Neil E. Harrison 
Complexity in World Politics [PDF ebook] 
Concepts and Methods of a New Paradigm

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.

Tabella dei contenuti

1. Thinking About the World We Make


Neil E. Harrison



2. Complexity Is More Than Systems Theory


 Neil E. Harrison with J. David Singer



3. Complexity and Conflict Resolution 


Dennis J. D. Sandole 



4. Understanding and Coping with Ethnic Conflict and Development Issues in Post-Soviet Eurasia


 Walter C. Clemens, Jr.



5. Beyond Regime Theory: Complex Adaptation and the Ozone Depletion Regime


Matthew J. Hoffmann



6. Agent-Based Models in the Study of Ethnic Norms and Violence


 Ravi Bhavnani



7. Alternative Uses of Simulation


Robert Axelrod



8. Signifying Nothing? What Complex Systems Theory Can and Cannot Tell Us about Global Politics


David C. Earnest and James N. Rosenau



9. When Worlds Collide: Reflections on the Credible Uses of Agent-Based Models in International and Global Studies


Desmond Saunders-Newton



10. Complex Systems and the Practice of World Politics


Neil E. Harrison



Contributors

List of Titles, SUNY series in Global Politics

Index

Circa l’autore

Neil E. Harrison is Founder and Executive Director of the Sustainable Development Institute and the author of
Constructing Sustainable Development, also published by SUNY Press.