Cliodynamics

Increasing ecological and political instability has stimulated interest in how similar problems have arisen in the past – and how they have been resolved. But this research has long been divided along different research traditions. This paper draws together five broad research strands: institutionalism, socio-ecological systems, demographic-structural theories, world-systems approaches, and revolutions research. It begins by establishing that each of these five traditions proposes to explain state crisis, in the sense of a decisive turning point from which the state might not emerge in its current form. But each of the five strands proposes a slightly different set of central hypotheses, and draws on a slightly different set of cases in support. Systematizing these hypotheses draws attention to a neglected distinction between crises that take place in different ecological-economic conditions. This is because crises that occur in conditions of worsening scarcity are hypothesized to have very different causes and trajectories to crises that occur in conditions of sufficiency. But beyond this fundamental scarcity/sufficiency distinction, there are no outright contradictions between different hypotheses. Unifying these theories of state crisis thus establishes a framework for testing these competing, but compatible, hypotheses.

Understanding decision-making and strategy in international relations is enriched by an approach that takes into account different historical scales. Big History, which delves into the interplay of cultural, evolutionary, and cosmological processes, serves as a valuable tool in elucidating the strategic behavior of political actors. In a systemic setting where anticipatory capability stands as a paramount asset, this approach aids in pinpointing potential sources of disorder within the international arena. When policymakers seek to understand an interconnected web of actors, make informed decisions, and anticipate the actions of others, they draw on a complex set of mental tools. These tools combine cultural information with ethological cognitive archetypes, shaped by millions of years of natural selection in primate species and hardwired into the human collective unconscious. Cultural information, stemming from these archetypes, has the capacity to either augment or suppress the expression of these innate structures. At an unconscious level, the formation of ingroups is a socio-cognitive process enabling human agents to frame their relationships with ingroup members in prosocial and non-lethal terms. It acknowledges the presence of conflict for status and influence among ingroup members, yet ethological suppression mechanisms work to minimize the potential for lethal aggression, thereby preserving group cohesion. Hence, we posit that when systems of international relations are crafted to maintain the status quo between parties while simultaneously being founded on principles and institutions suggesting solidarity and cooperation, human policymakers may experience marginal cognitive dissonance at an unconscious level. Such cognitive dissonance, arising from these mixed signals, could incline policymakers to pursue policies contravening the terms of the system. While this phenomenon alone cannot solely account for systemic failure at the international level, it likely contributes to it. We suggest that policymakers engaged in diplomatic initiatives such as the Concert of Europe (1814-1815), the Washington Naval Treaty (1922) and the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (since 1970, and still in force), were (and continue to be) susceptible to this cognitive phenomenon on a regular basis.

Datasets such as Seshat have allowed researchers to quantitatively test hypotheses about premodern societies and states with great success. Nevertheless, one has to take into account potential sources of bias in the data such as a survivorship bias favouring the inclusion of long-lived over short-lived states. Bayesian methods can be used to complement standard modelling procedures to take this issue into account as is demonstrated by analysing the longevity distribution of premodern states.

This essay will review two books that describe and explain modern revolutions. First one is Handbook of Revolutions in the 21st Century. The New Waves of Revolutions, and the Causes and Effects of Disruptive Political Change edited by Jack A. Goldstone, Leonid Grinin and Andrey Korotayev. The book is a massive collection of 41 diverse chapters from numerous contributors. The book takes on almost every aspect of revolutionary theory and addresses quite a few of very recent revolutionary events, as well as many older ones. Second book is New Wave of Revolutions in the MENA Region. A Comparative Perspective edited by Leonid Issaev and Andrey Korotayev. The book contains 12 chapters from various contributors, each dedicated to a revolutionary episode in a country from the Middle East and Northern Africa region. The book provides an overview of the revolutionary processes in the region that shook the world several years ago with its rapid and unexpected domino-like revolutions. The book demonstrates that revolutions are ongoing in this part of the world.