Complexity in World Politics by Neil E Harrison

Complexity in World Politics by Neil E Harrison

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.

"The volume … is a timely overview of the conjectures advanced by such 'complexification' of the study of global lifeIn this respect, it pulls together the disjointed analyses on the application and approaches of CT to world affairs. In fact, the very ability of the book to pull off such an endeavor is already a significant achievement in its own right … Complexity in World Politics would benefit both the explorations of advanced undergraduate students as well as assist the inquiry of established scholars of international relations." — H-Net Reviews (H-Ideas)

"The mapping by Neil Harrison in the volume's introductory chapter of the difference between simple systems and complex ones is very well done, and his argument that the world falls into the complex system category is convincing." — Political Science Quarterly

"This book is well written and easily accessible, with essays by some of the major thinkers in the field of complexity science. It makes a number of intellectual contributions and helps fill a gap in the existing literature." — Scott E. Page, coeditor of Computational Models in Political Economy

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.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780791468074
ISBN 10	0791468070
Title	Complexity in World Politics
Author	Neil E Harrison
Series	Suny Series In Global Politics
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Hardback
Publisher	State University of New York Press
Year published	2006-06-08
Number of pages	220
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.