Showing papers on "Modernization theory published in 2014"

From Divergence to Convergence: Reevaluating the History behind China's Economic Boom

Abstract: China’s long-term economic dynamics pose a formidable challenge to economic historians. The Qing Empire (1644 –1911), the world’ s largest national economy before 1800, experienced a tripling of population during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries with no signs of diminishing per capita income. While the timing remains in dispute, a vast gap emerged between newly rich industrial nations and China’s lagging economy in the wake of the Industrial Revolution. Only with an unprecedented growth spurt beginning in the late 1970s did this great divergence separating China from the global leaders substantially diminish, allowing China to regain its former standing among the world’s largest economies. This essay develops an integrated framework for understanding that entire history, including both the divergence and the recent convergent trend. We explain how deeply embedded political and economic institutions that contributed to a long process of extensive growth before 1800 subsequently prevented China from capturing the benefits associated with the Industrial Revolution. During the twentieth century, the gradual erosion of these historic constraints and of new obstacles erected by socialist planning eventually opened the door to China’s current boom. Our analysis links China’s recent development to important elements of its past, while using recent success to provide fresh perspectives on the critical obstacles undermining earlier modernization efforts, and their eventual removal. (JEL N15, N45, O11, O47, P21, P24, P26)

National versus ethnic identification in Africa: : modernization, colonial legacy, and the origins of territorial nationalism

Abstract: Communal conflicts, civil wars, and state collapse have led many to portray the notion of African nation-states as an oxymoron. Some scholars of African politics—often referred to as second-generation modernization theorists—have argued that strong ethnic attachments across the continent resulted from rapid economic and political modernization, the very forces credited with reducing parochial ties and consolidating European nations in classic modernization theory. Others have argued that national consolidation in Africa is particularly unlikely due to high degrees of ethnic diversity, colonial rule that exacerbated that diversity, and the partition of cultural groups. Despite the ubiquity of these arguments, there has been very little comparative empirical research on territorial nationalism in Africa. Using individual-level data from sixteen countries, combined with a novel compilation of ethnic group and state characteristics, the author evaluates the observable implications of these long-respected theoretical traditions within a multilevel framework. She finds that attachment to the nation, relative to one’s ethnic group, increases with education, urbanization, and formal employment at the individual level, and with economic development at the state level—patterns more consistent with classic modernization theory than with second-generation modernization theory. Thus, if modernization in Africa does indeed intensify ethnic attachment, the impact is overwhelmed by the concurrent increase in panethnic territorial nationalism. Similarly, the results show that ethnic diversity and the partition of ethnic groups by “artificial” state borders increase, rather than decrease, the degree to which individuals identify nationally. Taken together, these results reject pessimistic expectations of African exceptionalism and instead suggest that the emergence of widespread national identification within African states is not only possible but even increasingly likely with greater economic development.

FAA Modernization and Reform Act of 2012

Abstract: Senate bill with modifications... Language including model aircraft for the purposes of sports, competitions and academic purposes is removed and replaced with ``hobby''. The modified section includes language requiring that the model aircraft must be operated in a manner that does not interfere with and gives way, to all manned aircraft. In addition, language that requires that model aircraft flown within five miles of an airport will give prior notification to the airport and the air traffic control (ATC), and that model aircraft that are flown consistently within five miles of the ATC will do so under standing agreements with the airports and ATC. Lastly, language is added that will ensure that nothing in this provision will interfere with the Administrator's authority to pursue enforcement action against persons operating model aircraft who endanger the safety of the national airspace system. In this section the term ``nationwide community-based organization'' is intended to mean a membership based association that represents the aeromodeling community within the United States; provides its members a comprehensive set of safety guidelines that underscores safe aeromodeling operations within the National Airspace System and the protection and safety of the general public on the ground; develops and maintains mutually supportive programming with educational institutions, government entities and other aviation associations; and acts as a liaison with government agencies as an advocate for its members.

How do professionals perceive legacy systems and software modernization

Abstract: Existing research in legacy system modernization has traditionally focused on technical challenges, and takes the standpoint that legacy systems are obsolete, yet crucial for an organization's operation. Nonetheless, it remains unclear whether practitioners in the industry also share this perception. This paper describes the outcome of an exploratory study in which 26 industrial practitioners were interviewed on what makes a software system a legacy system, what the main drivers are that lead to the modernization of such systems, and what challenges are faced during the modernization process. The findings of the interviews have been validated by means of a survey with 198 respondents. The results show that practitioners value their legacy systems highly, the challenges they face are not just technical, but also include business and organizational aspects.

The Fourth Revolution: The Global Race to Reinvent the State

Abstract: In The Fourth Revolution, John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge ask: what is the state actually for? Their remarkable book describes the three great revolutions in its history, and the fourth which is happening now. In most of the states of the West, disillusion with government has become endemic. Gridlock in America; anger in much of Europe; cynicism in Britain; decreasing legitimacy everywhere. Most of us are resigned to the fact that nothing is ever going to change. But as John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge show us in this galvanizing book, this is a seriously limited view of things. In response to earlier crises in government, there have been three great revolutions, which have brought about in turn the nation-state, the liberal state and the welfare state. In each, Europe and America have set the example. We are now, they argue, in the midst of a fourth revolution in the history of the nation-state, but this time the Western way is in danger of being left behind. The Fourth Revolution brings the crisis into full view and points towards our future. The authors have enjoyed extraordinary access to influential figures and forces the world over, and the book is a global tour of the innovators. The front lines are in Chinese-oriented Asia, where experiments in state-directed capitalism and authoritarian modernization have ushered in an astonishing period of development. Other emerging nations are producing striking new ideas, from Brazil's conditional cash-transfer welfare system to India's application of mass-production techniques in hospitals. These governments have not by any means got everything right, but they have embraced the spirit of active reform and reinvention which in the past has provided so much of the West's comparative advantage. The race is not just one of efficiency, but one to see which political values will triumph in the twenty-first century: the liberal values of democracy and freedom or the authoritarian values of command and control. The centre of gravity is shifting quickly, and the stakes could not be higher.

“Nkrumah’s Baby”: the Akosombo Dam and the dream of development in Ghana, 1952–1966

Abstract: The Akosombo Dam across the Volta River in Ghana remains at the center of debates and imaginations about nationhood, modernity, and development. Originally designed in the 1920s to serve the British metropole, the Volta River Project was reshaped by the country’s founding leader Kwame Nkrumah in the 1950s. The revised project included a hydroelectric dam, an aluminum smelter to process Ghanaian mined bauxite, new cities, a deep sea harbor, and other infrastructural investments. The project became central to a modernization program that promised rapid industrialization and reducing the country’s dependence on cocoa exports. Public discourses increasingly identified the project with Nkrumah and his dream of development. In the course of its planning and construction, the Akosombo Dam became a manifestation of the personalization of state politics that engaged with international donors, multinational companies, foreign governments, and local expectations. Based on multi-sited archival and oral research, the article explores how public, government, and expert discourses about the Volta project produced different temporalities of an industrialized future that would transform the country’s rural past and create new cities, factories, and infrastructures during the 1950s and 1960s. The Volta scheme is an excellent prism to reconstruct how a large dam became not just the engine for the imagined transformation of Ghana during Africa’s era of decolonization but also a vehicle for multiple actors with competing agendas within the Cold War context. In this article, I unpack these interventions that led to a series of tensions and paradoxes. Analyzing the Volta scheme’s debates and public spectacles provides an account about the interplay between development aspirations and possibility, dreams and reality.

Conservation and management of sacred groves, myths and beliefs of tribal communities: a case study from north-India

Abstract: Traditional and indigenous communities in India are of the religious belief that medicinal groves and plants are sacred in nature. Sacred groves (SGs) are patches of trees on forest land that are protected communally with religious zeal and connotations. These forest areas have been protected since ages by traditional societies and indigenous communities with their socio-cultural and religious practices. Sacred groves as a rule are treated piously. Sacred trees are prohibited from cutting and not axed except when wood is needed for the religious purposes like construction and repair of temple buildings or in cases like worshiping, death ceremonies and temple rituals. Thus, SGs carry direct and everlasting pious status and assist in maintaining social fabric of the society. From the present study it is concluded that, religious identification of medicinal plants and practices have influenced the folklore towards a sense of selfless services in the name the Gods. However, during the course of modernization, mechanization and globalization in the recent past has transformed and weakened both cultural and biological integrity. Changes in social belief, modernization and erosion of cultural practices are some of the major factors contributing towards degradation of the ancient institutional heritage which need to be looked into. The present study is, therefore intended to propose management and conservation as an alternative strategy towards the sustainability of forests around human settlements and also an attempt to explore the role of SGs in conservation and management of different ecosystem services.

China's obsession with Singapore: learning authoritarian modernity

Abstract: Chinese government officials and academics have shown disproportionate interest in the small city-state of Singapore. The Southeast Asian country with a majority ethnic Chinese population has drawn their attention because it is the only country in the world that combines advanced industrial development with stable one-party rule. Singapore not only seemingly defies Western predictions that modernization will inevitably lead to democracy, but also appears to show that authoritarian regimes may be better suited to achieving societal stability in an Asian context. In particular, the ruling party of the city-state, the People's Action Party, has drawn the attention of conservative Chinese reformists who seek to fill the ideological void that emerged following the decline of Maoist ideology. Reformers in China also derive practical governance lessons from Singapore about fighting corruption, increasing professionalization, and improving responsiveness within the party-state. As such, political learning...

Environmental risks in newspaper coverage: A framing analysis of investigative reports on environmental problems in 10 Chinese newspapers

Abstract: Economic modernization has been China's national priority since the establishment of the People's Republic. Since the authorities retain control over the media, which is also now subject to commercial influences, it might be expected that the Chinese news media would construct a discourse of assurance, endorsing economic modernization. A framing analysis of newspaper investigative reports on environmental problems in this article, however, shows that these reports have portrayed environmental problems in a manner that opposes rather than supports the national priority for economic growth. It challenges rather than reinforces the current institutional discourse of development and criticizes rather than contributes to the present structure of the capitalist mode of production in China. In this case, the prominence of the critical reflective discourse demonstrates the critical role investigative journalism potentially plays in arousing the public's awareness of risks in order to create a society in which suc...

Emerging Economies and Challenges to Sustainability : Theories, strategies, local realities

Abstract: Part 1: Introduction 1. Emerging Economies and Challenges to Sustainability Arve Hansen &Ulrikke Wethal 2.The 'Rise of the Rest' and the Revenge of 'Development': The emerging economies and shifts in development theory Benedicte Bull 3. Making Sense of Sustainable Development in a Changing World Desmond McNeill & Harold Wilhite Part 2: Asia 4. Miracles or Uneven Development? Asia in the contemporary world economy Pietro Masina 5. Ecological Modernisation and Dilemmas of Sustainable Development in China Hege Merete Knutsen & Xiaoxi Ou 6. Between Peasant Utopia and Neoliberal Dreams: Industrialisation and its discontents in emerging India Kenneth Bo Nielsen 7. Best of Both Worlds? The power and pitfalls of Vietnam's development model Arve Hansen 8. Indonesia: Neoliberal development in the context of decentralised patronage politics Gyda Maras Sindre Part 3: Latin America 9. Latin America's Decade of Growth: Progress and challenges for a sustainable development Benedicte Bull 10. Brazil, Land of the Future? Conservative development strategy and the urban challenges Einar Braathen & Yuri Kasahara 11. Agricultural change in Argentina: Impacts of the gene modified soybean revolution Kristi Anne Stolen 12. The Paradoxes of Chilean Economic Development: Growth, inequality, deindustrialisation and sustainability risks Andres Solimano and Marianne Schaper 13. Mining, Development and Environmental Sustainabilty in Peru Jemima Garcia-Godos & Henrik Wiig Part 4: Sub-Saharan Africa 14. Between Emerging Economies and Protracted Conflict: Challenges to sustainability in sub-Saharan Africa Morten Boas 15. Pro-Growth Challenges to Sustainability in South Africa Dianne Scott, Catherine Sutherland, Vicky Sim and Glen Robbins 16. Searching for Sustainability in Mozambique's Development Strategy Ulrikke Wethal 17. Botswana's Developmental State: Sustainability under threat? Ian Taylor 18. Ethiopia - Rapid and Green Growth for All? Axel Borchgrevink Part 5: Conclusion 19. Conclusion Arve Hansen & Ulrikke Wethal

Religion and contemporary sociological theories

Abstract: In the late 20th and early 21st centuries, the sociology of religion enjoyed a remarkable growth in both theory and empirical research. The scholarly consensus argues that the early secularization thesis associated with modernization theory was misleading and simplistic, or that it was primarily relevant to northern Europe. Beyond the European framework, there is ample evidence that religion continues to play a major role in society, culture and politics. With urbanization in the developing world, there has come increasing piety and religious revivalism. Religion will be a major factor in political and ideological struggles across the globe in this century. One negative aspect of this focus on political conflict, however, has been an over-concentration on radical Islam and other manifestations of religious violence.

Leviathan 2.0: Inventing Modern Statehood

Abstract: Thomas Hobbes laid the theoretical groundwork of the nation-state in Leviathan," his tough-minded treatise of 1651. Leviathan 2.0" updates this classic account to explain how modern statehood took shape between the mid-nineteenth and mid-twentieth centuries, before it unraveled into the political uncertainty that persists today.Modern states were far from immune to the modernizing forces of war, technology, and ideology. From 1845 to 1880, the United States, Canada, Mexico, and Argentina were all reconstituted through territorial violence. Europe witnessed the unification of Germany and Italy, while Asian nations such as Japan tried to mitigate foreign incursions through state-building reforms. A global wave of revolution at the turn of the century pushed the modernization process further in China, Russia, Iran, and Ottoman Turkey. By the late 1930s, with the rise of the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany, the momentum of history seemed to shift toward war-glorifying totalitarian states. But several variants of the modern state survived World War II: the welfare states of Western democracies; single-party socialist governments; and governments dominated by the military, especially prevalent in Latin America, Asia, and the Middle East.Toward the end of the twentieth century, all of these forms stood in growing tension with the transformative influences of globalized capitalism. Modern statehood recreated itself in many ways, Maier concludes, but finally had to adopt a precarious equilibrium with ever more powerful economic forces.

Engineers and the Making of the Francoist Regime

Abstract: In this book, Lino Camprubi argues that science and technology were at the very center of the building of Franco's Spain. Previous histories of early Francoist science and technology have described scientists and engineers as working "under" Francoism, subject to censorship and bound by politically mandated research agendas. Camprubi offers a different perspective, considering instead scientists' and engineers' active roles in producing those political mandates. Many scientists and engineers had been exiled, imprisoned, or executed by the regime. Camprubi argues that those who remained made concrete the mission of "redemption" that Franco had invented for himself. This gave them the opportunity to become key actors -- and mid-level decision makers -- within the regime. Camprubi describes a series of projects across Spain undertaken by the civil engineers and agricultural scientists who placed themselves at the center of their country's forced modernization. These include a coal silo, built in 1953, viewed as an embodiment of Spain's industrialized landscape; links between laboratories, architects, and the national Catholic church (and between technology and authoritarian control); vertically organized rice production and research on genetics; river management and the contested meanings of self-sufficiency; and the circulation of construction standards by mobile laboratories as an engine for European integration. Separately, each chapter offers a fascinating microhistory that illustrates the coevolution of Francoist science, technology, and politics. Taken together, they reveal networks of people, institutions, knowledge, artifacts, and technological systems woven together to form a new state.

Status Attainment of Siblings during Modernization

Abstract: The modernization thesis claims that intergenerational social mobility increased over time due to industrialization and other modernization processes Here, we test whether this is indeed the case

Language management in the People's Republic of China

Abstract: Since the establishment of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, language management has been a central activity of the party and government, interrupted during the years of the Cultural Revolution. It has focused on the spread of Putonghua as a national language, the simplification of the script, and the auxiliary use of Pinyin. Associated has been a policy of modernization and terminological development. There have been studies of bilingualism and topolects (regional varieties like Cantonese and Hokkien) and some recognition and varied implementation of the needs of non-Han minority languages and dialects, including script development and modernization. Asserting the status of Chinese in a globalizing world, a major campaign of language diffusion has led to the establishment of Confucius Institutes all over the world. Within China, there have been significant efforts in foreign language education, at first stressing Russian but now covering a wide range of languages, though with a growing emphasis on English. Despite the size of the country, the complexity of its language situations, and the tension between competing goals, there has been progress with these language-management tasks. At the same time, nonlinguistic forces have shown even more substantial results. Computers are adding to the challenge of maintaining even the simplified character writing system. As even more striking evidence of the effect of politics and demography on language policy, the enormous internal rural-to-urban rate of migration promises to have more influence on weakening regional and minority varieties than campaigns to spread Putonghua. Overall, linguists and a strongly developed cadre of sociolinguists have played a useful role, but the driving force has been the Communist leadership.

Explaining cross-national variations in the commonality of informal sector entrepreneurship: an exploratory analysis of 38 emerging economies

Abstract: The aim of this paper is to evaluate the contrasting explanations for the cross-national variations in the commonality of informal sector entrepreneurship. These variously view such work as: a result of economic underdevelopment (modernization thesis); driven by high taxes, corruption and state interference which lead them to exit the formal economy (neoliberal thesis), or a product of inadequate state intervention to protect workers from poverty (political economy thesis). Analyzing International Labour Organization data on the proportion of the non-agricultural workforce engaged in informal sector entrepreneurship in 38 emerging economies, and data on the economic and social conditions deemed important in each explanation, a tentative call is made to reject the neoliberal explanation and to synthesize the modernization and political economy perspectives. The outcome is a new ‘neo-modernization’ explanation that associates greater levels of informal sector entrepreneurship with economic underdevelopment ...

Projecting Strategy: The Myth of Chinese Counter-intervention

Abstract: In analyses of China’s military modernization, it has become increasingly common to describe China as pursuing a “counter-intervention” strategy in East Asia. Such a strategy aims to push the United States away from China’s littoral, forestalling the United States’ ability to intervene in a conflict over Taiwan or in disputes in the East and South China Seas. Moreover, such a military strategy is consistent with a purported broader Chinese goal to displace the United States from its traditional regional role, including Washington’s support for global norms such as freedom of navigation in Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZs) and partnerships with long-standing treaty allies. Characterizations of China’s military strategy as counter-intervention are attributed not to the assessments of outside observers but instead to the actual writings of Chinese strategists themselves. Put simply, China is said to characterize its military strategy as counter-intervention. According to the 2012 edition of the Pentagon’s annual report on Chinese military power, “For China, ‘counter-intervention’ refers to a set of operationally-defined tasks designed to prevent foreign (e.g., U.S.) military forces from intervening in a conflict…China employs anti-access/area-denial (A2/AD) weapons in support of this broader counter-intervention strategy—a strategy not bound by a set geographic area or domain” (emphasis added). 1 Likewise, a noted defense

Japanese political studies: where are we? How did we get here? Where are we going?

Abstract: We offer a historically grounded analysis of major works in the study of Japanese politics with a focus on the period since the Second World War. The article traces an evolution from early assessments of Japanese democracy and modernization through the focus on the political economy of high growth to the current disciplinary-based emphasis on narrower but more empirically defensible research. We close with a call for future research to take greater risks at synthetic analyses of Japanese politics broadly considered.

The Rise of the Managerial State in Indonesia: Institutional Transition during the Early Independence Period. 1950-1965

Abstract: The dissertation analyzes the production of a new elite group in Indonesia, the managers, during the early independence period. Indonesia faced lack of expertise and a government incapable of managing a national plan. The expansion of the managerial class was the result of the lack of leadership of the political elite, the expansion of tertiary education, the rise of an American-led, international aid structure that provided both expert advisors and scholarship for Indonesian students to study in mostly American universities. This resulted in the import of new ideas that corroborated the strengthening of a managerial or developmental state. These ideas include scientific management and the American modernization theory. These ideas looked at the state executive as the major institution for development. It promoted the military elite to become part of a managerial elite. It also was dismissive of liberal ideas regarding the role of the law and the separation of power. Within this managerial ideology, the state was to function as a corporation. The idea of individual initiative was replaced within a planned system. By analyzing these developments, the thesis wants to show that the foundation of the New Order Developmental State should be traced to this period.

Planning Development: International Experts, Agricultural Policy, and The Modernization of Nigeria, 1945-1967

Abstract: Planning Development: International Experts, Agricultural Policy and the Modernization of Nigeria, 1945-1967 Bekeh Utietiang The period after the Second World War was a significant moment in British colonialism in Nigeria. It was the height of the decolonization movements in many of Britain’s colonial holdings and was the cradle of what David Low and J. M. Lonsdale call the “second colonial occupation.” This occupation in which the British government carried out expansive development policies was an intentional attempt to wrestle with social unrest due to the neglect of the social welfare of the people during the Great Depression and in the period thereafter. Such a development vision was represented by the passage of the 1940 Colonial Development and Welfare Act. Unfortunately, the implementation of this act was interrupted by the war. After the war, this act was updated and passed in 1945. With a fund of £120 million earmarked for development in the colonies, this represented the single greatest financial investment by the British government in the colonies. Each of the colonies were asked to produce ten-year development plans. The plan that was produced by Nigeria depicts an important starting point in development planning and it reflected an agrarian bias. Several other plans have been produced since the 1945 plan. My study focuses on the 1945 plan and the 1962 plan which was the first post-independence national plan. This study particularly looks at the process that resulted in the plan documents. This is important because it helps to reveal the factors that led to the success or failure of development plans. The planning process shows us that outcomes do not always reveal intentions and it is important not to use the outcomes to judge intentionality. This work argues that the failure of late colonial development in Nigeria was not as a result of bad intentions but because of the racial limitations inherent in the colonial state. Such limitations led to the exclusion of Africans in the development process and in the rejection of indigenously produced knowledge. A case study of the Niger Agricultural Project, Mokwa treated in the fourth chapter sheds light on the importance of local knowledge to the development process. This study also reveals that persons and institutions matter in the development process. These reflect the human side of development. This dissertation shows how the feuds and conflicts between the technical departments and the political wing of the colonial state affected the 1945 colonial plan. The 1962 plan suffered because of conflicts between the main architect of the plan, Wolfgang Stolper, and the World Bank advisor to the prime minister, Narayan Prasad. This work also shows that despite the rhetorical claims of modernization theorists such as Walt Rostow and his colleagues at CIS, in practice, modernization theorists continued colonial development policies. In Nigeria, the 1962 plan that was designed by US social scientists such as Stolper continued the agrarian bias that was emblematic of colonial development. The study concludes that both the colonial and early “postcolonial” plans were affected by five factors: development ideology, human resources, financial resources, International experts/indigenous knowledge, and corruption. !

Development by Decree: The Limits of ‘Authoritarian Modernization’ in the Russian Federation

Abstract: The apparent success of state-managed market economies has challenged the conventional wisdom that liberal democracy is the norm around which all capitalist countries tend to converge. If the link between democracy and development is more tenuous than we often think, the authoritarian variety of capitalism is not without its own problems, especially with respect to political legitimacy, innovation and regional development. This article explores these issues through the prism of ‘authoritarian modernization’ in Russia. We argue that this strategy is unlikely to succeed, even in its own terms, because (1) the political system fails to create favourable institutional conditions for modernization; (2) the economic system is beset by deeply embedded structural problems; and (3) the regional policy apparatus is torn between the goals of spatial equalization and spatial agglomeration. The article focuses on the Skolkovo Innovation Centre, the main symbol of Russian modernization, to demonstrate the territorial repertoire of the mega-project, a state-sponsored development strategy to create innovation clusters from above because they cannot emerge from below.

Socio-economic forces and the rise of the world-class research university in the post-Soviet higher education space: the case of Ukraine

Abstract: Mixed data analysis from 14 national research universities in Ukraine provides insights into the challenges faced by higher education reformers, as they push academic science to a higher position in the emerging knowledge economy, but are halted by deeply entrenched economic and political legacies. This paper examines competing forces that entangle the university idea in hierarchizing, rather than synergizing notions of nation-building, economic modernization and quality education access. Local reform efforts are viewed as being anchored in the outdated ‘factory-model’ of higher education and generate more losses than gains in regional and global competitions. The discussion focuses on the argument that failing higher education is most likely to lead to a failed state. One of the contributors to the failure is the lack of a globally conditioned set of indicators, independent of local politics. The world-class university model can become a major reform driver, but it can also be thwarted by the legacy of e...

The Making of Modern Chinese Medicine, 1850-1960

Abstract: Medical care in nineteenth-century China was spectacularly pluralistic: herbalists, shamans, bone-setters, midwives, priests, and a few medical missionaries from the West all competed for patients. In the century that followed, pressure to reform traditional medicine in China came not only from this small clutch of Westerners, but from within the country itself, as governments set on modernization aligned themselves against the traditions of the past, and individuals saw in the Western system the potential for new wealth and power. Out of this struggle emerged a newly systematized Chinese medicine that had much in common with the institutionalized learning and practices of the West. Yet at the same time, Western missionaries on Chinese shores continued to modify their own practices in the traditional style, hoping to appear more approachable to Chinese clients. This book examines the dichotomy between Western and Chinese medicine, showing how it has been greatly exaggerated. As missionaries went to lengths to make their medicine more acceptable to Chinese patients, modernizers of Chinese medicine worked to become more scientific by eradicating superstition and creating modern institutions. Andrews challenges the supposed superiority of Western medicine in China while showing how traditional Chinese medicine was deliberately created in the image of a modern scientific practice.

Urbanization in India: An Impact Assessment

Abstract: Urbanization is closely linked to modernization, industrialization, and the sociological process of rationalization. Urbanization is not merely a modern phenomenon, but a rapid and historic transformation of human social roots on a global scale, whereby predominantly rural culture is being rapidly replaced by predominantly urban culture. Urbanization occurs as individual, commercial, and governmental efforts reduce time and expense in commuting and improve opportunities for jobs, education, housing, and transportation. Many rural inhabitants come to the city for reasons of seeking fortunes and social mobility. But the picture of urbanization is not so much glorious as it apparently seems. Modern cities have grown in a haphazard and unplanned manner due to fast industrialization. Cities in developing countries become over-populated and over-crowded partly as a result of the increase in population over the decades and partly as a result of migration. Methodology: This study is descriptive research. The data is gathered through secondary sources like Government Records, books, articles, web-based journals. The Records of Urban Population as sourced from Census Reports have been tabulated for description of its trend. This paper seeks to review the effects of fast growing urbanization in Indian society through analysis of its multi-dimensional impact.

Perceptions on Motivating Factors and Future Prospects of Green Construction in Oman

Abstract: The pressure of modernization and urbanization stimulated positive growth in Oman’s construction industry especially in infrastructure development. The slower pace of construction progress in the past provides huge opportunity for the green concept to be integrated in tandem with the country’s growth. The lack of evidence on green construction progress in Oman suggests that this concept is not yet at the forefront of the construction industry agenda. Proactive actions from the government, private companies and professional bodies are crucial to bring ‘greener’ change to the industry. Through surveys, this paper discusses the drivers to motivate construction practitioners to participate in implementing green concept into their construction projects and explore the perceptions of these practitioners on the future outlook of green concept in Oman. The motivating factors are categorized into 4: finance, knowledge and awareness, business strategy and ethics. The future scenario can be seen from two perspectives: promising outlook and status quo. This study sheds light on the status of green construction in Oman to enable further recommendations be made to improve and promote wider application in the future.