Abstract
How do concepts drawn from complexity theory, such as phase space, metastability, attractors, and symmetry breaking, help us understand the large-scale dynamics of political change? In this chapter, the author surveys a number of such applications: the philosophy of individuation of Simondon, the Marxist sociology of Harvey and Reed, and the process-thinking of Deleuze, Guattari, and DeLanda. Each has a distinct understanding of how complex dynamics can be modelled using ideas from the world of complexity theory, whether thermodynamic or mathematical in nature. This chapter identifies the principle of anti-hylomorphism as vital for an interactive concept of political influence, reliant on manipulation of the pre-existing causal dynamics of social systems towards some desired end. It also draws out the notions of dynamic stability, phase spaces, and attractors, as constituting an effective model of political change at the macro level.
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Notes
- 1.
This notion of the pre-individual has proven influential, in particular on Deleuze’s idea of the virtual. We will deal with this influence in more depth in the section on Deleuze below.
- 2.
An anti-hylomorphic approach already surely present in the realist tradition of political theory beginning with Machiavelli’s The Prince (1958).
- 3.
Deleuze also shares with Simondon the critique of hylomorphism (Deleuze and Guattari 1980, chap. 12).
- 4.
We can contrast DeLanda’s scientific realist take on Deleuze’s ontology with that of the critical reading by Hallward (DeLanda 2002; Hallward 2006). In particular, Hallward will emphasise the creative, rather than causal nature of the virtual, in contrast to DeLanda’s reading through ideas drawn directly from dynamical systems theory.
- 5.
Though Deleuze and Guattari’s idea of what politics itself is is a far more abstract, expansive and elusive one than conventional normative anthropocentric accounts. This too is not unproblematic in so far as universalising politics at the level of ontology arguably robs politics of its specificity.
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Williams, A. (2020). Complexity & Political Dynamics. In: Political Hegemony and Social Complexity. International Political Theory. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-19795-7_4
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