Conversation

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.
2
1
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.)
1
If you want to uncover control loops, relevant structures will be obvious, but meanings won’t be. For eg, gerrymandering = politicians choosing voters rather than other way around, disconnecting voting as feedback loop. Mesquita analyzes that the way a control theorist would.
2
Agreed (esp. re: smart/lucky practitioners doing what works w/out much analysis). Still, a more analytical look also seems worthwhile, esp. w/reasonable framework (ala BdM). Just interested in what can be learned thru modeling control loops, esp. where control is assumed w/out ?