Political subjectness: a case of transdisciplinary reflection

DOI: https://doi.org/10.17072/2078-7898/2021-4-569-581

Political subjectness: a case of transdisciplinary reflection

Larisa P. Kiyashchenko
Doctor of Philosophy, Leading ResearcherInstitute of Philosophy, Russian Academy of Sciences,
12/1, Goncharnaya st. Moscow, 109240, Russia;
e-mail: larisakiyashchenko@gmail.com
ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4244-5732
ResearcherID: J-4925-2018

Anastasia V. Golofast
researcher-internInstitute of Philosophy, Russian Academy of Sciences,
12/1, Goncharnaya st. Moscow, 109240, Russia;
e-mail: nastya1555@gmail.com
ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8689-687X
ResearcherID: W-2494-2017

The article attempts to comprehend the issues that arise in connection with the spread of transdisciplinary strategies.Theseare questions to actualize the consideration of transdisciplinarity, as a phenomenon hierarchically associated with an interdisciplinary form of human activity, which is considered as a heuristic primordial foundation of the modern stylistics of philosophizing. It clarifies, redefines, through the filter of the existential problems to be solved, the generally accepted provisions and laws of disciplinary knowledge, using the paradoxicality of the reflexive-recursive subject-object relations of postnonclassics. Political subjectivity can be considered a term in social and political philosophy that accounts for the ability to introduce change in the internal and external areas of the political form. Political subjects execute power in different ways and on different levels of the multilevel governance structure. On each level political subjects come into existence, develop and mature and then proceed with deconstruction. Political morphogenesis is a complex phenomenon. The main target for the closed political subjects is self-preservation as these political forms have an in-built development ceiling, whereas the main target for the open political subjects is evolution as a process that is isomorphous with the environment. Political morphogenesis has an interval character: it happens mostly under the circumstances of uncertainty and unpredictability of the political life when the political form’s old parameters of order are no longer functional while the new order parameters have not been established yet. This is the momentum when political entrepreneurs enter the political stage — those are political subjects that extract value from uncertainty by offering a crisis management initiative that eventually leads to the empowerment of the political entrepreneur by granting it more power and a widened authority scope.

Keywords: authority delegation, path dependence, political complexity, political subject, transdisciplinarity.

Introduction

Digital age brings political processes to a new level of connectivity and opens up new opportunities for political participation and political mobilization. At the same time, as the experience of the pandemic shows, digital technologies are used by the state as instruments of control, biopolitics and even necropolitics [Mbembé J.-A., Meintjes L., 2003] — making political decisions about who will live and who will die. The world is witnessing a revolution of meso-level connectivity — the formation of Internet communities that have a breakthrough impact on the political process, since they create islands of a new type of identity that is not related to territorial, national, or professional spheres [Kiyashchenko L.P., 2017]. The development of exponential technologies, i.e. those technologies whose productivity increases over time, as well as NBICS technologies (Nano-, bio-, info-, cogno-, socio-), promise a radical transformation of almost all spheres of intentional human activity [Alekseeva I.Yu., Arshinov V.I., 2016], including the activity of creating, maintaining and transforming political institutions. Having abandoned the idea of cumulative progress, individuals also stopped thinking about the future and began to think for the present. The future generates existential fear associated with the problem of technological singularity. This actualizes interdisciplinary analytical work in relation to the demarcation of the boundaries of political subjectivity [Kiyashchenko L.P., 2016a].

In this work, we will give definitions to the political subject, consider the sources of its stability and deconstruction, using methodological developments in the field of transdisciplinary studies of political processes. The relevance of applying a transdisciplinary approach to the analysis of political phenomena is rooted in the fact that distributed governance practices are most prevalent in the digital era. In addition, we place the main focus on the multilevel political processes that are implemented at the subnational, national and supranational levels. As a reaction to these changes, the following research question arises: what forms of political subjectivity organization are optimal for managing political space in the digital age? The topic of political subjectivity is not new - in the Western tradition, issues of subjectivity are held under the rubric of «political actorness». Researchers of European integration Caropaso and Jupille identified the parameters of political subjectivity [Caropaso J., Jupille J., 1998]. 

The authors proceed from the following general provisions:

1. Definitions assigned to political science concepts are not static and need to be redefined in response to the changing realities of the dynamic world.
2. Theoretical and methodological prerequisites behind the definition of patterns in political science are not a fixed set of ready-made solutions from which one can choose the appropriate ones for the situation but become a focus for reflection, as a result of which, it is possible to propose new grounds for conceptualizing phenomena in the political world.
3. Political science will develop as much as it becomes more common to abandon the paradigm of the self-evident.

Entropy means a measure of disorder, i.e. chaos in open dissipative political forms. Consequently, it activates the issue of boundaries, where the way to minimize entropy is to close the boundaries of a political form (the price of this is the emergence of a ceiling for the development of such «mother» political form [Roeder Ph., 2007] and its subsequent disintegration into smaller nested political forms that acquire autonomy, and then independence); selective (selective) openness appears as a way to maintain the average level of entropy, where a limited range of situations are regulated by the parameters of the order of the political form, other situations are marked by the predominance of entropic information in decision-making and the initiative of institutional entrepreneurs who use the «window of opportunity» to increase their own political capital; second-order openness implies the ability of a political form to choose the challenges to which it is ready to respond by framing political problems and their subsequent solutions. The transmission of impulses in the political domain occurs with the help of language, which is a tool for framing political problems, which, through narratives, are translated into society and implemented in specific behavioral practices at the level of the individual and the solution of issues of belonging / exclusion that are key for the political domain. Practices of sign and symbolic design of belonging in the language have the reverse side of the discourse of exclusion. Between belonging and exclusion there is the entropic space of the phase transition from following the order parameters to their transformation, which is indicated by the included third in A. Hirschman’s «loyalty – voice – exit» trinity [Hirschman A., 1970], where «voice» implies the presence of «protective valves» in the political domain to channel conflict potential of the participants [Coser L., 1964].

The authors proceed from the following methodological premises:

1. Political institutions, processes and technologies are cognizable at the meta-level. Analysis at the meta-level is necessary to stimulate scientific research on methodological issues [KiyashchenkoL.P., 2016b]. 
2. To meet the changing realities of the international intellectual and technological environment, political science can turn to synthesizing fields of knowledge, such as practical philosophy of transdisciplinarity [Kiyashchenko L.P., 2015].
3. Transdisciplinarity is a relatively new approach to the analysis of political categories, and this, as well as the goals and objectives of this study, may limit its application to the analysis of the political.

Defining political subject

Principal-agent approach. Political relations are relations between subject A and subject B, in which A delegates to B the decision-making process on a certain range of issues. This assumes that B has more knowledge and experience than A, and therefore is able to more effectively manage in the interests of A. This type of relationship is called relationship of authority delegation or relationship according to the logic «principal-agent» [Pollack M., 2007]. Delegation relations are associated with a social contract, according to which freedom of the subject delegating powers is limited in the interests of the common good to the extent that its voluntarism is able to restrict the freedom of other subjects. Principal-agent approach assumes the definition of a political entity as a participant in the delegation of authority relations.

Game theory approach. Relations between the elements that make up a collective political subject arise because these elements are human-dimensional, and the individual subject cannot satisfy its needs in isolation from others. To achieve goals, the individual enters into synchronous and asynchronous interactions. In the course of these interactions, the laws of game theory are implemented. Game behavior is characterized by fragmentation of trust or fragmentation of threats, depending on whether cooperative or non-cooperative behavior takes place and whether such interactions are a zero-sum or a non-zero-sum game. Game theory approach conceptualizes the political subject as a participant in a game relationship to extract personal benefit through repeated interactions with other players. 

«Rules and rule breakers» approach. An individual, «thrown» into certain systemic rules, can show conformity and integrate as much as possible into the environment in which he or she was destined to be born. This person then does not acquire subjective properties and remains an object in relation to which a systemic political course is implemented. In turn, a non-conforming individual acquires subjective qualities over time by violating the established rules. Breaking systemic rules an individual creates a precedent that leads to one of the two options for system response - 1) suppression of deviant behavior, or 2) emergence of a new rule. In the second case, the individual becomes an individual political subject. «Rules and rule breakers» approach thus conceptualizes political subject as an individual who, by breaking the rules, creates a new rule, i.e. a new order parameter for the system into which he or she is «thrown».

«Narratives and performatives» approach. Political subjects are defined by the story they tell about themselves and the stories that others make up about them. In the process of communication, an individual deliberately discloses certain information and inadvertently gives out undesirable information about subjective properties and motivations for political behavior. Using these two types of data, other subjects build expectations about this subject’s future behavior. Subjectivity in the political field is born with the participation of the institution of reputation. Political scientist Michael Tomz identifies the following categories in his analysis: persistent subjects who live up to expectations about their behavior, unreliable subjects who partially meet external expectations about their behavior, and «lemons» — constant violators of external behavioral expectations [Tomz M., 2007].

Political subject may have the following synergetic characteristics: 

1. Consensus based and observed order parameters. In routine politics, processes of homeostatic exchange take place in the political structure. These processes follow certain rules called order parameters. For the parameters of order to be respected by all participants in a collective political entity, these parameters should be recognized in a consensus manner. At the same time, they can be developed by the leading center and presented for coordination according to the top-down logic. The degree of observance of the parameters of order by the elements of a collective political entity is the degree of stability of this political entity. These parameters can be incrementally (insignificantly) adjusted in the routine political process as a reaction to what is happening in the external environment.
2. Ability to self-organize. To respond to change in the external space, collective political actor should be able to benefit from chaos. Whereas in a hierarchical political organization, for optimal control, each element of the system must be in its place and, at the right time, give out a standard reaction to a standard irritant, in the dispersed political structure of the digital era, the subject is affected by unfamiliar phenomena under constantly changing circumstances. Hence emergent behavior arises — unpredictable reactions to exogenous impulses that did not take place before. Due to the ability to self-organize in routine politics, political subject avoids shock transformations of order parameters and can remain unchanged for a long time.
3. High degree of connectivity and interdependence. A collective subject has a plurality of internal connections. They serve a dual role. On the one hand duplication and overlapping of functions can keep collective subject from collapse when it is at the stage of synergetic formation. On the other hand, the presence of strong ties between the elements of a collective subject can cause cascade reactions, which is fraught with the risk of deconstruction. The optimal is the presence of an average number of «weak ties» directed to the external environment, towards communication with other subjects. This is called the formation of a dissipative subject, characterized by establishing a system for the exchange of energy and resources with the environment.
4. Self-generating reasons for existence (raisons d’etre) and sources of political change. At the stage of synergetic being, a political subject has a stable value-orientational matrix, which lies at the basis of the order parameters according to which this subject functions. In routine politics, the subject seeks to preserve the value-oriented matrix and the order parameters that follow from it. To do this, the political subject needs to invent «reasons for existence», ie. problems that it can solve. Each subject carries out «framing» of problems, for which it will find solutions in proportion to his possibilities of political action. To maintain homeostasis, the subject needs to respond to the impulses of the environment that it conceptualizes as relevant.
5. Reflexivity of political process and the presence of feedback loops. Reflexivity of political process means the ability of the political subject to manage policy learning. In the process of synergetic formation, innovative political practices are being tested, since in the realities of a sudden shock event there are no ready-made recipes for solving an emerging political problem. If a subject can solve a political problem, its subjective qualities are significantly consolidated, since it receives positive feedback as a result of its activities.

Types of political subjectivity

In social relations, the subject can be described both vertically and horizontally. When it comes to horizontal relationships, these are relationships based on the principle of reciprocity. According to T. Schelling, this means fragmentation of trust and fragmentation of threats [Schelling Th., 1971]. For example, one subject enters into a deal with another subject on the implementation of a specific task, and if this act of interaction is crowned with success, the cooperative relationship will continue. The same applies to threats - if a subject succumbed to pressure from another subject once, this increases the chances that the subject from whom the first threat came will continue to use this behavior strategy in the future.

Horizontal relationships between subjects are well studied by negotiation theory and game theory, as well as behaviorism. Of interest is the theory of Paul Sabatier, who formulates the principles of coalition building. According to Sabatier, subjects have core values, political priorities and secondary interests. Sustainable cooperation based on mutual recognition and trust is obtained when subjects have common core values with minor differences in political values. Secondary values may differ [Sabatier P., 1988]. Long-term cooperation is facilitated by the following aspects: 1. Common core values. 2. Ability to keep sustainable commitments based on the subjectivity of each participant. 3. Ability to delegate problem solving to the minimum sufficient level (subsidiarity principle).

Horizontal relationships can be established both voluntarily and under duress. For example, L. Coser in his work «The Functions of Social Conflict» writes that a conflict can become the basis for the emergence of relations between subjects that have not previously interacted with each other. As a result of the conflict, coercive relations are established, and in the future these relations can move into a constructive channel and become voluntary. Conflict allows one to determine the framework of the subjectivity, so that mutual recognition leads to conscious mutual restraint. There is an argument that the peaceful coexistence of states in the international arena is facilitated by an average concentration of power distributed over several states. Then each of them, recognizing the strength of their rival, avoids unleashing a war [Coser L., 1964]. 

If one of the participants in the cooperation agreement differs greatly from the other participants, as a rule, we are talking about the formation of hegemonic asymmetric relations. At the same time, the satellites are interested in unification and information exchange among themselves, which provides them with protection from voluntaristic behavior on the part of the hegemon. The hegemon, on the other hand, will strive to ensure that communication takes place according to the principle of «hegemon-satellite», and not on equal terms «satellite-satellite». This strategy allows the hegemon to maintain the information advantage and avoid «growing» satellites to the role of challengers — subjects claiming the role of hegemon.

A vertical relationship is a delegation relationship between a principal and an agent. Principal-agent relations are a form of subject-subject relations, since the principal does not lose subjective qualities in the result of power delegation, but the agent acquires them. Although the asymmetry between the subjects can reach limiting values, in the manager-controlled relationship the controlled link cannot be reduced to zero, because in this case the relations themselves cease - the vertical of delegation is abolished.

Political subject: sources of resilience

Path dependence. Political agreements that form the subject are highly inert. This means that the order parameters can be stored for a long time without significant changes. This is because decision-makers ignore most of the incoming signals without making them a problem. Path dependence means that the political process, from a certain moment, which is called a critical junction, begins to move along a rout, from which it becomes too costly to turn off. This contributes to the preservation of the political subject in the given parameters of functioning until the next shock event.

Dispersed internal connections. If internal connections in a collective subject are built on the principles of distributed power, an interconnection of elements is formed. The degrees of freedom in the order parameters of elements that are themselves complex systems are not limited by coercion, and Sedov’s law of hierarchical compensations does not work as the increase in the diversity of the upper control level is not necessarily accompanied by a narrowing of the diversity of the lower governance levels.

Long operating time. The longer a political subject no matter individual or collective exists, the longer it will continue to exist [Fukuyama F., 2015]. Repeatable governance practices provide greater precision and scalability of policy action. The normative value foundations that underlie order parameters receive more empirical reinforcement. Over time, the subject acquires additional identities as role attitudes that allow him to effectively rank impulses coming from outside and find answers to them, focusing on higher value preferences.

Material and technical autonomy. If an entity has framework conditions that ensure its autonomy, this increases its weight in external transactions. States with sources of material wealth have more weight in international relations and dominate the division of labor. At the same time, it is clear that in the modern world no country produces the entire range of goods and services — we are talking about «excellence» in key technologies that allow teaching, treating, feeding, i.e. ensure «system sufficiency».

Reciprocity and the ability to enter into intertemporal agreements. A political entity is stable if it can make credible commitments and enter into a relationship with deferred benefit, which is the basis for political cooperation. The resilient entity is also capable of other forms of reciprocal activity, for example, responding to a threat and ensuring a balance of strong players, which is the basis for peaceful relations in international politics. The ability to intertemporal agreements is a guarantee for building coalitions — through this technique, the subject takes part in building his own environment in the most favorable perspective.

Political subject: sources of deconstruction

Interruption of the continuity of development due to external shock. During the period of routine politics, only incremental changes in the parameters of the order of the political subject are possible. The continuity of political development is ensured by the path dependence on previous development, i.e. the tendency of a political entity to pursue a course based on the achievements of previous periods of operation. This logic can be interrupted by a sudden external shock. Critical junctions appear on the path of dependence, which set alternative trajectories for the further development of the subject. The choice of the path occurs at the point of bifurcation, and after completing it, the system approaches a new «attractor» — the area of attraction of the updated trajectories of political development.

Hierarchical or heterarchical nature of internal connections. The hierarchical political subject has a built-in ceiling for order parameter transformations. Hierarchy survives due to the high conjugation of elements and the ability to scale repetitive actions. The hierarchical political order only deals well with routine situations, while shocks require more flexibility in attunement to the environment. The factor of fragility of a political subject can also be the heterarchical nature of ties. Heterarchy is the space between two hierarchical domains that compete for the inclusion of «intermediate territory» in their power structure. In the usual way of functioning, the heterarchy maneuvers between two leading centers, offering it alternative sets of order parameters. As soon as it loses its ability to self-organize, it is included in one of the alternative hierarchical domains.

Short operating time. A political subject is easier to deconstruct if it functions for a short time. This is due to the period of active subjective formation preceding routine politics. The formation of a subject occurs when the parameters of the order of the previous political form have ceased to operate, and new ones have not yet been created. During the formative period, a political entity emerges that can benefit from chaos and strengthen its power within the new emerging domain. At the same time, challengers remain in the domain, subjects who disagree with the distribution of benefits enshrined in the new order parameters. When a collective political entity exists for a short time, the degree of probability of challenging new order parameters is a) high and b) dependent on the level of resources coming from outside.

External governance. If a collective entity does not have system sufficiency, it runs the risk of being integrated into the labor division system on unfavorable conditions for itself, falling under external control, which considers as a priority not the best management practices to maximize the benefit for this entity, but the convenience of management and the extraction of the resource of the given entity for its use by an external center. Territories under external control, over time, only increase their lag as compared to self-governing territories, which, on the scale of world politics, leads to consolidation of zones of insolvent nation-level entities (rogue states and failed states).

Decision-makers concentrate on short-term tactical interests.The issue of «framing», that is, the formulation of a political problem, is the dilemma of who or what to include on the political agenda. Decision-makers receive many stimuli from the environment, but not all of them are given the status of information, that is, data used in decision-making. Dissecting the collective political subject, we can say that it is divided into leaders and agents. If leaders in their decisions are guided by particular interests overwhelmingly, and agents in their political participation are guided by «procedural utility» (taking advantage of the very process of political participation), then the structure of the collective subject is at risk of deconstruction.

Parametric analysis of political subjects

In macroscale politics, we are witnessing a power spillover from traditional forms of the political, such as the state, to other forms, such as an individual and a small group, a city, or a supranational political entity. These forms of political governance are not completely new - earlier in history they possessed the qualities inherent in political subjects — it is worth recalling the role of the poleis-states of Ancient Greece, the role of charismatic leadership in politics, the role of small groups in the formation of revolutionary movements, as well as the role of agreements between states that changed the course of world wars.

There is a limited set of forms of political subjectivity, which is reproduced in different iterations throughout history. These forms of political subjectivity include an individual, a small group, a city, a state, and a union of states. This work follows the following methodological plan of parameters for subjects of each level: 1) genesis; 2) the basis for the operation; 3) sources of sustainability; 4) sources of deconstruction; 5) trajectories of transformations.

Individual and Small Group

The individual becomes a subject in the process of interactions arising from the need to satisfy their needs. In the process of communication, the Observer appears, who gives the individual a subjective status. There are non-informational aspects of a conversation, during which the Observer assigns subjective qualities to the counterparty.

The political subjectivity of the individual manifests itself when he enters into a relationship of domination either as a controller or as a controlled one. The existential philosophical tradition describes subjectivity through the «throwing» into the world of rules to which the subject is called to obey, or which he can change by showing an active subjective position. Small group morphogenesis often occurs through conflict, which contributes to the demarcation of group boundaries and the creation of relationships where none existed before. The group acquires a political character in its activities, when the relations between the participants become relations regarding the acquisition and transfer of power, as well as relations regarding gaining access to the control of the power domain, i.e. about hegemony over another subject.

The rules by which individuals in a small group function are the subject of a social contract. They determine who the members of the group are and how membership is acquired, as well as the possibilities for voluntary or involuntary loss of membership. Order parameters define the rules of behavior for group members, forming group identity. Political culture can be subject or participatory, depending on whether the participation of the subjects in the management of the group is supposed or not. As the group develops, a hierarchy of leaders and agents emerges in it, where leaders control the trajectory of the group’s development, and agents ensure the implementation of routine politics.

The subjectivity of a small group is provided by the following sources of stability: the presence of «protective valves» [Coser L., 1964] — if the group has the means that help to channel the discontent of participants, then this prolongs its existence in the current parameters of order; the length of the group existence - according to historical institutionalism, the longer the group operates, the higher the chances that it will continue to exist; the symmetrical nature of the participants - if the participants are distributed symmetrically within the group, then the likelihood increases that the social contract that they have concluded among themselves will have a longer duration; small number of participants: when the group has a small number of participants, it is easier to recognize and authorize deviating behavior; common core values: group members must have collective values that will prevail over the values of individual members, which allows for a synergistic effect of cooperation and makes the group an independent political subject.

A small group consists of rank-and-file members and leaders. The beginning of the decline of such a political subject can be considered a situation when leaders: lose awareness of what is happening in the group; lose their role as mediators of conflicts in the group; cease to produce information about what actions must be performed by the rest of the group in order for the group to continue its functioning (i.e., they no longer produce raisons d’etre).From the point of view of the behavior of ordinary participants, the group loses its subjectivity when the majority of participants do not agree with the vision of the future proposed by the leaders; when challengers appear who offer an alternative vision of the future and receive support in the group, which leads to the group split; or there are radical changes for the better or worse in the resource provision of the group, which is an impetus for the redistribution of additional or insufficient resources.

A small group can a) break up into smaller associations; b) become a part of a larger association; c) build a system of concentric circles, when the core of participants meets stricter requirements for membership, the next circle of participants meets weaker requirements, and so on.

City

Due to the scaling of production processes, several small groups are combined, and the morphogenesis of the city is launched. At the city level, there is a great deal of specialization and diversification of production processes, as well as the allocation of special governing bodies. At the same time, the main management functions are concentrated in the hands of the urban elites. Belonging to the elite is determined by property, educational qualifications and by belonging to a given city from birth. The city is the first dissipative system that establishes ramified economic and political ties with the environment.

The basis for the functioning of the city is its dissipative nature and the principle of self-organization on which it is based. Self-organization of the city occurs through the redistribution of resources on an ongoing basis in the course of political, economic, social and cultural processes. The city is an open adaptive system that draws energy from the external environment. In addition, the city is a system with non-linear development, in which a disproportionately strong response can arise to a weak external impulse. The city is a political system that operates like a thermostat. This indicates the pendulum nature of the processes that ensure its functioning as an autonomous unit.

The main source of the city’s sustainability is the given order parameters. These order parameters are economic order, which allows small groups within a city to maintain homeostasis through economic activity, and political order, which allows to achieve justice through the redistribution of benefits. The political order also serves as an arbitration tribunal in the resolution of disputes.

The infrastructural value of a city as a node in the global network is determined by its location, level of technological development and ability to self-renewal, i.e. automatic production of innovations. To be sustainable, a city must provide an appropriate response to environmental challenges and be harmoniously integrated into the macrosystem of the state, possessing a significant resource for self-government. In strong states with a high level of state solvency, there is a higher chance that cities will receive state support.

The decline of a city is possible, for example, if it is a mono town that specializes in the production of only one type of goods. Over time, this product may turn out to be rudimentary - such a city is initially at risk. Cities disintegrate due to a lack of resources and opportunities for lower-level actors, such as a small group, to receive the common good.

From a synergistic point of view, a city loses its subjectivity when it loses the ability to self-organize, for example, if a major internal conflict arises that cannot be resolved through mediation at the city level. In addition, if a city falls under a different external control than before, for example, it is conquered by another state, resources can be extracted from it in favor of a new center, and then it also falls into decay. Finally, cities disappear because of military actions or the deconstruction of the state.

A city can a) become a city-state; b) be absorbed by another state, i.e. fit into another macro-level hierarchy; c) break up into several small settlements.

City alliance

The alliance of cities is possible as a result of a convention, i.e. concluding an agreement on mutual obligations. The issue of secure commitments is fundamental to the analysis of city-to-city cooperation. This is the cooperation of symmetrical subjects that do not have full autonomy, since they function within the framework of different states that offer unequal parameters of order for their cities. This inequality prevents the development of centralization in city alliances that are political subjects within the framework of neighboring states. As a result, the alliance is formed on the basis of weak ties, ensuring cooperation mainly in the areas of «low politics», such as environmental protection and ensuring infrastructure connectivity.

Since the alliance of cities is based on weak ties, such political subject does not form stable order parameters. It uses the logic of fragmentation of trust and fragmentation of threats: fragmentation of trust implies that in response to cooperative actions, as a rule, there is a cooperative response, while in response to threats, as a rule, there are retaliatory threats [Schelling Th., 1971]. Thus, the principle of reciprocity in political behavior is at work. Interaction between cities also takes place according to the principle of conditionality, i.e. political conditionality, when one city can offer the other conditions of most favored nation in trade and politics while fulfilling a number of requirements. However, the use of this political technology is limited by the power of the states within which the cities operate.

The source of stability of city alliances is their observance of conventionally designated mutual obligations. Such an association is stable and acquires subjective qualities when a system of mutual deterrence is in place, which prevents the emergence of hotbeds of military confrontation. The more symmetrical in terms of their political weight these cities are, the higher the chances of forming a stable association with subjective properties. The alliance of cities in its strength also depends heavily on the ability of the established links to regenerate. If the ties have a rhizomatic character and the ability to self-heal, such ties can be considered a guarantee of the strength of city alliance.

The Hanseatic League is a historical example of the alliance of cities. Evolution has shown that this association was not strong enough, however, at present, city associations exist in the so-called Euroregions, i.e. adjacent regions of different states, which unite to ensure infrastructure connectivity and resolve issues of «low politics», as a result of which it may be premature to talk about their subjective qualities.

The alliance of cities as a political entity may disintegrate if the ties which hold the alliance are destructed. Such deconstruction may occur due to the dominance of centrifugal forces in relations between cities, because of a change in their trade or geopolitical orientation. In addition, the legislation of the states within which the cities are located may change, which leads to discord in their communication and to the inability to withstand the obligations assumed.

For city alliance two transformation trajectories are possible: it can disintegrate or become the basis for the creation of a centralized state.

State

Among the theories of the state emergence there is a theory that the state was necessary for the distribution of the surplus product, which the subjects began to receive as production developed. The separation of the state apparatus became the basis for the functioning of a new class of people, civil servants, who ensured the operation of the state. The state appeared because economic policy required scaling up; a social system that demanded government intervention, which otherwise developed disproportionately based on a free market; there was a need to streamline the military sphere, since the army increased as it conquered new lands and became part of the country.

The state is a complex adaptive political system based on the monopoly on legitimate violence in a demarcated territory. The state functions on the basis of the consensus agreement of small groups and cities. Two pivotal factors of the state’s existence are distinguished: internal and external sovereignty. The state has a security function, on which its internal sovereignty is based. This is the provision of military security for entities operating in the legal field of a given state, and the provision of basic services to the population.

At the same time, it is important to have a feedback loop, thanks to which the state receives a response from the population regarding its policy. External sovereignty is based on the state’s ability to implement an independent foreign policy and on the state’s involvement in the system of international law. If a state refuses to function in foreign policy within the framework of international law, this will eventually lead to the loss of subjectivity as an independent player in the international arena, since it will make this state an object for intervention by the guarantors of the stability of the international legal system.

The sources of the stability of the state are the fixed and implemented parameters of order. The longer the state has been functioning in the given order parameters, the higher the likelihood is that it will continue to function in the future. An important source of state stability is the ability of elements to self-organize, which makes possible a timely and sufficient response to the changing conditions of the internal and external environment.

The state is stable when its internal and external sovereignty are not questioned, and also when the internal elements do not neglect the collective good. In addition, the state has a center-peripheral polarity, which determines the relationship between the center and the regions. These relationships imply that the center must outweigh the regions in certain parameters, which ensures its ability to govern the entire territory.

Using the three-part combination «loyalty – voice – exit», proposed by Hirschman, we find that the state disintegrates when the regions do not show loyalty and they do not have an institutionalized opportunity to express their voice. There remains a way out, i.e. secession [Hirschman A., 1970]. According to Roeder, within the maternal state form, subsidiaries may mature over time. When they receive an autonomous source of income, they may seek to revise the agreement concluded with the center, and obtain, if not the possibility of secession, then more profitable autonomy, when the subject remains within the state, but has much greater freedom of self-government (informal decentralization) [Roeder Ph., 2007]. Disintegration of the state is also possible when the subjects within the state begin to be attracted to different poles of influence outside the given state, and the parameters of order adopted in the state are eroded.

There are the following options for transforming the state: a) disintegration into smaller forms; b) inclusion in the composition of a macro-entity; c) external management.

Supranational political subject

The emergence of a union of states is the subject of an institutional agreement. It outlines the extent to which participants must compromise their national interests in order to achieve the collective good. In addition, it defines the criteria for membership. In addition to the criteria for membership, there are rules for members of the organization, as well as rules for rewards and punishments. General rules are divided into those that relate to internal relationships, and those that relate to relationships with external actors.

The union of states can be considered a full-fledged subject when it becomes a subject of international law. Such associations are created with the aim of ensuring security and improving the material well-being of the participating states, especially if the creation of an association means the creation of a common internal market with conditions of most favored nation in internal trade.

The following principles of a viable unification of states are highlighted. The first principle is supranationality. Supranationality implies the existence of supranational authorities, whose decisions are binding on the member states. It is necessary to create guarantors of punishments and rewards in a system consisting of elements whose legal status is identical, but the real political and economic weight is different. Common institutions are a way of leveling these differences and emphasizing the role of small states that get a chance to improve their international status through participation in the association.

The second principle is the principle of subsidiarity, or solving problems at the lowest possible level. And the third principle is the principle of conditionality or political conditionality in relations with external actors, which presupposes the conclusion of an intertemporal agreement between the association and the external subject that the association supports the subject if he undertakes to adjust his order parameters to those required for joining this association. The use of this principle is preparation for the expansion of the supranational association.

The sources of the stability of a supranational association are the similarity of core values and the presence of guarantors of compliance with the parameters of the association order. Political values and priorities may differ according to national interests. Distributed management practices, which are built according to the network model, are the source of sustainability. Such management practices do not eliminate or level hierarchies, but they do make the system dissipative. In the internal environment, data on the facts of evasive behavior, which the given system sanctions, is important. In the external environment information is important about which subjects the system can apply the principle of conditionality, i.e. to which subjects this system is potentially capable of expanding the effect of its order parameters. To ensure internal loyalty if the system has created «safety valves», this increases the chances of evolutionary sustainability of the integration association as a multi-level system.

The sources of the decline of the supranational association include the lack of trust in the interaction between the elements of the association. Since it is trust that is the social «glue» in communication between political actors, the lack of trust leads to the deconstruction of cooperative relations. Collaboration is based on intertemporal deals. Each subject assumes obligations regarding its behavior within the framework of a certain association. If he does not adhere to the line that his obligations provide him, his behavior does not lead to reputational costs, if the subject does not live up to expectations regarding his behavior, his reputation is revised within the association. Supranational unification falls apart when the center ceases to generate raisons d’etre for a given collective subject; when an association ceases to produce the collective good for which it was created.

The union of states can: a) create a system of concentric circles uniting participants with different levels of system integration; b) break up into minority coalitions, consisting of several elements of the initial unification; c) completely disintegrate; d) move to a new level of supranationality in management with the loss of participants who are not ready for further transfer of powers to the supranational level.

An integral attribute of political matter is complexity, which determines the specificity of morphogenesis, the essence of which is the permanent adjustment of order parameters while striving to maintain the status quo. The hypothesis is expressed and substantiated that political change (formation) is characterized by an interval nature: the most significant changes occur when the old rules of functioning of a political subject no longer work, and new ones exist in the form of a hypothetical assumption.

The main process of political morphogenesis is a process of self-organization that takes place in a multi-vector field of interactions (actions and interactions of policy subjects) that make up the internal and external environment of the political form. It has been demonstrated that the process is generally uncontrollable, but amenable to stimulation in a situation of permanent underdetermination in the right direction on the part of decision-makers.

Morphogenesis is a complex and nonlinear process in which rollbacks or inhibition in a gray zone of uncertainty, ambiguous responses to the same action are possible. In general, political change can be represented by two vectors: the first vector is the endogenous self-organization of the form according to the bottom-up logic, and the second vector is directed changes according to the top-down logic, when there is a significant desynchronization of the form with the environment.

Political processes are pendulum in nature, which is described by the thermostat effect. Political action can entail more serious consequences than what was originally conceived, since political forms are in a relationship of interdependence both among themselves and with other spheres of human action. Relationships of interdependence can generate cascade effects. The stronger the interdependence between the forms is the less opportunities for amortization of the cascades the political form has.

Being a discreete phenomenon corruption can be also described as a process that is embedded in both modes of a political form: Being and Making. In the relations of authority delegation corruption is a function of informational asymmetry between the principal and the agent. Both subjects, the principal and the agent, inherently strive at power maximization associated with monopoly of control to the extent that does not eliminate its counterpart, because otherwise it would mean abolishing the principal-agent relations. Considering the interval character of morphogenetic transformations that occur when the previous parameters of order of a political form ceased to function and the subsequent order parameters exist only as a hypothetical proposition, corruption reaches the extreme because uncertainty produces voluntaristic political behavior that is the reverse side of institutional entrepreneurship.

Political morphogenesis is carried out through the alternation of periods of concentration and deconcentration (dissipation) of political power in temporal and spatial dimensions. The latter is manifested in the fact that forms that seemed rudimentary in modern times are reborn in a new configuration and begin to claim political subjectivity. New ways of political organization are also emerging, such as cross-border associations of regions of states - also known as Euroregions.

Constants of the political process include leaders and challengers who defy incumbent leaders, as well as dominant and competing sets of order parameters. However, even the presence of similar initial conditions cannot guarantee that the intended political change will give the desired result, since the factor of chance can interfere with political morphogenesis.

The primary role in political morphogenesis and in the creation of coalition associations is played by the issue of trust. If the subjects of a political form are not capable of making credible commitments to each other, then the political form is unlikely to be stable. Trust remains a stumbling block in the implementation of most forms of social contract and gives rise to phenomena studied by game theory, such as the prisoner’s dilemma. A supranational solution to the problem of trust between states is a precedent for a form of political arrangement for a more stable future on an evolutionary scale.

Conclusion

Thus, the synergetic approach has a heuristic potential for political science, making it possible to systematize data obtained from research that follows the canons of the mainstream of political science. First of all, we are talking about historical institutionalism. The application of the inherent categories of this approach, such as the path of dependence on prior development and critical junctions, is central to the former for justifying political sustainability, the latter for justifying political change. The synergistic term «order parameters» has a meaning to describe the qualitative characteristics of political subjects of different types and scales.

Although political actors have dynamic character by default, the most stable periods of the political subject functioning are called periods of Being. At this stage, within a complex political entity, coalitions are formed, and decisions are made regarding the introduction of incremental changes in the existing parameters of order. In the process of making decisions regarding incremental changes for the order parameters of political subjects, veto players may arise, i.e. subjects that hinder the adoption of a political decision. Veto players can intervene at different stages of the political cycle — they can prevent a certain issue from being put on the agenda, prevent the presentation of viable alternatives for political action on the proposed problem, withhold information necessary to choose the optimal option for political action, and hinder the implementation of the adopted political decisions.

What properties should a political subject possess in order to become preadaptive and receive evolutionary advantages in the long term? These properties are:

1. Complexity. The political subject should have the level of complexity comparable to the level of complexity of the environment, according to the principle of institutional isomorphism.
2. Dissipativity. The political subject should build relationships with the environment to exchange energy with it.
3. Emergence. The political subject should be a whole, not equal to the sum of the properties of its constituent elements and be capable of producing unexpected political behavior.
4. Conditionality (political conditioning) and tactics of persuasion as opposed to coercion [Lake D., 2010] in intersubjective relationships.
5. Value matrix. In the «core» of the subject there must be a value matrix, based on which the subject reproduces itself, and also enters into relationships with other subjects.

On a global scale, there are precedents of collective political actors that can provide livelihoods for individuals in the good society. At the same time, there are still unresolved questions about how to make the projected collective actors work in practice, since political actors often turn out to be «lemons» and do not live up to expectations regarding their behavior. The problem of stable commitments in intertemporal political agreements remains one of the debatable problems in social philosophy and philosophy of politics and requires further research.

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Received: 29.09.2021. Accepted: 02.11.2021

For citation:

Kiyashchenko L.P., Anastasia V.G. [Political subjectness: a case of transdisciplinary reflection]. Vestnik Permskogo universiteta. Filosofia. Psihologia. Sociologia [Perm University Herald. Philosophy. Psychology. Sociology], 2021, issue 4, pp. 569–581 (inRussian). DOI: https://doi.org/10.17072/2078-7898/2021-4-569-581