Alexander N. Christakis
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Alexander N. Christakis, together with Kenneth C. Bausch, announced the founding of the Institute for 21st Century Agoras in 2002 (with organizational rollout and incorporation spanning into 2003) during the annual meeting of the International Society for the Systems Sciences in Crete, which he chaired as ISSS President, and served as its first President until 2007, when he was succeeded by Thomas R. Flanagan.
Personal Life
Alexander (Aleco) Christakis was born in Crete in 1937, moved to the USA in 1956, and returned to Crete around 2015.
Academia and Career
Christakis received his PhD in theoretical physics at Yale. He started working with the Greek architect Constantinos Doxiadis as urban planner, developing a scientific approach to planning and large scale design. He later moved to Virginia and George Mason universities to join John N. Warfield in developing the Interactive Management (IM) system for addressing very complex problems. In 1989, he established his own consultancy, CWA Ltd., dedicated to applying and testing IM in the arena for corporate practice. In 2002, he co-founded the Institute for 21st Century Agoras, dedicated to fostering an effective bottom-up and democratic approach to stakeholder solutions to civic crises.
Video Presentations
Selected Book Publications
- Christakis, A. N., & Bausch, K. C. (2006). Co-laboratories of democracy: How people harness
their collective wisdom to create the future. Information Age Publishing.
- Flanagan, T. R., & Christakis, A. N. (2021). The talking point: creating an environment for exploring complex meaning. IAP.
- Christakis, A. N., & Kakoulaki, M. Z. (2025). The Thread: Within the Deliberative Democracy Labyrinth. Emerald Publishing Limited.
Selected Journal Publications
- Christakis, A. N., & Brahms, S. (2003). Boundary‐spanning dialogue for the 21st‐century agoras. Systems Research and Behavioral Science: The Official Journal of the International Federation for Systems Research, 20(4), 371-382.
- Christakis, A. N., & Harris, L. (2004). Designing a transnational indigenous leaders interaction in the context of globalization: a Wisdom of the People Forum. Systems Research and Behavioral Science: The Official Journal of the International Federation for Systems Research, 21(3), 251-259.
- Christakis, A. N. (2006). A retrospective structural inquiry of the predicament of humankind: prospectus of the club of Rome. In Volume 1: Rescuing the Enlightenment from Itself: Critical and Systemic Implications for Democracy (pp. 93-122). Boston, MA: Springer US.
- Christakis, A. N. (1973). A new policy science paradigm. Futures, 5(6), 543-558.
- Laouris, Y., & Christakis, A. N. (2007). Harnessing collective wisdom at a fraction of the time using Structured Dialogic Design Process in a virtual communication context. International Journal of Applied Systemic Studies, 1(2), 131-153.
- Laouris, Y., Dye, K. M., Michaelides, M., & Christakis, A. N. (2014). Co-laboratories of democracy: best choices for designing sustainable futures. In Social systems and design (pp. 167-183). Tokyo: Springer Japan.
- Laouris, Y., Laouri, R., & Christakis, A. (2008). Communication praxis for ethical accountability: the ethics of the tree of action: dialogue and breaking down the wall in Cyprus. Systems Research and Behavioral Science: The Official Journal of the International Federation for Systems Research, 25(2), 331-348.
