Abstract
The book discusses ‘social morphogenesis’ within late modernity and the potential of this process to reshape the social order. Contributors are not signatories to a manifesto for a Morphogenic Society but are willing to consider this notion given rapid global change, the current crisis and perceived inadequacies in macroscopic social theory today. The introduction undertakes four tasks. (i) Clarifying the distinction between the Morphogenetic Approach as an explanatory framework and the idea of Morphogenic Society as an inchoate theory; yet to be articulated and not yet advocated. (ii) The synergy intensifying between structure and culture, such that ‘variety generates further variety’, is suggested to foster a new ‘situational logic of Opportunity’, as opposed to the ‘situational logic of Competition’ characterising modernity. (iii) The adequacy of modelling the global system as ‘self-governing’, ‘self-organizing’, or as a ‘relationally contested organization’ is assessed. (iv) Social networks are examined not only as communicative links but also as integrative bonds because the current deficit in social integration may produce social antagonism alone rather than social transformation.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
Another way is the ubiquitous use of the word ‘post’. Perhaps the most popular is the ubiquitous ‘Beyond-ism’, which is non-committal because everything is ‘beyond’ something else.
- 2.
As Peter Blau recognised (1964): ‘In complex social structures with many interdependent, and often interpenetrating substructures, particularly, every movement towards equilibrium precipitates disturbances and disequilibria and thus new dynamic processes’ P. 314.
- 3.
Conditioning at lower-levels is not overridden. See Archer (1995, 214).
- 4.
‘Relational steering consists in sharing the relationality of the network as a common good (a relational good) among subjects that intend to accomplish a project open to new opportunities’. Donati in this volume, Chap. 11 , p. 22 ON PROOFS.
References
Albrow M (1997) The global age: State and Society beyond modernity. Polity, Cambridge
Albrow M (2002) The global shift and its consequences for sociology. Paper presented at the 13th world congress of sociology, Brisbane, 7–13 July 2002
Archer MS (1979) Social origins of educational systems. Sage, London and Beverly Hills
Archer MS (1988) Culture and agency. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
Archer MS (1995) Realist social theory: the morphogenetic approach. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
Archer MS (2007a) Making our way through the world: human reflexivity and social mobility. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
Archer MS (2007b) Social integration, system integration and global governance. In: Rossi I (ed) Frontiers of globalization research, Springer, New York
Archer MS (2012) The reflexive imperative in late modernity. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
Archer MS, Elder-Vass D (2012) Cultural system or norm circles? An exchange. Eur J Soc Theory 15(1):93−115
Beck U, Beck-Gernsheim E (2002) Individualization. Sage, London
Blau P (1964) Exchange and power in social life. Wiley, New York
Buckley W (1967) Sociology and modern systems theory. Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs
Buckley W (1998) Society—a complex adaptive system. Gordon and Breach, Amsterdam
Castells M (2010, 1996) The rise of the network society, the information age, vol 1. Wiley-Blackwell, Oxford
Davies J (2005) Mechanisms of morphogenesis: the creation of biological form. Elsevier, Amsterdam
Lockwood D (1964) Social integration and system integration. In: Zollschan GK and Hirsch W (eds) Explorations in social change, Houghton Mifflin, Boston
Maruyama M (1978) Heterogenistics and morphogenetics: toward a new concept of the scientific. Theor Soc 5(1):75–96
Mayuyama M (2003) Causal Loops, Interaction and Creativity. International review of sociology/revue internationale de sociologie 13(3):607–628
Rossi I (ed) (2007) Frontiers of globalization research. Springer, New York
Stalder F (2006) Manuel castells. Polity, Cambridge
Turner RH (1990) Role change. Annu Rev Sociol 16:87–110
Wagner HR (1964) Displacement of scope: a problem of the relationship between small-scale and large-scale social theories. Am J Sociol 36(6):571–584
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2013 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Archer, M.S. (2013). Social Morphogenesis and the Prospects of Morphogenic Society. In: Archer, M. (eds) Social Morphogenesis. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-6128-5_1
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-6128-5_1
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-94-007-6127-8
Online ISBN: 978-94-007-6128-5
eBook Packages: Humanities, Social Sciences and LawSocial Sciences (R0)