Equilibrium And Chaos Essay ⋆ Political Science Essay Examples ⋆ EssayEmpire

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Equilibrium and chaos are terms that enhance our understanding of the dynamics of change in political systems and political phenomena. Historically, equilibrium refers to a balance, or steady state, between competing forces that may minimize tendencies toward political conflict. Competing political parties or nation-states under conditions of equilibrium may reach a stalemate in which conflict is reduced, balance is maintained, and change is minimal. Chaos refers to conditions in which political order and stalemates have collapsed, leading to states of disorder in which rapid change with highly uncertain outcomes may occur.

With the advent and expansion of the quantitative analysis of political data in the last half of the twentieth century, equilibrium and chaos took on more refined and precise mathematical definitions. With the expansion and availability of large sets of data, describing numerous political phenomena, political scientists can now examine these data using sophisticated techniques such as time-series analysis. These techniques allow the analyst to explore how change occurs in political phenomena over time.

Historically, scientists assumed that our world is in a state of equilibrium or balance. This means that the relationship between variables, such as that between income and voting behavior, are stable, linear, and proportional. In the 1990s a growing number of political scientists, such as Courtney Brown, began to understand that these assumptions of balance, stability, and linearity among political phenomena may not be true. What became even more resonant for many political analysts was an appreciation for the nonlinear nature of many political phenomena. When relationships between variables are nonlinear, proportionality may not occur, and instead small changes may have large and highly uncertain effects. This recognition led to an interest in the study of chaotic phenomena.

Chaos describes the long-term behavior of a system in which its descriptive data are not predictable. This means that if chaotic data represent a political phenomenon, be it voting behavior, political attitudes, or superpower conflict, then that phenomenon is subject to unpredictable and surprising behavior. In short, in a truly chaotic phenomenon we cannot predict the next result because the previous result does not serve as a guide.

Studying the mathematics of chaos is very challenging, but studying chaotic dynamics does teach us an important lesson. The world of human affairs is highly nonlinear, unstable, and unpredictable. And if the world of human, and thus political, dynamics is subject to such uncertainty, then these realities may always place limits on our knowledge. Thus, the goal of a science of politics may be an illusion and an unattainable goal.

In many historical periods global political dynamics seem to be in a predictable state of equilibrium. In other periods the political world is dominated by chaos and disorder. It is the recognition, though, that we cannot predict when such chaos and disorder will occur that makes the study of politics such a fascinating, important, and at times daunting activity.

Bibliography:

Brown, Courtney. Serpents in the Sand: Essays on the Nonlinear Nature of Politics and Human Destiny. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1995.
Ekeland, Ivar. Mathematics and the Unexpected. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988.
Kiel, L. Douglas. Managing Chaos and Complexity in Government: A New Paradigm for Managing Change, Innovation and Organizational Renewal. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1994.
Kiel, L. Douglas, and Euel Elliott. “Exploring Nonlinear Dynamics with a Spreadsheet: A Graphical View of Chaos for Beginners.” In Chaos Theory in the Social Sciences: Foundations and Applications, edited by L. Douglas Kiel and Euel Elliott, 19–30. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1996.
Saperstein, Alvin. “The Prediction of Unpredictability: Applications of the New Paradigm of Chaos in Dynamical Systems to the Old Problem of the Stability of a System of Hostile Nations.” In Chaos Theory in the Social Sciences: Foundations and Applications, edited by L. Douglas Kiel and Euel Elliott, 139–164. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1996.