Papers & Research

Ongoing research developing frameworks for understanding power, convergence, and institutional transformation in networked systems.

1. Power Convergence and the Cumulative Individual

This research program develops a general framework for understanding how multiple domains of power—structural, coercive, symbolic, psychological, and networked—interact and converge within individual actors. It introduces the concept of the cumulative individual: an actor capable of operating across institutional boundaries by integrating distinct forms of influence into a unified configuration.

Rather than treating power as domain-specific, this work advances a configurational approach, emphasizing interaction, reinforcement, and systemic integration.

Working Papers:

• A Theory of Power Convergence: The Cumulative Individual (SSRN, 2026)

  This article develops a theory of power convergence centered on the concept of the cumulative individual. Existing theories of power remain analytically fragmented, isolating coercive, structural, symbolic, psychological, and networked dimensions without explaining how they interact. The theory advanced here argues that, under contemporary conditions of mediation, visibility, and connectivity, these domains increasingly converge within individual actors who function as systems of power rather than as occupants of discrete roles. Power is shown to accumulate through recursive feedback loops in which performance, amplification, affect, and institutional response mutually reinforce one another. To formalize this dynamic, the article introduces a developmental geometry of power organization . . .

• Power Convergence in Practice: Assange, Epstein, and Ye as Cumulative Individuals (Coming soon on SSRN)

  Recent years have witnessed the emergence of individuals whose influence appears to extend beyond the institutional positions they formally occupy. Actors operating outside traditional hierarchies have demonstrated the capacity to shape networks, narratives, and institutional responses across multiple domains of social power. Existing theories of power, however, typically explain influence through single institutional structures—states, markets, bureaucracies, or cultural systems—and therefore struggle to account for how individual actors can accumulate authority across these domains simultaneously.

  This paper applies the concept of power convergence and the figure of the cumulative individual, introduced in A Theory of Power Convergence: The Cumulative Individual (Saviano 2026), to a comparative analysis of three contemporary cases: Jeffrey Epstein, Julian Assange, and Ye (Kanye West). The framework proposes that individuals can acquire . . .

2. Potentialism and the Quantum-Continuity Model

This line of research develops a theoretical framework for understanding uncertainty, observation, and knowledge formation in social systems. It proposes that social reality is not fully determinate, but exists in a state of structured potential shaped by observation, interaction, and measurement.

Drawing on insights from epistemology and complexity theory, the Quantum-Continuity Model provides a basis for analyzing how knowledge is produced under conditions of uncertainty and reflexivity.

Working Paper:

• Observation, Uncertainty, and Social Knowledge: Potentialism and the Quantum-Continuity Model (SSRN, 2025)

  This article develops Potentialism as a framework for understanding how uncertainty, observation, and reflexivity structure social transformation. It advances the Quantum-Continuity Model (QCM), which adapts the epistemic logic of superposition, collapse, and measurement into the social analogues of Transition Zones, Quantum Thresholds, and Quantum Measurement Events. Rather than positing that social systems are literally quantum, QCM uses quantum-theoretic reasoning as an epistemological resource for conceptualizing indeterminacy, metastability, and discontinuous resolution in complex social systems. The model explains how multiple potential futures coexist within metastable social conditions and how interpretive or communicative acts can precipitate the abrupt consolidation of one trajectory. An illustrative case from the Arab Spring demonstrates how regimes persisted within Transition Zones, how legitimacy dissolved through threshold crossings, and how observation reconfigured collective expectations into decisive outcomes. More broadly, QCM clarifies how uncertainty functions as a structural feature of social life . . .

3. Institutional Fragility and Belief Formation

This research examines how institutional environments shape belief systems, particularly under conditions of uncertainty, fragmentation, and declining trust. It shifts the focus from individual cognition to systemic conditions, arguing that belief formation is deeply embedded in institutional structure and informational context.

This approach provides an alternative to purely psychological explanations of conspiracy thinking and related phenomena.

Working Paper:

• Beyond Belief: Why Institutional Conditions Matter More than Cognition in the Study of Conspiracy Thinking (SSRN, 2026)

  Research on conspiracy thinking has largely centered belief as its primary object of explanation, attributing conspiratorial beliefs to cognitive bias, psychological predisposition, or informational distortion. While this literature has generated important insights into individual-level mechanisms, it has struggled to account for the persistence, diffusion, and cross-context recurrence of conspiratorial beliefs. This article argues that these limitations stem from a mis-specified analytic focus: belief is treated as a causal variable rather than as an outcome shaped by institutional conditions. 

  Drawing on a selective review of psychological, sociological, and media-oriented approaches, the article identifies a shared assumption underlying belief-centered models that conspiratorial belief reflects epistemic deficiency rather than responses conditioned by features of the institutional environment. The paper then advances an alternative framing in which conspiracy thinking emerges within contexts characterized by opacity, weak accountability, and narrative insufficiency. Under such conditions, belief correction alone cannot . . .

Forthcoming Work

Power Convergence and Sovereignty (Paper)
Extends the framework of the cumulative individual to political leadership, examining how multi-domain convergence operates at the level of sovereignty and institutional authority.

The Cumulative Individual: Power, Collapse, and Sovereignty in the Networked Age (Book)
A book-length project that synthesizes the theoretical and empirical strands of this research, examining how convergent forms of power emerge, stabilize, and destabilize in contemporary social systems.

Notes on Method

These papers are conceptual and analytical in nature. The aim is not to provide exhaustive empirical accounts, but to develop frameworks capable of explaining patterns of influence across diverse contexts.

For updates on new papers and ongoing work, please check back regularly or follow future publications via SSRN.