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
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
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
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
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
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
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
* 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
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. Similarly, emergency measures lacking clearly
defined temporal and procedural limits would be indicators of system pathology.[53] Do the measures make short-term progress at
the expense of long-term degradation of performance (e.g.,
"cleansing" of dissident minorities or coca-growing peasants
provoking a rebellion in the future)?
And if not, do the short-term defensive measures throw the baby out with
the bathwater? If a democracy defends
itself by converting itself into a military dictatorship, the elites may win
(at least temporarily),[54] but
the population and the system have lost:
the democracy is dead.
Moreover, the future of the system will be questionable for any number
of reasons if the elites win by alienating the rest of the population. Aside
from obvious threats such as civil war and revolt lie other perils for a system
with internal divisions that make the masses apathetic.
Evaluation of the quality of defense must consider the relevance of the
defensive measures. In a word, do the
defensive steps taken actually serve to protect the system? A now-classic example of how easy it is to
take supposedly defensive measures that harm rather than protect the system is
the discredited idea of suppressing all forest fires to protect the
forests. In the
The impact of time delays on this process is fundamental because the
short-term and long-term impacts of an action may be opposite (exactly opposite
to the typical assumption that if X is good, then more X will be better). It must be kept in mind that an action will
have a set of effects, perhaps the desired one and almost certainly a number of
others that will be surprises, some nasty, but all are equally results of the
action, whether anticipated or not. A
tourniquet has two effects: it stops the
bleeding, and it rots the limb.[56] It is not legitimate to brag about stopping
the bleeding and then to blame “bad luck” for rotting the limb. The political equivalents are endless.
Growth
The “growth” of a political system
is more than just the impressive geographic expansion exemplified by
Another level relevant to assessing the growth of the system is not how
individuals or groups are treated but the degree to which sub-system components
are themselves represented at the system level.
If the system under analysis is an international political system, a
number of issues pertaining to states and other similarly powerful actors
arise. Relevant questions in this regard
include the nature of international institutions and how powerful states behave
toward them; the degree to which the system’s leading powers consider the views
of lesser states; and the ability of states to defend themselves against
private groups.
A final wrinkle concerns the desirability of growth, which may be
differentiated into “external growth,” i.e. territorial expansion, and
“internal growth,” i.e., increasing government control over the
population. Concerning external growth,
commentators have been warning governments not to become too greedy for a long time.[57] Totalitarianism might be viewed as a
political system that has grown too much in an internal sense. A political
system should not exist for its own sake but as a tool to promote the quality
of life of its population. The line
between a system with the power to do this and with the power to use the
population for the system’s sake or for the sake of an elite has never been
clear, and many members of ruling elites have of course worked hard to keep
this line blurred. Bigger is not necessarily better because freedom, equality,
flexibility, and adaptability may all suffer in large systems. “Large” may
equate to intrusive, manipulative, exploitative, and oppressive to minority
views and cultures. Large may also
amount to inefficient: both the
Two scales for assessing the health
of a political system’s growth are “Intent” and “Potency,” where the Intent
scale goes from predatory to supportive (of the population) and Potency goes
from impotent to omnipotent. Figure V,
“Measuring the Health of Growth,” provides an analytical scheme for beginning
to evaluate the implications of the growth of a system. The ideal point may be somewhere in the
center of the Potency axis and at the supportive extreme of the Intent axis
where a healthy tension will exist between desires to make a good system
stronger and ability to resist making it too strong to control. However, in practice the best spot is at
least in part a function of the level of environmental threat, and the problem
is to figure out how to allow more growth when needed without losing control of
the system.
Evaluation of system performance for
the criterion of growth is thus made difficult by two characteristics of
growth: 1) there is no simple linear
relationship between the amount of growth and performance (it cannot simply be
said that “more is better”); 2) the most desirable degree of growth, rather
than being some fixed point whose position could be determined theoretically
for all systems or for a given system for all time, depends on circumstances.
Figure IV. Measuring the Health of Growth
The above approach has the built-in
bias of assuming the system is distinct from and able to control the population
within the system. A different
perspective on growth is to ask about the evenness of growth. One might, for example, have an extremely
powerful system in which power was shared equally so that no one was threatened
by exploitation. The strength of civil
society and the ability of volunteer organs of civil society to play in the
political arena in a positive-sum manner would be relevant indicators. The initial approach suggested that growth
was not necessarily good and that it did not inevitably always go forward. The focus on evenness of growth adds a third
point: that the nature of the growth is
critical to an evaluation of how healthy that growth may be. The above chart should, then, be modified to
include a third axis going from uneven to even growth. The resultant eight-octant cube, with three
axes (Intent, Potency, and Distribution) would constitute an initial tool for
assessing the health of growth.
A relatively benign region of this
cube would be at the middle of the Potency axis (effective but not omnipotent)
and at the supportive and even extremes, respectively, of the Intent and
Distribution axes. The predatory,
uneven, and omnipotent region would be a clearly malign region. If the axes were operationalized with
specific characteristics, actual regimes could be placed and their movement
tracked.
Feedback
Feedback is critical to the leadership’s ability to understand reality. As a political system becomes more complex in the scientific sense of the word, i.e., composed of an increasing number of parts characterized by a rising degree of interaction and resultant emergent collective behavior, the system becomes more difficult to understand. It has been argued that the contemporary global political system may now be reaching a phase transition that will propel it from an essentially hierarchical structure ultimately under the control of individual leaders to an essentially networked structure because its rising complexity is exceeding the ability of any hierarchical governing body to comprehend what is happening.[59]
To the degree that this is true, leaders need the best possible feedback. Thus, dissent is a valuable gift – it provides information that the system can use to repair itself. Those who desire freedom should be grateful that dictators are usually too arrogant to realize the value of this critical metric of system dysfunctionality. The reliability (both in terms of coverage and accuracy) of information and attitude feedback (i.e., feedback of facts and feedback of feelings) from lower levels of a system to the control organs and within various levels are important indicators of system health.[60] Figure V, “Measuring Overall Feedback,” summarizes an approach to analyzing feedback.
Figure V. Measuring Overall Feedback
Coverage Accuracy
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Masses à Leaders
Within Masses
Within Leadership
Feedback is thus more complicated than suggested by the “Measuring Overall Feedback” table. Figure VI, “Differentiating Feedback Source from Target,” makes a distinction between the source and target (recipient) of feedback. A contradiction between rising expression of feedback and declining receptivity would appear likely to predict conflict:[61] masses increasingly expressing their views and sharing their views among themselves but meeting rising resistance from the leaders seems likely to provoke dissatisfaction and pressures from the bottom for policy and regime change even as it provokes pressures from the top to constrain freedom of speech. In sum, this contradiction suggests the following hypothesis:
H1 = If the rate of change in the nature of feedback expression and receptivity differ, popular pressure for change and leadership pressure for conformity will increase, resulting in a rise in political conflict even if both expression and receptivity are moving in a positive direction.
Figure VI. Differentiating Feedback Source from Target
|
|
Information Expression |
Information Reception |
|
MassesàLeaders |
|
|
|
MassesàMasses |
|
|
Feedback is a two-sided coin – it must both be given and received. One measure of system viability, then, might
be the degree to which the masses express their feelings. Are they, for example, afraid to speak
out? Alternatively, do they choose not to speak out? Another measure
might focus on regime receptivity. By
receptivity is meant not willingness to accept the specific message as true but simply willingness in
general to listen to a message, i.e.,
support for the principle of an open political system in which opponents
deserve genuine respect. When the
government attacks people for voicing criticism, the government may have something
to hide or may have become obsessed with short-term goals. Either way, when governing organs are not
receptive to dissent—when they do not respond to dissident opinions with
reasoned justifications, they risk misunderstanding the reality of the world in
which they operate.
If patriotism is equated to toeing the official line, short-term
functionality may appear to improve (absence of dissent raising efficiency),
but unless the official line happens to be perfect, the absence of dissent
removes the primary pressure to improve.
Under such conditions, there are few reasons to expect progress and many
to expect decline. Even if the official
policy happens to be perfect, conditions will inevitably evolve and absent
pressure, the policy will almost as inevitably fail to keep pace. Conditions evolve; so must policy.
H2 = If the regime focuses on short-term functionality, it will tend to ignore feedback concerning long-term issues.
The process of developing a rigorous method of evaluating the state of
feedback can be enriched by distinguishing feedback “expression” from feedback
“receptivity.” Feedback expression is the obvious core meaning of feedback,
which is the act of expressing one’s perspective. “Receptivity” means not acceptance of or
belief in that perspective but simply the willingness to consider it and
respond to it on its merits (rather than, for example, by attacking the morals
or loyalty of the speaker). A political
system in which fundamental issues are dispassionately debated is healthier
than a system in which certain opinions are taboo.
Feedback can be expressed in innumerable ways. Rather than taking the expression of dissent
as indicative of problems, it should be seen as indicative of the health of the
system. One need only recall how boring
the centrally controlled Soviet media were!
For simplicity, feedback expression may be divided into verbal and
behavioral. Verbal feedback includes
opinions expressed in editorials, weblogs, political speeches, and pamphlets
(like the one Julian encountered in military camp from a soldier protesting his
military plans). [62]
Behavioral feedback is perhaps more subtle and more frequently
overlooked. Behavioral feedback can be
expressed in at least two ways: by
exclusion and by attack. Exclusion
includes excluding an interested party from an activity in which they have an
interest, such as peace talks, a conference to form a new government, or a
formal political debate. People may also
be excluded by denying them access to the media. “Attacks” are active measures to push actors
out of the political system.
Exclusion and attacks may well be different points on the same
continuum; the point of distinguishing them here is to draw attention to the
greater seriousness of the attacks for methodological purposes. Although it may ultimately be useful to
weight various types of exclusion and attacks, a simple first step would be to
weight all examples of exclusion as half the significance of attacks. Verbal feedback may be considered less
important than either of the behavioral types.
It also appears necessary to distinguish “good” feedback—e.g., positive
expression of views or invitations to opponents to join an activity—from “bad”
feedback. The result would be a
seven-point continuum representing an initial scoring mechanism for events
meant to send signals to the other side as follows:
Co-opt = 3
Include = 2
Verbally Express Positive Feedback = 1
Take no Action = 0
Verbally Express Negative Feedback =
-1
Exclude = -2
Attack = -3.
In sum, the role of feedback is
critical to the health of the world political system, but rigorous methods of
measuring the rate and quality of feedback—both in terms of its expression and
receptivity to it—are lacking. Anecdotal
references to examples of changes in feedback or vague comparative impressions
have only limited value. We need to be
able to measure rate, quality, and direction of change in the expression of and
receptivity to feedback. It is a truism
to observe that we are now in the “age of communication;” we need more rigorous
methods of determining the degree to which this is actually true. Feedback is in essence communication, but it
is not at all clear to what degree the rise in commentary constitutes a rise in
communication. For communication to
occur, someone must be listening. It is interesting at some level to discover
that more people are providing feedback, but ultimately the important question
concerns not the amount of feedback being provided but how carefully those with
different perspectives are paying attention and understanding.
Learning
A particularly invidious
psychosis plagues the world: the refusal
to learn from enemies held in contempt.
This very special type of cutting off one’s nose to spite one’s face is
a major reason why international conflict resolution is so difficult. Whether the despised opponent lays out his
conditions for compromise plainly in a speech or engages in transparent
behavior, the other side will all too often make it a matter of (false) pride
to learn absolutely nothing. Almost never is a person utterly and implacably
evil. Even the utterly evil get tired,
and most have a price. Sometimes that price
is close to paid simply by treating opponents with respect. When the system’s decision makers fail to
learn from the lessons taught them (be they actions taken by an opponent or
statements made by an opponent), the system is in serious trouble. Circumstances are always in flux, and no system
can function very well without learning.
If feedback is critical to learning and learning essential to keeping
up with changing circumstances, the critical ingredient in feedback is
dissent. One can of course have internal
feedback that simply passes up information,[63] but
in practice dissent is the critical form of feedback for a political
system. The degree to which leaders pay
heed to apathy, critical media, demonstrations, and, violence directed against
the state or people is a fundamental measure of the degree to which they are in
touch with reality. These phenomena do
not come out of the blue. They result
from some mix of reality and perceptions and can therefore be used as signals
by open-minded decisionmakers. When
ruling circles ignore the message of those who oppose them, this indicates a
pathology of the system. The refusal to
learn is pathological.[64]
Leadership
Cohesiveness
What to do with
leadership skill – difficult to improve system, easy to harm – weave into
cohesiveness; usually an individual who wants to harm will mar cohesiveness
since most systems likely to have at least some leaders trying to maintain the
system they lead
Leadership
cohesiveness does not mean groupthink; it does not mean agreement on tactics or
even strategy. It does mean that the
leadership works together as a cohesive unit, even though it may perceive
environmental change that requires new thinking and engenders a debate. The degree to which the debate is reduced to
political infighting for individual gain might appear at first glance to be the
key to the impact of leadership cohesiveness on system health, but reality is
more complicated.
Once again, with
leadership cohesiveness, we have a variable difficult to assess because the
extremes (leadership disunity and groupthink) both inhibit effective governance. Efficiency, consistency, and flexibility need
to be balanced: easy to say but hard to
do and hard to measure.
The degree to which
the debate within leadership circles is reasoned and collegial, or at least
analytical, is indicative of leadership cohesion. A metric would therefore be the tone of
discourse.[65]
Policy
inconsistency suggests leadership disunity and thus may constitute a relatively
straightforward way of finding data that reveals hidden splits (though it could
also indicate a leadership united but uncertain).
Another indication
of the health of the system would be the degree to which institutions
traditionally used to help the system function become the object of scorn by
key actors. The identity of key actors
can be highly variable. Depending on the
moment, both the Praetorian Guard (i.e., palace guards)[66] and
border legions were numbered repeatedly among the most crucial actors of
Imperial
The degree to which
traditional rules, values, or institutions are being challenged by members of
the leadership is also indicative of leadership cohesiveness. Whether a challenge to system rules and
values is “good” or “bad” depends on the nature of the system being challenged
and the nature of whatever new system replaces it. The point here is simply that the existence
of such a challenge from within the leadership group is indicative of fissiparous
tendencies.[69]
A critical aspect of
leadership cohesiveness is its relationship to learning. Does the leadership have a unified, open,
welcoming attitude toward new information?
Do members of the leadership draw compatible or mutually contradictory
lessons from the new information? This
is but one example of the ways in which the characteristics of the analytical
framework interact.
A related factor
concerns whether the leadership tends over time to be inclusive or
exclusive. In a crisis, defining
everyone who is not 100% on board as an outsider may be a useful tactic to
raise efficiency and help insiders focus; by the same token, the very existence
of this tactic suggests that the system is under stress, so such behavior can
be used as an indicator of impaired health of the system. More importantly, exclusionary tactics come
at a price. First, every fence-sitter
alienated is a resource lost to oneself and handed free to one’s enemy. Second is overreach: biting off more than one
can chew. These first two costs of
exclusionary tactics, although intellectually simple and—given quantifiable
data—calculable by basic arithmetic, have historically been and continue today
to be overlooked with alarming frequency.
It is, then, perhaps no surprise that a third cost of exclusionary
tactics—that a reaction exists for every action—is also frequently overlooked
or at least underestimated, even though it is the political counterpart of the
most basic physics phenomenon. People,
even leaders (judging from their actions), tend to think linearly and to ignore
time-lagged processes, so they assume that the competition to amass power is
zero-sum: that if one builds more
weapons or diplomatically “slaps down” an opponent or conquers more territory
that one will therefore be more powerful.
But an instant’s consideration of systemic reserves suffices to
demonstrate that power is not a matter of dividing a static pie. By calling upon reserves of self-discipline,
for example, power can rise exponentially.
Woe to the aggressor that in the arrogance of overreach incrementally adds
to its power only to provoke a reaction that exponentially raises
the power of an opponent. The aggressor
would have been far more secure by avoiding the action that provoked its
opponent into making that supreme effort.[70] A straightforward example is an aggressor
that by taking a small area of land provokes a multitude of fence-sitters to
join a coalition against itself.[71] Thus, a leadership group that moves from
being a smoothly functioning team to the extreme of trying to exclude everyone
not 100% committed in support will, with some indeterminate time lag, weaken
the system. Therefore, ironically, too
much leadership cohesiveness, as well as too little, can harm system health.
The multiplicity of
indicators of leadership cohesiveness makes the designing of even a basic
measurement tool more complicated than for most of the framework’s
factors. Suffice it here to propose a
set of individual scales (see Figure VII), each set up to go from positive
impact on system health (on the left) to negative impact (on the right). Note that these scales do not measure
the degree of cohesiveness, since both high and low cohesiveness can be
damaging. Instead, each is designed to
measure rising damage. Questions about
whether these are indeed linear scales, whether or not weights should be
attached, and the degree to which interaction among subsets of these indicators
may matter shall be left for future research.
Figure VII. Set of Scales for Measuring Impact of Leadership
Cohesiveness
Upon System Health
|
Attitude Toward Skeptics |
inclusive……………………….exclusive |
|
Attitude Toward New Information |
analytical………………………dogmatic |
|
Policies |
consistent………………………contradictory |
|
Lessons Learned |
consistent………………………inconsistent |
|
Attitude Toward Colleagues |
respectful………………………scornful |
|
Attitude Toward Traditional Rules,
Values, Institutions |
supportive………………..……challenging |
Mass Solidarity
The complex systems perspective on
reality informs our understanding of “mass solidarity.” A complex system is characterized by multiple
interacting parts whose whole is greater than the parts; i.e., it cannot be
understood by reduction: the
interactions are potentially as significant to system behavior as the
individual parts. From this it can be
inferred that the solidarity of the masses can be overdone. If the whole population acts as one in a wave
of zenophobic hatred, imperialistic aggressiveness, or thoughtless revenge, the
system has lost complexity: the normal
differentiations among social groups have disappeared in a wave of
groupthink. The power of this uniformity
comes at the expense of analytical depth, emotion has arguably replaced
thinking, alternatives are ignored, the ability to respond flexibly to events
is sacrificed, the fate of the system is gambled on one roll of the dice. In complex systems terms, the interactions
among the component parts of the system are gone, so the system is no longer
greater than the sum of the parts; indeed, it is only equal to the single part
that has become the whole, and its future rests on the quality of whatever
strategy and tactics that part advocates.
Solidarity can be analyzed within
the masses as well as between masses and elites. Solidarity within the masses needs a fine
balance to maximize cooperation while preserving flexibility, as discussed
above. A flourishing civil society of
interacting and cross-cutting groups that serve to exchange information and
build networks of loyalty and friendship connecting all social groups within a
shared sense of belonging is one component of a healthy solidarity.[72] A critical factor in the nature of civil
society is the attitude toward the masses of the regime. A totalitarian regime may attempt to destroy
all non-official institutions or may encourage semi-official institutions as
long as they serve to report popular attitudes up the line but don’t exhibit
independence.[73] A superficially democratic regime may play
favorites to split people into ineffective units that spend their time fighting
each other for preferential treatment, leaving the regime solidly in control of
a fractured populace. Another indicator of the health of mass solidarity is the
degree of openness to intellectual debate in the educational system.[74]
Mass solidarity should, however, not
be conceived of solely as operating within the non-elites. Analytically, it may be a useful
simplification to imagine a group of “the people” and a group of “elites,” but
in reality no line separates the two groups.
To the extent that there is a line, it could be argued that this would
represent a weakening of the system. In
the ideal system, then, solidarity would characterize all members – elite and
non-elite. The failure to achieve this
is of course a basic weakness of international political systems and lesser
political units. One indicator of this failure has already been mentioned – a
regime that provokes differentiation among subgroups through favoritism. In sum, to maximize system health, mass
solidarity needs to be finely balanced to produce a unity that permits disagreement
with “strength through diversity.”
Vision
Vision
is a difficult variable to deal with analytically. Without any vision, a system of humans
(whether political or a company) is in dubious shape: what is the point of having a system that has
no concept of its purpose or desired direction?
Political systems of course frequently contain discordant visions. Without solving the endless debate over which
vision might be preferable, is it possible to determine whether a political
system is better off with a single shared vision or a competition among
visions?
One
analytical answer is to avoid all such discussion and focus not on which vision
or how many but on the attitudes of people and organizations within the
system: that is, judge the system on the
basis of how those with differing visions interact. However, that essentially redefines “vision”
as little more than “tolerance.”
FIGURE VIII. Analyzing Vision
Coherence
|
is the vision logically coherent? |
|
Clarity |
is the vision understandable? |
|
Acceptance |
is the vision accepted by the population? |
|
Sustainability |
does the vision contain the seeds of its
own destruction? |
More
useful for analyzing the quality of the world political system might be
questions about the generic quality of visions:
are they logically laid out, do they contain details, are they
internally coherent and consistent, are they long-term, do they incorporate
feedbacks? A vision that contains the
seeds of its own destruction hardly gives much reason for optimism. A vision that, for example, calls for the
fastest possible exploitation of limited resources to maximize wealth would
suggest that the system is headed for its demise. The key to evaluating the impact on systemic
health of its vision, then, is whether or not the short-term behavior promoted
by the vision undercuts the vision over the long-term.
H3 = If system
behavior is motivated by a vision according to
which
short-term behavior undermines realization of that
vision over
the long-term, the system is in trouble.
An
analysis of “vision,” by the above criteria, suggests some real concerns for
the health of ancient political systems. Mutually contradictory visions was the
theme of the 20th century:
the capitalist vision of wealth through competition vs. the communist
vision of sharing according to one’s needs, democracy vs. strong leadership of
a “wiser” elite, nature for exploitation vs. man as the steward for nature,
emphasis on gaining wealth vs. emphasis on a harmonious and peaceful lifestyle. Visions have also frequently contained the
seeds of their own destruction: nature for exploitation led to its ruin;
laissez-faire capitalism made the rich richer and the poor poorer; emphasis on
becoming richer exhausted the resources on which the wealth was based; elite control
tended to constrain feedback and learning, allowing changing conditions to
erode whatever “wisdom” the elite may have originally possessed.
The
above approach could be faulted for confusing “vision” with “strategy.” It may not be reasonable to criticize a
vision by asking the type of detailed questions that would certainly be
appropriate when evaluating a strategy.
This raises the question of whether or not a system (e.g., state,
empire, global political system) can be judged wholly health if a) it lacks a
vision, b) it has only a vague and simple vision, or c) it has a vision (e.g.,
equality, individualism, morality) but no strategy. The answer is probably that a truly healthy
system will have a simple, compelling shared vision backed up by a detailed
strategy for achieving it. The devil is
in the details: equality may be a great
vision but scientific socialism may not be a workable strategy, morality may be
a great vision but imposing any specific religion may not be the way to achieve
it (just as leaving the population to choose whatever moral guideposts they
fancy may also not be effective), economic growth may be a great vision but
uncontrolled capitalism in which the commons are destroyed may not be the way
to achieve it. Given the importance of
the details of the strategy to achieve the vision, “strategy” is here proposed
as an additional factor in the framework.
Strategy
With
the addition of “strategy,” detailed questions about implementation of a vision
can be separated out. A vision can be
judged in terms of coherence, clarity, degree of acceptance across the
population, with detailed questions about implementation being left for a
discussion of the quality of a system’s strategy. It should at a minimum be noted that the
degree of detail in a system’s strategy is not an indicator of system
health. A highly hierarchical system may
benefit from a detailed rulebook; a networked system (traffic) may benefit from
the simplest possible set of guidelines (drive on the right and don’t hit anyone).
Strategy
should be internally consistent, shared among all participants, steady, and
continuously reevaluated. When a
forceful leader ruled,
Metrics to Operationalize the Indicators
The
metrics indicative of pathology in the political system have been presented as
a list (reiterated in Figure X, below) of individual tools for assessing system
health. In fact, some are clearly more
significant than others. Identifying
when indicators occur in such sequences would be an important step toward
creating a predictive model and is a leading area for future research.
A second area for
further research is how the individual indicators interact. Feedback and learning are an obvious example
of indicators that are tightly bound, with elite learning critically dependent
on popular feedback and feedback no doubt itself sensitive to the people’s
expectations about the elite’s willingness to listen (and the same point
applies to feedback from the elite to the supreme leader).[77] Exactly how these intuitively bound
parameters affect each other, however, is unknown. Are there conditions under which the two
might be uncorrelated or negatively correlated? When positively correlated, is
the correlation linear or nonlinear? One
might hypothesize that demonstrated learning will encourage more feedback; one
might also hypothesize that the nature of the learning will affect how tightly
correlated future feedback will be: if
popular feedback (a protest) leads the regime to learn to crack down on free
speech rather than moderating its behavior, that will be likely to lead to a
nonlinear shift in feedback – either it will intensify (revolt) or
disappear. Under what conditions will it
do the first rather than the second? A
second example is defense and growth. An
elite may sacrifice some parts of a system (maintaining urban quality of life)
to defend other parts (building new weapons systems). That shrinking of the system may in turn
impair defense…after sufficient delay to obscure the causal relationship. So the question should not be “guns or
butter?” but something like “how long can we afford to buy guns before the loss
of butter will itself begin to
undermine our ability to buy guns?”
Figure VIIII. Interacting Variables
Finally, research
is clearly needed to advance the process of creating precise metrics for the
dozen-odd indicators of system health.
The metrics defined in this essay and enumerated in Figure X below are
only the beginning of the myriad ways in which these indicators could be
measured.
Figure X.
Metrics Indicative of Pathology in the Political System
- Functionality
- Political
- Local members of ruling elite protesting official policy
- Rebellion
- Refugee flows
- Moral
- Dissent equated to treachery
- Legal
- Military assumes judicial authority over civilians
- Military assumes police authority over civilians
- Informer networks are established
- Budget
- Economic
- Sustainability
- Resource depletion
- Environmental degradation
- Purpose of Economy
- Distribution
- Ratio of military to civilian expenditures
- Ratio of military to civilian aid
- Ratio of military to civilian spending
- Patriotism
- Participation
- Legitimacy
- Reserves
- Physical
- Natural
- Economic
- Psychological
- Patience
- Central
- Peripheral
- Tolerance
- Central
- Death squads
- Equating dissent with lack of patriotism
- Human rights abuses during military campaigns against rebels
- Failure to punish military officers guilty of human rights
abuses
- Refusal to recognize moral authority of international courts to
try political leaders for war crimes
- Peripheral
- Defense
- Paramilitaries
- Death squads
- “strategic hamlets” (villages under tight control into which
villagers are herded)
- Granting the military special rights to supplant civilian
authority
- Military exercise of special rights even after being ruled
illegal
- Measures to prevent reporters from working
- Foreign military advisers accompanying offensive domestic
military operations
- Foreign military fighting in domestic military operations
- Growth
- Ethnic cleansing/ forced displacement of whole sections of the
population
- Refugees (both across borders and internally)
- Percent of population whose interests are represented
- Percent of states whose interests are represented
- Authority of international institutions
- Willingness of individual countries to alter policy
- Degree to which international treaties are followed, especially
treaties dealing with the commons (e.g., environmental issues, refugees)
· Feedback
- Coverage
- From masses to leaders
- Media control
- Internet control
- Within masses
- Within leadership
- Accuracy
- From masses to leaders
- Within masses
- Within leadership
- Learning
- Ignoring the message of opponents
- Leadership Cohesiveness
- Attitude toward skeptics
- Attitude toward new information
- Policies
- Lessons learned
- Attitude toward colleagues
- Attitude toward tradition
- Mass Solidarity
- Development of civil society
- Openness of educational system to intellectual debate
- Distinction between masses and elites
- Regime favoritism to specific social groups
- Fairness of international terms of trade
- Vision
- Coherence
- Clarity
- Acceptance
- Sustainability
- Strategy
- Consistence
- Degree to which shared
- Degree to which steady
- Degree to which continuously reevaluated
Interaction Among Indicators
The
framework with its indicators and metrics only sets the research stage. The real story of how a political system
degrades would appear to lie in the interaction among various indicators. This is a critical research area, and the
comments that follow are simply intended to call attention to it.
H4 = If the vision is short-term, then leaders will tend to overemphasize extreme defensive measures that undercut the system’s long-term prospects, to engage in behavior that limits feedback, and to resist learning from what little feedback they do receive.
The tendency to
resist learning after a decision to conduct extreme defensive measures has been
taken makes it much more difficult for the regime to undercut its opposition by
simply calling their bluff and accepting the reforms (or unilaterally
instituting them and thereby reaping the benefit in terms of broadening its
support among the population). In brief,
to the extent this hypothesis is correct, precisely at the point when a regime
should be maximizing its learning and flexibility, it instead blunders forward
with its eyes shut tight.
H5 = If system functionality becomes intolerable to the masses, they may be able to call forth such stores of psychological reserves that they come to constitute a new sub-system with extraordinary defensive ability, high leadership cohesion, and high mass solidarity, but only a short-term vision (focused simply on the immediate defensive need) and severely constrained ability to learn.
Such
an outcome creates two problems: the
system as a whole is pathological in the extreme for it has broken into two
systems, the new rebel system and whatever remains of the old. But even the new rebel system--despite its
high grades on defense, leadership cohesion, and mass solidarity—may find itself
in serious trouble because its short-term vision combined with the very high
levels of leadership cohesion and mass solidarity may fatally inhibit
learning. Such an intensely committed
system may miss critical opportunities to resolve its problems. It would be of inestimable value for peace if
a scientific understanding of group dynamics could be developed sufficiently to
enable us to detect such a splitting process in its early stages and mitigate
it. The splitting process may generate a
wide range of conflicts—private militia battles, rebellions, civil wars. Such phenomena typically lead to labeling one
side as good, the other as bad, with the party that traditionally held power
getting the “good” label without much regard for the morality of either side’s
position. The search for a solution then
becomes warped into an effort by each side to destroy the other, while the
problems that provoked the conflict in the first place are pushed aside and
ignored.
Hypotheses
H4 and H5, above, illustrate the general argument the point that system health
is a function of the interaction among the various indicators of system health
described in this essay. Although the
approach taken in this essay was reductionist for simplicity in introducing the
concept of rigorously assessing the health of the international political
system, nothing in this essay should be taken as implying that a reductionist
analysis will suffice to assess system health or understand why and how systems
degrade. Quite the contrary: only by viewing a political system as a complex
system of interacting parts that contribute to a whole that is potentially
greater than those parts can we hope to gain such understanding. The two hypotheses above suggest the richly
interwoven nature of feedbacks that connect these interacting parts.
If
interaction among the individual indicators (e.g., Hypotheses IV and V) is
important, this is to a great extent true because of the dynamics such
interaction makes possible. Much more
significant than the above individual indicators is the impact of interactions
among them. Patience and tolerance may
be frayed by objective conditions, e.g., declining economic conditions or
environmental degradation, with both rich and poor, powerful and weak blaming
the other group. Decline in morality is
only likely to enhance such mutual antagonism by focusing each side on the
illegitimate behavior of the other (e.g., elite theft of peasant lands, rebel
atrocities) at the expense of thinking about potential solutions. The reinforcing feedback from declining tolerance
to declining morality means that a small initial change can subsequently have
significant implications.
Figure
XI. The Perils of Reinforcing Feedback
Loops
[NOTE: the plus sign means X covaries with
Y, e.g., when morality improves, tolerance rises; when morality declines,
tolerance declines.]
Figure XI, “The
Perils of Reinforcing Feedback Loops,” shows that a decline in morality can
rapidly spiral out of control into a situation of mutually reinforcing and
increasingly barbaric behavior. The
tiniest decline in morality will cause at least some decline in tolerance,
which then itself causes additional
decline in morality, etc., etc. If
at the same time stress is rising, it will cause the inverse effect on tolerance, i.e., causing further decline, and
that effect will cause even more
decline in morality. This is why
dismissing small shifts such as a slight increase in acceptance of innocent
civilian deaths or mistreatment of prisoners during war or discrimination against
a minority is extremely dangerous: no
matter how slight the initial change, the feedback loop rapidly compounds the
effect and multiple feedback loops, if they reinforce each other as decline in
morality and rise in stress do, will push the compounding at an accelerating
rate.
Conclusion
The
great imperial systems of Han, Tang, and