Contemporary society

About: Contemporary society is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 3991 publications have been published within this topic receiving 91755 citations.

Modernization discourse with Chinese characteristics

Abstract: Despite sustained criticism of Western modernization theory since the 1970s, several distinct groups of theorists have sought to renovate it. Further, some of the strongest evidence of the theory's continued vitality comes from discussions of China, the fastest developing contemporary society. A close reading of a diverse group of texts reveals that a lively, creative, and global Chinese modernization discourse has emerged in recent decades. That discourse draws heavily on classical modernization theorists like Max Weber, acknowledges the successors and critics, and often integrates these Western theories with Chinese social and philosophical traditions. This essay maps the Chinese modernization discourse, highlights its relationships with other modernization discourses, and situates it within historical and theoretical contexts.

The Black Male in America: Perspectives on His Status in Contemporary Society

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Economic geography for spatial governance

Abstract: Economic geography is a discipline that studies geographical practices in the real world and plays an important role in supporting the state's strategic decision- making on spatial development and helping to understand spatial issues and solutions in contemporary society. Thus,the discipline's vitality lies with its capability to satisfy the demands of the state and society. At present,the development of economic geography in China is facing two critical challenges or opportunities. First,the Communist Party of China,the ruling party,lists modernization and enhancement of national governance capability as a major target of deepening reforms in China,which indicates reforms in the country are moving from targetoriented(i.e.,crossing the river by feeling the stones) to institutional building and capability enhancement. Second,recently the International Council for Science and the International Social Science Council co- launched a large scientific program,i.e. the Future Earth,which calls for inter-disciplinary research for managing the Earth's environment and moving towards sustainable development,and China has established its national committee on Future Earth.The program emphasizes the connection of research to decision-making of both the state and society. Against these two opportunities,this paper suggests an economic geography for spatial governance to lift the discipline's capability to engage with the state and society. Then the paper gives a general discussion of the political,administrative and cultural basis on which China's unique governance structure has developed,as well as a general picture of major tools that the Chinese government has taken for spatial governance,including planning,land,Hukou,and fiscal and tax systems. This paper argues economic geographers can do a better job only if they have a better understanding and theorization of China's national governance structure although they were inclined to do research either at local and global scales or global-local connections and ignored the national scale in the past.

Articulating virtue: Planning ethics within and beyond post politics

Abstract: Post foundationalist political theories have provided some of the most radical tools of critique in recent years. As well as challenging the dominant orthodoxy of achieving consensus in decision-making, they give voice to claims that the world can be conceived differently than how it is expressed in contemporary neoliberal hegemony. However, conflict itself is a means not an ends: it provides the intellectual tools to dissemble the dominant qua hegemonic version of contemporary society and its concomitant framing of values, but it does not provide an ethical framework in which to assess the validity of any counterclaims to the contemporary hegemony. Post-foundationalist approach can critique the status quo for its practice and epistemology, but not offer substantive conceptual grounds for an alternative. This is of particular importance if planning is to be conceived as ‘the art of situated ethical judgement’ (Campbell, 2006); a stance which opens up planning decisions as spaces for value based articulations, potentially against the grain of contemporary market-led hegemonies. Specifically, this paper explores the interstitial spaces of these value judgements by considering the contribution that virtue ethics, as articulate by MacIntyre (1981), could make to this debate. Positioned conceptually between conflict- for its own sake- and consensus- as a necessarily universal state, the paper uses the idea of virtues to explore the possibility of situated shared grounds for substantive notions of good and bad. By engaging with this concept of teleological values, the paper aims to overcome the moral void of some post foundationalist thought whilst equally demonstrating that conflict and agonism are necessary for any articulation of virtue to be voiced in contemporary planning debates. Moreover, it is through dissensus that dominant rationalities can be splintered, opening the possibility for spaces- intellectual as well as physical- of substantive ethical action. Campbell, H. (2006) Just planning: the art of situated ethical judgement, Journal of Planning Education and Research, 26(1), pp 92-106. MacIntyre, A. [2001(1981)], After Virtue, London, Bloomsbury

Global Environmental Change and Contemporary Society Classical Sociological Analysis Revisited

Abstract: Aiming at a progressive accumulation of knowledge complementary to recent and important works by environmental sociologists (Dunlap and Michelson, 1997; Redclift and Benton, 1994) and public agencies (CEQ, 1980; Olson, 1996), the general objective of this article is to pursue a renewed sociological understanding of contemporary society confronted by a particular process called global environmental change (GEC). Conceived within a specific integrated theoretical, empirical and applied approach, there is no place here for `inventories' (Sunderlin, 1995), nor `assessment analysis' (Buttle and Taylor, 1994) of current literature. In line with the author's own expertise (Prades, 1969, 1987, 1992, 1994), the specific objective of this article is to examine how a heuristic reading (Prades, 1990) of Weber and Durkheim provides basic theoretical insights for the study of GEC as a crucial contemporary societal-environmental problem. According to its own limits, the present text may only suggest avenues for further ...