Can a hypothetical ‘innate proclivity to hierarchically structured political systems’ explain real authoritarian/totalitarian regimes?

Georgy Levit ()

Journal of Bioeconomics, 2015, vol. 17, issue 1, 81 pages

Abstract: The champions of “biopolitics” (a small branch of political science) Albert Somit and Steven Peterson in a series of publications suggested that the persistence of non-democratic regimes in the current political landscape can be explained by the human genetic proclivities towards domination/submission relations and, correspondingly, towards hierarchically structured societies as opposed to egalitarian democratic relations. Somit and Peterson insist that because of this genetic behavioral bias, special enabling conditions are needed in order to make a democratisation project (nation building) successful. I demonstrate that modern totalitarian and authoritarian regimes do not necessarily manifest explicitly hierarchical structures detectable by any “genes” shaped in the Pleistocene. Rather these regimes try to simulate democratic institutions to legitimise their power relations and only rational analytical efforts such as a thorough examination of the public sphere can contribute to the distinction between democratic and non-democratic governments. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media New York 2015

Keywords: Biopolitics; Authoritarianism; Evolutionary model; Human behaviour (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
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DOI: 10.1007/s10818-014-9186-8

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