Variation, Selection & Niche Creation
Term
Variation, Selection & Niche Creation
Idea level
Mechanisms
Definition
Variation, Selection & Niche Creation are three adaptive mechanisms that govern how solutions are generated, how success is defined and rewarded, and how heterogeneity across units can be turned into a system advantage.
In How China Escaped the Poverty Trap (2016), Yuen Yuen Ang mapped sequences of state-market coevolution by focusing on these mechanisms, differentiating her analysis from Gradual Institutional Change by historical institutionalists.
Ang also studied how Deng-era Chinese reformers responded to three design problems of adaptation inherent in these processes and shows that these responses produced a pattern of development that was broad (transformative changes through incremental reforms), bold (highly entrepreneurial but also corruption-prone bureaucracy), and uneven (wide regional disparities coexisting with national prosperity).
Sources
Ang, Y.Y. (2016). How China Escaped the Poverty Trap. Introduction; Chapter 2: Directed Improvisation; Conclusion.
Genealogy
Ang’s intervention in Gradual Institutional Change (from historical institutionalism)
→ [Critique] Gradual change does not equate evolution
→ [Concept] Adapt vs. Change: Ang clarifies that gradual change may not involve adaptive mechanisms such as variation and selection, while evolution is not always slow
→ [Mechanisms] Variation, Selection, Niche Creation: mechanisms driving state-market coevolution
Ang’s intervention in Complexity & Development (emerging agenda)
→ [Critique] Popular agendas that prescribe adaptation or innovation as if they will automatically arise
→ [Concept] Enabling Adaptation: creating the conditions for effective adaptation
→ [Mechanisms] Variation, Selection, Niche Creation: enabling adaptation requires solving design problems embedded in these mechanisms
Quotes
[Three mechanisms & problems of adaptation]
What precisely are some obstacles against effective adaptation? And what can we do about them? Drawing on the complexity paradigm, this book highlights three universal problems of adaptation, grouped into the themes of variation, selection, and niche creation.
Variation: how to strike a balance between flexibility and conformity, variety and uniformity.
Selection: how to clearly define and reward success in the [organization]
Niche creation: how diversity may be turned from a liability into a collective advantage
[How China responded and its consequences]
China is not exceptional in the adaptive problems it faced; rather it is unique in the way it tackled these problems… We will understand why its transformative process has displayed three distinct patterns: systemic changes despite incremental reforms (broad), unusually entrepreneurial but also corruption-prone bureaucrats (bold), and wide regional disparities coexisting with national prosperity (uneven).
— Ang, How China Escaped the Poverty Trap, pp. 15–16
[China: meta-institutions that enabled adaptation]
We may now summarize the ways in which Chinese reformers… responded to the three key problems of adaptation inherent in the processes of variation, selection, and niche creation… Collectively, these responses constituted the meta-institutions that fostered adaptation in China’s political economy.”
— Ang, How China Escaped the Poverty Trap, Chapter 2, pp. 67–68
[Outcomes: broad, bold, uneven]
By tracing the state’s responses to each of three main problems of adaptation, we arrive at a sharper understanding of why China’s great transformation has displayed three distinct patterns: broad, bold, and uneven.
— Ang, How China Escaped the Poverty Trap, Conclusion, p. 241
Concept Constellation
Across Ang’s work, Variation, Selection & Niche Creation consistently co-appear with the following concepts and analytic themes:
[External terms mentioned]
Adaptive Efficiency (by Douglas North)
Gradual Institutional Change (by Thelen & Mahoney)