The powers and pathologies of networks: Insights from the political cybernetics of Karl W. Deutsch and Norbert Wiener 1
| DOI | 10.1177/1354066110396977b |
| Date | 01 June 2011 |
| Published date | 01 June 2011 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
I
Article
European Journal of
International Relations
The powers and pathologies
17(2) 351–378
© The Author(s) 2011
of networks: Insights from
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the political cybernetics
DOI: 10.1177/1354066110396977
ejt.sagepub.com
of Karl W. Deutsch
and Norbert Wiener1
Hayward R. Alker
University of Southern California and Brown University, USA
Editorial note
This article was in review when Hayward Alker sadly passed away in 2007. The previ-
ous and current editorial teams greatly appreciate the willingness of Thomas Biersteker
and J. Ann Tickner to revise the article in light of the referee reports. We are also
thankful to James Der Derian for providing an introduction and contextualization to
the article.
Note from Thomas Biersteker
The article was edited to respond to the reviewers’ comments and delete some asides.
There were places where I had to clarify the prose and correct for stylistic inconsisten-
cies and a few typos. However, the edit was fairly light and I was able to leave the final
four pages untouched. One of the most significant additions I made was to construct an
Appendix of the interpretive hypotheses that Hayward Alker invoked and then repeat-
edly referred to in a shorthand manner throughout the text. The Appendix is almost
entirely composed of Hayward Alker’s prose copied and pasted from passages in the
main text. J. Ann Tickner went over the version I revised and made a few additional
corrections.
352
European Journal of International Relations 17(2)
‘Butterflies, networks, and golems’ – an
introduction to ‘The powers and pathologies
of networks’ by Hayward R. Alker
James Der Derian
Watson Institute for International Studies, Brown University, USA
In 1961, Edward Lorenz was using a numerical computer model to rerun a weather prediction,
when, as a shortcut on a number in the sequence, he entered the decimal .506 instead of entering
the full .506127 the computer would hold. The result was a completely different weather
scenario. (‘Butterfly effect’, Wikipedia)
Serious scholars do not quote Wikipedia. But I can think of no better open network to
instantiate how a sensitive dependence on initial conditions — the so-called ‘butterfly
effect’ of chaos theory — might trigger not only strange weather but a remarkable essay by
one of the most complex thinkers in International Relations, Hayward Alker. Alker was,
avant la lettre, a walking, talking, living embodiment of the virtues of Wikipedia, accumu-
lating, revising and always generously disseminating an impossibly vast body of knowl-
edge through an open-source network of friends, students, and colleagues. Alker displayed
in his relentless effort to understand the world not only an unusual sensitivity to ‘initial
conditions’ but also an intense self-reflexivity about the function of one’s own interpreta-
tions and actions. Together these qualities made him not only a highly effective but also
deeply ethical scholar. They are also eminently evident in the article which follows.
The initial condition of the article can be traced back to Alker’s early exposure at MIT to
two of the most profound thinkers of the Cold War era, the political scientist Karl Deutsch
and the physicist Norbert Wiener. Friends and colleagues, Deutsch and Wiener were among
the first to explore the impact of new social, economic, and technological networks on
complex organizations and governmental polities. According to Deutsch’s daughter, Mary
Edsall, all through the 1940s and 1950s they would regularly gather at the Deutsch’s home
to discuss everything from physics to metaphysics (personal email to Hayward Alker, 26
February 2005). Although their work would eventually have a profound influence on the
study of IR, this was largely through an appropriation of their more ‘timeless’ concepts, like
‘pluralistic security community’ and ‘cybernetics’, rather than through a critical engage-
ment of their ideas and normative concerns about networks in historical context.
This is where the triggering event, the beat of the butterfly’s wing, comes into play. In
2004 I organized a conference at the Watson Institute for International Studies on ‘The
Power and Pathology of Networks’. The purpose of the conference and accompanying
exhibition was to investigate the global risks and opportunities emerging from the inter-
connectivity, vulnerability, and heteropolarity of a networked world. The event gathered
pre-eminent scholars in organizational and network theory, like Charles Perrow and
Saskia Sassen, as well as the ‘young turks’ of new media studies, like Chris Csikszentmihalyi
and Natalie Jeremijenko. The conference was long on questions: how do we assess the
Alker
353
dangers of interconnectivity (networked terrorism, computer viruses, pandemics) against
the vaunted benefits (global interdependence, increased transparency, higher produc-
tivity, new forms of community)? Is the complexity of networks producing immune
responses, cascading effects, and unintended consequences that defy human control?
What new forms of global security and governance are needed to manage the power,
allocate the resources, and reduce the risks of networks?
Short on answers, I invited Alker, then a visiting fellow at Watson, to present on a final
roundtable. Alker used the opportunity not just to revive the historical dialogue between
Deutsch and Weiner but also to challenge some of the conference debates, like that
between ‘techno-realists’ and ‘techno-utopianists’, that would confine the study of net-
works to one or the other of these two boxes. Inspired by the ‘open-network’ nature yet
skeptical of the optimistic bias of Alker’s presentation, I decided to provoke him with yet
another question, one that I would probably not be able to recollect had it not been for a
request a few months later for comments on the presentation he was revising for publica-
tion. The original title, ‘Closed World Pathologies vs Open Network Powers’ captures the
initial condition of binary opposites against which he was writing, while the opening para-
graph, sparked by my errant question, acknowledges some bad weather looming ahead:
As history for the present and the possible future, the present paper recalls in a focused way
both the accomplishments and the unfinished work suggested by Karl W. Deutsch’s vision of
political cybernetics. Both its concrete focus and its broader implications for practically oriented
international theorizing derive from the steps taken to answer a question from James Der Derian:
‘In the light of Karl Deutsch’s long association with the founder of cybernetics, Norbert Wiener,
what would Karl Deutsch have said about the power and pathology of networks, both in the
military “command, control, communication and computers” arena, and more generally, in
contemporary international relations?’ (Emphasis added)
In his article, Alker deftly responds to my question by restaging the Deutsch–Wiener dia-
logue as an open, dialectical, feedback loop to be mobilized against the closed networks of
the war machine. He reminded me — and now us — in detail how Deutsch and Wiener
marshaled all their intellectual powers to prevent the fear and dangers generated by the
Cold War from dehumanizing, militarizing, and closing down the new social and pluralist
networks that were challenging the prerogatives of the superpowers. But even that was not
sufficient. Alker channels Deutsch and Wiener to alert us to even greater dangers produced
by increasingly virtualized and militarized networks that cannot be countered by reason
alone. Harkening back to those Sunday gatherings of Wiener and Deutsch, Alker warned
that against the pathologies of networks, a metaphysical, even spiritual, response is required.
Thus I believe it not insignificant that Alker removed from the article — perhaps in
response to or anticipating an unfavorable reviewer — a quote that concluded what he
described as the ‘arm-waving part of his presentation’. Billed by Alker as bearing the
same spiritual theme that he found in Deutsch and Weiner, the words come from Michael
Hardt’s and Antonioni Negri’s Multitude:
A Golem is haunting us … and perhaps what it is trying to teach us is that the monstrosities of
war can only be defeated by the redemptive powers of love.
To understand and better a worsening global situation — from the flapping of wings to a hard
wind blowing to a Golem haunting us, facing one perfect storm after another, seeking redemp-
tion where love is a scarce resource — a weatherman might not be needed, but Alker is.
354
European Journal of International Relations 17(2)
The powers and pathologies of
networks: Insights from the political
cybernetics of Karl W. Deutsch
and Norbert Wiener1
Hayward R. Alker
University of Southern California and Brown University, USA
Abstract
This article reconstructs Karl Deutsch’s fearful yet hopeful views about the powers and
pathologies of military, and other, national and international network systems. These
views presuppose Norbert Wiener’s Cybernetic Interpretive Hypothesis: that ‘society
can only be understood through a study of the messages and communication facilities
which belong to it’; that the societal trend is towards more computerized communication
systems; and that they embody an ‘open vs. closed’ living systems ethos. Drawing on
science and technology studies by Edwards and Mirowski, the author suggests how
Deutsch’s and...
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