Volume 1 of Monograph Series, "A Social Systems Approach to Global
Problems" A principal failing of research on large-scale, complex
social/technological problems is the excessive reliance upon easily
measured technical observations and the accompanying minimal regard
for hard-to-measure humanist aspirations, intentions, and hopes
(Flanagan and Bausch, 2011). By focusing on the easily harvested
quantitative data of technological science, complex systems
research too easily excludes people's life experiences, their need
for practical relevance, their desires, and their traditions.. In
doing this, they have alienated popular culture from the research
and lay the grounds for ignoring its findings. A new science is
emerging that takes account of people's life concerns in the
context of critical human problems. This science accepts the
observations of all stakeholders, helps observers as they combine
these observations, and results in a composite, rich definition of
the problem. This comprehensive definition melds many contexts in
which stakeholders view the problem. By using this contextualized
definition, scientists and populace working together can reach
consensus on the nature of the problem and what they are to do
about it. This new science was formulated by Gerard DeZeeuw as
Third Phase science (1997). If we are to reach a common ground for
collective action, we need to talk not only with each other but
also to reason together. Such a process requires dialogue. And not
just any dialogue, but a highly structured one. In this volume,
Reynaldo Trevino Cisneros and Bethania Arango Hisijara present an
analysis that joins the 15 global challenges found by the
Millennium Project (Glenn, J., Gordon, T., and Florescu, E., 2010)
with the 49 Continuous Critical Problems (CCPs) identified by Hasan
Ozbekhan (1970). The method they used is expert-analysis using
Interpretive Structural Modeling (ISM). It relies upon its two
source documents to provide the required diversity of observations.
It also reflects the considered judgment of only two people. It
nevertheless illustrates the complexity that is inherent in a deep
consideration of the challenge of global sustainability. In
preparation, the authors immersed themselves in the world as viewed
in the 15 challenges and the 49 critical problems. Then they used
Interpretive Structural Modeling (Warfield, 1974, 1976; Christakis
and Bausch, 2006) to rank the 15 challenges on the basis of the
influence they have on each other. In doing this, they generated a
map that indicates the most influential challenges. This map points
out that these challenges possess leverage and therefore deserve
priority in efforts to improve the global situation. Second, they
clustered the individual CCPs with the corresponding Challenges.
Third, they generated actions that work to solve the individual
Challenges. Finally, they generated a second map that indicates how
the actions can confront the Challenges. The central message from
Bethania and Reynaldo is to invite civil society and governmental
organizations to shape transdisciplinary groups and to follow their
own journey of discovery, dialog and design, to achieve, by
themselves, shared and clever strategies that might address at
global, national, regional or local levels some of the challenges
they had identified as needing attention, to pursue together a
better quality of life for themselves and their communities.
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