Yes, politicians steer on the institutional constraints of the
self-organizing system. The center of control is dynamic and potentially
responsive to the steering. Thus, the steering of a complex and adaptive
system mainly generates "unintended consequences".
The function of politics, therefore, has changed. It is mainly propelling
itself as a political discourse which disturbs other subsystems of society,
both in terms of setting conditions and as legitimation. For example,
politicians try to be on television in order to legitimate their functions.
The political system can only gain in steering power by being more reflexive
about its functions.
With best wishes,
Loet
_____
Loet Leydesdorff
Amsterdam School of Communications Research (ASCoR)
Kloveniersburgwal 48, 1012 CX Amsterdam
Tel.: +31-20- 525 6598; fax: +31-20- 525 3681
<mailto:loet@leydesdorff.net> loet@leydesdorff.net ;
<http://www.leydesdorff.net/> http://www.leydesdorff.net/
_____
From: fis-bounces@listas.unizar.es [mailto:fis-bounces@listas.unizar.es] On
Behalf Of Igor Matutinovic
Sent: Thursday, February 15, 2007 10:42 AM
To: fis@listas.unizar.es
Subject: [Fis] Continuing Discussion of Social and Cultural Complexity
Dear colleagues
I have the impression that there is an agreement about the existence of
biological and sociocultural constraints that impact on our ability to
understand and manage socioeconomic complexity. These constraints are
organized hierarchically, as Stan puts it, {biological {sociocultural }}.
As far as I can tell, social science is not much interested to explore the
constraints below the biological, and if we take the perspective of
evolutionary psychology, than the psychological level may be subsumed in the
biological.
Perhaps we could address socioeconomic complexity from the minimum of three
different perspectives: behavioral, informational or semiotic and material
(the latter refereeing to the artifacts and material substances that we pile
up in our environment and which impact we cannot fully understand nor
control; e.g. products of nanotechnology; toxic chemicals, weaponry).
One behavioral and informational aspect of socioeconomic complexity can be
identified in unintended consequences of political actions aimed to design
an institutional framework in order to achieve certain social or economic
purpose. Consider a simple example of the liberalization of electric energy
market in the US, UK and more generally in the EU. The aim of policy makers
was to unbundle the vertically integrated companies (power generation,
transmission, distribution and supply) in order to create a competitive
environment which would ensure investments in new capacity and in energy
efficiency, and at the same time drive down the prices of electrical energy
to the consumers and industry. What happened after nearly twd decades of
liberalization (apart the California energy crisis in 2000/01) is that
prices were fluctuating quite unpredictably, originally deintegrated firms
(like in England and Wells) started to vertically integrate while
cross-border mergers and acquisitions created bigger and more powerful
energy companies than before (market concentration was one of the thing that
lineralization wanted to change). According to some authors none of the
original aims (price reductions, energy-efficiency, new investments) was
fulfilled.
Now, the point for me is not that an unintended consequence did happen but
the fact that policy makers in the EU are continuing to push institutional
reforms in spite of the fact that it does not seem to work the way they want
it. As long as we do not postulate that there is a hidden agenda behind
their stated goals, then either the decision makers are not rational
(beacasue they push the agenda with full awareness that it will not work) or
they do not understand the processes and the constraints they hope to
affect. The latter may be the sign of the (social) system inability to
achieve certain goals in a complex sociocultural environment. This would not
be surprising: the signs that come from the energy market are not fully
consistent and thus allow for different interpretations; there are several
competing theories that may be used to explain the market dynamics and make
predictions; interpretations may be biased by different ideologies and
worldviews.
The liberalization of the energy market is a complexifying process: from the
monopolistic, and state regulated to the competitive, and profit driven
industry. In this process institutional constraints are continuously added:
markets are composite institutions themselves and to these the policy makers
add numerous new rules to achieve their specific goals. The aim to
streamline the energy sector by using markets with additional institutional
constraints may exceed our capability to handle the process and forsee the
consequences. To some extent, it may be a sign of diminishing returns to
complexity in problem solving that Joe addressed in his book "The collapse
of complex societies".
If we cannot manage the energy sector to serve certain social and economic
goals, how can we hope to be able to manage more complex situations like the
climate change, poverty reduction and population growth in the South?
Did we reach the limits (cognitive and cultural) to manage our complex
world?
(I guess I put another crazy question again...)
Best
Igor
Dr. Igor Matutinovic
Managing Director
GfK-Center for Market Research
Draskoviceva 54
100 00 Zagreb, Croatia
Tel: 385 1 48 96 222, 4921 222
Fax: 385 1 49 21 223
<http://www.gfk.hr> www.gfk.hr
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Received on Thu Feb 15 11:32:23 2007
