Retrodicting the rise, spread, and fall of large-scale states in the Old World

Understanding the rise, spread, and fall of large-scale states in the ancient world has occupied thinkers for millennia. However, no comprehensive mechanistic model of state dynamics based on their insights has emerged, leaving it difficult to evaluate empirically or quantitatively the different explanations offered. Here I present a spatially- and temporally-resolved agent-based model incorporating several hypotheses about the behavior of large-scale (>200 thousand km2) agrarian states and steppe nomadic confederations in Afro-Eurasia between the late Bronze and the end of the Medieval era (1500 BCE to 1500 CE). The model tracks the spread of agrarian states as they expand, conquer the territory of other states or are themselves conquered, and, occasionally, collapse. To accurately retrodict the historical record, several key contingent regional technological advances in state military and agricultural efficiencies are identified. Modifying the location, scale, and timing of these contingent developments allows quantitative investigation of historically-plausible alternative trajectories of state growth, spread, and fragmentation, while demonstrating the operation and limits of the model. Under nominal assumptions, the rapid yet staggered increase of agrarian state sizes across Eurasia after 600 BCE occurs in response to intense military pressure from ‘mirror‘ steppe nomadic confederations. Nevertheless, in spite of various technological advances throughout the period, the modeled creation and spread of new agrarian states is a fundamental consequence of state collapse and internal civil wars triggered by rising ‘demographic-structural’ pressures that occur when state territorial growth is checked yet (warrior elite) population growth continues. Together the model’s underlying mechanisms substantially account for the number of states, their duration, location, spread rate, overall occupied area, and total population size for three thousand years.

Political Parties and Elite Resilience in Sahelian Politics

All Sahelian political regimes had adopted multiparty elections by the 1990s, however, few of the subsequent elections led to peaceful political change or democratization. These newly adopted multiparty systems produced a variety of outcomes ranging from the continued rule of a given political party, to the fracturing of political parties, to military intervention, to near state collapse. This chapter offers a historical account of political parties within this context. It identifies the broad historical trends from independence until the multiparty elections, and presents a typology of political parties in the Sahel. It then presents an initial analysis of the thirty-five legislative elections that have taken place in these six countries since multiparty systems have been installed. The chapter finds that the Sahel may represent an ideal sub-region for comparative analysis for future research on political parties, party systems, political transitions, and regime trajectories in Sub-Saharan Africa.

North Macedonia after the Ohrid Framework Agreement

Independence movements triggered by the end of the Cold War ended in state collapse and the creation of new states across the European continent. The decade coloured with violent wars in the Balkan region did not leave the Republic of Macedonia immune from ethnic conflict, which occurred in 2001. The outcome in the form of the so‑called Ohrid Framework Agreement (OFA) was the intended improvement of the rights of minorities and the sharing of power in decision making, both on local and central levels. The purpose of this paper is to determine whether theoretical approach patterns to state instability match the causes for the outburst of the Macedonian conflict of 2001. It will also try to detect if the conflict resulted from minority discrimination, state institutions’ inability to control the territory, poor economic situation, uneven regional development after independence, or it was a combination of factors that – fully or partially – contributed to its emergence. The paper will also seek to confirm if addressing these factors two decades later decreased the divisions across ethnic lines in the state.

Peace and Security in the Age of Hybrid Wars

This chapter deals with peace and security in the age of hybrid wars, making the argument that the concept of hybrid wars, although useful in understanding the complexity of contemporary security dynamics, is not totally new. It is essentially a politically appropriated concept with implications at the local, national, and international levels. The chapter addresses the issue of conceptual vagueness and novelty of hybrid wars, linking it to other concepts used to analyze (in)security since the end of the Cold War, including the so-called new wars, state collapse, and the more recent focus on resilience.

A fixed point state resolution to the measurement problem

This paper proposes that the measurement problem can be resolved by utilizing a fixed point state and a wormhole. A wormhole additionally connects timelike-separated parts A and B of spacetime. In order to be consistent in usual sense, states on A and B should not change when evolved over the wormhole. This imposes a fixed point state on A and B, when state evolution from B to A via a wormhole and from A to B via usual spacetime are considered together as a single quantum operation. When this type of wormholes does not exist between A and B, state collapse is allowed, revealing one measurement outcome out of a superposition of outcomes. This resolution of the measurement problem upholds linearity of quantum mechanics.

Building a Proto-State on Quicksand: The Rise and Fall of the Palestinian State-in-Exile in Lebanon

In the wake of its relocation to Lebanon, the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) transformed from a guerrilla force into a state-builder. This article explores this transition and argues that the creation of the Palestinian protostate in Lebanon was largely guided by the country's civil war–induced state collapse after 1975, which created both opportunities and needs that forced the Palestinian movement to engage in state-building. Enticed by new opportunities and constrained by the Lebanese Civil War's volatility, the Palestinian movement shifted its strategic priorities from cross-border campaigns against Israel to fighting within Lebanon. These new opportunities and needs also encouraged the PLO to transform itself into a semi-conventional force, which led to its defeat in 1982 and the collapse of the Palestinian proto-state.

Al-Shabaab

The Somalia-based Harakat al-Shabaab al-Mujaheddin, commonly known as al-Shabaab, is a violent nonstate armed actor that has been designated a terrorist group. Its origins are a function of domestic and international factors that include the resurgence of political Islam in Somalia, the Afghan War of 1979 to 1989, state collapse and the prominent rise of the Union of Islamic Courts in the country. Consequently al-Shabaab adopted Islamism, in particular Salafi jihadism, as a political ideology to achieve its objective of creating an Islamic caliphate in the Horn of Africa. Since its formation in 2006, al-Shabaab’s organizational structure, its strategies and tactics of radicalization, recruitment, financing, and military warfare have been based on Islamist doctrines. Al-Shabaab’s effective use of Salafi jihadism to pursue its objectives has made it the greatest threat to peace and stability in Somalia. By establishing links with international groups that advocate a similar ideology, such as al-Qaeda, al-Shabaab has successfully managed to transform itself from a domestic to a transnational actor, thereby also constituting a threat to international security.

Nation-Building Predicament, Transition Fatigue, and Fear of State Collapse

Ethiopia, evolved from Tigray, is known by its history of having been an empire (e.g., the Axumite kingdom) and having been independent. The fundamental weakness of the Ethiopian state has been the lack of inclusive national consensus, hampered by national oppression and the dilemma of democratizing a feudal state. The post-1991 TPLF-EPRDF-led Ethiopia has been experimenting with federalist nation-building to address Ethiopia’s historical contradictions: national and class oppression. The 1995 FDRE Constitution established a federal system and subsequently recognized the right of nations to self-determination including secession, self-administration, and local development. The constitution also declared that the Ethiopian nations were the “sovereign owners” of the constitution. However, the coming of Abiy Ahmed to power and his policy reforms based on ‘neo-pan-Ethiopianism’ opened the box of Pandora of secessionist, irredentist, and federalist forces opposing his plan to recentralize the ethnic federation, as it happened similarly in the case of former Yugoslavia. PM Abiy’s reforms have been branded as those of the ‘Mikael Gorbachev of Ethiopia’ for his sweeping campaign against the 27 years of federalist control. The article investigates the nation-building aspirations, transition fatigue, the predicaments of secessionist, federalist, and assimilationist narratives, and the subsequent fear of ‘state collapse’ in the post-2018 crisis in Ethiopia.