Peter Turchin
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View article: A Structural-Demographic Analysis of Japan: 1945–2050
A Structural-Demographic Analysis of Japan: 1945–2050 Open
Is it possible to forecast the dynamics of societal resilience and its obverse, sociopolitical unrest or even breakdown? This is the goal of Structural-Demographic Theory (SDT), which integrates mechanism-based models with data and focuses…
View article: CRISES AVERTED How A Few Past Societies Found Adaptive Reforms in the Face of Structural- Demographic Crises
CRISES AVERTED How A Few Past Societies Found Adaptive Reforms in the Face of Structural- Demographic Crises Open
Historians and social scientists have long been preoccupied with understanding and documenting periods of crisis. Such emphasis is only growing, and becoming more pressing, as the world continues to face a number of interrelated stressors …
View article: CRISES AVERTED. How A Few Past Societies Found Adaptive Reforms in the Face of Structural-Demographic Crises
CRISES AVERTED. How A Few Past Societies Found Adaptive Reforms in the Face of Structural-Demographic Crises Open
Historians and social scientists have long been preoccupied with understanding and documenting periods of crisis. Such emphasis is only growing, and becoming more pressing, as the world continues to face a number of interrelated stressors …
View article: Exploring the relationship between sociopolitical complexity, ideology, and authority in world history
Exploring the relationship between sociopolitical complexity, ideology, and authority in world history Open
Scholars from a wide array of disciplines have sought to identify the core features underpinning cohesion and cooperation within increasingly large, complex, and internally diverse societies. Previous work has suggested that as societies g…
View article: The Spectrum of (Poly)Crisis: Exploring polycrises of the past to better understand our current and future risks
The Spectrum of (Poly)Crisis: Exploring polycrises of the past to better understand our current and future risks Open
As the concept of polycrisis gains popularity among academics, policy-makers, and the general public, many questions linger about the utility, scope, and applicability of the term in different contexts. Building on prior work, we argue tha…
View article: Cliopatria - A geospatial database of world-wide political entities from 3400BCE to 2024CE
Cliopatria - A geospatial database of world-wide political entities from 3400BCE to 2024CE Open
The scientific understanding of the complex dynamics of global history – from the rise and spread of states to their declines and falls, from their peaceful interactions with economic or diplomatic exchanges to violent confrontations – req…
View article: Cliopatria - A geospatial database of world-wide political entities from 3400BCE to 2024CE
Cliopatria - A geospatial database of world-wide political entities from 3400BCE to 2024CE Open
The scientific understanding of the complex dynamics of global history – from the rise and spread of states to their declines and falls, from their peaceful interactions with economic or diplomatic exchanges to violent confrontations – req…
View article: Landscape of fear: indirect effects of conflict can account for large-scale population declines in non-state societies
Landscape of fear: indirect effects of conflict can account for large-scale population declines in non-state societies Open
The impact of inter-group conflict on population dynamics has long been debated, especially for prehistoric and non-state societies. In this work, we consider that beyond direct battle casualties, conflicts can also create a ‘landscape of …
View article: Empirically Testing Predictions of an Attrition Warfare Model for the War in Ukraine
Empirically Testing Predictions of an Attrition Warfare Model for the War in Ukraine Open
The goal of this study is to empirically test hypotheses about wars of attrition by evaluating their predictions for the conflict in the Ukraine. Evaluation will occur after the war is over and authoritative data sources become available f…
View article: Navigating polycrisis: long-run socio-cultural factors shape response to changing climate
Navigating polycrisis: long-run socio-cultural factors shape response to changing climate Open
Climate variability and natural hazards like floods and earthquakes can act as environmental shocks or socioecological stressors leading to instability and suffering throughout human history. Yet, societies experience a wide range of outco…
View article: Structural-demographic analysis of the Qing Dynasty (1644–1912) collapse in China
Structural-demographic analysis of the Qing Dynasty (1644–1912) collapse in China Open
This paper analyzes the collapse of the Qing dynasty (1644–1912) through the lens of the Structural Demographic Theory (SDT), a general framework for understanding the drivers of socio-political instability in state-level societies. Althou…
View article: Landscape of Fear: Indirect effects of conflict can account for large-scale population declines in non-state societies
Landscape of Fear: Indirect effects of conflict can account for large-scale population declines in non-state societies Open
The impact of inter-group conflict on population dynamics has long been debated, especially for prehistoric and non-state societies. In this work, we consider that beyond direct battle casualties, conflicts can also create a “landscape of …
View article: Empirically Testing and Refining Structural Demographic Theory: A Methodological Guide
Empirically Testing and Refining Structural Demographic Theory: A Methodological Guide Open
Are human societies dynamical systems? Can they be studied—and, perhaps, to a degree predicted—with the methods of complexity science, such as agent-based models and big data analytics? If yes, what are the limits to prediction? A particul…
View article: Explaining population booms and busts in Mid-Holocene Europe
Explaining population booms and busts in Mid-Holocene Europe Open
Archaeological evidence suggests that the population dynamics of Mid-Holocene (Late Mesolithic to Initial Bronze Age, ca. 7000–3000 BCE) Europe are characterized by recurrent booms and busts of regional settlement and occupation density. T…
View article: Navigating Polycrisis: long-run socio-cultural factors shape response to changing climate
Navigating Polycrisis: long-run socio-cultural factors shape response to changing climate Open
Climate variability and natural hazards like floods and earthquakes can act as environmental shocks or socioecological stressors leading to instability and suffering throughout human history. Yet, societies experience a wide range of outco…
View article: Datafile with Severity of Consequences Data from Navigating polycrisis: long-run socio-cultural factors shape response to changing climate
Datafile with Severity of Consequences Data from Navigating polycrisis: long-run socio-cultural factors shape response to changing climate Open
Supplementary Datafile
View article: Soil fertility depletion is not a credible mechanism for population boom/bust cycles in early agricultural societies
Soil fertility depletion is not a credible mechanism for population boom/bust cycles in early agricultural societies Open
Soil fertility depletion presents a negative feedback mechanism that could have impacted early adopters of agriculture. In this paper, we present a formal mathematical analysis of the question whether such feedback can lead to population c…
View article: Structural-Demographic Analysis of the Qing Dynasty (1644–1912) Collapse in China
Structural-Demographic Analysis of the Qing Dynasty (1644–1912) Collapse in China Open
This paper analyzes the collapse of the Qing dynasty (1644–1912) through the lens of the Structural Demographic Theory (SDT), a general framework for understanding the drivers of socio-political instability in state-level societies. Althou…
View article: Moralizing Supernatural Punishment and Reward: A Response to Critics
Moralizing Supernatural Punishment and Reward: A Response to Critics Open
In this contribution we respond to three critiques of our 2019 article ‘Complex Societies Precede Moralizing Gods throughout World History.’ We clarify that our research does not, as our critics suppose, support the claim that moralizing g…
View article: Evaluation
Evaluation Open
The evaluation of productivity, quality and agility requires concrete metrics to be evaluated prior to the introduction of ALIGNED tools. This gives us a baseline measurement for gains in the three evaluation areas. Once ALIGNED tools and …
View article: Explaining the rise of moralizing religions: a test of competing hypotheses using the Seshat Databank
Explaining the rise of moralizing religions: a test of competing hypotheses using the Seshat Databank Open
The causes, consequences, and timing of the rise of moralizing religions in
\nworld history have been the focus of intense debate. Progress has been
\nlimited by the availability of quantitative data to test competing
\ntheories, by diverg…
View article: Testing the Big Gods hypothesis with global historical data: a review and “retake”
Testing the Big Gods hypothesis with global historical data: a review and “retake” Open
This Retake article presents a corrected and extended version of a Letter published in Nature (Whitehouse et al., 2019) which set out to test the Big Gods hypothesis proposing that beliefs in moralizing punitive deities drove the evolution…
View article: Disentangling the evolutionary drivers of social complexity: A comprehensive test of hypotheses
Disentangling the evolutionary drivers of social complexity: A comprehensive test of hypotheses Open
During the Holocene, the scale and complexity of human societies increased markedly. Generations of scholars have proposed different theories explaining this expansion, which range from broadly functionalist explanations, focusing on the p…
View article: seshatdb (Equinox Packaged Data)
seshatdb (Equinox Packaged Data) Open
This is the first official release of Equinox Data on GitHub / Zenodo.
View article: seshatdb (Equinox Packaged Data)
seshatdb (Equinox Packaged Data) Open
This is the first official release of Equinox Data on GitHub / Zenodo.
View article: Explaining population booms and busts in Mid-Holocene Europe
Explaining population booms and busts in Mid-Holocene Europe Open
Archaeological evidence suggests that the population dynamics of Mid-Holocene (Late Mesolithic to Initial Bronze Age, ca. 7000-3000 BCE) Europe are characterized by recurrent booms and busts of regional settlement and occupation density. T…
View article: CRISES AVERTED How A Few Past Societies Found Adaptive Reforms in the Face of Structural- Demographic Crises
CRISES AVERTED How A Few Past Societies Found Adaptive Reforms in the Face of Structural- Demographic Crises Open
Historians and social scientists have long been preoccupied with understanding and documenting periods of crisis. Such emphasis is only growing, and becoming more pressing, as the world continues to face a number of interrelated stressors …