This expanded and updated edition of Complexity Theory and the Social Sciences: The State of the Art revisits the use of complexity theory across the social sciences and demonstrates how complexity informs approaches to various contemporary issues in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, widening social inequality, and impending social and ecological catastrophe wrought by global warming.

The book reviews complexity theory in the practice of the social sciences and at their interface with ecological science. It outlines how social theory can be reconciled with complexity thinking and presents a review of the way research can be done using complexity theory. The book suggests how complexity theory can be used to understand and evaluate governance processes, particularly with regard to social inequality and the climate crisis. The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic is also examined through a complexity lens, reviewing how complexity thinking has been employed in relation to the pandemic and how implementing a complexity framework can transform health and social care. The book concludes with a call to action and the use of complexity theory to inform critical thinking in the education system.

This textbook will be immensely useful to students and researchers interested in social research methods, social theory, business and organization studies, health, education, urban studies, and development studies.

About the Author

David Byrne is Emeritus Professor of Sociology and Applied Social Science at Durham University, UK. His research interests include complexity theory, post-industrial social structures, urban systems, taxation policy, the privatization of welfare systems, quantitative methods, and case-based methods. He is the author of Applying Social Science: The Role of Social Research in Politics, Policy and Practice (Policy Press, 2011), Class after Industry (Palgrave Macmillan, 2018) and Inequality in a Context of Climate Crisis after COVID: A Complex Realist Approach (Routledge, 2021) and co-author of Complexity Theory and the Social Sciences: The State of the Art (First Edition, Routledge, 2013) and Paying for the Welfare State in the 21st Century (Policy Press, 2017).

Gillian Callaghan is a teacher of social theory and qualitative methods and an experienced evaluator of social and health interventions. Her research interests include complexity theory, deindustrialization and post-industrial social structure, class, social capital and community, and issues of power, participation, and governance. She is the author of numerous journal articles and co-author of Complexity Theory and the Social Sciences: The State of the Art (First Edition, Routledge, 2013).

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