This book presents a theory as well as methods to understand and to purposively influence complex systems. It suggests a theory of complex systems as nested systems, i. e. systems that enclose other systems and that are simultaneously enclosed by even other systems. According to the theory presented, each enclosing system emerges through time from the generative activities of the systems they enclose. Systems are nested and often emerge unplanned, and every system of high dynamics is enclosed by a system of slower dynamics. An understanding of systems with faster dynamics, which are always guided by systems of slower dynamics, opens up not only new ways to understanding systems, but also to effectively influence them. The aim and subject of this book is to lay out these thoughts and explain their relevance to the purposive development of complex systems, which are exemplified in case studies from an urban system. The interested reader, who is not required to be familiar with system-theoretical concepts or with theories of emergence, will be guided through the development of a theory of emergent nested systems. The reader will also learn about new ways to influence the course of events - even though the course of events is, in principle, unpredictable, due to the ever-new emergence of real novelty.

Guided by the multifaceted relations between city and text, Charting Literary Urban Studies: Texts as Models of and for the City attempts to chart the burgeoning field of literary urban studies by outlining how texts in varying degrees function as both representations of the city and as blueprints for its future development. The study addresses questions such as these: How do literary texts represent urban complexities – and how can they capture the uniqueness of a given city? How do literary texts simulate layers of urban memory – and how can they reinforce or help dissolve path dependencies in urban development? What role can literary studies play in interdisciplinary urban research? Are the blueprints or 'recipes' for urban development that most quickly travel around the globe – such as the 'creative city', the 'green city' or the 'smart city' – really always the ones that best solve a given problem? Or is the global spread of such travelling urban models not least a matter of their narrative packaging? In answering these key questions, this book also advances a literary studies contribution to the general theory of models, tracing a heuristic trajectory from the analysis of literary texts as representations of urban developments to an analysis of literary strategies in planning documents and other pragmatic, non-literary texts.

The second edition of this Handbook contains more than 30 new and original articles as well six essential updates by leading scholars of global environmental politics. This landmark book maps the latest theoretical and empirical research in this energetic and growing field. Captured here are the pioneering and lively debates over concerns for the health of the planet and how they might best be addressed. The introduction explores the intellectual trends and evolving parameters in the field of global environmental politics. It makes a case for an expansive definition of the field, one that embraces an interdisciplinary literature on the connections between global politics and environmental change. The remaining chapters are divided into four broad themes – states and cooperation; global governance; the political economy of governance; and knowledge and ethics – with each section covering key emerging issues. In-depth explorations are given to topics such as climate change, multinational corporations, international agreements and UN organizations, regulations and business standards, trade and international finance, multilevel and transnational governance, and ecological citizenship. Handbook of Global Environmental Politics, Second Edition is a comprehensive review of the field and offers cutting-edge ideas for further research. As such, scholars, students and policymakers will find themselves looking to it for many years to come.

Macro Talent Management: A Global Perspective on Managing Talent in Developed Markets is the first book to focus specifically on country-level activities aimed at attracting, mobilizing, developing, and retaining top talent for economic success in developed markets. The book serves as a guide that orients the reader toward activities that increase their country's global competitiveness, attractiveness, and economic development through strategic talent management. This book brings together leading experts from around the world to address such isues as cross-border flows of talent, diaspora mobility, knowledge flows, global labour markets, and policies. Bringing together research from the fields of human resource management, international business, economic geography, comparative international development, and political economy, this is a definitive, comprehensive treatment of the topic aimed at advanced students and practitioners.

Despite the multifaceted complexity of teaching, dominant perspectives conceptualize teacher development in linear, dualistic, transactional, human-centric ways. The authors in this book offer non-linear alternatives by drawing on a continuum of complex perspectives, including CHAT, complexity theory, actor network theory, indigenous studies, rhizomatics, and posthuman/neomaterialisms. The chapters included here illuminate how different ways of thinking can help us better examine how teachers learn (relationally, with human, material, and discursive elements) and offer ways to understand the entangled nature of the relationship between that learning and what emerges in classroom instructional practice. They also present situated illustrations of what those entanglements or assemblages look like in the preservice, induction, and inservice phases, from early childhood to secondary settings, and across multiple continents. Authors provide evidence that research on teacher development should focus on process as much (if not more than) product and show that complexity perspectives can support forward-thinking, assets-based pedagogies. Methodologically, the chapters encourage conceptual creativity and expansion, and support an argument for blurring theory-method and normalising methodological hybridity. Ultimately, this book provides conceptual, theoretical, and methodological tools to understand current educational conditions in late capitalism and imagine otherwise. It was originally published as a special issue of the journal Professional Development in Education.

Artificial Intelligence in Urban Planning and Design: Technologies, Implementation, and Impacts is the most comprehensive resource available on the state of Artificial Intelligence (AI) as it relates to smart city planning and urban design. The book explains nascent applications of AI technologies in urban design and city planning, providing a thorough overview of AI-based solutions. It offers a framework for discussion of theoretical foundations of AI, AI applications in the urban design, AI-based research and information systems, and AI-based generative design systems. The concept of AI generates unprecedented city planning solutions without defined rules in advance, a development raising important questions issues for urban design and city planning. This book articulates current theoretical and practical methods, offering critical views on tools and techniques and suggests future directions for the meaningful use of AI technology. - Includes a cutting-edge catalogue of AI tools applied to smart city design and planning - Provides case studies from around the globe at various scales - Includes diagrams and graphics for course instruction

This work executes a unique transdisciplinary methodology building on the author’s previous book, A User’s Guide to the Crisis of Civilization: And How to Save it (Pluto, 2010), which was the first peer-reviewed study to establish a social science framework for the integrated analysis of crises across climate, energy, food, economic, terror and the police state. Since the 2008 financial crash, the world has witnessed an unprecedented outbreak of social unrest in every major continent. Beginning with the birth of the Occupy movement and the Arab Spring, the eruption of civil disorder continues to wreak havoc unpredictably from Greece to Ukraine, from China to Thailand, from Brazil to Turkey, and beyond. Yet while policymakers and media observers have raced to keep up with events, they have largely missed the biophysical triggers of this new age of unrest – the end of the age of cheap fossil fuels, and its multiplying consequences for the Earth’s climate, industrial food production, and economic growth. This book for the first time develops an empirically-ground theoretical model of the complex interaction between biophysical processes and geopolitical crises, demonstrated through the analysis of a wide range of detailed case studies of historic, concurrent and probable state failures in the Middle East, Northwest Africa, South and Southeast Asia, Europe and North America. Geopolitical crises across these regions, Ahmed argues, are being driven by the proliferation of climate, food and economic crises which have at their root the common denominator of a fundamental and permanent disruption in the energy basis of industrial civilization. This inevitable energy transition, which will be completed well before the close of this century, entails a paradigm shift in the organization of civilization. Yet for this shift to result in a viable new way of life will require a fundamental epistemological shift recognizing humanity’s embeddedness in the natural world. For this to be achieved, the stranglehold of conventional models achieved through the hegemony of establishment media reporting – dominated by fossil fuel interests – must be broken. While geopolitics cannot be simplistically reduced to the biophysical, this book shows that international relations today can only be understood by recognizing the extent to which the political is embedded in the biophysical. Although the book offers a rigorous scientific analysis, it is written in a clean, journalistic style to ensure readability and accessibility to a general audience. It will contain a large number of graphical illustrations concerning oil production data, population issues, the food price index, economic growth and debt, and other related issues to demonstrate the interconnections and correlations across key sectors.