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In a past life I was a control theory researcher. Applied to politics it is largely seductive nonsense that explains very little. Look up spectacularly underwhelming history of system dynamics (Jay Forrester, Limits to Growth stuff). Wiener’s Cybernetics led to more woo than wow.
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Thanks for at least taking a look. Control theory still seems a reasonable way to try and ascertain control, even if just at the conceptual level, instead of just assuming it. Fine specification might be asking too much, but modeling possible control relationships seems valid.
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Thanks for the recommendation. I'll take a look. (Also, my intuition is that most identifiable control relations will likely be trivial and tautological, as you say. That control is not specifiable in the most signficant situations, even conceptually, seems an interesting point.)
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