon protestant and Nordic peoples are the superior race and then tries to make up evidence to support it.

There was just as much democratic tradition in the Americas, Polynesia, Australia, and Africa, but b/c a decision was already made about those cultures the evidence was either ignored, or more often not even considered. Ideas of tribal communities with all power chiefs was assumed to be their system of governance and that was that.

It was mostly used as a justification of colonialism and imperialism. In the Americas it's also very closely tied to the justifications of genocide and land appropriation of the indigenous residents.

On top of that, it just doesn't make sense. Florida is also a peninsula. Korea is also a peninsula, south east Asia is basically peninsula after peninsula. There's mountains pretty much everywhere and the biggest mountains are in Asia. There's natural harbors along pretty much every coast and some places, like the Gulf of Mexico is basically one big harbor. The Americas were probably the most forested land in the world, and still are. No one is looking at Brazil for examples of democracy.

No respected historians believe it b/c it's so easy to find counterexamples.

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Doctor_Impossible_ t1_j95u9bp wrote

> I have heard of a hypothesis that geography can determined development path.

Is that Jared Diamond I smell?

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GSilky t1_j97hk0y wrote

Your talking about "hydraulic despotism". It might be real, but we can't know for sure. Basically, the despot oversees the water supply for irrigation and, due to the nature of the enterprise, is given full power over it and the society that relies on it. You can see it in other places as well with other resources. Thomas Friedman says the same thing is going on with petroleum, as nations that base their economy on oil almost all have dictatorships.

The reality is that the Hellenic democracies evolved out of despotism, as did Roman republicanism. Urbanism probably had more to do with democratizing Greece and Rome than environment. All the destabilizing able people living in a city rather than on their own lands created a requirement that they all have a chance to exercise power.

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boluroru t1_j971j04 wrote

The problem with that is that only Greece works as an example here. By the time Rome arose many other civilizations had developed in regions with similar geography

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