ENVIRONMENTAL-INFLUENCES ON DEMOCRACY - ARIDITY, WARFARE, AND A REVERSAL OF THE CAUSAL ARROW

The origins of autocracy in hydraulic civilization and the threat of w ar emerging from many land borders lead to an examination of two envir onmental sources of democracy-rainfall and sea borders. Karl Wittfogel 's theory of Eastern autocracy arising from the need for centralized i rrigation systems is generalized to include rainfall as a correlate of democracy. Findings concerning the absence of warfare between democra cies are used to reverse the causal arrow and suggest that warfare is inimical to democratic development. Four ancient civilizations, Sumer, Mesoamerica, Crete, and China, are examined for the existence of earl y democracy and its inhibition by the onset of widespread warfare. Rai nfall and sea borders as two dimensions of minimized environmental thr eat are tested systematically in a multivariate analysis, along with t wo societal variables, land inequality and economic development. The t wo environmental variables as well as the two societal variables are s trongly associated with the political rights index, a measure of democ racy. The additional and independent significance of a third societal variable, agricultural density, in one of the analyses, suggests conne ctions with another theory of early democracy emerging from a technoec ological perspective.