Policy Sciences 25: 355-380, 1992. �9 1992 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.

Modernist and postmodernist metaphors of the policy process: Control and stability vs. chaos and reflexive understanding*

LAURENT DOBUZINSKIS Department of Political Science, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, B.C., Canada VSA 1S6

Abstract. The complexity of the policy process is such that analysts often resort to metaphori- cal representations of its most salient aspects. Sometimes these metaphors are used deliberately but, in most cases, they are implicitly built into their theoretical frameworks. This article argues that commonly used metaphors based on the paradigmatic notion of 'control' have ceased to be relevant to the analysis of contemporary policy dilemmas. Two new conceptions of the policy process have emerged from the new sciences of complexity. Both chaos theory and models based on the concept of ,organizational closure' clearly reveal the self-organizing logic inherent in the problems confronting managers and policy-makers today. The main focus here is on examining the rationales for, and the potentials of, metaphors derived from these paradigmatic innovations - innovations which can be situated within an emerging postmodern culture insofar as they emphasize indeterminacy and the role played by social actors in constructing the social situations in which they find themselves. It is also argued, however, that within very specific con- texts the notion of control may still be valid.

Neither policy analysts, nor social theorists, nor ordinary mortals can avoid using metaphors - sometimes called 'models' - when talking about public affairs. Metaphors are more than superficial analogies used merely for stylistic purposes; they serve to transfer certain relationships from one level to another where such relationships rev.eal logical connections that had remained un- noticed (Black, 1979). This intrusion of rhetoric in the policy sciences is some- times viewed as an unfortunate obstacle to the articulation of a truly 'scientific' language. But, as it is becoming more widely recognized, rhetoric and policy analysis are inseparable (Majone, 1989; Throgmorton, 1991).

This being granted, two problems arise: First, how do we know the metaphors we are using are adequate. Second, how do we guard against the risk of confusing images of an elusive reality with that reality itself; in other words, how can we avoid what A. N. Whitehead called 'the fallacy of mis- placed concreteness?' This paper examines the development and relevance of metaphorical construction in systems-theoretic approaches to policy analysis and draws several inferences from this particular case for the use of metaphors in the policy sciences as a whole.

During the last two to three decades, systems theory and cybernetics have proven to be a fertile source o f ideas for the many disciplines that are consti- tutive of the policy sciences, e.g., organization theory and information management, institutional design, strategic planning, budgeting and policy

* The author wishes to thank Michael Howlett for his helpful comments on an earlier draft.

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evaluation. More theoretical but still policy-relevant fields of inquiry, in- cluding public administration, political science and sociology, have also been influenced by cybernetics and systems theory in varying degrees. But over the years, as the theoretical questions addressed by systems theorists changed, the metaphors they have crafted have become more diverse and more difficult to reconcile) (Not all systems theorists would be content to describe their models simply as metaphors, 2 but one can assume that they must at least be metaphors in the strong sense defined above.)

In fact, we have reached the point now where fundamental divergences exist. To put it succinctly, there are two conflicting systems-theoretic visions, although they are not always recognized as such. On the one hand, there are models that emphasize stability, control, and/or homeostasis, in the context of a deterministic universe. In other words, an assortment of concepts expres- sing the typically modern 3 idea that knowledge is power - the power to impose a preconceived (i.e., 'rational') order on nature and society. On the other hand, there are models that emphasize evolutionary dynamics, chaotic fluctuation, autonomy and spontaneous adjustments in the context of a more or less explicitly non-deterministic universe, itself made up of culturally and individually constructed worlds. While the elements of the former, top-down, approaches are well known to policy scientists, the more open-ended aspects of the latter have only begun to receive more attention. 4

This paradigmatic shift signals a move away from technocratic certainties and a recognition that societal actors at every level have important insights to contribute to the policy process. The new metaphors are postmodern at least in the sense that they point to the paradoxical, i.e., 'tangled' or 'nested" character of the hierarchical relationships that develop between policy analysts and policy-makers, on the one hand, and a multitude of social agents or groups, on the other. Postmodernism turns radical or Cartesian doubt back upon itself, 5 insisting that reason itself is dependent on the very processes which it is supposed to judge, such as social practices and linguistic conven- tions. To illustrate this circularity, it would seem that state elites often end up claiming expertise in relation to the very same policy areas and societal prob- lems that new social movements (e.g., environmentalism) seek to define in reaction against the traditional discourse of power. Thus the new dynamics of agenda-setting politics is typically unstable and unpredictable. We need new concepts to make sense of it.

Systems-theoretic models, of course, are not the only kind of metaphor used by policy analysts. There are two reasons why this paper focuses primarily on these models and not on others. The first is that these models have had a particularly forceful impact on policy analysis, even if their impact on the social sciences in general has been more limited. Indeed, the literature on systems analysis, rational planning and control management is too exten- sive to be comprehensively surveyed here. The second reason is that a com- parison between first and second generation systems-theoretic models leads one to address problems that resonate in interesting ways with the questions

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posed, and the divergent answers suggested, by several other approaches, e.g., market-oriented models in the 'Austrian' tradition, hermeneutical methods, Habermasian critical theory, and even deconstructionism. It is almost as if most contemporary methodological debates and reflections were concerned with different aspects of the same probl~matiq~te: What are the promises and pitfalls attendant to the abandonment of positivist certainties and the new post-positivist preoccupation with the social construction of public manage- ment and policy problems? 6

The first section briefly sketches out systems models built upon the notions of corrective feedback, control, and rational planning. The second Section examines alternative methodologies that view homeostatic strategies as being dysfunctional in complex open systems capable of restructuring their opera- tions. The third section deals with the emergence of a more radical critique of earlier cybernetic models and the articulation of a new systems metaphor in which control is an altogether dispensable concept. In the final section, the question of whether there are merits in retaining some elements of the first metaphor is discussed: How far can we, and should we, venture beyond the horizon set by models emphasizing control and rational planning?

Control: A contestable metaphor

The term 'control' conveys many different ideas and images. The connotation I attach to this term here is the notion of guidance or steering for the purpose of achieving intended conditions or reaching a desired goal. A more technical definition would consist in equating control with operations that maintain specific parameters (e.g., temperature, altitude, etc.) at a pre-set value, or optimize these parameters under a given set of constraints. Cybernetics, which was defined in 1948 by Norbert Wiener as 'the science of communica- tion and control in the animal and the machine" demonstrates that purpose- fulness can be accounted for by formal models in which corrective feedback loops have been built. Controls, then, are hierarchically structured informa- tion processing operations which result in corrective action undertaken for the purpose of reducing the perceived disparity between actual and desired performance. In the words of Miller, Galanter and Pribram, ~ct ion is ini- tiated by an "incongruity" between the state of the organism and the state that is being tested for, and the action persists until the incongruity (i.e., the prox- imal stimulus) is removed' (1960: p. 26). Therefore, control subsystems in- clude mechanisms for obtaining information (i.e., sensors), for comparing it to pre-set norms (i.e., comparators), and for effecting the required adjustments (i.e., effectors).

In order to remove any ambiguity, a semantic obstacle must be cleared away. Control and 'regulation' are often used interchangeably in the literature on public policy. For example, most authors (and the media) write indifferent- ly about price controls, rent controls or pollution controls, on the one hand,

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and about economic regulation or environmental regulation, on file other hand. 'Regulation" as in these examples, refers perhaps to controls that are broader in scope, but that is not a very clear-cut distinction. By contrast, from the standpoint of engineering, there exists a significant difference between 'control' and 'regulation" The former refers to the operations of an identi- fiable controlling device which is not part of the structure it controls (e.g., a thermostat monitoring the temperature of a gas or fluid). The latter, often described as 'dynamic regulation" applies to a range of interactions internal to a system and by means of which that systems manages to reach certain goal states. This is vaguely analogous to the concept of diffused 'social control' found in the sociological literature. In this section, ! am concerned only with metaphors based upon the concept of control in the engineering sense.

Approximately from the late 1950s to the early 1970s, cybernetic models in terms of information flows, negative feedback loops and controls were applied frequently to a broad range of problems in a variety of disciplines. At the most elementary level of analysis, models of complex organizations (e.g., large corporations, government agencies, international organizations) have been worked out on the general assumption that the art of management is above all a capacity to handle information effectively. The very first models were derived from a technique known as Operations Research (Churchman et al., 1957). In a more metaphorical and less mechanistic vein, Stafford Beer wrote a series of seminal books on this topic (1959, 1966, 1981; see also Clemson, 1984). Many other authors have applied systems-theoretic and cybernetic concepts to organization theory, using either 'soft" that is more self-consciously metaphorical (e.g., Checkland, 1981), or 'hard" i.e., more positivistic, approaches (e.g., Churchman, 1968; Cleland and King, 1968); Coyle, 1978; Forrester, 1961, 1968; Singleton, 1974; Wilson, 1990). Typically (especially in the 'harder' versions), an organization is desribed as a system under the control of a decision center that defines strategies and targets; searches for optimal means of reaching them by evaluating the available options on file basis of rigorous scientific analyses; and initiates corrective actions when necessary.

From systems management, these ideas spread to public policy. Sectoral planning became a fashionable concept for a short while as the Planning Pro- gramming and Budgeting System was implemented, first in the U.S. Department of Defense, and then in many jurisdiction throughout the world. Here again one can discern the model of a controller, usually identified as being a 'decision-maker' or a 'policy-maker" planning a policy course on the basis of sophisticated analyses of the cost-effectiveness ratio attached to various options (e.g., Quade and Boucher, 1969; Hovey, 1968; De Greene, 1973). Building on these experiments as well as on the success of Keynesian macro-economic management, the conception of a 'rational' approach to policy formulation (e.g., Quade, 1982) seemed for a while on the way to dis- place the 'incremental' approach defended, for example, by Lindblom. Without fear of being contradicted, Amitai Etzioni could write in 1968 that

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'Western nations have gained confidence in their capacity to control societal processes with the wide use of Keynesian and other controls for preventing wild inflations and deep depressions and for spurring economic growth' (1968: p. 10).

The social and intellectual context within which these ideas gained ground was marked by the realization that industrialized nations were experiencing what Donal Sch6n has called 'the loss of the stable state' (1971: pp. 9-30). In- creasing societal complexity and accelerating technological change are trends that are impossible to ignore. The hope that sophisticated analytical and managerial techniques could be instrumental in bringing back a measure of stability played a part in the generalized acceptance of control theory and of its applications. It is indeed difficult to think of other explanations for state- ments such as: 'the problems of hierarchical organizations are of universal and fundamental significance, and ... we must learn much more about their origin and evolution if we are to claim any ability to rationally control the complexi- ties of survival which we now face' (Pattee, 1973: pp. xi-xii); or '[the systems approach is] an intellectual discipline for mobilizing science and technology to attack complex.., problems in an objective, logical, complete and thor- oughly professional way' (Ramo, 1969; pp. v-vi). Significantly, Ramo went as far as claiming that the systems approach was no less than 'a cure for chaos' (1969: p. x).

The models and approaches to which I have just alluded are markedly less popular today, but the overall system of beliefs and attitudes from which they originated still permeate social and political institutions (Hawkesworth, 1988: pp. 14-20). Cybernetic metaphors and the ideal of finding scientific solutions to social problems have turned into cliches, yet they continue to underlie the thinking of many 'experts' and managers in public or private organizations. Most elected officials and the public at large, on the other hand, have become considerably more sceptical. The basic tenet of this enduring positivistic and technocratic outlook is a conviction that

just as the natural sciences have provided men with a certain kind of knowledge by which they can control their natural environment, thereby making it more hospitable and productive, so also the knowledge gained from social science will enable men to control their social environment, thereby making it more harmonious and congruent with the needs and wants of its members (Fay, 1976: p. 19, cited in Healy, 1986: p. 383). 7

Of course, the notion that centralist planning is a progressive trend was never shared by the entire community of political economists and policy observers (for a critique of planning, see Hayek, 1944, 1982; Wildavsky, 1973). During the last 10 to 15 years, however, the critical attacks have become more sys- tematic and insistent. A loud chorus of disparate voices can be heard raging against the excesses of the administrative state, the ineptitude of 'experts; and the pretenses of the social sciences. But these voices speak in several tongues.

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Some preach in the language of ideology Others use a more epistemological or methodological discourse.

On the ideological front, a resounding backlash against the administrative state occurred during the 1980s in many countries, after years of steady growth in the size and functiions of the public sector. Deregulation, contract- ing out and privatization have been the buzz words of the last few years throughout the industrialized word (not to mention, of course, the even more dramatic transformations taking place in much of what used to be the Com- munistic bloc). The so-called Reagan revolution best illustrates this phenom- enon. It was orchestrated by a multitude of think tanks, many of which were new on the scene, and given credibility by a bevy of inventive and entrepre- neurial economists who successfully popularized at least one of the tenets of public choice theory, namely, that the state cannot be disinterested and effi- cient regulator (i.e., 'controller' in terms of the cybernetic metaphor). Accord- ing to the new public wisdom, government officials are essentially motivated by the prospect of achieving private gains and enter for that purpose into various arrangements with special interest groups pursuing narrow objectives at the expense of the public at large. Consequently, market-oriented policy options are preferable to existing or contemplated statecontrols. Whether the actual changes that resulted from all that sound and fury were substantial and really deserve to be regarded as a revolution is a moot point. 8 All the same, it is clear that the image of the reformist state as a benevolent agent of social change, working in more or less close cooperation with technocratic business elites, has been severely tarnished.

Conceptual, me[hodological and epistemological shifts have taken place in many disciplines, and not just in political economy where, evidently, public choice theory has had a considerable impact in recent years. The interdisci- plinary search (both within and without the systems-theoretic tradition)for alternatives to the hierarchical control model has been motivated by two dis- tinct criticisms of its shortcomings. Some critiques are aimed primarily at the insufficiently examined relationship between control and social or political power. Other analyses are more concerned with the inadequacy of the knowl- edge base which planners are supposed to have access to, and, more general- ly, with the indeterminacy and paradoxical nature of societal interactions.

�9 Several authors have pursued these two lines of attack simultaneously In a controlled system, the effectors blindly carry out the commands they

receive from the controller. However, in spite of Karl Deutsch's efforts to describe government agencies as self-guided missiles (1966: pp. 183, 187), the metaphor breaks down as soon as it is applied to social systems (Glan- ville, 1987). Human agents are capable of subverting the instructions they receive from their hierarchical superiors (Dobuzinskis, 1987: pp. 39-45). The critique of the comman~d-and-control approach to policy-making has been expressed in ways that reflect different ideological understandings of power relations in society On the political 'right; advocates of market-oriented policy approaches (among whom most public choice theorists can be found)

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have attacked societal planning and government management of the economy because of (what they perceive as) the inherently coercive nature of such projects. 9 On the 'left, critics who are close to Critical Theory or Foucault argue that the proper alternative to the elitist command-and-control model should take the form of a more participatory democracy (Dryzek, 1989; Pal, 1990; Torgerson, 1986; Jackson, 1991). 1~

Turning now to the critique of the scientific status of the policy sciences, it is not difficult to glean a rich harvest of commentaries on the failure of these disciplines to secure a solid and 'objective' basis for themselves. These criti- cisms echo the broader postmodernist challenge to the Cartesian universalist paradigm. The assault against objectivism in policy analysis has been directed against three targets: the facts/values dichotomy; the insufficient attention paid to the uncertainty surrounding, and multi-dimensionality of, policy issues; and the cognitive limitations of individual analysts.

The fallacy involved in the idea that the factual and normative aspects of policy questions can be neatly separated is now acknowledged by most theorists and even by a growing number of practitioners. Whether this aware- ness and a willingness to make one's value commitments more explicit is suffi- cient to extirpate the analyst from the contradictions of positivism is open to question - such grudging moves are probably better interpreted as attempts to replace naive positivism by a more sophisticated neo-positivism (Hawkes- worth, 1988: pp. 57-67).

Even more disastrous for the control model of policy-making is the obser- vation that if societal reality can be easily apprehended by policy analysts and fitted into deterministic schemata, there is no need for planning or control: social dynamics will simply follow its natural course. Inversely, if societal realities are complex, ambiguous and multi-dimensional, then planning or

control become futile exercises (Masuch, 1986). Having recognized this problem, several authors have noted, and in some cases contributed to, a trend toward interpretive strategies - strategies that obviously would no longer lend credence to technocratic practices (Feldman, 1989; Forrester, 1989; Jennings, 1983, 1987; Kelly, 1986, 1988, Gregware and Kelly, 1990; Healy, 1986). As for the practitioners, they have not always fully endorsed this trend. Some concede, however, that their expertise is a kind of 'knowing- in-practice' (Sch6n, 1983: p. viii) rather than the mastery of an objective science. And even if they did not acknowledge it - indeed many resist it because such an admission directly threatens their professional prestige - the informed public seems to have realized more fully now the extent to which the thinking of experts is 'impaired; to use Lindblom's term (1990), by all sorts of biases.

In brief, the control model is now largely discredited. Thus one might be tempted to ask: Why flog a dead horse? But it is not quite dead yet. The problem is that we still lack metaphors that could provide coherence to the discourses of public choice theorist sceptical of government intervention; of critical theorists sensitive to the excessive weight of hierarchies and bureau-

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cracies; and of postmodernist theorists fascinated with the collapse of all and every credible epistemological foundations upon which the scholarly policy sciences, or analyses carried out routinely in government departments, think tanks, and institutionalized pressure groups, could be grounded. ('Coherence' here is not meant to imply a leveling of all differences but a clearer under- standing of what these differences are about, and of how they can be addressed in a meaningful way by all parties in the debate.) In the following sections, I attempt to evaluate concepts and images drawn from recent scien- tific theories in terms of their potential contribution to the articulation of research designs that might facilitate communications among these disparate schools of thought, and perhaps even beyond the confines contrived by the latter.

The new science of chaos and the paradoxes of order 'far from equilibrium'

Exclusive preoccupation with negative (i.e~, corrective) feedback and the restoration of steady state conditions has often prevented analysts from looking beyond short term variations in the performance of a predetermined task. The paradox is that, in the long run, everything else in a system has to change - in ways that are not always anticipated or necessarily benign - if some aspect of it must by all means be maintained constant; e.g., in the deteriorating physiology of the drug addict, the only thing that remains con- stant over time is the Continuous absorption of toxic substances (Dell, 1982: p. 28). It is becomingincreasingly difficult to retain such a limiting perspective when dealing with complex social systems. There is a nascent consensus that irreversible changes are occurring at an accelerating pace in the socio- economic and political structures we have inherited from the post-war era, as well as in our relationship with the biosphere. At the very least, simulation models and other less formal representations of complex policy problems should pay equal attention to positive (i.e., deviation amplifying) feedback loops as they do to negative feedback loops (Maruyama, 1968). But policy analysts in search of novel ways of attacking this puzzling combination of forces pulling a system in several directions at once can also look toward more radical and original metaphors upon which to base their analyses.

Ilya Prigogine's thermodynamics of open systems in 'far from equilibrium conditions' (also called 'dissipative structures'), the mathematics of non-linear dynamic systems, and parallel researches into the logic of chaotic phenomena in a variety of domains, e.g., from weather patterns to the stock market, are all parts of a new paradigm in which empirical, mathematical, epistemological and metaphorical concepts are combined in intriguing ways. H These theoreti- cal innovations have enabled researchers to study problems that until recently had been largely ignored or simplified beyond recognition because they in- volve fuzzy definitions, complex and unpredictable relationships, and random variations. While a detailed analysis of the content of these theories would

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take us too far away from our topic, three essential characteristics need to be underlined. First, these models are concerned with phenomema that are high- ly dependent on intitial conditions. Very slight changes in these initial condi- tions produce completely different systems over time. In other words, there is no such thing as a ceteris paribus or context-independent situation. Second, these phenomena are dynamic. Equilibrium situations are only temporary, and are subject to destabilizing fluctuations. While the occurrence of these fluctuation or 'catastrophes' can be predicted - hence the phrase 'determinis- tic chaos' - their outcome is not knowable a priori. What can be said, how- ever, is that in moving away from the equilibrium point, a system reaches some 'bifurcations' along an evolutionary pathway. Often, these crucial transi- tions result in the emergence of new and more adaptive structures. As one of the pioneers of the thermodynamics of open systems puts it, 'non-equilibrium systems achieve some kind of autonomy and freedom which means that they become "creative," generating structure and complexity. The price we pay for this, however, is a loss of "predictability"' (Allen, 1988: p. 102). Finally, these phenomena are characterized by their irreversibility. In contrast to the (New- tonian) control paradigm, the new paradigm is concerned with transforma- tions that cannot be reversed.

The implications of this paradigmatic vision for the modeling of social problems in general, and for policy analysis in particular, are very challenging. The attention paid to unique initial conditions and to the 'non-average' char- acteristics of complex systems should serve to remind analysts that individ- uals and extraordinary events almost always influence the outcome of a policy (Kiel, 1991: p. 436). Admittedly, this is not a new insight. Michel Crozier and Erhard Friedberg, for example, have persuasively argued that organizational change should not be analyzed separately from the opportunistic strategies pursued by individual actors (1980). What the metaphor of order from chaotic disorder provides is a technique for studying these interactions as a well defined problem.

The indeterminacy of social systems is a matter of almost daily experience. Professional forecasts often turn out to be wrong because they extrapolate trends that are continually shifting or, in the vocabulary of the Prigoginean model, 'bifurcating.' In particular, when groups that have suffered from various forms of exclusion for a long time finally succeed in moving closer to power centers, sudden reversals of long established policies or new depar- tures can be observed. The civil rights movement of the early 1960s in the United States or the sudden move after 1989 of native rights to the top of the agenda of constitutional reform in Canada la come to mind in this respect. Even in the absence of such upheavals, it is becoming more and more evident that 'interdependence implies that whatever policies are adopted, both posi- tive and negative externalities are likely to occur' (Brewer, 1975: p. 207), and this can only add to the complexity and fluidity of policy-making in the post- industrial age. So much so that, as Donald Sch6n has noted, '[i]t has become commonplace for managers to speak of the "turbulent" environments in

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which problems do not lend themselves to the techniques of benefit-cost analysis or to probabilistic reasoning' (Schrn, 1983: p. 239).

Perhaps the most profound insight that policy analysts can gain from the study of non-equilibrium systems is that social dynamics is no more (and probably even less) reversible than thermodynamics. A planner's time runs backward, in a sense, from rationally determined objectives back to the present, as if the social fabric could be folded and unfolded effortlessly. But just as entropy moves in only one directionl historical processes follow a one- way path that generally deviates from the pre-determined end-states for which planners aim. 13

Explicit applications of chaos theory to policy analysis are still relatively uncommon. One reason might be that most social scientists and policy analysts are more familiar with linear than with non-linear models. But this limitatioin is already being overcome in a number of fields. Urban geography provided a fertile ground for the first experiments with this approach (Kid, 1991: p. 434; Allen, 1981, 1982; Dyke, 1989: ch. 9). In more recent years, a broader range of problems has been addressed, from the management of fisheries (Allen and McGlade, 1986) to financial markets and business cycles (Brock, 1988) to the modeling of the global economy (Holland, 1988), and so o n ] 4 Economists seem to have taken the lead in this respect; some of them are already engaged in the process of developing and testing their own gen- eralized theories of chaotic economic processes (e.g., Baumol and Benhabib, 1989; Mirowski, 1990; Brock and Baek, 1991).

While it would be difficult - indeed probably impossible - to tag an ideo- logical label on these innovative technical developments, some libertarian economists have given them an interesting ideological 'spin,' It is certainly tempting to draw parallels between the metaphors of order from chaotic fluc- tuations and dynamic self-organization, on the one hand, and 'Austrian economics,' on the other hand. James Buchanan and Viktor Vanberg, for example, have found in chaos theory a valuable source of arguments in sup- port of laissez-faire (1991). The neo-classical critique of socialist planning and control can only suggest that these interventionist practices will result in dysfunctional allocations of resources. Friedrich Hayek and Israel Kirzner, however, have argued that the effects of these practices will be even more devastating because the market is not only an allocative process, but also an irreplaceable creative process. According to Buchanan and Vanberg, a description of market mechanisms as instances of self-organizing dissipative structures, which is indeed not an inadequate metaphor, 15 adds considerable strength to this (typically 'Austrian') argument. In a similar vein, Don Lavoie sees in the 'new science' the promise of a new synthesis of the humanistic and scientific traditions. Human emancipation (which Lavoie interprets in terms of the emancipation from Big Government) and structural constraints are reconciled in the idea of spontaneously self-organizing order in nature and in socio-economic realm (1989). Other interpretations, however, are plausible. Some authors discern a potential for more intelligent planning in the concept

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of bifurcation: instead of attempting in vain to steer societal relationships on a more or less continuous basis, policy-makers could - and should - limit their interventions to those situations where a radical break in existing patterns is on the verge of happening in order to avoid the least desirable scenarios, i.e., a sudden regression to a less adaptive or sustainable systemic state (e.g., Laszlo, 1987: chs. 7, 9).

There are two ways of revealing, and acting upon, the limitations inherent in any given paradigmatic perspective. One is to build an antithetical perspec- tive; the other is to move beyond the horizon set by the problem which is common to both the original paradigm and its alternative. The models dis- cussed above are example of the first strategy: in reaction to the notions of stability, equilibrium and control, they emphasize disequilibrium and spon- taneous self-organization. The models to which I now turn reflect a different interpretation of the control paradigm: they treat it as irrelevant.

Autonomy and reflexive understanding

Having argued previously that cybernetics does not yield an adequate image of social institutions and structures, it may seem incongruous to return now to this paradigm. Critics could argue that it is not the place in which to search for alternatives to the lingering positivism and technocratic biases inherent in much of contemporary policy analysis. But 'second order' cybernetics, also known as 'the cybernetics of cybernetics,' has progressed far away from early preoccupations with feedback controlled devices. In fact, it proposes a radi- cally different array of concepts for analyzing the production, reproduction and evolution of living and social systems. Self-reference occupies a central place in this new conceptual arsenal.

As in the case of the familiar visual experiment in which the background suddenly moves to the foreground and vice-versa, revealing a hidden image, a Gestalt shift has to take place before one can grasp the implication of this per- spective. The question of the origin of controlling hierarchical mechanisms has so far been hidden in the background, as it were. It is this question that models concerned with processes of self-production (i.e., 'autopoiesis'), autonomous development and identity formation are addressing.

We are dealing here with a class of systems whose only structural reference is to themselves. They are the product of their own productions. The con- trolling mechanisms an external observer might discern within such systems may appear to be the source of structured relationships and internal stability, but these controlling mechanisms are dependent for their existence and re- newal on the outcomes of their operations. What we encounter here is a situa- tion that can be described as 'orgafiizational (or operational) closure' (Verela, 1979). While an organizationally closed system is not isolated from the out- side world, and does in fact exchange energy inputs and outputs with its environment, it is closed in the crucial sense that its existence as a coherent unity has no origin other than the processes that define it in the first place.

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Living systems - e.g., a unicellular organism - are archetypical autopoietic systems. Provided that they have access to sources of energy (light, food, etc.), living organisms maintain their integrity, their self-referential identity as self- sustaining and self-reproducing structures in a number of ways and at differ- ent levels of complexity. First, at the most elementary level, the physiology of life is a cyclical production of a system's components by its own components. In a sense, living systems are controlled by something that is (metaphorically) called a genetic code. But the genetic program has the peculiarity that it needs its own products to be executed: 'every step of DNA maintenance and transcription is mediated by proteins, which is precisely what is encoded' (Dupuy and Varela, 1992: p. 4). Similarly, it might appear to an external observer that a living organism's cognitive functions react to information received from outside sources and that this information is fed into control centers (e.g., the nervous system). But all sense experiences are equally self- referential: the organism 'knows' nothing other than its internal states and the manner in which they are influenced and occasionally more or less severely perturbed by external forces. All perceptions are/n-formed by the organism's own attributes. The autopoietic model stands in sharp contrast with the com- puter-as-brain model of cognition. (It is closer to the reverse metaphor of the computer-as-neural-network which has received much attention lately in the Artificial Intelligence community.) From the standpoint of organizational closure, the brain does not contain representations of the external world against which incoming (pre-formed) information can be matched. Rather, the nervous system is constantly engaged in the process of preserving its own coherence.

Can the concept of autopoiesis or self-production be used to describe sys- tems other than living systems? Enthusiasm for this model must be tempered by a realization that the notion of (self-)production in a societal context is ambiguous. Francisco Varela who, together with Humberto Maturana, pioneered this approach himself warned against the premature extension of the concept of autopoiesis per se to societal systems. He advocates the use of a less specific concept at that level, namely 'autonomy' (being defined here as the consequence of organizational closure). Maturana, on the other hand, has been less intransigent in this respect. In any case, several social theorists or policy analysts have adopted this metaphor and have used it to investigate strategic planning in organizations, the centrality of communication processes in the structuring of societal order, the autonomy of law and legal institutions, and markets and economic life, among other topics (e.g., Beer, 1980; Broek- stra, 1991a, 1991b; Dupuy, 1989; Heller, 1988; Luhmann, 1990; Morgan, 1986; Teubner, 1988). While this new approach is still unknown to many policy analysts, it already has generated some measure of controversy and debate (e.g., Zolo, 1991).

Before I take a more detailed look at the implications of the autopoietic model for the policy sciences, a brief exegesis of its fundamental assumptions is in order. According to Frederick Steier, control, properly understood, is a

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property of a system in its entirety. There are no ~controlling' or ~controlled' parts in a complex, autonomous, self-organizing system. ~Cybernetically seeing (sic)" therefore, ~no things get ~controlled"' He adds: "The term "understanding" is a more modest and apt descriptor of what cyberneticians are engaged in'; but he judiciously observes that understanding should not be defined as a process bearing on something wholly external to it. He concludes that cybernetics is best characterized as ~ art and science of reflexive understanding' (Steier, 1988: p. 8).

Thus Maturana asks: if control means steering, what is it that the skipper does when he or she steers a ship? We usually think of the skipper's job at the helm as that of controlling the course of the ship. Maturana contends, how- ever, that the ~phenomenon of control exists only in the discourse of the observer as a metaphor of what the skipper does, not as a feature of how the course of the ship is constituted as the ship moves under the skipper.' A description of the situation in a manner that is more consistent with the actual experience of the skipper would stress that what the latter does is ~to make his or her understanding' of the situation - as it is constituted by himself, or her- self, and by the ship, the winds, the currents, etc. - ~part of the domain of interactions of the ship, thus making the drift of the ship contingent' to that very understanding (Maturana, 1988: p. 7).

From the standpoint of organizational closure, the cognitive functions of a self-organizing system are not specific to a controlling sub-system which sup- posedly receives unmediated information from its environment. The environ- ment does not specify changes in the system; that is, a system does not receive data from the external world which would then be matched against an optimal representation of that environment and acted upon in order to correct any perceived discrepancy. ~Information doesn't exist "out there," waiting to be picked up' (Luhmann, 1990: p. 4). The system as a whole preserves its inter- nal coherence by integrating whatever changes are caused by external influ- ences into the overall patterns it itself has established as the basis for its autonomy. Simply by being itself, but also in the process of learning from expe- rience, an autopoietic system ~brings forth a world' within which it acts as the central point of reference (Maturana and Varela, 1987: p. 26). It knows no other world. The startling conclusion one can draw from this insight is that ~a system's interaction with its "environment" is really a reflection and part of its own organization .... Its environment is ... a part of itself' (Morgan, 1986: p. 236).

Complex autonomous systems define common cognitive domains, i.e., shared constructions of their mutual worlds, by entering into manifold rela- tions with other systems. The architects of the theory of autopoiesis refer to this phenomenon as ~structural coupling' (Maturana and Varela, 1987: pp. 75-80 ,244-250) . As opportunities for structural coupling increase, we find more and more levels of reality nested within each other, including language as far as societal systems are concerned. When the linguistic dimension is introduced, the metaphor of on-going conversations branching off in unex- pected directions suggests itself as a much more appropriate characterization

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of interactions among societal actors and groups than that of information processing. It is important to stress that individual actors who constitute the nodes in these communicative networks exercise some measure of choice, and thus power, over their lives. Social reality is constructed and regenerated in the very process of its being analyzed and argued about.

A shift from a control perspective to one that posits the autonomy of social systems has significant methodological consequences for private or public sector management (including policy implementation) and policy formula- tion/development. As far as management and policy implementation are con- cerned, organizational closure reminds us that institutions create their own norms. Analysts who have realized the significance of this premise can no longer take rationality as a given. They must seek to understand the contin- gent and immanent rationalities of the organizations with which they are con- cerned.

While their members do not always realize it, 'organizations interact with projections of themselves' (Morgan, 1986: p. 241). That is, organizations con- struct images of the situations facing them which are shaped by both the societal culture within which they happen to operate, and by the subculture which is peculiar to the organization itself. Examples of these organizational cultures include the open, innovation oriented management styl e of Hewlett Packard, the quasi-military style of the Canadian Post Office, or the techno- cratic and 'can-do' style of the Army Corps of Engineers. This kind of self- centeredness is unavoidable. To the extent that it allows the organization to exist at all, it is a positive factor. But it can also be source of weakness insofar as it creates a tendency to inertia. Under those circumstances, the adoption of new managerial or strategic objectives is likely to be resisted until finally, in some kind of a quantum jump, the organization adopts a new image of itself and begins to experiment with new ways of running its affairs (Broekstra, 1991a: p. 123).

An organizationally closed, self-organizing, system is not unable to reflect upon the adequacy of its identity and the coherence of its actions over time. This is precisely why we can speak of reflexive understanding to characterize the new cybernetics' view of what earlier cybernetic models tried to express through the concept of control. But the essential difference is that the analyti- cal process, itself only an aspect of the decision-making process, now enters into the definition of the problem under study. As G. Probst puts it, 'The manager is part of the managerial system; he is introducing himself to the organizational design and control' (Probst, 1984: p. 131). When management recognizes that knowledge of the situation at hand requires, in part, a form of introspection, then the 'organization can explore possible identities and the conditions under which they can be realized' (Morgan, 1986: p. 245). Admin- istrative reorganizations often are the chosen means of renewing an agency's identity. As S. Maynard-Moody and D. Stull note in the conclusion of their study of the 1983 reorganization of the Kansas Department of Health and Environment, 'reorganizations communicate to policy implementers the

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changing status of different groups and assumptions about their work' (1987: p. 263). By bringing up to the surface these important but somewhat hidden symbolic dimensions, the organizational closure model makes it clear that policy changes are often better understood as shifts in the implementation process rather than as changes in the actual content of programs.

Policy development is another example of reflexive understanding even if it is usually described as a problem-solving exercise guided by rational consid- erations. An approach based on the premises outlined above would underline the extent to which the institutions, groups and social systems with which analysts concerned belong to a universe shaped in large measure by autonomous communication networks. This autonomy is a necessary condi- tion for the possibility of analysis in the first place, but is also the very reason why new policies are developed in order to bring about changes that reflect new interpretations of the effects of these autonomous networks over time. In other words, organizational closure points toward methodological prescrip- tions rather similar to hermeneutics. But does it contribute conceptions that were not already implicit in the interpretivist methods advocated by several policy studies scholars (e.g., Healy, 1986; Jennings, 1987)? The answer can only be tentative insofar as organizational closure is an approach that is still in its early stage of development. At the very least, organizational closure strongly suggests that the paradoxes of self-reference of the kind frequently encountered by policy analysts are not an aberration typical of insufficiently developed methods of social analysis which might finally be resolved when the policy sciences will have fulfilled their promise; they are, rather, mani- festations of a more universal cognitive strategy inherent in all systems (e.g., living systems, social systems, etc.) which establish communciation linkages among themselves. In contrast to the hermeneutical tradition which often had overemphasized the differences between the social and natural worlds, 16 organizational closure suggests that constructivism is relevant to the articula- tion of all forms of knowledge, from basic sense perception to fundamental theoretical research to social practice.

A growing number of authors now believe that policy analysis is essentially a process of interpretation, argumentation and refutation in a social context. To some extent, the interpretation of events and data by policy analysts is unconscious and reflects built-in biases (Lindblom, 1990). To some extent, it is inevitable, even deliberate: analysts take into account current policies and programs, the relative political weight of competing interests, the expectations of their hierarchical superiors and of elected officials, and/or discount infor- mation they cannot reconcile with their understanding of what is relevant to the problem at hand (Feldman, 1989). However, policy analysts often practice interpretation as Moli~re Monsieur Jourdain spoke prose without knowing it. As Martha Feldman points out, policy analysts work in an institutional con- text that limits their ability to take a critical look at their own contribution in isolation from what other actors in the system do; furthermore, they do not exercise Control over the uses to which their research are put (1989: pp. 145- 146).

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However, without risking to usurp the prerogatives of their clients of politi- cal masters, policy analysts could find in the metaphor of organizational closure a useful tool for better articulating the dilemmas experienced by policy-'makers' who sense that they are not 'in control' of situations where autonomous social subsystems are emerging or where existing ones show signs of becoming increasingly resilient to attempts at controlling 'from above" Analysts whose own preferences or those of their clients or hierarchi- cal superiors come closer to the 'progressive' pole of the ideological conti- nuum could emphasize the relationships between self-organization, interpre- tative approaches and policies aimed at empowering citizens and communi- ties through initiatives such as community-based economic development planning. Linkages of this sort have indeed been explored in the policy studies literature (Jennings, 1983; Healy, 1986; Bobrow and Dryzek, 1987; Dryzek, 1989). 17 Moreover, even governments that do not subscribe to a 'progressive' ideology are moving toward participatory democratic solutions in certain policy areas, most notably policies directed toward native groups or 'nations' (e.g., Alaska natives [Dryzek, 1989] or Canada aboriginal peoples who, in 1992, came very close to achieving constitutional recognition of their 'inherent right to self-government' and will probably make further gains in the foreseeable future).

Self-organization through organizational closure can also serve to recast traditionally conservative themes like economic laissez-faire and judicial restraint in a slightly different light, thus yielding new insights. Economic policy analysts can find in the 'Austrian' tradition of economic theorizing a rich source of ideas that could be creatively combined with the paradigm of organizational closure in ways that may speak to the imagination of policy- makers and the attentive public. (At the same time, an emphasis on the meta- phorical nature of these arguments could be instrumental in smoothing out some of the dogmatic asperities of market-oriented economic policy recom- mendations.) The benefits that could be derived from an articulation of such models would include a better understanding of the implications of the com- plexity of contemporary economic systems. The pioneering works of the late F. A. Hayek, who was keenly interested in theoretical research on self-organi- zation (Hayek, 1988: p. 9), offer interesting clues to that effect. His arguments about the obstacles standing in the way of economic planning on a com- prehensive or even on a sectoral basis are well known and need not occupy us here. The important underlying idea that analysts could use to capture the imagination of their clients or hierarchical superiors is that the economy is a complex self-organizing system that cannot be known from an outside that does not exist - it must be explored from within, as it were. Competition plays a crucial role in that respect: it is, as Hayek points out, 'a discovery procedure' (1979: pp. 67-70).

The question of the autonomy of law warrants a few more explanations. Central to Hayek's approach is the distinction between 'law" as a system of rules possessing an inherent logic, and 'legislation; i.e., 'the deliberate making

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of law' (1979: p. 72). Law is the product of social evolution; it was never 'invented.' Now 'grown law, to continue to use Hayek's terms, needs to be cor- rected periodically by legislation (1979: p. 88). However, when legislators resort extensively to social legislation to ~ichieve policy goals that bear little relationship to the evolutionary logic of the legal system itself (and of juris- prudence in particular), and is aided in that pursuit by powerful bureaucracies exercising considerable legislative power by means of regulatory instruments, a delicate balance is broken. The law's inherent coherence is destroyed. (It is not difficult to discern here an echo of the earlier debate about the flaws of the 'control' model.) Of course, this thesis which is conventionally known as legal formalism, is not shared by all legal scholars. Indeed, it has been under severe attacks, both from the 'right' by the law and economics movement, and from the 'left' by the Critical Legal Studies movement. But recently the thesis that law is best understood as an internally coherent phenomenon has re- ceived renewed attention, in particular on the part of scholars who make explicit use of the conceptual framework associated with the theory of autopoietic systems (Teubner, 1983; 1987, ed.). 18 They too see a risk in the continual invasion of the autonomous, organizationally closed domain of law by legislation.

While some of the theoretical arguments that enter into these discussions border on the esoteric and need not concern us here, they attest to the fecun- dity of the metaphor of organizational closure in dealing with the multifaceted problems faced by the interventionist welfare state in the late twentieth cen- tury. It provides a set of concepts and representations that could unify the specific concerns of analysts attempting to evaluate the merits of various governing instruments for influencing or communicating with societal struc- tures that, like ethnic or local communities, market economies, and legal sys- tems, have developed their own internal coherence.

Beyond control?

I have attempted so far to draw attention to the wide range of applications, from management and organization theory to policy analysis, and from eco- nomics to law which can be given to post-positivist metaphorical perspectives which transcend the cybernetic control model. Policy scientists should be advised, however, against jettisoning models derived from traditional inter- pretations of cybernetic principles. And this is true in spite of the serious flaws which were mentioned earlier, and in spite of the obviously superior heuristic value of the alternative metaphors. I see at least two reasons for retaining some elements of the modernist metaphor of control. The first is merely an intuition that needs to be further explored; the second is based on more rational and empirical considerations. Both have in common that they support the complementarity principle, i.e., the notion that it is not advisable to lean too heavily on any single theoretical foundation, at least with respect to complex systems.

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The intuitive reason is that the dynamic and evolutionary models alluded to above form only one component of a new synthesis in the natural sciences from which meaningful parallels with the policy sciences can be derived. The other component which social scientists and policy analysts might use as a source of equally challenging and suggestive metaphors is quantum physics (Yates, 1987; Becker, 1991). One of the building blocks of quantum physics is precisely the complementarity principle. As Sam Overman notes, 'Exclusivity is simply not a viable logic in contemporary public policy and the modern democratic state' (1991: p. 155). That is due in large measure to the inter- penetrating of values and rational considerations in policy analysis. Moreover, in highly pluralistic 'postmodern' societies, there is no firm con- sensus on most of the salient issues. Even apparently irreconcilable positions such as external controls and the spontaneous emergence of order from within complex systems must be examined as parts of a broader field of rela- tionships, just as physicists can hold on to both the particle and wave explana- tions of the nature of light. There is room for a third position that emphasizes dialogue and dualities (Braten, 1986). It is all the more necessary to think in terms of complementarities since there are, in fact, several definitions of the notion of cybernetic control (or of complex systems, for that matter ]Flood, 1990: pp. 148-155]). Although the standard version (described previously) is the best known, less mechanicist versions can also be found. In William Powers' psycho-behavioral works, for example, one can discern an echo of the idea of organizational closure: for Powers control systems control their own inputs, that is the signals they generate in response to environmental changes, but not the external variables directly. Thus, in human organisms action and perception are part of a closed control loop. Metaphorically, it is also possible to speak of communications loops in societal systems where the message and its content, the source and the destination, are interdependent (Powers, 1973, 1989; McPhail, 1991). Or, according to George Richardson (1991), the methodology of system dynamics has found answers to the limita- tions inherent in traditional cybernetic concepts.

The other reason has to do with the danger inherent in any kind of meta- phorical discourse. In order to avoid Whitehead's 'falacy of misplaced con- creteness,' analysts should be prepared to use a variety of complementary approaches. Repeated comparisons among alternative models are means of guarding oneself against the illusion that one's preferred methodological option is not only more adequate than others but is actually an accurate representation of reality itself. Even if it serves no other purpose than being a convenient, albeit uninspiring counterpoint, control theory adds to our understanding of the depth, but also of the limitations, of self-organization theory. 19 In any case, common sense suggests that some socio-economic or political contexts are more appropriately conceived in terms of self-organ- izing structures than others. We owe to Hayek an insightful distinction between 'spontaneous orders' and 'organizations' (1973: pp. 46-52). The former, which can be described in terms of the models previously discussed,

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are typically multifunctional systems that do not serve any specific purpose; the latter, by contrast, have been designed to perform designated functions and to serve specific purposes. Therefore, contrary to spontaneous orders, they can be theoretically analyzed and managed in practice by means of com- mand-and-control models. Corporations and governments are examples of functionally specific organizations. Markets and the law, as well as science and liberal democracy (DiZerega, 1989), are spontaneous orders (other examples would include a variety of social institutions, from families to ethnic communities). But this distinction should not be taken too literally. As we have seen, and as Gareth Morgan has convincingly argued (1986: pp. 233- 272), at least some types of organizations can advantageously be conceived as autopoietic systems. Considering that policy-making is like a seamless web extending from policy implementation and micro-level decision-making to policy development on a societal scale, it would be inappropriate to draw a sharp line between strictly mechanical organizations and open-ended spon- taneous orders. By the same token, it probably makes little practical sense to start from the metaphors emphasizing spontaneously self-organizing systems in dealing with law enforcement, correctional institutions and other problem situations where the use of coercive power is of central importance. Even in increasingly complex societies, there still are some policy areas where a tradi- tional control perspective is not altogether irrelevant. Ockham's razor certain- ly belongs to the policy analyst's bag of tools!

Moreover, complex, self-organizing systems sometimes produce externali- ties that public officials must attempt to control authoritatively, if for no other reason than public opinion expects immediate action, even if from a theoreti- cal standpoint more indirect, non-hierarchical, participatory or market- oriented approaches could be shown to produce better results in the long term. Industrial pollution is probably the best example in this regard. Besides, democratic, decentralized institutional alternatives to bureaucratic heavy- handedness may themselves suffer from certain types of social pathologies that need to be corrected from 'above" As David Bayley notes,

Peer pressure may be both more intense and more extensive than those of the state. Neither does a distribution of sanctioning in favor of intermediate groups automatically enhance freedom, for such groups may be as cruel, capricious and exploitative as sanctioners at any other level (Bayley, 1985: p. 91).

And just as insidious forms of social control can emerge the communities of various kinds, 'free' markets are not completely immune to coercive power relations, as Lindblom (1977) has rather convincingly argued. So, in the end, there is a limit beyond which the perspective opened up by the metaphors dis- cussed earlier cease to be illuminating. In other words, policies such as de- regulation, decentralization and community empowerment can themselves produce perverse effects. What these limits are cannot be assessed solely

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through rational analytical methodologies, however. They can be determined only through a genuinely political process. 2~

Conclusion

While the complexity of most contemporary policy issues perplexes theorists and practitioners alike, the discourse of policy analysis still fails to reflect these preoccupations adequately. Too often it conveys the image of policy- 'makers' firmly in control of their environments. But this image is becoming less and less credible.

I have suggested that recent theoretical developments in scientific disci- plines that are concerned with complex systems lend themselves to the articu- lation of powerful alternative metaphors. Such metaphors are used already by a growing number of social scientists and policy analysts, but more often than not the originality of the paradigmatic perspective inherent in these works is obscured by highly technical methodologies (especially in the case of applica- tions of chaos theory) or by a seemingly esoteric vocabulary. While some analysts might benefit from investing in the mastery of these techniques, the real merits of these new approaches is that they suggest ways of tying together a wide range of disparate ideas on how to deal with problem situations where there is insufficient knowledge about cause and effect relations, and where societal actors are capable of acting in unpredictable ways. Some of these ideas are inspired by the theory of participatory democracy; other reflect a strong preference for market-oriented solutions. These divergent orientations cannot, and indeed need not, be merged into a single perspective. However, the metaphors outlined in this paper offer clues on how~uch normative choices can be translated into consistent problem definition~"s~nd policy options which can generate interest and support from the growing ranks of political actors who distrust technocratic discourse.

At the same time, there are reasons for continuing to employ the language of feedback control in specific circumstances. Partly because there are no uni- versally applicable paradigms in the social sciences: for post-positivists to argue otherwise would be to fall back into positivism! And partly because there may not always exist politically feasible alternatives to coercive controls.

To conclude, the search for an illuminating metaphor applicable to the management of large organization or to policy formulation has been greatly facilitated in recent years by new perspectives on complexity in the natural sciences. The typically modernist notion of corrective control associated with a somewhat naive or scientistic belief in the potential capacity of the policy sciencies to identify the correct path toward well defined societal goals has given way to more self-referential and relativistic perspectives. The uses to which these postmodern metaphors can be put will depend on a variety of contingent social and political factors; but whether they are fitted into a participationist or libertarian framework, the result will in both cases mean a

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loss of power and influence on the part of professional experts. Their knowl- edge base will increasingly be challenged by a multiplicity of stakeholders forming complex and shifting networks. This is not to say, however, that all traditional managerial structures and policy instruments will cease to be rele- vant. But policy makers will be judged on their ability to articulate images and symbols around which creative responses from these interlocking networks can coalesce rather than on their competence in providing 'solutions' to prob- lems that will remain frustratingly difficult to define precisely.

Notes

1. On the history of, and diversity of approaches within, systems theory, see Flood (1990: ch. 6). 2. For a discussion of the difference between metaphorical and more engineering-oriented

uses of the concept of feedback, for example, see Richardson (1991: pp. x, 92-168). 3. I use here the term 'modern' in a very broad sense to refer to the worldview first articulated

by Bacon and Descartes, which remained dominant until the early decades of the 20th century. Its central tenet is the capacity of human reason, aided by empirical observation, to establish a basis for intersubjective agreement concerning the universal laws governing objective reality.

4. On the difference between 'katascopic,' i.e., from the top down, and the 'anascopic,' i.e., from the bottom up, approaches, see Geyer and van der Zouwen (1986: p. 3).

5. If the modern age was Cartesian, the postmodern age is Nietzschean. The literature on postmodernism is too extensive to be summarized here, but any definition of the scope and meaning of postmodernism should begin with a mention of the works of Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault, Ihab Hassan, Frederic Jameson, and Jean-Francois Lyotard; the parallels and differences between the literary postmodernism of these authors and the scientific theories from which the metaphors discussed in this paper are drawn are analyzed by Alexander J. Argyros (1991) and J.-E Dupuy and F. Varela (1992).

6. I am grateful to my colleage Michael Howlett for having brought to my attention the extent to which the sociology of public policy-making has become central to the concerns of so many apparently unrelated schools of thought.

7. See also Berman (1990). Actually, the rapid development of computer technology and the broadening range of its applications from financial service to the delivery of social assis- tance, from opinion research and marketing to political campaigning, from health manage- ment to policing, etc., have produced a control technology that transcends the distinction between the natural sciences and the social/policy sciences.

8. For the view that, in practice, deregulation did not go very far in the United States, see Lemak (1985), Daneke (1985), Hughes (1991). Besides, economic development initiatives have been actively pursued at the state level in recent years, in apparent contradiction with the trend observed at the federal level (Brace and Mucciaroni, 1990). On the other hand, in countries where formerly publicly owned and now privatized corporations used to occupy a much larger and central place in the economic and social life than in the United States, e.g., Great Britain, Canada, France, the impact of the 1980s might well be deeper and longer lasting.

9. The 'right' has also denounced the inordinate and illegitimate (or so we are told) influence acquired during the 1960s and 1970s by a New Class of social scientists, bureaucrats and public interest group activists (Goldwin, ed., 1980).

10. Not all critics of the mechanistic control model who have addressed the question of power relationships in organizations and/or in socio-political institutions can be easily fitted on the left-right continuum; this is notably the case with Gareth Morgan (1986: ch. 9) and Geoffrey Vickers (1965,1983).

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11. See Prigogine and Stengers (1984), Nicolis and Prigogine (1989), Gleick (1987), Gao and Charlwood (1991). All scientific paradigms, including the Newtonian paradigm, are the product of a combination of ideas that belong to different realms. But what is noteworthy about the new paradigm is the self-conscious manner in which it has been constructed and defended as a philosophical vision, and not merely as a set of isolated theories, e.g., Prigo- gine and Stengers (1984).

12. Admittedly, the proposed constitutional reform was defeated in a national referendum in 1992, but the issue of native rights remains highly visible.

13. The (re-)discovery of the directionality of social interactions has implications also for the (outdated) Newtonian perspective of non-interventionist neo-classical economics. The concepts of long term equilibrium developed by Alfred Marshall and, even more system- atically, by Ldon Walras now more than ever appears to have been a misguided metaphor. Since the 1970s, economists are paying more attention to phenomena that make more sense when envisioned from the perspective of irreversibility. Examples include rigidities and lags, sometimes referred to as cases of 'hysteresis,' which is actually an electromagnetic metaphor, e.g., the 'stagflation' of the late 1970s when inflation persisted even though unemployment was rising; the limits to growth, or at least to linear growth, due to environ- mental constraints; and the role of information in investment decisions as new tech- nologies come on stream creating unforeseen opportunity costs and thereby complexifying the criterion of utility maximization (Boyer et al., 1991: pp. 18-19). These new perspec- tives can only be strengthened and refined by the search for new models that build on the progress already achieved in the natural sciences on the subject of non-equilibrium systems (Dosi and Metcalfe, 1991).

14. A bibliographical search of recent articles on chaos and economics produced more than forty titles. Not all of them, of course, use 'chaos' in the technical sense that this term has acquired within chaos theory, but many (more than can be cited here) do in fact apply that methodology.

15. See also Pullen (1988). 16. This contrast may no longer be very sharp considering that some advocates of hermeneu-

tics have recently demonstrated that this method is not specific to the humanities and the social sciences, as early proponents of hermeneutical methods of analysis insisted was the case (e.g., Heelan, 1983).

17. While I agree with Feldman's criticism of Dryzek's goals of turning policy analysts into (self-appointed) social critics (Feldman, 1989: p. 145), policy analysts who are employed by social democratic governments face a set of incentives such that an emphasis on em- powerment and decentralization might match their political masters' current disillusion- ment with direct state interventions.

18. Weinrib (1988) defends a not unsimilar position but without alluding to autopoiesis or self-organization.

19. This is a precaution that the proponents of the theory of autopoiesis, and H. Maturana in particular, have failed to observe. While these authors propose a constructivist theory of cognition, they paradoxically treat self-reference as a fundamental truth, or as an objective structure of reality (e.g., Dell, 1982: 39; for a contrary view see Zolo, 1990).

20. Of course, the political process itself entails a constant use of rhetorical practices and sym- boric exchanges, and so does its interpretation. Some would see here a sort of infinite regress, and it must be admitted that this possibility exists. Nevertheless, democratic politics is a far more open and complex process than the analytical process and, at least in this respect, stands in some sort of hierarchical relation to it. Thus when certain issues move to the center of the political arena they can be settled in a more real sense than through the analytical process.

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