origin of formal European exceptionalism

origin of formal European exceptionalism

The article by Blaydes and Chaney is documentation of findings from an investigation that focuses on the origin of formal European exceptionalism. The authors use information about the duration of rulers, as an indicator for leaders’ tenures before 1500CE. They document leadership duration for monarchs in the Islamic region and Western Europe. Blaydes and Chaney compare the Muslims’ kingdoms to Christians and explore the issues that emerged in these territories under different leaderships. The article reports that political stability was a result of executive constraints from medieval monarchs in Europe (1). On the other hand, the issue of military slaves emerges from Muslim governance, hindering productive relationships between leaders and local heads of regions. The difference in institutional framework might be the cause of the Glorious Revolution in European territories, and not the Muslim kingdoms (1). Blaydes and Chaney hypothesize that the rulers in both regions were expected to have a similar duration of leadership tenure before 1500CE. Therefore, the authors’ motivation to create this article was to identify reasons for the gap in government terms between Muslims and their European counterparts.

The argument developed by the authors is evident throughout the article. The topic is satisfactory because it presents the major idea of the article, which is to compare the historical leadership of the Muslim and Christian regions before 1500 CE. Blaydes and Chaney submit an abstract that touches on the major areas of the article (1). It depicts the intentions of the authors and provides the background of the research. Besides, the abstract covers the major findings of the authors, which show the difference between the Muslim and Christian historical leadership tenures. As much as the abstract is well-organized and touches on critical areas of the article, the authors fail to uncover their research methods, including sampling, data collection, and data analysis methods. Lack of this information in the abstract provides minimal guidance to the readers. However, Blaydes and Chaney use adequate sources in the introduction section to develop a background of the research problem (1). They focus on reviewing literature from previous articles that explored the history of leadership in the Muslim and Christian kingdoms. Generally, the argument of the authors is well-tailored to lead to the research background, objectives, data collection methods, analysis, and interpretation of findings.

The article used both primary and secondary data sources to gather evidence to support the research hypothesis. The secondary data sources include publications and reports from previous research focusing on leadership tenures. Blaydes and Chaney use these sources to compare historical ruler durations for the two territories (18). Most of the secondary sources are reviewed in the introduction section and used to back up the authors’ arguments regarding the divergence of the kingdoms. The primary data sources focus on the duration of leadership in both Muslim and Europe kingdoms. The authors used two different sets of data, one for the Muslim and the other for the Christian territories, to determine the trends in respective historical governance. Blaydes and Chaney collected information on dynasties in the Muslim world and other regions across the globe. The data is restricted to all the leaders that were in power before 1500 CE in both areas (18). Moreover, the authors collected data about monarchs for different political areas across Europe, Africa, and Asia. Blaydes and Chaney use the primary data efficiently to show the change in leadership duration and explain the divergence of the two kingdoms. A graphical representation of the information is included in the article for easy interpretation of the findings. Based on this presentation, Blaydes and Chaney conclude that the European kingdom had longer leadership duration than the Muslim kingdom (19). Therefore, the type of data used in this article is appropriate to draw conclusions and address the research questions.

The success or failure of a research article is determined by its ability to meet the objectives of the authors. It depends on the type of methods used to collect and analyze the data, the findings, and the conclusion of the study. Blaydes and Chaney’s article is a success in various ways. Firstly, the authors develop an argument that is supported by reliable sources from previous studies and historical publications. Secondly, the information used in the study provides adequate evidence to support the claims of the authors. Thirdly, the findings from the research reflect the author’s assumptions because they expected a difference in leadership duration between the Christian and Muslim regions. Fourthly, Blaydes and Chaney discuss the causes of divergence in the governance of the two regions, based on evidence gathered from the reviewed literature. Lastly, the authors conclude the paper by providing more information about the future of the kingdoms and the emergence of democracy that led to a reduced duration of leadership in the Europe region. They describe the source of independence that’s experienced in the current world. In general, the article was successful because it achieved the author’s objectives by comparing the system of leadership in two different worlds.

The information presented in this article is insightful. The authors show a deep understanding of the ideas discussed in this paper through a well-designed research protocol and methods. Blaydes and Chaney explore the trends in political and government systems of regions whose people believe in two different cultures. They also introduce the idea of democracy whereby the leadership of European kingdoms transitioned into functional democracies, and introduce a fixed term of governance. Unlike the European regions, Blaydes and Chaney point out that the Muslim areas did not embrace democracy systems. Moreover, the authors suggest that the political stability of Western Europe was extremely different from that of Islamic kingdoms, because of diverse beliefs. As much as the kings from both regions believed in slavery, the Europe regions restructured its leadership system to abolish monarchs hence reducing the slave trade. However, the financial capacity of the Islamic rulers facilitated the slave trade. The information shared by the author through this article expands my knowledge of leadership duration, alongside the factors that led to democracy in the European region. The report also provides useful knowledge about the power structures that shorten a political tenure, and turnover dictatorial leadership into democratic regimes. Therefore, Blaydes and Chaney’s article is an appropriate example of historical research on governance because it explores various issues related to leadership, power, the emergence of democracy, and the end of monarchs in the history of Islamic and Christian kingdoms.