Complexity theory and planning: examining 'fractals' for organising policy domains in planning practice

This article examines selected methodological insights that complexity theory might provide for planning. In particular, it focuses on the concept of fractals and, through this concept, how ways of organising policy domains across scales might have particular causal impacts. The aim of this article is therefore twofold: (a) to position complexity theory within social science through a ‘generalised discourse’, thereby orienting it to particular ontological and epistemological biases and (b) to reintroduce a comparatively new concept – fractals – from complexity theory in a way that is consistent with the ontological and epistemological biases argued for, and expand on the contribution that this might make to planning. Complexity theory is theoretically positioned as a neo-systems theory with reasons elaborated. Fractal systems from complexity theory are systems that exhibit self-similarity across scales. This concept (as previously introduced by the author in ‘Fractal spaces in planning and governance’) is further developed in this article to (a) illustrate the ontological and epistemological claims for complexity theory, and to (b) draw attention to ways of organising policy systems across scales to emphasise certain characteristics of the systems – certain distinctions. These distinctions when repeated across scales reinforce associated processes/values/end goals resulting in particular policy outcomes. Finally, empirical insights from two case studies in two different policy domains are presented and compared to illustrate the workings of fractals in planning practice.

Radical Conservatism

In 1938, Yugoslav sculptor Oscar Nemon arrived in Britain, having fled the Nazi invasion of Brussels, where he was living with Magritte. He was part of the European avant-garde that came to the UK as a refugee. Shortly thereafter, Nemon proposed a bold architectural plan to construct a temple of universal ethics in London and was in correspondence over this with central figures in Britain. After the war, he became know for his portrayal of figures like Churchil, culminating in a bust of Margaret Thatcher that is currently at the Tory HQ. Shown at Castlefield Gallery in 2013-2014, Radical Conservatism was an exhibition that explored the space between these two moments and asked whether these two terms are really antithetical. In the British context in particular, where the European avant-garde never really took hold, a kind of reactionary modernism has always defined a culture wary of revolution. But today more than ever, with the left increasingly holding on to the past of the welfare state as an ideal, and the right quietly revolutionising our world through neoliberal reforms, the paradigms of radicalism and conservatism need to be redefined. Can conservatism be seen as a radical position in itself? If art is defined by a movement towards the new - could 'holding on to the past' stubbornly be seen as a critical position, now that neo-liberalism has forced a far more radical shift in politics than the left has managed in a long time? Curated by Pil and Galia Kollectiv, featuring work by Chris Evans, IRWIN, Pil and Galia Kollectiv, Joseph Lewis, Patrick Moran, Oscar Nemon and Public Movement and a symposium with contributions from Professor Alun Rowlands and Robert Garnett.

ELMs disease? Corporatism, stewardship and citizenship in the English countryside

Varying concepts of citizenship, implicit within policy providing countryside access opportunities in England and the sometimes contrasting political rhetoric concerning citizenship, are evaluated here. The focus for this paper surrounds the Countryside Stewardship Scheme and, generically, the access elements of Environmental Land Management schemes (ELMs) and the implications of the 1994 Criminal Justice and Public Order Act in this context. Policy formulation in respect of countryside access may not be prepared considering the philosophical implications for citizens rights or property rights constructions. However, it is hypothesized that particular modes of regulation and commodification (of certain countryside goods) are imbued with certain values which reflect a neo-Liberal political philosophy. This view is contextualized within present theoretical debates concerning rural society.

The effect of BREEAM on clients and construction professionals

The effects and influence of the Building Research Establishment’s Environmental Assessment Methods (BREEAM) on construction professionals are examined. Most discussions of building assessment methods focus on either the formal tool or the finished product. In contrast, BREEAM is analysed here as a social technology using Michel Foucault’s theory of governmentality. Interview data are used to explore the effect of BREEAM on visibilities, knowledge, techniques and professional identities. The analysis highlights a number of features of the BREEAM assessment process which generally go unremarked: professional and public understandings of the method, the deployment of different types of knowledge and their implication for the authority and legitimacy of the tool, and the effect of BREEAM on standard practice. The analysis finds that BREEAM’s primary effect is through its impact on standard practices. Other effects include the use of assessment methods to defend design decisions, its role in both operationalizing and obscuring the concept of green buildings, and the effect of tensions between project and method requirements for the authority of the tool. A reflection on assessment methods as neo-liberal tools and their adequacy for the promotion of sustainable construction suggests several limitations of lock-in that hinder variation and wider systemic change.

The zero, the centre and the empty utopia: from Rossellini to Walter Salles

This article examines utopian gestures and inaugural desires in two films which became symbolic of the Brazilian Film Revival in the late 1990s: Central Station (1998) and Midnight (1999). Both evolve around the idea of an overcrowded or empty centre in a country trapped between past and future, in which the motif of the zero stands for both the announcement and the negation of utopia. The analysis draws parallels between them and new wave films which also elaborate on the idea of the zero, with examples picked from Italian neo-realism, the Brazilian Cinema Novo and the New German Cinema. In Central Station, the ‘point zero’, or the core of the homeland, is retrieved in the archaic backlands, where political issues are resolved in the private sphere and the social drama turns into family melodrama. Midnight, in its turn, recycles Glauber Rocha’s utopian prophecies in the new millennium’s hour zero, when the earthly paradise represented by the sea is re-encountered by the middle-class character, but not by the poor migrant. In both cases, public injustice is compensated by the heroes’ personal achievements, but those do not refer to the real nation, its history or society. Their utopian breadth, based on nostalgia, citation and genre techniques, is of a virtual kind, attune to cinema only.

Whole-brain functional connectivity during emotional word classification in medication-free Major Depressive Disorder: abnormal salience circuitry and relations to positive emotionality

Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) has been associated with biased processing and abnormal regulation of negative and positive information, which may result from compromised coordinated activity of prefrontal and subcortical brain regions involved in evaluating emotional information. We tested whether patients with MDD show distributed changes in functional connectivity with a set of independently derived brain networks that have shown high correspondence with different task demands, including stimulus salience and emotional processing. We further explored if connectivity during emotional word processing related to the tendency to engage in positive or negative emotional states. In this study, 25 medication-free MDD patients without current or past comorbidity and matched controls (n=25) performed an emotional word-evaluation task during functional MRI. Using a dual regression approach, individual spatial connectivity maps representing each subject’s connectivity with each standard network were used to evaluate between-group differences and effects of positive and negative emotionality (extraversion and neuroticism, respectively, as measured with the NEO-FFI). Results showed decreased functional connectivity of the medial prefrontal cortex, ventrolateral prefrontal cortex, and ventral striatum with the fronto-opercular salience network in MDD patients compared to controls. In patients, abnormal connectivity was related to extraversion, but not neuroticism. These results confirm the hypothesis of a relative (para)limbic-cortical decoupling that may explain dysregulated affect in MDD. As connectivity of these regions with the salience network was related to extraversion, but not to general depression severity or negative emotionality, dysfunction of this network may be responsible for the failure to sustain engagement in rewarding behavior.

The creativity of action: Property, Kin and the social in African artisanal mining

Analyses of neo-liberal change in African mining tend to frame discussion through the lens of an overarching structural perspective. Far less attention has been paid to the way change is enacted within social relations in mining communities. To this end, our chapter considers how development in the Tanzanian mineral sector transforms people’s relationships and stimulates new iterations of power and agency within local trajectories of development, focusing on the case of artisanal gold mining in Mgusu village in Geita region, Tanzania. The aim is to trace how neo-liberal change configures market rationality and property relations in ways that can fundamentally alter social relationships within the local community, occupational groups and families, raising both opportunities for wealth accumulation and the potential to entrench poverty. The creative action involved in these processes generates new associational ties and repertoires of practice, as miners’ respond to change and the need to protect their livelihoods.

Parallel editing, multi-positionality and maximalism: cosmopolitan effects as explored in some art works by Melanie Jackson and Vivienne Dick

Garfield produces a critique of neo-minimalist art practice by demonstrating how the artist Melanie Jackson’s Some things you are not allowed to send around the world (2003 and 2006) and the experimental film-maker Vivienne Dick’s Liberty’s booty (1980) – neither of which can be said to be about feeling ‘at home’ in the world, be it as a resident or as a nomad – examine global humanity through multi-positionality, excess and contingency, and thereby begin to articulate a new cosmopolitan relationship with the local – or, rather, with many different localities – in one and the same maximalist sweep of the work. ‘Maximalism’ in Garfield’s coinage signifies an excessive overloading (through editing, collage, and the sheer density of the range of the material) that enables the viewer to insert themselves into the narrative of the work. In the art of both Jackson and Dick Garfield detects a refusal to know or to judge the world; instead, there is an attempt to incorporate the complexities of its full range into the singular vision of the work, challenging the viewer to identify what is at stake.

When rules and principles are not enough: insiders’ views and narratives on the global financial crisis

Much has been written about Wall Street and the global financial crisis (GFC). From a fraudulent derivatives market to a contestable culture of banking bonuses, culpability has been examined within the frames of American praxis, namely that of American exceptionalism. This study begins with an exploratory analysis of non-US voices concerning the nature of the causes of the GFC. The analysis provides glimpses of the globalized extent of assumptions shared, but not debated within the globalization convergence of financial markets as the neo-liberal project. Practical and paradigmatic tensions are revealed in the capture of a London-based set of views articulated by senior financial executives of financial service organizations, the outcomes of which are not overly optimistic for any significant change in praxis within the immediate future.

Rethinking the ontology of the shareholder model of the corporation

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the critical assumptions lying behind the Anglo American model of corporate governance. Design/methodology/approach – Literature review examining the concept of a nexus of contracts underpinning agency theory which, it is argued, act as the platform for neo-liberal corporate governance focusing on shareholder wealth creation. Findings – The paper highlights the unaddressed critical challenge of why eighteenth century ownership structures are readily adopted in the twenty-first century. Social implications – A re-examination of wealth creation and wealth redistribution. Originality/value – The paper is highly original due to the fact that few contributions have been made in the area of rethinking shareholder value.

Do real balance effects invalidate the Taylor principle in closed and open economies?

This paper examines the determinacy implications of forecast-based monetary policy rules that set the interest rate in response to expected future inflation in a Neo-Wicksellian model that incorporates real balance effects. We show that the presence of such effects in closed economies restricts the ability of the Taylor principle to prevent indeterminacy of the rational expectations equilibrium. The problem is exacerbated in open economies, particularly if the policy rule reacts to consumer-price, rather than domestic-price, inflation. However, determinacy can be restored in both closed and open economies with the addition of monetary policy inertia.

The post-financial crisis challenges for corporate governance and banking reform in China

The purpose of this paper is to review the impact of the global financial crisis on banking reform in China. The significant doubt concerning the efficiencies of Anglo-American model of corporate governance has raised a critical political question amongst scholars and practitioners as to whether China should continue to follow the U.K.-U.S. path in relation to financial reform. This conceptual paper provides an insightful review of the corporate governance literature and regulatory reports. After examining the fundamental limitations of the laissez-faire philosophy that underpins the neo-liberal model of capitalism, which promotes greater liberalization and less control, the paper considers the risks in opening China’s financial markets and relaxing monetary and fiscal policies. A critique of shareholder-capitalism is outlined in relation to the German’s “social market economy” styled capitalism. Through such analysis the paper explores a number of implications for China to consider in terms of developing a new and sustainable corporate governance model applicable to the Chinese context.