Modernization theory

About: Modernization theory is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 14641 publications have been published within this topic receiving 232469 citations.

‘Making a Difference’: Volunteer Tourism and Development

Abstract: In recent decades there has been a boom in international volunteer tourism, mainly in the form of the growth of gap-year companies offering placements, linked to conservation and community well-being goals. This paper makes two points: firstly, it argues that the growth of volunteer tourism is in part a product of the politics of the current period – the decline of grand narratives and the growth of ‘life political’ alternative forms of agency. Hence volunteer tourism, motivated by the impulse to ‘make a difference’, tells us something about the way in which development issues are being conceived of by idealistic young people who comprise the majority of volunteer tourists. Secondly, the paper takes issue with the view that today’s volunteer tourists are part of a tradition of colonialism and neo-colonialism that projects western conceptions of modernization onto the Third World societies to the detriment of the latter. Rather, it is argued that the politics behind volunteer tourism is better characterized as a rejection of modernization as development in favour of a post-development influenced approach. Keywords: volunteer tourism; life politics; gap-year; ethical consumption; tourism and development.

Development : theory, policy, and practice

Abstract: Theorizing development: Theory and metatheory in development studies modernization evolutionism in development theory imperialism dependency regulation micro foundation critical theory postmodernism reconsidering theory and metatheory in development studies. Managing development: Sustainable development the state local governance NGOs and civil society restructuring the public service the challenge of sustainable urban development the RDP, GEAR and continuing debates gender sustainable growth paths Rural development: Land policies and democracy land reform communal rangelands and rural development traditional authorities resettlement deagrarianization tourism, the environment and rural development development and the environment. Development and industrialization: Industrial policy trade unions and transformation liberalizing markets/Structural adjustment regulation and development in South Africa the IMF/World Bank and debt. Building institutional capacity: Participation a dialogical intervention strategy programme evaluation participatory action research information, communication and facilitation human resource management in transitional economies human resource development in transitional economies organizational development/Transfer of knowledge.

Legitimacy in the modern state

Abstract: This analysis of the concept of authority in Western society constitutes a central work in political sociology and a fundamental critique of the process of modernization Schaar proposes that legitimate authority is declining in the modern state Law and order, in a very real sense, is the basic political issue of our time -- one that conservatives have understood with greater clarity than their liberal adversaries Schaar sees what were once authoritative institutions and ideas yielding to technological and bureaucratic orders The later brings physical comfort and a sense of collective power, but does not provide political liberty or moral autonomy As a result, he argues, all modern states exhibiting this transformation of authority into technology are well advanced along the path of a crisis of legitimacy

The sustainable development paradox : urban political economy in the United States and Europe

Abstract: Krueger, Gibbs, Introduction: Problematizing the Politics of Sustainability. Swyngedouw, Impossible "Sustainability" and the Postpolitical Condition. Keil, Sustaining Modernity, Modernizing Nature: The Environmental Crisis and the Survival of Capitalism. Buckingham, Microgeographies and Microruptures: The Politics of Gender in the Theory and Practice of Sustainability. Gibbs, Krueger, Containing the Contradictions of Rapid Development?: New Economy Spaces and Sustainable Urban Development. Jonas, While, Greening the Entrepreneurial City?: Looking for Spaces of Sustainability Politics in the Competitive City. Pares, Sauri, Integrating Sustainabilities in a Context of Economic, Social, and Urban Change: The Case of Public Spaces in the Metropolitan Region of Barcelona. Batchelor, Patterson, Political Modernization and the Weakening of Sustainable Development in Britain. Raco, Spatial Policy, Sustainability, and State Restructuring: A Reassessment of Sustainable Community Building in England. Evans, The Spatial Politics of Conservation Planning. Pincetl, Katz, The Imperial Valley of California: Sustainability, Water, Agriculture, and Urban Growth.