While the volumes hitherto published in the Springer Series in Synergetics have been devoted almost exclusively to the self-organized formation of structures in physics, chemistry and biology, the present monograph by Weidlich and Haag deals with the formation of "structures" (or "patterns") in society. At first glance it would seem a daring enterprise to deal with the complex processes in society using concepts and methods first developed in physics. But over the past decade it has been shown that there is a large class of phenomena in a variety of fields to which unifying concepts can be applied. This is particulary true of situations in which a system composed of many parts or individuals acquires a new structure on macroscopic scales. Indeed, this is the definition of synergetics which I formulated more than a decade ago, and which formed the basis of my survey on the profound analogies in the behaviour of complex systems, includ ing those of sociology (H. Haken: Synergetics. An Introduction, Volume 1 of this series). As I have pointed out on many occasions, the universal validity of these concepts is neither accidental nor is it caused by a mere extension of physical rules to other fields, but is instead a consequence of deep-rooted struc tural properties of systems of interacting parts which are due to rigorous mathe maticallaws. Generally speaking, concepts and methods originally used in physics can be applied to sociological phenomena in two ways.

Inhalt

1. Introduction and Outline.- 1.1 Synergetic Concepts in the Natural Sciences.- 1.2 Synergetic Concepts in Sociology.- 1.3 Significance and Limitations of Quantitative Sociology.- 2. Opinion Formation an Elementary Example of Semi-Quantitative Sociology.- 2.1 The Model.- 2.2 The Equations of Motion.- 2.3 Solutions of the Equations of Motion.- 2.4 Choice of Transition Probabilities and the Explicit Form of the Model.- 2.5 The Sociological Interpretation of the Model.- 3. Fundamental Concepts of Quantitative Sociology.- 3.1 Attitude Space, Socio-Configuration and Situation Space.- 3.2 Equations of Motion for the Socio-Configuration.- 3.3 The Dynamics of Trend Parameters and of the Situation Vector.- 3.4 Mean Value Equations for Grossvariables of the Socio-Configuration.- 4. Migration and/or Birth-Death Processes in Populations.- 4.1 The General Model.- 4.2 Migration of Two Interacting Populations Between Two Parts of a City.- 4.3 Birth-Death Processes Within a Single Population.- 4.4 Migration and Predator-Prey Interaction Between Two Species.- 5. Non-Equilibrium Theory of Investment: The Schumpeter Clock.- 5.1 Introduction.- 5.2 Macro- and Micro-Economic Variables of the Model and Their Interdependence.- 5.3 Design of the Investors' Interaction Model.- 5.4 Structural Analysis of the System of Equations.- 5.5 Numerical Analysis Based on the Model.- 6. The Interaction of Competitive Macrosocieties.- 6.1 Reconsideration of the Problem of Model Construction.- 6.2 The Minimal Model.- 6.3 Solutions of the Model Equations.- 6.4 Political Implications.- References.