Self-organization and collective behaviour in complex systems

Abstract

It is our great honour to present the CMP special issue devoted to self-organization and collective behaviour in complex systems. A complex system is a system whose emergent properties are not simple sums of the properties of its components. Since complex systems involve cooperative behaviour of many interconnected components, the 1eld of statistical physics provides a perfect conceptual and mathematical framework for their quantitative understanding. Critical phenomena and complexity have counterparts in many branches of natural and social sciences. Therefore, some of the papers presented in this issue are strongly interdisciplinary in character. However, using different approaches - analytical, empirical data analyses as well as computer simulations - the authors of this issue share a common goal: To investigate how collective behaviour arises, develops and changes in physical, social, and cultural complex systems.