Ordering Principles in a Dynamic World of Change:On social complexity, transformation and the conditions for balancing purposeful interventions and spontaneous change

Consider autonomous, discontinuous and non-linear change a constant factor in the transformative world we humans are part of: Heraclitus revisited. What seems to be stable is nothing more than a temporary period of persistence, a frozen moment within a dynamic world, the lee-side of a world in flow. As there is no permanent stability, tensions, frictions, mismatches and breaks occur more or less constantly. Such a situation is not necessarily undesirable. On the contrary, these tensions, frictions and mismatches prove to be essential for development and progress. This contribution will construct a frame of reference for such a world of discontinuous change, proposing ordering principles that can guide planners and decision-makers in a world of non-linear change. The ordering principles that meet this task are conditions and are an intrinsic part of a transformative environment to which a situation or system responds. Here, these are referred to as contingent and adaptive transformative conditions. Two interrelated models will be introduced to elucidate these conditions and their relevance to framing change, development and transformation. The models will reveal the conditions with which a situation or system has to comply to be able to respond, coevolve and adapt within a dynamic environment.