Institutions, power, and temporal governance
What institutions are, what they do, and how governing capacity erodes over time Abstract Institutions are often described as rules, organizations, or governance arrangements designed to coordinate collective action. Yet such definitions remain insufficient to explain a central paradox of contemporary governance: institutions frequently continue to function, produce outputs, and enforce compliance long after their […]
Strategy as disciplined selectivity in attention-depleting environments
Why Strategic Failure Is Primarily Cognitive Rather Than Tactical Abstract In contemporary strategic discourse, speed is increasingly equated with effectiveness. Responsiveness, agility, and real-time adaptation are framed as strategic virtues across military, political, and organizational domains. This article challenges that assumption. It argues that strategy is not a function of acceleration, but of disciplined selectivity […]
The bureaucratization of violence
When Domination Ceases to Shock and Begins to Function Introduction Political violence does not operate solely through visible brutality, armed confrontation, or spectacular repression. In many historical and contemporary contexts, violence becomes effective precisely when it abandons excess and adopts order. Rather than erupting as an exceptional act, it settles into procedures, regulations, and administrative […]
Strategy as Disciplined Selectivity in Attention-Depleting Environments
Why Strategic Failure Is Primarily Cognitive Rather Than Tactical Abstract In contemporary strategic discourse, speed is increasingly equated with effectiveness. Responsiveness, agility, and real-time adaptation are framed as strategic virtues across military, political, and organizational domains. This article challenges that assumption. It argues that strategy is not a function of acceleration, but of disciplined selectivity […]
Institutions, tranquility, and silent progress
An Institutional Reading of the United Arab Emirates Experience Introduction – Tranquility as a Rare Social Condition In the contemporary international landscape, tranquility has become an increasingly rare social condition. Political volatility, institutional fragility, and the acceleration of decision-making processes have rendered stability an exception rather than a norm. Where tranquility does exist, it is […]
From Informal Power to Codified Authority
The Legalization of Domination as a Strategy of Political Stabilization Introduction Political power rarely emerges in a codified form. In many historical and contemporary contexts, domination is first exercised informally: through personal networks, coercive practices, patronage, violence, intimidation, and tacit arrangements. Informal power thrives in moments of uncertainty, conquest, collapse, or transition. Yet such power […]
Political Time: Governing in Duration, Deciding in Urgency
Introduction – The Temporal Misunderstanding of Power Time is one of the most consistently misunderstood dimensions of political action. Contemporary political discourse tends to equate governance with immediacy: rapid responses, visible decisions, and short-term outcomes. Electoral cycles, media pressure, and institutional incentives increasingly compress political action into narrow temporal horizons. Yet historical experience demonstrates that […]
Normative–Legitimacy Frameworks of Institutional Decline
Trust, Consent, and the Silent Erosion of Authority ⸻ Introduction: When Institutions Lose Authority Without Collapsing Functional theories diagnose institutional decline through performance failure. Power-centered theories locate decline in capture, domination, and coercion. Yet neither framework fully explains a widespread and increasingly consequential form of institutional erosion: situations in which institutions continue to function, retain […]
Legitimacy, Meaning, and the Normative Exhaustion of Institutions
Why Authority Persists After Belief Has Faded 1. Introduction: Institutional Decline Beyond Performance and Power Institutional decline is most often diagnosed through visible failures: declining performance, inefficiency, corruption, elite capture, or bureaucratic overload. These indicators are important, but they remain insufficient. Many institutions continue to function, produce outputs, and enforce rules long after their capacity […]
Power-centered theories of institutional decline
Capture, Domination, and the Hijacking of Institutional Authority Introduction: From Performance Failure to Power Distortion Where functional and performance-based theories conceptualize institutional decline as a failure of outputs, efficiency, or service delivery, power-centered theories shift the analytical focus to a more political register: who controls institutions, how that control is exercised, and to whose benefit […]