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A New Taxonomy for International Relations: Rethinking the International System as a Complex Adaptive System
Abstract
Abstract: The international system is a complex adaptive system with emergent properties and dynamics of self-organization and information processing. As such, it is better understood with a multidisciplinary approach that borrows methodologies from the field of complexity science and integrates them to the theoretical perspectives offered by the field of international relations (IR). This study is set to formalize a complex systems theory approach to the study of international affairs and introduce a new taxonomy for IR with the two-pronged aim of improving interoperability between different epistemological communities and outlining a formal grammar that set the basis for modeling international politics as a complex adaptive system. Keywords: international politics, international relations theory, complex systems theory, taxonomy, adaptation, fitness, self-organization. ///////////////////////////////////////
Resumen: El Sistema internacional es un sistema adaptativo complejo con propiedades emergentes y dinámica de auto organización y procesamiento de información. Como tal, es mejor comprender con una aproximación multidisciplinaria que extraiga metodologías del campo de la ciencia de la complejidad y las integre a las perspectivas teóricas ofrecidas por el campo de las relaciones internacionales (RI). Este estudio existe para formalizar un acercamiento teórico de sistemas complejos para el estudio de los asuntos internacionales y presentar una nueva taxonomía para las RI con el objetivo bipartito de mejorar la interoperabilidad entre diferentes comunidades epistemológicas y esquematizar una gramática formal que ponga las bases para los modelos de las políticas internacionales como un sistema adaptativo complejo.
Palabras clave: política internacional, teoría de relaciones internacionales, teoría de sistemas complejos, taxonomía, adaptación, aptitud, autoorganización.
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摘要: 国际系统是一个复杂适应系统，它具备自组织和信息处理的 新兴性质和动态。照此，用多学科方法更能促进对国际系统 的理解，因为前者借用复杂性科学领域中的方法论并将其合 并到国际关系（international relations，IR）领域所提供的理 论视角中。本研究致力为国际关系研究提出正式的复杂系统 理论方法，并为国际关系引入一种新的分类法，此分类法有。两个目标：一是提高不同认识论社区（epistemological communities）间的互操作性；二是概述一种形式语法，为国际 政治作为一种复杂适应系统进行建模提供基础。
关键词: 国际政治, 国际关系理论, 复杂系统理论, 分类学, 适应, fitness, 自组织。
... The recent IPCC (2022 , 53) summary of the links between climate and conflict is couched in uncertainty, noting that "there is insufficient evidence at present to attribute armed conflict to human-induced climate change." Complicating matters further, a series of strident critiques have called into question the entire enterprise of quantitative climate-conflict research ( Selby 2014 ;Scartozzi 2021 ; see also Simangan, 2020 ). For instance, following a systematic review, Cesare Scartozzi declared climate-conflict scholarship "degenerative" and doomed unless it leaves behind its "19th century" assumptions and down its positivist toolkit ( Scartozzi 2021 , 719). ...
... These influences can be traced by the contagion throughout the social sciences of many of the key concepts of complexity such as feedback, bifurcations, self-organization, and emergence ( Byrne 1998 ;de Coning 2020 ). Within the field of climate-conflict and related research fields, scholars have begun to recognize the complexity of their subject matter and there have been growing calls to apply concepts from complexity theory within climateconflict scholarship (e.g., Scartozzi 2018Scartozzi , 2021Hermans and Ide 2019 , 43). ...
... These influences can be traced by the contagion throughout the social sciences of many of the key concepts of complexity such as feedback, bifurcations, self-organization, and emergence ( Byrne 1998 ;de Coning 2020 ). Within the field of climate-conflict and related research fields, scholars have begun to recognize the complexity of their subject matter and there have been growing calls to apply concepts from complexity theory within climateconflict scholarship (e.g., Scartozzi 2018Scartozzi , 2021Hermans and Ide 2019 , 43). ...
Over the last two decades, climate security has become an increasingly salient policy agenda in international fora. Yet, despite a large body of research, the empirical links between climate-change and conflict remain highly uncertain. This paper contends that uncertainty around climate–conflict links should be understood as characteristic of complex social–ecological systems rather than a problem that can be fully resolved. Rather than striving to eliminate uncertainty, we suggest that researchers need to learn to cope with it. To this end, this article advances a set of principles for guiding scholarly practice when investigating a complex phenomenon: recognizing epistemological uncertainty, embracing epistemological diversity, and practicing humility and dialogue across difference. Taken together we call this ethos epistemological pluralism, whereby scholars self-consciously recognize the limits of their chosen epistemology for understanding the climate–conflict nexus and engage with other approaches without attempting to usurp them. Reviewing the last decade of climate–conflict scholarship, we show that climate–conflict research already manifests many of these ideals; however, we also identify problematic patterns of engagement across epistemological divides and thus plenty of scope for improvement. To illustrate why a diversity of methods (e.g., qualitative and quantitative) will not suffice, the article critically discusses prior research to illustrate why at least two epistemological approaches—constructivism and positivism—cannot be synthesized or integrated without significant analytical cost, and elaborates why excluding insights from any one would lead to an impoverished understanding of the climate–conflict nexus. We conclude with five practical recommendations of how scholars can help realize the ideal of epistemological pluralism in practice.
... It explains how autonomous interaction of individual elements produces order without authority. Self-organisation helps to study how systems are created without resorting to reductionism (Scartozzi 2018). ...
... The elements of security systems have agency in as much as they are collections of human beings. They are meta-agents (Scartozzi 2018) and have autonomy in accordance with their systemic positions and relations (Jackson and Nexon 1999). Owing to the agency of elements and their unlikeness and sub-systemic properties, they make the complex security systems non-linear and emergent. ...
... In this sense, a complex security system is organic or 'biological' in nature (Bertalanffy 1969). The global system provides the context that determines the fitness of a particular complex security system (Scartozzi 2018). Security systems evolve (cf. ...
After the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Sino–Russian relations have rapidly become a hotly debated topic within the fields of strategic studies and international relations. In this article, we propose a preliminary theoret-ical model for analysing the Russian–Chinese relation as a complex security system. By security system, we mean a system consisting of two or more elements (states) with shared and interdependent security concerns and inter-ests. From the shared understandings of security of the elements, the system emerges with its emergent attributes and properties. After providing its theoretical and concep-tual framework based on recent ideas in complex system theories, the article narrates how the Eurasian security system began to develop after the restructuring of global and Eurasian security architectures following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. During the following decades, China and Russia developed mutually homogenous sets of perceived security threats and interests, and later in the post 2014-era, these interests converged to establish the Eurasian security system.
... The elements of security systems have agency in as much as they are collections of human beings. They are meta-agents (Scartozzi 2018) and have autonomy in accordance with their systemic positions and relations (Nexon & Jackson 1999). Because of the agency of elements, their unlikeness, and sub-systemic properties they make the complex security systems nonlinear and emergent. ...
FISA / KATSE conference paper 6-7.5.2022.
... If we keep looking at a nonlinear word through a "linear vision," as noted by Richards (2000, 2), we "miss a lot" or, worst, we risk superimposing reductionist explanations upon complex multi-causal phenomena. IR and conflict studies should therefore reframe social-ecological systems (SES) as complex adaptive systems (Ostrom 2009) and socio-environmental conflicts as emergent behaviors of coupled biotic and abiotic systems (Scartozzi 2018). Only through a social-ecological perspective it will be possible to move the research program into the Anthropocene and see climate as a variable, global process that is intertwined with society through feedback loops and co-evolutionary dynamics. ...
This article draws a comprehensive map of conflict climate change scholarship. It uses visualizations and descriptive statistics to trace the temporal, spatial, and topical evolution of the field of study via a bibliometric analysis of more than six hundred publications. It then proceeds to summarize findings, theoretical explanations, and methodological approaches. Overall , this systematic review shows a remarkable inconsistency of evidence among publications. As a way forward, this article recommends future research to use computational models, informed by a social-ecological perspective , to better explore the link between climate change and conflict.
Resumen: En este artículo se traza un mapa integral de la erudición conflictiva del cambio climático. Se utilizan visualizaciones y estadísticas descriptivas para rastrear la evolución temporal, espacial y temática del campo de estudio mediante un análisis bibliométrico de más de seiscientas publicaciones. Luego, continúa con un resumen de los hallazgos, las ex-plicaciones teóricas y los enfoques metodológicos.
En términos generales, esta revisión sistemática muestra una notable incoherencia de evidencias entre las publicaciones. En este artículo se recomiendan investigaciones a futuro para utilizar los modelos computacionales, informados con una perspectiva socioecológica, a fin de explorar mejor la conexión entre el cambio climático y los conflictos. Extrait: Cet article offre une représentation complète des recherches portant sur les conflits liés au changement climatique. Il utilise des visualisations et des statistiques descriptives pour retracer l'évolution temporelle, spatiale et thématique de ce domaine d'étude via une analyse bibliométrique de plus de six cents publications. Il résume ensuite les constatations, explications théoriques et approches méthodologiques. Globalement, cette synthèse systématique montre une incohérence re-marquable des preuves entre les publications. Pour aller de l'avant, cet article recommande que les recherches futures passent par des modèles informatiques éclairés par une perspective socio-écologique pour mieux explorer le lien entre le changement climatique et les conflits.
The UK-EU relationship has been depicted as awkward, and Brexit represents the pinnacle of this strangeness. This paper uses the Complex Adaptive Systems framework and the Containers, Differences, Exchanges (CDE) model to understand Brexit as a turning point in the system-wide pattern of the UK-EU relationship from differentiated integration to disintegration. Also, in accordance with the post-functionalist theory, this article argues that the ‘constraining dissensus’ that emerged since the 1990s has been pushing both towards more differentiated integration and, ultimately, towards disintegration.
This article proposes a direct relationship between complexity and predictability in a two-agent noncooperative zero-sum game (2XZSG). The author explores this proposition by modeling armed conflict as a 2XZSG and using case studies in armed conflict as the dataset for the systematic literature review. This article uses a multiple case study approach, systematically reviewing 13 case studies in armed conflict that yielded 156 references identifying four themes—environmental, human resource, operational, and supply chain constraints—that demonstrate a direct relationship between complexity and predictability. The data focuses on decisions made in particular battles and campaigns as well as the constraints that impacted decision making. By identifying those decisions and constraints, four themes emerged. These four themes are an innovation as a potential addendum to the war gaming methodology in the military decision making process (MDMP).
Stuart Kauffman here presents a brilliant new paradigm for evolutionary biology, one that extends the basic concepts of Darwinian evolution to accommodate recent findings and perspectives from the fields of biology, physics, chemistry and mathematics. The book drives to the heart of the exciting debate on the origins of life and maintenance of order in complex biological systems. It focuses on the concept of self-organization: the spontaneous emergence of order widely observed throughout nature. Kauffman here argues that self-organization plays an important role in the emergence of life itself and may play as fundamental a role in shaping life's subsequent evolution as does the Darwinian process of natural selection. Yet until now no systematic effort has been made to incorporate the concept of self-organization into evolutionary theory. The construction requirements which permit complex systems to adapt remain poorly understood, as is the extent to which selection itself can yield systems able to adapt more successfully. This book explores these themes. It shows how complex systems, contrary to expectations, can spontaneously exhibit stunning degrees of order, and how this order, in turn, is essential for understanding the emergence and development of life on Earth. Topics include the new biotechnology of applied molecular evolution, with its important implications for developing new drugs and vaccines; the balance between order and chaos observed in many naturally occurring systems; new insights concerning the predictive power of statistical mechanics in biology; and other major issues. Indeed, the approaches investigated here may prove to be the new center around which biological science itself will evolve. The work is written for all those interested in the cutting edge of research in the life sciences.
Generated by scholars from various disciplines, complexity science integrates concepts from many fields to produce a new slant on evolution.1 Its exponents seek a general theory able to explain many different types of phenomena?social as well as biological and physical. If complexity fulfills this goal, it should also help us to understand ethnic and other problems in post-Soviet Eurasia and other troubled regions. The contributions of complexity to this understanding are evaluated in this paper.
So laments Shakespeare's tragic protagonist at the news of his wife's death. While one may forgive the Scottish king for his pessimistic metaphor, "life" for most of us connotes roseate meanings: dynamism, growth, learning, evolution, and adaptation. So perhaps it is no surprise that the complexity sciences?explicitly concerned with these properties of a variety of systems, from physical to social? not only invoke the metaphor of life but also have postulated the idea of "artificial" life (Langton et al. 1991; Langton 1994, 1995; Kauffman 1995; Langton and Shimohara 1997). It is unremarkable, furthermore, that social scientists observe in human societies the dynamism, adaptability, and unpredictability of organisms and ecological systems. Corning (2002), for one, argues that human societies are "superorganisms" and global politics are becoming a "super-superorganism." Johnson's "myth of the ant queen" (2001) explicitly postulates that human cities organize themselves much like colonies of insects do: without the centralized authority of an "ant queen." Smith and Stevens (1997) reduce social organization to the attachment behavior regulated by the brain's cyclic production of neurotransmitters known as "opioids." More provocatively, Corning notes that the biologist Edward O. Wilson argues "the humanities and social sciences shrink to specialized branches of biology" (Wilson 1975, 547, quoted in Corning 2000, 103). Indeed, there is a growing field of "biopolitics" (see Somit and Peterson 1997). Rather than a walking shadow in our analyses, then, life and its connotations of dynamism are central to an important line of contemporary thought about social systems.
This chapter undertakes a deceivingly simple endeavor?to show how insights from complexity concepts (drawn from the complex systems taxonomy described in chapters 1 and 2) can aid our understanding of environmental regimes. This is not a wholesale indictment of regime theory. As there is no single regime theory, it is not possible to indict the whole enterprise (Hasenclever, Meyer, and Rittberger, 1997). Rather, I focus on one aspect of a complexity approach that is missed by traditional (especially neoliberal) regime theory?namely, how actors coevolve with their political context and how adaptive actors come to understand both the environmental problems that they face and the potential solutions to those problems. I illustrate how complexity concepts can help us to move beyond regime theory with a brief examination of the ozone depletion regime.
The events of September 11, 2001, undermined much conventional analysis in world politics and international relations (IR). Much as the fall of the Berlin Wall was not anticipated by IR scholars, the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington did not neatly fit within conventional explanations of international conflict. In this paper, therefore, I attempt to (1) respond theoretically and pragmatically to the events and aftermath of September 11, 2001; (2) deal with Realpolitik (and one of its concomitants, ethnocentrism) and conflict resolution as traditionally contending, but potentially complementary, approaches to dealing with threats to order and security at the domestic and international levels; and (3) provide a theoretical and pragmatic basis for further research, theory building, and practice in domestic and world affairs, with a view to dealing effectively with both the deep-rooted causes and the very clear symptoms of the "new" terrorism and related identity-based conflicts fueled by the ending of the Cold War. To make sense of the attacks and to illustrate the potential complementarity of Realpolitik and conflict resolution approaches, I draw on several complexity concepts, including emergence; nonlinear, "catastrophic" responses to initial conditions; and synergistic coexistence of traditionally competing frameworks and ideas.
The disappearance and formation of states after the end of the Cold War have proved puzzling to both theorists and policy-makers. This lack of conceptual preparation stems from two tendencies in Western thinking. First, the dominant focus on cohesive nation-states as the only actors of world politics obscures crucial differences between the state and the nation. Second, traditional theory usually treats these units as fixed. To circumvent these limitations, this dissertation presents a series of models that separate the state from the nation and/or incorporate these as emergent rather than preconceived actors. The models draw on both formal and critical theories in an attempt to integrate them. This requires methodological innovations ranging from minor deviations from existing deductive models to more unconventional frameworks based on complex adaptive systems simulations. The modeling chapters fall into two main parts, the first focusing on state-formation and the second centering on nation-building. Although the illustrations are drawn mainly from European history, the findings apply to more general phenomena. The first part shows that while structural realist predictions about unit-level invariance hold up under certain circumstances, they are heavily dependent on fierce power competition, which can result in unipolarity instead of the balance of power. The second part, on nationalism, illustrates both long-term trends, such as the convergence of identities on the nation-state from both small-scale and cosmopolitan units, and more short-term processes, such as nationalist mobilization and coordination in multi-ethnic states. Such states' efforts to instill loyalty in their peripheral populations may backfire. Moreover, if the revolutionary movement is culturally split, its identity becomes more inclusive as the power gap in the imperial center's favor increases. It is hoped that the emergent actor approach will help shift attention from the exclusively behavioral focus of conventional International Relations theory toward a truly dynamic perspective that treats the actors of world politics as dependent rather than independent variables.
This book brings together leading figures who have made key contributions to the development of international theory to provide a major survey of the state of the subject. The contributors analyze the traditional theoretical approaches in the discipline, the issues and groups that are marginalized by mainstream theory, and important new developments in international theory. The book concludes with five chapters that look at the future of the subject. This volume will be a valuable text for both students and scholars of international relations.