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World Development

Hierarchy

Socio-Political Hierarchy (SPD)

Socio-Political Differentiation (SPD) is a sum-index of four ethnic variables:

  • R31: Mean size of local communities;
  • R33: Hierarch beyond local community;
  • R65: Class stratification;
  • R77: Written Language.

Codebook (PDF, 43 KB)

The four variables indicate social aspects of the cultural evolution. The SPD-index is one of two mainstays of a society´s structural complexity. The second mainstay is the level of agro-technical development (ATE). The four SPD-indicators are strongly and consistently correlated among themselves (cf. correlation table below) and a strong predictor of national development since 1960.

Correlation Table (PDF, 93 KB)

Africa and Asia differ significantly with respect to their pre-colonial socio-political differentiation. As a general rule, Asia and North Africa show the highest, Melanesia the lowest values. Sub-Saharan Africa with her common chiefdoms and small kingdoms occupies the middle field. Cf. Political Map

As discussed under the agro-technical development (ATE), the big majority of the old-world population descend from a small number of large societies with high SPD-scores, while the many societies with middle or low socio-political differentiation contribute with a small portion of the modern population.

The two indexes SPD and ATE are highly correlated (Dim: Complexity (CXTY)). They represent two sides of the same coin. Taken together, they measure structural complexity which implies higher population density, higher management capacities, more combatting power, more intersocietal self-assertion. Such differences in traditional SPD- and ATE-levels are the best predictors of differences in development Research.

More about Socio-political Differentiation

Weiterführende Informationen

The emergence of the state and of the institutions of centralized government (the most significant of all social innovations) has been accompanied by a general growth in social inequality and stratification, [and] by an ever greater division and specialization of labour.

(Hallpike)