Every analytical framework is a blade angle. The same fact pattern looks completely different through game theory than through dialectics — and the difference is the whole point. This is a tool to feel that difference, not just read about it.
Two frameworks dominate political and economic writing. Each does real work, but in different directions, and neither alone is enough.
Framework A
Game theory
Sharpest when actors are roughly symmetric, choosing freely. Tells you why a configuration is stable. Predictive, formal, isolates incentive traps. Weak on the power asymmetries that determine the game.
Framework B
Dialectics
Sharpest when actors are structurally unequal and "choices" are constrained by material position. Tells you why a system is changing. Surfaces contradictions; bad at quantifying anything.
Game theory explains why a rotten equilibrium persists. Dialectics explains how it breaks. Between and around these, eight more frames do work neither can.
§ 01Click a Quadrant
What are you actually trying to explain?
Most analytical disagreements aren't about the facts; they're about which question is being answered. Click a quadrant — the matching lenses below light up.
Actor-centered ←→ Structure-centered
Eleven lenses available. Click a quadrant to filter.
§ 02The Lens Lab
Same case. Different blades.
Pick a real political case. Pick a lens. Read what that lens sees that the others miss. Then switch lenses and watch the case rewrite itself.
▸ Step 1 · Pick a case
▸ Step 2 · Pick a lens
Compare two lenses: C to toggle compare mode
Single-lens view
§ 03In the Wild
The lenses, applied
Editorial work where each frame is doing real argumentative load. Click a lens chip to filter — the cards that aren't reading the world through that frame fade out.
Showing all 14 sites · click a lens above to filter.
§ 04The Diagnostic
What lens fits your question?
Three questions about what you're trying to explain. The answers narrow the field to two or three lenses that actually fit. Pick along the way; the recommendation updates live.
Question 01 · The kind of question
What are you trying to explain?
Question 02 · The actors
How equal are the actors involved?
Question 03 · Your goal
Do you want prediction or interpretation?
▸ Recommended lenses
Answer all three questions to see recommendations.
§ 05Reference
The lenses, in detail
Click any to expand. Source attributions, what each one does, and where to reach for it.
§ 06Honorable Mentions
Stack these on top
Useful additions when the eight don't quite reach. Specialized but sharp.
◉ Worth Stacking
Complexity & Agent-Based Models
Schelling's segregation: nobody is racist, neighborhoods still segregate. Simple individual rules → surprising aggregate outcomes. Use when the pattern at scale doesn't reflect anyone's intent.
Public Choice Theory
Game theory specialized for politics — concentrated benefits, dispersed costs, rent-seeking, regulatory capture. Right-coded historically, but the analytics are clean and apply cleanly to oversight bodies.
Actor-Network Theory
Latour. Treats infrastructure, laws, and databases as agents with their own effects. Useful when you want to argue that a piece of legislation or a records system has political agency independent of who wrote it.
§ 07Sharp Lines
Borrow one. Pin it.
Ten of the page's punchiest blades, ready to share. Each line names its lens and its case — context travels with the quote.