Political

Revisiting the political cybernetics of

cybernetics of organisations organisations
Maurice Yolles
Liverpool John Moores University, Liverpool, UK 617
Abstract
Purpose – The viable systems theory of autonomous social communities is a cybernetic theory in
which politics is seen as a facilitator for social coherence. A recent paper by Yolles explored this
dimension, considering, how power and its process affects structure, manipulates information, and
influences the way that people behave. A core conceptualization of that paper about political
temperament is corrected and further developed.
Design/methodology/approach – Interest in this paper lies in the social cybernetics of autonomous
social communities that have a culture, normative behaviour, and where the behaviour is ultimately
determined from that culture. Autonomous social communities that have a culture have a history and
dynamic that can be argued to have a potential for behavioural coherence through policy formation and
processes of action research. It is through this proposition that politics is engaged in the theory.
Findings – This paper offers a correction and development of Yolle’s conceptual representation of
the notion of political temperament as discussed by Duverger. Political temperament is a part of
political culture, and is ultimately connected to the way that power is created, assigned and used.
Yolles was concerned with the relationship between political temperament, political management, and
processes of power distribution. However, this model was misconceived, and we shall redefine it by
expressing political temperament as the relationship between political mindedness, political
management, and political centripetality (or process of power distribution).
Originality/value – In this paper it is argued that political temperament comes from a set of
attitudes that underpin the political nature of a governing body that becomes responsible for the
political management of a social community. It is seen to contribute to the formation of the political
culture of autonomous social communities.
Keywords Cybernetics, Systems theory, Communities
Paper type Research paper

1. Introduction
Our interest here lies in the social cybernetics of autonomous social communities that
have a culture, normative behaviour, and where the behaviour is ultimately determined
from that culture. Autonomous social communities that have a culture have a history
and dynamic that can be argued to have a potential for behavioural coherence through
policy formation and processes of action research. It is through this proposition that
politics is engaged in the theory.
Sometimes such social communities are called social organisations or just
organisations, and sometimes they are called civic or enterprise corporations.
A corporation is any association of individuals in a social community or organisation
created by law and having an existence apart from that of its members as well as
distinct and inherent powers and liabilities. However, not all social communities are
formal corporations and therefore recognised by law. Kybernetes
Vol. 34 No. 5, 2005
This paper offers a correction and development of Yolles’s (2003) conceptual pp. 617-636
representation of the notion of political temperament as discussed by Duverger
(1972). Political temperament is a part of political culture, and is ultimately connected
K to the way that power is created, assigned and used. Yolles (2003) was concerned
34,5 with the relationship between political temperament, political management, and
processes of power distribution. However, this model was misconceived, and we shall
redefine it by expressing political temperament as the relationship between political
mindedness, political management, and political centripetality (or processes of power
distribution).
618 We shall follow Yolles (2003) by exploring political temperament through the frame
of reference defined by social viable systems theory (SVST), a cybernetic theory
whose ontology derives from Schwarz (1997). For this, Yolles (2001) formulated a
theory of the social community, having an ontological form of three domains, defined
as:
. a phenomenological[1] or behavioural domain that houses structured operational
systems in interaction;
.
a virtual or organising domain housing virtual systems that generate and
maintain images that may relate to intended or expected phenomenal reality;
.
an existential or cognitive domain that houses our worldviews/paradigms, and
where patterns of knowledge are maintained that enable us to gain meaning for
the phenomena and behaviours that are perceived around us; this domain also
normally harbours the metasystem as defined by Beer (1979) as part of the viable
social community.
Interestingly, this construction has relevance to the nature of autopoiesis, a concept
developed by Maturana and Varela (1979). It is essentially and within the context of
this paper, the capacity of an autonomous system to manifest phenomenally an
autonomous social community’s virtual images through the self-production of its
networks of power that become part of its social structure.
The work of Habermas has also been important to management systems. For
instance Midgley (2000) advocates the development of critical systems thinking
through Habermas’s (1987) three world’s model. Yolles and Guo (2003), however, prefer
to develop a cybernetic three domains model that is richer in at least the sense that it
has a capacity for recursion. It also incorporates Habermas’s theory of knowledge
constitutive interests (that also underpins the three worlds model), and which has
today become a significant feature of critical theory (MacIsaac, 1996).
A proposition of SVST is that all coherent autonomous social communities can be
modelled in terms of the three domains each of which has a validity claim to reality,
each of which are ontologically coupled in a way consistent with the notions of
Eric Schwarz (Schwarz, 1997; Yolles, 1999a). An epistemological representation of this
model is offered in Figure 1, which we shall describe briefly. Each domain has
knowledge associated with it, this notion deriving from the work of Marshall (1995).
The existential domain is the place of worldview/paradigms where decision processes
are implemented, and it houses the metasystem. It is connected with the virtual domain
housing virtual systems in which virtual organised images are created. These images
are not only reflected phenomenally, but are used to interpret the phenomena perceived
to occur. The phenomenal domain is the place of the system(s) or social actor(s) who
may be in interaction with other social actors or an environment. When a plurality of
interactive actors enters into mutual communication in the phenomenal domain, they
participate in the process of knowledge migration (Yolles, 2000d). In a positivist
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Figure 1.
Influence diagram
exploring the relationship
between the phenomenal,
virtual and existential
domains

objectivist epistemology this means that knowledge can be transferred between the
plural actors, but in constructivist subjectivist epistemology knowledge migration
takes on another meaning, and we shall explore this in due course.
Actors in the behavioural domain are social communities that have structure and, if
sufficiently complex, infrastructure to service structure. They are susceptible to the
impact of changing phenomena like regulation or new technology that attenuates
structure. To understand how this works, follow the arrows that indicate effects in
Figure 1 from the attenuation back to the culture. The attenuation caused by the
phenomena will normally result in some change in (operational) behaviour. Behaviour
is both facilitated and constrained by the structure itself, as illustrated by a social
community’s bounding rules and operational incentives. Small levels of attenuation
can simply influence the nature of the facilitation or the constraint; thus, a new budget
for computer software and staff training creates a facilitating influence. However,
when the changes are significant, the attenuation is great, and the attrition on the
structure can become severe unless changes are made (e.g. a new department of
computing).
Following through the arrows from left to right in Figure 1, attrition on the structure
will have to be responded to within the polity/order being sought that is directly
connected to the decisions about interventional behaviour. These attritions will likely
have an affect on the virtual images of the social community that will in turn impact in
some way on the decisions and eventually the paradigm(s)/worldview(s) and dominant
culture. All of these changes have an impact on our knowledge[2]. During the generation
of new knowledge, the arrows from the right to the left can be followed to eventually
result in new behaviour that will respond to newly apprehended phenomena.
We said that the ontological relationship between the three domains is consistent
with that of Schwarz’s model, though some its concepts have been developed further.
The three domains maintain both a first order and a second order ontological couple[3]
as illustrated in Figure 2. Higher orders of ontological couple may also exist, normally
through recursion. The first order couple connects the virtual and phenomenal domain,
linked through an ontological migration[4], an example of which is autopoiesis[5].
K Another name for autopoiesis is self-production (Mingers, 1995), which following
34,5 Schwarz can also be expressed in terms of the relationship between self-organisation
(a restructuring process of the phenomenal domain), and self-regulation (a cybernetic
process of the virtual domain). A second order ontological couple provides for
ontological migration between the first order couple and the existential domain, and an
example of this is autogenesis. This is, according to Schwarz (1997), self-creation that
620 can ultimately be expressed as a relationship between self-reference and
self-organisation, and represents the self-production of the rules of production
through, we shall say, the formation of a network of principles. It represents the state of
full autonomy of a system in as far as it defines being. It may be the case that these
ontological migrations cannot be expressed as autopoiesis and autogenesis, and in this
case the autonomous nature of the system will have to be questioned.
For the autonomous coherent social community, the production of networks of
“power in use” are capable of guiding behaviour, and power is seen as a manifestation
of ideology and ethics and purposeful polity that gives rise to political process that are
normally underpinned by principles. These, we propose, derive from political culture
that is itself underpinned by political temperament – the nature of which we shall
explore later.
Exploring Figure 2 a little, we argue that political temperament comes from a set of
attitudes that underpin the political nature of a governing body that becomes
responsible for the political management of a social community, and we shall argue
that it is directly responsible for the network of political principles that guides
autopoiesis. The notion of political temperament will be important to this paper, since
it is seen to contribute to the formation of the political culture of autonomous social
communities. It is the political culture that in due course affects the way that power can
be used to facilitate and constrain social behaviour. Political autogenesis has an impact
on political autopoiesis, and through feedback enables the social community to evolve
through change in its political culture. The purpose of this paper, then, is to develop the
theory that enables us to discuss the political temperament that reflects this process,
and therefore impacts on the ontological viable system model of Figure 2.

Figure 2.
Second order ontological
migrations expressed in
terms of political
temperament that defines
culture and results in
principles that guide
political processes first
order ontological
migrations
 Returning to the three domains model, each domain has properties illustrated by Political
Yolles (2003), and it will be useful to represent this here again as Table I. This is a cybernetics of
development from Yolles (2000, a, b, c), and includes some of Vicker’s (1965) ideas on
the notion of the appreciative system. Rows have cognitive properties, and columns organisations
have sociality properties (Yolles, 2000b; Yolles and Guo, 2003). The term cognitive
relates to the generic attributes of a social community associated with mind and
psyche, and by association through individual interactive involvement, the social 621
community. The cognitive properties represent a set of qualitative propositions that
has developed after the work of Habermas (1987) whose concern lays in cognitive
interest, and that we have extended by adding the additional rows. Cognitive
influences relate to the knowledge and paradigm that a social community support, that
is itself a function of culture. In particular, our interest will be directed to political
culture that relates to processes of political socialisation involving the creation of
values, attitudes and beliefs.
The term sociality has been used to refer to the social profile of the group, and has
conceptual consistency with the notion of personality as it relates to the person. It was
used for instance by Van Mesdag (1991) who argues for its metaphorical use.
Stakeholders expect certain patterns of corporate behaviour, and in due course they
will endow it with personality shaped by the stakeholders perceptions of what the
corporation does or does not do. Inconsistencies in its behaviour or attitudes are likely
to result in labels such as untrustworthy, devious and unreliable. Boudourides (1997)
sees human sociality in terms of active, and also for us, interactive social relationships
that enable the formation of new forms of collective subjectivity. Linked to this
Caporael (1995) adopts the term to refer to the connection between the social
construction of knowledge and group situation. Consequently, it is consistent for us to
link the term sociality with the columns of Table I, and in doing so refer to a social
community’s sociality properties that include kinematic, orientation, and
potential/possibilities.
The sociality properties of possibilities/potential represent the core interest in this
paper that connects directly with Figure 2. Emancipation has been discussed at
length by authors like Habermas and by Foucault in their own terms of reference. In
cybernetic terms it enables the self-production of variety that can be harnessed as
requisite variety[6] that connects to social community viability. Ultimately
emancipation is a manifestation of ideology and ethics that may be used to
self-produce networks of power that are used structurally to both constrain and
facilitate behaviour. Political culture is ultimately responsible for the second order
ontological migration to first order ontological couple operating between the
ideology/ethics and emancipation. It manifests this responsibility by creating
meanings for freedom and emancipation that enable people to understand the nature of
variety and the meaning of requisite variety. While we have already indicated that, in
this paper the intention is to outline some of the features of the ontological viable
system model (Figure 2), discussion will also be expressed in terms of sociality
possibilities/potential.

2. Politics and power

Yolles (2003) discussed political processes in terms of macroscopic communities
involving a large number of participants that have the potential to interact with each
 K
34,5

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Table 1.

system model
through the viable
the social community
Organisational pattern of
Sociality properties
Cognitive Possibilities/potential (relating to requisite
properties Kinematics (through energetic motion) Orientation (determining trajectory) variety)

Cognitive Technical Practical Critical deconstraining

interests
Phenomenal or Work. This enables people to achieve goals Interaction. This requires that people as Degree of emancipation. For organisational
behavioural and generate material well-being. It involves individuals and groups in a social system viability, the realising of individual potential
domain technical ability to undertake action in the gain and develop the possibilities of an is most effective when people: (i) liberate
environment, and the ability to make understanding of each others subjective themselves from the constraints imposed by
prediction and establish control. views. It is consistent with a practical power structures (ii) learn through
interest in mutual understanding that can precipitation in social and political processes
address disagreements, which can be a to control their own destinies.
threat to the social form of life.
Cognitive Cybernetical Rational/appreciative Ideological/moral
purposes
Virtual or Intention. This is through the creation and Formative organising. Enables missions, Manner of thinking. An intellectual
organising strategic pursuit of goals and aims that may goals, and aims to be defined and framework through which policy makers
domain change over time, enables people through approached through planning. It may observe and interpret reality. This has an
control and communications processes to involve logical, and/or relational abilities to aesthetical or politically correct ethical
redirect their futures. organise thought and action and thus to orientation. It provides an image of the
define sets of possible systematic, systemic future that enables action through politically
and behaviour possibilities. It can also correct strategic policy. It gives a politically
involve the use of tacit standards by which correct view of stages of historical
experience can be ordered and valued, and development, in respect of interaction with
may involve reflection. the external environment.
Cognitive Social Cultural Political
influences
Existential or Formation. Enables individuals/groups to be Belief. Influences occur from knowledge that Freedom. Influences occur from knowledge
cognitive Domain influenced by knowledge that relate to our derives from the cognitive organisation (the that affect our polity determined, in part, by
social environment. This has a consequence set of beliefs, attitudes, values) of other how we think about the constraints on group
for our social structures and processes that worldviews. It ultimately determines how and individual freedoms, and in connection
define our social forms that are related to our we interact and influences our with this to organise and behave. It
intentions and behaviours. understanding of formative organising. ultimately has impact on our ideology and
morality, and our degree of organisational
emancipation.
other. Macroscopic political processes are mediated, while microscopic ones are Political
unmediated or direct since they have relatively few participants with a smaller cybernetics of
interaction potential. Mediated politics normally occurs where there are high levels of
sociopolitical complexity. This is because when patterns of political interactions organisations
becomes complex as in the case of macroscopic social communities, emergent
formalisations develop that make the patterns easier to represent and become more
understandable. 623
In mediated political situations, social distance arises between power holder and
subordinates to that power who are subject authority or control. Social distance is, it
was suggested, maintained when access to power holders is mediated by formal
mechanisms.
Yolles (2003) expressed an interest in autonomous social communities that have
some degree of rational/appreciative ordering that overcomes a tendency towards
disorder, and behind the ordering process there are purposeful self-created virtual
images that promote operational structure. The ordering occurs through polity
working through a constitution or set of recognised principles that lie at the
foundation of the social community, and involves ideology and ethics.
In exploring politics, only a brief introduction was provided in Yolles (2003),
but our intention is not to elaborate on this here. Politics was defined as the total
complex of relations between people living in coherent social group that enables
social communities to become established in the first place. It often results in the
distribution of power to role positions that result in the making of judgements,
dispensing of decisions, and in general the facilitation of formal action. Legitimate
action is that action sanctioned by due process within the social community.
Politics was also related to the social and cultural attributes of social communities
through the consideration of their political ideology. Ideology is a collection of
rationalised and systemised beliefs that coalesce into an image that establishes a
phenomenal potential or experience. When groups operate from a given paradigm they
are often prone to particular orientations that:
(1) exclude other orientations; and
(2) predetermines ideology.
When the groups operate in the political arena, this can be referred to as a political
ideology. This can become a doctrine when it becomes a body of instruction about a
specific set of beliefs that tends to explain reality, and prescribes goals for political
action.
Yolles (2003) illustrated the linkages between ideology and political through Table I.
Here coherent actions are explained in terms of viable systems, as well as ethics that
conditions resulting behaviour. It adopts local rationality and relations that operate as
the basis for the virtual images we create. They incorporate information, and create
polity necessary for politics. Power may be seen as a phenomenal event in that
becomes associated with the behavioural process, impacting on it through the
structures that arise and to which positions of power are attached. The images embed
information, and manifest structural adjustment through operative management
(Schwaninger, 2001). This is tied in with the strategic knowledge that enables the
information to be interpreted.
K 3. Developing the concept of political temperament
34,5 The way that social communities direct themselves is a complex process that includes
governance and the use of power. Part of this process involves the ability to deal with
different attitudes to politics and their processes, and one description of this has
identified attitudinal political temperament as being of interest. It is from political
temperament that we can understand how governance and power creation, distribution
624 and use develop.

3.1 Political temperament

According to Duverger (1972, p. 132), the term political temperament has in the past
provided a way of indicating political attitudes held by those associated with political
situations. Most classifications of political temperaments were set on an
authoritarian/democratic axis and some on a right/left axis. Eysenk, however,
undertook an empirical factor analysis study to examine political temperament. His
results indicated two factors. While the factor analysis approach does not indicate
what these two factors might be, Eysenk proposed from his measuring instruments
one to be “radical/conservative” (radical here meaning progressive), that Duverger
argues roughly corresponds to the distinction between right/left forms of governance.
The other factor was supposed by Eysenk to be a hard/soft axis, which Duverger notes
permits the coexistence of a range of very different attitudes from different groups.
He argues that the soft/hard dimension can be related to tender/tough-mindedness.
Further, he notes that an examination of Eysenk’s measuring instrument (a set of
questions to which the statistical approach of factor analysis was applied) that emerge
as relating to the soft/hard dimension appear to involve moral beliefs as well as a
political distinction. Having said this, the morality is vectored towards a western
protestant ethic, and the resulting evaluation may therefore not be a generalisable
expression for political temperament. Hardness, he notes, can be related to strong spirit
with a lack of concern for traditional ethics.
Tender-mindedness is “soft”, involving a religious and moral outlook that is
strongly individualistic and based on the notion that a person will perform “duties”
without external pressure. It is “soft” in that it includes equality, gentleness and
non-violence. More generally it may be associated with sensitivity to traditional ethics,
individualistic involving consultation with others, and maintaining a perception of
duty (and honour) without external pressure, and therefore perhaps consistent seeing
others in subjective terms. Tough-mindedness can be related to a lack of beliefs that
underlie a concern for traditional ethics, and it is perhaps utilitarianism or sensate. An
outcome of Eysenk’s notions moderated by those of Duverger and our considerations
here is offered in Figure 3. This is slightly different from an intended development of a
related model by Yolles (2003, p. 1259) that was intended as a development of this, but
as we shall see the difference is significant as it initiates an alternative model.
Eysenk’s study examined individuals. However, when that they congregate into
political groups by creating a system of normative beliefs, the basis of a political
culture is created. It is highly likely therefore that if political temperament is the
property of individuals, then when they congregate into coherent political groups
normative attitudes that constitute political temperament become more or less
associated with the group[7]. This proposition epistemologically migrates[8] the
political properties of an individual to the social community. However, arguing for a
 Political
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Figure 3.
Political temperament

relationship between the individual (individualism) and the collective (collectivism)

provides an additional argument to support this view, and it will be useful here to
explore each of these concepts.
By individualism is meant the doctrine that all social phenomena (their structure
and their change) are in principle explicable only in terms of individuals – for instance
their properties, goals, and beliefs. Collectivism in principle ideally relates to people
coming together in a collective to act unitarily through normative processes in order to
satisfy some commonly agreed and understood purpose or interest. For Viskovatoff
(1999) this unitary/plural relationship can be represented as a “duality” that in
sociological theory is expressed in terms of action theory and system theory. He notes
that individualists try to reduce the social to the actions and mental states of
individuals, while collectivists argue that there is something irreducible about the
social that cannot be expressed at the level of individuals. He further notes Bourdieu
and Giddens attempts to overcome this individual/social dualism. Both are
post-structuralists[9], see reality is chaotic, disorganized and fragmented, and view
the social world in terms of the decentered[10] subject.
For Giddens (1984, p. 377) a system is the patterning of social relations across
time-space, understood as reproduced practices. Human social activities are recursive,
not brought into being by social actors but continually recreated by them via the
means whereby they express themselves as actors. Both Giddens and Bourdieu
attempt to overcome the individual/social “dualism” by saying that the social has rules
or social practices. Viskovatoff (1999) notes that these must mediate between the
individual and the social collective in a way that preserves their importance, rather
than receding into the background as occurs in Giddens’s work. Viskovatoff appears to
have neglected Piaget (1970) who talks in a related vein, saying that the individual and
the collective social are engaged in an adaptive process that occurs through their social
interactions. He sees that in a normal environment, the individual from birth develops
K cultural structures (that are in essence “symbolic structure”) of norms and principles
34,5 from which normative conduct is prescribed.
Thus, the tendency to relate the individual with the social (by arguing that they
interact through cultural structures as well as phenomenally through social structure)
provides a common epistemological basis, sufficient for unitary actor theories (the
individual) to be migrated[11] to the plural actor[12] (the social collective). This
626 presupposes that the individual and social are intimately connected, the social
composed of individuals in interaction mediated by cultural structures. It also
overcomes the duality we have discussed.
By assigning concepts of the individual to the social, we are in effect saying that the
social construction is a metaphor that should be interpreted in terms of the
many-to-many individual-to-individual interactions that are deemed by an inquirer to
form the social, coherence occurring in these interactions when they are mediated by
normative cultural structures. This assumes that normative cultural structure can
occur because the symbolic forms that create it can have a meaning that is to some
extent shared by individuals within the social. We say shared to some extent because it
can only be judged that a sharing process has occurred when individuals are able to
evaluate through perceived behavioural outcomes that they have been able to pursue
common cognitive purposes or interests that are assumed to be the consequence of
such a sharing. Within this context it is therefore feasible to migrate generic properties
of the individual (the unitary actor) to the social (the plural actor). It may be noted that
the social is a virtual construct that only has ontological validity because individuals
assign to themselves roles (that may occur though the agency of others who facilitate
that assignation by appointment), intended to be the representative of the image(s) that
generates them. Where an inquirer sees there to be synergy in the role behaviour of
individuals who claim to have made that assignation, then the social may be supposed
to exist phenomenally by that inquirer.
This has a curious implication: for an autonomous social this can be expressed in
terms of our three domains model, so that when we talk of the social having a structure
and behaviour in the phenomenal domain, we are really talking about that phenomenal
structure occurring as a recursion of the model within the virtual domain (since we are
arguing for an image of political processes).

3.2 Power and governance

Political temperament is connected to governance and power, and Yolles (2003)
sketched out some ideas on how this occurs. Types of governance were considered
briefly that derive from different political cultures, and these included meritocracy,
autocracy/despotism, oligarchy, democracy and constructive anarchy.
Since western social communities tend to develop hierarchies (rather than flat
structures), a form of governance normally emerges based on authoritarian principles
where an individual (e.g. the chief executive or chairman) will ultimately dictate to
others. A despotic social community may have an executive committee or board of
directors that as a whole dictates to the rest of the social community. This normally
requires some form of decision agreement across the board membership.
The discussion about the differentiation between oligarchies and various forms of
democracy is potentially extensive. However, a social community may have a form of
governance that varies according to the perspective of its participants. Where it can be
said that a social community is ruled by a subgroup of its membership who may or Political
may not have been elected in at some time and in which political power has been cybernetics of
invested, then we can refer to it as an oligarchy. However, they may consider that they
are running a democracy. An example of such governance is the cooperative, where organisations
members of the community are corporate shareholders[13] who may vote in the
executive periodically, but who are not normally consulted about issues nor do they
have participation in decision-making. The executive may refer to its governance as 627
being democratic since members have voting rights, but the membership might see
that the voting process cannot contribute to decision-making. This is similarly the case
in some law firms having partners and associates. The partners may have full
participation in the policy decision-making while the associates have none. These types
of governance are a development of the ancient Greek democracies that consisted of the
democratic elite and token slaves or serfs. The slaves/serfs belonged to their masters
in so far as they were tied to specific operations and were not able to participate in
political processes. Yolles (2003) noted that the distinction between slaves and serfs
was that in the former case, masters were able to make decisions about the life and
death[14] of a slave, but this was not the case for serfs (Belbin, 2001).
Constructive anarchism may be seen as decentralised. Unfortunately the notion of
decentralised processes suggest a move away from the control of the centre, and
experience with this in information systems suggests that this is likely to result in a
degree of chaos (e.g. Davis and Olson, 1984). Constructive anarchism may therefore be
better seen as having a distributed process, suggesting that the centre takes on a
democratic mediating role for the network of local autonomies that will contribute to
overall coherence. We therefore consider that constructive anarchy is best thought of
as governance through distributed power by which decisions can be made locally and
autonomously implemented. Distributed processes are typically network based, and
provide a unique way for corporations to develop their politics and distribute power.
One vision of what appears to be a form of constructive anarchy comes form Belbin
(2001, p.156). He talks about status power, which seems to be a critical knowledge
based concept in which people work together in microscopic social community called
teams, and relate to each other from a position of equality. A person considered
excellent by peers gains status and respect, and from this creates the possibility of
achieving leadership, at least temporarily or for specific areas of activity. These
attributes are often not recognised in hierarchies since there are no paradigmatic
criteria for recognising them. While team-members see their peers in terms of status,
members of the hierarchy see them in terms of rank position and its material trappings.
The two perceptions provide a tension in that the team sees processes and networking,
while the hierarchy sees structures. Those with position power are expected to perform
well in all types of leadership situation, even where they do not have the knowledge.
In more liberated hierarchies, they may obtain assistance from subordinate who are
charged with particular undertakings, but the position holder maintains his or her rank
in relation to that subordinate. Leadership based on status is, for Belbin (2001),
consistent with democratic politics. However, adopting the notion of democracy in
Table I, we see it to be more consistent with constructive anarchy in which role
positions are replaced by status within networks.
Governance normally involves the creation and distribution of power, enabling
those who have it to act, to influence, or have social authority to maintain some form of
K ascendancy over others. It is the general capacity of a social community to control the
34,5 behaviour of, or marginalize, others. As such power is often associated with some form
of leadership. Where power is associated with leadership, power holders often seek to
ensure the maintenance of their role position in a given social community given a
continuing political culture and structure. Despite this, there is often a view for the
subordinate followers of a given leader, whether or not it is an illusion, that are
628 participating in processes that contributes to the maintenance of their own role
positions. Yolles (2003) discussed techniques that enable those with power to lead
others, while also noting Ward’s consideration in 2002 that leadership and power are
not synonymous.
When linking power with leadership we may be required to consider responsibility,
which can be defined as an obligation for pre-determinable courses of action to a power
to which one is accountable. This definition would be appropriate, for instance, when
thinking about empowerment as the distribution of responsibility while intensifying or
maintaining the centralisation of power. However, as Alvesson and Deetz indicated in
1999, responsibility within a critical theory context relates to social emancipation. This
suggests another definition of responsibility that does not connect with power directly:
a developed awareness in ones social interconnectedness and, thus, ones realisation of
ones collective responsibility to others. Alvesson and Deetz further consider the nature
of autonomy within critical theory. It is not simply relating to individual potential. It
rather anticipates the possibility of developing a critical reflective social community
that has an interest in emancipation. It is not only a critical perspective as Alvesson
and Deetz indicated in 1999, but also a cybernetic one (Yolles, 1999a), that a critical
appreciation of autonomy recognises interdependence. It is here were notions of politics
and ethics (and morality) meet.
Leadership operates through governance, its rationality being referred to as
governmentality as described by Jackson and Carter in 1998. Governmentality controls
what in a given political culture is considered to be deviance, with the expectation that
the paradigm it adheres to and sets out will be assigned to by all its subordinates.
Frameworks for governance maintain their own value system that supports vested
interest. Foucault (1982) builds a theory around this that explains how subordinate
compliance is ensured by the membership of social communities, that is, the
acquiescence of subordinate members of the social community such that they are in the
main morally obedient to the rules of governance in their behaviour. The need for
obedience is a manifestation of autocratic governance that has associated within
implicit or explicit coercion that that been rationalised and justified as being for the
good of the collective whole of the social community. This results in the altruistic
perception that becomes an obligation to the system of governance.

3.3 Centripetal politics

Yolles (2003) also identified centripetal politics with political temperament, providing a
three-dimensional representation with political mindedness and political management.
Centripetal politics concerns the way in which power is distributed beyond the confines
of the immediate governing body.
In the current age of globalisation, society is passing through a process of
intensification with increasing social interconnectedness, a process that can be referred
to as complexification. This is expressed by Ionescu in 1975 as centrifugal society, or
moving towards the centre. When this occurs, for Ionescu it is accompanied by the Political
emergence centripetal politics, of socio-economic corporate emancipation as power cybernetics of
become distributed and is attended by political mediation. Social centrifugality occurs
as a social community becomes centrally engaged with the social intensification and organisations
complexification that it recognises it is participant to. Social communities may become
centrifugal as they embrace greater intensification and complexity, but their political
processes emerge centripetally, enabling corporations to accumulate power and make 629
decisions that are unrepresentative of government. In egalitarian environments this
can result, for instance, in democratic processes among the power holding groups.
When we talk about distributed power and coherence, we mean that the
corporations must not only take over responsibility for the domain of activities, they
must also perform in a way that the governing body would normally consider
legitimate. Legitimate behaviour by an external body is indicated by a pattern of
actions undertaken that are both facilitated and properly constrained by the governing
body on behalf of the social community for which it operates. As a consequence the
governing body now moves from a position of performing operations to one of
monitoring (part of political mediation) to ensure that the behaviour of those who
accumulate power on its behalf is legitimate. Where the corporations are
mono-functional and thus dedicated to the domains of interest or purpose for which
power has been allocated, and hold an ethical position that more or less converges with
that of the governing body, they are often seen to operate transparently so that
monitoring processes can be successful given the right approach. However, in
corporations that have other interests and purposes as well as distinct ethical and
ideological perspectives, the use of power may become less transparent and the
monitoring process will become more complicated and less easy to perform
meaningfully.
Social complexification with its accompanying political centripetality was evident
before the recession of the 1970s, where governments delegated their responsibilities
by empowering corporations to run significant public services (a process today called
privatisation). It has led to an interesting consequence. Enterprise corporations tend to
be despotic social communities that pursue their own purposes and interest before
public ones, the needs of which they are supposed to service when they engage in a
social contract. Unlike state public service social communities, public need does not
feature as a primary concept in their paradigms, having only an indirect influence.
Enterprise corporations too are not immune to the instabilities and uncertainties of
internationalisation and change as the centre of the industrial-technical revolution
moves from the west to Pacific Rim countries. The link between empowerment and
centripetal politics also occurs at this lower focus of examination. Enterprise
corporations empower autonomous enterprises that are outside their political control to
supply sub-products or services. This activity is normally referred to as outsourcing, a
concept equivalent to privatisation. Centripetal politics operates here when the
peripheral enterprises involved in outsourcing accumulate their own power and make
unrepresentative decisions on behalf of their corporate partners.
There is a political consequence for this process. At a national focus, democratic
governments that participate in centripetal political processes through privatisation
compromise their pronounced ideology. At the lower focus, the significance of
corporate centripetal processes through outsourcing may not be so potentially harmful
K to the political process, most corporations having a similar genus of paradigm (i.e. the
34,5 pursuit of shareholder interests rather than those of public interest that are intended to
be serviced). However, it can interfere with corporate policy intentions as well as
effectiveness.
Let us return now to the nature of centripetal politics, which we have already
indicated may be seen as an emergent[15] consequence of the complexification inherent
630 in social centrifugality. This notion of emergence links with the idea that chaos is
inherent to complex processes, and (as advocated by Cohen and Stewart in 1994), chaos
is collapsed through emergence. Ionescu has not argued that centripetal politics is
necessarily an emergence from social centrifugality with its attendant processes of
intensification and complexification. If we can further talk of degrees of social
centrigugality, then we are equivalently talking about degrees of intensification and
complexification. Social centrifugality is understood to be in process is the paradigm
that entails patterns of knowledge recognises it. Consequently, in the same way that
complexity is a relative concept (Yolles, 1999a), it is too relative to the paradigm used to
apprehend it.
Given that a coherent social community ascertains social centrifugality, then
according to Figure 2 it can be expressed within a social community’s normative or
dominant virtual image of phenomenal reality. Centripetal politics consequently
emerges as a feasible autopoietic process. Having said this, it should also be recognised
that there are likely to be other paradigms and virtual images that do not facilitate the
emergence of centripetal politics as a feasible outcome, but rather enable alternative
emergences to develop. The possibility of engaging centripetal politics must derive
from permissible attitudes in a given political culture. Such attitudes may appear in a
variety of circumstances and political corporate regimes, even if they have only
recently been recognised in the modern world. Thus, for instance, Reilly (2001) adopts
the term in connection with the attempts to abate ethic conflicts that embrace both
social complexity and intensification.

4. Revisiting political temperament

In Figure 3 we followed Duverger and defined political temperament as a space
determined by a relationship between mindedness (soft/hard or tender/tough) and
governance (left/right). However, the discussions that followed enable us to propose an
alternative space for political temperament. This consists of three dimensions
represented in Figure 4:
(1) Governance or political management. In this we move more closely to the
traditional notion of democracy/authoritarianism commented on by
Duverger, rather than Eysenk’s left/right, and adopt the terms
participatory/authoritarianism: participatory means establishing processes
such that as many people as possible in a social community are able to
participate in decision and action taking processes. In complex social
communities this means neutralising objectification normally created by the
mediation process, and one way of doing this is by establishing processes of
political management at the most local level possible (more representative of
constructive anarchy than democracy); authoritarianism is (often mediated)
political management from the centre, and is locally distant normally providing
little opportunity for participatory access.
 Political
cybernetics of
organisations

631

Figure 4.
Space of political
temperament

(2) Political mindedness. As before this defines a frame of reference that permits
others to be seen as subjects (as others are subjectified) or objects (as others are
objectified). It therefore engages with the Foucaultian conceptualisation of
subjectification and objectification.
(3) Political centripetality. This may be confined or elaborated: a governing body
that engages a confining process limits the capacity for centripetality, thereby
retaining power for its immediate membership even where social intensification
and complexification may be recognised to occur. When a governing body
participates in elaborating process, political centripetality is engaged resulting
in power distribution. The degree of elaboration is related to how local to the
individual it is.
The space of political temperament presupposes that all three dimensions are
interactively independent, as determined by the factor analysis study of Eysenk.
We note that in the original model discussed by Duverger, the dimension of
mindedness was taken to be hard or soft. However, it is possible to define political
temperament as hard/soft as a whole. Consider an illustration of what is meant here. A
hard political temperament may arise when:
(1) governance is autocratic;
(2) the social community (through its governing body) objectifies others; and
(3) constrained political centripetality occurs so that power is assigned to those
within the governing body.
This likely will result in a hard political temperament. An alternative scenario that
might not be characterised as a hard political temperament could be:
(1) governance is autocratic;
(2) others are objectified; and
(3) elaborated political centripetality occurs that will enable power to be distributed
locally and closer to the individual (in this case the governing body takes on the
role of the goalkeeper).
K The political temperament of members of a social community is embedded in their
34,5 attitudes, and if a normative political temperament develops this will contribute to the
formation of a political culture. This establishes a set of axioms that contributes to the
formation of a paradigm[16]. It is from the paradigm that a network of principles in a
second order ontological couple[17] can arise that affects the political processes that
may be considered to constitute a first order ontological couple[18].
632
5. Measuring political temperament
Measuring political temperament could well occur through the use of measuring
instruments in a way similar to that undertaken by Eysenk, though rather than use
factor analysis as the method of analysis it would seek an alternative approach. This
would measure the attitudes of members of social communities (having a recognisable
political culture) in respect of each of the dimensions, then seek to establish the
existence of measurable normative attitudes that constitute social community political
temperament, perhaps through correlation analysis. To give meaning to the
measurements, in Figure 4 we have assigned numerical bounds (0,1) to the axes in
the same way as Yolles (1998, 1999a, 2000d) using landmark theory and as discussed
by Yolles (2003). The technique was earlier described by Yolles (1998), that also
suggests a way for formulating an overall measure of political temperament
softness/hardness.
To move beyond the attitudes that constitute political culture and find measures
that relate it to autogenesis, autopoiesis, and eventually behaviour, further research
inquiry is needed.

6. Conclusion
Viable systems theory is a critical approach that operates from a base of managerial
cybernetics. It adopts Schwarz’s ontology and proposes that autonomous social
communities can be explored in terms of three domains that have developed from
Beer’s epistemology, each of which has cognitive properties. Some of these clearly
represent political cybernetics.
The theory of political temperament is grounded in theory about political culture,
and ultimately connects with the way that power is created, distributed and used.
Political temperament, it has been argued, can be expressed as a complex space
determined by political management (governance), political mindedness, and political
centripetality. Social communities, whether they are enterprise or civic social
communities, may be seen as social collectives, and may be argued to have distinct
forms of political management, pursued with a certain style that can be associated with
political mindedness. Through their ideology they distribute power (political
centripetality) in a way that is ultimately conditioned by their ability to appreciate
the existence of their participation in processes of social intensification and
complexification, resulting in modes of power distribution.
While the development of social communities involves the distribution of power
through a centripetal process, as this occurs other mechanisms may develop such that
this is overwhelmed by oppressive practices (in the sense of Habermas) like
subjugation, diminution, or exclusion for reasons that may include gain or prejudice.
These can be directly related to the passive structural violence that social communities
usually embrace but do not always recognise. It occurs through a hard political Political
temperament that embraces objectification in the sense of Foucault as described by cybernetics of
Yolles (2003), and subordinates who experience this can become emancipated through
the political process that embraces subjectification. Another way of embracing organisations
self-liberation from structural violence may be by countering confining power
distribution, but this is a road that can lead to transformational political culture, and
social revolution. 633
There is a potential to measure the political temperament of both the individuals
that make up a social community, and its normative nature, and it has the capacity
through social viable system theory to explain some social community behaviours.

Notes
1. After Husserl (1911/1950), where “physical reality” is seen in terms of as conscious
experience.
2. The three types of knowledge indicated here have been identified and discussed in Yolles
(2000c)
3. An ontological couple intimately connects two domains such that ontological migrations are
possible.
4. We define an ontological migration as the manifestation of elements from one reality
(or validity claim about reality) to another to which it is ontologically coupled.
5. There is an argument, expressed for example in Mingers (1995), that autopoiesis is not
appropriate to social systems unless it is expressed as a metaphor. There is nothing wrong in
defining SVT as a metaphor. Following Brown (2003), however, metaphors are more important
to the development of scientific principles than Mingers and others appear to realise.
6. Requisite variety was the term coined in 1956 by Ashby and is the variety that a system
must have in order to deal with environmental variety. Jackson in 1992 identified three
requirements needed to achieve requisite variety: the organisation should have the best
possible model of the environment relevant to its form; the organisation’s information flows
should reflect the nature of that environment so that the organisation is responsive to it;
communications that link different functions within an organisation are important.
7. When Eysenk used the notion of political temperament it was in respect of his belief that it is
genetic rather than learned. This distinction is, however, irrelevant for our context. When we
say “associated with the group”, it is quite possible for people who join a political group do
not maintain a prescribed political temperament. It relates to the capacity of people to live
with ambiguity and paradox by differentiating their ontological domains, but this is a more
complex matter that we can discuss here.
8. In this context we are really talking about the migration of knowledge that works in a way
similar to that of a message from a source to a sink. In this case knowledge from the source
paradigm is migrated to a sink paradigm. Hence, while the theme may be the similar
(e.g. intelligence), the context (e.g. child and social collective) and paradigmatic distinctions
will result in different local meanings.
9. Poststructuralism as the official theory of language and text that helps us make sense of the
postmodern world, and adopts the notion that one cannot simply differentiate between an
object and a subject (e.g. a book and a reader of that book), because the object is not just a
passive entity, but is interactive with the subject, and can be expressed as a shift from the
signified to the signifier. Within the collective context, post-structuralists argue that there
are no eternal truths or laws governing society. Knowledge of institutions and other systems
is dependent on language which is itself contingent on cultural and knowledge, and meaning
K is a subjective process that depends on people’s shared understandings. Consequently there
are no unique deep structures in any message, but a plurality that are dependent upon the
34,5 interaction between a message source and sink.
10. By the “decentred subject” is meant the illustratable ways in which the subject (the
individual as a fully conscious self with its beliefs and behaviours) cannot have autonomy
from linguistic, social, cultural, political, ethical, legal or psycho-sexual power, and cannot be
fully conscious of its intentions or affects in the world.
634
11. We are talking here about the migration of knowledge that works in a way similar to that of
a message from a source to a sink. In this case knowledge from the source paradigm is
migrated to a sink paradigm. Hence, while the theme may be the similar (e.g. intelligence),
the context (e.g. child and social collective) and paradigmatic distinctions will result in
different local meanings.
12. The plural actor is composed of a number of unitary actors (individuals), and can be defined
as a coherent social actor that operates through normative processes resulting in mediating
structures.
13. The term shareholder is normally used for a corporate enterprise where those being referred
to make a financial benefit from the enterprise, but in civil situations we might instead mean
residency rewards.
14. Of course it is here that the difference between civil governance and enterprise governance is
highlighted. In civil governance life and death really can mean that, but in enterprise
governance it may just mean losing ones employment.
15. We are referring here to systemic emergence, that Yolles (1999a) defines as occurring where
a system’s perceived pattern of behaviour can be described in terms of some large scale
emergent concept.
16. This process is well theorised, as indicated for instance in Yolles (1999a, b).
17. There might be various forms of second order ontological couple, and we have already
referred to strategic management as a possible example. As such it is relatable to
autogenesis when it satisfies the formal definition of autogenesis.
18. Schwaninger’s (2001) notion of operative management may be a form of political process that
under the right conditions may be seen as autopoietic.

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34,5
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636 Piaget, J. (1977), The Development of Thought: Equilibration of Cognitive Structures, Viking,
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