Global Slavery in the Making of States and International Orders

J.C. Sharman and Ayşe Zarakol

American Political Science Review, 2024, vol. 118, issue 2, 802-814

Abstract: Despite having key implications for fundamental political science questions, slavery as a global phenomenon has received little attention in the field. We argue that slavery played an important role in state-building and international order formation. To counter a historical U.S./Atlantic bias, we draw evidence mostly from the Middle East, Africa, and Asia. We identify two slave-based paths to state construction. A “slaves as the state” logic saw slave soldiers and administrators used to overcome the constraints of indirect rule in centralizing power. In a “slaves under the state” model the economy was based on slave production, itself underpinned by institutionalized state coercion. Norms often prohibited enslavement within communities, thus externalizing demand. This led to militarized slaving, and fostered increasingly long-distance trade in slaves. The combination of these normative, military, and commercial factors formed international slaving orders.

Date: 2024
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/ ... type/journal_article link to article abstract page (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cup:apsrev:v:118:y:2024:i:2:p:802-814_15

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in American Political Science Review from Cambridge University Press Cambridge University Press, UPH, Shaftesbury Road, Cambridge CB2 8BS UK.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Kirk Stebbing ().