Credits, references, and bibliography

Wikipedia on Niklas Luhmann	General Systems Theory	Systems and Environment
	https://youtu.be/4msIxftLKmw	from: http://www.ulandslaere.au.dk/NOTICES/GroupWork/QuestionsAndAnswers2004/Questions_2004/QuestionsFor_5March.htm (website no longer available)

(other YouTube videos on or by Luhmann: http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Niklas+Luhmann&search_type=)

Systems Theory (3, p. 192):

1. Applicability across all sciences (maybe)
2. Multileveled (scalable)
3. Varied realtionships/many components
4. Focus on process
5. Inherently integrative (individual/society)
6. Dynamic perspective

"Niklas Luhmann’s system theory combines aspects of Parsons’s structural functionalism with cognitive biology and cybernetics.  According to Luhmann, a distinction can be drawn between a system and its environment.  A system develops relational subsystems to simplify the complexity of an environment.  This process of simplification involves making choices that are contingent and entail risk.  Luhmann focused on autopoietic systems that are characterized by the fact that (1) they produce the elements from which they are constituted; (2) they are self-organizing in terms of boundaries and internal structures; (3) they are self-referential; and (4) they are closed.  In order for a system to deal with the complexity of its ever-changing environment, it engages in a process of differentiation, or an effort to copy the difference between itself and its environment.  This in turn engenders an increasing complexity of the system itself.  Luhmann distinguished between four types of differentiation:  segmentary, stratificatory, center-periphery, and functional.  Functional differentiation is the most complex; it is the form of differentiation that dominates contemporary society.  Although functional differentiation provides a system with wider flexibility, it also has the potential to break the system down if it becomes too complex.  Systems use distinct codes, or languages, to set elements that belong to it apart from those that do not."(1)

System and Environment:

from: http://www.law.ed.ac.uk/ahrc/script-ed/vol4-4/savirimuthu.asp

Responds to problems in Parsons' structural-functionalism:

1. Issue of "self-reference" (system's ability to refer to itself--awareness and choice rather than "natural process")
2. Issue of "contingency" (things could be different)

System and environment--boundaries

• System is always less complex
• Complexity of environment is always simplified within the system
• Simplifying involves selection--choice, possibilities, risk
• Systems MUST reduce complexity (map story), what is left in, what is left out
• Systems develop new (sub) systems and inter-relationships between them to deal with environmental complexities and change
• Only by increasing complexity can complexity be reduced

Autopoietic Systems

1. Produce the basic elements that make up the system. Elements and systems evolve together.
2. Are self organizing: boundaries and internal structures
   1. Inside/outside by self-organizing choices, not functional necessities.
   2. Other forces (systems) may attempt to limit (illicit drugs example, creationism and education)
   3. Internal structures are produced based on central elements and boundaries
3. Are self-referential (price and economy: stock market, laws about creating laws, science and truth)
4. Are closed--only deal with representations of the environment
   1. Nonetheless, the environment must be able to penetrate system (stock market)
   2. Individuals are typically part of the environment, too (statuses are internal).
5. Music Industry as an autopoietic system

Society and Psychic Systems (as autopoietic systems)

1. Basic element of society is communication
2. Communication is produced by society
3. Individual relevant in as much as he or she communicates (or is thought to be communicating)
4. "Secrets" part of environment--disturbing.
5. Individual as biological organism and as consciousness are external to society. These systems have developed/exist along side the social system.
6. Meaning (social/psychic system choices--contingencies; what is versus isn't selected). Especially within the social system--meaning communicated versus meaning intended.
7. Social System (communication) creates social structures to deal with "double contingency."(3, p. 201)
8. Double Contingency: all communication is both intended and received (or interpreted). Communicator selects particular words to convey a particular meaning, recipient interprets and assigns meaning.
9. Social structures pattern our communication and interpretation (status. roles, groups, institutions)
10. "It is because each of us has a different set of norms that communication becomes necessary, and it is because communication has the problem of double contingency that we develop sets of norms. This shows how society as an autpoietic system works: the structure (roles, institutions and traditional norms) of society creates the elements (communication) of society and those elements create the structure, so that, as in all autopoietic systems, the system constitutes its own elements."(3, p. 201)
11. Social structures lend a bit of predictability, connect earlier communications with later ones--provide a history. They make ongoing communication (and therefore the system that produces communication--society) possible---they regulate evolution.

Differentiation

• System's way of dealing with complexity of and changes in the environment
• "Copy within a system the difference between it and the environment."(p. 95)
• Produces internal environments--different for each subsystem, and external environment--same for subsystems and system.
• Increasing complexity within the system--more variation to deal with variation in the environment
• Evolution--process of selection from variation--more variability--greater selectivity possible--greater evolutionary potential
• Four types
  1. Segmentary Differentiation: subsystem reproduction
  2. Stratificatory Differentiation: hierarchy of status
     • Within subsystems and across system
     • Inequality as essential feature
     • Higher ranks--more resources and influential communication (lower ranks of concern only as threat)
     • Oligarchy--distancing of lower/upper ranks (even though they depend on each other)
     • Lower ranks must resort to conflict to have effect
  3. Center-Periphery Differentiation
  • link between segmentary and stratificatory systems (headquarters--periphery)
  4. Functional Differentiation
     • Most complex
     • Dominates modern society
     • Each function within a system ascribrd to different subsystem
     • Flexibility, yet need for integration
     • System embededness--one part fails; brings down system
     • Price paid for adaptability

Code

• Language function--used to set boundaries--distinguish parts of system from environment.
• Limits kind of communication
• Specific to systems--no cross system codes, nor translation
• Giving meaning to events in the environment (economic system views of science--what makes or costs money)

Examples

System	Function	Efficacy	Code	Program	Medium
Law	Manage Norm Expectations	Regulation of Conflicts	Legal / Illegal	Laws, regulation, constitution	Jurisdiction
Politics	Make Collective Decisions Possible	Practical Application	Government / Opposition	Goals of Political Parties/Ideologies	Power
Science	Production of Knowledge	Supply of Knowledge	True / False	Theories, methods	Truth
Economy	Reduction of Scarcity	Satisfaction of needs	Payment / Non-payment	Budgets	Money

(source: H-Georg Muller, 29, cited by, http://www.law.ed.ac.uk/ahrc/script-ed/vol4-4/savirimuthu.asp)           

Chapter 4 Review Quiz

Web sites

Art as a Social System, Niklas Luhmann, (http://books.google.com/books?id=uEBiiMH6nJ0C&pg=PA133&lpg=PA133&dq=Niklas+Luhmann+Differentiation&source=web&ots=EpxY-XPMIa&sig=SQErvRH6U0ylg56v2CyDmVhZTEc&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=1&ct=result#PPA135,M1)

Niklas Luhmann in the society of the computer - Dirk Baecker - 2001, http://www.univie.ac.at/elib/index.php?title=Niklas_Luhmann_in_the_society_of_the_computer_-_Dirk_Baecker_-_2001

Systems Thinking: http://www.systems-thinking.de/luhmann.html

Luhmann Online: http://www.luhmann-online.de/

Autopoietic Theory and Social Systems (http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1467-954X.00367/epdf) A history of autopoietic theory is presented on this website. 

Identity Theft and Systems Theory: The Fraud Act 2006 in Perspective, Anne Savirimuthu and Joseph Savirimuthu, http://www.law.ed.ac.uk/ahrc/script-ed/vol4-4/savirimuthu.asp

Credits, references, and bibliography

1. Much of this page comes from the "Instructor's Manual" to accompany Contemporary Sociological Theory and Its Classical Roots: The Basics, Second Edition, George Ritzer, Mcgraw-Hill, 2007. The Instructor's Manual was prepared by James Murphy, University of Maryland, College Park and Todd Stillman, Fayetteville State University. These excerpts are from chapter 4.
2. Ritzer, George. 2007/2010/2013. Contemporary Sociological Theory and Its Classical Roots: The Basics. 2nd/3rd/4th editions. St. Louis: McGraw-Hill
3. Ritzer, George. 2008. Modern Sociological Theory, 7th ed. St. Louis: McGraw-Hill.

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