Sawyer addresses a key issue in sociology, the relation between the individual and the group. He argues that societies are complex dynamical systems, and that the best way to resolve the debates between sociologists, psychologists and economists is by developing the concept of emergence focusing on multiple levels of analysis.

Can we understand important social issues by studying individual personalities and decisions? Or are societies somehow more than the people in them? Social Emergence takes a new approach to these longstanding questions. Sawyer argues that societies are complex dynamical systems, and that the best way to resolve the debates is by developing the concept of emergence, focusing on multiple levels of analysis - individuals, interactions, and groups - and with a dynamic focus on how social group phenomena emerge from communication processes among individual members.