Showing papers on "Modernization theory published in 1989"

Economic Rationalism in Canberra: A Nation-Building State Changes its Mind

Abstract: Throughout the world since the 1970s, state and public sector reform has been driven by a conservative agenda emphasising notions of 'streamlining' and 'rationalisation'; Australia has been no exception. Michael Pusey undertakes a detailed analysis of top bureaucrats in Canberra who have been responsible for this recasting of national policy. He concludes that economist rationalist view dominate each of the key ministries, and have altered the traditional balance between the economy, the state and society. The book also discusses the social significance of economic rationalisation and public sector reform from a theoretical perspective, contributing to contemporary understanding of modernisation, public morality and citizenship in the new global order.

Theories of Development: Capitalism, Colonialism and Dependency

Abstract: Preface and Acknowledgements. Introduction. 1. Early Capitalism:. Classical Political Economy and Marx. 2. The Expansion of Capitalism:. Colonialism and Imperialism. 3. Late Capitalism:. Modernization and the Economic Commission for Latin America. 4. Dependency, Unequal Exchange and Underdevelopment. 5. Dependency, Industrialization and Development. 6. Latin American Dependency and Historical Materialism: A Theoretical Challenge.

Ecological Modernization of Industrial Society — Three Strategic Elements

Abstract: In both the East and the West, economists, planners and engineers are seeking for a solution to the problem of how to change the traditional patterns of resource use. “Perestroika” and “modernization” are two actual catchwords in this process, and new environmental priorities play a part in the envisaged conversion of the economy.1 Harmonizing ecology and economy in a specific sense relies on the premise that a reduction in the resource input of production (structural change) will lead to an ex ante reduction of emissions and wastes that have a negative impact on the natural environment (ecological structural change).

Following in Father's Footsteps: Social Mobility in Ireland

Abstract: This is the first systematic study of patterns of social mobility in Ireland. It covers a recent period the 1960s when Ireland was undergoing rapid economic growth and modernization. The author thus was able to test the widely accepted hypothesis that growth weakens class barriers. To his surprise he found that it did not. Social mobility increased somewhat, but among mobile men the better jobs still went to those from advantaged social class origins. Despite economic development and demographic change, the underlying link between social origins and career destinations remained unchanged.In chapters on education, life cycle, religion, and farming, Hout shows how inequality persists in contemporary Ireland. In the last chapter he reviews evidence from other countries and concludes that governments must take action against class barriers in education and employment practices if inequality is to be reduced. Economic growth creates jobs, he argues, but economic growth alone cannot allocate those jobs fairly."

Adam Ferguson, Adam Smith, and the Problem of National Defense

Abstract: It has long been recognized that eighteenth-century Scotland gave birth to political economy as a sophisticated scholarly discipline. Hailing from a relatively impoverished nation that had joined its larger southern neighbor in 1707 to form a new "British" state, Adam Smith and other Scottish political economists were concerned not only with observing, describing, and explaining the realities of economic life as they saw them but also with leading Scotland toward material progress and wealth. It has also been recognized, however, that in Scotland political economy was a branch of a remarkably comprehensive academic discipline known as moral philosophy, and that Scottish moralists were acutely sensitive to the ambiguities and paradoxes inherent in economic growth. At times this sensitivity was expressed through the language of the civic humanist or classical republican tradition, which emphasized public virtue, a unified civic personality that joined the private individual with the public citizen, and economic independence based on land ownership, as opposed to the blatantly self-interested attitudes and activities associated with the accumulation of commercial wealth. This tension between modernization and morality, wealth and virtue, accounts for much of the recent interest in the social thought of the Scottish Enlightenment.1

Contemporary Politics of Environment in Thailand

Abstract: Background A casual reader of the Thai press will have noticed that environmental issues have become important to a variety of groups in recent years, including farmers, urban dwellers, the liberal intelligentsia, and the country's ruling elite. This reflects related trends concerning degradation of the environment itself, the response of these different groups to those trends, and the nature of political conflict and debate in Thailand. In particular, heightened interest in the environment coincides with an increasing integration of rural populations into mainstream political discourse. The majority of Thais live in rural areas and depend on rural livelihoods. They have been drawn into political conflict over the environment by the mounting pressure that modernization exerts on the sources of their sustenance. In the North, for example, logging and encroachment into upland forests has motivated farmers to take action to protect the watersheds that feed their fields. Farmers' protests against timber-cutting in more than ten provinces in the North and elsewhere were important components of the rising environmentalist pressure that resulted in the cabinet's drafting royal decrees banning all logging nationwide on January 10, 1989. Two other factors were also significant in convincing the government to take this remarkable step against the politically powerful local logging companies. One-certainly the most significant-was the public shock that followed the deaths of several hundred villagers in deforestation-related mudslides in southern Thailand in November 1988. The sec-

From Authoritarianism to Democracy in South Korea

Abstract: The South Korean case supports the contention that popular demands for political participation and the willingness of elites to recognize them are the likely consequences of modernization. The continuing transformation of the political system suggests that neither the corporatist nor the bureaucratic authoritarian models are applicable to Korea. Its non-democratic past is best seen as a response to specific factors, including Korea's position in the prevailing world system, the absence of countervailing elites as a result of war and rapid social transformation and the development of a strong and relatively independent state. The recent domestic and international impact of modernization has been to reverse the influence of these factors, though elements of the political culture and the contentious legacy of the past pose difficulties for the new democracy. Roh Tae-woo will need to be seen to be making a new beginning if the perennial legitimacy crisis of the Korean republic is to be overcome.

Islam, the People and the State: Essays on Political Ideas and Movements in the Middle East

Abstract: The recent prominence of Islamic politics in the Middle East, notably the Iranian revolution and its ramifications, has raised important questions about society, politics and culture. It has posed a challenge to the main theoretical approaches in the social sciences from Marxism to modernization theory and it has given some credence to the idea that the world of Islam is essentially distinct from Europe, and follows a course of development dictated by its own history and culture. In this book, Sami Zubaida challenges these diverse opinions in favour of a general political sociology capable of dealing with the historical and cultural personalities of societies and situations in the region. He argues that rather than being "revivals" of historical ideas and institutions, current political and social developments in the Islamic World are, in fact, uniquely modern phenomena.

Bahrain: The Modernization of Autocracy

Abstract: First published in 1989. Bahrain is at the same time unique among the Arab oil-producing Gulf states and indicative of future developments in these emirates. Its uniqueness lies in the social, political, and economic structures of the country: The indigenous population is characterized by a peculiar set of overlapping cleavages; the country's industrial work force has a history of militant action and a degree of political consciousness unmatched in neighbouring states; and the islands' economy has achieved a level of diversification into non-petroleum-related activities that is the envy of planners in the surrounding area. This study provides an overview of current trends on the islands and of the social and historical context from which they have emerged. It is intended as an introduction to Bahraini affairs for the general reader and thus makes use of the existing literature wherever possible.

Migration and the Social History of Modern Europe

Abstract: The role that migration has played in the social history of modern Europe is reviewed. The authors challenge the concept that migration was linked primarily with urbanization and modernization and suggest that migration played an important role in pre-modern societies as well. The need for an interdisciplinary approach to the study of historical migration patterns is stressed. (ANNOTATION)

Sources of Women's Power and Status among the Urban Poor in Contemporary Brazil

Abstract: The conclusion of the majority of recent social science research and theory is that capitalist development has a negative effect on the position of women in developing societies.' The ascendency of the view of development as a negative force for women began with the 1970 publication of Ester Boserup's Women's Role in Economic Development, in which it was argued that the expansion of capitalism has eroded the status and power enjoyed by women in traditional societies.2 By the 1982 publication of Jane Jaquette's "Women and Modernization Theory: A Decade of Feminist Theory," predictions that modernization would improve the status of women had been thoroughly discredited.3

The Soviet Scene: A Geographical Perspective

Abstract: Modernization of the Russian empire - the seeds of contradiction the nature of the Soviet system Soviet peoples in a planned economy the Soviet city ideology and the management of Soviet natural resources managing the land - farming and village life energy resources - the geography of supply and demand mineral resources - industrialization and regional economic development social justice and the quality of life problems and prospects to the year 2000.

Like Eating Money: Card Gambling in a Papua New Guinea Highlands Village

Abstract: Card gambling among the Awa, a previously nongambling society, was introduced by returning labor migrants responsible for transplanting many aspects of urban migrant culture back in their rural Highlands villages. Presently Awa card gambling is seasonal and mainly recreational, and not smoothly integrated into their society as a whole. As rural villages like the Awa begin to develop economically, card playing has become less a form of recreation and a more divisive social, economic, and political arena of competition. Card gambling is neither a functional substitute for waning traditional activities, nor a microcosmic mirror of traditional society. It is best seen as a reflection of colonial history and a recent import of urban/plantation culture, which together are shaping a society in the throes of rapid modernization.

Yuqui: Forest Nomads in a Changing World

Abstract: This book examines the effects of 20th century social and cultural changes on the Yuqui, a group of fewer than 100 nomadic foragers who ve survived without houses or the ability to produce fire. Recently contacted by missionaries, the Yuqui now face enormous pressures from outside developers and other forces of modernization.

Bureaucratic Politics, State Capacity, and Taiwan's Automobile Industrial Policy:

Abstract: In recent years an increasing number of social scientists have attempted to explain Taiwan's economic success. Relying on neoclassical or modernization theory, many analysts have focused on indigenous factors to explain Taiwan's phenomenal economic and social transformation. Other observers, utilizing the developmental approach or dependency paradigm, have linked Taiwan's development to the structure of the international arena. More specifically, several economists have credibly demonstrated how impediments to economic growth were overcome and major obstacles to economic and social equality were successfully removed over the course of the past several decades (Galenson, 1979; Kuo, 1983; Ranis, 1978; Myers, 1984). Still others have examined the ideological basis informing the proselytizers of Taiwan's "economic miracle" and the political context in which socioeconomic transformation occurred; here the focus has been on the ideology of the technocrats and the state-economy-society relations in which economic development was embedded (Gregor, Chang, and Zimmerman, 1981; Johnson, 1981). Finally, there are those who have conceptualized Taiwan's development in terms of "dependency" and "world system" theories; included in this group are students who have declared Taiwan a paradox or a deviant

Design, Development, Culture, and Cultural Legacies in Asia

Abstract: The very idea of writing on contemporary or "modern" design issues pertaining to any country or civilization seems to evolve around two methodological assumptions. The first assumption is that there exists something called design as ontological equipment. If not, at least a belief that design exists as a full-fledged discipline in quite the same way as economics, sociology, or history exist, distinct from the specifics of disciplines such as current monetary policy of the People's Republic of China, analyses of football hooliganism in Britain, or the causes of World War I. This broad rubric then could accommodate architectural, industrial, communications, and fashion/garment design, woven together as it were by a common methodological thread. Constituted thus, it could form the basis of teaching curricula. The second assumption is that nation states have identifiable cultural, socioeconomic, and esthetic aspirations and predictable patterns of lifestyle, which despite all their variegated heterogeneities, exhibit at least a certain identifiable common cultural substance and provide the necessary tabula rasa on which modern design may be projected. When these general assumptions are applied to Asian design, new problems emerge. Despite dissensions, the contemporary mainstream concept of design in the West is in some vague manner connected with new sources of energy, technological breakthroughs, mass production, minute specializations, and global quest for markets. It is perceived as a visible tool of both commerce and industry, carrying with it other legacies of nineteenth and early twentieth century ideals, for example, that design could act as a leveler of society through more equitable accessibility to mass-produced goods as well as introduce a sense of clean, rational, impersonal order. This sense of rational order is a direct descendant of the Enlightenment ideology, which in Weberian terms produced the Western brand of capitalistic transformation of society. There were, no doubt, several variants to this historic Western model, but underlying it all were two central principles: The first was that modernization, of which design was but a tool, was endogenous, that society was capable of transforming itself from within, and where there was inadequate endogenous impetus, such as in Germany, the state would become a central agent in the transformation of society. The second principle was that this

Origins of Capitalism in Western Europe: Economic and Political Aspects

Abstract: Recent scholars have drawn upon the insights of Marx and Weber in a renewed effort to explain the origins of capitalism in Western Europe. Few Weberians or Marxists have addressed the specific role of Protestantism in fostering rational economic action; instead they speak of modernization or of the rise of the West. Marxists are divided over whether capitalism developed out of conflicts among classes in feudal society or whether an external market sector served to undermine feudalism and to stimulate new forms of production. Analyses of the world system, proto-industry, and the seventeenth century crisis attempt to explain the concentration of capital and of production in a few Western European countries. Studies of agrarian class conflict and of absolutism address the formation of the bourgeoisie. The most valuable recent syntheses have come from scholars who combine class analysis with an examination of the particular interests of those actors who inhabited the complex of institutions that cohered into ...

Experience versus Structures: New Tendencies in the History of Labor and the Working Class in Latin America—What Do We Gain? What Do We Lose?

Abstract: Since the beginning of this decade there has been a boom in Latin American working-class history. Works vary from those still written within the framework of the theories of modernization and from a managerial perspective1 to those written by militants still using a schematic Marxist approach.2 Within the boundaries defined by the contradictory concerns of those interested in class collaboration and those interested in class struggle?the manager and the militant?there is an enormous variety of approaches, ranging from traditional empiricism to old and new Marxism. There are those who want to stress similarities in the history of labor in different Latin American countries, and those who can see only differ ences. There are those who think that an understanding of political economy is preliminary to the study of labor, and those who think that we can do without it and who focus instead on what is often called workers' "experience." Moreover, orientations overlap and concepts are fuzzy. It is not easy to find one's way through this maze, so I have decided to concentrate on what I call the "new labor history." From a methodological perspective, the new historiography makes a signifi cant shift away from traditional approaches. This shift is both a reflection of new tendencies in European and American labor history and historiography and a product of economic and political changes taking place in Latin America today, changes that in some countries, like Brazil and Argentina, have projected workers into the center of the political arena and brought into question traditional strategies of the labor movement. In this essay, I will characterize some of the new historiographical tendencies and examine their implications for future research. To make this enterprise manageable, I have restricted myself to examining recent works on urban and industrial labor, leaving aside the growing literature on rural labor. And, since it would be impossible to assess everything that has been published in different Latin American countries as well as in the United States and Great Britain (not to mention other countries), I have focused mainly on the work of American and British scholars.

Defining the political

Abstract: Part 1 Theory as political - problems of Marxism: out of the silent 50s praxis before politics the theory and practice of dialectical theory from Marx to Kant another resurrection of Marxism. Part 2 Politics as theoretical - the New Left and socialism: the future as present from one New Left to another? esprit French socialism and modernization French rhetoric and political reality France, Germany and the problem of Europe. Part 3 Origins of the political - A - the genesis of theoretical questions: Enlightened despotism and modern democracy the revolution in the American Revolution the Republic and the international order B - the practice of normative theory the political origins of democracy ethics and politics a renaissance of politics in the USA.

The concept of dependent development as a key to the political economy of Qajar Iran (1800–1925)

Abstract: A central controversy in the economic history of Iran revolves around the nature of the changes that occurred in the nineteenth century: was there an economic "decline" or, on the other hand, can one see the "beginnings of modemization" in the long reign of the Qajar dynasty from 1800 to 1925? Did living standards rise or fall? Did the level and type of consumption improve or deteriorate for the majority of the population? And were the dominant trends positive or negative within the subsectors of peasant agriculture, tribal pastoralism and urban production and trade? The Qajar period has found a number of good historians but has been plagued by problems of conceptualization and interpretation. Two very different judgments have arisen: on one side, Nowshirvani, Gilbar and Nashat have advanced analyses highlighting progress, in terms of "commercialization of agriculture," "modernization of institutions," "rise in per capita incomes," and so forth.1 On the other, Issawi, Bharier and Keddie have painted more sober portraits emphasizing "relative economic stagnation and very slow development," especially compared with Egypt and the Ottoman empire.2