Retrogressive regime drift within a theory of emergent order

This paper explores the robustness of systems of political economy from within an emergent perspective. Robustness is a quality of the nexus of relationships that emerge within a political economy, and particular attention is given to processes of regime drift that might generate retrogression within a political economy. The central claim advanced here is that robustness is facilitated through polycentric organizational arrangements that entail high degeneracy, while fragility and the emergence of decadence is facilitated in relatively hierarchical arrangements that possess low degeneracy. Copyright Springer Science + Business Media, Inc. 2006