Suchergebnisse

In the 9th century BC, Assyrians based in northern Iraq started a relentless process of expansion that within two centuries would see them controlling most of the ancient Near East. Traditional explanations for the decline of the Neo-Assyrian Empire in the 7th century BC have emphasized the role of military conflict, and especially the destruction of the Assyrian capital, Nineveh, by a coalition of Babylonian and Median forces in 612 BC. However, it remains unclear how the Assyrian state, the most powerful military machine of its age and the largest empire the Old World had ever seen up to that time, declined so quickly. In this paper, we highlight two potential factors which may have had some influence upon the Assyrian decline that have not been previously explored. The first is a major increase in the population of the Assyrian heartland area at the dawn of the 7th century BC, which substantially reduced the drought resilience of the region. The second factor is an episode of severe drought affecting large portions of the Near East during the mid-7th century BC. We propose a series of testable hypotheses which detail how the combination of these two factors may have contributed to the development of considerable economic and political instability within the Assyrian Empire, and argue that these demographic and climatic factors played a significant role in its demise.

Scholars and practitioners working with protracted conflicts in polarized communities have long recognized the complex dynamics between intragroup disputes and intergroup relations in these settings. In fact, the multitude of factors interacting within and between groups in these conflicts, and their tendency to change over time, largely contributes to their intractable natures. Unfortunately, the ability of scholars to conduct research on such dynamic phenomena has been largely constrained by the atomistic, linear approach of traditional research models and methods. However, recent advances in dynamical systems theory have provided a new set of tools for developing computer simulations that allow us to model the dynamic patterns emerging from complex interactions of multiple variables over time. This paper presents one such model: a dynamical model of protracted intergroup conflict. Using data collected from Israeli and Palestinian communities during the current Intifada, we modeled the dynamic relations between conflict escalation and international intervention on intragroup subgroup attitude clustering and patterns of intergroup interactions. Next steps and refinements for the model are discussed.