Complexity in World Politics: Concepts and Methods of a New Paradigm

by Neil E. Harrison (editor)

Despite one hundred years of theorizing, scholars and practitioners alike are constantly surprised by international and global political events. The collapse of communism in Europe, the 1997 Asian financial crisis, and 9/11 have demonstrated the inadequacy of current models that depict world politics as a simple, mechanical system. Complexity in World Politics shows how conventional theories oversimplify reality and illustrates how concepts drawn from complexity science can be adapted to increase our understanding of world politics and improve policy. In language free of jargon, the book's distinguished contributors explain and illustrate a complexity paradigm of world politics and define its central concepts. They show how these concepts can improve conventional models as well as generate new ideas, hypotheses, and empirical approaches, and conclude by outlining an agenda of theoretical development and empirical research to create and test complex systems theories of issue-areas of world politics.

220 pages, Hardcover

First published July 6, 2006

Reviews

[Joshua · Rating 2 out of 5]

Located at the intersection of complexity theory and international relations theory this is a must read book for anyone interested in the interaction between the two theoretical traditions. It's review of complexity theory hits all the key elements of that approach and the case studies in later chapters hint at potential applications of these theoretical tools. This book is by no means comprehensive but it is a good introductory text for international relations scholars interested in the complexity paradigm.