dynamics of urban, regional and ecosystem networks Since the Iron age

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dynamics of urban, regional and ecosystem
networks Since the Iron age
Christopher Chase-Dunn and Robert
Hanneman Sociology, University of
California-Riverside Bai-Lian Li Botany and Plant
Sciences, University of California-Riverside Peter
Turchin Ecology and Evolutionary Biology,
University of Connecticut Douglas R.
White Social Dynamics and Evolution, University
of California, Irvine
city lights
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To be submitted to the National Science
Foundations Human and Social Dynamics initiative
A 4 year research project. Start date January
1, 2005. Topical areas "agents of change" and
"dynamics of human behavior" Resource-related
emphasis areas spatial social science, modeling
human and social dynamics, and instrumentation
and data resource development. This will be one
sub-proposal module within a coordinated larger
infrastructural proposal with CSISS(UCSB),
IMBS(UCI), IROWS(UCR) ESRI and SFI.
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This project will model urban growth/decline
phases and the centralization/decentralization
phases of interstate systems in the preindustrial
and modern regional systems, and will test
propositions about how the emergence and eventual
predominance of commodity production and markets
may have altered the dynamics of urban growth and
rise and fall. The data resource development
will focus on city and state sizes, trade routes
and amounts, warfare, climate change, and
epidemic diseases, and the classification of
states and nomadic peoples as to their position
in intersocietal hierarchies (core, periphery and
semiperiphery). The project will develop multiple
indicator measurement error models to construct
many of the quantitative estimates. Data resource
development will include the publication of a raw
data compendium on the web as well as our final
estimates. This will be a spatio-temporal data
archive on all the large cities and states since
1000 BCE as well as data on climate change,
trade, migration and incursions, warfare and
population size estimates.
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The theoretical approach will employ Peter
Turchin's model of the dynamics of agrarian state
growth and decline, network theory and the
population pressure iteration model. The "agents
of change" focus will test the hypothesis of
semiperipheral development - that it is
semiperipheral societies that expand systems,
make larger states, innovate and implement new
techniques of power and new productive
technologies that transform the logic of social
change.  We will develop dynamic nonlinear
models of regional systems. These models will
explain synchrony among distant regions, and we
can test our models with the database that we
will produce.   The spatial and temporal focus
will be four regions in Afroeurasia from 1000
BCE to 1500 CE and then global to the present.
The analyses will use GIS, spatio-temporal
statistical methods, network analyses and
structural equations modeling to test our
theoretical models.
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• The comparative world-systems perspective The
  best unit of analysis for explaining social
  evolution is world-systems.
• What is a World-System?
• A System of Societies Intersocietal System
• Nested Interaction Networks
• Core/Periphery Relations
• Agency The Iteration Model of Hierarchy
  Formation and Technological Development
  Semiperipheral Development
• The Rise and Fall of Large Polities in
  interpolity systems

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• Urbanization Research
• Time-Mapping Cities, Empires and States Since
  1000 BCE
• The Central System
• Pulsations of Integration of the Afroeurasian
  World Island
• Synchrony of East/West City and Empire
  Growth/Decline Phases
• The New Chandler improving our knowledge of the
  population sizes of the largest cities in East
  Asia, South Asia, and the West Asian/Mediterranean
  regions since 1000 BCE

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Interstate system and world economy
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A Core/Periphery Hierarchy
Core
All these blobs are societies
Semiperiphery
Periphery
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Rise and fall of large and powerful polities
within regional interpolity systems
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The Afroeurasian World-System Teggarts Map, 100
BCE
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East/West Pulsations and Merger
Central PGN
4000 BCE
Time
East Asian PGN
Central PMN
Mongol Empire
East Asian PMN
2000 CE
West
East
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Core-Wide Empire vs. Modern Hegemony
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Synchronization of East/West City and Empire
Growth/Decline Phases
Global Climate Change
East Asia
West Asia
Central Asia
Local Climate Change
Local Climate Change
Local Climate Change
?
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Agriculture
Agriculture
Pasturage and Herds
Human Population
Human Population
Human Population
Steppe Empire Formation
Warfare
Warfare

City Growth/Decline
Empire Formation
Empire Formation
City Growth/Decline
(Trade, Epidemics)