This article presents an agentic theory of human development, adaptation, and change. The evolutionary emergence of advanced symbolizing capacity enabled humans to transcend the dictates of their immediate environment and made them unique in their power to shape their life circumstances and the courses their lives take. In this conception, people are contributors to their life circumstances, not just products of them. Social cognitive theory rejects a duality between human agency and social structure. People create social systems, and these systems, in turn, organize and influence people's lives. This article discusses the core properties of human agency, the different forms it takes, its ontological and epistemological status, its development and role in causal structures, its growing primacy in the coevolution process, and its influential exercise at individual and collective levels across diverse spheres of life and cultural systems.

Toward a Psychology of Human Agency

Distinguishing four sources of power in human societies – ideological, economic, military and political – The Sources of Social Power traces their interrelations throughout human history In this first volume, Michael Mann examines interrelations between these elements from neolithic times, through ancient Near Eastern civilizations, the classical Mediterranean age and medieval Europe, up to just before the Industrial Revolution in England It offers explanations of the emergence of the state and social stratification; of city-states, militaristic empires and the persistent interaction between them; of the world salvation religions; and of the particular dynamism of medieval and early modern Europe It ends by generalizing about the nature of overall social development, the varying forms of social cohesion and the role of classes and class struggle in history First published in 1986, this new edition of Volume 1 includes a new preface by the author examining the impact and legacy of the work

The sources of social power

Governance failures are at the origin of many resource management problems. In particular climate change and the concomitant increase of extreme weather events has exposed the inability of current governance regimes to deal with present and future challenges. Still our knowledge about resource governance regimes and how they change is quite limited. This paper develops a conceptual framework addressing the dynamics and adaptive capacity of resource governance regimes as multi-level learning processes. The influence of formal and informal institutions, the role of state and non-state actors, the nature of multi-level interactions and the relative importance of bureaucratic hierarchies, markets and networks are identified as major structural characteristics of governance regimes. Change is conceptualized as social and societal learning that proceeds in a stepwise fashion moving from single to double to triple loop learning. Informal networks are considered to play a crucial role in such learning processes. The framework supports flexible and context sensitive analysis without being case study specific. First empirical evidence from water governance supports the assumptions made on the dynamics of governance regimes and the usefulness of the chosen approach. More complex and diverse governance regimes have a higher adaptive capacity. However, it is still an open question how to overcome the state of single-loop learning that seem to characterize many attempts to adapt to climate change. Only further development and application of shared conceptual frameworks taking into account the real complexity of governance regimes can generate the knowledge base needed to advance current understanding to a state that allows giving meaningful policy advice.

A conceptual framework for analysing adaptive capacity and multi-level learning processes in resource governance regimes

La theorie socio-cognitive adopte une perspective d’action pour ce qui est du developpement, de l’adaptation et du changement humains. Cette theorie distingue trois types d’action: l’action personnelle exercee individuellement, l’action par procuration ou l’on s’assure de beneﬁces desires en incitant autrui a intervenir en sa faveur, et l’action collective ou les gens agissent ensemble pour construire leur avenir. Des dichotomies conﬂictuelles parsement notre domaine, opposant l’autonomie et l’interdependance, l’individualisme et le collectivisme. Les determinants et les doses d’action individuelle, par procuration et collective varient culturellement. Mais tous les modes d’action sont necessaires pour parvenir a ses ﬁns quel que soit le contexte culturel. Les cultures sont diverses et dynamiques, ce ne sont pas des monolithes statiques. La diversite intraculturelle et les ecarts dans les orientations psychosociales mettent en evidence la dynamique aux multiples facettes des cultures. La globalisation croissante, la pluralite des societes et l’immersion dans un monde virtuel qui se joue du temps, des distances, des lieux et des frontieres incitent aelargir la portee des etudes interculturelles. Les preoccupations se focalisent sur la facon dont les forces nationales et globales interagissent dans la creation de la vie culturelle.

Social cognitive theory adopts an agentic perspective to human development, adaptation, and change. The theory distinguishes among three modes of agency: personal agency exercised individually; proxy agency in which people secure desired outcomes by inﬂuencing others to act on their behalf; and collective agency in which people act in concert to shape their future. Contentious dualisms pervade our ﬁeld pitting autonomy against interdependence; individualism against collectivism and communality; and personal agency against social structure. The determinants and agentic blends of individual, proxy, and collective instrumentality vary cross-culturally. But all agentic modes are needed to make it through the day whatever the cultural context in which one resides. Cultures are diverse and dynamic social systems not static monoliths. Intracultural diversity and intraindividual variation in psychosocial orientations across spheres of functioning underscore the multifaceted dynamic nature of cultures. The growing globalisation and cultural pluralisation of societies and enmeshment in a cyberworld that transcends time, distance, place, and national borders call for broadening the scope of cross-cultural analyses. The issues of interest center on how national and global forces interact to shape the nature of cultural life.

https://www.uky.edu/~eushe2/Bandura/Bandura2002AP.pdf

Social Cognitive Theory in Cultural Context

Ecological Engineering: Journal of Ecotechnology. Editor-in-chief William J. Mitsch. Elsevier. 4/yr. DFL 361, $195.

Science in action

Introduction Understanding Globalization: History and Representation in the Emergence of the World as a Single Place The Global Economy: Organisations, Networks and Regulatory Arrangements Is the Nation State Finished? The Challenge of Globalization Towards a Global Polity? Nationalism and Ethnicity: Obsolete Relics, Anti-Global Trends or Key Components of the Global Field What is Happening to Culture? Homogenisation, Polarisation or Hybridisation Conclusion Bibliography Index

Globalization and the Nation-State

The transition from feudalism to capitalism

Globalization has been associated with a range of cultural consequences. These can be analyzed in terms of three major theses, namely, homogenization, polarization, and hybridization. The homogenization thesis proclaims that global culture is becoming standardized around a Western or American pattern. While some evidence supports this view, the presence of cultural alternatives and resistance to Western norms suggests that polarization provides a more convincing picture of global cultural development. Global interconnection and interdependence do not necessarily mean cultural conformity. Culture, it seems, is harder to standardize than economic organization and technology. Yet the idea of polarization has its limits, too. The hybridization thesis argues that cultures borrow and incorporate elements from each other, creating hybrid, or syncretic, forms. Evidence to support this view comes mainly from popular music and religious life. The cultural consequences of globalization are therefore diverse and complex.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/1049246.pdf

Globalization's Cultural Consequences

1. Sociology, Individualism and Liberalism 2. Max Weber, Austrian Economics and the New Right 3. Modernism, Postmodernism, and World Religions: Some Issues in Max Weber's Sociology of Religion 4. On Law, Morality, and Modern Society: The Rationalisation Process 5. Status Politics in Contemporary Capitalism 6. Has Class Analysis A Future? Max Weber and the Challenge of Liberalism to Gemeinschaft Accounts of Class

Max Weber on economy and society

How far do recent innovations in robotics and artificial intelligence herald an unprecedented economic and social transformation? This article provides a critical evaluation of this question, chall...

Robert J. Holton

Papers

Globalization and the Nation-State

The transition from feudalism to capitalism

Globalization's Cultural Consequences

Max Weber on economy and society

Technology, innovation, employment and power: Does robotics and artificial intelligence really mean social transformation?: