Oxytocin, Britain and the limits of cooperation

FOR years, historians and social scientists have been studying the political, economic and cultural causes for the extension of social trust and cooperation that could explain why smaller units, starting with extended families and tribes, have expanded into larger political units, including nation-states and empires.

The liberal model that has been popular among Western elites since the end of World War II, and especially in the aftermath of the Cold War and the rise of globalisation, has assumed that our civilisation was progressing slowly but steadily towards more cooperation. The lines separating nations, ethnicities and races are being blurred; and immigration, international trade, multilateral regimes, and rising literacy and education weaken the power of nation-states and facilitate the formation of larger political units, like the European Union, and create the foundation for a new international community.

The most recent research conducted by neuroscientists and evolutionary psychologists has raised the possibility that a neural hormone called oxytocin - synthesised in a region in the base of the brain known as the hypothalamus and from there distributed to the body - may have played a role in the course of evolution by reducing the distrust we feel towards strangers and creating a sense of solidarity and social cohesion.