On the Mutual Historical Dynamics of Societies? Political Governance Systems and their Sources of Energy. The Approach of the Vienna School of Social Ecology

>> Zur wechselseitigen historischen Dynamik der politischen Steue-rungssysteme von Gesellschaften und ihrer Energiequellen. Der Ansatz der Vi-enna School of Social Ecology <<. This article combines a brief overview of the theoretical approach of the Vienna School of Social Ecology with a report on the results of a long-term study on the coincidence of countries' first access to fossil fuels with social revolutions. The theoretical approach views socie-ties in a system-theoretical perspective as hybrids of materiality and mean-ing, with "social metabolism" and "colonization of nature" as key links. His-torical changes in the energy metabolism of societies are viewed as key drivers of change in social organization, distinguishing broadly between for-aging and agrarian societies, both solar based energetically, but distinct by the latter applying elaborate colonization technologies that allow for higher energy returns at the price of a higher labor burden, the emergence of cities, and land-based steep social hierarchies. Finally, we report on a series of stud-ies on the coincidence of countries' access to fossil fuels as allowing a transi-tion to industrial societies, again on a much higher energy level. The very early transition phase ("critical energy transition period"), as we show empir-ically for a large number of countries worldwide across the past 500 years, was typically marked by what we characterize as social revolutions. Finally, we ask what societal changes a next energy transition, required to avoid cat-astrophic climate change, will bring about.