Beyond the ‘other’ as constitutive outside: : The politics of immunity in Roberto Esposito and Niklas Luhmann

This article re-conceptualises the ‘constitutive outside’ through Roberto Esposito’s theory of immunity to detach it from Laclau and Mouffe’s political antagonism. It identifies Esposito’s thought as an innovative epistemological perspective to dissolve post-ontological political theories of community from the intertwinement with a foundational self/other dialectic. Esposito shows how a community can sustain its relations through introversive immunisation against a primarily undefined outside. But it is argued that his theory of immunity slips back to a vitalist depth ontology which ultimately de-politicises the construction of the communal outside. This article draws on Niklas Luhmann’s immunity theory to resituate immunisation in the political production of social connectivity. Following Luhmann, politics relies on immunisation through contradictions to reproduce its functional role as a decision-making institution, but is at the same time constantly exposed to potential rupture through the political openness immunity introduces. Through Esposito and Luhmann, this article identifies the relationship between a social inside and its outside as open-ended and secondary to an introversive process of socio-political self-differentiation. It can involve, but does epistemologically necessitate, the construction of an external otherPeer reviewedFinal Accepted Versio

Inside organizations and out: methodological tenets for empirical research inspired by systems theory

"Dieser Aufsatz stellt die Frage, wie eine durch Niklas Luhmanns Systemtheorie inspirierte Organisationsforschung epistemologisch und methodologisch gestaltet werden kann. Besprochen werden methodologisch zentrale Aspekte wie die strukturelle und semantische Analyse, die Beobachtung von Kontingenzen, die Erklärung von 'Trivialitäten', die funktionale Methode und die Erforschung von Koppelungsmechanismen. Aufbauend auf einigen schon verfügbaren Studien zeigen wir, dass die Systemtheorie ein sehr wirkungsvoller Rahmen für die Untersuchung moderner Organisationen ist, da sie eine ungewöhnliche Beobachtungsperspektive ermöglicht, die erlaubt, das infrage zu stellen, was häufig als nicht erklärungsbedürftig angesehen wird. Schließlich versuchen die Autoren zu zeigen, wie das Management von der systemtheoretischen Forschung von Organisationen profitieren kann." (Autorenreferat)"This paper focuses on how organizational research inspired by Niklas Luhmann's systems theory can be epistemologically framed and methodologically designed. Central methodological pillars such as structural and semantic analyses, observing contingencies, explaining trivialities, functional analysis and exploring coupling mechanisms are discussed. Drawing from several empirical studies, the authors demonstrate that systems theory is a highly efficacious framework for the study of modern organizations, as it permits an uncommon observational perspective that is able to question what is often taken for granted. Finally, they highlight how management can profit from systems theoretical research on organizations." (author's abstract

Inside Organizations and Out. Methodological Tenets for Empirical Research Inspired by Systems Theory

Este trabajo se centra en cómo la investigación organizacional inspirada en la teoría de sistemas de Niklas LUHMANN puede enmarcarse epistemológicamente y diseñarse metodológicamente. Se discuten los principales pilares metodológicos, tales como: los análisis estructurales y semánticos, la observación de las contingencias, la explicación de trivialidades, el análisis funcional y el estudio de los mecanismos de acoplamiento. A partir de varios estudios empíricos, demostramos que la teoría de sistemas es un marco muy eficaz para el estudio de las organizaciones modernas, ya que permite una perspectiva de observación poco común que es capaz de cuestionar lo que se suele dar por sentado. Por último, destacamos cómo la gestión puede obtener beneficios de la investigación teórica de sistemas en las organizaciones. URN: urn:nbn:de:0114-fqs1003165Dieser Aufsatz stellt die Frage, wie eine durch Niklas LUHMANNs Systemtheorie inspirierte Organisationsforschung epistemologisch und methodologisch gestaltet werden kann. Besprochen werden methodologisch zentrale Aspekte wie die strukturelle und semantische Analyse, die Beobachtung von Kontingenzen, die Erklärung von "Trivialitäten", die funktionale Methode und die Erforschung von Koppelungsmechanismen. Aufbauend auf einigen schon verfügbaren Studien zeigen wir, dass die Systemtheorie ein sehr wirkungsvoller Rahmen für die Untersuchung moderner Organisationen ist, da sie eine ungewöhnliche Beobachtungsperspektive ermöglicht, die erlaubt, das infrage zu stellen, was häufig als nicht erklärungsbedürftig angesehen wird. Schliesslich versuchen wir zu zeigen, wie das Management von der systemtheoretischen Forschung von Organisationen profitieren kann. URN: urn:nbn:de:0114-fqs1003165This paper focuses on how organizational research inspired by Niklas LUHMANN's systems theory can be epistemologically framed and methodologically designed. Central methodological pillars such as structural and semantic analyses, observing contingencies, explaining trivialities, functional analysis and exploring coupling mechanisms are discussed. Drawing from several empirical studies, we demonstrate that systems theory is a highly efficacious framework for the study of modern organizations, as it permits an uncommon observational perspective that is able to question what is often taken for granted. Finally, we highlight how management can profit from systems theoretical research on organizations. URN: urn:nbn:de:0114-fqs100316

The Social Systems Citation Theory (SSCT): A proposal to use the social systems theory for conceptualizing publications and their citations links

The normative theory of citing considers citations as rewarding tools to acknowledge the influence of scientific works, while the social constructivist theory of citing considers citations, for example, as persuasion tools used by authors to support their claims, and convince the scientific community that those claims are valid. Other citation theories and models have been proposed in recent years to overcome the limitations of the normative and social constructivist theories. Nevertheless, they have not been able to fully explain all citation motives of scientists (but have a certain focus). This study proposes a new theory (which we call “social systems citation theory”, SSCT) that integrates previous theories and models on publications and their citation links and is mainly based on Niklas Luhmann’s “social systems theory”. Luhmann’s social systems theory focuses on “communications” as the basic constituting elements of a social science system and not on humans and their motives. Humans are not part of social systems but are connected with them and irritate them. Thus, the social systems theory does not have the problem of integrating various and different motives of humans to cite in the science system. In the SSCT, authors’ motives to cite belong to psychic systems while publications and their citation links belong to the social science system. The systems operate autonomously but interact with each other: the social system operates recursively with publications and citation links. Although psychic systems stimulate or irritate the science system, they do not determine communications in the science system. In this study, we explain the SSCT and demonstrate how the theory can be used to underlie empirical bibliometric studies

Abu Hamid al-Ghazali and Niklas Luhmann: Boundary Negotiations Between Religion and Science in the Abbasid Empire

In the context of my involvement with the CASHSS Multiple Secularities – Beyond the West, Beyond Modernities’ research programme, I chose Ghazali’s autobiography, and in particular his “crisis of indecision,” as an example of a pre-modern negotiation of the boundaries of religion at the micro level. The research programme suggests employing the analytical concept of secularity to investigate both non-Western and pre-modern forms of secularity, in terms of conceptual distinctions and institutional differentiations between religious and non-religious social spheres. In this essay, I would like to propose a method of pursuing these goals from my own theoretical perspective. More specifically, I will argue that in Ghazali’s reflections on spiritual religiosity, theology, philosophy and science, we can discern the individual engagement of a prominent Muslim thinker with emerging communicative realms. In the Modern Systems Theory of Niklas Luhmann, these realms are taken to represent functionally differentiated subsystems of modern society

Managerial Challenges and Tasks in Multirational Public Organizations

This paper explores multirationality of public organizations from the perspective of systems theory. In the tradition of this theoretical approach, it focuses on how communication may be used in explaining and understanding the hybridity of these organizations. It argues that faced with a variety of different rationalities of function systems in their environment, public organizations are responding, inter alia, by becoming more complex internally. In other words, they import different rationalities from their environment into their own house. Classifying public organizations as being comprised of highly autonomous subsystems, where each subsystem uses a specific type of specialized communication to process a subsystem specific rationality, this paper sheds light on associated tensions and conflicts within public organizations. It discusses managerial challenges and tasks deriving from multirationality within public organizations. The paper finally concludes that proper communication requires greater theoretical and practical consideration when explaining and dealing with conflicts stemming from the hybridity of public organizations

Appreciative Inquiry summits and organizational knowledge creation: A social systems perspective

The purpose of this exploratory study is to develop alternative models for analyzing the systems dynamics of a large group conference format called appreciative inquiry (AI) summits. I apply Luhmann’s social systems theory to the strategizing activities of AI summits to examine how this particular format is capable of generating organizational knowledge. An AI summit is a strategic planning conference in which hundreds of internal and external stakeholders collectively design the future of the organization through structured activities. It applies the principles of AI, a consulting method used in organizational development that attends to the positive aspects of an organization as opposed to its problems. Critics challenge this unconditional focus on the positive, questioning the validity of its methods and techniques. Indeed, very few rigorous evaluations of AI methods including AI summits exist. I propose a new approach for assessing the effectiveness of AI summits. I focus on knowledge creation as the dependent variable. Previous studies have shown that successful AI interventions generate new knowledge, not just transformational change. I conceptualize an AI summit as a strategic episode that allows an organization to temporarily suspend its routines and structures for strategic reflection. According to social systems theory, organizations are autopoietic (self-reproducing) systems that maintain their identity through an ongoing production of decision communications. An AI summit consists of three different types of systems that co-evolve and are structurally coupled: an organization system, interaction system and the individual participants’ psychological systems. I propose a typology for analyzing episodes during an AI summit as a starting point for determining the structural dynamics inherent in an AI summit system. Using illustrative examples from a case study, I identify five structural features of an AI summit that facilitate organizational knowledge creation, including reduced communication barriers and the production of decisions during the conference. The study contributes to the existing literature by identifying the important but understudied role of self-organizing project teams in the knowledge creation process at an AI summit. Limitations and implications are discussed

The system of subjectivity: Societal systems and literary pardigms

Patterns aid in deepening humanity\u27s understanding of the world and what is cultivated within it. Patterns emerge in interactive disciplines such as language, literature, science, visual arts, and even mathematics. The existence of patterns assists the human need to understand a complicated world. Beyond simply seeing patterns as they are presented, I am interested in exploring how these patterns manifest into paradigmatic structures that affect the way in which society. Particularly, I am interested in the socialized perceptions of literature, and the role that systems plays in their interaction and development. This thesis project: 1) introduces the fundamentals of systems theory; 2) explores systems theory as it pertains directly to literary studies; 3) specifies properties of systems theory within literary parameters; 3) and identify how literature operates as an active network of systemic information. This project, in essence, takes sociological aspects of systems theory and demonstrates how those aspects apply to literature as both an art form and as a conduit of active cultural interaction. I hypothesize that literary patterns emerge through such variables as interaction, censorship, circulation, or preservation. A few tertiary influences of literary paradigms are also explored, including the industrialization of publication, civil rights advocacy, and public accessibility to literature. The fundamental objective is to uncover how societal influences impede or cater to literary formulae by evaluating observations made by systems theorists and applying their methodologies to a literary discussion. My findings show that incongruities within systems of literature are not anomalies disproving the possibility of universalism; rather, they are incongruities that represent fledglings of newly discovered systems which may someday manifest into global schemas after extensive interaction has induced collective familiarity

Law after the welfare state: formalism, functionalism and the ironic turn of reflexive law

This paper analyzes the contemporary emergence of neo-formalist and neo-functionalist approaches to law-making at a time when the state is seeking to reassert, reformulate and reconceptualize its regulatory competence, both domestically and transnationally. While the earlier turn to alternative regulation modes, conceptualized under the heading of legal pluralism, responsive law, or reflexive law in the 1970s and 1980s, had aimed at a more socially responsive, contextualized, and ultimately learning mode of legal intervention, the contemporary revival of functionalist jurisprudence and its reliance on social norms embraces a limitation model of legal regulation. After revisiting the Legal Realist critique of Formalism and the formulation of functionalist regulation as a progressive agenda, this paper reflects on both the American and German justifications of market regulation and the Welfare State in order to trace the different evolution towards responsive law and legal pluralism in the U.S. and post-interventionist and reflexive law in Germany. This comparison allows for an identification of the emerging transnational qualities of legal normativity in the face of a declining welfare state paradigm, which - at the beginning of the 21st century - appears to provide the stage for turning the progressive gains of the former era into a set of market-oriented justifications of private autonomy and de-regulation. - Der Aufsatz rekonstruiert die wechselhafte Geschichte des Rechts nach dem Wohlfahrtsstaat. Nachdem die Krise des Wohlfahrtsstaats in den 1970er Jahren vornehmlich als eine Frage der Regulierungs- und Steuerungskrise wahrgenommen wurde, traten responsive und reflexive Rechtstheorien gleichzeitig als Erben und Zerstörer des Rechts als Steuerungsmittel auf. Die Suche nach Alternativen zum Recht in den USA wie auch in Deutschland mündete aber schon bald in eine weitreichende Privatisierungs- und Deregulierungsbewegung. Die sich schon lange ankündigende Skepsis nicht nur gegenüber parlamentarischer Gesetzgebung, sondern auch gerichtlicher Rechts(fort)bildung im Namen der Selbstregulierungskräfte der Privatrechtsgesellschaft durch den Markt und social norms verstärkte diese Kritik am Staat diesseits und jenseits des Atlantik. Der Aufsatz geht vor diesem Hintergrund der Frage nach, inwiefern die gegenwärtige Betonung gesellschaftlicher Selbstregulierung die Kritik der Rechtsrealisten und der frühen Rechtssoziologie am Rechtsformalismus aufgreift, nur um sie im Namen von Marktfreiheiten zu verkürzen und ihres kritischen Potentials beraubt. --