The proliferation of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) and their interaction with certain social systems led to the emergence of the phenomenon of globalization. Globalization lays on a technological infrastructure that makes it possible by minimizing the time needed for communication and inter-systemic interactions. The paper presents the state of globalization briefly and introduces some of the basic concepts of contemporary systems theory. In the remaining parts, we examine the problems posed to the basic social system-reconstituting functions by the “real-time” communications global network and finally we introduce some preliminary thoughts about the ways the political system (or any other management system for the matter) can try to solve those problems. Relevance: The paper is based on Niklas Luhmann’s theoretical framework and also follows concepts of Maturana & Varela and Heinz von Foerster.

This article focuses on certain aspects of the methods of evaluation of scientific publications and especially on the influence of those publications. We argue that positive or negative appraisal of the “impact factor” for scientific publications cannot be judged properly out of the systemic context of the contemporary scientific problematic and relevant practices. Thus we comment on these practices in the context of a second-order cybernetic scope, focusing on critical issues of observing science and presented scientific results, in comparison with the problems arising from concepts such as “truism” or “validation.”