Rein Taagepera and Miroslav Nemčok present their new book on the relationship between world population and empire sizes

On 18 September, Rein Taagepera and Miroslav Nemčok present their new book "More People Fewer States. The Past and Future of World Population and Empire Sizes" about the population growth and empire-size changes across 5000 years of world history. The event will be held in English.

Time: 18 September, 16.00 - 17.00
Place: Tartu, Lossi 36, room 215

The long-term development of political systems over extended time periods has not received the attention it deserves. More People, Fewer States, examines world history through population explosion and empire-size changes across 5,000 years of socio-technological development, revealing three distinct phases: Runner, Rider, and Engineer Empires. A careful comparative study reveals a hitherto unnoticed pattern of expansion according to which the Ancient Egyptian Achaemenid, Caliphate, Mongol and British empires each achieved record empire sizes. If past trends persist, barring the potentially disruptive effects of climate change, a single world state might be expected to emerge by around 4600. Focusing on the population dynamics and area metrics of states, this book provides a novel framework for evaluating the growth, structure, and decline of empires. It not only illuminates ancient history, it also projects the distant future, making it an essential read for scholars interested in the long-term evolution of political systems.

Rein Taagepera is professor emeritus at the University of Tartu and the University of California, Irvine. He received the 2008 Johan Skytte Prize – the highest distinction in political science worldwide, and the Karl Deutsch Award from the International Political Science Association (2016). His books include Predicting Party Sizes (2007), Making Social Sciences More Scientific (2008), and (with Matthew Shugart) Votes from Seats: Logical Models of Electoral Systems (2017). In 1992, he received 23 percent of the votes in Estonia’s presidential elections and was the founding dean of a new Western-style Faculty of Social Sciences at the University of Tartu.

Miroslav Nemčok is a postdoctoral fellow at the Department of Political Science, University of Political Science, University of Oslo. His research addresses a variety of topics – ranging from comparative political institutions and party politics to the people’s experiences with political systems – which all tackle the question of why people support democratic systems.

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