APE: Adaptive Political Economy
Term
Adaptive Political Economy
Idea level
Paradigm
Definition
Adaptive Political Economy (APE) is a paradigm proposed by Yuen Yuen Ang in 2024 for studying political economies as complex adaptive systems, rather than as mechanical objects, and for developing concepts and methods that illuminate complex social features such as adaptation, coevolution, and uncertainty, rather than simplifying them away. APE forms one of three pillars of Ang’s AIM Political Economy.
Sources
Node reference page:
Ang, Y.Y. (2025) “APE: Adaptive Political Economy.” Webpage on Ang’s official website. [Link]
First formal articulation:
Ang, Y.Y. (2025). “Adaptive Political Economy: Toward a New Paradigm.” World Politics. https://doi.org/10.1353/wp.2025.a954433 (posted on SSRN on 8 June 2024)
Earlier articulation and demonstration (APE not yet named):
Ang, Y.Y. How China Escaped the Poverty Trap (2016)
Policy communication:
Ang, Y.Y. “Turning Polycrisis into Polytunity.” UNDP Expert Brief. June 2025.
Genealogy
[Paradigm] AIM (Adaptive, Inclusive, Moral) Political Economy
→ [Pillar] Adaptive Political Economy (APE)
→ [Concept] Complex ≠ Complicated: societies are adaptive systems (trees), not machines (toasters), requiring different theories and methods.
→ [Theory] Coevolutionary Development: state and economy coevolve in a three-step, mutually adaptive process
→ [Method] Mapping Coevolution (see How China Escaped the Poverty Trap, Appendix A).
→ [Application] Applied to post-1980s China, late medieval Europe, antebellum United States, and Nigeria’s Nollywood (How China Escaped the Poverty Trap, Conclusion)
→ [Pillar] Inclusive: reveals diverse development pathways, rather than one fixed end point (becoming like Denmark)
Quotes
[A new paradigm since 2016] “I adopt a paradigm that is different from the one we currently embrace. Our conventional paradigm assumes a complicated—rather than complex—reality…. Yet social worlds are almost always complex… comprising many moving parts that interact and change with one another.”
“Just as we don’t always have to kill insects and pin them to a board in order to study natural habitats, we don’t have to reduce complexity in order to make sense of complex worlds.” (p. 10)
— Ang, How China Escaped the Poverty Trap (2016)
[Complex ≠ Complicated] “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.”
“What is the fundamental difference between classical and adaptive political economy? My point of departure begins with clarifying the nature of social systems… Whereas classical political economy views social systems as complicated—a term conflated with complex or messy—adaptive political economy emphasizes that they are complex but not complicated. The difference is not semantic but substantive.”
“Complex does not mean complicated, just as trees are not toasters… The differences between complicated machines and complex systems are not semantic but have profound implications for the way social scientists understand causality, indeterminacy, human agency, and institutional design.”
[Fractals as inspiration] “Social scientists should take inspiration from a pathbreaking approach in geometry, called fractals: the math of rough, complex shapes… Mandelbrot showed that roughness was not senseless and chaotic, but surprisingly ordered… We need the equivalent of fractals in social science. Instead of pretending that the uneven contours of social systems are straight lines, or ignoring them altogether, political economists should be developing the concepts, methods, and theories to illuminate the order of complexity.”
[APE as one pillar of AIM; distinguished from complexity economics, which does not confront power] “Fractal geometry, however, is only a partial analogy for the intellectual quest at hand. Changing social paradigms is more difficult than paradigms in the natural science context because social systems are colored by power asymmetry and normative biases… Adaptive political economy, therefore, must incorporate an inclusive and moral dimension—making it, collectively, an adaptive, inclusive, and moral (AIM) political economy—that honestly recognizes the inequities that have molded the way we think, see, and approach the world.”
— Ang, Adaptive Political Economy (2025)
[APE produces different methods and conclusions, not just different jargon.] “Although there is a growing body of writing that applies complex systems concepts to development, much of it stops at critiquing conventions, but offers no practical or systematic way forward. For example, [the authors of] Embracing Complexity conclude: “we will be more fluid and tentative in our approach.” That’s it? We become less sure? What different methods of inquiry, data, or findings does ‘embracing complexity’ produce?
[APE as empirical] Adaptive political economy goes beyond embracing—it is about practicing… [For example] development is a non-linear process. But how does such a process actually play out? Answering this requires a lot of hard work collecting data. In How China Escaped the Poverty Trap, I take non-linear development as the starting point, as a real-world process to be understood rather than purged from analysis… Then, I applied it to map the coevolution of states and markets… in China… the expansion of trade in late medieval Europe, the evolution of public finance in the antebellum United States, and the unlikely success of Nollywood in contemporary Nigeria. In short: this is research with alternative findings; it is not just being ‘fluid’ and ‘tentative’.
— Ang, Turning Polycrisis into Polytunity (2025)
Applications of APE in Ang’s Work
Coevolutionary Development: Political-economic development theorized as three-step process of mutual adaptation between state and economy (demonstrations in China, Nigeria, United States)
Meta-Institutions: Directed Improvisation as a higher-order structure that enables collective creativity; exercising influence, not control (demonstrations in China and United States)
Adaptive Fiscal Capacity: Fiscal capacity conceptualized not just as tax collection, but as dynamic portfolio management of tax revenue and taxless finances.
Adaptive Policy Communication: Combining ambiguous and clear directives to enable flexible policy implementation within specified boundaries
Concept Constellation
Across Ang’s work, Adaptive Political Economy consistently co-appears with the following concepts and analytic themes:
Complex ≠ Complicated (trees vs. toasters)
Influence vs. Control (human agency)
Uncertainty vs. Risk (indeterminancy)
Simple but not any simpler
Fractal geometry (analogy of geometry designed for uneven shapes)
| Complicated | Complex | |
|---|---|---|
| Defining properties | a complicated machine is made up of separate parts that do not adapt to one another or the environment. | a complex system is made up of interconnected parts that constantly adapt to one another and the environment. |
| Causality | dependent (outcome) versus independent factor (cause) | interdependent factors (both cause and outcome) |
| Indeterminacy | risk, probability | uncertainty, possibility |
| Human agency | control | adapt, experiment, learn, influence |
| Institutional design | institutions (solutions to particular problems) | meta-institutions (systems for enabling the discovery of solutions) |
| Examples | toasters | trees, ecologies, villages, cities, governments, markets |
| Source: Adapted from Ang 2016, 52. | ||