BABUROGLU, OGUZ NURI; PHD
UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA, 1987
SOCIOLOGY, SOCIAL STRUCTURE AND DEVELOPMENT (0700)
The starting premise of the theory developed in this dissertation is why change
does not occur in some
social systems that are unquestionably in a transitional state or period, despite
ample freedom to act and
despite the energies expended in order to bring change about by different parties.
Hence the subject of
the dissertation is a social system that is unable to bring change within itself
or by itself and thereby adapt
to new circumstances for a given period. The dissertation explores the dynamics
of such a social system
that is termed 'stalemated,' in order to discover invariances inherent in those
situations. The second
premise of the theory is the persistence of turbulent conditions in the modern
era that tends to place
constituent systems in a continuous state of transitions. Stalemates are inevitable
in turbulent
environments to which we owe their salience at international, national and organizational
contexts. When
social systems fail to quickly evolve adaptive strategies for turbulence, maladaptive
responses prevail. It is
argued that the endemic turbulence compounded with the prevalence of maladaptive
responses are
sufficient to change the causal texture of the organizational environment to
one that is characterized by
vortical processes. The new causal texture defining the 'vortical environment'
is added to the Emery-Trist
environmental taxonomy in a manner consistent with the foundations of their
taxonomy. The research
reported here can be described as an attempt to generate grounded theory in
the system theoretic
tradition that would fall somewhere between the working hypotheses of everyday
life and all-inclusive
grand theories. The generation of evidence and data was guided by the action
research method. The
setting for grounded theory development was the Turkish experience of the decade
marking
1971-1980. Amid near economic bankruptcy, political violence, governmental and
parliamentary
paralysis, all occurring in the most pluralistic period of recent Turkish history,
the following themes
characterizing stalemate were identified: the stalemate paradox, polarization,
absurdity, politicization,
covert acts, interim governance and dogmatism.
Social
Systems Simulation Group
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