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mike lewis




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PostSubject: Meta-power   Meta-power EmptyTue 21 Aug 2012, 2:14 pm

Meta-Power is a concept of having control not simply of individuals, but of the social structures themselves. The idea has stemmed from work by sociologists such as Tom R. Burns and Peter Hall, the economist Thomas Baumgartner, as well as by political scientists such as James Rosenau and Stephen D. Krasner. Its study often uses the language of game theory since at some level, having meta-power over a group of people means that one can control the form of the game, thereby controlling the outcome.

Power and social control are typically conceptualized and investigated in terms of interpersonal or intergroup relationships in which one actor tries to get another to do something, usually against the latter's will (e.g., Blau, 1964, Dahl, 1967; Burns and Buckley, 1976; Weber, 1968). That is, power is on the level of interaction or relationships involving “situated contests between opposing actors” (Hall, 1997). The object of power is more or less direct behavioral control. Such an approach to the study of power captures only a part of the power activities of groups, organizations, and states.

A large, and historically more important part involves attempts to structure or re-structure the social and cultural matrix within which power activities are played out; such structuring may involve the manipulation of institutional arrangements, norms, and values. A given institutional or socio-cultural structure may be viewed as the macroscopic resultant of the application of structural or meta-power to determine permissible or acceptable activities and relationships of individuals and groups to one another and to resources or forms of property.

Since the mid-1970s there emerged a substantial body of work on meta-power or relational and structural control, that is control over social relationships and social structure, the structuring of interaction situations and conditions, for instance the opportunity structures of the actors, their payoff structures and incentive systems, and their orientations, beliefs, and norms vis a vis one another (Adler and Haas, 1992; Baumgartner and Burns, 1975; Baumgartner, Burns and DeVille, 1975; Baumgartner, Buckley, and Burns, 1975; Baumgartner et al., 1975, Baumgartner et al. 1975, 1976; 1977; Burns and Buckley (1976), Chang, 2004; Hall, 1997, 2003; Himmelstrand et al., 1981; Hollist and Rosenau, 1981; Krasner, 1981; among others).

Although structural types of control have specific behavioral consequences and may be used as a means of behavioral control, the purpose of its exercise is generally the long-term structuring of institutional arrangements, key social processes and their outcomes: the individual and collective activities of those whose social relationships are structured. Structural control is used by social groups to ensure the effective functioning of a social system and/or to promote or stabilize their advantages or dominance over others. Among other things, it may be used to encourage cooperative social organization on the one hand, or to produce competition or conflict between actors on the other, and generally, to increase power in relation to others.

There are at least three bases of structural control with respect to such systems: control of action opportunities, control of differential payoffs or outcomes of interaction, and control of cultural orientations and ideology. That is, conditions of social action and interaction are structured with the result that certain social relationships and institutional arrangements are established and maintained. In investigations of the exercise of meta-power, one is also interested in differences among actors in resources, skills, strategies, and so forth, but the main focus is on capacities to mobilize power resources to manipulate the matrix of rules or "the rules of the game," other conditions of interaction, and the distribution of resources as well as normative and ideological orientations. Meta-power entails the capacity to shape and set the limits of lower order power. Clearly, although an actor B may have social power within an interaction situation or "game" (e.g., greater ability than others to select a preferred outcome or to realize his will over the opposition of others within that social structural context (e.g., Dahl, Weber), he or she may or may not have power to structure social relationships, to alter the "type of game" the actors play, the rules and institutions and related conditions governing interactions or exchanges among the actors involved.

The operation of meta-power on a systemic level, for example, capitalism as a complex of meta-power, can be distinguished from that of particular agents, the bourgeoisie, for instance their positional structuring powers (Himmelstrand et al., 1981; Burns, 2006):

Structural meta-power shapes and constrains the social conditions of social agents, their interactions, their opportunities, and limitations. For instance, institutions and institutional arrangements such as those of capitalism and the state entail organizational bias, that shapes opportunities, that provides careers, status, income, limited power over others as well as constrains certain activities and developments. Rules, procedures, and programs generate patterns of social activities, effects, and developments. Institutional selection may operate, for instance, to change the frequency of certain activity patterns or to alter the distribution of resources (concentration, and centralization, e.g. through ratchet effects), to determine the parameters of power, the forms and types of games actors play. A system like capitalism entails generative processes of meta-power (based on accumulative processes which provide the resource base (material, knowledge, social, political) combined with knowledge development to set in motion new economic and socio-technical developments. Major socio-technical systems, once established, operate as legislative bodies shaping and reshaping human conditions.

Agential meta-power is where some agents shape particular structural conditions and institutional arrangements for other actors: to establish a constitution; to carry out substantial reforms, to restructure an industry, to transform social relationships and interaction opportunities and potentialities. The state launches projects, protects workers vis-à-vis their employers, supports (or blocks) the development of nuclear power, and outlaws certain chemicals, and, in general, regulates societal interactions with the environment.

Among the processes and developments in which meta-power researchers are interested, some involve powerful agents, for instance capitalist leaders, using their positions of structural power to mobilize resources in order to develop new systems of production, new products, new institutional arrangements, for example in the shaping of economic globalization. The initiatives may also come from state agencies, for example, to establish an infrastructure (airport, highway system, water system, electricity networks) or a regulatory agency; or, the initiative may come from a dominant political leader or party with a mandate (possibly presumed) to reform or transform social conditions. One or more agents is involved in mobilizing power resources for the purposes of launching a project(s), program(s), and institutional innovations. Such projects may be anticipated – or are experienced – by other agents as having positive and/or negative impacts, or possibly mixed consequences along with negative. Opposition may emerge and try to block or modify the project(s). This is part of the dialectics of meta-power and social change, as analyzed and illustrated in a number of works of dating back to the mid-1970s.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meta-power
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PostSubject: Re: Meta-power   Meta-power EmptyWed 22 Aug 2012, 4:08 pm

mike lewis wrote:
A large, and historically more important part involves attempts to structure or re-structure the social and cultural matrix within which power activities are played out; such structuring may involve the manipulation of institutional arrangements, norms, and values. A given institutional or socio-cultural structure may be viewed as the macroscopic resultant of the application of structural or meta-power to determine permissible or acceptable activities and relationships of individuals and groups to one another and to resources or forms of property.
This is such a critical post and topic, as no one understands that the nature of today's control is so pervasive. People have to think outside all of the systems for which they have lived their entire lives.

Great stuff. Any videos relating to this topic?

PS. Sorry I've dropped-off lately, been slammed with other stuff right now

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mike lewis




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PostSubject: Re: Meta-power   Meta-power EmptyWed 22 Aug 2012, 8:16 pm

C1 wrote:

This is such a critical post and topic

It shouldn't really come as a surprise but this article was targeted for deletion from wikipedia.


C1 wrote:
no one understands that the nature of today's control is so pervasive. People have to think outside all of the systems for which they have lived their entire lives.

Most likely reason that someone wanted to delete this article.

C1 wrote:
Any videos relating to this topic?

I haven't looked too much but I'm sure there are a few.

C1 wrote:
PS. Sorry I've dropped-off lately, been slammed with other stuff right now

No worries, I know how that goes, fortunately business has been slowing down a bit for me which gives me more time for what I consider to be more important undertakings.
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mike lewis




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PostSubject: Re: Meta-power   Meta-power EmptySat 25 Aug 2012, 2:57 pm

Quote :
Social rule system theory

Social rule system theory is an attempt to formally approach different kinds of social rule systems in a unified manner. Social rules systems include institutions such as norms, laws, regulations, taboos, customs, and a variety of related concepts and are important in the social sciences and humanities. Social rule system theory is fundamentally an institutionalist approach to the social sciences, both in its placing primacy on institutions and in its use of sets of rules to define concepts in social theory.

The development of a more systematic conceptualization and theorizing about social rules and systems of social rules emerged in the late 1970s in the collaborative work of Thomas Baumgartner, Tom R. Burns, Philippe DeVille, and later Helena Flam, Reinier de Man, Atle Midttun, Anders Olsson, and others. Its formalization stemmed from a number of articles in the early 1980s, which led up to Burns et al. (1985) and Burns and Flam (1987), Machado (1998), Carson (2004), Flam and Carson (2008). Social theory concepts such as norm, value, belief, role, social relationship, and institution as well as game were shown to be definable in a uniform way in terms of rules and rule complexes. Rules may be imprecise, possibly inconsistent, and open to a greater or lesser extent to modification and transformation by the participants.

Rules are key concepts in the new institutionalism (March and Olsen, 1984; North, 1990; Ostrom, 1990; Powell and DiMaggio, 1991; Scott, 1995, among others), in several variants of socio-cultural evolutionary theory (Burns and Dietz, 1992; Hodgson 2002; Schmid and Wuketits, 1987), and in work in semiotics (Lotman, 1975; Posner, 1989), linguistics (Chomsky, 1957; 1965), and philosophy on “language games” (Wittgenstein, 1958). Among the many other researchers developing and applying rule concepts in the social sciences, one would also include Cicourel (1974), Giddens (1984), Goffman (1974), Harré (1979), Harre and Secord (1972), Lindblom (1977), and Twining and Miers (1982), among many others. In general, much of the use of rule concept in the social sciences and humanities has been informal and even metaphorical, with the major exception of Chomsky (1957, 1965).

The universality of social rule systems and rule processes


Social rule system theory notes that most human social activity is organized and regulated by socially produced and reproduced systems of rules. These rules have a tangible existence in societies – in language, customs and codes of conduct, norms and laws, and in social institutions such as family, community, market, business enerprises, and government agencies. Thus, this theory posits that the making, interpretation, and implementation of social rules are universal in human society, as are their reformulation and transformation. Human agents (individuals, groups, organizations, communities, and other collectivities) produce, carry, and reform these systems of social rules, and this frequently takes place in ways they neither intend nor expect.

This does not mean that social rule systems do not change. They can and do, and that change can be endogenous and exogenous to the society. The implementation of rules – and the maintenance of some order – always calls for cumulative experience, adjustment, adaptation, etc. In such ways, normative and institutional innovation is generated. There is a continual interplay – a dialectic, if you will – between the regulated and the unregulated (Lotman, 1975). What is more, at the same time that social rule systems strongly influence actions and interactions, they are formed and reformed by the actors involved. Human agency is manifest in this dialectical process, played out by participating actors having their specific competencies and endowments, their situational analyses, interpretations, and strategic responses to immediate pushes and pulls to which they are subject.

Social rules and the patterning of action

Social rule systems are used to examine all levels of human interaction (Burns and Flam, 1987; Carson, 2005; Giddens, 1984; Goffman, 1974; Harré, 1979; Lotman, 1975; Posner, 1989, among others). They provide more than potential constraints on action possibilities. They also generate opportunities for social actors to behave in ways that would otherwise be impossible, for instance, to coordinate with others, to mobilize and to gain systematic access to strategic resources, to command and allocate substantial human and physical resources, and to solve complex social problems by organizing collective actions. In guiding and regulating interaction, social rules give behavior recognizable, characteristic patterns, and make such patterns understandable and meaningful for those who share in the rule knowledge.

Culture and institutional arrangements


On the macro-level of culture and institutional arrangements, rule system complexes are examined: language, cultural codes and forms, institutional arrangements, shared paradigms, norms and “rules of the game”. On the actor level, one refers to roles, particular norms, strategies, action paradigms, and social grammars (for example, procedures of order, turn taking, and voting in committees and democratic bodies). Grammars of action are associated with culturally defined roles and institutional domains, indicating particular ways of thinking and acting. In that sense, the grammars are both social and conventional. For instance, in the case of gift giving or reciprocity in defined social relationships, actors display a competence in knowing when a gift should be given or not, how much it should be worth, or, if one should fail to give it or if it lies under the appropriate value, what excuses, defenses and justifications might be acceptable. Someone ignorant of these rules, e.g. a child or someone from a totally different culture would obviously make mistakes (for which they would probably be excused by others). Similarly, in the case of "making a promise," rule knowledge indicates under what circumstances a promise may or may not legitimately be broken – or at least the sort of breach of a promise that might be considered acceptable. In guiding and regulating interaction, the rules give behavior recognizable, characteristic patterns – making the patterns understandable and meaningful for those sharing in the rule knowledge. Shared rules are the major basis for knowledgeable actors to derive, or to generate, similar situational expectations. They also provide a frame of reference and categories, enabling participants to readily communicate about and to analyze social activities and events. In such ways, uncertainty is reduced, predictability is increased. This is so even in complex situations with multiple actors playing different roles and engaging in a variety of interaction patterns. As Harre and Secord (1972:12) point out, “It is the self-monitoring following of rules and plans that we believe to be the social scientific analogue of the working of generative causal mechanisms in the processes which produce the non-random patterns studied by natural scientists.”

Cognitive processes

Social rule systems play then an important role in cognitive processes, in part by enabling actors to organize and to frame perceptions in a given institutional setting or domain. On the basis of a more or less a common rule system, questions such as the following can be intersubjectively and collectively answered: what is going on in this situation; what kind of activity is this; who is who in the situation, what specific roles are they playing; what is being done; why is this being done? The participating actors can understand the situation in intersubjective ways. In a certain sense, they can simulate and predict what will happen in the interactions on the basis of the applied rules. Hence, rule systems provide not only a basis for interpretative schemes but also the concrete basis for actors to plan and judge actions and interactions. Social rules are also important in normative and moral communications about social action and interaction. Participants refer to the rules in giving accounts, in justifying or criticizing what is being done (or not done), in arguing for what should or should not be done, and also in their social attribution of who should or should not be blamed for performance failures, or credited with success. Actors also exploit rules when they give accounts in order to try to justify certain actions or failures to act, as part of a strategy to gain legitimacy, or to convince others that particular actions are "right and proper" in the context.

Textually encoded social rules

So called formal rules are found in sacred books, legal codes, handbooks of rules and regulations, or in the design of organizations or technologies that an elite or dominant group seeks to impose in a particular social setting. For instance, a formal organization such as a bureaucracy consists of, among other features, a well-defined hierarchical authority structure, explicit goals and policies, and clear-cut specialization of function or division of labor. Informal rules appear less "legislated" and more "spontaneous" than formal rules. They are generated and reproduced in ongoing interactions. The extent to which the formal and informal rule systems diverge or contradict one another varies. Numerous organizational studies have revealed that official, formal rules are not always those that operate in practice. In some cases the informal unwritten rules not only contradict formal rules but take precedence over them under some conditions. Informal rules emerge for a variety of reasons. In part, formal rules fail to completely specify action (that is provide complete directions) or to cover all relevant (or emergent) situations. The situations (in which rules are applied or implemented) are particularistic, even idiosyncratic, whereas formal rules of behavior are more or less general. In some situations (especially emergent or new situations), actors may be uncertain or disagree about which rules apply or about the ways in which to apply them. They engage in situational analyses and rule modification, or even rule innovation out of which emerge informal rules (which may be formalized later).

Interpretation and variability

However strongly actions are patterned by rules, social life is sufficiently complex that some imagination and interpretation are required in applying rules to a specific action and interaction context. Imagination generates variability in action from actor to actor, and even for a given actor over time. Rules are also interpreted in their application. Even highly formalized, systematic rules such as laws and written rules of bureaucracy are never complete in their specification. They have to be interpreted and applied using situational information and knowledge. Adaptations and improvisations are common, even in the most formally organized institutions. In this sense, rules are generative, and their interpretation and implementation more or less context-dependent. Interpretation varies across a population sharing a rule system, and also across time. In addition, rules will sometimes be learned or implemented with error, providing in some cases an incorrect model for others. Both of these factors result in variability. Moreover, if an action at deviance with cultural rules or standard interpretations is perceived by other actors as advantageous, it may be copied, thus spreading what becomes a new cultural variant.

Adherence to and compliance with social rules

Actors adhere to and implement rule and rule systems to varying degrees. Compliance with, or refusal to comply with, particular rules are complicated cognitive and normative processes. Typically, there are diverse reasons for rule compliance. Several of the most important factors are:


1 Interest factors and instrumentalism (stressed by public choice and Marxist perspectives on self-interested behavior). Actors may advocate rules to gain benefits or to avoid losses.

2 Identity and status. Adherence to rules – and commitment to their realization – may be connected to an actor's identity, role, or status, and the desire to represent self as identified by or committed to particular rules. It follows that a major motivation in maintaining (or changing rules) – e.g. role complexes or distributive rules – is to maintain or change their social status.

3 Authoritative Legitimacy and Sacrality. Many rules are accepted and adhered to because persons or groups with social authority have defined or determined them, possibly by associating them with sacred principles or identifying their causal or symbolic relationship to actors' interests and status. In the contemporary world, we find the widespread institutionalization of abstract meta-rules of compliance that orient people to accepting particular definitions of reality and rule systems propagated by socially defined and often certified authorities, e.g. scientists and other experts. The authority may be scientific, religious, or political (for instance in the latter case, the fact that a democratic agency has determined the rules according to right and proper procedures). Certain rules may even be associated with God, the sacred, and, in general, those beings or things that actors stand in awe of, have great respect for, and may associate with or share in their charisma by adhering to or following their rules.


4 Normative/Cognitive Order. Actors may follow rules – and try to ensure that others follow them – because the rules fit into a cognitive frame for organizing their perceptions and making sense of what is going on. People react negatively to deviance – even in cases where they are not directly affected (that is, there are no direct apparent self-interests), because the order is disturbed, potentially destabilized, and eroded.




5 Social sanctions. Laws and formal organizational rules and regulations are typically backed up by specific social sanctions and designated agents assigned the responsibility and authority to enforce the rules. There are a variety of social controls and sanctions in any social group or organization which are intended to induce or motivate actors to adhere to or follow rules, ranging from coercion to more symbolic forms of social approval or disapproval, persuasion, and activation of commitments (in effect, "promises" that have already been made). In order to gain entrance or to remain in the group, one must comply with key group rules and role definitions. Exclusion from the group, if there are no alternative groups, becomes a powerful sanction.


6 Inherent sanctions. Many rules, when adhered to in specific action settings, result in gains or payoffs that are inherent in following those rules, such as going with (or against) automobile traffic. In many cases, the reasons for compliance are consequentialist. As many social scientists point out: in automobile traffic, we adhere to or accept as right and proper traffic rules, in particular those relating to stopping, turning, etc. because without them, we recognize that the situation would be chaotic, dangerous, even catastrophic. Most technical rules, for example relating to operating machines or using tools, entail inherent sanctions. Following them is necessary (or considered necessary) for the proper functioning or performance of the technology, or achieving a certain desirable outcome or solution.


7 veil of ignorance. Actors may not know the consequences of rule compliance and follow rules because they are given, taken for granted, or believed generally to be right and proper. The benefits of adhering to some rule systems can, however, mask hidden costs.


8 Habits, routines, and scripts. Much rule-following behavior is unreflective and routine. Many social rules are unverbalized, tacit, that is, part of a collective subconscious of strategies, roles, and scripts learned early in life or career, and reinforced in repeated social situations, for instance sex roles, or even many professional roles.[5] Of particular importance is the fact that rule systems learned in early socialization are associated with very basic values and meanings – even personal and collective identity – motivating at a deep emotional level commitment to the rules and a profound personal satisfaction in enacting them. Conformity is then a matter of habitual, unreflected and taken-for-granted ways of doing things.

As indicated above, some social rules are enforced, others not: indeed, rules can be distinguished on the basis of the degree to which, and the circumstances under which, they are socially enforced or enforceable. Of course, regardless of the degree of enforceability, they may be complied with because of a desire for order, intrinsic sanctions, or realizing one’s role and self-identity. Many rules that actors rigorously adhere to are not socially enforceable, but nevertheless actors utilize them in organizing social activities and in shaping social order. Harre and Secord (1972:17) emphasize the freedom of choice in relation to rules and roles:

"The mechanistic model is strongly deterministic; the role-rule model is not. Rules are not laws, they can be ignored or broken, if we admit that human beings are self-governing agents rather than objects controlled by external forces, aware of themselves only as helpless spectators of the flow of physical causality."


Social rule system theory and complex institutional arrangements

On meso- and macro-levels of analysis, social rule system theory is applied to the description and analysis of institutions such as bureaucracy, markets, political systems, and science – major orders in modern societies (Burns and Flam, 1987; Carson, 2004; Flam and Carson, 2008; Machado, 1998). This entails more than a study of social structure, or a contribution to neo-institutionalism. It is a theory that analyses the links between social structure in the form of particular institutional arrangements including role relationships, on the one hand, and social action and social interaction, on the other. The theory shows, for example, in what ways markets and bureaucracies are organized and regulated by social rules at the same time that actors, both inside and outside these institutions, maintain or change the organizing principles and rules through their actions and interactions. The actors involved in a given institution use their institutional knowledge of relationships, roles, norms, and procedures to guide and organize their actions and interactions. But they also use it to understand and interpret what is going on, to plan and simulate scenarios, and to refer to in making commentaries and in giving and asking for accounts. Rule system theory stresses rule-based cognitive processes such as framing, contextualizing, and classifying objects, persons, and actions in a relevant or meaningful way (Carson, 2004). It also considers the production of appropriate or meaningful accounts, discourses, and commentaries in the context of the given institution.

In line with the new institutionalism, social rule system theory stresses that particular institutions and their organizational instantiations are deeply embedded in cultural, social, and political environments and that particular structures and practices are often reflections of as well as responses to rules, laws, conventions, paradigms built into the wider environment (Powell, 2007).

Rule system change and evolution

Institutional change entails changes in particular rule complexes and/or enforcement activities to the effect that new or deviant patterns of action and interaction are generated and encouraged (Burns and Flam, 1987; Levi, 1990). Social rule system theorists point to three major power mechanisms of rule system reproduction and change to explain the evolution of social rule systems and institutional arrangements (Burns and Carson, 2002; Burns and Dietz, 1992; Flam and Carson, 2008; Stinchcombe, 1968): the selective action of the environment; the constraining and facilitating conditions of institutional arrangements with their technologies, available resources, and participants; and creative/destructive human agency.

Selective environments operate to bring about the successes of some rule structures and the failure of others and, thereby, shifts in the prevalence of different forms. Rule system changes may be also initiated by social agents. For instance, an elite "legislates" an institutional change, or a social movement brings about change through coming to direct power or effectively pressuring and negotiating with an established power elite. Changes are also brought about through more dispersed processes, e.g. where one or more agents of a population discover a new technical or performance strategy and others copy the strategy, and, in this way, the rule innovation diffuses through social networks of communication and exchange. The introduction by social agents of new rules and their expression in transformed patterns of action or in innovative physical artifacts – such as technologies and socio-technical infrastructures – is a major part of institutional change and evolution. In other words, institutionalized changes may be brought about by the "selective forces" of social as well as physical environments or by the direct action of social agents. This model of change is applicable to economic, political, administrative, socio-technical, and scientific institutional arrangements (Burns, 2008).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_rule_system_theory


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mike lewis




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PostSubject: Re: Meta-power   Meta-power EmptySat 25 Aug 2012, 3:03 pm

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Generalized game theory

Generalized game theory is an extension of game theory incorporating social theory concepts such as norm, value, belief, role, social relationship, and institution. The theory was developed by Tom R. Burns, Anna Gomolinska, and Ewa Roszkowska but has not had great influence beyond these immediate associates. The theory seeks to address certain perceived limitations of game theory by formulating a theory of rules and rule complexes and to develop a more robust approach to socio-phsychological and sociological phenomena.

In generalized game theory, games are conceptualized as rule complexes, which is a set containing rules and/or other rule complexes. However, the rules may be imprecise, inconsistent, and even dynamic. Distinctions in the properties and functions of different types of rules allows the rules themselves to be analyzed in complex ways, and thus the models of the theory more closely represent relationships and institutions investigated in the social sciences.

The ways in which the rules may be changed is developed within the context of generalized game theory based on the principle of rule revision and game restructuring. These types of games are referred to as open games, that is, games which are open to transformation. Games which have specified, fixed players, fixed preference structures, fixed optimization procedures, and fixed action alternatives and outcomes are called closed games (characteristic of most classical game theory models).

Because its premises derive from social theory generalized game theory emphasizes and provides cultural and institutional tools for game conceptualization and analysis (Baumgartner et al., 1975, see Burns, 2005) – what Granovetter (1985) refers to as the social embeddedness of interaction and social and economic processes (Granovetter, 1985). This is in contrast to conceptualization of games consisting of actors which are autonomous utility maximizers. Further, the modeling of the actors themselves in generalized game theory is especially open to the use of concepts such as incomplete information and bounded rationality.

Proponents of generalized game theory have advocated the application of the theory to reconceptualizing individual and collective decision-making, resolutions of the prisoners' dilemma game, agent-based modeling, fuzzy games, conflict resolution procedures, challenging and providing robust and normatively grounded alternatives to Nash equilibrium and Pareto optimality, among others.

Judgment in generalized game theory

A key aspect of actors decision making in generalized game theory is based on the concept of judgment. Several types of judgment could be relevant, for instance value judgment, factual judgment, and action judgment. In the case of action judgment, the actor seeks to take the course of action offered by the rules of the game which most closely fit the values held by the actor (where the values are a sub-rule complex of the game). Even the method by which the actor calculates closeness of fit can be controlled by the actors values (such as an actor might use a more speedy algorithm, or a more far-sighted one). Each actor has a judgment operator by which the actor can create a preference order of the perceived qualities of possible outcomes based on satisfying the condition that the qualities of the outcomes can be roughly said to be sufficiently similar to the qualities of the actors primary values or norms. Thus, in generalized game theory, each actor's judgment calculus includes the institutional context of the game (Burns, 2005).

General game solutions

A general or common game solution is a strategy or interaction order for the agents which satisfies or realizes the relevant norms and values of the players. This should lead to a state that is acceptable by the game players, and is not necessarily a normative equilibrium, but represents the "best result attainable under the circumstances" (Burns, 2005). Solutions may be reached through a sequence of proposed alternatives, and when the actors find the ultimate solution acceptable, the proposed solutions may be said to be convergent. Roszkowska and Burns (2002) showed that not every game has a common solution, and that divergent proposals may arise. This may result in a no equilibrium being found, and stems from dropping the assumption for the existence of a Nash equilibrium that the game be finite or that the game have complete information. Another possibility is the existence of a rule which allows a dictator to force an equilibrium. The rules which make up the norms of the game are one way of resolving the problem of choosing between multiple equilibria, such as those arising in the so-called folk theorem.

Example: prisoner's dilemma

In the example of the two-player prisoner's dilemma, for instance, proponents of generalized game theory are critical of the rational Nash equilibrium wherein both actors defect because rational actors, it is argued, would actually be predisposed to work out coordinating mechanisms in order to achieve optimum outcomes. Although these mechanisms are not usually included in the rules of the game, generalized game theorists argue that they do exist in real life situations. This is because there exists in most interaction situations a social relationship between the players characterized by rules and rule complexes. This relationship may be one of, for instance, solidarity (which results in the Pareto optimal outcome), adversary (which results in the Nash equilibrium), or even hierarchy (by which one actor sacrifices their own benefits for the other's good). Some values, such as pure rivalry, are seen as nonstable because both actors would seek asymmetric gain, and thus would need to either transform the game or seek another value to attempt to satisfy. If no communication mechanism is given (as is usual in the prisoner's dilemma), the operative social relationship between the actors is based on the actors own beliefs about the other (perhaps as another member of the human race, solidarity will be felt, or perhaps as an adversary). This illustrates the principle of game transformation, which is a key element of the theory.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generalized_game_theory

GENERALIZED GAME THEORY:
ASSUMPTIONS, PRINCIPLES, AND ELABORATIONS
GROUNDED IN SOCIAL THEORY
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=principle+of+game+transformation&source=web&cd=5&ved=0CDsQFjAE&url=http%3A%2F%2Flogika.uwb.edu.pl%2Fstudies%2Fdownload.php%3Fvolid%3D21%26artid%3Dbr&ei=4iA5UKG7Go7tsgbv04CACA&usg=AFQjCNFD1hHHh4JR6e3yIrJYxaMXl5tt4w
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mike lewis




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PostSubject: Re: Meta-power   Meta-power EmptySat 01 Sep 2012, 9:46 pm

“THE REAL PHILOSOPHERS, HOWEVER, ARE COMMANDERS AND LAW-GIVERS; they say: ‘Thus SHALL it be!’ They determine first the Whither and the Why of mankind, and hereby set aside the previous labour of all philosophical workers, and all subjugators of the past—they grasp at the future with a creative hand, and whatever is and was, becomes for them thereby a means, an instrument, and a hammer. Their ‘knowing’ is CREATING, their creating is a law-giving, their will to truth is—WILL TO POWER. (Nietzsche, BGE)
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PostSubject: Re: Meta-power   Meta-power EmptyWed 12 Sep 2012, 3:01 am

Quote:
“Leadership refers to the recognized or expected span of authority that a person has in his or her formal role. Meta-leaders…seek to influence and activate change well above and beyond established lines of their decision-making and control. These leaders are driven by a purpose broader than that prescribed by their formal roles, and are therefore motivated and capable of acting in ways that transcend usual organizational confines.” - Dr. Isaac Ashkenazi


Quote:
Meta-leadership is an overarching leadership framework for strategically linking the efforts of different organizations or organizational units to “provide guidance, direction, and momentum across organizational lines that develop into a shared course of action and commonality of purpose among people and agencies that are doing what may appear to be very different work.” - Dr. Leonard J. Marcus


Quote:
“As we have observed adoption of meta-leadership across complex public and private organizational systems and networks, we note three important advantages: 1)A conceptual framework and vocabulary that describes intentional networking and cohesion to connect the purposes and work of different or even disparate stakeholders; 2) A strategy of action designed to advance coordinated planning and activity; and 3) A purpose and rallying cry for both leaders and followers that inspires, guides, and instructs, setting a higher standard and expectation for performance and impact.” - Dr. Leonard J. Marcus
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Meta-power Empty
PostSubject: Re: Meta-power   Meta-power EmptySat 22 Sep 2012, 11:26 pm

Please keep this thread going. Awesome stuff.

PS. Wikipedia is so controlled. At least some valuable material is getting thru, albeit for a limited time.

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