Disputing Strategies in Medieval Scandinavia (original) (raw)
Disputing Strategies in Medieval Scandinavia
AI-generated Abstract
The paper argues that the period from c. 1030 to c. 1160 in Norway, often viewed as unstable and merely a prelude to civil wars, should instead be seen through the lens of integrative conflict, particularly through the analysis of the saga Morkinskinna. It contends that conflicts served to regulate power relations in a decentralized society and posits that external factors, rather than internal instability, were pivotal in the changes occurring post-c. 1160. This perspective challenges traditional historiography and opens up new interpretations of leadership and conflict in medieval Scandinavian society.
Sign up for access to the world's latest research.
checkGet notified about relevant papers
checkSave papers to use in your research
checkJoin the discussion with peers
checkTrack your impact
Related papers
(Norwegian) Historisk Tidsskrift 2003:1, pp. 43-73; and in Offa: Berichte und Mitteilungen zur Urgeschichte, Frühgeschichte und Mittelalterarchäologie, Vol. 58, Neumünster 2003, pp. 179-194
have been devoted to these conflicts and their causes, but little has been done to study them in a Scandinavian perspective. The early accounts of this period all treat them as personal struggles for power between rivals and their adherents. In the twentieth century most historians were not satisfied with such simple and personal explanations, and have, instead, looked for more fundamental causes, ideological, constitutional, economic or regional. It cannot be denied that such factors had a role, but here it is argued that rivalry for royal power was far more important, and attention is drawn to the individuals involved and the strategies planned by and for them. Throughout Scandinavia these involved the creation of power networks, in which women were not only pawns but also important agents. The
Political Regime Type and Warfare: Evidence from 600 Years of European History
SSRN Electronic Journal
This paper presents new evidence that, historically, the relationship between political regime type and warfare was different than it is today. Using a novel database of interstate conflict in Europe between 1200 and 1800, we perform the first quantitative analysis of domestic political institutions and warfare across the pre-modern era. We find that early parliamentary regimes-the institutional predecessors of modern democracies-were disproportionately more likely to experience armed conflict than their absolutist counterparts. Our empirical strategy makes use of two complementary approaches: a standard dyadic analysis of conflict initiation, and a dynamic network analysis that accounts for interdependence between dyads. These analyses show that early parliamentary regimes fought in significantly more wars than absolutist monarchies, both against one another and overall. Such regimes, we argue, had a relatively large capacity to make war, but, unlike modern democracies, not enough institutional constraints to prevent it. * We thank Christian Davenport, James Morrow, Roya Talibova, and seminar participants at George Washington University, the University of Michigan, and MPSA 2016 for valuable comments, and Michael Rochlitz for excellent data help. We gratefully acknowledge financial support from the National Science Foundation (grant SES-1227237) and the Department of Political Science at the University of Michigan.
Loading Preview
Sorry, preview is currently unavailable. You can download the paper by clicking the button above.