Floods, droughts, and environmental circumscription in early state development: the case of ancient Egypt

Abstract

What explains the origins and survival of the first states around 5000 years ago? In this research, we focus on the role of weather-related productivity shocks for early state development in ancient Egypt. We present a framework of extractive state consolidation predicting that political stability should be high whenever environmental circumscription is high, i.e., whenever there is a large gap between the productivity of the area under state control (core) and that of the surrounding areas (hinterland). In such periods, the elite can impose high levels of taxation that the population will be forced to accept as exit to the hinterland is not a feasible option. In order to test this hypothesis, we develop novel proxies for both the historical productivity of the Nile banks and of the Egyptian hinterland on the basis of high-resolution paleoclimate archives. Our empirical analysis then investigates the relationship between these proxies for environmental circumscription and political outcomes such as ruler and dynastic tenure durations, the area under state control and pyramid construction during 2685–1140 BCE. Our results show that while extreme Nile floods are associated with a greater degree of political instability, periods with a greater rainfall in the hinterland (i.e., a lower effective environmental circumscription) causes a decline in state capacity and a delayed increase in political instability.