The American Policy Sciences, Complexity and the Crisis of Government: On the Social Embeddedness of Concept Formation in the Social Sciences. By analyzing debates about social “complexity” in the American policy sciences and in intellectual discourse of the 1970s, this article draws attention to the social embeddedness of concept formation and theory building in the social sciences. In the 1970s, a new concept of social “complexity” emerged in the social sciences, when scholars transferred and adapted elements of complexity theory from mathematics, computer science, cybernetics, and general systems theory to refine social theory. The article analyzes the context and conditions in which this transfer occurred. It shows that the scholarly debates about social complexity were entwined with broader public‐political discourses, dealing in particular with the challenges of government and public policy in the advanced Western democracies. The discourse on complexity among social scientists had additional layers of meaning: even in academic discourse, “complexity” was also used as a buzzword and as a metaphor.

中文翻译：

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Amerikanische Policy-Forschung, Komplexität und die Krise des Regierens: Zur gesellschaftlichen Einbettung sozialwissenschaftlicher Begriffsbildung

美国政策科学、复杂性和政府危机：关于社会科学中概念形成的社会嵌入性。通过分析 1970 年代美国政策科学和知识分子话语中关于社会“复杂性”的争论，本文提请注意社会科学中概念形成和理论构建的社会嵌入性。1970 年代，社会科学中出现了社会“复杂性”的新概念，当时学者们从数学、计算机科学、控制论和一般系统理论中转移和改编了复杂性理论的要素，以完善社会理论。文章分析了这种转移发生的背景和条件。它表明关于社会复杂性的学术辩论与更广泛的公共政治话语交织在一起，特别是应对先进西方民主国家的政府和公共政策的挑战。社会科学家之间关于复杂性的话语具有额外的含义：即使在学术话语中，“复杂性”也被用作流行语和隐喻。