This is one of the largest groups in the ledger, and it runs from Thucydides to the present and from every corner of the political spectrum. It is also where the ledger's balance rule does the most work, because many of these models were built by one side to explain what the other side does. Read as a whole, the group answers four questions: where authority comes from, who actually rules, how policy changes, and what happens when power has no check.
Where authority comes from
The oldest answer is conditional legitimacy. China's Tianming, the mandate of heaven, held that a ruler who governed badly lost the right to rule. Weber distinguished authority that rests on rules and offices from authority that rests on tradition or charisma, and defined the state by its monopoly on legitimate force. The modern democratic models, from Schumpeter's democracy as method to Dahl's Polyarchy and Levitsky and Ziblatt's Mutual Toleration and Forbearance, locate legitimacy in procedure and in the unwritten norms that keep procedure working.
Who actually rules
A second family doubts that formal authority tells the whole story. The elite theorists, Mosca, Pareto and Michels, hold that an organised minority governs whatever the constitution says. Regulatory capture, the Iron Triangle, Baptists and Bootleggers and Concentrated Benefits, Diffuse Costs explain how organised interests shape policy in their favour. Both political directions have their own version: Gramsci's War of Position locates power in cultural institutions from the left, and The Cathedral makes a mirror-image claim from the right.
How policy changes
A third family is less dramatic and more practical. Lindblom's Muddling Through and Wildavsky's incrementalism describe policy moving by small adjustments. Kingdon's Multiple Streams and Baumgartner and Jones's Punctuated Equilibrium explain the occasional sudden shift. Veto Players, Policy Feedback, Street-Level Bureaucracy and the Overton Window explain why change is usually slow, why policies create their own defenders, and why what is announced often differs from what is delivered.
Power without a check
The fourth family studies unconstrained power. Hobbes's war of all against all and India's Matsyanyaya, the rule of the fish, describe life without enforcement. Olson's Stationary Bandit and Selectorate Theory explain how autocrats keep power, and the Dictator's Dilemma explains why they rarely know how much support they have. International relations adds the Security Dilemma, Hegemonic Stability and the Thucydides Trap.
Where it applies
These models are the working vocabulary of anyone trying to change a policy. Kingdon tells an advocate to have a solution ready for when a problem and a political moment coincide. Capture and concentrated benefits tell a reformer who will oppose a change, and why they will be better organised than its supporters. Veto players tell a new government how much it can realistically do. The criminology models in the group, from Routine Activity Theory to Broken Windows, shape how cities approach safety.
Where it is argued over
Many entries here carry the contested flag, and the disputes run in every direction. The partisan models, from the Piven–Cloward disruption thesis and What's the Matter with Kansas on one side to Anton's coinages and the Sailer Strategy on the other, share a weakness their critics point out: each is easier to apply to opponents than to test. The empirical models are disputed on the evidence, as with Democratic Peace Theory, the Thucydides Trap and the Clash of Civilizations. Conflict Theory versus Mistake Theory names the deepest disagreement of all: whether politics is mainly a contest of interests or mainly a search for correct answers.
Why it is worth knowing
No single model here explains politics, and a person who holds only one will see only what it shows. The value of the group is that it keeps the models side by side, so that a claim about who rules or why a policy failed can be checked against the alternatives. That habit protects against the most common political error, which is to explain everything by the one mechanism that happens to blame the other side.
The entries behind this essay: Model in Law & Politics. Every subject has its essays on the essays page.