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Social cycle theories are among the earliestsocial theories insociology. Unlike the theory ofsocial evolutionism, which views theevolution of society andhuman history as progressing in some new, unique direction(s), sociological cycle theory argues that events and stages of society and history generally repeat themselves in cycles.
Such a theory does not necessarily imply that there cannot be anysocial progress. In the early theory ofSima Qian and the more recent theories of long-term ("secular") political-demographic cycles,[1] an explicit accounting is made of social progress.
Interpretation ofhistory as repeating cycles of Dark and Golden Ages was a common belief among ancient cultures.[2]Kyklos (Ancient Greek: κύκλος[kýklos], "cycle") is a term used by some classicalGreek authors to describe what they considered as the cycle ofgovernments in a society. It was roughly based on the history of Greekcity-states in the same period. The concept of thekyklos is first elaborated byPlato,Aristotle, and most extensivelyPolybius. They all came up with their own interpretation of the cycle, and possible solutions to break the cycle, since they thought the cycle to be harmful.
Later writers such asCicero andMachiavelli commented on thekyklos. The more limited cyclical view of history defined as repeating cycles of events was put forward in the academic world in the 19th century inhistoriosophy (a branch ofhistoriography) and is a concept that falls under the category ofsociology. However,Polybius,Ibn Khaldun (seeAsabiyyah), andGiambattista Vico can be seen as precursors of this analysis. Thesaeculum was identified in Roman times. In recent times, P. R. Sarkar in his social cycle theory has used this idea to elaborate his interpretation of history.
Plato describes his cycle of governments in his workRepublic, Book VIII and IX.[3] He distinguishesfive forms of government:aristocracy,timocracy,oligarchy,democracy, andtyranny, and writes that governments devolve respectively in this order from aristocracy into tyranny. Plato's cycle of governments is linked with his anthropology of the rulers that come with each form of government. This philosophy is intertwined with the way the cycle of governments plays out.[4]
An aristocracy is ruled by aristocratic people whose rule is guided by their rationality. The decline of aristocracy into timocracy happens when people who are less qualified to rule come to power. Their rule and decision-making is guided by honor. Timocracy devolves into oligarchy as soon as those rulers act in pursuit of wealth. Oligarchy devolves into democracy when the rulers act on behalf of freedom. Lastly, democracy devolves into tyranny if rulers mainly seek power. Plato believes that having aphilosopher king, and thus having an aristocratic form of government is the most desirable.[5]
According to Polybius, who has the most fully developed version of thekyklos, it rotates through the three basic forms of government:democracy,aristocracy, andmonarchy, and the three degenerate forms of each of these governments:ochlocracy,oligarchy, andtyranny. Originally society is in ochlocracy but the strongest figure emerges and sets up a monarchy. The monarch's descendants, who lack virtue because of their family's power, becomedespots and the monarchy degenerates into a tyranny.[6]
Because of the excesses of the ruler, the tyranny is overthrown by the leading citizens of the state, who set up an aristocracy. They too, quickly forget about virtue, and the state becomes an oligarchy. These oligarchs are overthrown by the people, who set up a democracy. Democracy soon becomes corrupt and degenerates into ochlocracy, beginning the cycle anew. Polybius's concept of the cycle of governments is calledanacyclosis.[6]
Polybius, in contrast to Aristotle, focuses on the idea ofmixed government: the idea that the ideal government is one that blends elements of monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy. Aristotle mentions this notion but pays little attention to it. Polybius saw theRoman Republic as the embodiment of this mixed constitution, and this would explain why the Roman Republic was so powerful and why it remained stable for a longer amount of time.[6] Polybius' full description can be found in Book VI of hisHistories.[7]
Cicero describes anacyclosis in his philosophical workDe re publica.[8] His version of the anacyclosis is heavily inspired by Polybius' writings. Cicero argues, contrary to Polybius, that the Roman state can prevail and will not succumb to the harmful cycle despite its mixed government, as long as the Roman Republic will return to its ancient virtues (mos maiorum).[9]
Machiavelli, writing during theRenaissance, appears to have adopted Polybius' version of the cycle. Machiavelli's adoption of anacyclosis can be seen in Book I, Chapter II of hisDiscourses on Livy.[10] Although Machiavelli adopts the idea of the circular structure in which types of governments alternate, he does not accept Polybius' idea that the cycle naturally devolves through the exact same pattern of governments.[11] He mixes the concept of the "cycle of regimes" with the cycle of civilizations, which are two separate and distinct concepts.[12]
Thomas Carlyle conceived of history as though it were aphoenix, growing and dying in stages akin to the seasons. He saw theFrench Revolution as the ashes or winter of Europeancivilisation, and that it would necessarily build out of the rubble.[13]
Russian philosopherNikolai Danilewski inRossiia i Evropa (1869), differentiated between various smaller civilizations (Egyptian, Chinese, Persian, Greek, Roman, German, and Slav, among others). He wrote that each civilization has a life cycle, and by the end of the 19th century the Roman-German civilization was in decline, while the Slav civilization was approaching itsGolden Age. A similar theory was put forward byOswald Spengler, who in hisDer Untergang des Abendlandes (1918) also argued that theWestern civilization had entered its final phase of development and its decline was inevitable.
The first social cycle theory in sociology was created byItalian sociologist and economistVilfredo Pareto in hisTrattato di Sociologia Generale (1916). He centered his theory on the concept of anelitesocial class, which he divided into cunning 'foxes' and violent 'lions'. In his view of society, thepower constantly passes from the 'foxes' to the 'lions' and vice versa.
Sociological cycle theory was also developed byPitirim A. Sorokin in hisSocial and Cultural Dynamics (1937, 1943). He classified societies according to their 'cultural mentality', which can be ideational (reality is spiritual), sensate (reality is material), or idealistic (a synthesis of the two). He interpreted the contemporary West as a sensate civilization dedicated to technological progress, and prophesied its fall into decadence and the emergence of a new ideational or idealistic era.
Alexandre Deulofeu developed a mathematical model of social cycles, that he claimed fit historical facts. He argued that civilizations and empires go through cycles in his bookMathematics of History, written inCatalan, published in 1951. He claims that each civilization passes through a minimum of three 1,700-year cycles. As part of civilizations, empires have an average lifespan of 550 years. He stated that by knowing the nature of these cycles, it could be possible to modify the cycles in such a way that change could be peaceful, instead of leading to war. Deulofeu believed he had found the origin ofRomanesque art, during the 9th century, in an area betweenEmpordà andRoussillon, which he argued was the cradle of the second cycle of western European civilization.
Much ofpost-apocalyptic fiction depicts various kinds of cyclical history, with depictions of civilization collapsing and being slowly built up again to collapse again and so on.
An early example isAnatole France's 1908satirical novelPenguin Island (French:L'Île des Pingouins) which traces the history of Penguinia—a thinly disguised analogue of France—from medieval times to the modern times and into a future of a monstrous super-city—which eventually collapses. This is followed by a renewed Feudalism and agrarian society, and a gradual building up of increasingly advanced civilization—culminating with a new monstrous super-city which would eventually collapse again, and so on.
A later example isWalter M. Miller Jr.'sA Canticle for Leibowitz, which begins in the aftermath of a devastatingnuclear war, with theCatholic Church seeking to preserve a remnant of old texts, as it did in the historical Early Middle Ages, and ends with a new civilization, built up over two thousand years, once again destroying itself in a nuclear war. A new group of Catholic clergy again set out to preserve a remnant of civilized knowledge.
In the future depicted inOctober the First Is Too Late, a 1966science fiction novel byastrophysicistFred Hoyle, the protagonists fly over where they expected to see the United States, but see no sign of urban civilization. At first assuming they were in the pre-1750 past, they later find it was a future time. Humanity is doomed to go through repeated cycles of industrialization, overpopulation, collapse—followed by rebuilding, and then again industrialization, overpopulation and collapse and so on, over and over again. In the far future, a civilization which is aware of this history no longer wants progress.
One of the most important recent findings in the study of the long-term dynamic social processes was the discovery of the political-demographic cycles as a basic feature of the dynamics of complexagrarian systems.
The presence of political-demographic cycles in the pre-modern history ofEurope andChina, and inchiefdom level societies worldwide has been known for quite a long time,[14] and already in the 1980s more or less developedmathematical models of demographic cycles started to be produced (first of all for Chinese "dynastic cycles") (Usher 1989). At the moment[when?] there are a considerable number of such models (Chu and Lee 1994; Nefedov 1999, 2002, 2003, 2004; S. Malkov, Kovalev, and A. Malkov 2000; S. Malkov and A. Malkov 2000; Malkov and Sergeev 2002, 2004a, 2004b; Malkov et al. 2002; Malkov 2002, 2003, 2004;Turchin 2003, 2005a;Korotayev et al. 2006).
George Modelski, who presented his ideas in the bookLong Cycles in World Politics (1987), is the chief architect of long cycle theory. Long cycle theory describes the connection between war cycles, economic supremacy, and the political aspects of world leadership.
Long cycles, or long waves, offer perspectives on global politics by permitting "the careful exploration of the ways in which world wars have recurred, and lead states such as Britain and the United States have succeeded each other in an orderly manner." Not to be confused withSimon Kuznets' idea oflong-cycles, or long-swings, long cycles of global politics are patterns of past world politics.[15]
The long cycle, according to Dr. Dan Cox, is a period of time lasting approximately 70 to 100 years. At the end of that period, "the title of most powerful nation in the world switches hands."[16] Modelski divides the long cycle into four phases. When periods of global war, which could last as much as one-fourth of the total long cycle, are factored in, the cycle can last from 87 to 122 years.[17]
Many traditional theories of international relations, including the other approaches to hegemony, believe that the baseline nature of the international system isanarchy.[18] Modelski's long cycle theory, however, states that war and other destabilizing events are a natural product of the long cycle and largerglobal system cycle. They are part of the living processes of the global polity and social order. Wars are "systemic decisions" that "punctuate the movement of the system at regular intervals." Because "world politics is not a random process of hit or miss, win or lose, depending on the luck of the draw or the brute strength of the contestants", anarchy does not play a role; long cycles have provided, for the last five centuries, a means for the successive selection and operation of numerous world leaders.[19]
Modelski used to believe that long cycles were a product of the modern period. He suggests that the five long cycles, which have taken place since about 1500, are each a part of a larger global system cycle, or the modern world system.
Under the terms of long cycle theory, five hegemonic long cycles have taken place, each strongly correlating to economicKondratieff Waves (or K-Waves). The first hegemon would have been Portugal during the 16th century, then the Netherlands during the 17th century. Next, Great Britain served twice, first during the 18th century, then during the 19th century. The United States has been serving as hegemon since the end of World War II.
In 1988,Joshua S Goldstein advanced the concept of the political midlife crisis in his book on "Long Cycle Theory",Long Cycles: Prosperity and War in the Modern Age,[20][page needed] which offers four examples of the process:
Ineconomics,Kondratiev waves, also called supercycles, great surges, long waves, K-waves or the long economic cycle, are hypothesized cycle-like phenomena in the modernworld economy.[21] It is stated that the period of a wave ranges from forty to sixty years. Thecycles have alternating intervals of high sectoralgrowth and intervals of relatively slow growth.[22]
Such theories are dismissed by most economists on the basis ofeconometric analysis, which has found that recessions are essentially random events, and the probability of a recession does not show any kind of pattern across time.[23] Despite frequent use of the termbusiness cycles to refer to changes in an economy around itstrend line, the phrase is considered amisnomer. It is widely agreed that fluctuations in economic activity do not exhibit any kind of predictable repetition over time, and the appearance of cycles is a result ofpareidolia.[24][25][26]
Recently the most important contributions to the development of themathematical models of long-term ("secular") sociodemographic cycles have been made by Sergey Nefedov,Peter Turchin,Andrey Korotayev, and Sergey Malkov.[27] What is important is that on the basis of their models Nefedov, Turchin and Malkov have managed to demonstrate that sociodemographic cycles were a basic feature of complex agrarian systems, and not a specifically Chinese or European phenomenon.
The basic logic of these models is as follows:
It has become possible to model these dynamics mathematically in a rather effective way. Note that the modern theories of political-demographic cycles do not deny the presence of trend dynamics and attempt at the study of the interaction between cyclical and trend components of historical dynamics.
The models have two main phases, each with two subphases.[28]
An intercycle is where a functioning state collapses and takes some time to rebuild.
| Feature | Integrative phase | Disintegrative phase | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Expansion phase (growth) | Stagflation phase (compression) | Crisis phase (state breakdown) | Depression / Intercycle | |
| Population | Increases | Slow increase | Decreases | Slow decrease |
| Elites | Low population and consumption | Increasing population and competition and consumption | High population, conflicts, high inequality | Reduction of population, downward mobility, reduced consumption |
| State strength and collective solidarity | Increasing | High but decreasing | Collapse | Attempts at rebuilding |
| Sociopolitical instability | Low | Increasing | High | Decreasing |
Disintegrative phases typically do not have continuous disorder, but instead periods of strife alternating with relatively peaceful periods. This alternation typically has a period of about two human generation times (40 – 60 years), and Turchin calls it a "fathers and sons" cycle.
TheStrauss–Howe generational theory, also known as the Fourth Turning theory or simply the Fourth Turning, which was created by authorsWilliam Strauss andNeil Howe, describes a theorized recurringgeneration cycle inAmerican history. According to the theory, historical events are associated with recurring generational personas (archetypes). Each generational persona unleashes a new era, called a turning, in which a new social, political, and economic climate exists. Turnings tend to last around 20–22 years.
They are part of a larger cyclical "saeculum", a long human life, which usually spans between 80 and 90 years, although somesaecula have lasted longer. The theory states that after every saeculum, acrisis recurs in American history, which is followed by a recovery (high). During this recovery, institutions andcommunitarian values are strong. Ultimately, succeeding generational archetypes attack and weaken institutions in the name of autonomy andindividualism, which ultimately creates a tumultuous political environment that ripens conditions for another crisis.
Thecyclical theory (United States history)[29][30][31][32] is a theory of US history developed byArthur M. Schlesinger Sr. andArthur M. Schlesinger Jr. It states that US history alternates between two kinds of phases:
Each kind of phase generates the other. Liberal phases generate conservative phases from activism burnout, and conservative phases generate liberal phases from accumulation of unsolved problems.
HistorianSamuel P. Huntington has proposed that American history has had several bursts of "creedal passion" roughly every 60 years.[33][34][35] These are efforts to bring American government closer to the "American creed" of being "egalitarian, participatory, open, noncoercive, and responsive to the demands of individuals and groups."
The United States has had sixparty systems over its history. Each one is a characteristic platform and set of constituencies of each of the two major parties. A new party system emerges from a burst of reform, and in some cases, the disintegration of a party in the previous system (1st: Federalist, 2nd: Whig).
Political scientistStephen Skowronek has proposed that American history has gone through several regimes, with four main types of presidencies.[33][36][37][38][39][40][41][42] Each regime has a dominant party and an opposition party. The President involved in starting it is a "reconstructive" one, and that President's successors in the dominant party are "articulating" ones. However, opposition-party Presidents are often elected, "preemptive" ones. A regime ends with having a President or two from its dominant party, a "disjunctive" President.
Frank Klingberg has proposed a cyclic theory of US foreign policy.[30][43][44][45][46] It states that the US alternates between extroverted phases, phases involving military adventures, challenging other nations, and annexing territory, and introverted phases, phases with the absence of these activities.
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