From P2P Foundation

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David Ronfeldt:

""multiplexity" -- meaning that relations between nodes involve multiple, not just "simplex" or "duplex,” ties or flows. Multiplex mostly means that a single line or channel can carry many messages simultaneously. Social network analysts suppose that multiplex relations are likely to foster reciprocity, trust, commitment, reputation, interdependence, and strength. But strategists may wonder otherwise as well, esp. if the multiplexity involves mixed messages and double-dealing.

What I get out of all this is that the theme -- getting a strategic handle on a world order (and disorder) increasingly defined by myriad mixes of cooperation, competition, and conflict -- is growing in significance, that it should be brought to the fore, and that it is attended by a lot of unattractive terminologies. Maybe English is not suited to finding the right kind of concept; maybe it’ll turn out that a foreign language is conceptually more suited (uh-oh). But we Americans better get cracking on it, in theory and practice.

For now, my proposed term for this phenomenon is “strategic multiplexity.” It kinda captures the above. And it could provide a parallel and complement to that usual observation: multipolarity. A plus may be that the former term could help with focusing on the nature of the ties, whereas the latter term is geared to focusing on the nature of the nodes. We need to be doing both, in agile, adaptable ways. We’re operating in a world that is both multiplex and multipolar, where out-competing increasingly depends on out-cooperating (and vice-versa).

While multiplexity isn’t a felicitous term, a check of the OED Online indicates it is an older term than multipolar. Both were used in the physical, biological, and engineering sciences before they spread into the social sciences, philosophy, or politics (and business). The term multipolar has been used to discuss strategy for four or five decades; I wonder how it sounded at first (probably better than multiplex)." (http://twotheories.blogspot.com/2008/12/strategic-multiplexity-another-trait-of.html)

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See also Coopetition