In this paper, we show that supervisory control theory of discrete event systems can serve as a methodology to analyze the principle of democratic progress. For this purpose, we address a new supervisory control problem in which each local supervisor is designed with its own private specification, and an additional progressive specification is given as a global objective for a system to follow. We present the controllability and power-observability as the main conditions for a controlled system to meet a progressive specification in the sense that the number of local supervisors meeting private specifications increases as the controlled system evolves. We then demonstrate that the developed theory can be used to analyze the principle of democratic progress in a systematical way through a case study of labor unions in the Unites States.
Manuscript received January 17, 2017; revised April 26, 2017; accepted June 4, 2017. Recommended by Associate Editor M. Chadli under the direction of Editor Jessie (Ju H.) Park. The research of Seong-Jin Park was supported by Basic Science Research Program through the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) funded by the Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning (No. 2016R1A2B4006723). The research of Jung-Min Yang was supported by Basic Science Research Program through the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) funded by the Ministry of Education (No. 2015R1D1A1A01056764) and by the Ministry of Science, ICT and future Planning (No. 2015R1A2A1A15054026).
