Global Order: Resilience, Ramifications and Unintended Consequences. more

This paper explores how interwoven networks contribute to what might be called a global order. However, the very concept of order has long been tied to a linear and deterministic worldview. Complexity theory (CT) offers an alternative vision; order is not abandoned, but it is contingent and multifarious. Networks, in this sense, should be appreciated as intersubjective relationships that interconnect across multiple levels. Yet, although adaptive, they are self-sustaining, allowing for a degree of pattern recognition. Newtonian-informed social sciences have sought to explain patterned behaviour from a ready-made lens adopted from the Scientific Revolution. Here, agents, whether they be states or non-state actors, are atomised. CT allows for global life to be recast. Co-evolution, driven by positive feedback processes, not only contributes to an order (or orders), but it can be used to explain how and why agents within a system have difficulty responding to particular challenges. CT may well be used to highlight the ecological interconnectivity of global lives. Indeed, it can show the link (or expose the false division) between the natural and social sciences. However, what should not be ignored is that the resilience of particular processes, aggregations and networks is as much a part of understanding complex systems as is the focus on flux, change and unpredictability. A complex dance occurs; driven by multiple desires to maintain (or continue to manufacture a perception of) a status quo, even when significant pressure is placed upon the system (traditional analysis often refers to endogenous and exogenous pressures, a line blurred by CT). This defensive reaction should not be merely dismissed, as it is inextricably a part of a more encompassing emergent order; a considerably more flexible notion. Order, then, needs to be recognised as a high-energy affair that is constantly informed by and informs the environment it is thought to describe. This understanding offers useful insights for a range of debates, including action and inaction surrounding climate change.