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Indetermination, isomorphism, resilience:
a system model of political process under the conditions of digital transformation

Kondratenko K.S.,

St. Petersburg State University, St. Petersburg, Russia; Sociological Institute of the Federal Center of Theoretical and Applied Sociology of Russian Academy of Sciences, St. Petersburg, Russia, k.kondratenko@spbu.ru

elibrary_id: 743762 | ORCID: 0000-0002-9145-5435 | RESEARCHER_ID: AAG-8758-2021

Article received: 2022.02.27. Accepted: 2023.01.11


DOI: 10.17976/jpps/2023.03.11
EDN: NRSLJX

Rubric: DIXI!

For citation:

Kondratenko K.S. Indetermination, isomorphism, resilience: a system model of political process under the conditions of digital transformation. – Polis. Political Studies. 2023. No. 3. https://doi.org/10.17976/jpps/2023.03.11. EDN: NRSLJX

This work was supported by the Expert Institute for Social Research (EISI), grant “Evidence-Based Politics of Technological Sovereignty and Trust: A Study of Public Justification Strategies”.

Abstract

The article presents the model of “indeterministic system” – an abstraction introduced to describe the principles of organizing public administration in the context of digital transformation. The methodology of the article is based on various systemic approaches – cybernetic, structural-functional, synergetic, etc., as well as a number of philosophical concepts that, from the author’s point of view, have a significant heuristic potential for systemic research. The model of “indeterministic systems” is based not only on the synthesis of various political, philosophical and systemic studies, but is also the theoretical result of the author’s work as part of several teams that conducted in 2019-21 both theoretical and empirical research in the field of public administration digitalization. The basic concept of the article – “isomorphic indeterministic system” – analyses the main structural principles of public administration related to the interactions of the described system to other systems. The article also describes the principles of public administration followed by indeterministic systems, such as invisibility, amplification of meaning flows, providing communication and indifference to events. These principles, updated in the era of digital transformation, from the point of view of the author, are not only a response to the growing influence of new technologies in modern society, but also embody the original system properties of bureaucracy. However, this model is not “rational” – on the contrary, indeterministic systems arise, first of all, as a reaction to expectations, the totality of which is designated in the work as topos. Determination and indetermination replace each other in the flow of managerial cycles, striving for a new stability. Sustainability in work is interpreted not only as a systemic balance, but also as cooperation in public policy, as a synergistic interaction of various systems.

Keywords

indetermination, isomorphism, resilience, rational value system, recursive sensory system, topos, digitalization, digital transformation.

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