Showing papers on "Modernization theory published in 2008"

World at risk

Abstract: In the current phase of reflexive or second modernization, we are witnessing a dialectics of modernity: continuity of the principles and discontinuity of basic institutions of nation-state modernity. This process is leading us from the national industrial society to the world risk society. A theory of reflexive modernization consists of theorems of individualization, cosmopolitanization, and risk society. This radicalized modernity has produced world risk society. What signifies the risk society are manufactured uncertainties which tend to be intangible to our senses. The theory of world risk society as a new Critical Theory assumes three characteristics of global risks: delocalization, uncalculability, and non- compensatability. This theory also adopts eight theses regarding the inequality of global risks; the power of risk definition; risk and culture/trust; cosmopolitian politics of world risk society; a 'revolutionary subject' for climate change; global risks empowering states and civil movements; divergent (environmental/ economic/ terrorist) logics of global risks; world risk society as a boundary-transcending process. The "cosmopolitan moment" of world risk society is now set free.

Institutions, Policy Innovation, and E-Government in the American States

Abstract: Examining the rankings of American states in one fast-growing policy area, e-government, states with the most sophisticated and comprehensive policies varied over a five-year period. What factors account for change in digital government policy innovation over time? Using time-series analysis and 50-state data, the authors find that state institutional capacity is important for continued innovation. They also find an association between reinvention in state governments and the institutionalization of information technology, suggesting a more general orientation toward government reform and modernization. Although state wealth and education were not significant in previous studies, they emerge as predictors of later innovation. The theoretical contribution of this study is to better understand the dynamic character of innovation over time and the role of institutions. The link between reinvention and e-government raises the possibility that the modernization of state institutions generally facilitates innovation.

A World Survey of Religion and the State

Abstract: 1. Introduction 2. The question of religion's role in politics and society: modernization, secularization, and beyond? 3. Quantifying religion 4. Global GIR from 1990 to 2002 5. Western democracies 6. The former Soviet bloc 7. Asia 8. The Middle East and North Africa 9. Sub-Saharan Africa 10. Latin America 11. Patterns and trends 12. Conclusions.

Evaluating Administrative Modernization in German Local Governments: Success or Failure of the “New Steering Model”?

Abstract: This article evaluates the results and impacts of administrative modernization in Germany after more than 10 years of New Public Management experience, concentrating on the most advanced level of public sector reform: local authorities. Drawing on a broad empirical basis, the authors pursue the following questions: Do “Weber- ian” administrative structures and processes continue to characterize the German public sector, or have the reforms left behind lasting traces of a managerial administration? Are local authorities performing better today, and if so, can this be attributed to the New Public Management modernization? The presented results show that no paradigm shift from the “Weberian” bureaucracy to New Public Management has occurred so far. Performance improvements notwithstanding, the new mix of steering instruments causes numerous unintended consequences, causing “Weberian” administration to reemerge.

Conjugating the Modern/Religious, Conceptualizing Female Religious Agency: Contours of a 'Post-secular' Conjuncture

Abstract: This article is concerned with thinking transformations of the secular, and does so in relation to two theoretical terrains, while empirically grounded in ethnographies of Christian and Islamic pious women in the Netherlands. A first theoretical terrain under consideration is that of how the relation between modernity and religion is elaborated, notably in secularization theories, and how these established frameworks are challenged by a different kind of articulation between modernity and religion that I observed in narratives and practices of young Evangelical and Islamic women in the Netherlands. The article traces the contours of a `pious modern', showing how from a faith-centred perspective the modern can be incorporated and indeed produced. In this context, I argue that the way in which notions of modernization and secularization have been theoretically hinged on each other needs to be further revisited, and I propose to consider the `post-secular' as a new disarticulation between the modern and the ...

Economic Roots of Civil Wars and Revolutions in the Contemporary World

Abstract: To explain the distribution of civil wars, guerrilla warfare, and revolutionary outbreaks, the literature on modern political violence has shifted, broadly speaking, from a modernization perspective that emphasized the role of material conflict and of grievances to a more recent research program that stresses the geographical and organizational opportunities that insurgents may have to engage in violence. Drawing on those lines of inquiry equally, this article offers an integrated analytical model that considers both the motives and the opportunities of states and rebels. Civil wars, guerrillas, and revolutionary outbreaks are seen as a result of the nature and distribution of wealth in each country. Systematic and organized violent conflicts are most likely in economies where inequality is high and wealth is mostly immobile, that is, in societies where those worse off would benefit substantially from expropriating all assets. Violence is conditional on the mobilizational and organizational capacity of challengers and on the state capacity to control its territory. The theory is tested on data on civil wars from 1850 to 1999 for the whole world and on data on guerrilla warfare and revolutionary episodes spanning the years from 1919 to 1997 across all countries.

De-Carbonization in Former Soviet Republics, 1992–2000: The Ecological Consequences of De-Modernization

Abstract: I use panel data to empirically assess the effects of a variety of theoretically important structural factors on national level CO2 emissions in the former Soviet republics, a context of de-modernization and peripheralization. Several theories address the effects of modernization on the environment, but they neglect to consider the environmental consequences of de-modernization. Unlike the trends in most other nations over the twentieth century, former Soviet republics in the 1990s saw their collective population size, economy, level of urbanization, level of industrialization, and international trade decline, and, thus, they provide an ideal context in which to assess the effects of de-modernization on the environment. In addition to the dramatic changes in economic and demographic factors, the size of the militaries of the former Soviet republics changed substantially during the 1990s, with some republics expanding their militaries while other were scaling theirs back. I take advantage of the substantial variation within the former Soviet republics, and assess the effects of militarization, in addition to economic and demographic factors, on CO2 emissions. I find that de-modernization, as indicated by declines in GDP per capita and urbanization, led to declines in CO2 emissions, countering claims that further modernization is necessary to resolve the environmental crisis. I also find that militarization has an effect on CO2 emissions above and beyond that of economic development.

The New Development Management: Critiquing the Dual Modernization

Abstract: * 1. Foreword: Hugh Willmott * 2. Introduction: The New Development Management Bill Cooke and Sadhvi Dar * 3. The Rise of the Global Managers, Jonathan Murphy * 4. Non-Governmentalism and the Reorganization of Public Action, David Lewis * 5. 'Arrive Bearing Gifts' Post-Colonial Insights for Development Management, Kate Kenny * 6. Managerialism and NGO Advocacy: Handloom weavers in India, Nidhi Srinivas * 7. International Development and the New Public Management: Projects and Logframes as Discursive Technologies of Governance, Ron Kerr * 8. Participatory Management as Colonial Administration, Bill Cooke * 9. Borders in an (In)Visible World: Colonizing the Divergent and Privileging the "New World Order", Kym Thorne and Alex Kouzmin * 10. The Managerialization of Development, The Banalisation of its Promise and The Disavowal of 'Critique' as a Modernist Illusion, Pieter de Vries * 11. Real-izing Development: Reports, Realities and the Self in Development NGOs, Sadhvi Dar * 12. Afterword: Arturo Escobar

트랜스내셔널 히스토리(Transnational History)의 가능성

Abstract: The phenomena called Globalization, is transforming the international relationships and situations among countries into a totally different state of transnational relationships and situations. Ironically, this kind of transnational conditions unfolding on a global scale today, can help us rediscover the traces of humanity. With a new perspective that transcends national states, and that can also penetrate the inner layers of those national states, we can grow an eye reexamining the history of the past. This transnational situation triggered by globalization, or the changes happening inside the Capitalist system today, provides us with a criteria crucial in reinterpreting the past eras, in a transnational context. Transnational history, unlike global history, is not expected to become another paradigm for the next generation. It recognizes the existence of national qualities in the world, and tries to analyze transnational situations based upon that recognition. In that regard, transnational history is also a form and a result of a historical aim. The modem period of Korea, which was dominated under imperial ruling, exhibited transnational conditions in abundance. The interactions between both races and both countries presented a variety of situations, including oppression and conflicts, resistance and collaboration, assimilation and exchanges, and all kinds of mixed conditions, under imperial ruling and colonial occupation. Those were the essence of an imperial ruling by Japan and a colonial experience of the Koreans. As the colony got incorporated into the imperialist system deeper and deeper, transnational conditions became much more complicated and conflicts become much more fierce. So, to interpret, analyze and examine Korean modernity, a transnational perspective can be very useful. The transnational situation of Korean modernity does not allow interpretation of the colonial situation from a perspective used to examining conditions with merely the individual nation in question in consideration. The argument that Korea was stripped and raped by the Japanese imperialism, and the argument that Korea actually went through modernization during the Japanese ruling, are all products of such same limited view, trying to interpret the modernity of Korea in that period, with only the situation of Korea in consideration. Transnational historical studies are way beyond such attempts, tracing the origin of Korean modernity or interpreting it, with only the Korean situation on the plate. Modernity is a global concept. Only when the Korean modernity is read and examined in the context of global modernity, we could come up with a completely different way of interpreting the nature of Korean modernity. The fact that the colony was never a separate, self-sustaining unit but was always part of the empire, and that the empire's center and the colony were interacting with each other to compose a system all the time, should be acknowledged. Perceiving the nature of global modernity of transnational qualities, could lead us to a new kind of historical studies of empires and local regions, different from the traditional and conventional studies of international relationships and comparative studies dealing with multiple nations, which accompanied former attempts of examining history of nations from a singular, individualized fashion. The attempt to determine the overall structure of the entire system engulfing both the empire and the colonies, aspires to determine the connections and overlapping relations between multiple regions and races in the world. In short, historical studies of the empires, starts with the premise that all forms of history dealing with nations and people, are essentially history dealing with empires (and inner regions). This kind of attempt would enable people to recognize the true merit and potential of an East Asian consciousness, which would be a historial reviewing of the East Asian region. Pursuing the history of East Asia as a region could contribute to the reinforcement of cooperation and interdependence among countries in this region in the future. This is another merit that would come from the perspective of transnational history. Transnational historical approaches could widen the horizon of modernity captured in our eyes, and lead us to more studies of empires and regions.

Gendering secularization theory.

Abstract: The author argues that our understanding of secularization can be greatly enhanced by taking gender differences seriously. Whilst existing theories of secularization do a good job of explaining why men disaffiliated from Christianity after the onset of industrialization, they ignore the experience of women-whose experience of modernization was significantly different. Whilst men have been responsible for paid work outside the home, women have been engaged in unpaid care work within the home. Their entrance into the paid labour force since the 1960s has not relieved them of traditional duties of care. It is suggested that we can best understand contemporary women's patterns of religious affiliation and disaffiliation in relation to their working lives, whether embracing domestic employment, or seeking a balance between both forms of labour.

Multicultural society and everyday cultural racism: second generation of Ethiopian Jews in Israel's ‘crisis of modernization’

Abstract: The core of this article sets out to examine the extent to which a multicultural society can prevent cultural racism, which, like multiculturalism, is by definition based on a culture of diversity and separation. The ‘first modernity’ was organized along national lines, with a centralist state that opted to create an essentialist and uncontested national identity. Immigrants, especially those who came from ‘third world’ countries, were expected to undergo a process of assimilation, and to integrate into the dominant culture by relinquishing their particular past and tradition. Multiculturalism, which emerged historically as a criticism of that perspective, aims at creating a kaleidoscope of associations and cultural communities, which inevitably presents a challenge to the one ‘truth’ of the nation-state with the argument that this ‘truth’ favours some groups over others. Within the multicultural model, identity politics of various groups is perceived as a means to achieve recognition, acceptance...

A Global History of Modern Historiography

Abstract: The first book on historiography to adopt a global and comparative perspective on the topic, A Global History of Modern Historiography looks not just at developments in the West but also at the other great historiographical traditions in Asia, the Middle East, and elsewhere around the world over the course of the past two and a half centuries. This second edition contains fully updated sections on Latin American and African historiography, discussion of the development of global history, environmental history, and feminist and gender history in recent years, and new coverage of Russian historical practices. Beginning in the mid-eighteenth century, the authors analyse historical currents in a changing political, social and cultural context, examining both the adaptation and modification of the Western influence on historiography and how societies outside Europe and America found their own ways in the face of modernization and globalization. Supported by online resources including a selection of excerpts from key historiographical texts, this book offers an up-to-date account of the status of historical writing in the global era and is essential reading for all students of modern historiography.

Kazakhstan: modernizing government in the context of political inertia

Abstract: Kazakhstan declared its independence from the Soviet Union in 1991 and joined the Commonwealth of Independent States. Since then it has witnessed a remarkable economic transformation under the leadership of President Nursultan Nazarbayev. Pursuing a policy of `economy first and then politics', Kazakhstan is under growing pressure to engage in political reforms which include a modernization agenda to improve public service provision. Recent constitutional reforms have received a lukewarm reaction from the international community that Kazakhstan is keen to become part of. At the same time a progressive agenda of public services reform is well under way rooted in new public management and a desire to become much more customer focussed in their orientation. This article examines the parallel themes of political reforms and public services modernization in Kazakhstan.Points for practitioners This article offers two key points for practitioners. First, it describes the detail of public sector reforms taking pla...

Saving “face” in China: modernization, parental pressure, and plastic surgery

Abstract: Using adolescent women living and working in Shanghai, as our sample group, we argue that a consequence of a modernizing Peoples Republic of China are the cultural values embodied in consumption are increasingly representing Western consumption narratives. The extreme of this ideal is the consumption of the body through plastic surgery and the construction of an identity reflective of wider societal changes in China. Using an ethno-consumerist methodology and interviewing women in Shanghai, our findings indicated that participants were encouraged to undertake plastic surgery operations by drawing upon traditional Chinese cultural hierarchies, i.e. family and society, and a need to compete in a modernizing society. Plastic surgery was used by participants then to construct a future biography of themselves as the embodiment of a new China: perfect, successful and wealthy.

Globalization as Evolutionary Process: Modeling Global Change

Abstract: Preface by Joao Caraca. Foreword Nebojsa Nakicenovic 1. Introduction: A New Approach to Globalization George Modelski, Tessaleno Devezas, and William R. Thompson Part I: Evolutionary Models 2. Globalization as Evolutionary Process George Modelski 3. The Portuguese as System Builders: Technological Innovation in Early Globalization Tessalino Devezas and George Modelski 4. Modeling Long-term Processes of Political Globalization William R. Thompson 5. Is Globalization Self-organizing? Joachim Karl Rennstich 6. Theories of Long-term Change and the Future of World Political Institutions Fulvio Attina Part II: Models of Long-term Change 7. Compact Mathematical Models of World System Development, and How They Can Help us to Clarify Our Understanding of Globalization Processes Andrey Korotayev 8. Modeling Periodic Waves of Integration in the Afroeurasian World System Peter Turchin 9. Discovering Oscillatory Dynamics of City-Size Distributions in World Historical Systems Douglas R. White, Natasa Kejzar, and Laurent Tambayong 10. Nature, Disease, and Globalization: An Evolutionary Perspective Dennis Pirages 11. Globalization in History and the History of Globalization: the Application of a Globalization Model to Historical Research Catia Antunes Part III: Global Change and the Information Age 12. Three Globalizing Phases of the World System and Modernity Shumpei Kumon and Yasuhide Yamanouchi 13. Accelerating Socio-technological Evolution: From Ephemeralization and Stigmergy to the Global Brain Francis Heylighen 14. Growth of the Internet, Long Waves and Global Change Tessaleno C. Devezas, Harold A. Linstone, Humberto J. S. Santos 15. The Value to Globalizing Informatics Research of an Evolutionary View: One Anthropologist's Perspective David Hakken Part IV: Forecasting and Simulating Globalization 16. Forecasting Globalization: The Use of International Futures (Ifs) Barry Hughes 17. Forecasting Globalization Using World Models Rafael Reuveny 18. Evolution, Modernization and Globalization: Computer-based Analysis of Social Complexity Jurgen Kluver and Christina Kluver Part V: Assessment 19. Assessment: What Has Been Learnt? George Modelski, Tessaleno Devezas, and William R. Thompson Index

Administrative change in the Gulf: modernization in Bahrain and Oman:

Abstract: States in the Middle East tend to be overlooked by researchers in comparative public administration However, these states offer potentially useful insights into the nature of administrative change

Television in Post-Reform China: Serial Dramas, Confucian Leadership and the Global Television Market

Abstract: This book explores the political, economic, and cultural forces, locally and globally that have shaped the evolution of Chinese primetime television dramas, and the way that these dramas in turn have actively engaged in the major intellectual and policy debates concerning the path, steps, and speed of China’s economic and political modernization during the post-Deng Xiaoping era. It intertwines the evolution of Chinese television drama particularly with the ascendance of the Chinese New Left that favors a recentralization of state authority and an alternative path towards China’s modernization and China’s current administration’s call for building a "harmonious society." Two types of serial drama are highlighted in this regard, the politically provocative dynasty drama and the culturally ambiguous domestic drama. The book also provides cross-cultural comparisons that parallel the textual and institutional strategies of transnational Chinese language TV dramas with dramas from the three leading centers of transnational television production, the US, Brazil and Mexico in Latin America, and the Korean-led East Asia region. The comparison reveals creative connections while it also explores how the emergence of a Chinese cultural-linguistic market, together with other cultural-linguistic markets, complicates the power dynamics of global cultural flows.

Introduction: Alien/Asian: Imagining the Racialized Future

Abstract: The Asian is no stranger to science, or for that matter, science fiction. Jack London's 1906 short story "The Unparalleled Invasion," set in 1976, chronicles the emergence of China as a world power coming out from the shadow of Japanese imperialism; due to its incredibly fecund citizens now numbering in the hundreds of millions, China threatens all modern civilizations. (1) To combat this reproductive menace, biological warfare is employed, thereby conveniently annihilating the Chinese population. Sax Rohmer's infamous creation of Dr. Fu Manchu in 1913 twined the figure of the Asian other intimately with the dark sciences as he came to be known as the "devil doctor." Although set in London's Chinatown, Rohmer's Fu Manchu-centered series of novels nevertheless drew upon the immigration anxieties flourishing in the United States, where it became a bestselling series; the image was so popular, in fact, that Rohmer resurrected this infamous character time and again. While both Rohmer and London operate within early twentieth-century "yellow peril" fictions, their cultural representations did not emerge from a vacuum. (2) Sidney L. Gulick's foundational study, The American Japanese Problem; a Study of the Racial Relations of the East and the West, published in the same year as "The Unparalleled Invasion," explains that "Japan's amazing victory over Russia has raised doubts among white nations. The despised Asiatic, armed and drilled with Western weapons, is a power that must be reckoned with. In the not distant future Asia, armed, drilled, and united, will surpass in power, they aver, any single white people, and it is accordingly a peril to the rest of the world" (225). Here, Gulick refers to the 1905 conclusion of the Russo-Japanese War, which marked a sea change in international relations precisely because it was the first time an Asian nation had defeated a European power in modern warfare. However, Gulick's rhetorical descriptions illustrate how this moment required a reorientation and reconsideration of Asia more broadly as a location from which to mold futuristic representations and alternative temporalities. For instance, continued tensions over Chinese immigrant laborers resulted in a series of exclusion acts throughout the late nineteenth century that further cemented the status of the Asian as an alien subject, unfit for assimilation and integration into the United States. According to Urmila Seshagiri, the social context for Fu Manchu should also be situated transnationally in light of the fact that the Manchu dynasty had just concluded and Sun Yat-sen had begun a modernization campaign: "Fu-Manchu and his hordes ... emblematize not only dynastic China's ideological opposition to the modern Christian West but also the emergent geopolitical ambitions of a post-1911 China determined to fashion itself as a nation unhindered by the imperial designs of Britain, Germany, France, Austria, Italy, Russia, or Japan" (170). From this perspective, both London's short story and Rohmer's book series draw from multiple anxieties over Asia as pollutive geography, military menace, and economic competitor; these cultural productions interrogate what the attendant Alien/Asian might mean for "any single white people." Both London and Rohmer imagine alternative temporalities where the Alien/ Asian is inextricably tied to science, the future, and technology. Although yellow-peril fictions and other such cultural forms first proliferated over a century ago, this special issue elucidates how the connection between the Asian American and the alien other still remains a force to draw upon to allegorize racial tension and exclusion. I further explore the discursive interventions made by both Laura Hyun Yi Kang and David Palumbo-Liu in employing the "slash" within the term Asian American, as I call attention to the ways in which Asia and America stand in an uneasy and unstable relationship with the other. (3) The title of this special issue, "Alien/Asian," also emphasizes how the binaristic formulation of Asian American might possess subcategories and intricacies routed through genre conventions that touch upon and intersect with fantasy, speculative fiction, science fiction, and other similar genres. …

The changing role of governments and the emergence of the relational state

Abstract: Purpose – The paper aims to answer the question of what the new role of government in advanced democracies for the twenty-first century should be and what institutional and organizational capabilities are required for that role to face the challenges of globalization and the crisis of the welfare state. Design/methodology/approach – The literature on public management reform and modernization initiatives in developed countries over the last two decades, along with the growing body of literature on public governance, provide the reference framework from which the contents of the relational state are formulated. Findings – The relational state seeks to achieve the greatest possible synergy between the resources, knowledge and capacities of the public sector and those of civil society and business organizations. It does so by its ability to articulate social interrelationships and the intangible aspects involved (by using competitive or cooperative arrangements to incorporate civil society and business organizations in particular policy fields, raising society’s awareness of its own responsibility, promoting social self-regulation, acting as intermediary between different social actors, providing strategic direction, etc.). Hence, the relational nature of its activities becomes the core attribute of the process of public value creation. Originality/value – The relational state locates the relations between the state, the market and civil society in the field of co-responsibility, which is a crucial but missing feature in the neo-liberal state and the welfare state models. The paper analyses emerging forms of the relational state and highlights the challenges that confront its adoption.

The Internet and Emergence of Yahooboys sub-Culture in Nigeria

Abstract: IntroductionAlthough the computer technology looms as a remarkable development in human history, there are conspicuous platforms to affirm that it is also a potentially subversive technology. The technology has brought striking changes to (African) cultures, our patterns of socialization, and our social institutions. Its effects are however particularly noteworthy in regard to telecommuting and the Internet.In Nigeria, youths, especially undergraduates and the unemployed have embraced the ICT inventions e.g. mobile telephony, global telecasts etc. such that the Internet medium now takes larger part of their days when compared to their other daily activities. However, the varieties of application offered by the Net such as, electronic mailing, 'chat' systems and Internet messaging (IM), often serve as veritable grounds for carrying out nefarious 'webonomics' and other fraudulent activities by the youths. This has significantly given birth to the emergence of yahooboys sub-culture among the Nigerian youths, particularly in urban centers. Unlike the traditional criminal groups, both sexes are functionally involved in yahooboyism in Nigeria with varying specialized functions.The culture of fraud and corruption prevalent within larger Nigerian society has facilitated the institutionalization of such a youthful version, as a subset. But such a level of 'modernization of criminality' among the Nigerian youths has been solely operationalized by the intrinsically insecure Internet system - a space in which 'nobody knows you are a dog'. This study investigates the significance of the Internet technology to the emergence of yahooboys (cybercrime) sub-culture among Nigerian youths. Through the Net, it has been observed that the yahooboys do engage in online fraud. For instance, selling of fictitious goods/services, and buying what they will not pay for, or paying in no real value, money laundering, hacking and credit card scam, pornography and unconventional sexuality are all objectionable engagements of the yahooboys.The anonymity and privacy that the Internet provides to potential users has excessively enhanced the degree of fluidity and structural complexity of the yahooboys' operations in Nigeria. Today, they get access to the Internet without exiting the home. Embezzlements, electronic frauds, fictitious sales of properties and cars are all being carried out without leaving a trace (Reddick & King, 2000). Also, gender switching - a new sense of self that is "decentered and multiple" - has emerged among the yahooboys in Nigeria. This is essentially for the purpose of facilitating their nefarious activities. At a single point in time, an individual could claim to be a "beautiful lady" or a "big man" or a "celebrity", all depending on his/her immediate needs.Ironically, the criminal applications of the Internet facility by the yahooboys in Nigeria can be directly linked to the failure of a political leadership (Adeniran, 2006). It is a common summation that out-of-school students (due to distortions in school calendar) and unemployed youths constitute a considerable percentage of the yahooboys in Nigeria. Indeed, they do ignorantly, but proudly claim that their involvement in cybercrime is a way of getting back at such unjust social system, in a non-violent way.Conceptual definitionsCybercrime is broadly used to describe criminal activity in which computers or networks are a tool, a target or a place of criminal activity. A new type of white-collar crime facilitated by technological advances i.e. a crime actualized through the platform of the Internet (Karofi & Mwanza, 2006).Telecommuting means working from homes rather than in an outside office; utilizing the Internet platform.Webonomics refers to buying and selling through the Internet platform. It cuts off intermediaries, and encourages anonymous trading.Yahooboyism is a coinage by the author to represent the activity of online youth fraudsters in Nigeria. …

Racial Discrimination: Institutional Patterns and Politics

Abstract: Introduction. 1. Modernization, Social Theory and the Duality of 'Us-and-Them' 2. Institutional Otherisation, Migration and Racism in Europe 3. The Uprising of Xenophobic Populist Parties and the Reinforcement of Institutional Discrimination 4. Institutional Discrimination in the Labour Market and the Educational System 5. Beyond the European Dilemma and the Categorisation of 'Us' and 'Them'. Notes. References. Index.

Risking Lives: AIDS, Security and Three Concepts of Risk

Abstract: This article analyses the conjunctures of risk and security that have recently emerged in the securitization of HIV/AIDS. Although these partially corroborate Ulrich Beck's notion of risk society, important elements of the securitization of HIV/AIDS resist his understanding of risk as a 'danger of modernization'. The article therefore turns to Franois Ewald's alternative theorization of risk as a 'neologism of insurance', and shows that insurance is a risk-based security practice widely used to manage the welfare of populations. Such a biopolitical approach to risk is also valuable for analysing the securitization of HIV/AIDS, which, even though it is unfolding outside the domain of insurance, similarly draws upon multiple risk categories ('security risks', 'risk groups' and 'risk factors') in efforts to improve the collective health of populations. Analysed through a wider concept of risk as a 'biopolitical rationality', the conjuncture of risk and security in the securitization of HIV/AIDS thus emerges as a principal site where the institutions of sovereign power in international relations are being absorbed and integrated within a wider biopolitical economy of power.

Dimensions of the Efficiency of Public - Private Partnership

Abstract: Efficiency of public administration is recognized as a rather broad concept encompassing a variety of areas, therefore instruments and optimal solutions it requires must be selected individually for a single case. However, efficiency is always related to application of limited financial resources, minimal organizational costs and efforts in pursue of target results. Despite the limitation of financial possibilities, needs of society in the context of global and regional changes are constantly growing. An increased demand both for quantity and quality of services and infrastructure is observed. For complex and permanent modernization of public sector, a complex strategy of modernization is required (vision, mission, provisions, and concepts of modernization). Partnership is recognized as one of the factors of infrastructure development and service efficiency. The nature of partnership is revealed when the public sector recognizes its dependence on other sectors and starts solving governance problems by decentralizing activity. Thus the principle of partnership is consolidated both vertically (by relating different levels of administration) and horizontally (inter-sectoral). For efficient partnership three key constituents should be taken into consideration: 1) need; 2) political, legal, administrative environment; 3) communication. This enables both the compatibility of natures of different sectors and development of partnership reaching ultimate synergy. Precise identification of needs enables preparation of plans and strategies of actions. Possibilities of performance of the latter are limited by political, legal and administrative environment. Communication needs to act in two directions: between partners (internal) and towards the society (external). Internal communication strengthens interrelation and trust whereas the external one enhances approval of the society for ongoing changes. Partnership can assume a variety of forms; however roles and obligations must be clearly defined. It is recognized that each of the sectors pursues not only common goals of the project (better quality services, development of infrastructure), but personal ones as well: the public sector laying its accounts on political and economic benefits, whereas the private one striving for recognition, profit, possibilities for development. Philanthropy from the private sector or government benevolence is not a reliable foundation for a partnership. Central governments decentralize some decision-making and financial power to local tiers or share them with community members and the private sector.

Reforming the Commission: between modernization and bureaucratization

Abstract: The article uses evidence from an original survey of 200 top Commission officials to highlight the schizophrenic nature of the Kinnock reforms. It shows that the push toward the ‘modernization’ of the Commission has been accompanied by a trend towards ‘bureaucratization’. The findings of the survey challenge the dominant view that the reform project was largely a move toward the institutional paradigm set by new public management (NPM). Based on the views of top Commission officials, the reforms can best be described as a marriage of ‘Weberian-bureaucratic’ and NPM ideas. This mix of largely incompatible reform measures resulted from the simultaneous effort to maximize the efficiency of the organization while responding to the legitimacy crisis that created demands for more accountability. The political nature of these demands suggests that it will be hard for the Barroso Commission to substantially change the turn toward bureaucratization.