UNIT 3 HUMAN BIOCULTURAL AND SOCIAL EVOLUTION

LESSON 3: EARLY CIVILIZATION, RISE OF THE STATE AND DEMOCRATIZATION

LEARNING OUTCOMES: The learners are expected to:

1. Demonstrate understanding about the development of early civilization;

2. Recognize national, local, and specialized museums, and archaeological and historical sites as
venues to appreciate and reflect on the complexities of bio-cultural and social evolution as part
of being and becoming human;

3. Describe the rise of governments as city-states; and

4. Analyze the various processes of democratization or political evolution of states.

LEARNING CONTENT:

PROGRESS TOWARDS CIVILIZATION

The establishment of a complex form of organization, the state and the development of
hierarchical administrative bureaucracies are the central characteristics of all civilizations.

The emergence of civilization in human history that took place in Mesopotamia, Egypt, China and
India, was characterized by the development of agriculture and sedentary way of life, dated back
to about 6,000 years BC. The characteristics of these early civilizations are: food production in
permanent habitations, processing metals and other natural sources, a division of labor in terms
of occupational specialization and the development of writing.

CIVILIZATIONS IN HISTORY HAD THE FOLLOWING COMMON PARTICULARITIES:

1. Intensive agricultural techniques, such as crop development and irrigation permitted a surplus
of food beyond the subsistence. This allowed the sustaining of a group of population in other
fields, such as administration, industry, war, science or religion, etc.

2. Those not in agriculture constituted the population of the cities. By time a government and its
bureaucracy in charge of coordinating the tasks of production and protecting the whole
community began to concentrate in the cities. 3. This institutionalized control of production by
a “ruling” class became more complex in time and other formal social institutions such as
organized religion, education, permanent army and markets and money as forms of economic
exchange developed.

RISE OF NATION-STATE

The nation-state developed fairly recently. Prior to the 1500s, in Europe, the nation-state as we
know it did not exist. Back then, most people did not consider themselves part of a nation; they
rarely left their village and knew little of the larger world. If anything, people were more likely to
identify themselves with their region or local lord. At the same time, the rulers of states frequently
had little control over their countries. Instead, local feudal lords had a great deal of power, and
kings often had to depend on the goodwill of their subordinates to rule. Laws and practices varied
a great deal from one part of the country to another.
In the early modern era, a number of monarchs began to consolidate power by weakening the
feudal nobles and allying themselves with the emerging commercial classes. This difficult process
sometimes required violence. The consolidation of power also took a long time. Kings and queens
worked to bring all the people of their territories under unified rule. Not surprisingly, then, the
birth of the nation-state also saw the first rumblings of nationalism, as monarchs encouraged
their subjects to feel loyalty toward the newly established nations. The modern, integrated nation-
state became clearly established in most of Europe during the nineteenth century.

DEMOCRATIZATION

Democratization is a concept that encapsulates the expansion of a set of related political ideals
with different intellectual vintages that gain public prominence during the emergence of capitalist
modernity. Relatedly, democratization is also a process in which various social groups have made
claims on the state through protests, riots, strikes, and lobbies. The discourse of democracy has
infused many struggles against monarchical absolutism, working-class struggles, and the
suffragette movement.

Democratization is a process by which democracy expands, within a state or across the world.
Democratization, both as a process and as a concept, draws on a long history. The intellectual
origins of the concept of democracy stretch back to Athenian ideals of city governance and Roman
republicanism.

During the 1700s the notion that sovereignty lay with the people, which emerged from ancient
Greece and Rome, became coupled with the modern ideologies of the Enlightenment, especially
liberalism and socialism. The emergence of modern nation-states and capitalist social relations
created the conditions under which ideals of citizenship, governmental accountability, and civil
society established themselves as the common sense of Europe and later the United States.

In most of the world's countries, national power and authority are allocated to various individuals
and groups through politics, usually by means of compromises between conflicting interests.
Through politics, governments are elected or appointed, or, in some cases, created by armed
force. Governments have the power to make, interpret, and enforce the rules and decisions that
determine how countries are run.

The rules that governments make encompass a wide range of human affairs, including commerce,
education, marriage, medical care, employment, military service, religion, travel, scientific
research, and the exchange of ideas. A national government—or, in some cases, a state or local
government—is usually given responsibility for services that individuals or private organizations
are believed not to be able to perform well themselves.

The political and economic systems of nations differ in many ways, including the means of pricing
goods and services; the sources of capital for new ventures; government-regulated limits on
profits; the collecting, spending, and controlling of money; and the relationships of managers and
workers to each other and to government. The political system of a nation is closely intertwined
with its economic system, refereeing the economic activity of individuals and groups at every
level.