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In: Global Cooperation and the Human Factor in International Relations, Eds.: D. Messner and S. Weinlich, Routledge, Oxon, 153–180 (2016)
Approaching cooperation via complexity
J. Kurths, J. Heitzig, N. MarwanA universal experience of our society is the increasing complexity of our life. Technological progress is the fundament of an increased connectivity around the world, of rapid growth of knowledge and understanding about the mechanisms affecting our world and the major challenges we are facing (international conflicts, limited resources, climate change, population growth), but also of a growing quality of life. Whereas on the one hand cooperation is one of the key ingredients to form complex behaviour, on the other hand the increasing complexity in our daily life calls for cooperation in order to manage specific problems but also makes cooperation more and more difficult. In this chapter, we will therefore first give an introduction into complex systems science, highlighting how cooperation and other interaction between systems in general can lead to complexity due to feedbacks, and then focus more specifically on systems of cooperating humans and show how complexity arises there and discuss its implications.
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