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Start here for an introduction to existential risk research. Read more
This profile is tailored towards students studying sociology and history, however we expect there to be valuable open research questions that could be pursued by students in other disciplines.
Why is this a pressing problem?
Societal collapse has been a recurrent phenomena throughout history. It is usually marked by state failure, political fragmentation, and the relatively rapid and ensuring loss of economic capital. For a future collapse, this could include the widespread and persistent loss of industrialisation. A potent mix of societal vulnerabilities, hazards such as pandemics and climate change, and poor responses could lead to a modern collapse. The global systems that many people rely on would fragment and fail. This could trigger severe suffering and losses of welfare.
How likely a collapse is, what are the key contributors, what the precise short-term and long-term impacts would be, and what policies can mitigate the risks of collapse are all important questions. These could all be illuminated through historical as well as forward-looking research.
Explore existing research
- Butzer, Karl (2012) Collapse, Environment, and Society, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
- Cumming, Graeme S. & Garry D. Peterson (2017) Unifying Research on Social–Ecological Resilience and Collapse, Trends in Ecology and Evolution
- Denkenberger, David & Jeffrey Ladish (2019) Civilizational Collapse: Scenarios, Prevention, Responses (video)
- Geddes, Barbara (1999) What Do We Know about Democratisation after Twenty Years, Annual Review of Political Science
- Jebari, Karim (2021) Replaying History’s Tape: Convergent Cultural Evolution and the Prospects of Humanity after a Social Collapse
- Kemp, Luke (2019) Are We On the Road to Civilisational Collapse?, BBC Future
- Muelhauser, Luke, How Big a Deal Was the Industrial Revolution?
- Acemoglu, Daron & James Robinson (2012) Why Nations Fail, Crown Business
- Caplan, Bryan (2008) The Totalitarian Threat, in Nick Bostrom (ed.), Global Catastrophic Risks, Oxford University Press
- Cline, Eric (2014) 1177 B.C.: The Year Civilization Collapsed, Princeton University Press
- Diamond, Jared (2005) Collapse, Penguin
- Levitsky, Steve & Daniel Ziblatt (2019) How Democracies Die, Penguin
- McAnany, Patricia A. & Norman Yoffee (2009) Questioning Collapse, Cambridge University Press
- Middleton, Guy (2017) Understanding Collapse: Ancient History and Modern Myths, Cambridge University Press
- Scott, James C. (2017) Against the Grain: A Deep History of the Earliest States, Yale University Press
- Tainter, Joseph (1988) The Collapse of Complex Societies, Cambridge University Press
- Seshat Databank
- PIIRS Global Systemic Risk, a research community at Princeton University
- The Centre for the Study of Existential Risk
Find a thesis topic
If you’re interested in working on this research direction, below are some ideas on what would be valuable to explore further. If you want help refining your research ideas, apply for our coaching!
It could be valuable to look into questions such as:
- What caused historical civilisations to collapse?
- Are there any examples of the same factors not causing civilisation collapse?
- How long have historical collapses taken?
- What happened in the aftermath of a collapse?
- What were impacts, including on welfare, equality, and governance?
- How did people who survived respond to the new state of things?
- What factors build resilience to collapse?
- Are there any factors that speed up or increase the likelihood of the recovery process?
- How did civilisational recovery happen, if it happened?
- How fragile are different aspects of history? That is, if civilisation collapsed, how likely does it seem that similar technologies, discoveries and cultural practices would reemerge?
It could be valuable to look into questions such as:
- What caused historical civilisations to collapse?
- For a given risk, what factors seem most likely to lead to collapse?
- Are there any examples of the same factors not causing civilisation collapse?
- How gradual vs sudden was the process of collapsing?
- What happened in the immediate aftermath of the collapse?
- What were the welfare implications?
- How did people who survived respond to the new state of things?
- Are there any protective factors guarding against civilisational collapses?
- Are there any factors that speed up or increase the likelihood of the recovery process?
- How did civilisational recovery happen, if it happened?
- Looking forward into the future, what factors could prevent the recovery of global civilisation (e.g. what resources would be crucial to recovery).
Further resources
If you’re interested in working on this research direction, apply for our coaching and we can connect you with researchers already working in this space, who can help you refine your research ideas.
You can also apply to join our community if you’re interested in peer connections with others working in this area.
Apply for our database of potential supervisors if you’re looking for formal supervision and take a look at our advice on finding a great supervisor for further ideas.
Our funding database can help you find potential sources of funding if you’re a PhD student interested in this research direction.
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Contributors
This profile was last updated 5/12/2022. Thanks to Luke Kemp for helpful feedback. All errors remain our own.
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See here for a visual map of all our research directions
