Marc; I hope it's not just you and I having this conversation. Not that I don't mind the company, but I'd love to hear from some others too because some of the prior comments about my (ontological) take on Durkheim and Weber were helpful to me. Anyway, regarding Parsons, my first-ever peer reviewed article long ago was on him, called A Neofunctionalist Model of Crime Control. It touched on terrorism, and I plan to do an updated presentation at ASC next month with even more such focus. I'm impressed with your knowledge of the topic. That attachment of yours clearly resonated with me re: the Unified Social Science Movement and neo-evolutionary theory. Anyway, let me throw out some starting points: One, I am going to assume functional prerequisites are fulfilled by new kinds of institutions (neofunctional ones). Two, I am going to assume a media of interchange between these institutions. Once the model is constructed (and yes, it will have cybernetic action properties), I will test it against some trend data in the directions of more and less stability in a COIN operation. Does this make sense, and do you know what I'm trying to do?