Adaptive Political Economy (APE) forms one of three pillars of my broader paradigm - AIM (Adaptive, Inclusive, Moral) Political Economy (see figure below). APE studies political economies as complex adaptive systems, rather than as crude machines. Instead of assuming away the inherently complex qualities of political economies, APE designs theories and methods to illuminate them. In World Politics, I compared the logic of APE to fractal geometry: instead of ignoring the reality of rough shapes in nature, fractal geometry modeled their patterns, subsequently inspiring wide applications across diverse fields.
APE challenges the mechanical paradigm in mainstream political economy, which “thinks in machine mode” and fixates on control and eliminating risks. By contrast, APE thinks in systems mode, fosters adaptation, and discovers possibilities in disruption. Inspired by but going beyond complex adaptive systems (CAS), AIM confronts how power inequities shape which development ideas are accepted or rejected, and who speaks or is erased.
Adaptive PE
APE emphasizes four core principles: (1) Complex ≠ Complicated: societies are living, adaptive systems (trees), not crude machines (toasters). (2) Development as co-evolutionary, not linear: markets and institutions evolve together through mutual adaptation, not one before the other. (3) Influence over control: in complex systems, top-down control fails; more fruitful is designing meta-institutions that enable adaptation and learning. (4) Simple but not any simpler: theoretical models should capture interdependence, endogeneity, and uncertainty, without oversimplifying them away.
Learn More
-
Adaptive Political Economy (APE) in World Politics
Open-access essay in World Politics & SSRN (2024), “Adaptive Political Economy: Toward a New Paradigm”
*****
“We need a new political economy—one that does not impose artificial assumptions of mechanical properties on complex adaptive social systems. I call this new paradigm adaptive political economy” (Ang 2024, pp. 53).
-
Suyash Rai's Review of Adaptive Political Economy
In this review, Suyash Rai (former Deputy Director at Carnegie India, now Chair of Research at CEPT University) reflects on Ang’s applications of APE in How China Escaped the Poverty Trap (2016) and China’s Gilded Age (2020).
Rai writes: “Her work shows that… complexity need not lead to theoretical dead-ends… But this first requires a shift in the paradigm… Ang demonstrates the usefulness of this approach in the two books she has written on China.”
-
Inaugural Lecture at SOAS-DLD
I was honored to deliver the inaugural lecture, “Adaptive Political Economy,” at the SOAS Development Leadership Dialogue at SOAS, co-directed by Prof. Ha Joon-Chang, in June 2024. I am also a senior fellow at DLD.