I am a professor and author. I use complexity science to examine threats to global security—especially economic instability, environmental stress, ideological polarization, and mass violence—and how people, organizations, and societies can respond to these threats.
WHAT’S NEW
Who’s the chicken in Trump’s high-stakes game?
U.S. President Donald Trump loves to play chicken – the game of chicken, that is. And while his predilection toward the game is bad enough, it also turns out that he plays it badly, and that’s truly scary.
How Western Civilization Could Collapse
The political economist Benjamin Friedman once compared modern Western society to a stable bicycle whose wheels are kept spinning by economic growth. Should that forward-propelling motion slow or cease, the pillars that define our society would begin to teeter.
Crisis analysis: How much damage can Trump do? (A lot)
Trump’s performance so far suggests his administration will lurch from crisis to crisis. To make some sense of these outcomes, I’ve charted the most likely crisis types and their causes.
How Climate Change’s Effect on Agriculture can Lead to War
On February 12, the temperature in Magnum, Oklahoma, reached 100 degrees. It was a state record for the month of February, besting a mark that was set in 1918. The average February high in Magnum is 56.
World Government Summit
This February 2017, Thomas Homer-Dixon spoke at the World Government Summit on "Climate Change and Food Supply."
Canada Must not Give Up the Fight on Climate Change
Those of us concerned about climate change generally inhabit an old-fashioned reality-based world. Scientific research and evidence drive our concern. Although we wish the climate problem would vanish, that motivation doesn’t override what science tells us.
WHAT’S NEW
Who’s the chicken in Trump’s high-stakes game?
U.S. President Donald Trump loves to play chicken – the game of chicken, that is. And while his predilection toward the game is bad enough, it also turns out that he plays it badly, and that’s truly scary.
How Western Civilization Could Collapse
The political economist Benjamin Friedman once compared modern Western society to a stable bicycle whose wheels are kept spinning by economic growth. Should that forward-propelling motion slow or cease, the pillars that define our society would begin to teeter.
Crisis analysis: How much damage can Trump do? (A lot)
Trump’s performance so far suggests his administration will lurch from crisis to crisis. To make some sense of these outcomes, I’ve charted the most likely crisis types and their causes.
RESEARCH
Synchronous Failure: The Emerging Causal Architecture of Global Crisis
Recent global crises reveal an emerging pattern of causation that could increasingly characterize the birth and progress of future global crises. A conceptual framework identifies this pattern’s deep causes, intermediate processes, and ultimate outcomes.
The Conceptual Structure of Social Disputes: Cognitive-Affective Maps as a Tool for Conflict Analysis and Resolution
We describe and illustrate a new method of graphically diagramming disputants’ points of view called cognitive-affective mapping. The products of this method—cognitive-affective maps (CAMs)—represent an individual’s concepts and beliefs about a particular subject, such as another individual or group or an issue in dispute.
A Complex Systems Approach to the Study of Ideology: Cognitive-affective Structures and the Dynamics of Belief Change
We propose a complex systems approach to the study of political belief systems, to overcome some of the fragmentation in the current scholarship on ideology.