Understanding Change: Models, Methodologies and Metaphors

List of Tables and Figures Notes on Contributors Introduction: Models, Methodologies, and Metaphors on the Move; A.Wimmer PART I: CHAOS AND ORDER IN CLIMATE CHANGE Climate Change; Complexity, Chaos and Order; P.Higgins Chaos in Social Systems: Assessment and Relevance; L.D.Kiel Economics, Chaos and Environmental Complexity; H-W.Lorenz PART II: GENETIC VARIATION IN EVOLUTION The Topology of the Possible; W.Fontana Neutrality as a Paradigm of Change; R.Stichweh Using Evolutionary Analogies in Social Science: Two Case Studies; E.Chattoe PART III: ECONOMICS OF CONTINUITY; PATH DEPENDENCY The Grip of History and the Scope for Novelty: Some Results and Open Questions for Path Dependence in Economic Processes; C.Castaldi & G.Dosi Analyzing Path Dependence: Lessons from the Social Sciences; J.Mahoney Path Dependence and Historical Contingency in Biology; E.Szathmáry PART IV: INSTITUTIONAL INERTIAS The New Institutional Economics: Can it Deliver for Change and Development?; J.B.Nugent Institutions, Politics and Culture: A Case for 'Old' Institutionalism in the Study of Historical Change; J.Harriss Exporting Metaphors, Concepts and Methods from the Natural Sciences to the Social Sciences and Vice Versa ; R.Gadagkar PART V: THE MULTILINEAR MODERNIZATION OF SOCIETIES The Concept of Multiple Modernities in the Framework of a Comparative Evolutionary Perspective; S.N.Eisenstadt On Modernity and Wellbeing; O.Stark Multiplicity in Non-Linear Systems; S.Sinha PART VI: CONSTELLATIONS OF CONTINGENCY: POLITICAL HISTORY Historical-Institutionalism in Political Science and the Problem of Change; E.M.Immergut Social Science and History: How Predictable is Political Behaviour? R.Congleton Reconstructing Change in Historical Systems: Are There Commonalities Between Evolutionary Biology and the Humanities?; J.Cracraft Conclusion: History, Uncertainty, and Disciplinary Difference. Concluding Observations by a Social Scientist; R.Kössler