Systems and Relations

Jack Donnelly

doi:10.1017/9781009355193.002

1 - Systems and Relations

from Part I - Systems, Relations, Levels, and Explanations

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 19 October 2023

Jack Donnelly

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Jack Donnelly: Affiliation:
University of Denver

Book contents

Summary

This book explores some implications of studying international relations from a systemic perspective. This chapter takes on the preliminary tasks of defining systems, identifying distinctive characteristics of systemic explanations, and situating systems approaches in a broader context of relational framings. A system is a bounded set of components of particular types, arranged in definite ways, operating in a specific fashion to produce characteristic outcomes, some of which are emergent. The arrangement and operation of the components produce “emergent” “systems effects;” properties and outcomes that cannot be fully understood through knowledge of the parts considered separately. I emphasize the relational character of systemic explanations and their reliance on mechanisms and processes, in order to foster developing a relational processual systemic perspective within a pluralistic IR.

Keywords

systems relations systems effects emergence systemic explanation analytic explanation levels of organization relationalism mechanisms processes

Type: Chapter
Information: Systems, Relations, and the Structures of International Societies , pp. 3 - 19

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009355193.002 [Opens in a new window]

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Print publication year: 2023

This book explores some implications for the discipline of International Relations (IRFootnote ¹) of accepting the following propositions.

Some features of the world can be understood, more or less fully, through knowledge of the elements that compose them.
Other features can be understood only by also considering the organization of elements into larger systems/wholes and the structured operation of those wholes.
The biological and social worlds can be adequately understood only by combining “analytic” knowledge of components considered separately and “systemic” knowledge of the organized operations of structured wholes.

I ask readers to accept, for the sake of argument, the systemic perspective sketched by these propositions – to see where it takes us.

In this chapter I define systems, identify a few fundamental features of systemic explanations, and explore some alternative framings for studying “things” that have qualities that cannot be fully explained in terms of their parts.

1.1 Systems

The Oxford English Dictionary defines a system as “a group or set of related or associated things perceived or thought of as a unity or complex whole.” Most definitions in the natural and social sciences similarly see a system as “an assembly of elements related in an organized whole.”Footnote ² “A whole which functions as a whole by virtue of the interdependence of its parts is called a system.”Footnote ³

“The most fundamental act of systems theory … [is] distinguishing it [the system] from its environment.”Footnote ⁴ A bounded set of components that share “concentrated feedback relationships” is distinguished from what lies outside the system – the environment – “with which the system shares only input and output relationships.”Footnote ⁵

In a system “the organization of units affects their behavior and their interactions.”Footnote ⁶ This produces “systems effects” including, most notably, “emergent” phenomena.Footnote ⁷ “A whole can have properties (or powers) … that would not be possessed by its parts if they were not organised as a group into the form of this particular kind of whole.”Footnote ⁸

“System” is often used in a looser sense to refer to any bounded entity. Here, however, I consider only structured wholes with emergent properties: what are often called “complex systems.”Footnote ⁹ And I address only systems that are, to the best of our knowledge, “in the world” (not mere analytic constructs).Footnote ¹⁰

I adopt the following definition.

A system is a bounded set of components of particular types, arranged in definite ways, operating in a specific fashion to produce characteristic outcomes, some of which are emergent.Footnote ¹¹

This definition emphasizes the operation, not just the organization, of components.Footnote ¹² Some systems effects arise from arrangement alone. (Consider the allotropes of carbon – the “same” “stuff” arranged differently to produce diamond, graphite, graphene (a single layer of graphite with unusual electrical properties), char (the amorphous carbon in charcoal), and vitreous carbon (used in certain electrodes), as well as various nanocarbons (e.g., buckminsterfullerenes) and carbon nanofoam (which is ferromagnetic).) Usually, though, especially in the living and social worlds, the operation of the arranged elements is crucial.

This definition also emphasizes the specificity of the components, their arrangement, and their operation. Parts of particular types are organized and operate in specific ways.

Finally, systems are of special interest because of systems effects – irreducible higher-level phenomena that emerge from the operation of complex wholes – which are essential to a comprehensive understanding of the things of the social world. For example, a state or society is more than an aggregation of individuals. The national interest is not the average of (or any other operation performed on) the interests of the individuals and groups that make up the nation. And the reason to study an international system is that it has properties that cannot be understood by even the most intensive study of its components and their interactions.

1.2 Systemic and Analytic Explanations

Systems require – and provide – a distinctive type of explanation. This usually is explicated by contrasting “analytic” and “systemic” explanations.Footnote ¹³

In analytic explanations “the whole is understood by knowing the attributes and the interactions of its parts,”Footnote ¹⁴ “disjoined and understood in their simplicity.”Footnote ¹⁵ As Nicholas Onuf puts it, “analysis is the procedure whereby someone (the analyst) observes (or causes and then observes, or imagines) and describes the disaggregation of some (actual or hypothetical) unit.”Footnote ¹⁶ This strategy of breaking things down into smaller or simpler pieces often produces epistemically powerful and pragmatically valuable knowledge.

If, however, the object of inquiry has properties arising from the organization or structured operation of its elements “then one cannot predict outcomes or understand them merely by knowing the characteristics, purposes, and interactions of the system’s units.”Footnote ¹⁷ “Systemic” approaches are required to comprehend “systems effects.” What this implies for IR is the central subject of this book.

In the social sciences, analytic explanations typically rely on the attributes, actions, and interactions of actors. Systemic explanations, by contrast, focus on the organization and operation of structured wholes – which, I argue, require relational and processual explanations.

1.3 Levels of Organization

Systems have “multiple levels of organization … [arranged in] a rough hierarchy, with the components at each ascending level being some kind of composite made up of the entities present at the next level down.”Footnote ¹⁸

In the life sciences, the standard framing is levels of organizationFootnote ¹⁹ or “compositional levels – hierarchical divisions of stuff (paradigmatically but not necessarily material stuff) organized by part–whole relations, in which wholes at one level function as parts at the next (and at all higher) levels.”Footnote ²⁰ (For example, cells, tissues, organs, systems, organisms; alleles, individuals, populations, communities, ecosystems.) As Bert Hölldobler and E. O. Wilson put it, “life is a self-replicating hierarchy of levels. Biology is the study of the levels that compose the hierarchy.”Footnote ²¹

Levels of organization are (understood as) “in the world.” “Levels of organization are a deep, non-arbitrary, and extremely important feature of the ontological architecture of our natural world.”Footnote ²² In a strong formulation, they are “levels of reality.”Footnote ²³ The world “is” a layered system of systems of systems in which parts at one level are wholes on “their own” lower level.

Higher-level “things” are, of course, made up (and obey all the laws) of lower-level “things.” The whole, however, is not fully reducible to – cannot be explained entirely in terms of – its components. Quite the contrary, its distinctive character only emerges in the higher-level whole.

In this understanding – which I adopt for the purposes of this book (which addresses the implications of systemic approaches to IR) – each organizationally differentiated level, because it is ultimately irreducible, has the same ontological status.Footnote ²⁴ The world is organizationally layered but, as Manuel DeLanda nicely puts it, ontologically flat.Footnote ²⁵ The things of the world are larger and smaller, simpler and more complicated, aggregated or complex. But no one level is more real, fundamental, or foundational than any other.

Understanding such a world requires not only bottom-up explanations of the large by the small or the whole by its parts but also attention to “downward causation”Footnote ²⁶ and top-down explanations. (As Kenneth Waltz puts it, systems “shape and shove.”Footnote ²⁷) “The combination of ‘top-down’ effects … and ‘bottom-up’ effects … is a pervasive feature of complex systems.”Footnote ²⁸ And one of the great attractions of systemic approaches is that they not merely allow but require us to comprehend the causal powers of both higher-level and lower-level entities, activities, and forces.Footnote ²⁹

1.4 Relations and Systems

In the social sciences, systems theories were common in the decades following World War II.Footnote ³⁰ The failure of such projects, however, led in the 1970s to a marginalization of, and in many circles a strong reaction against (the excesses and abuses of), “systems theories.”Footnote ³¹ And such an attitude remains common today.Footnote ³²

In IR, the publication in 1979 of Waltz’s Theory of International Politics revitalized explicitly systemic approaches – but in a very limited and peculiar way that I argue has been a mixed blessing (if not a pyrrhic victory). As I show in Part II, Waltz’s narrow structuralism is not actually systemic. And the only explicitly systemic substantive theory that is widely employed in IR is structural realism, which is extremely contentious. As a result, in much of IR today there is widespread skepticism of, and even hostility to, “systemic theory” – which is usually taken to mean Waltzian structural theory.

Nonetheless, in IR,Footnote ³³ Sociology,Footnote ³⁴ and most other social sciences,Footnote ³⁵ a broadly systemic perspective has emerged under the label of relationalism. Relationalist approaches employ a variety of framings, including

networksFootnote ³⁶ – patterns of ties between nodes in webs of relations;
fieldsFootnote ³⁷ – structured “spaces” that induce particular behaviors from entities of particular types;
practicesFootnote ³⁸ – sets of shared expectations and opportunities that underlie action-channeling dispositions;
(con)figurationsFootnote ³⁹ – long-lived patterns of social relations;
assemblagesFootnote ⁴⁰ – complex combinations of human, institutional, and material entities and forces; and
“relational institutionalism”Footnote ⁴¹ – the approach of a group of IR scholars, rooted in both network theory and historical institutionalism, focusing on causally efficacious relational forms.

The language of systems highlights wholes and emergence. “Relations” highlights ties between elements. But the “sense in which ‘the whole is greater than the sum of the parts’ is that the parts are, to some degree, constituted as the kinds of entities they are by their relation to the whole.”Footnote ⁴² Conversely, relationalists see related elements as parts of larger wholes (systems). And both framings emphasize the organization or arrangement of elements.

I therefore treat “relational” and “systemic” as substantially overlapping. And an important aim of this book is to emphasize the systemic character of relational work in order to bring these two styles of theory and research, which are largely unconnected in contemporary IR, into constructive dialogue.Footnote ⁴³

1.5 Relationalism

Relationalism (like systemismFootnote ⁴⁴) is not a substantive theory or research program but an orientation to social theory and research. Relationalism focuses on “connections, ties, transactions and other kinds of relations among entities,”Footnote ⁴⁵ stressing the interconnections of the things of the world (rather than their separate substantiality). Relationalists see the world as made up more of configurations (of things) than of things (that stand in various relations).

Relationalists typically oppose themselves to what they call “substantialism,” which “maintains that the ontological primitives of analysis are ‘things’ or entities … Relationalism, on the other hand, treats configurations of ties … between social aggregates of various sorts and their component parts as the building blocks of social analysis.”Footnote ⁴⁶

Substantialist approaches have predominated in the contemporary social sciences. Individualist substantialism (e.g., rational choice models) treats actors as prior to and generative of relations – or, more modestly, gives methodological priority to interests, identities, or preferences that are treated as given. Holist substantialism (e.g., world systems theory) sees large-scale formations as prior to and generative of the entities that compose them. Variable-based substantialism employs independent variables that are treated as separate from and causes of (the values of) dependent variables.Footnote ⁴⁷

Relationalists do not deny the reality of substances or minimize their importance. They do, however, deny that “things” are essentially substantial or exist prior to (or remain fundamentally independent of) relations. In particular, relationalism rejects the idea of “pre-given units such as the individual or society.”Footnote ⁴⁸

Nothing in the world is purely substantial. “Stuff” (substance) becomes things only when arranged in specific ways. The things of the world are the things that they are – are real things – not because of substance alone (or even necessarily primarily) but in part (and essentially) through their relations to other (relational) things.

“Things” are other “things” arranged in particular ways. Salt is sodium and chlorine arranged in a particular way. Bureaucracies are complex assemblages of (among other things) offices, office holders, and administrative technologies.

Relationalism is also anti-essentialist.Footnote ⁴⁹ “Every so-called essence appears as a dense bundle of relations.”Footnote ⁵⁰ “The question of what something is becomes one of the relational configurations within which it is embedded.”Footnote ⁵¹

Epistemological relationalism holds that whatever the world “really is,” only relational “things” (not their essences or pure substances) are accessible to science. Relationalism may also be understood as a methodology for understanding some aspects of the world.Footnote ⁵² And relationalism, whether ontological, epistemological, or methodological, is sometimes embraced as a general “theory” of the world and sometimes as an account of (only) some parts.

Relationalism/systemism is compatible with scientific realism,Footnote ⁵³ philosophical constructivism,Footnote ⁵⁴ and pragmatism,Footnote ⁵⁵ each of which can accept systems and relations as “real” “things” “in the world” – however much they differ in their accounts of the nature of that reality.Footnote ⁵⁶ But because systems and relations are not objects of sensory experience, systemic/relational approaches are incompatible with empiricism.Footnote ⁵⁷ And systems and relations are, at best, difficult to reconcile with neo-positivism’sFootnote ⁵⁸ focus on independent and dependent variables.

1.6 Processes

In the philosophy of Biology, processualism is an increasingly prominent systemic framing.Footnote ⁵⁹ “Essentially, every biologist is engaged in the description of processes.”Footnote ⁶⁰ Laura Nuño de la Rosa even argues that “following processes is a – if not the – characteristic activity of science.”Footnote ⁶¹

In the social sciences, processual approaches are relatively rare.Footnote ⁶² But processes, as we will see in §10.1, appear centrally in accounts of relationalism in IR. And, I will argue, processes merit not only independent attention but emphasis in broadly systemic/relational work.

A process, in ordinary language, is “a continuous and regular action or succession of actions occurring or performed in a definite manner, and having a particular result or outcome.”Footnote ⁶³ As the philosopher Nicholas Rescher puts it, a process is “an integrated series of connected developments unfolding in programmatic coordination”;Footnote ⁶⁴ “a coordinated group of changes in the complexion of reality, an organized family of occurrences that are systematically linked to one another either causally or functionally.”Footnote ⁶⁵

Processualism in effect extends the relational critique of substantialism, adding (and emphasizing) activities.Footnote ⁶⁶ Processes “do things. They are active and so ought to be described in terms of the activities of their entities, not merely in terms of changes in their properties.”Footnote ⁶⁷ Such organized productive activities are no less worthy of scientific investigation than the attributes, actions, interactions, and relations of the entities involved.

Processualism,Footnote ⁶⁸ like relationalism, is regularly understood as an ontological,Footnote ⁶⁹ an epistemological,Footnote ⁷⁰ and a methodological stance.

Strong ontological processualists hold that the world is “a matrix of process.”Footnote ⁷¹ “Things” are “complex bundles of coordinated processes”;Footnote ⁷² “precipitates of processes … what abides, as certain kinds of processes continue and develop.”Footnote ⁷³ A human being, for example, is not so much “a” “substantial” (or even “relational”) “thing” as a complex assemblage of physical, chemical, biological, psychological, sociological, and ecological processes. And this is true all the way down to – and is particularly striking at – the lowest physical levels. “Instead of very small things (atoms) combining to produce standard processes (windstorms and such), modern physics envisions very small processes (quantum phenomena) combining to produce standard things (ordinary macro-objects) as a result of their modus operandi.”Footnote ⁷⁴

More modestly, Peter Machamer, Lindley Darden, and Carl Craver argue that an ontological dualism that sees both entities and activities as irreducibly real “capture[s] the healthy philosophical intuitions underlying both substantivalist and process ontologies.”Footnote ⁷⁵ Processualism is also compatible with ontological agnosticism. And one may focus on processes simply as a fruitful tool for generating useful knowledge.

In all of its forms, though, processualism is broadly systemic in its focus on the operation of organized “things.”

1.7 Mechanisms

Mechanisms receive special attention in the life sciences. In the social sciences we are also seeing growing attention to mechanisms in work on causal mechanisms,Footnote ⁷⁶ rationalist modeling,Footnote ⁷⁷ and process tracingFootnote ⁷⁸ and in multimethod research designs.Footnote ⁷⁹

The ordinary-language sense of a mechanism as “a system of mutually adapted parts working together in a machine or in a manner analogous to that of a machine” or “an ordered sequence of events involved in a biological, chemical or physical process”Footnote ⁸⁰ is also standard in the philosophy of Biology, especially “the new mechanical philosophy.”Footnote ⁸¹ Machamer, Darden, and Craver in their seminal article “Thinking about Mechanisms” define mechanisms as “entities and activities organized such that they are productive of regular changes from start or set-up to finish or termination conditions.”Footnote ⁸² William Bechtel and Adele Abrahamsen similarly define a mechanism as “a structure performing a function in virtue of its component parts, component operations, and their organization.”Footnote ⁸³

Entities and activities are the interdependent elements of mechanisms.Footnote ⁸⁴ Organization into productive processes makes elements parts of mechanical wholes.Footnote ⁸⁵ What mechanisms “do” is produce particular phenomena. (“Mechanisms are always ‘for’ something, and they are identified by what they are for.”Footnote ⁸⁶) The “doing” is central to the mechanism.Footnote ⁸⁷ And the essence of mechanismicFootnote ⁸⁸ research is discovering such productive processes and explicating their operation.

Mechanisms are “composite hierarchical systems”Footnote ⁸⁹ in which “higher-level entities and activities are … essential to the intelligibility of those at lower levels, just as much as those at lower levels are essential for understanding those at higher levels. It is the integration of different levels into productive relations that renders the phenomenon intelligible and thereby explains it.”Footnote ⁹⁰

“Mechanisms” and “processes” have very similar definitions and often are used interchangeably, both in ordinary language and in professional jargon. When carefully distinguished, one usually is taken as broader than the other. I am inclined to say that all mechanisms are processes but not all processes are sufficiently organized to be considered mechanisms. Charles Tilly, however, argues, no less plausibly, that “mechanisms compound into processes.”Footnote ⁹¹

The key point, though, is that structured productive activities – mechanisms and processes – are modular,Footnote ⁹² multilevel, and extend across time. They therefore need to be studied with attention to their organization and operation.

1.8 Assemblages

Assemblages are a type of system of special interest for the social sciences.

In assemblages, parts are related extrinsically, in the sense that they retain a certain separateness or separability.Footnote ⁹³ For example, an archaeological assemblage (“an associated set of contemporary artefacts that can be considered as a single unit”Footnote ⁹⁴) is the product of “extrinsic” “logics” of deposition, preservation, excavation, and analysis. The assembled whole has properties and meanings distinct from those of its constituent elements. The elements, however, although transformed by their assembly, retain some separate identity (or at least a potential to be re-divided or re-assembled). They are more or less tightly linked into a still-heterogeneous entity.

The parts of a living organism, by contrast, are intrinsically related to – fundamentally inseparable from – the whole. A human heart, for example, can be a part of only one kind of whole.Footnote ⁹⁵ It is a human heart; a particular kind of part of a particular kind of whole.

“No [assembled] object is a seamless whole that fully absorbs its components.”Footnote ⁹⁶ An assemblage is both a multiplicity and a unity. Niklas Luhmann’s description of a system as a unitas multiplexFootnote ⁹⁷ is especially apt for assemblages.

An assemblage perspective highlights the simultaneous irreducibility and inseparability of individuals and social groups; their dialectical or recursive relationship. Social groups, as systems, are not reducible to their individual parts. But as assemblages they do not reduce individuals to parts of social wholes. For example, a family is “more than” the sum of its members. Family members, however, are also “more than” just parts of a family.

Because there are irreducible phenomena at all levels, one might say that most of the things of the world are assemblages. (This is indeed the view of some advocates of “assemblage theory.”Footnote ⁹⁸) I think, though, that (except when speaking of ontology) it is more profitable to use the term only when we want to draw attention to the act or fact of assembly, the possibility of re-division or re-assembly, or the presence of one entity in multiple assemblages – all three of which are often important in thinking about social groups and the social world more broadly.

1.9 Treating International Systems as Systems

This book emphasizes the need to study systems as systems; relational wholes with important features that cannot be explained solely in terms of their parts. I begin to sketch what that implies in the remaining chapters of this Part. In Part II I show that, superficial appearances to the contrary, the predominant “systemic” approach in IR (Waltzian structuralism) is in fact thoroughly analytic. Part III then suggests some possible paths forward toward truly systemic/relational theory and research in IR.

In making these arguments, I recurrently draw parallels with Biology, which has undergone a systemic/relational transformation over the past quarter century. “Twenty-first-century biology is fundamentally different from twentieth-century biology. It is a biology of relationships rather than entities.”Footnote ⁹⁹ This book aims to push IR in a similar direction.

1.10 Postscript: Waltz and Jervis on Systems

Isn’t this old hat in IR? Haven’t we understood the distinctive nature of systems and systemic explanation at least since Waltz’s Theory of International Politics?

In a certain sense, yes. But, more fundamentally, no.

Even if we accept Waltzian international political theory as genuinely systemic, which I argue in Chapter 5 it is not, its narrow two-variable structuralism differs fundamentally from systems approaches in the natural sciences – which I will argue have much to teach us about studying the social world. Waltzian structuralism has also obscured the systemic character of relational approaches – which, I am arguing, are likely to prove especially fruitful if understood in broadly systemic terms.

Jervis’ Systems Effects moved the discussion in IR forward by introducing a complexity perspective.Footnote ¹⁰⁰ His work, however, proved not to be transformative because, as we will see in Chapters 3 and 4, he retained Waltz’s levels of analysis (rather than levels of organization) approach and was inclined toward variable-based social science (which is fundamentally incompatible with the systemic/relational explanations based on the organization and operating of complex wholes).

Furthermore, Jervis’ work did not encourage – and through treating Waltz as a model of systems thinking discouraged – seeing the deep and promising connections between relational and systemic approaches. Elaborating those connections, as I have begun to do in this chapter, seems to me a major justification for this book.

In other words, although I have similar starting points as Waltz and Jervis, I try to push systems approaches in different directions. And I am doing this in what seems to me a more conducive disciplinary environment, given the rise of network, field, and mechanism approaches and the spread of more sophisticated and open-textured views of science.

Third time’s the charm?Footnote ¹⁰¹

Footnotes

¹ As is conventional, I use IR to indicate the “discipline” of International Relations, which studies the subject matter of international relations – whether IR is understood as a discipline in its own right (which is more common in the UK), a sub-field of Political Science (as is more common in the US), or an interdisciplinary field (often in the US under the label International Studies).

² (Flood and Carson Reference Flood and Carson1993, 7).

³ (Rapoport Reference Rapoport and Buckley1968, xviii).

⁴ (Gougen and Varela Reference Gougen and Varela1979, 32). For Niklas Luhmann, the leading systems theorist in the social sciences in the last four decades, “a system is the difference between system and environment” (Luhmann Reference Luhmann and Rasch2013 [2002], 44. See also 52, 63, 187; 1995 [1984], 5–8, 16–18, 20–23; 2012 [1997], 43–44, 63–64, 121).

⁵ (Flood and Carson Reference Flood and Carson1993, 8).

⁶ (Waltz Reference Waltz1979, 39).

⁷ See §2.2.

⁸ (Elder-Vass Reference Elder-Vass2007a, 28).

⁹ See §2.3.

¹⁰ Older systems approaches often distinguished “concrete” systems from “analytic” (or “abstracted”) systems. See, for example, (Bunge Reference Bunge1979, Reference Bunge and Negoita1992), (Parsons Reference Parsons1979), (Bailey Reference Bailey1983). Artificial units of investigation, however, do not (unless they happen to correspond to a concrete system) have emergent systems effects. They therefore will not be addressed here.

¹¹ This is similar to Mario Bunge’s definition of systems in terms of “composition, structure (relations among the parts), and connections with the environment”; “composition (collection of parts), environment, and structure (set of bonds or couplings between system components and things in the environment)” (Reference Bunge1997, 417, 416. See also 458).

¹² Operations might be considered arrangement across time. The temporal and processual dimensions of operations, however, seem to me worth separate note. See also §§1.6, 10.1–10.3. I avoid the language of “structure and process,” though, because it facilitates analytically severing organization from operation and reifying arrangement/structure.

¹³ In IR, Waltz’s account (Reference Waltz1979, 39–40ff. See also 12, 37) is hegemonic. (I reject his account, however, in §§5.3–5.6.)

¹⁴ (Waltz Reference Waltz1979, 18).

¹⁵ (Waltz Reference Waltz1979, 39. See also 12, 37, 60, 68, 121).

¹⁶ (Onuf Reference Onuf1995, 42).

¹⁷ (Waltz Reference Waltz1979, 39).

¹⁸ (McClamrock Reference McClamrock1991, 185). “Hierarchy” in this taxonomic sense, which is standard in the natural sciences, indicates relations of inclusion (not command or control). “Things” at higher levels encompass lower-level things in a graded series of part–whole relations: metaphorically, boxes within boxes (within boxes).

¹⁹ (Eronen and Brooks Reference Eronen, Brooks and Zalta2018), (Brooks, DiFrisco, and Wimsatt Reference Brooks, DiFrisco, Wimsatt, Brooks, DiFrisco and Wimsatt2021a), and (Brooks Reference Brooks, Brooks, DiFrisco and Wimsatt2021) are good recent overviews of levels of organization in Biology. (Brooks, DiFrisco, and Wimsatt Reference Brooks, Brooks, DiFrisco and Wimsatt2021b) is an excellent recent edited volume, including (Potochnik Reference Potochnik, Brooks, DiFrisco and Wimsatt2021), which reviews and extends recent criticisms of the concept.

²⁰ (Wimsatt Reference Wimsatt1994, 222 [emphasis added]). Joseph Needham’s (1937) idea of “integrative levels” is an early version of (or precursor to) this framing. And the levels ontology of a chain of being (Lovejoy Reference Lovejoy1936) was popular in the West for two millennia.

²¹ (Hölldobler and Wilson Reference Wilson2009, 7).

²² (Wimsatt Reference Wimsatt1994, 225). See also (Floridi Reference Floridi2008, 319).

²³ (Heil Reference Heil2003), (Salthe Reference Salthe2009), (Poli Reference Poli2009), (Nicolescu Reference Nicolescu2010). See also (Grene Reference Grene1967).

²⁴ Rather than illegitimately sneaking in an important substantive claim, I intend this as a plausible hypothesis or methodological move that is unlikely to impede work on (partially) reductive explanations. (See §2.1.) Assuming that some level is ontologically primary, by contrast, not only commits one to an account that is inconsistent with most scientific practice but encourages empirically baseless “in principle” reducibility claims. Supporting evidence for this position is scattered through this book. For now I ask for a willing suspension of disbelief, in order to pursue the implications of a radically systemic view of the world.

²⁵ (DeLanda Reference DeLanda2006, 28. See also 13). See also (Bryant Reference Bryant2011, ch. 6), (Latour Reference Latour2005), (Schatzki Reference Schatzki, Spaargaren, Weenink and Lamers2016), (Salter Reference Salter2019).

²⁶ The term appears to have been coined by Donald Campbell (Reference Campbell, Ayala and Dobzhansky1974). See also (Emmeche, Køppe, and Stjernfelt Reference Emmeche, Køppe and Stjernfelt1997, Reference Emmeche, Køppe, Stjernfelt and Andersen2000), (Bedau Reference Bedau2002), (Kistler Reference Kistler2009), (Campbell and Bickhard Reference Campbell and Bickhard2011), (Elder-Vass Reference Elder-Vass2012), (Bechtel Reference Bechtel2017b), (Paoletti and Orilia Reference Anjum, Mumford, Paolini Paoletti and Orilla2017). (Eronen Reference Eronen, Brooks, DiFrisco and Wimsatt2021) usefully links downward causation to compositional levels in the context of the tangled hierarchies characteristic of the biological (and I would add the social) world.

²⁷ (Waltz Reference Waltz1990b, 34; 1997, 915; 2000, 24).

²⁸ (Holland Reference Holland2014, 5).

²⁹ See §2.1.

³⁰ The leading example in IR was (Kaplan Reference Kaplan1957). See also (Rosecrance Reference Rosecrance1963), (Masters Reference Masters1964), (McClelland Reference McClelland1966), (Deutsch Reference Deutsch1968), (Banks Reference Banks1969), (Thompson Reference Thompson1973). In Political Science, see (Easton Reference Easton1953, Reference Easton1965), (Deutsch Reference Deutsch1963), (Almond and Powell Reference Almond and Powell1978). In Sociology, Talcott Parsons was a leading proponent. See, for example, (Parsons Reference Parsons1951, 1966, Reference Parsons1971) and (Kroeber and Parsons Reference Kroeber and Parsons1958). More broadly, see (Buckley Reference Buckley1967) and (Buckley Reference Buckley1968).

³¹ (Pickel Reference Pickel, Jarvie and Zamora-Bonilla2011, 4–7) briefly reviews this decline. In IR, see (Weltman Reference Weltman1973).

³² The principal exception is transdisciplinary complexity science, which has made limited but significant inroads in many social sciences. (Miller and Page Reference Miller and Page2007), (Holland Reference Holland2014), (Miller Reference Miller2015), and (Ladyman and Wiesner Reference Ladyman and Wiesner2020) are useful general introductions. More briefly, see (Walby Reference Walby2007). In IR, see (Bousquet and Curtis Reference Bousquet and Curtis2011), (Byrne and Callaghan Reference Byrne and Callaghan2014), (Cineda Reference Cineda2006), (Cudworth and Hobden Reference Cudworth and Hobden2013), (Gadinger and Peters Reference Gadinger and Peters2016), (Gunitsky Reference Gunitsky2013), (Harrison Reference Harrison2006), (Jervis Reference Jervis1997), (Kavalski Reference Kavalski2007), (Orsini et al. Reference Orsini2020), (Pickering Reference Pickering2019), (Scartozzi Reference Scartozzi2018), (Snyder and Jervis Reference Snyder and Jervis1993), (Wagner Reference Wagner2016), (Walby Reference Walby2009), (Young Reference Young2017).

³³ (Jackson and Nexon Reference Jackson and Nexon1999) is the seminal programmatic statement in IR. (McCourt Reference McCourt2016) and (Jackson and Nexon Reference Jackson and Nexon2019) are excellent brief overviews. See also (Kurki Reference Kurki2020, Reference Kurki2022). Among “relational” works published in the 2010s, a good sample might include (Adler-Nissen Reference Adler-Nissen, Sending, Pouliot and Neumann2015), (Brigg Reference Brigg2018), (Bucher Reference Bucher2017), (Duque Reference Duque2018), (Gazit Reference Gazit2019), (Joseph Reference Joseph2018), (Kavalski Reference Kavalski2016, Reference Kavalski2018), (Learoyd Reference Learoyd, Bartelson, Hall and Teorell2018), (Lee Reference Lee2019), (MacDonald Reference MacDonald2014), (McConaughey, Musgrave, and Nexon Reference Musgrave and Nexon2018), (Nordin et al. Reference Nordin2019), (Pratt Reference Pratt2016a, b), (Selg Reference Selg2016). See also (Schneider Reference Schneider2015).

³⁴ (Emirbayer Reference Emirbayer1997) is the classic programmatic statement. Charles Tilly (e.g., 1995, 1998, 2001b, 2015 [2008]) and Harrison White (esp. 1992, 2008) were particularly influential. (Crossley Reference Crossley2011) is a good book-length introduction (useful also because it is rooted in British, rather than American, discussions). See also (Dépelteau 2018), (Donati Reference Donati2011), (Powell and Dépelteau Reference Dépelteau, Dépelteau and Landini2013).

³⁵ Examples of relational Anthropology include (Ingold Reference Ingold2004), (Jansen Reference Jansen2016), (Salmond Reference Salmond2012), (Stensrud Reference Stensrud2016), (Streinzer Reference Streinzer2016), (Thelen, Vetters, and von Benda-Beckmann Reference Thelen, Vetters and von Benda-Beckmann2018). Anthropology also has a growing substantive literature on relational ontologies (e.g., (Herva et al. Reference Herva2010), (Lee Reference Lee2019)). Archaeological literature explicitly using relational frames includes (Betts, Hardenberg, and Stirling Reference Betts, Hardenberg and Stirling2015), (Collar et al. Reference Collar2015), (Fowler Reference Fowler2013, Reference Fowler2017), (Harris Reference Harris and Crellin2020), (Harrison-Buck and Hendon Reference Harrison-Buck and Hendon2018), (Hill Reference Hill2011), (Hutson Reference Hutson2010), (Watts Reference Watts2014). I have also found (Hodder Reference Hodder2012) especially useful for its links to assemblage thinking. In Geography, see, for example, (Bathelt and Glückler Reference Bathelt and Glückler2003), (Bathelt and Li Reference Bathelt, Li, Fischer and Nijkamp2014), (Boggs and Rantisi Reference Boggs and Rantisi2003), (Hesse and Mei-Ling Reference Hesse and Mei-Ling2020), (Malpas Reference Malpas2012), (Murdoch Reference Murdoch2005), (Ward Reference Ward2010), (Yeung Reference Yeung2005). (Gergen Reference Gergen2009) outlines a relational psychology with clear connections to the social sciences more broadly. On relational economics, which is only beginning to emerge, see (Biggiero et al. Reference Biggiero2022), (Wieland Reference Wieland2020).

³⁶ (Avant and Westerwinter Reference Avant and Westerwinter2016) is an excellent edited volume that suggests the range of network approaches in IR. (Hafner-Burton, Kahler, and Montgomery Reference Hafner-Burton, Kahler and Montgomery2009) is the standard article-length overview. See also (Borgatti et al. Reference Borgatti2009). (Victor, Montgomery, and Lubell Reference Victor, Montgomery and Lubell2017) and (Knoke et al. Reference Knoke2021) are comprehensive overviews of political network approaches at varied levels of analysis. (Light and Moody Reference Light and Moody2021) is a similar extended overview of social networks. Interesting IR applications include (Acuto and Leffel Reference Acuto and Leffel2021), (Beardsley et al. Reference Beardsley2020), (Carpenter Reference Carpenter2011), (Dorussen, Gartzke, and Westerwinter Reference Dorussen, Gartzke and Westerwinter2016), (Eilstrup-Sangiovanni Reference Eilstrup-Sangiovanni and Sperling2014), (Erikson and Occhiuto Reference Erikson and Occhiuto2017), (Gade et al. Reference Gade2019), (Gallop and Minhas Reference Gallop and Minhas2021), (Goddard Reference Goddard2009a), (Haim Reference Haim2016), (Kim Reference Kim and Galaz2019, Reference Kim2020), (Kim and Morin Reference Kim and Morin2021), (Legg Reference Legg2009), (Montgomery Reference Montgomery, Avant and Westerwinter2016), (Mueller, Schmidt, and Kuerbis Reference Mueller, Schmidt and Kuerbis2013), (Mulich Reference Mulich2020), (Oatley et al. Reference Oatley2013), (Owen Reference Owen2010), (Owen Reference Owen2016), (Sazak Reference Sazak2020), (Sikkink Reference Sikkink1993), (Torfing Reference Torfing and Levi-Faur2012).

³⁷ In IR, see, for example, (Adler-Nissen Reference Adler-Nissen2011), (Berling Reference Berling2015), (Dixon and Tenove Reference Dixon and Tenove2013), (Go Reference Go2008, Reference Go2011), (Guzzini Reference Guzzini and Adler-Nissen2013), (Kauppi and Madsen Reference Kauppi and Rask Madsen2013), (Lim Reference Lim2020), (Nexon and Neumann Reference Nexon and Neumann2018), (Schmitz, Witte, and Gengnagel Reference Schmitz, Witte and Gengnagel2017), (Stampnitzky Reference Stampnitzky2013), (Steinmetz Reference Steinmetz2007, Reference Steinmetz2008). (Bourdieu Reference Bourdieu1996 [1989]) is a classic empirical case study in Sociology that has had immense impact. See also (Bourdieu and Wacquant Reference Bourdieu and Wacquant1992, 14–26, 94–115). (Martin Reference Martin2003; 2011, ch. 7, 8) provides an excellent introduction, stressing analogies with physical fields. (Fligstein and McAdam Reference Fligstein and McAdam2012) presents a more mainstream American sociological approach. (Barman Reference Barman2016, 445–452) provides a useful brief overview of field approaches in the social sciences. See also §4.6.2 at nn. 74ff.

³⁸ (Pouliot Reference Pouliot2010) and (Adler and Pouliot Reference Adler and Pouliot2011) were seminal in IR. (Bueger and Gadinger Reference Bueger and Gadinger2018) and (Lechner and Frost Reference Lechner and Frost2018) are good book-length overviews. See also (Adler-Nissen and Pouliot Reference Adler-Nissen and Pouliot2014), (Bigo Reference Bigo2011), (Brown Reference Brown2012), (Bueger Reference Bueger2014, Reference Bueger2016a), (Bueger and Gadinger Reference Bueger and Gadinger2015), (Côté-Boucher, Infantino, and Salter Reference Côté-Boucher, Infantino and Salter2014), (Davies Reference Davies2016), (Holthaus Reference Holthaus2020), (Kustermans Reference Kustermans2016), (Neumann Reference Neumann2002), (Pouliot Reference Pouliot and Adler-Nissen2013, Reference Pouliot2016).

³⁹ This is the framing of Norbert Elias (Reference Elias2000 [1939], Reference Elias1978). See also (Mennell Reference Mennell1998), (Baur and Ernst Reference Baur and Ernst2011), (Dépelteau and Landini Reference Dépelteau, Dépelteau and Landini2013), (Tsekeris Reference Tsekeris, Powell and Dépelteau2013), (Landini and Dépelteau Reference Landini and Dépelteau2014). In IR, Andrew Linklater (e.g., Linklater Reference Linklater2011; Linklater and Mennell Reference Linklater and Mennell2010) was a forceful advocate for drawing on Elias.

⁴⁰ See §1.8 (esp. n. 93 for IR examples) and §10.5.

⁴¹ This is Nexon’s label (2010, 112ff.). (Nexon and Wright Reference Nexon and Wright2007) is a brilliant application. (Nexon Reference Nexon2009, 39–65) offers a useful medium-length overview. See also (Goddard Reference Goddard2009b), (Jackson Reference Jackson2006), (MacDonald Reference MacDonald2014), (McConaughey, Musgrave, and Nexon Reference Musgrave and Nexon2018). One might also include ch. 15–17 of this book.

⁴² (Bertolaso and Dupré Reference Bertolaso, Dupré, Dupré and Nicholson2018, 331).

⁴³ Natural scientists widely employ networks and fields. They almost always, though, use the language of systems to make what contemporary social scientists would call relational arguments. This, it seems to me, reflects the reaction against “systems theories” in the social sciences that I noted at the outset of this section – in sharp contrast to the normalization and naturalization of systems framings across the natural sciences (which, I am suggesting, ought to be a model for IR).

⁴⁴ By “systemism” I mean an orientation to social research that emphasizes systems, parallel to established uses of “relationalism.” I am not adopting Mario Bunge’s sometimes idiosyncratic approach to systems, which he (e.g., Bunge Reference Bunge2000) labels “systemism.”

⁴⁵ (Jackson and Nexon Reference Jackson and Nexon2019, 583. See also 592). Relationalists typically understand relations in the ordinary-language sense of “a connection, correspondence, or contrast between different things; a particular way in which one thing or idea is connected or associated with another or others.” Oxford English Dictionary. On conceptualizing relations, see (Crossley Reference Crossley, Powell and Dépelteau2013).

⁴⁶ (Jackson and Nexon Reference Jackson and Nexon1999, 291–292). See also (Emirbayer Reference Emirbayer1997, 281), (McCourt Reference McCourt2016, 478–479), (Adler-Nissen Reference Adler-Nissen, Sending, Pouliot and Neumann2015, 285–286, 288, 290–295). (Dupré Reference Dupré2020) offers a brief parallel critique of substantialism from a processualist (see §1.6) perspective. William Sewell (Reference Sewell2005, 329) makes a similar point when he argues that “a useful way to get a conceptual handle on the social is to think of it in terms of the various mediations that place people into ‘social’ relations with one another – mediations that may not make them companions but that, in one way or another, make them interdependent members of each other’s worlds.” (“Mediations,” for my tastes, is a bit too actor-centric. But Sewell’s point seems to me fundamentally relational.)

⁴⁷ (Emirbayer Reference Emirbayer1997, 286) highlights the substantialist nature of mainstream causal analysis, drawing heavily on (Abbott Reference Abbott1988). (Independent-variable explanations explain through the attributes, actions, and inter-actions of entities – not their relations. See §§4.3–4.5.)

⁴⁸ (Emirbayer Reference Emirbayer1997, 287). See also (Jackson and Nexon Reference Jackson and Nexon1999, 293).

⁴⁹ For example, Stephan Fuchs (Reference Fuchs2001) frames what is usually called “relationalism” as Against Essentialism. See also (Tilly Reference Tilly1998, ch. 1, esp. 17–21), (Jackson and Nexon Reference Jackson and Nexon1999, 293, 295, 300, 301, 307, 321 n. 18), (Emirbayer Reference Emirbayer1997, 282, 283, 285, 286, 292, 295 n. 34, 308). For similar arguments in processual philosophy of Biology, see (Dupré and Nicholson Reference Dupré, Nicholson, Dupré and Nicholson2018, 23–26), (DiFrisco Reference Difrisco, Dupré and Nicholson2018, 79–92).

⁵⁰ (Powell Reference Powell, Powell and Dépelteau2013, 205).

⁵¹ (McCourt Reference McCourt2014, 36).

⁵² Jackson and Nexon (Reference Jackson and Nexon1999, 292) argue that “the distinction between relationalism and substantialism involves ontological commitments.” That, however, need not be the case. “There is an important distinction between an analytical standpoint and an ontological standpoint” (Jackson and Nexon Reference Jackson and Nexon1999, 320–321) – and relationalism, I am arguing, is sometimes employed (only) as a useful analytical standpoint.

⁵³ Scientific realism holds that “mature sciences” produce knowledge that we have good reason to believe more or less approximates the way the world “really is” – or at least that over time they move in such a direction. (Chakravarty Reference Chakravarty and Zalta2017) and (Lyons Reference Lyons and Humphreys2016) are good brief introductions. (Harré Reference Harré1986) is dense but wide-ranging and extraordinarily insightful. In IR, (Wendt Reference Wendt1999, ch. 2), (Patomaki Reference Patomaki2002), and (Wight Reference Wight2006) are standard discussions.

It is probably worth noting that I reject Wendt’s (1999) privileging of scientific realism. Scientific realism does provide a foundation for a pluralist social science. But it is only “a condition of possibility for the argument of the rest of the book” (Wendt Reference Wendt1999, 91 [emphasis added]). Philosophical constructivism and pragmatism also can assure “that everyone gets to do what they do” by “block[ing] a priori arguments against engaging in certain kinds of work” (Wendt Reference Wendt1999, 91).

⁵⁴ Philosophical constructivism holds that knowledge is dependent on ideas, instruments, or experience; that Reality (with a big capital Germanic or Platonic R), whatever it may be, is not accessible to (and perhaps not entirely independent of) human beings. (Berger and Luckmann Reference Berger and Luckmann1967) is an influential “classic.” Short introductions include (Luhmann Reference Luhmann and Rasch2002), (Mallon Reference Mallon2007), and (Sveinsdóttir Reference Sveinsdóttir2015). At book length, (Hacking Reference Hacking1999) is wide-ranging and engaging. Out of the huge literature in the philosophy of science, I find (Knorr Cetina Reference Knorr Cetina1981, Reference Knorr Cetina1999) and (Kukla Reference Kukla2013) especially penetrating. (Hull Reference Hull1988) is also interesting, reading science as a selection process for ideas.

The boundaries between scientific realism and philosophical constructivism, however, are fuzzy – especially because realists accept that all scientific knowledge is theory-laden (and instrument-dependent). For example, Ronald Giere’s “scientific perspectivism” (Giere Reference Giere2006b; Massimi and McCoy 2020), which he describes as realist, seems to me about equal parts constructivist and realist. And John Searle’s The Construction of Social Reality (1995) is an influential work that combines realism about (knowledge of) the natural world and constructivism about the social world.

⁵⁵ “Pragmatism is a philosophical tradition that – very broadly – understands knowing the world as inseparable from agency within it” (Legg and Hookway Reference Legg, Hookway and Zalta2021, 1). (James Reference James1904, Reference James1907) are still-useful classic introductions. John Dewey’s Experience and Nature (1925) is a book-length overview. (Thayer Reference Thayer1982) is a good reader. (Kivinen and Piiroinen Reference Kivinen and Piiroinen2006) directly addresses pragmatism and relationalism. In IR, see (Cochran Reference Cochran, Crawford and Jarvis2001, Reference Cochran2002, Reference Cochran2012), (Kratochwil Reference Kratochwil, Lebow and Lichbach2007a, b), (Friedrichs and Kratochwil Reference Friedrichs and Kratochwil2009), (Pratt Reference Pratt2016a), (Pratt et al. Reference Henning and Pratt2021). There are no clear lines, though, between pragmatism and either scientific realism or constructivism. Individual pragmatists tend to lean in either or both directions while emphasizing the distinctively human dimensions of action in and knowledge of the world.

⁵⁶ The best-known relationalist social theorists (e.g., Pierre Bourdieu, Niklas Luhmann, Norbert Elias, Bruno Latour) are constructivists. But Margaret Archer, a leading scientific-realist social theorist, is a strong relationalist. (See (Archer Reference Archer1982, Reference Archer1995), (Donati and Archer Reference Donati and Archer2015).) And Mustafa Emirbayer, who played an important role in popularizing relationalism in Sociology (Emirbayer Reference Emirbayer1997), draws heavily on Deweyan pragmatism.

⁵⁷ Empiricism holds that justified knowledge is grounded in sensory experience. In the decades on either side of World War II, “logical empiricism” dominated the philosophy of science. ((Creath Reference Creath and Zalta2022) is a useful overview of a huge literature.) The leading version today is Bas Van Frassen’s (1980) “constructive empiricism,” which holds that science aims to provide true knowledge of observables (but not unobservables). (Monton and Molder Reference Monton, Molder and Zalta2021) is a good overview. (Churchland and Hooker Reference Churchland and Hooker1985) presents several scientific realist critiques and van Frassen’s reply.

⁵⁸ See n. 35 in §4.3.

⁵⁹ (Dupré and Nicholson Reference Dupré, Nicholson, Dupré and Nicholson2018) and (Dupré Reference Dupré2020) are excellent brief introductions. Contemporary processualism, especially in the philosophy of science, is very different from the “process philosophy” of Henri Bergson and Alfred North Whitehead. As Dupré and Nicholson (Reference Anjum, Mumford, Dupré and Nicholson2018, 7) put it, “for the purposes of our present project we wish to distance ourselves from the association with Whiteheadian metaphysics. …. In fact, we suspect that process philosophy has not received the attention it deserves partly because of its close association with Whitehead’s work.” (Rescher Reference Rescher1996, 20–23) provides a very brief overview of Whitehead’s (arcane) process metaphysics.

⁶⁰ (Bapteste and Anderson Reference Bapteste, Anderson, Dupré and Nicholson2018, 283). See also (Bechtel Reference Bechtel2011), (Darden Reference Darden, Chao, Chen and Millstein2013), (Craver and Kaiser Reference Craver, Kaiser, Chao, Chen and Millstein2013, 130).

⁶¹ (Nuño de la Rosa Reference Nuño de la Rosa, Dupré and Nicholson2018, 264). Glennan (Reference Glennan2017, 24) quoting (Levin Reference Levin1992, 1944) claims that “understanding patterns in terms of the processes that produce them is the essence of science.” Mark Bickhard (Reference Bickhard2004, 122) even argues that “every science has passed through a phase in which it considered its basic subject matter to be some sort of substance or structure. Fire was identified with phlogiston; heat with caloric; and life with vital fluid. Every science has passed beyond that phase, recognizing its subject matter as being some sort of process: combustion in the case of fire; random thermal motion in the case of heat; and certain kinds of far from thermodynamic equilibrium systems in the case of life.”

⁶² The classic exception that proves the rule is (Elias Reference Elias2000 [1939]). Charles Tilly is the principal recent exception. See, for example, (Tilly Reference Tilly1984, Reference Tilly1995, Reference Tilly2001a, 2015 [2008]). See also (Baur and Ernst Reference Baur and Ernst2011), (Fararo Reference Fararo and Demeulenaere2011), (Demetriou Reference Demetriou2012), (Mackenzie Reference Mackenzie, Yammarino and Danserau2004), (Renault Reference Renault2016), (Skalník Reference Skalník, Claessen and Skalník1978), (Van Krieken Reference Van Krieken, Ritzer and Smart2001). Note, though, that “process tracing,” as typically practiced in the social sciences (see n. 78), rather than treat processes as objects of investigation, examines the pathways between an independent/treatment variable and its causal effects (usually in a single case).

⁶³ Oxford English Dictionary. In the (now rare) sense of “that which goes on or is carried on” (Oxford English Dictionary) a process need not occur in a definite manner or have a particular result. (Anything that occurs might, in this broader sense, be considered a process.) In the (standard) sense that I employ, however, a process has a particular kind of order.

⁶⁴ (Rescher Reference Rescher2000, 22). See also (Glennan Reference Glennan2017, 26).

⁶⁵ (Rescher Reference Rescher1996, 38).

⁶⁶ (Jackson and Nexon Reference Jackson and Nexon2019, 592) make a similar point in somewhat different terms.

⁶⁷ (Machamer, Darden, and Craver Reference Machamer, Darden and Craver2000, 5). See also (Illari and Williamson Reference Illari and Williamson2013, 74).

⁶⁸ (Rescher Reference Rescher1996, Reference Rescher2000) are excellent, wide-ranging, and readable introductions to process philosophy. See also (Seibt Reference Seibt2011) and, much more briefly, (Seibt Reference Seibt and Zalta2017).

⁶⁹ See, for example, (Austin Reference Austin2020), (Bapteste and Dupré Reference Bapteste and Dupré2013), (Bickhard Reference Bickhard2011), (Galton Reference Galton, Bennett and Fellbaum2006), (Galton and Mizoguchi Reference Galton and Mizoguchi2009), (Guttinger Reference Guttinger, Dupré and Nicholson2018), (Seibt Reference Seibt, Dupré and Nicholson2018).

⁷⁰ See, for example, (Mancilla Garcia, Hertz, and Schlüter Reference Mancilla Garcia, Hertz and Schlüter2020), (Pradeu Reference Pradeu, Dupré and Nicholson2018, 105), (Rescher Reference Rescher2000, 8).

⁷¹ (Rescher Reference Rescher1996, 92).

⁷² (Rescher Reference Rescher2000, 9). See also (Rescher Reference Rescher1996, 46 (“clusters of actual or potential processes”), 51 (“manifolds of process”)).

⁷³ (Simons Reference Simons, Dupré and Nicholson2018, 55). See also (Dupré and Nicholson Reference Dupré, Nicholson, Dupré and Nicholson2018, 13).

⁷⁴ (Rescher Reference Rescher2000, 12–13).

⁷⁵ (Machamer, Darden, and Craver Reference Machamer, Darden and Craver2000, 4. See also 8).

⁷⁶ (Baird et al. Reference Baird2019), (Beach Reference Beach2013), (Bennett Reference Bennett2013), (Capano and Howlett Reference Capano and Howlett2021), (Checkel Reference Checkel2006, Reference Checkel, Bennett and Checkel2015), (Falleti and Lynch Reference Falleti and Lynch2009), (Fortna Reference Fortna2004), (Friedrichs Reference Friedrichs2016), (Gerring Reference Gerring2010), (Hedström and Ylikoski Reference Hedström and Ylikoski2010), (James Reference James2017), (Johnson and Ahn Reference Johnson, Ahn and Waldman2017), (Kincaid Reference Kincaid and Kincaid2012), (Little Reference Little, Illari, Russo and Williamson2011), (McAdam, Tarrow, and Tilly Reference McAdam, Tarrow and Tilly2008), (Steel Reference Steel2004). Note, however, that treating “mechanisms” as intervening variables, which is common in causal inference research designs (e.g., Mahoney Reference Mahoney2001, 578, citing half a dozen examples; Beach Reference Beach2013, 13, citing half a dozen examples; Morgan and Winship Reference Morgan and Winship2015, 224; Goertz Reference Goertz2017, 31), strips the mechanism out of “mechanisms.” See §§4.3–4.5.

⁷⁷ See, for example, (Abell Reference Abell and Demeulenaere2011), (Boudon Reference Boudon, Hedström and Swedberg1998), (Demeulenaere Reference Abell and Demeulenaere2011), (Hedström and Bearman Reference Hedström and Bearman2009a). Rationalist “mechanisms,” though, usually are “as if” models that provide, at best, “how possibly” (not “how actually”) explanations. They do not attempt to identify and understand the productive processes that in fact produce results in the world – which are the focus of work on mechanisms in the natural sciences.

⁷⁸ (Beach and Pedersen Reference Beach and Pedersen2019), (Bengtsson and Ruonavaara Reference Bengtsson and Ruonavaara2017), (Bennett Reference Bennett, Brady and Collier2010), (Bennett and Checkel Reference Bennett and Checkel2015a), (Collier Reference Collier2011), (Hall Reference Hall2013), (Kay and Baker Reference Kay and Baker2015), (Mahoney Reference Mahoney2012, Reference Mahoney2016), (Saylor Reference Saylor2020), (Waldner Reference Waldner and Kincaid2012), (Zaks Reference Zaks, Keman and Woldendorp2016). But cf. n. 62.

⁷⁹ (Beach Reference Beach2020), (Goemans and Spaniel Reference Goemans and Spaniel2016), (Goertz Reference Goertz2017), (Hesse-Biber and Johnson Reference Hesse-Biber and Johnson2015), (Seawright Reference Seawright2016, Reference Seawright, Druckman and Green2021), (Stolz Reference Stolz2016).

⁸⁰ Oxford English Dictionary.

⁸¹ (Machamer, Darden, and Craver Reference Machamer, Darden and Craver2000) was seminal. (It is widely cited not only in the philosophy of Biology but also in the social sciences. See, for example, (Hedström and Bearman Reference Hedström, Bearman, Hedström and Bearman2009b, 4), (Waldner Reference Waldner and Kincaid2012, 72), (Morgan and Winship Reference Morgan and Winship2015, 238–239), (Stolz Reference Stolz2016, 258–259), (Beach and Pedersen Reference Beach and Pedersen2019, 3, 30, 31, 38, 69, 70).) Excellent overviews include (Glennan Reference Glennan2017), (Glennan and Illari Reference Glennan and Illari2018), and, more briefly, (Craver and Tabery Reference Craver, Tabery and Zalta2019). The label underscores the rejection of early modern mechanical philosophies (e.g., Hobbes, Descartes, Newton, Laplace). (Glennan Reference Glennan2017, 5–11) briefly distinguishes “new” and “old” mechanical thinking.

⁸² (Machamer, Darden, and Craver Reference Machamer, Darden and Craver2000, 3).

⁸³ (Bechtel and Abrahamsen Reference Bechtel and Abrahamsen2005, 423). See also (Bechtel Reference Bechtel2016, 705–706), (Darden Reference Darden2008, 965, table 1), (Glennan Reference Glennan2017, 1, 17, 19–20, 66), (Illari and Williamson Reference Illari and Williamson2012, 123), (Illari and Russo Reference Illari and Russo2014, 134), (Love Reference Love and Zalta2020, §1.3), (Povich and Craver Reference Povich, Craver, Glennan and Illari2017, 107–111), (Steel Reference Steel2008, 40–42).

⁸⁴ (Machamer, Darden, and Craver Reference Machamer, Darden and Craver2000, 3), (Machamer Reference Machamer2004, 28–30, 32–34), (Darden Reference Darden2008, 961–964), (Illari and Williamson Reference Illari and Williamson2012, 125), (Glennan Reference Glennan2017, 20–22, 29–36).

⁸⁵ (Machamer, Darden, and Craver Reference Machamer, Darden and Craver2000, 3), (Bechtel and Abrahamsen Reference Bechtel and Abrahamsen2005, 430), (Illari and Williamson Reference Illari and Williamson2012, 127), (Bechtel Reference Bechtel2016, 719), (Glennan Reference Glennan2017, 23).

⁸⁶ (Glennan Reference Glennan and Humphreys2016, 789). See also (Machamer, Darden, and Craver Reference Machamer, Darden and Craver2000, 5), (Illari and Williamson Reference Illari and Williamson2012, 130). On the functional nature of mechanisms, see (Craver Reference Craver2001), (Craver and Darden Reference Darden, Chao, Chen and Millstein2013, 23–24), (Garson Reference Garson2019, ch. 10), (Machamer, Darden, and Craver Reference Machamer, Darden and Craver2000, 6).

⁸⁷ (Machamer Reference Machamer2004), (Illari and Williamson Reference Illari and Williamson2013). See also §10.1.

⁸⁸ I use “mechanismic,” following Bunge (Reference Bunge1997, esp. 462), to underscore that “one should not think of mechanisms as exclusively mechanical (push–pull) systems” (Machamer, Darden, and Craver Reference Machamer, Darden and Craver2000, 2).

⁸⁹ (Wright and Bechtel Reference Wright, Bechtel and Thagard2007, 45. See also 54–61). On levels of mechanisms, see (Kuorikoski Reference Kuorikoski2009), (Glennan Reference Glennan2010), (Ylikoski Reference Ylikoski and Kincaid2012), (Craver and Darden Reference Darden, Chao, Chen and Millstein2013, 21–25).

⁹⁰ (Machamer, Darden, and Craver Reference Machamer, Darden and Craver2000, 23 [emphasis added]).

⁹¹ (Tilly Reference Tilly and Calhoun2010, 56). See also (Tilly Reference Tilly2001a, 25–26).

⁹² I am not sneaking in a new element here. Modularity is implicit in and central to both processes and mechanisms. On the importance of modularity in complex systems, see §2.3.5.

⁹³ (DeLanda Reference DeLanda2016, 2, 10, 11–12). This conception derives from “assemblage theory,” based on (Deleuze and Guattari Reference Deleuze and Guattari1987 [1980], ch. 3, 4), as developed in (DeLanda Reference DeLanda2016, Reference DeLanda2006). See also (Buchanan Reference Buchanan2020) and, coming to assemblage through the arts, (Brown Reference Brown2020). IR applications of varied assemblage frames include (Puar Reference Puar2017 [2007]), (Sassen Reference Sassen2008 [2006]), (Abrahamsen and Williams Reference Abrahamsen and Williams2009), (Acuto and Curtis Reference Acuto and Curtis2014), (Schouten Reference Schouten2014), (Bachmann, Bell, and Holmqvist Reference Bachmann, Bell and Holmqvist2015), (Dittmer Reference Dittmer2015), (Wilcox Reference Wilcox2015, ch. 4, 5), (Bueger Reference Bueger2018), (Collier Reference Collier2018), (Fisher Reference Fisher2018), (Carter and Harris Reference Carter, Harris, Pereira and Saramago2020), (Fox and Alldred Reference Fox and Alldred2020), (Savage Reference Savage2020), (Ankersen Reference Ankersen, Ankersen and Sidhu2021), (Hope Reference Hope2021). See also §10.5.

⁹⁴ Oxford English Dictionary.

⁹⁵ Although not strictly true – imagine a collage of preserved hearts (which, not coincidentally, is an assemblage) – this is close enough for our purposes here.

⁹⁶ (Harman Reference Harman2010, 172).

⁹⁷ (Luhmann Reference Luhmann, Alexander and Colomy1990b, 409–410, 418–419; 1995 [1984], 18).

⁹⁸ See, for example, (DeLanda Reference DeLanda2016).

⁹⁹ (Gilbert Reference Gilbert2018, 123).

¹⁰⁰ I am effectively treating Waltz as the culmination of the first wave of systems theories in IR, bracketed at the front end by (Kaplan Reference Kaplan1957). (See also n. 30 above.) This phase was rooted in a cybernetic approach to systems, which emphasizes “control and communication in machines and in living organisms” (Wiener Reference Wiener1948, 14). (Ashby Reference Ashby1956) and (Wiener Reference Wiener1961) are classic works in cybernetics that Waltz explicitly notes (1979, 40 n. *) as influences. Although Waltz (Reference Waltz1979, 12) does mention Warren Weaver’s (Reference Weaver1948) “organized complexity,” which is an early precursor of contemporary conceptions of complexity, I show in Part II that Waltz was not really interested in complexity. Jervis’ Systems Effects, taking advantage of the transformation of systems science in the late 1970s and 1980s (the Santa Fe Institute was founded in 1984) moved IR away from cybernetics toward complex adaptive systems (see §2.3.4) – but, I argue below, not far enough in that direction.

¹⁰¹ I say this fully aware that I am nowhere near the caliber of scholar of Waltz or Jervis. I do, however, claim to have some important things to say about systems and how to study them in IR that push the conversation in new directions.