The Incredible Shrinking State

Explaining Change in the Territorial Size of Countries

Bibliographic Data

ID6284533
AuthorsDavid A Lake (0000-0001-7811-5885, Department of Political Science, University of California, San Diego), Angela O’mahony (University of British Columbia)
Year2004
Volume48
Issue5
Pages699-722
Publication date2004-10-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of Conflict Resolution (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0022-0027 • E-ISSN: 1552-8766
PublisherSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/0022002704267766
OpenAlexW2138920100
LanguageEN
Citations received33
References cited29

The effects of economies of scale in government, trade openness, preference heterogeneity, and regime type are used to explain why the average size of states within the international system nearly doubled between 1816 and 1876 and then contracted over the 20th century. No one variable appears to explain the trend fully. Results suggest that the rise in territorial size during the 19th century is the product of a growing number of federal democracies, which tend to be large, and that the decline in average size during the 20th century is the result of a growing number of unitary democracies, which tend to be small. Increasing economies of scale in the 19th century may have led to the rise of large federal democracies, whereas economic liberalism may have allowed unitary democracies to prosper in the 20th century

Development economics · Economic geography · Economics · Economies of scale · Geography · Government (linguistics · International economics · Late 19th century · Openness to experience · Period (music · Political economy · Political science · Resizing · Scale (ratio · State (computer science · Unitary state · Fiscal Policy and Economic Growth · Historical Economic and Social Studies · Law · Local Government Finance and Decentralization