Complexity Science and World Affairs

Acknowledgments

X X I Deep thanks to Stuart A. Kauffman for his foreword and for his efforts to decode complexity and other fields of knowledge for me over more than half a century. Exploring the ties between art and science, Daniel Kohn provided the book’s illustrations. Anshul Jain, Boston University, compressed many numbers to produce the data-rich figures throughout the book. Dino Christenson, also at Boston University, helped me fathom correlations. Neil E. Harrison in Wyoming has encouraged and joined me in proposing complexity as a useful approach to international studies. He edited and contributed to Complexity in World Politics: Concepts and Methods of a New Paradigm (SUNY Press, 2006) and organized several panels on this topic at meetings of the International Studies Association. Emilian Kavalski has also been a pioneer in these efforts. He organized a conference at the University of Western Sydney for which I prepared a paper. Daryl Morini in Queensland and Stephen Advocate in New Haven critiqued that essay and several chapters of this book. Ronald H. Linden at the University of Pittsburgh, series editor for my first attempt at applying complexity theory to security and development issues, has also helped me understand Eastern Europe going back to his work-study job in 1968. Alexander J. Motyl at Rutgers University has kept me abreast of developments in Ukraine and has suggested constructive ways to think about agents and structures, contingency and determinism. J. David Singer at Michigan has been a friend for decades and, though not a convert to complexity , has supported my efforts to make studies of Eurasia and the United Acknowledgments X X I I A C K N O W L E D G M E N T S States more systematic. Merle Lefkoff and her colleagues in Santa Fe spurred me to think about complexity science and security issues. Yaneer Bar-Yam has broadened my horizons by seminars and international conferences arranged by his New England Complexity Systems Institute. S. Frederick Starr at SAIS has focused on Central Asia and the Caucasus for decades, all the while encouraging me to explore complexity as a way to understand Eurasia. Earlier versions of chapters 3 and 4 were presented at the Conference on Border Changes in Twentieth Century Europe held at Tartu University in February 2005, and the National Meeting of the International Studies Association in Honolulu in March 2005. My thanks to Olaf Mertelsmann and other participants in these meetings for useful suggestions. Adaptations of those papers were later published in Communist and Post-Communist Studies and International Journal of Peace Studies, whose editors and reviewers made valuable comments. Rein Taagepera in Tartu and Mari-Ann Kelam in Tallinn have supported my studies of the Baltic region for years. Yurim Yi, Ezra Vogel, and Jong-Sung You made useful suggestions for an earlier version of chapter 9 presented at the International Studies Association Annual Meeting held in San Francisco, April 3, 2013. Many chapters benefit from analyses by the United Nations Development Programme, Freedom House, Transparency International, and the Bertelsmann Foundation. My special thanks to Hauke Hartmann at the Bertelsmann Foundation for providing Figure 9.1 comparing South and North Korea. While I taught at M.I.T. and Boston University starting in the 1960s, my research base all those years has been Harvard University and its Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, and Korea Institute. Ideas put forward by Harvard political scientists Joseph S. Nye, Graham Allison, and the late Samuel P. Huntington, not to mention the great “ant man” E. O. Wilson, run through nearly every chapter. Sharon Donahue, Office Essentials, and Karen Kenney, Organizing Works, provided both moral and technical assistance. Dr. Michael Rinella at the SUNY Press has been a supportive, patient, and helpful editor. He corralled two reviewers who went over the manuscript with a fine-toothed comb, not once but twice. I am grateful for their judicious, erudite, and constructive suggestions. Thanks to family—especially Ali and Anna close by, and Lani et al. in California—for indulging my retreats from the world and occasional reentries. Let’s hope we all learn how to cope with the challenges of complexity! ...