2.4 Pulse 3
57
debates and practical problems. This requires alternative thinking about the relationships among assumptions, concepts, theories, research activities and problems (Sil
and Katzenstein 2010). To better understand the complexities of real-world problems and to assist practitioners, it is necessary to step outside of the theoretical and
paradigmatic boundaries and to engage in such problems, from multiple perspectives.
This is the underlying ethos and function of PULSE
3 (Meissner 2017).
Complexity
One way of discounting analytic eclecticism is to say that the complexity theory is
all we need to address problems. The argument states that the complexity theory is
all-encompassing and explains all, or at least several, aspects found in nature and
society. Such an argument is bound to run into trouble. Academics often consider
complexity thinking to be superior to alternative theories for explaining and solving
problems. However, by doing so, it runs the risk of a high degree of error (Sil and
Katzenstein 2010), since it is also a theory that has epistemological and ontological
limitations.
Complexity, as a theory, has limited scope, for it is only one perspective. A
researcher who argues from a complexity stance, could ‘miss’ other viewpoints
because of the misperception that complexity is all-encompassing in explaining
and understanding what is happening. Complexity might be useful in illuminating
numerous elements that are at work. However, it has little to offer decision-makers
who are interested in bringing about change in society, since it does not rest on a
critical theory or participatory ontology. In other words, the complexity theory is not
a critical theory (Cox 1981; Cox and Sinclair 1996) with an emancipating agenda
(Meissner 2017), but a problem-solving perspective that explains the world as it is
(Cox 1981; Cox and Sinclair 1996). The theory is not a reliable blueprint and can
desensitise us to the possibility that a specific theory could be wrong (Hirschman
1970; Tetlock 2005, in Sil and Katzenstein 2010).
I believe that the placating ability of complexity thinking lies in its apparent epistemological and ontological legitimacy, which are informed by what it is supposed to
explain, namely, complexity. Grenstad (2007: 121) hypothesised that, ‘If empirical
complexity exists, several sets, or paths, of causal conditions will be identified. If
empirical simplicity exists, a smaller set of causal conditions will prevail’. We can
turn Grenstad’s (2007) first hypothesis on its head: for example, if we explain that
the world is complex, we might think that it is always, and under all circumstances,
so. What limits complexity thinkers is the epistemological and ontological simplicity
of the theory, namely, that almost everything is complex, and we should explain it
as such. The irony is that we oversimplify reality with complexity, by using active
substantiation as a biasing device. Our perception of a complex reality forces us to
use complexity parsimoniously. According to Richardson (2008: 19),
Despite all the rhetoric about reshaping our worldview, taking us out of the age of mechanistic
(linear) science into a brave new (complex) world, many complexity theorists…have actually
inherited many of the assumptions of their more traditional scientific predecessors [such as
positivism] by simply changing the focus from one sort of model to another, in very much
the same way as some [business] managers jump from one fad to another in the hope that
the next one will be the ONE’ (emphasis in the original).
57
debates and practical problems. This requires alternative thinking about the relationships among assumptions, concepts, theories, research activities and problems (Sil
and Katzenstein 2010). To better understand the complexities of real-world problems and to assist practitioners, it is necessary to step outside of the theoretical and
paradigmatic boundaries and to engage in such problems, from multiple perspectives.
This is the underlying ethos and function of PULSE
3 (Meissner 2017).
Complexity
One way of discounting analytic eclecticism is to say that the complexity theory is
all we need to address problems. The argument states that the complexity theory is
all-encompassing and explains all, or at least several, aspects found in nature and
society. Such an argument is bound to run into trouble. Academics often consider
complexity thinking to be superior to alternative theories for explaining and solving
problems. However, by doing so, it runs the risk of a high degree of error (Sil and
Katzenstein 2010), since it is also a theory that has epistemological and ontological
limitations.
Complexity, as a theory, has limited scope, for it is only one perspective. A
researcher who argues from a complexity stance, could ‘miss’ other viewpoints
because of the misperception that complexity is all-encompassing in explaining
and understanding what is happening. Complexity might be useful in illuminating
numerous elements that are at work. However, it has little to offer decision-makers
who are interested in bringing about change in society, since it does not rest on a
critical theory or participatory ontology. In other words, the complexity theory is not
a critical theory (Cox 1981; Cox and Sinclair 1996) with an emancipating agenda
(Meissner 2017), but a problem-solving perspective that explains the world as it is
(Cox 1981; Cox and Sinclair 1996). The theory is not a reliable blueprint and can
desensitise us to the possibility that a specific theory could be wrong (Hirschman
1970; Tetlock 2005, in Sil and Katzenstein 2010).
I believe that the placating ability of complexity thinking lies in its apparent epistemological and ontological legitimacy, which are informed by what it is supposed to
explain, namely, complexity. Grenstad (2007: 121) hypothesised that, ‘If empirical
complexity exists, several sets, or paths, of causal conditions will be identified. If
empirical simplicity exists, a smaller set of causal conditions will prevail’. We can
turn Grenstad’s (2007) first hypothesis on its head: for example, if we explain that
the world is complex, we might think that it is always, and under all circumstances,
so. What limits complexity thinkers is the epistemological and ontological simplicity
of the theory, namely, that almost everything is complex, and we should explain it
as such. The irony is that we oversimplify reality with complexity, by using active
substantiation as a biasing device. Our perception of a complex reality forces us to
use complexity parsimoniously. According to Richardson (2008: 19),
Despite all the rhetoric about reshaping our worldview, taking us out of the age of mechanistic
(linear) science into a brave new (complex) world, many complexity theorists…have actually
inherited many of the assumptions of their more traditional scientific predecessors [such as
positivism] by simply changing the focus from one sort of model to another, in very much
the same way as some [business] managers jump from one fad to another in the hope that
the next one will be the ONE’ (emphasis in the original).