Topic
Social change
About: Social change is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 61197 publications have been published within this topic receiving 1797013 citations.
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TL;DR: In this paper, the authors argue that the perceived legitimacy of the activities and the distribution of economic outcomes and project-related information are mediated by organizational allegiances and the history of social relations regarding access to property and forest resources, while the poorest farmers and women have been excluded from project design and implementation.
Abstract: Markets for ecosystem services are being promoted across the developing world, amidst claims that the provision of economic incentives is vital to bring about resource conservation. This article argues that equity and legitimacy are also critical dimensions in the design and implementation of such markets, if social development goals beyond economic gains are to be achieved. The article examines this issue by focusing on two communities involved in a project for carbon sequestration services of forests in the state of Chiapas, Mexico. The perceived legitimacy of the activities and the distribution of economic outcomes and project-related information are found to be mediated by organizational allegiances and the history of social relations regarding access to property and forest resources. Political affiliation determines the project's legitimacy, while the poorest farmers and women have been excluded from project design and implementation. The authors argue that pitfalls such as these contribute to reinforcing existing power structures, inequities and vulnerabilities, and suggest that this is a product of the nature of emerging markets. Markets for ecosystem services are, in effect, limited in promoting more legitimate forms of decision making and a more equitable distribution of their outcomes.
381 citations
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TL;DR: Both civil society and social capital have proven useful heuristics for drawing attention to neglected nonmarket aspects of social reality and constitute a needed corrective to narrowly economistic models.
Abstract: Both civil society and social capital have proven useful heuristics for drawing attention to neglected nonmarket aspects of social reality and constitute a needed corrective to narrowly economistic models. However, both break down, although in different ways, when treated as the basis for elaborating testable hypotheses and further theory. Civil society is most useful in polemical or normative contexts, but attempts to distinguish it from other sectors of society typically break down in unresolvable boundary disputes over just what constitutes civil society and what differentiates it from “state” and “market.” Work by Robert Putnam and others has assimilated social capital to the civic culture model, using it as just another label for the norms and values of the empirical democratic theory of the 1950s. This strategy undermines the empirical value of James Coleman and Pierre Bourdieu's useful social relational concept.
380 citations
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TL;DR: The authors analyzed the complexity and dynamics of the relationship between social media and its users and provided a more nuanced argument by identifying the conditions under which participation in social media might lead to successful political activism.
Abstract: Drawing on empirical cases from Indonesia, this article offers a critical approach to the promise of social media activism by analysing the complexity and dynamics of the relationship between social media and its users. Rather than viewing social media activism as the harbinger of social change or dismissing it as mere “slacktivism,” the article provides a more nuanced argument by identifying the conditions under which participation in social media might lead to successful political activism. In social media, networks are vast, content is overly abundant, attention spans are short, and conversations are parsed into diminutive sentences. For social media activism to be translated into populist political activism, it needs to embrace the principles of the contemporary culture of consumption: light package, headline appetite and trailer vision. Social media activism is more likely to successfully mobilise mass support when its narratives are simple, associated with low risk actions and congruent with dominan...
379 citations