Showing papers on "Modernization theory published in 2019"

The History of Development: From Western Origins to Global Faith

Abstract: * Preface to the Second Edition * Introduction * 1. Definitions of Development * Conventional Thinking * A Methodological Word of Caution * Elements of a Definition * A Scandalous Definition? * 'Development' as an element in the Religion of Modernity * 2. Metamorphoses of a Western Myth * What the Metaphor Implies * Landmarks in the Western View of History * Conclusion * 3. The Making of a World System * Colonization * The League of Nations and the Mandate System * Conclusion * 4. The Invention of Development * President Truman's Point Four * A New World View: 'Underdevelopment' * US Hegemony * A New Paradigm * The ?Development? Age * 5. The International Doctrine and Institutions Take Root * The Bandung Conference * The New International ?Development? Agencies * 6. Modernisation poised between History and Prophecy * A Philosophy of History: Rostow's Stages of Economic Growth * Anti-communism or Marxism without Marx? * Dissident Voices: Francois Perroux and Dudley Seers * 7. The Periphery and the Understanding of History * Neo-Marxism in the USA * The Latin American dependentistas * A New Paradigm, but Age-old Presuppositions * 8. Self-Reliance: The Communal Past as a Model for the Future * Ujamaa and the Tanzanian Experience * The Principles of Self-Reliance * Possible Futures for Autonomy * 9. The Triumph of Third Worldism * The New International Economic Order * An Original Voice: The 1975 Dag Hammarskjold Foundation * Report on Another Development * In the Wake of the NIEO: Further Proposals * The Basic Needs Approach * Conclusion * 10. The Environment or the New Nature of ?Development? * The Return to Classical Economics, plus a few humanitarian extras * 'Sustainable Development' or Growth Everlasting? * The Earth Summit * Reflections on Deliberate Ambiguity * 11. A Mixture of Realism and Fine Sentiments * The South Commission * UNDP and 'Human Development' * 12. The Post-Modern Illusion: Globalisation as a Simulacrum of ?Development? * On the Usefulness of Talking at Cross-purposes * Organisations on Reprieve or in Mutation? * Globalisation or a Return to Normal? * Virtual Reality as a Refuge for Continuing Belief * Beyond Development * 13. Some Thoughts on What is to be Done * 14. The Struggle Against Poverty: Slogan and Alibi * What's the Problem? * What really is a poor person? * An Alibi? * Conclusion * Bibliography * Index

What is driving global obesity trends? Globalization or “modernization”?

Abstract: Worldwide obesity has more than doubled since 1980. Researchers have attributed rising obesity rates to factors related to globalization processes, which are believed to contribute to obesity by flooding low-income country markets with inexpensive but obesogenic foods and diffusing Western-style fast food outlets (dependency/world systems theory). However, alternative explanations include domestic factors such as increases in unhealthy food consumption in response to rising income and higher women’s labor force participation as countries develop economically (“modernization” theory). To what extent are processes of globalization driving rising global overweight/obesity rates versus domestic economic and social development processes? This study evaluates the influence of economic globalization versus economic development and associated processes on global weight gain. Using two-way fixed-effects OLS regression with a panel dataset of mean body weight for 190-countries over a 30-year period (1980–2008), we find that domestic factors associated with “modernization” including increasing GDP per capita, urbanization and women’s empowerment were associated with increases in mean BMI over time. There was also evidence of a curvilinear relationship between GDP per capita and BMI: among low income countries, economic growth predicted increases in BMI whereas among high-income countries, higher GDP predicted lower BMI. By contrast, economic globalization (dependency/world systems theory) did not significantly predict increases in mean BMI and cultural globalization had mixed effects. These results were robust to different model specifications, imputation approaches and variable transformations. Global increases in overweight/obesity appear to be driven more by domestic processes including economic development, urbanization and women’s empowerment, and are less clearly negatively impacted by external globalization processes suggesting that the harms to health from global trade regimes may be overstated.

Modernization, Ethnic Competition, and the Rationality of Politics in Contemporary Africa

Abstract: Theories of modernization imply the demise of ethnic competition. This is true of sociological theories, in which specific, differentiated, "rational" interests are held to displace generalized, diffuse, "primordial" ties. Despite the predictions of these theories of social change, ethnic competition strongly endures. It is a feature of politics even in the most modern of nation-states. Theories of social change predict the demise of ethnic grouping. A major contribution of the study of African politics is to document the falseness of this prediction. Modernization and ethnic conflict do intersect, both empirically and intellectually. Ethnic groups should be distinguished from tribal groups, and the origins and dynamics of the former should be considered independently of what is known and asserted about traditional political behavior in Africa. Ethnic groups persist largely because of their capacity to extract goods and services from the modern sector and thereby satisfy the demands of their members.

Urbanization: Processes and driving forces

Abstract: Urbanization is becoming the most important human social change in the world, especially in developing countries. However, what is the process of urbanization? What forces are driving the urbanization process? This paper summarizes five main processes of urbanization through various aspects of urbanization in different countries, including economic growth and development, demographic change, social transformation, reshaped and stretched urban spaces, and shrinking cities. Based on the comprehensive method of analyzing urbanization, this paper sorts out five driving forces of urbanization, which are industrialization, modernization, globalization, marketization and administrative/institutional power. The author tries to contribute to the healthy development of urbanization in developing countries through the analysis of process and driving force in urbanization.

Features of modernization and integration of national culture

Abstract: This article covers the concept of national culture and its historical stages, factors of the formation of national culture, peculiarities of the process of modernization and integration, the concept of national culture development in modern conditions.

Futures of sustainability as modernization, transformation, and control: a conceptual framework

Abstract: In the last three decades, sustainability has become a guiding principle for states, organizations, companies, and social movements as well as a general ideal for social change. While sustainability seems to be a rather inevitable path of development, there is no consensus over the goals and visions of the future associated with this concept. Proponents of a “Green Economy,” for instance, regard economic growth as a prerequisite for sustainable development and advocate a modernization of society, which implies moderate adjustments toward a sustainable economy within the current institutional framework. Critics of this ecological modernization approach see the imperative of economic growth as an obstacle for sustainable development and instead support a fundamental transformation of society. A third perspective tries to solve the problems of sustainable development with wide-ranging politics of control, using concepts such as “ecological state of emergency” or enforcing resilience measures for vulnerable populations while creating safe enclaves for a privileged few. These three possible ideal typical trajectories of social change—modernization, transformation, and control—are not fixed yet, but rather represent different and highly contested imaginaries of the future. These imaginaries then structure distinctive practices of sustainability in the fields of politics, the economy, civil society, and science. These practices in turn are interdependent with specific structures, such as material infrastructures or the ecological system of the earth. The proposed conceptional framework uses the theoretical concepts of imaginaries, practices, and structures to study the possible futures of sustainability, specifically modernization, transformation, and control, as well as possible interdependencies between these developments. It focuses on sustainability as a sociological category indicative for understanding socioeconomic change, the emergence of new conflicts, inequalities, hierarchies, and justification patterns that result from including sustainable criteria into different fields, institutions, and value systems. Deciphering futures of sustainability does not aim at providing prognoses or forecasts, but intents to work out an analytical concept that asks how contemporary societies change when they are guided by imaginaries of sustainability.

Effects of the Irrigation Modernization in Spain 2002–2015

Abstract: Regions and basins suffering from water scarcity have promoted the modernization of irrigation systems, defined as irrigation efficiency enhancement as a measure for the adaptation to a growing demand and a limited supply of water resources. In the period 2002–2015, Spain carried out an intense irrigation modernization process with the aim of achieving significant water savings and higher flexibility and to guarantee supply, among other favourable outcomes (e.g. environmental and socio-economic). Nevertheless, certain unfavourable effects of irrigation modernization also need to be discussed. This study analyses these effects in Spain based upon a DPSIR (Driving forces, Pressures, States, Impacts, and Responses) framework and a wide-ranging review of the existing empirical literature. Our findings are highly relevant to inform decision-makers in the planning of future irrigation modernization programmes worldwide.

Towards a green modernization development discourse: the new green revolution in Africa

Abstract: Since the Rio+20 conference, 'greening' economies and growth has been key in international politics. Leading policy actors and businesses frame the emerging green economy as an opportunity to realize a triple-bottom line – people, planet and profit – and support sustainable development. In practice, two key trends stand out: in the global North, the main component of the green shift seems to imply technological and market-based solutions in the renewable energy sector. While this is also important in the global South, here green economy implementation is often interpreted as environmental protection along with modernization of, and shifts in access to and control over, natural resources ('green sectors'). In the case of the latter, combined with persisting high rates of poverty, we claim that the post-Rio+20 context has revitalized a 'green' version of modernization to become the leading discourse and approach within international development; namely green modernization. A wide range of development initiatives across the global South – with significant support from international businesses amidst a general private turn of aid – are framed in this light. We use the new, Green Revolution in Africa to illustrate how modernization discourses are reasserted under the green economy. What is new at the current conjuncture is the way in which powerful actors adopt and promote green narratives around long-standing modernization ideas. They recast the modernization trope as 'green.' In particular, we focus our discussion on three linked components; technology and 'productivism', the role of capital and 'underutilized' resources, and, lastly, mobility of land and people. Keywords: green economy; green modernization; the new Green Revolution in Africa; agri-business; climate smart agriculture; development discourse

The Moral Complexity of Agriculture: A Challenge for Corporate Social Responsibility

Abstract: Over the past decades, the modernization of agriculture in the Western world has contributed not only to a rapid increase in food production but also to environmental and societal concerns over issues such as greenhouse gas emissions, soil quality and biodiversity loss. Many of these concerns, for example those related to animal welfare or labor conditions, are stuck in controversies and apparently deadlocked debates. As a result we observe a paradox in which a wide range of corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives, originally seeking to reconnect agriculture and society, frequently provoke debate, conflict, and protests. In order to make sense of this pattern, the present paper contends that Western agriculture is marked by moral complexity, i.e., the tendency of multiple legitimate moral standpoints to proliferate without the realistic prospect of a consensus. This contention is buttressed by a conceptual framework that draws inspiration the contemporary business ethics and systems-theoretic scholarship. From the systems-theoretic point of view, the evolution of moral complexity is traced back to the processes of agricultural modernization, specialization, and differentiation, each of which suppresses the responsiveness of the economic and legal institutions to the full range of societal and environmental concerns about agriculture. From the business ethics point of view, moral complexity is shown to prevent the transformation of the ethical responsibilities into the legal and economic responsibilities despite the ongoing institutionalization of CSR. Navigating moral complexity is shown to require moral judgments which are necessarily personal and contestable. These judgments are implicated in those CSR initiatives that require dealing with trade-offs among the different sustainability issues.

Changing culture, changing curriculum: a case study of early childhood curriculum innovations in two Chinese kindergartens

Abstract: School-based curriculum development (SBCD) has been advocated to enhance the quality of early childhood education within the context of modernization and globalization. However, few studies...

The 1968 Tehran master plan and the politics of planning development in Iran (1945–1979)

Abstract: This paper traces the relationship between state development policies and planning Tehran’s urban development from 1945 until the 1979 Islamic Revolution. It shows how the geopolitical context of the Cold War, and the political agendas of multilateral and bilateral development agencies (i.e. the World Bank and the Ford Foundation), together with the specific circumstances of the national modernization of Iran, were decisive in shaping the Iranian planning administration and the emergence of a comprehensive master planning approach. Moreover, this study demonstrates the critical role of the Iranian technocratic elite and professional middle class in establishing planning institutions and advocating for a vision of progress and development. The focus here is on the formation of the ‘Plan Organization’ as the first modern planning institution in Iran, and the ways in which this institution played a key role in shaping Iranian expert culture and urban planning practices. By examining the links between national development policies and urban planning, this paper presents how comprehensive master planning emerged as the preferred model for the planning and development of Iranian cities. The focus here is on the design and implementation of Tehran’s 1968 Comprehensive Master Plan.

A Social History of Maoist China: Conflict and Change, 1949–1976

Abstract: When the Chinese communists came to power in 1949, they promised to 'turn society upside down'. Efforts to build a communist society created hopes and dreams, coupled with fear and disillusionment. The Chinese people made great efforts towards modernization and social change in this period of transition, but they also experienced traumatic setbacks. Covering the period 1949 to 1976 and then tracing the legacy of the Mao era through the 1980s, Felix Wemheuer focuses on questions of class, gender, ethnicity, and the urban-rural divide in this new social history of Maoist China. He analyzes the experiences of a range of social groups under Communist rule - workers, peasants, local cadres, intellectuals, 'ethnic minorities', the old elites, men and women. To understand this tumultuous period, he argues, we must recognize the many complex challenges facing the People's Republic. But we must not lose sight of the human suffering and political terror that, for many now ageing quietly across China, remain the period's abiding memory.

New National Initiatives of Modernizing Education in China

Abstract: Purpose:This article aims to shed light on a latest education policy blueprint in China, titled China’s education modernization 2035, which was issued by the Central Government of China in February...

Modernization of Regional Continuing Pedagogical Education in the «School-College-Institute».

Abstract: The development of a strategy for continuous pedagogical education in the aspect of professional training of students in the direction of “Pedagogical education” contributes to solving the problem of lack of teaching staff in the region, including young graduates. The implementation of this technology involves a wide synergistic interaction of higher education institutions, pedagogical colleges and secondary educational institutions. In this regard, the goal of the research is to develop a structural model for the modernization of regional continuing pedagogical education in the school-college-university system and experimentally prove its effectiveness in the implementation of teacher education in the region. The structural model developed in the study includes synergistically interconnected blocks: regulatory and legislative, targeted, theoretical, methodological, technological, and resulting. The study involved various budget organizations (n = 50) and the pedagogical institute (n = 1) of the Udmurt Republic. The implementation in practice of the model showed its effectiveness at each link in the holistic system of the educational route of the region: from schoolchild to young specialist. The increase in the number of applicants for pedagogical training profiles, the increase in students' motivation from the first to the fifth year to the future professional activity, as well as the directly proportional reduction in the lack of young specialists in this area in the region consistently proves the effectiveness of the study and the need to continue it.

Attracting Foreign Investments for Green Energy Projects in Subsaharn Africa: Climate Change Policy & Innovation in International Legal Compliance

Abstract: Sub-Saharan Africa must confront the dual problem of development coupled with the complexities surrounding climate change. The regions stagnated growth has been historically attributed to many factors, but the predominant thought from an international law perspective is that if the region modernizes its legal and regulatory structures this will engender the confidence of foreign investors. With this acknowledgement came the demand on developing nations to modernize local legal and regulatory systems initially focusing on globally harmonized intellectual property rights and then more recently their energy regulatory infrastructures and processes to attract foreign investments. Several international organizations and institutions including the WTO, World Bank and the UN have recommended energy policies to hasten sustainable development in the sub-Saharan region. The recommended policies have been implemented by many sub-Saharan African nations with little change in attracting foreign investors to fund these projects. Despite international commitments, sub-Saharan African nations have not been the beneficiaries of these initiatives, while countries like China, India and Mexico have received an influx of foreign investments within the green energy sector. Two main issues arise from the lack of foreign investments. First, do flexibilities need to be built into international trade and climate change Agreements to encourage developing countries down a sustainable development path? The second issue is whether there are local and regional factors that affect a countrys ability to attract foreign direct investments (FDI), particularly those focused at climate change abatement projects? Sub-Saharan African countries like Ghana, West Africa have implemented new energy policies like the Feed-In Tariff (FIT) model, but still have not enjoyed increase foreign investments in renewable energy projects. Will the energy sector mimic the pharmaceutical sector where promises of investments were made if countries harmonized their laws, but failed to deliver rewards for these modernization initiatives? Or are there lessons to be learnt regarding local practices, policies and structures that must be modified in order to attract foreign investments. This thesis will examine the local factors beyond modernization efforts within the energy sector that may negatively impact on foreign investors willingness to undertake green energy projects within the region within the context of international trade and climate change Agreements. It will use Ghana as a case study to explore some of the issues and regional concerns that explain the reluctance of foreign investors to initiate green energy projects.

Social change and generalized anomie: Why economic development has reduced social trust in China:

Abstract: Chinese society is facing a decline in social trust, a serious crisis which is escalating as modernization continues. In this article the authors apply Durkheim’s social transitional theory to expl...

Analysis of the public transport modernization via system reconfiguration: The ongoing case in the Philippines

Abstract: We present the ongoing Public Utility Vehicle Modernization Program (PUVMP) as a case study in socio-technical transition studies in the transport sector. The ongoing reform project, initiated and implemented by the national government, aims for a wholesale change of the public land transportation industry of the Philippines. Using a theoretical framework that combines institutional entrepreneurship, transition experiments, multi-level perspective and politics of transitions, we unpack the different elements comprising the PUVMP and their interactions, including power dynamics, to better understand and manage the complexity and dependencies of transition. A key point of the article is that gradual and incremental change is the most realistic representation of the socio-technical transition by PUVMP. This departs from the conceptualization that dominates transition studies of regime shift or niche disruptions due to singular technologies at the niche level.

Language and Development in Africa : Perceptions, Ideologies and Challenges

Abstract: Development is based on communication through language. With more than two thousand languages being used in Africa, language becomes a highly relevant factor in all sectors of political, social, cultural and economic life. This important sociolinguistic dimension hitherto remains underrated and under-researched in 'Western' mainstream development studies. The book discusses the resourcefulness of languages, both local and global, in view of the ongoing transformation of African societies as much as for economic development. From a novel 'applied African sociolinguistics' perspective it analyses the continuing effects of linguistic imperialism on postcolonial African societies, in particular regarding the educational sector, through imposed hegemonic languages such as Arabic and the ex-colonial languages of European provenance. It offers a broad interdisciplinary scientific approach to the linguistic dimensions of sociocultural modernisation and economic development in Africa, written for both the non-linguistically trained reader as much as for the linguistically trained researcher and language practitioner.

Towards Global Business Engagement with Development Goals? Multilateral Institutions and the SDGs in a Changing Global Capitalism

Abstract: Over the last decades, encouragement of business engagement with environmental and socio-economic development has gained prominence due to the perceived weakening of states and multilateral institutions against the forces of global capitalism. Different ways of encouraging changes in business behavior have been promoted, such as the formation of public/private partnerships, corporate social responsibility initiatives, and other forms of non-binding organizational arrangements. However, there is no real consensus on the desired role of business in development, what the best policies for global development are, or what “development” itself is and should be defined as. Indeed, precisely as a formal consensus has been reached on the broad agenda of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, a narrower agenda focusing on industrialization, modernization, and economic growth is promoted by new actors, many originating in the Global South. This special issue asks how the emergence of new actors and the adaptation by global institutions affect the ways in which business engages with development. This introductory article positions the issue's contributions into three discussions: exploring issues of global coherence and division on key debates; understanding how new actors are reshaping the public-private divide; and assessing how disconnects within discourse on business and development can amplify negative societal consequences in fragile settings of weak governance.

Are Ecological Modernization Narratives Useful for Understanding and Steering Social-Ecological Change in the Argentine Chaco?

Abstract: During the past decades, the Ecological Modernization Theory, and associated ideas such as the Forest Transition Theory and Land Sparing Hypothesis, have dominated the academic and policy arenas regarding the solutions to current environmental crises. However, critiques were raised as these theories, originally conceived for developed countries, started to be applied in developing countries for explaining and prescribing social-ecological transitions. Here, we assess the validity of five key assumptions of Ecological Modernization narratives as applied to the Argentine Chaco, a global deforestation hotspot. We reviewed existing literature and conducted straightforward analysis to disentangle relationships among key variables. Although agriculture intensified, there is no evidence that this intensification inhibited agricultural expansion. Rural depopulation took place between 2001 and 2010; however, deforestation rates did not decrease, and the quality of life of migrants did not increase compared to those that stayed in rural areas. Our review suggests that the consequences of agriculture intensification on biodiversity and the provision of multiple ecosystem services exceeds the area used. Therefore, available evidence does not support the assumed causal relationships of Ecological Modernization, and even contradicts most assumptions. We propose a series of analytical shifts to better capture the complexity of social-ecological transitions in modern commodity frontiers.

Realistic Revolution: Contesting Chinese History, Culture, and Politics after 1989

Abstract: Between 1989 and 1993, with the end of the Cold War, Tiananmen, and Deng Xiaoping's renewed reform, Chinese intellectuals said goodbye to radicalism. In newly-founded journals, interacting with those who had left mainland China around 1949 to revive Chinese culture from the margins, they now challenged the underlying creed of Chinese socialism and the May Fourth Movement that there was 'no making without breaking'. Realistic Revolution covers the major debates of this period on radicalism in history, culture, and politics from a transnational perspective, tracing intellectual exchanges as China repositioned itself in Asia and the world. In this realistic revolution, Chinese intellectuals paradoxically espoused conservatism in the service of future modernization. They also upheld rationalism and gradualism after Maoist utopia but concurrently rewrote history to re-establish morality. Finally, their self-identification as scholars was a response to rapid social change that nevertheless left their concern with China's fate unaltered.

The Arc of Modernization: Economic Structure, Materialism, and the Onset of Civil Conflict

Abstract: The onset of intrastate conflict has two requisite conditions: that prospective insurgents have an incentive to rebel, and that the state lacks the capacity to deter such a rebellion. We outline a simple rationalist argument grounded in gains from economic growth—to both individual income and state revenue—to argue that modernization has the potential to affect the likelihood of civil conflict through both of these conditions. The shift away from a rent-seeking economy affects opportunity costs for rebellion by increasing the cost of recruitment, broadening the time horizon for gain, and decreasing looting possibilities. On the state side, modernization increases state military, economic, and institutional capacity, allowing governments to deter rebellion. We construct an index of modernization from World Bank data and apply a strategic model to explore the effect of modernization on both states and rebels simultaneously. We find that the modernization process describes an arc that may increase the likelihood of unrest in the early stages, but has long-term stabilizing effects.

Rethinking Japan in mainstream international relations

Abstract: Located geographically in the East, but often identified with the West, Japan's role as a world power over the last century and a half remains curiously inconsistent in mainstream international relations (IR). By examining Japan's often under-appreciated role in the international history of wealth and power, we argue that this tells us more about the distorting impact on IR theory of Eurocentrism and realism than it tells us about Japan's role in world history. Symptomatic of these distortions are Japan's exclusion from or marginalization within, the first round of modernization before 1914, and the accompanying under-recognition of its role as a model and hub for Northeast Asia's capitalist development. Also occluded is Japan's key post-1945 role in both underpinning America's superpower status, and promoting the capitalist world order in Asia. Mainstream IR theory provides poor foundations for both academic and policy analysis of Japan's important world role.

Supermarket-Led Development and the Neglect of Traditional Food Value Chains: Reflections on Indonesia’s Agri-Food System Transformation

Abstract: The rapid expansion of modern food retail encapsulated in the so-called ‘supermarket revolution’ is often portrayed as a pivotal driving force in the modernization of agri-food systems in the Global South. Based on fieldwork conducted on horticulture value chains in West Java and South Sulawesi, this paper explores this phenomenon and the concerted efforts that government and corporate actors undertake with regard to agri-food value chain interventions and market modernization in Indonesia. The paper argues that after more than 15 years of ‘supermarket revolution’ in Indonesia, traditional food retail appears not to be in complete demise, but rather adaptive and resilient to its modern competitors. The analysis of local manifestations of supermarket-led agricultural development suggests that traditional markets can offer certain advantages for farmers over supermarket-driven value chains. The paper further identifies and discusses two areas that have so far been neglected by research and policymaking and which warrant further investigation: (i) the simultaneous transformations in traditional food value chains and their relation to modern markets, and (ii) the social and environmental performances of modern vis-a-vis traditional food value chains.