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System analysis, system inquiry, or systems theory is the study of the interdependence of relationships. A system is composed of regularly interacting or interrelating parts that, when taken together, form a new whole with properties distinct from its constituent parts. Systems are seen to be structurally divisible but functionally indivisible wholes with emergent properties. Central to system analysis is the recognition that the structure of any system—the many interlocking, sometimes time-delayed, sometimes circular interrelationships among its components—is often just as important, if not more important, than the individual components themselves in determining the system’s behavior.
Systems are characterized by complexity, a set of boundaries, and the ability to regenerate. Complexity refers to a large number of densely connected parts and multiple levels of embeddedness and entanglement. A system is defined by a set of parametric conditions or boundaries that delimit it or set it apart from its environment. No system can be completely closed or else we could not perceive it; there are only varying degrees of closure set by boundaries. A system regenerates itself through the self-reproduction of its own elements and of the network of interactions that characterize them in a process known as autopoiesis. Thus an autopoietic system renews, repairs, and replicates or reproduces itself in a flow of matter and energy.
Systems can change through an evolutionary process with a tendency toward greater structural complexity and organizational simplicity, more efficient modes of operation, and greater dynamic harmony. Change is enacted through a process of feedback where information concerning the adequacy of the system, its operation, and its outputs are introduced into the system. Negative feedback signals that there is a discrepancy between what the system produces and what it should produce. It tells us that we should change something in the system so that we can reduce the deviation from the norms stated in the system’s output model. Positive feedback signals that the whole system should change, that we should increase the deviation from the present state and change the output model. Functionalism is based on this adaptation. To survive or maintain equilibrium with respect to its environment, any system must to some degree adapt to that environment, attain its goals, integrate its components, and maintain its latent pattern, a cultural template of some sort.
A system can be ordered as a hierarchy or a heterarchy. A hierarchy is a vertical arrangement of entities within systems and their subsystems. A heterarchy is an ordering of entities without a single peak or leading element, and which element is dominant at a given time depends on the total situation. Systems may be understood through holism, where attention is focused on the emergent properties of the whole rather than on the behavior of the isolated parts, or reductionism, where phenomena are understood by breaking them down into their smallest possible parts.
Several fields utilize system analysis. Cybernetics, chaos theory, and social dynamics, for example, are among the disciplines that apply system analysis. Some areas of education and environmental sustainability also utilize system analysis. The systems framework is also fundamental to organizational theory, as organizations are complex, dynamic, goal-oriented processes; in anthropological studies, notably those incorporating positive and negative feedback; and in cybernetics, catastrophe theory, chaos theory, and complexity theory, all of which have the common goal of explaining complex systems that consist of a large number of mutually interacting and interrelated parts. In biology the living systems theory of James Grier Miller is a general theory about how all living systems work, maintain themselves, develop, and change. Living systems can be as simple as a single cell or as complex as a supranational organization such as the European Union. In sociology the structural functionalism of Talcott Parsons argues that the largest system is “the action system” consisting of interrelated behaviors of individuals, embedded in a physical-organic environment with others, with each part in a social system arranged in a pattern of interpenetrating relationships influenced by a socializing culture that constitutes standards and channels for guiding actions. Societies (which are highly complex), like systems and organisms, have functional needs that must be met if the society is to survive. Parsons says that all societies have four basic needs: adaptation, goal attainment, integration, and pattern maintenance (i.e., inertia, latency, or self-maintenance).
The deterministic or restrictive nature of systems is addressed by aspects of structuralism. Structuralism rejects the concept of human freedom and choice and focuses instead on the way human behavior is determined by various structures. Thomas Kuhn, for example, notes how scientists operate under a standard praxis of “normal science,” deviating from a standard “paradigm” only in instances of irreconcilable anomalies. In political science the structural realism of Kenneth Waltz describes international politics as a systemic interaction of states within an anarchical environment. States first seek survival and are socialized by an anarchical environment to act and react based on threats to survival and to form self-help alliances with like units. The system effects described by Robert Jervis notes how political relations among states in a system, similar to biological interactions among cells and other scientific phenomena, can produce effects different from the sum of individual actions.
Bibliography:
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- Bateson, Gregory. 1979. Mind and Nature: A Necessary Unity. New York: Dutton.
- Bausch, Kenneth C. 2001. The Emerging Consensus in Social Systems Theory. New York: Kluwer Academic/Plenum.
- Bertalanffy, Ludwig von. 1968. General System Theory: Foundations, Development, Applications. New York: George Braziller.
- Churchman, C. West. 1968. The Systems Approach. New York: Delacorte.
- International Society for System Sciences (ISSS). http://www.isss.org/
- Jantsch, Erich. 1980. The Self-Organizing Universe: Scientific and Human Implications of the Emerging Paradigm of Evolution. New York: Pergamon.
- Jervis, Robert. 1997. System Effects: Complexity in Political and Social Life. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
- Kahn, Herman. 1956. Techniques of System Analysis. Santa Monica, CA: Rand Corporation.
- Kuhn, Thomas. 1996. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. 3rd ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
- Miller, James Grier. 1978. Living Systems. New York: McGraw-Hill.
- Parsons, Talcott. [1937] 1967. The Structure of Action. New York: Free Press.
- Parsons, Talcott. 1977. Social Systems and the Evolution of Action Theory. New York: Free Press.
- Parsons, Talcott, and Neal J. Smelser. 1956. Economy and Society. Glencoe, IL: Free Press.
- System Dynamics Society. http://www.systemdynamics.org/
- Waltz, Kenneth. 1979. Theory of International Politics. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.
- Weinberg, Gerald M. 1975. An Introduction to General Systems Thinking. New York: Wiley-Interscience.
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