The Viability of Societies

The book is about explaining and understanding the
twin processes of cohesion and fragmentation in
contemporary societies and the challenges to both
governance and identity posed by these antinomic
processes.
It does this by demonstrating that a new way of
thinking and a new set of concepts drawn the realms
of cybernetics and communication can build a more
effective sociological theory than has been possible
up to now.
It sets out to explain why this is so and what must
happen to change it for the better. To this end it
also constructs a narrative about human society as
the ongoing outcome of control attempts by people at
varying levels of social complexity, attempts which
produce a recursive hierarchy of nested levels of
social organisation, from the individual up through
social networks, groups and organisations through to
the nation state and beyond.
The key themes of the book are: identity, governance,
identity, communication & control in complex
societies and the future of human society.

Autorentext
Paul A. Stokes is a College Lecturer in the School of Sociology at UCD Dublin, Ireland. He did his PhD under the supervision of the late Stafford Beer. He is a Fellow of the Cybernetics Society of Great Britain. His principal academic interest lies is in the convergence of cybernetics and sociology.

Klappentext
The book is about explaining and understanding the twin processes of cohesion and fragmentation in contemporary societies and the challenges to both governance and identity posed by these antinomic processes. It does this by demonstrating that a new way of thinking and a new set of concepts drawn the realms of cybernetics and communication can build a more effective sociological theory than has been possible up to now. It sets out to explain why this is so and what must happen to change it for the better. To this end it also constructs a narrative about human society as the ongoing outcome of control attempts by people at varying levels of social complexity, attempts which produce a recursive hierarchy of nested levels of social organisation, from the individual up through social networks, groups and organisations through to the nation state and beyond. The key themes of the book are: identity, governance, identity, communication & control in complex societies and the future of human society.