COMMENT | Pecking order politics: From chickens to humans

COMMENT | It was in the early 20th century that Norwegian zoologist Thorleif Schjelderup-Ebbe coined the word “pecking order” while observing the social behaviour of chickens.

He noticed that within a group of chickens, there was a hierarchical structure where each chicken knew its place in the social order, where dominant individuals had priority access to resources and could assert their dominance over subordinate individuals through behaviours like pecking.

I realised that...