Networked Governance - John F. Kennedy School of Government - Colloquia - Colloquium on Complexity and Social Networks

The era of globalization is the era of connectedness. This reality represents an increasingly troubling challenge to traditional theories and models of social systems, which assume the independence of individuals from their broader social milieu. Going beyond such a conventional focus, concepts such as "knowledge management", "networked organizations", "social capital", all reflect attempts to cope with the growing complexity of social phenomena.

The objective of this colloquium series, supported by the Program on Networked Governance (PNG) and the The Institute for Quantitative Social Science (former CBRSS), is to serve as a forum for two somewhat diffuse intellectual communities that have developed tools to study connectedness, loosely gathered around the concepts of complex systems and social networks respectively. Complex systems analysts have developed a set of computational and conceptual tools to trace micro-macro linkages based on varying assumptions of dynamic and spatial interaction. Social network theorists, for their part, have developed a wide array of (largely empirical) approaches to study the connectedness of social actors.

Please take a look ath CCCSN's event schedule or our events archive.

If you want to learn more or want to be added to the complexity list please contact Bernie Cahill.