About Us

A BRIEF BACKGROUND AND HISTORY OF THE SECTION ON COMPLEXITY AND NETWORK STUDIES OF THE AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION

The SCNS of ASPA has its intellectual roots in the pioneering works of the late Sam Overman and the current SCNS member L. Doug Kiel in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Overman interpreted the implications of chaos/complexity theories for public administration and policy in a series of articles that appeared in the Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, Public Administration Review, and others. Kiel published a series of articles in the Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, Public Administration Review, and others, as well as publishing the first comprehensive book in this topical area: Managing Chaos and Complexity in Government (1994).

The organizational seeds of SCNS were sown not in ASPA, but elsewhere. Inspired by the works of Overman and Kiel, a small group of participants at the 1995 Seattle conference of the Public Administration Theory Network (PAT-Net) (Goktug Morcol, Linda Dennard, and the late John Little) decided to organize conference panels on chaos/complexity theories at future conferences. In the following years Jack Meek, William Newell, and others joined this first group in organizing the panels. These panels continued, with varying degrees of success, until 2007. Some of the papers presented by the panelists were published in a symposium issue in Administrative Theory & Praxis (1997) and an edited volume (New Sciences for Public Administration and Policy, 2000).

As the interest in complexity studies began to wane at PAT-Net conferences, it re-surfaced elsewhere. An international workshop on complexity and policy analysis was organized by some of the initial members of the PAT-Net complexity/chaos group in Cork, Ireland, in 2005.

Meanwhile Alexander Dawoody held a forum at ASPAs National Conference to establish a section on complexity studies initially named the Overman Section for System and Complexity Studies in 2004. Alexander Dawoody launched a campaign for the next three years in order to obtain the required signature of support for the section from among ASPA members. He attended various ASPA national and regional conferences to announce the initiative, formed various panels to introduce the type of thinking, published various announcements at PA Times for recruitment, attended SECoPA conferences and other events, and launched a listserv and an email campaign. He then drafted the bylaws, formed the provisional executive committee, and submitted an official application to the ASPA National Council for recognition of the section for theComplexity and Systems Studies Network, which was later renamed the Section on Complexity and Network Studies.

Elections were held for section officers and Goktug Morcol was elected the first chair of the section. He served between 2006 and 2009. In September 2008, the National Council of ASPA granted the Section on Complexity and Network Studies permanent status. Ronald Scott served as its next chair between 2009 and 2011. The current chair is Qian Hu. She will be succeeded by Asim Zia in 2024.

There has been considerable recent work by scholars and practitioners affiliated with ASPA SCNS. Their papers published in special issues of Public Administration Quarterly (Weber, Symposium: Chaos, complexity, uncertainty and public administration, fall 2008) and Emergence: Complexity and Organization (Meek, Complexity theory for public administration and policy, winter 2010). Many significant books and articles in other venues have been published by the members of SCNS as well.