Abstract

This article seeks to show that theories of complex systems are relevant to deciphering the nature of global relationships. Such analyses are especially relevant to hybrids of social and physical relations that seem especially significant in the contemporary world. The article begins with an introductory account of complexity theory as applied to social phenomena. The bulk of the article then considers one particular hybrid utterly central to 'globalisation', the car system and how it is to be theorised via complexity notions. Notions of path dependency are deployed in examining this global car system as a leading example of 'global complexity'. Automobility is taken to be an 'island of order' as analysed by Prigogine. Complexity is also the starting point for examining how this global system that seems .so unchangeable, so stable, may through small changes, if they occur in a certain order, tip it into a post car mobility system (via the analysis of tipping points), I thus consider some ways of theorising how exactly the car system will in the course of the twenty first century become extinct.

How to Cite:

Urry, J., (2004) “Globale complexiteit en het auto-systeem”, Tijdschrift voor Sociologie 25(1), 21–35. doi: https://doi.org/10.21825/sociologos.86595