Systems Atlas Project
Level 0
Political
political
Justification
What has been written down.
Six fields are required of every node. Empty ones are shown as declared gaps — a gap means nothing has been written, not that there is nothing to write.
Definition
Institutions, authority relations and formal or informal decision structures that determine collective choices and the allocation of public power in a society.
Inclusion
- entities that hold or compete for legitimate coercive authority
- entities that make or authorise binding collective decisions
- structures of representation and participation
- structures of accountability and oversight of state power
Exclusion
- individual motivations — lens incentives
- courts and legislation analysed as legal structures — goes to legal
Sources
Declared gap No sources have been cited.
Boundary cases
- Institutions that both constrain power and apply legal rules are classified by primary analytic focus: political when analysing allocation, limitation or competition of authority; legal when analysing rule validity, interpretation or enforcement.
Uncertainty
- Same objection as the legal domain. Classification by analytic focus makes the same institution sit in two places depending on the question asked.
Divides into
5 components at level 1.
Declared gap No definition has been written.
Legislative structures Level 1Declared gap No definition has been written.
Electoral structures Level 1Declared gap No definition has been written.
Political organisation structures Level 1Declared gap No definition has been written.
Administrative structures Level 1Declared gap No definition has been written.
The whole domain
16 nodes, every level of the descent.
The full descent below this domain. A node that divides opens to show its parts; a node that does not is a link and nothing more. Every entry is a page, and a page existing says nothing about whether anything has been written on it.
Rules
Whether this division survives the six rules.
Rules 1, 5 and 6 are checked by the validator and reported here. Rules 2, 3 and 4 are judgements about meaning and cannot be automated — no state is claimed for them. The rules themselves are set out in the method.
At most seven
Divides into 5 components.
Mutually exclusive
A judgement about whether the parts overlap. Not automated.
Collectively exhaustive
A judgement about what the parts leave out. Not automated.
Equal abstraction
A judgement about whether the parts answer the same question type. Not automated.
Decomposable or terminal
Divides into 5 parts.
Justified in writing
5 of the six fields carry content. The rest are declared gaps.