Exploring a critical systems perspective

This paper explores the possibilities for a synthesis of recent developments in social theory and systems thinking within a critical systems framework. This approach is neither behavioural nor interpretive but an alternative synthesis from a critical stance. The paper is a defence of systems thinking against charges of scientism and an attempt to extend the approach to encompass interpretive perspectives. The focus is on constitutive processes or ways in which participants contribute through their expectations and interactions to maintaining and changing the social systems of which they form part. Systems thinking applied to social life can be a methodology without positivist preconceptions and can be used to explore the interlocking of objective and subjective dimensions of the social world. It is argued that traditions of systems dynamics have been neglected in social theory and provide a potentially fruitful approach to the analysis of conflict and change. A critical systems approach can be used to provide a topical assessment of rational individualism and Marxism as alternative integrative perspectives.