The ‘Post-Institutional’ Perspective:
Society
as an emerging system with dynamically changing boundaries
Loet
Leydesdorff
Science
and Technology Dynamics
Department
of Communication Studies
Oude
Hoogstraat 24
1012
CE Amsterdam
e-mail: loet@leydesdorff.net
Abstract
One does not sufficiently appreciate
the relation between a social system and its environment by using the metaphor
of autopoiesis of an observable system.
A social system cannot be considered as a thing separate from a context,
whether temporal, spatial, or in terms of relations. Reflexive actors, however, are able to specify hypotheses
concerning social systems on the basis of observations, while they operate as
participants from within the system.
Structures, functions, and boundaries then remain expectations. The reflexive specification of expectations
can make a difference for the system of expectations. A social mechanism for updating expectations, and thus for
changing social systems reflexively, can be proposed. From this perspective, implications for changing the boundaries
of the system by sociological theorizing and research are suggested.
Introduction
Luhmann (1984; 1986) noted that
society should not be considered as a living system. Thus, the
biological metaphor in which functionality is geared to reproduction and
survival in a given (‘natural’) environment is inadequate (cf. Maturana 1978).[1] The social system does not have to be
physically or biologically integrated; it remains an uncertain expectation of
order among reflexive people (‘consciousness systems’).
What may functional differentiation
mean if uncertainty prevails at the level of the (super‑)system? In his study Die Wissenschaft der
Gesellschaft (1990), Luhmann addressed this consequence of the sociological
thesis of functional differentiation.
For example, he noted that scientific communication is internally
differentiated in terms of experience and action. Thus, one is able to raise the question of whether functionality
in the differentiation is recursive.
Luhmann, then, made a decisive move beyond structural functionalism and
neo-institutionalism by stating that ‘the differentiation of society also
changes the social system in which it occurs’ (ibid., at p. 340). He called for ‘an accordingly complex
systems-theoretical arrangement’.
In this paper, I introduce the
problem of further differentiation of functionally coded communications using
the formal perspective of second-order systems theory. In subsequent sections, I shall indicate the
fruitfulness of my hypothesis for sociological theorizing and research
concerning the topic of this special issue: the social reflection of system’s
boundaries by new social movements.
Differentiation and Integration
Traditionally, structural functionalism
has used the model of a dialectic between functional differentiation and
institutional integration at the system level.
Action is then taken as the integrating category, but action is not
considered as itself constructed (Parsons 1937; Münch 1982/1988). Parsons (e.g., 1968) and Luhmann (e.g., 1977
and 1984) studied this phenomenon under the heading of ‘interpenetration’.[2] Giddens (1984) has called this dialectic
operation ‘the duality of structure’, but the focus in his sociology has remained
firmly on action as the system of reference.[3]
Institutions have been studied as aggregates
of action, in neo-institutionalism and social network analysis (e.g., Burt
1982). However, human actions are also
interactive and reflexive. These
communicative dynamics lead to non-linear terms in the further development of
the system that cannot be captured by an aggregation model (Leydesdorff
1993a). When the aggregation rules
themselves are changing, the institutional distribution of action is
only a first-order observation: this data does not yet reveal the dynamics.
From a dynamic perspective,
institutions can be considered as the fingerprints of the communications which
have served us hitherto. They carry the
reproduction of the social system, while the institutions are themselves
carried by reflexive actors who in turn are expected to change them, for
example, by exploring new means of communication. Other aggregations of action among functionally differentiated
communication systems are possible when the interactions among the actors and
accross institutional boundaries become recurrent.
Each aggregation rule can be
considered as a specific selection of an (hypothesized) aggregating
super-system. Selection operates on
functionality; functionality for the next-order system can be provided by different
structural arrangements. Although
generated by aggregation, the higher-level system cannot always be reduced to
an aggregate of lower-level ones. In
general, aggregation is dominant in a stratified system, while interaction
prevails in a functionally differentiated one (Leydesdorff 1994). However, the functionally differentiated
system remains evolutionarily constrained by its institutional history.
In Luhmann’s sociology, the function
systems select upon each other using their internal codifications. This induces aggregation of the variation
for functional instead of institutional reasons. If the function of these aggregations is no longer necessarily
the institutional one of adaptive reproduction-that is, undifferentiated action-we have
to specify the mechanism of the production of these reflexive layers and their
social functions.
Inter-system Dependencies
In a fully differentiated system, the
question of the consequences of further differentiation for the reproduction
leads one to focus on inter-system dependencies. Can a differentiated system perhaps be integrated at the
interfaces without assuming de-differentiation by action (or in terms of its
institutional aggregates)? In my
opinion, interactions among inter-system dependencies provide us with a
mechanism for integration which can analytically be distinguished from
institutional integration.
Let me use pictures to illustrate
this alternative option for integrating differentiated sub-systems. Figure One shows a Venn-diagram
representating three differentiated sub-systems of a single system. The three sub-systems are here considered as
specifications (ij) of a common system (i). Each of the
sub-systems has a different value in a second (e.g., functional) dimension (j). In other words: the uncertainty i
that is communicated is coded with a meaning j that is specific for the
respective sub-system.
|
Figure 1 Three functionally
differentiated subsystems with a common intersection |
|
Figure 2 Three
differentiated sub-systems without a communality |
The intersection in Figure One
can be associated with Max Weber’s conceptualization of ‘culture’ as a meeting
place between otherwise incompatible value-orientations (Leydesdorff
1993b). It is a locus of both
interpenetration and integration. Note
that the picture should be thought dynamically as an interaction among spirals
of communication.
Figure Two provides a different
conceptualization of inter-system dependencies. The systems have grown so far apart that the communality in the
intersection has been dissolved. This
system can no longer be considered as emerging from a shared origin; it has
grown constitutionally complex.
In this case, the integrating mechanisms cannot be identified in terms
of an undifferentiated (‘common’) communication (i). The intersections are themselves distributed
as interfaces among various systems, and they are expected to contain more
complexity than the functionally differentiated systems, since they communicate
in terms of two codes (j and k). It is a form of interprenetation, but not yet integration.
Since the meaning of the information
changes when the latter is passed from one codification to another,
communications at these interfaces can be considered as translations.[4] This complex dynamics, however, can still be
integrated dynamically, as indicated in Figure Three. While integration was based on a common
carrier in the case of Figure One, it has to be constructed dynamically,
that is, as a series of translations at the interfaces, in Figure Three.
|
Figure 3 Integration at the
hyper-cyclic level |
|
Figure 4 Hyper-cyclic
closure of communication in the case of four degrees of freedom |
Such a series of translations can be
considered as a hyper-cycle constituted as a new communication system on
top of the underlying ones. Note that this integrating communication is
internally differentiated. It is not
emerging from a differentiation in an underlying communality, but its emergence
is based on interactions among function systems. If one mentally takes the hyper-cycle out of the basic plane, the
emerging structure can be conceptualized as a tetrahedron (Figure Four). The emerging order is different from the
underlying ones: the hyper-cycle adds to the complexity of the system.
This form of integration does not
secure reproduction, since it remains distributed and thus fragmented. Because of its failure to integrate fully,
the emerging system of communications is expected to remain fractal in its
dimensionality. Fractal, fragile,
fragmented, and failure all share a common root (of the Latin verb frangere):
no communality is left, not even in the integration. We may wish to call it a sub-integration. This system is never integrated and
immediately observable; yet, it can be considered in terms of a distribution of
translations.
Fragmentation and Translation
A hyper-cyclic communication system
is expected to fail to be integrated in an unambiguously observable mode. Note that there is no evolutionary need for
identifiable integration because the system is reproduced in a distributed
mode. Given a distribution, uncertainty
prevails.[5] Different observers are then expected to
have different perspectives.
Hyper-cyclic integration by means of
a series of translations transforms the underlying (institutionally based)
regime of functional differentiation into a regime of translations. In a regime of translations, interactions
tend to disorganize institutional boundaries (Turpin and Garrett-Jones 1997). The sysem is ‘on the move’: the
participant’s role is increasingly different from an observer’s, since the
latter has to stabilize a perspective reflexively.
How does translation among function
systems operate? First, each of the
function systems translates in terms of its code. For example-following Luhmann-the
science system uses resources for translation in terms of the truth-value of
the communications.[6] Differentiated sub-systems communicate in
terms of different codes, like true/false, power, or economic value. Thus, what a communication means is expected
to differ in various sub-systems.
Translation is an asymmetrical operation. At the interfaces a communication in one medium is translated
into a communication in another. For
example, ij can be translated into ik. In other words: the meaning of the information changes.
Such a transformation can also be
considered as a reflection: an input (ij) is transformed into an output
(ik). Biological systems already
contain many such interfaces. For
example, at a synapse the signal from the nerve is translated into a signal
that can be made relevant for the muscle.
The i of the signal may vary for substantive reasons. The code j of the neural system is
changed into a k that provides it selectively with meaning for the
muscle. Note that the variation in the
signal (i) remains structurally coupled in a second dimension by
being selected in different systems, but the transformation requires an operational
coupling (between j and k) at the synapse. (I return to the distinction between
structural and operational coupling in a later section.)
If a muscle is denervated, it may
begin to exhibit uncontrolled contractions.
Selections can also be considered as negative feedbacks. The feedbacks of various function systems
are expected to be different, and therefore each recursion of the selection
introduces another sub-dynamics. Three
sub-dynamics are sufficient, in principle, for constituting a complex system (Figure
Two): the two others provide both a variation and a selecting instance for
each of them. Two sub-dynamics,
however, can be balanced in an observable stabilization (like ‘action’ and
‘re-action’). Using a third sub-dynamics,
some stabilizations can be entrained in a globalization (Figure Three;
cf. Kampmann et al. 1994).
In summary, a communication system
is sufficiently complex for a translation at the interface between two
sub-dynamics if the uncertainty contains three degrees of freedom (i, j,
and k). In the first dimension,
the uncertainty is generated as variation, in the second it is specifically
(e.g., functionally) selected as meaningful, and in a third it can be
translated and thus provided with another or new meaning. By this last operation, the information is
stabilized, since the original signal is re-written by the receiver in terms of
its own code. This is done locally,
that is, at the locus of reception.
Sub-integration
The distribution of the local
translations provides us with a fourth degree of freedom in the uncertainty. A next-order or hyper-reflexive system is
expected to operate in four dimensions of uncertainty. The additional degree of freedom enables it
to change the aperture of its reflection.
For example, a hyper-reflexive observer-who knows herself to be one among a
distribution of observers-is able to change the distinction
between the information of a message and the message with hindsight (Luhmann
1997a).
Note that this potential for
changing the aperture of the reflection at the social level is precisely
the arrangement that Luhmann indicated in the passage quoted above: the spread
of reflexivity in modern society has recursively changed the differentiation of
social communication (cf. Giddens 1990). In addition to functionally
differentiated sub-systems, the system transforms inter-system dependencies
into systems of translations that are able to reintegrate the system, by using
a distribution of locally specific perspectives.
The institution can then be
considered as a stabilization of local integration. Other aggregations of action become possible with increasing
reflexivity about different functions at the level of the social network among
the actors: the uncertain functionality of the communication puts evolutionary
pressure on institutional structures.
Figure Five illustrates how sometimes even a
new sub-system can emerge in the interface between two systems that were
originally differentiated. If the translation in the intersection becomes
recurrent, the interaction may increasingly develop systemic properties. Using a biological metaphor, one may think
of sexual reproduction. Society,
however, has the option to develop systems of translation that exhibit recurrent
systemness without directly observable stabilization.
|
Figure 5 Emergence of systemness from
interaction |
Algorithmic approaches enable us to
visualize series of geometrical representations (that is, stabilizations)
without becoming confused about what is an observable instantiation (at one moment
in time), an observable trajectory (over time), or a globalized regime (in
‘time-space’; Giddens 1984). For
example, ongoing translations between national systems have developed
measurable systemness at the European level in some dimensions, but not in
others (Leydesdorff 1992).[7]
Translation can only be achieved
between sufficiently different systems.
Sub-integration has in common with integration that it presupposes
differentiation. At the level of the complex
social system, differentiation and translation are structurally coupled as a
second (j) and third dimension (k) of the uncertainty. Translation can have a function in informing
the (sub‑)systems of communication, but not necessarily in their institutional
reproduction. A ‘niche’ of
communication does not yet have to be institutionalized (Tong 1996): it is
based on asymmetrical ‘code-sharing’ in a translation system. Adaptation of the stabilizing institutional
arrangements can thus be considered as another sub-dynamic of the complex
system. The institutional layer
provides the retention mechanism of processes of social learning, while
institutions remain the social dimension of function systems (cf. Luhmann
1984).
In summary: distributed action (by
different observers) generates uncertainty in a first dimension. This variation can be selected (‘provided
with meaning’) in a second dimension, and then this selection can recursively
be selected for translation using a third degree of freedom in the communication. If a translation is locally understood, the
initial action is provisionally stabilized since the signal can be
re-written. In a fourth dimension (of
the uncertainty) some of these stabilizations are recursively selected for
globalization. In this context,
globalization means sub-integration of the system at a next level through a
series of translations. The next-level
(super‑)system is perceived as global from the perspective of each
participant/observer.
Emergence as a systemic property
The order of this global hyper-cycle
is continuously under construction, and therefore remains necessarily
emergent. The observer participates in
the reconstruction by being reflexive.
Note the difference between hyper-cyclic sub-integration and integration
at the institutional level: the latter is historically embedded. Sub-integration, however, remains
sub-symbolic since it fails to be.
One is able to provide it with meaning from a locally reflexive
context. Each local ‘instantiation’
then remains only one example from among a variety of possible reflections.
All (functionally differentiated)
sub-systems can recursively use their system of reference as a code for
sub-integration. In a regime of
translations, integration no longer takes place at a center, as in a stratified
society, but in a distributed mode (cf. Gibbons et al. 1994). The social system is implied, but only its
instantiations and trajectories can be observed. Thus, one should never reify the social system, e.g., by
attributing it a specific identity.
In other words, social systems do
not exist in the strong sense of the Latin verb esse. One is in need of a different ontology for
understanding social systems as distributions of expectations: peaks in the
distributions can be considered as identities from a reflexive
perspective, and hypotheses concerning social systems can be formulated on this
basis.[8] The thesis of functional differentiation is
such a hypothesis. Hypotheses direct
the observations, and thus function as heuristics in scientific research. However, the social system is then no longer
empiristically available for observation in terms of action or at the
institutional level, as in structural functionalism or neo-institutionalism.
The consequences of this epistemological
shift pervade the logic of reasoning. In second-order systems theory,
statements using predicates can no longer be made without generating paradoxes
(Luhmann 1990).[9] Consequently, the purpose of a single sociology
tends to become self-defeating. One can
only make statements of the kind that ‘society can be considered as ...’,
because such a formulation accounts reflexively for the contextual nature of
the very statement. (Yet, the context
may be codified into one or another sociology; cf. Leydesdorff 1997a.) If a system can no longer be identified,
then its boundaries can no longer be considered as ‘given’. They, too, remain
expectations that can be deconstructed reflexively. However, before turning to this consequence, let me provide the
reader with a metaphor for a system of translations.
Imagine a system of translations
among natural languages such as may occur at a meeting of a European
organization in Brussels. In each of the boxes for interpreters, two or more
European languages are simultaneously translated. The system of translations at the level of society, however, is
decreasingly based on national differentiation. National differentiation has been correlated to differences among
national languages, while functional differentiation is associated with
differences among codes in the communication.
The ‘languages’ in functional translations are no longer ‘natural’ and
codified dictionaries will therefore not be available: one expects that the
words change in meaning by being translated into a different context, and this
change of meaning potentially feeds back on the original categories. Adjustments are made with hindsight and
according to the functional logic of an emerging system.
A Tower of Babel-like confusion of
tongues becomes the normal state of this system, and reflexively all
sub-systems have continuously to update their dictionaries. The system of translations has gained an
independent function among the function systems as it sub-integrates the
system. Fragmentation and poly-contexturality
are constitutive for this post-modern regime.
The post-institutional perspective
The regime of translations is
already an everyday experience in domains of society other than science. The European Union, for example, cannot be considered
as a union like the United States; it is a system of translations which is
gaining an autonomous momentum on the basis of interactions among the national
systems on which it rests. The
progression may have been stronger in some areas of policy-making than in
others.
The example illustrates the capacity
of the social system to develop new systemic layers internally on the basis of
recurrent interactions (as also illustrated in Figure Five above). The new layers can be expected to have
different functions as they become increasingly codified. The codification, however, is no longer
unambiguous: it is an dynamic expectation in a variety of contexts. Therefore, codification can itself become
distributed and poly-contextural. Each
dimension is binary in the extremes, but it extends as a degree of freedom that
may contain shades of grey.
Let us now specify the model more
fully. First, remember that selection
is a negative feedback. If ten percent
is selected, ninety percent is discarded.
Thus, if the distribution is normal to begin with, we may obtain a
skewed distribution after selection.
However, the result of two negative operations upon each other contains
a positive term: some selections are selected for observable
stabilization. In general, this
positive result is at an order of magnitude smaller than the variation upon
which it operates because there are two selections involved: translation is a
form of communication, but it is a highly specific communication.
The sign is expected to alternate
between the even and the odd dimensions of the information because of the
introduction of a minus-sign by each recursion of the selection. At first, selection is a negative feedback
on the variation, as in the case of market clearing. The positive feedforward in a next selection allows for stability
and thus for observable trajectories.
On the basis of a third layer of selections, the complex system incurs
as a pending regime on its underlying sub-systems. The sub-dynamics inhibit one another as negative feedbacks: noise
is continuously filtered out.
The stabilizations can be considered
as the institutions on which the regime of translation builds new
functions. The institutions have been
selected socially because of their service in the reproduction of the
communication. However, one can expect
them to be changed, since they are entrained in the further developments like
the trajectories of a regime.
I follow Luhmann in defining the
social system as the system of inter-human communication, while, in my opinion,
other forms of (irreflexive) communication are also possible (Latour
1987). Human communication is
evolutionarily based on the possibility of distinguishing between meaningful
information and uncertainty. The social
system provides us with codes that can be processed reflexively, so that an
uncertainty can be reconstructed and then communicated while suppressing the
noise. Precisely because we are able to
communicate our reflections, we do no longer need to follow our instincts. Hitherto, human agency has been the sole
source of variation at this level of reflexive discourse (cf. Leydesdorff
1994).
Code is selective at the network
level: some actions are provided with meaning by the social system, while
others are not. This may be different
from various perspectives as the code becomes differentiated during cultural
evolution. Different meanings can be
translated into each other by using reflexive agency at distributed nodes of
the network. In summary: agency
generates the variation; constructed (and therefore uncertain) codes at the
network level select specific actions as communications; and the distribution
adapts itself to interactions among codes in the institutional layer.
Structural, operational, and loose coupling
Let me use the model of a standard
social science design for formalizing the increase of complexity in terms of
distinguishable forms of coupling between systems. In a social science methodology, like in SPSS, the rows of the
matrix are considered as actions attributed to the actors. The columns represent the variables or
communications among the actors.
The two dimensions of this matrix
(e.g., i and j) determine each other in the
co-variation. However, the dynamics of
each system, that is, the action system and the communication network, are
different because they refer to the previous states of these systems in terms
of the total of their respective variations.
The total variation is by definition equal to the co-variation and the
remaining variation. (The two systems condition
each other in the remaining variation.)
Giddens (1984), for example, denotes this relation between conditioning
and determining in the reproduction with the expression of ‘enabling and
constraining of action by structure’.
Two dimensions (in this case, action
and communication) coupled like the rows and columns of a matrix are
said to be structurally coupled: operation in one dimension necessarily
has an effect on the other which constitutes its environment. (In terms of the matrix representation, a
cell value is changed that affects a row and a column locally.) Over time, structurally coupled systems
‘mutually shape’ each other or ‘co-evolve’ (Leydesdorff 1994).
As noted, communication between a
sender and a receiver requires transmission of the signal by the network
between them, and thus communicating systems (i.e., actors) are operationally
coupled by the network between them.
First, the sender operates and thus disturbs the network (i),
then the network operates in terms of transmitting the message (j), and
only on the basis of this first selection, the receiver reconstructs using
his/her interface (jk) with the network as a second structural
coupling. The recursive selections,
however, operate in substantively different layers.
Codification of the communication
(along the column vectors of the communications), self-organizes the system by
adding another (reflexive) selection when grouping the communications. This grouping along the column dimension of
the matrix (j’ or l) can become functional in sorting various
types of communication apart. Using
this additional interface, the complex system is able to self-organize the (sub‑)systems
in terms of their operational and structural couplings. The distribution of previous reflections of
interactive events is then reconstructed, yet hyper-reflexively.
In a biological system this degree
of freedom is functionally geared towards survival and reproduction (Maturana
1978). However, a social system of
inter-human communication contains one more degree of freedom, since the
participants are able to reflect on what they observe and the reflections can
also be communicated. Consequently,
this system is only loosely coupled in principle: it has an internal
degree of freedom for adjusting its own further development (cf. Simon
1969). While human cognition is
biologically constrained, social learning can develop itself as a cultural
evolution on top of the biological evolution.
In other words, a self-organizing
system feeds back on its instantiations and their trajectories, and it is able
to reorganize its past with hindsight and selectively in terms of new
recombinations. Thus, a social system
is able to learn in terms of institutional rearrangements (Etzkowitz
& Leydesdorff 1997). The
recombinations are dependent on the system’s capacity to adjust to recurrent
translations at the relevant interfaces.
However, there is no center of control, since the actions on which the
system rests are distributed. Control
emerges; the system can only sub-control with hindsight, that is, based on
suppression by selection.
The system has to select
continuously because it is disturbed by a multitude of lower-level
interactions. If the channels of
communication were to become overburdened, integration might fail, and the
system would experience crises in its reproduction. The hyper-cyclic social system, however, can increase its
complexity without being delimited by biological constraints, since it couples
only operationally and not structurally to the biological layer. The psychological level or-as
Luhmann has called it-‘human consciousness’ has to operate
in order to make biological issues (like ‘bio-diversity’) culturally relevant,
and vice versa.
‘All that is solid melts into air’
This quote from Marx (Communist
Manifesto, 1848) illustrates that Marx as a philosopher had already grasped
this evolutionary dynamics of modern society (Berman 1982). While Ricardo and Malthus had a notion of
naturally given limitations, Marx entertained a dialectic notion of the
relation between nature and culture. In
his opinion, the dynamics of society would dialectically be confined because
this evolution would eventually self-generate its own crises. The ensuing tensions (between Capital and
Labour) would have to be resolved in a single, global solution.
In social-systems theory one should
radically reflect on Luhmann’s (1984) conclusion that society is not a
living system. Because society is
not biological, it is not inherently limited in its extension, and it is not
necessarily confined by its natural environment.[10] Society is not expected to die (but it might
have to stop if there were no reflexive carriers, i.e., human beings,
left). Thus, society needs no
resolution; on the contrary, it needs further differentiation in order to be
able to operate in terms of recurrent communications.
From each perspective (that is,
‘bounded rationality’), other perspectives are perceived as not yet
sufficiently reflected environments, since the boundaries of a rationality can
only be perceived from another perspective.
Thus, environments challenge the human carriers to explore the
possibilities of increasing society’s internal complexity. I have specified above how this may happen
at the (super‑)systemic level, that is, ‘beyond intent and consciousness’
by distributions operating upon one another.
The boundaries of society-whether conceptualized in terms of
‘risks,’ ‘ecology,’ or ‘exclusion’-are then no longer considered as
given, but as constructed. The reflexive
analysis is pursued from a post-institutional perspective. Although not given, boundaries are expected
by reflexive and distributed actors.
What does it mean, for example, to
consider ‘exclusion’ as a boundary of functional differentiation from within
the social system (Luhmann 1997b)? In
my opinion, the awareness of ‘exclusion’ can be considered as an irritation at
certain places within the social system.
If codified in interactions among people, it may motivate the rise of a social
movement. Analogously, one can
argue that the ‘ecology’ and ‘risks’ are irritations within the system. Social movements feed back on the
social system by challenging its capacity to handle complexity.
The ‘new social movements’ can thus
be considered as internally produced irritations of the system that call for a
revolutionary change by taking into account another, not yet sufficiently
reflected dimension of the system’s evolution.
As noted, the social system can cope with internally generated
irritations by increasing its complexity.
Note that this has already happened to a large extent in the case of the
‘old social movements.’ In this sense,
the new social movements replace the traditional opposition by Labour.
‘Labour’ has been accommodated in
the system by mechanisms of compromise contained in the creation of the welfare
state. Similarly, the ‘new social
movements’ appeal to new dimensions of differentiation in social organization
that have not yet been sufficiently specified.
If these emerging dimensions were codified, it could mean that the
corresponding social movement would have fulfilled its transformative
function. The problems that generate
the tensions are then not resolved, but sub-integrated like issues that provide
a selective constraint to the further dynamics of the social system.
Theoretical Perspectives
One of the functions of ‘social
movements’ is to put issues on the agenda for codification. However, social movements are not the only
mechanism that is functional for this purpose. Science has also a function here: social movements generate, among
other things, the political pressure to legitimate the further development of
the system, for example by making resources available for the sciences to
reconstruct the issues thus placed on the agenda.
What can systems theory teach us
with respect to the dynamics that one may expect in relation to these social
challenges to the social system?
The systems theoretician in this case is not able to forecast the new dimension
substantively because the code for the failing dimensions of the system is
found at the level of the social system and not at a formal level. At the substantive level, the qualitative
sociologist has to step in for the development of a heuristic theory. However, the expected dynamics of this
‘infra-reflexivity’ (Latour 1988)-that is, the capacity to reflect on
the system’s operation both from within the system and as an external observer-can be
specified using a formal perspective.
The urge to new code is social
because the subjects (‘consciousness systems’) know themselves to be limited,
and therefore unable to carry responsibility for the emerging limitations to
the social system. The perceived
limitations negatively indicate the need for new code. Because of the substantive nature of this
quest for code, the issue obtains the character of an essential question: how
can a system that is historically contingent be understood as not clearly
limited in time, space, or in terms of participation? In which respects does such a system differ
from a God-like being?
Note that the problem is somewhat
analogous to Hegel’s quest for the relation between the Subjective, Objective,
and Absolute Spirit: how does the negation of a negation lead to a positive
affirmation? In our models, however,
there is no assumption left of an eschatological reconciliation. The social system is a complex dynamics that
can further complicate its own internal structure by self-organizing additional
dimensions, that is, codes to the communication. When the system changes qualitatively in terms of its
dimensions, all bets are off and earlier theories tend to become obsolete.
What does this mean in terms of
relevant social science research? In my
opinion, it changes the relevant research questions like a paradigm shift: not
the number of observable people or their behaviour, but the assessment of the
complexity in communications becomes crucial for the carrying capacity of
social systems. In the above metaphor
of a matrix, the emphasis shifts from the rows which represent actors and their
actions to the columns that represent the communications among them. The question about the nature of boundaries
can then be translated into a researchable question about the process of exploring
new codifications. The role of new
social movements can be appreciated from this perspective.
In my opinion, the inter-system
dependency of technological innovation can be used to develop a model for
studying the effects of historically emerging constraints. First, the laboratory has allowed for the
discursive reconstruction of what was considered as ‘naturally’ given, and
thereafter for its reconstruction in social practice (Latour 1983). Second, the systematic institutionalization
of an interface between science and the economy since the scientific-technical
revolution of the period 1870-1910 (e.g., Braverman 1974; Noble 1977) has
created a full blown inter-system dependency that can be analyzed
sociologically (Leydesdorff 1997b).
The study of the resulting
university-industry-government relations has, among other things, taught us
that the relevant codes have become internally differentiated during the
process. Given innovation in a
knowledge-based economy, product competition has become a relevant criterion in
addition to price competition.
Truth-finding has been supplemented with puzzle-solving as an heuristic
in the sciences. Power has to be offset
against functionality of control given a state bureaucracy. In other words, the functional codes have
become internally differentiated in order to cope with complexities in
processes of translation at the interfaces.
The social system, then, can no
longer be characterized only in terms of its functional differentiation. The categories have become fluid:
translations (at the hyper-cyclic level) entrain the further development of
functional codes. However, such a
system cannot be observed directly, while it remains emergent. It can be specified only in terms of
expectations. The position of each
observing discourse provides a window on the complex dynamics, but there is no
longer the expectation of any meta-position.
If we turn to the tetrahedron of Figure
Four, each of the discourses can achieve the top position, and therefore
claim a priority from its own perspective.
This corresponds with the distributedness of control in a pluriform
society. No objective criteria are
given that allow us to escape from this post-modern dilemma. However, one expects that all reflexive
discourses have to be updated. One
means of stimulating them to update is to confront them with the unexpected
results of complex interactions that potentially have generated new dimensions
of communication.
The emerging dimensions allow for
new social movements, since other limits to the system’s development can be
perceived from each new perspective.
Reflexively, the interactive possibilities of translation have a
function by enabling us to analyze a post-modern society in terms of
intertextualities among scientific disciplines. For example, by integrating other forms of sociological analysis
(e.g., symbolic interactionism with a focus on ‘meaning’) and the
systems-theoretical approach, Luhmann has been able to address essential
questions like those raised in this theme issue.
Reconstruction by translation can
thus be specified as an internal mechanism for the expansion of a non-reified
social system. This system continues to
expand since the carriers cannot escape from their reflexivity. This resource is used in a cultural
evolution, and therefore the social system is no longer physically or
biologically constrained. We as
carriers are constrained by our physical existence and our biological survival,
on the one side, and by social communication, on the other. Society is only constrained by our mediating
capacity, and the other way round: society puzzles us because sociology has
made us aware of our ambivalent position in it as both observers and
participants.
While one is not able to delineate
the social system and its boundaries at any moment in time, they remain
historical. The social system is
expected to survive us, since a non-biological system cannot physically
die. The new evolutionary theorizing
thus contributes to the secularization of essential questions as a predicament:
the quest for the missing dimensions can be made a subject for sociology.
Notes
* I am grateful for useful
comments of Rudolf Stichweh and Gerald Wagner.