Size, Complexity, and Organizational Variation
A Comparative Approach
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 24315499 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Gary M Feinman (The Field Museum, Chicago, IL,) |
| Year | 2011 |
| Volume | 45 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 37-58 |
| Publication date | 2011-02-01 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Cross-Cultural Research (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1069-3971 • E-ISSN: 1552-3578 |
| Publisher | SAGE Publications (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1177/1069397110383658 |
| OpenAlex | W1997852451 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 49 |
| References cited | 53 |
In 1963, Melvin Ember illustrated the overarching cross-cultural relationship between societal scale (specifically, maximal community size) and hierarchical complexity. Yet this study (and subsequent ones) found much less regularity in the size-complexity relationship when focused down on human groupings of less extensive/narrower size ranges. Here, it is argued that this lack of a more precise fit requires the consideration of a third key parameter, different modes of integration or interpersonal connectivity. Comparative findings (both synchronic and diachronic) are marshaled to make the case that integrative differences mediate the overarching relationship between demographic size and political complexity. It is proposed that when they are small, groups that operate more collectively often dampen the emergence of decision-making hierarchies; alternatively large, more collective, or democratic formations may necessitate greater administrative or hierarchical political complexity per capita than is found in more autocratic groups of comparable size.
authoritarian regimes · Collective action · community size · cross-cultural comparison · democratic institutions · Hierarchy · organizational variation · political complexity · political integration · Cross-Cultural and Social Analysis · Cultural Differences and Values · Language and cultural evolution
Effects of Residential Mobility on the Ratio of Average House Floor Area to Average Household Size
Comparative Methods for Premodern Cities
The Effects of Revenue and Social Capital on Collective Governance
Population pressure as a deterrent to hierarchical development in early complex societies
Gentes del Islam. Ritual funerario e historias de vida en la maqbara de Pamplona
Power from below in Premodern Societies
Low-Density Urbanism
Cities and Citadels
Power from Below in the Archaeological Record
Dispersing Power
Social dynamics in past societies
The Emergence of Monte Albán
Did alcohol facilitate the evolution of complex societies
Scales of Political Practice and Patterns of Power Relations in Prehistory
Urban Scalograms
Sobre la estructura poblacional de las sociedades del Sur del Bronce Valenciano
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An exercise in archaeological demography
Sociopolitical Complexity and the Bow and Arrow in the American Southwest
Social complexity and inequality in the Late Neolithic of the Central Balkans
The Governance and Leadership of Prehispanic Mesoamerican Polities
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Long-Term Urban and Population Trends in the Southern Mesopotamian Floodplains
Killing the Priest-King
Erlitou
Evaluating Social Complexity and Inequality in the Balkans Between 6500 and 4200 BC
Introduction
Path Dependency, Demographic Change, and the (De-)Differentiation of the German Secondary School System
Comparing archaeological proxies for long-term population patterns
Settlement scaling and economic change in the Central Andes
Making absolute population estimates in the Intermediate Area using the area and density of ceramic sherd scatters
Urbanity as a Process and the Role of Relative Network Properties—A Case Study From the Early Iron Age
Building communities. Presenting a model of community formation and organizational complexity in southwestern Anatolia
What does the bell-distribution hide? Spatial behavior and demographic development of the Funnel Beaker culture populations in Bronocice region, Poland
Of Revenue Without Rulers
The collective logic of pre-modern cities
Complexity, Social Complexity, and Modeling
Linking Up Bell Beakers in the Iberian Peninsula
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Observations on the origin and demography of the Vinča culture
Settlement scaling theory
Southern Arabia Population Patterns and Intensity of Cultural Exchanges Across the Holocene Humid Period
Serpentear
The social dynamics of settling down
Inequality, demography, and variability among early complex societies in Central Pacific Panama
Community’s House and Symbolic Dwelling
Egalitarianism and resistance
Settlement Scaling in Middle-Range Societies
Cultural Complexity
The limits of settlement growth
Collective Action in the Formation of Pre-Modern States
Too Many Types
The Emergence of Inequality
Coevolution of neocortical size, group size and language in humans
Ancient Mesoamerica
The Logic of Collective Action
The Evolution of Large, Complex Groups
Group size and societal complexity
Decision-making organization and pastoral nomad camp size
Perspective-taking and memory capacity predict social network size
The social brain hypothesis
Of Rule and Revenue
Why Humans Aren’t Just Great Apes
Evolution and the social sciences
Maximum Settlement Size
Values and Organizational Structure
Standardization of an Index of Sociocultural Development for Precivilized Societies 1
A Preliminary Index of Social Development
How Chiefs Come to Power
Economic origins of dictatorship and democracy
Neocortex size as a constraint on group size in primates
Social network size in humans
The Structural Implications of Social System Size
Size and Administrative Intensity in Nations
Large-scale integrative facilities in tribal societies
A Behavioral Approach to the Rational Choice Theory of Collective Action
Population Density, Agricultural Intensity, Land Tenure, and Group Size in the New Guinea Highlands
The Relationship between Economic and Political Development in Nonindustrialized Societies
On the Administrative Sector of Social Systems
Organizational Structure
On the Relationship between Size of Population and Complexity of Social Organization
Size and the Density of Interaction in Human Aggregates
The Hierarchy of Authority in Organizations
A Dual-Processual Theory for the Evolution of Mesoamerican Civilization
Revenue, Voice, and Public Goods in Three Pre-Modern States
On the social structure of an ocean-going research vessel and other important things
| Citations per year | 3.27 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2011 - 2026 (16) |
| Highly cited | No |