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The Policy Sciences: The Challenge of Complexity
Author(s) -
Hendrick Rebecca M.,
Nachmias David
Publication year - 1992
Publication title -
review of policy research
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.832
H-Index - 45
eISSN - 1541-1338
pISSN - 1541-132X
DOI - 10.1111/j.1541-1338.1992.tb00475.x
Subject(s) - positivism , criticism , epistemology , context (archaeology) , subject matter , subject (documents) , sociology , social complexity , positive economics , social science , political science , computer science , philosophy , economics , biology , law , paleontology , pedagogy , library science , curriculum
This essay reviews some of the recent criticisms of positivist science. It interprets this criticism, more generally, as directed towards the complexity of social science phenomena and the difficulty of dealing with complexity epistemologically and methodologically. Rather than ignoring complexity, changing the subject matter or explaining it away, we argue that complexity may be acknowledged and studied systematically withn the context of post‐positivist approaches. The essay than proposes several strategies for conceptualizing and researching complexity (at a “meta‐level” from substantive policy research) that are based in systems theory.