ABSTRACT
A system that receives recursive inputs and inputs from the larger environment is a cybernetic system. This type of system is what we are interested in international relations, since it is a general description of the international system and its relationship to the larger environment in which it operates. The inclusion of a chapter on the application of science and mathematics in international relations (IR) in this set of essays may appear contradictory, in no small part because the constructivist approach to international relations is often seen as a subset of antipositivist or post-positivist theory, as a genre that rejects empiricism, as one of the pillars that upholds the edifice of science, and as applicable to the study of social phenomena. For international relations, what is important about the notion of emergence is that those who are studying complex system behavior are beginning to generalize about emergent properties.
