The Narrow Corridor summary

Nigeria, 1994. The country is in the grip of a military dictatorship, led by General Sani Abacha. Abacha’s main mission? Not to resolve conflicts, protect, or provide services to Nigerian citizens, but to assassinate his political opponents and rob the country of its natural wealth. 

Essentially left without a central government, Nigeria’s cities, including its business capital of Lagos, are on the brink of anarchy. Human corpses litter Lagos’s streets, alongside ever-growing piles of trash and scavenging rats. Gang members called “area boys” terrorize citizens, committing murder and robbery. The government provides no electricity or running water.

Throughout most of the Greek Dark Ages, which began in 1200 BCE, the city of Athens was ruled by magistrates called Archons. 

Archons were appointed to their positions and, in practice, always came from an elite class of wealthy families. They frequently competed among themselves for power, and, occasionally, these power struggles led to coups. 

The Red Queen effect creates the right conditions for liberty and economic prosperity. Yet there are still modern societies that choose to stick with weak or nonexistent Absent Leviathans, in which liberty and economic prosperity are scarce. Why? 

Social scientists suggest a variety of answers. They argue, for instance, that factors like low population density or the absence of agriculture or trade make it less necessary to have a central government. 

The Red Queen effect is rarely pretty. In fact, a society learning to live with a state, and the state learning to live with its shackles, can often be downright messy. This is particularly apparent in the United States, which has achieved a powerful Shackled Leviathan –⁠ but one with a dark side. 

The first system of laws in the US, the Articles of Confederation, leaned heavily in favor of individual states’ rights. They allowed each state to print its own money and refuse to fund the national debt. 

When Thomas Hobbes theorized about a state of Warre, he defined it as “every man, against every man” –⁠ that is, citizens fighting their fellow citizens. 

But history demonstrates that all-powerful Leviathans can also instigate versions of Warre –⁠ governments can dominate and murder their own people. The Chinese people lived through this nightmarish situation in the middle of the twentieth century, under the reign of Chairman Mao Zedong, the leader of the Chinese Communist Party. 

Today, India is the largest democracy in the world by population. It also has a rich history of widespread participation in society. But despite these factors, India remains outside the narrow corridor. Why has liberty there been so impeded?

The reason is its powerful cage of norms, which comes in the form of the caste system. Originating in ancient India, the caste system divides the country’s population into status groups that affect people’s chances of getting certain jobs, their marriage prospects, and their ability to move up in the social hierarchy.

Leticia is an Argentinian citizen hoping to register for a welfare program called Nuestras Familias, or Our Families. In fact, she’s tried to sign up at the appropriate office three times in the past two weeks. The first time she went, she was told to come back in three days. But when she did as instructed, the office turned out to be closed. She returned again the next day and was told there were no funds in the program. 

Leticia’s case is not at all atypical. Anyone who wants to gain access to Nuestras Familias must wait –⁠ and wait, and wait, and wait some more.

Entering the narrow corridor is far from easy, no matter where a society stands in relation to it. But, historically, there are examples of Absent, Despotic, and Paper Leviathans becoming democratic and liberal.

Take South Africa, which entered the oppressive regime known as apartheid in the early twentieth century. Laws like the Native Land Act codified the oppression of the country’s Black citizens, who suddenly found themselves forced off of the land they owned and tended throughout 87 percent of the country.

In 1928, the National Socalist German Workers Party – the Nazis – was still a fringe movement. It had received just 2.6 percent of the vote in the election that year. But the following years saw the party creep into prominence, until it received 33 percent of the vote in 1932. How did this happen?

Recall that the Red Queen effect is generally characterized by competition between state and society. But while each side continually attempts to gain the upper hand, neither ultimately aims to destroy the other. In Germany, however, this was precisely the case. The Red Queen was becoming a zero-sum contest, in which elites and the mobilized parts of society were pitted against each other, with no desire or ability to compromise.