Peter Turchin — Intra-Elite Competition: A Key Concept for Understanding the Dynamics of Complex Societies

Intra-elite competition is one of the most important factors explaining massive waves of social and political instability, which periodically afflict complex, state-level societies. This idea was proposed by Jack Goldstone nearly 30 years ago. Goldstone tested it empirically by analyzing the structural precursors of the English Civil War, the French Revolution, and seventeenth century’s crises in Turkey and China. Other researchers (including Sergey Nefedov, Andrey Korotayev, and myself) extended Goldstone’s theory and tested it in such different societies as Ancient Rome, Egypt, and Mesopotamia; medieval England, France, and China; the European revolutions of 1848 and the Russian Revolutions of 1905 and 1917; and the Arab Spring uprisings. Closer to home, recent research indicates that the stability of modern democratic societies is also undermined by excessive competition among the elites (see Ages of Discord for a structural-demographic analysis of American history). Why is intra-elite competition such an important driver of instability?...

Cliodynamica — A Blog about the Evolution of Civilizations
Intra-Elite Competition: A Key Concept for Understanding the Dynamics of Complex Societies
Peter Turchin | Professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Connecticut, Research Associate in the School of Anthropology, University of Oxford, and Vice-President of the Evolution Institute

Peter Turchin — It Ain’t Over, Folks

Intra-elite competition for a limited number of political position.

Both candidates have been riding rough-shod over the social norms that have governed what is acceptable behavior of a member of the American political class. Such unraveling of social norms is what we see in the run-up to a major political rupture in historical societies that my colleagues and I have studied.

Cliodynamica — A Blog about the Evolution of Civilizations
It Ain’t Over, Folks

This Time Is Different (Maybe)
Peter Turchin | Professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Connecticut, Research Associate in the School of Anthropology, University of Oxford, and Vice-President of the Evolution Institute