Sociology of Complex Systems

World Futures, 62: 411–440, 2006

Copyright © Taylor & Francis Group, LLC

ISSN 0260-4027 print / 1556-1844 online

DOI: 10.1080/02604020600798619

THE SOCIOLOGY OF COMPLEX SYSTEMS: ANOVERVIEW OF ACTOR-SYSTEM-DYNAMICS THEORY

TOM R. BURNSUppsala Theory Circle, Department of Sociology, University of Uppsala,

Uppsala, Sweden

This article illustrates the important scientific role that a systems approach mightplay within the social sciences and humanities, above all through its contributionto a common language, shared conceptualizations, and theoretical integration inthe face of the extreme (and growing) fragmentation among the social sciences(and between the social sciences and the natural sciences). The article outlines asystems theoretic approach, actor-system-dynamics (ASD), whose authors havestrived to re-establish systems theorizing in the social sciences (after a periodof marginalization since the late 1960s). This is done, in part, by showing howkey social science concepts are readily incorporated and applied in social systemanalysis.

KEYWORDS: Actors, consciousness, evolution, interaction, social rule system.

1. INTRODUCTION

This article argues and illustrates that a systems approach can and should playan important scientific role within the social sciences and humanities. Above all,it can contribute a common language, shared conceptualizations, and theoreticalintegration in the face of the extreme (and growing) fragmentation among the socialsciences and humanities and between the social sciences and the natural sciences.The challenge that Talcott Parsons (1951) and others, including Walter Buckley(1967), originally addressed still faces us: to overcome the fragmentation of thesocial sciences, the lack of synergies, and the failure to develop a cumulative

This article has been prepared and finalized while the author was Visiting Scholar at theCenter for Environmental Science and Policy, Stanford University (2005–2006). Severalof the central ideas in this article were presented in the Theory and Methodology Sessionof the Portuguese Sociology Congress, May 12–16, 2004, Braga, Portugal. I am gratefulto those who provided comments and suggestions and, in particular, to Joe Berger, MarkJacobs, and Rui Pena Pires.

Dedicated to the memory of Walter Buckley: friend, colleague, collaborator, pioneer insystems theory, jazz musician (deceased: January 27, 2006).

Address correspondence to Tom R. Burns, Sociologiska institutionen, Uppsala univer-sitet, Box 624, 75126 Uppsala, Sweden. E-mail: [email protected]

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science. It aims to provide a common language and an integrative theoreticalframework to mediate, accumulate, and transmit knowledge among all branchesand sub-branches of the social sciences and allied humanities (Sciulli and Gerstein,1985).

In spite of a promising start and some significant initial successes, “systemsthinking” has been marginalized in the social sciences since the late 1960s (Burns2006a, b). The widespread rejection of the systems approach did not, however,stem the incorporation of a number of systems concepts into other social sciencetheoretical traditions. Consequently, some of the language and conceptualization ofmodern systems theories has become part of everyday contemporary social science:for example, open and closed systems, loosely and tightly coupled systems, in-formation and communication flows, reflexivity, self-referential systems, positiveand negative feedback loops, self-organization and self-regulation, reproduction,emergence, nonlinear systems, and complexity, among others. Institutionalists andorganizational theorists in particular have adopted a number of key system conceptswithout always pointing out their archaeology or their larger theoretical context(Burns, 2006a).

This article outlines a systems theoretical approach, actor-system-dynamics(abbreviated ASD) whose authors have strived to re-establish systems theorizing,in part by showing how key social science concepts are readily incorporated andapplied in social system description and analysis: institutional, cultural, and norma-tive conceptualizations; concepts of human agents and social movements; diversetypes of social relationships and roles; social systems in relation to one anotherand in relation to the natural environment and material systems; and processes ofsustainability and transformation.

ASD emerged in the 1970s out of early social systems analysis (Baumgartneret al., 1975, 1976, 1979, 1986; Buckley, 1998, 1967, Burns, 2006a, b; Burns et al.,1985; Burns et al., 2003; Burns and Buckley, 1976).1 Social relations, groups,organizations, and societies were conceptualized as sets of interrelated parts withinternal structures and processes. A key feature of the theory was its considerationof social systems as open to, and interacting with, their social and physical envi-ronments. Through interaction with their environment—as well as through internalprocesses—such systems acquire new properties and are transformed, resulting inevolutionary developments. Another major feature entailed bringing into modelconstructions human agents as creative (destructive) transforming forces. In ASD,it has been axiomatic from the outset that human agents are creative as well asmoral agents. They have intentionality, they are self-reflective and consciouslyself-organizing beings. They may choose to deviate, oppose, or act in innovativeand even perverse ways relative to the norms, values, and social structures of theparticular social systems within which they act and interact.

The formulation of ASD in such terms was particularly important in light ofthe fact that system theories in the social sciences, particularly in sociology, wereheavily criticized for the excessive abstractness of their theoretical formulations,for their failure to recognize or adequately conceptualize conflict in social life,and for persistent tendencies to overlook the non-optimal, even destructive, char-acteristics of some social systems. Also, many system theorists were taken to task

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for failing to recognize human agency, the fact that individuals and collectives arepurposive beings, have intentions, make choices, and participate in the construc-tion (and destruction) of social systems. The individual, the historic personality, asexemplified by Joseph Schumpeter’s entrepreneur or by Max Weber’s charismaticleader, enjoys a freedom—always a bounded freedom—to act within and on socialsystems, and in this sense enjoys a certain autonomy from them. The results areoften changed institutional and material conditions—the making of history—butnot always in the ways the agents have intended or decided.

A major aspect of “bringing human agents back into the analytic picture” hasbeen the stress on the fact that agents are cultural beings. As such, they and theirrelationships are constituted and constrained by social rules and complexes ofsuch rules (Burns and Flam, 1987). These are the basis on which they organizeand regulate their interactions, interpret and predict their activities, and developand articulate accounts and critical discourses of their affairs. Social rule systemsare key constraining and enabling conditions for, as well as the products of, socialinteraction (the duality principle).

The construction of ASD has entailed a number of key innovations: (1) theconceptualization of human agents as creative (also destructive), self-reflective,and self-transforming beings; (2) cultural and institutional formations constitutingthe major environment of human behavior, an environment in part internalized insocial groups and organizations in the form of shared rules and systems of rules;(3) interaction processes and games as embedded in cultural and institutional sys-tems that constrain, facilitate, and, in general, influence action and interaction ofhuman agents; (4) a conceptualization of human consciousness in terms of self-representation and self-reflectivity on collective and individual levels; (5) socialsystems as open to, and interacting with, their environment; through interactionwith their environment and through internal processes, such systems acquire newproperties, and are transformed, resulting in their evolution and development;(6) social systems as configurations of tensions and dissonance because of contra-dictions in institutional arrangements and cultural formations and related strugglesamong groups; and (7) the evolution of rule systems as a function of (a) humanagency realized through interactions and games and (b) selective mechanisms thatare, in part, constructed by social agents in forming and reforming institutions andalso, in part, a function of physical and ecological environments.

2. GENERAL FRAMEWORK

Here we identify a minimum set of concepts essential to description and model-building in social system analysis (see Figure 1; the following roman numeralsare indicated in the Figure). (I) The diverse constraints and facilitators of theactions and interactions of human agents, in particular: (IA) Social structures(institutions and cultural formations based on socially shared rule systems) thatstructure and regulate agents and their interactions, determining constraints as wellas facilitating opportunities for initiative and transformation. (IB) Physical sys-tems that constrain as well as sustain human activities, providing, for instance,resources necessary for life and material development. Included here are physical

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Figure 1. General ASD Model: The structuring powers and sociocultural and materialembeddedness of interacting human agents.

and ecological factors (waters, land, forests, deserts, minerals, other resources).(IA,IB) Sociotechnical systems combine material and social structural elements.(1A-S) and (1B-S) in Figure 1 are, respectively, key social and material (or“natural”) structuring and selection mechanisms that operate to constrain andfacilitate agents’ activities and their consequences; these mechanisms also allocateresources, in some cases generating sufficient “payoffs” (quantity, quality, diver-sity) to reproduce or sustain social agents and their structures; in other cases not.(II) Population(s) of interacting social agents, occupying positions and play-ing different roles vis-a-vis one another in the context of their sociostructural,sociotechnical, and material systems. Individual and collective agents are consti-tuted and regulated through such social structures as institutions; at the same time,they are not simply robots performing programs or implementing rules but areadapting, filling in particulars, and innovating. (III) Social action and interaction(or game) processes that are structured and regulated through established materialand social conditions.2 (IV) Interactions result in multiple consequences and de-velopments, intended and unintended: productions, goods, wastes, and damages


as well as impacts on the very social and material structures that constrain andfacilitate action and interaction. That is, the actions IVA and IVB operate onthe structures IA and IB, respectively . Through their interactions, social agentsreproduce, elaborate, and transform social structures (for instance, institutionalarrangements and cultural formations based on rule systems) as well as materialand ecological conditions.

In sum, ASD systematically links agency and structure in describing and analyz-ing social system dynamics and developments. Multi-agent conceptualizations areintegrated with those of complex social systems in part through the developmentand application of key mediating concepts, such as social rule system, institution,cultural formation, and interaction patterns. In general, although human agents—individuals as well as organized groups, organizations, and nations—are subjectto institutional and cultural as well as material constraints on their actions and in-teractions, they are at the same time active, possibly radically creative/destructiveforces, shaping and reshaping cultural formations and institutions as well as theirmaterial circumstances. In the process of strategic structuring, agents interact,struggle, form alliances, exercise power, negotiate, and cooperate within the con-straints and opportunities of existing structures. They change, intentionally andunintentionally (often through mistakes and performance failures), the conditionsof their own activities and transactions, namely the physical and social systemsstructuring and influencing their interactions. The results are institutional and ma-terial developments but not always as the agents have decided or intended.

3. EMPIRICAL APPLICATIONS

ASD provides concepts and principles as a systematic basis on which to generateparticular empirically oriented models. These have been applied to a wide spectrumof social phenomena and policy projects, several of which are briefly describedin what follows. Subsection (1) presents the very basic theory of rules and rulesystems that organize and regulate much of social life. This theory is a cornerstonein the formulations of theories of institutions and cultural formations, outlined insubsection (2). Subsection (3) presents the ASD theory of games and social inter-action where games are structured and regulated by rule systems (institutional andcultural arrangements) as well as are constrained by material conditions. Subsec-tion (4) outlines the ASD theory of consciousness in the sense of self-reflectivitybased on human language, communication, and related forms of interaction. Sub-sections (5), (6), and (7) outline theories of particular institutions, their functioning,structuring and restructuring: democratic political systems, systems of capitalism,sociotechnical systems (the latter overlap of course with political [particularly mil-itary and police] as well as economic systems). Subsection (8) outlines the ASDtheory of materiality that constrains and facilitates human activities, and also “se-lects” for “fitness” particular patterns of action and interaction and indirectly theinstitutions and cultural formations (i.e., rule systems) that pattern and regulatethese activities. Finally, in subsection 9, the article describes a theory of sociocul-tural evolution, which concerns the evolution of social structures as a function ofmultiple selection mechanisms—both the mechanisms of human agents engaged

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in directed problem-solving, mechanisms of social structural selection, as well asmechanisms of material and ecological selection. Throughout ASD theorizing,the role of human institutions and human agency, creativity, and destructivity isemphasized.

(1) Social Rule Systems, Their Emergence and Evolution

In the ASD perspective, social rule systems and rule processes are universal inhuman groups and organizations and are the building blocks of institutions andcultural formations (Burns and Carson, 2002; Burns et al., 1985; Burns et al., 2003;Burns and Flam, 1987) . Most human social activity—in all of its extraordinaryvariety—is organized and regulated by socially produced and reproduced rules andsystems of rules. Rule processes—the making, interpretation, and implementationof social rules as well as their reformulation and transformation—play a funda-mental role in conceptualizing human action and interaction. Such processes areoften accompanied by the mobilization and exercise of power, and by conflict andstruggle. Social rules and systems of rules are, therefore, not transcendental ab-stractions but are embodied in the practices of groups and collectivities of people:language, customs and codes of conduct, norms, laws, and the social institutionsof family, community, state and its various agencies, and economic organizationsuch as business enterprises and markets.3

Human agents (individuals, groups, organizations, communities, and other col-lectivities) are the producers, carriers, and reformers of systems of social rules.They interpret, adapt, implement, and transform rules, sometimes as cautiously aspossible, other times radically (Burns and Dietz, 2001). Such behavior explainsmuch cultural and institutional dynamics. Major struggles in human history re-volve around the formation and reformation of core economic, administrative, andpolitical institutions of society, the particular rule regimes defining social relation-ships, roles, rights and authority, and obligations and duties as well as the general“rules of the game” in these and related domains.

Social actors make and utilize rules and rule systems in order to coordinate andorganize their activities, to understand and to predict what goes on in a given so-cial context, and to justify, explain, or criticize an action and/or its consequencesin terms of situationally appropriate rules. With experience (and practice), theyaccumulate situational knowledge and skills useful in implementing as well asadapting or reforming rules in concrete interaction settings. In opposing or deviat-ing from established rules and rule systems, they are likely to encounter resistancefrom others identifying with and committed to the rules. This sets the stage forsocial struggle, the exercise of power to enforce or resist rules, and negotiationabout and change in rules. Thus, there is a situational politics to rule processes.The actors may disagree about, and struggle over, the definition or interpretationof the situation and which system(s) of rules apply, the priority of the rule sys-tem(s) that apply, or the interpretation and adaptation of the rule system appliedin the situation. Questions of power are central in ASD studies. This concernsnot only particular power relationships and the powers engendered in institutionalarrangements but also the powers to maintain or change social rule systems and


institutional arrangements. This is particularly important in the case of rule sys-tems defining power relationships in major economic and political institutions(see later).

Collective as well as individual actors play a central role in the formation andevolution of social rule systems, although often not in the ways they expect or in-tend. ASD models of social transformation have been developed showing, amongother things, the particular (and finite ways) that agents solve collective actionproblems such as prisoners’ dilemma—or are blocked from doing so by insti-tutionalized conditions such as particular established competitive relationships,by “divide and rule” strategies of powerful agents, or by material and ecologicalconditions.

(2) Institutional Theory

A major part of ASD research has been devoted to developing and applying rulesystem theory as a basis to conceptualize and analyze social institutions and organi-zations and their dynamics. A particular type of rule system central to any societyare authoritative rule complexes or rule regimes (Burns et al., 1985; Burns andFlam, 1987). A rule regime organizes people in a complex of relationships, roles,and normative orders that constitute and regulate recurring interaction processesamong participants. Such a regime is an organizing institution or an institutionalarrangement (i.e., a complex of institutions). It consists of a cluster of social rela-tionships, roles, norms, “rules of the game,” and so on, specifying to a greater orlesser extent who may or should participate, who is excluded, who may or shoulddo what, when, where, and how, and in relation to whom. In other words, it or-ganizes specified actor categories or roles vis-a-vis one another and defines theirrights and obligations—including rules of command and obedience—and their ac-cess to and control over available human and material resources.4 More precisely.(1) An institution defines and constitutes a particular social order with positionsand relationships, defining in part the actors (individuals and collectives) that arethe legitimate or appropriate participants (who must, may, or might participate) inthe domain, their rights and obligations vis-a-vis one another, and their access toand control over resources. In this sense, it consists of a system of authority andpower relations. (2) It organizes, coordinates, and regulates social interaction ina particular domain or domains, defining contexts—specific settings and times—for constituting the institutional activities. (3) It provides a normative basis forappropriate behavior including the roles of the participants in that setting—theirinstitutionalized games and interactions—that take place in the institutional do-main. (4) An institutional rule complex provides, among other things, a cognitivescheme for knowledgeable participants to interpret, understand, and make senseof what goes on in the institutional domain. In guiding and regulating interaction,rule regimes give behavior recognizable, characteristic patterns, making the pat-terns understandable and meaningful for those sharing in the rule knowledge. (5) Aregime also specifies core values, norms, and beliefs that are referred to in norma-tive discourses, the giving and asking of accounts, the criticism and exoneration ofactions and outcomes in the institutional domain. Finally, (6) an institution defines

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a complex of potential normative equilibria (see later discussion) that function as“focal points” or “coordinators” in a given institutional domain (Schelling, 1963;Burns et al., 2001).

Institutions are exemplified by, for instance, family, a business organization,government agency, markets, democratic associations, educational and religiouscommunities. Each institution or institutional arrangement structures and regulatessocial interactions in socially defined domains or fields of interaction. There is acertain interaction logic for each distinct institution, as its rules provide a sys-tematic, meaningful basis for actors to orient to one another and to organize andregulate their interactions, to frame, interpret, and to analyze their performances ininter-subjective ways, and to produce commentaries and discourses, criticisms, andjustifications about their actions and interactions. In general, institutions as socialrule-based systems play a role in, and are manifested on, the social organizational,the cognitive-normative, and the discursive levels.

(3) The Structural Embeddedness of Social Interaction and Games

The ASD framework has been applied in generalizing game theory (Burns, 1990,1994; Burns and Gomolinska, 1998, 2000a, 2001; Burns and Roszkowska, 2004,2005, 2006). The work stresses the institutional and cultural embeddedness ofgames and other forms of social interaction (Buckley et al., 1974; Granovetter,1985). The ASD approach entails the extension and generalization of classicalgame theory through the systematic development of the mathematical theory ofrules and rule complexes (the particular mathematics is based on contemporarydevelopments at the interface of mathematics, logic, and computer science)(Burnsand Gomolinska, 1998, 2000b, 2000c; Gomolinska, 1999, 2002, 2004, 2005) (1)The approach provides a cultural and institutional basis for defining and analyzinggames in their social context—game is reconceptualized as a social and often in-stitutionalized form . The rule complex(es) of a game applied (and interpreted) ina particular social context guide and regulate the participants in their actions andinteractions. (2) ASD formulates a general theory of judgment and action on thebasis of which actors either construct their actions or make choices among alter-native actions in their interaction situations. They do this by making comparisonsand judging similarity (or dissimilarity) between their salient norms and values,on the one hand, and the option or options considered in the game situation, onthe other hand. In general, players try to determine whether or not, and to whatdegree a value, norm, or goal is expected to be realized or satisfied through oneor another courses of action (technically, they maximize “goodness of fit” [Burnsand Roszkowska, 2005]). (3) Human action and interaction is explained then as aform of rule-application as well as rule-following action; this mechanism under-lies diverse modalities such as instrumental, normative, and expressive as well as“playful” modalities for determining choices and actions. The instrumental modal-ity corresponds to outcome-oriented rational choice theory; normative modalityis characterized by a consideration of particular intrinsic qualities of the action,which relate to and satisfy given norms. (4) ASD game theory distinguishes be-tween open and closed games. The structure of a closed game is fixed as in classical


game theory. Open games are those in which the agents have the capacity on theirown initiative to restructure and to transform game components, either their indi-vidual role components, or the general “rules of the game.” Game rules and rulecomplexes are seen then as human products. Rule formation and reformation aredescribed and analyzed as a function of meta-game interaction processes. (5) ASDre-conceptualizes the notion of “game solution,” stressing first that any “solution”is from a particular standpoint or perspective, for instance, the perspective of agiven player or group of players. Therefore, some of the “solutions” envisionedor proposed by players with different frameworks and interests are likely to becontradictory. Under some conditions, however, players may arrive at “commonsolutions” that are the basis of game equilibria. Thus, in this perspective, actorsmay propose multiple solutions, some of which possibly converge or diverge.(6) ASD re-conceptualizes the concept of game equilibrium and distinguishes dif-ferent types of game equilibria. Among these is a sociologically important type ofequilibrium, namely normative equilibrium, which is the basis of much social or-der (Burns and Roszkowska, 2001, 2004, 2006). In ASD game theory, an activity,program, outcome, condition or state of the world is in a normative equilibriumif it is judged by participants to realize or satisfy appropriate norm(s) or value(s)in the given interaction situation. Although the concept of normative equilibriamay be applied to role performances and to individuals following norms, we havebeen particularly interested in game normative equilibria in given institutional set-tings. This means that the participants judge interactions and/or outcomes in termsof the degree they realize or satisfy a collective norm, normative procedure, orinstitutional arrangement. Examples of particular procedures that are capable ofproducing normative equilibria are adjudication, democratic voting, and negoti-ation as well as the exercise of legitimate authority.

Although the theory readily and systematically incorporates the principle thathuman actors have bounded factual knowledge and computational capability(Simon, 1969, p. 30), it emphasizes the high level of their social knowledgeand competence: in particular, actors’ extraordinary knowledge of diverse cul-tural forms and institutions such as family, market, government, business or workorganization, among others, and the variety of different roles that they regularlyperform in various domains of modern life.

(4) Toward a Theory of Collective Representations and Human Consciousness

ASD has also been applied in developing a theory with which to define and an-alyze a particular type of human consciousness. The theory (Burns and Engdahl,1998a, b) emphasizes the importance of language, collective representations, self-conceptions, and self-reflectivity. It argues that the shape and feel of humanconsciousness is heavily social, and this is no less true of our experiences of “collec-tive consciousness” than it is of our experiences of individual consciousness. Thetheory suggests that the problem of consciousness can be approached fruitfully bybeginning with the human group and collective phenomena: community, language,language-based communication, institutional, and cultural arrangements (Wiley,1986, 1994). A collective is a group or population of individuals that possesses

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or develops through communication collective representations or models of “we”as opposed to “them:” one’s own group, community, organization, or nation iscontrasted to “other(s);” its values and goals, its structure and modes of operating,its relation to its environment and other agents, its potentialities and weaknesses,strategies and developments, and so on are components in these collective rep-resentations. A collective has the capacity in its collective representations andcommunications about what characterizes it, or what (and how) this self perceives,judges, or does, or what it can (and cannot) do, or should do (or should not do).It monitors its activities, its achievements and failures, and also to a greater orlesser extent, analyzes and discusses itself as a defined and developing collectiveagent. This is what is meant by self-reflectivity. Such reflectivity is encoded inlanguage and developed in discourses about collective selves (as I discuss later,there are also conversations about the selves of individuals, defining, justifying,and stigmatizing them).

Human consciousness in at least one major sense is then a type of reflectiveactivity. It entails the capacity to observe, monitor, talk about, judge, and decideabout the collective self. This is a basis for maintaining a particular collective as itis understood or represented; it is also a basis for re-orienting and re-organizing thecollective self in response to performance failings or profound crisis (economic,political, cultural). Collective reflectivity emerges then as a function of a group ororganization producing and making use of collective representations of the self inits discussions, critical reflections, planning, and actions.

Individual consciousness is the normal outcome of processes of collective nam-ing, classifying, monitoring, judging, and reflecting but applied to individual mem-bers of the group or organization. The individual in a collective context learns toparticipate in discussions and discourses about “herself,” that is, group reflec-tions about her, her appearance, her orientations and attitudes, her strategies andconduct. Thus, an individual learns (in line with George Herbert Mead’s earlierformulations) a naming and classification of herself (self-description and identity)and a characterization of her judgments, predispositions, and actions.

In acquiring a language and conceptual framework for this mode of activityalong with experience and skills in reflective discussion, she develops a capabilityof inner reflection and inner dialog about her-self. These are characteristic featuresof a particular type of individual “consciousness.” This conception points up thesocially constructed character of key aspects of the human mind, realized throughprocesses of social interaction and social construction. In sum, individual self-representation, self-reference, self-reflectivity, and experiences of consciousness,derive from collective experiences (Burns and Engdahl, 1998b; Wiley, 1986).

Self-reflectivity as a type of consciousness often facililtates critical examina-tion and re-construction of selves, collective as well as individual. This plays anessential role in human communities (as well as individual beings) in the face ofsystematic or highly risky performance failures or new types of problems. Throughself-reflection, in the course of directed problem-solving, agents may manage todevelop more effective institutional arrangements, for instance, large-scale meansof social coordination such as military organization, administration, democraticassociation, or global markets.


Language-based collective representations of the past as well as of the future,enable agents to escape the present, to enter into future as well as past imag-ined worlds, and to reflect together on these worlds. Moreover, in relation to thepast, present, and future, the agents may generate alternative representations.These alternative constructions imagined, discussed, struggled over, and tested,make for the generation of variety, a major input into evolutionary processes,as discussed in (sub-section (9). Such variety may also lead to social conflicts, asagents disagree about representations, or oppose the remedies to problems implied.This opens the way for political struggles about alternative conceptions and so-lutions (well-developed democratic politics may entail collective self-reflectivitypar excellence). In general, such processes enhance the collective capacity todeal with new challenges and crises. Thus, a collective has potentially a richbasis not only for talking about, discussing, agreeing (or disagreeing) about avariety of objects including the “collective self” as well as particular “individ-ual selves.” But it also has a means to conceptualize and develop alternatives,for instance, new types of social relationships, new normative orders and insti-tutional arrangements, or more effective forms of leadership, coordination, andcontrol.

Collectives can even develop their potentialities for collective representationand self-reflectivity, for instance through innovations in information and account-ing systems and processes of deliberation and accountability. These potentialitiesenable systematic, directed problem solving, and the generation of diverse andcomplex strategies. In many selective environments, these make for major evolu-tionary advantages.

The powerful tool of collective reflectivity must be seen as a double-edged swordin relation to expanding the freedom of opportunity and variability, on the one hand,and on the imposition of particular constraints and limiting variability, on the other.Collective representations—and reflectivity and directed problem-solving basedon them—may prevent human groups from experiencing or discovering the un-represented and the un-named. Unrecognized or poorly defined problems cannotbe dealt with (as discussed elsewhere [Burns et al., 2003], for instance, in the caseof failures of accounting systems to recognize or take into account important socialand environmental conditions and developments). Reflective and problem-solvingpowers may then be distorted, the generation of alternatives and varieties restrictedand largely ineffective, and social innovation and transformation misdirected andpossibly self-destructive. Thus, the presumed evolutionary advantages of humanreflectivity must be qualified—it is conditional.

(5) Political Systems, Their Structures and Performances

The conceptualization and analysis of political systems and their transformationhas been an important area of application and development of ASD (Andersenand Burns, 1992, 1996; Burns and Carson, 2002; Burns and Flam, 1987; Burnset al., 2000; Burns and Kamali, 2003; Carson, 2004; Flam, 1994; Nylander,2000; Woodward et al., 1994). Much of this work has focused on the structure,functioning, and evolution of political systems and their policy frameworks.

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On one level, ASD research has conceptualized the linkages between institu-tional arrangements, collective reflectivity, and directed problem solving; amongits research projects, it has distinguished in a comparative perspective those con-figurations that are conducive to relative effectiveness and stability from those thatare ineffective and/or unstable and likely to undergo paradigmatic and discursiveshifts and ultimately institutional transformation (Burns and Carson, 2002, 2005,p. 27; Carson, 2004). Several ASD studies have entailed empirical investigationsof policy processes and policy research relating to chemicals, pharmaceuticals,energy, natural resources, gender, anti-racism, health, welfare, democracy anddemocratic development and, in general, governance and public administrativeorders (Andersen and Burns, 1992; Burns and Carson, 2002; Burns, Carson andNylander, 2001; Burns and Flam, 1987; Burns and Nylander, 2001; Burns andUeberhorst, 1988; Carson, 2004; Woodward et al., 1994; Machado, 1998, 2005;Machado and Burns, 1998).

The ASD approach has been applied to a comparative institutional analysisof different polities: pluralist systems such as the United States, neo-corporatistsystems5 such as those of the Scandinavian countries, Austria, and to some extentGermany, and the EU as a new, uniquely open but highly complicated politicalsystem. Each system is also a particular authoritative rule regime providing a sys-tematic, meaningful basis for actors to orient to one another and to organize andregulate their interactions, to frame, interpret, and to analyze their performances,and to produce particular commentaries and discourses, critiques, and justifica-tions. Any given governance system organizes specified actor categories or rolesvis-a-vis one another and defines their rights and obligations—including rules ofcommand and obedience—and their access to and control over human and materialresources. Each specifies to a greater or lesser extent who may, should, or mustparticipate (and who is excluded), who may or should do what, when, where, andhow, and in relation to whom.

These ASD models show in what ways and to what degrees the different politicalsystems vary in their complex structures and in their functioning and development.On the one hand, the EU, as a system of policymaking and legislation, is moreorganized, more well-defined than typical pluralist systems. On the other hand,the EU system is more open, flexible, and diversified than a neo-corporatist typeof system; it is also more unstable and less predictable. Pluralist systems in turnare less stable and predictable than the EU. But such systems are likely to functionmore effectively in a turbulent environment than either the neo-corporatist or theEU-type system. This is because they are able to address in highly flexible waysnew problems and issues, in part because they are less formally institutionalizedand, therefore, more open and adaptable. Arguably, the EU might combine the bestof both systems. The EU modes of policymaking, like those of the neo-corporatistsystem, stress the management of conflict and the use of technical knowledge andcooptation in conflict resolution. But EU policy processes are highly fragmentedas in pluralist systems, although in general not to the same degree; neo-corporatistsystems, on the other hand, tend to generate greater overall coherence in policymak-ing. The proliferation of EU modes of governance—with highly diverse (and flex-ible) arrangements—results in substantial incoherence and interference between


sector-specific policies. There are attempts to overcome this at the Commissionlevel by increasingly involving and coordinating multiple agencies in any givenpolicy area. But the success of these complex developments remains unclear.

Thus, each of the political systems is not only a different institutional complexbut an expression or embodiment of a distinct model or paradigm for governance,public policymaking, and regulation (Burns and Carson 2002; Burns, Carson, andNylander, 2001; Carson, 2004). Each system has not only a certain interactionlogic and coherence—and pattern of evolution—but also established expectations,meanings, and symbols as well as normative discourses (for instance, in the givingand asking of accounts, the criticism and exoneration of actions and outcomeswithin the particular institutional arrangement).

The ASD approach considers then systemic properties such as the degree ofopenness, flexibility, extent of predictability, and logics of policy production anddevelopment of the different political systems. The EU system, which is in parta type of “organic” or informal democracy, operates with flexible but relativelywell-organized procedures to engage interest groups from industry and civil so-ciety as sources of information and expertise; the EU Commission tries to act asbrokers in the comples EU policymaking. Deliberation and negotiation often leadto consensus. Many of the advantages of the EU system with its flexibility andadaptability to sectoral-specific issues and conditions are also the basis for the cho-rus of complaints in Europe about its non-transparency and “democratic deficit.”There is an apparent dilemma between flexibility and transparency (Burns, 1999).

In sum, these social systems of governance operate in substantially differentways and generate different policymaking patterns and developments; they entaildiverse ways of thinking about and collectively deciding matters of governanceand policy (public problems as well as their solutions).

(6) Socioeconomic Systems: Capitalism, Its Discontents, and Development

One application of ASD has entailed investigations and analyses of the functioningand development of capitalist systems and several of their major institutions such asmoney systems (Burns and DeVille, 2003), markets (Burns and Flam, 1987; Burns,1990; Woodward et al., 1994), property regimes (Admassie, 2000; Bergstrom,2005), production systems (Baumgartner, 1978; Baumgartner et al., 1979; Burnset al., 1979), and regulatory arrangements (an overview of some of this work is pro-vided in Burns, 2006b). Also, of interest has been issues of macrosocioeconomicdevelopment and underdevelopment (Admassie, 2000; Baumgartner, Burns, andDeVille, 1986; Burns, 2006b; Burns and DeVille, 2003; Burns and Flam, 1987;Burns, DeVille, and Baumgartner, 2002). The research shows the technical andsocial complexity and dynamics of capitalist systems and sub-systems, their modesof functioning and evolution and the complex of problems involved in effectivelymanaging and regulating them.

This ASD research developed a number of theses relating to capitalist systems(Burns, 2006b; Burns et al., 2002), among them: (I) Modern capitalism—whichtakes a variety of forms—is a dynamic but highly unstable system; it also desta-bilizes other institutions and institutional arrangements; for instance, it is a force

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evoking social and political instability as well as environmental destruction andlong-term unsustainability; (II) regulation is essential to stabilizing capitalist sys-tems and to facilitating their effective functioning and sustainability in their socialand physical environments. Effective regulation depends on five basic factors: (1)the development of a more or less accurate model of the functioning of a givencapitalist system in relation to its social and physical environments; (2) informa-tion and accounting systems to provide data for modeling, analysis, and regulatorymeasures; (3) appropriate institutional arrangements to monitor, collect relevantdata, analyze performances and developments, and carry out regulatory actions; (4)social agents who have the expertise and motivation to lead and practice effectiveregulation; (5) effective adaptation and reform of the arrangements in response tooperational failures and changing environmental conditions; (6) political author-ity having the capacity to conduct critical reflection about system performancesand also possessing sufficient power and legitimacy to introduce, implement, andenforce necessary regulative measures and innovation. This is a model of systemmanagement and regulation (such models are also relevant to sociotechnical sys-tems such as electrical systems, nuclear power plants, air transport systems, andmoney systems).

The failure of Marx’s prediction about the collapse of capitalism—as the re-sult of declining profits and the inability to sustain capital accumulation—can beexplained, in part, in terms of the robustness of the capitalist system, particularlygiven proper regulatory mechanisms. This robustness was especially characteris-tic of those systems where, according to Marx, capitalism was apparently mostripe for revolution, namely the advanced capitalist societies. One explanation ofMarx’s failure is precisely that the successful establishment and elaboration ofregulatory regimes in many advanced (e.g., OECD) countries and some devel-oping countries have served to stabilize capitalist functioning and developmentto a greater or lesser extent and at the same time have mediated class and otherconflicts, to which capitalist systems are particularly prone (Burns, 2006b). Thecomplex of regulatory measures assured capital as well as other key accumulationand development processes. One key component of the corrective adjustment hasbeen the establishment of modern welfare-state systems in the West.6

In general, the application of ASD to socioeconomic development issues hasdrawn attention to the multiple systemic instabilities of capitalism—both as an eco-nomic system per se and as a force generating social and political instability as wellas environmental destruction. Appropriate regulation, essential to stabilizing cap-italist systems and to facilitating their effective operation, requires not only appro-priate institutional arrangements but also social agents who have the expertise andmotivation to lead and realize in practice the regulatory functions under varying cir-cumstances. In addition, they must be able to effectively adapt and reform the regu-latory arrangements in response to operational failures and environmental changes.

Modern societies have developed and continue to develop revolutionary pro-ductive powers at the same time that they have bounded knowledge about thesepowers and their consequences. Unintended consequences are endemic: social aswell as ecological systems are disturbed, stressed, and transformed. At the sametime, emerging social agents and movements mobilize and react to some of these


conditions, developing new critical models and strategies to challenge and tryto bring about institutional innovation and transformation. Consequently, mod-ern capitalist societies—characterized by their core arrangements as well as by themany and diverse proponents and opponents to aspects of capitalist development—are involved in local and global struggles. It is largely an uncontrolled experiment(or, more precisely, a multitude of such experiments). The capacity to monitor andto assess such experimentation is strictly bounded, as suggested earlier. Regulationof global capitalism is, therefore, highly constrained (see Note 7). This consider-ation raises a number of critical questions: For instance, how is the powerful classof global capitalists to be made responsible and accountable for their actions?What political forms and procedures might link politics and policymaking to theglobal capitalist economy? These are important research and policy questions.Theories that analyze capitalism and its evolution in more holistic ways—suchas ASD—have an important role to play in the investigation and explanation ofcapitalist dynamics and in developing suitable regulatory regimes and policies (seeBurns, [2006b]) for a presentation of systems theories including ASD applied tothe analysis of capitalist dynamics and development).

(7) Technology and Sociotechnical Systems

Technologies and sociotechnical systems, technological innovation and develop-ment, risk research, and issues about natural resources and environment havebeen key areas for ASD investigations (Andersen and Burns, 1992; Baumgartnerand Burns, 1984; Burns and Dietz, 1992b; Burns and Flam, 1987; Fowler, 1994;Machado, 1998, 2005; Machado and Burns, 2001; Woodward et al., 1994). Tech-nology, as a particular type of human construction, is defined in ASD as a complexof physical artifacts along with rule systems employed by social actors to uti-lize and manage the artifacts. Thus, technology has both material and a cultural–institutional faces. Some of the rules considered are the “instruction set” for thetechnology, the rules that guide its effective operation and management. Theserules have a “hands on,” immediate practical character and can be distinguishedfrom other rule systems such as the culture and institutional arrangements of thelarger sociotechnical system in which the technology is imbedded. These latterrule systems include laws and normative principles, specifying the legitimate oracceptable uses of the technology, the appropriate or legitimate owners and oper-ators, the places and times of its use, the ways the gains and burdens (and risks) ofapplying the technology should be distributed, and so on. The distinction betweenthe specific instruction set and the rules of the broader sociotechnical system arenot rigid, but the distinction is useful for many analytical purposes (Baumgartnerand Burns, 1984; Burns and Flam, 1987).

Such sociotechnical systems as, for example, a factory, a nuclear power plant, anair transport or electricity system, organ transplantation system, money systems,or telecommunication network consist of, on the one hand, complex technicaland physical structures that are designed to produce or transform certain things(or to enable such production) and, on the other hand, institutions, norms, andsocial organizing principles designed to regulate the activities of the actors who

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operate and manage the technology. The diverse technical and physical structuresmaking up parts of a sociotechnical system may be owned and managed by differentagents. The knowledge including technical knowledge of these different structuresis typically dispersed among different agents in diverse professions. Thus, a varietyof groups, social networks, and organizations may be involved in the construction,operation, and maintenance of complex sociotechnical systems such as electrical,air transport, or communication systems, among the systems referred to earlier.The diverse agents involved in operating and managing a given sociotechnicalsystem require coordination and communication. Barriers or distortions in theselinkages make for likely mal-performances or system failures. Thus, the “humanfactor” explaining mis-performance or breakdown in a sociotechnical system oftenhas to do with organizational and communicative features difficult to analyze andunderstand (Burns and Dietz, 1992b; Burns et al., 2003).

The application and effective use of any technology requires a more or lessshared sociocognitive and judgment model (Burns et al., 2003; Burns and Carson,2002). This model includes principles specifying mechanisms that are understoodto enable the technology to interact properly and effectively with its physical, bio-logical, and sociocultural environments. Included here are formal laws of scienceas well as many ad-hoc “rules of thumb” that are incorporated into technologydesign and use. The model of a technology includes also a social characterizationof the technology, its human–machine interfaces, and its role in the larger society.This part of the model is rarely as consciously perceived or as carefully articu-lated as the more technical elements of the model describing interaction with thephysical and biological environments.

Technologies are then more than bits of hardware; they function within elab-orate social structures where their usefulness and effectiveness are dependent onorganizational structures, management skills, and the operation of incentive andcollective knowledge systems (Baumgartner and Burns, 1984; Burns and Dietz,1992b). The concept of a sociotechnical system thus implies particular institutionalarrangements as well as culture. Knowledge of technology-in-operation presup-poses knowledge of social organization (in particular, knowledge of the organizingprinciples and institutional rules—whether public authority, bureaucracy, privateproperty, contract law, regulative regime, professional skills and competencies,etc. [Machado, 1998]). Arguably, a developed social systems approach can dealwith this complexity in an informed and systematic way.

(8) Physical and Ecosystem Structures

The feedback between social systems and the physical and biological environ-ments is center stage with the ASD approach, expressed in the form of materialresponses—in particular, resource accessibility and selective factors—with re-spect to the implementation of cultural and institutional rule complexes (this iselaborated particularly in ASD evolutionary models discussed in the followingsection). Geo-physical conditions, climate, and the accessibility and distributionof natural resources such as energy, water, arable land, forests, minerals, and soon obviously provide opportunities, for as well as constrain, certain patterns of


social action and interaction and overall social system development. The materialenvironment—including technologies—determine which rule systems can be re-alized in practice, or what changes in rule systems can be effectively introducedwith some likelihood of implementability and effectiveness. Human agents can-not enact rules and rule systems that violate the laws of physics, chemistry, andbiology, although technologies may of course enable them to alter the ways andthe extent to which such laws constrain or facilitate human activities.

Selective mechanisms in the material environment respond to human activitiesand affect the frequency and distribution of the rule systems making up institu-tional arrangements and cultural formations (see next sub-section). The responsemay be absolute in that a group or community using a given set of rules cannotsustain itself and its social structure in a particular environment (the Easter Islandphenomenon7). Or, in a context of competition among groups, selection favorscertain types of productive or efficiency rules and selects against less productiveor efficient rules. Such competition in some social domains such as marketsdrive resource exploitation and depletion as well as destruction of the physicalenvironment, unless systematically regulated.

In general, human groups impact on physical conditions, eco-systems, climate,and so on in intended and unintended ways. For example, “effective” agriculturaltechniques may cause soil erosion or leaching so that agricultural productivity de-clines over time or the spectrum of plants that can be cultivated is significantly re-duced. Or, similarly, human activities impact on atmospheric conditions—such asozone levels and greenhouse effects: these developments are likely to operate selec-tively on bio-regions and their populations. Many of the impacts—and the risks theyentail—are unanticipated and unintended material consequences of the functioningof humanly constructed, complex social systems including sociotechnical systems.

In sum, the availability of natural resources and the circumstances of biologicaland physical environments are major forces of constraint and operate selectivityon human groups and their social structures, although human agency still plays asubstantial role. Of course, new technologies and sociotechnical systems may tovarying degrees offset or regulate some material conditions and forces.

(9) Sociocultural Evolutionary Theory

ASD has been developed into a theory of sociocultural evolution—building ontheoretical concepts such as the social construction of systems and the restruc-turing and selection of institutional arrangements and cultural elements (Burns,Baumgartner, Dietz, and Machado, 2003; Burns, 2001, 2000; Burns and Dietz,1992a, b). By sociocultural evolutionary theory is meant a complex of modelsconceptualizing social processes that explain the evolution of institutions and cul-tural forms: the generation of variety in rules and rule systems, the transmission orreproduction of rules, and the operation of systems of selection and other processes(migration, distorted or incorrect knowledge transmission, etc.) (for important par-allel theoretical developments, see Boyd and Richerson (1985), Loye (1998), andRicherson and Boyd [2005]). Selective processes determine that some of the prac-tices of agents utilizing a particular rule or rule system obtain more resource gains

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than others operating with different systems, gain greater collective support and le-gitimacy, and, in general, enjoy greater reproductive robustness than others. Theseprocesses maintain and change the distribution of rules within and between popu-lations over time. In such historical developments, human agents play a major butbounded role.

A distinctive feature of this theory is that it stresses, on the one hand, materialconstraints and selective processes and, on the other hand, the capability of humanagents to construct to a greater or lesser extent their selective environments, inparticular institutions and institutional arrangements, sociotechnical systems, andcultural forms. Such bounded constructionism refers not only to the agential powersof actors but also the constraints on agency and the limited capacities of actors inany given context to adapt, reform, or transform social rule systems and, thereby,to affect the evolution of the sociocultural systems. Depending on the pattern andbalance of selection, migration, innovation, recombination, and transmission, theprevalence of various rules in the cultural system remain stable or change.

Reproduction usually occurs when the implementation of a rule system gener-ates sufficient returns (quality, quantity, and diversity) to sustain and reproduce thesystem. The reproductive success of any particular rule or rule system is measuredin terms of fitness based on its ability in a given social and physical environmentto compete successfully with alternative rule systems. Reproducible rules satisfymultiple criteria of fitness including the requirement that they are understandableand implementable. In other words, the rules “work” or appear to work effectivelyin interaction processes and in the social and material developments they generate.In this sense, “fitness” is largely a relative term. Rule systems that satisfy a setof selection criteria internal to a group or collectivity may fail, however, in theface of stringent external or environmental selection. For instance, established andvalued practices of a group, nation, or the entire global community can result overthe long run in ecological collapse or sociopolitical or economic disintegration.Innovations that are “regressive” or “non-adaptive” within the collective contextmay entail some improvements that, however, are inadequate in the face of otherselection criteria characteristic of, for instance, a highly demanding or competitiveenvironment. Many social innovations are experiments in this sense and may be re-gressive in terms of the criteria of reproductive success (in other words, numerousinnovations are tried, few succeed over the long-run).

Human agency plays a key role in each of the major mechanisms of socio-cultural evolution, in particular.

Agency in the generation of variety. Evolutionary processes are based on vari-ability in the rule systems of a culture. There are several possible sources ofvariation in any given rule system. One is error, the miscopying of a rule from ac-tor to actor, community to community. Another is migratory movement, where acommunity acquires new rules introduced by agents from outside the community.But while both of these mechanisms are certainly important, they do not capturethe full range of human creativity and the rapid, complex paths of socioculturalchange. Agency, in the form of human innovation and problem-solving processes,provides a mechanism for generating change in rule systems that is often far more


powerful than error or migration, one that encompasses the dynamic, inventive,and often playful, character of human activity. This is made particularly apparentin many sociopolitical revolutionary developments; this is also apparent in directedproblem-solving activities such as the development of new theories, new technolo-gies, and institutional reforms—human activities that are largely neglected by mostcontemporary evolutionary theories. Such directed problem-solving and transfor-mative processes obviously differentiate a sociocultural theory of evolution frombiological evolutionary theory.

Agency in selection processes. Actors structure the selective environment. Theyintroduce new institutional arrangements, technological systems, infrastructures,and regulatory regimes, among other major formations, thus defining the conditionsfor the operation of agency in the future. Such selective environments constrainaction possibilities, setting limits on agency. But the environments are not simplyconstraining. They also provide opportunities and facilitate certain types of activity.The selective environments allocate resources to actors, which they may use (decideto use) in innovative ways, for instance, by restructuring particular social systemsor establishing new systems. Human agents thus play a direct role in societalselection processes, for example, through recruitment processes, through directlyexercising power and control, and through dealing with problems and challenges incontingent and ad hoc ways (rather than allowing institutionalized values, policies,and practices to deal with the problems).

Role of agency in the replication and diffusion of rules. Replication is sociallyorganized through the institutionalization and reproduction of rule complexes, anddepends on establishing and sustaining not only the commitment of key actorsto, but also their level of knowledge of, the rules and the situations in which therules are to be implemented, maintained, and replicated. In other cases, a largeproportion of those involved must be committed and knowledgeable if successfulreproduction of social order(s) such as institutional arrangement(s) is to take place.Reproduction also depends on the power and resource base that enable thoseinvolved to effectively execute as well as enforce the rules. The social and physicalenvironments in which institutionalized activities are carried out operate selectivelyso that, in a given time and place, the institutional arrangements tend to eitherpersist, or decline and possibly disappear.

The processes of establishing and maintaining a rule system may be organizedby a ruling elite that allocates resources and directs and enforces the activitiesof maintenance and reproduction. Many formal institutions are maintained, atleast in part, through relatively well-defined and organized prescriptions and en-forcement, as well as through systematic socialization and recruitment practices.Institutional reproduction may also be organized with a broad spectrum of partic-ipants engaged in processes of knowledge transmission, socialization, and sanc-tioning as well as the fostering of institutional loyalties. Typically, institutionalreproduction takes place through both elite direction as well as the engagement ofnon-elite members. Whenever elites and other participants (including peripheralgroups) stand in opposition to one another, this generates not only tensions but also

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uncertainty about the effective maintenance or reproduction of institutional orders,and raises the possibility of radical structural transformation or revolution (Burnsand Dietz, 2001). In general, power resources, knowledge, and commitment arekey factors in the consolidation and maintenance of rule systems or institutionalarrangements.

A new order will be institutionalized—that is successfully established, main-tained, and replicated—to the degree that the power-holders (and their policies andrules) together with their supporters and allies (cf. Stinchcombe, 1968):

� effectively control the emergence and selection of leaders, successors to them-selves;

� control socialization for elite positions as well as for key groups on whichthe social order depends (the military, judiciary, and possibly religious andeducational groups as well as economic elites);

� effectively control the conditions of incumbency and career patterns of partic-ipants in key governance structures;

� inspire awe, respect, and a sense of legitimacy for the order and its elites.

Cultural transmission has a variety of properties that give a dynamic to social rulesindependent of advantages (fitness) associated with their realization in practice.This de-coupling of sociocultural developments from conditions or changes in thematerial environment can operate, however, only for limited periods of time orin particular contexts. Although there may be no immediate societal response tochanges in the physical or social environment—for example, resource depletion,climatic change, or geopolitical developments—the material environment still hasa direct impact on activities essential to the long-term sustainability of a set ofsocietal institutions. Collectivities may of course fail to “adapt” to physical orsocial environmental changes, and instead are bypassed, absorbed, or eliminated byother more successful collectivities. On the other hand, many changes in rules andinstitutional arrangements take place without environmental stimuli or pressures.Agents may take initiatives based on symbolic considerations, social competition,or power struggles to alter rules, rule enforcement, and transmission processes thataffect performance levels and long-term sustainability. Such social processes maylead to deviation from a previously successful match between the socioculturalorder and the social and material environments, a match that had enabled earlierlong-term successful performances and robust reproduction.

Thus, sociocultural evolutionary processes need not result in more advanta-geous or efficient social rule systems. Historically, a number of initially (or appar-ently) successful cultural–institutional frames have ended in substantial maladjust-ments and even self-destruction, as, for instance, the histories of the Communistand Nazi orders point up. Sociocultural innovation and dynamics can result in prac-tices that alter the natural environment negatively, even self-destructively (as in theEaster Island phenomenon [see note 7]). The theory implies then that institutionalarrangements and sociocultural formations are not necessarily optimally adap-tive to their environment, nor is the direction of rule change necessarily towardoptimality.


In sum, the ASD theory of sociocultural evolution, as opposed to earlierdevelopmental or “evolutionist” theories, allows considerable play for the cre-ative/destructive action of individual and collective actors. It also recognizes andconceptualizes the conditions under which such agency will be constrained bythe natural world, by the structural limitations of a sociocultural system, and bythe powers exerted by other agents. These relationships define, in part, the mix of“structural determinism” and “human agency” or freedom that characterize humanhistory.

4. ASD AND FUTURE DEVELOPMENTS

ASD provides theoretical and methodological tools with which to describe andanalyze social systems in their social and material environments, their functioningand performance, and their evolution. The approach is grounded in mainstreamsocial science research (Burns, 2006a, b), a type of theorizing initiated by WalterBuckley (1967, 1998) in the 1960s and followed up in later decades by Archer,Baumgartner, Burns, DeVille, Geyer, and Zouwen, among others. Several of thekey ASD propositions relating to social systems analysis are the following:

1. Social systems can be fruitfully studied and analyzed as multiple (and di-verse) types of interrelated social, material, and symbolic structures and theirmechanisms. The ASD approach enables the systematic study of the linkagesbetween these diverse structures, their interdependencies, and their dynamicinterplay. It also conceptualizes and analyzes the problems and instabilities towhich they give rise, for instance in the interplay between social and ecologi-cal structures. Incompatible structures cause performance failures, instability,and disorder, which in turn often contribute to social conflict and strugglebetween groups of societal agents or classes.

2. Among the specific subtypes of such problems are incompatibilities betweenstructures of the social system, on the one hand, and environmental or ecolog-ical structures, on the other hand. This is a particular type of inter-structuralproblem. Social system structures and outputs may not fit, and be sustainablein, the system’s material environment. In general, complex feedback loopsbetween societal orders and their environments may generate uncontrollableinstability and conditions of non-sustainability.

3. ASD is a non-functionalist systems theory. It focuses attention on humanagents, individual and collective, and on the stabilizing (morphostasis) anddestabilizing mechanisms (morphogenesis) making up a complex, dynamicsystem (see also Buckley, 1967, 1998). Social systems are “self-organizing”in the sense that their members—especially their elites—exercise their ca-pacities to structure and restructure cultural–institutional regimes and theirmaterial environments. But self-organization and transformation are typicallyconducted without complete knowledge or control of key conditions and po-tential developments.

4. The social constructing and restructuring of social systems through cre-ative/destructive action and entrepreneurship are not only of central interest but

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have a natural place in the ASD framework. A nexus of agency concepts suchas actor, action and interaction, and social construction and transformationhave been developed and applied in the formulation of ASD models. Humanagency is constrained cognitively, socially, and physically. ASD emphasizesthe capacity of human agents to construct—within institutional, cultural, andmaterial constraints—social systems such as sociotechnical systems and com-plex institutions without necessarily fully knowing or understanding how thesesystems will perform and can be controlled (the “Frankenstein phenomena”).Inevitably, there will be unintended and unanticipated consequences, that is,unpredictable performance and failures in system regulation (Burns et al.,2003). The theory combines then bounded constructionism (articulated in hu-man agency and entrepreneurship) with structural constraint and selectivity(articulated in terms of social as well as material constraints and selectivemechanisms).

5. Social agents, individuals as well as groups, occupy positions, play roles, andinteract. Their relationships and positions vis-a-vis one another have causalforce. But such forces are not fully deterministic; this is not only because ofthe capabilities of human agency and the complex, contradictory interplay ofmultiple agents and the structures in which they are embedded; but it is alsobecause of the impact of contingencies and the substantial context dependencyof all social processes.

6. Actors, individuals, and collective agents—in their various positions embed-ded in complex structures (in particular, institutions)—experience and iden-tify problems or problem situations, while playing out their roles vis-a-visone another. These may be coordination problems, escalating social conflict,inter-structural problems, the failure or collapse of the institution or the insti-tutional arrangements in which the agents are embedded. Such failures mayentail an inability to realize particular goals or values that their institution ortheir particular positions in it motivate them to realize. Or, the failures mightentail the perceived need to increase the level of performance effectiveness,or to exploit perceived opportunities for gain (value added or “profit”) or forsolving critical problems that cannot be realized under existing systemic con-ditions: For instance, a business enterprise is faced with declining or negativeprofit margins or with a substantial reduction in market share; an electric-ity production system is subject to, or threatened by, blackouts; or, a globalmarket system is characterized by highly volatile market conditions or bytrade wars and countries raising trade barriers. Restructuring initiatives aremotivated and driven by interested agents. Typically, such initiatives are metby opposition, and conflict and struggle ensues. Social systems are generallycharacterized by contradictory institutional arrangements generating diversevalues and interests, which underlie the clashes and power struggles amongsocietal agents.

In general, particular agents, internal as well as external to an institutionor institutional arrangement, concern themselves with its performance anddevelopment and try to regulate and possibly even restructure it (or its relation-ship to other systems) in order to deal with what some judge as performance


failures, instability, or crisis. ASD identifies and explains the systemic prob-lems with which agents in their structural positions are likely to be concernedand are oriented toward solving (Burns and Carson, 2005).

7. The social structural properties of society are carried and transmitted by agentsat the same time that these condition their actions and interactions. Structuressuch as institutions and cultural formations are temporally prior, relativelyautonomous, and possessing causal powers, constraining and enabling peo-ple’s social actions and interaction (Archer, 1995). The latter in turn generatestructural elaboration (reproduction and transformation). Structural stability(morphostasis) and change (morphogenesis) are explained through multipleprocesses (e.g., positive and negative feedback loops in complex sociocul-tural systems). The social systems theorist is then not only concerned with theidentification and elaboration of social structures but with the specification ofthe mechanisms—including feedback processes that entail both stabilizing,equilibrating features and structure—elaborating or disorganizing features. Insuch terms, institutional structures may be viewed as operating to create (aswell as transform) themselves in ongoing developmental processes, subjectto the judgments and responses of human agents.

8. ASD theorizes institutions and sociocultural formations in their own right,identifying and explaining the real and variegated structures that have emergedhistorically and are elaborated and developed in ongoing socioeconomic andpolitical processes. ASD drew, in particular, on a number of elements ofWeberian and Marxist theories (DeVille was at one time associated with ErnestMandel) redefining—through, for instance, institutional and cultural theoriz-ing based on rule system theory—key concepts in modern sociological termssuch as the concepts of class, power, domination, exploitation, conflict andstruggle, and unequal exchange and accumulation; ASD also elaborated con-ceptions of production, reproduction, and transformation including revolution(Burns, 2006b; Burns and Dietz, 2001).

9. The ASD systems approach enables one to identify and analyze the complexmechanisms of stable reproduction as well as transformation of structures;this includes the study of the genesis of new forms. Active agents with theirdistinctive characteristics, motivations, and powers interact and contribute tothe reproduction and transformation of structure: establishing and reforminginstitutions, sociotechnical systems, and other structures but doing so alwayswithin given constraints and opportunities and not in precisely the ways theyintend. Internal structuring and selection processes that reproduce, modify, ortransform particular social systems are based on power distributions amongsocietal agents and on the models or paradigms that orient and guide theseagents in their structuring activities. There are also external structuring andselection processes operating, which affect the sustainability and evolution ofsocial structures.

10. Complex social systems are only temporarily stable, if at all. System stabilitymust be explained in the face of ever-present tendencies for structures to bechanged, reformed, or to evolve. Existing institutional arrangements may betransformed by intentional human action as well as the unintended spin-offs

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and spill-overs of institutional activities and operations. ASD has identifiedsome of the potential problems and crises that agents fail to recognize or lackthe motivation or capability to deal with (Burns and Carson, 2005; Burns andDeVille, 2003). Such problems might be ones of social tensions or technicalsystem instability (or both), which fail to be effectively addressed by thosewith the power or authority to do so, setting the stage for crisis and systemtransformation. These complex processes show up repeatedly in investigationsof major contemporary institutions such as government agencies, businessenterprises, markets, schools and universities, and sociotechnical systems.

In sum, social systems are dynamic and potentially unstable because (1) ex-ogenous factors change and impact on them, evoking internal restructuring, and(2) internal social processes and dynamics often entail conflicts and innovations,which lead to initiatives and new intended and unintended developments. Agentsor configurations of agents in the system respond to some of negative develop-ments and instabilities, not always in a coordinated or coherent manner. Throughtheir initiatives and interactions, sociocultural arrangements as well as the orienta-tions and identities of social agents are maintained and changed. These structuringconsequences of action have been represented in Figure 1. The order and stabilityof any social system depends then on an extensive network of institutional ar-rangements and regulatory mechanisms. An institutionally ordered social systemmay be viewed then as the macroscopic resultant of multiple, often contradictorystructuring processes, including purposeful social action on the part of the agentsinvolved. ASD’s theory of social stability and change focuses attention on the pro-cesses by which social rule systems, in particular cultural elements and institutionalarrangements, are generated, selected, and transmitted through human interaction.Selective mechanisms—some of which are exogenous—have important dynamicsof their own that influence the prevalence and persistence of various rules and,thus, cultural and institutional orders (as pointed out earlier, these need not beoptimally adaptive to their environment, nor is the direction of change necessarilytoward optimality).

ASD represents a social systems approach to the challenge of developing knowl-edge for purposes of modeling, monitoring, and regulating complex dynamic socialsystems. It also may contribute to the clarification of contentious issues and ulti-mately play a role in the design of institutions and policymaking. Such a systemsapproach has a conceptual and methodological base that potentially would facil-itate cooperation between social and natural, engineering, and medical scientists,the linking of which is a major challenge of this century, both for theoretical andmethodological reasons as well as for policy and practical reasons. Recent methoddevelopment has contributed to the revitalization of social systems analysis in thesocial sciences, for instance, the use of flow diagrams and other graphic techniquesto represent the complex interdependencies of systems and system mechanisms.(Andersen and Burns, 1992; Baumgartner, 1978; Baumgartner et al., 1986; Burnset al., 1985; Burns and Flam, 1987; Machado, 1998). Simulation methods are alsocurrently playing an increasingly important role. Simulation offers particularlypowerful tools to represent and analyze complex systemic processes (Burns et al.,


2005a, b). Collins (1988: 46) has pointed out rightly that, for most systems, a com-puter program can be written: ”. . . there is an affinity between the older systemmodels and the more general conceptions of systems which has become clearer nowthat computer modelling, especially by personal computer, has become relativelyeasy.” A major contributing factor here is the emergence of complexity theory(nonlinear dynamic systems associated with, for instance, the Sante Fe Institute)and the growing interest among mathematicians, natural scientists, and some socialscientists in theoretical work and simulation of complex “multi-agent systems.”

NOTES

1. Elsewhere (Burns, 2006a, b) I identify and compares several system theories emerging in sociologyand the social sciences after the Second World War: Parsonian functionalism (1951), Marxist theoryand World Systems Theory (Wallerstein, 2004), and the family of actor-oriented, transformativesystems theories (ASD, the work of Buckley (1967, 1998), and Archer (1995) as well as Geyer andvan der Zouwen (1978a, b).

2. Action is also constrained and facilitated by the responses of others who have the power to positivelyor negatively sanction, to persuade, or inform. That is, the agency of some actors affects the abilityof other actors to exercise their own agency. In the extreme, powerful actors can severely restrictthe agency of others in selected domains of social life.

3. On the basis of a more or less shared or common rule system, actors can inter-subjectively andcollectively answer questions such as the following: What is going on in this situation? Whatkind of activity is this? Who is who in this situation? What “roles” are they playing? What is be-ing done? Why is this being done? Is there an inappropriate or improper activity taking place?Should matters be conducted differently? The participating actors—as well as knowledgeableobservers—can understand in intersubjective ways the social processes and, in a certain sense,predict on the basis of rule knowledge what will happen in the interactions; that is, actors make useof common rule-based interpretative schemes. Social rules also play an important part in normativeand moral communications relating to social interaction: participants refer to the rules in givingaccounts, in justifying or criticizing what is being done (or what fails to be done, as the case may be)and in the social attribution of who should be credited with successes or blamed for performancefailings.

4. Most modern institutions such as business enterprises, government agencies, democratic associa-tions, religious congregations, scientific communities, or markets are organized and regulated inrelatively separate autonomous but interdependent spheres or domains, each distinguishable fromothers on the basis of its distinctive rule complexes making up a specific moral order operating interms of its own social logic (or type of “rationality”).

5. Neo-corporatist arrangements organize government, business, and labor (“iron triangles”) for pur-poses of negotiating, determining, and enforcing/implementing economic and welfare policies. Oneof their important accomplishments has been to regulate labor–capital tensions and conflicts duringa substantial part of the post-World War Two period.

6. Unfortunately, such regulation is almost totally lacking on the international level. Nor do suchregulative regimes exist within most third world countries to the same extent as within OECDcountries.

7. The indigenous population of Easter Island developed institutional arrangements and practices thatcould not be sustained on the island’s physical environment and led to an ecological and eventuallysocial order collapse and the disappearance of most of the population.

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