Organizational Realism DRAFT

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Organizational RealismDRAFT

• Jon R. Lindsay
• 17 May 2004

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Problems with International Relations Theory

• No coherent, parsimonious framework
• Unable to describe the changes in the
  international system at the beginning of the 21st
  century
• Still disconnected islands of theory that
  describe various phenomena, but without linking
  them together.
• Need to unify IR insights
• Realism materialism, strategic interaction
• Institutionalism bureaucracy regime evolution
• Constructivism efficacy of norms/ideas
• Need a dynamics of political change
• emergence, growth, transformation, decay
• Need to describe interaction between
  images/levels of analysis
• upward and downward causality
• Need to relax state-centric ontology
• the state is just another kind of
  (institutionally entrenched) strategic actor
• Need an general account of violent conflict
• interstate war, civil war, transnational terror
• Need to ground IR in other sciences (without
  reductionism)

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Organizational Realism

• A conception of politics as dynamic interaction
  among complex organizations
• An organization is
• an autonomous, self-maintaining, intentional,
  energy-dissipating system
• composed of people, material resources,
  technology, and other organizations
• capable of strategic interaction with other
  organizations.
• recursively constructed higher-order
  organizations can emerge from (and constrain)
  other organizations behavior
• Complex nesting in holarchies (generalized
  hierarchy with upward, downward, and lateral
  causality).
• Examples individual humans, groups, firms,
  bureaucracies, states, international entities,
  and ecosystems
• not just a second-image concept!
• can generate sufficient complexity to explain key
  phenomenology in IR described by realist,
  institutional, and constructivist scholarship.

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Self- vs. Other-Organization
Maturana Varela, 1980
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Repeated Assembly
Repeated assemblies are recurrent
entity-environment relations composed of
hierarchically organized, heterogeneous
components having differing frequencies and
scales of replication. (Caporael 1997 280)
Environment (e.g., Matter, Energy,Artifacts,
Information)
Causalinteractions
Identifiable, self-organized, energy-dissipating,
work process performing at least one cycle
(entropy)
Artifact matterenergyinformation structured
by another process Information a material
difference that makes a difference (what counts
as difference depends on context of interaction)
Examples reactions, metabolism, behaviors, work
process, organism, organization, group, policy
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Organization A 2nd Order RA

• Repeated Assembly of Repeated Assemblies
• A network of creation, transformation, and
  destruction of component RAs and the material
  (artifacts) produced by them.
• Each 1 dependent for its RA on products of other
  1s RApossibly including the termination of
  some. (Each 1 constrained by othersresults of
  constraints ensure endurance of constraints)
• Some RAs more stable than others (1b vs. 1a) but
  even unstable, infrequently repeating processes
  can have effect.
• Emergent properties of 2 exert control on 1 (via
  other 1s) because of heterogeneous temporalities
  (generally t2 gt t1)

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1b
1a
Autopoiesis the self-generation of a network
of concatenated processes of production,
transformation, and destruction of heterogeneous
material components which, through their
interaction, regenerate/realize the network in
the same space in which the components exists.
(Maturana and Varela, 1980)
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Overlapping RAs

• 2a interacts with 2b via 1b (and artifacts)
• 1b, reacting to constraints of 2a, may threaten
  2b (e.g., employees off-duty participation in a
  cult alters workplace behavior)
• 1b may be able to survive, via participation in
  2b even if 2a disintegrates

2a
1a
1c
1b
2b
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Holarchy
A holarchy is a generalized version of a
traditional hierarchy, with reciprocal power
relationships between levels rather than a
preponderance of power exerted from the top
downwards. A particular system of this type is
termed a holon because it occurs in a
contextually nested or holarchic reality with
mutual causality guiding reciprocal interactions
between a holon and proximate contiguous holons
of different scalesinside, outside and lateral
to the holon of interest. (Kay 2000 14)
RAs at different temporalities, with multiple
axes of hierarchical nesting, but because they
inhabit the same physical space, activity by one
process can affect others reinforcement
(stabilization), destabilization,
destruction/concatenation/bifurcation/transformati
on (emergence of a new process, boundary change),
or (frequently!) no effect because relative level
of decoupling allows disturbances to dissipate
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The Adjacent Possible
Resources, Technology, Population configuration
accessible with one (combinatorial?) work step
Actual steady state(s)
(RTP)
(RTP)
Adjacent possible steady states
(RTP)
Non-adjacent possible steady states(will become
adjacent after move)
Intentions directed toward possible
states(actual trajectory will vary with
implementation)
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Organizational Growth
growth

• 1. Adaptation
• discover new potential
• success cascade to new equilibrium
• rare (democracy?)

• Competitive advantage
• new innovation taps potential stored in system
• success cascade

• 2. Competitive disadvantage
• failure cascade
• unable to adapt
• forcibly resist move from equilibrium (violence)

• Steady state (dynamic equilibrium)
• Diminishing returns
• Internal constraints (sustainability)
• Generative entrenchment (lock in) of processes

• 2a. New steady state
• adaptation to new fitness landscape

• Rising challenger
• internal or external
• new innovation taps potential stored in system
• overloads (via lateral pressure) systems
  ability to suppress
• will settle at new eq.

Previous steady state
2b. Disintegration
time
Bifurcations (unpredictable!)
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Hermeneutic Circle
Context of Interpretation(projects, embodiment,
background, etc.)
Salient features of the world(objects,
properties, events, etc.)
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(Subject?Representation)?World
System
Intention
Flow of Effect(Intentionally transparent
Cascading Representation)
IntentionalObject
Environment
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Subject?(Representation?World)

bracket concern with entities/events in the
world, and pay attention to the
technological/representational implementation
that supports world-directed intentions