The governance of physical and social connections

It is by no means a new idea that the world we live in is an interconnected one. Centuries before Castells’ seminal trilogy ‘The Information Age’, various European philosophers adopted a systemic view in order to explain certain physical and social phenomena. The 1950s were the heyday of total systems thinking: the idea that everything is connected to everything. This led to the assumption that planning and policy making should cover every relevant variable, and planners and policy makers alike aspired to develop all-inclusive models of society. This was then combined with a comprehensive rational approach in an attempt to weigh all alternatives to arrive at a certain decision. Planning bureaus were established in order to facilitate such efforts at social engineering (Klijn & Snellen 2009)