title: Like the perfect animal, there's no such thing as the perfect institution.
abstract: Models of biological and political systems share in common an irreconcilable tension. They must extract the essential features of the system to make its workings comprehensible to the human observer, and yet the omitted underbrush is essential to the workings of the system. A good model accommodates both the workings of the system and the cognitive makeup of the observer.
authors.affiliation: Department of Political Science, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA 90077 lohmann@ucla.edu www.polisci.ucla.edu/faculty/lohmann/
authors.forename: Susanne
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Lohmann