# Theory of Political Change

Political change occurs when a relationship that reproduces an order changes: obedience is withdrawn, an alliance defects, a grievance gains a shared frame, resources find an organization, a counting rule alters representation, coercion loses legitimacy, a crisis changes time, or a new institution makes a possibility durable. The unit of analysis is therefore not an isolated event but a field of capacities and dependencies.

Entrenchment persists because institutions carry memory; offices control agendas; beneficiaries organize; costs are diffuse; rules create vetoes; information is unequal; identity stabilizes loyalty; repression raises risk; and alternatives may lack credible implementation. A movement can win attention yet lose the countermove. A government can win office yet inherit a field whose money, media, bureaucracy, courts, or local implementation resist its program.

The system rejects moral essence in political mechanisms. Centralization can coordinate and dominate. Decentralization can liberate and enable local exclusion. Nonviolence can broaden participation and expose people to repression. Armed resistance can oppose aggression and reproduce coercive hierarchy. The card's Gift and Wound are conditional expressions of one capacity.
