Topic
Modernization theory
About: Modernization theory is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 14641 publications have been published within this topic receiving 232469 citations.
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01 Aug 1988
TL;DR: In this article, the authors report on extensive interviews with four European groups that, although living in close geographical proximity, are part of very different ecologies and cultural environments, and they differ especially in the degree to which they still follow a traditional agricultural lifestyle, as opposed to being integrated with the technological life of the cities.
Abstract: Cultures differ enormously in terms of the range of opportunities they make available to the people who live in them, and in terms of the skills that the average inhabitant feels he or she possesses. The same culture may vary dramatically along these dimensions at two different points in time. Therefore the quality of subjective experience of a typical member of society will also vary. These days, when anthropologists are more than ever hesitant to breach the neutrality of cultural relativism, and when imposing Western standards of interpretation and description on foreign cultures has become a heresy to be avoided at all costs, it might be that focusing on the self-reported experiences of native respondents will provide a viable comparative method. Accordingly, this chapter reports on extensive interviews with four European groups that, although living in close geographical proximity, are part of very different ecologies and cultural environments. They differ especially in the degree to which they still follow a traditional agricultural lifestyle, as opposed to being integrated with the technological life of the cities. The purpose is to compare how optimal experience is described in such contexts, to see what different activities it is experienced in, and to infer the effects that modernization is having on the quality of subjective experience.
105 citations
Book•
01 Jan 2002
TL;DR: In this article, an ethnographic study of a community of Mongolian herders who have been undergoing dramatic environmental and social transformations since 1980 is presented, focusing on local experiences of modernization and the ways marginalized people creatively appropriate alien technologies to serve their own ethnic identity and cultural renewal.
Abstract: This is an ethnographic study of a community of Mongolian herders who have been undergoing dramatic environmental and social transformations since 1980. It provides a rare window of observation into a fascinating and important, though remote and relatively understudied, region of modern China, and documents some of the unintended harmful consequences of decollectivization and economic development.Initially, the book presents a case study of land degradation and shows how competing social and cultural forces at the local, national, and international level actively shape that process. More broadly, it focuses on local experiences of modernization and the ways that marginalized people creatively appropriate alien technologies to serve their own ethnic identity and cultural renewal.The book aims to deepen our understanding of environmental change as a social process by exploring significant tensions between such symbolic dichotomies as Chinese/Mongol, farmer/herder, private/collective, development/conservation, Western/Asian, and scientific/indigenous. It argues that the reconstruction of local landscape cannot be separated from the social context of economic insecurity and political fear, nor from the cultural context of group identity and environmental symbolism. Ideologically informed perceptions of the land prove to be highly relevant in both shaping and contesting international development agendas, national grassland policies, and the daily practices of local production.In presenting the full range of material and symbolic stakes now in play on the Chinese grasslands, the book demonstrates that human-land interactions involve social dimensions on a global scale of widely underestimated complexity. Throughout, the author draws from his extensive fieldwork to enrich his study with poignant (and sometimes humorous) anecdotes and biographical sketches.
105 citations
TL;DR: The authors analyzed the ways in which world-system position and modernization affect the design or configuration of the symbols national leaders adopt to convey their nation's identity, and found that leaders of core nations adopt more basic anthems and flags than their semiperiphery and periphery counterparts.
Abstract: When one examines current national anthems and flags, one finds a great deal of variety. What explains this variation? Possible factors include a nation's world-system position and its degree of modernization. Specifically, I analyze the ways in which world-system position and modernization affect the design or configuration—the syntactic structure—of the symbols national leaders adopt to convey their nation's identity. Findings reveal a link between a nation's world-system position and the structure of its symbols. Leaders of core nations adopt more basic anthems and flags than their semiperiphery and periphery counterparts. However, modernization has no such influence.
104 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors focus on local governments, since in all three countries these are considered the NPM forerunners and are acknowledged to be more advanced in reform implementation than are upper levels of government.
Abstract: The article is aimed at analysing New Public Management (NPM) reforms at the local level in Germany, France and Italy. The case selection is justified by the fact that these three ‘classical’ Continental European countries have largely been missing from comparative administrative research thus far. The article focuses on local governments, since in all three countries these are considered the NPM forerunners and are acknowledged to be more advanced in reform implementation than are upper levels of government. Against this background, the purpose of this contribution is twofold. On the one hand, we wish to show to what extent and with what effects the NPM agenda has been taken up at the local level in Continental Europe. On the other hand, taking a comparative perspective over time, we wish to ask whether or not there has been increasing convergence or divergence between the three countries as a result of these reforms.
104 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the status of educational equality in China in the context of the reform of major Chinese economic, political, and social institutions at the turn of the twenty-first century is investigated.
Abstract: This article investigates the status of educational equality in China in the context of the reform of major Chinese economic, political, and social institutions at the turn of the twenty-first century. In the first part of this article, the authors address the importance of the theoretical issue of equality in education and explore the relationship between theories of human capital, modernization, and political culture. They begin with a general introduction of the theme, and then explore the linkages between basic education (literacy and numeracy), the increasing productivity of the labor force, and the essential guarantee of basic human rights—necessary for survival. They then discuss how advanced education provides people with the necessary adaptability and creativity to perform in a world characterized by rapidly developing technology and a complex management system. The second part of the article uses statistical data to describe current educational conditions and the extent of the variance in educat...
103 citations