The idea of self-organization in the system of public administration

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South Ural State University, Chelyabinsk, Russia

The idea of self-organization in the system of public administration

Aleksey V. Zyrianov

Candidate of Legal Sciences

Associate Professor of the Theory of State and Law,

Constitutional and Administrative Law,

Law Institute

Abstract

This article is devoted to the problem of theory and practice of public administration in modern conditions. Actualization is carried out by searching for a new paradigm approach in order to determine the starting points regarding optimization and increasing the efficiency of the corresponding sphere of public relations.

The self-organizational approach, developed as a synergistic-information approach, corresponding to the methodological principles of the modern postnonclassical paradigm of scientific rationality, which was the result of the development of ideas of cybernetics, tectology, theory of systems and theory of dissipative structures, represents a special (different from the “classical” (mechanistic)) view on the relations of organization and management of state processes.

It is established that the process of organization is aimed at revealing new socially constructive qualities of the becoming systemic form and provides fixation and completion of the corresponding self-organizing structures of the state mechanism. Self-organization is included in the organizational process, providing flexibility and adaptive capacity of purposefully created structures. However, in this process, at the same time, there are stable structures of static importance, forming subsystems of management, designed to preserve the static form, regardless of their social value. The objective conservatism of these formations stagnates the creative renewal of the way of activity of social individuals, thus closing the process of formation of society as a whole and turning it into a system of final type.

In this case, self-organization manifests itself as an opposing party to such a state and on a historical scale destroys the rigid structures of public administration, with their inherent anomalies of the state apparatus. In the synergistic-informational understanding of the meaning of the state, its administrative purpose is to provide conditions for the dynamic formation of society capable of overcoming extreme, crisis processes.

As a result, it is possible to consider the provision on the unity of forms of public order -- self-organization, organization and means of their provision -- public administration. The latter is considered not only as a function of organization and manifestation of self-organization, but as a means of implementing public order in both forms. This implies overcoming the mismatch between the interests of the people and the system of power in the state policy. Since the formation of such a policy of the state is associated with the transition from the power base of regulation of public relations to the information one, this process acquires an objective meaning and cannot but form the basis for the development of the strategy of socio-economic and socio-political development of the country, all socially significant administrative projects.

Key words: state, administration, system, self-organization, crisis, synergies, paradigms, models, anomalies

Идея самоорганизации в системе государственного управления

А.В. Зырянов

Южно-Уральский государственный университет

454080, Челябинск, Россия, пр. Ленина, д. 76

Аннотация

public administration paradigm

Настоящая статья посвящена проблеме теории и практики государственного управления в современных условиях. Актуализация осуществляется посредством поиска нового парадигмального подхода с целью определения исходных моментов, касающихся оптимизации и повышения эффективности соответствующей сферы общественных отношений.

Явившийся следствием развития идей кибернетики, тектологии, теории систем и теории диссипативных структур самоорганизационный подход, развиваемый как синергийно-информационный, соответствующий методологическим принципам современной постнеклассической парадигмы научной рациональности, представляет особый (отличный от «классического» (механистического)) взгляд на отношения организации и управления государственными процессами.

Установлено, что процесс организации направлен на выявление новых социально-конструктивных качеств становящейся системной формы и обеспечивает фиксирование и достраивание соответствующих самоорганизующихся структур государственного механизма. Самоорганизация включается в организационный процесс, обеспечивая гибкость и ею обусловленную адаптивную способность целенаправленно создаваемых структур. Однако в этом процессе одновременно возникают устойчивые структуры статического значения, формирующие подсистемы управления, предназначенные для сохранения статики формы, независимо от их социальной ценности. Объективный консерватизм этих образований стагнирует креативное обновление способа деятельности социальных индивидов, замыкая тем самым процесс становления общества в целом и превращая его в систему финального типа.

Самоорганизация в этом случае проявляет себя противостоящей такому состоянию стороной и в историческом масштабе времени разрушает косные структуры государственного управления, с присущими им аномалиями государственного аппарата. В синергийно-информационном понимании смысла государства его управленческое предназначение заключается в обеспечении условий для динамического становления общества, способного преодолевать экстремальные, кризисные процессы.

Результирующим можно считать положение о единстве форм общественной упорядоченности -- самоорганизации, организации и средства их обеспечения -- государственного управления. Последнее рассматривается не только как функция организации и проявление самоорганизации, а как средство реализации общественной упорядоченности в обеих формах. Это предполагает преодоление в государственной политике рассогласования интересов-целей народа и системы власти. Поскольку становление такой политики государства связано с переходом от силовой основы регулирования общественных связей к информационной, этот процесс приобретает объективное значение и не может не лежать в основе разработки стратегии социально-экономического и социально-политического развития страны, всех общественно значимых управленческих проектов.

Ключевые слова: государство, управление, система, самоорганизация, кризис, синергетика, парадигма, модель, аномалия

Introduction

The entry of mankind into the next millennium of history is taking place in the context of an increasing complication of relations in the system of man -- society -- state -- international community. The traditionally established homeostats of social life were not able to filter the content of flows of conflicting information and orient people towards a constructive dialogue with each other, with society, with the state and nature. Once open to all forms of external influences, a person experiences stress on his adaptive mechanisms, goes into a state of unstable being and seeks protection of his life in an individual and/or group isolation. The aggravation of competitive relationships in connection with this creates an uneven distribution of resources and means of living, creates tension in social moods, which, crossing a critical border, becomes a factor in breaking socially significant ties and replacing them with relationships of unilateral force or economic pressure.

The state, restrained by historically established forms of mutual relations with civil society, loses its ability to control social processes, especially of the organizational type. Increasingly alienating in this connection from the society (subjectivizing), it closes in itself and becomes the arena of the struggle for power, which from a means of social ordering turns into an end in itself or a means of protecting the interests of the economically dominant thin social layer. It becomes obvious that the traditionally established forms and methods of government, especially those related to relations between the state and civil society, cannot withstand the rapidly growing load of crisis events and are in a state that threatens not only by local social disasters.

The analysis of the ongoing processes and the search for a solution to this complex problem have until recently been carried out and continue to be carried out in the prevailing part within the framework of the classical deterministic paradigm, based on the concept of the world as a fundamentally equilibrium system, where the linear measurement of natural and social processes creates the illusion of opportunity of focused design of the future from the present and obtaining planned results. On this basis, the practice of rigid, limited in the choice of methods and means, administration, including the public one, has been formed.

The process of the emergence and development of ideas of social and state self-organization, their theoretical justification and gradual entry into the practice of state building is an example of the formation of a new branch of scientific knowledge. The crisis of the classical paradigm in understanding the super complex non-linearly developing systems has unstable the traditional ideas about the phenomena and processes of the social world such as society and the state. Dogmatic positions, losing their certainty, have become open to their critical rethinking and transformation.

It should be noted that there is a significant theoretical and methodological basis in the specified area of research. Thus, methodological problems of management in the context of postnonclassical science were studied: N.N. Moiseev (Moiseev, 2001), G.I. Ruzavin (Ruzavin, 1995), K.H. Delokarov (Delokarov, 1995), S.P., Kurdumov, E.H. Knyazeva (Knyazeva, Kurdyumov, 1997). Specifics of management in the conditions of social crisis and development of social processes in a mode with aggravation: V.G. Budanov (Budanov, 2003), information approach in management of complex self-organizing social systems: G.G. Malinetsky (Malinetsky, 2000). Relationship between culture and management in the synergetic aspect: O. N. Astafieva (Astafieva, 1999).

Some aspects of the relationship between the state system and the processes of social self-organization are presented in the works of O.V. Baryshnikova (Baryshnikov, 2001), A.B. Vengerova (Vengerov, 1986), G.A. Tumanova (Tumanov, 1986), V.S. Egorova (Egorova, 1994), A.V. Ivanova (Ivanov, 2001), L.A. Kalinichenko (Kalinichenko, 2000), A.P. Nazaretyana (Nazaretian, 2001), V.K. Petrova (Petrov, 2005), V.N. Protasova (Protasov, 2001), O.F. Shabrova (Shabrov, 1997), L.V. Leskova (Leskov, 1998), V.L. Romanova (Romanov, 2003) covering different directions of theory and practice of public organization and management in the postnonclassical representation.

The correctness of the choice of the channel, in which social science is involved in the general theory of self-organization, is checked traditionally -- by the request of practice. The openness of practice, its creativity in response to changes in the mode of activity included in it and its inverse effect on the state of society, the conditions and quality of human life, the multivariance of the results of these answers, the unpredictability of their consequences in public life, require scientific studies of the processes developing in it precisely in the context of the theory of selforganization.

Changing and complicating the political and economic landscape of society requires a fundamentally new approach to the organization and functioning of the public administration system, the practical search of which is extremely difficult, with significant losses. It is becoming increasingly obvious that in the modern public administration it is necessary to proceed from the fundamentally new paradigmatic foundations in which forms and methods of administration would not be the product of subjective views and attitudes of those in power, but formed based on the real process of evolutionarily determined social transformations.

Evolution of the public administration paradigm

The centuries-old methodological and ideological tradition of public administration was formed within the framework of the deterministic paradigm based on the idea of the state as a balanced system (mechanism). The linear measurement of social processes created the illusion of the ability to project the future of multicomponent “managed objects” and to obtain the necessary results by “managing subjects” in accordance with the stipulated project parameters. For this reason, the practice of strict social control -- “managing society” seems acceptable and justified. The purpose of such leadership activities is to maintain the established order and restore it in case of violation. It is enough, for example, to limit energy with a speed sufficient to achieve a certain limit, or to establish nominal or real limiters on the path of spontaneous potential. Perhaps the order will exist in such a system for some time, but its progressive development will slow down or even be eliminated. The society and the state in which the order is implemented in the indicated “mechanical” way are insular, closed with all the consequences arising from this state (Knyazeva, Kurdyumov, 1997:64) -- stagnation, degradation, death.

The non-classical stage of the development of science has put forward a new paradigm of administration. The new system of cognitive ideals and norms provides a significant expansion of the field of controlled objects, opening the way for the development of complex self-regulated systems. Such objects are characterized by a multilevel organization, the presence of relatively autonomous and variable subsystems in motion, the massive stochastic interaction of their elements, the presence of a control level and feedbacks that ensure the integrity of the system. It is determined that a complex dynamic system (the systemic form of the state) is capable of ensuring the stability of its internal structure (mechanism) with certain (remembered by it) changes in the environment (society). The main role is information about deviations and methods for their normalization. The distribution and linking of this information in the system's memory and its movement through a closed feedback review is a selfregulating mechanism. The non-classical cybernetic approach to managing social systems has taken the administrative paradigm beyond the framework of the mechanistic one, but the ideological guidelines of the “conservative” adminstration strategy and tactics have not been overcome. “Linearity”, “following the established order”, “closed cycle”, “returning to normal”, “constancy”, “conservation” -- all these are from the vocabulary of equilibrium dynamics.

Post-nonclassical science brings to the forefront conceptual synergetic categories: “openness”, “non-equilibrium”, “non-linearity”, “complexity”, etc., managerial thought regarding society and the state moves away from the “lever-mechanical” worldviews. The modern metaphor of society as the environment, which forms a functional sub-system -- the state (with its own system function (non-linear function) -- right), which is a fast stream with unexpected turns in time and space, chaotic, but at the same time predefined in each zone of its turbulence. One can find a more successful metaphor, but the general meaning is that administration is designed not to calm the movement of life, but to streamline life in an unequal environment (Knyazeva, Kurdyumov, 1997:68).

In widespread use, public administration is defined as a conscious, systematic, specially organized action of power on society in order to streamline and improve its social and functional structure in the process of development and implementation of the goal. However, this definition clearly corresponds to “classical” positions. Society and all the processes taking place in it play the role of objects of administration. The purpose of administration is to streamline them according to the goal achieved. It is believed that this goal is determined by a specific subject who knows what society should be and is able to influence it in the process of achieving this goal. Thus, the subject of public administration is placed above society and is called to decide its fate. The history, including the latest, not only knows the tragic results of the practical implementation of this approach to administration, but, unfortunately, provides them.

The post-non-classical paradigm determines the place of the subject of administration in the structure of society. Directly participating in public life, he lives this life, by his problems, organized in the process of social self-organization and implemented in the organization of the environment into which he enters. Social changes make adjustments to the structural and qualitative characteristics of subjects and control objects, not opposing, but synergizing the subject-object relations.

In this regard, the process of public administration is revealed in a new light. Objectively, it originates not in one highest point of social space, but in a variety of micro-level loci of social self-organization. Spontaneously arising in the process of overcoming the crisis, when individuals pass through bifurcation states, the order parameters are consistent with both public and private interests in society and acquire the value of arranging (organizing) or directing and regulating (controlling) factors. During the interaction of local social formations, the order parameters are selected that coordinate the relations and behavior of the elements of the system (government bodies) of the next organizational level up to the highest officials of the state apparatus. Thus, in the synergy of self-organization, organization and administration, a self-governing system of state organization is formed.

In connection with the new paradigm, the goal of administration is determined based on the requirements and capabilities of a self-organized system to carry out the formation and development, the need to help unlock the potential and coordinate the intensity and direction of the dynamics of self-developing local processes when the environment of their functioning changes. The ultimate goal of public administration is to ensure the rights, freedoms and conditions for human life as a species. All management systems, regardless of their organizational level, should be focused on this goal. The trend of the modern public administration: from coercion to motivation (Delokarov, 1995:129).

The new paradigm of the process of public administration and its forms focuses on a complex (open, non-linear) way of building relationships with elements of a self-organizing system, the activity of which is “woven” from extreme, adaptive states and processes. The administration concept should take into account alternative social development and behavior in the critical area of system parameters by imposing significant restrictions on external effects. It is possible to say that there can be no external influences that could “impose” such behavior that is not provided for by the potential structure of the state system.

Thus, supporters of the synergetic methodology argue that the process of selforganization is a movement in only one direction -- forward. This does not mean that the newly formed system will be in a “better” state, compared to the previous one. It becomes what it can be, experiencing a certain event or a series of events arising in time. This is the meaning of self-organization as a process of formation.

As already noted, the classical idea of the structure and the process of ordering the world is focused on the fact that everything is ordered, and the unrest that occurs is a frequent case of order and can be eliminated by the actions of its laws. The synergistic picture of the world is different. Everything in nature, including man, society, and therefore the state, is not balanced. In being itself, wherever it appears, chaos states are constantly included, which are sources of movement and selforganization.

The theory of self-organization laid the foundation for a new paradigm that radically changes the classical view of the world picture, the relationship of the material and the ideal, the essence of evolution, creativity, complementarity, etc. Synergy is also making profound changes in the theory of administration. Disorganization, crises, and even chaos, which in the framework of the classical paradigm were recognized as the antipodes of order, today are seen as a condition for systems to reach a new, higher level of development.

It must be said that in social science the theory of self-organization is at the stage of methodological formation. Having penetrated into these areas at a high worldview level, synergy is carefully introduced into the theory of the state. This caution is explicable. Thinking that has formed in line with the classical paradigm cannot easily accept the phenomenon of disorganization as a necessary process of social creativity. Nevertheless, the rapidly unfolding panorama of the stochastically developing state processes in the life of Russia and other countries experiencing crises of various nature, as well as the present tendency of the world community to plunge into a state of unstable equilibrium -- one part of it, and stable non-equilibrium -- the other, testify to the relevance of the analysis of the already begun process of formation of the theory of self-organization of the state and law. There is every reason to believe that the development of research in this direction will not only deepen the theoretical ideas about the self-organization of public life, but also provide an opportunity to determine approaches to the formation in the socio-political practice of such relations between the state as the institution of a social organization and society as a self-organizing system that would most fully meet the interests of the present and future life of mankind.

Two conceptual models of public administration

To study the nature and dynamics of the continuum of relations of selforganization, organization and administration, we will conduct a comparative analysis of their manifestations in the processes of various stages of the life state of the system using two types of models. Type A is an “organismic model”, showing successive phases of the process of state formation, having the boundaries of its development and existence in real time. We call it a “fatal” model. Type B is an “alternative model” open to future movement.

The spontaneous appearance of both the first and the second occurs the same way -- in the chaos of multidirectional movements of social individuals and their groups, determined by their own requirements and interests. The areas of order formed in this chaos are associated with long-lived social factors (archetypes, beliefs, traditions, etc.). Cooperation begins at the moment of critical tension (crisis) caused by uncertainty in satisfying vital needs. A vector of coordinated (coherent) motion is formed at the bifurcation points as a result of the appearance of the attraction of volantile modes with the participation of individual elements in the general goal setting stream. Organization and administration in this process are included in selforganization as special cases manifesting at the moment of personality choice (Romanov, 2003:120).

With the establishment of systemic integrity, the process of formation of its fundamental qualitative properties (forms of government) that determine its features, self-determination relative to other state-shaped system formations takes place. In this process, a communication channel is formed for the movement of components and stable operating parameters of the order, which is the beginning of the organizational system of the state and the basis of the emerging administration subsystem.

As the system reaches maturity, the value of organization and administration increases. The maturity of the system occurs at the end of the formation of its organizational structure, which includes the administration subsystem (state mechanism). Then the quality of government processes in the studied models begins to be specified. In the first model, its configuration takes on a finite character; in the second, the movement continues in the upward direction. What are the mechanisms responsible for these differences?

The resulting state system (model of the first type) is characterized by isolation in relation to other systems, the rigid determinism of component relationships, the certainty of the relationship between the linear development of processes and their reversibility. The created organization is supported by its administration system, the subject of which is deviations from the order parameters established in the structure, and possible dysfunctions, which are defined as pathology and integrity threat. From the point of view of the classical approach in the theory of administration, this stage of systemic life is considered optimal, where the main task is to preserve the organization. This formulation indicates organization and administration in the form of dominant processes in the system and contradicting its self-organization, since it is it that is the producer of deviations from the framework of the maintained order (Atamanchuk, 1997:98).

The real social practice refutes such relations, since the process of selforganization can neither be restrained, nor, moreover, stopped. In a situation of closure of systemic self-organization, an internal maximization of entropy is manifested. As a result, fluctuations destroy the conservative (bone), stagnant components of organization and administration that impede the transformation of the system. If the conservatism of the organization (form of the state) is steadily supported by the administration system, self-organization processes are manifested in its disorganization. The public administration system, losing the effectiveness of the state-political system, goes into the phase of functioning in the degradation mode. If at this stage the attempts of the administration subject continue to preserve the parameters of the order, which has outlived its usefulness, then the system is in crisis. This situation can no longer be resolved due to the depletion of the adaptation possibilities of former homeostats, and the system is in a state of significant imbalance. The oscillatory effect ends with a crisis, the collapse of the system.

In the second model, the quality of the relationship between self-organization, organization, and administration is excellent. The purpose of administration is not to maintain a static order, but self-organization, which is manifested in the continuous process of state formation, that is, dynamic organization, dynamic stability.

Remember that in accordance with the anthropic principle, the main source of the upward movement of the state and society is a freely developing spiritually and cognitively active person. If in the first model the human freedoms (the possibility of developing human resources) are limited by the rigid framework of the conditions for the functioning of a particular state regime, then in the second version, the control is aimed at expanding the life-affirming freedom of a person through faster adaptation, rejection of the overly stabilizing order parameters, and also overcoming deviations of individuals and groups (associations) to ensure free self-organization of socially productive individuals (Romanov, 2003:148).

Thus, both models indicate the importance of self-organization as a methodological basis for analyzing the process of formation and development of a dynamic state system. The quality of the state form manifests itself as a special case of selforganization, the moment of fixing the order parameters at the intermediate stages of development, which means a systemic predetermination to achieve new qualitative properties. The administration system works as a tool to support dynamic stability. If administration is primitive, that is, the will of the subject is aimed at securing the organization at one of the levels of development of the state system, selforganization overcomes systemic conservatism through disorganization, and the system or its parts again (often through crisis and catastrophe) are included in the current process of development of general in the form of speculative samples of the organizational structure. It is necessary to say that the model presented here is fully correlated with the formation of human civilization and human systems in general, on a historical time scale.

At the same time, it should be noted that at the micro level, the processes of life organization still more closely correspond to the characteristics of the final model of social systems. However, the finality of these systems is due to the rigidity of the organization of not only arbitrary genesis, but also the dependence of their resource potential or on the genetic program. The goal of managing these relatively short-lived systems is the same -- to ensure the freedom of their effective formation and development and at the same time -- the maximum possible innovative contribution to the social resource of the emerging state macro-system expressed in the form of a certain form of political relations.

The main factor in the self-organizing movement, ensuring the continuing nature of state formation, is the way people work, updated in the process of generational change or component composition of the system. The progressive orientation of this movement is ensured by the evolution of scientific knowledge, the spiritual and moral orientation of its practical application, the elevated human needs, the free movement of information about the possibilities of realizing private and public interests.

Thus, the economic component of the mode of activity represents in the process of continuing social development its product, which provides the means, and not the fundamental end in itself. The infinity of self-organization of the natural world, its openness to equally endless cognition, respectively, determines the limitlessness of the evolution of reason and in its continuum -- the formation of man in a becoming society. The unpredictability of the concrete results of this process in the future, which is characteristic of self-organization, determines, by the strategic goal of life, not dubious government projects and strict support for movement towards them, but the freedom of the formation process. Society and the state will become not what they “should be” according to wise design, but what they can be as a result of advancing the mode of activity (Atamanchuk, 1997:104).

The continuum of ongoing state formation manifests itself in a discrete, nonlinear configuration. This is due to deviations in the upward movement as a result of both innovative “bursts” (acceleration) and socio-pathological deviations (inhibition). In the framework of this work, it was established that all kinds of deviations in the “normal” movement, including crises, are intrinsically inherent in self-organization and are the basis in the genesis of organization and administration, which are organically included in the process of self-organization. Fixing in the structures of newly emerging order parameters and “completed” qualities, restructuring, if necessary, releasing components from obsolete structures that inhibit innovative activity are the basic tasks of the organization as a conscious form of public ordering.

Thus, administration acts as a means of realizing these and other tasks of organizational support for the self-organizing process of state formation. In this context, the theory and practice of public administration overcomes the framework of the classical idea of it as “managing society”, based on the power-force prevention and elimination of deviations and crises in social processes with a focus on the interests of the subject of administration. The highest goal of public administration from the perspective of an emerging new paradigm is to ensure the conditions for the life-affirming formation of a person as a species and society -- as an environment for his living arrangement. The essential content of the process of the formation of such an approach to public administration in moving from coercion to motivation, to attraction of individuals and their associations in the channels, forming the general movement in the upward vector of state development (Shalayev, 1999:208).

Idea of anti-crisis public administration

It is possible to say that the idea of anti-crisis is paradoxical in nature. If a crisis is a discharge of an extreme state and a moment of self-organization, then crisis management assumes the neutralization of this discharge, and, accordingly, the repayment of the process of self-organization. At the same time, the extreme state of the state system is a difficult test for people who find themselves in a critical zone, and hardly anyone considers it appropriate to give their own destinies to the power of chance, even in the name of the brightest future. Solving this dilemma, it is obvious that two main administration tasks should be distinguished: 1) prevention of an extreme (crisis) situation of arbitrary genesis and with the threat of its transition to a catastrophe (actually crisis management); 2) assistance to the system experiencing the crisis in its way out of the extreme state in the optimal vector, or at least with less organizational and human losses (extreme management). Initial provisions of this approach: extremes associated with socio-pathological behavior of people, errors in activity or inaction can be prevented; the destructive power of the crisis can be weakened by consciously supporting the adaptive capabilities of the system; it is possible to promote the state system in preserving and revealing the genetic potential and, on this basis, get out of the crisis into a vector of progressive formation; it is possible to stimulate the recovery process in the period when the system emerges from the crisis; finally, the idea of using the energy of the crisis for socially constructive purposes can be realized (Yakovets, 1999:307). Thus, the tactics of public administration are built depending on the phase of the movement of the system in the process of its formation and development, in which various relationships of self-organization, organization and administration are manifested.

The theme of the crisis for modern scientists and practitioners of administration is quite new, arose suddenly and sounded immediately at the height of relevance. The crisis of politics, the crisis of the economy, the crisis of culture, the crisis of education, the crisis of science, the crisis of healthcare, the crisis of spirituality is not a complete list of local-sphere crises that produce a systemic social crisis and are its consequence. The idea of anti-crisis management, ensuring on this basis the “sustainable” development of society and the state, is increasingly pushing its way. There are some results. But they are not equivalent to the real threat of crisis. The field of crisis management remains on a local scale and achievements are focused mainly in the economic sphere.

It seems that the crisis problem is reliably protected by nature from the invasion of the mind. The practice of public administration, taking in the conditions of the crisis seemingly optimal, life-tested solutions, result in a paradoxical response of the system, often aggravating the crisis process. It is becoming increasingly apparent that advances in crisis research are destroying the knowledge system that seems to have steadily developed in relation to the theory of administration. There is less and less doubt that the rationalistic paradigm of social science and state science, which is plunging into a crisis, will not solve the problem of social and state crisis.

Crisis is a sphere of unpredictability, non-linear processes and, accordingly, the subject area of the growing synergetic methodology. In this context, the crisis is seen not only as the apogee of disorganization, but also as the emergence of a new organization struggling with the emerging disorganization. An important component of understanding the essence of the crisis is already appearing here -- unity in its meaning of destructive and constructive movements.

Almost all works on the topic of crisis and crisis management, one way or another, focus on crises of specific organizations (organizational forms) in the context of their functioning and development. Accordingly, “the apogee of disorganization”, “chaos” is the state of the organizations under study. But what about cases when crises of the same organizations arise not only in the depths of their disorganization, but also at the height of the organization? For example, the state can be destabilized in a crisis version precisely when its organizational form gives it the opportunity of total control of social processes.

Obviously, the crisis should not be considered from the standpoint of the state of an individual organization, but in the system of its relations with other organizations, such as the state in relation to society (the world community). It is in this space, on that part of it where intersystem relations are connected, that chaos of these relations arises, and it does not necessarily immediately responds to the organization of interest to us with a crisis.

In the same context, the problem of correlation of chaos as a scientific category is urgent -- the theoretical construction of synergetic research, and crisis. Often found in the literature, their identification is not accidental. Prior to the fundamental discoveries of modern nonlinear dynamics, the concept of “chaos” had primarily the meaning of absolute disorder. The crisis is also denoted by this characteristic (“the apogee of disorganization”). The modern synergetic representation of chaos is, in a number of definitions, a revival of the ancient understanding of it as a constructive principle. Moreover, it is essential that dynamic chaos is not characterized as an absolute absence of any order. Rather, the opposite is true -- dynamic chaos is in potentiality the bearer of a coherent hierarchy of order levels (Potaturin, 2000:63). Representing, in this way, chaos as the potential of order, the crisis should not be regarded as the “apogee of disorganization”, but as the moment of realization of the potential of dynamic chaos, which manifests itself as a sudden spontaneous formation of structures (self-organization). In this process, the meaning of the formulated definition of the crisis as “a special case of a special chaotic regime” is revealed. It follows that the crisis is secondary to chaos. Chaos -- a state, crisis -- a moment when a new order is born out of chaos. If we accept this hypothesis, then it confronts us with another, crucial problem: why confront the crisis when it is the producer of order? Let us say more specifically: what is the meaning of crisis management then?

Let us turn to the fact that the dual probability of overcoming chaos applies to any crisis, no matter in which sphere it occurs. To study the phenomenon of this duality, it is necessary to delve deeper into the concept of chaos. As already noted, chaos is not an absolute lack of order. This means that in chaos we observe both order and disorder. Accordingly, we can assume that in chaos lies the potential of not only ordering, but also destruction. The subject area of crisis management, according to a simplified view, could relate to the prevention of collapse crises. But such an idea would be too simple. Apparently, we should talk about the inclusion in the chaos of some variables that would synergize multidirectional processes in the interests of constructive output. According to the proposed concept, the object of impact in crisis management should not be considered a crisis itself, but a situation in which a crisis “ripens” and is accomplished.

The main arena of crisis development that interests us is the spatio-temporal (correlated with the form of government, form of state system) and the functional (correlated with the state-political regime) borders of the public administration system. In a dynamic view, the boundary is a process of balancing interaction of disorganization and organizational factors. The stable opposition of the forces of activity on the one hand and resistance -- on the other hand, forms a rigid boundary of the system. For self-organization, this is a special case -- closing the system in a state of stable equilibrium with generating a crisis situation that is regular for closed systems and is associated with an intra-system increase in entropy (Nazaretian, 2001:109).

The real state system of the state is the oscillatory mobility of the processes of disorganization and organization in certain parameters. Organizationally determined restrictions on the realization of its expansive potential, the specifics of which are determined by economic, political, scientific, technical, and ideological resources, hinder the activity of the system beyond their limits. The impact on the system of disruptive external factors is also controlled by the indicated parameters, which dose this effect to the extent necessary and sufficient for the design and maintenance of protective mechanisms.

The form of the state, the system of government are the boundaries of homeostasis, provided by the parameters of the internal order. In case of spontaneous failures of protection mechanisms (fluctuations) and/or overcoming of their resistance by environmental agents, the boundaries of homeostasis break through, which creates local (in weak links) or general situations (with internal negative resonance) crisis situations. Steadily repeating violations of internal order parameters are caused by a homeostatic crisis, in the process of which the system either dies or “heals” due to the reorganization of the structures and processes of homeostasis, their replacement with new ones that can neutralize or assimilate disturbances unusual for the previous homeostatic system. Such transformations of homeostasis, which are adaptation reactions, can be repeated until the adaptation reserve of the system is exhausted.

The range of deviations in the functioning of the system, going beyond its adaptive capabilities, means a systemic crisis situation. The growing non-equilibrium in this case is accompanied by the destruction of bonds between the components of the system. Their functioning becomes inconsistent. At the height of disorganization, a system either breaks up (a breakdown crisis), or its elements and preserved components in stochastic interaction form new order parameters like dissipative structures, i.e. a fundamentally new, qualitatively education, organizational form is born.

The limit of order in a self-organizing system is due to two basic informational deviations: 1) the impossibility of an adequate response to a signal common to the system; 2) the unusual signal received by the system. In the first case, the structures and mechanisms of the system responsible for the perception, processing, memorization and reproduction of information, its movement through communication channels are violated. These violations can occur simultaneously at all stages of the movement of information (depression of the system) or at any of its sections (pathology of system components). The unusualness of the signal can be associated both with a violation in the system of the memory function (shape memory), and with the actual novelty of the environmental requirements for the object in their quantitative (signal strength) or qualitative (signal content) expression. Such a state develops, as a rule, with the rigidity of the system's relations with the environment, and also as a result of excessive conservatism of the control subsystem, which is objectively associated with the lag of its restructuring from the general processes of self-organization in the system. The result of any of the above and other variants of process violation is a state of uncertainty in which selfregulation and self-government in the system are impossible. Outs of the crisis are possible in three main directions: 1) the system “closes” from its unusually disturbing signals and, accordingly, stops in development; 2) system components that have lost informative connections are “self-determined” regardless of system-wide goals; 3) the system forms a new control subsystem (Romanov, 2003:170).

Society and the state are the most complex self-organizing systems. They arose during the crisis moments of the self-organization of social matter and all their life activity is a continuous crisis process that develops in accordance with the nature of the crisis, but with peculiarities due to the specifics of the organization form. Relations of this kind are formed at all levels of the hierarchy of social systems -- from small groups to interethnic associations. This is the meaning of a state homeostat -- an incentive to external fruitfulness.

Functional anomalies of the mechanism of public administration

The definition of public administration as a means of public ordering presupposes, firstly, the adequacy of its goals for the interests of the people, and secondly, the high organization of its subjects aimed at achieving these goals. However, in the process of radical political and socio-economic transformations of society, the system of public administration is transformed primarily, experiencing, as a rule, a systemic crisis that produces a crisis in the national community. At the same time, having lost its organizational qualities, the public administration system is included in the general process of social self-organization and becomes sensitive to the anomalies inherent in social crises. Thus, the growing relationship between the people and state power is the main reason for the loss of control over the processes taking place in society. In the structural presentation, the place of the indicated gap should be sought in that component part of the system of state administration, which is the organizational key in relations between the state and society. Such a part determines the apparatus of state administration, about the nature and functions (dysfunctions), which, within the framework of the corresponding state mechanism, will be discussed later.

The organizational significance of the state apparatus lies, first of all, in the fact that it is a specially organized institution that ensures the functioning of the public administration system in feedback loops -- from the perception and processing of information about social processes, the formation of management decisions on this basis, and up to direct implementation of socio-organizational programs. It is quite obvious that a significant breakdown of this mechanism produces a crisis of the entire state system.

The normal state of the system is, first of all, its real conformity to its purpose, which is ensured by rational organization, activity and coordination of component functions subordinated to the common goal. Under the influence of external factors or internal dysfunctions, anomalies arise -- deviations from normal functioning parameters. The extreme expression of the anomaly is the state of anomie, which is manifested by generalized destruction, mismatch of functions, loss of expediency of the system (Romanov, 2003:180).

In more detail, the state apparatus is designed to implement the functions of the state, aimed at ensuring the integrity and conditions for the effective functioning of the national community (country). The subject of its practice is the prevention and overcoming of pathological deviations of social development, which civil society cannot cope with through self-government.

The solution to these problems is carried out through the following functions. The information-analytical function is aimed at diagnosing processes taking place in society: facts of socio-pathological deviations or signs of their formation are revealed, the causes and conditions of their genesis are investigated, spontaneously generated factors of counteraction to social dysfunctions are studied. The design-normative function implements the task of developing draft decisions of state bodies on prevention, socio-economic regulation or powerfully neutralizing socio-pathological deviations. Of particular importance in this process is the prediction of the possible damaging consequences of the implementation of projects, both immediate and delayed in their manifestation. The normative-decisive function is carried out in the process of adopting legislative, regulatory and administrative acts at the level of state authorities authorized in this regard. The organizational and executive function is aimed at organizing the execution of decisions of public authorities. It includes the formulation of specific service tasks, the calculation of the forces and means necessary for their solution, the activation and coordination of the activities of performers, the provision of managerial communications, etc. The control function is to monitor the implementation by civil structures of state normative and administrative acts, assess changes in society in connection with the implementation of decisions of state bodies and the general dynamics of the state of the social organism.

These functions are implemented in specialized structures of state authorities. The main conditions for the normative structuring of the state mechanism is the conformity of structures to the socio-organizational (ordering) functions of the state in their necessary and sufficient definition. The normality of the process of state activity as a whole is determined by the qualitative criteria of relations between the state and society, the structural and functional state of the system of state power and the nature of the behavior (activity) of individuals and groups. Correspondingly to the indicated levels, the following abnormal manifestations are considered (Romanov, 2003:172).