What if political economies are not machines to be controlled, but systems that adapt and evolve?

Yuen Yuen Ang proposes Adaptive Political Economy (APE) as a paradigm for studying political economies as complex adaptive systems, rather than as mechanical objects, and for developing concepts and methods that illuminate complex social features, rather than simplifying them away. It forms one pillar of Ang’s AIM (Adaptive, Inclusive, Moral) Political Economy.

APE begins with a basic classification correction: political economies are not machines, but complex adaptive systems. For decades, mainstream political economy has treated living social systems as if they were mechanical objects like toasters—simplifying complexity away, forcing nonlinear processes into linear models, or ignoring them altogether. This mechanical worldview has produced theoretical dead ends, trivial research agendas, and failed public policies, especially in development.

By replacing machine thinking with an adaptive lens, it recognizes that:

  • Complexity is not messiness, but an intelligent form of order.

  • Causality in social systems is interdependent rather than one-directional.

  • Uncertainty generates not only negative risks but also positive possibilities.

  • Human agency operates through adaptation, learning, and influence rather than simply control.

By analogy, Adaptive Political Economy resembles organic farming.

In industrial farming, crops are selected to fit machines. Much of conventional social science operates in the same way. Research questions are often chosen for their compatibility with mechanical models and tools (e.g., Can the causal effect be precisely measured?), rather than for their substantive importance (e.g., How does simultaneous social and economic transformation begin and sustain?).

By contrast, an organic farmer tailors crops and methods to the natural environment, for example, by planting varieties that are native, resilient, and suited to local conditions. APE mirrors this logic. It adapts theories and methods to the realities of complex social systems, instead of oversimplifying that reality to suit inherited techniques.

Learn more below about APE

Adaptive PE