This expanded and updated edition of Complexity Theory and the Social Sciences: The State of the Art revisits the use of complexity theory across the social sciences and demonstrates how complexity informs approaches to various contemporary issues in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, widening social inequality, and impending social and ecological catastrophe wrought by global warming. The book reviews complexity theory in the practice of the social sciences and at their interface with ecological science. It outlines how social theory can be reconciled with complexity thinking and presents a review of the way research can be done using complexity theory. The book suggests how complexity theory can be used to understand and evaluate governance processes, particularly with regard to social inequality and the climate crisis. The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic is also examined through a complexity lens, reviewing how complexity thinking has been employed in relation to the pandemic and how implementing a complexity framework can transform health and social care. The book concludes with a call to action and the use of complexity theory to inform critical thinking in the education system. This textbook will be immensely useful to students and researchers interested in social research methods, social theory, business and organization studies, health, education, urban studies, and development studies.

This expanded and updated edition of Complexity Theory and the Social Sciences: The State of the Art revisits the use of complexity theory across the social sciences and demonstrates how complexity informs approaches to various contemporary issues in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, widening social inequality, and impending social and ecological catastrophe wrought by global warming. The book reviews complexity theory in the practice of the social sciences and at their interface with ecological science. It outlines how social theory can be reconciled with complexity thinking and presents a review of the way research can be done using complexity theory. The book suggests how complexity theory can be used to understand and evaluate governance processes, particularly with regard to social inequality and the climate crisis. The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic is also examined through a complexity lens, reviewing how complexity thinking has been employed in relation to the pandemic and how implementing a complexity framework can transform health and social care. The book concludes with a call to action and the use of complexity theory to inform critical thinking in the education system. This textbook will be immensely useful to students and researchers interested in social research methods, social theory, business and organization studies, health, education, urban studies, and development studies.

For the past two decades, 'complexity' has informed a range of work across the social sciences. There are diverse schools of complexity thinking, and authors have used these ideas in a multiplicity of ways, from health inequalities to the organization of large scale firms. Some understand complexity as emergence from the rule-based interactions of simple agents and explore it through agent-based modelling. Others argue against such 'restricted complexity' and for the development of case-based narratives deploying a much wider set of approaches and techniques. Major social theorists have been reinterpreted through a complexity lens and the whole methodological programme of the social sciences has been recast in complexity terms. In four parts, this book seeks to establish 'the state of the art' of complexity-informed social science as it stands now, examining: the key issues in complexity theory the implications of complexity theory for social theory the methodology and methods of complexity theory complexity within disciplines and fields. It also points ways forward towards a complexity-informed social science for the twenty-first century, investigating the argument for a post-disciplinary, 'open' social science. Byrne and Callaghan consider how this might be developed as a programme of teaching and research within social science. This book will be particularly relevant for, and interesting to, students and scholars of social research methods, social theory, business and organization studies, health, education, urban studies and development studies.