7. Концепція complexity р.Джервіса

На мікрорівні міжнародної системи завжди виникали чинники, які загрожували стабільності міжнародної системи. До таких Р. Джервіс (R. Jervis) відносить непередбачувані наслідки окремих взаємодій і взаємодій стратегій акторів, які в сукупності можуть мати руйнівний вплив на систему, а також суб’єктивні чинники пов’язані з помилковим сприйняттям явищ міжнародної політики, що впливають на ухвалення рішень та вибір стратегій. 

What Does Complexity Theory Mean for IR?

It is customary to see one‟s own historical epoch as characterized by extraordinary sophisticationand advancement. However, one would not be taking a great intellectual risk to suggest that thecomplexity of our world is unprecedented: the proliferation of international organizations andlaw to regulate global affairs, instantaneous internet and satellite-based communications, theability to transfer billions of dollars halfway across the globe with the click of a mouse, globalsupply chains which result in manufactured goods assembled across a host of countries,unprecedented human mobility. If ever there were a time where international affairs could beunderstood as a complex system it is now. However, if complexity theory arguably offers a moreapt orientation for thinking about our world, what challenges might we encounter as we attemptto think about international relations as a complex system? At least five such challenges meritmention.

1) Understanding international relations as a complex system is hard work.

If we accept the notion that our world is a complex system, characterized by the attributes above,much of the conceptual vernacular in existing IR theory must be rethought. The world whichcomplexity theory presents to us is one of “…fluid and open assemblages…systems without any necessary propensity to equilibrium or stasis…open to transformative change andmetamorphosis.”

Modeling such a world will be complex, to say the least. Gone will be thelawlike regularities posited by realists, who assert that states constitute conflict-prone unitaryactors, or liberals who see institutionalized cooperation as being in the rational self-interest of states. Integrating complexity theory into IR means, as a starting point, we must accept that thereare no overarching laws to the international system.

2) We cannot expect linear relationships in complex systems.

International relations theory is often framed as a series of “great debates:” idealism v. realism, behavioralism v. traditionalism, positivism v. post-positivism, etc. According to Emilian Kavlaski the contemporary debate in IR theory is that of “linearity v. nonlinearity.”

Thus,rather than thinking of linear relationships where independent variable (cause) A producesdependent variable (effect) B, we need to figure out ways to formalize a myriad of possibleinfluences in non-linear webs of interaction. Incidentally, Freidrich Hayek, writing aboutcomplex systems in the 1950s, thought that such an endeavor was very nearly beyond the reachof the human mind. At best, he said such an orientation would produce “pattern predictions” rather than deterministic cause and effect relationships.

3) We need to abandon reductionism.

If we accept the perspective of complexity theory, we also must accept that the “whole” is quite different than the sum of its parts, at least in international relations.

As stated above, our attempts to interact with the system unleash a tidal wave of systemic interactions, interactioneffects, and feedback loops. This has always been the case. For instance, the availability of a newvaccine may result in a healthier population with a longer life expectancy. However, such adeclining death rate may also increase competition for scarce resources, provoke civil unrest onthe basis of ethnicity, set in motion a flood of refugees into neighboring countries, and imperil regional stability. As Jervis says, “…we can never do merely one thing.”

A reductionistapproach to understanding international relations, which aims to understand the constitutive unitsand their relationships with one another, often fails to grasp the unintended systemicconsequences of any action. Thus far, work which explicitly introduces the non-reductionistapproach of complexity theory has been patchy.

Our ability to computationally model suchinteractions is improving via a tool

known as “agent-based modeling” and similar innovations, however the prevailing perspective in IR research is a reductionist one.

4) We need to re-think our unit of analysis. In international relations theory we tend to think in terms of autonomous agents — individual orcollective actors who intervene in the world and shape the Theorizing and analyzing the worldmust start at the level of networks rather than actors (and eventually proceed up the chain of complexity to interactions between networks, and the ways in which constellations of networksinteract with the system).

Conceptual hierarchies based on the preeminence of the state, thepath-defining effect of specific influential world leaders, the tendencies of “great powers” or thebehavioral impacts of international institutions must fade. We must develop language to capturethe fluidity and dynamism of contemporary global affairs. IR theory rooted in complexity willmean analyses of world affairs that focus on the patterns of interactions occurring within and between networks, rather than specific “agents” of world politics.

5) Long term prediction is nearly impossible but subtle regularities and trends can be uncovered.

This is shift that will no doubt face resistance as those who study IR face increasing pressure to make their studies “policy - relevant.”However, the take-away insight from propositions such as the “butterfly effect” should not be understood as enhanced prediction. Paying better attention toseemingly insignificant causes of international change will not be a means to better predict thefuture. Rather, the intricate feedback loops and sub-systemic interactions which characterize acomplex system are so multifarious, we‟d be foolish to attempt long -term prediction at all.Here, the model of weather forecasting is appropriate. Based on recurrent patterns and a hugenumber of data-points, meteorologists can make reasonably accurate predictions within a compressed time horizon (usually 2-5 days). However, through the lens of complexity theory, thegrandiose designs of IR theory which aim to predict international outcomes years in advanceseem about as absurd as your local weatherman trying to tell you if it will rain ten years fromtoday. There is simply too much complexity within the system to make such forecasts with anyaccuracy. This is not to say that we limit our attempts to understand IR to only what occurs in thenext few days, only that our emphasis should be on detecting patterns and their probability of recurrence within a near time-horizon.

Concluding Thoughts: Compatibility or Incommensurability? As the cautionary points above suggest, taking the insights of complexity theory and complex systems analysis seriously in IR will require a substantial “re- boot” of much of the discipline‟s theoretical apparatus. This type of epistemological re-orientation is precisely why Kavlaski identifies complexity theory as the source of the next “great debate” in IR theory. Thus far, attempts to systematically develop complexity theory into a research paradigm akin to liberalismor constructivism have occurred only on the margins of IR scholarship. Furthermore, as somescholars have attempted to shift upward to consider international political phenomena at the level of the system, a vacuum has developed whereby “power, authority, and hierarchy” have remained under-theorized.

As noted earlier, complexity theory is less of a coherent theoretical paradigm and more acollection of tools and perspectives. Complexity theory can supplement existing approaches tounderstanding international relations. However, it can‟t replace them. Obviously, theoreticalperspectives in IR that aim for the law-like certainty of the “hard sciences” or the agent-basedparsimony of macroeconomic theory will have a hard time integrating such tools into theiranalysis. Theoretical orientations such as structural realism or neoliberal institutionalism mightfind little common ground with a complex systems perspective. However, more flexible modelssuch as constructivism or critical theory might be well poised to integrate complexity theory‟s holistic, non-linear approach. International relations theory has undergone fruitful regenerationby adopting ideas from other disciplines in the past. Perhaps the next major interdisciplinarypoint of cross-fertilization will be the tools used to explain complex systems in the biological andphysical sciences.

1. Antoine Bousquet and Simon Curtis. Beyond Models and Metaphors: Complexity Theory, Systems Thinking andInternational Relations. Cambridge Review of International Affairs . 24(2011): 58.

2. Kavlaski 2007, 445.

3. Friedrich Hayek. The Theory of Complex Phenomena. In Studies in Philosophy, Politics and Economic. F.Hayek, ed. (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1967).

4. For critical perspectives that argue even complexity theory cannot escape reductionism, see Murray Bookchin. The Philosophy of Social Ecology: Essays on Dialectical Naturalism.(Montreal: Black Rose Books, 1995);

5. Takis Fotopoulos. Systems Theory and Complexity: A Potential Tool for Radical Analysis or the Emerging SocialParadigm for the Internationalizes Market Economy? Democracy & Nature. 6 (2000): 421-446.

6. Jervis 1997-98, 570. Lars-Erik Cederman. Emergent Actors in World Politics: How States and Nations Develop and Dissolve. (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1997);

7. James N. Rosenau. Turbulence in World Politics: A Theory of Change and Continuity. (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2003).

8. Robert Axelrod. A Model of the Emergence of New Political Actors. in N. Gilbert and R. Conte, eds. ArtificialSocieties: The Computer Simulation of Social Life. (London: Routledge, 1995), 19-39;

9. Lars-Erik Cederman.Computational Models of Social Forms: Advancing Generative Process Theory. American Journal of Sociology. (2005): 864-93;

10. Nigel Gilbert. Agents-Based Modeling.(Los Angeles: Sage, 2008).

11. See for instance, Manuel Castells. The Rise of the Network Society.(Cambridge, MA: Blackwell, 1996);

12. MargaretKeck and Kathryn Sikkink. 1998. Activists Beyond Borders.(Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press);

13. Daniel Nexon The Struggle for Power in Early Modern Europe: Religious Conflict, Dynastic Empires, and International Change.(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2009).

14. Joseph Nye. Scholars on the Sidelines. The Washington Post. April 13, 2009