Re: study of international relations within the general system perspective.

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: study of international relations within the general system perspective. : Although the theoretical development of the system idea may lead to very diverse outcomes, another more general concept : --that of open, adaptive systems-- : may provide the most promising approach to a comprehensive understanding of the dynamics of relations among nations. : Without imposing any single school of thought or any single interpretation of world affairs, it has a loosely unifying effect on the outlook of students of the field. : The so-called general system perspective on international relations may be compared to the map of a little-explored continent. : Outlines, broad features, and a continental delineation are not in question, but everything else remains in doubt, is subject to controversy, and awaits exploration. : One commentator has remarked that general system theory is not really a theory but instead is "a program or a direction in the contemporary philosophy of science." (From Anatol Rapoport, "Systems Analysis," in International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, vol. 15, p. 452, 1968.) : : As noted above, the quest for theoretical unification during the behavioral decade resulted in the widespread acceptance of two perspectives : --a foreign-policy approach and an international-system approach. : The general concept of open, adaptive systems provides a conceptual bridge connecting the two perspectives and creates a loose bond joining many of the diverse theoretical formulations prevailing in the field. : An examination of the line of general thinking that builds the bridge and provides the bond is, therefore, well worth attention. : : One begins to think about almost any open, adaptive system that involves human beings as a living system. : If the system is living, its pervading characteristic is activity. ACTIVITY (groping about) : Acting units, however they are recognized and defined, are doing things, participating in events, carrying forward processes, and creating effects. : The effects created by activity include progressive influences on the actors. That is to say, the acting unit is immune neither to the effects of its own participation nor to the participatory influences generated by other acting units. : It is this situation that establishes the condition of the openness of a system. : Streams of influencing activity contain two kinds of processing: : 1/ the first kind is regular, which is to say, governed by rules and repetitive in form, : 2/ and the second kind is unexpected, irregular, and variant. : : It is the second type that stimulates change and that initiates the special processing called adaptation. : A living system is open and is able to adapt, however, only if it in some way has gained access to information on the state of affairs that joins it with its environment and, further, in some way has achieved means to direct and to change its stream of activity. : Thus in addition to the fundamental concept terms of openness and adaptation, the general system perspective incorporates the ideas of communication (COMMUNICATION ?) and corrective action or, more generally, of communication and control. : : Another view adds the observation that there is a systematic deception afflicting human understanding when the unit of action : --the actor or the initiator-- : is seen as an entity. : For social phenomena, the system perspective advises us that we make a grievous error when we identify individual persons, groups, organizations, nations, and so on as separate, uniquely named things. : Recognized correctly, all these are nothing other than organized and interlocking activity flows, proceeding across historical time in somewhat regularized fashion. : John Doe is to be described, literally, as an organized packet of active processes in exchange with an environment and utilizing communication and control to survive and adapt. : The same description fits Japan: an incredibly complex network of related action much more than a place, a people, or a name. : : Not only does the general system perspective urge that the "actor" be considered as a configuration of activity but it also prompts a recognition that, most often, the configuration itself has a hierarchical organization. : In fact, the use of the term "system" is ordinarily an effort to convey the meaning that smaller organized activity flows serve larger activity flows and that the functional linking of subordinate parts to the operating whole is the process that defines what an actor really is. (dominant / dominé?) : Thus the conventional explanation is that any recognizable living system is made up of related "components" and that each component, when examined at its own level, is found to be a functioning system in its own right. : It also may be called a "subsystem." : Enough of the system conceptualization has been suggested here to show next how these fundamentals have been translated for the purposes of international-relations theory. : : In world history, the Earth has been populated by hundreds of separate and relatively isolated social systems. : Each system, as a somewhat ordered stream of interrelated activities, has had exchanges with its particular environment in its own time and in its own way and has employed communication and control capabilities either to succeed at adaptation or to fail at it and, therefore, perish. : What today is called international relations is that sector of exchange of a social system with its particular environment that has to do with interlinked action flows to and from other separate social systems. : The knowledge problem of international relations is to understand, describe, and explain such flows to and from social systems from their source to their termination. : Social systems thus consist of complexes of "internal" interacting subsystems or components, only some of which connect their processes with the action flows between that social system and another. : : The next logical thought then is that there can be only two sources of international conduct. : 1/ One originates in the activity complexes within each participating social system : 2/ and the other arises from the effects of the interlinked action flows to and from the participating social systems that together make up the membership of an international system. : Hence, two basic perspectives of theory and research on international relations are distinguished by the primary attention given either : 1/ to the origins of conduct arising from internal processes or : 2/ to origins of conduct arising from the effects of the processes of exchange between social systems--or, to put it more succinctly, from the effects of interaction. : : Obviously, the two perspectives are related because each casts its beam on a sector of a whole phenomenon of action and interaction. : If he expects to be understood, the theorist must specify not only the basic perspective he wishes to emphasize but also particular identifications of the "units" of action, the kinds of action flows, and the linkages of processes and effects in this particular conception of the system that concerns him. : In a multidimensional social world, the theorist can exercise his choice of a focus of inquiry in many different ways. : Multiple theories are the outcome that may be expected from the introduction of the concept of general systems into the study of international relations. : multiple ? = fécond à défaut d'être vraiment prouvée comme vraie.

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