Metacybernetics refers to the higher cybernetic orders that arise in living system agencies. Agencies are complex, and for them to be viable and hence survive, they require both stability and uncertainty reduction. Metacybernetics is defined through a metasystem hierarchy, and is mostly known through 1st and 2nd order cybernetics. In this exploratory paper the purpose is to create a framework that can underpin metacybernetics and explain the relationship between different cybernetic orders. The framework is built on agency theory which has both substructural and superstructural dimensions. Substructure has an interest in stability, is concerned with the generation of higher cybernetic orders, and is serviced by horizontal recursion. Superstructure is concerned with uncertainty reduction by uncovering hidden material or regulatory relationships, and is serviced by vertical recursion. Philosophical aspects to the framework are discussed, making distinction between global rationality through critical realism, and local rationality that relates to different cybernetic orders that correspond to bounding paradigms like positivism and constructivism.

Purpose: Smart governance ultimately relates to the ability of political administrations to elicit trust and public confidence. Political administrations normally generate rational policies that arise from their context-sensitive goals. The capability of an administration to develop and implement policies is measured as efficacy, which can influence the value and stability of an administration. However, policy development and implementation is not only an attribute of a political administration but also of its bureaucracy. The purpose of this paper is to explore the nature of bureaucracies, representing them as complex and dynamic.Design/methodology/approach: A traditional blueprint model of a bureaucracy comes from Weber, seen to be a servicing body for the implementation of political policy decisions resulting from a process of governance. An alternative model arises from the fictional works of Kafka, which is underpinned by a firm conceptual basis of a bureaucracy that confronts that of Weber. Agency theory will be used to model bureaucracies, and comparisons will be made between the Weber and Kafka conceptualisation.Findings: There are broad models of a bureaucracy that arise from different propositions such as a Weber and a Kafka model, the latter being more representative of administrations. Any attempts to measure comparative efficacy across political systems or administrations may well lead to failure due to the distinctions in the nature of the bureaucracies that they maintain. The paper argues that the Weber model is an unattainable boundary representation of a bureaucracy. In contrast, Kafka’s more pragmatic conceptualisation can be modelled as a pathological autonomous system that is both complex and adaptive. Such pathologies can be harmful to the implementation of socially improving policies.Practical implications: The paper shows that even where a political administration has policy initiatives that can improve society, these can be corrupted and misdirected by its bureaucracy, mistakenly believed (by the administration) to be dedicated to the service of the administration, rather than the bureaucracy’s own self-interests.Originality/value: No other approach has been able to graphically represent the relative natures of different bureaucracies, or their pathologies.

Purpose: Complex systems adapt to survive, but little comparative literature exists on various approaches. Adaptive complex systems are generic, this referring to propositions concerning their bounded instability, adaptability and viability. Two classes of adaptive complex system theories exist: hard and soft. Hard complexity theories include Complex Adaptive Systems (CAS) and Viability Theory, and softer theories, which we refer to as Viable Systems Theories (VSTs), that include Management Cybernetics at one extreme and Humanism at the other. This paper has a dual purpose distributed across two parts. In Part 1, the purpose of this paper is to identify the conditions for the complementarity of the two classes of theory. In Part 2, the purpose is to explore (in part using Agency Theory) the two classes of theory and their proposed complexity continuum.Design/methodology/approach: A detailed analysis of the literature permits a distinction between hard and softer approaches towards modelling complex social systems. Hard theories are human-incommensurable, while soft ones are human-commensurable, therefore more closely related to the human condition. The characteristics that differentiate between hard and soft approaches are identified.Findings: Hard theories are more restrictive than the softer theories. The latter can embrace degrees of “softness” and it is explained how hard and soft approaches can be mixed, sometimes creating Harmony.Originality/value: There are very few explorations of the relationship between hard and soft approaches to complexity theory, and even fewer that draw in the notion of harmony.

Complex organisations require coherence to achieve adaptive goals through agency. This paper introduces Mindset Agency Theory (MAT), a metatheoretical framework designed for modelling and diagnosing agency within culturally diverse populations. MAT, a cybernetic multi-ontology framework, delineates five formative traits defining agency character. Its cognitive style trait (with bipolar values of Patterning–Dramatising) elucidates how agencies acquire information. Examining diverse agencies requires an appreciation of the social relationships that exist there, but MAT is currently devoid of this capability. Using the configuration approach to enable the integration of Tönnies’ social organisation theory into MAT, social relationships can be suitably explored, thus enhancing its capacity to investigate agency coherence. Tönnies’ theory of social organisation (with bipolar values of Gemeinschaft-Gesellschaft) that frames inter-agent interactions is configured within MAT. This integration births a new formative trait, pairing cognitive style with social organisation, and is thus capable of indicating the likelihood of operative coherence. Configuration is applied by relating propositional attributes of a holding metatheory framework such as MAT, with an entry theory such as Tönnies’ social organisation theory as determined from the literature. The elaborated MAT serves as a diagnostic tool, linking trait instabilities with agency pathologies that deliver dysfunction. A subsequent paper will apply this framework to ASEAN, a regional intergovernmental organisation addressing cultural diversity issues. The study aims to evaluate ASEAN’s mindset and diagnose its pathologies, such as narcissism and paradoxical behaviour.

The debate over whether viruses are living organisms tends to be paradigmatically determined. The metabolic paradigm denies that they are, while new research evidences the opposite. The purpose of this paper is to deliver a generic model for viral contexts that explains why viruses are alive. It will take a systems biology approach, with a qualitative part (using metacybernetics) to provide deeper explanations of viral contexts, and a quantitative part (using Fisher Information deriving from the variational principle of Extreme Physical Information) which is in principle able to take measurements and predict outcomes. The modelling process provides an extended view of the epigenetic processes of viruses. The generic systems biology model will depict viruses as autonomous entities with metaphysical processes of autopoietic self-organisation and adaptation, enabling them to maintain their physical viability and hence, within their populations, mutate and evolve. The autopoietic epigenetic processes are shown to describe their capability to change, and these are both qualitatively and quantitatively explored, the latter providing an approach to make measurements of physical phenomena under uncertainty. Viruses maintain their fitness when they are able to maintain their stability, and this is indicated by information flow efficacy. A brief case study is presented on the COVID-19 virus from the perspective that it is a living system, and this includes outcome predictions given Fisher Information conditions for known contexts.