Walter F. Buckley: Process

“Basic ingredients of the decision-making focus include, then: (1) a process approach; (2) a conception of tensions as inherent in the process; and (3), a renewed concern with the role and workings of man's enlarged cortex seen as a complex adaptive subsystem operating within an interaction matrix characterized by uncertainty, conflict, and other dissociative (as well as associative) processes underlying the structuring and restructuring of the larger psychosocial system.”

Walter F. Buckley

Source: Sociology and modern systems theory (1967), p. 499.

Decision

“Historically, most societies have been heavily skewed in favor of the power pole, and most of history— especially modern history— can be seen as a struggle toward the authority pole, that is, toward the institutionalization of a process of informed, consensual self-determination of the whole, which we call "democracy."”

Walter F. Buckley

Source: Society: A Complex Adaptive System--Essays in Social Theory, (1998), p. 186.

Democracy , History

“Only a modern systems approach promises to get the full complexity of the interacting phenomena - to see not only the causes acting on the phenomena under study, the possible consequences of the phenomena and the possible mutual interactions of some of these factors, but also to see the total emergent processes as a function of possible positive and/or negative feedbacks mediated by the selective decisions, or "choices," of the individuals and groups directly involved.”

Walter F. Buckley

Source: Sociology and modern systems theory (1967), p. 79; As cited in Gregory A. Daneke (1999) Systemic choices: nonlinear dynamics and practical management http://books.google.nl/books?id=q_YbuU52ejUC&pg=PA82&lpg=PA82. p. 82.

Decision , Study

“Morphogenesis will refer to those processes which tend to elaborate or change a system's given form, structure, or state.”

Walter F. Buckley

Source: Sociology and modern systems theory (1967), p. 58.

Change

“# "An operationally definable, objective, non-anthropomorphic study of purposiveness, goal-seeking system behavior, symbolic cognitive processes, consciousness and self-awareness, and sociocultural emergence and dynamics in general.”

Walter F. Buckley

Source: Sociology and modern systems theory (1967), p. 39 as cited in: Joyce Aschenbrenner, Lloyd R. Collins (1978) The Processes of Urbanism: A Multidisciplinary Approach http://books.google.nl/books?id=qC4hN9zpgI0C&pg=PA383. p. 383.

Behavior , Study

“A more viable model, one much more faithful to the kind of system that society is more and more recognized to be, is in process of developing out of, or is in keeping with, the modern systems perspective (which we use loosely here to refer to general systems research, cybernetics, information and communication theory, and related fields). Society, or the sociocultural system, is not, then, principally an equilibrium system or a homeostatic system, but what we shall simply refer to as a complex adaptive system.”

Walter F. Buckley

Source: Society as a complex adaptive system (1968), p. 490.

Faith , Communication

“# The study of relations rather than "entities" with an emphasis on process and transition probabilities as the basis of a flexible structure of many degrees of freedom.”

Walter F. Buckley

Sociology and modern systems theory (1967)

Study , Freedom

“In essence, the process model typically views society as a complex, multifaceted, fluid interplay of widely varying degrees and intentions and intensities of association and dissociation. The "structure" is abstract construct, not something distinct from the ongoing interactive process but rather a temporary, accommodative representation of it at any one time.”

Walter F. Buckley

Source: Sociology and modern systems theory (1967), p. 18 as cited in: D. Paul Johnson (2008) Contemporary Sociological Theory: An Integrated Multi-Level Approach. p. 472.

Time