The cartel system of states: an economic theory of international politics
In: Oxford scholarship online
In: Political Science
Why are the citizens of neighboring regions that lie across an international border often subject to very different governance systems? Avidit Acharya and Alexander Lee provide a powerful and field-shaping theory to address a fundamental issue in world politics: the character of the territorial nation-state. They contend that the defining feature of the modern territorial state system works as an economic cartel in which states have local, bounded monopolies in governing their citizens.