• Welcome to politicaldemography.org

    This website is dedicated to political demography, and to The Age-structural Theory of State Behavior (download article here). Read "The 8 Rules" for a quick summary of the theory. See sidebar (homepage) for key publications and web essays. Please follow the development of this research on Twitter at @rpCincotta or visit the New Security Beat.

  • Insights: The Political Demography of Iran

    Site of the world’s most rapid completion of the fertility transition

    Read the background story of Iran’s political demography from the online library of PoliticalDemography.org:

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    Which Demographic “End of History”?

    Dec. 9, 2019
    [Among the top 5 New Security Beat Posts, December 2019]

    Demography’s theoretical end-state is a set of hard-to-escape conditions typified by low and often sub-replacement levels of fertility, large proportions of retirees, and an aging workforce—an endpoint that the National Intelligence Council’s Global Trends reports refer to as post-maturity. The shift toward post-maturity is so unrelenting in parts of Europe and East Asia that some analysts imagine humanity plunging globally into post-maturity. However, this scenario, which I call “Post-mature World,” is looking much less likely than its non-endpoint alternative (see Figure 1), a chronically demographically “Polarized World.”

    To visit the complete essay on the New Security Beat website, click HERE. Or, download the essay HERE.


    MapsThe age-structural phases of countries in Europe and in parts of Africa and Asia, 2015 & 2035 (projected). Maps represent the UN Population Division’s current estimates of median ages for 2015 and projections for 2035 (UN medium fertility variant). By 2035, most of Europe’s states will likely have advanced into post-maturity, whereas in the Sahel and tropics of Africa, countries will probably still be in the youthful phase of the age-structural transition. 

    Figure 1.  Post-mature World and its alternative Polarized World, showing the Global Trends four-phase schema representing the path of the age-structural transition. Black arrows indicate the transition’s path and identify the two hard-to-escape demographic conditions, the youthful and post-mature phases. In a Post-mature World, countries age and their populations eventually decline. In a Polarized World, human population continues to grow in the youthful regions, stimulating increased migration to nearby states and to more mature regions.
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    Attachments

    Review of “The Demographic Transition Theory of War” (Brooks et al., 2019, International Security)

    This review, recently published on the
    H- Diplo website (read it here), provides insights into the background, methods, and conclusions of a recent landmark paper by Deborah Jordan Brooks, Stephen G. Brooks, Brian D. Greenhill, and Mark L. Haas, entitled “The Demographic Transition Theory of War: Why Young Societies Are Conflict Prone and Old Societies Are the Most Peaceful.” published in International Security 43(3): 53-95.

    To download a copy of the click here …

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    http://politicaldemography.org/2019/09/interstate-conflict-paper/
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    Statistical Forecasting Using Median Age

    Statistical predictions can be made from can be made from simple curves (see Figure below for Tunisia). This brief essay shows how drawing a line through a set of age structural functions (functions that describe the shift in a categorical probabilities over the age-structural transition) yields a set of probabilities for each category. To see how it’s done for child survival, per-capita income, and liberal democracy, and to see the predicted outcomes for Tunisia, Colombia, Bangladesh (this one is surprising!), Uzbekistan, Philippines, and Nigeria, click here or go to the “Individual State Forecasts” page in the Forecasts menu.


    Fig. 1. Tunisia’s path, from 1980 to 2015, to a higher probability of being assessed as Free in Freedom House’s annual survey of political rights and civil liberties. Once in the demographic window (the intermediate phase, shaded in dark grey), the chances of retaining Free are much higher than in the preceding youthful phase.

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    Presentation at World Affairs Council of Albuquerque, and at Sandia Natl Lab.

    Aug. 13, 2019

        Much thanks to the Albuquerque’s World Affairs Council for inviting me to speak and for the hospitality. Also, while I was in NM, I was asked to present a seminar to the Strategic Futures unit at Sandia National Laboratories. The presentation slides (in .pdf form) can be accessed here.

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    http://politicaldemography.org/2019/08/presentation-at-world-affairs-council-of-albuquerque-and-at-sandia-natl-lab/
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