Philippe DeVille

Actors, Games and Systems: The Dialectics of Social Action and System Structuring

This paper outlines several of the key concepts and principles with which we try to describe and analyze how processes and structures in social systems are formed, reproduced, and transformed. Our theoretical perspective draws on and attempts to develop modern systems theory and game theory. The influence of Marxian theory and research is also apparent. Our approach may be referred to as actor-oriented systems analysis. It addresses itself (1) to systems as sources of constraint and regulation of social action and interaction and (2) to actors and their activities as driving forces for the maintenance or change of systems. The first part of the paper refers briefly to several general ideas which lie in back of our approach. Part II of the paper suggests several applications of the approach in research. Part III outlines key conceptual elements, several methodological features, and research guidelines of the approach.

A Socioeconomic Systems Model of the Global Financial Crisis of 2007+: Power, Innovation, Ideology and Regulatory Failures

Books, essays and articles on the causes, dynamics and impacts of the 2007+ global economic/financial crisis and the related economic depression are numerous and growing. Widespread agreement exists on the sequence of events leading to the crisis (European Parliament, 2009; US Government Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, 2011): from the housing bubble and the subprime crisis in the US market to the risk of default and the federal rescue with large amounts of public money of the two giants of US housing credit firms Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and one of the largest US insurance companies AIG; from the crisis of the five largest American investment banks that were at the core of global finance (the default of Lehman Brothers and the acquisition or transformation of the others) to the financial panic caused by the vast proliferation of the toxic products of the shadow finance system that fostered a generalised crisis of confidence in banks, firms and families, thus contributing ultimately to the recession of the real economy.

Inflation, Politics, and Social-change - Institutional and Theoretical Crisis in Contemporary Economy and Society

industrialized countries, particularly when inflation can only be regulated at the substantial cost of high unemployment and the underutilization of production capacity. Economic advisors and political leaders have failed thus far to come up with a coherent counter-inflationary strategy, one effective as well as politically sustainable over the long-run. This paper stems from a long-term, comparative and multi-disciplinary project to investigate inflation as well as stagnation processes in several industrialized countries. We posit that inflation results from institutionalized societal conflict over the distribution of income. The state, unable to resolve these conflicts, accommodates them-with the intentional or unintentional cooperation of the banking system-through an expansion of credit and of the

Socio-economics : The approach of social systems theory in a forty year perspective

This article presents a social systems theoretical approach to the field of socio-economics. Drawing on actor-system dynamics, a social systems theory, developed in the 1970s, we report on how it h ...

The Oil Crisis and the Emerging World Order

The paper outlines a conceptual framework for understanding and analyzing the structuring of an institutional order. Particular attention is given to developments which make institution restructuring likely – for instance power shifts which favor actors with a different vision or model of an appropriate institutional order. The framework is applied in a brief historical study of the development of post-World War II international economic institutions and current developments associated with the ‘oil crisis’. This conceptual framework and historical investigation provides a basis on which to formulate propositions indicating potential sources of conflict and cooperation and certain ambiguities and dynamics of current institution restructuring in the international system. The paper concludes by outlining several action guidelines for structuring new global cultural forces and institutional forms related to bringing about a New International Economic Order.