Intra-Elite Competition: A Key Concept for Understanding the Dynamics of Complex Soc

[Mikebert]

(02-18-2017, 07:08 PM)Dan Wrote: http://peterturchin.com/cliodynamica/int...societies/

Quote: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?

Elites are a small proportion of the population (on the order of 1 percent) who concentrate social power in their hands (see my previous post and especially its discussion in the comments that reveal the complex dimensions of this concept). In the United States, for example, they include (but are not limited to) elected politicians, top civil service bureaucrats, and the owners and managers of Fortune 500 companies (see Who Rules America?). As individual elites retire, they are replaced from the pool of elite aspirants. There are always more elite aspirants than positions for them to occupy.  Intra-elite competition is the process that sorts aspirants into successful elites and aspirants whose ambition to enter the elite ranks is frustrated. Competition among the elites occurs on multiple levels. Thus, lower-ranked elites (for example, state representatives) may also be aspirants for the next level (e.g., U.S. Congress), and so on, all the way up to POTUS...




http://peterturchin.com/cliodynamica/int...societies/

Goldstone developed a measure of the forces leading to political instability using something he called the political stress index (psi).  Turchin's version of psi can be simplified to a form given by e^2 / [EF(1-EF)] where e is the elite fraction of the population and EF is the fraction of output that goes to elites and so serves a measure of inequality.  For the US the range of EF varies from 0.45 to 0.75 in which case the denominator varies by less than 30%, By far the largest impact is the effect of numbers of elites.  If you think of elite competition as an interaction or "collision" between rival A and rival B, the frequency such collisions will be proportional to the concentration of A and B or similar e x e.  Psi is a theoretical representation of intra-elite competition leading to sociopolitical instability. Below is a plot of psi for the US. You can clearly see peaks in psi for each of the 4Ts. 



But elite competition is not the whole story for political instability.  After all there was a major outburst of instability around 1970, when psi and elite competition was low.  There was a similar outburst in the 1830's--another time elite completion was low. We recognize these periods as well as the periods of political instability due to elite competition as social moment turnings (2Ts and 4Ts).  This suggests that the generational cycle of S&H and the secular cycle of Turchin may both be important factors in the cycles of history.