The Complexity of Self Government: Politics from the Bottom Up - Softcover

Lane, Ruth

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1316615286 ISBN 13: 9781316615287

Publisher: Cambridge University Press, 2016

Synopsis

The Complexity of Self Government represents a revolutionary approach to political science. Bottom-up theory turns political and social analysis upside down by focusing analytic attention not on vacuous abstractions but on the individual men and women who either consciously or inadvertently create the institutions within which they live. Understanding this practical level of human activity is made possible through complexity theory, recently developed in computer models, but of wider use in understanding everyday human behaviour. To this complexity framework, the book adds social science to give life and colour to the analytical picture: micro-sociology from Garfinkel and Goffman, anthropology from Bourdieu, and non-technical game theory based on Thomas Schelling's microanalytics, to give rigour and bite. Theoretical examples include India's Mumbai, Iran, the marshes of southern Iraq, Berlusconi's Italy, backcountry China, Zimbabwe, and Nelson Mandela's revolution in South Africa.

About this title

About the Author

Ruth Lane is an Associate Professor at the American University, Washington, DC, where she teaches methodology and comparative politics. Her research focuses on the computer modelling of bottom-up political processes.

Edition details

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Publication date: 2016
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1316615286
• ISBN 13: 9781316615287
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 214