Regional Inequalities and Spatial Integration: Essays on the Political Economy of Europe, 1629-2022

Abstract

How do regional inequalities and spatial integration affect political and economic outcomes? This dissertation explores the changing relationship between the center and the periphery of the state in the last four centuries of European history. In "Elite Social Networks and State Building," we show that in the 17th and 18th century, social connections between the center and the periphery's elites contributed to the development of a modern state apparatus in the Venetian Republic. In "The Diffusion of Ideas," I show that in the 19th century, spatial connections resulting from new infrastructure allowed relatively small German towns to become world-class centers of knowledge creation. In "Citizen Uncertainty and Democratic Backsliding," we show that in the present day, the urban-rural divide in Poland comes with diverging interpretations of the meaning of democracy and of the consequences of institutional reforms.