IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/srbeha/v36y2019i3p308-321.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The social, the ecological, and the adaptive. Von Bertalanffy's general systems theory and the adaptive governance of social‐ecological systems

Author

Listed:
  • Kristof Van Assche
  • Gert Verschraegen
  • Vladislav Valentinov
  • Monica Gruezmacher

Abstract

Based on biological insights, Ludwig von Bertalanffy coined general systems theory (GST) and later expanded his perspective, exploring what GST could mean for other disciplines and other types of systems. We make a case for the relevance, or rather, the importance, of GST for coming to a new understanding of the resilience of social‐ecological systems and the possible forms of adaptive governance that might increase such resilience. After analyzing the conceptual structure of the resilience paradigm and of GST, we identify concepts in resilience thinking where GST provides new confirmation or modifies the perspective: complexity, evolution, self‐organization, and adaptation. We discuss post‐Bertalanffy developments in the interdisciplinary and twinned fields of systems theory and complexity studies that can provide bridging concepts between GST and resilience thinking. In conclusion, we emphasize the need for both cognitive and institutional resilience to foster adaptive governance. We highlight the management of couplings between systems and the switching between forms of understanding and forms of organization, where self‐organization and more centralized forms of steering can alternate and combine.

Suggested Citation

  • Kristof Van Assche & Gert Verschraegen & Vladislav Valentinov & Monica Gruezmacher, 2019. "The social, the ecological, and the adaptive. Von Bertalanffy's general systems theory and the adaptive governance of social‐ecological systems," Systems Research and Behavioral Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 36(3), pages 308-321, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:srbeha:v:36:y:2019:i:3:p:308-321
    DOI: 10.1002/sres.2587
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1002/sres.2587
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1002/sres.2587?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Kristof Van Assche & Martijn Duineveld & Monica Gruezmacher & Raoul Beunen, 2021. "Steering as Path Creation: Leadership and the Art of Managing Dependencies and Reality Effects," Politics and Governance, Cogitatio Press, vol. 9(2), pages 369-380.
    2. Shengzhu Li & Fan Jiang, 2022. "A collaborative evolutionary model: the self-organizing evolutionary process of urban–rural digital sharing system of social public resources," Journal of Economic Interaction and Coordination, Springer;Society for Economic Science with Heterogeneous Interacting Agents, vol. 17(4), pages 1115-1137, October.
    3. Carlo Rega & Alessandro Bonifazi, 2020. "The Rise of Resilience in Spatial Planning: A Journey through Disciplinary Boundaries and Contested Practices," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(18), pages 1-18, September.
    4. Mykolas Simas Poškus & Lina Jovarauskaitė & Audra Balundė, 2021. "A Systematic Review of Drivers of Sustainable Wastewater Treatment Technology Adoption," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(15), pages 1-11, July.
    5. Roel During & Kristof Van Assche & Rosalie Van Dam, 2022. "Relating Social and Ecological Resilience: Dutch Citizen’s Initiatives for Biodiversity," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(7), pages 1-20, March.
    6. Prateep Kumar Nayak & Fikret Berkes, 2022. "Evolutionary Perspectives on the Commons: A Model of Commonisation and Decommonisation," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(7), pages 1-15, April.
    7. van Assche, Kristof & Valentinov, Vladislav & Verschraegen, Gert, 2022. "Adaptive governance: Learning from what organizations do and managing the role they play," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 51(5), pages 1738-1758.
    8. Francesco Tramonti & Franco Giorgi & Annibale Fanali, 2021. "Systems thinking and the biopsychosocial approach: A multilevel framework for patient‐centred care," Systems Research and Behavioral Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 38(2), pages 215-230, March.
    9. Pang, Dezhi & Jin, Xin & Zheng, Kengcheng & Tien, Nguyen Hoang, 2024. "A road toward green growth: Optimizing the role of mineral resources, fintech innovation and effective governance in G-20 economies," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 92(C).

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:srbeha:v:36:y:2019:i:3:p:308-321. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley-Blackwell Digital Licensing or Christopher F. Baum (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1111/1092-7026 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.