Screen LibraryComplexity theory and the social sciences : the state of the art /
For the past two decades, 'complexity' has informed a range of work across the social sciences. There are diverse schools of complexity thinking, and authors have used these ideas in a multiplicity of ways, from health inequalities to the organization of large scale firms. Some understand...
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| Main Authors: | |
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| Published: |
Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group,
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| Publisher Address: | New York : |
| Publication Dates: | 2014. |
| Literature type: | Book |
| Language: | English |
| Edition: | First Edition. |
| Subjects: | |
| Summary: |
For the past two decades, 'complexity' has informed a range of work across the social sciences. There are diverse schools of complexity thinking, and authors have used these ideas in a multiplicity of ways, from health inequalities to the organization of large scale firms. Some understand complexity as emergence from the rule-based interactions of simple agents and explore it through agent-based modelling. Others argue against such 'restricted complexity' and for the development of case-based narratives deploying a much wider set of approaches and techniques. Major social theorists have been reinterpreted through a complexity lens and the whole methodological programme of the social sciences has been recast in complexity terms. -- Publisher website. |
| Carrier Form: | vi, 297 pages ; 25 cm |
| Bibliography: | Includes bibliographical references (pages 272-286) and index. |
| ISBN: |
9780415693677 (hardback) 0415693675 (hardback) 9780415693684 (paperback) : 0415693683 (paperback) |
| Index Number: | H61 |
| CLC: | C32 |
| Call Number: | C32/B995 |
| Contents: | Acknowledgements -- Introduction -- Framing the issues -- Understanding the complex -- Restricted complexity and general complexity : an outline of the arguments -- Complexity theory and the philosophy of social science -- Complexity theory meets social theory -- Evolutionary social theory -- Structure and agency -- Time and place -- Complexity theory : methodology and methods -- Complexity and methodology : exploring trajectories through narratives -- Hunting causes in a complex world -- Researching the complex social -- Complexity in action -- Complexity in disciplines and fields -- Opening the social sciences : the post-disciplinary implications of the complexity frame of reference -- Conclusion: complexity and the social sciences : the way forward -- Bibliography. |