GENERATIONAL EXPLANATION OF LONG-TERM BILLOW-LIKE DYNAMICS OF SOCIETAL PROCESSES

Citation
Ca. Mallmann et Ga. Lemarchand, GENERATIONAL EXPLANATION OF LONG-TERM BILLOW-LIKE DYNAMICS OF SOCIETAL PROCESSES, Technological forecasting & social change, 59(1), 1998, pp. 1-30
Citations number
109
Categorie Soggetti
Business,"Planning & Development
ISSN journal
00401625
Volume
59
Issue
1
Year of publication
1998
Pages
1 - 30
Database
ISI
SICI code
0040-1625(1998)59:1<1:GEOLBD>2.0.ZU;2-I
Abstract
An increasing amount of empirical evidence has accumulated showing the existence of several kinds of recurrent long-term societal processes. Particular attention was given to the 50-60 year billows, usually rel ated to economical and technological processes (Kondratieff cycles). T hese studies generated a large set of different theories-intrinsic to the economy and the technology-that tried to explain the recurrent pro cess origin. Since the last century, several scholars have identified even longer societal billows usually related to long-term political pr ocesses (Hegemonic and Ferrari cycles). The paradigm of long-term soci etal processes was not always accepted because of the lack of a consis tent theoretical framework that could account for it. In this article we introduce a partially formalized version of that framework which co ntains only one, to be determined constant, namely: a generational tim e lag. We show that this time constant is equal to the Life lapse of h uman beings in which they are mainly motivated to interact with their contextual, social, and ''habital'' processes. We call the constant ta u, Societal Historical Generation (SHG) and conclude, using theoretica l and empirical arguments, that its length is 39 +/- 4 years. A mathem atical model of the societal temporal diffusion of those motivational concerns, in agreement with all the empirically determined characteris tics of the long-term billow-like processes. is presented. The solutio ns for the first three oscillatory modes have the following ''billow-l engths'': 156 +/- 16; 31 +/- 3; 17 +/- 2 years (with k > 0) and 52 +/- 5; 22 +/- 2; 14 +/- 1 years (with k < 0). The basis of this model has anthropo-psycho-epigenetic human roots that allow the emergence of co llective societal behavior patterns with the appearance of long-term b illows in economical and political indicators. An interpretation and d iscussion of the main characteristics of the societal moods as well as other research lines to test the model are presented. (C) 1998 Elsevi er Science Inc.