[T]here are other dimensions. The state fragility and international environment, especially for smaller countries, international environment plays qu… - Peter Turchin

[E]ssentially in any society, however the elites are defined, whether economic, administrative, military, or ideological, they need to support a certain level of income, and so when their numbers grow, inevitably they have to extract that income from the commoners.

[G]rowing socio-political instability results from multiple interacting factors: economic, political, and cultural.

[W]hile declining living standards are often a contributing factor to... instability, reversing this trend does not end instability until elite overproduction is... reversed...