To show the non-linear nature of social evolution, it is crucially important to discuss cases from different cultural areas and different historical periods, including our time, as well as different levels of overall sociocultural complexity. This anthology includes chapters that explore case studies covering a wide range of societies of the Old and the New World ranging from ancient to modern contexts. Respectively, the chapters are based on different kinds of sources – archaeological, historical, anthropological (ethnographic), and sociological. This analysis of pre-modern and modern societies sheds valuable light on the variety of ways in which social institutions were developing through time and space and of how these institutions may have fostered social evolution. Therefore, this publication may enhance our understanding of social evolution at the world-system, regional, and local-culture levels via the integration of various kinds of evidence within a unified conceptual framework.
Societies are systems composed of a great number of various social institutions. Societies change as a result of emergence, transformation, and interaction of institutions. As systems of social institutions, societies have a fundamental characteristic that can be called a “basic principle of societal organization.” The principle of organization a society embodies depends on the way its institutions are arranged with respect to one another. Two basic principles can be distinguished: heterarchical, at which institutions interact being unranked with respect to one another or can be ranked in different ways, and the opposite principle, homoarchical, at which institutions interact being rigidly ranked in the only way and have no or very limited potential for being unranked or ranked in other ways. Societies of the same level of overall cultural complexity and with the same basic principle of organization can take different specific forms, as alternativeness exists not only between but also within the heterarchical and homoarchical macrogroups of societies. The division of societies into predominantly heterarchical and homoarchical is a constant fact of human sociocultural history. The dichotomy of heterarchy and homoarchy has considerably determined the non-linear and alternative nature of the global sociocultural process.
Transformations in the ways social institutions and their sets, societal subsystems, are ranked (homoarchically or heterarchically) on one hand and changes in the overall sociocultural complexity on the other are two different, largely unrelated processes. Homoarchy and heterarchy are not evolutionary lines: a society can pass from a predominantly heterarchical way of ranking institutions to predominantly homoarchical or vice versa, and can do it both with and without a change in level of complexity. At any level of overall cultural complexity, one can observe both heterarchical and homoarchical societies, because an equal level of complexity (which makes it possible to solve equally difficult problems societies face) can be achieved in various forms on essentially different (though intersecting in the history of many societies and regions) principles of societal organization.
Table of Contents:
Notes on Editors and Contributors; Chapter 1-Principles and Forms of Organization of Societies as Systems of Institutions (The “Conceptual Frame” of This Book); Part I - Ancient and Medieval Societies; Chapter 2 - Ancient Greek Polis: From Homoarchy to Heterarchy and Back Again; Chapter 3 - Royal Power and Social Order among Early Nomads: Homoarchy and Heterarchy in the Western Steppe Zone of Eurasia; Chapter 4 Episcopal Election in the Frankish Kingdom and Models of Social Organization in the Frankish Society: Ideal and Practice; Chapter 5 - The Rus’ People of the Ninth to Eleventh Centuries: Ethnicity and Social Differentiation; Chapter 6- “If Our Brother Had Outlived Our Father by Even a Single Day […]” The Conflict of Two Systems of Succession to the Throne in Castile in the Late Thirteenth Century and the Principles of Social Organization; Part II Modern Societies; Chapter 7 - King Philip’s War (1675–1676): Interactions and Transformations of Typologically Different Societies in the Colonial Context; Chapter 8 - Liberty without Equality and Fraternity; Chapter 9 - A Homoarchical Institution within a Heterarchical System: Church and State in Contemporary Greece; Anna K. Aleksandrova Chapter 10 - The Role of Ethno-social Stratification and Ethnic Mobility in the Context of the Conflict in Sudan’s Darfur Region; Chapter 11 “Let there Be No Hard Feelings between Us!”: Heterarchical Mechanisms in the Transformation of Equality into Hierarchy and Back in the North of European Russia;
Chapter 12 - The Cultural Dimension of Collectivism–Individualism and Empathy in Different Countries During the COVID-19 Pandemic; Chapter 13 - Conclusion; Index
About the Author :
Dmitri M. Bondarenko is an anthropologist, historian, and Africanist. Dmitri is Deputy Director for Research and Chair of the Center of Anthropology of the Institute of Oriental Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences, Director of the International Center of Anthropology, HSE University, and Professor in Ethnology, Russian State University for the Humanities. His research interests include anthropological, social, and historical theory, political anthropology, cultures and history of Africa, sociocultural transformations and intercultural interaction. Bondarenko has conducted fieldwork in six African countries and among people of African origin in Russia and the USA. Dmitri has authored over 550 publications, including eight monographs published in Russia, Germany, the USA, and the UK.
Gleb V. Aleksandrov, PhD, is Deputy Director of the International Centre of Anthropology, National Research University Higher School of Economics.
Review :
“The editors have compiled an extraordinary set of geographically wide-ranging case studies from different time periods involving various levels of political organization. The insightful analysis of social institutions put forth in this publication makes it a must-read for social scientists interested in understanding the nature of sociopolitical organization.” —Richard J. Chacon, Professor of Anthropology, Winthrop University, SC, USA.
“Bondarenko and Aleksandrov address an important issue in anthropology; evolutionary concepts need to be tested in institutional contexts. Applying heterarchy and homoarchy to historical, archaeological, and modern contexts, they outline shortcomings and corrections to evolutionary applications. This approach is an important model for future research.” —David B. Small, Professor Emeritus of Anthropology, Lehigh University, PA, USA.
