The scientific propositions formulated below are not accompanied by references to the many relevant scholarly works, thinkers and researchers. This is a deliberate choice. The validity of a theory does not rest on the authority of those cited, but on the clarity and consistency of its concepts and reasoning, its explanatory power, and the possibility of critically testing its claims and, where possible, falsifying them.
This is not meant to suggest that everything formulated in this theory is new. On the contrary, many individual insights are closely related to existing scholarly traditions and earlier work. What is primarily claimed as new is the way in which these insights are combined here into a single coherent theoretical framework.
Nor does the absence of references mean that the theory places itself outside existing scholarly debate. Quite the opposite: critical comparison with other theories, empirical research and counter-argument are necessary to test and improve its concepts, propositions and explanations. Scientific knowledge advances through precisely this kind of discussion.
For that reason, the section below is limited to an overview of works and authors that have contributed significantly to the intellectual background against which this theory developed and that have particularly influenced its formulation.
Among these influences, Norbert Elias occupies a particularly important place: his work on civilising processes provided one of the principal intellectual starting points from which this theory developed. His analysis of the long-term formation of conduct, self-restraint and social interdependence remains one of the clearest antecedents of the present approach to civilising and social change.
Dennett, Daniel C. (2017). From Bacteria to Bach and Back: The Evolution of Minds. New York: W. W. Norton & Company.
Van Dun, Frank (1983). Het fundamenteel rechtsbeginsel. Een essay over de grondslagen van het recht. Heruitgave: Murray Rothbard, 2008.
Elias, Norbert (1939). Über den Prozeß der Zivilisation.
Elias, Norbert & John L. Scotson (1994).The Established and the Outsiders: A Sociological Enquiry into Community Problems. 2nd ed. London: Sage Publications.
Gramsci, Antonio (1971). Selections from the Prison Notebooks. Red. en vert. Quintin Hoare & Geoffrey Nowell Smith.
Israel, Jonathan I. (1995). The Dutch Republic: Its Rise, Greatness, and Fall, 1477–1806. Nederlandse uitgave: De Republiek 1477–1806.
Kuyper, Abraham (1880). Souvereiniteit in eigen kring. Rede ter inwijding van de Vrije Universiteit.
Kuypers, G. (1973). Grondbegrippen van politiek. Utrecht/Antwerpen: Het Spectrum.
Kuypers, G. (1980). Beginselen van beleidsontwikkeling. Deel A: Basistheorie; Deel B: Practische methoden. Muiderberg: Coutinho.
La Boétie, Étienne de (ca. 1553). Discours de la servitude volontaire.
Oppenheimer, Franz (1908). Der Staat.
Popper, Karl R. (1945). The Open Society and Its Enemies.
Weber, Max (1919). Politik als Beruf.