Polity scale shifts in world-systems since the Bronze Age: A comparative inventory of upsweeps and collapses

Abstract

In this article we report an inventory of cycles, upward sweeps and collapses of polity sizes in five separate interpolity systems: Mesopotamia, Egypt, South Asia, East Asia and the expanding Central System that eventually became the contemporary global system. Upward sweeps are defined as instances in which the largest sovereign polity in a network of fighting and allying polities significantly increases in size. Collapses are instances in which the size of the largest polity greatly decreases and stays down for a significant period of time (centuries). We use regional interpolity systems rather than single polities as the unit of analysis, following the comparative world-systems framework. We are limited to those regions and time periods for which quantitative estimates of largest polity sizes are available. We compare the frequencies of cycles and sweeps across five interpolity networks, and find more similarities than differences across the five systems. This is somewhat surprising because most studies that compare East Asia with the West stress important differences. We find a total of 22 upsweeps and 19 downsweeps across the five systems, but only three instances of prolonged system-wide collapse. We also find that the frequency of cycles increased over the long run, while the frequencies of upsweeps and downsweeps did not display long-term trends. The lack of a downward trend in downsweeps challenges the supposition that resilience grows with sociocultural complexity and size.