Multilevel Robustness Index (IRM): Foundational Document Authors

This foundational document introduces the Multilevel Robustness Index (IRM), a structural analytical framework developed to assess institutional coherence under conditions of radical uncertainty. Departing from probabilistic forecasting models grounded in measurable risk, the IRM shifts analytical focus toward structural integration across multiple ontological layers of institutional reality. Drawing upon Frank Knight’s distinction between risk and uncertainty, Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s theory of systemic fragility, Karl Popper’s epistemological fallibilism, and Niklas Luhmann’s systems theory, the model conceptualizes robustness as an emergent property of multilevel structural alignment. The framework is organized into eight interdependent hyperlayers—ideas and paradigms, cognitive architecture, emotional regulation, social cohesion, normative architecture, economic structure, systemic exposure, and complexity/coupling—which aggregate into four structural dimensions: cognitive, institutional, economic, and systemic. The arithmetic integration of these dimensions forms the synthetic index. Engaging Regulation Theory (Aglietta; Boyer), Ignácio Rangel’s structural duality, and monetary credibility debates (Lara Resende), the IRM proposes a replicable heuristic metric aimed at identifying latent fragilities before systemic rupture. The model does not claim predictive determinism but offers a structured architecture for intertemporal institutional assessment within complex adaptive systems. Keywords: Institutional robustness; Radical uncertainty; Structural coherence; Regulation theory; Complex systems.