GLOBAL COMPLEXITY

JOHN URRY

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 Contents

Preface vl11

1 'Societies'and the Global

2 The Complexity Turn t)

3 Limits of 'Global' Analyses 39
4 Networks and Fluids 50
5 Global Emergence 76
6 Social Ordering and Power 104
7 Global Complexities t20

References t4l
Index 155

Preface
During the 1990s,like many others, I became fascinatedby the
idea that social relations are in some senseincreasinglyglobal. [n
The Tounst Gaze in 1990 I briefly considered how many different
places had to compete on a more global stagein order to attract
tourists from all sorts of other places fUrry 1990, 2001J. Later
works, such as ConsumingPlaces[Urry ]995), brought out how
people across the world's stage are global consumers of other
placesand that this very importantly changeswhat placesare like.
They are on the world's stage.
More generally,Scott Lash and I ar-ralysedsuch global transfor-
mations through the 'end of organizedcapitalism' thesis.Capital-
ism, we argued, is shifting from an organized national, societal
pattern, to global 'disorganization'flash and Urry i987, 1994).
In Economiesof Signsand Space[Lash and Urry 1994) we showed
that moving rapidly in and across the world are complex and
mobile economies,both of signsand of people working in, escap-
ing from or seduced by various signs.These signs and people
increasinglyflow along various 'scapes',resulting in further 'dis-
organization'of once organizedcapitalistsocieties.It was claimed
that there is a move from the 'social' to the informational and
communicational,from national government to global disorgani-
zation. Such a mobile economy of signs produces complex re-
drawingsof the boundariesof what is global and what is local.We
tried to elaboratesome of the time and spacechangesinvolved in
what Roland Robertson had termed 'elocalization'.
Preface ix
l.ater in the decade Phil Macnaghten and I maintained that
there is no such simple cntity as'nature'[Macnaghtenand Urry
l'qqSl. There is nothing'natural', we showed,about nature.There
could be
,r" u'variety of ContestedNatures and one of these
what Ulrich
t".-"a 'globalnature'.We explored the emergenceof
g".k hrt described as a 'global risk society', especiallydescribing
in detall the international ramifications of the sad story of the
British cow roast beef BSE and new variant CJD.
This led me in Soaologt beyond Societies[Urry 2000bJ to try
to rethink the very basesof sociology. I showed there, following
Manuel Castells'strilogy on The Int'ormationAge (1996, )'997,
1998),that the emergenceof giobal networks transformsthe very
nature of social life. It can no longer be seen as bounded within
national societies.The concept of society is revealedto be deeply
problematic, once the scale,range and depth of various mobile
and global processesare examined. I suggestedthat such trans-
formations lead us to rethink the nature of sociology,which had
been mostly based upon attempts to understand the properties
and reproduction of 'societies'.I elaboratedsome 'new rules of
sociologicalmethod' to deal with disorganization,global flows and
the declining powers of the 'social'.
However, in all these works, I, like most other commentators,
did not sufficiently examine the nature of the 'global' that was
supposedlymaking great changesto social life and undermining
'societies'.The global was almost left as a 'black box', a deus ex
machina that in and of itself was seen to have powerful proper-
ties.What was not analysedI think by anyonemuch was just what
sort of 'system' the global is. Thus there was a rather weak under-
standing of how the systemic properties of the global interact
with the propertiesof other entities such asthose of 'society'.The
global is often taken to be both the 'cause' of immense changes
and the 'effect' of those changes.
As I was completing SociologtbeyondSocietiesI became increas-
ingly aware of the growth within certain of the social sciencesof
some conceptsand theories from the complexity sciences.This is
over and beyond economics,where complexity was initially devel-
oped [see Arthur 1994b). I tried to develop some elements of
complexity in SociologtbeyondSocieties,especially in relationship
to thinking through how time and space are transformed in a
x Preface Preface xi

globalizing world. But more recently this small stream of com- And in thinking through what might be meant by 'global
plexity thinking in the social scienceshas been turning into a complexity', I have been helped by various colleagues,especially
flood. In this current book I have tried to draw on some elemenrs Lrirjof Capra, Biilent Diken, Mick Dillon, Andy Hoskins, Bob
in a more systematic way, although I am well aware of the dangers Jessop,Scott Lash, John Law, Will Medd, Mimi Sheller, Jackie
of crass simplification and misunderstanding as disciplinary Stacey,Nigel Thrift and Sylvia Walby.
boundariesget crossed.My formulations are qualitative,with no
attempts to apply the mathematics of chaos and complexity. John Urry
The social scienceof globalizationhad taken the global system Lancaster
for granted and then shown how localities, regions, nation states,
environments and cultures are transformed in linear fashion by
this all-powerful 'glob alizatton'. Thus globalization (or global
capitalism) has come to be viewed as the new 'structure', with
nations,localities,regions and so on, the new 'agent', employing
the normal social science distinctions but given a kind of global
twist.
But complexity would suggest that such a system would be
diverse,historical, fractured and uncertain. It would be necessary
to examine how emergent properties develop at the global level
that are neither well ordered and moving towards equilibrium nor
in a state of perpetual anarchy.Complexity would lead one to see
the global as neither omnipotent nor subject to control by society.
Indeed, it is not a single centre of power. It is an astonishingly
complex system, or rather a series of dynamic complex systems,
a huge array of islands of order within a sea of disorder, as Ilya
Prigoginemore generallypostulates.There would be no presump-
tion of moving towards a state of equilibrium.
And, as I was finishing this book, the tragic events of both l l
September and its bloody aftermath showed the profound hmi-
tations of any linear view of the global. These events demonstrate
that globalization is never complete. It is disordered, full of
paradox and the unexpected.Racingacrossthe world are complex
mobile connections that are more or less intense, more or less
social,more or less 'networked' and more or less occurring'at a
distance'.There is a complex world, unpredictableyet irreversible,
fearful and violent, disorderly but not simply anarchic. Small
events in such systemsare not forgotten but can reappear at dif-
ferent and highly unexpected points in time and space.I suggest
that the way to think these notions through is via the concept of
global complexity.
 'societies'and the Global

Introducing the Global

It increasinglyseemsthat we are living through some extraordi-

nary times involving massivechangesto the very fabric of normal
economic,political and sociallife.Analogieshave been drawn with
a century or more ago,when a somewhat similar restructuring of
the dimensionsof time and spacetook pl.ace.New technological
and organizationalinnovations 'compressed'the time taken to
communicate and travel across large distances.Some of these
momentous innovations that changed time-space a century ago
included the telegram, the telephone, steamship travel, the
bicycle,cars and lorries,skyscrapers, aircraft,the massproduction
factory, X-ray machines and Greenwich Mean Time fsee Kern
1983). Together these technological and social innovations dra-
matically reorganized and compressed the very dimensions of
time and spacebetween people and places.
Today some rather similar changesseem to be occurring.The
1990s saw the growth of the Internet with a take-up faster than
any previoustechnology.There will soon be I billion usersworld-
wide. The dealingsof foreign exchangethat occur each day are
w-orth$1.4 trillion, which is sixty times greaterthan the amount
ol world trade. Communications 'on the move' are being trans-
formed, with new mobile phonesnow more common in the world
than conventionalland-line phones.There are 700 million inter-
national journeys made each year, a figure predicted to pass i
 'societies'and the Global
2
billion very soon. Microsoft pointedly asks:'where do you want
to go today?' and there are many ways of getting 'there'.
At the same time tens of millions of refugees and asylum-
seekersroam the globe, with three billion people acrossthe world
receiving the same total income as the richest 300. Globally
branded companies employing staff from scoresof different courl-
tries have budgets that are greater than those of individual
countries. Images of the blue earth from space or the golden
arches of McDonald's are ubiquitous across the world and
especiallyupon the blllion or so TV sets.A huge array of public
and private organizations has arisen seeking to produce, govern,
surveil, terrorize and entertain this 'spaceshipearth', including
some 17,000 trans-bordercivic associations.
Thus new technologiesare producing 'global times' in which
the distancesbetween places and peoples again seem to be dra-
matically reducing.Some writers even suggestthat time and space
are 'de-materializing', as people, machines, images, information,
powet money, ideas and dangers are all, we might say, 'on the
move', travelling at bewildering speed in unexpected directions
from place to place,from time to time.
Various commentators have tried to understand these excep-
tional changes.Anthony Giddens [1990) has described modern
sociallife asbeing like a massiveout-of-control 'juggernaut'lurch-
ing onwards but with no driver at the wheel. The journalist
FrancesCairncross (1995) describesin detail the 'death of dis-
tance' that these various technologiesseem to produce.Zygrnunt
Bauman (2000) talks of the speeded-up'liquid modernity' as op-
posed to the fixed and given shapes that the modern world had
earlier taken. Manuel Castells(2001) has elaboratedthe growth
of an 'lnternet galaxy' that has ushered the world into a wholly
different informational structure. Michael Hardt and Antonio
Negri (2000) have provocativelysuggestedthat notions of nation-
state sovereigntyhave been replacedby a singlesystem of power,
what they call'empire', while many writers,indeed more than 100
a year, have described and elaboratedthe so-calledglobalization
of economic,social and political hfe.
In this book I show how various 'global' processesraise major
implications for most of the categoriesby which sociologyand the
other social scienceshave examined the character of social life.
'Societies'and the Global
,Globalization'debatestransform many existirrgsociologicalcon-
troversies,such as the relative significanceof social structure, on
the one hand, and human agency,on the other. Investigating the
slobal also dissolvesstrong dichotomies between human subjects
and physical objects,as well as that between the physical sciences
and the socialsciences. The study of the global disruptsmany con-
ventional debates and should not be viewed as merely an extra
level or domain that can be 'added' to existing sociologicalanaly-
sesthat can carry on regardless.'Sociology'willnot be able to
sustainitself as a specificand coherent discoursefocusedupon the
study of given, bounded or'organized' capitalistsocieties.It is irre-
versiblychanged.
So faq, howevel globalization studies are at an early stage of
recording,mapping, classifyingand monitoring the 'global' and its
effects[see Castells1996, 1997,7998; Held et al. 1999; Scholte
2000). A new social scienceparadigm, of globalization,is devel-
oping and extending worldwide, but so far it remains somewhat
'pre-scientific'.[t concentrates upon the nature of the global
'region' that is seen as competing with, and dominating, the soci-
etal or nation-state'region'. Globalization studies pose a kind of
inter-regionalcompetition between the global and each society,
the global on such a view being regarded as an overwhelming,
singularcausalforce.
Whether writers are critics of, or enthusiastsfor, the global, glob-
alizationgetsattributed exceptionalpower to determine a massive
rangeof outcomes.Furthermore,'globalization' is often taken to
referboth to certain processes[from the verb, to globalize)and to
certainoutcomes (from the noun, the globe). Both get designated
asglobalization, as both'cause'and'effect' (Rosenberg20001.
In order to develop the analysishere I suggestthere are five
major globalizationdebatesand claims that should be clearly dis-
tinguishedfrom each other. There is no single and agreed-upon
Slobalizationthesis. These five theori., u." based respectivelv
upon the concepts of structure, flow, ideology,performanc" ,r,i
complexity. Each recurs at different points in this book - but I
especiallvdeveloo the implications of the last.This book setsout
ard defendsa complerity approach to globalization,an approach
that elaborates the systemic and dynamic character of what I
previouslycalled'disorganized'capitalism.
 'societies'and the Global
The structural notion of the globaL
Chase-Dunn,Kawano,and Brewer [2000: 78) maintain that giob-
alization is defined as the increaseddensity of international and
global interactions,compared with such interactionsat the local
or national levels fsee Castells 1996; Held et al. 1999; Scholte
2000). There has been an increasein structural globalizationwith
the greatly heightened density of such global interactions,
although this is not simply a new phenomenon. This increased
density of interactions is seen to result from a number of causes.
There is the'liberalization of world trade and the internationaliz-
ing of th6 organization of much capitalist production. There is
the globalizing of the consumption of many commodities and
the declining costs of transportation and communications.Inter-
regional organizationsare more significantwith the international-
izing of investment and the general development of a 'world
system'.
These together produce a revised structural relationship be-
tween the heightened density of the global and the relatively
less networked, less dense,local/national levels.Globalization is
not the property of individual actors or territorial units. It is an
emergent feature of the capitalist economy as a whole, develop-
ing from the interconnections between different agents,especially
through new forms of time-space 'distanciation'acrossthe globe
and of the compression of time-space relations (Jessop2000:
356). This produces the 'ecological dominance' of globalizing
capitalism.
Relatedly it is argued that this dominance both stems from,
and reflects,the growth of a 'transnationalcapitalist class'that is
centred within transnationalcorporationsthat are 'more or lessin
control of the processes of globalization'(Sklair Z00l: 5). US presi-
dential candidate Ralph Nader summarized this thesis through
the concept of 'corporateglobalization'.
The global as flows and mobilities
These flows are seen as moving along various global 'scapes',
including the system of transportation of people by air, sea,rail,
motorways and other roads.There is the transportationof objects
'Societies'and the Global
.,;qnostal and other systems.Wire, coaxial and fibre-optic cables
television pictures and computer infor-
messages,
.nrry ,"t"pttone
.-''r,ion and images' There are microwave channelsthat are used
/n'. nlobll" phone communications.And there are satellitesused
receiving phone, radio and television signals
for transmitting and
fApprdurai 1990; Lash and Urry 1994; Castells1996; Held et al.
igbgt It is argued that, once such physical and organizational
scape structures are established,then individuals, companies,
olacesand even societiestry to become nodeswithin such scapes.
Various potential flows occur along these scapes.Thus people
travel along transportation scapesfbr work, education and holi-
days.Objecrsthat are sent and received by companies and indi-
viduals move along postal and other freight systems.lnt'ormation,
messages and imagesflow along various cables and between satel-
lites.Messagestravel along microwave channels from one mobile
ohone to another.
Thesescapesand flows createnew inequalitiesof access. What
becomessignificantis the 'relative', as opposed to the 'absolute',
location of a particular social group er town or society in rela-
tionship to these multiple scapes.They passby some areaswhile
connecting others along information and transportation rich
'tunnels'.These can compress the distancesof time and space
between some places while enlarging those between others
[Brunn and Leinbach 1991; Graham and Marvin 2001).
Globalization as ideologt
This neo-liberalview is articulated by transnationalcorporations
and their representativesand by variouspoliticians and journalists
lseeFukuyama1992;Ohmae 1992).Suchcorporationsoperateon
a rvorldwide basis and often lack any long-term commitment to
particularplaces,labour forces or even societies.Thus those with
economicinterestsin promoting capitalismacrossthe globe main-
tain that globalization is both inevitable and natural and that
nationalstatesor nationallyorganizedtrade unions should not reg-
ulateor direct the inevitabie of the globalmarketplace.What
ls viewed as crucial is 'shareholder
-arch value', so that labour markets
should be made more flexible and caoital should be able to invest
or disinvestin industriesor countries at will.
6 'Societies'and the Global
In this account, globalization is seen as forming a new epoch,
a golden age of cosmopolitan'borderlessness'. National statesand
societiesare thought unable to control the global flows of infor-
mation. Such a borderlessworld is seen as offering huge new
opportunities to overcome the limitations and restrictions that
societiesand especiallynational stateshave historically exercised
on the freedom of the 44,000 trans-border corporations to treat
the world as 'their oyster'. There were incidentally only 7,000
such corporations in the 1960s [Scholte 2000: 86). The World
Tiade Organization both symbolizes this neo-liberal notion of
globalization as ideology and represents such an interest, often
spreading such notions through closed seminars for business
leaders, academics and free-market politicians (see account and
critique in Monbiot 2000).
Glob alization as p erformance
Drawing on ideas about the analysisof gender as involving enact-
ment, processand performance,Franklin et al. (2000: 1-17) argue
that the global is not so much a 'cause' of other effects but an
effect. It is enacted, as aspiration rather than achievement, as
effect rather than condition, and as a project to be achieved rather
than something that is pre-given.The global is seen as coming
to constitute its own domains. It is continuously reconstituted
through various material and semiotic processes. Law and
Hetherington maintain that 'global space,is a material semiotic
effect. It is something that is made' []999).
And to perform the global implies that many individuals and
organizationsmobilize around and orchestratephenomena that
possessand demonstrate a global character.A good example of
this involves how the idea of a separateand massivelythreatened
'global nature' has been produced and performed. What were
once many apparently separate activities are now regarded as
interconnected components of a single global crisis of the natural
world [see Wynne i994). This global nature has resulted from
fusing various social practices that are remaking space.These
include imagesof the earth from spaceand especiallythe Apollo
17 photograph of the 'whole earth' taken in 1972, transportpoli-
cies, deforestation, energy use, media images of threatened iconic
'Societies'and the Global
on\,ironmentswhich are often markers of global threats,dramatic
Inr.iron-"tttal protests,scientific papers on climate change,the
of the cold war, NGO campaigns,records of extreme
"nding events,pronouncementsby global public figures,global
weather
conferencessuch as Rio and Kyoto, and so on. Together these prac-
ticesare performing a 'global nature', a nature that appearsto be
undergoingchange that needs to be vigorously and systematically
resistedand indeed reversed.
Global complexity
This conceptionis nowhere developedin detail, but Rifkin [2000:
l9l-3) analysesthe implicationsof what he callsthe'new physics'
for the study of property relations in the emerging capitalist world
(see also Capra 2O0Z). Rifkin notes that contemporary 'science'
no longer sees anything 'as static, fixed and given'. The observer
changesthat which is observed,apparent hard-and-fastentities are
always comprised of rapid movement, and there is no structure
that is separatefrom process.In particular, time and space are not
to be regardedas containersof phenomena,but rather all physi-
cal and social entities are constituted through time and through
space.These ideasfrom the 'new physics' will be elaboratedbelow,
so as to explore better the extraordinary transformations of time-
spacethat'globalization' debatesboth signify and enhance.
Complexity does not, of course,solve all the problems of the
socialsciences.Nor is globalization only and exhaustively com-
prehensiblethrough complexity. And most of all I am not sug-
gestingthat the 'social' implications of complexity are clear-cut.
But I do suggestthat, since the systemic features of globalization
are not well understood, the complexity sciences may provide
concepts and methods that begin to illuminate the global as a
systemor seriesof systems
[for a similar formulation from within
complexity', see Capra 20OZ).
'global' and'complexity', the aim is to
. In coupling together the
show that the former comprises a set of emergent systems pos-
sessingproperties and patterns that are often far from equilibrium.
Complexity emphasizes that there are diverse networked time-
space paths, that there are often massive disproportionalities
between causes and effects, and that unpredictable and yet
 8 'Societies'and the Global
irreversiblepatterns seem to characterizeall social and physical
systems.
Some of this 'new physics' is also present in the so far most
significant examination of the new global order, Manuel
Castells'sThe Int'ormationAge fl996, 1997, 1998). His argument
restsupon a 'complexity' conception of the global, although thls
is somewhat buried in the astonishingmass of material he pre-
sents.I now set out aspectsof his argument,especiallyrelating to
the concept of 'network', before noting its 'complexity' compo-
nents. His focus on networks will also be central to the analysis
that follows below.
The Network Society
Castells (2000) argues that there are various technological
paradigms, a cluster of interrelated technical, organizational and
managerial innovations. Their advantageslie in their superior
productivity in accomplishlng assignedgoals through synergy
between their components.Each paradigm is constituted around
a fundamental set of technologies,specific to the paradigm, and
whose coming-together into a synergistic set establishes the
paradigm.
Castells views information/communication technologies [in-
cluding genetic engineering) as the basis of the new paradigm
that developedwithin especiallyNorth America during the 1970s
and 1980s. The main properties of this new informational
paradigm are that the building blocks are bits of electronically
transmitted information. Such technologiesare pervasive,since
information has become integral to almost all forms of human
practice.complex and temporally unpredictablepatterns of infor-
mational development occur in a distributed fashion in very spe-
cific localities.Technologiesare organized through loosely based
and flexibly changing networks. These different technologies
gradually converge into integrated informational systems, espe-
cially the once-separatebiological and microelectronic technol-
ogies.Such systemspermit organizationsto work in real time 'on
a planetary scale'. These instantaneous electronic impulses
produce a 'timeless time' and provide material support for the
'Societies'and the Global
/evelopment of new scapes,with the instantaneousflows of infor-
I,'r,ion being the preconditionfor the growth of globalrelations.
This new informational paradigm is characterized by the
,,etrlork enterprise(see Castells 1996, 2000, 2001). This is a
made from either firms or segmentsof firms, and/or from
""i*orn segmentation of firms. Large corporations are internally
internal
decentralizedas networks.Small and medium businessesare con-
nected in networks. These networks connect among themselves
on specificbusinessprojects,and switch to another network when
the project is finished. Major corporations work in a strategyof
changing alliances and partnerships, specific to a given product,
process,time and space. Furthermore, these cooperations are
increasinglybased on the sharing of information. These are infor-
mation networks, which, in the limit, link up suppliers and
customers through one firm, with this firm being essentially an
intermediary of supply and demand. The unit of this production
processis the businessproject.
What are important, therefore,are not'structures',which imply
a centre,a concentrationof powe4 vertical hierarchy and a formal
or informal constitution. Rather, networks 'constitute the new
social morphology of our societies,and the diffusion of network-
ing logic substantially modifies the operation and outcomes in
processesof production, experience, power and culture . . . the
netr,vorksociety,characterizedby the pre-eminenceof socialmor-
phology over social action' [Castells 1996: 469). A network is a
set of interconnectednodes.the distancebetween social oositions
being shorter where such positions constitute nodes within a
network asopposedto those lying outsidethat particular network.
Netlvorks are dynamic open structures so long as they continue
to effect communication with new nodes (Castells 1996: 470-I;
seealsoCastells2000). Networks decentreperformanceand share
decision making. What is in the network is useful and necessary
lor its existence.
What is not in the network will be either ignored if it is not
reievantto the network's task, or eliminated if it is competing in
goalsor in performance.If a node in the network ceasesto perform
a useful function, it is phased out from the network, and the
t-te.tworkrearrangesitselfl Some nodes are more important than
others,but they all need each other as long as they remain within
l0 'societies'and the Global
the network. Nodes increasetheir importance by absorbingm
information and processingit more efficiently.If they decline i
their performance,other nodestake over their tasks.Thus, the rel-
evanceand relative weight of nodes come not from their speci
Features,but from their ability to be trusted by the rest of
network. In this sense,the main nodes are not centres,but switch
ers that follow a networking logic rather than a command logic
in their function vis-a-vis the overall structure.
Networks generate complex and enduring connections stretch
ing acrosstime and space between peoples and things (M
1995: 745). Networks spread across time and space,whlch ;
advantageous,because 'left to their own devices human acti
and words do not spread uery t'ar at all' [Law 1994: 24; see also
Rycroft and Kash 1999). Different networks possessdifferent abil-
ities to bring home to certain nodes distant events, places or
people, to overcome the friction of space within appropriate
periods of time. According to Castells,there are now many very
varied phenomena organized through networks, including net-
work enterprises (such as the criminal economy), networked
states [such as the European Union) and many networks within
civil society [such as NGOs resistingglobalizationor international
terrorists).
Castells'snetwork analysisis of major importance, becauseit
breaks with the idea that the global is a finished and completed
totality. And he uses various ideas that prefigure a complexity
approachto global phenomena [for a brief comment, see Cast
1996: 64-5). The analysisof networks emphasizescontingency,
opennessand unpredictability,suggestinganalogieswith how the
'web of life', accordingto Capra Q996;35), consistsof 'networks
within networks'. Castells also emohasizes how networks
power produce networks of resistance.Many social practicesare
drawn to what could be called in complexity terms the 'power-
resistanceattractor' [Castells \997: 362). He also arguesthat the
strength of networks results from their self-organizing and often
short-term character and not from centralizedhierarchicaldirec-
tion, as with older style rational-legalbureaucraciesof the sort
famously examined by Weber [see Rycroft and Kash 1999; Rifkin
2000: 2B). Specifically,Castellsshows the'chaotically' subversive
effects of the development of the personalcomputer in the 1980s
'societies'and the Global 11
-- rhe workingsoI the sfafebureaucracyin the Soviet Union.
lp":l'W;i"rian bureaucracyhad historically controlled all infor-
;;;"" flous, including even accessto the humble photocopier.
'jl,r'i *", completely outflanked by the informational effects of
global spread of the PC [Castells 1996: 36-7;
Itl'u,",p."dlctable
1998:ch' 1J.'
b"st"l1, also notes how attempts to regulatethe Internet seem
judges have written:
loomed to failure, since,as three American
strength of the Internet is chaos,so the strength of our
i"r, n, the
the chaos and cacophony of the unfettered
lib"rt' dependsupon
.,-,"".h the First Amendment protects' [Castells 1997: 259)' The
,.,J"rkr"r, of hierarchical nation states can be seen in the growth
of the 'global criminal economy' and the exceptional mobihty of
illeeal money and its transmutation [money laundering) as it
.u.""r, around global scapes,often evading detection [Castells
l99B: 201-3; this money movement being partly created by dif-
ferent nation-state regimes). This global criminal economy, or
indeed global terrorism, takes the global order far from equilib-
rium, as nation statesrespond to such mobilities with attackson
civil libertiesespeciallyof mobile immigrant groups,and as global
crime corrupts democratic politics in many societies.Castells
fl998: 162) also talks of the 'black holes' of informational capi-
talism,placesof time-space warping where peoplesand placesare
drawn into a downwards and irreversible spiral or vortex from
which there is no escape.He argues,similarly, as we will see, to
Prigogine,that the global world is characterized not by a single
time but by what he calls multiple times.There is clock time of
the massproduction factory, the timeless time of the computer
and the glacial time of the environment
[Castells 1996: ch.7;
1997:125; Urry 2000b: ch. 51.
However, Castells's *ogni* opus lacks a set of interrelated
conceptsthat would enable these very diverse phenomena to be
systemailcallyunderstood.
The global remains rather taken for
grantedand
there is not the range of theoretical terms necessary
to analyse the emergentproperti;s of the networked'global'levei.
tn particular,
the term 'network' is exoected to do too much the-
oreticalwork
in the argument.Almost all phenomenaare seen
through the
single and undifferentiated prism of 'network'. This
concept glosses-o,r".
,r".y different networked phenomena. They
12 'societies'and the Global
can rangefrom hierarchicalnetworks such as McDonald's to het-
erarchic extremely inchoate'road protest movements', from spa-
tially contiguous networks meeting every day to those organized
around imagined'cultures at a distance',from those based upon
strong ties to those based on very important and extensive'weak
ties', and from those that are pretty well purely 'social' to those
that are fundamentally 'materially' structured. These are all net-
works, but they are exceptionally different in their functioning
one from the other.
Moreoveq,the concept of network does not bring out the enor-
mously complex notions of power implicated in the diverse
mobilities of global capitalism, such as those of the Internet [but
see Castells 2001). Movement and power are now inextricably
intertwined, and the concept of network minimizes the astonish-
ing paradox, uncertainty and irreversibility of the patterns of
global emergence. It is the materials, concepts and arguments
within the science of complexity that remain undeveloped in
Castells's otherwise brilliant examination of intersecting global
networks.
The Challenge of Complexity
Thus, although hundreds of boola and articles have been written
on the'global', it has been insufficiently theorized. In this book I
turn to the complexity theory that is now emerging more gener-
ally as a potential new paradigm for the social sciences,having
transformed much of the physical and biological sciences.
Thus 'non-linear' scientistsworking at one of the leading sci-
entific complexity centres,the Santa Fe Institute in New Mexico,
have developed some implications of complex adaptive systems
for theorizing the nature of the global,especiallythe idea of global
sustainability[Waldrop 1994: 348-53). Moreover, the US-based
Gulbenkian Commission on the Restructuring of the Social Sci-
ences,chaired by Immanuel Wallerstein and including non-linear
scientist Ilya Prigogine,has advocated breaking down the division
between'natural' and'social' sciencethrough seeingboth domains
as characterizedby'complexity' (Wallerstein 1996). Complexity,
they say,involves not 'conceivingof humanity as mechanical,but
'Societies'and the Global l3
ratherinsteadconceivingof nature as active and creative',to make
Ithe la*s of nature compatible with the idea of events,of novelty,
ond of creativity' (Wallerstein1996: 61, 63). The Commission
l".o--"nds how scientific analysis 'based on the dynamics of
non-equilibria,with its emphasison multiple futures, bifurcation
and choice, historical dependence, and . . . intrinsic and inherent
uncertainty',should be the model for the social sciencesand this
would undermine clear-cut divisions between humans and nature,
and between social and natural science.However, most surpris-
ingly this Commission is silent on the study of globalization,
although the global is surely characterized by emergent and
irreversible complexity and by processesthat are simultaneously
socialand natural.
I show in various chaptershow conceptsand theories in chaos
andcomplexity theory bear directly upon the nature of the global.
In particular, complexity examines how components of a system
can through their dynamic interaction 'spontaneously'develop
collective properties or patterns, such as colour, that do not seem
implicit, or at least not implicit in the same way, within indi-
vidual components. Complexity investigatesemergent properties,
certain regularities of behaviour that somehow transcend the
ingredientsthat make them up. Complexity arguesagainstreduc-
tionism, against reducing the whole to the parts. And in so doing
it transforms scientific understanding of far-from-equilibrium
structures,of irreversible times and of non-Euclidean mobile
spaces. It emphasizeshow positive feedbackloops can exacerbate
initial stressesin the system and render it unable to absorb shocks
to re-establishthe original equilibrium. Positive feedback occurs
when a change tendency is reinforced rather than dampened
clown.Very strong interactions occur between the parts of such
systems,with the absenceof a central hierarchical structure that
unambiguously'governs'and producesoutcomes.Theseoutcomes
are to be seen as both uncertarn and irreversible.
Another way of expressingthis is to argue that complexity can
.,,
lilumine how social life is always a significant mixture of achieve-
rnent and failure. Much social science is premised upon the suc-
cessfulachievementof an agent'sor system'sgoalsand objectives.
Sociologyis'imbued with a commitment to and confidenie in the
possibility of increasedsuccessin social life'; the social world to
 'societies'and the Global
T4
which it directs our attention 'is one conceptualised,for the most
part, in terms of practices,projects and processesthat operaterel-
attvely unproblematically' [Malpas and Wickham 1995: 38). On
this account, failure is 'an aberration, a temporary breakdown
within the system', the exception rather than the rule fMalpas
and Wickham 1995: 38J.Thus there are the svstemsinvestisat
by sociology (or the social sciencesmore generally) and there is
failure or breakdown. There is thought to be either one or
other. It is a duality.
And yet, of course,social life is full of what we may term 'rel-
ative failure', both at the level of individual goals and especially
at the level of social systems.Failure is a 'necessaryconsequence
of incompleteness'and of the inability to establish and sustain
complete control of the complex assemblages involved in any such
system [Malpas and Wickham 1995: 39-40). This is well known
but tends to be viewed in the social sciencesthrough the concept
of unintended consequences. What is intended is seenas having a
range of unintended side effects that may take the system away
from what seemsto have been intended.However,this is a limited
and often individualistic way of formulating relative failure that
does not explicate just how these so-calledside effects may be
systemicfeaturesof the system in question.The use of complex-
ity should enable us to break with such dualistic thinkins.
system and its failures. Chaos and order are always interconnected
within anv such svstem.
It is in the light of these argumentsthat the emergent level of
the global is examined below. Such a system clearly seems to
combine in curious and unexpected ways,both chaos and order.
It is not simply another region like that of society,nor is it the
product of, or to be reduced to, a pre-existingdifference or some
governingelement. Global systemscan be viewed as interdepen-
dent, as self-organizingand as possessingemergent properties.I
suggestthat we can examine a range of non-linear,mobile and
unpredictable'global hybrids' alwayson the 'edgeof chaos'.These
should constitute the subject matter of sociology and of its
'theory' into the twenty-first century. Examples of such global
hybrids include informational systems,automobility,global media,
world money, the Internet, climate change, the oceans,health
hazards,worldrvide social protest and so on. Sociologyhas known
'Societies'
and the Global 15
with an open system.But the proliferation of inter-
"l"ar ir deals
I-..na"ntly fluid global hybrids operating at immensely varied
I.I.-ror." scalesproduces a quantum leap in the opennessand
of the systemsbeing analysed,systemsalways com-
."rpf"l<l,v
Li"tti, success.and failure that are on the edge of chaos.
"^-MJr"over,although contemporary social-physicalphenomena
o." undeniably networked, they should not be viewed merely as
'network society' does not capture
n"i*ort r. Castells'snotion of
'Network' is too undif-
,h" dynamicpropertiesof global processes.
i"r"niiut"d a term here. We need a significant battery of other
terms to characterize the dynamic and emergent relationships
between such networks, to develop the intense relationality of
worldwide conuections.
In particula4,I examine how, given the range of possibilities that
a system may move within, the trajectories of many systems
are drawn over time to what complexity terms 'attractors'.The
strangeattractor of 'glocalization'is developedbelow, an attractor
that involves parallel processesthrough whlch globalization-
deepens-localization-deepens-globalization and so on. Both the
global and the local are bound together through a dynamic,
irreversiblerelationship, as huge flows of resourcesare drawn into
and move backwards and forwards between the two. Neither the
globalnor the local can exist without the other. Diverse socialand
physical phenomena, including existing societies,are attracted
towards the 'glocal', which develops in a symbiotic, irreversible
and unstableset of relationships.I try to show that both the so-
called global and local levels get transformed through billions of
iterationsthat are irreversibly over time drawn towards, and are
remadethrough, this glocalizingattractor.
Conclusion
Thus it is argued in this book that an appropriate analysisof the
'global
ase' necessitatesthe examination of various notions that
are not reduclble to, or explained through, single processessuch
as network or empire or markets or disorganization (Rescher
1998J.Rather, global ordering is so immensely complicated that
lt cannot be 'known' through a single concept or set of processes.
l6 'societies'and the Global
Indeed,it is epistemologicallyand ontologicallyunknowable,wit
efforts at comprehension changing the very world that is bein
investigated.But, becauseof the power of metaphor in thinking,
some notions from complexitv will be interrosated in order
assesstheir fruitfulness in representing those processesimplica
in such global ordering.
The book thus seeksto discusshow much complexity can illu-
minate an array of issues.First, are there emergentglobal systems?
How is an emergent system of the 'global' developing that may
be self-producingover time, such that its outputs provide inputs
into a circular system of global objects, identities, institutions and
social practices?
Second,what are the power and reach of such global systemsT
What is the impact of such systemsupon the 'society system'?
Third, how are the properties of such systems reproduced
through iteration over time involving 'inhuman' combinations
obiects and social relations,or what I call'material worlds'?
Fourth, how should we expect global 'systems' that are often
far from equilibrium to develop and change irreversibly over time,
especially in relationship to small euentsthat can have big effects
[and vice versa)7
Finally, what does 'global complexity' mean for the sociologi
cal problem of social order that has normally been seen as oper-
ating within and through individual 'societies'?How does a social
ordering emerge through diverse and intersecting material worlds
operating over varied times and moving across multiple spaces,
where systemsare always 'on the edge of chaos'7Can there any
longer be societalordering where cultures operate'at a distance':
This array of questions and issuesprovides the basis for wha
I have described and advocatedelsewhere as 'mobile sociology'
fUrry 2000a).The next chapterturns specificallyto the challen
of a turn to complexity.
2
The ComplexityTurn
Introduction
In this chapter some of the main characteristicsof what has come
to be known as the complexity sciences are elaborated. In this
non-mathematicalaccount,chaostheory,the non-linear and com-
plexity are treated as a single paradigm. I thus artificially stabilize
a set of sciencesthat are in fact open-ended,uncertain, evolving
and self-organizing [see the 'complexity' account of 'complexity'
in Thrift 1999).
I am not proposing a simple 'transfer' of complexity from the
physicalworld into the social world. This is becausecomplexity
anyway analysesall phenomena that possessdynamic system
properties,whether these are population of flies, firms or people.
Ind.eed,significant work at the centrally important Santa Fe Insti-
tute concerned the implications of increasingreturns for economic
populations
[Arthur 1994a;Waldrop 1994). Complexity is thus
not simply a theory of the 'physical world' since it deals with the
physicsof all populations that demonstrate statistical probabil-
tties whatever their apparent provenance(Prigogine 1997: 5, 35;
hence the irrelevance of P. Stewart's critique
[2001) of such a
naturalistmove).
Moreover,most significantphenomenathat the so-calledsocial
sciences now deal with are in fact hybrids of physical and
social relations, with no purified sets of the physical or the
social.Such hybrids include health,technologies,the environment,
l8 The ComplexityTurn
the Internet, road traffic, extreme weather and so on. These
hybrids, most of which are central in any analysis of global
relations,are best examined through developingcomplexity analy-
ses of the interdependent material-social, or 'inhuman' worlds.
Through examining their dynamic interdependenciesvia com-
plexity, their emergent properties can be effectively understood.
The very division between the 'physical' and the 'social' is itself a
socio-historicalproduct and one that appearsto be dissolving.The
complexity sciencesseemto provide the best meansof transcend-
ing such outdated divisions, between nature and society,between
the physical sciences and the social sciences [see Knorr-Cetina
1997;Macnaghtenand Urry 1998).
This book attempts to transcend these divisions as well as those
of determinism and free will, thus developing parallel claims to
Capra's recent efforts (2002) to theorize the social world as
complex living systems. It will do so by investigating the non-
linear, statistical properties of various 'global systems' that often
move unpredictably and yet irreversibly away from points of
equilibrium. In complexity analyses there are presumed to be
neither separateagentsnor deterministic laws; there is a kind of in-
betweennessthat is neither deterministic nor involvins free will.
Time and Space
Most of the social sciencespresume that they deal with historical
phenomena,while the physicalworld dealswith ahistoricaltime-
less phenomena. In this section I show how twentieth-century
science transformed the understanding of time in the physical
world. The physical and social sciencesnow appear to employ
rather similar notions of historical time (Adam 1990). lnTheWeb
of Life Fritjof Capra argues that nature 'turns out to be more like
human nature - unpredictable, sensitiveto the surrounding world,
influenced by small fluctuations' [1996: 187). This thbrefore sug-
gestsenormous interdependencies,parallels,overlaps and conver-
gencesbetween analysesof the physical and of the social worlds
[Prigogine 1997; Capra 7002; and, from post-structuralism,
Cilliers 1998; Rasch and Wolfe 2000). The absenceof prediction
does not invalidate a naturalist account of science [P. Stewart
The ComplexiwTurn l9
.,o0l.328-9). Complexity authorizes'scientific' accounts of the
il,-,r"dl.tnble but neverthelessstrangelyordered.
""Fr"-t*"ntieth-century sciencehad operatedwith a view of time
derived from Newton. He said of what he called absolute time,
'its own nature, [it] flows equably without relation to
that, from
anything eternal . . . the flowing of absolute time is not liable to
change'(quoted in Adam 1990: 50). Such a view of absolutetime
is invariant, it is infinitely dlvisible into space-like units, it is
rneasurablein length, it can be expressed as a number and it
is reversible. It is time seen essentially as space, as a kind of
Cartesianspacecomprising invariant measurablelengths that can
be moved along, forwards and backwards as objects can move
along the dimensions of space. Objects are viewed as contained
within and strung out along the dimensions of absolute time and
sDace.
The socialscienceshave historically insistedon the radical dis-
tinction between this natural time and what is often known as
socialtime. However, most of what they have seen as specifically
social time is now comnon throughout the understanding of
the physicalworld [Adam 1990). What socialsciencehad treated
asthe specifically'human' aspectsof time seemsnow to charac-
terize time within twentieth-century physical sciences.
Einstein showed that there is no fixed or absolute time
independent of the system to which it refers. Time he saw as a
local, internal feature of any system of observation and meas-
urement. It varies on where and how it is measured.There is no
objectiveabsolutemeasurementof time. It can be stretched and
shnrnk. Furtheq, E,instein demonstrated that time and space are
not separatefrom each other but are fused into a four-dimensional
time-space curved under the influence of mass
[Coveney and
Highfield 1990). Amongst various consequencesare the pos-
stbility that the past could catch up with the future and espe-
ctally the possibilitiesof time travel. In his How to Build a Time
MachinePaul Davies (2001b) entertaininglydescribesthe logical
possibilities of travelling through time down
what is called a
'wormhole,.
, Time and space are thus not now viewed as the container of
bodiesthat happen to move along the various dimensions (Casti
t994; Capra 1996; Prigogine1997). The philosopher
of science
70 The Comolexiv Turn
A. N. Whitehead reflected on how twentieth'century physics
would reject the notion that time and space standoutsidethe very
relationsbetweenobjectsand subjects[D. Harvey 1996:256-61)'
Time and space,he argues,areinternal to the processesby whlch
the physical and socialworlds themselvesoperate,helping to con-
stitute their very powers. Such a view leads to the thesis that there
is not a singletime but multiple times and that such times appear
to flow. In the best-selling A Brief History of Time, Stephen
Hawking summarizes how: 'Space and time are now dynamic
qualities: when a body moves, or a force acts,it affects the curva-
ture of space and time - and in turn the structure of space-time
affectsthe way in which bodies move and forces act' [1988: 33).
Quantum theory generally describesa virtual state in which
electrons appear to try out instantaneouslyall possible futures
before settling into particular patterns. Quantum behaviour is
instantaneous,simultaneous and unpredictable.The interactions
between the parts are far more fundamental than the parts them-
selves.Bohm refers to this as the occurrenceof a dance without
dancersfsee Zohar and Marshall 1994). Conventional notions of
causeand effect do not apply within an indivisible whole where
the interrelations between the parts are more fundamental than
the individual parts. Really there are no parts at all as understood
in mechanistic,reductionist thinking. There are only relationships,
or, as Capra expressesit:'the objects themselvesare networks
relationships,embedded in larger networks . . . the relationships
are primary' [1996: 37). Relationality is key here, a notion I will
often return to.
Chrono-biology,or the biology of time, alsoshowsnot only th
human societiesexperiencetime or organize their lives through
time, but alsothat rhythmicity is a crucial principle of each organ-
ism and its relationshipswith its e'nvironment.Humans and other
animals themselves appear to be 'clocks'. Plants and animals
possessa system of time that regulatestheir functions on a twenty-
four-hour cycle. Recent researchhas revealedtimekeeping genes.
Biological time is thus not confined to ageing but expressesthe
nature of biological beings as temporal, dynamic and cyclical.
Change in living nature involves the notions of becoming and
rhythmicity. Adam arguestherefore that: 'Past,present, and future,
historical time, the qualitative experience of time, the structuring
The ComplexityTurn 21
,'undifferentiatedchange"into episodes,all are establishedas
of
inregrirltime aspectsof the subject matter of the natural sciences'
r 1g9O:i 50) and are by no meansconfined to the socialworld [see
)lso Prigogine1997)'
fulore generally, thermodynamics shows that there is an irre-
versibleflow of time. Rather than there being time symmetry and
indeed a reversibility of time as postulated in classicalphysics,a
cleardistinction is drawn between the past and future. An arrow
of time resultswithin open systemsin the lossof organizationand
an increasein randomnessor disorder over time. This accumula-
tion of disorder or positive entropy results from the Second Law
of Thermodynamics[Coveney 2000).
Ho'uvever,there is not a simple growth of disorder. Prigogine
shorvshow new order arises,but it is far from equilibrium. There
are what he terms dissipative structures, islands of new order
within a seaof disorder,maintaining or even increasingtheir order
at the expense of greater overall entropy. He describeshow such
localizedorder'floats in disorder'(cited in Capra 1996: 184). It
is non-equilibrium situations that are sources of new order, as
describedbelow For example, turbulent flows of water and air,
which appear chaotic, are highly organized. Matter continuously
flows into the vortex funnel of a whirlpool in a bath. The system
is organizationallyclosed and maintains a stable form although it
is far from equilibrium. Thus there is a paradoxicalcombination
of continual flow and 'for-the-present' structural stability. In
g.eneral,Prigogine and Stengers maintain in Order out of Chaos
that it is the 'irreversibility [of time] . . . that brings order out of
chaos'fl984: 292; seealso Prigogine 1997: 164-73).
The most obvious illustration of this profound irreversibility of
time is the expansionof the universefollowing the singularevent
ot the 'big bang' fifteen blllion or so yearsago
[Coveney and High-
neld 1990). It is now thought that the universebegan with such
a 'big bang' without a pre-existingcause.The scieniific discovery
ol.thebig bang cannotbe reconciledwith thoselawsof the physi-
cal world that see time as reversible,deterministic and involving
'classes
of phenomena'.The big bang is a one-off phenomenon
that is like nothing else ever to occur within the known
universe.
Laws of nature are thus to be treated as historical and not uni-
versal
fDavies2001a).
 22 The Compbxiw Turn The ComplexityTurn LJ

Moreover, the very phenomena of time and space are

themselveshistorical.The big bang apparentlycreatedin that very Emergent Properties
moment both spaceand time. There was no pre-existingspacea
time: 'any attempt to explain the origin of the physical unive
A further consequence of this flowingness of time is that mrlor
must perforce involve an explanation of how space and ti
changesin the past are able to produce potentially massiveeffects
came into existencetoo' [Davies 2001a: 57). There is therefi
in the presentor future. Such small events are not,forgotten,.
no 'time' before the big bang, and, iflwhen the universe ends i
chaos theory in particular rejects the common-sensenoti,onthat
another singular event, time [and space) will also then cease.
only large chan^gesin causes produce large changes in effects.
Sga;e and time appear to have been spontaneouslycreated,pan
Following a perfectly deterministic set of .rr1"r, ,r.rp-.edictableyet
of the systemicnatureof the universe. They are suddenlvswitcht patternedresultsc-anbe generated,with small causeson occasions
on, through an unpredictable and yet apparently irreversib producinglarge effects and vice versa.The classicexample is the
quantum change [Hawking 1988; Coveney and Highfield 1990; butterfly eFfect that was accidentally discovered by Lorenz rn
Casti 1994). 1961.It was shown that miniscule changesat one iocation can
There are many mundane examples of irreversibihty ln th theoreticallyproduce, if modelled by thiee coupled non-linear
.
physical world: coffee aiways cools, organisms always agl, sprin equations,very large weather effects very far in time and/or space
follows winter and so on. There can be no going bn&,. ,-,t ,"- from the original site.of the hypothetical wings flapping
absorbing of the heat, no return to youth, no spring before winter fcasti
1994: 96; Maasen and Weingart 2000: g3+'). Sol,rtior,, tt the
and so on. According to Eddington 'The great thi"g ubo,rt time is equationsin question are thus extremely sensitiveto the specifi-
that it goes on' fcited in Coveney and Highfield tggO: g3). The cation of the initial conditions.
arrow or flow of time resultsin futures that are unstable,relativel
.To express this point rather simply, there is no consistent
unpredictableand characterizedby variouspossibilities.Althoug relationship between the cause and the effect of some
event.
time is irreversible, time is both multiple and unpredlctabi Rather,relationshipsbetween variables can be non-linear
with
Prigogine talks of the 'end of certainty' as the complexity scienc, abrupt switches occurring, so the same ,cause,
can in specific
overcome what he calls the 'two alienatingimagesof a determin- produce quite different kinds of effect. Capra
istic world and an arbitrary world of pure chance' :t-rcuTstalces
describes
[r997: 1g9). how much of the physical world is characterizedby
complexity thus repudiatesthe dichotomies of deteiminism ani 'non-linearity':'Nonlin"u.
ph".ro-ena dominate much of
chancg as well as nature and society,being and becoming, stasi, the inanimateworld than we had
thought, and they are an-o."
essen-
and change.Physicalsystemsdo not exhibit and sustain.tnlhu.,g tial aspectof the network pattern
of liir.rg systems'Ir996: l22).
ing structural stability. The complexity sciences elaborate hc Experimentson the pop.rl"tio.,
size of insect colonies show dra-
there is order and disorder within all physical and social ph matic non-linear changesoccurring
through often smalr changes
nomena,including, accordingto Kauffrnan and in tlie degree oF ou"...o*dtng of that colony
[1993), within evolu i:^b*h 1a!es
tion itself C."r,i 1994: 934). Ovei time the insect popul"tto.,
l::,: dramati_
Systemsare thus seen by complexity as being ,on the edge of and then falls with no movement ttwards any point
)1111,.Itr:r
r _ q U l l l b r i u m. of
chaos'.order and chaos are in a kind of balancewhere the com-
\I
ponents are neither fully locked into place but yet do not fully there has been in western societiesa historical
,^_rrevertheless
dissolveinto anarchy.chaos is not complete anarchicrandomness vtcotspositionto kinds of explanation
that posit a single central
but there is a kind of 'orderly disordei' present within all such Sovernor;that such explanationsappear
. . . more natural and con-
dynamic systems(seeHayles l99l, l9g9). ceptually simpler
than global, in;;ractive accounts, (Fox Keller
1A
LA The Complexi4t Turn
1985: 155). However,what in the end should convinceare expla
nations that do capture this 'complexly interactive' nature
systemsas a whole [Fox Keller 1985: 157J. Complexity investi
gatesthe physicsof such populationsand their emergent,dynami
and self-organizingsystemic properties [Prigogine1997: 35). S
systemsare unstable.A particular agent rarely produces a sin
and confined effect. Interventions or changeswill tend to produ
an array of possible effects right acrossthe system in questi
(sometimes known as side effects). Prigogine describes
system effects as 'a world of irregulaq chaotic motions' [1997
155; seealso,on'system effects',Jervis1997).
This notion of the non-linear or comolexitv involves t
crucial presumptions.First, there is no necessaryproportionali
between 'causes'and 'effects' of events or ohenomena. Seco
there is no necessaryequivalence between the individual a
statisticallevels of analysis.Thus what may characterizethe indi
vidual will typically be very different from what is true at t
statistical or system level. Third, the statistical or system effec
are not the result of adding together the individual componen
There is something else involved, normally known as emergen
fJervis1997: ch. 2).
These points can be illustrated from the simple example of
pile of sand.If we considersuch a pile and place an extra grain o
sandon top, then the extra grain (the 'cause')either may stay the
or it may cause a small avalanche.The system is self-organi
without a 'central governor' and the effects of a particular loca
change can be enormously different (Cilliers 1998: 97). There i
'self-organizedcriticality' fwaldrop 1994: 304-6), with the pi
of sand maintaining itself at the critical height. It is impossible
predict what the consequenceswill be of particular locali
actions.The effects of the same 'cause' can be microscooic or
elobal.
The central idea is that of 'emergence',that there are collective
properties of all sorts of phenomena.Cohen and Stewart say that
there are those 'regularitiesof behaviour that somehow seem to
transcendtheir own ingredients'[1994: 237; seealso Byrne 1998:
ch. 3). It is not that the sum is greater than the size of its parts -
but that there are system effects that are somehow different from
its parts. Complexity examines how components of a systern
The ComplexiN'furn 25
their interaction'spontaneously'develop collectiveprop-
through
patterns,even simple properties such as colour, that do
"t implicit within, or at least not implicit in the same way,
"rii"r
l^l ."em
,rtrfrt" inclividualcomponents.
"-ThLrs
the flavour of sugar is not present in the carbon, hydro-
a1d oxygen atoms that comprise it. The sublime taste of
-on
l"-"uonnuir" is so different from its mundane components fCapra
Zg, Cilliers 1998).The interdependentparts of a jumbo jet,
ig,siO,
ihrougl-ttheir very particular incredibly complex combination,
'plane' to fly. These
,rodu." the emergent property of enabling a
all striking non-linear consequences that are not present
"re
within, or reducible to, the very many individual componentsthat
cornprisesuch activities (Jervis 1997).
Suchlarge-scalepatternsor propertiesemergefrom, but are not
reducibleto, the micro-dynamicsof the phenomenon in question.
Thus gasesare not uniform entities but comprise a seethingcon-
fusionof atoms obeyingthe laws of quantum mechanics.The laws
governinggasesderive not from the behaviour of each individual
atom but from their statistical patterning fCohen and Stewart
1994: 232-31. The statistical pattern is different from and irre-
ducible to the individual components.The key issueif that of rela-
tionality,a dance almost without dancers,accordingto Bohm.
Also, if a system passesa particular threshold with minor
changesin the controlling variables,switches may occur and the
emergentproperties switch or turn over. Thus a liquid turns into
a gasor relatively warm weather suddenly transformsinto an ice
age[Cohen and Stewart 1994:21;Byrne 1998:23). Leadingnon-
linear scientist Nicolis summarizes how in a non-linear system:
'addlng two elementary actions to one another can induce dra-
matic new effects reflecting the onset of cooperativity between
the constituent elements.This can give rise to unexpected struc-
tures and events whose properties can be quite different from
thoseof the underlyingelementarylaws'fl995: 1-2J.
Moreover,there is the'trap of linearity'(1. Stewart 1989: 83).
^so,
although statisticiansare aware of these complex and emer-
gent properties, given the conventional 'repressionof the non-
linear', these normally get referred to and reduced to so-called
nteraction effects. But this is problematic, since, according to
Byrne,'complexity is locked away in the interaction term' [1998:
26 The Complexity Turn
20.).In order to eiaboratesuch interaction effects and to unlock
that complexity, further concepts are necessary,especially to
separate out the different kinds of complex 'interconnections'
characterizingphysical and indeed social systems.
Attractors
In particular, the emergenceof patterning within any given system
stems from 'attractors'. If a dynamic system does not move over
time through all possibleparts of a potential or phase spacebut
instead occupies a restricted part of it, then this is said to result
from an attractor (Capra 1996: ch. 6). The simplest attractor is a
point, as with the unforced swingingof a pendulum with friction.
The simple system reaches the single point attractor. Metaphori-
cally it can be said that 'the fixed point at the centre of the co-
ordinate system"attracts"the trajectory' (Capra 1996: 130J.
A somewhat more complex example is a domestic central
heating/air conditioning system where the attractor consists,not
of a single point, but of a specified range of temperatures.The
relationship is not linear but involves what are called negatiue
feedback mechanisms.These feedbacksminimize deviance and
reestablisha specified range of temperatures.It is impossible to
predict exactly what the precise temperature will be - only that
it will lie within the rangethat constitutesthe attractor.Topologi-
cally this attractor is like a doughnut, a system close to equilib-
rium in which effective negative feedback loops always bring the
temperature back within the range specified within the system.
This is a self-regulating and bounded system where negative feed-
back is crucial. Byrne suggeststhat this is analogousto social
sciencestudiesof Fordism [see Byrne 1998: Z8). An attractor and
set of feedback mechanisms have for decades kept so-called
Fordist societieswithin the range of possiblealternativeswithin
the doughnut ring and did not permit such societies to stray
beyond the limits of the system in question.
In certain complex systems,though, there are 'strange attrac-
tors'. These are unstablespacesto which the trajectory of dynami-
cal systemsis attracted through biilions of iterations.What are
important here are positiue feedbacks occurring over time that
The ComplexityTurn 27
take the system away from any point of equilibrium [Byrne
''ay
l!)98: 26-9). Either such a spacemay be indeterminatewithin the
boundariesor there may be various setsof boundaries.
This dynamic instability can be seen in the butterfly-shaped
Lorenz attractor.fsee its two-dimensional representation in Capra
1996: 133). Such attractorsare immenselysensitivein the effects
generatedto slight variationsin their initial conditions.Thus 'very
imall differences in the value of control parameters at the bifur-
cation point determine which of two radically different trajec-
toriesthe system settlesinto' fByrne 1998: 28). And, as iteration
occurstime and time again,so an unstableand unpredictablepat-
terned disorder developsthat can be mathematicallymodelled. It
is impossibleto predict which point in such spacethe trajectory
of an attractor will pass through, even though there are deter-
ministic laws involved. Much recent sciencehas been concerned
to characterizethe shaping or topology of such strange attractors.
Iterationsin non-linear systemsresult in valuesthat topologically
produce a kind of repeated stretching and folding effect, often
knorvn as the 'baker transformation' [Capra 1996: 132). These
attractorspresuppose complex mathematics and massive com-
puterizedcalculationsof the sort that has only been possiblesince
the early 1970s.
Central to the patterning of attractors in time and spaceare the
different kinds of feedback mechanisms.Early cybernetic research
under the auspicesof the Macy Conferencesin the post-second
Worid War period emphasizedthe importance of negative feed-
back loops.These would have the effect of restoring the homeo-
static functioning of whatever system was under examination.
Such systemsof circular causality involved the processingof infor-
mation that resulted in the re-establishmentof equilibrium and
stabllity through negativefeedback.
However, in later systemsformulations, of complexity or the
non-linear, positive feedback loops are examined. These are
viewed as exacerbating initial stressesin the system, so rendering
it unable to absorb shocks and re-establishingthe original equi-
librium
[on the history of cybernetics,see A"yl", tOOO).Very
stronginteractionsoccur between the parts of a system and there
rs an absenceof a central hierarchicalstructure able to 'govern'
outcomes.Positive feedback occurs when a change tendency is
 28 The Comobxiw Turn The ComplexityTurn 29
reinforced rather than dampened down, as occurs with the the product of its operation is its own organization,with
systen-r
negative feedback involved in a cybernetic central heating/air- development of boundariesspecifiiingthe domain of its opera-
lire
conditioningsystem. dgll-t
tions and _the
self-making system as such (Capra 1996:
A socialscienceapplication of positive feedbackcan be seenin 98; Flayles1999: ch. 6).
the economic and sociologicalanalysesof the increasingreturns Autopoiesis can be seen in non-linear laser theory where the
that can occur acrossa whole industry or activity. This can lay coordinationof the required emissionsis seen as carried out by
down irreversiblepath dependencewhere contingent events set the laserlight itself through ongoingprocessesof self-organization
into motion institutional patterns that have long-term determin- (capra 1996: 91-2). tt can also be seen in the nature oF urban
istic properties [Mahoney 2000: 507). One example of this would growth. Small local preferencesmildly expressedin the concerns
be the way the privately owned 'steel-and-petroleum'car devel- of individuals,such as wanting to live with those who are ethni-
oped in the last decade of the nineteenth century and came to cally similat can lead to massively segregatedneighbourhoods
exert an awesome domination over other fuel alternatives, espe- such as those characteristicof large American cities. Krugman
cially steam and electric power that were at the time preferable arguesthat residential patterns are unstable in the face of .urido-
(Motavalli 2000). The 'path dependence'of the petroleum-based perturbations:'local,short-rangeinteractionscan createlarge-scale
car was establishedand sot'locked' in.
Iself-organizing]structure' [1996: l7). More generally,in the
Compiexity theory generallyanalysessystemsas unstable,dis- socialsciencesLuhmann has most elaboratedthe implications of
sipativestructures.They are thermodynamicallyopen and capable autopoiesisfor examining the long-term functioning of social
of assimilating large quantities of energy from the environmen systems.
and simultaneously converting it into increasedstructural com- Thus far I have set out some of the key notions in the sciences
plexity (Reed and Harvey 1992: 360-2). Such systemsalso dissi- of complexiti'. I have_briefly outlined the following .o.r."pi, ,,".-
pate into their environment hieh levels of residualheat. essaryfor analysingthe physical and socialworlds: multipie times
Such dissipative systemsreach points of bifurcation when their and spaces;the unpredi,ctabrlity and irreversibility of ti-e;
order
behaviour and future pathways become unpredictable and new and chaos;non-linear effects;emergence;bifurcation; negative
and
higher order, more differentiated, structures may emerge. Dissi- positive feedback; self-organization; and various
attractors. In the
pative structures involve non-linearity,a flowingnessof time, no rest of this chapter some important usesof complexity
found in
separationof systemsand their environment, and a capacity for analyses that interrogatecertain material worlds will be examined.
the autopoeitic re-emergence of a new ordering far from any in subsequentchapterselementsof complexity
will be connected
system equilibrium [Capra 1996: 89, 187). Systems appear to to the very influential global debatesnow
creating'chaos' across
have the capability of reordering themselves into manl' socialsciences.
complex structuresfollowing points of bifurcation. "u"i -o.e
Maturana and Varela famously developed the notion that any
such systems are self-making or autopoietic [Maturana l98l; Complex Systems
Mingers 1995). Such autopoiesisinvolves the idea that living
systems entail a process of self-making or self-producing. ttgn: beginby_notingthat thereis an emergrng.structure
I", of
Autopoiesis involves a network of production processesin which both signifiesand enhln"ces
l-."ji*_,,h:t -complexity (Williams
the function of each componenr is to participate in the produc- t trrift 1999).such an emergentstructureinvolvesa greater
l "J;
tion or transformationof other componentsin the network. In this conringentopenness availableto people,corpoiations
way the network comes to make itself It is produced by the com- ::",t- "f
orrcl
_societies, of the diversity of geographies,of a charity to-
ponents and these in turn produce the components.In a living wardsobjectsand nature,of ihe
diir".L and variegatedpattern_
30 The ComolexiwTurn
ing of relationships,households and persons,and of the sheer
increase in the hyper-complexity of products, technologies and
socialities[Rycroft and Kash 1999: 55; Thrift 1999: 53-9; Duffield
2 00 1 ).
Complexity has already had a significantimpact upon a huge
range of social and intellectual discoursesand practices,including
alternative healing, architecture, consultancy, consumer design,
economics, defence studies, fiction, garden design, geography,
history literary theory, management education, New Age, organi-
zational learning, philosophy, post-structuralism, sociology, stock-
car racing, town planning and so on. Notions of chaos an
complexity move in unpredictable ways from discourse to dis-
course, practice to practice, creating on occasionsa sense of
'chaoscult' [Maasen and Weingart 2000: 125).
However, while most of the non-physical scienceshave 'gon
global' in the past decade,the major sociologicalapplicationso
complexity remain strangely'societal'[see Luhmann 1990, 1
Reed and Harvey 1992; Baker 1993; Francis1993; Mingers 199
Keil and Elliott 1996;Eve et al. 1997;Biggs1998;Byrne 1998
Cilliers 1998;Hayles1999;Rycroftand Kash 1999;Medd 2000
Capra 2002).
And yet this is paradoxical, since 'complexity' practices
themselves be conceptualized as a self-organizingglobal ne
Chaos/non-linear/complexityresearchersdeploy the techniq
of PR and branding, international meetings, guru worship, net
working especially centred on certain nodes such as Santa Fe
the various Research Institutes named after Prigogine, and
extensiveuse of global media [Waldrop 1994; Thrift 1999
MaasenandWeingart2000).
We can begin here by noting how Robert Rycroft and Don Kash
inThe ComplexityChallenge[1999: ch.4) examine the complex
ity of the material worlds that are involved in various technologi-
cal systems.They note that there has been a huge increasein
sheer number of components within products. The Eli Whitney
musket of around 1800 had fifty-one components, while the space
shuttle of the late twentieth century contained ten million'
Second, there is the massive increase in the cybernetic contri-
bution performed by architectures that integrate components
through feedback loops, both in products such as cars, and in the
The ComplexiwTurn 3l
orocessside of technology.The authors conclude that 'it is now
norm"l for both product and process innovation to emphasize
2jjustment and adaptation through continuous feedback'
fRycroft and Kash 1999: 55). Such systems thus increasingly
involve hardware, software and 'socialware'. Products and
Drocesses constitute systemsthat cannot be understood without
social organizational features.Thus there are increasinglycomplex
socio-technical systems or what I term material worlds.
Rycroft and Kash examine how there has been a huge shift
towardscomplexity in contemporaryeconomies.Even in 1970 the
rnost valuable products in world trade were still simple products
producedby simple processes, such as clothes,papet yarn, meat,
coffee and so on. But a mere quarter of a century late1,only 14
per cent of the most valuable items in world trade are such simple
productsproduced by simple processes. By t 995 nearly two-thirds
of the most valuable products in world trade involved complex
processesand complex products, involving vast numbers of com-
ponents, cybernetic architectures and socio-technical systems
fRycroft and Kash 1999: 56-7).
This 'increasing complexity of products and processes with
the greatest export value . . . is linked with self-organizing net-
works.Such network organizational systemsare continuously self-
reproducing themselves by developing the most sophisticated
skills and structures necessary to innovate technologies that
overcomeobstacles,or create new pathways'
[Rycroft and Kash
1999:6l-2). They go on to connect such self-reproductionto the
importance of positive feedback and organizational learning
within socio-technicalsystemsor networks.
if the history of recent technology shows the impossibility
ot^But
c.onceivingof 'technologies'as merely non-human, so Stephen
t5udiansky's Nature'sKeepers(1995) developsan excoriatingcri-
tique of preserving apparently eternal and wild 'non-h.rman'
nature.'Strict preservationthrough a hands-off or "natural"
man-
a8ementpolicy has destroyed many of the very
things that nature
roversclaim to value the most'
[Budiansky 1995: 8). Thus there
ts no such thing as 'nature'sbalance',
no real or primordial nature
that would be in equilibrium if
only humans had not intruded. It
ts shown how the effects
of humans are subtly and irreversibly
woven into the very evolution of landscape.
Countless forms of
JZ The ComplexityTurn
human habitation have affected all such systemsover the millen-
nia, especiallythe extensive and regular use of fire by original
dwellers to clear land for primitive agriculture [as with native
Americans in the USA). And any ecologicalsystem is immensely
complex so that there are never straightforward policies tha
simply restore nature's balance.Ecologicalsystemsare always on
the edge of chaos without a 'natural' tendency towards equili
rium, even if all humans were to depart forever from the
1995:11).
fB udiansky
Indeed many ecologicalsystemsthemselvesdepend not upon
stable relationships but upon massiveintrusions, of extraordinary
flows of species from other parts of the globe and of fire, light-
ning, hurricanes, high winds, ice storms, flash floods, frosts, earth-
quakes and so on. The "'normal" state of nature is not one
balanceand repose;the "normal" stateis to be recoveringfrom
last disaster' (Budiansky 1995: 71). And it is such disasters,
swirling pattern of constant change,that produces the rich diver'
sity of niches where micro-habitats can develop, although
these developments can only be seen over very lengthy peri
of time. These periods are often much longer than the lives
particular researchersor of research programmes. It is therefo
instability and change that makes for diversity and not a stab
unchanging'nature' in some supposedstate of equilibrium. So,
Prigoginebeganto show in the 1960s,systemscan be ordered b
far from equilibrium.
Moreovel, the population size of a speciesshows no
to stability, and especially not to rise smoothly to the presu
carrying capacity of its environment and then to level off a
remain stable. Rather populations of most speciesdemonstra
extreme unevenness,with populations often rising rapidly when
introduced into an area and then almost as rapidly collapsing
[Jervis 1997: 28). The food consumption of animal species
respondsin a non-linear and time-laggedfashion to changingcir-
cumstancesand this produces massiveunevennessof population
size with no natural or equilibrium size [see Budiansky 1995:
90-5). Indeed, the chaotic properties of biological systemsalso
make predictions of what favours the protection of a particular
species pretty well impossible. Most interventions designed to
protect some particular speciesactually triggeredunforeseenside
The Complexity Turn 33
efTectsthat made the speciesweaker than it had inltially been
fBudiansky1995: I 60-l).
This stunning unpredictability of the material world can also
be seen from how even roadside and urban environments have
beconre sites in whlch rapidly expanding and apparently irre-
versible populations of various animal and plant species have
dramatically emerged. These are sites that are well away from
what would appear to be the 'natural' habitats of such species.
The 'urban' and the 'wild' are no longer exclusive categories
fBudiansky1995; Clark 2000; Davis 2000a). Thus rats and foxes
are plentiful within European cities, while, around Los Angeles,
coyotes,skunks, squirrels, rats, killer bees,wild dogs, racoons and
even mountain lions are rapidly increasing in numbers as they
switch from specific predation to a broader-basedopportunistic
feeding- in the case of lions, now feeding on small rodents, pets,
human garbageand increasinglyhumans (on'non-linear lions', see
Davis 2000a:249).
Through a non-linear reading of the turbulent 'city', Clark
argues that 'in the very heartland of the social . . . there is a
resurgenceof "nature", and efflorescenceof "life"' [2000: 29).
There is a material world emerging in cities that is mobile, volatile
andwe might say cosmopolitan.There is no silent,docile 'nature',
especiallywhen confronted by new forms of 'culture'. Indeed,
there are various emergent hlghly adaptable viruses,such as Aids
and ebola,new superbugs,newly lethal pathogenssuch as prions,
andthe reappearanceofTB, cholera and the bubonic plague.Such
a medicalized 'apocalypse now' stems from novel patterns of
glohal travel and trade, the heightened ineffectiveness of anti-
bioticsthat encounter increased'iesistance', and the development
of new powerful risk cultures beyond and especially within
'medicine'
itself [Van Loon 2002: ch. 6). This echtes De Landa's
more general analysisof cities. He conceivesof them as complex,
oynamic and open systems containing exceptional flows and
mixtures of the organic and the inorganic, the living and the
non-living, the human and the non-human, culture and nature,
the risky and the risk free
[De Landa 1997; Clark 20001.
._ Mike Davis's Ecologtof Fro, examines one such city in detail.
He concentratesupoiome of the emergent material-social inter-
cnanges occurring in and around the paradigm
twenty-{irst
 -^ The ComplexityTurn The ComplexityTurn 35
century city, Los Angeles (Davis 2000a; ch. l). What was
follovr,in a non-linear way from the intervention to prevent those
thought of as the l,and of Sunshine is being reinvented as
iimit"d fires that would otherwise constitute a routine feature of
ApocalypseTheme Park.Between 1992 and i995 in Los Ange
the Malibu ecosystemin l-os Angeles.
floods were followed by riots, by floods, by firestorms,by This example shows that certain kinds of cause can senerate
tornado,by an earthquake
andby floodsagain.Nearlytwo milli hugeend unpredictablechangewhile orher examples*ould ,ho*
people were affected by disaster-relateddeath, injury or dam that external causescould generatealmost no significanteffects.
to home and business.Half a million people left the city withi There is, therefore,a lack of proportionality bet*""n 'causes'and
two years.Southern California is characterizedby the catastrophic ,effects',although we should bear in mind that there are really
no
coincidenceof extreme events. such things as causes that are'external' to such a system.
Moreover, this is not a random disorder but a dynamic pattern The characterof such systemsis specificallyexplored in charles
of escalatingfeedback loops resulting from the pattern of urban Perrow's Normal Accidents. He argues that, given certain system
sprawl. Conditions that have produced this include the wide- characteristics,multiple, unexpected and interacting failures are
spreadgrowth of what has been called'slopingsuburbia',the over- systemicallyinevitable [Perrow 1999: 5; see also Jervis 1997).
whelming use of the automobile, the lack of public space,th Such accidentswill occur when the system is tightly coupled, so
concreting of the river basin, the building of houses in ecologi- that processeshappen very fast and cannot be turned off whe'
cally unsuitable areas,as well as global warming more generally. the failed parts cannot be isolated and when there is no other
Extreme events,especially extreme weather events, demonstrate, way ro ke-epthe systemgoing.With such tightly coupled systems,
according to Davis, 'the principle of nonlinearity where small recoveryfrom the initial disturbance that may lravebeen reiatively
changesin driving variablesor inputs - magnified by feedback trivial is impossible.The consequences will spreadquickly,chaoti-
can produce disproportionate,or even discontinuous,outcomes' cally and irreversibly throughout the system, so pioducing
(2000a:19). 'systemaccidents'rather than accidentscaused
bv individual error
Malibu, the wildfire capital of North America, is particularly (Perrow 1999: I l).
illustrative here fDavis 2000a: ch. 3). Various interdependent In loosely coupled systemsby contrast there is plenty of slack
causeshistorically produce a particular intensity of fires in this in terms of time, resourcesand organizationalcapacity.-Theyare
area.What seems most significant is the non-linear relationshi much lesslikely to produce normal accidentssinie rncidents
can
between the age structure of vegetation and the intensity of fires be
.coped with, so avoiding the interactive complexity found
that are generated. Filty-year-old trees burn fifty times more within the dghtly coupled system. in the latter, moreoveq,
the
intensely than twenty-year-old trees. Howeve4, because of the ettects are non-linear. Up to a point, tightening
the connections
highly influential residentsliving in the Malibu region, there has between elements in the system i,-r.r""se" efficiency when
been since I9l9 a policy of 'total fire suppression'.This has the lverything works smoothly. But, -ill
if one small item goes wrong,
effect that the smaller fires that are beneficial in recycling nutri- then that can have a catastrophicknock-on
effect throuehout the
ents do not take place,and more importantly the bulk of trees in :)/stem The system literally switches over; from smooth [unc_
the area are much older and more intense in the fires that they ttoning to interactively complex
disaster. And sometimes this
subsequentlyproduce. So the limitation on small fires results in r_esultsf1o1 a supposed
improvement in the system. Thus
greater and larger fires subsequently.And, further, the extreme safety.withina car through the regalryenforcedwearing
:Tptoy"q
or seatbelts,or the enhanced
fires that are intermittently generated transform the chemical safety systemson the Titanic,or the
structure of the soil, turning it into a water-repellentlayer that ilft,V systems in raiiway signaiilng, cu.r,in very particular condi-
dramatically acceleratessubsequent sheet flooding and erosion ttons,produce correspondingly
more da.,gerouibehaviour and an
tncreasedlikelihood of 'normal
[Davis 2000a: 100-3). Extreme fire events and massiveflooding accidents' [Adams 1995; Jeri,is
36 The ComplexityTurn
1997: 68-9). What we might call the Titanic effect is a good
example of the 'complex interconnectedness' of systems[on com-
plexity theory, see Perrow 1999: 386). As Law maintains,on the
basis of research on train crashes,'system perfection is not only
impossible but, more strongly, it may be selfdefeating' (2000:14).
On occasions,system fluidities or imperfections are essential for
'safety' becauseof the complex characteristicsof the system in
question.
There are some parallelsbetween issuesof system safety and the
curious kinds of cooperation found between American stock-car
drivers travelling at up to 190 m.p.h. on super-speedwaysfRonfeldt
2001). These racers both cooperate and compete according to
complex and emergent sets of rules.The drivers self-organizeinto
cooperative draft lines and then intermittently form competitive
break-out lines.They use radio communications to generateinfor-
mation and especially to seek out allies. According to Ronfeldt,
'this creates a fast-moving, dynamic structure, or system, that
exhibits a kind of order - oscillating lines in front of a milling pack,
tightly coupled and fraught with nonlinear processes- that is often
on the verge ofcriticality, chaosand catastrophe'(2001: l7). Such
stock-car racing could be seen as emblematic of US society. It
involves peculiar combinations of cooperation and competition
and resultsin complex systemoutcomes.
More generally,Manuel De Landa'sAThousandYears of Non-
linear History fl997) examines through the prism of complexity
different kinds of systemic organization, especiallyof 'meshworks'
for networks of networks) and of hierarchy. He is especially con-
cerned with the organization and consequencesof the flows o
various materials,especiallyof energy,genesand languages.Where
such flows were dominated by 'hierarchical'homogenization [or
tight couplingJ, as occurred through centuries of Chinese history
then explosive, self-organizing urban development did not take
place. I[ is only with meshworks and a resulting 'freedom of
motion' and 'maximum mobility' that a 'dynamic pattern of tur-
bulent urban evolution in the West' occurs, involving intense and
productive flows of energy, transportation and money [Braudel
1973: 396-7; De Landa 1997:3445). Cities are sites of inter-
change between various intersecting flows - and some cities
develop the capacity for self-organization and massive growth.
The Complexity Turn 37
Laer I argue_that it is only with such mobilities that complex
systemsdevelop in the 'social' world - through combinations of
rnobility and moorings.
\4ore generally, De Landa develops a wide-ranging analysis
of bodies, selves,cities and societies.He views these as merelv
'transitory hardenings' in the more basic flows of minerals, g..r"r,
diseases,energy, information, and language that over the past
millennium have swept acrossthe earth's crust [De Landa ]997:
259-60). In examining 'global complexity', similar analysesare
developedof the flows of such intersecting and non-lin".. ,-"-
terial worlds' that intermittently realize 'transitory hardenings'.
Conclusion
Thus a wide array of complexity formulations has been introduced
here; and a number of illustrative studies drawn on to suggestthe
usefulnessof these approachesbeyond the physical and blologi-
cal sciences
Such complexity analysesalso emphasize that scientific obser-
vations are themselves components of the systemsbeing investi-
gated.There is nothing outside the system. Hence the notions of
complex systems undermine certain 'realist' formulations that
speakof an 'external world'. As Heisenberg expressesit: 'What
we observeis not nature itself but nature exposed to our method
of questioning' fcited in Capra 1996: 40). This connectednessof
sciencewith its system of investigation has two major implica-
tions for what follows.
First, we need to ask lf the particular physical and/or social
systempresentsitself to the current practicesof social sciencein
ways that mean it can be systematicallyobserved and analysed.
What are the conditions of possibility of a scienceof that ,yrt".r,
or systemsin question?What forms could it take given the current
observational,measurementand theoretical practicesof contem-
porary science?Second,we should ask if these practicesof inves-
tigation themselves produce complex effects upon the system in
question, in casesresulting in a self-fulfilling prophecy where
researchfindings help to bring about the very effects that they are
themselvesinvestigating.
38 The Complexi4tTurn

Both these points are pertinent to global systems.First, the

enormously open character of global systems might mean that
they are currently beyond systematicanalysis.One could hypo-
thesize that current phenomena have outrun the capacity of the
social sciencesto investigate.We should ask whether the global is
3
constituted as a fit object of [social) scienceinvestigation.Are the
observational,measurementand theoreticalresourcesup to inves-
tigating the enormously complex characterof global systems?My Limits of 'Global'Analvses
proposal here is that social scienceneeds all the help that it can
get to analysesuch systems.This explainsthe necessityto turn to
some of the theoretical resourcesof complexity that are centrally
concerned with the processesof large-scaleemergence.It seems
reasonable to consider how and in what ways such complexity
notions may pertain to examining the many processesof global
emergence. Introduction
Second,the proliferation of huge numbers of 'global' analyses
has in a way become part of the very system being investigated. In this chapter I show the limitations of many globalization ana-
They are helping to perform the global in part in a self-fulfilling lysesthat deal insufficiently with the complexcharacter of emer-
manner. One element then of what needs investigation are the gent global relations.This is on the face of it surprising,because
multiple ways in which acrossvarious systemsthe global comes the paradigm of globalization would seem to connect to com_
to be performed through arguments, images, books, TV pro- plexity ways of thinking, even where the languageand techniques
grammes,symposia,magazinesand information that increasingly of complexity are not explicitly deployed
represent, speak and perform 'the global' [see Franklin et al. Self-evidently,the analysis of globalization emphasizesthat
2000). events happening in one piace importantly lmpacl upon many
In the next chapter I consider certain of these analysesof the other places, often remote in time and in rpu."
1fo. details, see
global. I show that most are as yet insufficiently 'complex', while Goerner l9_94).Giddens defined globalization as early as 1990:
in subsequent chapters I develop the notion of 'global com- .the intensificationof worldwide socialrelationswhlch link distant
plexity', as the complexity turn in the social sciencesis explored localitiesin such away that local happeningsare shaped
by events
and hopefully enhanced. occurring_manymiles away and vice versa,
[1990: 64). The
analysisof globalizationbrings out the obvious lnterdeperriencies
oetweenpeoples,places,organizationsand technological
systems
stretchingacrossthe world. These interdependencies
involue eco-
nlnli:, social,political and military happenings.
With the analysis
of globalizationno place'is an island'. '
Complexity-researcher Chris Langton further maintained that:
,-
rrom the interaction of the individual
components. . . emerges
somekind of property . . . somethingyou
.orrldn't have predicted
rrorn what you know of the
component parts. . . . And ihe global
property, this emergent
behaviour feeds back to influence the
40 Limits of 'Global' Analyses Limits of 'Global' Analyses
4l

behaviour . . . of the individuals that produced it' [cited Thrift to be a region with clear and distinct boundaries drawn around
1999: 33-4; see alsoWaldrop 1994: 329). Globalizationanalyses each one'
should bring out theseglobal emergentproperties,such asthe for- second, there are networlzsthat stretch across diverse regions.
tunes of the world economy or global environmental change or within a network as understood here there is a relational con_
cultural homogenization through the global media or the world- stancy between its components.These components deliver an
wide spreadof representativedemocracies[see Held et al' 1999). invariant outcome, sometimes known as 'immutable mobiles,,
Within sociology the analysisof such global properties seems through the entire network crossingregional boundaries.Manv
to'solve' the debate between those advocatingstudying the social scientific communities deliver such immutable mobil.,
whole [methodological holists) and those advocating the expla- much of the network. ".-r',
nation of social phenomenathrough accountsthat begin with the Third, there are fluids where 'neither boundaries nor relations
individual [methodological individualists).There appearsto be a mark the difference between one place and another. Instead,
new level of the social whole, the global, with emergent proper- sometimesboundaries come and go, allow leakageor disappear
ties that are clearly not those of individuals, nor could be reduced altogether,while relations transform themselveswlthout f.a.tr.e.
in any sense to individuals. The study of the global level would Sometimes,then, social spacebehaveslike a fluid, [Mol and Law
appearto solve the problem of the relationshipbetween structure \994: 643). Such fluids slowly transmutateas they move within
and agency,with the former'winning' the argument. an.l acrossspace.
However, this book is premised upon the idea that many Thus there are three distinct spatial patterns, region, network
globalization analysestreat the emergent global properties as too and fluid, and the social sciences ha,re failed tlo distinguish
unified and as too powerful. Their analysisis simplified, static between them satisfactorily.In particular the idea of , fl.rid i,
and reductionist. This can be seen in formulations that state that perhapsthe least familiar. Mol and Law use this notion to describe
'globalization'is x or alternativelythat 'globalization'doesx. The how anaemiais dealt with acrossthe world. Mol and Law esoe-
advocatesof, and the critics of globalization 'assume a too linear ciaily show the apparent differences between the treatments
of anaemiain the Netherlands compared with various African'
trajectory of globalizationand . . . make the paper tiger of global-
countries.They argue that there is no simple regionardifference
izationinto a nasty and invincible bogeyman' [R. Keil 1998: 619).
'Globalization' I suggestis neither unified nor can act as a subject between its monitoring and treatment in the Netherlands com-
pared with Africa. Nor though is there a single clinical network.
nor should it be conceivedof in linear fashion.
operating worldwide with elements that hang together through
in'ariant relations that transport the same ,anaemia,
to both the
Netherlands and to Africa'. Rather than either region or network,
Regions, Networks and Fluids
they argue that: 'We're looking at uariation
without boundariesand
transformationwithout discontinuity.We're
Thus I examine the idea of the global in terms of the distinctions looking at flows. The
spacewith which we are dealing is
between 'regions,networks and fluids' made by Annemarie Mol fluid' [Mol and Law 1994:
658; emphasisin original).
and John Law [l994; see also Urry 2000b). These distinctionsare
drawn on to bring out the varied spatial patterns or topologies that like blood, can be seenas a fluid, flowing in and out
of"'Anaemia',
different regions, across different borders, using jiverse net-
characterizediverse'global' systems.What do these terms mean?
works. It changesas it goes,although
First, there are regionsin which objects are clustered together' this is often iriways that are
more or lessimperceptiblcat the time. Anaemia
Regionsare defined in terms of three orthogonal coordinatesthat as an illnessis
ttuid-like,similar to blood,
rp".ify each such cluster. Such a topology is familiar and regularly and subtectto manv transformatrons
evenas itremains as'anaemia'.
,rr"d i.r analysingeach 'society'.No.*"i[y each society is deemed Fluiis rr" rrrble.i to mixtures and
42 Limitsof 'Global'Analyses
gradientswith no necessarilyclear boundaries.The objects g
ated may not be clearly defined. Normality is a gradient and
a clear absolute.In a fluid space it is not possible to determi
identities once and for all. Various other fluids may combi
together with each other; thus a 'fluid world is a world of
tures' (Mol and Law 1994: 660). Fluids are not solid or sta
Moreove4,fluids get around absencessuch as the location of
laboratory in an African war zone and are contingent. In sh
Mol and Law fl994: 664) conclude:
The study of fluids, then, will be a study of the relations, repulsions
and attractions which form a flow. . . . So how does anaemia flow?
How does it move between the Netherlands and Africa and back
again?. . . It may flow in people's skills, or as part of the attribute
of devices,or in the form of written words. . . . And as it moves, it
changesits shape and character.
Mol and Law thus bring out the power of the fluid to account
the uneven and heterogeneousskills, technologies,interventi
and tacit knowledge of those that are involved in monitoring
treating anaemia in various clinics acrossthe world. The ex
and power of such fluids stretching within and especially
societal borders raise important questions about the power
societiesfas 'regions') to implement appropriate medical t
ment or functioning economies.Especiallythe fluid of 'an
will take different forms as it gorges within, or trickles th
any particular region. Such a fluid can be distinguishedin
of the rate of flow, its uiscosity, its depth, its consistency and i
degreeof confinemenrwithin certain channels.The idea of a flui
is a very important notion here that provocativelycapturesas
of how to think the slobal that the ideas of resion and net
ignore. In the following I show how these distinctions of regio4
.,"t*o.k and fluid relate to societiesand the study of the global'
Global Regions,Networks and Flows
I have shown elsewherethat social scientific work dependsu
metaohors and much theoretical debate consistsof con
Limitsof 'Global'Analyses 43
different metaphors (seeUrry 2000b: ch. 21. In particu-
hetween
ij.' ,n" sociologicalconcept of society is organized around the
tl,"r"ohot
of a region- namely, that'objects are clustered together
l-J Uounduriesare drawn around each particular cluster' [Mol
::; art., 1994:643J There seem to be many different societies,
*trtr its specific clustering of social institutions organized
ii.oueh a nation state,and with a clear and policed border sur-
"u.n
."unding each societyqua region.Societyqua bounded region has
b".n ."nt.tl to notions of the nation state, democracy and citi-
zenshiPfor the Past century or so.
One approachthen to the study of globalizationis alsoto view
the global as a region involved in increasinginter-regionalcom-
petition with each 'society'. In the 'struggle' between these two
regions, many analystspresumethat the global is winning, albeit in
coinphcatedways, vis-a-vis each nation-state society.This is what
hasbeen called the hyperglobalistposition fsee Held et al. 1999:
3-71.For example,Martin and Schumannuncompromisinglywrite
that globalization,'understoodas the unfettering of world-market
forcesand the removal of economic power from the state,is for
most nations a brute fact from which they cannot escape'[1997:
216).And, accordingto Ohmae (1992), there is alreadya border-
lessworld of global relations with the regions of 'society' acrossthe
world being wholly in retreat fsee also Fukuyama 1992;Albrow
1996).The constraintsof spaceor geographyhave been eliminated
because of denationalizedflows of information. This victory of the
borderlessglobal region is highly desirablefor Ohmae.
Castellscharacterizesthe contemporary world not as border-
less,but nevertheless poised between 'ih. n"*, informational
economyworking on a global scale'
[1996: 97) and'the persis-
tence of nations and national governments, and . . . the role of
governmentsin using economic competition as a tool of political
slr,ategy'
II996: 99). There are thus two regions and an implac-
tbl" competition between the two. Many writers of course treat
the USA as central to slobal relations and hence see a regional
conflictbetween the Ailerican hegemon,on the one hanJ, and
individual nation
states,whether inburope, Asia or elsewhere,on
the other
fchase_Dunn et al. 20001.
. There aie other writers who also see a war of the regions,but
tn this casewhere
the region of the nation state is partly capable
44 Limits of 'Global'Analyses Limits of 'Global'Analyses 45
of winning vis-a-visthe region of the global. Hirst and Th socirland politicalentitiesfBrenner1997: ]40). But in the
-;e
nc 'r t'r l '-
[]9961 particularly articulate this 'global sceptic' position
| , ,:,...^^ | : t
;.,u, .hnpt"r it was shown that complexity emphasizeshow
^ L ^ -. , -, L ^ . ^ ^ ^ ^ , -r----: L ---
prevlou
maintain that the institutions of the nation state and especially flow. utd productive.,Theyare not,tiTpY
lir" una spac; lf",
state institutions do possess'causal efficacy' vis-a-visthe glol of 'objects',
l'^.iuin"tt or dimensions whether social or physical.
(seeaisoMann 1997:474). of competition between the 'societal'and the 'global'
i"h. no,io'l
However, these are limited ways of understandine the rel doesnot do justice to the complex, overlappingand evolv-
ship between the global and societiesbecausethey all take "ooions
iil ,"lutions between diverse processes, including the ways in
globalto be in somewaysa'region'.In the restof this chapter .f;i.h ro.i"ties do not necessarily possess properties that are also
deficienciesare outlined. First, viewing the global as a regi ernergentat the global level'
involves the thesis of a 'territorial trap' lBrenner Ig97l. Nor do such regional notions acknowledge that the 'global'
involves'a-historicalstate-centrism'in which the'national and level is in fact made up of very many 'polities', not just of the
global scalesare viewed as being mutually exclusive rather nation state and the global with a 'head-to-head' competition
relationaland co-constitutive'fBrenner 1997: 1381.In the acc between them [see Walby forthcoming). There are also regional
I am criticizing, the global and the national are set apart from blocs(NAFTA, EU), globally organizedreligions fislam, Catholic
other and then seenas involved in intense inter-regionalcom Church), international organizations[UN), international NGOs
tion. This can be seen when Robertson talks of 'the world- (GreenpeaceJ and internationaltreaties (Kyoto). There is also one
single-place',of an unambiguousglobal region [cited in Franklin nation-statesociety,the USA, which enjoys exceptionalcentrality
al. 2000: 3). Brenner arguesrather that we should examine within most of the networks that criss-crossthe globe fexcept
complex setsof socialrelationsbetweenthe national and the elo curiouslyin the global game of footballl).
They constituteeach other.In chapter 5 below the mathematics Game'critiquesmany of theseexisting globalizationanalysesby
a'strangeattractor' is used to demonstratehow the global and sayingthat'this sort of Iglobalization] project is remarkablystatic
national can be seen as co-constitutins each other. andgovernedby a desirefor stasis'(1998: 42). There is a tendency
This issue can also be seen in those analvsesof each nation to treat the global ascharacterizedby the current economic,social
sovereignsociety,such as Hirst and Thompson's account [l9g and political relations. However, this static view ignores what
of how certain regions of 'national economies and societies'c c.omplexityalso emphasizes.This is that the future is both unpre-
re-sistthe spreadof 'globalization'.And, analogously,in argun dictable and yet irreversible.Will Hutto n in On the Eclgeexpresses
of the'hyperglobalists'such as Ohmae [1992), it is the g the importance of such irreversibility when maintaining that
region that is overly unified and in equilibrium (see also Held 'changeis all-encompassing
and carries a new inevitabililty; its
al. 1999). Both accountsimply both a societal or global total momentum is a superior power to any other, even that of the state
tion and equilibrium.The global functions both as 'process' ' . . the force of changeis irresistible'fGiddens and Hutton Z00O:
as'outcome',as both'cause'and'effect'.Thereis a relatedfailu 2, 20,, especially on-no.r-linearity). For Hutton, global 'turbo-
to distinguish between a 'theory of globalization' fin terms capitalism' is mobile and ruthless, driving
all sorti of relations
analysing a complex but incomplete set of determinants) irreversibly and somewhat unpredictably
onwards in terms of
'globalizationtheory' 'shareholder'
areholder' iinterests.
[where the global level appearsto acco
for and to describealmost everything). Indeed,globalization Moreover, t he notion of a global region implies distinct bound-
not itself explain anything very much, it has been said [on ariesbetween what is global
and what is iti environment. This
'follies of globalization theory', see Rosenberg2000). presumesa distinction
between the global as essentially'social'
and the environment as essentially :natural'
Also implicit in some of these 'regional' formulations is th (Macnaght",-,
spaceand time are treated as relatively static 'containers'of eco- Urry 1998). Complexity theory by ctntrast ".rd
maintainsthat systems

46 Limits of 'Global'AnalYses
are always located within their environment and that ther
u." .o-pl"x entropic processesas a consequence.Analogousl
'global' iro."rr", should alwaysbe seen as socialand physical,a
,i-r"t".iul worlds'. There are no clear-cut and sustainablebounda
ries between global social relations and the environment with
which they operate. There are material worlds with a compl,
irreversibility over time [see Latour 2000)'
Much work within this 'regional' globalization paradigm
does not interrogate the iterative character of global systems.Th
system characteristics are complexly generated from billions
actionsoccurring over multiple times. Hutton statesthat'there
a phenomenon called globalisation' [Giddens and Hutton 2
2i; emphasisadded). But this does not do justice to the com
cated and contingent array of processesoccurring iteratively
time that can produce this in particular circumstances'
Hutton's argument that there simply is globalization-is ba
upon the conventional distinction in the social sciencesbetw
,structure' and what is 'agency'.Actions are normally see
what is
as 'structurally' caused,such as by the capitalist structure,
patriarchal stiucture, the age structure and so on' Such a st
iu.e is 'ordered' and is reproduced. But, since social systemsc
change from time to time, the social scienceshave had to dra
,rpori the concept of agency to argue that some sets of human
,g"r,t, are able to 'escape'such structuresand bring about change
individually [suih as leaving a violent partner) or collec-
"ith". through ,ay-.1"r, actions
tively [such as the 1917 Bolshevik
Revolution).
Giddens (19841, howevet saw that this was not a satisfactory
way of ,rndeistanding the character of social life and social change'
He developed the idea of a 'duality of structure' in order to ovef-
come the limitations of the structure/agency divlde. Important in
this is the recursivecharacterof sociallife. Giddens examinesthe
temporal processes by whlch'structures' areboth drawn on to gen-
erate actions, and then are the unintended outcome of countless
a ot the Soviet Empire).
recursive actions by knowledgeable agents' So, rather than
a
dualism between structure and agency, there is seen to be
'duahty' in which structure und ,g".t.y are bound up together
and co-evolve over time [for counter-views,see Archer 1995;
Mouzeliz 19951.
Limits ot''Global' Analyses 47
'complex' char-
flowever, Giddens insufficiently examinesthe
^-*', of thesestructure-agency processes.
Following the argument
l""ih" previous chapter, these processesare better understood
'recurrence'. It is iteration that
*irouelr 'iteration' rather than
the tiniest of 'local'changescan generate, over billions
".,"rnithat actions,unexpected,unpredictable and chaotic out-
rep"ated
^f they were
.on]"r, sometimesthe opposite of what agentsthought
to bring about [see Urry 2000b: ch. 8). Events are not'for-
iryi,lg
ootten'in such a system.
" Sr.h complex change may have nothing to do with agents
seelangto change their particular world but stem from the emerg-
ing properties over time of the system as a whole. The agentsmay
conduct what appear to be the same actions,indeed involving a
constantimitation of the actions of others. But, becauseof the
tiny modificationsthat occur in such actions,iteration can result
in, through the irreverslbihty of time, transformations even in
large-scalestructures. Iteration produces, on occasionsthrough
dynamic emergence,non-linear changesand the sudden branch-
ing of the global order. So changecan occur without a determin-
ing'agency' producing different outcomes.
The character of such iterative social interactions has been
likened to walking through a rr.azewhose walls rearrange them-
selvesas each new step is taken [Gleick i988: 24). And as one
walks,new sets of steps have to be made in order to adjust to the
changinglocation of the surrounding walls of the maze.
In such iterationsrelationshipsare extremely sensitiveto initial
conditions.Small changesin one place [the equivalentof the but-
terfly's wings) can move the system into a completely different
phaseand a resulting bifurcation of the system.Byrne describes
suchlarge and non-linear outcomes as'the last straw [that] breaks
the camel'sback' fl998: 170). They can produce radical regime
change,such as the almost overnight implosion of the Soviet
system following the 'small' event in 1989 of demolishing the
BerlinWaii
[l am unaware of compiexity analysesof the collapse
More generally,Zoharand Marshall [1994), using notions from
quantum physics,provide further criticism of the regional con-
c€pts of society and of the global. They develop and advocate
the concept of quantum society,describing the collapse of the
48 Limits of 'Global'Analyses
certaintiesof classicalphysics based upon the rigid categories
absolute time and space,solid impenetrable matter and stri
determinant laws of motion. As we saw in the previous chap
the solid material objects of classicalphysics [and of socie
dissolve at the subatomic level into wavelike oatterns of
abilities, and these constitute probabilities of interconnecti
Subatomic particles have no status as isolated entities but can
understoodonly as interconnections.Zohar and Marshall descri
'the strange world of quantum physics, an indeterminate
whose almost eerie laws mock the boundariesof space,time a
matter' [1994: 33; see also Capra 1996: 30-1).
Zohar and Marshall develop analogies between the w
particle effects within physics and varied characteristicsof
life. They argue that
Quantum reality . . . has the potential to be both particle-like and
wave-like. Particlesare individuals, located and measurablein space
and time. They are either here or there, now and then. Waves [by
contrast] are "non-local",they are spreadout acrossall of spaceand
time, and their instantaneouseffects are everywhere.Waves extend
themselvesin every direction at once, they overlap and combine
with other waves to form new realities (new emergent wholes).
(Zohar and Marshall 1994: 326J
Social life can likewise be seen as simultaneously particle-like
and wavellke. Such a notion is found in Henri Lefebvre's classic
The Production of Space [1991). A house, he says,can be under-
stood in two ways. Either it is stable and immovable with starh
cold and rigid outlines (as a'particle'). It is the'epitome of
immovability', possessingclear and unambiguous boundaries
(1991:92). It is to think of a house as a very clear and dis-
tinct 'region', to return to Mol and Law's distinctions fl994).
Alternatively the house can be thought of as a 'wave', as 'perme-
ated from every direction by streams of energy which run in and
out of it by every imaginable route'. In the latter the image of
immovability is 'replacedby an image of a complex of mobilities,
a nexus of in and out conduits', including visitors, electricit/,
watet sewerage,deliveries, gas,telephone/computer connections,
radio and televisionsignalsand so on (Lefebvrel99i:93;see also
Roderick 1997; Urry 2000b: ch. 1).
Limits of 'Global'Analyses 49
Lefebvrealso elaborateshow commodities involve both moor-
,^", ortl mobile networks for particlesand waves).Commodities
r tr b _ I I I
woulo nave
he sa}s
no 'reality' without such mooringsor points of insertion,or without
their existing as an ensemble . . . of stores,warehouses,ships,trains
and trucks and the routes used.. . . Upon this basis are super-
irnposed - in ways that transform, supplant or even threaten to
destroyit - successivestratified and tanglednetworkswhich, though
material in form, nevertheless have an existence beyond their
materiality: paths, roads, railways, telephone links, and so on.
ft.ef'ebvrel99l: 402-3, emphasisadded; see chapter 7 below).
Conclusion
In the next chapter I develop these arguments,especiallydrawing
out how various global systems can be seen as both wave- and
particle-like.We should analyse,first, global waues.Through itera-
tion over irreversibletimes 'new emergent wholes' get generated.
And, second,we nced to exarninehow such wavesare made up of
countlessindividual p articles,of people, social groups and networks
that are resolutely 'located and measurablein spaceand time'. In
later chapters I examine the very fixities in time and space that
enablesuch mobilities - indeed, the more mobile the 'entity' in
questionthe larger and more extensivethe immobilities.
Thls distinction between global waves and particles breaks with
the relativelyimmobile and fixed notion both of societyand espe-
cially of the global criticized in this chapter.Material practicesare
simultaneouslyparticle-like and wavelike, moored and mobile.
Their analysisdemands a set of concepts that properly capture
their complex, emergent characteristicsthat take us beyond the
notion of the global as 'region' criticized here.This notion stems
trom the application of the relatively conventional category of
region to examine the extremely unconventional phenomena
of emergent global systems.In the next chapter I turn to some
of these systems,analysedthrough what I call globally integrated
networks and global fluids.

4 .u"rvthing else and thus it is impossibleto conceive of the sepa-
Networks and Fluids
Metaphors
I begin by briefly consideringwhat is an appropriatemetaphor
the current global age.Pre-modern societieswere often th
of metaohoricallv in terms of various animals.as well as diffe
sorts of agricultural work [many are still powerful today). I
modern industrial societies.dominant metaohors were those
the clock, modern machinery ftrain, car, assembly line) anc
photographic lens.The lens provided the metaphor for m
epistemology based on the central importance of 'seeing' t
world (seeUrry 2000b: chs Z, 4').With the cameralens there is
one-to-one relationship between each point on the object and
each point on the image of the plate or film. The metaphor of the
lens implies a sequence,a separationbetween the parts of the
picture and the whole picture, and a relatively extended process
through time by which the image is generated and represented
(seeAdam 1990: 159).
By contrast,the hologram is a plausiblemetaphor for a complex
informational age.Information in a hologram is not located in a
particular part of it. Ratheq,any part contains,implies and res-
onatesinformation of the whole, what Bohm calls the 'implicate
order' (cited in Baker 1993: l4Z). Hologram means 'writing the
whole'. Thus the 'focus is not on individual particles in motion,
crossingtime and space in succession,but on how all the infor-
mation implied within a hologram is gatheredup simultaneously'
Networksand Fluids 5l
whole (Adam 1990: 159). In the hologram the
25 ao erner8ent
iLo,ra,Ieof separatecausesand effectsis inappropriate,sincecon-
;:.-:,i";r are simuitaneous and instantaneous.Everything implies
,ut",-if interdependent,
'parts' of a hologram. So the hologram
properties are
J"n-,onr,.",es that powerful emergent or wavelike
not derived from constituent parts, nor can it be reduced to such
oarts.The metaphor of the hologram captures how relations are
instantaneous, simultaneousand networked.
Networks
In this chapter I examine various spatial topologies,all of which
involve hologram-like emergent relations that operate in-
and-acrossnetworks. The notion of network is also a dominant
metaphorfor global times, rather than say'machine' [Kelly 1998;
Rycroft and Kash 1999: 107). Indeed complexity-writer Capra
arguesthat 'networks' are the key to late-twentieth-century ad-
vancesin scienceconcerned with investigatingthe 'web of life'.
He maintainsthat: 'Whenever we look at life, we look at networks'
[Capra 1996: 82). And, if we think that global networks are
complex in order to combine say the l0 million components
making up a space shuttle, then we should note that modelling
weatherinvolves about I million interdependentvariablesor that
the human brain contains 10 blllion nerve cells and 1,000 billion
synapses[Casti 1994: ch. 3). Such networks, whether of the
weathet the brain or economic and sociallife, compriseenormous
numbers of messagesthat, like relations within the hologram,
move in all directions simultaneously.I will considera number of
characteristics of such networks.
Initially, it is useful to note that there are three basic network
topologies.First, there are line or chain networks with many nodes
that are spread out in more or less linear fashion. Second,there
are star or hub networks, where most important relationships
move through a central hub or hubs.Third, there are all-channel
networks,in which communications proceed in more or less all
directions acrossthe network simultaneously
fsee Arquilla and
Ronfeldt 2001: 7-8). Networks also vary as to-whether the ties
 57 Networks and Fluids Networksand Fluids
53
within it are loosely coupled or strongly coupled, the latter being the value of that network for all the existing ,members,.
especially problematic, as we saw in chapter 2 in many safety Size was
particularly,important in the early developir"r,, oi itr"'itt,"..,"t
systemsfPerrow 1999). network, where a few extra participants significantiy i..."lr"a
There are both strong and weak ties in all networks, with ,rr"
valueof the network for e,reryone.Like*ise, phone lo-pu.,i",
Granovetter (1983) having shown that it is especiallythe exten- air-
proportionatelygainedfrom even small increar", i" it
sive weak ties of acquaintanceshipand informational flows that of
r"retwork-users.And the value of eachfax machine greatiy "'Xl-b".
are particularly central to successfuljob searches[see also Burt increased
everytime a few more machineswere purch"s"d."
1992 Z4-7). It is also argued that, where there are'srructural Keily [1998: 25) thus describeshow networks
holes' in networks, then this allows particular opportunities can generate
massive non-linear increases.in output. Networks ,distically
for developing informational access and control (Burt lgg2). amplify small inputs' through long-term oft"n expJnential
Networks also vary as to whether obligations and reciprocities 'increasingreturns', es.peciallywhere "'rd
all-channel n",ri-t, g",
acrossthe network members are one way or all ways. We should extendedtechnologically.Such non-linear outcomes
also distinguish between the connections within a network that are generated
by a systemmoving acrosswhat Malcorm Gladweli
are purely'social', basedupon face-to-faceconnections,and those 'tipping points'. Tipping points involve ir060j terms
three notior' ih-,".,.,r".,.,
that are mediated by various 'material worlds' such as telephones, and phenomena are contagious,that little
.rrrr"r-.rn i"u" uig
media, computer networks and so on fWellman 2001). effects,and that changes.* h"pp"n not in
a gradual linear way
Networks also overlap and interconnect with other networks so but dramatically at a moment when the
,yri"_ ,*ir.fr"r. U"
producing what has come to be known as the strangephenome- describesthe consumption of fax machin",
o. orr"r,
non of it is a small world'. Watts argues that 'even when two when at a moment thesystem ,r"it.h"d
,"d *Ja."f,-obii"-ft
people do not have a friend in common they are separatedby only neededa fax machine or every mobire "r.# "fn."
person needed a mobile
a short chain of intermediaries' [1999: 4). These distant conneci phone.The key here is that wealth
.o-", not from scarcity,as rn
tions are often crucial to the forming of trust across far-fl con'entional economicq but from
abundr".". E;;h f*-_rr.nin"
networks [see David Lodge's excoriating account [1983) of is so much more valuabreif
everyo'" also has a fax machine
academic 'small world'). In the following it is presumed that i that enables new networked "lr"
.o.rn".tio's to form and extend
can be establishedwhere one network ends and another begins. th_enrselves [Gladwellzooto,-zi-ii-ih"
Iax machine are non-rinear.
b",r.fits
of eachextra
But the networked connectednessof social relationshipsthat
The tipping point is reached and
'small-world' phenomenon indicates shows that this is not at a extraordinary benefits
flow throughort th1 network.
simple and straightforward in many cases. The key to understanding
thir i.o."r, is the idea of ,increasing
The power of any network can be said to stem from its size, developed
indicated by the number of nodeswithin it, bv the densitv of net ::lli.'' economists by BrianArthur fWaldropirr;t^Th" l, .,ot
)vttat have normarly unierstood by the
worked connections between each node, and bv the connecti lncreasingeconomies notion of
of scale'. Such economies are those
that the network has with other networks. Size is the most signif- that
andarefound*i,frr"l'r;)du orgu;r",L^,,".f,
icant determinant, becausethe value of a network does not merely ,#,"T.^:
rnese economies,within *
^_",,'. such single firms increaseoutput
increase arithmetically as more nodes are connected. Rather, 'the over a long time recluc. th"
:,1r:
such of p.oJ,r.,ioi u,rtil
sum value of a network increasesas the squareof the number a point that further g"i.r, "u".ug"?or,,
u." ,,o'Lrg". possible.
members' (Kelly 1998: 23; emphasisadded).In other words, asthe By contrast, the notio., ,in..""rirrg
of .",,r.ns, involves expo_
nutnber of nodes increasesone by one, there is an exponential l"ntitl increasesin output (and rewardslr weaith) that
throughout are spread
increasein the overall value or power of the network. So adding a networb
erterprises which a variety of
a few more nodes,more weak ties, disproportionately increases are located,;l'r"\"*;;i,pr**r,rri"i. ,rr" ,externaritie
""a "f"r","lia s, across
 Networlzsand Fluids 55
f+
-1
Networksand Fluids
produce spectaculart n,..h a layout meant that the typewriter keys rvould not jam if
the networked relationshipsthat can
with the, humble ]i1", ,uo"a more slowly.Howeula once the keyboard layout had
linear increasesin output and income [as for such small-scaiereasonsin the late rrineteenth
The 'network economy' changes how such econo Lt""
"rtnblished
this. leyout has then remained even with the rnassive
tft"t rewards operate, on occasions
-".ni""). spreading i..,rrt,
in the late twentieth century in what a
""J
ii.ou, g"ir,, and benefits,although-j\:t" will be
-1::iu"',
resulting i".'nnoiogi.rl changes
,i.uborrd' is [seeNorth 1990;Arthur 1994a).
l"t,t elsewhere in the system[Kelly 1998)' Thereareir '-
betweent Mor" significantin its long-term cffect has been t he way in
i,rf*.rr.t, that result from improvedcoordination
""J
the petroleum-based car came to dominate
,1"', from the processes learning
of organizational across which in the 1890s
""d ou", f""1 alternatives to power cars. At the tirne, bolh electric
network [Rycroftand Kash 1999:ch' 9)'
complexity.anal and steam power were almost certainly preferable fu el systems
Increasingreturnsare an exampleof the
Such positivefeedbackin the iMot.u^lli 2000). But the 'path dependence' of the petroleum-
p.;;,;;" f";lUu.k mechanisms'
escalatiti: irr"d .r. got locked in, although it was not technologically prefer-
of increasingreturns can result in astonishing
is the"{In able.But once it was locked in, the rest is history, as an a-stonishing
;;;; *"utitt [Waldrop 1994)'An obviousexample
'small' local changeof arrayof other industries, activities and interests came to mobilize
,r"t ."uolrrtionihat "..,ltg"d out of the aroundthe petroleum-based car.As North writes more generally:
of the first Web browser around 1994 and the
i;;;.; 'Once a development path is set on a particular c,ourse, the
;t;;J^;;g".." of worldwide e-commerce[seeCastells
over-the p networkexternalities,the learning process of organizations, and
This emergencewas fuelled by the break-up the historically derived subjective modelling of the issues re-
markets and the p
decade of existing regional and national inforcethe course'[1990: 99).
an insider's view as to
ation of new netwo,ki"g t"p"bility [on The key here is that'small chance events becorne margnifiedby
1999)' Ove^rtime t
difference the Internethakes, see Gates positivefeedback'and this 'locls in' such systems, so th.at rnassive
becauseof the i
works may bear no tendency to equilibrium increasingreturns or positive feedback result ower tirne (Brian
and irreversible <
tance of such positive feedback' Dynamic futhu4 cited in Waldrop 1994:49; see also Mahorrey 2000). Rela-
and unpredi
takes place over time, change that irreversibly tively deterministic patterns of inertia reinforce esiabllshed pat-
depending u1
takes such a system further"from equilibrium' ternsthrough processesof positive feedback.This escalarteschange
.L,:
particular topology' a 'lock-in' that over time takes the system a way from
innraecins retllrns are connected with :ll"lSh
Moreover, such increasing retur what we might i-ugine to be the point of ,equilitrriuml
development are I eauiiibrium' and from
theory of how patterns of socio-technical
X|^.,::*.'Ln'".il:; optimali., ,"ffi.t"r,.r;;;;; ;;;;;
fn" ,,otio"t ti o"ift dep"endenc"
rrr rrrrLrLrrLJ

dependent'. "-l^h^T]itl:t- YvvLKl Y

tLr
"""-
keyboardor electricforms of poweriing cars (iMotavalli
of events or processes' 2000).
Ooitu.r." over time of the ordering
il;^;;"it, itt" temporalpatterninsin which :t:Y^:t, th.::ld not be thought
that there is necessarily a sirnglepoint
th€y
the way.that
cessesoccur ,r..y ,ig,tin""ttty i"R""nces ^rll
turn out"[Mahonev 2000: 536)- Caus":::^:;:l ge
:|'!11+'P"'mtha_t
canbe unambiguo"rly;".ifi;du, ih"
;;it ;
gelvpowerrul -ort
sociological'path dependency,see lw{ahon ey 2000).
h:ili'#' #ilJ;';;'-;;";ts to'hu Ti;::i-\t"
multiple equilibria and hence no simpl € mov e towards
t"1t"'1',tf,;" ia ,h;r'':
processes 'fii"1#';":'!ry;;;?;;'"ssesor
that thr,oughincreasine
'-ff.il?".T:J:?",if, *9:::l# th.';::,.t,
system will generate.The importanc€,
morreover, of
means that institutions matter a gre. at deal to how
ry".-""rtl
developments[North 1990: 10o)
dependent developnrclrL5Lr\urt'r 'JJv'
J;;:;a;, r-^.r r^, .mall. u..rii,r],l"l,etop. Such institutions can p.oduce u long--terrn irre-
i"Ufirfr"a for small
fttit path dependence is typically es' rev.L.i'/^,tnat is 'both more predictable and rrrore d ifficult to
Thus
localreasons. the QWERTYU"tT.1l". -- 1.t'rorth 1990: 104).The effectsof the petroleunn car over
in is7: in orderto slowdown
'.;;;?";#slv
i;fi;til';;^;;"ced
 Networbsand Fluids 57
56 Networbsand Fluids
, . r, multiple and distant spacesand times (Law 1994: 24;
a century after its chance establishmentis the best example is a function of the rela-
how difficult it ls to reverselocked-in institutional processesI il -,,h 1995:745). Relativedistance
.l-, renveenthe components comprising that network. The
Sheller and lJtrY 2000)'
, --'rn,outcomeof a network,such as that for anaemiatesting
Positive feedbacks and path dependence,where con
across its entirety in ways
events can set in motion institutional patterns with deterministic 1 :,. Netherlands, is delilered
l-,- ::tenoyercomeregional boundaries' Things are made close
outcomes, are central to the power of various networks operati
.-. ,,; dlgt. networked relations. Such a network of technol-
acrossthe globe.Such global networks are largein size,will involvi
global hybrid, ensuresthat the
dense interactions within their nodes and will interact with other ,.,.,,kills,texts and brands,a
networks, so further expanding their exceptionalrange and influ- or 'product' is Jelivered in more or less the same
,,^. '.ruia.'
ence.They do not derive directly and uniquely from human inten- .', r;rossthe entire network. Such products are predictable,
tions and actions.Humans are intricately networke dwithmachines, routinized and standardized'
:,...:.,ble,
'-.,..,.
texts, objects and other technologies.There are no purified sociai .r. many 'global' enterprisesorganized through GINs'
Express, Coca-Cola'
networks,only'material worlds' that involve peculiarand complex :,.,-.rlesinclude McDonald's, American
socialitieswith objects(Latour 1993; Knorr-Cetina lgg7l. i:.,,.,0f,,Sony,Greenpeace, Manchester United and so on' Each
'McDonaldization', as this has been
Such networks thus involve an array of new machinesand tech- ,j ..., glob"i'netwoiks.
with a
nologiesthat extend them in time-space. These include fibre-optic :.::..j iivolves companies on a global scale organized
j.,..r.
cables,jet planes,audio-visual transmissions,digital TV, computer of central oiganization(see Ritzer 1992,1997, 1998)'
networks, satellites,credit cards,faxes,electronic point-of-sale ter- l,:,:i,..ldrzrtion p.od,i."s new kinds of low-skilled standardized
minals, portable phones, electronic stock exchanges,high-speed :.:-.,pecially fo. yo.r.tgpeople(McJobs),new productsthat radi-
trains, virtual reality, nuclear, chemical and conventional military .,. ;rer p.opl"'t eati;g hrbits,and new socialhabits worldwide'
technologies and weapons, new waste products and health risla. ,,-. ,t .riing standardized fast food from take-away restaurants
These machines and technologies generatenew fluidities of aston- ::,:l fg' ).
ishing speed and scale fon the 'nanosecondnineties', see peters .:jce?,most of the transnationalcompanies currently roaming
1es2J. :-: :irnet are organized through GINs' These 'organizations'
a
These scapesheip to constitute different forms of networked produceiew 'failings'acrossthe network' In part such
.::::.r11!
relationships acrossthe globe. But I have so far used the term ::: rik existsto counter the often extraordinarily turbulent envi-
'network' or 'networked' to refer to a wide arrav of verv different :.::.:rt rvithinwhich they operate.Such networks,with moreor
systems.It was noted in chapter t how Casiells likewise uses ..,,:i,tantaneous and simultaneouscommunications'enable the
'network' to refer to varied processesthat should be distinguished ::.-j associated products andmodes of serviceto roam in much
from one another. So to capture these different modes of 'net- :-: ::re form acrossthe surfaceof the earth [on global brands,
worked relationships', I distinguish between globally integrated ::r r:r'in2000; Sklair 2001).
networl?sIGINs) and global fluids [GFs; see chapter 3 above; Mol j:retimes there is limited adaptation to local circumstances'
and Law 1994;Law and Mol 20001.In the next sectionI examine ., ":th McDonald's in east Asia. But, even if local owner-
net-
the nature of GINs. -r:::i0rSareinvolved i" ary-a-a"y management, the global
all taste the same'
' ::.rnthe end wins out [on ho* big Macs do
in
::: ,','rtSor1997:77).ihi lnt",'t"ginfDirector of McDonald's
system' not
Globally Integrated Networks S:i-..,:oreexplains follo*r' 'McDonald's sells' ' ' a
", and
::.:.rits.'This'system;; ;;.gh;;t Hamburger Universit-v
o'l koining Manual
GINs consist of complex, enduring and predictable networked '.,,:.natizedin the 600-page Op erations
connectionsbetween peoples,objects and technologiesstretching i'...ronf ggZ, Zi't. C".,uin'k"y ieatures of the global network
58 Networks and Fluids
include not only standardizedproducts but also the standardi
and monitored 'smiling service' to strangers.Such GINs
duce not only predictable material goods and services,but
calculableand controllablesimulationsof 'experiences'apparentl
'more real than the original' fBaudrillard 1983; Eco 1986; Ri
1997; Rifkin 20001.
GINs can alsobe found within some oppositionalorganizati
such as Greenpeace.Like other global players,Grenpeacede
much attention to developing and sustaining its brand identity
throughout the world. (ireenpeace's brand identity has 'such ap
iconic status that it is a world-wide symbol of ecological virtue
quite above and beyond the actual practical successesof the
organisation' within various societies [Szerszynski 1997 46).
These global networks are significantly 'deterritorialized'. They
move in and through places in ways that transform and distort
time and space.Such networks constitute one of most powerful
sets of 'particles' comprising the new world order.They are mas-
sively powerful, particularly because of their mobility, their net-
worked character,their capacity to generate increasingreturns
from the use and exploitation of their global brand and their
endogenous self-organrzing character [Klein 2000).
Such GINs show three weaknesses.First, since a set of net-
worked organizationscan generate much greater increasingre-
turns than can single companies,so these individual companies
can be outperfbrmed in the global marketplace, as IBM was in the
caseof personalcomputers.
Second,the power of a global brand based within a GIN can
evaporate almost overnight from quite minor occurrences.The
brand of Monsanto disappearedbecauseof the company'sassocia-
tion with producing geneticallymodified food. Indeed, the more
powerful the brand, the more there is to lose.Klein [2000) shows
just how extensive are the various resistancesto global brands
carried along the scapesof the emergent global order. I examine
below the complex nature of scandalsthat can result in massive
consequencesfor individual GINs such as Arthur Andersen, the
paper-shreddingauditors of Enron.
And, third, these single companies can be very brittle and
lack the capacity to bend with rapidly changing circumstances.
They may not be quite like the former East European command
Networksand Fluids 59
but their lack of 'fluidity' and 'flexibility' may mean
econornies,
ii". th"y are very vulnerableto fluid changesin desire,taste and
ll,i" ,t-rr, leave them struggling to catch up' On occasionssuch
].jn,'onni"rareinsufficientlyfluid to implementappropriateorgani-
Rycroft and Kash 1999).
)n ionnllearning [see
In the next sections I turn to some other global hybrids, GFs,
much more 'liquid' in character.
rvhich are
Global Fluids
Emile Durkheim criticized the fluid, unstable,non-authoritative
characterof 'sensuousrepresentations'.Sensuousrepresentations
'arein a perpetual flux;they come after each other likes the waves
of a river, and even during the time that they last, they do not
remain the same thing' fDurkheim 1915/1968: 433). What is
required for science,according to Durkheim, is to abstract from
these flows of time and space in order to arrive at concepts that
are proper'collective representations'.Durkheim seesconceptsas
lying beneath the shifting perpetual, sensuoussurfaceflux. Con-
cepts are outside time and change.They do not move by them-
selves.They are fixed and immutable and it is the task of science
to reveal them. Scienceinvolves not being seducedby the end-
lesslychanging'sensations, perceptionsand images'that lie on the
surface[Durkheim 1915/1968: 432-4).
However, I dissentfrom this 'structural' view of concepts.The
cievelopmentof a 'mobile sociology'demandsmetaphors that do
vierv social and material hfe as being'like the waves of a river'.
Such fluid notions are necessaryto capture those multiple trans-
formations of collective representationsin which 'collective' rela-
tions are no longer societal and structural. Many contemporary
rvriters are developing and elaborating various fluid metaphors to
capture aspectsof contemporary social life, of the sea,rivers, flux,
wavesand liquidity (Bachelard1942/1983;Urry 2000b). Williams
describeslatent 'structuresof feeling' as being a social experience
that is'in solution' (7977:133-4). Castells(1996) talks of the
'power of flows'. Appadurai
[1996J arguesfor the metaphors of
'flow', 'uncertainty'and'chaos'and Deleuze and Guattari (1986,
1988) talk of bodies in a vortex. Shields(1997) maintainsthat
60 Networbsand Fluids
flows should be seen as a whole new paradigm. White (1992
characterizes the social world as constituted bv disorderlv
sticky'gels and goos'. Mol and Law [1994) generallyelaborate
'fluid spatiality' [see also Sheller 2000).
So what then is meant here by the notion of global fluid7
while fluids undoubtedly involve networks, such a notion does
do justice to the uneven, emergent and unpredictableshapes
such fluids may take. Also such fluids are partially structured by
the various 'scapes'of the global order; the networks of machineq
technologies, organizations, texts and actors that constitute
various interconnected nodes along which flows can be relayed
[Graham and Marvin 2001). Global fluids travel along these
various scapes,but they may escape,rather like white blood
corpuscles, through the 'wall' into surrounding matter and
effect unpredictable consequencesupon that matter. Fluids move
according to certain novel shapesand temporalities as they break
free from the linear, clock time of existing scapes - but they
cannot go back, they cannot return, because of the irreversibility
of time.
Such fluids of diverse viscosity organize the messy power of
complexity processes[see Kelly 1995). They result from people
acting upon the basis of local information but where these local
actions are, through countless iteration, captured, moved, repre-
sented, marketed and generalized within multiple global waves,
often impacting upon hugely distant placesand peoples.The 'par-
ticles' of people, information, objects, money, images, risks and
networks move within and acrossdiverse regions forming hetero-
geneous,uneven, unpredictable and often unplanned waves [see
Urry 2000b). Such waves demonstrate no clear point of depar-
ture, deterritorialized movement, at certain speeds and at differ-
ent levels of viscosity with no necessaryend state or purpose.This
means that such fluids create over time their own context for
action rather than being seenas 'caused'by such a context. These
global fluid systemsare in part self-organizing,creating and main-
taining boundaries.
I now describe some such GFs. In the next chapter I develop a
complexity analysis that shows the irreversible and non-linear
intersectionsthat occur between such GFs as they spread over,
through and under multiple times and spaces.GFs are shown in
Networks and Fluids 6l
that chapter to be utterly crucial categoriesof analysisin the glob-
social world that have in part rendered both regions and
^l;rine
powerful.
n",*ott t lesscausally
Trauelling peoples
Travelling peoples move along various transportation scapes.At
the beginning of the twenty-first century there are well over 700
million movements acrossinternational borders each year [com-
oaredwith twenty-five million in 1950); at any time 300,000 pas-
,"ng".r are in flight aboue the USA, equivalent to a substantial
city; there are thirty-one million refugees and 100 million inter-
national migrants worldwide; and international travel, which con-
stitutes the largest movement of people acrossborders that has
ever occurred, accounts for over one-twelfth of world trade
fMakimoto and Manners1997:ch. 1; Papastergiadis 2000: 10,41,
54;WTO 2000). A crucial component of this fluid is made up of
the transnationalcapitalist class,whose pampered routeways of
travel between the major industrial, financial and service hubs
shorvsby far the greatestdensity [on the life ofthis class,seeSklair
2001
J.
This fluid of travelling peoples involves almost everywhere
acrossthe globe [with published travel statistics for over 190
countries).It involves people travelling for work-related reasons,
legal and increasingly illegal, those travelling for leisure and
pleasure,again legally and illegally, those travelling as refugeesor
asylum-seekers,and those being smuggled voluntarily as migrants
and involuntarily as short-term and disposable slaves.The most
rapidly growing form of smugglingis that of human beingsmoved
often acrosshugely policed and effective borders, with an associ-
ated growth in the international 'slave' trade. There are thought
to be more slaves now than at the height of the eighteenth-
century slavetrade (Bales 1999: 9).
Such very different travelling peoples intermittently encounter
each other within the 'non-places of modernity', the airport
lounge, the coach station, the motorway service area and so on
[Auge 1995; although 'businesslounges' separateoff the transna-
tional capitalist classfrom most other travellers).These different
peoples also overlap, with one category dissolving into anothel,
62 Networks and Fluids
giving rise not just to the travelling of peoplesbut also to diverss,
complex and hard-to-categorize'travellingcultures' [see Clifford
1997;Rojek and Urry 1997). Moreover,whlle there are 200 nation
states,there are at least 2,000 'nation peoples', all of which ex-
perience various kinds of displacement,movement and ambigu-
ous location [R. Cohen 1997: pp. ix-x). The most striking of such
'societies'formed through the global fluid of travelling peoplesis
the 'overseasChinese' [R. Cohen ]997: ch. 4; Ong and Nonini
1997). Such massive, hard-to-categorize,contemporary migra-
tions, often with oscillatory flows between unexpected locationq
have been described through the languageof the 'new physics'.
These migration patterns are to be seen as a series of turbulent
waves, with a hierarchy of eddies and vortices, with globalism
a virus that stimulates resistance, and the migration system a
cascade moving away from any apparent state of equilibrium
[Papastergiadis 2000: 102-4, l2I).
The Internet
This rather obscure technology, designedby the American defence
intelligencein the 1970s and 1980s,unpredictably resulted in an
astonishingsystem of many-to-many communications acrossthe
globe. The transformation of this distributed, horizontal military-
based system into the huge global Internet stemmed from various
small-scalechangesmade by American scientificand researchnet-
works and from counter-cultural efforts to produce a computer
network that possessed horizontal public access (students
'invented' the modem in 1978 and the Mosaic web browser in
1992:Rushkoff 1994). Castellsnotes:'the opennessof the system
also results from the constant process of innovation and free
accessibilityenacted by early computer hackersand the network
hobbyists who still populate the net by the thousands' (1996:
3 s6 ).
The Internet did not originate within the businessworld, nor
from within any single state bureaucracy fsee Castells'sbrilliant
history: 2001). In significant ways its users are key producers of
the very technology. The autopoeitic, self-organizing character of
the Internet is described as follows:
Networh.sand Fluids 63
No centralhub or commandstructurehasconstructed it. . . . It has
installednoneof the hardwareon which it works,simplyhitching
a largely free ride on existing computers,networks, switching
svstems, telephonelines.This wasone of the first systemsto present
iiself as a multiplicitous, bottom-up, piecemeal,self-organizing
network which . . . could be seen to be emergingwithout any
centralized control.(Plant1997:49)
The Internet is also the best example of how technology
invented for one purpose, military communication in the event of
a nuclear attack, unpredictably and irreversibly evolved through
iteration and a path dependence into purposes unintended and
undreamt of by its early developers. It has resulted in a massive
worldwide activity,with sixteenmillion usersin,1995,400 million
usersin early 2001, and a projected one billion by 2005 [Castells
2001: 3). Information on the Internet doubles every few months
[Brand 1999: ]4, 87). An awesomepattern of path dependence
has been laid down, a pattern analysedby Castells as the 'winner-
takes-all system that characterizes business competition in the
new economy' (200i: i00).
The Internet enableshorizontal communication that cannot be
effectively surveilled, controlled or censoredby national societies.
It possesses an 'elegant,non-hierarchicalrhizomatic global struc-
ture' [Morse 1998: 187) and is basedupon lateral,horizontallryper-
rext links that render the boundaries between objects within the
archive as endlesslyfluid [Featherstone2000: 187). The Internet
can be seenasa metaphor for social life that is fluid, involving thou-
sands of networks, of people, machines, programmes, texts and
imagesin which quasi-subjectsand quasi-objectsmix together in
new hybrid forms. Ever-new computer networks and links prolif-
erate mostly in unplanned and mixed patterns. Such a fluid space
is a world of mixtures. Messages'find their way', rather like blood
through multiple capillaries.Fluids can get around absences. Such
computer networks are not solid or stable and are contingent.
Hypertext programmesand the Net comprise 'webs of footnotes
without central points, organizing principles, hierarchies' [Plant
1997: l0; see also chapter 3 below). Such digitized information
'effaceIs] the difference between causeand effect, ends and means,
subjectand object,activeand passive'[Luke 1995:97).
 64 Networbs and Fluids
Information
This GF is intimately connected with the Internet, as 'know
has been'informationalized'. Knowledge was once found in
cific form [the manuscript, the book, the map), located in parti
cular places [archives, museums, libraries) and embodied withi
the minds of certain people [scholars, archivists, mapmakers).'
Such relatively fixed repositories of knowledge could be dei.
troyed or killed. Books, manuscripts, paintings and maps, i
whole libraries such as that at Alexandria, could be burnt and
the knowledge would physically disappear [Brand 1999: ch"
12).
But knowledge is now transmutating into digitized information
fFeatherstone 2000). This shows the significance of material
worlds, hybrids that combine objects, texts, technologies and
bodies, to transmit around the globe tiny weightless bits of infor-
mation. Analysis of either the physical or the social elements of
such a shift would be on its own meaningless.And nature itself is
being transformed into genetic codesthat are owned, accessedand
circulated socially, with the growth of the 'informational body'
[Franklin et al. 2000: 128-9).
Further, this change can be appreciated through a shifting
metaphoq, from the stationary, wooden, fixed 'desk' occupied by
the individual scholar [even with chained books in the medieval
period), to the ephemeral,mobile and interchangeable'desktop'
that can be occupied by anyone. Or there is the shift from the
specific religious 'icon' to the ubiquitous and instantaneouslyrec-
ognized computer 'icon'. With digitization, information adopts
patterns and modes of moblhty that are substantially separate
from material form or presence[Hayles i999: 18-20). Informa-
tion is everywhere fand nowhere), travelling [more or less) instan-
taneously along the fluid networks of global communications. Its
repositories cannot be burnt down as with the medieval library,
although particular computers can [willl) have their memories
wiped.
The exceptional growth of networked, spatially indifferent,
information is transforming commerce and work partly because
of the dlfficulty of charging for digitized information that is
ephemeral and fluid [Castells 1996). This fluid of information
Networbsand Fluids 65
;q transforming education and science because of the expon-
and irreversible growth in the sheer amount and com-
"nti.tl of scientific information (Rescher 1998: ch. 4; IJrry
"i"xity
'loOZn). More generally, the 'new artificial life-form of the
ItoUrt telecommunicationsMatrix' has been described as
'non-
iin"ut uty-metrical, chaotically-assembled' [lmken 1999: 92).
The media are 'migratory', with both viewers and images in
sirnultaneouscirculation and recirculation. Neither fit into circuits
or audiencesbound to a local or a national space (Appadurai
lee6).
Wars have consequently turned into 'virtual wars', at least for
thosecontrolling the virtual weaponry.Such'virtual wars' appear
'to take place on a screen. . . . War affords the pleasures of a
spectacle.. . . When war becomes a spectator sport, the media
becomesthe decisivetheatre of operations'(lgnatieff 2000: 191).
And warfare more generally is being networked and informa-
tionalized, with the emergence of 'network centric warfare' and
what Arquilla and Ronfeldt [2001) call'netwars' often occurring
between non-state actors.
World money
Strangefl986) describesthis GF as being a kind of 'casinocapi-
talism', detached,self-organizingand operatingbeyond both indi-
vidual national economies and the specific industries and services
involved in world production and trade [see also Castells 1996;
l,eyshon and Thrift 1997). Daily foreign-exchangedealings are
worth sixty times more than the daily value of world exports
[Held et al. 1999: 209; the ratio grew fivefold between 1979 and
1995). Money is traded for money especiallyin terms of its future
values.Such a GF is organizedthrough 'just-in-time 24-hour net-
works'. It involves calculationsof and bets on, hugely uncertain
futures: 'traders are trading in time itself which is to say in the
momentary forward fluctuations of price and value. The latter are
. . . expressionsof the most abstract sort: of money itself and, even
more abstractly, of the price of money at some future point in
time' (Boden 2000: 189).
This commodification of the future generates extraordinarily
l;)
fluid movements across,and beyond, the regions and networks
I
&
 66 Networbs and Fluids
in which money has been organized and regulated. There
extensivemovement of money into 'offshore' locations desi
to minimize taxes and to facilitate the launderine of il
funds. Martin and Schumann [1997) describe the consequ
in complexity terms.They say that the 'abandonmentof [6order
controls on capital has therefore set up a dynamic whiclr,
systematically nullifying the sovereignty of nations, has
been seento have disastrouslyanarchic implications'
[Martin and
schumann 1997: 6l) At the same time the national controlg
are themselvesnow sourcesof financial gain since 'any nation,$
financial controls appear to be made for the sole prr.pore
of
being e.vaded'(Eatwell and Taylor 2000: 37; all emphairzed in the
originalJ.
Moreove4,recent decadeshave seenthe'firewalls' between dif-
ferent financial markets dissolve.As a consequence,'all segments
of the system are now tightly interdependeni' so that 'miioeco-
nomic responsescan easilyescalateinto macroeconomiccontagion'
fEatwell and Taylor 2000: 45; emphasisadded).This resultsin the
extreme price swings that occur within global financial marketg
especially where so-called derivative trading is involved. These
financial instruments, developed to manage the risk that the finan-
cial system has itself created,in turn p.nd,r." new systemicrisks.
Price movements rapidly move away from equilibrium, stemming
from 'the cumulative effect of a beauty contest
[that]'may .esuli
in massiveconcentrationsof extreme price swings'
f-Eatwelland iirl
Taylor 2000: 103;and, on the role of contagioninrtipping points,,
see Gladwell 2002')
Thus, not only is money hrghly fluid but so too are slobal finan-
cial crises.Eatwell and Taylor talk of the 'recent crisisin Asia and
its contagior,rsspread to Russia,South Africa, and Latin America'
[2000: 26; emphasis added).And so far there is no international
body effecting global financial regulation of such fluidities and the
resulting 'prevalenceof contagion',the lack of negative feedback
mechanisms and the potential of the whole system to 'serf-
destruct'. The proposed Tobin tax of I per cent that would be
levied on all foreign currency transactionsis indeed desienedto
slow down the contagious effects of such global fluidities
fMartin
and Schumann 1997: 821.
Networks and Fluids 67
Global brands or logos
Globalbrandsor logosincreasinglyroam the globe.They are enor-
powerful and ubiquitous.They result from how the most
.,,.."rrfr.rl corporations have shifted from manufacturing products
-outly
power stems from
to b".o-ittg brand producers.Their fluid-like
public relations and advertising
rnarketing,design, sponsorship,
.xp",lditrr."s, with such companiesbecoming'economiesof signs'.
Suchbrands include Nike, Apple, G"p, Pepsi-Cola,Benetton, Body
Shop,Virgin, Swatch, Calvin Klein, Sony, Starbucks and so on'
Central to the branding processis the'global teen market', with
about one blllion young people disproportionately consuming
similar consumer brands from across the globe, even within
mainland China. MTV the key scape of this global teen market,
broadcastin eighty-threecountriesin I999 (Klein 2000: I I 8-21).
Products thus are the effect of the brand rather than the brand
being the effect of the product [Franklin et al.2000: 168-9).The
brand createsand maintains links amongst very different products.
They thus produce 'concepts' or 'lifestyles':'liberated from the
real-world burdens of stores and product manufacturing, these
brands are free to soat less as the dissemination of goods and
servicesthan as collective hallucinations' [Klein 2000: 27)'The
power of such fluid-like brands is essentially'cultural', not resid-
ing in the workplaces,workforces or the objects produce-dand sold
t journeys
[whether these are running shoes,body lotions, aircraft
or sweaters).
In the ."i" of Nike, a 'company that swallowscultural spacein
giant gulps', there is an enormous 'power of the swoosh',a liter-
ully free-iloatingsignifier[Goldman and Papson1998;Klein 2000:
Stl. nnd this power is insidious, seeping into diverse 'cultural'
domains ,, brand replicates through cloning' As for Body
"rih
Shop and Starbucks,'they had fostered powerful identities by
making their brand concept into a virus and sending it out into
the culture via a variety ol channels: cultural sponsorship,politi-
cal controversy,the consumer experience and brand extensions'
(Klein 2000: 2I).
Moreover, bra.tds do not just seep downwards, since they often
emerpe from street life and culture, urban black youth, New Age,
.i
fi
68 Networksand Fluids
political protest, labour movement, Green critiques and so qn.
Brands are powerful concepts, but they are always on the movq
often ironically flowing in and out of cultures including c,rltures
of protest. Indeed, almost every organization is affected by, and
becomes an element within, this branding global fluid, with uni-
versities, NGOs, governments, artists, charities, political parties,
hospitals, architects and so on all increasingly part of the branded
hfe.
Such brands demonstrate increasing returns; they magnify and
expand their power through use, time and time and time again.
Their power does not get used up but multiplies. The power; range
and ubiquity of such brands are expanded even when they are
subject to massivepolitical protest, as with the intense campaigns
over Nike's use of sweatshop labour. Brands then have become
super-territorial and super-organic,floating free and constituting a
'defining medium of exchange in global nature, global culture'
(Franklin et al. 2000: t82).
Automobility
This GF of immense consequencecould almost be seen as 'viral',
taking off in North America and then virulently spreading intq
and taking ovet most parts of the body social within all corners
of the globe. Such physical mobilities are environmentally costly,
with transport accounting for one-third of COz emissions.World
car travel is predicted to triple between 1990 and 2050, there are
well over half a bilhon cars roaming the globe, and many new
countries,such as China, are developing an 'automobile culture'.
By 2030 there may be one bilhon carsworldwide fMotavalli 2000:
2 0 -1 ).
The fluid of automobility uniquely combinesthe quintessential
manufactured object of industrial societies [the petroleum
car), the major system of individual ownership after housing, an
extraordinarily powerful machinic complex hnked to most other
industrial and service sectors,the dominant form of quasi-private
mobility that subordinatesalmost all other mobilities,the leading
culture defining the nature of the 'good life' through possessing
a un-measurableand indeed 'invisible' in time-space [see Adam
car, the single most important form of resource use, and the main
determinant of time fragmentation, as multitasking comes to char-
Networbsand Fluids 69
ccteri'zemuch sociallife (sheller and Urry 2000). Slater points
out tnnt the key here is not the 'car' as such but the system of
'a car because of its physi-
fluid interconnections: car is not a
.ulity bnt becausesystemsof provision and categoriesof things
are"rnaterialized"in a stable form' [200]: 6).
The fluid of automobility combines the notion of the autono-
rnous self with that of a machine with the capacity for autono-
rnous movement along the paths, lanes, streets and routeways of
one society after society.It is a self-organizing,non-linear system
spreading cars, car-drivers,roads, petroleum supplies and a huge
arrayof novel objects,technologies and signsthat petroleum-and-
steel cars presuppose and endlessly reproduce.
As I noted above, the GF of automobility stemmed from the
path-dependent pattern laid down from the end of the nineteenth
century.Once economiesand societieswere 'locked in' to the fluid
of automobility, then massiveincreasingreturns resulted for those
producing and selling the petroleum car and its associatedinfra-
structure, products and services.And at the same time social
life got locked in to the mode of individualized mobility that
automobility generatesand presupposes.This is, of course, a
mode of individualized mobility that is neither socially necessary
nor inevitable but one that seems impossible to break from (but
seeHawken et al. 1999J.
Enuironmentaland health hazards
These hazardstravel both geographicallyand temporally in non-
linear, unpredictable and irreversible fashion. For example, BSE
takes between five and twenty years to incubate, nuclear acci-
dents can affect generations that are not yet born, nuclear
radiation can survive for thousands of years,hormone-disrupting
chemicals appear to affect species living across all parts of the
globe, and no one knows what the environmental consequences
will be in various unimaginable futures of the widespread
planting of GM crops. Such fluid, moving hazards, which start
locally, roam over the globe, producing consequencesthat are
1998: 25-7, 35; 2000). Colborn et al. summarize the globally
fluid and complex nature of these processes:'We design new
 70 Networhsand Fluids Networb.sand Fluids 7l

technologiesat a dizzying p_a9gand deploy them on an unpr

Socialmouements
dented scalearound the world long before we can beginto fatl
their possible impact on the global system or ourselves,[1 rlanV CofrrrTrentators have begun to characterize social move-
and unexpected upsurges
244; seealso Beck 1992;Adam et al. 2000). And, if therels Y:;;, ;; fl;td-like with the exceptional
as involving
sure lessonhere, it is that the physical world is as dynamic, :ff;;. ;tggt trggg) describesrapid mobilization
where a small initial change
mopolitan and productive of emergent effects as is the s ::.i;;;;;";
erruub---- - ,1jf-t"infotcing processes 'contagion
world [Clark 2000). r' 'i itive f""aUtcl" This produces a
bY Pos:
i5 rmPlihed^ strikes
Thus it_ was only a small local research project begun in wlthin many protest movements where
-_ eff'ect'signihcant 52J simi-
Hawaiian hut in 1958 that'accidentally' revealedthe awesomr fires'' McKay [1998:
nr other actionssprea<llike'forest
significant and probably irreversible forty-year increasein g movements asebbingandflowing'sroup-
ij;l;ik;il"#ni', the flows'websand
housegasesfBrand 1999: 138).The resultsof the MaunaLoi
ingandregrouping ittp*,tf g97) describes
recordshave then come to play a central role in the performar forms of artful protest [see
in many
networks that are lnvoived
of what is now seen as a 'global nature', a nature regarded
alsoJordan 1998)'
of protest as involving
subject to exceptio nally hazardousand irreversible levels of th Overall, Melucci describesmovements
density'
stretching over an immensely lengthy period
[in rvhat I '..-."l".ptto.rr n"bt'I" oi it'dl"lnct shape-and variable
'glacialtime' (Urry 2000b)). shows how these uncertain
;;#'- II3-141. Sheller (2000)
lii*"..,"", ""i ar..-il .ir""g" involved in 'socialmovements'
non-Euclidean sticky
should be analysed ihto"gh tlie. prism of
The world's oceAns often demonstrate
;;;;; u'd b"r,di,,g times'"Social movements
These might be viewed as an almost literal global fluid. oceans or end point' Movements flow along
movementwith no U"gi"titU l."erflow'^ or 'ebb away'' They can be
are_increasingly seen as possessinglife-making properties and various channels U* il"V
domains can enable cas-
with levels of biodiversity that may help to 'save the globe' more or less viscose,op"ti"lly as public
from some the hazards just outlined are involved' particularly
fsee Helmrelch 2b00). cadesof action. U"f"pf" t"-po'"liti"'
transformed into power-
Bioprospecting the life-making attributes of the sea,such as the ,r ,fr" farticles in a movement may be
moveme-ntsto
curiously liminal coral reefs, involves mobile networks of re- iti Various kinds of 'free space' can enable
searchers, governmentfunding [especiallyfrom the USAJ, notions bot"'daries' reappearing different
seep -.t*through bo.d".,
of biodiversity,commercial companies and freezing i'ihe form guises, especially ;;di;
"t'd lot"tiottt' Such social
-in
"""*p"tt"a
of 'The marine environment . . . is being the ihysical movements of peoples'
.patents.In particular: movements alwavs ;;;;i;"
on that coalesce and
uploaded into a world wide web which reconstitutes biodiversity vehicles, texts, objects, informatio.n and so
u:o"11 barriers'
. . . as a "life" force to be plugged into projects of healing for disperse, .orl.".ttrri"' u"d dissolve' pouring.
individuals and "sustainable"use of the planet' lHelmreich zboo: switching the poini of and intermittently flooding various
"itutk se,"Whi:: 1995)
26). spaces[sheller ZOO0;on 'network,switchings"
as follows: 'the move-
Such oceanic networks, under the guise of savins the individ- A protest in Lonclonin 1999 is described force'
ual and the globe,roam the global .o--onr, bioprlspectingthe ment bafflea ,n" pJf]." to find its center' its motive
oceansfor patentable properties,as life has .o-" to-b" viewed "fftttt f'om th" pond emerged a plague of
its central governors;instead,
surface of London's
as a 'network of salty fluids' [Helmreich 2000: 2g). One of crawling, mobile ;i;;t" - {lgyinq ou^"t th" 'cellularslime
thesewebs of relationships,the Monterey BayAquariu- R"r"ur.h squares, roads, tln:tJ": 2000:74''on
".,j^iitag"" ttt' s)' Iikewisein late2000'a mere
Institute, is a leader in the use of deep robotics and of telepresent .];ldl ;* Fo; Kelle;-191s'
almostbrought
technologiesof visualizationof the deep oceans. 2,000peopleor.,",it"* "g"-tt highpetroltaxes
 72 Networbsand Fluids
Networbs and Fluids 73
all economic activity in Britain to a halt. For
a couple of
these protestorsblocked the rer"drrery-few .ropping up like the islandsof an archipelago,unexpectedly and
locarizednodes They can appear both horizontally but also vertically,
thejust-in-time delivery
of petrolf".;; "t,aotically.
,to its
";;;;;i.#;J irrir,rngin the case of international terrorists not from the wild
broughta large k"".r,. il;;
l1::.1",,::tors
achievedthrough a loose :coll.omy lnn"r of the subways of New York, but also astonishinglyfrom
network of hlg[ly mobile unJ.o,
(through their mobile phones) protesto"rs the alr as planes or as biomaterials.
with no
to arrestand no crearorganizaiionthat the police "uiJ# 11{oreover,extraordinarily rapid and unexpected switches,
.."ii ..,a
sue'The.fluidity of the petrol supply turned or'zapping' (Emirbayer and Mische 1998) or 'turning points'
out to b" il;.
.i.^,il;ff;
susceptible
to particularpointsoi blo.krgi bV t'Abbott 2001) occur between such fluids as they pass into,
l"iaf' ihrough, over and under each other. Central to many of these swit-
il:::'j:::l,T :: :::"-t? I :" i 1: o,at,ge"tti
appropriateimagesonto the world's media,
ngtt'
"i. "' ",,i*".*
although
chesor zappings between the GFs are various kinds of software
media skill was learnt during the very course ''".h;i,fi increasinglyinfused into the very fabric of everyday life [Thrift
of th"ep.o,& ,*ug 2001). Such pervasive computing has largely remained opaque
They thus learnt from and lontribuied
,o tt _"Urf,
protesting occurring at the same time and uncontested. And yet software is everywhere producing
across"Westeri
"nutJr"",
Europe..q snitching and mobility between different fluids, through the
t-r:9-90protestors) thus chaoticully p.odr,."a, fi.r*e
:?t^:-T::
ot certain patterns of localized refining, just_in_time Internetwith its massivesearchengines,databasesof information
deliveryl storageand retrieval, world money flows, especially through the
instantaneousreal-time communications,
globalized -."r".-r.nrna ubiquitous'spreadsheet culture', intelligent transport systems,
motorized mobility, influential protest thui
dirrrfi"a -"air robotic vision machines under the oceans,and vision machines
governmentsacrossmuch of Europe.
overall, Arquilla and Ronfeldt summarize more generally.It was calculated that in 1996 there were some
the nature of sevenbillion software systems(Thrift 2001: 18).
social movements and ,netwars, within.
an age of complexity: Finally, these complex intersectionsbetween fluid spatialities
'Information-age threats ':rffr..,
are ..,or" lik"l; ;. T";;;"
dispersed, multi-dimensional, non_linear; suggesta further metaphor;what Law and Mol term'fire' [2000).
and ambiguous than By this they try to capture how a continuity of shape can be the
threats..
Metaphorically,
then,future .o'r,ni.L_rv
::9:,Ilit-p:
resemblethe orientar game of Go verv effect of movement, even of abrupt and discontinuousmove-
more than the western game ment [note the previous description of gases).The term also
of chess'[200]: 2).
emphasizeshow there is a striking dependenceof presenceupon
rvhathappensto be absent.Indeed,more generallysociallife often
I have thus set out some powerful fluid systems.
^strikingly
Togetherwith GINs, these fluids depends upon peculiar combinations of the presence and the
rJam the lands,th" se"s and absence.'Fire' also brings out how the forms of absencethat con-
outer space,or what we metaph.ri.;lt;;in"
11ner.a.nd !ou., stitute a present are themselves patterned [they discuss a star
0ngold 1993).These systemstravel aiong and beyond various pattern but there are others).There is thus a complex oscillating
scapesintersectingwith eachother in .o-p'i"*,
urrp."dr.iubL pattern of presenceand absence,of contradictions,within social
time-spacecompressed forms.Varioustimes are fbldedinto these "nd phenomena.There are not fixed entities with stable attributes
roaming hybrids, including nanosecond
i.rrt"r-rtun"iw7", *t,rt [Abbott 2001: 40-l).
the Internet), commo-difi:j futures
lgf"Uri-_;*rf,'',fri"iro__ This concept of fire characterizescontemporary communica-
fragmentationof time [with autom.biity;
u.,a i"ru""iry tions. In intimate and unexpected forms, an array of technical
"*"Jo-"
They roam the globe,possessing
!:l,l:i: "ceans). the power of and instrumental means of communications are combined with
raplo movement,across,over and under many
apparentregions, humans.They have partially replacedthe spatiality of 'co-present
disappearingand then reappearing,transmutating
their form, sociality' with new modes of present and absent 'strangerness'
 74 Networhsand Fluids

il:lj::rr_m",# frT*H
Networlzsand Fluids
remoreness, :Jn
{r':l** i.
or mobirityu"d fi*rii"r-::;:.i::y""n n€3.D€SS
i :i:l
rJl'i1*1r'f
,l::^
lixe
:jl_T_f:*ss d and stabr
e attributes
n:, upp,opii"t,r,".*o*i,Jff::"":Tt
/J

*iY:?
ll,1^::
:t.,m
:#:iffi ; i::tgt'#Hi
lapse;,a"r,ul
:: :.1 lose
[T.:il; onandstasiqinsi
;""';.:_:;:,,.1o,,,
,.1r" :"_Tf5:fI,: li: ryrt"-t. .f,
their fluid u"d_
-?l next chapter I examin" "*i,".;;;.r.
ln the ;;;,;;i
make

:ematicallythe nature
correctiviries

u.' n'y
llTji: jh" "'"*'
",, ;^:::f ,ji:i and,simulated,
thejr bora".rl
d;?",l*'h
hk*:111^iil''
l - on
a:
rhe slobal rol,t;^-"t :^- +L -
:|l5:',"iJj;*:'"."":*:
:ffi.'"",ffi * I t: F"'";'rl'::ililft*::
Tr:h;:"::l:::,1':t4i;;;;J:;:ffi TiTli-
jl:::-1,,"' ourmidst :":il"ii
;,,
;;:;
-o]l:'ff::":'Til"*,"J',"'l il:'[1il:,::r*:::f
:3: i:31'0"''**;".,;*:Jf':"f
;;i; -""ffi:,1':"::n:j
;:^::lt:f
:;?il::':?'* ::':
::" i :
"" 1".
;X HH::",ll:l:
'"ordrin".?;,ljff :::X..","0r"j.^1.h,.u.t".i,",,u,
::;:'il,:"n:
,spaces'
"':^
within :
theTl l':
entire rl i
n.ti :*,
.f :fi
gi.id"possibilities.

:*r#{'fi
I :,:l
iffi ir:,j
ru::,T ":iil:
:*tig Hl;ii
evotving'i.u,lro''oit;:o:r'""excellent
imase
Ii?d]r "r,ii
ffi:j:f
(B +Hii
ogard 2
i *o.r.,,;;;;",
:? :1", ili cybe'netic sroups
000:, 0j.'il;'."r"b
f, :: 1"tfi :* ^]fl|.i:rs,
;ril;T

ifi,t:Tr'
i:TJ
*ttu
,;i'ff'.,','."';
* t=tr,qlt* lu***
',":,-t,
l"#l?''p'e'";;; ilI,?ff
i*i
ilf;'fi,:il1:
,'*i'r:
*iltrt_# jl?r;::::;
j#,::,:i::jil"Hh
conclusion
I have thus exan

t"#lt#i,'ftii
#''""d:ff ry ;,H,'ff
ll':'"n: ,,;:
i
r_:,."il:',|t3*i:;';;;;";';;;:I,,"i;:'J:rL,:UlJnT;i
;91*i*:?Ji:*ffi ''.;11',','il":ix"ilr;:
:;ffti** ni;tiritr*i:,"Jx
il:"*:r,::il:.:,
J:
:T,:T,.,,y
tn#;$"f} ,lji
il:l#l3r31;T[1]f
few
I

5 Moreover, with changes in the scientific theory and research,
GlobalEmergence
Emergent Effects and the ,Locai'
The social scienceshave wrestled with competing claims that
there either are, or are not, properties of the sociul v,iorld that can
be reduced to the characteristicsof individuals that make up that
world. such debate_ has perhaps generatedmore heat than light
and I will not spend too long addlng to that heat.
I presume from the discussionof complexity that there are
indeed emergent properties at the collectivl levei. To reduce that
level to 'facts about individuals' would be to lose important
knowledge of those emergent properties. And, anyway, there is
no efrective way of characterizing 'individuars'-wiihout de-
scribing various sociallinkagesthat make up those very emergent
properties.
I Jrave already noted how the complexity scienceshave exam-
ined the emergent characterof various populations.I have shown
the limitations of sciencethat reducescomprex phenomena to
linear causes. cohen and stewart talk of thor" iregularities of
behaviour that somehow seemto transcendtheir ownlnsredients'
(1994: 232; see also chapter 2 above). It is not that tlie sum is
thought to be greaterthan the size ofits parts as in some formu-
lations. It is rather that the system effecis are differenl from its
parts. we have seen how many notions in 'science',such as the
properties of a gas,cannot be reduced to the subatomic parti-
cles whose seething movements constitute such a gas.As Kellv
Global Emergence 77
expressesthis: 'Emergence requires a population of entities, a
pultitude, a collective....More is different [since]...large
nunrbersbehave differently from small numbers' [1995: 26).
the basic individual constituents of the physical world have
substantially shifted over time (from molecules, to atoms to
subatomicparticles).So there is simply no ultimately irreducible
entity within scienceto which larger-scaleproperties have been
unrversallyreducible.Within quantum physicsthe apparent'parts'
consist of probabilistic rel^ationshipsor patterns between sub-
atomic particles, relationships that are not independent but are
determinedby the dynamicsof the systemas a whole. Heisenberg
maintainedthat: 'The world thus appearsas a complicated tissue
of events, in which connections of different kinds alternate or
overlap or combine and thereby determine the texture of the
whole' (cited Capra 1996: 30J.
'Rational action theorists' in the social sciencesadvocateredu-
cing socialpatternsto variousmodes of individually rational,linear
actions. But this seems wrong, since it presumes a clear and
irreducible 'individual' whose rational actions can explain the
socialphenomenain question fsee Goldthorpe 2000). There is no
reason to presume that there are such clear and unambiguous
rational individuals. Certainly the history of the physical sciences
showsthat there are no given and unchangingirreducible entities
to which the complexity of the physical world has been, or could
be, reduced.Indeed,what counts are the'individual' results from
multiple flows occurring over various times. According to De
l-anda (1997: 259-60), individual bodies and selves are mere
'transitory hardenings'in the more basic historical flows of min-
erals,genes,diseases, energy,information, and languagefsee also
chapter2 above).
Emergent properties are also, as we have seen, never purely
'social'and the processesthat generatethem are alsonever simply
social. Complexity would always argue against the thesis that
'phenomena' are bounded, that social causes produce social
consequences,that there is a cause that generateslinear effects.
Causesare always overflowing, tipping from domain to domain
and especiallyflowing acrossthe supposedly distinct and puri-
fied 'physical' and 'social' domains. For complexity, emergent
 78 Global Emergence
properties are irreducible, interdependent, mobile and non-lrnear.
Reductionism of the methodologicallyindividualist sort is simply
ruled ou_tfalthough not in some complexity-influenced simula_
tions). This chapter consider.show to think through the nature
of
such irreducible, interdependent and mobile properties emergent
at the global level. How it is that such global properties'emerge,,
given that there would appear to be no singlecentre or'governor,
of the globe from which, in linear fashion, global relatiois can
be
derived?
It is instructive to begin with the best example of non-linear
analysiswithin the social sciences- namely, Marx's analysisfrorn
a century and a half back of the unfolding 'contradictions' of
the capitalistmode of production. He ,.gr"J that the 'need for
a Third, the limitations of existing capitalist markets lead indi-
constantly-changing market chasesthe bourgeoisie over the whole i
surface of the globe. It must settle everywherg establish con-
nexions everywhere' [Marx and Engels 1848/1952: 46-7;see also I
Flster 1985; D. Harvey 2000). This putative globalizationresults .
from how individual capitalist enlerprises leek to maximize \
profits and hence pay their workers as little as feasible or make
:
them work as long as possible.This 'exploitation' of the workforce i
continues unless the state, or collective actions by trade unions,
prevents it, or unless the workers die prematurely. The conse-
quences of such endlesslyrepeated local actions reproduce the
capitalist system and its emergent properties of class relations.
Substantial profits are generated,so offsetting what Marx hypoth-
esized as the tendency of the rate of profit to fall. such profits
reproduce the emergentclassrelationsof capital and wage i"bor'
that are integral to the capitalist system. out of thos"e profits
certain 'ideal collective interests' of capital are met through a
'capitalist state' that secures and sustains the
leeal for; of
private property, the availabilityof appropriate laboui power; the
conditions of the circulation of capital and so on.
Howeve4 Marx shows that sustaining order through each
capitalist exploiting his or her local workforce eventuall| results
in various system contradictions [see Elster 1985). First, since it
is in the interestsof each enterprise
fbut crucially not of all enter-
prises)to minimize the wagespaid to its employees,the emergent
level of demand for capitalist commodities is iuboptimal
[Elster
1985: 46-7). Hence, in relationship to demand ihere will be
Global Emergence 79
resources
errerproduction,the underemployment of capitalist
and periodic capitalist crises, although
i"specially labour power)
that
ih"r" ,r" subsequentlymitigated through'Keynesian'policies
commodities.
increase'effectivedemar-rd'for capitalist
Second, the effect of capitalist competition is to produce a
,r,orkforce that is increasingly inefficient, relatively deprived and
is a working
rebellious.Emergent from ordered capitalist relations
will
classthat thro.rgh an increasinglywidespread classstruggle
of a
g;n".u," social ievolution and ultimately the establishment
:high"r' emergent order. In seeking its own transcendence from
that
,rlu"g",lru"ry, tlh" p.ol"tariat generatesa new communist order
or,""r.o-", the emergent contradictions of the capitalist system.
vidual capitalist firms to seek alternative markets. The Manifesto
of the Communist Parry describeshow the: 'need for a constantly
.hrngi.,g market ch"s", the bourgeoisie over the whole surface of
the globe. It must settle everywhere, establish connexions every-
*h"i" . . . the bourgeoisie has through its exploitation of the
world market given a cosmopolitan character to production and
consumption in every country' (Marx and E'ngels 1848/1952:
46-7). ihis worldwiie capitalist expansion will 'smash down
Chinlse walls' and ultimately generatethe emergent property of
a revolutionary proletariat streiching acrossthe globe [Marx and
Engels 1848/i952; D. Harvey 2000). Thus capitalist relations
ove'rmillions of iterations result in the opposite of what capitalists
appear to be reproducing through exploiting their particultrr
workforce. Local capitalist exploitation results, Marx argues,in
non-linear effects of a revolutionary proletariat and
".n".g"ni
'catastrophic' (ln terms of the existing system) branching of
a
capitalism into a new emergent order of world communism [see
Reed and Harvey 1992).
We now k ,o*, through the benefits of hlndsight, that his analy-
siswas'mistaken' in thai it supposedlypredicted worldwide social
,l
revolution. However, complexity can illuminate why' Complexity
shows that relatively small perturbations in the capitalist system,
such as the shift from an industrial to an informational paradigm
from
[Castells 1996), would have produced a branchlng different
what was pr"ii.t"d by Marx a century and a half ago' Only a
relatively small set of causes would have been necessary to
80 Global Emergence GIobaI Emergence 8l

across Eastern Europe seems to have

generate a radically different emergent outcome, of post-For -^llaose of communism
'welfare' consumerism rather than worldwide social revol '^]|,'.r"d once the particular local centre of the Kremlin was
Large effects do not necessarilyneed large causes,since s l^,r-rf" and unwilling to eliminate such rebellion.
out of equilibrium can tip or turn one way or the other thro ""ihu, we might say that Marx's analysisof nineteenth-century
small rather than large changes. derionstrates elements of complexity, although the
-"-,ulir-
is demonstrably very different from
Marx's analysisbrings out the key significanceboth of I T,l"rr".a system' he analyses
forms of information and action and of the emergence of sys i^, tod"y. Compared with the nineteenth-century system
effects that are far from equilibrium. According to Marx, eagf, "t through ih" 'h.g"-on' of the British Empire, the
capitalist firm operates under non-equilibrium conditions and i "rrrrtr"a emergent order is structured through multiple inter-
.rir"n,
able to respondto 'local' sourcesof information that carriesacross lanend€ot organizations that are collectively performing the
a limited range.Any emergent complex system is then the result ,fiUrf Each Jo-errolves, demonstratingwhat Gilbert [1995: 151)
of a rich interaction of simple elementsthat 'only respond to the ;;;; ."Oability to "orientate" to macro-levelproperties',in this
limlted information each is presented with' [Cilliers 1998: 5; the global level'
-- at
case
the Univer-
on the implications for social simulations,see also Gilbert 1995: ih"r" u"ried institutions include the UN [notably
f 47-B).Thus, while acrossthe world billions of actions occu1,each p".l^.",ion of Human Rights adopted on l0 December 1948)'
,ri
Organization, Greenpeace'
is basedupon localized information. People act iteratively in terms W"Aa Bank, Microsoft, World Tiade
BBC'
of what can be known locally and there is no global control over CNN, Inter-GovernmentalCommittee on Climate Change'
the system.Agents act in terms of the local environment but each News Corporation, World Intellectual Property -Organization'
Or-
agent adapts,or co-evolves,to local circumstances.But they adapt International Air Transport Association, FIFA, World Health
or co-evolve'within an environment in which other similar agents gr.rlrutio.,,IOC and soon [Held.et al' 1999;UNDP 2000;Roche
are also adapting, so that changes in one agent may have conse- iOOOl.Through their interiependence,_these institutions of gover-
quences for the environment and thus the successof other agents' nance and civil society are organizing the rules, structures and reg-
(Gilbert 1995: 148). ulations of the newly emergent global order (on the contemporary
In the next section I suggest that, while people know little interdependencies th" tOC, WHO' UN and so on, see Roche
"f
about the global connections or implications of their particular 2000). The nineteenth-century equivalent to this patterning was
actions,these local actionsneverthelessdo not remain local.They the t-gg4 establishment of Greenwich Mean Time that synchro-
are captured, represented,transported, marketed and generalized nized time zones acrossthe world [Nguyen 1992: 33)'
elsewhere. They get carried along the scapes and flows of the Interdependent with these global organizations are various
emerging global world, mobilizing ideas,people, images,moneys signifiers tf thl, emergent global order' Besides the blue earth'
and technologies to potentially everywhere [rather like ping-pong these include the Olyripic F1ag,the sea,Nelson Mandela, whales'
balls in a gutterl). Examples were noted in previous chapters tigers and elephants, the sign of th" International Red Cross, the
of where decisions based upon local knowledge have resulted Amazon rain forest, Mother Teresa and so on' These signifiers
community uniting dlffer-
through multiple iterations in unpredictable and non-linear "and imagined
reflect and perform a global
consequencesat the emergent global level. Thus the apparently ent peopler, g"rrd"., generations. The astronaut William
'rational' decision of millions of individual people to drive cars Anders most fimourly .o-ni"nted on the image of the blue earth
results in carbon gas emissionsthat threaten the planet's long- seenfrom space:
term survival.The Internet developedout of countlessunplanned
and relatively small-scaletechnological and organizationalinno- The earth appearedas a small,blue-greenspherelike a beautiful
vations occurring in a particular sequence.The almost overnight ornament,,rery delicat. ii-it.a. ' ' ' fn" ancestralhome of
".td
 82 Global Emergence
Global Emergence B3 ,1

*ffi #, h: ilTliit,#;1,,T3
witha'rirr";";
;'
;1ff
;'
,T:r,Tiii:;
r,'['j*
Strange Attractors
;Tji T::;::T::;"n "l;y;
notb"Ti
y,,,;;;,a;;,
"d; if:::'
t;1:
i B
I,U,,t'a.U rn Chapter Z I discussedthe idea of attractors
and especially
:"."r.l"rb,ji,urng" attractors.The latter characterizecertain systems where
to ,1",,.l?i".,o.Yof dynamical
Such imagesdepict.-th:_ql"g" ,fr."r u." unstableand which and
through signifyingcertain iistems is attracted over time through billions of iterations
i
l,:T:':"ffT1":,,
alsospeak "1y'1""T,"1,,u_nd i,,i_"rs.Andsuchi" .lrnccssesof Positive feedback.
rorthe xrobe,skil;rrftfiffl'iriff;:.i"f t-
Y''
Th"r" have
1 | . , r, ,l
been few attempts within the social sciencesto
f#::ior another
way :::rl1o, j-"3
their ""'il'"",,"'*r"u,r
3.?
in imagery'
in develop analyses drawing on the notion of strange
attractors
t.",rding,"d frrr"C,rrl*.t1, fgu.n" 1997, 1998). Baker'sexamination[1993: i35-41) of the
marketplace.
tentriphery' attractor is the most interesting (see also P. Stewart
andimages
arefusedtogether Z00l:331). Baker seesthe centriphery as a dynamic pattern that
o,jx'"1,",:t}:ii:':l' in va
the world
the .^,^.1t vi
,.:^-.-^ .Jnexpected,
mega_events.On rrah o..r' eetsrepeated at many different levels of the social world. The
ewsitser f ih-r-o ",..e"1"rl":: :t ;x":ff
r];i';:t'Ji*i, lentriphery involves irreversible flows of energy,information and
il,:lil*:l'
wort d Exp T'#
os, l,"o^'l:
LiveAld ::i4rv""r, Exampresincrudc
: r ioj. o'"ii,T ideas backwards and forwards between the centres and peri-
^ . o".".ii-
prison'Rio Earthsummit,,tr"
^ ijt#i:* oheries,with each existing only because of the other. And the
,"..oiri""'
destructionof the centriphery simultaneously creates and re-createsboth centres
Ti"adecentre' princess
Diana'sa""trr"""a funerar,the worrd
Games,millennial."l9b1ati-o-.,r, olympic and peripheries.The trajectory of social systems is irreversibly
W;;ii Beijing Women,s attracted to this centriphery attractor. .Because centring and
Conferenceandsoon{Albrow iggo,ljo,9rpr,
Rochezbo6,.n. 4.ln peripheralizinginvolve the transformation of energy and in-
:ili, :i :1TX,Tj' gl'kI i-' gl'"l"' produced,
.,..,,i*a,...- formation and, thus, the creation of entropy, the process is
scre€nsaround,n"',.1ifi,"":,r"":.,11;l;ffi
'ambienttelevision, e**Hfr #:?
irreversible.

ffur.Crr,fri)OOif .' thenis an'attractor',creatingorderby funnellingenergy

Cer.rtering,
,,, \o:h" describes plannedrn"*"_"""j;, and information towards itself and disorder by peripheralizing
that . . . channel,mrx.and
T,-:'::ilspatio-temporal its environment.It producesa world on the peripherywhere the
flows' reer,Th"t;;"
^hubs"(2000:
"";-;;;t,.h:s,,'t-L^.,
:::'^-!1990
condensation,
;';#ilil;'?H"J:,":?
lggl gi:|ilI re-routeglobal
flow of energyand informationis awayto somewhereelse. . . the
involving the peculiarly centerhas an entropiceffecton the peripherycausingincreased
suchglobalevents ,".,i"" intense.localization,of I
randornnessand increasinq amounts of unusable resources.
yi:h;i oi".", ar" to the fact that they : (Baker1993:139)
il:fi3:'XTJT"i.']"1';dT:"kiTi't'"'po*".i"l*',r.,-
,T:':Ll::t.iiy;,it",, in".n"zrjb;,i.fi;: . into beingthese The centriphery is rather like Einstein'sconception of an object
rn rhe next section this whose gravity warps the space around it, drawing in and generat-
rerationshipbetween grobal
local host cities is examined eventsand ing new patterns of order and of disorder.And further, Baker notes
illustration of a compl""., -".-;;;;alry. It is seen as a specific that such centring processesare now significantly international-
;;;L:,r"'lr ,f," strange attractor of
'glocalization',whereby ized. Thus: 'toda.v,particular multinational industries center vast
rhe connectionsof l.."li;;;";-].,,on,
and global consesuences i amounts of human activity, Iocating specific aspectsof their enter-
have il;;;;';".onfigured
brilliant insightsfrom the since M t prise in different continents.In each of these cases,the exchange
;;1" .".rtr.y before rnr,.i"tt of goods and servicesbinds and lubricates a dynamic relationship
-iddr; &
'n
t-

l-
 84 Global Emergence
between the center and the periphery. As- centering progresses,
deepensthe periphery' [Baker 1993: 140)
Baker'saccount is now historicallydated,sinceit depends
the relatively simple thesis of the internation arizing of rrdu
production. However, his argument can be developed th
suggestingthat the specific form now taken by the atiractor
of
centriphery is 'glocalization'.Within the phase-spaceof
possibilities,the trajectories of many social systems worl
are increasinglydrawn into the attractor of ,glocalization,
[on
'glocal',seeRobertson199?J.By this I meanthat
there pa.i
"i"
allel,irreversibleand mutually interdependentprocess",br;f,';I
globalization-deepens-loca_lization-deepens-grotalization
rrrd so
on. The global and the local are inextricably and irreversibly
bound together through a dynamic relationship, with huge
flowi
of 'resources' moving backwards and forwards between ih"
,*o.
Neither the global nor the local exists without the other.
The
global-local develops in a symbiotic, unstable and irreversible
set
of relationships, in which each gets transformed through blllions
of worldwide iterations dynamically evolving over timel
what has produced such attractor effecti? crucial to Marx,s
account of the contradictions of nineteenth-century capitalism
was its foundation upon the localized nature of information. Each
firm respondsonly to locally availableinformation. And more gen-
erally this systemof localizedinformational limitation oJ.r,
remained in place until the late twentieth century -o."
[cilliers l99g:
4). The radio, TV, letteq,telegram and fixed rine teiephone enabled
some input of information from outside each locaiity. Heidegger
wrote about the first in l9l9: 'l live in a duil, drab colliery vifage
. . . a bus ride from third rate entertainments and .orrrid..ubl"
"
iourney from any educational,musical or social advantages of a
first classsort. . . . Into this monotony comes a good radioiet and
my little world is transformed' [cited in scannell 1996: l6l). The
radio [and later the TV) began to disclose the public *o.ld of
events,persons and happenings.People were partially thrown into
the public world disclosedon radio and TV.
But m,y claim here is that the scale,range of media and exten-
sivity of informational flows developing from around i990
have irreversibly transformed such 'discloir."r' from elsewhere.
lnformation flows have been dematerialized from place. wth
Global Emergence 8s
A;oitizrtion, information adopts patterns and modes of mobility
L,i.t.nttally scparatefrom material form or presence.Information
lli. [and nowhere) travelling more or less instanta-
"t"ry*here fluid networks of global communications,along
l"ourfV along the
*hu, *nt referred to in chapter 4 as 'all-channel'networks.
Thesetechnologieschangeat astonishingspeed,with a hundred-
years (Brand 1999].
fold increasein computing power every ten
ih" n"- 'computime' represents the abstraction of time and its
human experience, space and the rhythms of
,"pu.ution from
nature. The information-based dlgital age
'is about the global
movement of weightlessbits at the speed of light' fNegroponte
1995: l2J.What can be accessed locally or globallyis now more
least is irreversibly becoming identical [see
or lessidentical, or at
Cairncross1998J.And it is this spatialindifferenceof information
that has called into being the strange attractor of giocalization.
This involvesthe remaking of social relations acrossthe world, as
extraordinarilydiversesocialpracticesget irreversibly'drawninto'
or'sucked into' the ambit of the glocalizingattractor.
A number of almost simultaneous,.and partly contingent,
transformations occurred from around 1990 to 'kick-start' this
dynamically different informational order (see Castells 1996).
First, Soviet Communism collapsed.The societiesof Central and
Eastern Europe had constructed exceptionally strong frontiers
both from the 'West' and from each other. The cold war chilled
information and culture as well as politics. But from 1989 the
systemdisappearedalmost overnight, partly becauseof the pro-
found failure of Soviet Communism to developnew informational
technologiesand the paradoxicaldependenceupon US comput-
ing technology (see Castells 1998: ch. l). And, as it disappeared,
especiallyfollowing the mega-event of the demolition of the
Berlin Wall, so substantiallocalized barriersto informational flow
also dissolved.
Sirnultaneously,there was the development of systemsof global
news reporting, as opposed to the national news reporting that
impressed Heidegger in the 1920s. CNN television started in
1980,but, since its'success'in the Gulf War, broadcastsin over
140 countries.This more or lessvirtual war in l99l was the first
in which the new pattern of twenty-four-hour real-time reporting
occurred acrossthe world. This greatly increasedCNN's visibility
 86 GLobal Emergence
Global Emergence 87
and this hassubsequentlyspreadto many other
broadcasters recent period has seenthe development of a global screen
have gone global and produced a ,global ,tug"/r..""n;-il;'" "llv,thc
events.nowthoroughlymediated(Volkmert9O9; ."on nuht.h localities, cultures and nations appear,to compete
Hoski", ZOO themselvesas spectacle[P. Harvey 1996; Roche
Analogouslyin the late l9S0: all major nn"n.i"l-*-".1. ,ia,o mobilize
movedto on-linereal-timetradingaccesribl",o_"*h"." uOf,tfl.These events, premised upon global media and mass
.l lnuriim, mean that local identity and nation are conceived of
twenty-four hours a day.There *, . shift to "af
*lobrl- JvrLem
rrr".."' ihroughtheir location within, and upon, that global screening.
electronicfinancialtrading[L"yrhon ,.J irr.tri" t*t).
telling,in 1990Tim Berners_Lee ,inventej, Thrs'elobalscreening'in turn relatesto the changingnature of
. . -B.r,r.T.ort the W; nationalityfMaier 1994: 149-50; McCrone 1998). Once nation-
Wide Web and especially_ the concepts .f URL, Hiii;;i
fsee Castells'shistory: 200IJ. Togetherthese conc;.; ;;, alitywas based upon a homogenous and mapped national terri-
seamless jumpsfrom link to ilnk without regard ,o ,h. ror.v,in which law was defined, authority claimed and loyalty
.o, soughtby the state within that territory. But now frontiers are
tional- geographical boundaries within whici
i.rfor-"tio",, oermeableand cultural life is far more interchangeableacrossthe
been located,stored and^curated
6riedman 2000: OS_a1.';; globethtough extensive corporeal, imaginative and virtual travel.
fromaround1990*r.
li:"]:tfq
cles, websitesandsymposia "'.rr.rai"e **y.iio#r, "*i.l
devoted,"
Maier concludes that 'territory is less central to national self-
"""-?",.;iil,
ordering. These analyses both detail the
ffi;dffi definition'(1994: 149). Nationality getsmore constituted through
strong co-evolution of specificlocal places,symbols and landscapes,icons of the nation
informational flows occurring across th" glob"'*rrtrri"
*.y air- centralto that culture's location within the contours of global
ferent domains of activity; and assist in
citing, perfbrming and business,travel and branding fsuch as the twin towers of New
drawing into existence a new global ordering
,l*"y, bdr*la on York'sWorld Tiade Centre).
the knife edge,'on the edge oi.hror,.
Through glocalization,then, nation has become less a matter
My argument here is that there is not a global
centre of poweq, of the specific state uniquely determining that nation. And the
let alone a global conspiracv or global
;;*;;l;-;""i,l.ir"a ," notion of nation has significantly become more a matter of brand-
social practice fsee the critique in"Jessop
2000). Rather ih"." i, ing, as nation has become something of a free-floating signifier
an attractor of 'glocalization,.This is deveioping
;" ;;;;."rriu.ly relativelydetached from the 'state' within the swirling contours
worldwide basisand drawing more and
more sets of" iela-tionships of the new global order [see P. Harvey 1996; Delanty 2000: 94).
into its awesomepower. And, as relationship,
d."*., _, ," ,fr.y British PM Tony Blair famously talked of seeking to 'rebrand
are irreversibly remade. This is productiue "."
of a new ordering Britain'.
but not one involving a singlecoordinating
centre.Kwa describes The power of the attractor of glocalizationcan also be seenin
this notion as 'complexity without telos.
. . .Arry local changg the more generaldevelopment of global branclsand of the often
provided it meets the criticar requirements,
can induce the rest localizedresistancesthat develop againstthem. I noted in the last
of_the population . . . to_,,co-operate,,into
finding ,"* _"a. chapter the insidious power of such brands, a virus sent out
behaviour.All individud, ,""- to b" i.rfo.-"a " "f
iuort ott into the culture through various channels of sponsorship,con-
at the steps of the transition' (2002:42; "".h ",
seealso Duffield z00lJ. sumerisnr,political controversy and marketing additions. Brands
one illustration of the w_orkingsof this attractor
is how global are,moreover, always on the move, often ironically flowing in and
mega-eventssuch as the Olympics seem both
to presuppoi" th. out of cultures, including cultures of protest. Brands do not just
emergence of local host cities and to reinforce
ttr"i. -il*i seepdownwards from the centre - they also derive from various
These are places chosen for their supposedly
,niqre, "rl-,'"rg"n.".
rtrur_ streetlife and cultures, turning almost every local resistanceinto
acteristicsthat make them rspeciaily appropriate
for the hosting a rebrandingopportunity [such as urban black youth, New Age,
of what are increasinglygLobaievenrs (Roche 2000J. Vor.g",_,"r- teminism,labour movement, Greens and so on).
 88 Global Emergence Global Emergence 89
Simultaneouslythere is a growing global
opposition1q 1 that'exist only to the extent that
'brandedlife'. Brandscreate
th'"i. opiosite via-ii" p;;;g Thcseare virtual communities
.heir constituentsare linked together through identificationscon-
advertisements [Cancer Country .rifr". than Marlboro C^,,.
1..,,.,"d in the non-geographicspacesof activistdiscourses, cultural
cigarettesl, ,reclaiming.i;;
through local and then global
].l"au.,t and media images' [Rose 1996: 333). And, partly through
parties, through Critical Mass bike v.i.;r
.ides, through th;;.;;;; oracticesof resistanceto the flows, they serve to 'detotalize'
anti-sweatshopsmove-."n,,(":p:cially ro
targeting Nike, Grp'Vl l-Jlto.ulir"' each national society.Thus 'civil societiesshrink and
on for.theii localizeo labour market
and through massiveNGO ."_;;;;;^^;;;;;; exploi
Y:T,?:l"li11ro li.l.ti.ul"te becausethere is no longer continuity between the
:i:Q L*ni. of power-making in the global network [global fluids, in my
Y.D.lr] Ir and,globalization' o." g.r,".rjf ri;.0.6b, representation
Klein[2000:441)showshow the -
v if<t.i ,"l.rinology here] and the logic of associationand
works: ;n soecificsocietiesand cultures' (Castells 1997: 1l)'
",i".,o.
by trying to enclose our shared culture
in sanitized and controled
laradoxically, such groups routinely employ the machines and
brand cocoons, these corporations
have themselves created the technologiesof globalization. Castells [1997: ch' 3) terms the
surge of opposition . . they have radicalized
that ;o;il;;. Zapatistasthe 'first informational guerrillas', since they deploy
.'..
By abandoning their traditional .ot"
,, Jlr".t, secure employers to computer mediated communication and the establishmentof a
pursue their branding dreams, they
have lort the i"y"lt;i;;.; slobalelectronicnetwork of solidarity groups.Similar widespread
protected them from citizen rage.
ir" of the Internet is found amongst the American Patriots, who
believe that the federal state is turning the USA into a part of the
siven the, conflictual and antagonisticrelations global economy and destroying American sovereignty and local
Y::::l:11llv, Llons
andlocaliz";i;";the gloiJ ;;l;;;; .."_ Irrrtu*, and culture. And the Internet has been central to those
f":y:::"{:bl':":t:"
l""l1;,
3::'-',Ii:i'-:: id'";;;; i* t,?^
"?::," if",#:'; illl; j..X
planningthe massiveprotestsagainstthe key symbolsof the new
gtobnt o.d"., the World Tiade Organization and the meetings of
;:::::1':::--------------'1*t'::llardtoimagine'ir*,"p)bciol'iit
I : . _ -^_o^-^r LrLrrup
r, a globat,streetparty pointedly read: ,The
Lwwv. J)/). h

::ll":
"^fl,l,
3::,::lf :i,i..: ::rit,I;,.,hiI" ".i
,united :i:i:'nT; ffi
resistancewill ih" CZZCS. Organizationslike the WTO also came under attack
in cyberspace,as worldwide direct action used the Internet to jam
of the
i.;1,.,"1ry.,."1ks colou,. "i*' ^.
oin?iffi;.:iiilr'J"'iffi their computer system and to broadcast information on the
3 2 2 ,3 5 7 ).
unfolding event.
generally,_passionate
opposition to the networks and flows
. Yo."
of the new global order Deteriitorialized global entities are strikingly vulnerable to the
many networked groups and processesof democratic 'mobilization' by similarly mobile, deter-
"rr".gir.,
associations.Globalization generatesits opposition, forming
'elaborate web' that especia*lly an iitorialized social movements of a fused private-in-public. On
opposes'McGovernment, public screensacrossthe world the images of peaceful prot€stors
2001:86). fKlein
Sucha resistant
o.d".'_togtoUutl;r,il;;;;,J^;;;- teing beaten over the head by American police are globally cir-
mented and disparate,.including the
2apatistas in Mexico, the culaGd. The WTO has been unable to force through the new
American Militia and the patriot"s
generally,Aum shinrikyo round of trade liberalization.It was subject to public shaming via
in Japan, global terrorists, many -o..environmental NGOs,
the global screening that exposed the economic private re-alm to a
women's movement concerned with
the i-p;J;^"i'J"-gt.Ua gtob"t pubhc (see Sheller and Urry 2007). Moreover, this event
marketplace upon women and children
in developing countries, iuu, oniy on" of many in a wave oi proteit reverberating around
New Ageists, religious fundamentalist
movementq the Global the world and its screens with similar 'anti-capitalist' events
Resistancemovement and so
global "".
Ali ;ppose aspects of the new springingup in June 1999, May Day 2000, July 2001 and so on'
and are organized th.ough 'resistanceidentities,
.ordering As the orga.tizersput it, 'Our resistanceis as global as capital'
[Castells1997: 356).
[see http ://www. freespeech.orglmayday2k).
90 Global Emergence
Thus new 'organizations' have developed that are globalb
mediated. People imagine themselves as members (or supporters)
of such organizations through purchases, wearing the T:shirt,
hearing the CD, surfing the organization's page on the Web, par-
ticipating in a computerized jamrning and so on. Howevet for
all the power of global fluids, 'members' of organizationswill
intermittently come together to 'be with' others in the presen!
in moments of intensely localizedfellow-feeling. These moments,
involving what has been called the 'compulsion to proximity',
include festivals,businessconferences,holidays, camps, training
camps for terrorists,seminars and, of course,sites of global protest
[Boden and Molotch 1994; Szerszynski1997; Urry 2002b).
The workings of the glocalization attractor can also be seen
in global financial systems. Such systems have got progressively
disembedded from place with the commodification of markets
operating through twenty-four-hour global trading in real time.
But this global disembedding occurs only with a simultaneous
intensificationof the 'local'. Becauseof the fragile and symbolic
communities that are formed in electronic money space, so
re-embedded particularistic spacesdevelop to cement relation-
ships of trust more intensely.New meeting placesbecome nodes
of reflexivity that then resonate back over billions of iterations
acrosstime to enhance and augment the globally organized elec-
tronic money spaces.
Boden summarizeshow the attractor operates:
Surroundedby complextechnologyand variabledegreesof un-
certainty,socialactorsseekeachother out, to makethe dealsthat,
writ large acrossthe global electronicboardsof the exchanges,
make the market.They come togetherin tight socialworlds to
useeachother and their sharedunderstanding of 'what'shappen-
ing' to reach out and move those levers that move the world'
(Boden2000: 194)
New places of face-to-face interaction have sprung up in the City
of London, so stabilizing the informational fienty of twenty-four-
hour global trading.There is an increasedimportance of the-busi-
t-t"r, l"r.t.h [less d-rlnk and meat-based with 'feminization'J, the
conference,iesidentialtraining, corporate hospitality and even the
Global Emergence 9l
business card [Leyshonand Thrift \997:349-50). Financialprac-
tices acrossalmost all countries are drawn into and are organized
through such relations between locally tight social worlds of
intense trust, on the one hand, and hugely disembedded and
abstractedglobal money space,on the other. Each strengthens and
reinforcesthe other; asmany other trading patterns get drawn into,
and transformed through, such a glocalized attractor.
Something similar seemsto characterizework relations in the
softrvareindustry. O Riain [2000) describeshow software devel-
opersrely upon intense 'team' working in order to offset two fea-
tures of their global experience. First, the workforce, in this case
involved in software development in Ireland, is multicultural, so
forms of face-to-face bonding are necessary to deal with an
otherwise disruptive'difference'.'And, second, these developers
have very mobile careers and relatively fleeting associationswith
each other. So what is required is 'an intense experience of a
sharedspaceand culture in order to create a cohesivework team'
[O Riain 2000: 189). These places 'are increasingly"between"
other places' and are part of the 'innovative regional milieu' that
is to be found in and around Dublin (O Riain 2000: i89).
A somewhat broader account of glocalization can be seen in
Thomas Friedman's The Lexus and the Oliue Tiee (2000). Half
the world he saysis intent on producing a better Lexus through
modernizing,streamlining and privatizing their economies so as
to thrive within a global world. This is the 'first modernity'. And
the other half is caught up in a fight to determine who owns which
olive tree, the olive tree standing for roots, anchoring, identity,
what l,ash fl999) calls 'another modernity'. Olive trees also
involve excluding others.So the strugglebetween the Lexus and
the olive tree is taken by Friedman as a metaphor for the kinds of
relationshipsthat characterizethe new global order.They are not
alwaysin conflict - considerthe Global PositioningSystem
IGPS)
to enableMuslim air passengers to know exactly where the plane
is in relationshioto Mecca.
hr
Ltarber[996) seesthe glocal attractor in apocalypticterms. He
,
oescri_bes the emergent global order as increasinglylocked into
a conflict between consumerist'McWorld',
on the one hand, and
the identity politics of the 'Jihad',
on the other. There is a lnew
world disorder' in which McWorld and Jihad depend
upon, and
 92 GLobalEmergence Global Emergence 93
globally reinforce, each other. Together they constitute a stran locality of Gare to form a direct relationship with the
".eci6c
attractor,a spirallingglobal disequilibrium that threatensexisti '-"^I.,nno originally responsible for the waste dump in order to
public spheres,civil society and democratic forms. He arguqg :-; ,j. incinerator built on the site.Relationshipswere established
that 'the dialectical interaction between them suggestnew xpd l^),ri urrlo"s other global companies,while EU funding was also
startling forms of inadvertent tyranny that range from an invisibly in favour of the incinerator were able
,"|"r"a. Local elites
constraining consumerism to an all too palpable barbari5pl-,
,1" a strong sense of local history, which helped to
[Barber 1996:220). objectionsto neighbourin^g
-oUtt,r" localitiesand to global'greens'
,iraut,-r
Such_astrangeattractor moreover involves existing nationally from outside. Gille summarizes
,""f"rg to influence outcomes
encodednotions of 'citizenship'being drawn into two alternativei here: 'The void created by
if-'" *f"U"t-local relationships operating
of consumerism,on the one hand, and localist identity politics,on from Gar6's life . . . was quickly filled
ii," i,","'t disappearance
the other. Thus existing nationally focused notions of ;itizen;hi; the new [local] elite success-
UVSlobulfo..", and discoursesthat
are drawn into and transformed through the strange attractor of tuii' in its own interests. . . . Such a direct connection
'glocalization'. All sorts of further relations get -drawn '.rtilir"d
local and global could not have emerged undel social-
into a ;;;i""""
gravity effect of such an attractor. lslam, Hinduism, ,born_again, Onr, the state'sumbrella shielded localitiesfrom
global weath-
Christianity and many 'local' religions themselves come to ", or shine' thus summarizes how'global
[2000: 252). She
"rr,'r"i" than they once
develop global characteristics, each seemingly knowledgeable forces . . . are less constraining and more enabling
about how each is developinga global vrsibrrityand respo.,iing to ;;;;; as society after society ir dt"*n into and remade through
(Gille 2000:
such processesof co-evolution [seeAppadurai lgg6). *h", i, t"r*"d, in this book, the glocalizing attractor
Finally,post-communist Hungary illuminates how the attrac- 261).
tor of glocalization can be said to draw diverse sets of relations
into its powerful embrace (Gille 20001. Eastern Europe is typi-
cally now viewed as a wasteland- of the failed politiial project Global Emergence
of Communism and of an economy that generated disjropor-
tionate amounts of waste.The siting of a new waste incinerator So far I have shown that there is no global society or single centre
is
plant in Gare on the site of a waste dump funded in part by the of global power and hence no clear-cut global'region'. There
EU relates both to the nature of the global waste incineration ulso ,ro rl.tumbigrous set of outcomes providing evidence of the
industry and to the global environmental movement. The EU is .r power of 'globai' processes. I thus argue againstthose who main-
:i
funding the building of variouswaste incinerator plants in former ir iain that tlobaliration produces a,set _of linear effects, such as
the heighiened homogenization of culture, or itrcreased socio-
E-asternEurope, plants that would turn local waste into energy. 'ii ,I

However, accordingto the greenssuch siteswould also incinerate }: inequalities,lr the worldwide growth of democracies'
".ono-]. set of
west European waste, out of sight and smell of west Europeans. il What is treated tt"." u, the 'global' prodt""t no single
processesjust men-
So the siting of a waste incinerator plant in Gare appearsto be effects,although it is bound up with all those
the product of 'globalization',aided and abetted bv^ti-," EU, and tioned. The dJvelopment of th" attractor of glocalization entails
and
explicablein terms of the logic of the global waste incineration a wholesaleshifting in the very structure of economic' social
industry. political relations ui.o* the globe. However, the evidence for this
However, Gille presentsan analysismore consistentwith the ioes not consist of a set of that can provide a direct 'test'
"-ff".tt
thesis of a powerful glocalization attractor. Thus one effect of or'measurement' of the 'global'. Of course,there must be.sub-
complex post-Communist politics within Hungary has been the stantialprogrammesof researchexamining thesesetsof putatlvely
relative disappearanceof the national state. This enabled this 'global' relations.

94 Globnl Emergence
According to Abbott (200f : ch. 1), much socialscienceassumesl
a 'linear reality' in which the social world consistsof fixed en_,
tities with variable attributes, that these attributes have only ong
meaning,that the past sequencingof events is irrelevan, u"j th.t
context does not affect these attributes. He makes a general argu-
ment againstsuch a position, but global processesand especially
the global-local processesthat construct and reconstruct the reh_
tions between the global and local further undermine the notion
that there are or indeed could be clear and unambiguous fixed
entities with variable properties whose history is irrelevant. Indeed
the 'evidence' that relationships acrossthe globe are being glob-
alized is necessarilyambivalent, contradictory and contestable.If
it is right to argue for a complexity formulation of the emerging
system,then the researchneeds to reflect and capture uneven, farl
from-equilibrium setsof interdependentprocessesinvolved in the
very making of the global and especiallyof the glocalizingattrac-
tor fas Duffield (200]) arguesfor global governanceJ.
Held et al. (1999: 17) do provide massiveevidenceof an exten-
sivity of global networks and flows, an intensity of intercon-
nectedness,a velocity of mobilities around the globe and the
high impact of such interconnectedness.And these have powerful
effects,especiallyof powerful local perturbations in the system
that resuit in unpredictabiebranching emerging acrossthe global
system.Examples of these local perturbations include the demo-
lition of the Berlin wall, the invention of the first web browser
in the USA, the releasefrom a South African orison of Nelson
Mandela, and the presenceof twenty bombers on four American
planeson 1l September2001.
But such emergenteffects are often produced by 'small causes'
and these get relayed through the diverse and overlapping global
networks and fluids that interact physically, and especially infor-
mationally, under, over and across the earth's surface, stretching
over hugely different temporal scaies.These interactionsare rich,
non-linear and move towards the attractor of 'glocali zation'.There
is no simple empirical research here of unambiguous global
or local entities.Rather,the processesare much more like 'gravity'.
There is an increasingly powerful gravity effect upon numerous,
diverse localized patterns. Such globally complex systems,espe-
cially developing from around l99o and the desubstantiationof
t
Global Emergence 95
inforrnation,involve positive feedbackloops that render the global
the attrac-
ir,. fro. equilibrium as many entities are drawn into
relationshiPs.
1111
Further, this set of global systemsis like no other social system.
Its ernergent features make it different from anything that has
eone before. Paradoxicallyit does have some similarities with
ieudal Europe. Some have described the globalizing world as
'neo-feudal'.In the global world there are multiple political units
beyond individual societies[seeWalby 2001); there are empires,
such as Coca-Cola, Microsoft or Disney, more powerful than
societies [see Klein 2000); there are competing city states, such
as London, Sydney or Los Angeles [see Roche 2000); and there
are many wandering intellectuals,sports stars, musicians and so on,
as well as internati onal uagranfs,with declining national attach-
ments [see Urry 7007a). But there are also many differences
between emergentglobal ordering and Europeanfeudalism,espe-
cially in terms of the technologiesof the household and of warfare,
production, circulation, distribution, and exchange,such that few
useful lessonscan be drawn from such a comparison.
Likewise the system of nation statesseemsto bear few resem-
blances to global systems. The former is organized through a
nation state that 'governs'its citizens,there are clear boundaries
and memberships,they possessa self-organizingcharacter,and
each derives a unity from opposition to each'other'. There is a
s-vstemof competing, self-organizing nation states that character-
ized the twentieth century (albeit with plenty of exceptions).
Global systems,by contrast, are not governed by a central state,
although there are very significant attempts by the corporate
world to draw up variousrules for global governancein their inter-
ests.Monbiot rather brilliantly describesthe 'corporate bid for
world domination' [2000: ch. 10).
Thus we are confronted with a global sociallaboratorybut one
within which we have almost no guides to appropriate investiga-
tion. Three things are sure. Developments towards the global are
irreversiblebut unpredictable.The global possesses systemicchar-
acteristics that urgently demand investigation and are distinct
from those of other social systems.And, since the global is like
nothing else, the social scienceshave to start more or less from
scratch.Existing theoriessuch as that of classdomination will not
96 Global Emergence Global Emergence 97

experienceat leastputatively the 'endof the

work when converted onto the global level. Hence there are sigr, jevelopment we can
nificant limitations of Sklair'shugely ambitious efforts [200]) iq,
other ' r
write classtheories as global. .l -.-Mo.l"rrl science has created this monster of the global risk
Complexity has thus been drawn on here, since it deals with through treating the environment as its laboratory.But
,^,-,or,,,--
5uu'- , I
odd and unpredictable systemsoften far from equilibrium and scienct-has
arso
without a central 'governor'. Complexity we have seen empha-,
is a lonely fragile spaceshipthat is the
sizesthat no distinctionsshould be drawn between structure and demonstratedthat the Earth
process,stability and change,and a system and its environment Iniu tron.," for all humanity, however riven by divisions based on
colour, community or ethnicity; how it has
[see Duffield's analogous formulation from security studies: nu,i.rnntl,y, religion,
,tt.*orlJ a small place with the capabilities now available
2 00 1 ). goods and services;and
-ra.n-,.,u"-".rt of ideas,
io, information, people,
I have resisted defining 'globalization' as a single, clear and and essentialonenessof
t,onui, has demonstrated the fundamental
unambiguous 'causal' entity. Jessopsimilariy arguesthat global- 1997: 35-6)
all living systems.[Menon
ization is 'best interpreted as the complex resultant of many dif-
ferent processesrather than as a distinctive causal process in its that we can and must
Nobel prizewinner Joseph Rotblat argues
own right' (2000: 339). If we resistdistinguishingbetween struc- 'humanity' rather than to the 'nation'
d"u"loi an allegiance to
ture and processrstability and change,a system and its environ- the world's
ment, then there is indeed no 'globalization' as a causal entity iiggZu, pp *-"i1. It is global interdependencebetween
a universalist allegiance
involved in 'contests' with various other regions.There are in more )op.rlutio.r that is the key to developing
ih,rn-r",-rity'rather than to national identities. He maintains that:
io
formal languageno such entities with variable attributes (Abbott
2001). There are 'many different processes',but the key question
The fantasticprogressin communicationand transportationhas
is how they are organized within certain emergent irreversible
transformedthe world into an intimately interconnectedcommu-
global outcomes that move backwards and forwards between nity,in which all membersdependon one anotherfor their well-
the more localized and more global levels.On such an account being.We arenow abieto observeinstantlywhat is goingon in any
then globalization is a characterizationof the system as 'effect' part of the globe and provide help where necessary'' ' ' We must
rather than asin any sensea'cause',although I havenoted the likely exploit the many new channelsof communication to bring us
inappropriatenessof such causallanguage[Rosenberg2000). This toiether and form a truly global community' We must trecome
leads me to thinking the global through the lens of performativ- worlcicitizens.fRotblat t09la: pp' x-xi; seealsoWalby Z00l)
ity. I will now considersuch a way of thlnking the global.
First, the'globe' is an object of concern for many citizens across The Pugwash Conference on Science and World Affairs expects
many different countries. I noted above the remarkably wide- und i.,dled hopes that the global media will play a particularly
spread availability of global images,in TV programmes,branding significantrole in this but not only becausethey carry cognitive
by global corporations,advertsand especiallypolitical campaigns. information across the globe. Raiher, cultural work is carried
'an
Also countlessoppositional organizationsconcernedwith aspects through co-present images that are able to engender
emoti,onal."rponr" to-"di"
the *o.ld events that they portray'; such
of global governancehave developed since the 1960s.There are
also many more form al organizations,especially since the found- imagesheighten the awarenessof regional and global interdepen-
ing of the UN in 1948, that take the whole earth as an object of ,l".tl" and"put pressure on offending governments to moderate
reflexive concern.The globe has become an object of widespread their often offensiveactions [Rotblat 1097a:14)' More generally'
reflexivity stretching acrossthe world in the face of what has Vaclav Havel describes how the 'perspective of a bette-r tuture
been termed the'world risk society' lBeck 19931.With such a deoendson somethinelike an internationalcommunity oi citizens
 98 Global Emergence
. . . standing outside the high game of traditional politics . . will
seek to make a real political force out of . . . the phenomenon qf
human conscience'(cited Rapoport 1997 97; on'distant others,,
see also S. Cohen 2001).
Furthermore,scientists[and other groups of professionals)are
increasinglyorganizedin a post-nationalmanner.They are almost
'quasi-nations', with their own system of globally organized
events, timetables and rewards [such as Nobel and other prizes).
And, as modern electronic communications develop, so theie
quasi-nationsbecome more important, widespread and drawn
into the attractor of glocalization. Professionalsindeed see the
global village as replacing the nation state,as electronic commu-
nication supplants written communication and the 'whole earth,
replacesthe 'territory with borders'.There is a widespreadsense
of the increasingrole that communities that cut acrossnational
boundariesplay in the lives of ordinary people fRotblat 1997b).
Various authorities have talked of the growth of a 'transnational
civil society as an arenafor struggle' (Keck and Sikkink 1998: 33),
as well as massively extensive and self-organizing'ungrounded
empires' like the overseasChinese (Ong and Nonini 1997J.
Some analysts also argue that women are more likely to be
drawn to notions of global citizenship.Women appearto be more
opposed to wars (on the Gulf War, see Shaw 1994: 1Z7).They
often find the malenessof symbols of national power particularly
alienating fYuval-Davis 1997). Survey evidence shows that they
are particularly committed to conservation and environmental
issues(Anderson 1997: 174). Thus women are more likely to con-
vince others of the superiority of a relatively countryless notion
of citizenship and indeed to advancea notion of universal rights
under which specific women's rights, such as freedom from sexual
violence,can be lodged (Shiva 1989; Kaplan 1996;Walby 2001).
So various social practices,of science,the media, international
groupings,women and so on, which stem from the putative uni-
versalism of the globe as an object of reflexive concern, may begin
to make or perform the global. Global Nature, Global Cuhure for-
mulates a conception of the global as 'performance' (Franklin et
al. 2000). Indeed, it uses various complexity notions: of ideas of
catastrophe, chaos and fractals, of how global culture is partially
self-organizing,of the open characterof the global system,of the
Global Emergence 99
the generally disruptive effects
irnportance of iteration and of
a recognition of
.rf ,p".ifi. informational flows. There is strong
and temporally irreversible character of
ih" .o-pl"x, non-linear
processes.
""lobal
The authors draw especiallyon Butler's claim that performa-
"act",
tivity 'must be understood not as a singular or deliberative
dls-
brrt ruth"a as the reiterative and citational practice by which
.o,r.r" producesthe effectsthat it names' [1993:2). Butler brings
out the crucial importance of iteration for performance. Struc-
tures are never fi"ed o. given for good. They always have to be
worked at over time. And naming something [such as the global)
is itself partly to call that which is named into being. Franklin,
L.rry ani Stacey argue that the global is 'performed' by itself
and is not caused by something outside itself not does it cause
effects external to it. The global is seen as auto-enabled or auto-
'autopoeisis'from
reproduced,although they do not use the term
complexity [see chapter 2 above). Thus they ex_aminehow the
global is being brought into being asan emergent effect, asit comes
to constitute its own domain especiallythrough various material-
semiotic practices[Franklin et al. 2000: 5). The global is shown to
,perfoimed, imagined and practised'acrossnumerous domains
be
thai are operating at enormously different scalesor levels'
The autho., ulro describe how the global 'enters' the self
through what they portray as the 'intimate global'. Becauseof
,kind' to 'brand" they describe how nature is
the shift from
being drawn into the attractor of globalization.Nature gets com-
technologized, reanimated and rebranded' And many
material-semiotic practices - from the economic, to politics, to
-odihed,
medical science,to theme parks, to computer technology - are
involved in the global ,"-"kittg of culture and nature and espe-
cially the increasing fusion of the two.
Does this therefJre mean that we should conceiveof the global
system as autoporetic [see chapter 2 above]7Is the global system
'are
,elf-m"king? Maturana writes how autopoietic systems
defined as networks of productions of components that recur-
sively,through their interactions,generateand realizethe network
that produ.!, th"- and constitute, in the space in which they
exist, the boundaries of the network as components that partici-
pate in the realizationof the network' II981:21)' Such a system
 100 Global Emergence
is thus not a set of relationsbetween static componentswith fixed
attributes. Rather there are processesof self-making through
iteration over time of the production of components that are in
fact necessaryto make up that very system.There is continuous
regenerationof the processesof production through an array of
feedbackmechanisms(Capra 1996: 168).
In a sociological context Luhmann has most deployed this
notion of autopoiesis.He defines it thus: 'everything that is used
as a unit by the system is produced as a unit by the system itself
This applies to elements, processes,boundaries, and other struc-
tures and, last but not least, to the unity of the system itself'
(Luhmann 1990: 3; see also Mingers 1995). Such systemsdeploy
'communications' as the 'particular mode of autopoietic repro-
duction', since only communications are necessarilysocial. A
theory of autopoietic systemsinvolves the development of com-
munications as the elementary component of each system.Such
communicationsare not living or consciousunits but involve three
elements, information, utterance and understanding. Luhmann
understandsthese as co-createdwithin the processesof commu-
nication. Social systemsare not'closed systems'but open systems
that are recursivelyclosed with respectto such communications.
Such communications result, he says,in the self-making of 'our
well-known society' [Luhmann 1990: 13; see also P. Stewart
2001). These systemsincreasetheir complexity and their selec-
tivity in order to reduce the complexity of the environment in
which they have to operate (Luhmann 1990: 84).
How relevant is autopoiesis to examining the nature of global
systems?Certainly, the notion of autopoiesis bears some similar-
ities with analyses in Global Nature, Global Cubure as to the
spreadingof global communications and consequentialremaking
of the natural and cultural domains around the world. Autopoiesis
alsobearsa resemblanceto the argument that it is through naming
the global,and through blllions of iterations,that the global is then
brought into being. Luhmann talks of the differentiations involved
in the development of 'world society'.
Howevel, Luhmann's argument is couched at too high a level
of abstractionto graspthe very specificcharacterof the global net-
works and fluids that I outlined and defended above ffor a more
circumscribed application, see Medd 2000). Luhmann's account
GIobaIEmergence l0l
is functionalist, not capturing the contingent, far-from-equlibrium
processesimplicated in the current world 'on the edge of
chaos'.Feedbacksare predominantly negativerather than positive.
Luhmann refers to 'our well-known society'. But this suggests
that the general concept of self-making cannot be connected
to the very detailed workings of networked phenomena that are
complex, fractured entities often operating far from equilibrium.
These limitations are even more problematic where such notions
of self-making weakly capture the extensivity of global networks
and flows, the intensity of global interconnectedness,the height-
ened velocity of mobilities around the globe and the massive
impact of such interconnectedness.
Indeed, applying Luhmann's autopoeitic formulation to the
global or'world society' would result in a 'global functionalism'
where everything that affects the system acrossthe globe is seen
as contributing to its self-making. Thus the massive inequalities
that accompanyglobalization,or the rising of global temperatures
through 'global warming', or the growth of global terrorism might
all be viewed as necessaryfunctional componentsof the processes
of global self-making.This position is unconvincing.But so too is
an alternative view that treats the global as the clear and deter-
minant outcome of a partially self-conscioustransnationalcapi-
talist class[sklair 2001).
Conclusion
Thus the notion of global self-making seems plausible, but the
global system as a whole should not be viewed as autopoeitic.
How to combine these positions here?
It is necessaryhere to return to the discussionof Prigogine
developedin chapter 2. He showshow new pockets of order arise
that are often far from equilibrium. These pockets involve dis-
sipative structures, islands of new order within a general sea of
disorder.He argues that these islands of order can maintain or
even increasetheir order at the expenseofgreater overall entropy
or disorder. Prigogine describeshow each of these pockets of
order'floatsin disorder'[see Capra 1996: 184). It is variouscon-
texts well away from equilibrium that are sources of such new
 tI
t02 Global Emergence GlobalEmergence 103
I
localized order. Examples of such pockets of order are tur . -":r,rrionsand socialpracticesdevelop.These come to form and
tl'ii,l.ru,"
flows of water and air that appear chaotic but that are in the strangeattractor of glocalization. Like gravity,this
highly organized.Such turbulent flows involve processesof ::,:;:i", can be viewed as drawing multiple sets of social rela-
making with highly effective feedback mechanisms. L'^".frior worldwide into its tender embrace and restructuring
It seemsthat Prigogine'sformulation provides an important llLi ."trtionships through countless iterations that occur over
to understanding global complexity. This position will be bri of time. The speed, range and depth_of espe-
i]Lr.rrrirt periods
summarized, since it provides the basis for the revived '-iii" tt," informational and transport revolutions heighten the
scienceof the global developed in the next chapter. effectsof such glocalizingrelationships
in,"ra"p"naent non-linear
First then, contrary to the claims of a number of authoritieq the world'
across
""ih,ls
there is no single equilibrating global system [see Sklair Z00li: there are pockets of order [or ordering) within a sea of t
I
There is also no 'other' to the global that, as with other social olobaldisorder.And, indeed, such pockets of ordering operating
systems,is necessaryfor governmentality and social order. It diff".ent time-space scalesheighten the turbulence, the
risk l
But there are systematic forms of global interdependence or global sea of disorder, as I elaborate in the fol-
.ultrr."r, of the
what is termed here global complexity. This 'system' is hugely lowing chaPter.

I
i
Il
open, comprising various interdependent and hybridized net-
works and fluids. They move in, through and across time-spacg
in remarkably different and contrasting trajectories. There is no
tendency of this global 'system' to move towards any obvrous
equilibrium. And there is no evidence that this global system is iz
toto organized through autopoeitic self-making, in part becauseit
i would be impossible to specify what the relationships are between
the array of biological, social and physical processesinvolved in
such a system and its environment. We should avoid positing a
global functionalism or a global conspiracy,especially in the light
of the critiques of both formulations developed over the past
century.
Howevel, global complexity is not simply anarchic disorder.
There are many pockets of ordering within this overall patterning
of disorder, processesinvolving a particular performing of the
global and operating over multiple time-space with various feed-
back processes.Such pockets of ordering include various net-
works, fluids and governancemechanisms.These different pockets
of order develop parallel concepts and processesof what we call
the global. At different levels there are what we may term 'global
fractals', the irregular but strangely similar shapesthat are found
at very different scalesacrossthe world, from the household say
to the UN.
And, as such pockets of ordering emerge,so various often very
substantialnon-linear effects of 'global-local' obiects, identities,

,&
 Social Ordeing and Power 105

Nsrcm.They concentrated upon the characteristicsof the former

in order to derive appropriate metaphors for understandinghow
order within a social system is possible.They did not seehow the
6 propertiesof living systemsmight provide appropriate analysisof
socialorder, given that order is never simplg fixed and achieved.
The scienceof complex systemsprovides a way of thinking about
SocialOrdering and power socialorder that transcendsthe static nature of classicalsociologi-
cal functionalism, where the fixed parts of the social body are seen
as providing specific functions within the workings of the social
rvhole.
Second,classicalsociology tended to adopt a relatively simple
notion of what constitutes'socialorder'. In Parsonsthere is a hier-
archy of values and norms that works through each society at all
Social Order and Global Complexity levels, a clear notion of social equilibrium, and strong negative
feedback or steering mechanisms that can rapidly and effectively
A long-standingissue in sociorogyand restore order. But the implications of complexity, as opposed to
social sciencemore the early post-Second World War cybernetics that influenced
generallyconcernshow somekina"of
order getsestablished and Parsor-rs,is that there never is such a clear and effective set of re-
maintained in sociar.life. Earry formurations,
,;-;;";erbert equilibriatingprocesses. And, indeed,.effortsto restoresocialorder
Spencer's, maintainedthat the *o.t i.rg, of the
,..i"r boiu *".. almost always engender further unforeseen consequences.These
analogousto those of the human boJy-
And, as societiesJ.r,"rop are often of a kind that take the society further away from any
and grow,there is, as with the b-ody,
i.r..""r" in the structurar ordered equilibrium. In a later section of this chapter I consi-
differentiationof specializedf"".uLr.
".r
The social body, llke der the extraordinarily 'complex' and unpredictable characterof
the human b^ody,
is characteriz"J
uu ,rr" 'mediatized scandals'as an example of the systemicworkings of
integration of the separate parts. Expiaining-i".J"f*i#" ".,a
any pr.ti.ri", ,o.i"t such unforeseen consequences. The classicaltradition little con-
institution is achieved^byshowing
its contribution or ,function, sideredthe mobile patterning of sociallife that problematizesthe
to the reproduction of the social"organism
as a whole fspencer fixed, given and static notions of social order. Ordering one might
1876/l 893).
Talc3tt Parsorrs say is achieved 'on the move'.
. [1960J generally argued that the central issue 'fhird, formulations from classicaland early twentieth-century
tor sociologyis how it is that sociarordEr
is securedand sustained. sociology deploy a society focus with little recognition of how
In order to answer this he deveroped
a normatiue functionalist what lies beyond each society'sborders is relevant to apparent
analysis'order in societies gets
maintained thro"grr-".r-r,ir" social ordering [Urry 2000b: ch. l). For Parsons,such a notion of
consensus rather than through either
ttt" rnt".J"p'."a"".,* autonomous self-reproducing societies stemmed from the ap-
the marketplace, as Spencer "r.gr.a,-n. "r
the coercive relations of parent autonomy of American society throughout the twentieth
economic, political and ideologicai
domination, as Marx and century. He then universalized this characteristic to all other
others maintained.
However,for a number of reasons,these apparent societies without acknowledging the specificity of
^ and other formulations twentieth-century USA [Urry 2000b). Parsonsdefined'society' as
from 'classicalsociology,now ,"";';;
dated. First, these soci_ 'the type of social system characterizedby the highest level of
ologistsdid not drsti.rguishbetween
iiui,-,gorganismanda livine self-sufficiencyrelative to its environment, including other social
"
 10 6 Social Ordering and Power Soaal Ordering and Power 107

of global complexity.These^systems possess

systems'[l971:8). But such self-sufficientsocietiesare rare and rnentswithin systems
almost alwaysrely upon their domination of other societies,such .o tendenciestowards equilibrium and all sortsof social relation-
as that effected by the USA during all of the twentieth century. drawn into attractor of glocalization.
,[tp, g",-"r" ineluctably ^the_
And no analysisof social order could now be envisagedthat does ih"." various networks and fluids roaming the globe that,
across,over
not addressthe immensely complex forms of global interdepen_ unlike societies,possessthe power of rapid movement
as 'regions' chapter 4 above; see
dence, economically, socially, politically, culturally and environ_ und rrd". many societies [see
mentally. Social order in one society always depends upon its alsoBauman 2000J.
multiple connectionswith emergent transnationalrelations. I will now make a few comments about how societiesare trans-
global com-
Finally,it is now increasinglyclear just how socialorder is not formed by becoming elements within the systemsof
the outcome of purified social processes.As Law argues: ,the olexity. For the past couple of centuries apparently separate
iro.i"ii"r' Atlantic rim) have
notion that social ordering is, indeed, simply social also disappears. [especially those within the north
. . . what we call the social is materially heterogeneous: talk, been characterizedby a 'banal nationalism' that separatedone
bodies, texts, machines, architectures,all of these and many more from the other. A banal nationalism involves waving celebratory
are implicated in and perform the social'[1994:Z).ln thai sense flags,singing national anthems,flying flagson nationally important
classicalsociology'snotion of accounting for a purified social order p.tlii. b'nildi.tgt, identif ing with national sports heroes'-being
is past and should be relegatedto the dustbin of history
flatour udd."rr"d in the media as a member of a given society, celebrat-
1993; Knorr-Cetina1997). ing that society's independence day, slafng certain similar politi-
In this book I have elaboratedsome theoretical resourcesthat .ul c,rlt.r.ul practicesand so on [Billig 1995)' Many of these
"nd
break with such classicalnotions of social order. A number of core components of such a natiopalism date from the late nine-
claims have been advanced and defended. Thus criss-crossing teenth century.
'societies'are diverse systemsin complex interconnectionswith The development of global complexity means that each such
their environments.There are many chaotic effects that are distant banal natio.rulir- increasinglycirculates along the global informa-
in time-space from where they originate.These in part result from tional and communicational channels and systems'They become
the positive as well as the negative feedback mechanisms that fu-ili". to, and indeed part of, each society'sbranding, within the
mean that order and chaos are always intertwined. There are many wider global order.Mega events increasinglyoccur when the nation
increasingly powerful self-organizing global networks and fluids are placed upon the world's st-agefor
and its"'banal' characte"ristics
of
that are moving systemsfar from equilibrium. And there is not a display and consumption, especially through the global fluid
socialorder that can be accountedfor by purified socialprocesses. ,t."u"ih.,g peoples'. Each ,r.h b"n"l nationalism is increasingly
a
Such complexity thinking enables our thinking to overcome .onrr-"i ty oth".r, compared and evaluated, and turned into
the dichotomies of determinism and free will. We can begin to brand. We might say that ihere is a move from banal nationalism
see how powerful material worlds are unpredictable, unstable, to brand nationalism in the new global order,especiallyat moments
sensitive to initial conditions, irreversible and rarely 'societally' of global celebrationand consumption [Roche 2000)'
2'000
organized. Indeed, does this therefore mean, following former indeed, I noted utou" that therl are thought to be.at least
UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcheq, that 'there is no such 'nation peoples' all suffering various kinds of displacementand
thing as society'?Is there no longer a societalordering, although u*bigrrotr, location in. CJtt"" 1997: pp' ix-x; .Papastergiadis
Thatcher argued this for very different 'methodologically indivi- 2000i. Only a minorii of 'societies'are constituted as apparently
nations'let
dualist' reasons? separatenation state societies'Most societiesare not
soci-
This book seeksto show that there are 'societies',but that their alonenation states,the most striking of suchnon-nation-state
increasingly drawn into
societal capacity has been transformed through becoming ele- etiesbeing the'overseasChinese'.E,achls
 108 Social Ordeing and Power Social Ordering and Power 109
the attractor and gets rebranded within global complexity.
\4, ti .ns rrnJ,m or e gener ally,
t o est ablisha zone of r ight sover an ent ir e
over, in many places people develop multiple identitieq ,"*1.'rior',over ail the flows traversingthe ecumenon.If it can help
si
often there is no longer the o'e 'true national self,.O;;;Hii it, the State does not dissociateitself from a processof capture of
thoseliving in scotlandconsiderthemselves Scottish i*r, flows of all kinds,populations,commodities,money or capital, etc.
(McCrone1998:140J. "na . . . the State never ceasesto decompose,recomposeand transform
Mike Davis's Magical yrb:"i:ry (2000b) brings out some rnovement, or to regulate speed. (Deleuze and Guattari 1986:
extra+
ordinarv dimensions.of the fluid diaspo.lor tn9 ihi..y-.*o
Li[ioo
5e-601
or so Latinos now living within the usA. They aie the
largest
ethnic group in Los Angeles,forming n .1q wlthin a .lty,
ti.y But global complexity means that stateshave increasinglyshifted
will soon outnumber whites living in cahfornia. or, ,o'pri'ia
"ri
aif. awayfrom governing a relatively fixed and clear-cut national popu-
ferently, US Latinos are already in. nftn largest ,natio-ni
within lation resident within its territory and constituting a distinct and
Latin America. There are wide-ranging processesof 'cultural
syn_ relatively unchanging community of fate (Urry 2000b: ch. 8).
cretism that may become a transformative template for th"
*hola Shifts towards global networks and fluids transform the space
society' as the USA is becoming inexorably Latinized
(Davis beyond each state that they have to striate. Habermas arguesthat
200ob: 15). Much of this syncretism stems from 'transnational_ "'glol:alization" conjures up images of overflowing rivers, washing
ized communities' moving between especiallyMexicq .ro* away all the frontier checkpoints and controls, and ultimately the
u.ry
much a'nomadic' country and the USA: 'like quantum particles bulwark of the nation itself' (2001: 67). Statesthus can be said
in two places at once' (Davis 2000b: 77). Levitt increasinglyto act as a legal, economic and social regulator; or
[zoor; sornewhat
similarly describes the self-organizing'transnational villages; gamekeeper;of practices and mobilities.that are predominantly
formed by those living more or less simultaneously in the provided by, or generatedthrough, the often unpredictable con-
us.q,
and the Dominican Republic.There is an extensivetransnational- sequences of many other entities.Social regulation is both neces-
ism from below sitatedby, and is only made possiblethrough, new computer-based
This system_ofglobal complexity is thus comprised of many forms of information gathering,retrieval and dissemination.Such
,
different 'islandsof order', a notion elaboratedin chaoter 5. There databases can refer to almost everyeconomic and socialinstitution.
are not only national societies and complex hybrid d'iasporas,but Such internationalizedinformation flows derive from the emer-
other networked/fluid polities rncluding'supra-natiorr"i rt",.r', gence of a widespread 'audit society', a subset of the vision
global religionsor'civilizations', internationalorganizations,inter- machinesthat ubiquitouscomputing ushersin
fPower 1994).
national meetings, NGOs and cross-borde. ."gions (perkmann Thu-sone paradoxical consequenceof the intensely fluij and
2000; Duffield 20Ol; Habermas 2001; ch. 4;Wally forthcoming). turbulent nature of the global complexity is that 'the role of the
Any society as a particular bounded territory typically finds state.is actually becoming more, rather than
_
diverse self-organizing 'polities' seeking to striate its space, qeveloping
less,important in l
the productive powers of territory and in produ-
subjecting it to diverse forms of social regulation. In particular, crng new spatialconfigurations' I
fswyngedouw I99Z:431). One
according to Deleuze and Guattari, nation states are necessarily Iurther consequenceis
that statesare not convergingin a uniform
involved in seeking to regulate those numerous mobilities that powerlessdirection
move in and acrosssuch spaces.One of the fundamental task of
the state is, they say,
:uw:rl9ss direction but are becoming
tle Talibnn to the
+L '."".^ \,J.^ r r g L L u ,
urcre has been
becomr much more diverse,from
EU to the USA (Weiss
fW"irs 1998:
1998: ch.
-
ch. 7).
71. Indeed,
Indeed
an 'enor m ous expansion of nat ion- st at e st nr ct ur cs,
JLCI L JLI t rLLUlLJ,
r
L

iJt.,.,u:fl.ies, agenda, revenues and regulatory capacitiessince

to striate the spaceover which it reiqns.. . . It is a vital concern of rvorld W:r II',
\ ^ I , o _ -. --' l v l )l g } J q v rl rl J J

in order to deal with global fluids i.rch infor-

every State not only to vanquish no-udism, but to control migra- rnation flows, ",
travelling peoples,inteinational terrorism, health
 110 SociaLOrdering and Power
and environmental risks and so on that all move across
in dizzying and transmutating_form
fMeyer et al. tg97: iS
summarizessuch developments
fit q1998) by maintainingfl
globalizationproduces new kinds of 'states,.
_. In somewaysnation statesacrossEuropeare becominq
like the E_uropean union. The EU is organized.round tliu
motion of variousmobilities.It has soughtto d"u"lop th"
freedomsof movement- of goods,services, labour
l"oi .t
and hasintervenedwith nationalstatepoliciesto ""i
"li-i.rutJm",
barriersto mobility,.tradeand competition.The EU
."" t;.#
asa'regulatorystate',mostlyinvolvedin the monitoring
""dr.il
lation of the policies and practices of its individual nu"tioo
,t"t.*,
that have freely joined up (Majone 1994, 1996). Its r.e"ties
and
Directives are particularly powerful. They mean both that
gov-
ernments must bring their own legislation in line with
such
Theaties,and that individual citizens in the EU can appeal
direct
to the European court of Justice when it is believea trr.t national
governments have not implemented appropriate policies (walby
1_g9gl Significantly, European laws take p.".ede.ri" over nation-
al iaws where they conflict and it is poisible for the actions
individual governmentsto be declaredillegal.
Some states,such as the EU, indeed function as what we might
call'midwives' for developingand enhancingglobal networks and
fluids and are not merely subjected to them. And statesincreas-
ingly act as catalystsof networks of countries operating at the
regional or international level and hence function as onJclass of
agenciesin a more dynamic system of unpredictableglobal com-
plexitv [Hirst and Thompson r996: ch. gj. castells qiooo, rggT)
more generally talks of the increasingly networked character oi
states.There are many international conferencesand events that
involve individual states forming, negotiating and signing up to
international agreements that then have the further
promoting and performing the global as "if..t
Kyoto
[such the 1997
Protocol on climate change).There has also been the growth of
'networked wars' and indeed of what we might
call 'networked
terrorists' (Duffield 20011.
There is also heightened mediatization such that regulatory
failure of individual states can be brought into the op"i,
visible, and individuals and organization.,.".r be shamed by -ud!
the
Social Ordering and Power 11t
scandals or threatof scandals.Statesindeedcanbe subject
^6(rring
scandals',scandalsthat revealsubstan-
interestingly
ioi."Jtu,"d
in the very complexitiesof power.
,Ll ,"r,.r.,urings
Power and ComPlexitY
sciences has been
Much thinking about power in the social
interrelationships between apparently.power-
io.rr"d upon the
as
iril und apparently powerless agents. Power is conceptualized
attributes of agents,through observing two or more human agents
and seeingin what ways, and to what degree,the actions of each
are influenced by that of the other. If one agent is able to get the
other to do somethingthat he or she would not otherwisedo, then
that is deemed to be an exercise of power. Steven Lukes's Power:
A RadicalView (1973J famously critiques this intersubjective con-
ception of power through advocating a three-dimensional view
basedupon 'real interests'.Lukes shows how the most effective
exerciseof power occurs when there is no overt or even covert
bending of the will of one agent by that of the other. Power is
of
exercisedif people'sreal interestsare securedand this is best real-
ized without overt or covert intersubjective competition and
struggle.Power is thus conceived of as structural and not inter-
subjective. However, this argument has remained partly buried,
becauseLukes usesthe languageof Marxism to identifii 'real' as
opposedto expressedor visible interestsor'false consciousness''
But what is notable in Lukes's account is his critique of the
subject-oriented position and his advocacy of the analysis of
'domination' as opposed to that of 'power' [A. Stewart 2001).
But in much social sciencepower conceived as a property of
agentsremainscentral to the analysisof socialrelations.In the end
of power is often seen to involve human agentsappearing able to get
their way, forcing the other who is in some ways co-present to do
something that he or she would not otherwise do, to be able to
bend the will of this other. Power gets attached to agencyin the
couplet agency-structure.
However, many developments describedin this book subvert
this very distinction between agency and structure. Complexity
transcends the division between free will and determinism and
:|;
'tu
t*
'n
,II
I
 t12 Social Ordeing and power 1l?
Soaal Ordenng and Power
hence between agency and structure. It transcends
the char rrhornpson 1995: ch. 4',Szerszynskiand Urry 2001). Citizens are
y.y ll yht:l powerhas.beenlocated, l^* no, just watchersbut objectsof statesurveillanceand moni-
:*
thenwould constituiea complexi,y ",L "*"".u.tl is a generalizedincreasein 'visual reflexivity'; public
"ppro"ln
Power would not be regarded ,'thing i"*J.r"' ,Jrtn* there
o, u porr.rrion. are^increasinglyexpected to-provide open and trans-
somethingthat flowso. .r.,, and", may b"'irlr*i"dr;.1: ,"rJort,l"t
,.i"#^:0,";.tf:.."..i::.y or space.tt i, non-contiguorr. l"r"nt forms of behaviour;therearenew forms of impressionman-
'mediated
l0-14)
B",l
outlinesand defendsa 'post-panopticar, l""nl"n,' in reaction to increasedmedia visibility; and
[2000: grow more significant[Foucault 1977;Meytowitz 1985).
tion of power. power is not necessarily .ojl* .iundutr'
it.."gillilpri "-
co-presenceasone agentgetsanotherto """r.rr"d Bv the twenty-first century citizens are subject to informational
do what h" o. rfr. *outd their mech-
otherwise not have done through interpersonal m"iirt"d power, forms of power that are complex in
threat, force ot ,nir-, and consequences.On the one hand, there are extraordi-
persuasion'But also power no l0nger
necessarilyi.rrroir"r"imag- the
ined co-presencewithin a riteral or"simulateJ nu.y ,r"* forms of int'ormational and mediated power with
of vision machines, the tens of thousands of satel-
the powerlessare actualryor potentialryvisible;;";;,i;;i" *h... development
to the powerfur.
-i".t"rq* lites,bugs, listening devices,the microscopic cameras,CCTV, the
By contrast,Bauman suggeststhat"the p.i_"
power now is that of 'escape,srippage, Internet,the possibilitiesof sharinginformation, GISiGPS and so
elisionu.rd,uoiJ".,.c-e,, "f
the on.And, on the other hand, the mobilities of everydaylife involve
'end of the era of mutual
""grg.-";i, 1zooO, r r;. rur.J"r" ,".i speed,lightness and distance,and the capacity to move unnoticed
eties had involved a mixture ol citizenshipwith settlementand
h5nc5with co-presence tirrough even the most surveyed of societies, such as by trans-
within the confinei
ally based society.But now the new glob4
iJrrito.i mutating from student to tourist to terrorist back to student
"rl,p"-.ti.
l..r.airg .o and so on.
Bauman,can rule 'without burdeningitself "fit",
with the choresof Informational and mediated power is'mobile, performed and
administration,management,welfare"concerns,,
even involving unbounded. This is its strength and its vulnerability. Attempted
developingdisposable slaveowningwithout .o--i,-""i
izooo, ordering even by the most powerful can result in an array of
13;on 'disposable peoples,, seeBalls lggg). Truuelli'gli;l,Ji, ,1,. complex unintended effects that take the system away from
new assetof power. power is all about sp"ed, lightn."rr,?istancg equilibrium. In such unpredictable and irreversible transforma-
the weightless,rhe global,and this is t.ue
both of eritesand of tions, power, and especially mediated powet is like sand. It may
those resistingelitessuch.as anti-globailzation
protestorsor ter- stay resolutely in place, forming itself into clear and bounded
rorists.Power.runs and especiallyjumps
_in acrossthe different shapes,with a distinct spatial topology waiting say to be arrested
tluids.poweris hybridizedand is not simply or bon-rbed,or it may turn into an avalancheand race away,sweep-
s91:?1t,ne.two1ks.and
oc lal but m a te ri a l .
ing much else in its wake.
In particular; citizenship and sociarorder
have always depended This unpredictability of power, its capacity to transmute from
upon relations of mutu aluisibilitybetween
the citizen and the state. fbrm to form, its capacity to be nowhere or everywhere, will now
In medieval and early modern societies,
,t ,t .o_pr"r"nt be illustrated through examining some aspectsof the contempo-
visibility of the monarch to his or her court " ""tri.ut,to
was centrar the main- rary phenomenon of scandal.
tenance of society'ssymbolic order and power
relations.The ritual
procession or 'progress'of the king or queen
around his or her
lcngdom turther servedto constitute his or
her wider subjectsas a The Complexity of Scandal
com_munity of direct wa.yhe^rsof power. With
the of
modern societiesespecially.fromthe eighteenth "_"rg..r."
century o'n*u.d., The late-twentieth-century emergence of a 'mediated power'
the economy of visibility between citizen and
state transmutes criss-crossingthe globe produced distinctly new forms of
i

,ft
'.r,
, 'I . i
 11 4 Social Ordering and Power
mediated scandals.The complex scandalof power and the
of scandal can be viewed through John Thompson,s
Scandal: Power and VisibiliN in the Media Age (ZOO0).
The globalmedia disembedevenrsfrom local contextsand
them, often instantaneously
and simultaneously,
acrossthe dG
At the sametime, the breaking-downof more solid class-Lased
forms of politics means relatio_nshipsin most countries and
regionsare lessorganized -that_
and more fluid and mobile - more wave-
iike - and hence these scandaievents can mo^rerapidly emerge,and
passin, through and beyond the frontiers of given societies."
Four processesin combination generate'complexity' outcomes
with regard to contemporary scandals.These are normative trans-
gressions,the significance and vulnerability of trust, the fact
of
exposure and the power to make events instantaneously and
simultaneouslyvisible
First, then, globally mediated scandals occur where there are
1iH'
significant transgressionsof particular norms of 'expected behav- 'I
iour' that characterize a given society or type of society.Accord-
ing to Thompson, these transgressions normally relate to sexual
behaviour,to financial matters or to the use/abuseof power. Given
the ambivalent, contested and often quite strict norms relating to
public figures and institutions, then 'scandalous' transgressions
regularly occur [as most citizens are well awarel).There ur"
potential scandals,especiallysince public figures and institutions
-"rry
are normally confronted by stricter norms of what is appropriate
behaviour than those not in the mediatized 'public' eye. But the
public eye seducesincreasingnumbers of new 'subjects'into the
visual media and who are then subject to cyclesof transgression,
revelation and confession [what we might term Big Brother
narcissism).
Second, the power of certain incumbents of official positions,
of companies and of states, rests upon a 'politics of trusf . With
particular incumbents such trust is basedon their presumedchar-
acter rather than on specificskills.Sometimesthere appearsto be
a kind of 'giobai trust' (such as that enjoyed on occasionsby the
Presidentof the USA, the General-Secretaryof the UN, Nelson
Mandela, certain states,certain global companiesand so on). But
such trust has to be continuously earned or performed and hence
it can rapidly erode.There is much to lose,especiallywhere trust
.i,
Soaal Ordering and Pouter 1r5
establishmentand maintenanceof
^-.1characterare core to the
And, the greater
1'll t"ni,i-ucy of an incumbent or organization'
the more.that characterhas been put on line, then the
i'fr. ;r;r,,
*ettet is any ensurngscandal[other things being equal). Trust is
?" strottg but an incredibly brittle resource'It has
"l<l"o,ion"lly performed. If it stopsbeing earned,then it will
l^ n" .onti"uously
i"r,r"t.n"o.rily, a9 w1h an individual whose character or
"loa" ,ru-" gets exposedand subject to scandal.Tiust may disap-
nood
11,,. ou".tieht. Rt those subject to scandal often say,they took
'name' 'their world collapsed
i"uff b"lldlng ,rp their good .but
them and their unfor-
iu"."lght, u, ih"-r.a.,dal 'swept' over both
tunate friends and familY.
--
ihl.d, there is the power of exposure.This involves the making
of the private transgressiveact transparent to the public and hence
1985; Balkin 1999). The wide-
lust that: public fMeyerowitz_
,rnging global increasingly possessthe techniques to make
trarisparentwhat the powerful would mostly seek to maintain as
-"di"
,p.iuate,.Such media employ technologiesof observation,sur-
veillance and monitoring of people within their supposedly
'private' lives.These technologieswere initially develop.edwithin
the secret services of states, such as eavesdropping,phone tap-
ping, secret cameras,listening devices,telephoto lenses,computer
i'tu.ki.rg, stalking and so on [with Watergate, of course, it was
Nixon's own tapes that provid'edhis downfall). But the power of
exposure is to make what is supposedly backstageor 'private',
frontstage or 'public'. And with digitization there are few if any
imageslf the^private that can ever be'locked away' for good,
thaJwill remain forever private and opaque' Hoskins [2001:
218) analysesthe power of th"'hidden' media images of the
L"*inkry-Clinton that were then endlessly replayed
"mb.".",
once the scandalhad broken.
Fourth, there is the attractor of uisibility or transparew'Media-
ttzation involves the enhanceclvisualizationof power' Peopleand
organizationsacrossthe globe are drawn into the ambit of visi-
bifity its seductiv" ihr...r, so as to be famous for fifteen
"r,d
minutes.And it is bodies that are made especiallyvisible through
mediatized visibility, bodies that speak to the world both inti-
mately and'close .rp; ut d yet simultaneouslyto vast numbers'This
produces a distinc[ kind of performative biopower, an embodied
 ll6 Social Ordering and Power Soaal Ordering and Power t1,7

power or a 'public intimacy' through figures made visible from equilibrium, especiallywhere those involved try
and lead away
lay the ghost to rest'
revealed on the world's media. But this immense biopower
is ," turug" events, to cover their tracks, to
exceptionally vulnerable - to exposure, as-figures, of pow.. feedback mechanisms where charac-
can in"l" ui" po*".frrl positive
zuddenly, overnight, be seen (through) as flawed, ,s bodily ,can_ and the shameis massively
,"rl"a trust dissolu" ulr.rortovernight
dalous.All those watching on the media can bear witness to and magnified. In complexity mode, most attempts to
the
public shaming, the making transparent,of the transgresser "i-,nrn."d exposure will result in the enlargement of the scandal,
xnd nrirrimrze
on occasionstheir public confession.Gitlin Ilgs0J describedthis- with the further scandal of 'concealment'. Efforts to
as The whob world k watching. The exposed individuals, c.mpa- "r'".i"fty produce complex magnifica-
iu'-p"r-, down the evolving events
nies or states are revealed, their scandalnessis made visible and further irreversible consequences.
tion with diverse and
'backstage' then there is
their biopower dissolvesin front of the world's saze. Indeed, once the media have peered
figures'
Moreover, the competitive nature of the overlapping and digi- escalatingexposure and visualization of the scandalous
tized media enhances the attractor of transparency.competition grfh" (iggg, +OZ)describesthe'self-amplifying focus' of a media
in its
enables the figure of the 'wrongdoer' to be revealed,."pl"y.J i""dlr-rg 'frenzy' that takes root and leaves little standing
kind of all-consuming flow
again and again, and his or her global shame made visible before, *t i.tr.,ui"apatir. Scandalscan possessa
and endlesslyrepeated across,the globe.This was paradigmatically that can 'wash' over those caught up in its wake' As Thompson
seen with former President clinton and the fascination with his g5) argues,,the experience i,s likely to be overwhelming,
[2000:
immense but vulnerable biooower. n, rapilly spin out of control', away from any movement
Scandals,we might say, involve small causes fthe furtive "u".,,, equilibrium.
towards
embrace,the tiny lie, the small payment, the hand*iitten note). 'Financial' and 'abuseof power' sc.andals are particularly inter-
These small causescan, in very particular circumstances,produce estingin that they often occur at moments of globalscrutiny con-
distant and catastrophicconsequencesfor those involved'and for ductJd in, and through, the world's media. Especially significant
many others drawn into the swirling vortex of a scandalizing are those big public rneetingswhen the company or country-brand
event. Events are typically unpredictable, with no one able to is put ott ditpl"y and revealedto the world fstevenson 1997: 46
control the trajectory of a scandal [Thompson 2000: 75). There Kein ZOOOI.f" u single week in the 1990s, Rio Tinto, Shell,
are unexpected, unpredictable and uncontrollable visibilities as premier Oii Nestl€ and ICI all held Annual General Meetings in
images flow within, and rapidly jump across,the various media. which groups of protestersmobilized the world's media to expose
The media compete for global stories and produce what Balkin ancl to ihu..t" these companies for their misdeeds'
[1999: 402) terms a 'cascadeeffect'. Different iournalists with Significantly, these normative transgressionsoften and unpre-
diverse standardsof lournalistic integrity compete with each other dl.t"bly o..r'ri."d in countries far away from where the AGM was
for further scandalsto reveal.Especiallycrucial in producing such actuallyheld. But, of course,with instant communicationsthere is
cascadesare visual images that disrupt or ridic;le or overturn oft"r, ,no hlding pi"."'. The trand in questiongetsthreatenedwith
existing relationsof biopower. Such imagesget endlesslysold and exposure,nd rh"-" at the very moment that it is being presented
resold across the globe, as they subvert, humiliate and transgress upon the world's stage.The power of a brand can evaporaterapidly'
the apparentpower of the powerful. Those who live by the media Th" of Nik-e,and the threatening of its brand bec.auseof
,slave
"*"-ple
can also die a horrible death throueh such mediated cascades. the wages'paid to its workforce, show that 'public shan-ring
Scandalsthus involve complex sets of events that are unpre- and consum". pr"rrrr." can have a mighty impact upon mighty
dictable and irreversible. They run out of control once there is manufacturers'[Dionne 1998: 11; seealsoKlein 2000)'
exposure,becauseof the mobility and speed of the processesof Thus liquid mediated power is a key component transtormtng
exposure,visualization and recirculation.The irreversible events power r"lutio.t, in the globalage'Such symbolicpower flows across

A
,ft
 I 18 I
SocialOrd.ering
and pou.,er
Social Ordeing and Power i19
ffiffJ: i';i:::,ln;":*theworrd's
.-o-,
pl"nx
t
*o in.r"rsingly components within various systemsof global

i,:li::{:i':i
[*{,;tilr: *l:.i$ to^lil"tity. The discussionof scandalshows that forms of in-
C Ol "t .,--^.1 .' -J
iol..'r,i"nnl and mediated
-o' { i .+ -J power
^^,.,^- ..o
are mobile,
-^k i l o
foli^rnd"d. This provides both their strength but also their vul-
performed
^o"f^"-o.l and
o.rl

the most powerful within

'')i"v,ilirv.Attempted ordering even by
can result complex unintended effects that take the

fiTff,'ffi
lr'.11,"r ^in
],,.r"nt i., question further away from equilibrium.
"jn ,r.h unpredictable and irreversibletransformations,power,
,ndespeciallymediated power, is, we have seen,like sand.It may
.iavrerolttely in place forming clear and bounded shapesor it

l,ffirfif#f+ffi*t*r-ruw
;lfr:Lil}HHiit{il,:ilffi
,:l':ini"i:i;l",'ff
Indeed, the ocr H 'rr cte and much, else besides - ' 'o" 1sQ[.,
..,uu,urn into an avalancheand raceaway sweepingmuch elsein
ii, *ri." What Bauman terms
'liquid modernity' is full of unex-
pected,unpredictable and irreversible movements, including the
,nor" r".".tt emergence of a culture of scandal that takes social
[fe further away from points of equilibrium.
ge
nera
r .; i;;;";ii:T;; :l: tT i : 1.r,,i,s* In the next chapter I return to some implications of global com-
i: ;: *o.
".",,ng, plexity for sociology and its characteristic theories of the social

::i'ri"q:l[#,"-T
fi#;*I J:,Tj
#l1F*ff::H1i:
:i.T,r'j';:::t*';',1xnil'.;*lii!'6,ry::Hi.,",'T; world. And I go on to explore some implications of machines,
empiresand the cosmopolitan for the strangelyordered world that
seemssimultaneouslyto be on the edge of chaos.

fl: ,.TTiii
:,fi
ri:,T:,;':";;iliil
t erfect
"i:ri,il-
.il"f ff;
sen through
"JJ 1iver""aJ".t"iri":fL:ft "jTl.",*m;
R.os,i
;l: H:, in"'hil"*,:iflj :: in :i.ffl ";
or
:'",
;:;1::'JJ,i,FJ;:
lt p uur
i., t[ n ::,
::* ff3
l"J,:
i#[ir.;T,',',:Ttl'i::-i3;ii:i"fi f*J:;'i:"x':':H:1
*Ttri.1i.{#Jii}i:t'*j;,ffi
t.'T:,.hf,:r",t:j
Conclusion
This chapterhas
examined
socralorder contingen, a varietyof mobile processes
nna unu.riri,io.,"r,es that make
have been shown
 Global Comolexities tzl
can result from drawing strict analogiesbetween models
-,ipnces
liln"norn*na developed within different domains of enquiry.
li^i""u"r, given the necessarilymetaphorical nature of all science,
7 li" Uookhas consideredwhether complexity could generatepro-
),,.,i"" mctaphors for the social analysisof various 'post-societal'
Global Complexities lrli"ri.l rvorlds.I follow complexity-theoristBrianArthur's views
ihr, .o-pl"xity writers are'beginning to develop metaphors' and
'is in the businessof formulating the
that the Santa Fe Institute
rnetaphors for this new science, metaphors that, with luck, will
euide the way these sciencesare done over the next fifty years of
io' (1994b; 6801. Complexity thus seeks to establish pattern
similarity operating within and across many different systems,
whetherthey are nominally'physical'or'human'.
Complexity and Social Theorv Specialfocus has been placed here upon the metaphors appro-
priate for examining the material worlds implicated in the ap-
Auguste Comte f
wh"ether;;';;;,yiili"ri'".ili,T,:,?:*gil,:;:,11x.?:T:; parent 'globalization' of economic, social, political, cultural and
environmentalrelationships.In the past decadethe social science
qifi :f i"n3n: beginni
n g or tr'- of the global has extensively described many of these relation-

plexity
if ::1,,'i::
;: *i' " t*",,ty-n,,t
of the phvsics ships.However, much social sciencehas not developed complex

r";; ;;;ffi;:$TTL
ro. .o,'t"i;;;;::':jl:,11:y'":",

:"ls#
of .o*- analysisof global systemsthat transcendthe societalor national.

|,i :'rTi5:Xil "

itHfflf,n1m::ifr
tr.'"'
p-u'i-Il
ari
stic accounts
within spe-
It has tended to take the global for granted and then shown how,
and in what ways, various localities, regions, nation states, envi-
ronments and cultures have been transformed in linear fashion
BiggsIggs,".;,..,:il
"'1."1::
lJ'#:fi 'lt"J;j:Bv.n
" i ges,,;',*ik,, by this all-powerful entity that many call 'globalization'.Thus
Moreover; the ":
st"*-i,,;:";;'"#ff"..J1,i:i:.:,:,'1nj'"",11,,11;.l-J#:;Jj
plex. for complexity
globalization [or sometimes global capitalism) has come to be
viewed as the new'structure', with localities,regionsand so on as
,h";-;;';;'; the new 'agent'.
consid
er,h
"; ;;;ii d ;i ;_;Hir1,,:_!f?l,l,ll];ffil::
it already constitutes
u .o-pl"te ,o;iui
_ Ilowevel, I have shown the limitations of the structure,/agency
divide,drawing in part upon Giddens's'duality of structure' thesis
wrong question' since theory. Thrt i, ,rrely the
no one wourd imagine I I 9B4J This structurationist formulation breaks with linear
tormed as such a theory that it is already notions,sinceit seesthe rules and resourcesof systemsboth being
ln The Hi;rtm Connecilons,complexity_
:ffn'Jil;?,:i ;; ;J;;;,anan
Qogzl arvsi s'oi-ii,'i',o.iur
drawn upon by knowledgeable agents and then feeding back
through actions to reproduce system rules and resources.In
"?l'l
so.aI Iire,o ayn, -
complexItf b;i ;;' Giddens'saccount there are not hxecl and separateentities pos-
'il:;,",L|' ";,'.",Ju..
sessingvariablecharacteristics.
,.rilji}fffiT?"o,1:"';' 'ci""'" models
There is some appreciationof rela-
shoutd
notbedirectry
.rtr,".._jr;; ; :"i:,:ri
5:ffi:HT:ilt,fiJ,chaotic,
:ilhT:ilJ;
tionality. Moreovel, functionalist arguments partly presuppose a
non-linear account, since there are circular negative feedback
that they purport to .hr.r.t".;;;:'Uil.r"seen mechanismsin which 'causes'and'effects' are in effect co-Dresent
conse- within the functionally integrated'system
 122 Global Complexities l zJ
Global ComPlexities
But this book uses complexity to
move beyond vr or circulations that effect rela-
theory.i huu"-ro,,ght .^^, but rnany connections
varied distances'
l::,'"::*tl_':.lnl
'structure'and no ,agency', ,-".r1, to showthat .throush performancesat multiple and
socr"',1:
no no ,ai.l tionaltty""""i?t iftu,'there is no zoom going from macro
struc-
"na
'individuals',and no 'system -i","ractions and macro are
,:::l::t":,
world'. i"i
This is lo
wortd,
wulr., and La|@u.r^1i.1.r" ' ' ' fsince] both micro
becauseeachsuch.ro,ioi''"'"r ture,torr::'rLl ,,p to ii"ulating entities' (1999: 19.)
that tl
entitieswith separateand distinct
that
";" are LlrenIbro ,?I,:JfT:i;;";:'t;i?",::::l::rr,*:t.l:::::Til":;l
"r'r.r".r.t.*
inr n av
into external

ll :11"1:
:..---- , ,..
* ---^ r juxtaposition

lui ff ._.da;";'
with its
:et
"rr".,llTumes
oti--
;il Hf TilTs"i::l:i:
'^r then
j:::;:T1fr':'.:ild;;
simple formulations_of finalized
towardswhich socialprocesses ""d
;;;;';;;';;.i "'tri1t:::.tr:::l':"#::""i'li'*:
donal ctvt""
Lobile
"--.-^'--io-"
connecilols formulations from complexity have
necessarily
move. advancethe analysisof non-equilibrium^con-
Overall my argument
'rerationaiiiv:lir'i, o rr,iohere is onc tlu rhere ofthis
.r,u.".t".i'tics
ur"uurioi,,
n isarso ."",."it l"i::JX.il"rri: ll::"1':rudffTF,rng.
"
gqol, 'comPlex'relatlonatttY'
f(Dillon
*f^:*Y?t 1""".i.
^: to-criti., o-.,,_l,,,.,uralist
ro.*,,i ";il, the.very la,ge number of elements
makes such systems
2000jand of ",
g"r,"rrf
rr"a"i r*rr'i:#ilfii any finalized 'order'' These elements
{2099:t2Jmaintai"";h;;, unpredictableano 'utki"g
1o^o_ll^gtlol -mola4, r\o partyto arelati and, blcause of various dematerializingtrans-
therefore a monadic,
or ;;:;;.; physicallv They are
5",i.y rl"J H;{#: ;"fii: i";;;i;r,' informationally over multiple time-spaces'
of ,p; and
3:::::f:l for relationarity'
capacity *:.:n"li:,:: (see 3"+_of_being-rerated irreversiblydrawnto*a.dsua.ious.attractors'thatexerciseakind
"rro
e-irioyer 1997).Rerati
;i;;;;t;y'"ffect, especiallv what I have termed the glocalization
is hrought aboutthrough a wide
networkedor circ rich and non-linear' involving
relationshipsthatareimplicar"a".;t;; attractor.Interaction' "'" to*plex'
*i
irri" a',rr.r"""ffi #:ff ffi multiple negative and, more-signific antly'
p ositive f;edU5\
loons
.,.1I:1s"", rn examining,u.h returns and patn oepen-
:::::Ti::ll"
terialworlds T*:dd ^yortds. _J with ineluciable patterns of increasing
I have
noted whatcrr.r.^iioiib, iffi"r:ilff:r?hi with their environment'
dence.Such systemsinteract dissipatively
.the,studv.of th" ,i.i"l ih" ,i"i, .i ,r,. ih. within any such system operate under.conditions
:^":y*l
that co^rresponds
"T::i,l_:::y:"1 to it op"r,,r"r, .f ""d
ifr" h"_""?r**r* that are far from equilibrium, partly because each
"l.*"nts element
"
to the greaterflux or energy,matter at
andlife,. respondsonly to 'locai' sources of information' But elements
linear metaphorof"rirles, ,;;-;, effects elsewhere
.The that stretchingfrom the one location have very significant time-space
micro levelto the macrolevel,or fro- pro-
th. life world to the systern through multiple connectiJns and trajectories'There can be a
world, which hasplaguedso.inl,rr".rv 'effects'' Such systems
rr._:;;*";;,;;;r-t o,rta fo.rnidisfroportionality of 'causes'and
thus be replacedty itr" and where past events
Such connec- possess hirio.y that irreversibly evolv-es
be viewedasmore
-""prr".-.f'.o'n".tions.
or lessintense,more or lessmobilg "
are thus never 'f"t;;;'.;;;i;; of bif"ttution{"il}v"Be reached
1.:r^
morei.",*
or lesssocialand more or less,at a
distance,fseeDickenet when the system dru.t.h"r. And the various sciences are them-
al.2001: 702-4;on system,/rir"*".r,ir,
see Sayer20001.Latour ,"1u", po*"rful elements within such systems and.have unpre-
maintainsthat the social,possesses
the bi;;:;;p"ri, ,* di.trbl" ancl irreversible effects upon systemic development,
made.ol1q"^1? or structure at all,but *,rrJ, "fu an especiallyon the character and development.of global systems'
TIX
cuLating.entity'
i iJing
[1999: l7]. Thereare many trajectories or move- St.f-t tvt,"*, ,iorrld never be seen as involving simply.linear
ments that are neither macro nor micro
but circuraalu*..n increasesin the ..f.^it^aJn of the life world, or of enhanced
of 'speed;velocity;*.u"rl-.on.inuous agency,or of greater risk.
;::l,l: flow; pulsing;
u,o':y.le_rys
viscosity;,
rhyth.m; harmony;discordance; have
I, :n,9 rrrj turbu_ This then Jo*prir"r-u significant array of general claims' I
lence'fDillon 2000: l2). Thereis
therefore." .o ;;*,._ tried to make some ."tt,.iUi,l"n to the f"tth"i development the of
"f
 r24 Global Complexities
social sciencesof complexity with analysesof the material worlds
implicated within processesof global ordering. Further topics
where I think subsequentwriters could also work would b", fi.rt,
the enhancementof some complexity methods,data setsand sim-
ulation techniquesthat are appositeto 'sociallife'. Further,it would
be desirableto develop formal methods for speciS'ingthe bound_
aries,limitsand consequences of different kinds of networks,espe-
cially what I have termed GINs and GFs. And, most ambitiously,
complexity notions should be seenasthe basisof a thoroughgoing
-worldl
post-disciplinarity appropriate to the diverse material
currently moving across the globe
[see http://www.math.
uptras.grl-mboudour/). Such post-disciplinarity would involve
systematicanalysesto transcendthe physical science/socialscience
divlde.
Machines
This book has particularly emphasized the apparently more
'liquid' character of contemporary global relations,involving the
dematerializing of information und the unpredictable and rp"-.d.d
up character of networked and fluid relationships, wheiher of
money, risks, tourism, terrorism or information. Indeed, key to
examining the global are the wide array of elobal networks and
global fluids that occupy complex, contiadiciory and irreversible
relationships with each other. some features of these have ,
been elaborated; they constitute what I called, foilowing
Prigogine,'pools of order' within increasingdisorder.Their impor-
tance means that linear accountsof the global, such as those ihat
point to increasing wealth, or homogenization, or democracy/ or
violence, are wrong. A1l such processesare to be found, brrt ih"y
are hugely interdependent with each other; each providlng the
conditionsunder whlch their 'other' develops.
But why is thisTtrVhy does not the increasingly'liquid' charac-
ter of the global world mean that relationality is simply unprob-
lematic? Why does not 'liquid modernity', as Bauman
12OOO1
characterizesthe contemporary world, generatemobile solutions
to system'failings'7The answer is that those mobilities connect-
ing the local and global always depend upon multiple stabilities.
Global CompLexities t25
peterritorialization presupposesreterritorialization, as Lefebvre
f 199I ) consistentlyshows[seealsoBrenner 1999b: 435-6;1999a).
ih" complex characterof such systemsstems from the multiple
time-spacefixities or moorings that enablethe fluidities of liquid
'mobile machines',such as mobile
modernity to be realized.Thus
ohones,cars,aircraft,trains,and computer connections,all presume
overlappingand varied time-space immobilities fsee Graham and
Marvin 2001).
This relationality between mobilites and immobilities is a
There is no linear increasein flu-
tvpical complexity characteristic.
systems of immobilities. Thus the so-far
idity without extensive
most powerfui mobile machine, the aeroplane,requiresthe largest
and most extensive immobility, of the airport city employing
tens of thousands of workers (on the complex nature of such mul-
tiple 'airspaces',see Pascoe2001). The least powerful mobile
machine, human legs, requires almost no such immobilities
[except maybe the armchairl). I now outline variousimmobilities
involved here.
There aretempora{ymoments of rest of a machine and/or its
usersand/or its messages, such as at a bus stop,voice mailbox,
passportcontrol, railway station or web site.The machine or
its object or user waits in preparationfor its next mobile phase.
There are short periods of storage,such as the overnight stay
of a car in a garageor an aircraft on an airfield or information
within a databaseor a passengerwithin a motel. Such modes
of temporary storageoften involve complex sorting and stack-
ing procedures.
3 There is the long-termint'rastructural immobrlity - of airports
or CCTV camerasor railway lines or pylons or satellitesthat
orchestrate the intermittent mobilities throueh a literal path
dependencv.
There is the inter-generationaldisposal of the materials from
'dead' machines,such as the transforming of immobile train
carriagesor carsor landlinesinto 'disposed'wasteand recycled
materials.
Thesemobilities are hugely uneuenin time-space,so that some
zones are rich with movement and some are movement
poor, and in fact become relatively poor as mobilities happen
a t26 Global Complexities Global Complexities r21 W
elsewhere[see Graham and Marvin 2001). Statesare cen . _^..l,rions Thesernachineswerestored
of work and science.
implicated in seekingto increasemovements within anJl fq lli, .r"cializedcampsor baseswherethe public wasforbid-
certain zones and in compensating for the massive il n'::;i.,;'hichhad enhancedsvstemsof sur.r-eillance'
quencesof overlapping zones of relative immobiliW. d"l.l'j"r*"nty-first century will be the century of what I call
in by
,,.i|'Ur,"i-.u.hi.t"r'. These are machinesthat are dwelt
There are therefore specialized periods and places ii'ji-',"Ji"tJuals or by very small groups.Such inhabitedma-

f
ctrlErL ^'-
temporary rest, storage, infra-structural immobility, disposal privatized, mobilized and depend upon
a :ilH,
immobile zones. How, when and where these materialize are '::':::; "." powei
-l"i"t"rrzed,
This is substantially separate from material
-nrver.
immense systemic consequence,relating to the organization erceptionaI Ievelsof miniaturization and mobiI-

time-space. The intersections of these periods and places
tate or preclude the apparently seamless mobilities of
information, objects and equipment acrosstime-space. Ouerail
is these moorings that enable movement. And it is the dialectic
mobility/moorings that produces social complexity. If all
tionality were mobile or 'liquid', then there would be no
plexity. Complexity,l suggest,stemsfrom this dialecticof mobi
ano .q-r"q!nngs. s frLrr' I 4r1
There have, moreover, been significant transformations in
operation of this dialectic over time. This can be seen bv bri
considering the changing nature of 'machines'.The ni
century was the century of industrial machines', machines
mainly made other machines or material obiects or that tra
ported such machines or objects. Each technology deve
relatively independently, although a key development was
emergence of steam power. Experts, who were often experts
that machine itself and not in other machines.inhabited
industrial machines.
The twentieth century was the era of 'familial machines' and of
'war machines'. Family household members inhabited familid
machines,including white-space goods,the family caq,telephone,
the radio, the household TVIVCR, the PC, heating appliances
and the camera/camcorder. Such machines were rn-ui"iy stored
within the home/garage and helped to form twentieth-century
family life. Most famiiy could operate most of these
domesticatedmachines.These -"-b"i,
machinesdepended wholly or pattJy
upon electricpowet except strangelyfor the car.Twentieth-centurl
'lr1ar machines' were non-domesticated, and included, besider
technologiesof massdestruction,variousspin-offssuch asjet trans'
port, nuclear energy,space travel for science,and virtuai
f
il\'^'^:JinvoIves
irrrManv oi these are portable,carried around by'digital
l:;;;-i fMakimoto -".hi.r",
and Manners 1997)- Such machines are
and lightness and demonstratea
i"rtr"a f"; their style, smallness
form closely interwoven with the corporeal' Early ex-
mobile phones, the
#j1'j, include walkmans, new generation
"irrnd
indivi-
inJiuid"ul T! the networked computer,/Internet, the
'travel',srnart small personalair-
dualizedsmart car,virtual reality
craftand othersyet to emerge.These machines involve interesting
reconfigurations of storage: the portals to these machines are
carriedlrouqd with the individual, they are stored on or close to
the personand yet their digital power derives from their extensive
connectivity.
Thesein-habitingmachines enable 'people' to be more readily
mobilethrough space,or to stay in one place becauseof the capa-
city for 'self-retrieval' of personal information at other times or
spaces. Through s.rch machines people inFrabit global networks
and fluids of information, image and mo,''ement. 'Persons'thus
occurasvariousnodes in these multiple machines of inhabitation
and rnobility.The storagein such machines is digitized and hence
is not only 'just in time' but also'just in space'. There is a person-
to-personconnectivitv that representsa further shift in the dema-
terialization of info.*"tion and moblllty discussed in chapter 4
Gee Wellman 2001). The global fluidi of 'travelling peoples',
'lnternet'
and 'information' increasingly overlap ,^J .orru"tg",
generating irreversible
changes that further move social life
towardswhat
Wellman (200i) terms 'personalized networking'.
his involves the furthei linking-together of 'physical space' and
,l
This convergenceacross the various global fluids
^cYberspace'.
Iurther
transcendsdluirio.r! of structure and agency,the global and
the local
 Global Complexities r29
Global ComPlexities
r ^..^riationally 'complex' [as in Held et al'
,onallY *hui hupp"nsto nationstates
^1?:":il;;""pr"it 'empire'.
'empire'' though, once
.,,.h u"
Further',"'.:i";- su'h an It is
It as though'
is as once
"
l'r'llij:";iil;
"'1" then
.':::[:
Sion ""'societies'
state>,o.lo.li5;1"ryil*],*m : lil:n:''ntv'
All they imply is empire'
s1-^'",n:.::.?", deployedby Hardt andNegridoes
"1'"-pire'
#;:ru'.;il:':^.T*i:::;'":::T::Tlin';*:1'
iott"Ti'ij':i;":;; - be characterizedas'a sovereignpower that
.Tetonty rrr H"' " /1000. p. xi).Although Hardt and Negri con-
l.rerns the worta. le
Empires and Multitudes
Sili;+;::::^ri::::::"S.:x1fr
@rillliu"\'{rr, :::':tulf#i,iHiu:i
,tinterdependentfluid globaihybridsthat both
iheirclaimthat'thereis worldorder'
In Empire, Michael
Hardt and Antonio matize
Negri (2000
the conceptof ,empire,o.,imo"Ji:;:^-^,_-- #flfi'r"Jo"lUi"
,, Q0003)'
:l
o ra;t*j.,1.;
dynamican ::"f:"'
d n rj; ;
ttll.J'i:ffi
i;'ff"
IIJ*:
:i;1"
Rather,I suggesttnat
the concept of 'empire' is a useful one'
ch"ura.terizeoverall global relations. My analysis
of
"",:bi"'
tally across the globe,
a kind
i,ffi
Nrrq ut
of
,sovorroh-6 TTJ,lt;
r^,:!L_ .
b";;;;;
il;;i-;"-Olexity.suggests
that all societiescould be said to be
that sweeps ,"*J,6", ' Sovernance without gover ,empires'. contemporary societies possess
libe
:;'j:;il 1._";
[ecoming more
.^dry";;"tdd Ji:i,il.,|1
wor ld" t he .s i n o l . l n o i -
.1:1,"_:^ . *ior. u€rergnpow e4,a' r
r" t*r"""tf.gly visible ."nt.", with icons of
power such as build-
i.gr, f""at.Jp", ur-tdbrands, while beyond the centre
there is a
l'#l';llifrffi'",I:'"or'ur"'h";;;;;;)"?il'"."'I?3r'J
^ f ,,,1 .,
is deterritoriatir"a u"a ,pi."aing of effects outwards with a relative weakness borders'
of

g*'iil.TT'Jf,it'itt;"'il"fi,{il1{ii*$',i:;:l
with a rneroin_

boundaries
__r r s qr r L r u
^-.,,o,u,"r"r,qnty

oir b"..i".r.
u a rrre rs .,l ,aso
h e ,a g e nf
al."]., Within such'empires'there are emergentinequalitiesrather than,
as in at least welfare societies,an attempt to create citizenship
rights that are common throughout the territory. In particular,
The _ . .r
o f g l obal i zati on l
i s,t. ,oii.ti", are on the world's stage, showing off their trophies,
l:, d,;; iry
-l^t-^I,-^.,
r r r g, r r ",
r* . oi
1;i
.. rr
Lrary;,,.""*:iy .j oppos.itg,
i".iits
generates ";;,
whaIHa.dt
Z.ffi
U Ui:
U : IrJ3
O6 A
J). A nn
dd, p i fp
, e m_
" ei..,, < competingwith each other for the best skyline,palaces,galleries,
N"gri +;#;r, stadia,infrastructures and so on, and seeking to avoid scandal
:::::i,T:,],'fl,li',": _:nd
.
desires r,' ".a
:I r "-i - ouir"1murti*:'
tude,t
'T::f:Tj[;"j?:t "-pi."iiooo, [r]11l'r;'61"
and risk.
Societiesare endlesslydrawn into the glocal attractor and it is
tra
Iitvor thea parallelsmy argument
tralitv of tL- ,^.^-:lliie' as to the thisthat remakesthem as'empires',the USA being the most pow-
",".'iioi"i, Ji'is*;'
global system.Howr :':1"i,fff iiloil:it"'r'tri
little ,p"cifi."tion
erful and dominant of such societalempires currently strutting the
Negriof th
Nesriof esv
rhe stemi' ."ru.i
o,"r_*..^=lll o,',*i ;i;; :
l.h*" U, H".ji *a world'sstage.The USA possesses a number of exceptionalcentres
rt operatesin co'dirion,
fbl ft"; ;;;,1]0.,,r,',, Theirs
#:l:: ilnrtJ"lilit T; (NY LA,Washington),many iconsof power (Pentagon,WallStreet,
ably undynamicaccount is a remark Hollywood,Ivy ieague Universities,Texan oil wells,SiliconValley,
of serf-repilJ,r.ir,ggrobal
say,for example,thr rerations.They MOMAI, a porosity of borders (on the USAs Latinization, see
supp
orts,r, 'il:fiJ:il?,:il**l.mt :Hi
"'*i.u"iTffi
Davis2d00bj r"d hug"'imperial' economic and socialinequalities.
It is the purojig- ..s" of 'societyasempire'.Thus,rather than there
lf] .?y"ehere
""t5#"t"t$ ; ;;.'""; ;i il;";'^iii-' beinga single'empire',globalcomplexity suggeststhat eachsociety
un.dtuiJft
";;;:;ii,;H:,i'"""rrl;f:'r:,#*".,.;#;i::
is drawn into ttLe attractor of glocalization and is remade, so
developingsome characteristicsof 'empire'.
 130 GIobaIComPlexities 131
.,,,:alComplexities

And each society qui:npire produces its opposite,its and Marvin 2001)' There are gatedcommuni-
america[Graham theme parks' workplaces'
its rebellious multitude ird the globalizing of capitalistm 'l^- .nndominiums, shopping centres'
ttt:;;;, gatesseparate
has generated some str.,i-:.gnew zones from which ,multi ;irpo.,t, fi,tut'tiul districts and so on'The
t'Tl# within the
emerge to challengeen:.:es. The events of l l September .lf" ,'on"r'fro- th" wild and dangerous.z:ne's
to have emerged unprec.,:rbly from one of the very poorest c w",J s"t' 'o""' of the""gou"'n"ble' thepoorand
tries in the world, and :: are said to have irreversiblv ch
:il"5tTi: are found in many cities especially
across the
the dispossesseo
many parametersstruct;l]g economic,socraland political life.-l
I ut*r,, of these safe and the
September demonstrat* :re c-omplexity of 'asymmetric threats,i increasingly, the time-space-edges
new juxtapositions
that 'wars' are increasL::ry fought between formally .rn.qual *iiJt" .omingli"to strange and dangerous
powerswith the appare'-r the Wesi' The flows from the wild
weakable to inflict massiveUlo*, oi .'an or oerhaps
CvLrr' --^r
"rp".iully,"in on increasingly
nsrs, substances'images and so
i .^r
the apparently powerfu. : is almost the secular equivalent of ,thu
zonesof people, chaoti-
first shall be last, and t-,,.astshall be first,. The mightie, i, ihe iftt""gft tft" tuf" gates'suddenly and
slip under, over and
power of society as eL-::e, the greater the harm ihat can that had kept the zones apart'
be cally eliminating the invisibilities urbancrime'asvlum
inflicted. ;ffi;h ;o.'"1i t"""J;ti;;, the drugtrade' the
tlave tradlng and urban terrorism'
_ Global complexity ca:*rusbe seen in the power of the power- seeking,people t-"ggfl"g,
less to inflict the utrn;i: harm upon the institutions of im- r"L"t%i,fte wild ;ithZ safe are chaoticallv juxtaposed'
"" zones have
perial powet especially::rsebuildings, institutions and people I; ,;,;;s of glo$al co;nplexitv' wild and safe
that symbolize the inte:it condensationof imperial power. The ii' "#:l
becomehighly tO,S,1ai'ilri' *-t'tto.t o" "
USA is the paradigm casi'i'societyas empire'. And it is the New ffiIl the capi:lt al
1:;:
ist world
Ther e is' time-sp a."f-pt""io'i"
zones are now only a tele-
York skyline that most gi:hically symbolizes its imperial power. but also of the'a"..o'i* i"o'ld''Wild
plane.ride away' Capital-
Moreovel, huge trans;.:mationsare taking place in the very phone call, an Internet connection or a
'whole world' closer and this is
production of 'empire a:imultitude' across the elobe. This can ist markets ft"t" U.""gltt the
its violent
be seen as a specificexa::leof the glocalizine atlactor. Bhabha especially pu.udox"ically true. of those bent on
summarizeshow: 'The g ,:eshrinksior those*ho o*n it; for the "nd
destruction and ;;i;lt' ; destroving the dominance of
displaced or the disposs*;ed, the migrant or refugee,no distance 'Americans' within th" glotd order' 1l September^demonstrates
th" few feet were dra-
is more awesome than'-:. few feet across borders or frontiers' this new curvature oi'i"t" "lttJ- and time' "'
[]992:88). matically t.".tr."ndli ittuitibility was no more' Suddenly
the
Indeed one effect of ;'lal markets is to generate ,wild zones' those from th" *ill-Jo""' tot" f'o- ihut zone and struck at
The wild and safe
of the increasinglydispos,ossed. In parts of the former USSR,sub- vertical city that had previously beeninvisible'
New York in a manner no one in
SaharanAfrica, the Balkii. central America and central Asia are zones collid"a in tt ,ky
" "Uou" also collide in
zones that are places c'.bsence,of gaps, of lack. Such zones the safezoneshrd ;.;J1;ed' of course'the zones
cheap petrol for
possessweak states witL rry limlted infrastructures, no monop- Saudi Arabia, whele ,f.r" Uint obsessionwith
unholy alliance
oly of the means of coer.r.n, barelv functionine economiesoften one-third of the world,s cars has generated the ij
dependent upon comrnurfiringlilegal materlls, an imploded between American power and Saudi oil wealth'
the most dramatic
social structure and a re.;:rtelylimited set of connections to the Moreover, the events of 1l September are
or 'netwar' involv-
global order. ro iu. of a non-territorial network war
In the 'West' socio-spi:.rlinequalities have remained largely "*"-fi"
i"; J;" tou"l f**, taken by the 'multitude'' And hierarchies
invisible.There is a 'splir,:::ingurbanism', with the invisibihty of h"?;-g.;ut aifn."ii'"nghti',g i.,.h networks.Indeed,networks
the 'other' taken to extre': lengths in the 'gated, cities of North are best fightirrg tL,o-'" in netwars [see Arquilla and
"t """g"ged
 132 Global Complexities Global Complexities 133
Ronfeldt z00l: r 7). Al-eaida hasbeen likened.tl a self-3rqanizing
system 'on the edge of ihuor'. The 'amorphousness .^,rsa 'sirnple'systemof hierarchicalnation states.When the world
of a-l-rgaida of nation states,the 'other' society was almost always
not only makes it difficult to hunt down its members -,.]-'.irr.'d
blame on individuals: it also means it does
and pin .,]r"thing to fear, to attack, to colonize, to dominate and to keep
on the move,
the same form from day to day,a clear beginning
--6,^prAeek
"o, ""."..".ijy h.uu ut bny The other was dangerous,especially others
or as armies, migrants, traders, vagrants, travellers who might
200IJ. Indeed, 'what they receivefrom Bi;Lade; such
hr, associ- xa.v.Crtizenship came to consist of rights attributable to tightly
ates is less specific orders and training than a crea4, ""d
rimple ideor- within
ogy, which they are expected to go out into the specifiedcategoriesof those who were unambiguouly and
*o.tj pua oart of the 'society'. This system of national societies involved
into practice on their own' 200.1).This emergeni "na
fMeek global rnassiveantagonism towards the other, with relationships nor-
fluid of international terroriim is hard i" d"f""f
;;?;;re it is mally being'nasty, brutish and short' (see Diken 1998).
made up of very diffuent self-organizingelements.They
change their shape, form and ,Jtiuities] Such
regurarry But we should consider here whether a 'cosmopolitan' global
cTpacity fluid is uncertainly and contingently emerging [D. Harvey 2000).
renders them 'invisible' if on occasionsawesomely -;,;;ilp..r".*
castells (2001) describesthe nature of ,non-line"., ,"".r".. Is a set of 'global' values and dispositionsbecoming an emergent
,rr", and irreversibleimplication of global complexity? Are 'societies'
;';'Hr"ffi
li",,[1nil,r"'f i.].T"i*'$kftT':*.lL
,ftaiiff
small autonomous units posserrr"g higl, fi.. po*.f ,ie.y
increasinglyforming themselveswithin such an evolving complex
and will they be subject to scandalizeddisapprovalif they do not
rapid display cosmopolitanismupon the global screenTIs the 'enemy'
mobility, robust communications, reai-time information'
and a fbr each society as empire the global risk that have few borders
capacity to 'sense'the enemy.This 'non-linear warfare
represents or boundaries and that can be as much within the society as
a high-tech version of the old tradition of guerrilr"
rt.rggi"r. rhi, withoutT These risks include asylum-seekers, terrorists, diseases
"network-centric" warfare . . . is entirely
de-penden,,roJi .ourrrt. and viruses,environmental and health risks (seeVan Loon 2002).
secure communication, able to maintain constant
connection Such a cosmopolitan fluid involves various characteristics[see
between the nodes of an all-channel network'
fcastells z00r: Waldron 1995; Tomlinson 1999; Beck 2000; Cwerner 2000;
16l-2; Duffield 2001: t4J.
Franklinet al. 2000;Walby 2001).
thus suggestedthat, rarher than there beingan,Empire,
.l.h.l":
with 'its' multitude, there is what we might hypoth"'rJ"
,r-" rr"* There is extensive mobility where people have the right to
attractor.This could be designatedas 'societiesas emoires,. 'travel' corporeally, imaginatively and virtually and, for signifi-
soci-
eties acrossthe world are being drawn into developing ,empire,.
as cant numbers of workers, students, tourists, asylum-seekers
And, as they are drawn into iuch an attracto{,
so new unsiable and so on, the meansto travel and to consumeplaces,peoples,
and unpredictable multitudes arise,seekingto topple
those em- rights and environmentsen route.
pires and their icons. societies as empires=u."
d"u"loping some There is a cunosity about places, peoples and cultures and a
strange new practices as systems develop to deal
with the non_ rudimentary capacity to 'map' one's own society and its cul-
linear multitudes that are increasinglyin their very
midst. ture in terms of history and geography.There is a stance of
opennessto other peoples and cultures and a willingness/ability
to value elements of the language/culture/history of multiple,
Cosmopolitanism contested and fragmented 'others' to one's own culture, pro-
vided that they meet certain global standards.
But there is something else going on here within the emergent
There is a willingness to take nsks by virtue of encountering
system of global complexity. Let me return briefly to when there
various'others',combined with a semioticskill to interpret and
 134 Global Complexities Global Complexittes r35
evaluate images of other natures,pracesand societies,to sharing on the global screen, as the iconic 'global healer'
see
what they are meant to represent,and to know *h",, th.v sanctifiedby the whole world [Richards et al. 1999: 3).
r."
ironic. Indeed,sincethe fallof the BerlinWall in 1989,there have been
4 There are some global standards by which other places,
cul- various 'global events' when The Whole World is Watching fGitlin
tures and people are positioned and can be judged
Many 1980). On 11 September2001, the whole world watched the
international organizationsfollowing the founding -of surreal and stranger-than-Hollywoodmoment when live planes
th" uN
advocateand promulgate such stanJards. with live passengersflew into and demoiished two of the largest
buildings in the world. The World Thade Cente4 with up to
Two writers that articulated the notion of the cosmopolitan 150,000 workers and visitors,a city in the ai4,was at two strokes
are
Salman Rushdie and c. L. R. James.Rushdie wrote i,,
tggo, ,tr bombed out of existencewith the whole world agog.The hugely
The Satanic Wrses is-anything, it is a migrant,s_eyeview
of the unlikely forming of a 'global coalition against terrorism' both
world. It is written from the very experilnce of uprooting,
dis_ depended upon such collective watching and helped to promote
juncture and metamorphosis. . . that is the
migrant condition, and further the cosmopolitan fluid. Collective global disastersare the
from which, I believe, can be derived a metafhor for
all human- key to the forming of such cosmopolitan global fluids, perhaps
ity' (cited in waldron 1995: 93). And c. L. R. James
once wrote: beginning with the founding moment of the Nuremberg trials in
'The relation of classeshad to.h"r,g"
before i discovereJlhu, ia', the immediate post-SecondWorld War period.
not quality of goods and utility that matter; but movement, Moreover, various visual representations of the earth or globe
not
where you are or what you are, but where you come from, increasingly challenge the importance of 'national' flags fsee
where
you glg going and the rate.at which you are getting
th"r"; [cited Ingold 1993; Cosgrove 1994). The iconic blue globe involves
in Clifford 1992: 96; see also Clifforj 1997.). seeingthe earth in dark space,as a whole defined againstthreat-
Such an global fluid stems from the intensively ening emptiness,with no lines or political colouring, freezing a
-emergent
mediated relations now swarming the world. This is even moment in time. The globe functions as a symbol of authority,
true in
mainland china where the massivegrowth of diverse organization,and coverageof global infbrmation, particularly in
media is
generating a recosmopolitanism (Ong and Nonini
1997; yang news programmes.
1997)' The UN commission on Grobal Governance (1995J, More generally,imagesof spaceare often used to connote the
sei
up to report on the first fifty years of the u\ talks of 'our endlesspossibilitiesof travel and the potential 'cosmopolitan'con-
Grobal
Neighbourhood', arguing that a mediated, enforced global sumption of other places and cultured from all acrossthe globe
pro"i_
is-generatingcosmopolitanism
ltity fsee alsoTomhnin 1999: ch. [Urry 2000b: ch. 7). Hebdige concludes that a 'mundane cos-
6; Beck Nelson Mandela ofien refers to 'the p"opre of mopolitanism' is part of many people's everyday experience,as
-2000).
South Africa and the world who are watching' o,, th"i. they are world travellers,both corporeally and through the TV in
tV ri."",r,
IUN Commission on Global Governance l9-95: lO7). The ,we, in their living room: 'lt is part of being "taken for a ride" in and
M^andela'sspeechesalmost always evokes those beyond through late-2Oth century consumer culture. In the 1990s
south
Africa that view South Africa upon the global everybody [at least in the West] is more or less cosmopolitan'
and have
collectively. participated in the country;s rebirth -"di"through an [1990:2 0) .
enforced televisualproximity. when Ma,rd"la statesthat '#" A powerful 'televisual flow' throws viewers into the flowing
ur.
one people', he is pointing both to south Africa and to visual world lying beyond the domestic regime.There is an instan-
the rest
of the world that is witnessing.Likewise the pointing f.o* taneousmirror reflectingthe cultures of the rest of the world that
th"
TV commentators to the collective 'we' at princeis Diana's are mirrored into people's homes (Williams 1974; Al|an 1997;
funeral was to the astonishing2.5 bilhon people witnessing Hoskins 2001). Arundhati Roy evocatively describesan elderly
and
 13 6 Global Complexities
woman whose life is transformed by the instantaneousand often
'live' visual perception of multiple'global others'.Roy writes:'She
presided over the World in her drawing room on satellite ry. . . .
It happenedovernight.Blor-rdes, wars,famines,footbaii,sex,music,
coups d'etat - they all arrived on the same train. They unpacked
together. They stayed at the same hotel . . . whole wars, famines,
picturesque massacresand Bill Clinton could be summoned
up hke servants'[1997: 27). There is thus a hugely diverse and
changingarray of 'referencegroups' that is disclosedand exposed
especiallythrough TV and now the Internet. The 'cosmooolitan
traveller' may derive ideas, values,norms and sensesof iustice
from an incredible array of such sources[Waldron 1995; Walby
2001).
Such sensationsof other placescan create an awarenessof cos-
mopolitan interdependenceand a 'panhumanity' [Franklin et al.
2000). The flows of information, knowledge, money, commodi-
ties, people and images 'have intensified to the extent that the
sense of spatial distance which separatedand insulated people
-which
from the need to take into account all the other people
make up what has become known as humanity has become
eroded' [Featherstone1993: 169). By participating in the practice
of consumingin and through the media, people experiencethem-
selvesas part of a dispersed,global civicness,sharingsimilar expe-
riences and united by the senseat least that they are witnessing
the world and its mosaic of cultures with millions of disperseJ
others [Gitlin 1980; Dayan and Katz L99Z)
Acording to the U\ this global civicnessis generatingsome
senseof the universalstandardsby which human development is
to be judged [see UNDP 2000). One paradoxicalconsequenceof
global complexity is to provide the context in which universal
rights, a panhumanity, relating not only to humans but also to
animals and environments, comes to constitute a framing for
collective action. Illustrations of such panhumanity are the wide
range of what we can call'global gift giving', the giving to distant
[unknown) others of money, time, objects, software and infor-
mation [via mega events like Liveaid, via local events or via the
Internet).
Cosmopolitanism should be seen as produced by, and further
elaborating, the glocalization attractor through transforming rela-
Global Complexities t37
Uonsbetweenthe global and the iocal (Tomiinson i 999 194-207).
The drawing of many 'localities' into the attractor of 'glocality'
provides preconditions for emergence: 'changes in our actual
physicai environments,the routine factoring in of distant politi-
cal-economic processesinto life-plans, the penetration of our
homes by new media and communicationstechnology,multicul-
turalism as increasinglythe norm, increasedmobihty and foreign
travel, even the effects of "cosmopolitanizing" of food culture'
[Tomlinson 1999: 199-200; see also Rotblat 1997b; Beck 2000).
Thus the apparently local and the apparently cosmopolitan
should not necessarilybe counterposed.Powerful sets of disposi-
tions in the contemporary world are neither localist and proxi-
rnate nor global and universal.As Zygmunt Bauman argues in
Liquid Modernity via a discussionof Derrida's to 'think travel': 'the
trick is to be at home in many homes, but to be in each inside
and outside at the same time, to combine intimacy with the criti-
cal look of an outsider, involvement with detachment' [2000:
207). Cosmopolitan fluidity thus involves the capacity to live
simultaneouslyin both the global and the local, in the distant and
proximate, in the universal and the particular. Such cosmopoli-
tanism involves comprehending the specificity of one's local
context, to connect to other locally specific contexts and to be
responsiveto the complex threats and opportunities of a global-
izing world. We can thus talk of a 'glocalizedcosmopolitanism'in
rvhich 'in the everydaylifestyle choicesthey make, cosmopolitans
need routinely to experiencethe wider world as touching their
local lifeworld, and vice versa' fTomlinson 1999: 198J.
Such cosmopolitanism as a global fluid appears increasingly
widespreadthrough the 'shrinking world' of various intersecting
global fluids that were outlined in chapter 4. Its increasingscale
and complex impact will irreversiblytransform each civil society,
altering the conditions under which 'social actors assemble,orga-
nize, and mobilize' [Cohen and Arato 1992: 151). And, as they
assemble,organizeand mobilize differently,so new unpredictable
and emergent cosmopolitan identities, practices and cognitive
praxeswill emerge fEyerman and Jamison 1991J.Out of TV and
jet travel, the mobile and the modem, there is an emergent global
)a
fluid of cosmopolitanism.This transformswhat it is that appears
ji
6 to be co-present and what is mediated, what is embodied and
fi
C
7

138 Global ComPlexities Global Complexities I39

sources of information. But components at one location have

what is distant, what is local and what is global [D. Harvey 2000:
substantial time-space effects elsewhere through multiple con-
8s-6).
of the cosmopolitanglobal fluid thus showsthe nections and awesometrajectories.Such systemspossessa history
T(e
"m"rgence that irreversiblyevolvesand where past eventsare not'forgotten'.
irreversible, ,rnp."di.table and chaotic workings of global com-
plexity. And complexity theory seems to provide the means to Points of bifurcation are reached when the system branches,since
'causes'and 'effects' are disproportionate.There are non-linear
!*"-ir-r" how cosmopolitanism has come to develop as a new
relationshipsbetween them, with the consequencethat systems
emergent fluid of global ordering.
can move quickly and dramatically from one state to another.
Systems'tip' or'turn', especiallythose that are organizedthrough
'networked' relationships that usher in some surprising and
Conclusion
distinct effects.
Finally, let me consider briefly here how this connects to the
John Gray [2001) describesthe current state of the globe as
,an
intract"bly diro.dered world'. I have tried to show that theory of 'reflexive modernization'.It has been arguedthat'social
'complexity' provides a wide array of metaphors, concepts and structures,national in scope,are being displacedby such global
for examining such intractable disorderliness. information and communication fl and C) structures' flash and
theoiies
"rr"ntl"l that world are complex, rich and non-linear, Urry 1994: 6). These emergent systemsof information and com-
Relations across
involving multiple negative and, more significantly, positive feed- munication are the bases for increased reflexivity. Through the
increasingly structural power of information and communications
back loops. There are ineluctable patterns of increasingreturns
the 'structure' of 'societies'has progressivelylesspurchase.
and long-term path dependencies.Such global systems,or re-gions,
And there is heightened reflexivity produced by and through
GINs and GFs, are characterizedby unpredictability and irre-
these new 'l and C' structures. Reflexive modernization charac-
versibility;they lack any finalized 'equilibrium' or 'order'' They do
terizes social life in which individuals and systems reflexively
not exhibit and sustain unchanging structural stability. Complex-
monitor especially the side effects of modernity. Such reflexivity
ity elaborateshow there is order and disorder within all physical
moreover gives rise to many new structures, especially of various
and social systems. Following Gray we can see how there is a
expert systems.Such reflexivity is, however, cultural aswell ascog-
complex world, unpredictable and irreversible, disorderly but not
nitive [see Lash and Urry 1994; Waldron 1995). It is not only a
simply anarchic.
matter of scientific or expert systemsthat enable the side effects
Suih complexity derives from what I have described as the
of the modern to be monitored, organized around and in cases
dialectic of mooring s and mobilities. If, to express this far too
rectified. Rathel, reflexive modernization involves aesthetic-
simply, the social world were to be entirely moored or _entirely
it expressive systems that result in huge new cultural industries, a
then systemswould not be dynamic and complex' But ir veritable economy of signs.
social life seems to be increasingly constituted through material
-obii", li
ri I want though to suggestthat these processesof reflexive mod-
worlds that involve new and distinct moorings that enable, Pfo-
duce and presuppose extensive new mobilities. So many more
systemsare complex, strangely ordered, with new shapesmoving
1
fl
ernizationstem from what I have describedasthe emergentglobal
fluid of the cosmopolitan.Cosmopolitanismprovides dispositions
of an appropriate cultural reflexivity within emergent global com-
in and through time-space.
plexities. The form now taken by reflexive modernization is
In such ,yrt"-, the various components are irreversibly drawn
the global fluid of cosmopolitanism.Such a cosmopolitan fluid
towards uuiio,r, 'attractors' that exercise a gravity effect. Such
involves redrawing the speed of the global and the slownessof the
components within any system operate under conditions that are
'local' ontologically grounded. It irreversibly transforms the conditions
fu. i.o,,' equilibrium, partly because each responds to
 14 0 Global Comolexities
under which other networks and fluids operate as well
as
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'centriPherY' 83
122 ^^ ,,
-1 93' 94- 5 98'
A . 73, 74'94' 96'
A bbott, ni*t n. . t i'nt lnn86
r;- "' 136- 7
absence,and P res enc e io: , t ot , 123,129'
ooeration of 88' 90
access'
frec 62
10
por,l'er-resistance
'see
i nequal i ti es nf .? .- ako 'strangeattractofs
'normal ^- J) D
ecci Jcrrts, audit societY 109
l /l ^
c. t(rr-net\vork the()rY Auee,M. 61
l; : ; : ' ; r " ,z o ' ; 6 - f i i o '7 o AuL ShinrlkYo 88
It
' r. il
A d r m s ,J . 3 5
of 88 automobilitY68-Sl ^ .^,
9:l-tu t
,r.t"".,ir"-"rttt,
-^*.n.r Parodies
relations autoPoiesis28-9'
ree structure-agency
4 3 ' 8 2 .
Albrow. M . Bachelard'G 59
a l i _h, , r n n c ln e tw ( ) r ks)
l-:
Baker,P 30, 50' 83-4
; /
I
A1lan,S. 135 'haker translirrmatlL)n""
AmericanPatriots88' 89 K.
Ba l e s, 6 1 , I l l
with African ll8
anacmia,Dutch compared
57
nrii.]",r ll5' l16' I l7'
treatrrlents 4l-Z'
barbarism 92
anarchism7l , 9l-2
Ba r b e rB
Anclers, William 81-2 ot x:
barriers,Jissolution
An.lcrson,A. S)8 Ba u tJr i l l a r d ,J5 8
33 ^ ,^ a !r )
Lt- r?7
,^t..i-, ,,nnt"unistii feeding Ba u m a n ZYg , m u n t j '.l u /' '- '
anti-sweat.shoPs movement 88 ""i",ili)Mo'Jentiry
lle 124'137
of 33
,"itSt"".t ineffectiveness BBC 8 I
;\pPadurai,A' 5, 59' 65' 92 "uli,'jt".n ix,7o'96-7't33'137
A r a t o ,A . 1 3 7 t40
Archer, M 4ti becoming 20, 22
architcctures30--1 b ci n g 2 2
-^ , " otc tr
ri l l 4 7 , 8 5 . 9 {'
A r u u i l l a ,J . 5 1 , d 5 ' 7 Z' 1 3 1 BerlinWall, eftccts
I2 l
, l r l t '" ] . n t'.," i x, I7 ' 5 3 ' 5 5 ' 135
2 ,6 1 ' l 3 l ' 133
.tti"-.""ft*s Tim 86
r38-e
t s,I 23'132' Berners-Lce,
:iii;il';;; t a--',
7

15 6 Indsx Index t57

Bh ab ha ,H. 1 30 ncrv places of face-to-face interaction Central and EastcrnEuroPe 85 shrinkage 8!)
bifurcationpoint 26-7, 28, 29, 47, 1 7 3 , 90-1 centriphery 83-4 transnational98
13 9 projects !) certainty,the end of 22 C l a r k,N . 3 3 ,7 0 ,1 2 2
'Big Ba ng ' 2l - 2 Butler,J. 99 chain networks 51-2 classdomination 95-6
Biggs,M. 30, 120 butterfly effect 23,27 , 47 chance,dcterminism and 22 classreproduction 78
Billig ,M. 1 07 Byrne,D. 24, 25, 26-7, 30, 47, 83, 120 change, Clifford, J. 62, 134
biodiversity 70 constantecological32 cl i m a tech a n g e8 1 , l l 0
biological systems,chaotic propertiesof Cairncross,Irrances2, 85 dramatic with switches 53 C l i n to n ,Bi l l Il 5 , l l 6
32-3 capital, individual or collective 46 cloning 67
biopower,performative I 15-16 lack of border controlson 66 and stasis22, 45 clusters,and regions 40-1,43
bioprospecting, patentsand 70 transnational88 tendencies 27-8 cNN 8r,85-6
Blair,Tony 87 see,.tlsosyrnboliccapital t h r o u g h 'l o ck- i n 5 5 - d , 6 9 co - e vo l u ti o n4 6 ,9 2
blu e e arth 81- 2, 135 capitalism, c h a o s 1 3 , 2 2 ,3 0 , 5 9 , !) 8 co - p r e se n ce\1 2 , ) 2 1
Boden,D. ti5, 90 'blackholcs' of informational l1 o n t h e e d g eo f 1 4 - 1 5 , 1 6 ,2 2 ,3 2 ,8 6 ' coercion 104
body, 'casino'65 t O l , 1 3 2 ,1 4 0 C o h e n ,J.2 4 ,2 5 ,7 6 ,1 3 7
informational 64 crlsesor /v a n d o r d e r 14 ,2 1 - 2 ,2 9 , t0 6 Cohen,R. 62, 107
socialanalogousto human 104 disorganizedviii,3 c h a o st h e o r y 1 7 ,2 3 Cohen,S. 98
Bogard,W. 74 ecologicaldominanceof globalizing 4 Chase-Dunn,C. 4, 43 Colborn, T. 69
Boh m, D. 20 , 25, 50 pmpropnt f-'-,rtrrrec 4 China, collective, and individual levels
borders, end of organized viii automobile culture 68 76-7
policedof nation states43 global see globalization history 36 collective action, framing of universal
p oro sityo f 6, 41, l2! ) ' ideal col l ecti ve i nterests' of 78 m e d i ai n 13 4 standardsfor 136-7
boundaries, rcsistance tcl 88-9 C h i n e s e , 'o ve r se a6s'2 , 9 8 , 1 0 7 commodification,
blurring of 74
dissolutionof 85-(j
systemi c and dynami c character 3
' turbo-' 45
Christianity,'born-again'
chrono-biology Z0
92 of financialmarkets 90
of the future 65-6, 72
L
bounded systems 26-7 ca p ital i st mode of producti on, Cilliers,P. 18, 24, 25, 3(),80, 84 commodities,rvith moorings or points
bourgeoisie78, 79 contradi cti ons of 78-80 circulating entities I 22-3 of insertion49
brain 5l Ca pra, Fri tj of 7, 10, 19,20,21,23,25, cities, communicatiotr,
bra nchin g4 7, 79- 80 26-7, 78, 29, 30, 37, 51, 77, 100, as complex dynamic open systems computer-mediatedB9
Bran d,S. 63 , 64, 70, 85 l0t 33 horizontal of the Internet 63
b ran ds 8 2, 87, 99, 107 The Hidden Connections 120 'gated'of north America 130-l communications4, 57, 97, 100
cultural power o[ 67-8 The Web of Lit'e l8 as interchangesbetween intersecting metaphor of fire 73-4
flows 36-7 'on the move' l-2
global 57, 67-8, 87 cars 68-9, 131
and identity of oppositionll and carbongasemission68, 80 nonlinear readingof 33-5 communism,
organizations58 use of petroleum-bascd34, 55-6, self-organization 36-7 co l l a p seo f 8 1 ,8 5
and nationality87 I26 seeako 'host cities' world /:l
citizen,and state,mutual visibility communities,transnationalized 97-8,
public shamingof I l7 c as c a d e f f e c t 7 1 , 1 1 6
Braudel,F. 36 Castells, Manuel 2, 3, 4 , 5, 15, 43, 54, 1l 2 - 1 3 108
Brenner,N. 44-5, 125 56, 59, 62, 63, 64, 65, 79, 85, 86, citizenship43, l33 community of tate 109
ISrewer,B. 4 88-9, 110,132 consumerismor local identity politics competition,
British Empire,hegen-rony 8i The lnformation Age ix,8-12 92 and cooperation36
Brunn,S. 5 Casti,J. 19, 22, 23, 51 and settlement I 12 inter-regional43-4
Budiansky,Stephen,Nature's Keepers catastrophe34-5,98 women and global 98 complex systemslZ, 18,29-37
3 l-3 causality, circular 27 world 97-8 complexity 3, 7' 8, 17, 79-80, 96, 100,
bureaucracies, Wcbcrirn l0-l I cause-effect3, 6, 7-8, 20,23-4,77-8, city states 95 r 38-40
Burt, R. 52 96, l2l,123 civic associations2 th e ch a l l e n g c,r f | 2 - l 5
business, lack ofproportionality 34-5, 139 civil society, ideas98
competition 63 centring 83-4 networks llj methods 124
 158 i59
complexity cor?t. emergentsystems7-8, l6
Coveney,p. lg,Zl,22 rrPletr l,-Z 107-l)
an dp or v er lt l- 13 cn m l n a l e c o n o m v l 0 l l r:.nla."l Pe Emirbayer,M. 73, 122
of scandal I I 3-l I Critical Mrss bike ,ia", gg
tl"ill'j, ' ''
ii,po'.t't' e m p i r e s9 5 , 1 2 9
sciencesix-x
and socialtheory 120_4
aulturo,.tusion rvith nature gg jl|i:,;:.::,'iitures 2r,28, and nrultitudes 128-32
culture industries139 cnergy 28, 83
without telos 86 -1 6 flows 36-7, 48-!)
culturesat a distance di s tantc '
- .- r 7d l
complexitytheory 36, 45_6, 140 12, 16 collap\e '_"_ ' "
curiosity 133 :r ,
turning waste into 92-3
as new socialscienccparadigm r el ati v e I a1 Engels,Friedrich 78, 79
Cwerner,S. 133 r 'tr l ogl c al JZ
l2 -15 cybernetics27, 30_1, 105
,l i v er s i tY,
enterprises,global 57
tr l l r s t en t l e n re of I8
complexitythinking 3g+0, 106_7 l l - '.',,,* ,
c y b e r s p a c e7 4 , 9 9 , l Z 7 Ulv'" r
i,
in/
rUa'
ltt
r r I e n tr o p y 2 1 ,4 6 ,8 3
complexityturn l7_J8 ,l^flinati('n
enviroliment,as laboratorY97
cyborg /4 ltt8
'compulsionto proximity, inm;nt..tt RePublic
90 cnvironmentalhazards69-70, 110, 133
'computime' B5 , r - , ot r a l t l 3 I
Davies,Paul 2l-2 8 6 ,9 4 , 9 6 , l u 8 , l l 0 ' environmentalissues,women and 98
computing, pervasive l0_l l 62, 73, O " m . 'U , M . 3 0 ,
, How to environmentalmovement, global 92-3
8s,89 _ ,Buil.d a Time Machine 19 t32
Davis,Mike, environmentalNGOs 88
Comte, Auguste ) 20 D u r k h e i mE , mile 59
EcoLogtof Fear 33_5 17 24 equilibrium 27, 44,55-6
conccpts, J y n r t '. P r t r P t 'r ti e3s , '
MagicaL Urbanism lOg Ethernet network 53
branding and 67 Ettrope,feudal 95
Dayan,D. 136 54, 64
as collective representations 59 e-comnrerce
De Landa,Manuel 33, 77 of 81-2, EuropeanCourt of Justice 1 10
parallel 102-3 earth,visualrepresentations
A Thousand years of Non_Iinear 135 EuropeanUnion (EU) 10, ll0
c o n n e c t i o n s 1 2 2 , lZ 7
History 36_7 Eve,R. 30
conscience 98 EasternEuroPe 92-3
decisionmaking, shared 9 collapse o f c o m m u n i sm 8 1 ,8 5 events,
c o n s e n s u s 10 4
deep robotics 70 Eatrvell, J. 66 localizationof global 82-3, 135
c o n s p i r a c y ,glo b a l 1 0 2
Delanty, G. 87 Eco,LI. 58 mediation of global 85-ii
consumerism 80, 135
Deleuze,G. 59-60, 108-9 ecoiogicalsYStems, seealso extremc events;mega-events
citizenship and !12
dematerialization84-5 complcxityof 32 evolution 22
' M c W o r l d ' 9 t- 2
democracy43, 89 dominanceby globalizingcapitalism expert systems139
Cutsuming Placas (tJrry) viii
democraticpolitics, corruption by crime 4 explanation,Western-tYPe23-4
c o n s u m p t l o n,
ll c c o n o m i c s3 1 , 53 exposure,the Power of I I5-18
c o s m o p o l ita n ch a r a cte r 7 9
Derrida,Jacques137 economies of scale 53 externalities,acrossnetworks 53-5
global viii, 4
determinism,and free will 18, 22, 106, Econotit:sof Signsand Space[Lash and extremeevents 34-5
c o n t a g i o n 6 2 , 7 l, l2 B
I 1l _ 1 2 Urry) viii Eye r m a n R , . 137
m a c r o e c o no m ic 6 6
deterritorialization44, 58, 60, 87, 125 ecosystems, and lire intensity
Contested Natures (lvlacnaghten and interaction52, 90-l
Diana,Princess, funeralof 134-5 34-5 face-to-face
UrryJ ix diaspora,fluid 107-8 failure,
Eddington,A. S. 22
co ntin ge ncy10, 42, 56, l0l
Dicken,P. 122 Einstein,Albert 19, 83 accidentsand sYstem35-6
contradictions73, 7g_g0,g4
differentiation 28, 104 electricpower 126 a n d a ch i e ve m e n t1 3 - 1 5
cttoperativity25, 36 falseconscic'rusness 1 ll
digitization63, 64-5, 85, ll5, lZ7 e l i t e ,g l o b a l l l 2
corporations2, 9 far from equilibrium 7-8, 1 l, 13, 21,
Diken, B. 133 Elliott,E. 30
bid for world domination 95 Dillon, M. l 22 3 2 , 5 4 ,8 0 ,9 4 - 6 , 1 0 6 , 1 1 8 - l e ,
Elstcr,J. 78
creatingopposition88 Dion n e ,E . I l 7 1 2 3 , 1 2 8 , 1 3 8 - :l
emergence74-5, 29, 38, 54
globalseetran-snational corporatlons pocketsof t>rderl0l-3
di.sasters, and collcctives 77
useof globalimagery 82 collectiveglobal 135 Ireatherstone, M. ti3, 64, l3tt
prcconditionsfbr 137
Cosgrove,D. 82, 135 lecdbackmechanisms27, 29, 3O-I ' 34,
in ecologicalsystems32,34-6 seeako global emergen.:e
cosmopolitanism132-8, l3g-40 discourses,complexity in 30 1 0 0 ,1 0 2
cmergenteffects99, 139-40
characteristics I 33-4 disembedding90-l see ako negativefeedback;positive
a n d t h e l o c a l 7 6 - 8 2 ,9 4
glcrcalized137-40 dis o r d e r v t i i ,2 1, 2 7 feedback
c m c r g e n tp r o Pe r ti e sx, t l , l 3 - 1 5 , 1 8 ,
In u l to 3 n e l - i5 an d o r d e r 2 2 , 1 3 8 2 3 - 6 , 3 9 - 40 , 4 7, 4 9 ,5 l , 7 7 - tl emcrgingstructurcsof 29, 5!)
f-eelir-rg,
 16 0 Index r6l
feminization 90 generationsnot yet born 69
gr avit y83, 92,94, 123,l3u
svsrcms '
f e u d a l i s m a n a lo g y 9 5 el ol ti rl ., Gra;',John 138
genes36-7 ,nrtl t'si strl tz t
FIFA B1 99-101.. greenhouscgases70
timekeeping20 l , n,,t,'P u't' ti t
financialcrises,globaland national 66 Gr e e n p e a ce5 8 ,8 l
genetic engineering8 1,,'..ti u,' charac ter of ' 16
financial markets, 95. greens,global seeenvironmental
geneticallymodified food 5g, 69 ,',.l nt"ud.l i tm
interdependence of 66 prophecies in social rnovement
GFs seeglobal fluids s"li-tittnft,ng
on-linereal-timetrading 86 GreenwichMean Time 8l
G i d d e n sA , nthony 2,39, 45,46_7, science's 3 8
financialsystems,global 90
l2l profes s i onal s 98 Guattari, F. 59-60, 108-9
gift giving,global 136 ,l ,rbrl vi l l agc , and 89
fire, 34' l 0l guerrillas,'informational'
Cilbert, N. 80, 8t l i .bal w armi ng
intensityand ecosystems34-5 84 - l) 3'94' 102- 3' Gulbenkian Commissionon the
Gille, Z. 92, 93 l i ,,i ..l tu.rt r clat ions Restructuringof the Social
metaphor 73-4 GINs saeglobally integratednetworks r27, 136-7
use in primitive agriculture 32 Sci e n ce s1 2 - 1 3
G i t l i n ,T . 1 1 6 , 1 3 5 , 1 3 6 ol,rbalization,
flows 3,2 1, 40- 2, 80 ' 4 Gulf War 86
Gladwell,Malcolm 53, 66 !trrPtlrate
from wild zones 13l Cleick,J. 47 debates3-4
Habermas,Jiirgen 108, I09
the globalas 4-5, l4t) global,the ix, l-8 Giddens'sde{inition39
power of 59-60 habits,new social 57
as flows and mobilities 4-5 Habermason 109
seealso global fluids IGFsJ Hardt, Michael 2
'intimate' 99 as ideologY 5-6
fluidity,cosmopolitan137 state 43-4 EmPire 128-9
and the national 44, 85 end the nation
fluids 40-2, 59-74,124 the new structLrre x H "r u e y,D . 2 0 ,2 8 ,3 0 ,7 8 ,7 9 , 1 3 3 , 1 3 8
as processand outcome 44 ils
3nd networks 5U-/5 Harvey,P. 87
a sa r e g i o n 4 3 - 4 , 4 9 outcomcsof 93-l0l
seealso global fluids (GFs) paradigm of 39 Havel, Vaclav 97-8
societiesand l-16
food culture, cosmopolitanizationof n, pe.fc,rm"nce6-7, 38, 96-103 Hawken, P. 69
structural notion of 4
t37 globalanalyses, problemsof definition 96 Hawking, StePhcn,A Brief HktorY of
limits of 38, 39-49
r(rrolsm Zf) Time 70,22
global capitalismseeglobalization of relationshiPsI Zl
Fo ucau ltM , ic hel 113 global complexity 120-40 rtsistanceto 44, 58, i;2, 87-9 H a yl e s,N . K. 2 2 , 2 7,2 9 ,3 0 , 6 4
Fox Keller,E. 23-4,71 globalization theory 44 hazards, environmentaland health
the conceptof x, 7-8, 95, 102 theory of and
fractals74,98, 102-3 6 9 - 7 0, 110,133
and socialorder 104-l l vs.localization88-9
Francis,R. 30 healing projects, marine envtronment
globalemergence93-l0l globally integratednetworks [GlNs)
and 70
Franklin,S. 6, 38, 44, 64, 67, 6g, 99, globallluids (cF 42-9, 56, 59-75, 12-9, 56-9, 7 4-5, 94' l0l ' lz4 '
99 , 1 33, 136 138 health hazards69-70, tl0, 133
94, t24, 138
free rvill, and determinism 18, 22, 106, sclflorganizing106 HebdigeD , . 135
characteristics72-4
I I t-l 2 weak-nesses 58-!) hegemonY,
cosmopoliran135, 137-40
Friedman,Thomas 86 globe,as syrnbol of authoritY [35 British EmPire 8l
examples60-72
The Lexus and the Oliue Tree 9l CIobaLNature, GLobaLCulture fFranklin glocal,the 84, 137 usA 43,45,85
frontiers,permeable 85-7 g l o c a l i z a t io nvi i i , 1 5 , 8 2 - 3 ,8 4 - 5 Heidegger, M. 84
et al.J 98, t00
Fu ku ya rna, F. 5, 43 9 8 , 1 0 3 , Heisenberg, W. 37' 77
global networks seeglobally integrated a t t r a c t o ro f 8 6 - 9 3 ,9 4 - 5 ,
fu nction alis ml0l, 102, l2l, 122 r o 7 , 1 2 3 ,1 2 9 , 1 3 6 - 7 H e l tJ,D . 3 ,4 ,5 ,4 0 ' 4 3 , 4 4 , 6 5 , 8 1 ' 9 4 '
networks [GINs)
normative I04-5 global order, Goerner,S. 39 r29
fundamentalism,religious 8tl Goldman,P. 67 Helmrcich,S. 70
emergent 81
fu ture 1 9, 22, 45 Goldthorpe,J. 77 Hetherington,K. 6
far from equilibrium I I
commodificationof the 65-6,72 governance, h i e r a r ch y3 6 - 7 ,1 3 1
resistanceto 88-9
futures trading 65 attemptsat global 95-6, 134 of values 105
social relationsin the new 9l
without government 128 H i g h l i e l d ,R . 1 9 , 2 1 , 2 2
Global PositioningSystem[GPS) 91,
Came,A. 45 governments, Hinduism 92
1t3
Care (Hungary) 92-3 brands 87-8 H i r st, P. 4 4 , l l 0
globalregions42-9
Gates,Bill 54 role in globalization 43 h i sto r y 2 l - 2 , 5 4 , I2 3 , 1 3 9
Global Resistancemovement 88
ga ze I l6 G r a h a m ,S. 5 ,6 0 , 1 2 5 - 6 Chinese36
global scepticism 44
gcnder 6 Granovetter,M. 52 hologram 50-l
globalscreen87, 89, 135
 t62 Index lndex 163
I loskins,A. 86, l l5, 135 i n e q u r l i t i e sl 0 l , i 2 g , 1 3 0 _ l
'host cities' 82-3, 86-7 l n t o r n e t l , 1 2 ,5 4 , tr 2 - 3 ,7 3 ,8 0 , 1 2 7 , L a sh ,Sco tt vi i i , 5 ,9 1 , 1 3 9 , 1 4 0
of access5 r3 6 Latinos,in USA 108
h ub net wor k s 5l- 2, 82 incrtia,pattcrnsof 55
human dcvelopmcnt l3ti attemptsto regulate I l, ti3 Latour,B. 46, 56, 106, 122-3
i n f o r m a r i o n6 4 - 5 , 8 3 , l 1 3 , l 2 7 of law, Europeanand national ll0
humanity, t.
and informationalization
or gttl z ed bJ
knowledge 64 L a r v,Jo h n 6 , 1 0 , 3 6 , 4 O- 2 ,4 3 ,4 8 ,5 6 ,
an d nat ur e ll_lJ localized60, 80, 84, 123
and science97 use by oppositionmovements89 5 7 ,6 0 ,7 3 , 1 0 6 , t2 2
irrfbrmationagc ix, 8-12, 43, 50_1,72,
humans,netrvorkedwith machines56 intimacy',public I I6 Lcfebvre,Henri 125
8s investment,internationalization of 4 The Productionof Space 4B-9
Hungary,post-CommunistSl2-3 information and communication (l and
Hutron, Will, On the Edge 45, 46 Ireland 9 I Leinbach,R. 5
C) structures8, 139 irreducibility 77, 7B lensmetaphor 50
hybrids 63-4,74, t02 informarionflows 5, 84-5, 99
gl obal l4- 15, 59, 129 irreversibility13, 45, 83, 95, 99, I 16, Levitt, P 108
co-evolutionof 86 138 L e ysh o nA. , 6 5 , 8 6 ,9 1
of physicaland socialrelations I 7_lg internationalized43, 109
hypercomplexity30 o f t i m e Z l - 2 ,2 9 , 4 6 - 7, 4 9 ,6 0 liberalizationof trade 4, 89
post-industrialrisks 140 life, as nctwork or web 51, 70
hyperglobalist position 43, 44 Islam 92
information networks 9-l 2 lifestyle choices 67, 137
hypertext 63 i t e r a t i o n \ 6 ,2 7 , 4 6 - 7 ,4 9 , 6 3 , 8 3 , 9 9 ,
infcrrmationsharing9, I l3 line networks 51 2
103
Ingold,T. 72, 135 linearity 25-6, 93-4, 127-3
icon, religiousto computer 64 i n n o v a t i o n sl , 8 , 6 2 , 1 4 0
identities, Jarnes,C. L. R. 134 local, the,
product and process3l emerpenleffectsand 60, 7tj-82'
tt
D ra n o s a n d h /- u Jamison,A. 137
instability 24, 27 importancc of 86-7
c o s m o p o ttta n lJ / Jasper, J. 7l
rnstantaneity50, 72 local-globalrelations84-93, 94, 102-3,
a n cl flu id ity 4 2 J e r v i sR
, . 24 - 5 ,3 2 ,3 5
institutions, 1 2 7 , t3 6 ,7
m u ltip le 1 0 8 J e s s o p1, 3 .4 ,8 ,9 6
global 8l localization,vs. globalization 88-90
resistance 88 Jihad 9l
and systemdcvelopment55-6 Jordan,J. 7l 'lock.in' 55-6, 69
identity politics, and new global order intellectuals,wandering 95 Lodge, David 52
91_2 In(er-Governmental Committeeon Kaplan,C. 98 logos,global 67-8
ideology3, 132 Climate Change 8l
g l o b a liza tio n a s 5 - 6 K a s h ,D o n 1 0 ,5 1 ,5 4 ,5 9 London, City of 90
inter-regional organizations,l looselycoupled systems35-6
Ignatieff M. 65 The Complexity Challenge 30-l
interaction effects 25-6, 123 Lorenz,K. 23, 27
images, K a t z ,E . 1 3 6
interconnectedness 36, 48, tjg, 94,97, Los Angeles34-5
co-present media 97
Kauffman, S. 22
t0l Karvano,Y. 4 L u h m a n n ,N . 2 9 ,3 0 , 1 0 0 - l
IIOW J
interdependence l4-15, 18,39, 79, gl, Keck,M. 98 Luke, T. 63
g lobal 8l- 2, 96- 7 94, 97_8,\02, t04, t24 Keil, L. 30 Lukes, Steven, Power:A Radical Vieut
organizations and 82 cosmopolitan136
(]ra spacc rI^J)
- K t 'i l , R . 4 0, 1 1 0 ill
,'f financialmarkcts 6ti l-ury, C. 99
imaginedcommunity,global 12,gl_2 K c l l y ,K . 5 1 , 5 2 - 3 , 5 4 , 6 0 , 7 6 - 7
interests,
Imken, O. 65 Kern, S. I
economic 5 keyboards54-5 M a a se nS., 23, 30
immobilities,relationshipwith 'real' I I l
Keynesianism79 McCarthy, A. tt2
m ohllt t les 1l) - b InternationalAir TiansportAssociation
rmpressionmanagementI I3 K l e i n ,N . 5 7 , 5 8 , 6 7 , 8 8 , 9 5 , 1 I 7 McCrone,D. 87, 108
8l Knorr-Cetina,K. 18, 56, 106 McDonaldization57-8
increasingrcturns 53-4, 74, )23, l3g intcrnational non-gtlvernmental knoivledge,informationalizationof 64 m a ch i n e s5 6 , l 2 4 - S
of brands 68 organizations (NGO{ 45 Krugman, P. 29 changingnatureof 126
ftrr economicpopulations l7 internationalorganizations45, 108, Krva, C. 86 f-amiliall2ii
exponentialof networks 53+, 5g t34 Kyoto Protocol on climate change I I0 humans networked with 56
individual, InternationalRcd Cross 8l mobile 125
and collective levels 76-7 internationaltreaties45, ll0 Langton,Chris 39-40 McKay,G. 7l
orvnershipand mobility 68-9 internationalization of production 4, languages,flows of 36-7 Macnaghten,Phil ix, 18, 45
and statisticallevelsof analysis24_5 83-4 lascrtheorv non-linear29 Macy Conferenceson cybernetics27
a
164 lndex Index 165
Mahoney,J. 28, 54, 55 metaphors16,42-3, 50-l , 59, Monterey Bay Aquarium Research negativefeedback26,27 , 105, 123,
Maier, C. [i7 64,74-5,91,I05, 122,3,t34, Institute 70 138
Majone,G. I l0 r38 m o o r i n g s3 7 ,4 9 , 1 2 5 - 6 , 1 3 8 Negri,Antonio 2
Makimoto,T. til, 127 scienceand I 2l Morse,M. 63 Etnpire 128-9
Ma libu 34 -5 method,significance of ix, 37 Mosaicweb brorvser62 Negropor-rte, N. 85
Malp as,.l.l4 methodologicalholism 40 Motavalli,.1.28, 55, 68 neighbourhood134
Man de la,Ne ls on 81, 94, 134 methodologicalindividualism40, 78, Mouzelis,N. 46 neo-liberalism5-6
Manifesto of the Communist Party, The 106 m o v e m e n t 6l - 2 , 1 3 4 'n e tw a r s'6 5 ,7 2 , I1 0 , 1 3 1 - 2
79 Mexico 108 freedomsof 110 network analysis,Castells's8-12
Ma nn , M. 44 Meyer,J. I l0 seeako mobilities network enterprises9, 10, 54
Ma nn ers,D. 61, \ 27 Meyerowitz,J. I 13, I l5 multiculturalism137 network society 8-i2, 15, 54
marineenvironment,exploitationof micro-habitats32 multinational industries 83-4 rretworking,personalizr:d54, 127
70 Microsoft 8l mrrititesLino ti*-Q n e tw o r l c 8 ,4 0 - 2 ,4 9 , 5 l - 6 , 7 4 ,1 2 4 ,
market,globaland 'u,ild zones' 130 migrantcondition 95, 131 multitudes,and empires 128-32 139
Marshall,l. 20, 47-8 migrationpatterr)s6l-2 M u r d o c h ,J . 1 0 , 5 7 all-channel85
Martin, H.-P 43, 66 Mingers,J. 30, 100 Muslims,and use of GPS for Mecca 9l autopoietic 28-9
Marvin, S. 5, 60, 125-6 Mische,A. 73 characteristics51-6
Marx, Karl 78-80, 84, 104 mixtures 42, 63 Nader, Ralph 4 defined 9
Marxism I I l mobilities 6l-2, 74-5, 78, 94, 101, naming 99, 100 and Ilulcls )t.,- / )
materialworlds 16, 31, 46, 56, 64, 106, 1 1 0 ,i l 3 , 1 3 3 nation state 108-9 hierarchical I 2
1 21 -2, 124, 138 cnmnlew <rrctems ?7 autopoietic 133 ov erl appi ng and i nterc onnec ti ng 52
mediationby 52 and fi xi ti es i n spacc and ti me 37, clusteringof social institutions 43 pow er or )t-J , /.+
systcmicfeaturesof 140 48-9,124-5,r3rl and globalization43-4, 95 s el f-organi z i ng gl obal 30-l
unpredictabilityof 33 the globalas .1-5, l4 relativedisappearance of 92-3 s truc tural hol es )l
material-semiotic practices99 individualized 68-!) scvereigntl,replaeedbi' imperial us e ofterm l 1-12, l 5
Maturana,H. 28, 99 physical68-9 r 28-9 see ako globally intcgrated networks
measurement19, 37 and power 12 national,the, and the global 44, 85 (GINsl
Mcdd ,W.30 , 100, 120 moblllzatton / I -l nationalism, New Ageism 88
media, democratic 89 'b a n a l '1 0 7 new physics7-8,62
g lob al 86 - 7, 97, 113, 114- 17 Mobius strip 74 brand 87 8, 107 News Corporation8l
migratory 65 models, male symbolsof 98 news reporting, global 85-6
scaleand rangeof 84-5 network 5l nationality,and globalscreening87 Nervton,Isaac I9
mediation, relationsrvith phenomena120-1 nations,persistence of 43 N g u ye n ,D . 8 l
by materialworlds 52, 90 modem 62 natural sciences,and socialsciences Nicolis,G. 25
of globalevents 85-6 modernity, t2-13 N i ke 6 7 , 6 8 , 1 1 7
med iatizati on110- 11, i 15- l6 first and other 9l naturalism I 7 N i xo n , R i ch a r d l 1 5
medicalization33 'liquid' I19, 124,137 nature, n o d e s 9 - 1 0 , 5 2 , 6 0 ,7 2 , \2 7
medicine, t h e 'n o n - p l a c e s 'o f6 l drawn into attractor of globalization nomadism 108-9
fluidity of treatment 4 I -2 side effectsof 139 99 digital 127
risk culturesand 33 M o l , A n n e m a r i e4 0 - 2 , 4 3 , 4 8 , 5 6 , 6 0 , fusion with culture 99 n o n - e q u i l i b r i u m1 3 , 2 l
Mee k,J. 13 2 73, t22 g l o b a l i x , 6 - 7 , 7 0 ,9 9 non-govcrnmental organizltions
mega-cvents, gkrh:rlS2, 8ti-7, l()7 Molotch, H. 90 a n d h u m an i ty l 2 - 1 3 INGOt 4s,r08
Melu cci,A. 7l M o n b i o t ,G . 6 , 9 5 laws as historical2)-2 campaigns88
Men on ,M. 8 2, 97 money, our obscrvationof 37 non-linearity12, 14, 17, 73-5, 28, 29,
'meshworks'36 nows Jo-/ a n d t h e s oci a l 1 3 , 3 3 - 5 ,4 5 ,1 2 2 3 4 ,4 7 ,7 8 ,1 0 2 3 , l 2 l 3
messages, future values 65 and society I 8 Nonini,D. 62, 98, 134
flo w 5,6 3 world 65-6 and technology3l-2 normality, as a gradient 42
protestors 72 m on e y l a u n d e r i n gI l , 6 6 , l 3 l transformeCinto geneticcodes 64 norms,and scandalsI i4-17
 166 Index Index r67
North, D. 54-5
pc.rformativity gg_9, I lti relationality15, 20, 25, 121-3, lZ4
Nurerlberg trials 135 l n d abs ente 73-4
periphery,effect of centre on ^r,.s('tl Le,
l: r ,20' relationships,
Perkman,M. l0g
83 frt,' * i n,' ,l lYax, I l, 12,17,18,
O Ria in,S. 9l 22,24, 30, 32, 10r ' t 24 globalizationof l2l
Perrow,Charlcs 36, 52 networks of 53-4
ob;ects, Orderout of Chaos2l
Normal Accidenrs 35_6 17, 48,77 probabilistic77
ilow )
personalcomputer I 0_l I ^.,rbabi l it ies
t'
relative,the 5
socialitiesu,ith 56 6r tl duc tl on,
Peters,T. 56 religions,
obligations52 cosmopolitancharacter79
phenomena, of 4' 83-4 g l o b a l 4 5 ,8 8 , 1 0 8
o bscn at ion lg, 37, 1 l5 internationalization
oceans70
compl exi ty and 77_g
products, local with global characteristics
rcl ati ons of model s rvi th 9Z
crffshorebanking ti6 I 20-l as c'ffectsof brands 67
physi tal , the soci al and the representations,
Ohma e,K. 5, 43, 44 17_18,20, standardized57-8
46 collective 59
Ong , A. 62, 98, 134 valuablcin world trade 30-l
physicalsciences,and social sensuous59
o pe n sy s t em s21, 100_1,102 sciences3, professionals, and the global village
18,124 Rescher, N. l5, 65
openn^ess 10, 15, 29, 62, gg, t 13, lZZ, 98
Plant,S 63 research,self-fulfillingprophecies 37
1 33 profits 78
point, rt-sistance10, 128
opposit.ionseeresistance proletariat79
as attractor 26 antibiotic 33
order; property relations 7
s e ea k o b i {u r e a t i o np o i n t identities 88
a nd c haos 14, 21, 29, 106 protest,
polnts of insertionseemgorings to globalization44, 58, 62, 87-9,
a nd d is or der22, 139 anti-globalization1 I 2
politicalunits 95 96-7
far from equilibrium pockets culturesof 68, 87, 88-9
of p o r r t r c sI l 4 rhythmicity 20
l0 l_3 rnovements7l-2
populations,and statisticalprobability Richards, J. 135
'implicate' 50 PugwashConferenceon Scienceand
t7 World Affairs 97 Rifkin,J. 7, 10, 58
isla nd sof 21, l0g, 124
positivefeeclback13, 26_g, rights,
organism,and system 104_5 54, 55_6,
7.t,83,95, ll7, l18, 12l, 123, universal98, i36
organizational learning31,54, 55, 59 t38 Q a i d a ,A I - 1 3 2
post-disciplinarity 124 women's 98
organizations, quantum societY47-8
post-society128, 140 risk cultures,in medicine 33
and imagesg2 q u a n t u mt h e o r Y 2 0 , 2 2 ,2 5 , 4 7 - 8 ' 7 7
post-structuralismlg, 122 risk managemcnt,in financialmarkets
ncw globallymediated 90 quasi-nations,and attractor of
poverty 130_l 6ri
o pp osit ional59, 96_7 glocalization 98
power, risk society ix,96-7, I40
othe4 end of the 97
and complexity l l l_13 radio 84 risks,
'panhumanity' 136 cligital 127 rainbow,global 128 global 133
of flows 42 Rapoport,A. 98 willingnessto take 133-4
Papastergiadis,N. 61, 62, i07
hybridizationof I t2 , 18
R a s c hW Ritzer,G. 57, 58
Papson,S. 67
paradigm,
informational I l3 rational action theorY 77 R o b e r tso nR, o l a n d vi i i ,4 4 , 8 4
new globalization3, 6-0
mediatedll3-14, ll9 rcciprocities52 R o ch e ,M . 8 1 ,8 2 ,8 6 ,8 7 ,9 5 , 1 0 7
and mobilities l2 reductionism20, 40, 77-8 Roderick,I. 48
new informationalB_l 2,7g_g0
ar-rdresistancel0 R e e d ,M . 2 8 , 3 0 , 7 9 Rojek, C. 62
technological8
Parsons,Talcott 104, 105_ti
and socialordering 104_lg refcrencegroups 136 Ronf'eldt,D. 36, 51, 65,12' 137-
techniquesof ll2 rcflerivemodernization139-40 Rose,N. 89
particles48-9, 5g, 60
typesand machinesI 26_7 reflexivity 96-7, 1 13, 139-40 R o se n b e r gJ., 3 , 4 4 ,9 6
Pascoe, D. 125
past, and futurc 19, 20
visibilityof t I 2- l3 refugees2, 6l Rotblat,JosePh97, !18,l37
Power,M. 109 regimechanges47 Roy,Arundhati 135-6
patents,and bioprospccting 70
path_dependence
powerless, power of the 130 regionalblocs 45 Ru.shdie,Salman,The SatonicVerses
2U, 54-6, 63, 69, j4, practices, regions40-2, 43, 49, 107 I3 4
12 3,1 38
complexityin 30 cross-border108 Rushkoff D. 62
performance3, 38
globalizationas 6-7, 96_103
cosmopolitan137 war of the 43-4 Rycroft,Robert 10, 51, 54, 59
effectsin scienceon results 37 regularities76, l2I The ComPlatitY Chalbnge 3tl1
 168 Index Index 169
saf'ety,and systemcharacteristics36, 52 specles,
simulations58 socialtheory, and complexity l2O-4
SantaFe Institute,New Mexico 12, 17, simultaneity51 co-Present73-4 hazardsaffecting 69-70
sociality,

I
t2t S k l a i aL . 4 , 5 7 , 6 1 , 8 2 , 9 6 , l O t , t 0 2 's o c i a l w a r e '3 1 population size not correlatcdwith
SaudiArabia l3l Slater,D. 69 stabiltty 32-3
societies,
Sayer,A. 122 slaveowning I l2 autonomousself-reProducing105 sp e cta cl e6 5 ,8 7

tI
scales, linearmctaphorof 122-3 slavetrade,international61, 13I criss-crossing 106 Spencer,Herbert I04
scandals, small events,with big effects 16, 23, and the global l-16 spontaneity 25
complexitynatureof 58, t l3-18 3 4 - 6 , 4 7 , 5 3 , 5 4 _ s ,6 2 , 9 4 _ 5 , I l 6 like empires 129-32 spreadsheetculture 73
financial and abuseof power I I 7 small and medium businesscs, networks transformt:dwithin global systems stability 21, 27
med iatiz ed105, 110- l 1, 113 of9 106-7 population size not correlatedwith
Scannell,P. 84 smuggling,people 61, 131 society, 32-3
'scapes'viii,4-5,9, 56, 60-2, 80 Stacey,J. 99
social,the as a bounded region 43
Scholte,J. A. 3, 4, 6 and natural 13, \22 the concept of ix sta n d a r d s,g l o b a l 1 3 4 , I3 6
Schumann,H. 43, 66 n a t u r ea n d 3 3 - 5 , 4 5 - t t as empire 129-32 star networks 5l-2
sclence, the physicaa l nd 17-18,20,46 and nature 1B stasls,
and collective representations59 sociallifc, Parsons'sdefinition 105-6 and change22
i and humanity 97 and failure l3-14 and regions 40-l desire for 44-5
irrctluciblenot ionsin 76 7 Internet as metaphor for fluid 63 s o c i o l o g yi x, 1 3 - 1 5 , 1 2 0 state,
metaphoricalnatureof l2l multitasking 69 applicationsof comPlexitY 30 capitalist 78
post-national97-8 and quantum society 48 classical104-5 and citizen,mutual visibility 112-13
i rore ln systemsIZJ recursivecharacter 46-7 cstablishment of socialorder 104-l I nation detachedfrom 87
and systemof investigation37 social morphology 9 and globalizationdcbates 3-4 and nomadism 108-9
Scotland 108 socialmovements7l-2, 88-9 limits of global analyses40 regulatory I l0
SecondLaw of Thermodynamics2l socialorder, 'mobile' 16, 59-60 role of the 109-10
secretscrvicesll5 and globalcomplexity 16, 104-ll, Soctologtbeyond Societies(Urry) ix state bureaucracy,effectsof personal
self il8_19 software 73 computers on I I
and the global 99 as outcome of socialprocesses106 software industry,teamworking 9l statesurveillancell3
and machine 69 and power 104-19 solidarity,electronic networks of 89 state-centrism44
self-fulfilling prophecies,in rcsearch 37 social practices,universalismand 98-9 sovereignty,nation state replacedby states,
self-makingsystems16, 28-9, 31, socialregulation 108-9 imperial 128 'm i d w i fe ' 1 1 0
10 0-1 , 102 socialsciences, Soviet Union, former, networked l0
self-organization 10, l4-15, 24, 29, 58, application of positive feedback 28, collapseof 47, 85 weak 130
60 ,98 , 106, 132 83 state bureaucracy I I statistical,and individual levelsof
cities 36-7 conditions of possibility for 37 space l8-22 analysis24-5
or lnternet ol-J individual and collectivelevels 76-7 Cartesianl9 stcampower 126
of nation states 95 and naturalsciences12-13 creationof 22 stce r i n gm e ch a n i sm s1 0 5
scmioticskills 133-4 new complexityrheoryparadigm cyberspace and physical 127 Ster,g"is,1.,Order out of Chaos 2l
scrvice,standardizedmodcs of 57 l2-15 dematerializationof 2 Stevenson, N. 1 17
sh amin g,public 89, l l0- l l, I l4- lB and physicalsciences3, 18, 124 fractal 74 Ste w a r t,A. l l l
shareholdcrintcrests5, 45 in post-societal era 140 rrce / I Ste w a r t,1 .2 4 ,2 5 ,7 6
Shaw,M. 98 relevanceof complexity for 1204 multiple 29,123 Ste w u r t,P I7 , 1 8 ,8 3 , 1 0 0 ' 1 2 0
36
Sh elle r,M. 56, 60, 69, 71, 89 sclf-Fulfi lling prophcciesin remakingof 6-7 ,rn.t -.". racing,and US societY
Shields,R. 59-60 investigationof global systems for systems 75 storage125, 127
83-93'
Shiva,V. 98 37-8 transformationof ix-x, 7, 136 t,-.r.'*" attractors' 26-7 ' 44'
side effects 14,24,32-3, l3g socialspace4l-2 treated as static 44-5 103
srgn rne rsdl, d/ socialsystems, seeabo time-space Je .t o" ^, ,. h
--\ , vS. 6--5
73_4
srgns,economiesof viii, 67, 139 autopoietic29, 100-l spatialpatterns 40-2 stranqerness,presentano1 a b s e n t
Sikkink, K. 98 trajectory 83 4 spatiality,fluid 45,60 structurationism )'2]r-2
 t70 Index Index t7l
structure, Giclclens's duality of 46-7, territory, lesscentral . national culture of scandalI l8
self- 1, 33< 137
t2I definition 44,8;o Toml i nsr]r^n' r l3il' as glocalattractor 129-30
structure-agencyrelations x, 3, 40, toPolo8ies
+"-"' ' '-, "
terrorism 11,88, ll2, l13, h e g e m o n y4 3 ,4 5 , 8 5
l3l,133
uiri
il'J")'; 7r"(r-i"1,)
46 - 7, 80, I I l_12, lz t , t 27 globalcoalitionagarnst135 Latinosin 108
subject-objectdichotomy 3 growth of l0l Militia 88
succcss, and failure l3-15 international73, 109, l32 ttud,ri.rr""t'n"{'. 6l' 89, resistance to hegenronyBB,89
supra-national states 108 networked I l0 ' ap' i i al v ps t' n' x t' 33 societyand stock-carracing 36
surveil lanc eI 13, I 15, 127 ,n.j nt"J i ' ul ' "' J
urDan lJ I spccificityof 105
sustainability12, 70 tradi ng,
Thatcher,Margaret I06
'swarm ing' 132 deriv:rtive 66
thermodynamics2l 86 values,
electron tc financial
switches25, 53, 73, 82 Thompson,G. 44, I l0 global 133
futures 65
Swyngedouw,E. 109 T h o m p s o n , J o h nl l 3 , l 1 6 , l l 7 , hierarchyof 105
llg real-timc90
symDlosts/4 polirical Scandal:power capitalistclass4, 61' l0l Va n L o o n ,J. 3 3 , 1 3 3 , 1 4 0
and V"Ut;w ---r transnational
symboliccapital,vulnerabilityof I l8 in the Media Age ll4 4' 5-6' 57 villages,
trrnrnutiunrlcorPorations '
syncretism,cultural 108 Thrift,N. 17,29,30,40,65,73,86, global 98
9l 67-8
synergy 8 ties,strongandweak 12,52 106, 108 self'-orglnizingtransnational I 08
transnationalism
system,and organism104-5 ugnr couplrng J5_b violence,womcn's freedom from sexual
t r a n s p a r e r r cy , I l 5 - 1 6
I 1 3
systemaccidcnts 35-6 time 18-22 4-5, 36, 68, 97 98
transportirtion
systemeffects 24-5, 76-7 arrowof 21,22 scapes(i l-2 virtual communities 88-9
systemperfection,self-defeating biological 20-l virtual reality I26-7
t r a v e l3 3 , 6l - 2 , 6 8 , 1 3 5 - 7
characterof 36 biology of seechrono-blology travelling p e o p l e s5 ,6 1 - 2 , 1 0 7 , 1 0 9 , virtual war 86
systems, clock I I 171 vi r u se s3 3 , 6 2 ,6 7 ,6 8 ,8 7 , 1 1 8 , 1 3 3
autopoietic99-100 'computime' 85 t r u s t 1 0 , 52 , S) 09, 1 , I l 4 - 1 5 viscosity60, 7l
contrildtctlons/U-u(.) creationo€ 22 turningpoints 73, 139 vi si b i l i ty I l 2 - 1 3 , I l 5 - 1 6
dynamicand complex 3, 138-40 dematerializationof 2 vi si o nm a ch i n e s7 0 , 1 1 3
on the edgeof chaos 22 flow of 20,21-3,28, 45 U N C omrn i s s i on on Gl obal Gov ernanc e Volkmer, I. 86
of globalcomplexity 107 fragmentation 68-9, 72 0ees)134 vortex, bodies in a 59
institutions and development of 'g l a c i a l '1 1 , 7 0 uncertai nty 13, 22 5g vulnerability,
55_6 historical 18, 20-1 U N D P8I, I 36 of symboliccapital I l8
located within environments 45-ti irreversibilityof 2l-2,29, 46-7, 49, unintended efTccts 14,46-7,105, l l 3, to fluid changes58-9
Iooselycoupled 35-6, 52 60 ll9
ordered but l'ar from equilibrium 32 natural and social l9 U ni ted N ati ons (U N ) 8r , 96, 134,136 Wa l b y,S. 4 5 , 9 5 , 9 7 , 9 8 , 1 0 8 , I1 0 , 1 3 3 ,
pattern similaritiesacrossl2l Newtonian absolute l9 U ni versal Dec l arati on of H uman R i ghts 136
self-regulating26 synchronizationacrossthe world 8l (1918) 8l Wa l d r o n ,J. 1 3 3 , 1 3 4 , 1 3 6 , 1 3 9
and side eflects 14 uni verse,ex pans i on of
21-2 Wa l d r o p ,M . 1 2 , 1 7 ,2 4 ,3 0 , 4 0 ,5 3 ,5 4 ,
timeless 8-9, I I
tightly coupled and accidents 35-6, trading in 65
unpredictability
10,14, t 9, 27, 55
52 transformationof ix-x, 7 29,33,60,95, 113,116, 123, 138 Wallerstein,Immanuel l2-13
,
uroan cri nte l 3l
Szerszy ns kB.i, 58, 90, lt 3 treated as static 44-5 war, networked see'netwars'
urban
time travel l9 and t he'wild' war machine l2[i
^envi ronment,
JJ-5
taste 25 tlme-space, wars,
trrban grorvth,
Taylor,l-. 66 c o m p r e s s i o nl , 4 , 7 2 , l 3 l asymmetric130
selflorganization
teamworking9l .n.uutrr." under mass l9-20, l3l 29, 36_7 n o n - l i n e a r1 3 2
technology8-9, 30-1, 56, 95 slopin!jsuburbs,34
distanciation 4 , virtual 65
u r b a n i s m, sp l i n tcr i n g1 3 0 I
evolution 63 fixities seemoorings women'soppositionto 98
U5A,
and the human 3l-2 networked paths 7-8, 123 waste incincration,and global
l l , s c p t t'm b cr ( 2 0 0
teen market, global 67 times,multiple \1, 2O-1,29' l J x,9 4 , t3 0 , cnvironmentalmovemcnt 92-3
telecommunications rrt,l35
65 tippingpoints 53,66, 139 WatergatescandalI l5
Constitution:
te levisio n82, 84, 87, ll8, 135- 6 'Titanic effect' 36 FirstAmendment I I Watson,J. 57
172 Index

Warts,D. 52 transformationof 64-5

ivave-particlceffects 48-9 rvorkfbrcc,local in capitalism 7g_9
waves48- 9, 51, 59, 60, 62, 7l working class,Marxist socialrevol
r,vealth,from abundance 53 79
Weber,Max l0-ll World Bank 8l
Weingart,P 23, 30 World Health Organization8l
Weiss,L. 109 World lntellectual Property
rvelfaresocieties I 29 Organization8l
Wellnran, B. 52, 127 world order,problematizationof claim
West, t29
inequalities130-l
socio-spatial world society 100
urban development 36-7 world system 4
wh ite, H. 60, 7l World Tiade Organization [WTO) 6,
Whitehead, A. N. 20 6I,81,89
rvholes,new emergent49, 50-l World Wide Web 62, 86, 94
Wickham,G. 14 Wynne, B. 6
'wild zones' 33-5, 130-l
Williams,R. 29, 59, 135 Yang,M. Mei-hui 134
Wolfe, C. l8 Yuval-Davis,N. 98
women, and globalcitizcnship98
women'smovement 88 Zapatistas,Mexico 88, 89
work, 'zapping,' 73
team working 9l Zohar, D. 20, 47-8