Showing papers on "Modernization theory published in 1998"

Big Policies/Small World: An introduction to international perspectives in education policy

Abstract: In this paper the primary emphasis is upon the general and common elements in contemporary, international education policy, but nonetheless the discussion also considers the processes of translation and recontextualisation involved in the realisation or enactment of policy in specific national and local settings. A set of generic 'problems' which constitute the contemporary social, political and economic conditions for education and social policy making are adumbrated. The emergence of ideological and 'magical' solutions to these problems is identified and the means of the dissemination of these solutions are discussed. A relationship between the global market and the marketisation of education is suggested and explored.

The Spectre of Comparisons: Nationalism, Southeast Asia, and the World

Abstract: This collection of essays spans a range of subjects, including: Aquino's Philippines, where the horses on the haciendas ate better than the stable hands; and political assassinations in contemporary Thailand, where government posts have become so lucrative that to gain them candidates will kill their rivals. Politics, national imaginings, bureaucracy, modernization and its agents (particularly print culture) is covered. "The spectre of comparisons" was a phrase used by the celebrated Filipino nationalist and novelist Jose Rizal (1861-96), whose work and fate in the national imagination are discussed in the book. In his observations on South-East Asian societies, Anderson raises deep questions concerning this spectre, about how, for example, Manila is changed when it can no longer be seen through a comparison with European capitals, and how, more broadly, nationalism is produced by the process of increasing global connection. The book should be a resource for those interested in South-East Asia. But it also contains theoretical and historical considerations about nationalism, national literature and memory, modernization and the prospects for the Left in what Anderson dubs "The New World Disorder". Benedict Anderson is the author of "Java In a Time of Revolution", "Language and Power: Exploring Political Cultures in Indonesia" and "Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism".

Postcolonial Developments: Agriculture in the Making of Modern India

Abstract: A study of what the postcolonial condition means to rural people in India. Focusing on the "green revolution" of the 1960s, Akhil Gupta challenges the dichotomy of "developed" and "underdeveloped", as well as the notion of a monolithic postcolonial condition. Drawing links between village life, national trends and global forces, Gupta concludes with a discussion of the implications of environmentalism as exemplified by the Rio Earth Summit.

Ethnicity, patronage and the african state: the politics of uncivil nationalism

Abstract: Recent research has revealed that modern African ethnicity is a social construction of the colonial period through the reactions of pre-colonial societies to the social, economic, cultural and political forces of colonialism. Ethnicity is the product of a continuing historical process, always simultaneously old and new, grounded in the past and perpetually in creation. Colonial states were grounded in the alliances with local 'Big Men', incorporating ethnically-defined administrative units linked to the local population by incorporation of pre-colonial patron-client relations. This was reinforced by European assumptions of neatly bounded and culturally homogeneous 'tribes' and a bureaucratic preoccupation with demarcating, classifying and counting subject populations, as well as by the activities of missionaries and anthropologists. African ethnic invention emerged through internal struggles over moral economy and political legitimacy tied to the definition of ethnic communities—moral ethnicity; and external conflicts over differential access to the resources of modernity and economic accumulation—political tribalism. Ethnicities were, in particular, the creations of elites seeking the basis for a conservative modernization. The colonial legacy of bureaucratic authoritarianism, pervasive patron-client relations, and a complex ethnic dialectic of assimilation, fragmentation and competition has persisted in post-colonial societies. Patron-client networks remain the fundamental state-society linkage in circumstances of social crisis and uncertainty and have extended to the very centre of the state. This accounts for the personalistic, materialistic and opportunistic character of African politics. Such networks also penetrate institutions of civil society and liberal democracy, undermining programmes of socio-economic and political reform.

Between imitation and innovation : the transfer and hybridization of productive models in the international automobile industry

Abstract: 1 Introduction: Between Imitation and Innovation: The Transfer and Hybridization of Productive Models in the International Automobile Industry PART I THEORY AND HISTORY 2 Hybridization and Models of Production: Geography, History, and Theory 3 The Diffusion and Transformation of Fordism: Britain and Japan Compared PART II BETWEEN TRANSFER AND HYBRIDIZATION 4 Making Toyota in America: Evidence from the Kentucky Transplant 1986-1994 5 Stability and Change at NUMMI 6 Mazda and Ford at Flat Rock: Transfer and Hybridization of the Japanese Model 7 The Japanese Transplants in North America: Production Organization, Location, and Research and Development 8 Hybridization of the Japanese Production System in North America, the Newly Industrializing Economies, South-East Asia, and Europe: Contrasted Configurations PART III BETWEEN ADAPTATION AND INNOVATION 9 The NedCar Experience: The Configuration of Dutch, Swedish, and Japanese Ideas about Car Manufacturing 10 FASA Renault: Innovation in Productive Flexibility and Job Security 11 The Transfer and Hybridization of New Models of Production in the Brazilian Automobile Industry 12 Ford's Hermosillo Plant: The Trajectory of Development of a Hybrid Model 13 Implanting Change: The Role of 'Indigenous Transplants' in Transforming the German Productive Model 14 Volkswagen's Shanghai Plant: Between Chinese Tradition and Modernization Strategy 15 Saturn: A Different Kind of Company? 16 Conclusion: Transplants, Hybridization, and Globalization: What Lessons for the Future

Introduction: The Urban-Rural Connection: Changing Issues of Belonging and Identification

Abstract: A special characteristic of urbanisation in Africa is the continuing commitment of many urbanites to 'the village'.1 In the 1960s researchers were already emphasising that life in the cities could hardly be understood without reference to the continuing involvement of urban residents with their rural area of origin. Nor is it possible to understand village life without due attention to the role of the 'sons'-and 'daughters'-in the city.2 It is clear, moreover, that such links remain of great importance. In his 1971 piece on south-eastern Nigeria, Gugler characterised the involvement of Igbo resident in the cities with their home village as 'living in a dual system'. In a re-study in the same area, at the end of the 1980s, he found that the involvement had increased rather than decreased (Gugler, 1997). However, it is also clear that, underneath this apparent continuity, important changes and reorientations are taking place. The general disappointment, not only among social scientists but also (and more important) among the population, with models of modernisation and their promises affects the village as well-certainly not weakening its importance, yet profoundly changing its meaning.3 The vision of the state and the city as self-evident intermediaries in a victorious spread of modernisation over the 'traditional' countryside is less and less tenable. Structural adjustment seems to impose a retour a la terre-even if it mostly remains a slogan rather than a reality. The impact of recent political changes is even more confusing. In many parts of the continent democratisation seems to encourage the emergence of a particular form of politics, centred on regional elite associations, as some sort of alternative to multi-partyism. The increasing obsession with 'autochthony' throughout the continent-as elsewhere in the world-triggers a politics of belonging in which the village and the region assume new importance as a crucial source of power at the national level. Thus the articles by Nyamnjoh and Rowlands and by Dickson Eyoh in this issue highlight a trend towards what one might call the 'villagisation' of national politics.4 The other contributions also raise questions as to how the changing meaning of the village and the region affect the continuing urban-rural connection as a pivotal relation in developments in Africa.

Information, the dual economy, and development

Abstract: We examine the interactions between different institutional arrangements in a general equilibrium model of a modernizing economy. There is a modern sector, where productivity is high but information asymmetries are large, and a traditional sector where productivity is low but information asymmetries are small. Consequently, agency costs in the modern sector make consumption lending difficult, while such lending is readily done in the traditional sector. The resulting trade-off between credit availability and productivity implies that not everyone will move to the modern sector. In fact, the laissez-faire level of modernization may fail to maximize net social surplus. This situation may also hold in the long run: in a dynamic version of the model, a "trickle-down" effect links the process of modernization with reduction in modern sector agency costs. This effect may be too weak and the economy may get stuck in a trap and never fully modernize. The two-sector structure also yields a natural theoretical testing ground for the Kuznets inverted-U hypothesis: we show that even within the "sectoral shifting" class of models, this phenomenon is not robust to small changes in model specification.

Ulrich Beck, `Risk Society' and the Media A Catastrophic View?

Abstract: Ulrich Beck has placed ideas of `risk society' on the intellectual map; his social theory of late modern society and its endemic production of potentially catastrophic risks has attracted, rightly, considerable academic interest in Europe and beyond. Dispersed across his writings is a view of the mass media which is theoretically positioned as playing a crucial role in processes of risk revelation, the social contestation that surrounds scientific knowledge of risks, and also processes of social challenge to `risk society'. It is surprising, then, that his ideas have so far been largely ignored by mass communication researchers — especially by those working in the fields of risk communication and the environment. This article offers a critical exposition of Beck's ideas on the mass media in `risk society'. It indicates how these are indebted to his wider social theoretical views on the historically unprecedented nature of contemporary `risks' and processes of `reflexive modernization', and opens them up to engaged discussion and criticism. Beck's thesis speaks to the conditions of our time and provides theoretical coordinates of potential use to mass communication researchers. It can be criticized nonetheless for its uneven, underdeveloped and often contradictory positions on the mass media.

The unfinished revolution : how the modernisers saved the Labour Party

Abstract: On 1 May 1997, an event regarded by many as a sea-change occurred in British politics. Not only had the Conservatives been ejected from office after 18 years in power, but the Labour party which replaced them had itself changed irrevocably. Tony Blair's majority of 179 was the culmination of a long, hard struggle to modernize the politics of his country. Philip Gould, a political strategist and polling adviser, has worked with the Labour leadership for 11 years, and has been a key adviser to Bill Clinton in addition to his involvement with the creation of "New Labour". Using this vantage point, he describes the rise of New Labour since 1983 and explains how the transformation was achieved. In the process, he explores the new political climate in Britain and how the real modernization is in the old labels of "Left" and "Right" being transcended.

Civil Society in Comparative Perspective: Involvement in Voluntary Associations in North America and Western Europe

Abstract: Involvement in voluntary associations is analyzed from the perspective of questions raised in the debate about civil society. After demarcating the concept of civil society in relation to the community, the market, and the state, expectations are formulated about the negative effects of modernization and individualization on volunteering and the positive effects of volunteering on social capital and public discourse. World Values 1990 data are used for inter- and intranational analyses. Neither rankings of thirteen Western nations nor in-depth analyses of the U.S., the Netherlands, and Italy support worried reflections about the effects of modernization. The Idea that involvement in voluntary associations is conducive to social cohesion and political democracy finds empirical support. Both mere membership of an association and actual volunteering within such an association appear to be important in this respect.

The construction of adolescence in a changing world: implications for sexuality reproduction and marriage.

Abstract: This article aims to show how the period now known as adolescence came into being and how it was shaped by international economic, institutional, and social influences. It considers premodern societies and argues that traditional culture has shaped contemporary adolescence even more than has global society. Explanations are offered for the enormous differences across the world in adolescent sexuality, reproduction, and marriage. The data are drawn mainly from research programs in Nigeria, Sri Lanka, India, and Bangladesh, and comparisons are made with other countries.

Cultural memory and biodiversity

Abstract: Seed and gene banks have made great strides in preserving the biological diversity of traditional agricultural plant species, but they have tended to ignore a serious component: the knowledge about those crops and methods of farming held by the people who have long raised them. Virginia Nazarea now makes a case for preserving cultural memory along with biodiversity. By exploring how indigenous people farm sweet potatoes in Bukidnon, Philippines, she discovers specific ways in which the conservation of genetic resources and the conservation of culture can support each other. Interweaving a wealth of ecological and cognitive data with oral history, Nazarea details a "memory banking" protocol for collecting and conserving cultural information to complement the genetic, agronomic, and biochemical characterization of important crops. She shows that memory banking offers significant benefits for local populations not only the preservation of traditional knowledge but also the maintenance of alternatives to large-scale agricultural development and commercialization. She also compares alternative forms of germplasm conservation conducted by a male-dominated hierarchy with those of an informal network of migrant women. Cultural Memory and Biodiversity establishes valuable guidelines for people who aspire to support community-based in situ conservation of local varieties. Perhaps more important, it shows that the traditional methods of local farmers are often as important as the "advanced" methods encouraged by advocates of modernization.

Chinese Conversion to Evangelical Christianity: The Importance of Social and Cultural Contexts

Abstract: Why do immigrants abandon their traditional religion and convert to Protestant Christianity? Existing sociological theories of conversion are mostly based on studies of individuals who convert into cults. Factors of individual personality and interpersonal bonds in small networks, or assimilation motives, cannot adequately explain the growing phenomenon of conversion to evangelical Protestantism among new immigrant groups from Asia and Latin America. Based on interviews and ethnographic observations in Chinese churches in the Greater Washington, D.C., area, I argue that social and cultural changes in China in the process of coerced modernization are the most important factor for Chinese conversion to Christianity ; identity reconstruction of immigrant Chinese in a pluralist modem society also contributes to Chinese conversion to evangelical Christianity ; institutional factors are of secondary importance. This study also has important theoretical implications, to the ongoing debates concerning the reasons for and sources of growth among conservative Christian churches in the US.

The limits of postmodernism in accounting history: The Decatur experience

Abstract: This paper presents a response to Miller and O'Leary's (1994) study of the factory modernization at Caterpillar's Decatur plant and the role of accounting and other expertises in constituting subjectivities. The research draws extensively from interviews with workers in Caterpillar's Decatur plant to develop a defense of historical materialism against postmodern interpretations of managerial accounting practices that abandon the concepts of class, ideology, and social structure.

China's Catholics : Tragedy and Hope in an Emerging Civil Society

Abstract: After suffering isolation and persecution during the Maoist era, the Catholic Church in China has reemerged with astonishing vitality in recent years. Richard Madsen focuses on this revival and relates it to the larger issue of the changing structure of Chinese society, particularly to its implications for the development of a 'civil society'. Madsen knows China well and has spent extensive time there interviewing Chinese Catholics both young and old, the 'true believers' and the less devout. Their stories reveal the tensions that have arisen even as political control over everyday life in China has loosened. Of particular interest are the rural-urban split in the church, the question of church authority, and the divisions between public and underground practices of church followers. All kinds of religious groups have revived and flourished in the post-Mao era. Protestants, Buddhists, Daoists, practitioners of folk religions, even intellectuals seeking more secularized answers to 'ultimate' concerns are engaged in spiritual quests. Madsen is interested in determining if such quests contain the resources for constructing a more humane political order in China. Will religion contribute to or impede economic modernization? What role will the church play in the pluralization of society? The questions he raises in China's Catholics are important not only for China's political future but for all countries in transition from political totalitarianism.

Chinese Responses to Modernization: A Psychological Analysis

Abstract: In the last one hundred plus years, China, under the impact of modernization, has undergone the most significant change in the past 5,000 years. Modernization is a continuous process of protest and change. At each stage of modernization, outcomes may be regarded as the result of complex strategies and responses to those demands. This paper will address the strategies and responses that Chinese have adopted in their attempt to deal with the pressure and challenge of modernization. As a background to understanding these strategies and responses, the following four perspectives will be delineated. First, my perspective is mainly at the micro level, but I will occasionally shift to the macro level when needed. Second, my analyses will largely rely on results from empirical research. They will be supplemented by daily-life observations and appropriate conceptual or theoretical analyses. Third, Chinese intellectuals have been playing a guiding role of enlightenment, criticism, and promotion and their responses have been influential in formulating, directing, or channeling the views of the general public. A comprehensive analysis of relevant ideologies and strategies endorsed by Chinese intellectuals will be provided. Finally, the analysis of Chinese responses to modernization will be based upon the relevant literature from all the three major Chinese societies (Taiwan, Hong Kong, and mainland China). In addition, this paper will clarify the basic modes and specific mechanisms of adaptation to drastic environmental changes. They will be applied as conceptual tools for the analysis of Chinese intellectuals’ ideological responses to modernization and psychological processes involved in accommodating cognitive and behavioral changes in their daily lives.

Higher Education in Post-Mao China

Abstract: This book looks beyond the articulated goals and accomplishments of the modernization of higher education in China. It delves into the grass roots reality and identifies the true achievements, the unintended outcomes and the major obstacles that still have to be overcome.

The Politics of Clientelism: Democracy and the State in Colombia

Abstract: In Latin America the state is the prime regulator, coordinator, and pace-setter of the entire national system, the apex of the pyramid from which patronage, wealth, power, and programs flow. The state bears responsibility for the realization of civic needs, providing goods and services to each citizen. Doing so requires the exercise and maintenance of social and political control. It is John Martz's contention that clientelism underlines the fundamental character of Latin American social and political life. As the modernizing bureaucratic state has developed in Latin America, there has been a concurrent shifting away from clientelistic relationships. Yet in one form or another, political clientelism still remains central. Clientelism occurs when large numbers of low-status individuals, such as those in the slums of rural and underdeveloped areas, are protected by a powerful patron who defends their interests in return for deference or material reward. In Colombia the rural patron has become a member of the higher clientelistic system as well; he is dependent on a patron who operates at the national level. This enables urban elites to mobilize low-status clients for such acts as mass demonstrations of political loyalty to the regime. Thus, traditional clientelism has been modified through the process of modernization. Part One of The Politics of Clientelism examines Colombian politics, focusing on the incarnation and traditional forms of clientelism. Part Two explores the policies of Colombian governance, from the administrations of Lleras Camargo through Julio Cesar Turbay Ayala. Part Three discusses the modernization and restructuring of Colombia in recent decades under Belisario Betancur, Virgilio Barco, and Cesar Gaviria. As the modernizing bureaucratic state has unfolded, there has been a similar shift in many clientelistic relationships. Martz argues that, whether corporate clientelism remains or more democratic organization develops, Colombia is unlikely to shed its basic clientelistic impulses. Reforms will determine whether or not the state can construct a system in which the citizenry affects the course of national politics. The Politics of Clientelism provides a well-developed theory linking regime and governmental process to policy formulation and performance in Colombia. It will be engrossing reading for economists, sociologists, political scientists, and other researchers interested in Latin America.

One World Emerging?: Convergence And Divergence In Industrial Societies

Abstract: In One World Emerging? Alex Inkeles clarifies the meaning of convergence in the social organization of modern societies, shows how it can be measured, and illustrates in detail the manner and degree of convergence across national boundaries. Inkeles assesses the extent to which convergence in institutional patterns is reflected in the emergence of more common attitudes, values, and daily behaviors in different national populations as individuals and communities engage with and respond to the standardizing pressures of national development and global modernization. One popular image of the probable condition of humanity in the twenty-first century anticipates a new Armageddon with all the great civilizations at war with each other. This model neglects a less dramatic but deeper-seated process of worldwide change in which national economic and political systems become more alike and populations worldwide come to adopt similar lifestyles and develop similar attitudes and values for daily living. Alex Inkeles penetrating analysis focuses on this process of convergence.In One World Emerging? Inkeles clarifies the meaning of convergence in the social organization of modern societies, shows how it can be measured, and illustrates in detail the manner and degree of convergence across national boundaries. Sensitive to evidence counter to the main trend, he gives close attention to the many instances in which national differences persist and nations and their populations diverge from a common path.At the national level, he compares and contrasts the modernization of the United States, Russia, China, and India. Focusing on particularly important institutions, he reviews the process of convergence in prestige hierarchies, the family, education, and communications. Capping the enterprise, Inkeles assesses the extent to which convergence in institutional patterns is reflected in the emergence of more common attitudes, values, and daily behaviors in different national populations as individuals and communitiesin North America, Europe, and increasingly in Asiaengage with and respond to the standardizing pressures of national development and global modernization.

Theoretical Deliberations on Time and Space in Post-socialist Transformation

Abstract: ALTVATER E. (1998) Theoretical deliberations in time and space in post-socialist transformation, Reg. Studies 32, 591-605. This paper considers the spatio-temporal dimensions of post-socialist transformation. It discusses approaches based on modernization and dependency theory and shows that neither modernization (an 'OECD-profile') nor dependency on the global division of labour are likely outcomes of transformation. Instead hybrid forms of capitalism are evolving. They display different combinations of an extraction and production economy or of 'arbitrage capitalism' based on exploitation of differentials in time and space without taking care of material production processes. The trajectory of development depends highly on the management of competitiveness of the place, on regulation of competition in the global space and on the organization of the economy of time. ALTVATER E. (1998) Des reflexions theoriques sur le temps et l'espace de la transformation post-socialiste, Reg Studies 32, 591-605. Cet art...

Becoming “Urban” or Remaining “Rural”: The Views of Turkish Rural-to-Urban Migrants on the “Integration” Question

Abstract: The mass migration from rural areas to larger cities in the Third World and the rapid social changes entailed by this transformation have attracted the attention of social and political scientists since the 1950s. The problematic issue of the “integration” of rural migrants into the urban society and the changes this transformation has brought about have long been among the most studied questions. Yet they still call for more research to increase our understanding of the phenomenon, particularly in our era, which is witnessing radical shifts from earlier times in terms of social, economic, and technological characteristics. The question of “integration to what?” becomes important in political and practical terms. In the 1950s, when mass migration to cities started, the answer to this question seemed quite clear. The cities were the places of the modernizing elites, especially in the case of Ankara, the capital of the modern Turkish Republic. As in other Third World countries, the modernizing bureaucratic and military elites of the early republic, who had assumed the role of transforming the society into a modern, Western one, regarded the city as an effective means for the acculturation of its inhabitants to modern–Western values and ways of life. The modernization theory, which maintains a dichotomy between rural and urban, supported this idea.

Globalisation, modernisation and competitiveness: A critique of the new labour project in education

Abstract: In this article, the author begins by examining the ubiquitous concept of 'globalisation' - a key theme of the New Labour Government. He question whether developments named as such are as widespread as proclaimed and whether the assumptions underlying the concept are misleading and occlude more than they reveal. The author concludes that, rather than 'globalisation' being viewed as a new epoch, the global movement of capital, which informs and underpins the globalisation thesis, might more accurately be described as an ongoing process, one which began 400-500 years ago. 'Globalisation', however, he suggests, is used ideologically to justify the New Labour programme, or the 'Third Way', which has two major anchors; competitiveness and modernisation. The former entails an economy in which everyone works, where the need for the untrammelled expansion of the free market is promoted as natural and inevitable and where there is the requirement for flexibility in the labour market and for low wages, in the conte...

Sustainable development and ecological modernization: A radical homocentric perspective

Abstract: The commonly discussed forms of ‘strong’ sustainable development are rooted in either ecocentric or anthropocentric perspectives. Both eco-socialism and social ecology constitute anthropocentric (or ‘homocentric’) strong sustainability: being essentially humanistic but also embracing stewardship of nature, environmentally benign but centred on social justice. The bases of this development model are reviewed. Its desirability is argued from the perspective of a socialist critique of the alternative anthropocentrically-grounded version of ‘sustainability’ that is widely supported today, known as ‘ecological modernization’. It is argued that ecological modernization is at best only weakly sustainable. Indeed, contemporary Marxist readings of capitalism's inherent contradictions suggest that this development model is not sustainable at all in the long run. Global modernization, whether purportedly ‘ecological’ or not, is likely to foster continued attempts at displacement and externalization of both environmental and social costs. Current corporate reactions against both environmentalism and social democracy are therefore unsurprising. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.