Alexis Alvarez

Polity scale shifts in world-systems since the Bronze Age: A comparative inventory of upsweeps and collapses

In this article we report an inventory of cycles, upward sweeps and collapses of polity sizes in five separate interpolity systems: Mesopotamia, Egypt, South Asia, East Asia and the expanding Central System that eventually became the contemporary global system. Upward sweeps are defined as instances in which the largest sovereign polity in a network of fighting and allying polities significantly increases in size. Collapses are instances in which the size of the largest polity greatly decreases and stays down for a significant period of time (centuries). We use regional interpolity systems rather than single polities as the unit of analysis, following the comparative world-systems framework. We are limited to those regions and time periods for which quantitative estimates of largest polity sizes are available. We compare the frequencies of cycles and sweeps across five interpolity networks, and find more similarities than differences across the five systems. This is somewhat surprising because most studies that compare East Asia with the West stress important differences. We find a total of 22 upsweeps and 19 downsweeps across the five systems, but only three instances of prolonged system-wide collapse. We also find that the frequency of cycles increased over the long run, while the frequencies of upsweeps and downsweeps did not display long-term trends. The lack of a downward trend in downsweeps challenges the supposition that resilience grows with sociocultural complexity and size.

Power and Size: Urbanization and Empire Formation in World-Systems Since the Bronze Age

Abstract: This paper contains an overview of earlier research on city and empire growth/decline phases and new evidence on the relationship between urban growth and the rise and fall of empires in six world regions. We find that empires and cities grow and decline together in some regions but not others. We also examine the temporal correlations between growth/decline phases of largest and second largest cities and empires within regions. Do large empires grow at the expense of other large states within a region or are there periods of regional growth in which states (and cities) are growing together?

World-Systems in the Biogeosphere: Three Thousand Years of Urbanization, Empire Formation and Climate Change

Abstract: World-systems are human interaction networks that display oscillations of expansion and contraction, with occasional large expansions that bring formerly separate regional systems into systemic intercourse with one another. These waves of expansion, now called globalization, have, in the last two centuries, created a single integrated intercontinental political economy in which all national societies are strongly linked. This paper investigates the “pulsations” of regional interaction networks (world-systems) in Afroeurasia over the past 3000 years. The purpose is to determine the causes of a fascinating synchrony that emerged between East Asia and the distant West Asian/Mediterranean region, but did not involve the intermediate South Asian region. The hypothesized causes of this synchrony are climate change, epidemics, trade cycles, and the incursions of Central Asian steppe nomads. This paper formulates a strategy of data gathering, system modeling, and hypothesis testing that can allow us to discover which of these causes were the most important in producing synchrony as the Afroeurasian world-system came into being. To be presented at the conference on “Nature, Raw Materials and Political Economy” held in honor of Stephen Bunker’s contribution to political ecology, Madison, November 2, 2002. Thanks to Tom Hall for helpful comments. V. 10-30-02, (7707 words) This paper is available on the web at http://irows.ucr.edu/papers/irows11/irows11.htm

Democratic Global Governance

The political ideal of democracy has become increasingly adopted, yet the existing institutions of global governance can scarcely be considered democratic. The simple addition of national democracies does not necessarily add up to global democracy because national states have unequal power. Despite existing problems, democratic global governance remains a possibility. In this article, we use a world historical perspective to discuss difficulties in and viable solutions to establishing democratic global governance. We begin by laying out the difficulties in democracy taking hold nationally and globally as well as critical problems of the United Nations. Then, we discuss innovations in the semiperiphery, reforming global governance institutions, and the possibilities for transnational social movements to be the impetus for creating a democratic and inclusive global polity and global civil society.

Scale Transitions and the Evolution of Global Governance since the Bronze Age

All systems of interacting polities oscillate between relatively greater and lesser centralization as relatively large polities rise and fall. This is true of systems of chiefdoms, states, empires, and the modern system of the rise and fall of hegemonic core states. The literature on modern power transitions needs to be considered in an anthropological temporal and spatial framework of comparison in order to explain both the rise and fall of transitions and the long-term evolutionary trends of complexity and hierarchy-formation. In the long-term trend polities have increased in population and territorial size since the Stone Age, and the total number of polities on earth has decreased as the average polity has gotten larger. These trends have been somewhat masked in recent centuries because the processes of decolonization and the emergence of nation-states out of older tributary empires have increased the number of smaller polities. But the general trend toward larger polities can be seen in the transition from smaller to larger hegemonic core states (from the Dutch, to the British to the United States), and in the emergence of international political organizations and an expanded and active global civil society that participates in contemporary world politics.