Emergent and Instrumental Institutions in English Constitutional History

This paper examines the relationship between the emergent order of Anglo-American common law and representative government, with the instrumental organizations which act within them, particularly parliament and statute law. Much like the sensory order emerges through our efforts to make use of a complex of experiential data, one step removed, the complex adaptive system of the social order emerges through the interaction among developing instrumental institutions. Greater insight can be achieved through examination of how these instrumental institutions themselves evolve over time, and how they contribute to the emergent social order most visibly manifested through government and legal administration. English constitutional history will serve as a case study of social order developing as a complex adaptive system.