Sociology of Complex Systems

World Futures, 62: 411440, 2006 Copyright Taylor & Francis Group, LLC ISSN 0260-4027 print / 1556-1844
4 online DOI: 10.1080/02604020600798619
THE SOCIOLOGY OF COMPLEX SYSTEMS: AN OVERVIEW OF ACTOR-SYSTEM-DYNAMICS THEORY

TOM R. BURNS
Uppsala Theory Circle, Department of Sociology, University of Uppsala, Uppsala, Sweden This article illustrates the important scientic role that a systems approach might play within the social sciences and humanities, above all through its contribution to a common language, shared conceptualizations, and theoretical integration in the face of the extreme (and growing) fragmentation among the social sciences (and between the social sciences and the natural sciences). The article outlines a systems theoretic approach, actor-system-dynamics (ASD), whose authors have strived to re-establish systems theorizing in the social sciences (after a period of marginalization since the late 1960s). This is done, in part, by showing how key social science concepts are readily incorporated and applied in social system analysis. KEYWORDS: Actors, consciousness, evolution, interaction, social rule system.
1. INTRODUCTION This article argues and illustrates that a systems approach can and should play an important scientic role within the social sciences and humanities. Above all, it can contribute a common language, shared conceptualizations, and theoretical integration in the face of the extreme (and growing) fragmentation among the social sciences and humanities and between the social sciences and the natural sciences. The challenge that Talcott Parsons (1951) and others, including Walter Buckley (1967), originally addressed still faces us: to overcome the fragmentation of the social sciences, the lack of synergies, and the failure to develop a cumulative
This article has been prepared and nalized while the author was Visiting Scholar at the Center for Environmental Science and Policy, Stanford University (20052006). Several of the central ideas in this article were presented in the Theory and Methodology Session of the Portuguese Sociology Congress, May 1216, 2004, Braga, Portugal. I am grateful to those who provided comments and suggestions and, in particular, to Joe Berger, Mark Jacobs, and Rui Pena Pires. Dedicated to the memory of Walter Buckley: friend, colleague, collaborator, pioneer in systems theory, jazz musician (deceased: January 27, 2006). Address correspondence to Tom R. Burns, Sociologiska institutionen, Uppsala universitet, Box 624, 75126 Uppsala, Sweden. E-mail: tom.burns@soc.uu.se 411
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science. It aims to provide a common language and an integrative theoretical framework to mediate, accumulate, and transmit knowledge among all branches and sub-branches of the social sciences and allied humanities (Sciulli and Gerstein, 1985). In spite of a promising start and some signicant initial successes, systems thinking has been marginalized in the social sciences since the late 1960s (Burns 2006a, b). The widespread rejection of the systems approach did not, however, stem the incorporation of a number of systems concepts into other social science theoretical traditions. Consequently, some of the language and conceptualization of modern systems theories has become part of everyday contemporary social science: for example, open and closed systems, loosely and tightly coupled systems, information and communication ows, reexivity, self-referential systems, positive and negative feedback loops, self-organization and self-regulation, reproduction, emergence, nonlinear systems, and complexity, among others. Institutionalists and organizational theorists in particular have adopted a number of key system concepts without always pointing out their archaeology or their larger theoretical context (Burns, 2006a). This article outlines a systems theoretical approach, actor-system-dynamics (abbreviated ASD) whose authors have strived to re-establish systems theorizing, in part by showing how key social science concepts are readily incorporated and applied in social system description and analysis: institutional, cultural, and normative conceptualizations; concepts of human agents and social movements; diverse types of social relationships and roles; social systems in relation to one another and in relation to the natural environment and material systems; and processes of sustainability and transformation. ASD emerged in the 1970s out of early social systems analysis (Baumgartner et al., 1975, 1976, 1979, 1986; Buckley, 1998, 1967, Burns, 2006a, b; Burns et al., 1985; Burns et al., 2003; Burns and Buckley, 1976).1 Social relations, groups, organizations, and societies were conceptualized as sets of interrelated parts with internal structures and processes. A key feature of the theory was its consideration of social systems as open to, and interacting with, their social and physical environments. Through interaction with their environmentas well as through internal processessuch systems acquire new properties and are transformed, resulting in evolutionary developments. Another major feature entailed bringing into model constructions human agents as creative (destructive) transforming forces. In ASD, it has been axiomatic from the outset that human agents are creative as well as moral agents. They have intentionality, they are self-reective and consciously self-organizing beings. They may choose to deviate, oppose, or act in innovative and even perverse ways relative to the norms, values, and social structures of the particular social systems within which they act and interact. The formulation of ASD in such terms was particularly important in light of the fact that system theories in the social sciences, particularly in sociology, were heavily criticized for the excessive abstractness of their theoretical formulations, for their failure to recognize or adequately conceptualize conict in social life, and for persistent tendencies to overlook the non-optimal, even destructive, characteristics of some social systems. Also, many system theorists were taken to task
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for failing to recognize human agency, the fact that individuals and collectives are purposive beings, have intentions, make choices, and participate in the construction (and destruction) of social systems. The individual, the historic personality, as exemplied by Joseph Schumpeters entrepreneur or by Max Webers charismatic leader, enjoys a freedomalways a bounded freedomto act within and on social systems, and in this sense enjoys a certain autonomy from them. The results are often changed institutional and material conditionsthe making of historybut not always in the ways the agents have intended or decided. A major aspect of bringing human agents back into the analytic picture has been the stress on the fact that agents are cultural beings. As such, they and their relationships are constituted and constrained by social rules and complexes of such rules (Burns and Flam, 1987). These are the basis on which they organize and regulate their interactions, interpret and predict their activities, and develop and articulate accounts and critical discourses of their affairs. Social rule systems are key constraining and enabling conditions for, as well as the products of, social interaction (the duality principle). The construction of ASD has entailed a number of key innovations: (1) the conceptualization of human agents as creative (also destructive), self-reective, and self-transforming beings; (2) cultural and institutional formations constituting the major environment of human behavior, an environment in part internalized in social groups and organizations in the form of shared rules and systems of rules; (3) interaction processes and games as embedded in cultural and institutional systems that constrain, facilitate, and, in general, inuence action and interaction of human agents; (4) a conceptualization of human consciousness in terms of selfrepresentation and self-reectivity on collective and individual levels; (5) social systems as open to, and interacting with, their environment; through interaction with their environment and through internal processes, such systems acquire new properties, and are transformed, resulting in their evolution and development; (6) social systems as congurations of tensions and dissonance because of contradictions in institutional arrangements and cultural formations and related struggles among groups; and (7) the evolution of rule systems as a function of (a) human agency realized through interactions and games and (b) selective mechanisms that are, in part, constructed by social agents in forming and reforming institutions and also, in part, a function of physical and ecological environments. 2. GENERAL FRAMEWORK Here we identify a minimum set of concepts essential to description and modelbuilding in social system analysis (see Figure 1; the following roman numerals are indicated in the Figure). (I) The diverse constraints and facilitators of the actions and interactions of human agents, in particular: (IA) Social structures (institutions and cultural formations based on socially shared rule systems) that structure and regulate agents and their interactions, determining constraints as well as facilitating opportunities for initiative and transformation. (IB) Physical systems that constrain as well as sustain human activities, providing, for instance, resources necessary for life and material development. Included here are physical
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Figure 1. General ASD Model: The structuring powers and sociocultural and material embeddedness of interacting human agents.
and ecological factors (waters, land, forests, deserts, minerals, other resources). (IA,IB) Sociotechnical systems combine material and social structural elements. (1A-S) and (1B-S) in Figure 1 are, respectively, key social and material (or natural) structuring and selection mechanisms that operate to constrain and facilitate agents activities and their consequences; these mechanisms also allocate resources, in some cases generating sufcient payoffs (quantity, quality, diversity) to reproduce or sustain social agents and their structures; in other cases not. (II) Population(s) of interacting social agents, occupying positions and playing different roles vis-` a-vis one another in the context of their sociostructural, sociotechnical, and material systems. Individual and collective agents are constituted and regulated through such social structures as institutions; at the same time, they are not simply robots performing programs or implementing rules but are adapting, lling in particulars, and innovating. (III) Social action and interaction (or game) processes that are structured and regulated through established material and social conditions.2 (IV) Interactions result in multiple consequences and developments, intended and unintended: productions, goods, wastes, and damages
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as well as impacts on the very social and material structures that constrain and facilitate action and interaction. That is, the actions IVA and IVB operate on the structures IA and IB, respectively . Through their interactions, social agents reproduce, elaborate, and transform social structures (for instance, institutional arrangements and cultural formations based on rule systems) as well as material and ecological conditions. In sum, ASD systematically links agency and structure in describing and analyzing social system dynamics and developments. Multi-agent conceptualizations are integrated with those of complex social systems in part through the development and application of key mediating concepts, such as social rule system, institution, cultural formation, and interaction patterns. In general, although human agents individuals as well as organized groups, organizations, and nationsare subject to institutional and cultural as well as material constraints on their actions and interactions, they are at the same time active, possibly radically creative/destructive forces, shaping and reshaping cultural formations and institutions as well as their material circumstances. In the process of strategic structuring, agents interact, struggle, form alliances, exercise power, negotiate, and cooperate within the constraints and opportunities of existing structures. They change, intentionally and unintentionally (often through mistakes and performance failures), the conditions of their own activities and transactions, namely the physical and social systems structuring and inuencing their interactions. The results are institutional and material developments but not always as the agents have decided or intended. 3. EMPIRICAL APPLICATIONS ASD provides concepts and principles as a systematic basis on which to generate particular empirically oriented models. These have been applied to a wide spectrum of social phenomena and policy projects, several of which are briey described in what follows. Subsection (1) presents the very basic theory of rules and rule systems that organize and regulate much of social life. This theory is a cornerstone in the formulations of theories of institutions and cultural formations, outlined in subsection (2). Subsection (3) presents the ASD theory of games and social interaction where games are structured and regulated by rule systems (institutional and cultural arrangements) as well as are constrained by material conditions. Subsection (4) outlines the ASD theory of consciousness in the sense of self-reectivity based on human language, communication, and related forms of interaction. Subsections (5), (6), and (7) outline theories of particular institutions, their functioning, structuring and restructuring: democratic political systems, systems of capitalism, sociotechnical systems (the latter overlap of course with political [particularly military and police] as well as economic systems). Subsection (8) outlines the ASD theory of materiality that constrains and facilitates human activities, and also selects for tness particular patterns of action and interaction and indirectly the institutions and cultural formations (i.e., rule systems) that pattern and regulate these activities. Finally, in subsection 9, the article describes a theory of sociocultural evolution, which concerns the evolution of social structures as a function of multiple selection mechanismsboth the mechanisms of human agents engaged
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in directed problem-solving, mechanisms of social structural selection, as well as mechanisms of material and ecological selection. Throughout ASD theorizing, the role of human institutions and human agency, creativity, and destructivity is emphasized. (1) Social Rule Systems, Their Emergence and Evolution In the ASD perspective, social rule systems and rule processes are universal in human groups and organizations and are the building blocks of institutions and cultural formations (Burns and Carson, 2002; Burns et al., 1985; Burns et al., 2003; Burns and Flam, 1987) . Most human social activityin all of its extraordinary varietyis organized and regulated by socially produced and reproduced rules and systems of rules. Rule processesthe making, interpretation, and implementation of social rules as well as their reformulation and transformationplay a fundamental role in conceptualizing human action and interaction. Such processes are often accompanied by the mobilization and exercise of power, and by conict and struggle. Social rules and systems of rules are, therefore, not transcendental abstractions but are embodied in the practices of groups and collectivities of people: language, customs and codes of conduct, norms, laws, and the social institutions of family, community, state and its various agencies, and economic organization such as business enterprises and markets.3 Human agents (individuals, groups, organizations, communities, and other collectivities) are the producers, carriers, and reformers of systems of social rules. They interpret, adapt, implement, and transform rules, sometimes as cautiously as possible, other times radically (Burns and Dietz, 2001). Such behavior explains much cultural and institutional dynamics. Major struggles in human history revolve around the formation and reformation of core economic, administrative, and political institutions of society, the particular rule regimes dening social relationships, roles, rights and authority, and obligations and duties as well as the general rules of the game in these and related domains. Social actors make and utilize rules and rule systems in order to coordinate and organize their activities, to understand and to predict what goes on in a given social context, and to justify, explain, or criticize an action and/or its consequences in terms of situationally appropriate rules. With experience (and practice), they accumulate situational knowledge and skills useful in implementing as well as adapting or reforming rules in concrete interaction settings. In opposing or deviating from established rules and rule systems, they are likely to encounter resistance from others identifying with and committed to the rules. This sets the stage for social struggle, the exercise of power to enforce or resist rules, and negotiation about and change in rules. Thus, there is a situational politics to rule processes. The actors may disagree about, and struggle over, the denition or interpretation of the situation and which system(s) of rules apply, the priority of the rule system(s) that apply, or the interpretation and adaptation of the rule system applied in the situation. Questions of power are central in ASD studies. This concerns not only particular power relationships and the powers engendered in institutional arrangements but also the powers to maintain or change social rule systems and
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institutional arrangements. This is particularly important in the case of rule systems dening power relationships in major economic and political institutions (see later). Collective as well as individual actors play a central role in the formation and evolution of social rule systems, although often not in the ways they expect or intend. ASD models of social transformation have been developed showing, among other things, the particular (and nite ways) that agents solve collective action problems such as prisoners dilemmaor are blocked from doing so by institutionalized conditions such as particular established competitive relationships, by divide and rule strategies of powerful agents, or by material and ecological conditions. (2) Institutional Theory A major part of ASD research has been devoted to developing and applying rule system theory as a basis to conceptualize and analyze social institutions and organizations and their dynamics. A particular type of rule system central to any society are authoritative rule complexes or rule regimes (Burns et al., 1985; Burns and Flam, 1987). A rule regime organizes people in a complex of relationships, roles, and normative orders that constitute and regulate recurring interaction processes among participants. Such a regime is an organizing institution or an institutional arrangement (i.e., a complex of institutions). It consists of a cluster of social relationships, roles, norms, rules of the game, and so on, specifying to a greater or lesser extent who may or should participate, who is excluded, who may or should do what, when, where, and how, and in relation to whom. In other words, it organizes specied actor categories or roles vis-` a-vis one another and denes their rights and obligationsincluding rules of command and obedienceand their access to and control over available human and material resources.4 More precisely. (1) An institution denes and constitutes a particular social order with positions and relationships, dening in part the actors (individuals and collectives) that are the legitimate or appropriate participants (who must, may, or might participate) in the domain, their rights and obligations vis-` a-vis one another, and their access to and control over resources. In this sense, it consists of a system of authority and power relations. (2) It organizes, coordinates, and regulates social interaction in a particular domain or domains, dening contextsspecic settings and times for constituting the institutional activities. (3) It provides a normative basis for appropriate behavior including the roles of the participants in that settingtheir institutionalized games and interactionsthat take place in the institutional domain. (4) An institutional rule complex provides, among other things, a cognitive scheme for knowledgeable participants to interpret, understand, and make sense of what goes on in the institutional domain. In guiding and regulating interaction, rule regimes give behavior recognizable, characteristic patterns, making the patterns understandable and meaningful for those sharing in the rule knowledge. (5) A regime also species core values, norms, and beliefs that are referred to in normative discourses, the giving and asking of accounts, the criticism and exoneration of actions and outcomes in the institutional domain. Finally, (6) an institution denes
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a complex of potential normative equilibria (see later discussion) that function as focal points or coordinators in a given institutional domain (Schelling, 1963; Burns et al., 2001). Institutions are exemplied by, for instance, family, a business organization, government agency, markets, democratic associations, educational and religious communities. Each institution or institutional arrangement structures and regulates social interactions in socially dened domains or elds of interaction. There is a certain interaction logic for each distinct institution, as its rules provide a systematic, meaningful basis for actors to orient to one another and to organize and regulate their interactions, to frame, interpret, and to analyze their performances in inter-subjective ways, and to produce commentaries and discourses, criticisms, and justications about their actions and interactions. In general, institutions as social rule-based systems play a role in, and are manifested on, the social organizational, the cognitive-normative, and the discursive levels. (3) The Structural Embeddedness of Social Interaction and Games The ASD framework has been applied in generalizing game theory (Burns, 1990, 1994; Burns and Gomolinska, 1998, 2000a, 2001; Burns and Roszkowska, 2004, 2005, 2006). The work stresses the institutional and cultural embeddedness of games and other forms of social interaction (Buckley et al., 1974; Granovetter, 1985). The ASD approach entails the extension and generalization of classical game theory through the systematic development of the mathematical theory of rules and rule complexes (the particular mathematics is based on contemporary developments at the interface of mathematics, logic, and computer science)(Burns and Gomolinska, 1998, 2000b, 2000c; Gomolinska, 1999, 2002, 2004, 2005) (1) The approach provides a cultural and institutional basis for dening and analyzing games in their social contextgame is reconceptualized as a social and often institutionalized form . The rule complex(es) of a game applied (and interpreted) in a particular social context guide and regulate the participants in their actions and interactions. (2) ASD formulates a general theory of judgment and action on the basis of which actors either construct their actions or make choices among alternative actions in their interaction situations. They do this by making comparisons and judging similarity (or dissimilarity) between their salient norms and values, on the one hand, and the option or options considered in the game situation, on the other hand. In general, players try to determine whether or not, and to what degree a value, norm, or goal is expected to be realized or satised through one or another courses of action (technically, they maximize goodness of t [Burns and Roszkowska, 2005]). (3) Human action and interaction is explained then as a form of rule-application as well as rule-following action; this mechanism underlies diverse modalities such as instrumental, normative, and expressive as well as playful modalities for determining choices and actions. The instrumental modality corresponds to outcome-oriented rational choice theory; normative modality is characterized by a consideration of particular intrinsic qualities of the action, which relate to and satisfy given norms. (4) ASD game theory distinguishes between open and closed games. The structure of a closed game is xed as in classical
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game theory. Open games are those in which the agents have the capacity on their own initiative to restructure and to transform game components, either their individual role components, or the general rules of the game. Game rules and rule complexes are seen then as human products. Rule formation and reformation are described and analyzed as a function of meta-game interaction processes. (5) ASD re-conceptualizes the notion of game solution, stressing rst that any solution is from a particular standpoint or perspective, for instance, the perspective of a given player or group of players. Therefore, some of the solutions envisioned or proposed by players with different frameworks and interests are likely to be contradictory. Under some conditions, however, players may arrive at common solutions that are the basis of game equilibria. Thus, in this perspective, actors may propose multiple solutions, some of which possibly converge or diverge. (6) ASD re-conceptualizes the concept of game equilibrium and distinguishes different types of game equilibria. Among these is a sociologically important type of equilibrium, namely normative equilibrium, which is the basis of much social order (Burns and Roszkowska, 2001, 2004, 2006). In ASD game theory, an activity, program, outcome, condition or state of the world is in a normative equilibrium if it is judged by participants to realize or satisfy appropriate norm(s) or value(s) in the given interaction situation. Although the concept of normative equilibria may be applied to role performances and to individuals following norms, we have been particularly interested in game normative equilibria in given institutional settings. This means that the participants judge interactions and/or outcomes in terms of the degree they realize or satisfy a collective norm, normative procedure, or institutional arrangement. Examples of particular procedures that are capable of producing normative equilibria are adjudication, democratic voting, and negotiation as well as the exercise of legitimate authority. Although the theory readily and systematically incorporates the principle that human actors have bounded factual knowledge and computational capability (Simon, 1969, p. 30), it emphasizes the high level of their social knowledge and competence: in particular, actors extraordinary knowledge of diverse cultural forms and institutions such as family, market, government, business or work organization, among others, and the variety of different roles that they regularly perform in various domains of modern life. (4) Toward a Theory of Collective Representations and Human Consciousness ASD has also been applied in developing a theory with which to dene and analyze a particular type of human consciousness. The theory (Burns and Engdahl, 1998a, b) emphasizes the importance of language, collective representations, selfconceptions, and self-reectivity. It argues that the shape and feel of human consciousness is heavily social, and this is no less true of our experiences of collective consciousness than it is of our experiences of individual consciousness. The theory suggests that the problem of consciousness can be approached fruitfully by beginning with the human group and collective phenomena: community, language, language-based communication, institutional, and cultural arrangements (Wiley, 1986, 1994). A collective is a group or population of individuals that possesses
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or develops through communication collective representations or models of we as opposed to them: ones own group, community, organization, or nation is contrasted to other(s); its values and goals, its structure and modes of operating, its relation to its environment and other agents, its potentialities and weaknesses, strategies and developments, and so on are components in these collective representations. A collective has the capacity in its collective representations and communications about what characterizes it, or what (and how) this self perceives, judges, or does, or what it can (and cannot) do, or should do (or should not do). It monitors its activities, its achievements and failures, and also to a greater or lesser extent, analyzes and discusses itself as a dened and developing collective agent. This is what is meant by self-reectivity. Such reectivity is encoded in language and developed in discourses about collective selves (as I discuss later, there are also conversations about the selves of individuals, dening, justifying, and stigmatizing them). Human consciousness in at least one major sense is then a type of reective activity. It entails the capacity to observe, monitor, talk about, judge, and decide about the collective self. This is a basis for maintaining a particular collective as it is understood or represented; it is also a basis for re-orienting and re-organizing the collective self in response to performance failings or profound crisis (economic, political, cultural). Collective reectivity emerges then as a function of a group or organization producing and making use of collective representations of the self in its discussions, critical reections, planning, and actions. Individual consciousness is the normal outcome of processes of collective naming, classifying, monitoring, judging, and reecting but applied to individual members of the group or organization. The individual in a collective context learns to participate in discussions and discourses about herself, that is, group reections about her, her appearance, her orientations and attitudes, her strategies and conduct. Thus, an individual learns (in line with George Herbert Meads earlier formulations) a naming and classication of herself (self-description and identity) and a characterization of her judgments, predispositions, and actions. In acquiring a language and conceptual framework for this mode of activity along with experience and skills in reective discussion, she develops a capability of inner reection and inner dialog about her-self. These are characteristic features of a particular type of individual consciousness. This conception points up the socially constructed character of key aspects of the human mind, realized through processes of social interaction and social construction. In sum, individual selfrepresentation, self-reference, self-reectivity, and experiences of consciousness, derive from collective experiences (Burns and Engdahl, 1998b; Wiley, 1986). Self-reectivity as a type of consciousness often facililtates critical examination and re-construction of selves, collective as well as individual. This plays an essential role in human communities (as well as individual beings) in the face of systematic or highly risky performance failures or new types of problems. Through self-reection, in the course of directed problem-solving, agents may manage to develop more effective institutional arrangements, for instance, large-scale means of social coordination such as military organization, administration, democratic association, or global markets.
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Language-based collective representations of the past as well as of the future, enable agents to escape the present, to enter into future as well as past imagined worlds, and to reect together on these worlds. Moreover, in relation to the past, present, and future, the agents may generate alternative representations. These alternative constructions imagined, discussed, struggled over, and tested, make for the generation of variety, a major input into evolutionary processes, as discussed in (sub-section (9). Such variety may also lead to social conicts, as agents disagree about representations, or oppose the remedies to problems implied. This opens the way for political struggles about alternative conceptions and solutions (well-developed democratic politics may entail collective self-reectivity par excellence). In general, such processes enhance the collective capacity to deal with new challenges and crises. Thus, a collective has potentially a rich basis not only for talking about, discussing, agreeing (or disagreeing) about a variety of objects including the collective self as well as particular individual selves. But it also has a means to conceptualize and develop alternatives, for instance, new types of social relationships, new normative orders and institutional arrangements, or more effective forms of leadership, coordination, and control. Collectives can even develop their potentialities for collective representation and self-reectivity, for instance through innovations in information and accounting systems and processes of deliberation and accountability. These potentialities enable systematic, directed problem solving, and the generation of diverse and complex strategies. In many selective environments, these make for major evolutionary advantages. The powerful tool of collective reectivity must be seen as a double-edged sword in relation to expanding the freedom of opportunity and variability, on the one hand, and on the imposition of particular constraints and limiting variability, on the other. Collective representationsand reectivity and directed problem-solving based on themmay prevent human groups from experiencing or discovering the unrepresented and the un-named. Unrecognized or poorly dened problems cannot be dealt with (as discussed elsewhere [Burns et al., 2003], for instance, in the case of failures of accounting systems to recognize or take into account important social and environmental conditions and developments). Reective and problem-solving powers may then be distorted, the generation of alternatives and varieties restricted and largely ineffective, and social innovation and transformation misdirected and possibly self-destructive. Thus, the presumed evolutionary advantages of human reectivity must be qualiedit is conditional. (5) Political Systems, Their Structures and Performances The conceptualization and analysis of political systems and their transformation has been an important area of application and development of ASD (Andersen and Burns, 1992, 1996; Burns and Carson, 2002; Burns and Flam, 1987; Burns et al., 2000; Burns and Kamali, 2003; Carson, 2004; Flam, 1994; Nylander, 2000; Woodward et al., 1994). Much of this work has focused on the structure, functioning, and evolution of political systems and their policy frameworks.
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On one level, ASD research has conceptualized the linkages between institutional arrangements, collective reectivity, and directed problem solving; among its research projects, it has distinguished in a comparative perspective those congurations that are conducive to relative effectiveness and stability from those that are ineffective and/or unstable and likely to undergo paradigmatic and discursive shifts and ultimately institutional transformation (Burns and Carson, 2002, 2005, p. 27; Carson, 2004). Several ASD studies have entailed empirical investigations of policy processes and policy research relating to chemicals, pharmaceuticals, energy, natural resources, gender, anti-racism, health, welfare, democracy and democratic development and, in general, governance and public administrative orders (Andersen and Burns, 1992; Burns and Carson, 2002; Burns, Carson and Nylander, 2001; Burns and Flam, 1987; Burns and Nylander, 2001; Burns and Ueberhorst, 1988; Carson, 2004; Woodward et al., 1994; Machado, 1998, 2005; Machado and Burns, 1998). The ASD approach has been applied to a comparative institutional analysis of different polities: pluralist systems such as the United States, neo-corporatist systems5 such as those of the Scandinavian countries, Austria, and to some extent Germany, and the EU as a new, uniquely open but highly complicated political system. Each system is also a particular authoritative rule regime providing a systematic, meaningful basis for actors to orient to one another and to organize and regulate their interactions, to frame, interpret, and to analyze their performances, and to produce particular commentaries and discourses, critiques, and justications. Any given governance system organizes specied actor categories or roles vis-` a-vis one another and denes their rights and obligationsincluding rules of command and obedienceand their access to and control over human and material resources. Each species to a greater or lesser extent who may, should, or must participate (and who is excluded), who may or should do what, when, where, and how, and in relation to whom. These ASD models show in what ways and to what degrees the different political systems vary in their complex structures and in their functioning and development. On the one hand, the EU, as a system of policymaking and legislation, is more organized, more well-dened than typical pluralist systems. On the other hand, the EU system is more open, exible, and diversied than a neo-corporatist type of system; it is also more unstable and less predictable. Pluralist systems in turn are less stable and predictable than the EU. But such systems are likely to function more effectively in a turbulent environment than either the neo-corporatist or the EU-type system. This is because they are able to address in highly exible ways new problems and issues, in part because they are less formally institutionalized and, therefore, more open and adaptable. Arguably, the EU might combine the best of both systems. The EU modes of policymaking, like those of the neo-corporatist system, stress the management of conict and the use of technical knowledge and cooptation in conict resolution. But EU policy processes are highly fragmented as in pluralist systems, although in general not to the same degree; neo-corporatist systems, on the other hand, tend to generate greater overall coherence in policymaking. The proliferation of EU modes of governancewith highly diverse (and exible) arrangementsresults in substantial incoherence and interference between
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sector-specic policies. There are attempts to overcome this at the Commission level by increasingly involving and coordinating multiple agencies in any given policy area. But the success of these complex developments remains unclear. Thus, each of the political systems is not only a different institutional complex but an expression or embodiment of a distinct model or paradigm for governance, public policymaking, and regulation (Burns and Carson 2002; Burns, Carson, and Nylander, 2001; Carson, 2004). Each system has not only a certain interaction logic and coherenceand pattern of evolutionbut also established expectations, meanings, and symbols as well as normative discourses (for instance, in the giving and asking of accounts, the criticism and exoneration of actions and outcomes within the particular institutional arrangement). The ASD approach considers then systemic properties such as the degree of openness, exibility, extent of predictability, and logics of policy production and development of the different political systems. The EU system, which is in part a type of organic or informal democracy, operates with exible but relatively well-organized procedures to engage interest groups from industry and civil society as sources of information and expertise; the EU Commission tries to act as brokers in the comples EU policymaking. Deliberation and negotiation often lead to consensus. Many of the advantages of the EU system with its exibility and adaptability to sectoral-specic issues and conditions are also the basis for the chorus of complaints in Europe about its non-transparency and democratic decit. There is an apparent dilemma between exibility and transparency (Burns, 1999). In sum, these social systems of governance operate in substantially different ways and generate different policymaking patterns and developments; they entail diverse ways of thinking about and collectively deciding matters of governance and policy (public problems as well as their solutions). (6) Socioeconomic Systems: Capitalism, Its Discontents, and Development One application of ASD has entailed investigations and analyses of the functioning and development of capitalist systems and several of their major institutions such as money systems (Burns and DeVille, 2003), markets (Burns and Flam, 1987; Burns, 1990; Woodward et al., 1994), property regimes (Admassie, 2000; Bergstrom, 2005), production systems (Baumgartner, 1978; Baumgartner et al., 1979; Burns et al., 1979), and regulatory arrangements (an overview of some of this work is provided in Burns, 2006b). Also, of interest has been issues of macrosocioeconomic development and underdevelopment (Admassie, 2000; Baumgartner, Burns, and DeVille, 1986; Burns, 2006b; Burns and DeVille, 2003; Burns and Flam, 1987; Burns, DeVille, and Baumgartner, 2002). The research shows the technical and social complexity and dynamics of capitalist systems and sub-systems, their modes of functioning and evolution and the complex of problems involved in effectively managing and regulating them. This ASD research developed a number of theses relating to capitalist systems (Burns, 2006b; Burns et al., 2002), among them: (I) Modern capitalismwhich takes a variety of formsis a dynamic but highly unstable system; it also destabilizes other institutions and institutional arrangements; for instance, it is a force
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evoking social and political instability as well as environmental destruction and long-term unsustainability; (II) regulation is essential to stabilizing capitalist systems and to facilitating their effective functioning and sustainability in their social and physical environments. Effective regulation depends on ve basic factors: (1) the development of a more or less accurate model of the functioning of a given capitalist system in relation to its social and physical environments; (2) information and accounting systems to provide data for modeling, analysis, and regulatory measures; (3) appropriate institutional arrangements to monitor, collect relevant data, analyze performances and developments, and carry out regulatory actions; (4) social agents who have the expertise and motivation to lead and practice effective regulation; (5) effective adaptation and reform of the arrangements in response to operational failures and changing environmental conditions; (6) political authority having the capacity to conduct critical reection about system performances and also possessing sufcient power and legitimacy to introduce, implement, and enforce necessary regulative measures and innovation. This is a model of system management and regulation (such models are also relevant to sociotechnical systems such as electrical systems, nuclear power plants, air transport systems, and money systems). The failure of Marxs prediction about the collapse of capitalismas the result of declining prots and the inability to sustain capital accumulationcan be explained, in part, in terms of the robustness of the capitalist system, particularly given proper regulatory mechanisms. This robustness was especially characteristic of those systems where, according to Marx, capitalism was apparently most ripe for revolution, namely the advanced capitalist societies. One explanation of Marxs failure is precisely that the successful establishment and elaboration of regulatory regimes in many advanced (e.g., OECD) countries and some developing countries have served to stabilize capitalist functioning and development to a greater or lesser extent and at the same time have mediated class and other conicts, to which capitalist systems are particularly prone (Burns, 2006b). The complex of regulatory measures assured capital as well as other key accumulation and development processes. One key component of the corrective adjustment has been the establishment of modern welfare-state systems in the West.6 In general, the application of ASD to socioeconomic development issues has drawn attention to the multiple systemic instabilities of capitalismboth as an economic system per se and as a force generating social and political instability as well as environmental destruction. Appropriate regulation, essential to stabilizing capitalist systems and to facilitating their effective operation, requires not only appropriate institutional arrangements but also social agents who have the expertise and motivation to lead and realize in practice the regulatory functions under varying circumstances. In addition, they must be able to effectively adapt and reform the regulatory arrangements in response to operational failures and environmental changes. Modern societies have developed and continue to develop revolutionary productive powers at the same time that they have bounded knowledge about these powers and their consequences. Unintended consequences are endemic: social as well as ecological systems are disturbed, stressed, and transformed. At the same time, emerging social agents and movements mobilize and react to some of these
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conditions, developing new critical models and strategies to challenge and try to bring about institutional innovation and transformation. Consequently, modern capitalist societiescharacterized by their core arrangements as well as by the many and diverse proponents and opponents to aspects of capitalist development are involved in local and global struggles. It is largely an uncontrolled experiment (or, more precisely, a multitude of such experiments). The capacity to monitor and to assess such experimentation is strictly bounded, as suggested earlier. Regulation of global capitalism is, therefore, highly constrained (see Note 7). This consideration raises a number of critical questions: For instance, how is the powerful class of global capitalists to be made responsible and accountable for their actions? What political forms and procedures might link politics and policymaking to the global capitalist economy? These are important research and policy questions. Theories that analyze capitalism and its evolution in more holistic wayssuch as ASDhave an important role to play in the investigation and explanation of capitalist dynamics and in developing suitable regulatory regimes and policies (see Burns, [2006b]) for a presentation of systems theories including ASD applied to the analysis of capitalist dynamics and development). (7) Technology and Sociotechnical Systems Technologies and sociotechnical systems, technological innovation and development, risk research, and issues about natural resources and environment have been key areas for ASD investigations (Andersen and Burns, 1992; Baumgartner and Burns, 1984; Burns and Dietz, 1992b; Burns and Flam, 1987; Fowler, 1994; Machado, 1998, 2005; Machado and Burns, 2001; Woodward et al., 1994). Technology, as a particular type of human construction, is dened in ASD as a complex of physical artifacts along with rule systems employed by social actors to utilize and manage the artifacts. Thus, technology has both material and a cultural institutional faces. Some of the rules considered are the instruction set for the technology, the rules that guide its effective operation and management. These rules have a hands on, immediate practical character and can be distinguished from other rule systems such as the culture and institutional arrangements of the larger sociotechnical system in which the technology is imbedded. These latter rule systems include laws and normative principles, specifying the legitimate or acceptable uses of the technology, the appropriate or legitimate owners and operators, the places and times of its use, the ways the gains and burdens (and risks) of applying the technology should be distributed, and so on. The distinction between the specic instruction set and the rules of the broader sociotechnical system are not rigid, but the distinction is useful for many analytical purposes (Baumgartner and Burns, 1984; Burns and Flam, 1987). Such sociotechnical systems as, for example, a factory, a nuclear power plant, an air transport or electricity system, organ transplantation system, money systems, or telecommunication network consist of, on the one hand, complex technical and physical structures that are designed to produce or transform certain things (or to enable such production) and, on the other hand, institutions, norms, and social organizing principles designed to regulate the activities of the actors who
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operate and manage the technology. The diverse technical and physical structures making up parts of a sociotechnical system may be owned and managed by different agents. The knowledge including technical knowledge of these different structures is typically dispersed among different agents in diverse professions. Thus, a variety of groups, social networks, and organizations may be involved in the construction, operation, and maintenance of complex sociotechnical systems such as electrical, air transport, or communication systems, among the systems referred to earlier. The diverse agents involved in operating and managing a given sociotechnical system require coordination and communication. Barriers or distortions in these linkages make for likely mal-performances or system failures. Thus, the human factor explaining mis-performance or breakdown in a sociotechnical system often has to do with organizational and communicative features difcult to analyze and understand (Burns and Dietz, 1992b; Burns et al., 2003). The application and effective use of any technology requires a more or less shared sociocognitive and judgment model (Burns et al., 2003; Burns and Carson, 2002). This model includes principles specifying mechanisms that are understood to enable the technology to interact properly and effectively with its physical, biological, and sociocultural environments. Included here are formal laws of science as well as many ad-hoc rules of thumb that are incorporated into technology design and use. The model of a technology includes also a social characterization of the technology, its humanmachine interfaces, and its role in the larger society. This part of the model is rarely as consciously perceived or as carefully articulated as the more technical elements of the model describing interaction with the physical and biological environments. Technologies are then more than bits of hardware; they function within elaborate social structures where their usefulness and effectiveness are dependent on organizational structures, management skills, and the operation of incentive and collective knowledge systems (Baumgartner and Burns, 1984; Burns and Dietz, 1992b). The concept of a sociotechnical system thus implies particular institutional arrangements as well as culture. Knowledge of technology-in-operation presupposes knowledge of social organization (in particular, knowledge of the organizing principles and institutional ruleswhether public authority, bureaucracy, private property, contract law, regulative regime, professional skills and competencies, etc. [Machado, 1998]). Arguably, a developed social systems approach can deal with this complexity in an informed and systematic way. (8) Physical and Ecosystem Structures The feedback between social systems and the physical and biological environments is center stage with the ASD approach, expressed in the form of material responsesin particular, resource accessibility and selective factorswith respect to the implementation of cultural and institutional rule complexes (this is elaborated particularly in ASD evolutionary models discussed in the following section). Geo-physical conditions, climate, and the accessibility and distribution of natural resources such as energy, water, arable land, forests, minerals, and so on obviously provide opportunities, for as well as constrain, certain patterns of
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social action and interaction and overall social system development. The material environmentincluding technologiesdetermine which rule systems can be realized in practice, or what changes in rule systems can be effectively introduced with some likelihood of implementability and effectiveness. Human agents cannot enact rules and rule systems that violate the laws of physics, chemistry, and biology, although technologies may of course enable them to alter the ways and the extent to which such laws constrain or facilitate human activities. Selective mechanisms in the material environment respond to human activities and affect the frequency and distribution of the rule systems making up institutional arrangements and cultural formations (see next sub-section). The response may be absolute in that a group or community using a given set of rules cannot sustain itself and its social structure in a particular environment (the Easter Island phenomenon7 ). Or, in a context of competition among groups, selection favors certain types of productive or efciency rules and selects against less productive or efcient rules. Such competition in some social domains such as markets drive resource exploitation and depletion as well as destruction of the physical environment, unless systematically regulated. In general, human groups impact on physical conditions, eco-systems, climate, and so on in intended and unintended ways. For example, effective agricultural techniques may cause soil erosion or leaching so that agricultural productivity declines over time or the spectrum of plants that can be cultivated is signicantly reduced. Or, similarly, human activities impact on atmospheric conditionssuch as ozone levels and greenhouse effects: these developments are likely to operate selectively on bio-regions and their populations. Many of the impactsand the risks they entailare unanticipated and unintended material consequences of the functioning of humanly constructed, complex social systems including sociotechnical systems. In sum, the availability of natural resources and the circumstances of biological and physical environments are major forces of constraint and operate selectivity on human groups and their social structures, although human agency still plays a substantial role. Of course, new technologies and sociotechnical systems may to varying degrees offset or regulate some material conditions and forces. (9) Sociocultural Evolutionary Theory ASD has been developed into a theory of sociocultural evolutionbuilding on theoretical concepts such as the social construction of systems and the restructuring and selection of institutional arrangements and cultural elements (Burns, Baumgartner, Dietz, and Machado, 2003; Burns, 2001, 2000; Burns and Dietz, 1992a, b). By sociocultural evolutionary theory is meant a complex of models conceptualizing social processes that explain the evolution of institutions and cultural forms: the generation of variety in rules and rule systems, the transmission or reproduction of rules, and the operation of systems of selection and other processes (migration, distorted or incorrect knowledge transmission, etc.) (for important parallel theoretical developments, see Boyd and Richerson (1985), Loye (1998), and Richerson and Boyd [2005]). Selective processes determine that some of the practices of agents utilizing a particular rule or rule system obtain more resource gains
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than others operating with different systems, gain greater collective support and legitimacy, and, in general, enjoy greater reproductive robustness than others. These processes maintain and change the distribution of rules within and between populations over time. In such historical developments, human agents play a major but bounded role. A distinctive feature of this theory is that it stresses, on the one hand, material constraints and selective processes and, on the other hand, the capability of human agents to construct to a greater or lesser extent their selective environments, in particular institutions and institutional arrangements, sociotechnical systems, and cultural forms. Such bounded constructionism refers not only to the agential powers of actors but also the constraints on agency and the limited capacities of actors in any given context to adapt, reform, or transform social rule systems and, thereby, to affect the evolution of the sociocultural systems. Depending on the pattern and balance of selection, migration, innovation, recombination, and transmission, the prevalence of various rules in the cultural system remain stable or change. Reproduction usually occurs when the implementation of a rule system generates sufcient returns (quality, quantity, and diversity) to sustain and reproduce the system. The reproductive success of any particular rule or rule system is measured in terms of tness based on its ability in a given social and physical environment to compete successfully with alternative rule systems. Reproducible rules satisfy multiple criteria of tness including the requirement that they are understandable and implementable. In other words, the rules work or appear to work effectively in interaction processes and in the social and material developments they generate. In this sense, tness is largely a relative term. Rule systems that satisfy a set of selection criteria internal to a group or collectivity may fail, however, in the face of stringent external or environmental selection. For instance, established and valued practices of a group, nation, or the entire global community can result over the long run in ecological collapse or sociopolitical or economic disintegration. Innovations that are regressive or non-adaptive within the collective context may entail some improvements that, however, are inadequate in the face of other selection criteria characteristic of, for instance, a highly demanding or competitive environment. Many social innovations are experiments in this sense and may be regressive in terms of the criteria of reproductive success (in other words, numerous innovations are tried, few succeed over the long-run). Human agency plays a key role in each of the major mechanisms of sociocultural evolution, in particular. Agency in the generation of variety. Evolutionary processes are based on variability in the rule systems of a culture. There are several possible sources of variation in any given rule system. One is error, the miscopying of a rule from actor to actor, community to community. Another is migratory movement, where a community acquires new rules introduced by agents from outside the community. But while both of these mechanisms are certainly important, they do not capture the full range of human creativity and the rapid, complex paths of sociocultural change. Agency, in the form of human innovation and problem-solving processes, provides a mechanism for generating change in rule systems that is often far more
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powerful than error or migration, one that encompasses the dynamic, inventive, and often playful, character of human activity. This is made particularly apparent in many sociopolitical revolutionary developments; this is also apparent in directed problem-solving activities such as the development of new theories, new technologies, and institutional reformshuman activities that are largely neglected by most contemporary evolutionary theories. Such directed problem-solving and transformative processes obviously differentiate a sociocultural theory of evolution from biological evolutionary theory. Agency in selection processes. Actors structure the selective environment. They introduce new institutional arrangements, technological systems, infrastructures, and regulatory regimes, among other major formations, thus dening the conditions for the operation of agency in the future. Such selective environments constrain action possibilities, setting limits on agency. But the environments are not simply constraining. They also provide opportunities and facilitate certain types of activity. The selective environments allocate resources to actors, which they may use (decide to use) in innovative ways, for instance, by restructuring particular social systems or establishing new systems. Human agents thus play a direct role in societal selection processes, for example, through recruitment processes, through directly exercising power and control, and through dealing with problems and challenges in contingent and ad hoc ways (rather than allowing institutionalized values, policies, and practices to deal with the problems). Role of agency in the replication and diffusion of rules. Replication is socially organized through the institutionalization and reproduction of rule complexes, and depends on establishing and sustaining not only the commitment of key actors to, but also their level of knowledge of, the rules and the situations in which the rules are to be implemented, maintained, and replicated. In other cases, a large proportion of those involved must be committed and knowledgeable if successful reproduction of social order(s) such as institutional arrangement(s) is to take place. Reproduction also depends on the power and resource base that enable those involved to effectively execute as well as enforce the rules. The social and physical environments in which institutionalized activities are carried out operate selectively so that, in a given time and place, the institutional arrangements tend to either persist, or decline and possibly disappear. The processes of establishing and maintaining a rule system may be organized by a ruling elite that allocates resources and directs and enforces the activities of maintenance and reproduction. Many formal institutions are maintained, at least in part, through relatively well-dened and organized prescriptions and enforcement, as well as through systematic socialization and recruitment practices. Institutional reproduction may also be organized with a broad spectrum of participants engaged in processes of knowledge transmission, socialization, and sanctioning as well as the fostering of institutional loyalties. Typically, institutional reproduction takes place through both elite direction as well as the engagement of non-elite members. Whenever elites and other participants (including peripheral groups) stand in opposition to one another, this generates not only tensions but also
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uncertainty about the effective maintenance or reproduction of institutional orders, and raises the possibility of radical structural transformation or revolution (Burns and Dietz, 2001). In general, power resources, knowledge, and commitment are key factors in the consolidation and maintenance of rule systems or institutional arrangements. A new order will be institutionalizedthat is successfully established, maintained, and replicatedto the degree that the power-holders (and their policies and rules) together with their supporters and allies (cf. Stinchcombe, 1968):
r effectively control the emergence and selection of leaders, successors to themr control socialization for elite positions as well as for key groups on which r r
the social order depends (the military, judiciary, and possibly religious and educational groups as well as economic elites); effectively control the conditions of incumbency and career patterns of participants in key governance structures; inspire awe, respect, and a sense of legitimacy for the order and its elites. selves;
Cultural transmission has a variety of properties that give a dynamic to social rules independent of advantages (tness) associated with their realization in practice. This de-coupling of sociocultural developments from conditions or changes in the material environment can operate, however, only for limited periods of time or in particular contexts. Although there may be no immediate societal response to changes in the physical or social environmentfor example, resource depletion, climatic change, or geopolitical developmentsthe material environment still has a direct impact on activities essential to the long-term sustainability of a set of societal institutions. Collectivities may of course fail to adapt to physical or social environmental changes, and instead are bypassed, absorbed, or eliminated by other more successful collectivities. On the other hand, many changes in rules and institutional arrangements take place without environmental stimuli or pressures. Agents may take initiatives based on symbolic considerations, social competition, or power struggles to alter rules, rule enforcement, and transmission processes that affect performance levels and long-term sustainability. Such social processes may lead to deviation from a previously successful match between the sociocultural order and the social and material environments, a match that had enabled earlier long-term successful performances and robust reproduction. Thus, sociocultural evolutionary processes need not result in more advantageous or efcient social rule systems. Historically, a number of initially (or apparently) successful culturalinstitutional frames have ended in substantial maladjustments and even self-destruction, as, for instance, the histories of the Communist and Nazi orders point up. Sociocultural innovation and dynamics can result in practices that alter the natural environment negatively, even self-destructively (as in the Easter Island phenomenon [see note 7]). The theory implies then that institutional arrangements and sociocultural formations are not necessarily optimally adaptive to their environment, nor is the direction of rule change necessarily toward optimality.
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In sum, the ASD theory of sociocultural evolution, as opposed to earlier developmental or evolutionist theories, allows considerable play for the creative/destructive action of individual and collective actors. It also recognizes and conceptualizes the conditions under which such agency will be constrained by the natural world, by the structural limitations of a sociocultural system, and by the powers exerted by other agents. These relationships dene, in part, the mix of structural determinism and human agency or freedom that characterize human history. 4. ASD AND FUTURE DEVELOPMENTS ASD provides theoretical and methodological tools with which to describe and analyze social systems in their social and material environments, their functioning and performance, and their evolution. The approach is grounded in mainstream social science research (Burns, 2006a, b), a type of theorizing initiated by Walter Buckley (1967, 1998) in the 1960s and followed up in later decades by Archer, Baumgartner, Burns, DeVille, Geyer, and Zouwen, among others. Several of the key ASD propositions relating to social systems analysis are the following: 1. Social systems can be fruitfully studied and analyzed as multiple (and diverse) types of interrelated social, material, and symbolic structures and their mechanisms. The ASD approach enables the systematic study of the linkages between these diverse structures, their interdependencies, and their dynamic interplay. It also conceptualizes and analyzes the problems and instabilities to which they give rise, for instance in the interplay between social and ecological structures. Incompatible structures cause performance failures, instability, and disorder, which in turn often contribute to social conict and struggle between groups of societal agents or classes. 2. Among the specic subtypes of such problems are incompatibilities between structures of the social system, on the one hand, and environmental or ecological structures, on the other hand. This is a particular type of inter-structural problem. Social system structures and outputs may not t, and be sustainable in, the systems material environment. In general, complex feedback loops between societal orders and their environments may generate uncontrollable instability and conditions of non-sustainability. 3. ASD is a non-functionalist systems theory. It focuses attention on human agents, individual and collective, and on the stabilizing (morphostasis) and destabilizing mechanisms (morphogenesis) making up a complex, dynamic system (see also Buckley, 1967, 1998). Social systems are self-organizing in the sense that their membersespecially their elitesexercise their capacities to structure and restructure culturalinstitutional regimes and their material environments. But self-organization and transformation are typically conducted without complete knowledge or control of key conditions and potential developments. 4. The social constructing and restructuring of social systems through creative/destructive action and entrepreneurship are not only of central interest but
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have a natural place in the ASD framework. A nexus of agency concepts such as actor, action and interaction, and social construction and transformation have been developed and applied in the formulation of ASD models. Human agency is constrained cognitively, socially, and physically. ASD emphasizes the capacity of human agents to constructwithin institutional, cultural, and material constraintssocial systems such as sociotechnical systems and complex institutions without necessarily fully knowing or understanding how these systems will perform and can be controlled (the Frankenstein phenomena). Inevitably, there will be unintended and unanticipated consequences, that is, unpredictable performance and failures in system regulation (Burns et al., 2003). The theory combines then bounded constructionism (articulated in human agency and entrepreneurship) with structural constraint and selectivity (articulated in terms of social as well as material constraints and selective mechanisms). 5. Social agents, individuals as well as groups, occupy positions, play roles, and interact. Their relationships and positions vis-` a-vis one another have causal force. But such forces are not fully deterministic; this is not only because of the capabilities of human agency and the complex, contradictory interplay of multiple agents and the structures in which they are embedded; but it is also because of the impact of contingencies and the substantial context dependency of all social processes. 6. Actors, individuals, and collective agentsin their various positions embedded in complex structures (in particular, institutions)experience and identify problems or problem situations, while playing out their roles vis-` a-vis one another. These may be coordination problems, escalating social conict, inter-structural problems, the failure or collapse of the institution or the institutional arrangements in which the agents are embedded. Such failures may entail an inability to realize particular goals or values that their institution or their particular positions in it motivate them to realize. Or, the failures might entail the perceived need to increase the level of performance effectiveness, or to exploit perceived opportunities for gain (value added or prot) or for solving critical problems that cannot be realized under existing systemic conditions: For instance, a business enterprise is faced with declining or negative prot margins or with a substantial reduction in market share; an electricity production system is subject to, or threatened by, blackouts; or, a global market system is characterized by highly volatile market conditions or by trade wars and countries raising trade barriers. Restructuring initiatives are motivated and driven by interested agents. Typically, such initiatives are met by opposition, and conict and struggle ensues. Social systems are generally characterized by contradictory institutional arrangements generating diverse values and interests, which underlie the clashes and power struggles among societal agents. In general, particular agents, internal as well as external to an institution or institutional arrangement, concern themselves with its performance and development and try to regulate and possibly even restructure it (or its relationship to other systems) in order to deal with what some judge as performance
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7.
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failures, instability, or crisis. ASD identies and explains the systemic problems with which agents in their structural positions are likely to be concerned and are oriented toward solving (Burns and Carson, 2005). The social structural properties of society are carried and transmitted by agents at the same time that these condition their actions and interactions. Structures such as institutions and cultural formations are temporally prior, relatively autonomous, and possessing causal powers, constraining and enabling peoples social actions and interaction (Archer, 1995). The latter in turn generate structural elaboration (reproduction and transformation). Structural stability (morphostasis) and change (morphogenesis) are explained through multiple processes (e.g., positive and negative feedback loops in complex sociocultural systems). The social systems theorist is then not only concerned with the identication and elaboration of social structures but with the specication of the mechanismsincluding feedback processes that entail both stabilizing, equilibrating features and structureelaborating or disorganizing features. In such terms, institutional structures may be viewed as operating to create (as well as transform) themselves in ongoing developmental processes, subject to the judgments and responses of human agents. ASD theorizes institutions and sociocultural formations in their own right, identifying and explaining the real and variegated structures that have emerged historically and are elaborated and developed in ongoing socioeconomic and political processes. ASD drew, in particular, on a number of elements of Weberian and Marxist theories (DeVille was at one time associated with Ernest Mandel) redeningthrough, for instance, institutional and cultural theorizing based on rule system theorykey concepts in modern sociological terms such as the concepts of class, power, domination, exploitation, conict and struggle, and unequal exchange and accumulation; ASD also elaborated conceptions of production, reproduction, and transformation including revolution (Burns, 2006b; Burns and Dietz, 2001). The ASD systems approach enables one to identify and analyze the complex mechanisms of stable reproduction as well as transformation of structures; this includes the study of the genesis of new forms. Active agents with their distinctive characteristics, motivations, and powers interact and contribute to the reproduction and transformation of structure: establishing and reforming institutions, sociotechnical systems, and other structures but doing so always within given constraints and opportunities and not in precisely the ways they intend. Internal structuring and selection processes that reproduce, modify, or transform particular social systems are based on power distributions among societal agents and on the models or paradigms that orient and guide these agents in their structuring activities. There are also external structuring and selection processes operating, which affect the sustainability and evolution of social structures. Complex social systems are only temporarily stable, if at all. System stability must be explained in the face of ever-present tendencies for structures to be changed, reformed, or to evolve. Existing institutional arrangements may be transformed by intentional human action as well as the unintended spin-offs
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and spill-overs of institutional activities and operations. ASD has identied some of the potential problems and crises that agents fail to recognize or lack the motivation or capability to deal with (Burns and Carson, 2005; Burns and DeVille, 2003). Such problems might be ones of social tensions or technical system instability (or both), which fail to be effectively addressed by those with the power or authority to do so, setting the stage for crisis and system transformation. These complex processes show up repeatedly in investigations of major contemporary institutions such as government agencies, business enterprises, markets, schools and universities, and sociotechnical systems. In sum, social systems are dynamic and potentially unstable because (1) exogenous factors change and impact on them, evoking internal restructuring, and (2) internal social processes and dynamics often entail conicts and innovations, which lead to initiatives and new intended and unintended developments. Agents or congurations of agents in the system respond to some of negative developments and instabilities, not always in a coordinated or coherent manner. Through their initiatives and interactions, sociocultural arrangements as well as the orientations and identities of social agents are maintained and changed. These structuring consequences of action have been represented in Figure 1. The order and stability of any social system depends then on an extensive network of institutional arrangements and regulatory mechanisms. An institutionally ordered social system may be viewed then as the macroscopic resultant of multiple, often contradictory structuring processes, including purposeful social action on the part of the agents involved. ASDs theory of social stability and change focuses attention on the processes by which social rule systems, in particular cultural elements and institutional arrangements, are generated, selected, and transmitted through human interaction. Selective mechanismssome of which are exogenoushave important dynamics of their own that inuence the prevalence and persistence of various rules and, thus, cultural and institutional orders (as pointed out earlier, these need not be optimally adaptive to their environment, nor is the direction of change necessarily toward optimality). ASD represents a social systems approach to the challenge of developing knowledge for purposes of modeling, monitoring, and regulating complex dynamic social systems. It also may contribute to the clarication of contentious issues and ultimately play a role in the design of institutions and policymaking. Such a systems approach has a conceptual and methodological base that potentially would facilitate cooperation between social and natural, engineering, and medical scientists, the linking of which is a major challenge of this century, both for theoretical and methodological reasons as well as for policy and practical reasons. Recent method development has contributed to the revitalization of social systems analysis in the social sciences, for instance, the use of ow diagrams and other graphic techniques to represent the complex interdependencies of systems and system mechanisms. (Andersen and Burns, 1992; Baumgartner, 1978; Baumgartner et al., 1986; Burns et al., 1985; Burns and Flam, 1987; Machado, 1998). Simulation methods are also currently playing an increasingly important role. Simulation offers particularly powerful tools to represent and analyze complex systemic processes (Burns et al.,
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2005a, b). Collins (1988: 46) has pointed out rightly that, for most systems, a computer program can be written: . . . there is an afnity between the older system models and the more general conceptions of systems which has become clearer now that computer modelling, especially by personal computer, has become relatively easy. A major contributing factor here is the emergence of complexity theory (nonlinear dynamic systems associated with, for instance, the Sante Fe Institute) and the growing interest among mathematicians, natural scientists, and some social scientists in theoretical work and simulation of complex multi-agent systems. NOTES
1. Elsewhere (Burns, 2006a, b) I identify and compares several system theories emerging in sociology and the social sciences after the Second World War: Parsonian functionalism (1951), Marxist theory and World Systems Theory (Wallerstein, 2004), and the family of actor-oriented, transformative systems theories (ASD, the work of Buckley (1967, 1998), and Archer (1995) as well as Geyer and van der Zouwen (1978a, b). 2. Action is also constrained and facilitated by the responses of others who have the power to positively or negatively sanction, to persuade, or inform. That is, the agency of some actors affects the ability of other actors to exercise their own agency. In the extreme, powerful actors can severely restrict the agency of others in selected domains of social life. 3. On the basis of a more or less shared or common rule system, actors can inter-subjectively and collectively answer questions such as the following: What is going on in this situation? What kind of activity is this? Who is who in this situation? What roles are they playing? What is being done? Why is this being done? Is there an inappropriate or improper activity taking place? Should matters be conducted differently? The participating actorsas well as knowledgeable observerscan understand in intersubjective ways the social processes and, in a certain sense, predict on the basis of rule knowledge what will happen in the interactions; that is, actors make use of common rule-based interpretative schemes. Social rules also play an important part in normative and moral communications relating to social interaction: participants refer to the rules in giving accounts, in justifying or criticizing what is being done (or what fails to be done, as the case may be) and in the social attribution of who should be credited with successes or blamed for performance failings. 4. Most modern institutions such as business enterprises, government agencies, democratic associations, religious congregations, scientic communities, or markets are organized and regulated in relatively separate autonomous but interdependent spheres or domains, each distinguishable from others on the basis of its distinctive rule complexes making up a specic moral order operating in terms of its own social logic (or type of rationality). 5. Neo-corporatist arrangements organize government, business, and labor (iron triangles) for purposes of negotiating, determining, and enforcing/implementing economic and welfare policies. One of their important accomplishments has been to regulate laborcapital tensions and conicts during a substantial part of the post-World War Two period. 6. Unfortunately, such regulation is almost totally lacking on the international level. Nor do such regulative regimes exist within most third world countries to the same extent as within OECD countries. 7. The indigenous population of Easter Island developed institutional arrangements and practices that could not be sustained on the islands physical environment and led to an ecological and eventually social order collapse and the disappearance of most of the population.
REFERENCES
Admassie, Y. 2000. Twenty years to nowhere: Property rights, land management and conservation in Ethiopia. Lawrenceville, NJ: Red Sea Press.
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Andersen, Svein and Tom R. Burns. 1992. Societal decision-making: Democratic challenges to state technocracy. Aldershot, Hampshire: Dartmouth. Andersen, S., and T. R. Burns. 1996. The European Union and the Erosion of Parliamentary Democracy: A Study of Post-Parliamentary Governance. In: European UnionHow democratic is it? Eds. S. Andersen and K. A. Eliassen. London: Sage Publications. Archer, M. 1995. Realist social theory: The morphogenetic approach. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Baumgartner, T. 1978. An Actor-oriented Systems Model for the Analysis of Industrial Democracy Measures. In: Geyer and van Der Zouwen (1978a). Baumgartner, T., and T. R. Burns. (Eds.). 1984. Transitions to alternative energy systems: Entrepreneurs, new technologies and social change. Boulder, Colorado: Westview. Baumgartner, T., W. Buckley, and T. R. Burns. 1975. Meta-power and relational control in social life. Social Science Information, 14: 4978. Baumgartner, T., W. Buckley, T. R. Burns, and Peter Schuster. 1976. Meta-Power and the Structuring of Social Hierarchies. In: Burns and Buckley (Eds.). (1976). Baumgartner, T., T. R. Burns, and P. DeVille. 1986. The shaping of socio-economic systems: The application of the theory of actor-system-dynamics to conict, social power, and institutional innovation in economic life. New York/London: Gordon and Breach. Baumgartner, T., T. R. Burns, and P. DeVille. 1979. Work, Politics, and Social Structuring under Capitalism: Impact and Limitations of Industrial Democracy Reforms Under Capitalist Relations of Production and Reproduction. In: Work and power. Eds. T. R. Burns. L. E. Karlsson, and V. Rus. London: Sage. Baumgartner, T., T. R. Burns, and P. DeVille. 1978. Actors, Games, and Systems: The Dialectics of Social Action and System Restructuring. In: F. Geyer and Johann van der Zouwen (1978a). Baumgartner, T., T. R. Burns, and D. Sekulic. 1979. Self-management, Market and Political Institutions in Conict: Yugoslav Development Patterns and Dialectics. In Work and power. Eds. T. R. Burns, L. E. Karlsson, and V. Rus. London: Sage. Bergstrom, C. 2005. Claiming reindeer in Norway: Toward a theory of the dynamics of property regime formation and change. Ph.D. Dissertation. Aas, Norway: Noragric, Norwegian University of Life Sciences. Boyd, R., and P. J. Richerson. 1985. Culture and the evolutionary process. Chicago: University of Chicago. Buckley, W. 1967. Sociology and modern systems theory. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: PrenticeHall. Buckley, W. 1998. SocietyA complex adaptive system: essays in social theory. Amsterdam: Gordon and Breach. Buckley, W., T. R. Burns, and L. D. Meeker. 1974. Structural resolutions of collective action problems. Behavioral Science, 19: 277297. Burns, T. R. 1990. Models of Social and Market Exchange: Toward a Sociological Theory of Games and Human Interaction. In: Structures of power and constraint: Essays in honor of Peter M. Blau. Eds. C. Calhoun, M. W. Meyer, and W. R. Scott. New York: Cambridge University Press. Burns, T. R. 1994. Two Conceptions of Agency: Rational Choice Theory and the Social Theory of Action. In: Human agency and the reorientation of social theory. Ed. P. Sztompka. Amsterdam: Gordon and Breach. Burns, T. R. 1999. The evolution of parliaments and societies in europe: Challenges and prospects. European J. of Social Theory, 2: 167194. Burns, T. R. 2000. Structuration: Economic and social change. (In Chinese). Beijing, China: Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, China Social Science Publishing House.
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Burns, T. R. 2001. Revolution: An evolutionary perspective. International Sociology, 16(4):531555. Burns, T. R. 2006a. System Theories. In: The encyclopedia of sociology. Ed. G. Ritzer. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing. Burns, T. R. 2006b. Dynamic Approaches in Social System Theorizing. In: Handbook of 21st Century Sociology. Eds. C. D. Bryant and D. L. Peck. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. Burns, T. R., P. DeVille, and T. Baumgartner. 2002. Actor-system dynamics theory and its application to the analysis of modern capitalism. Canadian Journal of Sociology, 27(2): 211243. Burns, T. R., T. Baumgartner, and DeVille, P. 1985. Man, decision and society. London: Gordon and Breach. Burns, T. R., T. Baumgartner, T. Dietz, and N. Machado. 2003. The Theory of Actor-System Dynamics: Human Agency, Rule Systems, and Cultural Evolution. In: Encyclopedia of life support systems. Paris: UNESCO. Burns, T. R., and W. Buckley. 1976. Power and control: Social structures and their transformation. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage Publications. Burns, T. R., J. Castro Caldas, and E. Roszkowska. 2005a. Generalized Game Theorys Contribution to Multi-agent Modelling: Addressing Problems of Social Regulation, Social Order, and Effective Security. In: Monitoring, security and rescue techniques in multiagent systems. Eds. Barbara Dunin-Keplicz, Andrzej Jankowski, Andrzej Skowron, and Marcin Szczuka. Berlin/London: Springer Verlag. Burns, T. R., J. C. Caldas, E. Roszkowska, and J. Wang. 2005b. Multi-Agent Modelling of Institutional Mechanisms: The Approach Of Generalized Game Theory. Paper presented at the World Congress of the International Institute of Sociology, Stockholm, Sweden, July 2005. Burns, T. R., and M. Carson. 2002. Actors, Paradigms, and Institutional Dynamics: The Theory of Social Rule Systems Applied to Radical Reforms. In: Advancing socioEconomics: An institionalist perspective. Eds. J. R. Hollingsworth, K. H. Muller, and E. J. Hollingsworth. Oxford: Rowman & Littleeld Publishers. Burns, T. R., and M. Carson. 2002. European union, neo-corporatist, and pluralist governance arrangements: Lobbying and policy-making patterns in a comparative perspective. International Journal of Regulation and Governance, 2(2): 147. Burns, T. R., and M. Carson. 2005. Social Order and Disorder: Institutions, Policy Paradigms and Discources. In: A new agenda in critical discourse analysis: Theory and interdisciplinarity. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: Johns Benjamin Publishing Company. Burns, T. R., M. Carson, and J. Nylander. 2001. EUs Social Dimension: From Market to Welfare? The Emergence and Expansion of the Social Dimension in EU Policymaking. International Journal of Regulation and Governance, 1(2): 129157. Burns, T. R., and P. DeVille. 2003. The three faces of the coin: A socio-economic approach to the institution of money. European Journal of Economic and Social Systems, 16(2):149195. Burns, T. R., and T. Dietz. 2001. Revolution: An evolutionary perspective. International Sociology, 16: 531555. Burns, T. R., and T. Dietz. 1997 Evolutionary Sociology: Selective Environments, Human Agency and Institutional Dynamics. Paper presented at the Conference on Sociological Theory and the Environment, Zeist, The Netherlands, March 2023, 1997 (Research Committee 24, Environment and Society, the International Sociological Association).
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Burns, T. R., and T. Dietz. 1992a. Cultural evolution: Social rule systems, selection, and human agency. International Sociology, 7: 259283. (In Chinese and German also). Burns, T. R., and T. Dietz. 1992b. Technology, Sociotechnical Systems, Technological Development: An Evolutionary Perspective. In New technology at the outset: Social forces in the shaping of technological innovations. Eds. M. Dierkes: U. Hoffman. Frankfurt/Main: Campus. Burns, T. R., and E. Engdahl. 1998a. The social construction of consciousness: Collective consciousness and its socio-cultural foundations. Journal of Consciousness Studies, 5: 6785. Burns, T. R., and E. Engdahl. 1998b. The social construction of consciousness: Individual selves, self-awareness, and reectivity. Journal of Consciousness Studies, 5: 166184. Burns, T. R., and H. Flam. 1987. The shaping of social organization. London: Sage Publications. Burns, T. R., and A. Gomolinska. 2000a. The theory of socially embedded games: The mathematics of social relationships, rule complexes, and action modalities. Quality and Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, 34(4): 379406. Burns, T. R., and A. Gomolinska. 2001. Socio-cognitive mechanisms of belief change: Applications of generalized game theory to belief revision, social fabrication, and self-fullling prophesy. Cognitive Systems Research, 2(1): 3954. Burns, T. R., A. Gomolinska, and L. D. Meeker. 2001. The theory of socially embedded games: Applications and extensions to open and closed games. Quality and Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, 35: 132. Burns, T. R., and A. Gomolinska. 2000b. The theory of socially embedded games: The mathematics of social relationships, rule complexes, and action modalities. Quality and Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, 34(4): 379406. Burns, T. R., and A. Gomolinska. 2000c. The Theory of Socially Embedded Games: Norms, Human Judgment, and Social Equilibria. Paper presented at the Joint Conference on Rational Choice Theory organized by the American Sociological Association and the International Sociological Association, Washington, D.C., August 2000. Available at www.soc.uu.se/publications/fulltext/tb generalized-game-theory.doc. Burns, T. R., and A. Gomolinska. 1998. Modelling Social Game Systems by Rule Complexes. In: Rough sets and current trends in computing. Eds. L. Polkowski and A. Skowron. Berling/Heidelberg: Springer-Verlag. Burns, T. R., C. Jaeger, M. Kamali, A. Liberatore, Y. Meny, and P. Nanz. 2000. The Future of Parliamentary Democracy: Transition and Challenge in European Governance. Green Paper prepared for the Conference of the European Union Speakers of Parliament, Rome, Italy, September 2224, 2000. Available at http://www.camera. it/ cppueg/ing/conferenza odg Conclusioni gruppoesperti.asp. Burns, T. R., and M. Kamali. 2003. The Evolution of Parliaments: A Comparative, Historical Perspective on Assemblies and Political Decision-making. In: Handbook of historical sociology. Eds. G. Delanty, E. Isin, and M. Somers. London: Sage Publications. Burns, T. R. L. E. Karlsson, and V. Rus. Eds. 1979. Work and power. London: Sage. Burns, T. R., and J. Nylander. 2001. The European Union: What is it Becoming? A CulturalInstitutional Perspective. In: Institutional approaches to the analysis of the European Union. Ed. S. Andersen. Oslo, Norway: Arena Publications. Burns, T. R., and E. Roszkowska. 2006. Conict and Conict Resolution: A SocietalInstitutional Approach. In: Procedural approaches to conict resolution. Ed. M. Raith. Berlin/London: Springer Press. (in press, 2007).
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Burns, T. R., and E. Roszkowska. 2005. Generalized Game Theory: Assumptions, Principles and Elaborations Grounded in Social Theory. Studies in Logic, Grammar and Rhetoric, 8(21): 740. Burns, T. R., and E. Roszkowska. 2004. Fuzzy Games and Equilibria: The Perspective of the General Theory of Games on Nash and Normative Equilibria. In: Rough-neural computing: Techniques for computing with words. Eds. Sankar K. Pal, Lech Polkowski, and Andrzej Skowron. Berlin: Springer-Verlag. Burns, T. R., and E. Roszkowska. 2001. Rethinking the Nash Equilibrium: The Perspective of Normative Equilibria in the General Theory of Games. Paper presented at the Rational Choice/Group Processes Conference, August 17, 2001, American Sociological Association Annual Meeting, Anaheim, California. Available at: www.soc.uu.se/publications/fulltext/tb rethinking-nash-equil.doc Burns, T. R., and R. Ueberhorst. 1988. Creative democracy: Systematic conict resolution and policymaking in a world of high science and technology. New York: Praeger. Carson, M. 2004. From common market to social Europe? Paradigm shift and institutional change in European Union policy on food, asbestos and chemicals, and gender equality. Stockholm: Almqvist &Wiksell International. Carson, M. 2000b. From the Peoples Home to the Market: Paradigm Shift to System Shift in the Swedish Welfare State. Research Report 1/01, G avle: Institute for Housing and Urban Research, Uppsala University. Collins, R. 1988. Theoretical sociology. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. Flam, H. (Ed.). 1994. States and anti-nuclear movements. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Fowler, C. 1994. Unnatural selection: Technology, politics, and plant evolution. Amsterdam: Gordon and Breach. Geyer, R. F., and J. van der Zouwen. 1978a. Sociocybernetics: An actor-oriented social systems approach. 1. Leiden: Martinus Nijhoff. Geyer, R. F. and J. van der Zouwen. 1978b. Sociocybernetics: An actor-oriented social systems approach. 2. Leiden: Martinus Nijhoff. Gomolinska, A. 1999. Rule complexes for representing social actors and interactions. Studies in Logic, Grammar, and Rhetoric, 3(16): 95108. Gomolinska, A. 2002. Derivability of rules from rule complexes. Logic and Logical Philosophy, 10: 2144. Gomolinska, A. 2004. Fundamental Mathematical Notions of the Theory of Socially Embedded Games: A Granular Computing Perspective. In: Rough-neural computing: Techniques for computing with words. Eds. S. K. Pal, L. Polkowski, and A. Skowron. pp. 411434. Berlin/London: Springer-Verlag. Gomolinska, A. (2005). Toward Rough Applicability of Rules. In: Monitoring, security, and rescue techniques in multiagent systems. Eds. B. Dunin-Keplicz, A. Jankowski, A. Skowron, and M. Szczuka. pp. 203214. Berlin/London: Springer-Verlag. Granovetter, M. 1985. Economic action and social structure: The problem of embeddedness. American Journal of Sociology, 50: 481510. Loye, D. 1998. The evolutionary outrider: The impact of the human agent on evolution: Essays honoring Ervin Laszlo. Westport, CT: Praeger. Machado, N. 1998. Using the bodies of the dead: Legal, ethical, and organizational dimensions of organ transplantation. Aldershot: Dartmouth Publishing. Machado, N. 2005. Discretionary death: Cognitive and normative problems resulting from boundary shifts between life and death. Death Studies, in press.
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Machado, N., and T. R. Burns. 1998. Complex social organization: Multiple organizing modes, structural incongruence, and mechanisms of integration. Public Administration: An International Quarterly, 76: 355386. Machado, N., and T. R. Burns. 2001. The new genetics: A social science and humanities research agenda. Canadian Journal of Sociology, 25(4): 495506. Nylander, J. 2000. The Power of framing: A new-institutional approach to interest group participation in the European Union. Doctoral Dissertation, Uppsala: Uppsala University. Parsons, T. 1951. The social system. Glencoe, Il: Free Press. Richerson, P. J., and R. Boyd. 2005. Not by genes alone: How culture transformed human evolution. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Schelling, T. C. 1963. The strategy of conict. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Sciulli, D., and D. Gerstein. 1985. Social theory and talcott parsons in the 1980s, Annutal Review of Sociology, 11: 369387. Simon, H. A. 1969. Sciences of the Articial. Cambridge: MIT Press. Stinchcombe, A. E. 1968. Constructing social theories. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World. Wallerstein, I. 2004. World-systems analysis. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Wiley, N. 1986. History of the Self: From Primates to Present. Paper presented at the German-American Theory Conference, August 1986, Berkeley, California. Wiley, N. 1994. The semiotic self. Cambridge: Polity Press. Woodward, W. E., J. Ellig, and T. R. Burns. 1994. Muncipal entrepreneurship and energy policy: A ve nation study of politics, innovation, and social change. New York: Gordon and Breach.

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World Futures, 62: 411440, 2006 Copyright Taylor & Francis Group, LLC ISSN 0260-4027 print / 1556-1844

4 online DOI: 10.1080/02604020600798619

THE SOCIOLOGY OF COMPLEX SYSTEMS: AN OVERVIEW OF ACTOR-SYSTEM-DYNAMICS THEORY

THE SOCIOLOGY OF COMPLEX SYSTEMS

THE SOCIOLOGY OF COMPLEX SYSTEMS

THE SOCIOLOGY OF COMPLEX SYSTEMS

THE SOCIOLOGY OF COMPLEX SYSTEMS

THE SOCIOLOGY OF COMPLEX SYSTEMS

THE SOCIOLOGY OF COMPLEX SYSTEMS

THE SOCIOLOGY OF COMPLEX SYSTEMS

THE SOCIOLOGY OF COMPLEX SYSTEMS

THE SOCIOLOGY OF COMPLEX SYSTEMS

THE SOCIOLOGY OF COMPLEX SYSTEMS

THE SOCIOLOGY OF COMPLEX SYSTEMS

THE SOCIOLOGY OF COMPLEX SYSTEMS

THE SOCIOLOGY OF COMPLEX SYSTEMS

THE SOCIOLOGY OF COMPLEX SYSTEMS

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