Panarchy is a conceptual term invented by the Belgian political scientist Paul Emile de Puydt in 1860. Panarchy is a means of viewing global development, and contradicts the traditional understanding of world hierarchy as being static and impervious to change. The essence of panarchy is the rationalisation of the historical (and contemporary) relationship between change and persistence, and likewise the predictable and unpredictable. Panarchy is a proposed solution to what De Puydt regarded as wasteful revolutions (see also Panarchism), as the core of panarchy concerns itself with cycles of change occurring on different levels.(1) Paul Émile de Puydt (Born in Mons, March 6, 1810 - Died in Mons, May 28, 1888) was a many-talented character. ... 1860 is the leap year starting on Sunday. ... The storming of the Bastille, 14 July 1789 during the French Revolution. ... Panarchism is a political philosophy advocating the peaceful co-existence of all political systems, where each individual may voluntarily adhere to the system of their choice, free to join and leave the jurisdiction of the governments he sees fit. ...

Disambiguation

Pantarchy is an etymologically similar term with the same meaning used by American individualist anarchist Stephen Pearl Andrews. The term panarchy fell out of use in the field of political science, but has been resurrected with an updated meaning by international relations scholars like Mark Salter and Paul B. Hartzog. The definition for pantarchy is: n. ... Anarchism is a generic term describing various political philosophies and social movements that advocate the elimination of hierarchy and imposed authority. ... Stephen Pearl Andrews (March 22, 1812 - May 21, 1886) was an anarchist. ...

Similarly, the modern study of Panarchy is not related to Panarchism (or any other "ism" because it isn't a traditional ideology). Furthermore, it is not a goal or movement. Rather, panarchy is a term used to describe the dense overlapping networks and spheres of authority in the world today. Technologies that enable collective action and cooperation (like wikipedia) call into being alternative forms of governance, social movements, and globally networked heterarchical (as opposed to hierarchical) organizations. Panarchism is a political philosophy advocating the peaceful co-existence of all political systems, where each individual may voluntarily adhere to the system of their choice, free to join and leave the jurisdiction of the governments he sees fit. ...

The academic study of panarchy, networked governance, etc. is not a canonical static sub-field in any sense. It is a newly emerging set of concepts around which students of political theory, world politics, and international relations theory in particular are circling.

Related thinkers

• Paul Wapner
• Mark Taylor
• James Rosenau
• Hardt and Negri
• Stephen Kobrin
• Ron Deibert
• Katherine Sikkink
• Niklas Luhmann
• Kyriakos Kontopoulos
• Howard Rheingold
• Fritjof Capra

Bibliography

• Sewell, James P. and Mark B. Salter (1995), "Panarchy and Other Norms for Global Governance: Boutros-Ghali, Rosenau, and Beyond", Global Governance, vol. 1, no. 3, pp. 373-382.
• Hartzog, Paul B. (2005), "Panarchy: Governance in the Network Age", Master's Essay, University of Utah.
• Gunderson, L.H. and Holling, C.S. 2001. Panarchy: Understanding Transformations in Systems of Humans and Nature. Island Press.

External links

• Panarchy.org -- Original usage
• Panarchy.com -- Modern usage, Writings and Discussion
• Resilience Alliance -- Resilience Alliance website
• [1] -- Gunderson and Holling's discussion of the word "panarchy" (Resilience Alliance website)
• The Panarchy Mansion at Dartmouth College -- Panarchy, a Dartmouth College group founded on Panarchist theory