Articles to be published in 2024
Volume 23, Number 1 / March 2024
Hadi Noori. Women's Citizenship Rights of in Iran between the Two Revolutions
ABSTRACT
The main issue of this article is “Women's citizenship rights in Iran between the constitutional revolution and the Islamic revolution followed which logic of historical development?” Does the course of events represent temporary movements or are they parts of a historical trajectory that led to a change in the social position, that is, the citizenship rights of women until the revolution of 1978? In examining this issue, the test of theory is used and the theory of citizenship rights of T. H. Marshall is used as the theoretical framework of analysis. The research method is a historical case study. The data collection method is documentary type and the analysis method is pattern matching type. The findings of the research show that the civil rights were established in the initial form at the end of the Qajar period, which legal provisions were provided in the first Pahlavi state and were partially established in the second Pahlavi period. In the next stage, not political rights but social rights were placed on the agenda of the Pahlavi states, which received more attention than civil rights, and then political rights were considered since the 1960s. Therefore, the historical evolution of women's citizenship rights has been in the form of civil rights, social rights and political rights, which has differences with the historical experience of citizenship rights in Europe and Marshall's theory.
Victoria V. Rostovtseva, Marina L. Butovskaya, Anna A. Mezentseva, Nadezhda B. Dashieva, and Anna A. Korotkova. Male Cooperation is Culture-Specific: Evidence from Cross-Population Experiments
ABSTRACT
The aim of our experimental study was to investigate population differences in sex-specific cooperative tendencies between modern Russians (N = 192) and Buryats (N = 208). Cooperative predispositions were tested independently within each population, under conditions of same-sex dyadic (Prisoner’s Dilemma) and group (iterated Public Goods Game) interactions between subjects who were strangers to each other. Experiments involved face-to-face interactions but any intentional communication was prohibited. The results revealed considerable differences in cooperativeness between Russian and Buryat men: Russian men were more predisposed to cooperate in dyads, whereas Buryat men were better at sustaining a high level of cooperation in group interactions. Russian and Buryat women did not differ in their predispositions to cooperate either in dyads or groups, being more prone to defect than cooperate. The differences in group cooperativeness between Russian and Buryat men were further replicated in a control study using data from an earlier independent experiment. It was also revealed that Buryat men demonstrated an enhanced level of cooperation only in ethnically homogeneous groups. Our results indicate that a higher degree of cooperation in groups is not a universally male feature, but rather may reflect general cultural variation in orientation towards individualism and collectivism. We view this study as a stepping stone towards a more comprehensive cross-cultural research of the revealed phenomenon.
O. O. Thompson and O. G. F. Nwaorgu. When gods Return in Body Bags: The Evolution of Depositions, Exiles and Medical Tourisms among Yoruba Traditional Rulers in Southern Nigeria, c. 1476–2016
ABSTRACT
Why is it that the traditional rulers, who hardly stepped out of their territories in pre-colonial African societies, now engage in visitations outside their territories and even abroad for tourism–health, birth, social functions and diplomatic meetings amongst others? The sad tales are some of them ‘joining the ancestors-being mummified’ in these foreign lands. With focus on the Yoruba traditional rulers in southern Nigeria, the study relies on critical analysis of extant literature, oral interviews, media reports and archival sources. This paper argues that certain factors such as the contacts with the Europeans, colonialism; globalization was the evolution of the fate of the traditional rulers into depositions, exiles and medical tourisms. While foreign visitations or tourism are crucial for modern statecraft, this paper further argues that the reasons such visitations of our so called ‘gods’ end in returning to us as body bags is as a result of the enervating healthcare system, amongst other factors of African States. Recommendations were made based on the findings.
Narayana Rao Bonthu. The Social History of a Village: The Terra Incognita
ABSTRACT
Anthropology and Social History have much in common in spite of establishing themselves as two disciplines. Almost every anthropological study has a social historical aspect while social history is nowhere devoid of anthropology. But one problem is that they are tilted much towards one side. While a significant amount of research is being done in both fields, works that can be called social histories in anthropological sense are rarely found. One such example is the seminal work on Indonesian town. Even this highlights the lack of such works on village proper. This calls for research in such orientation taking cues from both the disciplines and weaving them together in ample proportions. This paper asserts the necessity of such works after reviewing the relevant literature in Anthropology and Social History trying to highlight the related research gaps.
Laura D. Young. Confirming Carneiro: Resource Scarcity and Pre-Modern Warfare
ABSTRACT
In 1970, Robert Carneiro introduced a theory called circumscription. The theory suggests exposure to certain environmental conditions is the main determinant for conflict in the premodern era. Well-received in some circles, others scrutinized whether the theory was as capable as it claimed (See, for instance, the symposium published by American Behavioral Scientist 31:4 March/April; Zinkuna et al. 2016). Though disagreement remains as to whether Carneiro’s theory retains any merit, the results of empirical tests of his theory, more often than not, fall in his favor (Carneiro 1988; See also Deflem 1999). This paper adds to those empirical results and confirms environmental conditions play a role in the presence or absence of war in the premodern era.
Nguyen Manh Cuong. Vietnam’s Model of Market Socialism: Development Model Crisis?
ABSTRACT
This paper examines Vietnam's model of market socialism and aims to fill the gap in the existing literature by analysing the challenges facing this development model. The paper argues that while Vietnam's market socialism emerged as a response to the failure of classical socialism and with help of it Vietnam is achieving significant successes including high economic growth, reducing poverty, and increasing the standard of living. However it lacks a theoretical basis, which threatens its sustainability. The model faces a development model crisis due to corruption of the current governance system and inefficiency in state-owned enterprises (SOEs), which are prolonged by political institutions. The paper reviews the historical and theoretical debate on market socialism and assesses its successes and challenges in promoting economic growth and reducing poverty. By applying the historical and institutional analysis approach, this paper provides insights for policymakers and scholars interested in understanding the strengths and weaknesses of market socialism in practice. The paper emphasizes the need for alternative models such as the social market model to address Vietnam's development model crisis.
Michael J. Winkelman. An Ethnological Model for Assessing Social Evolution of Siberian Shamans
ABSTRACT
An ethnological model of magico-religious practitioners and their social predictors is presented to assess Siberian shamans, their sociocultural evolution, and their relationships to worldwide patterns. Features of Foraging Shamans found worldwide distinguish them from other types of ritualists whose distinctive social conditions illustrate the social evolution of religion. Empirical similarities and differences of Siberian shamans with other types of ritualists address longstanding questions about the generality of Siberian shamans and their changes across sociocultural evolution. Ethnological data shows transformation of shamans began with loss of foraging subsistence and adoption of intensive agriculture, followed by consequences of warfare and political integration. Comparison of this sociocultural evolution with Siberian practitioners illustrates parallel transformations from intensification of pastoralism and the dominance of and eventual breakdown of clan structures. The ethnological model provides an interpretive framework for archaeological, historical, anthropological and ethnographic studies and identifies social processes producing changes in Siberian ritual practices.
Volume 23, Number 2 / September 2024
Julia Zinkina, Marina Butovskaya, Sergey Shulgin, and Andrey Korotayev. Global Evolutionary Perspectives on Gender Differences in Religiosity, Family, Politics and Pro-Social Values Based on the Data from the World Values Survey
ABSTRACT
Recent studies show that the globally rising gender equality does not bring down gender differences in values. These findings somewhat undermine the social role theory and rise the need for additional explanations. Also, these findings imply that gender differences in values might stem from some underlying universalities that persist even through changes associated with socioeconomic development. This gives us ground to explore evolutionary perspective on gender differences in values. We discuss evolutionary mechanisms that could underly certain universal gender differences in values and proceed to check if these differences are truly universal across the world (we use World Values Survey data to search for empirical support of our evolution-based hypotheses). We provide evidence supporting the global scale of gender differences in religiosity, family values, politics values, and pro-social values through our calculations.
Kayode Joseph Onipede. Theocratic System of Administration in Ekiti Society before Oduduwa: A discourse in Ekiti-Yoruba indigenous political culture
ABSTRACT
The concern of this paper is to discuss change and continuity in the traditional political system of the Ekiti Yoruba and explain how the indigenous political system of administration, which is continuing at the community level, can contribute to national cohesion and citizenship. It, thus, interrogated Ekiti indigenous political system before Oduduwa which, to the best of our knowledge, has not been given any scholarly attention despite its significance. The paper relied on historical methodologies consisting of primary and secondary sources to elicit and interpret its data. The primary source comprised participants’ observation and oral interviews with indigenous chief priests and prophets in Ekiti societies; secondary sources were extant studies and documents like texts and journal articles. The paper explains the impact of indigenous social institutions in building lasting social ties among group(s) within Ekiti community and which have continued to complement the administrative structure of government of Ekiti community, including the contemporary system of governance. The adoption of the system and structure which is organic and an inclusive system, because of its bottom-up approach system and structure, facilitated social commitment and citizens’ participation in the administration of their communities. The system has remained significant in the social and political administration of Ekiti society, which is complementary monarchism and can be helpful in the contemporary political system.
Sabeeha and Altaf Qadir. Chiefdom, Vassalage Tribes and Empire: The Political Structures of Arabia from First CE to the Advent of Islam
ABSTRACT
No political system could ever be evolved in isolation from the environment in which it emerged. Similarly, no particular system could be understood as stagnant. It is actually the culmination or an improved form of a long historical growth. Keeping in view this synopsis, the Islamic political institutions could be placed in the time and space where the salient political features and social trends of the Jahaliyah Arabia and the neighboring political cultures contributed to its foundations and evolution. Besides the compact political structures of the Aksum, Rome and Persia and then Byzantine and Sassanid on the borders, internally the Arab before Islam had a diverse mechanism to run their affairs. The Arabian South experienced organized governance as compare to the North and Central regions. This diversity can be attributed to the geo-strategic location and ecological environment of the Peninsula. The fertile South was more supportive to the growth of a political mechanism than the arid geo-politically more vulnerable North and Central regions. In a nutshell, a proper study of the less discussed Jahiliyah politics could minimize the assumptions about the complete lawlessness and political unawareness of the Arabs in politics and governance
Valery Solovyov. Using the Google Books Ngram Corpus to Study Social Evolution
ABSTRACT
This article shortly summarizes primary publications that use Google Books Ngram (GBN) to study societal change. GBN is the most extensive tagged diachronic corpus available. Examining trends in societal evolution is possible using word frequency statistics broken down by year. The development of individualism, the changes in emotions and happiness, social psychology, and some other topics are among those examined in this article as the areas of research that have attracted the most interest. This paper discusses the specific results and the research methodology, particularly its limitations. There are some examples of how GBN can be used to test existing scientific theories. New, unexpected, and scientifically significant findings are possible with GBN that would be impossible with other approaches.
Uwe Christian Plachetka. Zhèng Hé’s indirect impact on Europe: On revolutionary focal groups of Production Revolutions
ABSTRACT
Andrea Komlosy (2022) amplified Leonid and Anton Grinin’s foresight study (Grinin, Grinin, Korotayev 2022), based on the model of production principles, on the impact of Covid-19 by the spatial dimension to merge it with the standard World System model. The Chinese Song Dynasty (960-1279) presumably established cash-based market economy as the seedling nursery of capitalism (inter alia: Schottenhammer 2011, 2017). After the 14th century Black Death and the immediate post-pandemic period the armada of the famous Ming Admiral Zhèng Hé rebooted the Maritime Silk Road (Belich 2022: 232-233) initiating a hitherto unknown hegemonic shift from China to Europe. No vessel of his expedition reached Europe, however crucial information did, to furnish a cluster (Watts-Strogatz 1998) of revolutionary-minded Renaissance humanists in Italy to launch the industrial production revolution by means of their humanism. Since no one can see into the future, calibrating any model means running it backwards into history checking whether the model’s rationale are matching reasonably well with known data or evidences.
Shahzadi Raheela Anum, Sana Fatima, Amjad Ullah Khan, Sobia Ishrat, Bushra Iqbal, Amna, Shaista Naz, Muzammil Ahmad Khan and Muhammad Muzammal. Evolution of human brain and the Myth of its 10 Percent Use
ABSTRACT
The human brain is a complex organ that controls nearly every function of the human body. As science believes, humans evolved from apes but with the passage of time, humans achieved domain specification and maturation in the nervous system due to which they gained sensory, language, and other social cognition functions, called higher-level cognitive functions. Neurogenesis or brain development is an organized process that starts from the early weeks of pregnancy to early childhood. During development, brain parts connect to each other directly and indirectly to process information. As the brain is a mysterious organ so many theories and myths are linked to its development and its use. A widespread misconception, a claim, that most people use only about 10% of their potential brain power. But there is no room for the myth because up till now we have mapped almost all regions of the brain. Furthermore, PET scans and fMRI are clear proofs that all most all brain parts are connected to each other and all parts are functionally active. And if the brain parts are unnecessary and unused then it has to be removed or disappear, as per the rule of the theory of evolution. Now it is the time to rest the myth even though it has survived for a whole century.