“The Measurement of System Structure,” in Measuring the Correlates of War (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1990).
“We can think of few words that are so causally and imprecisely used as system and structure; this semantic permissiveness has even gone so far as to see them used interchangeably. Thus any pattern, order, or regularity—real or imagined—in the referent world may well be graced with the label ‘system’ or ‘structure.’ We mean, of course, to sue them rather more carefully here. By system, we mean an aggregation of social entities that share a common fate (Campbell 1958), or are sufficiently interdependent to have the actions of some consistently affect the behavior and fate of the rest. In addition, our definition of system is clearly distinct from those that focus on ‘systems of action’ and thus fail to specify which social entities constitute the system (Singer 1971). By the structure of the system we mean the way in which relationships are arranged, but this definition leaves unclear the distinction between two kinds of relationships, that is, those based on comparisons between and among states or other entities and those based on links or bonds between them. For example, if we refer to the concentration of military industrial capability in the international system, we are focusing on a structural attribute based on comparisons of the attributes of states. However, if we focus on the bipolarity of the system, we are then discussing a structural attribute that arises out of the links and bonds among states. It should also be pointed out that these two kinds of structural attributed are related in the sense that variation in one may produce variation in the other. For example, a concentration of military-industrial capability in the hands of two dominant states in the system may well lead to its bipolarization” (99-100).
“We have already mentioned one distinction that we find useful, that is, the distinction between structural attributes based on comparisons among states and those based on linkages and bonds. Both kinds of structural variables order states…either vertically or horizontally” (101).
This chapter is very interesting for my work and it contains a slew of relevant citations that need to be checked and reviewed.
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