Failed States and Nation-Building: A Cultural Evolutionary Perspective

Building the genomic nation: ‘Homo Brasilis’ and the ‘Genoma Mexicano’ in comparative cultural perspective

This article explores the relationship between genetic research, nationalism and the construction of collective social identities in Latin America. It makes a comparative analysis of two research projects--the 'Genoma Mexicano' and the 'Homo Brasilis'--both of which sought to establish national and genetic profiles. Both have reproduced and strengthened the idea of their respective nations of f...

Nation - building

Nations stay together when citizens share enough values and preferences. Homogeneity amongst people can be built with education, teaching a common language to facilitate communication, but also by brute force such as prohibiting local cultures. Democracies and dictators have different incentives when it comes to choosing how much and by what means to homogenize the population. We study and we c...

Modernism and Nation Building

Quality Management: An Evolutionary Cross-Cultural Perspective

The purpose of this chapter is to address the extent to which quality management is “culture-specific.” The chapter presents the results of a survey administered across 21 countries that seeks to examine quality priorities and practices by adopting the Global Leadership and Organizational Behaviour Effectiveness (GLOBE) framework (House et al., 2004). Drawing on previous research (Vecchi & Bren...

Nation-Building, Nationalism, and Wars∗

This paper explores how the increase in army size observed in early modern times changed the way states conducted wars. Starting in the late 18th century, states switched from mercenaries to a mass army by conscription. We model the incentives of soldiers to exert effort in war and show that as army size increases paying mercenaries is no longer optimal. In order for the population to accept fi...