Niklas Luhmann

The present analysis of the Euro looks for the marks that function systems make on what we commonly take for the European money. Clearly distinguishing between coins and currency, the Euro coins and banknotes are not taken for economic tokens per se but for storage devices that contain both economic and noneconomic information. A systemic analysis of the function system references on these storage devices shows that the economy has left fewer marks on the Euro than politics, art, and the mass media systems have. We, hence, argue that “the Euro” “is” not just money with a political second mission but rather can be understood as an indicator of the relative relevance that specific function systems do or do not have for the European societies and the European society.

Despite its influence in Central European sociology, N. Luhmann’s Social Systems theory remains a marginal branch of international sociology. In this paper, the theory questions the reasons for its own marginality in general and for its marginality in the Anglophone centers of sociology in particular, with the latter still being a surprise against the background of the theory’s cybernetic roots in the US. The theory arrives at the conclusion that, while Europe, or ‘the continent’, is still perceived as old compared with the Anglophone new world(s), it still is Anglophone sociology that preserves ‘Old European’ semantics. Sociology in continental ‘Old Europe’, however, seems to have a chance of slowly being acquainted with a new, post-enlightenment mindset focused on semantics and communication rather than on humans and action.

This book offers the reader a remarkable new perspective on the way markets, laws and societies evolve together. It can be of use to anyone interested in development, market and public sector reform, public administration, politics & law. Based on a wide variety of case studies on three continents and a variety of conceptual sources, the authors develop a theory that clarifies the nature and functioning of dependencies that mark governance evolutions. This in turn delineates in an entirely new manner the spaces open for policy experiment. As such, it offers a new mapping of the middle ground between libertarianism and social engineering. Theoretically, the approach draws on a wide array of sources: institutional & development economics, systems theories, post-structuralism, actor- network theories, planning theory and legal studies.

El objetivo de este documento es presentar sintéticamente los conceptos centrales y las leyes fundamentales de la “Teoría de los Sistemas Sociales Autopoiéticos” y la “Teoría de los Sistemas Sociopoiéticos Funcionales” de Niklas Luhmann. Para ello delineamos las conceptualizaciones de las nociones de tiempo, comunicaciones, observaciones, elementos, relaciones, complejidad, sentido, operaciones, entorno, función, código, programa y medios de comunicación simbólicamente generalizados, así como sus interrelaciones y el lugar que ocupan en relación con las leyes de la teoría. Las preguntas rectoras de esta presentación son: ¿de qué entidades nos habla la teoría luhmanniana?, ¿cómo se comportan las entidades enunciadas?, y finalmente la evaluación práctica sobre las finalidades de dicho programa teórico.

Motivated against the ‘mechanistic’ tendency within contemporary social theory and sociological research, critical organicism is a novel orientation which seeks to correct a flawed ontology of mechanisms. Mechanistic ontology reflects an epistemological distortion which fails to recognise, on the one hand, the artifice of social systems, and, on the other hand, an actually organic social ontology.  Critical organicism begins with the assumption that human societies are living entities – not machines.  However, the approach should not be confused with the old organicism of the late 19th century, which was burdened with assumptions connecting the part to the whole.  This paper proposes the alternative framework of critical organicism which, on the one hand, takes account of the theory of relativity by drawing upon A.N. Whitehead’s philosophy of organism and process.  On this metaphysical basis, I identify the primacy of a particular dimension of history as the relevant ground of/for sociological analysis – that of process, as captured within Norbert Elias’ figurational sociology.  Finally, I argue that the sociologist who best exemplified this approach was Lewis Mumford, whose critical organic historical sociology of cities and technology has yet to be recognised as the best model for sociological investigation.