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Synergy, Cybernetics, and the Evolution of Politics
Past, Present, and Future

Peter A. Corning, Ph.D.
Institute for the Study of Complex Systems
119 Bryant Street, Suite 212
Palo Alto, CA 94301 USA

Phone: (650) 325-5717
Fax: (650) 325-3775
Email: pacorning@complexsystems.org

© International Political Science Review 17(1):91-119 (1996)

Synergy (including the subcategory of symbiosis) has played a significant creative role in evolution; it has been a prodigious source of evolutionary novelty. Elsewhere it has been proposed that the functional (selective) advantages associated with various forms of synergistic phenomena have been an important cause of the evolution of complex systems over time. Underlying the many specific steps in the complexification process, a common functional principle has been operative. Furthermore, a major co-determinant of this process has been the parallel evolution of cybernetic processes and systems. This paper will briefly describe this theory (and some of the evidence for it) and will discuss in some detail how the theory relates specifically to the evolution of politics.

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