Showing papers on "Modernization theory published in 2015"

Land Transfer and the Pursuit of Agricultural Modernization in China

Abstract: Agriculture, countryside and peasantry have been priority concerns of the Chinese government, with land and agriculture being the most crucial. With a growing population, less arable land and often relatively low quality land, Chinese peasant agriculture has been undergoing a form of modernization. While peasants enjoy land contract rights as a result of the Household Responsibility System (HRS), the state has been promoting transfer of land use rights in order to promote modern agriculture. This paper seeks to understand recent developments in land and agriculture, particularly exploring the transitions of land and agricultural institutions since 1949 and land transfers since the HRS. In so doing, this paper reveals that the state has been strategically responding to various challenges in order that land institutions and policies are always geared to achieving agricultural modernization. During the state’s continual drive for modernizations, particularly agricultural modernization, peasants’ livelihood is impacted and needs to be protected.

Between Tradition and Modernity: "Leftover" Women in Shanghai

Abstract: Since the turn of the new millennium, single, educated women in China's major cities have found themselves increasingly castigated as "leftover" women (sheng nu) if they are not yet married by their late 20s. Anxious parents brave public embarrassment to gather in parks, displaying photographs of their daughters and listing their economic prospects in the hope of finding them a husband. Popular discourse, however, frames these unmarried women as selfish, picky, and only interested in men with financial resources. The issue of "leftover" women warrants headlines and feature stories in Chinese newspapers, popular magazines, and TV reality shows. International media such as the BBC News, The New York Times, The Economist, and CNN have also covered the issue.Unfortunately, academics have yet to accord the phenomenon much attention. Only a limited amount of quantitative research has investigated the effect of education on Chinese women's marriage timing, with only one study directly examining the so-called "leftover" women (Cai & Tian, 2013; Cai & Wang, 2011; Qian 2012; Tian, 2013; Yu & Xie, 2013). Qualitative research investigating the issue is similarly scarce (Fincher, 2014; Gaetano, 2010; To, 2013), but here too the few studies that exist are largely descriptive or have focused on mate choice strategy or the empowerment of the single experience. Little is known about the dynamics underlying these women's marriage decisions. It is thus urgent to investigate and conceptualize these educated women's constraints and struggles in regard to marriage formation in the rapidly changing context of China, which is understood by many of its own citizens as transitioning from tradition to modernity.Research indicates that marriage is still early and nearly universal in China, in spite of three decades of rapid industrialization, urbanization, and expansion of mass education after the economic reform initiated in the 1980s (Ji & Yeung, 2014; Jones & Gubhaju, 2009; Yeung & Hu, 2013). What is interesting is that the pace of educated Chinese women delaying or forgoing marriage is actually much slower/lower compared to equally educated Chinese men and equally educated women in other Asian societies. At the same time, alongside rapid economic reformation and modernization, China has witnessed a resurgence of patriarchal Confucian tradition in recent years (Fincher, 2014; Ji & Yeung, 2014; Sun & Chen, 2014). According to this tradition, women are valued in terms of their roles as wives and mothers, regardless of the impressive progress made in terms of gender equality in China, with women participating in the labor force en masse since even the pre-reformation Maoist period and receiving more and more education in the post-reformation period. The return of patriarchal tradition seems to be at least partially accountable for the now-stalled, if not declining, status of gender equality in China (P. N. Cohen & Wang, 2008; Davis & Harrell, 1993; Fincher, 2014; Ji & Yeung, 2014; Sun & Chen, 2014; Zuo & Bian, 2001).In this research I investigated how China's so-called "leftover" women draw on and integrate elements of both tradition and modernity as they pursue their own ambitions and negotiate various constraints vis-a-vis marriage and their careers. In doing so, this study challenges the linear narratives of progress and/or convergence claimed by modernization theories, which would predict that, through economic modernization, the "traditional" family mode in non-Western contexts will transition to the Western "modern" family mode. I use the terms tradition and modernity here in a deliberate but qualified way in order not only to critique the naturalization of the concepts and their assumptions but also to capture their resilient currency and meaning in people's everyday efforts to make sense of a society undergoing rapid change. In this study I conceptualized contemporary China as an uneasy mosaic, with expectations and elements deemed alternately modern and traditional commingling in educated women's marriage motivations and behaviors. …

European universities as complete organizations? Understanding identity, hierarchy and rationality in public organizations

Abstract: This article investigates the form of European universities to determine the extent to which they resemble the characteristics of complete organizations and whether the forms are associated with modernization policy pressure, national institutional frames and organizational characteristics. An original data set of twenty-six universities from eight countries was used. Specialist universities have a stronger identity, whereas the level of hierarchy and rationality is clearly associated with the intensity of modernization policies. At the same time, evidence suggests limitations for universities to become complete, as mechanisms allowing the development of some dimensions seemingly constrain the capability to develop others.

The debate on food sovereignty theory: agrarian capitalism, dispossession and agroecology

Abstract: This contribution reviews recent critiques of the food sovereignty framework. In particular it engages with the debate between Henry Bernstein and Philip McMichael and analyzes their different conceptualizations of agrarian capitalism. It critically identifies tendencies in food sovereignty approaches to assume a food regime crisis, to one-sidedly emphasize accumulation by dispossession and enclosure and thereby to overlook the importance of expanded reproduction, and to espouse a romantic optimism about farmer-driven agroecological knowledge which is devoid of modern science. Alternatives to current modernization trajectories cannot simply return to the peasant past and to the local. Instead, they need to recognize the desires of farmers to be incorporated into larger commodity networks, the importance of industrialization and complex chains for feeding the world population, and the support of state and science, as well as social movements, for realizing a food sovereign alternative.

Passive Modernization? The new Human Development Index and its components in Italy’s regions (1871-2007)

Abstract: The article presents and discusses estimates of social and economic indicators for Italy’s regions in benchmark years roughly from Unification to the present day: life expectancy, education, Gdp per capita at purchasing power parity, and the new Human Development Index (HDI). A broad interpretative hypothesis, based on the distinction between passive and active modernization, is proposed to account for the evolution of regional imbalances over the long-run. In the lack of active modernization, Southern Italy converged thanks to passive modernization, i.e., State intervention: however, this was more effective in life expectancy, less successful in education, expensive and as a whole ineffective in Gdp. As a consequence, convergence in the HDI occurred from the late XIX century to the 1970s, but came to a sudden halt in the last decades of the XX century.

China's Campaign to Build a New Socialist Countryside: Village Modernization, Peasant Councils, and the Ganzhou Model of Rural Development*

Abstract: Since the mid-2000s, the Chinese government has promoted village modernization under the banner of “building a new socialist countryside.” To explain the origins and outcomes of this policy, this article examines the case of Ganzhou city in Jiangxi province. Ganzhou became a national model for rural development known for involving organizations called peasant councils in policy implementation. The study found that despite an initial emphasis on rural participation and moderate change, the new socialist countryside evolved into a top-down campaign to demolish and reconstruct villages. Three factors shaped this process: the strength of bureaucratic mobilization, the weakness of rural organizations, and shifting national policy priorities. After obtaining model status, Ganzhou's rural policy became more ambitious and politicized, leaving little space for participation. This insight suggests there are both benefits and costs to China's policy process. Despite the advantages of policy innovation, scaling up local experiments may actually undermine their success.

India's Green Revolution: Economic Gains and Political Costs

Abstract: I. Two copies of each manuscript must be submitted. Xeroxes or carbons will be accepted for the second copy only. All manuscripts must be double-spaced (text, footnotes, etc.). Allow rightand left-hand margins of at least 1 inches each. II. First page of manuscript: A. The title should be at least 2 inches from the top edge of the paper. B. Allow 1-inch space, and on a separate line, type the name(s) of the author(s). On the next line, type the affiliation(s). C. Type in upper and lower case letters. Do not use all capitals.

Social innovations as drivers of social change - exploring Tarde's contribution to social innovation theory building

Abstract: In the context of seemingly intractable social challenges such as climate change, environmental destruction, youth unemployment and social exclusion, social innovation has emerged as a potentially sustainable solution. It is often assumed that social innovation can lead to social change (see, for example, Cooperrider and Pasmore, 1991; Mulgan et al., 2007; BEPA, 2010). However, the relationship between social innovation and social change remains underexplored: Rather than being used as a specifically defined specialist term with its own definable area of studies, social innovation is used more as a kind of descriptive metaphor in the context of phenomena of real world problems, social change, and the modernisation of society. (Howaldt and Schwarz, 2010, p. 49)

How Capitalism Will Save Colonialism: The Privatization of Reserve Lands in Canada

Abstract: This paper surveys the ways in which the First Nations Property Ownership Act (FNPOA) is the site of both tension and alliance between state, non-state, and local Indigenous interests converging around a common agenda of land “modernization” in Canada. It is a convergence, I argue, that must be read in the context of a reorganization of society under neoliberalism. The FNPOA legislation is discursively framed to acknowledge Indigenous land rights while the bill simultaneously introduces contentious measures to individualize and municipalize the quasi-communal land holding of reserves. The intersections of alliance around this land modernization project foreground the complex ways in which capitalism and colonialism, though inextricably tied, perform distinguishable economic processes, and how we must be attentive to the particulars of their co-articulation with local formations of indigeneity.

De-Constructing the Chinese Nation

Abstract: Most Sinologists view the Chinese nation as a relatively recent development, one that made the transition from empire to nation only around the turn of the twentieth century. This contrasts with the view of the Chinese nationalists and the ordinary people of China that their country is an ancient body that has evolved into present times. This split in the understanding of the Chinese nation cannot be easily resolved by Western theories of nationalism, whose assumptions are deeply embedded in modernization theory. In this paper, I propose a few alternative categories, inspired in part by post-modernist theories and in part by a comparative perspective, to understand both the question of the history of the nation as well as the related one about the nature of national identity. In the problematique of modernization theories the nation is a unique and unprecedented form of community which finds its place in the oppositions between empire and nation, tradition and modernity, and centre and periphery. As the new and sovereign subject of history, the nation embodies a moral force that allows it to supersede dynasties and ruling segments, which are seen as merely partial subjects representing only themselves through history. By contrast, the nation is a collective subject whose ideal periphery exists outside itself poised to realize its historical destiny in a modern future. ' To be sure, modernization theory has clarified many aspects of nationalism. But in its effort to see the nation as a collective subject of modernity, it obscures the nature of national identity. I propose instead that we view national identity as founded upon fluid relationships; it thus both resembles and is interchangeable with other political identities. If the dynamics of national identity lie within the same terrain as other political identities, we will need to break with two assumptions of modernization

Livestock system sustainability and resilience in intensive production zones: which form of ecological modernization?

Abstract: Changes in agriculture during the twentieth century led to high levels of food production based on increasing inputs and specialization of farms and agricultural regions. To address negative externalities of these changes, two forms of ecological modernization of agriculture are promoted: “weak” ecological modernization, mainly based on increasing input efficiency through crop and animal monitoring and nutrient recycling, and “strong” ecological modernization, based on increasing agrobiodiversity at different space and time scales and within or among farms to develop ecosystem services and in turn reduce industrial inputs even more. Because characterizing the sustainability of these two forms of ecological modernization remains an issue, we review the literature on livestock systems to compare their advantages and drawbacks. After defining the livestock system as a local social–ecological system embedded in a complex multi-level and multi-domain system, we characterize the two forms of ecological modernization (weak vs. strong). When sustainability is defined as a state that should be maintained at a certain level and assessed through a set of indicators (environmental, economic, and social), we highlight that one ecological modernization form might have an advantage for certain sustainability criteria, but a disadvantage for others. When sustainability is viewed as a process (resilience), we find that these two forms of ecological modernization are based on different properties: governance of the entire agri-food chain for weak ecological modernization versus local governance of agriculture and its biophysical and social diversity and connectivity, and management of slow variables for strong ecological modernization. The relevance of this sustainability-analysis approach is illustrated by considering different types of dairy livestock systems, organic agriculture and integrated crop–livestock systems.

Fiscal Retrenchment in Southern Europe: Changing patterns of public management in Greece, Italy, Portugal and Spain

Abstract: The vulnerability of the four south European countries (Greece, Italy, Portugal and Spain) to the global financial turmoil makes the analysis of their responses to the fiscal crisis particularly interesting for the assessment of the implications of fiscal austerity for public management. Drawing on the historical institutionalist approach, our analysis reveals a picture of variation in the impact of crisis on patterns of public management across south European countries. However, it also shows uniformity in the strategies of retrenchment as in all the four countries under examination governments failed to connect cutback management to ambitious administrative modernization programmes.

Social Media in Union Communications: An International Study with UNI Global Union Affiliates

Abstract: This article assesses the use of social media in union communications based on an international survey with 149 unions affiliated with UNI Global Union. High expectations of union modernization, leadership and pressures from members are likely to drive the agenda of social media within unions. However, the actual use of different channels is based on organizational variables such as membership base and participation in communities of practice. Beliefs about the anticipated benefits and risks of social media were not found to be influential in these early assessments. Implications for union communication strategies are discussed.

Built infrastructure is essential

Abstract: Built water infrastructure supported the evolution of all human societies and will remain an integral part of socioeconomic development and modernization. Some postindustrial societies not only seek to “preserve” existing aquatic ecosystems in their otherwise transformed landscapes but also insist that others do the same. They suggest that “green infrastructure” can provide “equivalent or similar benefits to conventional (built) ‘gray’ water infrastructure” (1).

Writing the History of Development (Part 1: The First Wave)

Abstract: Today . . . the idea of development stands like a ruin in the intellectual landscape. Delusion and disappointment, failures and crimes have been the steady companions of development and they tell a common story: it did not work. Moreover, the historical conditions which catapulted the idea into prominence have vanished: development has become outdated. But above all, the hopes and desires which made the idea fly, are now exhausted: development has grown obsolete ... It is time to dismantle this mental structure . . . [and] bid farewell to the defunct idea in order to clear our minds for fresh discoveries.-Wolfgang Sachs'It has been over twenty years since Wolfgang Sachs boldly proclaimed the "end of development" in his postdevelopment studies collection, The Development Dictionary. Sachs and his fellow contributors were not alone in their desire to relegate the idea to the dustbin of history. Indeed, since the late 1980s, the concept of development as applied to the peoples of Africa, Asia, and Latin America has come under intense fire, not only from academics but also from within mainstream policy circles. For a time, under the onslaught of such scrutiny, it looked as if the critics might be right, and that we might be witnessing development's last rites and requiem. Yet today, more than two decades later, the central tenets of the development discourse continue to persist and permeate the minds of policy makers and analysts, seemingly impervious to criticism and meaningful reform. In face of such persistence and comeback, even across as significant a historical watershed as the end of the Cold War, historians and other social scientists in a variety of fields have embarked upon a different and novel approach, one which treats development as history.2 In other words, to paraphrase Nick Cullather, they propose to use history as the methodology for studying and understanding development, rather than constructing development theories to explain history and to provide predictive models for the future.3In this two-part essay, I review some of the most important contributions that have been made over the past twenty years to this expanding field of historical scholarship. In part i, I examine what might be termed the "first wave" of writing the history of development that emerged in the 1990s during the neoliberal moment. Poststructuralist analysts were the first to set out a genealogical framework, viewing development as a discursive regime formally inaugurated by the United States in 1949, when the "discovery" of mass poverty in the Third World came to preoccupy Western policy makers and political elites. Following on the heels of postdevelopment writers, scholars in the field of U.S. diplomatic history also began to investigate the history of modernization. As they have shown, the offer of technical and financial assistance as part of a "new deal" for the underdeveloped areas of the world was invariably tied to the U.S.-led campaign to counteract communist influence in these regions during the Cold War.In part 2, I examine some of the more recent contributions that have presented an increasingly more nuanced picture of development. The postwar periodization of development, for example, has been criticized by historians who challenge the conventional starting date by calling attention to the continuities between late colonialism and contemporary development policies and practices. Others have sought to examine local development encounters and specific projects as they played out on the ground. More recently, some researchers have also begun to move away from the predominantly American-centered framework of earlier studies and to conceive of modernization as a global project. The next step, I contend, is to create a truly global and transnational history of development, one that brings together the literature on late colonialism and decolonization with the new international history of the Cold War, and that offers a more diverse, refined, and historically-informed reading of international development. …

Emirati women's higher educational leadership formation under globalisation: culture, religion, politics, and the dialectics of modernisation

Abstract: The United Arab Emirates (UAE) is a small state transitioning from traditional communities into a modern society. This is a complex process: it involves instilling a national identity over tribal structures; modernising and technologising while retaining Islam; ensuring a high level of security while allowing for a liberal and relatively free society; preserving culture while building one of the largest and most multicultural societies, albeit mostly expatriate; and providing one of the safest countries in the Arab world for women. This paper presents an expatriate female academic's position in relation to the emergent literature on the contradictory positioning of women in different Arab cultures. It reviews the literature in the light of anecdotal evidence drawn from the author's doctoral students' experiences as women leaders within the wider socio-cultural context of the UAE and the emergent higher education system that is considered central to its nation-building exercise. The discussion recognises t...

Asian Families at the Crossroads: A Meeting of East, West, Tradition, Modernity, and Gender

Abstract: East Asian societies have undergone major changes in the past few decades as their relatively authoritarian and interventionist governments have, ironically but enthusiastically, embraced neoliberalism in the process of rapid globalization. As they have experienced the powerful forces of Westernization and modernization, these societies have struggled to maintain historical traditions. These traditions, heavily influenced by patriarchal Confucian values, devalue women and restrict them to the family domain. East Asian families thus find themselves subject to contradictory forces, experiencing both rapid changes and stubborn continuities.Overall, these East Asian societies-which here is being used as a cultural rather than geopolitical term, including China, Korea, Japan and Singapore in this special section-show both similarities and variations in terms of changes in marriage and family. Still, these countries continue to constitute a cultural-institutional block. Their social and familial changes tend to be similar to one another and in some ways distinct from other nations with advanced economies. Like many parts of Europe, they have low fertility and have increasingly postponed and likely forgone marriage. Yet they differ from Western Europe and North America in that they have relativelylowcohabitationandacloselinkbetween fertility and marriage.This raises again an old question in family studies and demography: Are family and demographic changes around the world converging or diverging? Will East Asia follow what has already happened and is happening in the West today? How are family transitions in East Asia related to the Second Demographic Transition currently occurring in the West?My aim in this introductory article is not to settle the converging-versus-diverging debate but to highlight the value of empirical research that is attempting to capture the sometimes-changing, sometimes-stable attributes of Asian families and societies. I further encourage the development of new concepts and theories that are rooted in a deep understanding of the complexity of cultural and institutional contexts in Asian societies. Not until we have more high-quality theoretically informed research with a deeper understanding of Asian contexts can we have a better sense of whether the above questions are meaningful and deserve answers.Specifically, first, by sketching patterns and differences in marriage and family behavior in this region, I emphasize a contextual understanding of marriage and family in this region. Second, I introduce theoretical frameworks from Western literature that are relevant to family transitions in East Asia. I encourage an integration of Western and local research. Third, by introducing the six articles that comprise this special section, I encourage more innovative empirical research and the development of concepts and theoretical perspectives from the local context.MARRIAGE PATTERNS IN EAST ASIAMarriage, Fertility, and CohabitationThroughout East Asia, marriage rates have declined drastically, and the age at first marriage has increased rapidly, with some societies even passing their Western counterparts (Frejka, Jones, & Sardon, 2010; Jones, 2007, 2012; Jones & Gubhaju, 2009; Jones & Yeung, 2014). Between 1970 and 2010, women's singulate mean age at marriage increased from early 20s to around 30 in Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and Singapore. In contrast, the marriage age in China is still concentrated in the 20s (Ji & Yeung, 2014; Jones & Yeung, 2014). Throughout East Asia, declines in marriage are greatest among educated women and economically disadvantaged men, as both have difficulty finding a mate (Ji, Chen, & Jones, 2014; Ji & Yeung, 2014; Jones & Gubhaju, 2009; Qian, 2012; Tian, 2013).The total fertility rate in all East Asian societies dropped below the replacement level in the 1990s. In 2010, the total fertility rate was 1. …

The Political Development of Modern Thailand

Abstract: Based on extensive, empirical research, The Political Development of Modern Thailand analyses the country's political history from the late nineteenth century to the present day. Long known for political instability, Thailand was thrust into a deep state of crisis by a royalist military coup staged in 2006. Since then, conservative royalists have overthrown more elected governments after violent street protests, while equally disruptive demonstrations staged by supporters of electoral democracy were crushed by military force. Federico Ferrara traces the roots of the crisis to unresolved struggles regarding the content of Thailand's national identity, dating back to the abolition of absolute monarchy in 1932. He explains the conflict's re-intensification with reference to a growing chasm between the hierarchical worldview of Thailand's hegemonic 'royal nationalism' and the aspirations that millions of ordinary people have come to harbour as a result of modernisation.

Sustainable Modernization of the Russian Power Utilities Industry

Abstract: Our paper analyzes the issue of managing structural and technological modernization of the Russian power utilities industry based on the basic criteria of sustainable development We have chosen coal-fired generation and its defining technologies as the main subject for our analysis Key points of the Russian power utilities development strategy that has been drawn up to 2030 are compared against the basic principles of sustainable development Moreover, a mathematical economic model is proposed to justify the choice of coal-fired power plant technology from the standpoint of economic, social, and environmental efficiency

How effective are our ‘better angels’? Assessing country-level declines in homicide since 1950

Abstract: Pinker makes the sweeping argument that violence declines with modernization as countries of the world gradually converge in terms of economic markets, communication structures, and culture. An alt...

Forward to the Past in Russia

Abstract: Lilia Shevtsova is a nonresident senior fellow in the Foreign Policy Program at the Brookings Institution. From 1995 to 2014, she was a senior associate at the Carnegie Moscow Center. Her books include Putin's Russia (2005) and Lonely Power: Why Russia Has Failed to Become the West and the West Is Weary of Russia (2010). The Russian system of personalized power, the antithesis of a state based on the rule of law, is demonstrating an amazing capacity for sur- vival even in the midst of advanced stages of decay. The latest survival strategy that the Kremlin, the central headquarters of this system, is now using to prolong its life includes several parts. The first is a "conserva- tive revolution" at home. The second is the conversion of Russia into a revanchist power that will undermine the rules of the international order if that helps to preserve the internal status quo. The third is the containment of the West, combined with the forging of an anti-Western International. Throughout its long struggle to keep itself going, the Russian system has defied many predictions and ruined many analytical narratives. At the end of the 1980s, it humiliated the entire field of Sovietology, which had persuaded the world that the Soviet Union was as solid as a rock. In the 1990s, "transitologists" said that the system would move one way, only to find it going in another direction entirely. In the early 2000s, the system discarded the assumption that Russia would partner with the United States in its battle against terrorism. And from 2008 to 2012, the system turned both the U.S. "reset" policy and the EU Partnership for Modernization program into the punch line of a joke. Over the past two decades, the system has limped on, meeting new challenges with imitation solutions that do not change its essence. At the beginning of the 1990s, it reincarnated itself by dumping the Soviet state, faking adherence to liberal standards, and professing a readiness for partnership with the West. Today, its liberal dress-up game is a thing

Adolescence and the Path to Maturity in Global Retail

Abstract: This is an invited paper for the Journal of Economic Perspectives. It proposes a process of retail modernization and gives examples in the context of rich nations and developing nations.

Architects from Socialist Countries in Ghana (1957–67): Modern Architecture and Mondialisation

Abstract: Architects from Socialist Countries in Ghana (1957–67): Modern Architecture and Mondialisation discusses the architectural production of the Ghana National Construction Corporation (GNCC), a state agency responsible for building and infrastructure programs during Ghana’s first decade of independence. Łukasz Stanek reviews the work of GNCC architects within the networks that intersected in 1960s Accra, including competing networks of global cooperation: U.S.-based economic institutions, the British Commonwealth, technical assistance from socialist countries, support programs from the United Nations, and collaboration within the Non-Aligned Movement. His analysis of labor conditions within the GNCC reveals a negotiation between Cold War antagonisms and a shared culture of modern architecture that was instrumental in the reorganization of the everyday within categories of postindependence modernization. Drawing on previously unexplored materials from archives in Ghana, Bulgaria, Croatia, Hungary, Poland, the United Kingdom, and the United States, the article reveals the role of architects from European socialist countries in the urbanization of West Africa and their contribution to modern architecture’s becoming a worldwide phenomenon.

Globalizing Indigenous Psychology: An East Asian Form of Hierarchical Relationalism with Worldwide Implications

Abstract: Globalization has changed almost every facet of life for people around the world, and today the flow of influence is no longer uni-directional. It is argued that East Asian (and especially Chinese) societies are anchored in an indigenous form of hierarchical relationalism where social structure is produced by relational obligations of an ethical and normative nature that have slowed its traditional culture “melting into air” as prophesied by Marx. The successfully modernization of East Asia has involved hybridization, compartmentalization, and sequencing of traditional psychological features of Confucianist societies such as delay of gratification and respect for education, paternalistic leadership, filial piety, and beliefs in harmony or benevolence. Features of hierarchical relationalism are adaptable to creating niches for East Asian societies that thrive under globalization as characterized by the paradoxical coupling of economic inequality in fact with discourses of equality in principle. Moral, ethical demands for enlightened leadership constrain East Asian elites to at least attempt to protect subordinates and protect societal (rather than merely individual or familial) well-being. A fundamental contribution of East Asia to global society may be in the articulation of how to ameliorate economic inequality using Confucian principles of hierarchical relationalism.

Empires of Coal: Fueling China’s Entry into the Modern World Order, 1860-1920

Abstract: From 1868-1872, German geologist Ferdinand von Richthofen went on an expedition to China. His reports on what he found there would transform Western interest in China from the land of porcelain and tea to a repository of immense coal reserves. By the 1890s, European and American powers and the Qing state and local elites battled for control over the rights to these valuable mineral deposits. As coal went from a useful commodity to the essential fuel of industrialization, this vast natural resource would prove integral to the struggle for political control of China. Geology served both as the handmaiden to European imperialism and the rallying point of Chinese resistance to Western encroachment. In the late nineteenth century both foreign powers and the Chinese viewed control over mineral resources as the key to modernization and industrialization. When the first China Geological Survey began work in the 1910s, conceptions of natural resources had already shifted, and the Qing state expanded its control over mining rights, setting the precedent for the subsequent Republican and People's Republic of China regimes. In Empires of Coal, Shellen Xiao Wu argues that the changes specific to the late Qing were part of global trends in the nineteenth century, when the rise of science and industrialization destabilized global systems and caused widespread unrest and the toppling of ruling regimes around the world.