Why do states fragment and break apart? : an historical sociology of eight cases (eighteenth to the twentieth century)
Author(s)
Bibliographic Information
Why do states fragment and break apart? : an historical sociology of eight cases (eighteenth to the twentieth century)
Edwin Mellen Press, c2010
Available at 3 libraries
  Aomori
  Iwate
  Miyagi
  Akita
  Yamagata
  Fukushima
  Ibaraki
  Tochigi
  Gunma
  Saitama
  Chiba
  Tokyo
  Kanagawa
  Niigata
  Toyama
  Ishikawa
  Fukui
  Yamanashi
  Nagano
  Gifu
  Shizuoka
  Aichi
  Mie
  Shiga
  Kyoto
  Osaka
  Hyogo
  Nara
  Wakayama
  Tottori
  Shimane
  Okayama
  Hiroshima
  Yamaguchi
  Tokushima
  Kagawa
  Ehime
  Kochi
  Fukuoka
  Saga
  Nagasaki
  Kumamoto
  Oita
  Miyazaki
  Kagoshima
  Okinawa
  Korea
  China
  Thailand
  United Kingdom
  Germany
  Switzerland
  France
  Belgium
  Netherlands
  Sweden
  Norway
  United States of America
Note
Includes bibliographical references (p. 263-277) and index
Description and Table of Contents
Description
This comparative analysis demonstrates how state fragmentation results from a causal chain of geopolitical strains, resource shortfalls, intra-elite conflict, and the deficiency of a central government's coercive capability to hold the society together. The emergence process of new sovereign states is also discussed. State fragmentation constitutes a major portion of social change in a long span of world history. Such social change raises two questions. One is why in the midst of a revolution some states fragmented territorially while others stayed intact? Another question is why some states broke up in violence while others underwent a peaceful separation? "State Fragmentation: Geopolitics and Social Change" attempts to address these issues both theoretically and empirically from a geopolitical perspective, yet with a sociological focus on how 'politics works from outside in' to bring about the change within the state. Eight historical cases from the 18th century through the 20th century are selected for a comparative analysis.
The objective is to illustrate the main thesis that the geopolitical rise and fall of a state depend upon its geo-positional advantage and disadvantage in the world system, and this geo-positional power of the state, while interacting with other critical socio-economic factors, have generated dynamic forces of change, leading to either state fragmentation or state formation. The comparative analysis is specifically intended to demonstrate how state fragmentation results from a causal chain of geopolitical strains, resource shortfalls, intra-elite conflict, and the deficiency of the central government's coercive capability to hold the society together. On the other hand, as the author contends, it is the overall crisis of old state's territorial fragmentation that often serves as a breeding ground for the emergence of new sovereign states.
by "Nielsen BookData"