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Proceedings of the 11th ANZSYS / Managing the Complex V conference
Christchurch, New Zealand, 5th-7th December, 2005

Complex Systems and the Conjunctive State[1]

William H. Newell & Jack W. Meek
Miami University, US
University of La Verne, US

This paper explores the potential of complex
systems theory to inform the work of public ad-
ministrators, especially in the context of current
trends in urban environments. Our previous work
provided a cautious assessment of the applicabil-
ity of various complex systems theories to human
behavior. This paper proposes a synthesis of recent
developments in complex systems theory appro-
priate to the public administration then sketches
out how it can be applied to the recent movement
towards shared governance in urban environments
- the so-called conjunctive state. Specifically, we
believe the various self-organized and mandated
collaborative activities and innovations - called
networks - are usefully understood as responses
to problems posed by the complex nature of urban
systems, particularly collective responses to what
is referred to as the “disarticulated state.” While
networks enhance complexity in metropolitan
governance, a concomitant demand for new lessons
for administration is also apparent.
Introduction
the world of human institutions, behavior, and mental
activity in order to be useful in confronting the complex
problems faced by public administrators. Complexity
involving human components that are conscious and
self-aware, that are capable of rational thought which
informs their behavior, and that manipulate symbols,
imagine, and anticipate the future, produces different
behavior from complexity involving components that
exhibit behavior that is chemically or physically deter-
mined or genetically hard-wired. Recently, scholars
based in the social sciences have attempted to adapt the
theory to address the distinguishing characteristics of
the public administrator’s world. While each has offered
some limited insight, our theory represents an adaptation
that is responsive to the full range of distinctive human
characteristics. Since no two systems theorists agree
completely on terminology, the following review of
complex systems theory is our attempt to make coherent
as well as comprehendible a body of theory that is still in
flux.
Recent Developments in Complexity Theory
Complex systems theory has evolved over the last half

C
dozen years in directions that are, in many ways, useful
omplex systems theory, while developed in the
to public administrators, though the current focus on
natural sciences, has much to offer the social sci-
complex adaptive systems has a serious problem that is
ences. This paper is the second in our series on
addressed later in this paper. The good news is that hu-
the potential of complex systems theory to inform the
man complex systems are now generally understood to be
work of public administrators, especially in the context
comprised of many diverse components that are loosely
of current trends in urban environments as interpreted
and often nonlinearly linked and that produce emergent
by public administration scholars. Our previous work
patterns of systemic behavior. Complexity is now often
provided a cautious assessment of the applicability of
distinguished from chaos by theorists interested in
various complex systems theories to human behavior
human behavior (Anderson, 1999; Lissack, 2002; Mc-
(Newell & Meek, 2000). This paper provides a summary
Daniel & Driebe, 2005; Mitleton-Kelly, 2003; Newell,
of findings from recent literature on complex systems and
2001, 2003; Newell & Meek, 2000; Smedes, 2004),
sketches out how these can be applied to the recent move-
who now reject as inappropriate to human beings the
ment towards shared governance in urban environments
mindless iteration of simple invariant rules underlying
- the so-called conjunctive state. Specifically, we believe
chaos theory. The dominant model has become complex
innovations such as “networked” government and the
adaptive systems (CAS), which focuses on the holistic
co-production of public services are usefully understood
patterns formed through human interactions. All in
as responses to problems posed by the complex nature
all, we’ve come a long ways from models of complexity
of urban systems. In a subsequent publication, we will
drawn from the natural sciences and applied to the social
connect this theory of complexity with our theoretical
sciences without regard for the distinctive characteristics
work on interdisciplinarity to provide pragmatic rec-
of human beings.
ommendations for public administrators coping with
complex problems and changes in governance (Newell
The inferences drawn from CAS models for the
& Meek, 2006).
management of organizations are considerably more use-
ful than those drawn from earlier natural science-based
Complex systems theory has been developed
models (see Newell & Meek, 2000). Of particular inter-
largely by natural scientists to explain phenomena in the
est are the recommendations of Anderson (1999) that
physical and biological world. It needs to be adapted to
managers should influence agents indirectly by changing


the “fitness landscape” (e.g., providing longer-term re-
wards, setting priorities, and choosing the organization’s
domain) through trial and error; of Weick (McDaniel &
Driebe, 2005) that “To prepare for the unexpected means
that you have to offset strong cognitive predispositions
such as confirmation bias, fallacy of centrality, hubris,
normalization, typification, and bottom-up salience of
cues” (63); and of Holley (McDaniel & Driebe ,2005)
that “Underlying self-organizing systems…are simple
design principles” which she enumerates (169); of Lewin
& Regine (McMillan, 2002) that organizational practices
turn into rules so keep them few, and to try small-scale
experiments instead of fast, large-scale interventions
(104); of Bonifacio & Bouquet (Minati & Pessa, 2002)
that knowledge management should be perceived as “the
problem of coordinating…multiple sources of knowledge
in a distributed (that is, non centralized) way” (300);
and of Espejo (Mitleton-Kelly, 2003) that organizational
complexity needs to be embodied in “autonomous sys-
tems within autonomous systems within autonomous
systems” (53). Authors generally agree on the importance
of flattening hierarchies, facilitating informal networks,
and diversifying agents.
The implications of complex systems theory
for management should be even more useful when the
insights of social science disciplines are embedded within
the complex systems framework. It’s a hopeful sign that
a few other authors (Bar-Yam & Minai, 2004; Bentley &
Maschner, 2003; Jordan in McDaniel & Driebe, 2005;
Mitleton-Kelly, 2003) are now recognizing that complex
systems theory has implications for interdisciplinary
studies, which hold out the most promise of a compre-
hensive understanding of individual complex systems.
Metropolitan Administration and Complex
Systems
Luckily for public administrators, complex systems are
better behaved, less nonlinear, closer to equilibrium, and
less prone to disproportionate effects than are chaotic
systems. Professionals charged with manipulating or,
worse, managing complex systems cannot control those
systems the way they might a simple or complicated sys-
tem. Rigidly hierarchical organizations directed through
top-down decision-making are likely to be ineffective.
But those responsible for working with complex systems
need not throw up their hands either, totally abandoning
control for self-organization and top-down for bottom-
up decision-making.
Because the behavioral characteristics of com-
plex systems lie between those of complicated and cha-
otic systems, so too do their managerial characteristics.
Managers of complex systems must pay attention to the
inherent needs of the system as well as their needs for
the system. They must learn to watch and understand
systemic patterns as well as set goals and priorities for the

system. Lines of communication and decision-making
must flow up as well as down, so authority and legitimacy
must become vested in the process as a whole. Joint pri-
oritizing, decision-making, and implementation become
essential, and they must be based on an appreciation of
the system as a whole not on the perspective from one
location within the system. If this sounds like shared
governance and the conjunctive state, then you have
reached the same conclusion we have.
Changes in the Association of the Citizen and the
State
As noted by Robert Putnam (1999), there is a marked
decline in civic capital, an institutional cornerstone of
functional social relationships and system cohesion. Put-
nam, as do complex adaptive systems theorists focus on
informal networks of individuals, the former producing
social capital and the latter emergent patterns of behavior.
Both promote the functioning and the adaptability the
“community” to address complex problems. His new
forms of associations are comparable to new networks
that spontaneously emerge. Additionally, Joseph Nye
observed that there has been a steady decline in the public
trust of government (Nye, 1997). This lack of confidence
in government means that traditional institutions are not
seen as problem solvers, or places where some groups of
individuals can see their issues being significantly ad-
dressed. These groups are turning away from traditional
institutions to create unconventional solutions, many of
which are new forms of associations.
What is useful to recognize here is the funda-
mental changing nature of associations and relations
among citizens, policy makers, civic leaders and govern-
ment in metropolitan areas. What seems to be happening
is the slow movement away from government toward
governance! Governance is characterized as a facilitative
state, one where public administration facilitates the as-
sociations of citizens and social organizations in order
to produce social goods and services. This is a very dif-
ferent state of affairs than the functionally distinct roles
for the state, the citizens and private institutions, where
institutional command and control was familiar. Today
government is no longer viewed as the problem solver,
but can be viewed as a pathway to solution making. It is
in this new and complex environment where new forms
of association, especially those formed by institutions
whose leadership recognizes the changing nature of
problem solution will emerge.
The Rise of Networks and the Conjunctive State
Some scholars in the field of public administration are
now observing are new and emerging form of arrange-
ment among citizens, policy makers and governments
(Frederickson, 1997; Kickert, et al., 1997; Goldsmith
& Eggers, 2004). These new forms of arrangements
are a recognition of the inability of the state - as govern-
ment, organized through bureaucracies and represented
through increasingly less meaningful geographic juris-
dictions - to be responsive to citizen needs and the cre-
ation of social good. Simply stated, social problems have
outpaced conventional solutions. One form of recogni-
tion of this condition is in selected areas of public lead-
ership where we can witness responsiveness by creative
institutional leaders to find solutions that adapt existing
institutions to this new environment. This condition
represents a “disconjuntive state” (Federickson, 1999),
a condition where social issues overcome bureaucratic
solutions or where social issues cross public authorities
and jurisdictions.
The “conjunctive state” (Frederickson, 1999)
is a response to the complex condition. The character-
istics of the “conjunctive state” response include (1)
institutionalism (2) networks and (3) governance. Thus,
administrative conjunctive is a behavior that brings forth
order in the midst of a changing environment. The con-
junctive state is an adjustment of the institutional state,
led by the expansion of role definition and actions of and
by administrative leaders that recognize the influence and
contributions of a broader range of constituencies. The
conjunctive state can be seen as current practice of pub-
lic administration where stability, balance and problem
solving arise from this practice. If it does not arise from
its practice, it ceases to be practiced in such a way and a
previous order prevails (hence stability). As new forms
of governance emerge in response to disarticulation,
new practices, including the insights from the profes-
sional literature on interdisciplinarity (see Newell, 2000)
should be of considerable utility to public administrators
and other applied social scientists interested in identify-
ing and appreciating the patterns produced by specific
complex systems.
Research on participation in networks indicates
that public administrators spend a great deal of time in
networks, are viewed as valuable to individual success,
and are send an invaluable to organizational success
(Meek, 2002). In addition, network involvement means
many other organizations are involved, that there is
shared power (or limited central sovereignty) and a
significant compatibility of network and organizational
goals.
Based upon grounded theory and a case study
research on network management (Agranoff & McGuire,
2003; Agranoff, 2004) emergent lessons for public
administration management have been reported to in-
clude:
1. Be a representative of your agency and the net-
work.
2. Take a share of the administrative burden.
3. Operate by agenda orchestration.
4. Recognize shared expertise-based authority.
5. Stay within the decision bounds of your network.
6. Accommodate and adjust while maintaining pur-
pose.
7. Be as creative as possible.
8. Be patient and use interpersonal skills.
9. Recruit constantly.
10. Emphasize incentives.
The work of Russell Linden (2002) on cross-
boundary collaboration has also been very instructive.
Based on case study research and individuals inter-
viewed, Linden outlines various lessons of collaborative
public management, including the recognition of contex-
tual conditions that call upon the need for collaboration.
Linden’s lessons of successful collaboration in networks
includes: maintaining continuity of leadership among
all parties, acquiring flexible schedules, and develop-
ing open, trusting relationships among all participants
(Linden, 2002). Drawn from the experience of public
administrators involved in managing and participating
in networks provide some critical lessons that match
what those insights offered as management needs by
complexity theorists discussed earlier. Table 1 below
provides a summary of findings that related the practice
of conjunction and the administrative lessons of such
practice in relation to the management demands found
in the work of complexity theorists.
Also important is to recognize that the emer-
gence of network management co-exists with hierarchies.
It is now incumbent on public administration to not only
manage public hierarchies, but to participate fully in
networks. Administrators now need to be in two places
and the demands of both may lead to exhaustion. Thus,
networks represent an emergent force in public man-
agement, where “networks are not about creating order,
but rather allowing for ordered chaos,” agreeing to the
process and participating with communities (Mandell,
2004).
To summarize, the network management lit-
erature begins to address the nature of governance in a
shared power world. Much of what complexity theorists
have posited as important considerations of managing
within self-organized environments have found to have
corresponding management “lessons” from fieldwork in
public administration networks. These lessons provide
the basis for further administrative conjunction that may
well serve the practice of public administration given
complex environments.
Three Challenges of Future Research and
Practice
We identify three challenges to future research and
practice of public administration in complex urban en-
vironments.

 CAS Theorists and
Author Management Recom-
mendations
Change “fitness land-
Anderson (99)
scape”
“Off-set cognitive pre-
Weick (05)
dispositions”
Rely on“simple design
Holley (05)
principles”
Lewin & Regine
Rely on few rules
(02)
Coordinate multiple
Bonifacio & Bou-
knowledge sources in a
quet (02)
non-centralized way
Rely on autonomous
Espejo (03)
systems
Table 1 CAS Management Heuristics and PA Network Literature
Interdisciplinary Integration. Social scientists may be
content to undertake the interdisciplinary integration
required to understand the patterns of individual com-
plex systems. Public administrators, however, must go
beyond integration to intervention. Understanding must
be followed by action in the public arena. One might hope
that the holistic understanding of a complex problem
would lead fairly directly to its solution. But an integra-
tive understanding of a complex problem turns out to be
a necessary but not a sufficient condition for its solution.
As Newell writes (2006):
“Unfortunately for interdisciplinarians, as pointed out
earlier, the complex nature of the problem means that
even a model that is accurate and complete may produce a
more comprehensive understanding that predicts less well
than practitioners demand. The complexity of the problem
means that it is only quasi-ordered, quasi-determined, and
quasi-predictable; moreover, it may evolve unexpectedly
to produce a new pattern of behavior. Thus, at best inter-
disciplinary studies may produce more comprehensive
understandings that are of only limited utility. But the
difficulty lies in the nature of the problems studied by
interdisciplinarians, not in the process they use to study
it. Interdisciplinary studies get the most utility possible
out of the disciplines, but whether that utility is sufficient
to usefully guide human decision-making depends on the
degree of complexity of the problem itself.”
The reason lies in the nature of complex systems
which, as we have already seen, follow contradictory
rules and are comprised of nonlinear relationships, which
the result that they are ill-behaved (exhibiting sudden

PA Theorists and Manag-
Author
ing Networks - Findings
Stay within the decision
Agranoff (04)
bounds of your network
Accommodate and
Agranoff (04)
Adjust; Open Trusting
Linden (02)
Relationships
Leadership follows col- (Linden 02)
laborative principles
Not found NA
Maintain continuity of
leadership among the Linden (02)
parties
Share the Administrative
Agranoff (04)
Burden
large changes in behavior); characterized by effects dis-
proportionate to causes; dynamical (not in equilibrium);
and not deterministic (but not completely random either).
Thus, it is one thing to identify the pattern of a complex
system and understand what lies behind it. It is quite an-
other to predict the consequences of introducing a change
in the system. It is even possible that understanding of a
complex problem may simply not lead to its solution. In
fact, complexity theorists who focus on chaotic systems
tend to emphasize the unpredictability of changes to
systems characterized by complexity.
The Limits of CAS. The problem with CAS is that,
presumably for ease of modeling, the components are
limited to individual human beings (agents). Anderson
(1999) writes: “In systems dynamics models, variables
are connected to one another by feedback loops; in CAS
models, agents are connected to one another by feedback
loops. Each agent observes and acts on local information
only, derived from those other agents to which it is con-
nected” (pp. 219-220, emphasis added); thus, “Applied
to organizations, CAS models will require scholars to
specify the pattern of connections among agents, not the
pattern of connection among variables (as in path mod-
els)” (p. 222). Most theorists recognize that individuals
are members of groups and institutions, and are shaped
by the participation in the social, economic, political,
cultural, religious, and other spheres of human existence.
Yet, because those groups, institutions, and spheres are
not included explicitly in the model, their influence on
behavior within the complex system is indirect at best.
The situation is analogous to models developed by social
psychologists that try to take into account the economic,
social, and cultural spheres by looking at their net impact
on the individual. By ignoring what takes place inside
each of those spheres, their model cannot explain why an
impact changes; the result is an incomplete explanation
of the behavior. As Janssen (2002) wryly observes, CAS
models “do not necessarily represent theoretical insights
from behavioral science” (7). Worse than incomplete, for
theorists focused on the model itself, those influences
are lost altogether. Indeed, in emphasizing the centrality
of emergent patterns, Holland sees the agent as epiphe-
nomenal (Cowan, et al., 1999); and in Stacey (2005), the
complex system itself is lost.
The simplified CAS models currently avail-
able are a useful starting point, but they will need to be
expanded to include the variables studied by the various
social sciences if they are to become useful. It’s one thing
to argue that agents operate according to local knowl-
edge because they cannot identify the systemic effects
of their own behavior. It’s quite another to assume that
the groups, institutions, societies, and cultures of which
humans are members are epiphenomenal or otherwise
irrelevant to explaining human behavior. In human con-
texts, complex systems theory rejects the social science
disciplines at the cost of irrelevance.
Unresolved Tensions. There are a number of important
issues that the recent literature on complexity still leaves
unresolved:
• How does one balance out human needs for stabil-
ity and predictability and the functionality of hu-
man habits and routines with institutional needs
for adaptability and emergence? Is Boisot correct
that “there is a limit to the complexity that [human
economic agents] can handle over a given period of
time (Simon, 1957)” (Mitleton-Kelly, 2003)? Or-
ganizations also require some stability: “A large part
of organizational behavior is, in fact, very periodic
and cyclical, because it is driven by the clock and the
calendar” (Dooley in Lissack, 2002: 74). Jordan con-
cludes “We may need a balance between exploration
[i.e., “a strategy for exploiting variability”] and ex-
ploitation [i.e., “a strategy for maintaining stability”],
stability and variability, convergence and divergence
within a state” (McDaniel & Driebe, 190). More dy-
namically, how does one manage simultaneously for
short-term stability and long-term change?
• How can a manager determine when employees
need free reign to move the organization towards ‘far
from equilibrium’ self-organization, and when they
need to be sacked for incompetence? Theorists recite
the mantra of the futility of managerial control, yet
managers often need to make personnel decisions
that involve the ultimate in control, namely who
gets to stay and play, as well as a host of less extreme
interventions.
• What features of complex adaptive systems are es-
sential, and what ones are the product of the way
those systems are currently modeled?
• What role do individual agents (located simultane-
ously within numerous societal subsystems) play
in the power law distribution of emergence (that
emergent effects are replicated on multiple scales)
(Anderson, 1999; Bentley & Maschner, 2003; Bak
in Cowan, 1999)? - i.e., is there a human source of
the fractal properties of emergence in human insti-
tutions?
• How complicated, vague, variable, or stochastic can
the rules followed by agents be and still produce
emergent self-organization? After all, individuals
constantly balance out conflicting ‘I’ and ‘We’ imper-
atives, with the tension between those imperatives
shifting in response to factors in many dimensions.
A related issue is how and why those rules evolve in
reaction to local changes as agents adapt.
Looking Ahead
This paper has sought to bring together the recent work of
complexity theorists and their implications for public ad-
ministration in context of metropolitan governance. We
have had identified an emergent trend in metropolitan
governance - conjunction - that calls upon a understand-
ing of management and administration. It is found that
network researchers - based on grounded theory - have
found similar management lessons as those found in the
complexity literature. The challenge ahead is to under-
stand these emergent features from both analytical and
practical perspectives so as to advance our understanding
of managing complex environments.
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Notes
The authors wish to express their appreciation to the
two anonymous reviewers of an earlier draft of this
paper. Each provided valuable feedback that has greatly
enhanced both the direction and content of this paper.
William H. Newell, Ph.D., is Professor of Interdisci-
plinary Studies at Miami University (Ohio), Executive
Director of the Association for Integrative Studies, and
Director of the Institute in Integrative Studies. Profes-
sor Newell has published Interdisciplinarity: Essays from
the Literature (1998), Interdisciplinary Undergraduate
Programs: A Directory (1986) and Population Change
and Agricultural Development in Nineteenth Century
France (1977) and over twenty articles and chapters.
Over the last two decades, he has served more than a
hundred times as consultant or external evaluator to col-
leges and universities in the United States and Canada.
His current research interests include interrelationships
among public administrators, complex systems theory
and interdisciplinary studies.
Jack W. Meek, Ph.D., is Professor of Public Administra-
tion at the College of Business and Public Management
at the University of La Verne, and since 2003, Visiting
 Senior Research Scholar at the School of Policy Planning
and Development at the University of Southern Califor-
nia, working the Neighborhood Participation Project.
Professor Meek’s research focuses on metropolitan
governance and regionalism, including the emergence
of cross-jurisdictional administrative connections and
relationships, regional collaboration and policy networks
and has published articles in various books and academic
journals.

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