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Political Legitimacy And Technology Adoption, Metin M. Coşgel, Thomas J. Miceli, Jared Rubin
Political Legitimacy And Technology Adoption, Metin M. Coşgel, Thomas J. Miceli, Jared Rubin
Economics Faculty Articles and Research
A fundamental question of economic and technological history is why some civilizations adopted new and important technologies and others did not. In this paper, we analyze the effect that new technologies have on agents that legitimize rulers. We construct a simple political economy model which suggests that rulers may not accept a productivity-enhancing technology when it negatively affects an agent’s ability to provide the ruler legitimacy. However, when other sources of legitimacy emerge, the ruler will accept the technology as long as the new legitimizing source is not negatively affected. We use this insight to help explain the initial blocking …
The Political Economy Of Mass Printing: Legitimacy And Technological Change In The Ottoman Empire, Metin M. Coşgel, Thomas J. Miceli, Jared Rubin
The Political Economy Of Mass Printing: Legitimacy And Technological Change In The Ottoman Empire, Metin M. Coşgel, Thomas J. Miceli, Jared Rubin
Economics Faculty Articles and Research
New technologies have not always been greeted with full enthusiasm. Although the Ottomans were quick to adopt advancements in military technology, they waited almost three centuries to sanction printing in Ottoman Turkish (in Arabic characters). Printing spread relatively rapidly throughout Europe following the invention of the printing press in 1450 despite resistance by interest groups and temporary restrictions in some countries. We explain differential reaction to technology through a political economy approach centered on the legitimizing relationships between rulers and their agents (e.g., military, religious, or secular authorities). The Ottomans regulated the printing press heavily to prevent the loss it …