Cliodynamics in rural areas, What do you think?

It is likely that cliodynamics, a pragmatist approach to the history of complex societies, has already caught your attention, having emerged at the beginning of the decade. Let’s see if any resonance can be established between this approach and the reflections on the resilience of remote, mid-mountain rural areas that Comb Lab has been carrying out since 2018.

From crisis to crisis, everyone hears talk, rightly or wrongly, of the end of a cycle. The great non-Western thinker, Ibn Jhaldun (1332–1406), undertook a thorough studyof the formation and fall of empires and principalities according to an approach he called « internal history. » Today, Jack Goldstone, Peter Turchin, Sergey Nefedov, and many other researchers are expanding upon the knowledge initiated by Khaldun in his time, concerning the long-term social and political changes in complex societies. The French website of the French Society of Cliodynamics, chaired by Nicolas Salerno, and the English-language website cliodynamics, present this field of research starting from a central question: What are the mechanisms underlying the dynamicsof historical processes ? Are thethey the laws of history?

Cliodynamics posits the « structural-demographic theory » according to which structured societies successively pass through phases of integration, prosperity, stagnation, fragmentation, and then structural crisis. Then comes the time for institutional reorganisation.

The value of this work lies particularly in the fact that:

• the history of empires, states, and other entities is treated as a dynamic system;
• the observed dynamics stem from factors endogenous to these political organisations and prove to be recurrent. This is true despite the diversity of the compositions, cultures, and eras of the societies considered.

The general approach of cliodynamics establishes that society is stable as long as the internal factors of population growth, the society’s productive capacity, and the supply of professional career opportunities are in balance. Then, « three endogenous factors prepare the period of instability »:

• Productivity gains that erode wage levels;
• The progress of the education system produces more candidates for the elite than there are available positions. Those who do not join the elite foment future revolutionary movements;
• The state is embarks on a headlong introduction of legislation to try to regain control of a situation that is tending to get out of hand.

The deployment of these three factors of instability directly or indirectly contributes to increased social inequalities, which in turn fuel long-term frustrations and resentment. This brings us back to the « gas stockpile, » the subject of our previous note.

Following their analysis, the researchers in cliodynamics recommend prioritizing solidarity over inequality, developing citizenship as the capacity to participate in local life, and restoring proximity through the deployment of public services.

Ultimately, this field of research, whether one agrees with it or not, presents pathways to restoring an inclusive society. Paths that resonate with the positions we have supported since 2018. In particular:

• solidarity: Comb Lab has been participating in the departmental experiment of social security of food (SSA 63) since the beginning of this initiative;
• capacity to participate in civic life: we continue to advocate for the creation of hybrid working groups of elected officials, agents, civil society, for the construction of a resilient territory;
• proximity: this instance refers to the need to articulate the different geographical and institutional scales as we have demonstrated in our letters of past years.

The work carried out at the Council of Europe, the conferences and colloquia held in France and in several surrounding countries, the meetings with elected officials from Puy-de-Dôme and with civil society in Combrailles, or the summaries of our societal monitoring, all our work carried out at these different geographical scales confirms that the resilience of our territories is conditioned by two key elements:

• 1) civil skills and local public authorities are the primary agents of the proactive transition-resilience of territories,
• 2) any local initiative for transition and even more so for resilience requires a permanent articulation of the local with larger scales.

Throughout these years, we have worked with the Clermont Auvergne Social Innovation Centre (CISCA) and the Open Lab Exploration Innovation (Clermont Auvergne University) because we firmly believe that the involvement of the humanities and social sciences is a determining factor in accelerating and ensuring the success of building territorial resilience, particularly for rural, mid-mountain areas, especially those in remote locations. Let us remember that, since Ibn Khaldun, we know that the history of organisations unfolds locally and from within.

As a final point, let us quote a sentence from one of the articles we consulted in writing this. This article supports our points and suggests a direction that contributes to easing the toxic social tensions mentioned earlier:

«  The revitalisation of rural areas and small and medium-sized towns is not a step backwards, but a strategic opportunity.

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The preceding lines quote extensively from the articles mentioned below:

The coming revolution: cliodynamics of the great French crisis.

https://legrandcontinent.eu/fr/2026/03/19/revolution-cliodynamique-france/

Secular cycles, Structural-Demographic Theory

https://www.cliodynamique.org/cliodynamique/les-cycles-seculaires-theorie-structelle-demographique-2

Theory of the saturated state: How the French model precipitates crises

https://legrandcontinent.eu/fr/2026/03/19/crises-modele-francais/