Studying Complexity of Social Systems: Emerging Inter- and Multi-Disciplinarity of Qualitative and Quantitative Approaches

Dear Colleagues,

Inter- and multidisciplinarity are essential in studying complex social systems understood as elements and their interactions. It is necessary to remember two fundamental paradoxes. First, there is no commonly accepted set of definitions for the complexity of social systems. Second, any kind of social system can be described and studied with any model of collective behavior drawn from physics, chemistry, control theory, etc. Everything depends on the choice of border conditions concerning the definition of a “social system”. In consequence of these paradoxes, an unlimited number of mathematical models depicting the complexity of the social phenomena can be produced. Very often, such models lack a necessary profound interpretation deriving from social theory. On the opposite side, qualitative ideas of complexity applied in social sciences need more advanced mathematical models.

This situation creates two challenges: a necessary high level of understanding of the social theories by the authors of mathematical models and a deeper understanding of mathematical models by specialists from social sciences. 

Theoretical and empirical papers linking mathematical modeling of collective social phenomena with a deepened level of phenomenological interpretations are welcome. We also invite attempts to develop mathematical models of complexity-related concepts which are treated as qualitative but can and should be extended with mathematical modeling, e.g., the social complexity of Niklas Luhmann. 

The proposed approach is especially important in (among others) the following areas:

• Management and project management;
• Political, economic, and social governance;
• The studies of economic and social inequality (complexity-based models and more profound economic/social/political interpretations);
• Industry 4.0 and Industrial Revolution 4.0, where deepened analyses of complexity and of its consequences are urgently needed at present;
• Global systemic changes, not only The Great Reset.

Prof. Dr. Czeslaw Mesjasz
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Entropy is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.