Most people take the conditions they work and live in as a given believing it to be normal that societies are stratified and that organisations are hierarchical Many even think that this is the way it should be and are neither willing nor able to think that it could be otherwise This book raises the awareness of hierarchy its complexity and longevity It focuses on a single but fundamental problem of social systems such as dyads groups organisations and whole societies: Why and how does hierarchical social order persist over time? In order to investigate the question author Thomas Diefenbach develops a general theory of the persistence of hierarchical social order This theory interrogates the problem of the persistence of hierarchical social order from very different angles in multi dimensional and interdisciplinary ways Even more crucially it traces the very causes of the phenomenon the reasons and interests behind hierarchy as well as the various mechanisms which keep it going This is the first time such a theory is attempted With the help of the theory developed in this book it is possible to interrogate systematically comprehensively and in detail how mindsets and behaviours as well as societal and organisational structures enable the continuation of hierarchy
