The leviathan technique for large-group analysis

An initial concern with the problem of the one and the many has led to the Leviathan studies, a series of investigations into internal dynamic governing and deciding processes of large social groups, in particular of complex organizations. In scope, these studies aptly fit the subtitle of their namesake, Thomas Hobbes great work Leviathan or The Matter, Form, and Power of a Commonwealth. In his introduction, Hobbes said, “Art goes yet further, imitating that rational and most excellent work of nature, man. For by art is created that great Leviathan called a Commonwealth, or State, in Latin Civitas, which is but an artificial man; though of greater stature and strength than the natural, for whose protection and defense it was intended; and in which the sovereignty is an artificial soul, as giving life and motion to the whole body.” Here is an interim report of these studies that are artificially creating the workings of a complex organization by simulating social processes on the computer

Commonwealth · Computer security · Epistemology · Interim · Law and economics · Political science · Politics · Popular sovereignty · Sociology · Soul · Sovereignty · Computer Science · Engineering · Law · Opinion Dynamics and Social Influence · Philosophy

• The Determinants of Communication and Communication Structure in Large Organizations

  Peter R Monge, Jane A Edwards et al.•Annals of the International…•1978

  Add to list