Dear Stephen: I have only just come across your posting of 3 July about
the use of "evolution." No doubt the word has acquired a multiplicity of
connotations and users should be careful to explain the sense in which
they use the word--it can easily be misunderstood by those, for example,
who link it with teleological, or even racist, connotations. However, I
agree with you that it is an important and useful word that, in context,
can be very helpful.
As a political scientist, I have used it by contrast with "development" to
make the point that individual societies or states may (sometimes?)
develop in the context of modernization and the contemporary world
system. However, long-term changes in political systems can be viewed as
a type of political evolution. This notion does not translate, of
course, into ideas about the "evolution" of world-systems. I would argue
that changes occurring in components of a world-system may involve the
evolution of sub-structures whether or not the world-system of which they
are a part evolves. It is reasonable to assume that changes at different
levels are related to each other, but how and why that occurs should be
viewed as an empirical question to be investigated, not to be assumed a
priori.
To explain what I think of as political evolution consider the fact that
in many "simple" societies--anthropologists refer to them as "stateless"
there are no formal structures of governance. Many such societies
continue to the present day, I believe, but they are embedded as
"indigenous" or "aboriginal" peoples in the context of modern states.
The first evolutionary stage or step (what would you call it) away from
statelessness probably involved recognition of a leader (ruler, chief,
king) who was able to coordinate and direct the activities of a
community. This was surely a giant step since in stateless societies, I
believe, no permanent or institutionalized leadership roles of this type
were acknowledged. This is a sweeping statement but anthropological
research in stateless societies provides good evidence.
A second step involved the development of institutionalized supporting
roles for the leader, and we have some data on how this happened de novo
in both Rome and China. It led to bureaucratic roles by contrast with
reliance on personal friends and relatives (kith and kin) to carry out the
functions of governance--or even on rotation and selection by casting
lots. Governmental functions were, no doubt, performed in
pre-bureaucratic societies, but learning how to recognize military and
administrative roles and assign individuals to them on a routined basis
greatly strengthened the ability of governments to govern--I understand
that such a change enabled the king of Chin to create the Chin empire in
China, as we know from the work of H. Creel.
States with kings (rulers) and bureaucracies created empires for several
thousand years (a lot depends on how we evaluate ancient Egypt and the
states of the Fertile Crescent, etc. Assemblies and councils are also
ancient but their membership was ascriptive--as in the Roman Senate, the
British House of Lords, and innumerable councils of chiefs, elders, etc.
A giant step occurred when the idea of representation gained acceptance
so that a people (citizens, members) could elect representatives to make
decisions on their behalf.
This became well institutionalized in the American colonies and provided a
basis for the U.S.Congress, and the idea evolved in parallel in Europe,
(perehaps originally in Iceland) spreading from there to the rest of the
world in our times. All "modern" organizations and states are
institutionalized, formally, through representative institutions
(including elections, parties, assemblies, and elected heads of
government) in parallel with bureaucratic institutions.
Obviously, many contemporary organizations and states do not have this
form--I've mentioned stateless societies which continue, criminal gangs,
social clubs, families, etc which continue to function in modern
societies. Despite the formalism of representative institutions, state
power may be highly centralized, as in single-party authoritarianism.
Military dictatorships also invalidate representative institutions, but
often retain them formalistically as a technique for legitimizing their
arbitrary rule. In this usage, "modern" refers to a form of organization
by contrast with "contemporary" which means the present time, and many
contemporary organizations are not modern. This is where the contrast
with "development" comes in: modernizers are those who wish to transform
contemporary non-modern political, economic, cultural structures into
"modern" ones. They do not think much about political evolution because
they take for granted what they see.
In this note I've used words with multiple meanings like "evolution" and
"modern." You may reject the words because, in your usage, they have
other meanings that are more important for you. But if you accept the
utility of the ideas explained here while rejecting the words used here
to talk about them, then I think you have an obligation to propose a more
suitable term that can be used to talk about the same thing. I have
proposed a neologism, for example, to discuss what I call "modern." It
has only one precise meaning in this context whereas, for many, "modern"
means "contemporary." However, resistance to neologisms compels me to
resort to familiar words and try to pin more precise meanings on them on
the premise that readers will remember these stipulated meanings, at
least while reading the text.
To return to your comment, I wonder if you have run into this problem
when using "evolution." Is your use of the word consistent with mine?
If we are talking about different things, please tell me why. If we
agree, then how can we best handle the confusions that arise because
others use if for different concepts--e.g. for teleologically oriented
changes. If they reject "evolution" as a term for non-teleological
long-term structural changes in a system, what term would they
substitute? We cannot reject a good idea just because we don't have a
good word for it. Isn't that why most subscribers distinguish
"world-system" from "world system." The hyphen is not important, but the
two concepts are both important and quite different from each other.
Cheers and aloha, Fred
Mon, 3 Jul 1995, s_sanderson wrote:
> Carl Dassbach asks why we should continue to use the term evolution given the
> misunderstandings and miusages of the concept that abound. My answer is
> because it is one of the most magnificent concepts that has ever been
> formulated. Look at what it's done for the biological sciences and for a large
> part of anthropology. It has fantastic explanatory power and a tremendous
> capacity to unify. It can do much the same for the social sciences, so let's
> not discard it.
>
> I might just note that in its original usage the term evolution derives from
> the Latin "evolutis," meaning "an unrolling." This is certainly teleological
> in implication, no denying that. But virtually no evolutionary biologist that
> I know of today wants to think of evolution as a teleological process. If the
> biologists can discard this original meaning but continue to use the term,
> then social scientists can (and should) too.
>
> For more details, see my Social Evolutionism book.
>
> Stephen Sanderson
Let me add: I look forward to reading your book. Meanwhile, best wishes,
Fred
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FRED W. RIGGS, Professor Emeritus
Political Science Department, University of Hawaii
2424 Maile Way, Honolulu, Hawaii 96822, U.S.A.
Phone: (808) 956-8123 Fax: (808) 956-6877
e-mail: FREDR@UHUNIX.UHCC.HAWAII.EDU
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