Dynamic Democratic Consent: A System Dynamics Framework for Public Trust, Political Communication, and Policy Feedback

Political communication is often analyzed through event-based models that give lim ited attention to feedback, delay, saturation, and changing public trust. This conceptual paper proposes the Dynamic Democratic Consent framework, integrating selected princi ples from Edward Bernays’ account of public relations with the S-E-E-D behavior modes of Snowball growth, Equilibrium seeking, Elastic adjustment, and feedback-loop Dominance. The framework extends the conventional resource categories of manpower, mindpower, and money by treating algorithmic media infrastructure as a conditional fourth dimension. It maps an eight-stage communication-planning process onto reinforcing and balancing feed back structures, perception delays, demographic capacity, and institutional trust. Simulated reference modes illustrate how political-support momentum may encounter electoral satura tion, how delayed perception and corrective response may produce oscillatory adjustment, and how divergence between communication and policy delivery may weaken institutional trust and contract effective support capacity. A four-stage diagnostic process is proposed for describing trajectories, identifying feedback structures, designing policy interventions, and examining potential behavioral shifts. The framework is exploratory rather than predictive. Empirical estimation, comparative case testing, sensitivity analysis, and ethical evaluation are required before it can support applied political analysis.