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In a rented convent in Santa Fe, a revolution has been brewing. The activists are not anarchists, but rather Nobel Laureates in physics and economics such as Murray Gell-Mann and Kenneth Arrow, and pony-tailed graduate students, mathematicians, and computer scientists down from Los Alamos. They've formed an iconoclastic think tank called the Santa Fe Institute, and their radical idea is to create a new science called complexity. These mavericks from academe share a deep impatience with the...
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It is generally recognized that life is becoming more complex. This article analyzes the human social environment using the "complexity profile," a mathematical tool for characterizing the collective behavior of a system. The analysis is used to justify the qualitative observation that complexity of existence has increased and is increasing. The increase in complexity is directly related to sweeping changes in the structure and dynamics of human civilization—the increasing interdependence of...
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Complexity science has seriously challenged long-held views in the scientific community about how the world works. These ideas, particularly about the living world, also have radical and profound implications for organizations and society as a whole. Available in paperback for the first time, this insightful book describes and considers ideas from complexity science and examines their use in organizations, especially in bringing about major organizational change. Author McMillan...
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"Put together one of the world's best science writers with one of the universe's most fascinating subjects and you are bound to produce a wonderful book. . . . The subject of complexity is vital and controversial. This book is important and beautifully done."—Stephen Jay Gould"[Complexity] is that curious mix of complication and organization that we find throughout the natural and human worlds: the workings of a cell, the structure of the brain, the behavior of the stock market, the shifts...
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Graham Room argues that conventional approaches to the conceptualization and measurement of social and economic change are unsatisfactory. As a result, researchers are ill-equipped to offer policy advice. This book offers a new analytical approach, combining complexity science and institutionalism. It also provides tools for policy makers in turbulent times. Part 1 is concerned with the conceptualization of socio-economic change. It integrates complexity science and institutionalism into a...
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The field of global development has reached a critical turning point. Almost gone is the mechanical, one-size-fits-all “good governance” paradigm of the past. In its place is a growing embrace of complexity and systems thinking. While this is an encouraging shift in the right direction, the discussion mostly ends by concluding that we should adapt. Yuen Yuen Ang urges that it’s time to take our conversation on “complexity & development” to the next level: how to enable adaptation. Effective...
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This screencast covers information included in the Complexity-Aware Monitoring Discussion Note. The topic is intended for those seeking cutting-edge solutions to monitoring complex aspects of strategies and projects. Most of the principles and promising approaches discussed here have a significant body of theory and practice behind them, but many have not been used to monitor USAID strategies and projects. We have much to learn about whether and how they can be applied successfully in the...
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Background: Addressing today’s sustainability challenges requires adopting a systemic approach where social and ecological systems are treated as integrated social-ecological systems. Such systems are complex, and the international development sector increasingly recognises the need to account for the complexity of the systems that they seek to transform. Purpose: This paper sketches out the elements of a complexity-aware monitoring and evaluation (M&E) system for international...
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Complexity science--made possible by modern analytical and computational advances--is changing the way we think about social systems and social theory. Unfortunately, economists' policy models have not kept up and are stuck in either a market fundamentalist or government control narrative. While these standard narratives are useful in some cases, they are damaging in others, directing thinking away from creative, innovative policy solutions. Complexity and the Art of Public Policy outlines a...
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In the last of a series of three blog posts looking at the implications of complexity theory for development, Owen Barder and Ben Ramalingam look at the implications of complexity for the trend towards results-based management in development cooperation. They argue that is a common mistake to see a contradiction between recognising complexity and focusing on results: on the contrary, complexity provides a powerful reason for pursuing the results agenda, but it has to be done in ways which...
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In this original and far-reaching synthesis, Kai N. Lee explains that together science and politics can lead the waytoward the sustainable management of the world’s resources. Rigorous science can act as our compass, pointingus toward greater and more useful knowledge (adaptive management), and practical politics can serve as our gyroscope, keeping usbalanced between competing interest groups. Unlike some approaches to sustainable development, Compass and Gyroscope is refreshingly...
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Community Moderation Guidelines for [Organisation] 1.0 INTRODUCTION Welcome to [the community]. We’re excited to have you as a moderator and we can’t wait for you to get started. We’ve put together this document to help guide your moderation decisions. Our goal...
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Climate change is expected to exacerbate existing food security challenges, especially in Indigenous communities worldwide. Community-based monitoring is considered a promising strategy to improve monitoring of, and local adaptation to climatic and environmental change. Yet, it is unclear how this approach can be applied in food security or Indigenous contexts. The objectives of this paper are to: 1) review and synthesize the published literature on community-based monitoring of Indigenous...
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This paper describes the basic characteristics of CoPs and provides a rationale for their growing importance in international development. It also suggests some ways in which CoPs can be supported by development agencies, research institutes and donors to strengthen the linkages between knowledge, policy and practice.
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The U.K. Ministry of Defense (MoD) has mandated the development of a network enabled capability (NEC) across all of defense, aimed at producing agile military and nonmilitary effects via a network of networks. This paper provides an overview of NEC, representing it as a complex human activity system of systems (SoS), analysis of which cannot rely on purely traditional reductionist engineering approaches, requiring instead a soft-systems engineering approach. A literature review is then...
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