Flexibility, fluidity, and flux: The complex dynamics of international politics.

摘要

International Relations, like most of the social sciences, is characterized by divides and compartmentalization. Divisions among disciplines and subfields are joined by theoretical and methodological incongruities which, all combined, provide obstacles to the development of interdisciplinary theory and the accumulation of knowledge. In International Relations, these tendencies are manifested in a reliance on static descriptors and non-dynamic theories. While providing insights during times of relative continuity, such as the years of the Cold War, such approaches are less able to handle periods of change, such as the years following the end of the bipolar power struggle between East and West. This project proposes a solution. Instead of focusing on static characteristics of a particular time, the theory offered here focuses on systemic dynamics, or how change is manifested in complex systems such as the international system. Whereas traditional theory focuses on issues such as power and governmental structure, the variables offered here abstract away from the particulars to a more general set of concepts---flexibility, fluidity, and flux---that are relevant across the entire set of potential state descriptions. This project offers a new conceptual framework, one built on complex adaptive systems theory, that, combined with the new variables offered, serves as the basis of six hypotheses on complex system dynamics. An agent-based computational model is used as an illustration of the approach.