Abstract

System effects often stand in the way of attempts to come up with simple explanations of politics. Systems are often characterized by nonlinearities, where an effect is more than the sum of the effects of the actions taken by multiple actors. Another system effect is feedback, where the effect of actions is to amplify the problem the actions are intended to solve. There may also be indirect effects, where an incidental aspect of an action becomes more important (to other actors) than the primary intention; contingencies, such that an effect is not inevitable but depends on idiosyncratic or even anti-strategic initial actions; interaction effects, where the behavior of an actor changes the environment of action, so that other actors do not respond as anticipated; and unintended consequences, where the long-term or secondary effects of an action differ from the intended effect. Each of these system effects can frustrate scholarly attempts to understand political behavior using simple models of action, and, even more, can frustrate the attempts of political decision makers to predict the effects of their actions.