Leonid Grinin

National Research University Higher School of Economics | HSE · Laboratory for Destabilization Risk Monitoring

The article deals with important theoretical problems of social evolution. In the authors' opinion, a number of general evolutionary ideas, principles and conclusions formulated in the article may be significant for the study of not only social evolution but also of evolution as such. The authors' basic ideas and principles are as follows: Evolutio...

We are speaking here about the system that originated in the early Holocene in the Middle East in direct connection with the start of the Agrarian ("Neolithic") revolution, and that eventually encompassed the whole world. With Andre Gunder Frank (1990, 1993) we denote this system as "the World System". As we have shown (Korotayev, Malkov, and Khalt...

The general process of the growth of sociocultural complexity was multidimensional and multilinear. That is why the evolutionary phase of medium-complex societies (where the chiefdoms are most often observed) was represented by numerous types of societies. The article is devoted to the analysis of chiefdom analogues, or various evolutionary alterna...

This article analyzes some important aspects of socioeconomic and political development of the world in the near future. The future always stems from the present. The first part of the article is devoted to the study of some crucial events of the present,which could be regarded as precursors of forthcoming fundamental changes. In particular, it is...

There are very significant conceptual links between theories of social macroevolution and theories of theWorld System development. It is shown that the growth of the World System complexity and integrity can be traced through a system of phase transitions of macroevolution. The first set of phase transition is connected with the agrarian, industria...

The present article is devoted to the issue of unity of laws, patterns and mechanisms of evolution at all its stages and levels of Big History and megaevolution. Despite the enormous differences between cosmic, planetological, chemical, biological, and social evolutions, there are many similarities. There are a lot of important and insightful works...

How a group of researchers from Hungary was enquirying during the nineties, according to partners of conversation at home and abroad, with whom one could talk about how the new world emerging with 1989 can actually be described, is a long story, the theory of which consists in the fact, that we apparently live in a world, where the most part of...

Since February 2022, the World-System has entered a new phase of development. Its reconfiguration, associated with the weakening of American dominance, which has been going on since at least 2008 (since the outbreak of the global crisis), has accelerated. The uncertainty about the outcome of Russia's special military operation in Ukraine (SMO), the...

The chapter examines the issues of mutual influence of technological and economic growth, the pace of which, after unprecedentedly high rates in the middle of the twentieth century, stabilized and began to slow down. Limited opportunities for extensive growth, a decrease in demand due to the stabilization of demographic growth, a worsening problem...

This chapter presents forecasts for the emergence of large-scale political and demographic collapses and for the economic growth of some countries in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), where the likelihood of armed civil conflicts and population impoverishment is the highest in the coming decades. Korotayev et al. apply several advanced mathematical models:...

Leonid Grinin and Anton Grinin look at the forthcoming decades up to the late twenty-first century, focusing on two important processes of development. The first of them is technological changes connected with a new technological wave or, in the authors’ terms, the final phase of the Cybernetic Revolution. This technological revolution will result...

The chapter discusses the necessity of choosing different strategies for different groups of countries for a successful movement to the recognized worldwide goals. In this respect, strategies as well as policies depend on different causes and conditions, including demographics, natural resources, historical traditions, etc., but especially on level...

This chapter outlines a methodological approach, on the basis of which the report further analyzes the processes that have been taking place in the world in recent decades. Sadovnichy et al. call this approach macrohistorical. It is based on the notion that the ongoing processes are considered in a broad historical context, covering hundreds and th...

This chapter examines technologies’ current and future development in the framework of the Cybernetic Revolution—the third of the largest production (or technological) revolutions after the Agrarian and Industrial ones. The Cybernetic Revolution is a fundamental transition from industrial production to the production of services and goods based on...

Sadovnichy et al. present this chapter as an introductory one to the Mathematical Part which consists of nine chapters, including the present one. In the present chapter, Sadovnichy et al. explain the design of the Mathematical Part, which mathematical apparatus is used, how the chapters and conclusions of this part are connected with those in the...

In this introductory chapter, Sadovnichy et al. offer a preliminary analysis of the previous reports to the Club of Rome. This report is the result of more than 10 years of work on modeling and forecasting world dynamics and it reflects the views of Russian scientists on the future of global development. The main goals of the book are to do a preli...

Since the second half of the twentieth century, there have been radical changes in all spheres of life, which qualitatively distinguish the new phase of development from the previous ones. The chapter is devoted to the ongoing transformations in the social and political sphere, which include: the increasing digitalization of all spheres of life tog...

This chapter presents the results of using the set of basic models outlined in Chapter “Modeling Social Self-Organization and Historical Dynamics. A General Approach” to model transitional eras, when, due to technological revolutions, there is a sharp acceleration in the pace of economic (and, after that, demographic) development, a “society of sta...

This chapter analyzes the current historical situation and the prospects for its further development. It is evident that drastic changes are currently taking place in the world, reflecting a phase transition in historical development, namely, the transition from the late industrial phase to the cybernetic phase, features of which are largely determ...

In the chapter, Grinin et al. give the outline of a new world order whose emergence will be caused by a new technological wave (the final phase of the Cybernetic Revolution), aggravation of global problems (shortage of resources, demographic disproportions, climate change, and so on), and constant transformation of international relations. The chap...

This chapter presents the results of using the set of basic models described in the chapter “Modeling Social Self-Organization and Historical Dynamics. A General Approach” to model the dynamics of an industrial society. Both interactions in the “society–nature” system and social interactions within society between the main social groups (including...

Grinin and Korotayev’s main approach in this chapter is formulated in its title “Africa—the Continent of the Future. Challenges and Opportunities.” And it is really so. Africa is the most rapidly growing continent, and its growth (demographic, economic, cultural, etc.) will inevitably influence the World System (and the further, the stronger). The...

This chapter presents the results of applying the set of basic models described in the previous chapter to model the dynamics of an agrarian society. Both interactions in the “society–nature” system and social interactions within society between the main social groups (including economic and political interactions) are considered. It is shown that...

This chapter analyzes the process of global population aging, which has a significant impact on all areas of public life in the twenty-first century. Already today, in almost two dozen countries of the world, 20% of the population is over 65 years old. According to the WHO, the 60+ age group in the world already exceeds the number of children under...

This chapter presents the results of the application of the set of basic models outlined in chapter “Modeling Social Self-Organization and Historical Dynamics. A General Approach” (Akaev et al., 2023, this volume) to model the current historical situation and to forecast its further development. Akaev et al. show that the modern historical period i...

This concluding chapter provides summary of main ideas expressed in the previous chapters of the present report to the Club of Rome, which are: (1) population growth has ceased to be the main cause of many other global problems; the issue has shifted to other dimensions and requires optimization of demographic processes, rather than general limitat...

Авторы изучают важные аспекты революционного процесса XXI века. Рассматриваются причины, по которым революционный процесс начала XXI столетия проходит довольно бурно, а также прогнозы, обещающие, что и в будущем он будет весьма активным; анализируются революционные тренды, в том числе особо тревожный – рост числа радикальных исламистских революцион...

This article analyzes the process of global population aging, which has a significant impact on all areas of public life in the 21st century. The influence of the population aging process on various areas of social activity will be determined by its scale and depth, i.e. by the potential demographic structure of the future society. At the same time...

We analyze process of global population aging, which will have a significant impact on all areas of public life in the 21st century. Global aging is likely to create an acute demand for labor-saving technologies, as well as give a powerful impulse in the field of medicine. As a result of the completion of Cybernetic Revolution and achievement by gl...

There is a significant number of theoretical studies linking education and socio-political destabilization. At the same time, there is an almost complete absence of global quantitative cross-national studies analyzing the impact of education on the risks of revolutionary uprisings. This research is aimed to fill the existing gap. The existing liter...

Совпадение прогнозов с реальностью обычно невысокое, однако и обойтись без них сложно. Мы считаем, что в прогнозах важно дать какое-то системное видение, которое позволяет осмыслить предшествующий период и увидеть новые тренды. В этой и следующей статье автор сделал прогнозы по трем направлениям: экономические, геополитические и политические. В 202...

Grinin and Grinin examine the 2018–2022 revolutionary events in the Afrasian instability macrozone, in general, and the MENA region, in particular, in their connection with the previous wave of revolutionary events–with the Arab Spring, whose aftermath was still felt in the Sahel zone in 2016–2019, and somewhere it still echoes even today. Grinin a...

In the article, the authors pose and consider in detail the extremely topical question of whether capitalism has a future or will it be replaced by some new system. And if there is a future, then what kind of future is it? These are not new questions, but in the last few years they have acquired exceptional importance, since not only the left, but...

The 20th century revolutionary process had a big impact on the World System and significantly changed its entire configuration. However, there are essential gaps in terms of theoretical approaches, in particular, in terms of the typology of revolutions. Moreover, there is clearly insufficient research related to qualitative and quantitative analysi...

Despite the existence of numerous hypotheses about what factors influence protesters’ choice of armed vs. unarmed struggle tactics, today there is a dearth of global, quantitative cross-national studies aimed at identifying the reasons why revolutions take a violent vs. a non-violent form. The article attempts to fill one of the gaps existing here...

At present the World System is undergoing considerable transformations. We expect that in connection with the World System reconfiguration the number of revolutions as well as their role as a means of the world-system transformation may increase noticeably. We analyze the future of revolutions in a number of aspects, namely: (1) the evaluation of t...

The article aims to show the potential of the synthesis of Kondratiev’s concept of long cycles (waves), the theory of production (technological) revolutions, and the concept of the leading sectors and technological orders. Based on these theories, the article analyzes the contemporary cybernetic revolution that started in the 1950s and puts forward...

Статья предлагает предварительное описание трех революционных волн XXI в., их ключевых характеристик и причин. Одна из целей данной статьи – развить аналитические инструменты, в частности углубить понимание самого понятия революции и революционных событий, а также типологию революционных событий. В целом настоящая статья предлагает теоретический и...

In this paper, we report the inverted U-shaped relationship between the regime type (on the autocracy — democracy scale) and the risks of revolutionary destabilization. Autocracies tend to be more vulnerable to revolutionary destabilization than full autocracies or consolidated democracies. We would also point at a strong positive correlation betwe...

March 17, 2022, marks the 130th anniversary of Nikolai Kondratieff's birth. In addition, this year also marks the centenary of the publication of his monograph The World Economy and Its Conjunctures During and After War (1922), where he first formulated the idea of long cycles, which later became known as Kondratieff cycles, or Kondratieff waves (o...

March 17, 2022, marks the 130th anniversary of Nikolai Kondratieff's birth. In addition, this year also marks the centenary of the publication of his monograph The World Economy and Its Conjunctures During and After War (1922), where he first formulated the idea of long cycles, which later became known as Kondratieff cycles, or Kondratieff waves (o...

March 17, 2022, marks the 130th anniversary of Nikolai Kondratieff's birth. In addition, this year also marks the centenary of the publication of his monograph The World Economy and Its Conjunctures During and After War (1922), where he first formulated the idea of long cycles, which later became known as Kondratieff cycles, or Kondratieff waves (o...

March 17, 2022, marks the 130th anniversary of Nikolai Kondratieff's birth. In addition, this year also marks the centenary of the publication of his monograph The World Economy and Its Conjunctures During and After War (1922), where he first formulated the idea of long cycles, which later became known as Kondratieff cycles, or Kondratieff waves (o...

March 17, 2022, marks the 130th anniversary of Nikolai Kondratieff's birth. In addition, this year also marks the centenary of the publication of his monograph The World Economy and Its Conjunctures During and After War (1922), where he first formulated the idea of long cycles, which later became known as Kondratieff cycles, or Kondratieff waves (o...

March 17, 2022, marks the 130th anniversary of Nikolai Kondratieff's birth. In addition, this year also marks the centenary of the publication of his monograph The World Economy and Its Conjunctures During and After War (1922), where he first formulated the idea of long cycles, which later became known as Kondratieff cycles, or Kondratieff waves (o...

The present Yearbook is subtitled Entropy and Destabilization. It is the tenth in the series. The study of the forms and causes of destabilization is extremely important, because no regime, no society, no system is immune to destabilization. Destabilization, or at least the threat of it, is an inevitable stage in the historical development of any s...

The present Yearbook is subtitled Entropy and Destabilization. It is the tenth in the series. The study of the forms and causes of destabilization is extremely important, because no regime, no society, no system is immune to destabilization. Destabilization, or at least the threat of it, is an inevitable stage in the historical development of any s...

The present Yearbook is subtitled Entropy and Destabilization. It is the tenth in the series. The study of the forms and causes of destabilization is extremely important, because no regime, no society, no system is immune to destabilization. Destabilization, or at least the threat of it, is an inevitable stage in the historical development of any s...

The present Yearbook is subtitled Entropy and Destabilization. It is the tenth in the series. The study of the forms and causes of destabilization is extremely important, because no regime, no society, no system is immune to destabilization. Destabilization, or at least the threat of it, is an inevitable stage in the historical development of any s...

Настоящий ежегодник представляет собой одиннадцатый том «Системного мониторинга глобальных и региональных рисков», подготовленный в рамках Программы Института Африки РАН «Дестабилизационные процессы на Ближнем Востоке и в Северной Африке в контексте глобального развития и национальных интересов России» (руководитель – профессор А. В. Коротаев). Мон...

Among many influences that the pandemic has and will have on society and the World System as a whole, one of the most important is the acceleration of the start of a new technological wave and a new technological paradigm in the near future. This impact is determined by the growing need for the development of a number of areas in medicine, bio- and...

The COVID-19 pandemic is likely to become one of the turning points in the transformation of the world order, as well as many political, social and other relations in the World System. Undoubtedly, we live in a fast-changing world, when it is imperative to look beyond the horizon of current events in order to understand what tomorrow may bring. In...

Every time we work on this Yearbook, we are focused on making at least a small step forward to gradual elaboration of a megaevolutionary paradigm which is designed to create a united scientific field for cross-disciplinary studies. The present volume is the seventh issue of the ‘Evolution’ Yearbook series. Our Yearbooks are designed to present to i...

One of the main accusations directed toward globalization is that it deepens the gap between the developed and developing countries dooming them to eternal backwardness. The article demonstrates that the actual situation is very different. It is shown that this is due to globalization that the developing countries are generally growing much faster...

Cyborgization is a hot topic these days. This is an intriguing process that is the subject of many futuristic novels and which at the same time takes place right before our eyes. In the present article we discuss the development of cyborgization, its place in Big History, its background and future directions, as well as the problems and risks of th...

Previous studies have revealed a somewhat paradoxical strong positive correlation between per capita GDP and the intensity of anti-government demonstrations observed for the vast majority of countries (indeed, it turns out that the better people live, the more likely they are to join anti-government protests). The goal of this article is to identif...

In the paper Islamism is described as a multi-faceted, multi-dimensional, changing and inconsistent phenomenon. Islamism possesses many levels and manifestations. It is impossible to comprehend modern Muslim (and all the more Arab) societies without an account of the impact of Islam as simultaneously an ideology, cultural environment, modus agenda...

Over a long period, the main intrigue within the current global contradiction has been the resistance of most of the world community to the growing egoism of the USA, which is not willing to consider other countries’ interests. This has become even more evident since Donald Trump's rise to power, as the frontline of the contradictions has expanded...

The weakening of the world economy, as well as the economies of high-income OECD countries, in comparison with the 2000s and even the 2010s, fits perfectly into the concept of a more crisis-depressive phase of the development in the global economy in the downswing phases of Kondratieff waves. Accordingly, at the moment we are experiencing the downs...

The authors quantitatively analyse the long-term dynamics of technological progress from 40,000 BCE and offer projections through the 22nd century. We provide one method to measure technological progress over that time period, using a simple hyperbolic equation, yt = C/(t0 – t), as our model. We define yt as the technological growth rate, measured...

In this chapter, we consider the process of technological progress presenting one of the options for measuring its speed throughout the entire historical process. We find that the general dynamics of accelerating technological growth over the past 40 thousand years can be described with amazing accuracy (R² = 0.99) using the following simplest hype...

The present paper analyzes the evolution of technology from the beginning of human history. We introduce a new paradigm to analyze the causes and trends of the global evolution. We describe the direction of technological transformations and discuss and explain the present and forthcoming technological changes. We also present a detailed analysis of...

The chiefdom concept is one of the most productive in social anthropology and political evolution. It helps to deeply understand the process of complication of society's structure and the development path from stateless society to early states. However, even when states spread everywhere, chiefdoms still remained political and administrative actors...