Assoc. Prof. dr hab. Czeslaw Mesjasz Cracow University of Economics, Cracow, Poland mesjaszcae.krako

1
Assoc. Prof. dr hab. Czeslaw MesjaszCracow
University of Economics, Cracow, Poland
mesjaszc_at_ae.krakow.pl

• Complex Systems Studies
• as an Instrument of Security Theory and Policy
• 7th UNDERSTANDING COMPLEX SYSTEMS Symposium
• May 14-17, 2007Department of PhysicsUniversity
  of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

2
7th UNDERSTANDING COMPLEX SYSTEMS Symposium
May 14-17, 2007Department of PhysicsUniversity
of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

• ASSUMPTIONS OF THE RESEARCH PROJECT
• In security studies theory follows the unfolding
  processes and provides descriptions and
  interpretations
• Causal explanations are rare or superficial
• Predictions or normative approaches are even more
  difficult to find

3
7th UNDERSTANDING COMPLEX SYSTEMS Symposium
May 14-17, 2007Department of PhysicsUniversity
of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

• ASSUMPTIONS OF THE RESEARCH PROJECT, CONTD
• Analytical properties of that concept too often
  are either concealed in a broad ideological
  discourse, or are deriving from common sense
  reasoning
• Attention is paid to universalization of
  security, political, doctrinal, and even
  ideological issues and to critical approaches,
  with insufficient care about definitions

4
7th UNDERSTANDING COMPLEX SYSTEMS Symposium
May 14-17, 2007Department of PhysicsUniversity
of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

• What security is about?

5
7th UNDERSTANDING COMPLEX SYSTEMS Symposium
May 14-17, 2007Department of PhysicsUniversity
of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

• The questions
• How security, treated as a property of social
  systems and of their elements (individuals), can
  be described and studied?
• Does there exist any set of universal properties,
  a kind of core concept, which can be identified
  in all circumstances when the term security is
  applied?

6
7th UNDERSTANDING COMPLEX SYSTEMS Symposium
May 14-17, 2007Department of PhysicsUniversity
of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

• The aim of the paper is to present an
  epistemological framework for the discussion on
  the links between systems thinking (complexity
  studies) and security-related research
• An attempt is made to show what properties of
  various social systems can be used in studying
  and determining their broadly defined security. A
  core concept of security is developed into a
  typology of attributes of social systems which
  contribute to their security, and security of
  their sub-units, including also individuals

7
7th UNDERSTANDING COMPLEX SYSTEMS Symposium
May 14-17, 2007Department of PhysicsUniversity
of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

• Language game (s)
• Security System
• Complexity

8
7th UNDERSTANDING COMPLEX SYSTEMS Symposium
May 14-17, 2007Department of PhysicsUniversity
of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

• Two approaches to security
• 1. Objective security as an external factor
  (threat, danger, vulnerability)
• 2. Subjective (constructivist) act of speech,
  securitization

9
Reconceptualisation of security
DISTURBANCE

• ACTIONS RELATED
• TO DISTURBANCE
• monitoring
• prevention
• elimination
• isolation

IDENTIFICATION
OBJECT
10
7th UNDERSTANDING COMPLEX SYSTEMS Symposium
May 14-17, 2007Department of PhysicsUniversity
of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

• Broadening the neorealist concept of security
  means inclusion of a wider range of potential
  threats and defining security sectors
• political
• military
• economic
• societal
• environmental

11
7th UNDERSTANDING COMPLEX SYSTEMS Symposium
May 14-17, 2007Department of PhysicsUniversity
of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

• Deepening the agenda of security studies means
  moving either down to the level of individual or
  human security, or up to the level of
  international or global security, with regional
  and societal security as possible intermediate
  points

12
7th UNDERSTANDING COMPLEX SYSTEMS Symposium
May 14-17, 2007Department of PhysicsUniversity
of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

• The core scheme of security can be extended by
  combination of the following attributes
• reference object - state, region, alliance,
  society, various social groups - nations,
  minorities, ethnic groups, individuals, global
  system
• areas in which existential threats are emerging
  (sectors) - political, military, economic,
  ecological, societal, informational

13
7th UNDERSTANDING COMPLEX SYSTEMS Symposium
May 14-17, 2007Department of PhysicsUniversity
of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

• The core scheme of security can be extended by
  combination of the following attributes, contd
• methods of prediction (identification) of threats
  - beginning from search for objective threats
  and ending with subjectively perceived threats,
  also resulting from social discourse
  (securitization, desecuritization,
  non-securitization (complacency) and
  marketization)
• methods of planning and accomplishing
  extraordinary actions aimed at monitoring,
  preventing or eliminating existential threats.

14
7th UNDERSTANDING COMPLEX SYSTEMS Symposium
May 14-17, 2007Department of PhysicsUniversity
of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

• Security studies and systems thinking
• Assumptions of analysis

15
7th UNDERSTANDING COMPLEX SYSTEMS Symposium
May 14-17, 2007Department of PhysicsUniversity
of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

• Complex Systems and Security Three issues
• 1.
• Numerous writings in International Relations and
  in related areas - security studies and peace
  research, where the authors use such concepts as
  system, stability, turbulence, adaptation,
  self-organization, equilibrium, complexity,
  chaos, fractal politics, attractors,
  catastrophes, emergence, etc.
• Applications of those concepts vary, beginning
  from mathematical models and ending with
  analogies and metaphors, with dominance of the
  latter two

16
7th UNDERSTANDING COMPLEX SYSTEMS Symposium
May 14-17, 2007Department of PhysicsUniversity
of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

• Complex Systems and Security Three issues,
  contd
• 2.
• In the works rooted in broadly defined systems
  thinking (systems approach, systems theory),
  complex adaptive systems theory, complexity
  studies, or the like, many authors discover that
  their concepts used as mathematical models or as
  analogies and metaphors, could help to
  encapsulate various aspects of more or less
  precisely defined security
• Such applications span from social organization
  at the micro-level and end at the level of
  broadly defined international relations or even
  global system. Some of the terms associated with
  systems thinking and/or complexity have even
  become a kind of buzzwords of security theory
  and practice, frequently used in a trivialized
  way, e.g. stability or turbulence

17
7th UNDERSTANDING COMPLEX SYSTEMS Symposium
May 14-17, 2007Department of PhysicsUniversity
of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

• Complex Systems and Security Three issues,
  contd
• 3.
• A specific "missing link" between social
  sciences and systems thinking, and complexity
  studies. On the one hand specialists in social
  sciences frequently refer but to very general
  intuitions or simplified interpretations of
  "system", "chaos", "complexity", etc.
• On the other, scholars interested in
  applications of the ideas of systems and
  complexity to social issues ignore actual
  knowledge in more or less established
  disciplines, such as, for example, economics,
  management or International Relations

18
7th UNDERSTANDING COMPLEX SYSTEMS Symposium
May 14-17, 2007Department of PhysicsUniversity
of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

• ORIGINS OF COMPLEXITY STUDIES
• First attempts to study complex entities -
  Weaver (1948 disorganized and organized
  complexity), Simon (1962 Architecture of
  Complexity) and Ashby (1963 Law of Requisite
  Variety)
• In explaining complexity Seth Lloyd (1989)
  identified 31 definitions. Later, according to
  Horgan (1997 303) this number increased to 45
• Numerous definitions of complexity have been
  offered (Waldrop 1992 Gell-Mann 1995 Kauffman
  1993, 1995 Holland 1995 Bak 1996 Bar-Yam 1997
  Biggiero 2001).

19
7th UNDERSTANDING COMPLEX SYSTEMS Symposium
May 14-17, 2007Department of PhysicsUniversity
of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

• ORIGINS OF COMPLEXITY STUDIES, CONTD
• According to Gell-Mann (1995) complexity is a
  function of the interactions between elements in
  a system.
• Nicolis and Prigogine (1989) prefer measures of
  complexity based on system behaviour rather
  than system interactions. Behaviour is also a
  basis of analysis and description of Complex
  Adaptive Systems (CAS Holland 1995)

20
7th UNDERSTANDING COMPLEX SYSTEMS Symposium
May 14-17, 2007Department of PhysicsUniversity
of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

• Hard complexity mathematical models
• Soft complexity analogies and metaphors
  deriving from mathematical models along with
  qualitative ideas of complexity, e.g. concepts
  of Niklas Luhmann

21
7th UNDERSTANDING COMPLEX SYSTEMS Symposium
May 14-17, 2007Department of PhysicsUniversity
of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

• Human systems are characterized by the presence
  of all sources and types of complexity
• Human systems are
• Complexities of complexities

22
7th UNDERSTANDING COMPLEX SYSTEMS Symposium
May 14-17, 2007Department of PhysicsUniversity
of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

• Ideas originated in systems thinking and
  complexity studies are used in security-oriented
  research as
• models
• analogies
• metaphors

23
7th UNDERSTANDING COMPLEX SYSTEMS Symposium
May 14-17, 2007Department of PhysicsUniversity
of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

• The term model is used only for mathematical
  structures
• Mathematical models in complexity studies can be
  applied in three areas computer simulation
  models, high precision measurement made across
  various disciplines and confirming universality
  of complexity properties and rigorous
  mathematical studies embodying new analytical
  models, theorems and results

24
7th UNDERSTANDING COMPLEX SYSTEMS Symposium
May 14-17, 2007Department of PhysicsUniversity
of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

• Models, analogies and metaphors are instruments
  of theories in social sciences and are applied
  for
• description
• explanation of causal relations
• prediction
• anticipation
• normative approach
• prescription
• retrospection
• retrodiction
• control and regulation

25
7th UNDERSTANDING COMPLEX SYSTEMS Symposium
May 14-17, 2007Department of PhysicsUniversity
of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

• Systemic Interpretation of Security
• Reference object
• social entity (subsystem) and individual as an
  element of a system
• dimensions of security (survival, identity,
  coherence, or perhaps a broadly defined identity)

26
7th UNDERSTANDING COMPLEX SYSTEMS Symposium
May 14-17, 2007Department of PhysicsUniversity
of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

• Systemic Interpretation of Security
• Disturbance (threat, risk, danger)
• semantic distinctions between threat, danger and
  risk
• relations between meaning of those terms
• securitization of social phenomena threats,
  dangers and risks

27
7th UNDERSTANDING COMPLEX SYSTEMS Symposium
May 14-17, 2007Department of PhysicsUniversity
of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

• Systemic Interpretation of Security
• Vulnerabilities
• vulnerability as a systemic property
• relations between vulnerabilities and threats,
  risks and dangers.

28
7th UNDERSTANDING COMPLEX SYSTEMS Symposium
May 14-17, 2007Department of PhysicsUniversity
of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

• Systemic Interpretation of Security
• Prediction (identification, anticipation) of
  threat (risk, danger)
• classical approach risk and uncertainty
• threat, risk and uncertainty and methods and
  limits of their prediction
• known threat (risk, danger) known consequences
  and unknown consequences
• unknown (hidden?) threat, unknown features and
  consequences

29
7th UNDERSTANDING COMPLEX SYSTEMS Symposium
May 14-17, 2007Department of PhysicsUniversity
of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

• Systemic Interpretation of Security
• Control and Actions
• prevention, pre-emption, securitization,
  desecuritization
• negligence
• elimination

30
7th UNDERSTANDING COMPLEX SYSTEMS Symposium
May 14-17, 2007Department of PhysicsUniversity
of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

• Systemic Interpretation of Security
• Structural aspects of security of social systems
• links between military, political, economic,
• environmental and societal sectors of
  security
• links between security of elements and security
• of collectivities (security of individuals
  and
• of collectivities)

31
7th UNDERSTANDING COMPLEX SYSTEMS Symposium
May 14-17, 2007Department of PhysicsUniversity
of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

• Systemic Interpretation of Security
• Attributes of secure reference object (system
  of reference objects)
• minimization of uncertainty, continuity,
  survival, increased capabilities of prediction
• stability as synonymous to desired status with
  predictable future states

32
7th UNDERSTANDING COMPLEX SYSTEMS Symposium
May 14-17, 2007Department of PhysicsUniversity
of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

• Systemic Interpretation of Security
• Inter-system relational aspects of security
• typology of systems - units (states, other social
  entities - ethnic groups, etc.)
• security dilemma, relations with other social
  systems, relations with natural environment

33
7th UNDERSTANDING COMPLEX SYSTEMS Symposium
May 14-17, 2007Department of PhysicsUniversity
of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

• Conclusions
• The following concepts drawn from systems
  thinking (complexity studies), which were
  already discussed in security-related research
  should be analyzed in order to assess their
  relevance to the framework concept of security
• stability and security (peace)
• bipolarity vs. multipolarity
• power cycle theory
• systems thinking and hegemonic stability
• turbulence and chaos in globalizing world politics

34
7th UNDERSTANDING COMPLEX SYSTEMS Symposium
May 14-17, 2007Department of PhysicsUniversity
of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

• The following concepts drawn from systems
  thinking (complexity studies), which were
  already discussed in security-related research,
  should be analyzed in order to assess their
  relevance to the framework concept of security,
  contd
• evolutionary systems, world politics and security
  
• systems thinking, governance (global governance)
  and security
• democratic peace and systems thinking
• thermodynamics, peace and war
• mathematical ideas and security catastrophe
  theory and fuzzy systems

35
7th UNDERSTANDING COMPLEX SYSTEMS Symposium
May 14-17, 2007Department of PhysicsUniversity
of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

• The following concepts drawn from systems
  thinking (complexity studies), which were
  already discussed in security-related research,
  should be analyzed in order to assess their
  relevance to the framework concept of security,
  contd
• information, knowledge and international systems
• social learning, complex systems and security

36
7th UNDERSTANDING COMPLEX SYSTEMS Symposium
May 14-17, 2007Department of PhysicsUniversity
of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

• The following concepts drawn from systems
  thinking (complexity studies), which were
  already discussed in security-related research,
  should be analyzed in order to assess their
  relevance to the framework concept of security,
  contd
• Systems thinking (complexity studies) and
  terrorism
• vulnerability of social systems
• identification of threats of terrorism
• preventing terrorism

37
7th UNDERSTANDING COMPLEX SYSTEMS Symposium
May 14-17, 2007Department of PhysicsUniversity
of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

• Further research
• 1. Search for hidden patterns?
• (understanding of social systems
• and of mathematics)
• 2. Cognitive and social mechanisms influencing
  all security-oriented activities
• better future scenarios
• elimination of socio-psychological barriers

38
7th UNDERSTANDING COMPLEX SYSTEMS Symposium
May 14-17, 2007Department of PhysicsUniversity
of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

• Thank you for your attention!