The Cool Water Effect: Why Human Civilization Turned towards Emancipation in Cold-Wet Regions

Project: Research

Project participants

Description

Since Jared Diamond, there is a burgeoning literature on the long-term drivers of Western civilization's emancipatory dynamic. Contributing to this scholarship, I intend to elaborate on an under-theorized observation evidenced in my own work: most long-term drivers cited in the literature are confounded with a particular geo-climatic configuration – the Cool Water (CW-) condition, that is, the combination of cold seasons with continuous rain. Taking this observation as the point of departure, I wish to examine three propositions in-depth. First, the CW-condition embodies the seed of emancipatory dynamics because it endows people with vital grass-roots autonomies, like autonomy in water access, food production and household formation. Second, the seed began to germinate as more complex social organizations – from private corporations to voluntary associations to state administration – formed: in the presence of grass-roots autonomies, social organization evolves through emancipatory struggles in which groups claim freedoms, which then become increasingly firmly encultured. Third, accelerating globalization is transplanting emancipatory struggles into world regions without the CW-condition, thus loosening geography's grip on social choice.My proposed project is global in coverage and long-term in its temporal orientation. Indeed, I plan to use data for all countries of the world. These data capture conditions along a sequence of historical layers, from the eve of the colonial, industrial and information ages until today. I intend to explore the linkages leading from preceding to subsequent layers of history.Overall, the goal of this project is two-fold: (1) THEORY - further developing the arguments informing my three main propositions; (2) EMPIRICS - consolidating and expanding the already existing, albeit preliminary evidence.
StatusActive
Period01.01.1831.12.26

Prizes

Recently viewed

Publications

  1. Do consumers prefer pasture-raised dual-purpose cattle when considering meat products? A hypothetical discrete choice experiment for the case of minced beef
  2. Integration of Sustainability into Universities - Good Practices and Benchmarking for Integration
  3. Das Conservation Reserve Program
  4. Zur internen Repräsentation von Umweltgeräuschen
  5. Ecosystem services from forest and farmland
  6. Collective emotions in institutional creation work
  7. The balanced scorecard’s missing link to compensation
  8. Controller als Partner im Nachhaltigkeits-Management
  9. Uncovered workers in plants covered by collective bargaining: Who are they and how do they fare?
  10. Von der Beharrlichkeit der Ungleichheit
  11. Integration trotz Segregation
  12. Handelsgesetzbuch
  13. Emotional intelligence
  14. "Wer sieht was?" und "Wer berührt wen?"
  15. Individual-tree radial growth in a subtropical broad-leaved forest
  16. Ungleich mächtig
  17. DAS STATISCHE SFB 3-MIKROSIMULATIONSMODELL - KONZEPTION UND REALISIERUNG MIT EINEM RELATIONALEN DATENBANKSYSTEM.
  18. Biotechnology and law
  19. Mental accounting mechanisms in energy decision-making and behaviour
  20. The Timing of Daily Demand for Goods and Services - Microsimulation Policy Results of an Aging Society, Increasing Labour Market Flexibility, and Extended Public Childcare in Germany
  21. On the effects of redistribution on growth and entrepreneurial risk-taking
  22. Digital naturalism
  23. Corrigendum to: Pathways to Implementation: Evidence on How Participation in Environmental Governance Impacts on Environmental Outcomes
  24. Ágnes Lesznyák: Communication in English as an International Lingua Franca. An Exploratory Case Study
  25. The Instrument as Medium
  26. Healthy Principals - Healthy Schools?