scholarly journals Ecological Degradation and the Evolution of World-Systems

1997 ◽  
pp. 403-431 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher Chase-Dunn ◽  
Thomas D. Hall
Keyword(s):  
Complex Systems ◽  
Social Structures ◽  
Population Pressure ◽  
World Systems ◽  
Global System ◽  
Ecological Degradation ◽  
Conceptual Apparatus ◽  
The Past ◽  
Regional Systems ◽  
Long Run

This paper describes the role played by anthropogenic ecological degradation in the evolution of world-systems over the past twelve thousand years. We have developed a conceptual apparatus for comparing workd-systems in order to better understand how fundamental transformations in systemic logic occur. When properlyconceptualized and bounded, we can compare earlier, smaller regional systems with the modem global system. This enables us to comprehend how the size and nature of world-systems have changed. Ourr model of world-systems evolution incorporates the important world of anthropologists on population pressure and ecological degradation. The expanding scale of world- systems corrceponds to the expanding scale of ecological degradation, so that, though institutional developments have temporarily overcome the constraints of demography and ecology, in the long run more complex systems face the same problems that smaller and simpler systems faced. Thus procsses of ecological depletion have long been central in the evolution of social structures and are likely to continue to be so in the future.

Rise and Fall

2000 ◽  
Vol 24 (4) ◽  
pp. 727-754 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher Chase-Dunn ◽  
E. Susan Manning ◽  
Thomas D. Hall
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Systems Approach ◽  
World Systems ◽  
Central Concept ◽  
Global System ◽  
Systems Perspective ◽  
Early States ◽  
The Past ◽  
The World ◽  
Regional System

The world-systems perspective was invented for modeling and interpreting the expansion and deepening of the capitalist regional system as it emerged in Europe and incorporated the whole globe over the past 500 years (Wallerstein 1974; Chase-Dunn 1998; Arrighi 1994). The idea of a core/periphery hierarchy composed of “advanced” economically developed and powerful states dominating and exploiting “less developed” peripheral regions has been a central concept in the world-systems perspective. In the last decade the world-systems approach has been extended to the analysis of earlier and smaller intersocietal systems. Andre Gunder Frank and Barry Gills (1994) have argued that the contemporary global political economy is simply a continuation of a 5,000-year-old world system that emerged with the first states in Mesopotamia. Christopher Chase-Dunn and Thomas Hall (1997) have modified the basic world-systems concepts to make them useful for a comparative study of very different kinds of systems. They include very small intergroup networks composed of sedentary foragers, as well as larger systems containing chiefdoms, early states, agrarian empires, and the contemporary global system in their scope of comparison.

scholarly journals Five Linked Crises in the Contemporary World-System

2013 ◽  
pp. 175-180 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher Chase-Dunn
Keyword(s):  
Wide Class ◽  
World System ◽  
Main Idea ◽  
World Systems ◽  
Global Integration ◽  
Global System ◽  
Contemporary World ◽  
Systems Perspective ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Waves

This essay uses the evolutionary world-systems perspective to address questions about the current crises in the global system. This approach analyzes the structure and changing institutional nature of the whole world-system over the past 500 years, with attention to comparisons with earlier regional world-systems (Chase-Dunn and Lerro 2013). The main idea is that the waves of global integration have been driven by system-wide class and national struggles in which the elites of core states contend with one another and the most successful are those that can effectively deal with the resistance from below. This has produced a spiral of capitalism and socialism that has been connected with the rise and fall of hegemons.

Same Address, Different Doors: Post-Heritage Deconstruction of the Heritage Household in Upstairs Downstairs in the 1970s and 2010s

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
William Abbiss
Keyword(s):  
Final Section ◽  
Social Structures ◽  
The Third ◽  
The Past ◽  
War Narrative ◽  
Critical History ◽  
The Social ◽  
Fourth Series ◽  
History Of ◽  
Multiple Episodes

This article offers a ‘post-heritage’ reading of both iterations of Upstairs Downstairs: the LondonWeekend Television (LWT) series (1971–5) and its shortlived BBC revival (2010–12). Identifying elements of subversion and subjectivity allows scholarship on the LWT series to be reassessed, recognising occasions where it challenges rather than supports the social structures of the depicted Edwardian past. The BBC series also incorporates the post-heritage element of self-consciousness, acknowledging the parallel between its narrative and the production’s attempts to recreate the success of its 1970s predecessor. The article’s first section assesses the critical history of the LWT series, identifying areas that are open to further study or revised readings. The second section analyses the serialised war narrative of the fourth series of LWT’s Upstairs, Downstairs (1974), revealing its exploration of female identity across multiple episodes and challenging the notion that the series became more male and upstairs dominated as it progressed. The third section considers the BBC series’ revised concept, identifying the shifts in its main characters’ positions in society that allow the series’ narrative to question the past it evokes. This will be briefly contrasted with the heritage stability of Downton Abbey (ITV, 2010–15). The final section considers the household of 165 Eaton Place’s function as a studio space, which the BBC series self-consciously adopts in order to evoke the aesthetics of prior period dramas. The article concludes by suggesting that the barriers to recreating the past established in the BBC series’ narrative also contributed to its failure to match the success of its earlier iteration.

Same Address, Different Doors: Post-Heritage Deconstruction of the Heritage Household in Upstairs Downstairs in the 1970s and 2010s

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
William Abbiss
Keyword(s):  
Final Section ◽  
Social Structures ◽  
The Third ◽  
The Past ◽  
War Narrative ◽  
Critical History ◽  
The Social ◽  
Fourth Series ◽  
History Of ◽  
Multiple Episodes

This article offers a ‘post-heritage’ reading of both iterations of Upstairs Downstairs: the LondonWeekend Television (LWT) series (1971–5) and its shortlived BBC revival (2010–12). Identifying elements of subversion and subjectivity allows scholarship on the LWT series to be reassessed, recognising occasions where it challenges rather than supports the social structures of the depicted Edwardian past. The BBC series also incorporates the post-heritage element of self-consciousness, acknowledging the parallel between its narrative and the production’s attempts to recreate the success of its 1970s predecessor. The article’s first section assesses the critical history of the LWT series, identifying areas that are open to further study or revised readings. The second section analyses the serialised war narrative of the fourth series of LWT’s Upstairs, Downstairs (1974), revealing its exploration of female identity across multiple episodes and challenging the notion that the series became more male and upstairs dominated as it progressed. The third section considers the BBC series’ revised concept, identifying the shifts in its main characters’ positions in society that allow the series’ narrative to question the past it evokes. This will be briefly contrasted with the heritage stability of Downton Abbey (ITV, 2010–15). The final section considers the household of 165 Eaton Place’s function as a studio space, which the BBC series self-consciously adopts in order to evoke the aesthetics of prior period dramas. The article concludes by suggesting that the barriers to recreating the past established in the BBC series’ narrative also contributed to its failure to match the success of its earlier iteration.

scholarly journals Evaluating the performance of multivariate indicators of resilience loss

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Els Weinans ◽  
Rick Quax ◽  
Egbert H. van Nes ◽  
Ingrid A. van de Leemput
Keyword(s):  
Time Series ◽  
Complex Systems ◽  
Multivariate Time Series ◽  
Tipping Points ◽  
Physical And Mental Health ◽  
One Dimensional ◽  
Slowing Down ◽  
The Past ◽  
Technological Developments ◽  
Resilience Indicators

AbstractVarious complex systems, such as the climate, ecosystems, and physical and mental health can show large shifts in response to small changes in their environment. These ‘tipping points’ are notoriously hard to predict based on trends. However, in the past 20 years several indicators pointing to a loss of resilience have been developed. These indicators use fluctuations in time series to detect critical slowing down preceding a tipping point. Most of the existing indicators are based on models of one-dimensional systems. However, complex systems generally consist of multiple interacting entities. Moreover, because of technological developments and wearables, multivariate time series are becoming increasingly available in different fields of science. In order to apply the framework of resilience indicators to multivariate time series, various extensions have been proposed. Not all multivariate indicators have been tested for the same types of systems and therefore a systematic comparison between the methods is lacking. Here, we evaluate the performance of the different multivariate indicators of resilience loss in different scenarios. We show that there is not one method outperforming the others. Instead, which method is best to use depends on the type of scenario the system is subject to. We propose a set of guidelines to help future users choose which multivariate indicator of resilience is best to use for their particular system.

Superstar Cities

2013 ◽  
Vol 5 (4) ◽  
pp. 167-199 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joseph Gyourko ◽  
Christopher Mayer ◽  
Todd Sinai
Keyword(s):  
Metropolitan Area ◽  
Metropolitan Areas ◽  
House Prices ◽  
Aggregate Demand ◽  
House Price ◽  
Lower Income ◽  
Local Factors ◽  
The Past ◽  
Long Run ◽  
Price Appreciation

We document large long-run differences in average house price appreciation across metropolitan areas over the past 50 years, and show they can be explained by an inelastic supply of land in some unique locations combined with an increasing number of highincome households nationally. The resulting high house prices and price-to-rent ratios in those “superstar” areas crowd out lower income households. The same forces generate a similar pattern among municipalities within a metropolitan area. These facts suggest that disparate local house price and income trends can be driven by aggregate demand, not just changes in local factors such as productivity or amenities. (JEL R11, R23, R31, R52)

The past is prologue

2018 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 366-385 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Cassels Johnson ◽  
Crissa Stephens ◽  
Stephanie Gugliemo Lynch
Keyword(s):  
Language Policy ◽  
Language Ideologies ◽  
Public Policies ◽  
Social Structures ◽  
New Latino Diaspora ◽  
Policy Initiatives ◽  
The Past ◽  
Historical Processes ◽  
The U.S

Abstract This article examines reactions to the changing linguistic ecology in the U.S. state of Iowa, which is experiencing a demographic phenomenon often referred to as the New Latino Diaspora (NLD) (Hamann et al., 2002). We first examine the historical processes and social structures that link current language policy initiatives within Iowa to local and national nativism. We then analyze public policies and texts to reveal how language ideologies circulate across diverse texts and contexts, forming discourses that shape the experiences of Latin@s in Iowa.

scholarly journals A Fast and Effective Method to Identify Relevant Sets of Variables in Complex Systems

Mathematics ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (9) ◽  
pp. 1022
Author(s):  
Gianluca D’Addese ◽  
Martina Casari ◽  
Roberto Serra ◽  
Marco Villani
Keyword(s):  
Complex Systems ◽  
Gene Regulatory Networks ◽  
Regulatory Networks ◽  
Computational Cost ◽  
Graph Analysis ◽  
The Past ◽  
Medium Level ◽  
Micro Level ◽  
Gene Regulatory ◽  
High Level

In many complex systems one observes the formation of medium-level structures, whose detection could allow a high-level description of the dynamical organization of the system itself, and thus to its better understanding. We have developed in the past a powerful method to achieve this goal, which however requires a heavy computational cost in several real-world cases. In this work we introduce a modified version of our approach, which reduces the computational burden. The design of the new algorithm allowed the realization of an original suite of methods able to work simultaneously at the micro level (that of the binary relationships of the single variables) and at meso level (the identification of dynamically relevant groups). We apply this suite to a particularly relevant case, in which we look for the dynamic organization of a gene regulatory network when it is subject to knock-outs. The approach combines information theory, graph analysis, and an iterated sieving algorithm in order to describe rather complex situations. Its application allowed to derive some general observations on the dynamical organization of gene regulatory networks, and to observe interesting characteristics in an experimental case.

WHITE NOISE ANALYSIS: SOME APPLICATIONS IN COMPLEX SYSTEMS, BIOPHYSICS AND QUANTUM MECHANICS

2012 ◽  
Vol 26 (29) ◽  
pp. 1230014 ◽  
Author(s):  
CHRISTOPHER C. BERNIDO ◽  
M. VICTORIA CARPIO-BERNIDO
Keyword(s):  
Quantum Mechanics ◽  
Probability Density Function ◽  
Complex Systems ◽  
White Noise ◽  
Noise Analysis ◽  
Social Systems ◽  
White Noise Analysis ◽  
The Past ◽  
White Noise Calculus ◽  
With Memory

The white noise calculus originated by T. Hida is presented as a powerful tool in investigating physical and social systems. Combined with Feynman's sum-over-all histories approach, we parameterize paths with memory of the past, and evaluate the corresponding probability density function. We discuss applications of this approach to problems in complex systems and biophysics. Examples in quantum mechanics with boundaries are also given where Markovian paths are considered.

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