Luhmann's Theory Research Articles

Moment of Stasis: The Successful Failure of a Constitution for Europe

AbstractThe 2005 French and Dutch negative votes on the Constitution open up a space of conceptualisation, not only of Europe's relation to its demos, but significantly to its failures. Through a critical analysis of mainly Niklas Luhmann's systems theory, the article proposes taking a distance from traditional constitutional dogmatics that are no longer capable of dealing with the paradox of contemporary society, and more specifically with the eventual resurgence of the European project as one of absence and stasis: the two terms are used to explain the need, on the one hand, to maintain the ‘absent community’ of Europe, and, on the other, to start realising that any conceptualisation of the European project will now have to take place in that space of instability and contingency revealed by the constitutional failure. The relation between law and politics, the location of a constitution, the distinction between social and normative legitimacy, the connection between European identity and demos, and the concept of continuity between constitutional text and context are revisited in an attempt to trace the constitutional failure as the constitutional moment par excellence.

An A-Cultural, Scientific Supertheory of World Society?

All the contributions to this Forum raise incisive questions about Mathias Albert's (2007) attempt to inject new life into “globalization theory” with the help of Luhmann's systems theory of world society. While I agree with some of the criticisms of this particular appropriation of Luhmann's theory, I would surmise that these do not point to inherent limitations of a Luhmannian approach but partly reflect a number of misconceptions about what such an approach entails. Among these misconceptions (some of them perhaps invited by Albert's IPS piece, though much less by his other work involving modern systems theory) three seem particularly noteworthy: 1. that Luhmann's theory necessarily figures as a kind of supertheory for IR; 2. that a Luhmannian approach seeks to bestow a “scientific” aura on international political sociology; and 3. that it is unable to grapple with questions of culture or discourse. Let us consider each of these misconceptions in turn. Leander and Hindess directly take Albert to task for proposing Luhmann's systems theory of world society as a supertheory for globalization, and the specter of systems-theoretical imperialism also seems to lurk behind Thomas's and Robertson's calls for a broader theoretical agenda in globalization studies. Albert's seemingly supertheoretical ambitions with respect to “globalization theory” notwithstanding, he has generally favored a more selective and pragmatic engagement with Luhmann's theory as “a source and… strategy for concept-formulation” (Albert 1999:242) and as in fact open to revision by IR theories (including theories of globalization) (Albert 2002, 2004b). More generally, as a grand theory Luhmann's systems theory has always been a somewhat self-subverting enterprise given its (epistemologically) constructivist commitment to the polycontextuality of observations (that is, the ever-present possibility to observe observations and to observe otherwise). Once we bear in mind this commitment and consider Luhmann's theory more as a “toolbox” (Albert 2004a:3) than a …

The non-linear dynamics of meaning processing in social systems

Social order cannot be considered as a stable phenomenon because it contains an order of reproduced expectations. When the expectations operate upon one another, they generate a non-linear dynamics that processes meaning. Specific meaning can be stabilized, for example, in social institutions, but all meaning arises from a horizon of possible meanings. Using Luhmann's social systems theory and Rosen's theory of anticipatory systems, I submit equations for modeling the processing of meaning in inter-human communication. First, a self-referential system can use a model of itself for the anticipation. Under the condition of functional differentiation, the social system can be expected to entertain a set of models; each model can also contain a model of the other models. Two anticipatory mechanisms are then possible: one transversal between the models and a longitudinal one providing the modeled systems with meaning from the perspective of hindsight. A system containing two anticipatory mechanisms can become hyper-incursive. Without decision-making, however, a hyper-incursive system would be overloaded with uncertainty. Under this pressure, informed decisions tend to replace the `natural preferences' of agents, and an order of cultural expectations can increasingly be shaped.

Addressing institutional challenges to adaptation planning for climate change impacts on the Northern Great Plains: a case study of North Dakota

This paper reports on a survey of government decision–makers to examine their perspectives toward climate change and to ask if they are adapting their management of natural resources and public health issues; also, what are the challenges they face? Luhmann's theory of ecological communication suggests that a complex issue like climate change will present barriers to adaptation planning. Survey responses show that barriers to the integration of climate science into decision–making are often associated with economic and education systems. These highlight the importance of adaptive governance and collaborative relationships that address constraints and opportunities associated with socio–economic and institutional circumstances of key adaptive decision–makers.

Exclusão, ilegalidades e organizações criminosas no Brasil

O artigo discute a aplicabilidade da teoria de Niklas Luhmann ao estudo de sociedades de modernidade periférica, dentre elas o Brasil. Argumenta-se que o autor fornece noções relevantes para a compreensão de fenômenos que ocorrem nestas sociedades, cujos sistemas sociais podem não estar totalmente desenvolvidos e onde a exclusão se diferenciou, deixando de representar, ao lado da inclusão, um fator constitutivo do equilíbrio sistêmico. Nessas sociedades, a exclusão se reproduz sob uma lógica própria. Este trabalho também analisa a validade dos conceitos luhmannianos de sistema e organização social para se analisar o crime organizado no Brasil. Conclui-se que as organizações criminosas são organizações sociais, abrangendo unidades de processos de comunicação que ligam as decisões entre si. Atuando na ilegalidade, tais organizações interagem com os outros sistemas e organizações, dentro de uma rede de relações interorganizacionais, onde se percebem as linkages entre o mundo lícito e o ilícito. Além disso, para se adequarem ao ambiente externo, elas precisam sempre estar-se renovando.

The Limits of Planning: Niklas Luhmann's Systems Theory and the Analysis of Planning and Planning Ambitions

In this article, we argue that Niklas Luhmann has a lot to offer present-day planning theory. Until now, planning theory has been engaged with Luhmann's work only minimally. Convinced of its potential, we want to show how Luhmann's systems theory offers fresh insight into both limits and possibilities of planning in contemporary society. We argue that Luhmann's understanding of society as functionally differentiated into self-referentially closed subsystems (politics, economy, law, science, etc.) creates space for a complex and subtle analysis of planning practice. In particular, we look at the role of planning within an autopoietic account of society, and its ability to steer other social subsystems. Planning is seen as the form of steering aiming to coordinate processes of spatial organization, therefore an activity dealing with steering problems. We illustrate key concepts of the systems theory in brief analyses of planning situations and interpret these situations using the systems theoretical framework. The analyses center around the questions of planning's steering capacity and the role of the planner, thus creating linkages with mainstream discussions in planning theory.

Expansive or limitative strategy? A case study of organisational responses to new public health

Since the emergence of new public health in the 1970s, health has not merely been considered the absence of disease, but physical, mental and social wellbeing. This article seeks to analyzes the implications of this broad concept of health at an organizational level. The paper presents a qualitative case study of boundary drawing in a Danish municipal agency in charge of planning and conducting health promoting and disease preventing activities from 1989 to 2005. The theoretical framework draws on Niklas Luhmann's organization theory. Two different organizational answers were found to the challenges inherent in the broad concept of new public health. First, the organization tried to increase its size and incorporate as many aspects of the environment as possible. This expansive strategy jeopardised the identity of the organization. Second, the organization tried to keep clear and tight boundaries and from this position irritate entities in the environment. This limitative strategy made the organization spend relatively more energy on organizing and controlling itself than on public health work. The case study shows how a broad concept of health makes boundary management topical in organizations dealing with health promotion and disease prevention. Organizations in charge of public health activities need to reflect on how they can create intelligent compensations for the disadvantages involved in an expansive or a limitative strategy. The broad concept of health inherent in new public health has been widely accepted and yet its challenges to organizational boundary drawing have attracted little attention. This paper provides an analysis of these challenges.

Justice Hill and the Autopoiesis of Income Tax Law

The theory that law may best be understood as an autopoietic system has gained considerable ground since Luhmann advanced it in 1981. Nevertheless, there have been few endeavours to apply the theory in any practical way or to employ it to analyze particular areas of law. In a recent paper, Geraldine Hikaka and the present author proposed the thesis that Luhmann's theories usefully illuminate the field of income tax law. The present paper illustrates this thesis by analyzing a leading case from each of the Privy Council and the High Court of Australia, namely Europa Oil (NZ) Ltd v Commissioner of Inland Revenue and Federal Commissioner of Taxation v South Australian Battery Makers Pty Ltd. The paper will argue that the autopoietic nature of income tax law presents challenges to the judicial process that, as these cases illustrate, lead to income tax law becoming detached from the business profits that are an important part of its subject matter. The paper will then turn to Macquarie Finance Ltd v Federal Commissioner of Taxation, one of the last tax judgments of the late Justice Graham Hill. It will be argued that in Macquarie Finance Ltd Justice Hill demonstrated a rare, almost unique, ability among judges: to reconcile the formalistic, autopoietic nature of tax law with the business substance that was the subject matter of the case. The paper turns first, however, to the question of what is meant by the autopoietic theory of law.

Objectivity, Value Spheres, and “Inherent Laws”

I give an account of Max Weber's views concerning the basis of the objectivity of the cultural sciences. In this connection, I offer a critical discussion of his distinction between different “value spheres,” each with its own “intrinsic logic.” I then consider parallels between Weber's “value spheres” and central elements of Bourdieu's field theory and Luhmann's systems theory, and try to show to what extent Bourdieu's and Luhmann's problems, and the solutions they suggest, can be seen as similar to Weber's. I conclude by a general consideration of Weber's, Bourdieu's, and Luhmann's approach to the problem of objectivity.

Systems science and complexity: some proposals for future development

AbstractIn this paper some new, conceptual ideas referred to as a complexity orientation are presented on the basis of systemic planning (SP), which has been developed as a proactive, multi‐methodology approach for complex planning tasks. Specifically, the complexity orientation is compared to other systems science research orientations represented by the following labels: functionalist, interpretive, emancipatory and postmodern. After presentation and discussion of the research orientation framework, SP is compared to other current systems and management practice. Finally, the potential of a complexity orientation is treated more generally and also with a focus on its epistemological interpretation, which is carried out with a special emphasis on the work of Luhmann. General findings of the paper are that a complexity orientation ought to complement the other four research orientations to serve as a methodological platform for management practice and that Luhmann's theories ought to be addressed by the systems community as a potential for informing further development of systems science and thinking. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Conflict in World Society Theory

This article argues that although the notion of conflict barely features both in Luhmannian as well as in other theories of world society, most of those theories indeed have something to say aBolit the dynamics and sources of conflicts in world society, if only implicitly so. The article first briefly introduces four different world society theories and the role in which conflict plays in them before it turns to Luhmann's theory. It shows that conflict occupies two places in this context: first, conflict itself is conceptualized as a kind of communication; second, the theory of social differentiation allows us to identify structural sources of conflict in world society. The article then argues that particularly when it comes to identifying sources of conflict in world society, Luhmannian style theory could incorporate a number of insights from other traditions of world society theory, particularly pertaining to the analysis of overlapping forms of differentiation and the role of organizational change in world society.

Practice, Space, and the Duality of Meaning

The paper aims at a rewriting of the concept of meaning as a connection between the social and the material, a multiple connection, perhaps the only possible intrinsic connection between things as different as ‘practice’ and ‘space’, and a major condition of what has been recently addressed as ‘inherent relatedness’. Drawing mainly on Niklas Luhmann's theory of self-referentiality, I propose a reinterpretation of relatedness as a property of meaning. That property is defined as a duality of meaning—ie meaning as an event in our experience, yet in itself an experience of reference to acts, places, and other meanings. It implies that the very definition of meaning is referential—it is never self-contained or centred; it, rather, alludes always already to other meanings, acts, and spaces, referentially crossing boundaries while reasserting sensual and perceptive qualities. This renewed concept of meaning is proposed as a way to unveil relationality while actively keeping the subject's experience of identities and different materialities at work in the relation between practice and space. The paper places this key ontological problem and the quest for a relation between the social and the material into a particular, overlooked aspect of the society–space relation: the moment of sociation of practice and its informational, linguistic, and material conditions—a turn to communication and a ‘referential approach’ to the materiality of the social world.

ルーマン・システム理論における「教育関係」の検討

ルーマン・システム理論における「教育関係」の検討

Dealing with Complexity: An Autopoietic View of the People's Planning Campaign, Kerala

Complexity is integral to planning today. Everyone and everything seem to be interconnected, causality appears ambiguous, unintended consequences are ubiquitous, and information overload is a constant challenge. The nature of complexity, the consequences of it for society, and the ways in which one might confront it, understand it and deal with it in order to allow for the possibility of planning, are issues increasingly demanding analytical attention. One theoretical framework that can potentially assist planners in this regard is Luhmann's theory of autopoiesis. This article uses insights from Luhmann's ideas to understand the nature of complexity and its reduction, thereby redefining issues in planning, and explores the ways in which management of these issues might be observed in actual planning practice via a reinterpreted case study of the People's Planning Campaign in Kerala, India. Overall, this reinterpretation leads to a different understanding of the scope of planning and planning practice, telling a story about complexity and systemic response. It allows the reinterpretation of otherwise familiar phenomena, both highlighting the empirical relevance of the theory and providing new and original insight into particular dynamics of the case study. This not only provides a greater understanding of the dynamics of complexity, but also produces advice to help planners implement structures and processes that can cope with complexity in practice.

Self and Other in Communication and Cognition: The Role of Auto-Communication and Intersubjectivity in Autopoiesis of Psychic Systems

By referring to Niklas Luhmann's theory of self-referential systems, Aldo Mascareño (2008, submitted for publication) gives an account of system-environment interrelatedness, explaining how social and individual constitute each other through the process of communication and co-creation of meanings. Two possible extensions to his account are discussed. Firstly, auto-communication within the system that happens without any external reference needs to be taken into account while describing the existence and constant re-creation of psychic systems. Secondly, in order for the system and environment or two systems to communicate, an imagined and temporary intersubjectivity between the two needs to be assumed.

Different Kinds of Openings of Luhmann's Systems Theory: A Reply to la Cour et al

Various researchers have called for an `opening up' of Luhmann's systems theory. We take this short paper as an occasion for a critical reflection on the necessity, existence and possibilities of such an opening. We start by pointing out the inherent openness of Luhmann's theory, and, based on this, discuss three kinds of openings: the international opening, the theoretical opening and the empirical opening. With regard to the latter, we distinguish three general options of using Luhmann's theory for empirical research.

Legal Autopoiesis and the Capital/Revenue Distinction

This paper attempts to use the theory of legal autopoiesis to understand the struggle the courts have experienced when asked to decide tax cases involving the capital/revenue distinction, which is a distinction that could not be determined by any criteria. The theory of legal autopoiesis, as propounded by Niklas Luhmann, posits that the legal system, as an autopoietic system within society, produces and reproduces its own elements self-referentially and recursively. The legal system operates according to its code, which comprises the values 'legal/illegal'. The code is complemented and filled by programmes, which must be suitable and help to allocate the values in particular situations. However, if there are no programmes, how does the legal system allocate the values? The lack of a definite set of rules that can be used in tax cases to determine whether an item is capital or revenue in nature means that there is no programme according to which the legal system can allocate the values. This lack exposes a critical weakness in Luhmann's theory of legal autopoiesis.

Opening Systems Theory: A Note on the Recent Special Issue of Organization

Organization recently devoted a special issue to Niklas Luhmann's systems theory. Since Luhmann's work remains relatively unknown in the English-speaking world, the issue was an important opportunity to introduce Niklas Luhmann's contribution to organization theory to this audience. Unfortunately, the primarily theoretical approach to systems theory presented in the issue may leave the reader wondering what, if anything, Luhmann's work might contribute to empirical research into organizations. This note is an attempt to draw attention to the potential of Luhmann's approach in this regard.

Critique Beyond Resentment: An Introduction to Peter Sloterdijk’s Jovial Modernity

This essay serves as an introduction both to this special issue and to the works of Peter Sloterdijk. It starts out from the opposition between the critical and the affirmative projects in modern philosophy. It is my intent to demonstrate how Sloterdijk displaces this opposition in favor of what I propose to call a “jovial modernity” and a post-Heideggerian philosophy of Gelassenheit or “relief.” After a general outline of the Sphären-project, I discuss the shifts in Sloterdijk’s development of Ernst Jünger’s critical concept of “mobilization” and show how his engagement with critical theory has gradually transformed from an aesthesis of the event, through a Nietzschean “transvaluation of all values” – generosity instead of resentment as motivating force of critique – or “retuning” of Heidegger’s concept of the Lichtung, into a “poetical” and “global” constructivism. This is followed by the unraveling of three layers that have constituted the 1999 scandal following Sloterdijk’s reply to Heidegger’s letter On Humanism: Sloterdijk’s actual text on humanism and Bildung in the age of genetic engineering; the scandal and the mass-medialization of philosophical critique; and the hypermorality of the last, but still all too dominant generation of Frankfurt School theorists. Finally, I draw some political conclusions by opposing another source of inspiration for Sloterdijk’s “joviality,” the Luhmannian theory of complexity, to the bivalent “passion for the real” that, despite all that has happened in the twentieth century, still seems to inform both the realist projects of philosophical critique and the Heideggerian belief in the “Kehre.”

Of Systems, Boundaries, and Regionalisation

For the analysis of regionalisation processes, this contribution calls for a mutual engagement between systems theory and critical geopolitics. Based on Luhmann's systems theory, the contribution proposes a framework based on the idea of a world society. This framework points to a changing mode of differentiation where there is an increasing overlap and collision between territorial and functional boundaries. Emphasising the concept of functional differentiation, a multiplicity of overlapping regional logics and forces appears where functional systems create their own ‘image’ of space. As a consequence, regions are not characterised by their physical or cultural boundaries but by collisions of different rationalities.