Autopoiesis and Configuration Theory: New Approaches to Societal Steering

I Introduction -- 1. Autopoiesis, configuration and steering: impossibility theorem or dynamic steering theory -- 2. Introduction to configuration approach: a process theory for societal steering -- 3. Introduction to autopoiesis theory and autopoietic steering -- II Configuration Theory -- 4. Some notions on social integration and steering -- 5. Offering new possibilities of organizing in social situations: towards a posture of decentering and centering -- 6. Managing of social cognitive configurations in a multiple context -- 7. Knowledge, reification and organization; some critical comments -- 8. The feasibility of developing a political steering theory based on process-oriented configuration theories -- 9. Effective policy making in a multi-actor setting: networks and steering -- 10. Consistency, configuration, closure and change -- III. Autopoiesis Theory -- 11. Autopoieses and steering: how politics profit from the normative surplus of capital -- 12. Environmental mediation: an example of applied autopoiesis? -- 13. Autopoiesis and steering: the role of identity -- 14. Policy instruments for steering autopoietic actors -- 15. Autopoiesis, learning and governmental steering -- 16. Communication and steering: what the science of public administration could learn from Habermas and Luhmann -- 17. Applicability of autopoiesis to administration science -- 18. Simulation: learning environments for (self-)steering in social systems -- IV. Conference Impressions -- 19. A stranger in paradise? Autopoiesis, configuration and societal steering -- Authors Index -- About the Authors.