HOW THE COMPLEXITY SCIENCES CAN INFORM PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION: AN ASSESSMENT

Abstract

Ideas, concepts, and theories from the complexity sciences have slowly but steadily gained popularity in the social sciences in general, and in the domains of public administration, public policy, and public management in particular (e.g. Teisman et al. 2009; Gerrits 2012). Complexity science encompasses a wide range of loosely connected theorems such as non-linearity, emergence, and far-from-equilibrium. It has its roots in systems theory (Von Bertalanffy 1968), chaos theory (Gleick 1987), biology (Kauffman 1993), chemistry (Prigogine and Stengers 1984), and social systems theory (Luhmann 1984). The core ideas were first adapted to our field by pioneers such as Kiel (1989), Kickert (1991), Morçöl and Dennard (1997), and Haynes (2003). They are also increasingly popular in our field (for an extended discussion, see Teisman and Gerrits 2014). Figure 1 shows the annual output of articles, books, and book chapters in which the complexity sciences have been put to use in our field. Scopus yielded two interesting observations. First, a relatively large number of authors have published in books instead of journal articles. Second, scholars writing about complexity in our field turned to more specialist niche journals such as Emergence: Complexity and Organization (e.g. special issues edited by Dennard et al. 2005; Landini and Occelli 2010; Meek 2012, 2014) instead of the mainstream journals. These observations seem to confirm that it is difficult for new theories and concepts to gain entry into established fields and their associated journals. They also prompt the question whether and how these new theories and concepts enrich our field. This review discusses five recent book titles in search of an answer.