CRISES AVERTED How A Few Past Societies Found Adaptive Reforms in the Face of Structural- Demographic Crises

Abstract

The world is experiencing myriad crises, from global climate change to a major pandemic to runaway inequality, mass impoverishment, and rising sectarian violence. Such crises are not new, but have been recurrent features of past societies. Although these periods have typically led to massive loss of life, the failure of critical institutions, and even complete societal collapse, lessons can be learned from societies that managed to avoid the more devastating and destructive outcomes. Here, we present a preliminary analysis of outcomes from periods of crisis in 50 historical societies and examine closely four cases of averted crisis in world history, highlighting common features. A key observation is that the structural-demographic cycles that give rise to societal crises typically incorporate a ‘gilded age’ during which more future-minded governance could avert future crises. To accomplish more forward-thinking public policy, capable not just of ‘flattening the curve’, but of actually breaking the cycle that produces societal crises in the first place, we argue that systematic quantitative analysis of patterns in world history is a necessary first step.

Does increasing inequality threaten social stability? Evidence from the lab

“…From this perspective, the long-term dynamics of social instability appear cyclical in nature, extended periods of stability are interspersed with waves of sociopolitical instability. Attacks on the existing order have thereby been linked to periods of growing economic inequality and absolute poverty at the lower end of the distribution (Hoyer et al, 2022). Our experiment has in its abstraction similarities to this long-run view; by stripping away all confounding sociopolitical factors, we show that increasing inequality has a direct, negative effect on cooperation across variably advantaged groups.…”

“…One response to this problem has been to look for larger patterns across longer periods of time (see e.g. Scheidel, 2017;Hoyer et al, 2022). From this perspective, the long-term dynamics of social instability appear cyclical in nature, extended periods of stability are interspersed with waves of sociopolitical instability.…”

Structural-Demographic Analysis of the Qing Dynasty (1644–1912) Collapse in China

“…These future analyses, using a common causal framework, would provide the comparative potential to better understand not only other cases of past state breakdown, but of current and future crises as well. Many contemporary societies around the world are experiencing a suite of pressures very similar to those that faced the Qing 31,131,132 . Insights from past crises, suitably analyzed, have the potential to inform present and future policy, potentially enabling societies and leaders to navigate such crises through peaceful reform.…”

Structural-demographic analysis of the Qing Dynasty (1644–1912) collapse in China

“…The most frequent outcome is a revolution or civil war (or a combination of the two), although in some cases the governing elites manage to avoid major bloodshed by adopting a set of reforms that acts to reverse the drivers for instability. More generally, while the road to crisis tends to be fairly stereotypical, emergence from crisis and the start of the next integrative phase is much less determined, because the different structural pressures underlying the instability can be relieved in many ways: by successful reforms (in a minority of cases), by transformative revolution, by population decline (resulting from a major epidemic or prolonged internal war), or by external conquest [31].…”

“…An alternative perspective that has proven useful in explaining other cases of social and political breakdown in complex societies is provided by Structural Demographic Theory (SDT). SDT is a general framework for understanding the drivers of socio-political instability in state-level societies, and has been applied to a variety of historical settings, from ancient Rome, the Age of Revolutions in the 19 th century Europe, as well as contemporary USA and Africa [30][31][32][33][34]. An SDT explanation for dynastic collapse and regeneration during the Ming-Qing transition and then the Qing collapse was outlined previously by Goldstone [32].…”