COMPLEX SYSTEMS IN SCIENCE AND SOCIETY:
International Development
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A functioning economy is a highly complex organization. As with other complex systems, planning, designing and anticipating the behavior of such a system does not work. Still, detailed planning of interventions for anticipated outcomes is still the main approach of development agencies like the World Bank. Even well-intentioned large scale interventions are likely to be destabilizing because they do not recognize the internal socio-economic interdependencies and their vulnerability to disruption. Since complex systems exist in relation to their environment, there is a self-consistent relationship between each country’s economy and its environment (natural as well as human) which must be recognized in development efforts. Moreover, any intervention itself becomes entangled with the system functioning so that the goal of promoting effective and independent functioning of a country by direct intervention is paradoxical. Insights into the pattern formation and evolutionary dynamics are needed to overcome these obstacles to social improvement efforts. Complex systems provides a scientific framework for understanding development in the third world. If you are interested in learning more about NECSI Education Programs, please contact Debra Gorfine at programs@necsi.org. Click here for a list of NECSI Education participants and clients. New Book
Papers
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