Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
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TY - JOUR
T1 - The Complexities of the Global.
AU - Urry, John
PY - 2005/10
Y1 - 2005/10
N2 - ‘Complexity theory’ seems to provide some metaphors, concepts and theories essential for examining the intractable disorderliness of the contemporary world. Relations across that world are complex, rich and non-linear, involving multiple negative and, more significantly, positive feedback loops. This article shows how globalization should be conceptualized as a series of adapting and co-evolving global systems, each characterized by unpredictability, irreversibility and co-evolution. Such systems lack finalized ‘equilibrium’ or ‘order’; and the many pools of order heighten overall disorder. They do not exhibit and sustain unchanging structural stability. Complexity elaborates how there is order and disorder within these various global systems. The global order is a complex world, unpredictable and irreversible, disorderly but not anarchic.
AB - ‘Complexity theory’ seems to provide some metaphors, concepts and theories essential for examining the intractable disorderliness of the contemporary world. Relations across that world are complex, rich and non-linear, involving multiple negative and, more significantly, positive feedback loops. This article shows how globalization should be conceptualized as a series of adapting and co-evolving global systems, each characterized by unpredictability, irreversibility and co-evolution. Such systems lack finalized ‘equilibrium’ or ‘order’; and the many pools of order heighten overall disorder. They do not exhibit and sustain unchanging structural stability. Complexity elaborates how there is order and disorder within these various global systems. The global order is a complex world, unpredictable and irreversible, disorderly but not anarchic.
KW - complexity • fluids • globalization • networks • path-dependence
U2 - 10.1177/0263276405057201
DO - 10.1177/0263276405057201
M3 - Journal article
VL - 22
SP - 235
EP - 254
JO - Theory, Culture and Society
JF - Theory, Culture and Society
SN - 1460-3616
IS - 5
ER -