What can economics, the natural and the social sciences learn from each other in better understanding complex forms of change? How far can models, methodologies or metaphors that have been used successfully in one disciplinary field be 'exported' and meaningfully applied to other fields? Distinguished researchers from across the globe assess, in a rare example of successful cross-disciplinary engagement, the explanatory power of chaos theory, new evolutionary theory, path dependency, neo-institutional economics, multiple modernities and historical institutionalism. The book provides an exciting panorama of state of the art thinking and new avenues to combining the power of various traditions of thought.

What can economics, the natural and the social sciences learn from each other in better understanding complex forms of change? How far can models, methodologies or metaphors that have been used successfully in one disciplinary field be 'exported' and meaningfully applied to other fields? Distinguished researchers from across the globe assess, in a rare example of successful cross-disciplinary engagement, the explanatory power of chaos theory, new evolutionary theory, path dependency, neo-institutional economics, multiple modernities and historical institutionalism. The book provides an exciting panorama of state of the art thinking and new avenues to combining the power of various traditions of thought.

List of Tables and Figures Notes on Contributors Introduction: Models, Methodologies, and Metaphors on the Move; A.Wimmer PART I: CHAOS AND ORDER IN CLIMATE CHANGE Climate Change; Complexity, Chaos and Order; P.Higgins Chaos in Social Systems: Assessment and Relevance; L.D.Kiel Economics, Chaos and Environmental Complexity; H-W.Lorenz PART II: GENETIC VARIATION IN EVOLUTION The Topology of the Possible; W.Fontana Neutrality as a Paradigm of Change; R.Stichweh Using Evolutionary Analogies in Social Science: Two Case Studies; E.Chattoe PART III: ECONOMICS OF CONTINUITY; PATH DEPENDENCY The Grip of History and the Scope for Novelty: Some Results and Open Questions for Path Dependence in Economic Processes; C.Castaldi & G.Dosi Analyzing Path Dependence: Lessons from the Social Sciences; J.Mahoney Path Dependence and Historical Contingency in Biology; E.Szathmáry PART IV: INSTITUTIONAL INERTIAS The New Institutional Economics: Can it Deliver for Change and Development?; J.B.Nugent Institutions, Politics and Culture: A Case for 'Old' Institutionalism in the Study of Historical Change; J.Harriss Exporting Metaphors, Concepts and Methods from the Natural Sciences to the Social Sciences and Vice Versa ; R.Gadagkar PART V: THE MULTILINEAR MODERNIZATION OF SOCIETIES The Concept of Multiple Modernities in the Framework of a Comparative Evolutionary Perspective; S.N.Eisenstadt On Modernity and Wellbeing; O.Stark Multiplicity in Non-Linear Systems; S.Sinha PART VI: CONSTELLATIONS OF CONTINGENCY: POLITICAL HISTORY Historical-Institutionalism in Political Science and the Problem of Change; E.M.Immergut Social Science and History: How Predictable is Political Behaviour? R.Congleton Reconstructing Change in Historical Systems: Are There Commonalities Between Evolutionary Biology and the Humanities?; J.Cracraft Conclusion: History, Uncertainty, and Disciplinary Difference. Concluding Observations by a Social Scientist; R.Kössler