Political Economy, Power and Systemic Change
Layered conceptual model
PESTLE maps the system and its external conditions.
Political economy explains power, ownership and distribution within it. History explains how institutions, identities and inequalities developed.
Psychology explains individual motivation, cognition, conformity and agency. Society, culture, religion, race, caste, class and gender explain collective identity, hierarchy and legitimacy. Dependency and world-systems theories explain unequal relationships between places and institutions. Systems thinking explains interaction, feedback, emergence and change over time.
Ethics defines the values by which present and proposed systems are judged.
Futures and change management translate diagnosis into viable transformation.
High-level curriculum
Part I — Ways of Knowing
- Knowledge, Evidence and Competing Truth Claims
- Ideology, Framing and Narrative
- Ethics, Values and Conceptions of Justice
- Interdisciplinary and Systems Thinking
role of media so some media studies. threats to existing mainstream and rise of independent with opportunity to transform or challenge to bubble chambers and chaos. topic of personal knowledge management and evolution from “writing notes” polycrisis and problem of how multiple crisis overlay causing poor diagnosis
Part II — People and Human Behaviour
- Individual and Social Psychology
- Motivation, Identity and Human Agency
- Cognitive Bias, Conformity and Obedience
- Leadership, Status and Group Behaviour
- Fear, Trauma, Belonging and Collective Memory
Part III — Society, Identity and Hierarchy
- Culture, Community and Social Institutions
- Race, Racialisation and Racism
- Colonialism, Empire and Their Legacies
- Class, Caste and Social Stratification
- Gender, Sexuality and Family
- Religion, Secularism and Moral Authority
- Nationalism, Ethnicity and Migration
- Intersectionality and Multiple Structures of Power
add study of society over time = anthropology here with tie in to below part Change
Part IV — Political Economy and Power
- Foundations of Political Economy
- States, Markets and Civil Society
- Capitalism, Socialism and Alternative Economic Systems
- Ownership, Labour, Wealth and Distribution
- Institutions, Elites and Structural Power
- Democracy, Authoritarianism and Political Legitimacy
- Media, Education, Language and Cultural Power
- Conflict, Violence and Resistance
Part V — The PESTLE System
- Political Systems and Governance
- Economic Systems and Material Provision
- Social Structures and Demographic Change
- Technology, Infrastructure and AI
- Law, Rights and Regulatory Institutions
- Environment, Resources and Planetary Boundaries
- Integrated PESTLE Analysis
Part VI — Global Development and Dependency
- The Historical Formation of the Global Economy
- Modernisation and Development Theory
- Dependency Theory
- World-Systems Analysis
- Colonialism, Neo-colonialism and Postcolonial Theory
- Trade, Debt, Finance and Global Institutions
- Global Value Chains and Unequal Exchange
- Development Alternatives and Indigenous Perspectives
Part VII — Dynamic Systems and Possible Futures
- Complexity, Causality and Feedback
- Path Dependence and Institutional Lock-in
- Risk, Resilience and Systemic Failure
- Technology, Automation and the Future of Work
- Climate, Resources and Ecological Transition
- Scenario Planning and Futures Literacy
- Alternative Social and Economic Models
Part VIII — Agency and Systemic Change
- Theories of Social and Institutional Change
- Power Mapping and Stakeholder Analysis
- Target Operating and Social Models
- Policy Design and Implementation
- Organisational and Cultural Change
- Political Mobilisation and Coalition Building
- Resistance, Unintended Consequences and Adaptation
- Evaluation, Learning and Democratic Accountability
- Capstone: Designing and Delivering Systemic Change
The curriculum’s governing sequence
{Knowledge} >> {People} >> {Society} >> {Power} >> {Systems} >> {Diagnosis} >> {Futures} >> {Change}
This avoids the weakness of conventional PESTLE: it does not merely catalogue environmental factors. It examines the people, identities, histories, beliefs and power structures that create and maintain the system—and the practical means by which it might be changed.