¹ Examples in the current literature of systemic constructs being used to show the links between science, technology, and international politics include: Wenk, Edward Jr., The Politics of the Ocean (Seattle 1972)Google Scholar; Brown, Lester R., World Without Borders (New York 1972)Google Scholar; Falk, Richard A., This Endangered Planet (New York 1971)Google Scholar; , Harold and Sprout, Margaret, Toward a Politics of the Planet Earth (New York 1971)Google Scholar; Hargrove, John L., ed., Law, Institutions and the Global Environment (Dobbs Ferry, N.Y. 1972)Google Scholar; Black, Cyril E. and Falk, Richard A., eds., The Future oj the International Legal Order (Princeton 1972)Google Scholar, Vol. IV (especially Part I).

² Singer, J. David, A General Systems Taxonomy for Political Science (New York 1971), 9Google Scholar. For a perceptive critique of general systems theory applied to international issues and of other deductively constructed systems theories, see Stephens, Jerome, “An Appraisal of Some Systems Approaches in the Study of International Systems,” International Studies Quarterly, xvi (September 1972)Google Scholar.

³ Not to be confused with genetic and cultural theories of human evolution couched in systemic terms. Such theories may or may not be open, depending on the future state programmed by the theorist, and depending on what he means by adaptation. If adaptation merely means the preservation of a certain gene pool to facilitate later cultural evolution, such formulations leave the outcome open. See Lerner, I. Michael, Evolution and Society (San Francisco 1968)Google Scholar, chap. 22. If the evolutionary pattern is subordinated to achieve a predefined spiritual condition, however, we have a case of adaptation meaning something very specific. See Dobzhansky, Theodosius, Mankind Evolving (New Haven 1962)Google Scholar, chap. 12. Hence, ecosystemic evolutionary theories stressing the trend toward a new human consciousness tend to be deterministic in intent and informal/inductive in method.

For evidence that my typology of systems theories is far from commanding universal acceptance, see the different and more demanding characterization devised by Kenneth N. Waltz in his “Theories of International Relations,” Fred Greenstein and Nelson Polsby, eds., The Handbook of Political Science, Vol. VII (forthcoming). Waltz is unwilling to consider informal/inductive constructs as genuine systems theories, preferring to remain closely identified with the general systems approach which I consider to be merely one species in a more comprehensive genus. The difference in approach is significant because the terms used by me are not synonymous with the same terms as employed by Waltz, notably the words “open” and “closed.”

⁴ For a thoroughgoing critique of the epistemological qualities of structural-functional systems theory, see Gregor, A. James, “Political Science and the Uses of Functional Analysis,” American Political Science Review, LXII (June 1968)Google Scholar. For a discussion of the ambiguity of “functions” in the analysis of international phenomena, see , Haas, Beyond the Nation-State (Stanford 1964)Google Scholar, chap. 3 and especially pp. 62–68. The difficulty of imputing systemic properties to human purposes, while retaining a systems framework for the presentation of the overall argument, is avoided by Rosenau, James N. in The Adaptation of National Societies: A Theory of Political System Behavior and Transformation (New York 1970)Google Scholar. Rosenau throughout uses biological and evolutionary arguments as analogies, not as determinants of human behavior, thus keeping the presentation within the bounds of heuristic/inductive systems theorizing. In Ervin Laszlo's treatment of the same concerns, however, this epistemological distinction tends to get lost. While Laszlo treats natural systems and social systems as different entities, he interprets the behavior of social systems as subordinate to the imputed requirements of the natural systems within which social life must operate. His prescription for cognitive adjustments necessary to assure survival and adaptation follows from this conceptual hierarchy. His argument therefore straddles several cells in my matrix, because—he insists—inferences about actual conduct cannot be made from deterministic systemic assertions, but normatively desirable assertions about conduct can. See his The Systems View of the World (New York 1972)Google Scholar and The World System: Models, Norms, Variations (New York 1973)Google Scholar.

⁵ Science, Growth and Society: A New Perspective, Report of the Secretary-General's Ad Hoc Group on New Concepts of Science Policy; Harvey Brooks, Chairman [hereafter referred to as the Brooks Report] (OECD, Paris 1971). Erich Jantsch, ed, Perspectives of Planning, Proceedings of the OECD Working Symposium on Long-Range Forecasting and Planning, Bellagio, October 27-November 2, 1969 (OECD, Paris 1969). Use is made primarily of the joint statement of the group [hereafter referred to as the Bellagio Declaration], 7–9.

There was a certain amount of overlap among the participants in the Bellagio meeting and the Brooks panel. Moreover, Jantsch testified before the Brooks panel. It should also be noted that prominent members of the Club of Rome participated in both events; although they did not speak with one voice, the impact of the Club's approach is more visible in the Bellagio Declaration than in the Broods Report.

⁶ Jantsch, Erich, Technological Planning and Social Futures (London 1972)Google Scholar. Even though the formulations of Jantsch were not part of the OECD approach in the sense of having organizational endorsement, most of the ideas involved were developed by Jantsch while working for OECD.

⁷ Bellagio Declaration, 7.

⁸ Brooks Report, 15.

⁹ Jantsch (fn. 6), 3.

¹⁰ Broods Report, 96; Bellagio Declaration, 8; Jantsch (fn. 6), chap. 11.

¹¹ Brooks Report, 23–24.

¹² Bellagio Declaration, 7.

¹³ Jantsch (fn. 6), 177.

¹⁴ Brooks Report, 76–107.

¹⁵ Ibid.

¹⁶ Jantsch (fn. 6), 178.

¹⁷ Ibid., 187.

¹⁸ The Brooks Report puts the emphasis on the protection of academic freedom and the continued support society should give to unguided fundamental research in universities; Jantsch also favors continued fundamental research, but wishes to redefine the mission of universities so as to put them into the role of actively demonstrating how society should be reorganized. See his chaps. 15 and 16.

¹⁹ The coding of linkage statements was done as follows: All major statements asserting links between subjects were identified in the Brooks Report and the Bellagio Declaration. In the case of the Brooks Report, I used the summary chapter entided “Assumptions Concerning Science, Technology, and Society,” pp. 15–25. Subjects were then sorted in terms of their centrality to the overall argument by examining the strength of the predicates used to link them together. Assignment to the “core” or the “periphery” depended on the strength of the claim made—i.e., on the degree of certainty as to the nature of the linkage expressed by the authors. It would have been simpler if the authors had explicidy differentiated between social values and social/economic processes, but since they did not, a more indirect coding scheme had to be adopted. Institutional concerns were treated instrumentally by the authors—i.e., simply as a way of obtaining a better fit between core subjects or between core and peripheral subjects.

²⁰ Jantsch (fn. 6), 6, 31–36,173.

²¹ The Brooks Report cautions against excesses in participatory democracy as inconsistent with the making of stable and informed decisions, while lauding maximum feasible popular participation in planning. The Bellagio Declaration contains similar evidence of ambivalence on this issue.

It is important to recall that what I have identified as the cognitive map of the Broods Report is not as epistemologically crisp as one might wish because the members of the panel were far from being in complete agreement on some fundamental propositions relating to the nature of the science-society interface. Interviews and correspondence with four of the ten members convinced me that they disagreed on two radier basic points, (i) The majority felt that the purpose of the Report was to improve the utilization of science in public policy-making in order to link more closely the planning of science and of scientific thinking to comprehensive international planning for economic and social development, and to rely on more systematic technology assessment in doing so; a minority, however, thought that this objective should be attained by deliberately fostering a greater international consciousness of ecological interdependence. (2) This difference coincides with slighdy divergent views on the power of scientific knowledge to influence political choice. While almost all members shared the view that scientific knowledge is different from (and superior to) political knowledge because it is trans-ideological, the majority felt also that while there may be comprehensive systems of knowledge, they contribute to problem-solving only by indicating the limits on effective choice; such knowledge is facilitative rather than determinative. The minority felt that such knowledge should dictate choice rather than simply aid in the making of political decisions.

²² Iantsch (fn. 6), 6–7.

²³ Ibid., 25.

²⁴ Ibid., 29.

²⁵ Ibid., 37. My summary of the system covers material in Jantsch's chapter 3. For a more popularized version of the same argument, see Aurelio Peccei, “How to Survive on the Planet Earth,” Successo (February 1971). Peccei includes a number of practical suggestions for immediate steps to be taken at the international level. In Successo (December 1973) Peccei spells out the argument as to why an ecologically holistic perspective is required for the solution of concrete international problems involving population, resources, food, economic growth, and war. The research program of the Club of Rome with respect to these is described in The New Threshold (London 1973)Google Scholar. Portions of this approach were endorsed with a call for a comprehensive review of international planning procedures at the Salzburg meeting of the Club of Rome (February 4, 1974), which was attended by six heads of government (Mexico, Austria, Sweden, Senegal, Canada, Netherlands) and four ministers (Pakistan, Switzerland, Ireland, Algeria). Among the members of the Club of Rome in attendance, two had been members of the Brooks panel.

²⁶ Jantsch (fn. 6), 174.

²⁷ Jantsch accepts Mesarovic's mathematical theory of organizational behavior for this purpose. See his chapter II. Mesarovic, Mihajlo D., Macko, D., and Takahara, Y., Theory of Hierarchical Multilevel Systems (New York and London 1970)Google Scholar.

²⁸ Jantsch (fn. 6), 171–72.

²⁹ Bellagio Declaration, 8. The drafters of the declaration, in addition to Jantsch himself, included four distinguished futurists on whose work Jantsch often relies: Jay W. Forrester, Dennis Gabor, Hasan Ozbekhan, and Aurelio Peccei. Since the group also included a dozen others, it is apparent that no comprehensive consensus on the details of “the system” could be expected. In fact, many of the separate papers presented at the meeting display conceptions of social, physical, and biological “reality” which do not fit Jantsch's conceptualization. For an elaborate presentation with ample epistemological justification which is close to Jantsch's, see H. Ozbekhan, “Toward A General Theory of Planning,” Ibid., 47–158. For a biological emphasis which hedges the question of how determinative adaptive-evolutionary systems are without human intervention, see Rene Dubos, “Future-Oriented Science,” Ibid., 159–78, and , Dubos, Reason Awake (New York 1970)Google Scholar.

³⁰ Brooks Report, 17. But the “other systems” are sometimes called “subsystems” in the Report. The differences of opinion among the members of the panel may also be responsible for the inconsistent use of the systems construct. One member told me that he was not motivated by any commitment to systems thinking, and that he considered the use of systems language little more than a rhetorical flourish.

³¹ Ibid., 57.

³² Ibid., 18–20, 30–36.

³³ Ibid., 38–39, 56–57, 62–65.