The Cool Water Effect: The Geo-climatic Source of Western Exceptionalism

This open access book unravels the geo-climatic source of the West’s emancipatory struggles and why the spirit of these struggles is about to spread around the world beyond its original geo-climatic root―which we describe as the Cool Water (CW-) Condition: that is, the combination of mostly cool seasons with steady rain in coastal proximity. What is so special about the CW-Condition? In a nutshell, the CW-Condition makes water and its derivative resources (i.e., land usable for hunting, fishery, forestry, crop cultivation and cattle herding) so diffuse that any emerging economy only functions with decentral management of water, land and labor. Decentral management infuses local autonomies into the social fabric, so much that evolving forms of social organization―be it family households, religious orders, business corporations or civic associations―mature under self-governance. Experience in self-governance equips social groups with two essential skills: resource mobilization and coalition building. In combination, these skills generate the power to organize grassroots resistance against top-down impositions, such as over-taxation and related forms of resource extraction. As a consequence, the state-building process begins slowly and proceeds as a conflictual affair between rulers’ authority ambitions and bottom-up opposition. This conflict steers state formation towards contractual institutional arrangements in which elected assemblies check the executive power of central rulers. Under these checks, government action navigates towards an indiscriminate pursuit of the common good.

Christian Welzel is Chair in Political Culture Research at Leuphana University in Lueneburg, Germany, Adjunct Professor of Political Science at the University of Silesia in Katowice, Poland, and Vice-President of the World Values Survey Association.

Stefan Kruse is International Development Consultant and former Postdoctoral Researcher at the Center for the Study of Democracy at Leuphana University, Lueneburg, Germany.

Lennart Brunkert is Postdoctoral Researcher at the Center for the Study of Democracy, Leuphana University in Lueneburg, Germany.

Steven A. Brieger is Associate Professor in International Business at the University of Sussex Business School, University of Sussex, UK.