Social Evolution & History最新文献

{"title":"Origins of the Early Russian State: Anthropological Perspectives","authors":"Nikolay Kradin","doi":"10.30884/seh/2023.02.05","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.30884/seh/2023.02.05","url":null,"abstract":"The origin of State in Russia is one of permanently debatable issues among the Russian scholars. The present article discusses this problem in the context of some anthropological approaches. The important role of such factors as a foreign trade and war is shown. The importance of the ideas of chiefdom, early state and heterarchy in establishing the political complexity in the early Rus' is considered.","PeriodicalId":354072,"journal":{"name":"Social Evolution & History","volume":"40 3","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139333508","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"A Five-Day Week in Rwanda in the Second Half of the Nineteenth Century and in the Early Twentieth Century","authors":"Michał Tymowski","doi":"10.30884/seh/2023.02.03","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.30884/seh/2023.02.03","url":null,"abstract":"The aim of the author of the article is to examine the role of the week and the related dimension of serfdom (corvée) in the treasury system of Rwanda in the second half of the 19th century and the beginning of the twentieth century. The author discusses the current state of research and various opinions on the credibility of written and oral sources relating to this issue. Subsequently he quotes and analyzes a hitherto unknown source regarding the functioning of the week and serfdom, i.e. fragments of Jan Czekanowski's manuscript diary from field research in Central Africa, including Rwanda, in the years 1907–1909. Czekanowski not only confirms the existence of the week – corvée system in the central provinces of Rwanda and draws attention to the conflicts related to its operation, but also describes the methods of legitimizing this form of duty used by the ruling group in Rwanda.","PeriodicalId":354072,"journal":{"name":"Social Evolution & History","volume":"232 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139332878","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Social Stratification, Genealogical Distance, and State Formation in Early Hawaii and the Central Andes: Steps, Slopes, and Off-Ramps in Social Evolution","authors":"Justin Jennings, Timothy Earle","doi":"10.30884/seh/2023.02.04","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.30884/seh/2023.02.04","url":null,"abstract":"Henri J. M. Claessen proposed that the early state came into being by a process of social stratification that led to the creation of genealogical distance between a ruler and the ruled. This article evaluates Claessen's proposition by comparing the development of early large-scale polities in Hawaii and the central Andes. The process of state formation in Hawaii largely followed Claessen's proposed ‘slope’ of political development – by the end of the sequence, kings were seen as gods in the protohistoric Hawaiian state. The central Andean Wari polity, in contrast, took an ‘off-ramp’ from Claessen's slope to a more heterarchical political structure of competing elite-led corporate groups. We explain some of the possible reasons for the differences between our case studies and emphasize that there are many branching pathways to greater political complexity in the ancient world.","PeriodicalId":354072,"journal":{"name":"Social Evolution & History","volume":"28 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139331842","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Polycentric Governance as a Practical Strategy for Balanced Policing: A Cross-Cultural Analysis","authors":"Ludomir R. Lozny","doi":"10.30884/seh/2023.02.10","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.30884/seh/2023.02.10","url":null,"abstract":"Polycentricity is a normative approach to governance. It stresses the degree to which higher levels of formal governance should not crowd out self-organization at lower levels. As central government ruling may limit individual access to shared resources, participatory polycentric governance seems a feasible alternative. Under such a scheme, varied strategies combine local political segments into larger administrative systems. They help manage public goods, solve cooperator problems, and combine direct (and costly) administration with the creation of locally managed para-governmental organizations and spheres of authority to achieve cooperation goals. A federation of independent governing bodies, organized as a set of nested institutions focused on a common goal, contributes to effective, beneficial to all parties involved, sustainable well-being. Thus, I challenge the conventional wisdom that common property is poorly managed and should be regulated by central authorities or privatized. Employing the data for user-managed land, fish stocks, pastures, woods, and (ground) water, I argue that participatory polycentric governance improves communal resilience and stability. Participants became interdependent, willing, and capable of designing and following communication networks to create sustainable well-being. I conclude that the outcomes of such arrangements are often better than predicted by standard economic models.","PeriodicalId":354072,"journal":{"name":"Social Evolution & History","volume":"254 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139332278","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Demographic Transformations in the Historical Process in the Light of Technological Development: Theoretical Approach","authors":"L. Grinin, A. Grinin","doi":"10.30884/seh/2023.02.08","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.30884/seh/2023.02.08","url":null,"abstract":"The analysis of the demographic component and of the demographic dimension of historical process has unfortunately not been sufficiently studied in the social sciences. The demographic development of humankind is even more rarely studied in its close connection with technological development. However, this is an extremely important aspect that can not only explain essential dimensions of the development, but also provide a basis for explaining current processes and forecasting our futures. Moreover, in many ways, it is an integral aspect of analysis, because it focuses on people, the population, that is the main subject of society and humanity. Accordingly, the changes in demographic parameters (both quantitative and qualitative) have an impact on the entire social system, from technology to ideology as well as on the World System at whole. Population growth is undoubtedly the most important driving force of the development of society. The most important subsystem of society, which constitutes its material basis, combines population and production. The link between demography and production is seemingly obvious, since, on the one hand, production determines population growth opportunities and, on the other hand, population size affects the production and other opportunities of a society. However, this relationship is not so simple and is also non-linear, and in addition, the correlation between the demographic and production components of societies changes significantly over the course of the historical process. It is also not always so easy to explain strong fluctuations and transformations in population dynamics. In the present study, the authors provide an analysis of the demographic development of humankind in its close connection with technological development, including the twenty-first century trends. This work, consisting of two articles, aims to provide a theoretical framework for the correlation between the development of production and technology, on the one hand, and demographic transformations, on the other, during the historical process, and to describe all major demographic transformations during human history. The work describes the historical types of population reproduction (TPR) and the reasons for their change. All this makes it possible to make a forecast about the vectors and main features of the coming demographic transformation in the twenty-first century. This (first) article describes theoretical approaches and models of the connection between production revolutions (Agrarian, Industrial and Cybernetic) and the largest demographic transformations, and also reflects important points influencing on population growth and its limitatio-ns. It is shown that the production revolution and the development of the production principle cycle in general change the type of population reproduction, and together they provide the most powerful impulse for the qualitative reorganization of the entire social structure and social relations","PeriodicalId":354072,"journal":{"name":"Social Evolution & History","volume":"68 ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139332129","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Social Evolution: Theoretical Aspects and General Outlines","authors":"L. Grinin, Andrey Korotayev","doi":"10.30884/seh/2023.02.07","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.30884/seh/2023.02.07","url":null,"abstract":"The present article is devoted to social evolution both as a part of macroevolution and as a specific process that have led humanity to outstanding successes and heights (while creating in the meantime serious crises and major problems). The article examines important theoretical aspects of social evolution within the framework of a more general approach, which we call evolutionary studies. The authors give a definition of social evolution, examine its most important mechanisms, compare it with biological evolution, introduce the concept of social aromorphosis, and analyse the concept of unilinear and multilinear evolution. We show that only by considering the evolution as multilinear one can identify the major trends and patterns of social evolution and evolution in general. The authors view social evolution both as changes in a relatively local and not so long-term perspective and as a larger process that we call social macroevolution. In our understanding, social macroevolution is a special dimension of social evolution that encompasses a series of the most important and milestone transformations that have led to the emergence and development of the World System (and, accordingly, a theory that focuses on their analysis). The genesis of the World System and a number of its further changes are the key elements of the social macro-evolutionary process. Moreover, the emergence of the World System was not only the most important result of the entire previous course of social evolution, but also became, in a certain sense, the threshold beyond which it is absolutely necessary to distinguish social macroevolution as a special supra-social part of social evolution (i.e., the part that no longer relates to the level of only individual society). The main trends of macroevolution, such as the irreversibility of evolution, its particular direction, variability, are expressed both in the systemic features and in the transformations of the World System. The article was prepared as a part of the research work of the state task of the RANEPA.","PeriodicalId":354072,"journal":{"name":"Social Evolution & History","volume":"7 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139332901","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Annual Festivals and Potlatch-like Forms of Redistribution in Early Political Formations of Upper Guinea","authors":"Vladimir Popov","doi":"10.30884/seh/2023.02.02","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.30884/seh/2023.02.02","url":null,"abstract":"The article proposes a reconstruction of potlatch-like forms of redistribution in early political formations of Upper Guinea. Annual festivals (such as Aкanian Odwira and Dahomeyan Anun'gbome) are interpreted as peculiar inversions of gafol (poludye in Russian history) and potlatch-like institution. These multifunctional festivals and gafol were the major mechanisms of alienation and redistribution of the surplus product in the early political formations.","PeriodicalId":354072,"journal":{"name":"Social Evolution & History","volume":"181 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139333790","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Rethinking Premodern Governance: Passing the Torch","authors":"Gary Feinman","doi":"10.30884/seh/2023.02.01","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.30884/seh/2023.02.01","url":null,"abstract":"During his long, prolific career, Henri J. M. Claessen was a major contributor to the comparative study of political organizational change. Starting with The Early State (1978), edited with Peter Skalník, Claessen's writings served to broaden and enrich evolutionary approaches in anthropology by recognizing key axes of diversity in political forms and variation in temporal sequences. Furthermore, he recognized that studies of long-term political change required multiscalar concepts that included analytical lenses larger in size than single polities. Claessen drew on his encyclopedic knowledge of ethnographic and historical cases in challenging and expanding the mid-twentieth century approaches to social evolution. With his passing, now is an appropriate time to build on the theoretical advances that Claessen forged, most specifically by taking fuller account of what archaeological research has discovered during the years coincident with his academic career. Grounded in these findings, further steps toward a comparative framing aimed at understanding diversity and change in human political organization and cooperation are advanced.","PeriodicalId":354072,"journal":{"name":"Social Evolution & History","volume":"18 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139333379","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"‘Blind Spots’ of the ‘Scandinavian-Centric’ Hypothesis on the Origin of the Old Russian State","authors":"Aleksey Romanchuk","doi":"10.30884/seh/2023.02.06","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.30884/seh/2023.02.06","url":null,"abstract":"The author considers some of the ‘blind spots’ of the ‘Scandinavian-centric’ hypotheses on the emergence of the Old Russian state. He shows that adherents of the ‘Scandinavian-centric paradigm’ very often resort to ad hoc explanations without noticing the critical contradictions in their constructions. If we collect partial statements of the Scandinavian-centred hypotheses, we see how they begin to contradict each other. For example, according to Elena Melnikova, Old Russian ‘варѧгъ’ comes from Scandinavian ‘væringi’, which in turn comes from Greek ‘βάρaγγοι’, and Greek ‘βάρaγγοι’ in turn comes from the Old Russian ‘варѧгъ’. In the context of the processes leading to the formation of the Old Russian state, the author critically evaluates the ideas of the ‘Scandinavian control over the Baltic-Volga trade route’ and ‘Scandinavian colonies’ in Eastern Europe. The local polities of early medieval Eastern Europe, whether Slavic, Baltic or Finnish, obviously possessed sufficient power and military potential to close off uncontrolled movement along the river routes to the Scandinavians if they so wished. The author also raises the question of the initial political status and real role in the formation of the Old Russian state of the emerging settlements specialized in trade in Ladoga and Gnezdovo.","PeriodicalId":354072,"journal":{"name":"Social Evolution & History","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139333935","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Demographic Transformations in the Light of Technological Development: Types of Demographic Reproduction in the Past and in the Future","authors":"L. Grinin, A. Grinin, Andrey Korotayev","doi":"10.30884/seh/2023.02.09","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.30884/seh/2023.02.09","url":null,"abstract":"The analysis of the demographic component and demographic dimension of historical process has not been sufficiently studied in the social sciences. The demographic development of humankind is even more rarely studied in its close connection with technological development. However, this is an extremely important aspect that can not only explain essential dimensions of the development, but also provide a basis for explaining current processes and forecasting our futures. Moreover, in many ways, it is an integral aspect of analysis, because it focuses on people, the population, which is the main subject of society and humanity. This work, consisting of two articles, aims at providing a theoretical framework for the correlation between the development of production and technology, on the one hand, and demographic transformations, on the other, during the historical process, and to describe all major demographic transformations during human history. The work describes the historical types of population reproduction (TPR) and the reasons for their change. All this makes it possible to make a forecast about the vectors and main features of the coming demographic transformation in the twenty-first century. In the first article we described theoretical approaches and models of the correlation between production revolutions (Agrarian, Industrial and Cybernetic) and the largest demographic transformations, and also spoke about important factors influencing the population growth and its limitations. We showed that the production revolution and the development of the production principle cycle in general change the type of population reproduction, and together they provide the most powerful impulse for the qualitative reorganization of the entire social structure and social relations and further world-system configurations. Thus, every production revolution is followed by a fundamental change in demography. In the present (second) article, the relationship between each production revolution and each production principle, on the one hand, and demographic transformations and type of population reproduction, on the other hand, is analyzed not just in a theoretical model, but in connection with the specific course of the historical process and those quantitative data, which science currently has at its disposal. When considering the defined correlation between transformations in production and demography, we give explanation to many important peculiarities. All these ideas about demographic trends from the Upper Paleolithic to the end of the twenty-first century have also been summarized by us in a convenient tabular form. A particular attention is given to the analysis of the demographic transition in connection with the demographic transformations taking place in the last seven to eight decades; in addition, the connection between the ongoing Cybernetic Revolution and global aging is revealed. Forecasts are made about future demographic transformations associat","PeriodicalId":354072,"journal":{"name":"Social Evolution & History","volume":"221 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139332225","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}