Abstract
The English and French Revolutions represent a turning point in history, marking the beginning of the modern rise of democracy. Recent advances in cultural evolution have put forward the idea that the early modern revolutions may be the product of a long-term psychological shift, from hierarchical and dominance-based interactions to democratic and trust-based relationships. In this study, we tested this hypothesis by analyzing theater plays during the early modern period in England and France. We found an increase in cooperation-related words over time relative to dominance-related words in both countries. Furthermore, we found that the accelerated rise of cooperation-related words preceded both the English Civil War (1642) and the French Revolution (1789). Finally, we found that rising per capita gross domestic product (GDPpc) generally led to an increase in cooperation-related words. These results highlight the likely role of long-term psychological and economic changes in explaining the rise of early modern democracies.
Funder
Agence Nationale de la Recherche
Publisher
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Reference60 articles.
1. D. Acemoglu , J. Robinson , Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty (Crown Business, ed. 1, 2012).
2. F. Fukuyama , The Origins of Political Order: From Prehuman Times to the French Revolution (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2011).
3. What Causes Democratization
4. R. Inglehart , Modernization and Postmodernization: Cultural, Economic, and Political Change in 43 Societies (Princeton University Press, 1997).
5. R. D. Putnam , R. Leonardi , R. Nanetti , Making Democracy Work: Civic Traditions in Modern Italy (Princeton University Press, 1993).
Cited by
15 articles.
订阅此论文施引文献
订阅此论文施引文献，注册后可以免费订阅5篇论文的施引文献，订阅后可以查看论文全部施引文献