Dmitri M. Bondarenko

Polygyny and Democracy: A Cross-Cultural Comparison

Communal democracy is shown to be significantly and negatively correlated with polygyny. In turn, communal democracy is demonstrated to be positively correlated with the democracy of supracommunal structures. Consequently, it is suggested that the fact that modern democracy developed in Europe (i.e. the very region that by the Late Middle Ages was already characterized by the highest proportion of complex societies with small monogamous families and democratic communities) might not be a coincidence.

Family Size and Community Organization: A Cross-Cultural Comparison

The communal democracy is shown to be significantly and negatively correlated with the family size. The correlation between these two variables cannot be completely explained by the fact that both of them have a similar curvilinear relationship with cultural complexity (measured here by the number of supracommunal levels and the community/settlement size). Hence, family size has some independent influence on communal democracy.

Origins and evolution of chiefdoms

Redmond, Elsa M., ed. Chiefdoms and Chieftaincy in the Americas. Gainesville etc.: University Press of Florida, 1998. 416 pp.

'The fruit of enlightenment': Education, politics, and Muslim-Christian relations in contemporary Tanzania

55.00 cloth. Earle, Timothy K. How Chiefs Come to Power. The Political Economy in Prehistory. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1997. 234 pp.

“Early State” in Cross-Cultural Perspective: A Statistical Reanalysis of Henri J. M. Claessen’s Database:

51.00 cloth,

Advent of the Second ( Oba ) Dynasty: Another Assessment of a Benin History Key Point

19.95 paper. Muller, Jon. Mississippian Political Economy. New York and London: Plenum Press, 1997. 455 pp.

Pre-slave trade and pre-colonial Africa in the historical consciousness of African-Americans and African migrants in the USA

110.00 cloth.

In the red banner's shade: the image of post-Soviet Russia in Africa

Raising the standard of education in the country is a priority task for the Tanzanian government. However, it seems that completion of this task may cause political problems insofar as, since the colonial period, Christians have generally been more educated than Muslims and obtained better access to high administrative positions. If Muslims become as educated as Christians, will it not lead to a severe struggle for power between the two communities? Our analysis based on field research reveals that this is not very likely to be the case: neither the present-day situation nor the tendencies we trace point to a high probability that this negative scenario will materialize. A rise in the standard of education level of both Christians and Muslims will rather contribute to an increase in tolerance in Christian-Muslim relations in the country.

The Moscow School of Quantitative Cross-Cultural Research

The authors reanalyze Claessen’s data set on the “Early States.” Though Claessen’s Early State typology is largely justified, we suggest some corrections and amendments to his typologization and his model of Early State evolution. We show that the development of personal ownership of land correlates rather weakly with the political development of the Early State, and that political development might be accompanied by the strengthening of communal ownership. We also examine the correlation between Early State political development and ruler sacralization. Though this correlation is insignificant for the whole sample, its insignificance is accounted for by two distinct evolutionary patterns. The pattern observed in the “axial age” zone is characterized by a strong negative correlation between political development and ruler sacralization, while the pattern observed throughout the rest of the world is characterized by a strong positive correlation between the two variables. The authors discuss possible causes of this difference.

The Early State, Its Alternatives and Analogues

There is no other theme in precolonial Benin Kingdom studies around which so many lances have been broken as that of consolidation of the present-day Second ( Oba ) dynasty and the person of its founder Oranmiyan (Oranyan in Yoruba). The main reason for this is the existence of considerable disagreements between numerous Bini and Yoruba versions of the oral historical tradition. Besides this, the story of Oranmiyan is one of the Bini and Yoruba oral history pages most tightly connected with mythology. This fact becomes especially important if one takes into account that the oral tradition is no doubt the main (though not the only) source on the consolidation of the Oba Dynasty in Benin. The key point on which different Bini and Yoruba traditions openly contradict each other, and which scholars debate, is the origin of the Dynasty. Who initiated its founding: Bini or Yoruba? Was it a request or a conquest? Are the characters of the oral tradition relations historical figures? Finally, what were historical, sociocultural, and political circumstances of the Oba accession? If one disengages from details, three groups of traditional versions that describe the origin and life of Oranmiyan (including its period connected with Benin) can be distinguished. These groups may be designated as the Yoruba one, the Benin “official” (i.e., traditionally recognized by Oba themselves and most widely spread among common Bini) and Benin “apocryphal” traditions. In the meantime it should be borne in mind that Bini and Yoruba native gatherers and publishers of the oral historical tradition could influence each other. For example, the Yoruba Johnson could influence the Bini Egharevba, while the latter in his turn could influence another Yoruba, Fabunmi, and so on.