DIAGNOSING ANCIENT POLITICAL SYSTEMS

William deB. Mills

wmills@erols.com

February 2005

Han and Tang China stand with the Roman Empire in the minds of modern man as the standards of imperial hegemony over international political systems, each essentially controlling its world. True, “barbarians” threatened both, and a broader world with exotic trade goods and cultural concepts was visible over the horizon, but essentially each perceived itself with considerable justification to be hegemon of its world at its best and, in times of disunity, each devolved into a disunified set of smaller political entities that continued to interact over essentially the same geographic region with each other, the Latin or Chinese “international political system” perhaps distorted by feuding warlords, civil wars, invasions from yesterday’s trade partners but with the system, grotesquely and tragically altered for years or even generations as the case might be, remaining intact, the seemingly endless oscillation between hegemony and conflict notwithstanding. Thus, these three are fair cases for the application of a political science methodology designed to evaluate the health of an international political system.

A Stressed System

The Latin and Chinese “international political systems” at their heights—second century B.C. Republican Rome, the first century of the Former Han, the first century of the Later Han, the first century of Tang—provide examples of systems that appeared destined to survive forever. The history of these systems also contains earthshaking events that generated stresses of the most fundamental kind—the collapses into chaos and civil war, invasions, and fundamental shifts in style, reach, and quality of government at the end of the Han, end of the Tang, and end of the Western Roman Empire.[1] A fundamental question for historians has always concerned the degree to which idiosyncratic factors or underlying, uncontrollable processes were to primarily to blame. Historians have with considerable justification lain much blame on the decisionmakers whose mistakes seem so clear in hindsight,[2] but the impact of long-term, underlying dynamics must not be overlooked. In the case of the Roman defeat at Hadrianopolis, for example, the pernicious effects of several underlying processes that were shifting the scales of power ever more in favor of the oppressed peoples along the borders of Rome’s imperial territory raise the question of how much difference Emperor Valens’ arrogance would really have made to the course of Roman history. A victory would not have ended the self-defeating arrogance of Roman officials whose mistreatment of neighboring peoples led to violence Rome could ill-afford.[3] A victory would also not have altered the apparent shift in relative population balance in favor of non-Roman peoples, the apparent rising disinclination of Roman citizens to engage in combat,[4] or the declining professionalism of a Roman political system increasingly (in comparison with the years of the Republic) dependant on the virtues of a single leader and the increasingly capricious and rebellious troops under his personal command. The shift from senatorial preeminence combined with the system of joint consuls with one-year terms of office to preeminence of lifetime emperors and rising military interference in government fatally undermined the sagacity of Roman decisionmaking.

The “international political systems” at the end of the Roman, Han, and Tang empires were severely stressed systems for both idiosyncratic and systemic reasons, with much of the blame due to a reinforcing feedback loop between the two. If Valens and his generals made bad judgments that led to unnecessary fighting, they were also at a disadvantage because of systemic weaknesses (e.g., declining military preparedness due to a declining tax base), and the fighting in turn accentuated those weaknesses (e.g., by raising costs, which stressed the budget, requiring more taxes, leading to greater oppression of taxpayers, some of whom then revolted, requiring still more taxes to fund more military operations).

In the event, of course, the dysfunctionality in the Roman security arena (inability to stop the Gothic influx across the Danube and the permanent loss of control over that region of the empire) did not lead to immediate collapse of the empire; Theodosius restored hope and stability through his cautious and conciliatory policy toward the Goths.[5] But the pressure of the Goths, the difficulty of absorbing the Goths into Roman civic society, and of course the pressure of the emerging threat of the Huns that had driven the Goths to request access to the Roman empire in the first place were not eliminated by Theodosius’ intelligent policies, nor were the negative internal trends of the empire. His efforts notwithstanding, dysfunctionalities in security, economic, and political arenas (insecurity of border peoples facing local conflict, economic disparities, and the refusal of political elites to share power with disenfranchised groups) remained weaknesses of the Roman political system. And external attacks resulted from, raised the visibility of, and contributed to these dysfunctionalities. The external attacks resulted from the system’s weaknesses to the extent that neighbors attacked when they perceived weakness and because of disparities in wealth, power, justice, and security. [6] External attacks raised the visibility of the system’s weaknesses because the center’s treatment of peripheral groups (e.g., Goths by Rome) brought into focus issues of justice that had previously been all too easy to ignore. External attacks contributed to the system’s weaknesses to the degree that political elites exploited the fear of invasion to enhance its own power.[7]

In brief, then, military force rather than the legal system or the negotiating table apparently came to be the method of choice for resolving conflict, and—simultaneously--the health of these systems appears to have declined. The degree to which these appearances are accurate, the degree to which systemic disease characterized the international systems of late Rome, Han, and Tang deserves evaluation from a theoretical political science perspective. This essay applies to these ancient international political systems a typology of features previously developed for evaluating the health of any self-aware biological system. This essay then develops some initial metrics for diagnosing those systems’ state of health.[8] (In this context, “biological” is defined to incorporate social systems.)

According to this analytical framework, any self-aware biological system can be described in terms of at least the following characteristics: moral functionality, budget, reserves, defense, growth, feedback, learning, leadership cohesiveness, mass solidarity, and vision.[9]

Simplistically, when evaluating an international political system (or a specific state within that system), one can imagine a score for each of these 10 characteristics and some manner of combination for an overall score. Weights would in principle seem called for, though assigning weights to “defense” vs. “moral functionality” might prove contentious. One would hope that the systematic analytical approach advocated in this essay would inform that argument and help determine the relative importance of each characteristic in the analytical framework for evaluating the health of a system.

In any case, this systematic analytical approach would give us 10 individual scores and a scheme for deriving an overall score, analogous to the medical practice of monitoring blood pressure, cholesterol count, etc. to assess a person’s health.[10] Currently, no device exists for measuring the “blood pressure” (average level of frustration with politicians?) or “cholesterol count” (inefficiencies obstructing the free flow of information between the population and the regime?) of a political system. This essay will propose several experimental devices.[11]

Defining a Diagnostic Framework

Moral Functionality. It is not sufficient for an international political system simply to exist; it must function – it must accomplish things. Therefore, one may ask how well it functions. But this question is less straightforward than it may appear, since functionality may be defined differently by each actor. If the system is supposed to provide a secure and stable environment, then optimal functionality will include such things as the percentage of the population that enjoys physical security from the threat of criminals, terrorists, rebels, or oppressive regimes; economic well-being; a share of political power; access to justice.

However, other definitions of system functionality are possible. One’s goal might be a system of constant revolutionary renewal that promotes political activism and demands a high level of ideological awareness, in which case one might give high grades to a system that facilitates great leaps forward and cultural revolutions. One’s goal might be a system that purges foreign cultural concepts and protects traditional beliefs, in which case one might give high grades to a system that minimizes freedom of choice and controls the media.[12] One’s goal might be a system that maintains the power of a privileged elite, in which case a system in constant turmoil that could be used to justify maintenance of a state of emergency might be given high grades. One’s goal might be preservation of the privileges enjoyed by a well-financed military, in which case one might favor the constant turmoil of a low-grade civil war that would justify such financing. One’s goal might be the preservation of a privileged military-industrial elite, in which case one might welcome a high level of international turmoil that would provide a market for the elite’s profitable arms business.

The point is to raise the cautionary flag that if actors are seen to be behaving in ways that advance one of the goals in the preceding paragraph, rather than assuming they are acting incompetently, one should ask if they might simply have a different definition of what constitutes a smoothly functioning system. For the purposes of this essay, however, it will be assumed that any international political system is “supposed” to produce a secure and beneficial environment for all. That is, “functionality” is defined—at least partially--in moral terms, from the system’s perspective, hence the term “moral functionality.” Functionality undoubtedly also encompasses less normative aspects as well – the obvious day-to-day aspects of a system’s ability to “function,” to pass information, use resources, and achieve goals. The essential point here is that it does not make sense to grade a political system on performance unless one includes in the calculation its performance on moral issues: a political system that is economically productive and egalitarian is fundamentally different from one that has a rich elite oppressing a poverty-stricken lower class.

Budget connotes the day-to-day balance of input and output of resources, while reserves are budgetary quantities stored for emergencies. Both include economic factors to be sure but may also include qualitative concepts such as patriotism, level of education, or willpower – whatever resources the system employs to attain its goals.

Defense entails the system’s ability to maintain its ability to function. The timeframe over which any particular defensive strategy is successful is critical to an evaluation of its successfulness.

Growth may simply be growth per se or growth in a healthy direction and at a healthy rate. In order for growth to occur in such a manner, feedback and learning are critical. The system must receive information and must also learn how to make use of that information.

Leadership cohesiveness would seem to be of great importance to system functionality, but it is not clear either that this is always the case or that more cohesiveness is always better than less. A system under severe attack may function better if highly networked and dispersed with no cohesive leadership.[13] In addition, leadership that is cohesive but lacks vision may be dysfunctional. Similar arguments may be made about the followers: mass solidarity would typically seem advantageous but might be a disadvantage when the changing nature of external threats called for extraordinary tactical flexibility and originality or when the people march together in the wrong direction—exhibiting a sort of mass groupthink.[14] Perhaps the terms leadership cohesiveness and mass solidarity should be more precisely defined, e.g., as cohesion and solidarity in the conviction that “we should all support the group” but not that “we should all toe the line.” The most loyal team member in a new situation may well be the one with the courage to challenge conventional wisdom. But “challenge,” in this context, does not mean “overthrow;” it means challenge in the sense of challenging a partner to excel.[15]

Finally, there is the question of whether it is better to have a concept of where one would like to go or simply to react. Whether one argues that a bad vision of a desired future is better or worse than no vision, certainly vision would appear to be a factor with significant impact on system behavior. From the practical perspective, the degree to which a vision exists will affect behavior, and the degree to which it is shared by all system actors will have implications for efficiency. A vision of an apocalyptic future that must be avoided is likely to focus a system’s energy on extreme defensive measures that are used to excuse all manner of ills, causing the system to pay a high price. Whether or not this is good of course depends on the accuracy of the vision. A democracy that lurches back and forth between two different visions depending on which side has won the most recent election may spend more time fighting old battles than actually making progress toward either side’s goal, a battle likely to be costly both in terms of resources and legitimacy.

The question, then, is the degree to which this analytical framework can help us evaluate the health of international systems. This essay’s perspective that an international political system exists to facilitate the long-term development of a secure, peaceful, and pleasant life for the world’s population is, of course, not naively to assume that this is every individual’s goal but to provide a basis for judging the system. This essay will attempt to use the framework described above as a tool for laying out some principles and devising some practical devices (or “metrics”) that can be applied to evaluate how specific situations may be weakening or strengthening the ability of an international political system to work toward this goal.

Applying the Framework

Moral Functionality. “Moral functionality” is designed to measure the quality of system performance in a general sense. Moral functionality will be examined from two perspectives: narrowly from the political perspective and then more broadly by looking at systems as a whole.

Political Perspective. A basic concept in psychology addresses whether a person reacts to stress by fighting, freezing, or fleeing; in political terms, this may be translated into working within the political system to change it, accepting the political system, or leaving the political system (either by turning to violence or by emigrating). To the extent that a political system tends to push people out, it is not functioning well, at least by the definition of advancing the common good that is employed in this essay. By another definition, e.g., maximizing the concentration of wealth in the hands of the elite, one might of course score a system’s performance differently, at least over the short-term. Regardless of one’s goals, to push a portion of the population out of the system raises the likelihood of a backlash that will increase instability over the long-term.[16]

The shortsightedness and outright cruelty of ancient rulers repeatedly forced people to flee the system despite their desire to remain loyal members, with the result that the system was weakened. A German rebellion provoked by oppressive tax policy under Tiberius, for example, led to severe defeat of a Roman army sent to punish the oppressed (no thought appears to have been given to addressing their complaints), after which Tiberius simply swallowed the defeat because his attentions were focused on domestic politics, leaving the Germans with an impression of Rome’s “might” that can be imagined.[17] The Frisians, the tribe that revolted, successfully “fled” the system. Julian’s tax reforms in Gaul two centuries later illustrate a much more productive (not to mention humane) approach that sometimes characterized Roman rule.[18]

Moral Functioning of Whole System. Systems generally have rules designed to facilitate smooth functioning, which may be thought of as the system’s “legal” code. This set of rules defines the system. From the perspective of evaluating a system, the degree to which a system obeys its legal code is a critical indicator of its health. It should be noted that to observe that a system’s legal code is being violated is distinct from making a moral judgment about whether it is “good” or “bad” for a person to break those laws: if the system is judged to merit destruction, then one would of course aim to break the rules, because violation of the rules amounts to changing the system. “An absolute monarchy disguised by the forms of a commonwealth,” as Gibbons[19] described the dictatorship instituted by Augustus, is still an absolute monarchy, continuation of traditional republican forms notwithstanding. A democratic system in which voting is made so difficult that the poor are effectively disenfranchised has become a different system. A totalitarian system in which the man in the street gains the ability to organize and demonstrate against the regime without punishment is no longer a totalitarian system. An international system based on moral principles such as the precedence of human rights over state sovereignty or recognition of the authority of an international body[20] is no longer the same as a system based on state sovereignty. A political system tends to be physically durable in the sense that it is very difficult to overthrow state power, but its moral functionality is subtle and easily impaired.[21]

The relationship of the political system to culture is not clear-cut because the system may emphasize constraints, take a hands-off attitude, or provide guidance, and any given system will be likely to vary its attitude over time. Sometimes the political system can arguably improve the culture by legislating equality, and frequently political systems perform the opposite function by legislating inequality, which may filter down into cultural attitudes, or by forbidding the expression of culture (e.g., making the religion or native language of a minority illegal, or by rewriting history to exclude a cultural group).[22]

For a political system, at times the moral code moves toward the inclusion of “civilizing” rules. Rome, for example, promoted foreigners—provided that they accepted Roman rule--on individual merit to the highest levels of Roman power.[23] In contrast, at other times, an era of vengeance emerges in which rules that have been progressively civilizing the system are undermined.[24]

Accepting for the purposes of this essay that these civilizing rules are indeed the standards to which mankind aspires, they become excellent metrics for measuring the performance of the system. Rates and types of “human rights” violations (a modern term for a concept that was clearly understood by the ancients, as comments by Tacitus and Marcellinus on tax policy and the ethnic pride of various minorities make clear) are obvious metrics for diagnosing the health of the system. Other metrics are the source of the violation (individual, rebel group, local official,[25] or official government organ) and the public attitude (e.g., by high-profile commentators) toward such violation. From the perspective of the victim, a violation may be a violation, but from the perspective of the system, the higher the rank of the violator, the more serious the matter. So human rights violations by paramilitaries that support a regime are more indicative of pathology in the system than violations by rebels because the regime is implicated in the former. Violations directly by the regime are more serious yet.[26] And to the degree that those regime violations are excused or ignored by civil society’s institutions (e.g., learned opinion, a free press), it is indicative of true breakdown in the system’s moral code.[27]

If murder is considered wrong, but leaders (whether state heads or leaders of insurgent groups) are targeted for murder during war rather than being arrested, this constitutes a weakening of the system.[28] If attacks on civilian noncombatants are considered wrong, but the efforts to kill enemy soldiers are carried out by attacking civilian areas, this constitutes another weakening of the system. If military aid is given to an ally for "self-defense" and the ally uses it to colonize neighboring regions or commit human rights violations against its own people, when the regime providing the aid allows such transgressions, the moral fiber of the system is weakened. If the officials responsible for providing the aid escape punishment, the system is further weakened. To the degree that public opinion and the media fail to condemn such behavior, the system is weakened still further. All such behavior lowers the bar for what tends to be seen as acceptable behavior, driving the system further down the road toward legal dysfunctionality: the system is violating its own laws.

Whether or not system dysfunctionality is considered good rests on one’s judgment about what system is desired. If the goal is short-term benefit for an elite in power, then canceling environmental treaties or displacing peasants who inconveniently live in regions rich in valuable natural resources or regions where they are perceived as a security threat might well be seen as positive steps.

Rules are critical to smooth functioning because they define limits (both what you should not do and what you can freely do) and lower transaction costs, facilitating progress. If rules are broken—especially by states or other official powers—then convenient convention (e.g., let’s all drive on the right to avoid collisions), trust (e.g., in the currency or contracts), and flexibility to improve (e.g., verbal contests in the marketplace of ideas) vanish. If the military is given judicial authority over civilians (violating separation of powers),[29] legal functions are impaired. If the regime has the power to decide what theories can be taught, then the ability to make intelligent judgments is circumscribed.

Figure I. Moral Health of a System

Individual

A B

street crime

danger

dictatorship

Low High

Status paramilitaries Status

backed by military,coup

by palace guards

Extreme

rebellion System

Pathology

C D

Culture

Figure I, “Moral Health of a System,” categorizes the moral health of a system along two scales: a “status” scale going from low to high status and a “grouping” scale going from the act of an individual to the act of the whole population. If the analytical question concerns the quality of life at a given moment, then the quadrant in which immoral behavior falls may make little difference: muggers, rebels, secret police, evil advisers, and paramilitary gangs are all lethal. But from the perspective of the system, the nature of immoral behavior matters a great deal, and the arrow represents increasing threat to the system: the larger the percentage of the population involved and the higher the rank or the more official, the greater the threat to the system.

The status scale can be operationalized as a three-point scale: commoner, local, and national. The grouping scale can be similarly operationalized: individual, group, culture, where “culture” indicates that the behavior is not only engaged in by the whole population but is accepted as “normal.” A more detailed operationalization would measure each scale from 1 to 10 and multiply the two scores for the total score for any point in the field. The upper left point would be 1x1 = 1, the extreme lower right point 10x10=100. This number can be thought of as the degree of pathology in the system, expressed as a percent.

Quadrant A, containing behavior by low-status individuals, would include criminal[30] acts by commoners; Quadrant B, containing behavior by high-status individuals, might include repressive dictatorships that are seen as highly personal or criminal behavior by a local leaders; Quadrant C, containing behavior by low-status groups, would include rebellions and terrorist acts by rebel groups; Quadrant D, containing behavior by high-status groups, would include misbehavior of a ruling group, bias in reporting by high-prestige media organs, violations of human rights by paramilitary groups given official support, and officially-sponsored acts of terrorism such as the common Roman practice of destroying agriculture in regions Rome was invading.[31]

Figure I provides a tool for estimating the degree to which aberrant behavior threatens the system. The farther into Quadrant D one places a paramilitary group, i.e., the higher the status of those who support it, the more of a threat it is to the system (because the system is defined by its rules and the purpose of paramilitaries is frequently to operate outside those rules).[32] In an evaluation of system performance, measurement of how far outside the rules paramilitary behavior occurs would be a critical metric. Other questions would include the level of military support for paramilitaries (local or central government), the degree of national media support, and the degree to which the population as a whole endorses such behavior. [33]

Similarly, Figure I can be used to evaluate the threat of and appropriate response to a dissident group (e.g., a politician with a violent following, a rebellious palace guard). To the degree that the dissident group appears to be led by low-status individuals, it fits in Quadrant A and logically should be dealt with as a police matter leading to trial. To the degree that it is supported by a mass movement, it fits in Quadrant C and will in addition require measures that address the perceptions of the population that supports it, i.e., changes in the behavior of the system that address the causes of their alienation. Misconstruing a Quadrant C situation as a problem amenable to a military solution can backfire with increasingly uncontrollable long-term consequences in a cycle of mutual violence radicalizing both sides. In sum, Figure I offers a method for assessing the overall health of an international political system (or of subsystems, such as individual states) as well as for assessing the likely efficacy of a policy. Specific aspects of system health will be discussed in subsequent sections.

Budget. The international political system acquires and uses resources; metrics for determining how well balanced this budget is will be key to an evaluation of system health.

* Economic. The most obvious component of the international political system’s budget is economic. Economic functionality of a system would appear satisfied if the economy is at least stable, if not growing. But that traditional view of economics is no longer "sustainable." Prescient observers today recognize that it is shortsighted to consider a system economically viable simply because it has a steady growth rate; a positive rate of growth that is unsustainable—either because of resource depletion or environmental degradation—is dysfunctional.

Other issues in evaluating economic functionality concern the purpose and distribution of the economic product. If the purpose is conspicuous consumption, the rationality of the system is open to question.[34] To the degree that distribution is skewed, or the degree of imbalance is growing, economic dysfunctionality would be in evidence. One of many possible metrics for economic functionality would be the ratio between military and economic spending or aid. To the degree that aid from rich areas to poor areas wracked by violence is primarily military rather than economic even though economics lies at base of the violence (recall the Frisian revolt cited earlier), this aid will be likely to exacerbate the violence it is purportedly intended to minimize. Other metrics would examine more broadly the issue of budgetary balance (“guns vs. butter”).

Beyond the economic balance lies a host of other factors that may be thought of as “income” flowing into the system to “fund” its operations and “expenditures” flowing out. Even to list these factors, much less to determine their “balance” and future trends or to assess their relative importance would require significant new research. This essay will simply discuss a few examples and propose metrics.

* Patriotism. Patriotism would seem in principle to be a key factor: a system whose members feel a strong sense of loyalty should be healthier than one whose members are apathetic or actively hostile.[35] Historically, patriotism has been narrowly focused (on one’s own tribe, region, or state) and has therefore been a divisive force, differentiating “us” from “them” and facilitating whatever expansionist ambitions the elite may have had. If the “international political system” is defined as all the actors who actually interact at a given historical stage, it would be difficult to identify many historical eras where a system was unified by patriotism. For example, both the sense of loyalty toward Christianity and the sense of loyalty toward Islam in Medieval Europe imposed a more all-encompassing sense of unity over local principalities but each was typically framed in opposition to the other, splitting the Mediterranean political system. And there was certainly no shared sense of patriotism throughout the whole of either the Chinese system--including Mongols, Koreans, Japanese, Vietnamese, and Turks--or the Roman system—including Goths, Saxons, North Africans, and Persia, an empire in its own right. However, by viewing empires as international systems that, at their best, brought peace and security to many nations, we can derive a sense of the benefits of a universal patriotism.[36]

Participation. The degree of and nature of participation in the system together say much about system health. Participation that benefits the system’s members can be thought of as income; both refusal to participate and self-serving behavior (e.g., free-riding) as expenditures: for a healthy system, income should exceed expenditures. A critical measure of participation is the vigor of civil society.[37] Two fundamental questions are, 1. “How vigorous is civil society?” and 2. “How does system leadership react?” A more subtle question concerns the quality of civil society.[38]

At a different level from civil society is participation of elected representatives, who must share power with the leader and exercise that power to maintain the integrity of government. The late second century A.D. Roman emperor Severus, called “the principal author of the decline of the Roman empire,”[39] packed the Roman senate “with polished and eloquent slaves” who “were heard with pleasure by the court…when they inculcated the duty of passive obedience, and descanted on the inevitable mischiefs of freedom.”[40]

The tragedy of the commons is indicative of failures of participation, or, to be more positive, whenever people manage to defend common property for the good of all, resisting the temptation to benefit individually at everyone else’s expense, this all too rare achievement is indicative of unusually healthy participation. The “commons,” i.e., resources held in trust, are vulnerable not only to popular but also to regime exploitation. Participation in society should be measured for all members – rulers, elites, citizens. Examples include Constantine depleting the strained treasury and pilfering art from all over the empire to build Constantinople[41] and Emperor Elagabalus “lavish[ing] away the treasures of his people in the wildest extravagance.”[42]

* Legitimacy. A third aspect of budget is legitimacy. System income is regime behavior that increases its legitimacy; system expenditures, the opposite. Both the abrupt collapse of regimes that appear solidly in control because of the loss of legitimacy and the behavior while in office of leaders who perceive themselves as lacking it illustrate the importance of legitimacy.[43]

Figure II. Calculating System Budget

	INCOME	EXPENDITURES
Patriotism	acts that raise	acts that lower
Participation	“	“
Legitimacy	“	“

A system’s budgetary balance can be summarized by the approach given in Figure II, “Calculating System Budget.” This table excludes straightforward financial aspects of system budget and is only illustrative since there are no doubt numerous other aspects of system budget that could be added. Nevertheless, patriotism, participation, and legitimacy are fundamental components of a system’s budget sheet. Acts that increase a feeling of loyalty, a degree of participation, or a conferring by the people of legitimacy constitute system income; acts that decrease these factors are system expenditures.

In Figure III, “System Budget Details,” a few specific examples of actions that either raise or lower patriotism, participation, and legitimacy are provided. All examples of income provided are those that enhance system health; examples of expenditures, those that undermine system health. This constraint could of course be breached. For example, actions that encourage patriotism in a negative way would include the common tendency of politicians to paint their country as a victim that must strike out with vengeance against an allegedly evil opponent with whom compromise is unthinkable. Such behavior frequently strengthens patriotism (and participation) over the short-term, but its long-term negative consequences are unlikely to result in a strengthened system.

Figure III. System Budget Details

	INCOME	EXPENDITURES
Patriotism	· Setting high standards for one’s own system as an example for others · Upholding domestic standards when dealing with other countries	· Violating strictures against torture & thereby causing people to feel shame at being citizens of their country · Labeling those who reveal embarrassing misconduct as traitors
Participation	· Bringing dissidents or the alienated into the political process · Inviting representatives of civil society (union leaders, minority rights activists, teachers) to join talks to resolve a civil war	· Closing the newspaper or church or school of a dissident and thereby limiting the dissident’s ability to participate in the polity · Jailing people for religious belief · Excluding popular but unofficial leaders from seeking office
Legitimacy	· Addressing the needs of weak social groups · Encouraging peasants to elect their own local leaders · Negotiating with local peasant leaders rather than sending troops to control them	· Exploiting office for private gain[44] · Electing a leader under a cloud of suspicion of electoral fraud · Refusing to debate a third party candidate · Making rules for conquered territories that are considered illegitimate in the homeland, e.g., restrictions on democracy or due process

For these expenditures to exceed income may undermine a system more than the course of the day-to-day events that occupy our attention. These expenditures capture long-term processes that eat away the structure of a system like termites—little noticed until the structure’s integrity is destroyed. Even on the eve of its collapse, the Soviet Union, for example, appeared formidable, but popular anti-regime jokes at least as far back as the 1960’s would have revealed a dangerous degree of popular disenchantment: the “sudden” collapse of the Iron Curtain was in fact the culmination of a very gradual process of declining legitimacy. And Gibbon’s whole massive history was designed to reveal the slow decline of Rome. The slow decline of Chinese dynasties is similarly well-known.

Reserves. Underestimating the reserves of a human system is an old story in history, suggesting that this is a poorly understood concept that needs further study. Reserves may be subdivided not only into the obvious physical types, such as economic and natural resources, but also into a number of more subtle and less easily measured psychological types. One need only think of the reserves of determination on which many oppressed populations (whether barbarian tribes[45] or intellectuals under dictatorships[46]) seem endlessly to draw in their struggles for justice to glimpse the critical nature of psychological reserves. Serious research is called for to determine how psychological reserves function in groups under stress.

Here, five possible factors impacting the depth of psychological reserves will be suggested: myths/religion,[47] kinship ties, civil society, experience, and perceived alternatives. To the degree that myths are supportive and truly believed, they may give people greater psychological reserves to draw on. People who believe they will be rewarded in an afterlife for proper behavior on earth or who believe that their history was glorious and they should try to match it may be able to call forth greater reserves to resist than those who do not. People used to relying on close kinship ties rather than on themselves or government handouts may be able to resist better because they will have the necessary ties for coordinated resistance available. A similar argument relates to civil society: people who typically function in a tight network of voluntary cooperation with neighbors may be able to use those support networks and that experience organizing to resist more effectively. People who have experienced hardship may endure a sudden rise in adversity better than those who are accustomed to comfort. Finally, people who see themselves as having no alternative to resistance may be able to call forth greater willpower to resist (e.g., Jews in Nazi camps and Palestinians in Israeli camps). The analytical message unifying all the above factors is the importance of understanding perception in order to evaluate the depth of psychological reserves.

Defense

Any system must be able to defend itself. The critical issue is in identifying the tipping point where defensive measures begin to undermine the system more than preserve it. When a political system employs irregular, informal defensive organizations that do not have legitimacy such as secret informers,[48] personal armies, lynch mobs, paramilitaries, or mercenaries, the system’s viability is called into question. Such may be the case even for completely legal defensive forces allowed to overreach a reasonable level of authority.[49] In theory, one could imagine such irregular organizations functioning in a responsible manner, but to the degree they operate without transparent oversight or accounting they are more vulnerable to abuse than official state organs. The same applies to official defense units, like Augustus’ Praetorian Guards, that overreach normal defensive practices. To the degree that a regime’s security services or paramilitary organizations threaten the people they claim to be protecting, the system becomes endangered over the long-term. To the extent that such behavior is either increasing or becoming increasingly accepted as legitimate behavior on the part of a regime, a colonial power, or an invading force, the system is becoming more dysfunctional. Simply put, a larger proportion of people are experiencing degraded living conditions. But of course it is in reality not that simple. The resultant flow of internal or international refugees puts economic and security strains on the whole system and may feed rebellion; the feedbacks are incalculable.[50]

When irregular methods—midnight visits to people’s homes by the police;[51] assassinations of leaders or categories of people (e.g., teachers, union leaders, human rights activists, reporters); displacements of populations, especially those which are intentional; military attacks on whole segments (e.g., peasants or an ethnic minority) of the population; collusion between the military and groups advocating violence --then the political system is in desperate shape. Removing governing authority from local civilian leaders to give it to the military is a significant indicator of the breakdown of normality; for such special authority to continue to be exercised in practice by the military even after being ruled illegal is even worse – a sign that the military is operating on its own and the rule of law is collapsing. Another major set of indicators that the system’s defensive mechanisms are failing concerns the presence of foreign military and the nature of their participation in internal military operations (e.g., as advisors, participants, or in command).[52]

Since all of the above measures are justified by those who advocate them as measures to enhance the ability of the system to defend itself, why should they be considered indicators of system pathology? At least two reasons exist: misuse of these purportedly defensive steps for ulterior purposes and timeframe.

Concerning misuse, the danger is that a regime will take advantage of its legitimate right to defend the system to eliminate political opponents. Measures that circumvent standard legal protections put in place precisely for the purpose of preventing abuse of power, such as indefinite detention without trial or closed trials by military court, are indicators that such intentional abuse is occurring with “defense” as the excuse.

The second reason for considering the above-mentioned defensive steps as indicators of system pathology is one of timeframe. This essay is concerned with how one measures the fundamental, long-term ability of a system to continue functioning at an optimal level. Any of the above defensive measures may indeed temporarily shore up defenses, at least from the perspective of the actors who implement them. A politician may well survive his term in office on the strength of such short-term measures. More positively, a genuine threat may be met, just as a person with a severed artery can survive by using a tourniquet. But what is the subsequent quality of system performance? If the tourniquet is not removed within a few minutes, the patient may die of gangrene.