Bureaucratic Politics – The Quantitative Peace

Bureaucratic Politics, Interservice Rivalries, and The Galactic Empire

Posted on September 20, 2012 by Michael Flynn — No Comments ↓

The fact that this post follows so closely on the heels of my recent post regarding the sparseness of posts over the next couple of months should in no way be taken as negating my previous point. That said, Steve Saideman at the Duck has linked to this fairly lengthy piece on the role of inter-service rivalries in bringing about the downfall of the Galactic Empire. I will say that I have not had a chance to read the whole thing yet, but given that I 1) am a Star Wars enthusiast, and 2) have done work on inter-service rivalries, Continue reading Bureaucratic Politics, Interservice Rivalries, and The Galactic Empire→

Evolution, Secrecy, and Bureaucracies

Posted on May 19, 2011 by Michael Flynn — No Comments ↓

This sort of reminds me of this. Really one passage in particular, I suppose: We tend to marvel at the Darwinian perfection of organisms now, saying 'this must have been highly selected for, it's a tuned and sophisticated machine'. In fact, it's a mess – there's so much unnecessary complexity. Bear with me. The preceding passage is from an article I found on the BBC regarding flaws in proteins that are believed to be linked to more complex biological structure emerging. While not directly related to Walt's post on bureaucracies, the passage quoted above just sort of struck me as Continue reading Evolution, Secrecy, and Bureaucracies→