An Experimental Method to Measure the Tendency to Equibalance in a Political System

J. A. Laponce

American Political Science Review, 1966, vol. 60, issue 4, 982-993

Abstract: Politics is both game and warfare: game when it seeks to keep uncertain the outcome of a competition and to keep the opponent not only alive but eager to play; warfare when it seeks to destroy or permanently weaken the enemy. Depending upon the issues over which it is fought, politics will be more or less game, more or less warfare. A given society may keep its politics in a state of game unless certain issues, social status or religious freedom for example, be at stake. Conversely, a society may be unable to remove its politics from a state of warfare unless some game-like issues, such as the election of a leader, be introduced.In order to measure the power of specific political issues to modify the game-warfare content of a political system, we should first be able to determine the tendency of that system when it operates in a political near-vacuum. In the absence of publicly known issues over which to divide themselves, we should ask, would members of a given group or society tend to fight or to play, assuming that they had only this choice?A state of total political vacuum is, of course, no more than an ideal which cannot and need not be obtained empirically. We cannot prevent subjects from smuggling into a laboratory experiment their personal political concerns, for example the perception of a hierarchy of status and authority within which they will react. But if we cannot control for private political issues, we can, at least, ensure that they do not become public, that they not be shared.

Date: 1966
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