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Politics in human societies represents a variation, and elaboration, on a major evolutionary theme. Political processes have played an important functional role in goal-oriented, cooperative social systems in the natural world. This view of politics is also consistent with a causal theory – known as the Synergism Hypothesis – which explains the rise of complexity in evolution over time and, equally important, the frequent examples of devolution and dissolution. In addition to a brief discussion of this theory, the evolution of political systems in humankind will be described, from its possible origins among our remote australopithecine ancestors to the emergence of complex modern civilizations. Now, however, we confront an existential threat to our species, and to many others, due mainly to climate change. The future is very problematic. I will argue here that the only viable path going forward is a new social contract coupled with (democratic) global governance – a global “superorganism.”

Purpose – This chapter focuses on the role evolution has played in our development of politics and public policy and reviews the theoretical approaches and studies of the last decade that address biopolitics and evolution, such as the “gene-culture co-evolution theory.”

Design/methodology/approach – In this chapter some of these theoretical developments will be reviewed, including what has been called the “Synergism Hypothesis,” with particular emphasis on what is relevant for understanding the role of politics and public policy in the evolutionary process.

Findings – A new, multileveled paradigm has emerged in evolutionary biology during the past decade, one which emphasizes the role of cooperative phenomena in the evolution of complexity over time, including the evolution of socially organized species such as humankind. I refer to it as “Holistic Darwinism.”

Practical implications – This study develops an understanding of the complicated relationship between human biology and the role of evolution in shaping politics and public policy.

Originality/value – This study addresses several existing biopolitical concepts and presents new explanations and terminology for its understanding.

Norbert Wiener’s cybernetic paradigm represents one of the seminal ideas of the twentieth century. Nevertheless, its full potential has yet to be realized. For instance, cybernetics is relatively little used as an analytical tool in the social sciences. One reason, it is argued here, is that Wiener’s framework lacks a crucial element – a functional definition of information. Although so‐called Shannon information has made many valuable contributions and has many important uses, it is blind to the functional properties of information. Here a radically different approach to information theory is described. After briefly critiquing the literature in information theory, a new kind of cybernetic information will be proposed called “control information.” Control information is not a “thing” but an attribute of the relationships between things. It is defined as: the capacity (know‐how) to control the acquisition, disposition and utilization of matter/energy in purposive (cybernetic) processes. This concept is briefly elucidated, and a formalization proposed in terms of a common unit of measurement, namely the quantity of “available energy” that can be controlled by a given unit of information in a given context. However, other metrics are also feasible, from money to allocations of human labor. Some illustrations are briefly provided and some of the implications are discussed.

The purpose of the research is to determine the essence and notion of economic violation of law and their varieties, and to determine the reasons that lie in the basis of this negative social phenomenon. The authors use the philosophical law of integrity and struggle of contradictions and rather-legal, historical and legal, and formal and legal methods of scientific cognition. Such laws of dialectics and transition of quantitative changes into qualitative changes, negation of negation, and others are used. Signs and types of economic violations of law are analyzed and their predetermination by the conflict character of economic relations is noted. Comparison of economic violations of law that are peculiar for administrative and market models of economy is performed. The universal character of economic relations as objects of legal protection is shown. Classification of economic violations of law, based on the level of their public danger and spheres of distribution, is provided. Special attention is paid to civil and legal violations of law as a variety of economic violations of law, based on not anti-social settings of the subject but conflict with the borrowed system of values, which is alien to most members of society. The notion “economic violation of law” is of the collective character and includes illegal actions regarding economic relations, and the latter are of the conflict character due to different interests of subjects, the existing competition, and striving for obtaining profit. Economic violation of law is an illegal form of solving the existing conflict, which leads to application of measures of legal responsibility. The causes of economic violations of law could be overcome by implementation of the values and ideals of justice in the legal norms. They should be based on historical, cultural, spiritual, and legal traditions. All that is imposed artificially is destined for rejection and creation of new conflicts, including economic violations of law.