Social complexity

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The complex mass of train tracks through Clapham Junction, UK as an analogy of the complex society its infrastructure supports.
Social complexity: The infrastructure of train tracks through the Clapham Junction railway station, UK, is analogous to the complexity of the society served by the railroad.

In sociology, social complexity is a conceptual framework used in the analysis of society. In the sciences, contemporary definitions of complexity are found in systems theory, wherein the phenomenon being studied has many parts and many possible arrangements of the parts; simultaneously, what is complex and what is simple are relative and change in time.[1]

Contemporary usage of the term complexity specifically refers to sociologic theories of society as a complex adaptive system, however, social complexity and its emergent properties are recurring subjects throughout the historical development of social philosophy and the study of social change.[2]

Early

Methodologically, social complexity is theory-neutral, and includes the phenomena studied in microsociology and the phenomena studied in macrosociology.[2]

Theoretic background

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In 1937, the sociologist

complexity, such as the work of Niklas Luhmann.[8]

One of the earliest usages of the term "complexity", in the

constructivist epistemology and the philosophical positions of phenomenology, postmodernism and critical realism
.

Methodologies

Illustration of complexity (Penrose tiling fractal)

Methodologically, social complexity is theory-neutral, meaning that it accommodates both local and global approaches to sociological research.

historical-comparative methods of early sociologists; obviously, this method is important in developing, defining, and refining the theoretical construct of social complexity. As complex social systems have many parts and there are many possible relationships between those parts, appropriate methodologies are typically determined to some degree by the research level of analysis differentiated[11]
by the researcher according to the level of description or explanation demanded by the research hypotheses.

At the most localized level of analysis,

ethnographic, participant- or non-participant observation, content analysis and other qualitative research methods may be appropriate. More recently, highly sophisticated quantitative research methodologies are being developed and used in sociology at both local and global levels of analysis. Such methods include (but are not limited to) bifurcation diagrams, network analysis, non-linear modeling, and computational models including cellular automata programming, sociocybernetics and other methods of social simulation
.

Complex social network analysis

Main article: Dynamic network analysis

Complex

Nicholas A. Christakis, Kathleen Carley
and others.

New methods of global network analysis are emerging from the work of

scale-free networks
.

Computational sociology

Main article: Computational sociology

The development of

data-mining, both of which are sub-areas of computational sociology. Social simulation uses computers to create an artificial laboratory for the study of complex social systems; data-mining uses machine intelligence to search for non-trivial patterns of relations in large, complex, real-world databases. The emerging methods of socionics are a variant of computational sociology.[16][17]

Computational sociology is influenced by a number of micro-sociological areas as well as the macro-level traditions of systems science and systems thinking. The micro-level influences of

mathematical modeling and computer simulation
.

Sociocybernetics

Main article: Sociocybernetics

complexity science. In terms of scholarly work, the focus of sociocybernetics has been primarily conceptual and only slightly methodological or empirical.[18] Sociocybernetics is directly tied to systems thought
inside and outside of sociology, specifically in the area of second-order cybernetics.

Areas of application

In the first decade of the 21st century, the diversity of areas of application has grown

health care systems;[31] and innovation and social change,[32][33] to name a few. A current international scientific research project, the Seshat: Global History Databank, was explicitly designed to analyze changes in social complexity from the Neolithic Revolution until the Industrial Revolution
.

As a

areas of sociological research
.

In the area of

communications research and informetrics, the concept of self-organizing systems appears in mid-1990s research related to scientific communications.[37] Scientometrics and bibliometrics are areas of research in which discrete data are available, as are several other areas of social communications research such as sociolinguistics.[2] Social complexity is also a concept used in semiotics.[38]

See also

References

  1. ^ Waldrop, M. Mitchell (1992.) Complexity: The Emerging Science at the Edge of Order and Chaos. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster.
  2. ^ a b c d e f Eve, Raymond, Sara Horsfall and Mary E. Lee (eds.) (1997). Chaos, Complexity and Sociology: Myths, Models, and Theories. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
  3. ^ Giddens, Anthony (1979). Central problems in Social Theory: Action, Structure and Contradiction in Social Analysis. London: Macmillan.
  4. ^ Freese, Lee (1980). "Formal Theorizing." Annual Review of Sociology, 6: 187–212 (August 1980).
  5. ^ Cohen, B. P. (1989). Developing sociological knowledge: theory and method (2nd ed.). Chicago: Nelson–Hall.
  6. ^ Parsons, Talcott (1937) and (1949). The Structure of Social Action: A Study in Social Theory with Special Reference to a Group of European Writers. New York, NY: The Free Press.
  7. ^ Parsons, Talcott (1951). The Social System. New York, NY: The Free Press
  8. ^ Luhmann, Niklas (1990.) Essays on Self-Reference, New York: Columbia University Press.
  9. ^ Kiel, L. Douglas (1994). Managing Chaos and Complexity in Government: A New Paradigm for Managing Change, Innovation and Organizational Renewal. Jossey-Bass: San Francisco.
  10. ^ Urry, John (2005). "The Complexity Turn." Theory, Culture and Society, 22(5): 1–14.
  11. ^ Luhmann, Niklas (1982). The Differentiation of Society. New York, NY: Columbia University Press.
  12. ^ Carley, Kathleen M. (2003), "Dynamic Network Analysis." Dynamic Social Network Modeling and Analysis: Workshop Summary and Papers, Ronald Breiger, Kathleen Carley, and Philippa Pattison (eds.), National Research Council (Committee on Human Factors): Washington, D.C.: 133–145.
  13. ^ Barabási, Albert-László (2003). Linked: The New Science of Networks. Cambridge, MA: Perseus Publishing.
  14. ^ Freeman, Linton C. (2004). The Development of Social Network Analysis: A Study in the Sociology of Science. Vancouver Canada: Empirical Press.
  15. ^ Watts, Duncan J. (2004). "The New Science of Networks." Annual Review of Sociology, 30: 243–270.
  16. ^ Gilbert, Nigel and Klaus G. Troitzsch (2005). Simulation for Social Scientists, 2nd Edition. New York, NY: Open University Press.
  17. ^ a b Epstein, Joshua M. (2007). Generative Social Science: Studies in Agent-Based Computational Modeling. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
  18. Johannes van der Zouwen
    (1992). "Sociocybernetics." Handbook of Cybernetics, C.V. Negoita (ed.): 95–124. New York: Marcel Dekker.
  19. ^ Saberi, Mohammad Karim, Alireza Isfandyari-Moghaddam and Sedigheh Mohamadesmaeil (2011). "Web Citations Analysis of the JASSS: the First Ten Years." Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation, 14:(4), 22.
  20. ^ Nowak, Martin and Roger Highfield (2011). Super Cooperators: Altruism, Evolution, and Why We Need Each Other to Succeed. New York, NY: Free Press.
  21. ^ Hang, Ye, Fei Tan, Mei Ding, Yongmin Jia and Yefeng Chen (2011). "Sympathy and Punishment: Evolution of Cooperation in Public Goods Game." Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation, 14(4): 20.
  22. ^ Mason, Mark (2008). Complexity Theory and the Philosophy of Education. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-Blackwell (Educational Philosophy and Theory Special Issues).
  23. ^ Castellani, Brian. (2018). "The Defiance of Global Commitment: A Complex Social Psychology. Routledge complexity in social science series." doi:10.4324/9781351137140.
  24. ^ Lohmann Susanne (1994). "Dynamics of Informational Cascades: The Monday Demonstrations in Leipzig, East Germany, 1989–1991," World Politics, 47: 42–101.
  25. ^ Chesters, Graeme and Ian Welsh (2006). Complexity and Social Movements: Protest at the Edge of Chaos." London: Routledge (International Library of Sociology).
  26. ^ Castellani, Brian et al. (2011). "Addressing the U.S. Financial/Housing Crisis: Pareto, Schelling and Social Mobility."Working Paper.
  27. ^ Hedström, Peter and Yvonne Åberg (2011). "Social interaction and youth unemployment." Analytical Sociology and Social Mechanisms, Pierre Demeulenaere (ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  28. ^ Yilmaz, Levent (2011). "Toward Multi-Level, Multi-Theoretical Model Portfolios for Scientific Enterprise Workforce Dynamics." Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation, 14(4): 2.
  29. ^ Jervis, Robert (1998). System Effects: Complexity in Political and Social Life. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
  30. ^ Elliott, Euel and L. Douglas Kiel (eds.) (2000). Nonlinear Dynamics, Complexity and Public Policy. Hauppauge NY: Nova Science Publishers.
  31. ^ Brian Castellani, Rajeev Rajaram, J. Galen Buckwalter, Michael Ball and Frederic Hafferty (2012). "Place and Health as Complex Systems: A Case Study and Empirical Test". SpringerBriefs in Public Health.
  32. ^ Leydesdorff, Loet (2006). The Knowledge-Based Economy Modeled, Measured, Simulated. Boca Raton, FL: Universal-Publishers .
  33. ^ Lane, D.; Pumain, D.; Leeuw, S.E. van der; West, G. (eds.) (2009). Complexity Perspectives in Innovation and Social Change. New York, NY: Springer (Methodos Series, Vol. 7).
  34. ^ Stewart, Peter (2001). "Complexity Theories, Social Theory, and the Question of Social Complexity." Philosophy of the Social Sciences, 31(3): 323–360.
  35. ^ Lee, Ju-Sung. (2001). "Evolving Drug Networks." Carnegie Mellon Center for Computational Analysis of Social and Organizational Systems (CASOS) Conference Presentation (unpublished).
  36. ^ Carley, Kathleen (2003). "Destabilizing Terrorist Networks." Proceedings of the 8th International Command and Control Research and Technology Symposium. Conference held at the National Defense War College: Washington D.C., Evidence Based Research, Track 3. (Electronic Publication). Archived 2004-12-18 at the Wayback Machine
  37. ^ Leydesdorff, Loet (1995). The Challenge of Scientometrics: The development, measurement, and self-organization of scientific communications. Leiden: DSWO Press, Leiden University.
  38. ^ Dimitrov, Vladimir and Robert Woog (1997). "Studying Social Complexity: From Soft to Virtual Systems Methodology." Complex Systems, 11:(6).

Further reading

  • Byrne, David (1998). Complexity Theory and the Social Sciences. London: Routledge.
  • Byrne, D., & Callaghan, G. (2013). Complexity theory and the social sciences: The state of the art. Routledge.
  • Castellani, Brian and Frederic William Hafferty (2009). Sociology and Complexity Science: A New Area of Inquiry (Series: Understanding Complex Systems XV). Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer-Verlag.
  • Eve, Raymond, Sara Horsfall and Mary E. Lee (1997). Chaos, Complexity and Sociology: Myths, Models, and Theories. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
  • Jenks, Chris and John Smith (2006). Qualitative Complexity: Ecology, Cognitive Processes and the Re-Emergence of Structures in Post-Humanist Social Theory. New York, NY: Routledge.
  • Kiel, L. Douglas (ed.) (2008). Knowledge Management, Organizational Intelligence, Learning and Complexity. UNESCO (EOLSS): Paris, France.
  • Kiel, L. Douglas and Euel Elliott (eds.) (1997). Chaos Theory in the Social Sciences: Foundations and Applications. The University of Michigan Press: Ann Arbor, MI.
  • Leydesdorff, Loet
    (2001). A Sociological Theory of Communication: The Self-Organization of the Knowledge-Based Society. Parkland, FL: Universal Publishers.
  • Urry, John (2005). "The Complexity Turn." Theory, Culture and Society, 22(5): 1–14.
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