This article focuses on two main interconnected subjects. The first subject examines the nearly four-hundred-year history of immigration in the United States. The second evaluates how this remarkable phenomenon of immigration experienced by the United States has become a global threat not only to the United States but all nation-states in the twenty-first century. Since the adoption of its Constitution in 1791, the United States has welcomed immigrants from various parts of the world. However, this process has been subject to certain restrictions and conditions. In this frame at times, the United States has made agreements with neighboring countries to accept large numbers of immigrants. Conversely, at other times, they have deported to different countries the previously accepted immigrants or completely banned their entry. Despite extensive experience with both positive and negative results, illegal immigration remains a primary concern for U.S. leaders. Today, immigration and the problems of immigrants continue to be unresolved issues. In the twenty-first century, immigration has emerged as a worldwide issue affecting not only the United States, but all countries due to a multitude of reasons. The challenges of immigration we face today are just one aspect of a larger set of issues that I refer to as the ‘Integrated Threat,’ which encompasses numerous global challenges. In this article, I will begin by outlining the history of immigration in the United States and the perspectives of three recent presidents on this issue. Furthermore, the worldwide challenge of immigration will be assessed alongside the Integrated Threat.
The Maritime Code is one of the most important surviving legal texts from the Malaccan Sultanate (1400-1511). Given Malacca's fame as a maritime powerhouse in the fifteenth century, the legal text pertaining to the governance of its waters provides a valuable insight into how its maritime society functioned during that time period. Here, the Maritime Code was used to analyse the hierarchical sociopolitical structure and order aboard ships operating under Malacca's jurisdiction. The emphasis on hierarchies and ranks aboard the ship paralleled the rigid sociopolitical structure and order within Malacca's royal court on land, where hierarchy-enhancing policies were strictly observed. Elements such as body politic and legitimizing myths were also prevalent within the legal text and were used to reinforce the hierarchical sociopolitical structure and order aboard the ship. Additionally, the Maritime Code was shown to be an extension of the main legal code, with its content not only reflecting the hierarchical socio-political structure and order on land, but also as an extension of the Sultanate's legitimacy and sovereignty into the maritime realm.
The paper examines the historical foundations, contemporary usage, and socioeconomic ramifications of the dominance of the English language in communication in former African colonies. The research evaluates English competence, usage settings, and views among a range of demographic groups using a thorough questionnaire that is distributed throughout many African nations. Key findings indicate that English remains a dominant language, heavily utilised in educational, governmental, and professional settings, often at the expense of indigenous languages. The historical context of colonialism significantly contributes to this dominance, embedding English deeply in the societal fabric. Although the ability to communicate in English is seen to provide access to global information and significant economic possibilities, it also presents difficulties for the preservation of indigenous languages and cultural traditions. The study concludes that although knowing English improves socioeconomic opportunities, it also calls for a balanced language policy to support and protect indigenous languages. The significance of the present study stems from its thorough examination of the linguistic environment in former African colonies, which sheds light on the relationship between colonial history and modern language usage. It adds to the continuing conversations on spoken language, uniqueness, and socioeconomic growth in postcolonial contexts by highlighting the necessity of sophisticated lan guage policies that consider both the advantages of English and the cultural relevance of indigenous languages.
This study provides a critical analysis of the complexities of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict through the lens of international law and liberal institutionalism. Focusing on the principles ofjus ad bellum and jus in bello under International Humanitarian Law (IHL), the paper examines how both sides invoke the right to self-defense while simultaneously violating principles of conduct during conflict. It highlights the ambiguity surrounding terms like proportionality and aggression within IHL, which impedes the enforcement of justice by liberal institutions like the United Nations (UN). The study explores the role of powerful nations, particularly the United States, in influencing the dynamics of conflict through diplomatic maneuvers and military support. By analysing historical events and contemporary political strategies, the paper argues that the failure of liberal institutions like the UN to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict stems from inherent biases, power imbalances, and loopholes in international law. In light of these findings, the paper proposes recommendations aimed at clarifying the definitions within IHL, promoting a more balanced distribution of power within the UN Security Council, and enhancing mechanisms for enforcing resolutions. Ultimately, it calls for a more nuanced approach to conflict resolution that acknowledges the complexities and dynamics of the conflict.
In theoretical aspects, this study relies primarily on the augmented concept of well-being as it was coined in welfare economics and happiness economics. It has a multidisciplinary nature, bridging history, economics, and sociology together. Much of the literature within this stream stresses the importance of subjective criteria for appraisal. The author's basic contribution to the literature consists in operationalization of the selected aspects of non-material well-being, discovery and interpretation of relevant new empirical evidence over a long time span of Russia's history (more than two centuries with changing borders). The article discusses the estimates of human development dynamics and highlights the trend pattern in time series of personal security (as captured by the homicide rate) available from published sources and research literature. The author also tracks public interest in the environmental quality and perception of happiness. To identify these patterns, the author employs content analysis method by extracting relevant concepts from texts of the two samples of digitized Google Books in Russian. The author compares fluctuations in public sentiment with incidents of historical events and processes which could have causal relationships with the fluctuations. The principal finding of the study supports the suggestion that, to some extent, the so-called 'Easterlin paradox' has been revealed in Russia. Using similar methods for inquiry into other aspects of well-being would subsequently allow researchers to illuminate the relevant evidence and identify the historical trends.
This article applies Dawkinsian evolutionary psychology to the Mosaic Law as written in the Book of Deuteronomy. Principally drawing on the work of sociobiologist Pierre L. van den Berghe, I argue that the imperatives expressed in Deuteronomic Law are a codification of strategies oriented around intraethnic fitness and social cohesion. Six main themes are embedded in the work that are here put in their sociobiological context. These are: (1) territoriality, (2) intraspecific competition, (3) endogamous fertility, (4) nepotism, (5) linguistic inculcation, and (6) metaphysical heterophobia. Rather than understanding the ethical constructs of Deuteronomy through a theological or literary perspective, I frame them as particular expressions of a deeper sociobiological and evolutionary logic. This study offers a materialistic interpretation of the metaphysical and contributes to the ongoing effort to integrate the natural and social sciences.
The article is devoted to the study of the formation and current state of cognitive science (a system of cognitive sciences), which claims to conduct global research on cognitive processes in the human brain (cognitive psychology), the connection between consciousness and speech (cognitive linguistics), on the one hand, and the construction of a 'second reality' - artificial intelligence (AI), big data (BD), information and communication technologies (ICT), etc. The global nature of cognitive science is explained not only by its interdisciplinary status and the fact that its subject field is a dialectical connection between the material and ideal worlds. The range of interests in cognitive science includes the problems of ethics of AI and neurotechnology, as well as the active essence of humans in the emerging digital world. Moreover, the deep processes of digitalization have led to significant transformations in the theory and practice of contemporary conflicts, in which information and cognitive spheres have acquired the status of independent means of international confrontation and have brought to life a whole range of previously unknown challenges and threats to national security, the main target of which is the consciousness and subconsciousness, as well as cognitive and spiritual abilities of a person. In conclusion, the authors argue that there is a need for a deep philosophical and scientific justification for the activities of government agencies not only to neutralize the external destructive influence of information, psychological and cognitive technologies on society, but also to use them in medicine, health care, education and upbringing.
This study develops and applies criteria for identifying the leading structural elements of Earth's next macroevolutionary stage - through analysing previous evolutionary transitions from unicellular life to modern social structures: spatial restrictions for previous leading elements, emergence of 'incomprehensible-for-them' phenomena, and novel forms of systemic constraints. The application of these criteria to contemporary global developments suggests that clusters of states coordinated by ideologically-unified movements might represent emerging carriers of next-level complexity. The paper examines historical precedents of such structures and discusses potential paths for their development, including the possibility of multiple competing clusters. This approach offers a novel perspective on both the identification of evolutionary transitions and the analysis of current global transformations.
The paper is dedicated to different interpretations of the concepts of ‘chiefdom (вождество)’ and ‘tribe (племя)’. The author concludes that modern science does not provide a clear answer to the question of what ‘a tribe’ is. In contemporary political anthropology, the ‘tribe’ is defined as a segmentary political structure in which each segment (com-munity, lineage) is economically independent and leadership is personal and does not involve any formal positions. In evolutionary schemes, the tribe is usually placed between the primitive community and the chiefdom (Elman Service, Marshall Sahlins), despite Elman Service's exclusion of the tribe as an obligatory stage of evolution from his scheme of levels of political integration (under the influence of Morton Fried). Some researchers have defined the tribe based on the absence of certain features characteristic of chiefdoms or early states, emphasizing egalitarism and acephality. There are some very simple and obscure formulations like ‘more family, but less nation, bound by ties of kinship and obligation’ (H. Prins).
In my paper, I return once again to the question of whether it is appropriate to introduce the concept of the State into the texts of Cicero and Augustine. In his first book De re publica, Cicero provides a famous definition for the term ‘people,’ describing it as ‘multitude of people associated with each other by consensus on justice (ius) and mutual benefit (utilitas).’ What unites many individuals into a people was termed by Cicero as res publica. Almost five centuries later, Aurelius Augustine challenged Cicero's definition, proposing his own, according to which a people is ‘a unity of reasonable beings bound together by a common agreement about the objects of their love’. To denote the trigger for political unification, Augustine also used the concept of res publica. In describing the genesis of a people from, so to speak, a spatial perspective, Augustine asserts that, after the family and the city (civitas), the third stage of human association emerges, namely, the circle of the earth (orbis terrae). Existing Russian translations of Cicero and Augustine, render a number of the aforementioned concepts – civitas, res publica, and even orbis terrae – as ‘state’. I dare to argue that this interpretation of Roman political terminology is discursively incorrect and leads to distortion of the thoughts of both the Roman orator and the Hippo's Bishop.
In the presented paper, I will consider one of the most important examples from two categories of political terms. I include in the first category the terms from modern science that originate from classical antiquity. This is the most numerous category, as modern political terminology is almost entirely based on classical languages. The main challenge here is the misleading similarity of terms, since their modern meaning differs fundamentally from that of antiquity (a classic example is res publica and the republic). The second category includes terms generated exclusively by antiquity or by modern times (e.g., polis and state). Accordingly, the question arises as to what extent each of them is applicable to another civilization. I would describe these two groups of political terms as being deceptively similar and deceptively dissimilar. Due to the limited format, I will limit myself to presenting my own views without providing detailed arguments or historiography.
The origins of the state are a never-ending story. Since the mid-1980s, when I started studying this topic, we had similar authorities (Carneiro 1970; Service 1975; Claessen and Skalnik 1978; Kubbel’ 1988). Over forty years, many important books and articles have been published in this field (Earle 1997; Feinman and Marcus 1998; Claessen 2000; Kradin et al. 2000; Haas 2001; Trigger 2003; Grinin et al. 2004; Yoffee 2005; Bondarenko 2006; Maisels 2010; Price and Feinman 2010; Gri-nin 2011; Flannery and Marcus 2012; Berezkin 2013; Turchin 2016; Scott 2017; Bondarenko, Kowalewski, and Small 2020; Graeber and Wengrow 2021; Kradin 2021; etc.). Here, I will try to summarize contemporary ideas about the formation of statehood and civilization. As is known, the most ancient archaic or early states could form in different ecological conditions – arid zones with river irrigation (Mesopotamia, Egypt), river valleys in the jungle (India), loess river valleys (China) and mountain jungles (Mexico, the Andes). The emergence of statehood could be influenced by various factors – favorable ecology, a productive economy, population growth, an increase in internal conflicts, technological innovations, diffusion, wars and conquests, external influence, long-distance trade, ideology, etc. Currently, most researchers agree that the emergence of the state was a complex multivariate process dependent on a large number of different variables (Peregrine, Ember, and Ember 2007: 84).
The state has passed along a great evolutionary path, whose analysis is an important task for political and historical anthropology, as well as for various other social sciences. Unfortunately, there are still no generally accepted approaches either to the definition of the state as such or to the definition of polities that can be designated as early states; and moreover, some anthropologists deny this stage of statehood, confusing it, in my view, with complex and super-complex chiefdoms and their analogues (on such approaches see Grinin 2017), or consider as non-state entities those polities and poleis that do not fit the characteristics of a developed state, for example, ancient Athens (Berent 2004; see criticism of such approach in Grinin 2008a; see also van der Vliet 2005). When analyzing the development of statehood, those who recognize the stage of an early state, following Henri J. M. Claessen and Peter Skalník (Claessen and Skalník 1978a), usually distinguish two main stages within the historical process: the early state and the mature state. This division is undoubtedly rational and productive. However, Claessen and Skalník limited their scheme of the development of statehood to the evolution of only pre-capitalist non-industrial states (Claessen and Skalník 1978b: 5). Consequently, the concept of the early–mature states needs important additions.
It is no coincidence that history and socio-cultural anthropology have the same progenitor. We all know from childhood that Herodotus is the ‘father of history’. But he should also rightfully be considered the ‘father of anthropology.’ In his work ‘History’, already in the fifth century BCE, he formulated a number of most essential for anthropology questions and to address them used methods and hypotheses that became classical for anthropological science many centuries later (Hodgen 1964: 20–28). Thus, already two and a half thousand years ago, in one of the greatest creations of ancient culture, the fruitfulness of the union of ‘the muse of history and the science of culture’ (Carneiro 2000) in solving the problems of both disciplines was demonstrated.
This article examines the trajectory of jihadist state-building in Somalia from the early 1990s to the present, focusing on the evolution of Islamist governance projects initiated by Al-Ittihad al-Islami*, the affiliate (Wilayat al-Sumal*). Drawing on field research conducted in Somalia in May 2023, expert interviews, as well as reports from research centers, government institutions, and propaganda materials from jihadist organizations, the study employs qualitative content analysis and critical discourse analysis to explore both narratives and governance practices. The analysis demonstrates that Al-Shabaab has developed the most durable proto-state structure in Somalia, successfully institutionalizing judicial mechanisms, taxation, and basic service provision while embedding itself into local clan dynamics. In con trast, Wilayat al-Sumal remains limited in scope, focusing on insurgency and terrorist attacks without establishing meaningful governance or territorial control, and functioning instead as a logistical and financial hub within the broader Islamic State network in Africa. The article argues that the Somali case illustrates the divergent approaches of al-Qaeda* and the Islamic State towards state-building: whereas Al-Shabaab's relative success stems from its ability to localize and integrate into Somali social structures, Wilayat Somalia's failure underscores the limits of a transnational jihadist model detached from local realities. This comparison not only enhances our understanding of Islamist governance in Somalia but also sheds light on the broader dynamics of jihadist competition across Africa.
During the Bronze Age, several significant polities emerged in the Middle Euphrates region. This area was strategically important, as it controlled the major waterway connecting Southern Mesopotamia and Syria. Situated at the crossroads, the region was exposed to a wide range of political, cultural, and ideological influences. The history of the Middle Euphrates states is documented by a vast corpus of epigraphic sources, written in Mesopotamian cuneiform, primarily in the Akkadian language. The earliest written evidence of political developments in the region dates back to the second half of the third millennium BC. At the beginning of the second millennium BC, the royal archives from Mari (modern-day Tell Har & imacr;r & imacr;, Syria) shed important light not only on local conditions, but also on the broader situation in Northern and Southern Mesopotamia and throughout the wider Near East. However, the chronological scope of these archives is limited to just a few decades. It was only in the Late a considerable time span of up to 150-200 years were encountered. Among these, the archives of the ancient city of Emar (modern Tell Mesekene, Syria) stand out.1 More than 1,500 cuneiform texts illuminate its political and religious institutions, legal practices, and social relations.2 One of the peculiar traits of the Emarite political system was its underdeveloped institution of royal power, for which the term 'limited kingship' was coined in secondary literature (Fleming 1992). This feature sets Emar in sharp contrast to such prototypical Ancient
In the twenty-first century, historical science witnessed a rapid obsolescence of most conceptual models of history and meta-languages for describing societies of the past, especially the history of archaic, post-Neolithic pre-Modern, societies, i. e. the period of Ancient Times and the Middle Ages. Now historians-theorists in their majority steal bits of empirical data from practitioners (Edward Evan Evans-Pritchard [1961] wrote about this), not really understanding how they were obtained, while historians-practitioners often appropriate fragments of social theories from theorists without caring to understand the procedures of their elaboration and the axioms underlying them. Of course, the time of philosophers of history, who ignore descriptions of the reality of the past and present, has almost passed, but they have been replaced by compilers of various specialties who parasitize on the idiosyncrasy of researchers working with sources for broad generalizations. In contrast to the ‘narrow-minded’ empiricists who solemnly reject ‘new-fashioned theories’ and terminological systems developed within their frameworks, they continue to flourish, believing that in this way, they preserve their corporate identity. In fact, such a declarative rejection of any theory means that these ‘craftsmen’ simply use old theoretical schemes and zombie concepts developed in the century before last and outdated in the last century due to inertia. These guardians of empirical purity remain hostage to alien axiomatic assumptions and destructive memes, which emerged under conditions of strong ideologization of social sciences and humanities, with an obviously less factual basis.
The study explores the continued tradition of constructing megalithic monuments among the Munda community, an indigenous group in Jharkhand, India. These monumental stones serve a dual purpose: as burial sites and symbols of collective heritage and resilience. The paper examines the historical, cultural, and ritual significance of these megaliths, demonstrating their central role in the Munda's oral traditions and spiritual beliefs. These structures are not only places of ancestral memory but also key markers of the Munda's unique cultural identity. Additionally, the study highlights the growing threats to this tradition, particularly from modernization and urbanization, which risk erasing these ancient practices. By documenting these megaliths' ongoing relevance, the paper emphasizes the urgent need to preserve them, as they represent a critical link to the past and a living tradition that continues to define the Munda community today. Through this exploration, the research makes a compelling case for the protection and conservation of this invaluable cultural heritage.
The development of breakthrough technologies occupies a special place in the national policies of both well-developed and developing countries, as they can represent an effective tool for ensuring sustainable socio-economic development and solving various problems. In this regard, it seems understandable why African countries have declared the development of information technology as one of their top priorities. Thus, this article attempts to analyze the evolution of digital transformation in Sub-Saharan African economies. Finally, the authors conclude that over the past 30 years, African countries have really achieved remarkable results in this area, despite the absolute zero, which was observed in the late 1990s and early 2000s. But the limited financial and technological resources make African countries extremely dependent on foreign aid to meet their development and this threatens their technological sovereignty.
Over two years have passed since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, and by now enough data have been accumulated on its psychological effects and mental health disorders in different countries. In this study, we present self-reported data collected from 7,450 participants during the three waves of the COVID-19 pandemic in Russia from May 2020 to July 2021. These data have been compared with the pre-pandemic data on 480 participants. The study aimed to trace the dynamics of aggressive and anxious behavior during the three waves of the COVID-19 pandemic in comparison to the data from the pre-pandemic period. Three questionnaires were used to measure behavior in this study, namely: the Buss-Perry Aggression Questionnaire (BPAQ), the Generalized Anxiety Disorder Scale (GAD-7), and the State Anxiety Inventory (SAI). Sex differences in aggression and anxiety levels were demonstrated. The reduction in anxiety levels during COVID-19 waves may indicate that people had generally adapted to the stressful situation. All four scales show the highest level of aggression before the pandemic compared to any of the three waves. It is important to emphasize the discovered association between all types of aggression and anxiety, as individuals with high anxiety levels also scored higher on aggression scales, especially on the anger scale.
