THE UNIVERSAL MODEL OF HISTORICAL DYNAMICS
AS A BRIDGE BETWEEN MACROSOCIOLOGICAL THEORIES AND
CONCEPTION OF GLOBAL SOCIAL EVOLUTION
Institute for Philosophy and Law,
For
conceptualizing conditions and actions the universal model of historical
dynamics is used. The model consists of several phases which form three main
loops. Each loop begins from the phase of social
stability - an organic system of effective regimes that allows influential
groups to achieve their values and goals. Stability is disturbed by so called basic factors of historical dynamics
(demographic, ecological, resource, social and cultural ones). Critical force
of disturbance leads to a challenge
– strong discomfort of influential groups which now must give a response
i.e. must change essentially everyday behavior and/or organize some large-scale
mobilization activity. The phase of response
is the main point of divergence (bifurcation) where according to type of
response one of main loops evolves.
The first loop just returns to the phase of
stability (fig.1). The response in this case is adequate and compensator one. New stability minimally differs from
previous by minimal amelioration of some functions, institutions, regimes that
temporally softens or neutralizes the destructive effect of historical dynamics
factors. This is the path of
step-by-step evolution [White 1975; Carneiro 1970].
Fig.1. The mechanism of step-be-step evolution.
The second loop is the most dramatic one.
The non-adequate response usually leads to conflicts
and enforcement of challenge. If inadequacy of the response prolongs
escalation of conflicts and destruction leads to a crisis. If no fresh effective response appears, this loop proceeds
“working” as a self-destructive way to a social abyss. Conceptually
it is a special kind of positive cycle where each destructive trend leads to
next destructive trend and all they enforce each other. Such structure was
called the megatrend “Well”
(or “Abyss”). If the social system is an empire or a state, this
megatrend leads to a social revolution, state
breakdown and territorial fragmentation.
Fig.2. The mechanism of
crisis and breakdown.
Breakdowns
of Ancient and Medieval empires, of old regimes in modern social revolutions,
recent Soviet collapse can serve as examples of such a historical pattern
[Tainter 1988; Skocpol 1979; Kennedy 1987; Goldstone 1991; Collins 1995;
Turchin 2003].
The third loop is the effect of series of adequate and prospective responses (here
the model is rather close to the Toynbean original explanation of growth of
“cultures” – local civilizations). How long such social
resonance can continue? It depends on the given resource basis and ability of
new cooperative community to find new sources, i.e. to give new adequate
responses for new deficiency challenges. If new mobilizing community is
successful in providing necessary resource basis for more than 1-2 generations,
the specific historical phenomenon evolves – dynamic strategies [Snooks 1996].
Fig.3. The mechanism of ‘historical
miracles’ (systemic transformations, evolutionary breakthroughs).
Here
it means a bunch of cooperative activities with general objective direction
that prolongs for two and more generations and uses each significant result as
a base for new movement in the same direction. Seven main groups of dynamic
strategies include coercive, commercial, technological, resource-transit,
socio-engineer, demographic, and cultural ones.
Usually
effective strategies are connected also into bunches. In cases of resource
abundance and new effective responses to deficiency challenges they form a megatrend “Lift” (or
“Escalator” - a positive cycle of factors but now factors of rise,
growth and development). Such megatrend always includes significant
institutional reforms that open new space for effective regimes development.
These structural changes lead to a system
transformation — the irreversible ongoing transit to some new social
stage (fig.3). Sooner or later some new balance establishes and this new stage
becomes a new social stability (the beginning of all three loops within the
model).
Fig. 4. Universal Model of
Historical Dynamics. Full version.
Status of the Model —
the Ontological Paradigm for Theories of Dynamics
What
is methodological status of the presented model (fig.4)? Let’s consider
the classical discussion on objectivity and interpretation.
“Naturalists” defend full objectivity of their statements while
“constructivists” (also adherents of hermeneutics, phenomenology,
relativism, postmodernism, etc.) insist on inevitability of interpretations. It
is true that all general propositions on history, historical phenomena,
processes, and trends are interpretations (“the truth of
constructivism”). But not all interpretations are equal in adequacy and
validity. Some of them can be justified by various empirical methods and
logical means (the systematic comparison of historical cases, formulating and
testing hypotheses, statistics, etc.) and can be considered as objective
theoretical knowledge (“the truth of naturalism”). Also there is a
wide range of helpful preliminary ontological, conceptual, logical, and
methodological concepts and propositions that can not be tested and proved directly but serve as a necessary
intellectual basis for theoretical and empirical research.
In
these terms the following description of the universal model of historical
dynamics has the status of the
ontological paradigm for various theories of historical change [see
Stinchcombe 1987]. As far as the theories of step-by-step
evolution [White 1976, Carneiro 1970], collapses, state-breakdowns and
revolutions [Moore 1966; Skocpol 1979; Kennedy 1987; Tainter 1988; Goldstone
1991; Collins 1995], mass mobilization, dynamic strategies [Tilly 1992; Snooks
1996], systemic transformations and modernizations and other dynamic theories can be tested and proved — they
all support this covering ontological
model.
I admit that justification of any social ontology
(including our universal model of historical dynamics) belongs to the second-order
context [Gorman 2007, p.41-49] and
is directly depends on capacity of this ontology to serve as a basis for
‘good’ explanatory theories. Are theories ‘good’ or not
is a matter of justification within the first-order context. I showed elsewhere[1].
that in spite of all bulk of analytical sophistication, almost all contemporary
theoretical knowledge including ethnology, experimental psychology, political
sciences and historical sociology successfully apply standards of the
Popper-Hempelian tradition especially in the version of research programs by
Imre Lakatos. So the second-order justification of these standards is
also based on the wide and blossoming practice of theoretical research [Rozov
1997]. The majority of historians (with seldom exclusion of several great ones
such as F.Braudel and W.McNeill) practicize traditional empirical research of
some narrow field. They are usually fully incompetent in the very theoretical
approach. They do not know and even don’t want to know what is a general
hypothesis and how it is possible to test it by systemic comparison of
historical cases. That’s why their constant idiosyncrasy towards
Hempelian standards of historical explanation still proceeds to confuse
analytical philosophers of history who restricted themselves from beginning and
forever to a subordinate analysis of only traditional empirical
historiography).
The model of
historical dynamics presented above is not just a mere
‘interpretation’ (a
voluntary one among dozens of others) but a general cognitive scheme which both
incorporates previous dynamic theories with some range of objectivity
(justification, validity etc.) and serves as an heuristics for further
formulations of hypotheses and theories.
Historical
Dynamics and Social Evolution
Just
in the loop 3 historical dynamics [Turchin 2003] is connected with crucial shifts
of social evolution (classical works
by K.Marx, M.Weber, W.Rostow, also [Wallerstein 1974-80; Goudsblom et al. 1996;
Sanderson 1995; Spier 1996; Collins 1999]).
There are five well-known great irreversible
transformations that form the very skeleton of the global social evolution
(fig.5):
·
Anthropogenesis (especially
latest behavioral and cultural shifts like genesis of language and control of
fire)
·
Neolithic revolution
(domestication of plants and animals, transition from nomadic to settlement
cultures),
·
Genesis of civilized
societies (with state, script and cities);
·
Invasive and market
integration (mature empires and advanced networks of cities-states appear);
·
Formation of modern
bureaucratic nation-states (in one large complex with Military revolution
and Industrial revolution).
Modern
global transition takes alternative names (postindustrialism, postmodern
societies, third wave, information society etc. I prefer name the new type
sensitive societies, which means special scientific sensibility to new social
problems, challenges and crises.
Fig.5. Integration of unilinear (phases) and
multilinear (alternatives in each phase) conceptions of social evolution.
All
these global evolutionary shifts and many smaller ones are results of
correspondent complexes of dynamic strategies, megatrends ‘lift’ and systemic transformations in the universal model of historical
dynamics (fig.3).
That’s
why the model can be considered as a necessary
intellectual bridge between large scope vision on social evolution and
dozens of macro (also meso-, and micro-) sociological theories.
NOTES
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Collins,
Randall. Prediction in Macrosociology: The Case of the Soviet Collapse //
American J. of Sociology. 1995, May. P. 1552-1593.
Collins,
Randall. Macrohistory: Essays in Sociology of the Long Run.
Gellner,
Ernest. Plough, Sword, and Book. The Structure of Human History.
Goldstone,
Jack. Revolution and Rebellion in the Early Modern World.
Gorman,
Jonathan. Historical Judgment. Acumen. 2007.
Goudsblom,
Johan, Eric Jones, and Stephen Mennel. The Course of Human History: Economic
Growth, Social Process, and Civilization. M.E.Sharp, 1996.
Kennedy,
Paul. The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers: Economic Change and Military
Conflict from 1500 to 2000. N.-Y. Random House, 1987.
Rozov,
Nikolai S. An Apologia for Theoretical History // History and Theory, 1997.
Vol. 36, N 3.
Sanderson,
Stephen. Social Transformations: A General Theory of Historical Development.
Blackwell, 1995.
Skocpol,
Theda.
Snooks
Graeme. The Dynamic Society: Exploring the Sources of Global Change. L.-N.-Y.,
Routledge, 1996.
Spier,
Fred. The Structure of Big History. From
the Big Bang until Today.
Stinchcombe,
Arthur. Constructing Social Theories. The
Tainter,
Joseph. The Collapse of Complex Societies. Cambridge & N.-Y.:
Tilly,
Charles. Coercion, Capital, and
Turchin, Peter. Historical Dynamics: Why States Rise and
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Wallerstein,
Immanuel. The Modern World System I-III
White,
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