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Agency involves dynamic socio-cultural processes that facilitate development. This paper is written in three parts. In Part 1, there are two purposes, the first purpose is to intimately connect agency and institutional theory, and the second purpose is to explore the relationship between agency development and growth and globalisation. In Part 2, the purpose will be to explore development with respect to the political context by explaining in terms of culture under what conditions political groups may come to power. Using political frames intended to define their nature and realities, political groups seek to attract agents in their political sphere to gain administrative power. In Part 3, the purpose will be to model, using cybernetic agency theory, the nature of development and its reduction to instrumentality.

In this part of the three-part paper, development theory is explained as a multidisciplinary field in which research and theories are clustered together and set within an adaptive institutional activity system framework. An adaptive activity system has a plural membership of agents represented by agency. Agency represents an activity system that will be argued to operate through its institutional metasystem. This enables activity system development to be explained as a process of institutional evolution. In Part 1, the problem will be addressed of how the relationship between agency and institution enables institutional change. To resolve this agency will be shown to be institutional in nature, and agency development as a process of institutional evolution. To distinguish between development and growth/globalisation, agency will be taken to have an internal and external context. Distinction will then be made between development as an internal attribute of agency and its consequences, which may include the external attributes of growth/globalisation. It will also be explained that development may have a less desirable condition when it becomes liquid.

The three-part paper develops a political development theory that identifies the conditions under which formal political groups are able to promote frames of policy to attract support from autonomous agents that constitute the membership of the activity system, and hence gain agency status. Furthermore, Bauman’s theory of liquid modernity is connected to Sorokin’s theory of socio-cultural dynamics and cultural stability. One result is the notion of liquid development, an unstable condition of development in adaptive activity systems.

The implication of this research is that, given additional appropriate measurement criteria, it will allow conceptual and empirical methods to be used that will potentially enable political outcomes in complex socio-political environments to be anticipated.

The implication of this research is that it will allow empirical methods to be used that potentially enables political outcomes in complex socio-political environments to be anticipated, given additional appropriate measurement criteria.

The synergy of agency and institutional theories to explain the process of development is new, as well as its application to the political development process in a political landscape. As part of this synergistic process, Bauman’s concept of liquidity is shown to relate to Sorokin’s ideas of socio-cultural change.

Agency is inherently an institution and involves dynamic socio-cultural processes that facilitate development. This paper is written in three parts. The purpose in Part 1 was to represent agency theory as an institutional theory, and consideration was made of the relationship between development, growth and globalisation. In Part 2, the purpose was to explore development with respect to the political context, explaining in terms of culture under what conditions political groups may come to power. Using political frames intended to define their nature and realities, they seek to attract agents in their political sphere to gain administrative power. In this Part 3, the purpose of this paper is to model, using cybernetic agency theory, the nature of development and reduction to instrumentality.

Development theory is a multidisciplinary field in which research and theories are clustered together and set within an adaptive institutional activity system framework. An adaptive activity system has a plural membership of agents represented by agency. In Parts 1 and 2 of this paper, agency was shown to have an institutional basis. Activity system development was also explained as a process of institutional evolution, and its potential was shown to provide power acquisition in a political landscape by competitive political frames which vie for support in a place of potentially susceptible agents. Here in Part 3, agency theory will be used to model the dynamic relationships between political frames and the agents that they wish to attract by projecting both cognitive and emotional structures, this enabling the anticipation of behaviour.

These relate to the three parts of the paper taken together. Agency is an evolutionary institutional system that can represent socio-political development. A model for political development has been created that identifies the conditions under which formal political groups are able to promote frames of policy to attract support from autonomous agents that constitute the membership of the activity system, and hence gain agency status. On the way to this, it connects Bauman’s theory of liquid modernity to Sorokin’s theory of socio-cultural dynamics and cultural stability. One result is the notion of liquid development, an unstable condition of development in adaptive activity systems. Agency theory can usefully explain detailed changes in agency, the relationships between agency agents, and interactions between agencies, this embracing institutional processes.

The implication of this research is that it will allow empirical methods to be used that potentially enables political outcomes in complex socio-political environments to be anticipated, given additional appropriate measurement criteria.

The synergy of agency and institutional theories to explain the process of development is new, as is its application to the political development process in a political landscape. As part of this synergistic process, it has been shown how Bauman’s concept of liquidity relates to Sorokin’s ideas of socio-cultural change.

The viable systems theory of autonomous social communities is a cybernetic theory in which politics is seen as a facilitator for social coherence. A recent paper by Yolles explored this dimension, considering, how power and its process affects structure, manipulates information, and influences the way that people behave. A core conceptualization of that paper about political temperament is corrected and further developed.

Interest in this paper lies in the social cybernetics of autonomous social communities that have a culture, normative behaviour, and where the behaviour is ultimately determined from that culture. Autonomous social communities that have a culture have a history and dynamic that can be argued to have a potential for behavioural coherence through policy formation and processes of action research. It is through this proposition that politics is engaged in the theory.

This paper offers a correction and development of Yolle's conceptual representation of the notion of political temperament as discussed by Duverger. Political temperament is a part of political culture, and is ultimately connected to the way that power is created, assigned and used. Yolles was concerned with the relationship between political temperament, political management, and processes of power distribution. However, this model was misconceived, and we shall redefine it by expressing political temperament as the relationship between political mindedness, political management, and political centripetality (or process of power distribution).

In this paper it is argued that political temperament comes from a set of attitudes that underpin the political nature of a governing body that becomes responsible for the political management of a social community. It is seen to contribute to the formation of the political culture of autonomous social communities.

The purpose of this paper is twofold. First, the authors elaborate on why American businesses are often willing to advocate and deploy corporate political resources for or against specific governmental policies, but largely reluctant to engage in more general political process reform. Second, the authors introduce a set of ideas encouraging a business-driven political process reform in the USA, which the authors refer to as Corporate Political Responsibility (CPR).

This paper reviews existing literature on why firms generally avoid advocating for political process reform to identify several firm-level impediments to such action. As an outcome of that review, a CPR governance concept – a derivative from the corporate responsibility literature – is proposed and unpacked as a proposition that if adopted by firms would encourage and support business-driven process reform advocacy.

The primary findings are that American firms lack a rationale justifying business political activity into the political process arena; a willingness to assume a high level of political risk associated with political process intervention; and an executable corporate mechanism for doing so.

A second stage build out of the paper would involve at a minimum multiple research interviews with corporate executives and trade association officials to test the viability of the CPR proposal as to whether or not the proposed governance statement would liberate firms to advocate political process reform. This paper sets the predicate for additional research.

This paper may well be the first to identify the concept of CPR as a key corporate governance proposition. It is also likely the first to conceptualize CPR as more than a theoretical rendering – it is executable. Corporations can put CPR into practice through a firm’s Board of Directors endorsing a governance statement – Corporate Political Responsibility Protocol (CPR/P) – that transforms the CPR concept into a sanctioned firm activity, giving executives significant latitude to spend corporate resources advocating political process change. This paper suggests a variety of reform possibilities – electoral, campaign finance and legislative – that could benefit from business reform advocacy.

Aim of the present monograph is the economic analysis of the role of MNEs regarding globalisation and digital economy and in parallel there is a reference and examination of some legal aspects concerning MNEs, cyberspace and e‐commerce as the means of expression of the digital economy. The whole effort of the author is focused on the examination of various aspects of MNEs and their impact upon globalisation and vice versa and how and if we are moving towards a global digital economy.

The paradigm of the Chinese Box Puzzle served as the analytic framework for this study of school board member recruitment. It directed attention to the process of selection and elimination that narrows the population of a school system to the very few who are elected to the school board. In terms of the paradigm, between the largest box — the many who are governed — and the smallest box — the few who govern — are intermediate boxes that identify the social and political processes that successively narrow the population. The study did not advance specific hypotheses, but rather sought to trace the collective careers of sixty school board members and to draw implications from the modal patterns. The essential finding, that the recruitment process propels into office school board members who are different in many respects from those whom they represent, has important implications for educational governance.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the impact of globalization on the formation of a global political system.

Taking into account the fact of global political evolution, the authors of the paper point out that the global political structures tend to change.

During the past millennium the global political architecture has changed greatly from a state of low degree of cohesion and a simple structure to a fairly high level of unity and strong structure of today. Moreover, this development of the global political order was not just a simple change in the system of social relations, but also a directed search for such forms of organization that will be acceptable for a growing population.

The authors examine the development of a political system changing from the world phase to the global era. The paper aims to deepen the understanding of global political processes.

The results of the research can be used as recommendations for state governments to strengthen the position of civil society and political institutions within a certain country.

The development of a global political order was evolutionary in the sense that it took place as a “natural” process of “trial and error” (it can be viewed as a phenomenon of the deployment of evolution), which does not require the postulation of a general plan or focus. Political globalization is closely connected with the process of informatization. The global political system makes it easier to use information technologies as an instrument of political pressure.

This paper aims to explore if and how changes in social representations of conflict are designed and constructed in the formal political discourse.

Taking a psycho‐sociological approach and by relying on discourse analysis, it explores the discursive patterns used by the political leadership in order to legitimize either war or peace actions. Through the analysis of speeches that were given by Israeli prime ministers in the Knesset and in the context of warfare or peace processes, the paper traces changes in the historical narratives that frame Israel's cluster of societal beliefs in regards to the conflict, and further explores how these are being re‐narrated in light of the process of transition to peace.

The paper argues that both warfare and peace processes, representing the extreme options available in conflict, require broad public recruitment and immense rhetorical efforts on behalf of the political leadership to reason and legitimatize actions through the formal political discourse. The findings highlight the ways through which the political leadership in Israel justifies its actions and attempts to enlist public support as a prism to trace how societal beliefs have been narrated for the purpose of justifying warfare, and how the same beliefs are re‐narrated to justify conflict resolution.

The paper strives to shed light on the role played by the interplay between political discourse and societal beliefs in the context of transition to peace, and thus advances understandings of the linkage between internal processes and external circumstances, as mitigated by political discourse, in the context of conflict and conflict resolution.

This study aims to explore the effects of political information and anger on the public's cognitive processing and foreign policy preferences concerning third‐party interventions in ethnic conflict.

The study employs an experimental design, wherein the authors manipulate policy‐specific information by generating ad hoc political information related to ethnic conflict. The statistical methods of analysis are logistic regression and analysis of covariance.

The results demonstrate that both political information and anger have a significant impact on an individual's cognitive processing and policy preferences regarding ethnic conflict interventions. Specifically, political information increases one's proclivity to choose non‐military policy options, whereas anger instigates support for aggressive policies. Both factors result in faster decision making with lower amounts of information accessed. However, the interaction of political information and anger is not significant. The study also finds that policy‐specific information – rather than general political information – influences the public's policy preferences.

This study confronts and advances the debate over whether political information is significant in influencing the public's foreign policy preferences and, if so, whether such an effect is the product of general or domain‐specific information. It also addresses an under‐studied topic – the emotive repercussions of ethnic conflicts among potential third‐party interveners. In addition, it tackles the argument over whether political information immunizes people against (or sensitizes them to) the effects of anger on their cognitive processing and foreign policy preferences. The study also introduces a novel approach for examining political information through an experimental manipulation of policy‐specific information.