In 1926, a Swiss architect called Hannes Meyer firmly believed he was ushering in the ‘new world’ by radically reclaiming built structures. The new-world architecture needed to be functionalist, minimalist and fiercely anti-bourgeois. Each age, after all, demands its own form. ‘It is our mission to give our new world a new shape with the means of today.’ As a Bauhaus architect, Meyer saw democratic power in art. In his famous essay titled ‘The New World’, Mayer wrote, ‘The new work of art is a work for all, not a collector's piece or the privilege of a single individual.’ The essay found immense popularity among thinkers and policymakers in the early 20th century as it exhibited the radical potential of modernist architecture. But far more than the piece, the image, Die Wohnung, or The Apartment, that accompanied the writing became iconic. Instead of predictable pictures of urban plans or even a building plan, Meyer chose to put in a picture of an eerily sparse room: a foldable cot and two foldable chairs, a minimalist shelf and a foldable stool in the corner. The only thing that could qualify as extravagant in the room was a gramophone, which sat atop the foldable stool.

The room in the picture was to become the manifesto for modern ‘minimum dwelling’: a form of functionalist urban living marked by minimalism and efficiency. Without going into an account of the unravelling of the modernist, utopian dream of heralding in a new world, it can safely be said that this modernist dream has found its way into the Global South as the stuff of nightmares.

Chapter 13 explores alternative theories of how democracy spread from Europe to other regions of the world. Specifically, we look at theories related to colonialism, religion, and language. The chapter provides empirical tests of each of these theories and attempts to compare the relative importance of each. The tests suggest that each of these pathways is plausible when tested in isolation but that European ancestry is the strongest predictor. We also note that the effect of Europe on democracy varies through time, with a peak during the early twentieth century and an attenuation since then.

Chapter 3 lays out the book’s theoretical argument for the impact of harbors on democracy. Littoral geography facilitates democratic development because waterways – and the corresponding need for harbors – increase mobility of people, goods, capital, and ideas, leading to increased economic development, military organization, statebuilding, and openness to the world. We do not attempt to decompose the effect of each of these factors in this chapter, but note that they are interconnected in complex ways.

Chapter 4 tackles the issue of measuring harbors. It begins with a brief survey of maritime history and port construction, which informs the measurement approach. The focus is on natural harbors: those locations that are naturally suited to protect ships near shore. These are identified using a variety of historical sources. However, since port construction is not limited to natural harbors, a predictive model of natural harbors is also developed, based on coastal geography, that can be used to measure the distance between any grid-cell and the nearest natural harbor. The remainder of the chapter is devoted to a discussion on issues of spatial autocorrelation and the trade-offs between the use of grid-cells or countries as the unit of analysis.

This chapter advances a theory of the citizen-consumer that connects the quality of basic services to trust in government, trust in government to consumer behavior, consumer behavior to citizen political participation, and citizen political participation back to the quality of basic services. When basic services are sound, citizens trust the institutions of government; when basic services fail, citizens distrust those same institutions. People who trust government rely on public services, whereas those who distrust government opt instead for more expensive commercial alternatives. This distrust premium is pure profit to government’s commercial competitors and is paid disproportionately by the politically marginalized. Consumers who use public services have a strong interest in safeguarding quality, so they are politically active citizens, demanding high-quality public services. Consumers who abandon public services in favor of commercial firms withdraw from political life. These distrustful, disengaged citizens demand little from government and oppose public investments. Starved of resources and attention, governments’ service quality declines and a vicious cycle of distrust ensues.

Chapter 5 presents case studies in support of the argument that natural harbors facilitate democratic development. The chapter divides the world geographically into seven major regions: Europe, North Eurasia, the Middle East and North Africa, sub-Saharan Africa, East Asia, Southeast Asia, and South Asia. Comparisons are drawn both across and within each region using a "most-similar" style of analysis. Regions where states were uncommon prior to the arrival of Europeans are set aside for analysis later in the book. Equally, regions outside Europe are only considered during the pre-colonial era, with later periods treated elsewhere.

Chapter 15 provides a summary of the arguments and evidence presented in the book. It then considers the tricky question of determinism in the causal arguments put forward. It argues that the theory presented here is deterministic insofar as environments shape the space for agency and that opportunities to exercise democratic rights are not randomly distributed throughout the world. At the same time, it is recognized that the theory is imperfect in its explanatory power and that individuals retain free will and agency that create uncertainty and cut against determinism. It is openly admitted that the theory cannot explain all variation in democratic outcomes, but it is contended that it nonetheless advances our understanding. It is also openly admitted that in looking at the deep roots of democracy, the theory produces no obvious policy recommendations. It is hoped that the framework can help inform studies of more proximal causes of democracy that are more likely to produce actionable policy recommendations.

What explains why some countries become democratic and others do not? Building on a wealth of studies on this question, this book looks to the distal causes – the deep roots – of democratic regimes. It argues that natural harbors, as catalysts of economic and social exchange, are one such factor. Blessed with an abundance of harbors, Europe developed an early form of democracy. As Europeans spread around the globe during an age of colonization and conquest, they brought this form of governance with them and implemented it to the extent that it allowed Europeans – and only Europeans – to hold power in colonial lands. Chapter 1 introduces the arguments around these two factors, and sets out the book’s methodological approach. It concludes with definitions of key terms and a brief outline of the subsequent chapters.

The choices Americans make about the water that they drink reveal deeper lessons about civic life. Consumers’ spending choices reflect, in part, their identities as citizens, and citizens’ political decisions reflect their assessments of value as consumers. When government produces or regulates a basic service, the citizen-consumer’s choice between the public provider and a private, commercial firm reflects, in part, her trust in the institutions of government. Despite America’s widely available, highly reliable, high-quality tap water, the US commercial bottled water industry has exploded over the past two decades. This skyrocketing growth comes at a time of declining trust in American government. When tap water failures occur, citizen-consumers abandon utilities in favor of commercial water, and the most distrustful and politically marginalized people are most likely to opt for bottled water. Thus, distrust of government and consumption of bottled water are most pronounced among the poor and racial/ethnic minority communities. Commercial drinking water firms capitalize on this distrust with targeted marketing and growth strategies.