Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
nature of this balance. An ordered system is dei ned as one with a low level of connec-
tivity. In such a system a change at any one point or in any one component has limited
impact on the rest of the system, which, as a whole, remains virtually unchanged: low
connectedness implies a high degree of order and a high degree of stability of the system.
In a system with a high degree of connectedness, a change at any point in the system
impacts on many other elements so that change is propagated across the system as
a whole. In the extreme case, where every element is connected with every other, the
system would be wholly unstable, in ef ect chaotic. Complex systems are somewhere in
the middle: 'order is associated with low connectivity, chaos with high connectivity, and
complexity forms a narrow window of low-to-intermediate connectivity between order
and chaos' (Potts, 2000, p. 90). According to Potts, the economy, as a complex system, is
in dynamic balance between order and chaos, and is:
Neither ordered not chaotic but both, in a balance between information, pattern and coordina-
tion being usefully locked into a system (as preferences, technology, institutions) and the con-
tinued experimentation and search for new patterns and the maintenance of l exibility within
the system so that these may then be adapted. (2000, p. 90)
What does this imply for the economic landscape, for the geographies of the economy?
Most economic geographers would agree that there is a high degree of stability and order
to the spatial structure of the economy: cities do not appear or disappear overnight; pat-
terns of industrial location and agglomeration do not change from one day to the next;
regional specialisations do not develop or decline spontaneously. Yet this stability and
order is hardly the result of low levels of connectivity, either within or between cities and
regions. Indeed, adherents of the new 'relational turn' in economic geography would
probably argue that it is primarily in terms of multifarious relational (connectivity) net-
works that the geographies of the economy should be understood. Yet again, equating
order, stability and lock-in with low levels of connectivity would seem to run counter
to those accounts that explain regional lock-in in terms of excessive inter-relatedness -
the 'weakness of strong ties' argument (for an extended discussion of regional lock-in,
see Martin and Sunley, 2006).
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In short, the relationships between self-organisation,
connectivity and order would seem to require extensive elaboration in an economic-
geographic context.
And, i fth, so too does the relationship between self-organisation and adaptation
(Essletzbichler and Rigby, 2007). According to Hodgson and Knudsen (2006a) self-
organisation alone cannot provide the basis for an evolutionary economic theory as it
tells us nothing about selection: 'Self-organization alone cannot explain the adaptation
and dif erential survival of self-organized systems' (2006a, p. 16). In their view an exclu-
sive focus on self-organisation at the expense of selection does not explain how systems
are adapted to their environments. They conclude therefore that selection acts on self-
organised systems once they have emerged. But whether the emergence of connections
and interlinkages in economic systems (self-organisation) can be clearly distinguished
from their subsequent selection is debatable. The contexts for the generation of variety
and its selection in economic organizations are often combined and inseparable (Loasby,
2001). As we have already seen, other complexity economists appear to suggest that
some complex systems have properties that make them robust and adaptable. They
argue that self-organised systems move to a poised state, called the 'edge of chaos', where
