Governing for sustainability: How research on large and complex systems can inform governance and institutional theory

Abstract

This article takes its point of departure in the rapidly expanding field of research focusing on governance of large and complex systems and argues that this research should more explicitly recognize ongoing theoretical debates within contemporary and more mainstream governance research in order to fulfill all of its potential. This includes explicitly recognizing the fundamental and inherently political nature of governance as well as the potential contributions to be made from incorporating more of institutional theory in governance research. In addition, the article shows how research on large, complex systems can inform existing research on governance and institutional theory. Recent research on governance of large and complex systems could, for example, help governance research regain its relevance by explicitly focusing on the "big questions." Focusing on large and complex systems is certainly of paramount real-world importance, but it also highlights theoretical and empirical puzzles at the core of traditional disciplines such as political science or economics. Finally, the explicit systems perspective with its focus on nonlinearity and limited predictability could also help institutional theory move away from its underlying assumptions about functionalism and voluntarism and could, as such, contribute to existing research on institutional creation, reproduction, and change.

Identifying general trends and patterns in complex systems research: An overview of theoretical and practical implications

“…The works of Holland (1995), Gell-Mann (1994), and Lewin, (1993) mark the underlying understanding of complexity that could be applied over a wide range of disciplines. sciences (Byrne & Callaghan, 2014), humanities (Cilliers, 1998;Woermann, 2016), management sciences (Allen, Maguire, & McKelvey, 2011), and other areas of societal domains such as monitoring and evaluation practices (Klein, 2016), policy making (Levin et al, 2013;Midgley & Richardson, 2007), strategic thinking (Boulton, Allen, & Bowman, 2015), national and global governance (Sjöstedt, 2019), and sustainable development challenges (Wells, 2013).…”

“…With a genealogy deriving from insights in physics, chemistry and non‐linear maths, biology, cybernetics, and the study of turbulence and systems in far from equilibrium conditions (Dillon, ), the notion of complexity developed from a diverse body of thinking and research. The theoretical and practical principles that inform the range of different theories that deal with the implications related to the notion of complexity (Alhadeff‐Jones, ) have not only informed the knowledge frontiers in the natural sciences but also migrated to inform new theories and frameworks in the social sciences (Byrne & Callaghan, ), humanities (Cilliers, ; Woermann, ), management sciences (Allen, Maguire, & McKelvey, ), and other areas of societal domains such as monitoring and evaluation practices (Klein, ), policy making (Levin et al, ; Midgley & Richardson, ), strategic thinking (Boulton, Allen, & Bowman, ), national and global governance (Sjöstedt, ), and sustainable development challenges (Wells, ).…”

Beyond inputs and outputs: Process‐oriented explanation of institutional change in climate adaptation governance

“…More broadly, it contributes to new ways of explaining the production of adaptiveness in governance, in a way that also relates these processes to bigger picture political development in a historical perspective (Sjöstedt, 2019). Methodologically, the approach applied has potential to support nuanced comparative analysis.…”

Revisiting institutional stability: A systematic review and distillations of dominant modes

“…Indeed, as Kluttz (2019) argues, "scholars still tend to avoid probing mechanisms by which institutional stability occurs, instead simply assuming that institutions reproduce absent change" (4). We argue that this gap in the literature has particular salience to environmental governance, where the recent pace and magnitude of both political and environmental change necessitates more careful attention to the capacity of existing institutions to meet diverse societal needs (Beunen & Patterson, 2019;Rietig & Laing, 2017;Sjöstedt, 2019). Whether the question centers on the ability of institutions to adapt to address new environmental challenges (Berkes, 2017;Patterson et al, 2019) or to incorporate new information (Yang & Li, 2015), or for existing institutions to weather targeted efforts for rollback or reform in times of political turbulence (Cowell et al, 2020), a more complete understanding of how and why institutions persist is a necessary first step to more careful analysis and, by extension, development of more appropriate lessons for practice.…”