Ethnic Nepotism Research Articles

A massacre of early Neolithic farmers in the high Pyrenees at Els Trocs, Spain

Violence seems deeply rooted in human nature and an endemic potential for such is today frequently associated with differing ethnic, religious or socio-economic backgrounds. Ethnic nepotism is believed to be one of the main causes of inter-group violence in multi-ethnic societies. At the site of Els Trocs in the Spanish Pyrenees, rivalling groups of either migrating early farmers or farmers and indigenous hunter-gatherers collided violently around 5300 BCE. This clash apparently resulted in a massacre of the Els Trocs farmers. The overkill reaction was possibly triggered by xenophobia or massive disputes over resources or privileges. In the present, violence and xenophobia are controlled and sanctioned through social codes of conduct and institutions. So that, rather than representing an insurmountable evolutionary inheritance, violence and ethnic nepotism can be overcome and a sustainable future achieved through mutual respect, tolerance and openness to multi-ethnic societies.

Mapping Ideology: Combining the Schwartz Value Circumplex with Evolutionary Theory to Explain Ideological Differences

Schwartz Value Theory (SVT; Schwartz in Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 25, 1–65, 1992) offers a coherent and well-organized framework for describing and explaining ideological differences. Though not developed within SVT, the pattern of tradeoffs among different values suggests adaption to an interacting set of selection pressures. The present project combines SVT with a variety of evolutionary theories to build a richer nomological network for explaining ideological differences. The paper first draws on evolutionary-coalitional theory (ECT; Sinn and Hayes in Political Psychology, 38, 1043–1064, 2017, in Political Psychology, 2018) to explain key strategic tradeoffs captured by SVT. ECT argues that coalitional conflict in the ancestral environment helped produce three distinct ideological orientations: Right Wing Authoritarianism/Binding, Social Dominance Orientation/Exploiting, and Universalizing/Liberating. Each orientation represents a specific strategic gambit for enhancing reproductive fitness with distinct costs and benefits. The paper then suggests how SVT can potentially offer an even more comprehensive framework for explaining ideological differences by drawing upon evolutionary theories related to life-history, signaling, parent-offspring conflict, and ethnic nepotism.

Some notes on ecophonetics: the problem of sound distinctiveness, sound sustainability, and the sustainability of vowel systems in contact conditions as exemplified by the standard Polish vowel system in contact with the Kashubian vowel system

In the paper, an assumption is forwarded that if sound systems are brought to a contact setting, inter-entity distinctiveness is usually distorted. In the psycholinguistic sense of the word, it means that in the perception process, a particular sound of a less favoured system may be downgraded or even ridiculed. This generally places a given sound system in a weaker position sustainability-wise. It is assumed that the process may involve the presence and operation of the phenomenon of ethnic nepotism.

Kin selection and ethnic group selection

Abstract Ethnicity looks something like kinship on a larger scale. The same math can be used to measure genetic similarity within ethnic/racial groups and relatedness within families. For example, members of the same continental race are about as related ( r =0.18–0.26) as half-siblings ( r =0.25). However (contrary to some claims) the theory of kin selection does not apply straightforwardly to ethnicity, because inclusive fitness calculations based on Hamilton's rule break down when there are complicated social interactions within groups, and/or groups are large and long-lasting. A more promising approach is a theory of ethnic group selection, a special case of cultural group selection. An elementary model shows that the genetic assimilation of a socially enforced cultural regime can promote group solidarity and lead to the regulation of recruitment to groups, and to altruism between groups, based on genetic similarity – in short, to ethnic nepotism. Several lines of evidence, from historical population genetics and political psychology, are relevant here.

Leadership, Youth and Development in Nigeria

This paper set out to x-ray how the leadership of a nation influences the quality and characteristics of youth and the development of the nation; in the process certain words were clarified. The writer used observation, evaluated certain written documents and purposively interviewed some persons that are considered as significant others in order to generate data. Following the review, it was discovered that the quality of leadership in Nigeria has created youth that are acritical, indolent and veritable tools ready to perpetuate negativity in the society on slightest provocation. Such characteristics exhibited by the youth are hinged on the fact that development programmes are geographically based and the kind of education prevalent enthrones ethnic loyalty, nepotism and brigandage. This paper therefore, suggests that the leadership of the nation should have attitudinal change by encouraging meritocracy, down play ethno-political loyalty and encourage patriotism. To be able to achieve this feat, a functional education is required and this will be possible if those in position of authority encourage the welfare of the general populace and abandon conspicuous consumption which directly or indirectly have demonstration effect on the youth; whose life style and statements are tended towards getting rich quick by engaging in some unwholesome practices which are in the forms of being used as political thugs, who kill and maim opposition groups, snatch ballot boxes and even armed robbery. All that is intended just to portray the youth’s loyalty to the powers that be. Such negative actions evidence the mechanical stage of development of the people.

Ethnic Nepotism as a Cross-Cultural Background Factor of Ethnic Conflicts

The purpose of this article has been to explore why ethnic conflicts tend to break out in all ethnically divided societies. The principal explanation was traced to the evolved disposition for ethnic nepotism shared by all human populations. Ethnic nepotism was measured roughly by the degree of ethnic heterogeneity of the populations. It was correlated with the scale of ethnic conflicts in the group of 187 countries. The results of correlation analysis indicate that ethnic heterogeneity explains 55% of the variation in the scale of ethnic conflicts, and the results of regression analysis disclose that the same relationship more or less applies to all 187 countries. These results led to the conclusion that ethnic nepotism is the common cross-cultural background factor which supports the persistence of ethnic conflicts in the world as long as there are ethnically divided societies.

Ethnic Conflicts: Their Biological Roots in Ethnic Nepotism • Political Demography: How Population Changes Are Reshaping International Security and National Politics

Ethnic Conflicts: Their Biological Roots in Ethnic Nepotism • Political Demography: How Population Changes Are Reshaping International Security and National Politics

J.P. Rushton’s theory of ethnic nepotism

Unreciprocated aid among co-ethnics and the emotional intensity of ethnic conflict have long been explanatory challenges to evolutionary science. J.P. Rushton’s theory of assortative ethnic affiliation–altruism, mating and friendship directed towards fellow ethnics–derives from his more general theory of genetic similarity (GST). GST proposes that humans give preferential treatment to others in whom they detect genetic resemblance and that such behavior enhances genetic fitness. The theory coincides with W.D. Hamilton’s theory of inclusive fitness as applied to relations between populations. GST helps explain core features of ethnicity, including its basis in putative kinship and correlation with gene frequencies. Ethnic nepotism due to similarity is a weak social force compared to social identity. However its pervasiveness makes it a potential driver of evolutionary and social change, a potential borne out by sociological studies of the impact of ethnic diversity on social cohesion and public altruism. Genomics confirms the theory for interactions within populations with sufficient genetic diversity, such as ethnically mixed societies. GST applied to ethnicity is promising for further research in evolutionary social science because it unifies evolutionary and behavioral mechanisms in a single theory.

In conversation with J. Philippe Rushton

The interview covers Rushton’s background in England, South Africa, and Canada, his education at the University of London (B.Sc., 1970; Ph.D., 1973), and his early research (1970–1980) on the social learning of generosity in 7- to 11-year olds. In his first book, Altruism, socialization, and society (1980), Rushton solved two “anomalies” for his social learning perspective—altruism in animals and traits in people—causing a “paradigm shift” for him toward sociobiology. He spent January to June 1981 at the University of California, Berkeley, to study the longitudinal stability of personality traits like altruism. There, he was influenced by Jensen’s work on g and race differences in rate of maturation and two-egg twinning. Subsequently, Rushton found that across 60 variables, Europeans fall between East Asians and Africans, closer to East Asians. He extrapolated Wilson’s (fast–slow) r-K life history theory to explain the pattern. Also covered is Rushton’s research on the heritability of altruism, and Genetic Similarity Theory explaining assortative mating and ethnic nepotism. Spouses and best friends are as similar as half-siblings and people randomly chosen from the same ethnic group are as related as first cousins. Altruism follows lines of similarity to replicate genes effectively. Rushton’s research on creativity is described.

American State Cultures: Testing a New Measure and Theory

Lieske has recently developed a new measure of state culture that appears to be a much better predictor of state performance than other commonly used measures including per capita income, Sharkansky’s index of Elazar’s typology, and Hero’s index of racial and ethnic diversity. Here, we show why uni- and multi-dimensional reductions of Elazar’s and Lieske’s typologies and other measures do not predict and explain the variation in representative indicators of state performance nearly as well. To lay the groundwork for a more rigorous understanding of state culture, and to integrate it with the work of Hero on diversity and Putnam on social capital, we also develop and test an evolutionary theory that draws on Marger’s theory of ethnic competition and Vanhanen’s theory of ethnic nepotism.

Immigrant Candidates and Politics in the Republic of Ireland: Racialization, Ethnic Nepotism, or Localism?

Recent waves of new immigration distinct from postcolonial-era migrations can be identified in many Western countries. More than 40 such “new immigrant” candidates contested the 2009 local government elections in the Republic of Ireland. This article draws on interviews with just under half of these and on official responses from each of the Republic's five political parties to a study of “new immigrant” participation in Irish politics. It also draws on a specific locality case study of the border town of Dundalk where support for Sinn Féin, Ireland's most distinctly ethno-nationalist political party, is relatively high. Our analysis of “new immigrant” candidate participation in Irish politics suggests that a number of factors influence responsiveness to these; this article focuses on the salience of theories of racialization, ethnic nepotism, and localism. In particular, the findings emphasize how local identities as manifested by immigrant candidates potentially mediate racial and ethnic barriers.

Immigration, Diversity, and Welfare Chauvinism

Immigration is the driving force behind the rapidly growing ethnic, racial, and religious diversity of Western welfare states. This essay reviews research on the effects of immigration and diversity on the political support for redistributive social programs. A growing body of scholarship finds negative relationships between indicators of ethnic heterogeneity and measures of immigration, on the one hand, and attitudes towards welfare measures and state expenditures on welfare, on the other. Responding to these results, scholars have searched for mediating factors that slow or reverse these effects. As empirical studies multiply it is important to develop theories to make sense of the data. I discuss in-group and out-group theory, reciprocal altruism, and the neoDarwinian theory of ethnic nepotism. I argue that while no theory has been shown to be clearly superior to the others, neoDarwinism is the most comprehensive and should not be dismissed because of its pessimistic implications for immigration, diversity, and welfare states.

Does Ethnicity Matter for Trust? Evidence from Africa

This paper proposes that ethnicity coupled with ethnic nepotism may reduce interpersonal generalised trust. We use the 2001 wave of the World Values Survey data for eight African countries to test this claim, and show that while ethnicity and ethnic nepotism are each important in affecting generalised trust levels, their interaction has a self-reinforcing and negative effect on trust levels. The results underscore the importance of institutions in controlling ethnic nepotism and thus partly in mitigating the adverse effects of ethnicity on trust.

Ethnic nationalism, evolutionary psychology and Genetic Similarity Theory*

Abstract. Genetic Similarity Theory extends Anthony D. Smith's theory of ethno‐symbolism by anchoring ethnic nepotism in the evolutionary psychology of altruism. Altruism toward kin and similar others evolved in order to help replicate shared genes. Since ethnic groups are repositories of shared genes, xenophobia is the ‘dark side’ of human altruism. A review of the literature demonstrates the pull of genetic similarity in dyads such as marriage partners and friendships, and even large groups, both national and international. The evidence that genes incline people to prefer others who are genetically similar to themselves comes from studies of social assortment, differential heritabilities, the comparison of identical and fraternal twins, blood tests, and family bereavements. DNA sequencing studies confirm some origin myths and disconfirm others; they also show that in comparison to the total genetic variance around the world, random co‐ethnics are related to each other on the order of first cousins.

Estimating Ethnic Genetic Interests: Is It Adaptive to Resist Replacement Migration?

Analyses of the costs and benefits of immigration have not considered the dependence of an ethny’s reproductive fitness on its monopoly of a demarcated territory. Global assays of human genetic variation allow estimation of the genetic losses incurred by a member of a population when random fellow ethnics are replaced by immigrants from different ethnies. This potential loss defines an individual’s ethnic genetic interest as a quantity that varies with the genetic distance of potential immigrants. W. D. Hamilton showed that self-sacrificial altruism is adaptive when it preserves the genetic interests of a population of genetically similar individuals. Ethnic genetic interest can be so large that altruism on behalf of one’s ethny—‘ethnic nepotism’—can be adaptive when it prevents replacement. It follows that ethnies usually have an interest in securing and maintaining a monopoly over a demarcated territory, an idea consonant with the universal nationalism of Bismarck and Woodrow Wilson.

The Homeopathy of Kin Selection: An Evaluation of van den Berghe's Sociobiological Approach to Ethnic Nepotism

The present discussion of sociobiological approaches to ethnic nepotism takes Pierre van den Berghe's theory as a starting point. Two points, which have not been addressed in former analyses, are considered to be of particular importance. It is argued that the behavioral mechanism of ethnic nepotism -- as understood by van den Berghe -- cannot explain ethnic boundaries and attitudes. In addition, I show that van den Berghe's central premise concerning ethnic nepotism is in contradiction to Hamilton's formula, the essential principle of kin selection theory. It is further discussed how other approaches that make reference to ethnic nepotism are related to van den Berghe's account and its problems. I conclude with remarks on the evolutionary explanation of ethnic phenomena.

The Role of Ethnic Nepotism vs. Economic Pragmatism in Inter-group Conflict: Data on the Yugoslavian Civil War *

Neo-Darwinian concepts such as van den Berghe's ethnic nepotism infer that the origin of inter-group conflict resides primarily in ethnocentrism, defined as the extension of inclusive fitness to extra-familial interactions. Silverman, however, has proposed an alternative view, based on the presumption that natural selection favors pragmatism and plasticity in the formation of group alliances. Silverman's theory holds that the motives for inter-group oppression and warfare, including so-called ethnic cleansing movements, are economic, whereby out-group prejudices represent rationalizations rather than root causes. The present paper reviews Silverman's and Silverman and Case's evidence for this theory and provides further supporting data in terms of relationships between changes in economic conditions and ethnocentric attitudes during the years immediately preceding the recent Yugoslavian hostilities.

Urban begging and ethnic nepotism in Russia : An ethological pilot study.

Ethnic nepotism theory predicts that even in times of communal peace altruism is more pronounced within than between ethnic groups. The present study tested the hypothesis that altruism in the form of alms giving would be greater within than between ethnic groups, and greater between more closely related groups than between more distant groups. The three groups chosen for study were ethnic Russians, Moldavians, and Gypsies. Russians are genetically closer to Moldavians than to Gypsies. Observations were made of 128 ethnic Russian, 25 Moldavian, and 25 Gypsy beggars receiving gifts from ethnic Russians in Moscow trains. The Gypsies were mainly girls, contrary to the Russian sample. Multivariate analysis identified three main strategies: active, personified, and appeasing-undirected. Russian strategies were most variable. Gypsies presented strong charity releasers: 84% were children who played music and sang and showed appeasing-undirected behavior. The few adults were highly submissive or friendly. Nevertheless, their success was limited compared with that of ethnic Russians despite the latter's demanding behavior and their being mostly mature or elderly persons. Moldavians received an intermediate amount of charity. The hypothesis was supported.

Domestic Ethnic Conflict and Ethnic Nepotism: A Comparative Analysis

Ethnic conflict seems to be common in all countries of the world where people are divided into separate ethnic groups, that may have a racial, national, linguistic, tribal, religious or caste basis. In this article it is proposed that a significant part of the universality of ethnic conflict can be explained by our evolved predisposition to ethnic nepotism, which can be regarded as an extended form of nepotism. Evolutionary theories of inclusive fitness and kin selection explain the origin and universality of nepotism. The members of an ethnic group tend to favour their group members over non-members because they are more related to their group members than to outsiders. This disposition to favour kin over non-kin becomes important in social life and politics when people and groups of people have to compete for scarce resources. Two hypotheses on political consequences of ethnic nepotism are presented: (1) significant ethnic division tends to lead to ethnic interest conflict in all societies and (2) the more a society is ethnically divided, the more political and other interest conflict tend to become channelled into ethnic lines. These two hypotheses are tested by empirical evidence for 183 contemporary states. The hypothetical concepts `ethnic division' and `ethnic conflict' are operationalized into empirical variables. The results support the two hypotheses. Deviating cases underline the importance of other relevant factors behind ethnic conflict and violence.

Book Reviews : TATU VANHANEN, Politics of Ethnic Nepotism: India as an Example, Sterling Publishers, New Delhi, 1991

Book Reviews : TATU VANHANEN, Politics of Ethnic Nepotism: India as an Example, Sterling Publishers, New Delhi, 1991