SYSTEM ENTROPY ANALYSIS

A number of entropy models of social systems have been developed recen tly. Unfortunately, the complementarity of these approaches remains la rgely unanalysed, due to terminological and conceptual differences amo ng them. There is an urgent need for a meta-theoretical framework that will facilitate the analysis and comparison of all social entropy mod els. System entropy analysis (SEA), as presented here, is designed to fill this need. It is a second-order, meta-analytic tool which analyse s each approach in terms of its major concepts, its basic units of ana lysis, its definition and measurement of entropy, and its specificatio n of microstates and macrostates. First discusses the need for SEA, an d then specifies its structure. Concludes with an application of SEA t o the comparison and integration of three entropy approaches: synerget ics, complexity theory and social entropy theory (SET).