ABSTRACT
This chapter considers the use of complexity theory in the social science in the last 25 years. It explores the theory of complexity theory and considers how it is influencing social science methodology and its connections with the domain of critical realism and the mixed methods that result. It argues that complex social systems are evolving in emergent and dynamic ways and are often not reducible to mechanistic causal explanations that hold for long periods of time. The method of Dynamic Pattern Synthesis (DPS) has its roots in two theoretical and methodological approaches to social science: complexity theory and critical realism. Complexity Theory has its origins in contemporary scientific methodology and it questions the universality of the assumptions of Newtonian reductionist methods. Critical realism is a philosophy of social science that attempts to combine the approach of science to physical materials with the interpretations of social culture and behaviour offered by social science.
