Showing papers on "Social network analysis published in 1978"
01 Jan 1978
TL;DR: In this paper, the concept of self-regulating systems has been applied to the analysis of groups' internal structure and operations and their interactions with other groups, and not only the organs of government but also the state itself can be analyzed as a selfregulating system, without destroying the individual person's identity and essential autonomy.
Abstract: The conception of social groupings as self-regulating systems that perceive, decide and act analogous to electro-mechanical cybernetic systems at one level and to organisms at another, has provided the contemporary social sciences with one of their most valuable conceptual instruments. Applied to organizational analysis it facilitated the systematic study of groups’ internal structure and operations and their interactions with other groups [1]. It was soon clear that not only the organs of government but the state itself could fruitfully be analyzed as self-regulating systems. The patent inadequacies of organismic theories of the state could be avoided, yet the integrated and coordinated purposeful and functionally differentiated activities of vast numbers of persons in a dynamically adjustive and adaptive national community could be conceptualized without destroying the individual person’s identity and essential autonomy, or the identity and autonomy of intermediate groupings [2].