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satt comments on Can we dodge the mindkiller? - Less Wrong
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I might be stating the obvious, but: to find out what political instrumental rationality looks like, look closely at politically instrumentally rational people & organizations. That is, find those who accomplished major political goals, and study what they did to fulfil those goals. This may be a less biased (and easier?) approach than speculating with other laypeople.
Which level of goals are we talking about here. For example, Lenin succeeded in his goal of seizing power in Russia. He failed in his goal of turning Russia into a workers' paradise (assuming that was still his goal by that point).
Whichever level you want. If one wants to seize power in Russia, one might use Lenin as a role model. If one wants to turn Russia into a workers' paradise, one presumably wouldn't use Lenin as a role model.
This is a good idea, but how do I distinguish an organization accomplishing its political goals because it was politically instrumentally rational from an organization accomplishing its political goals because the political climate happened to be favorably oriented towards it? (I guess I look for repeated successes?)
I'm not sure it's easy to separate the two categories cleanly, not least because some organizations deliberately exploit favourable drifts in the political climate, and other organizations actively alter the political climate to further their goals.
Setting that aside, I can't immediately think of good rules of thumb to answer your question; I'd probably try answering it on an ad hoc, case by case basis. Looking for repeated successes sounds like a sensible general heuristic, though.