The Origin of Politics: An Evolutionary Theory of Political Behavior

In this article we propose that evolutionary biology can supply political science with a theory of the ultimate causes of human preferences and behaviors that it otherwise lacks. For the most part, political scientists are either unfamiliar with the social side of evolutionary theory or misidentify...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Perspectives on politics 2004-12, Vol.2 (4), p.707-723
Main Authors: Alford, John R., Hibbing, John R.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Behavioral genetics
Biological altruism
Biology
Evolution
Evolutionary genetics
Evolutionary Theories
Human genetics
Humans
Political Behavior
Political science
Rational choice theory
Twins
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Summary:In this article we propose that evolutionary biology can supply political science with a theory of the ultimate causes of human preferences and behaviors that it otherwise lacks. For the most part, political scientists are either unfamiliar with the social side of evolutionary theory or misidentify its key features. Far from being genetically deterministic or leading exclusively to predictions that all human behavior will be selfish, modern evolutionary theories stress that adaptive behavior is frequently characterized by a guarded sort of cooperation. We describe modern biological theory, offer our own version of it, discuss new and potentially useful interpretations of political attitudes and public policies, and present scientific evidence, drawn from research on autistic individuals and monozygotic and dizygotic twins, of the startlingly important role genetics plays in shaping politically relevant attitudes and behaviors.The authors are grateful to Chris Larimer, Levente Littvay, David Rapkin, Kevin Smith, Jeff Spinner-Halev, Elizabeth Theiss-Morse, and anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments and suggestions.
ISSN:1537-5927
1541-0986
DOI:10.1017/S1537592704040460