Susan M. Andersen (New York University, USA)
E-Mail address: smal@nyu.edu
Personal relationships seed social identifications: Implications for public policy analysis
|
|
Effective public policy formulation, analysis, and evaluation require attention to fostering bonds within
communities. Much policy discourse makes implicit assumptions about people's willingness to engage in
communities, and yet these remain unarticulated. For example, the assumption that it is adaptive to learn to
navigate super ordinate communities may lead policy analysts to assume cooperation with policies will be
forthcoming. In fact, it is personal relationships between individuals, whether parallel (e.g., with
colleagues) or hierarchical (e.g., with authorities), that fosters super ordinate social identification. Such
relationships are formed based both on contemporaneous fair treatment by group representatives and on
one's prior relational identities (relationships from the past). Indeed, these factors interact to create the
"glue" that connects individuals (or does not) and that enables attachment to communities (or does not).
Lest this seem tangential to public policy, effective policy formulation specifies overarching aims and
means for achieving them, which are inevitably compromised if constituents are turned against one another,
against the policy, or against the larger system. Public policies work not only when aims are valued and
achievable, and means are efficient and fair, but also when engagement of constituents of all backgrounds
occurs. Otherwise, excellent policies simply cannot be implemented successfully.
|
Jeffrey Broadbent (University of Minnesota, USA)
E-Mail address: broad001@umn.edu
"Village Society" versus "Civil Society:" The Ironic Growth of Voluntary Organizations in "Communal" Japan
|
|
Japan has been known as a "group-oriented" society -- putting group membership before individual
interests. These practices derive in part from Japan's traditions of village communalism. Such values
would seem close to those espoused by the communitarian movement and such theoretical concepts as
"social capital." However, the hierarchical, deferential nature of traditional communalism and its current
manifestations in Japan has actually hampered the birth of a voluntary civil society and "social capital" as
defined by contemporary theorists. If we take current theory as our defining standard, Japan's civil society,
having developed through a number of nascent stages, is only recently beginning to manifest on a broad
scale. The last few years have seen a "boom" in NGOs and volunteerism, with increasing political impact.
In this growth process, though, civil society "agents" in Japan have had to overcome cultural, social and
material-legal barriers. Citizens and philanthropies do not accord NGOs much legitimacy, and hence do
not fund them, while the state tries to "incorporate" them. This developmental story should find many
resonances around the non-Western world. Ironically, the story illustrates how traditional communal
practices may contradict "communitarian" ideals, which rely on an unacknowledged component of
individualism.
|
Reba Carruth (George Washington University, USA)
E-Mail address: racarr@gwu.edu
"Socio-Economic Integration in the Global Information Economy: 21st Century Perspectives of Knowledge Transfer, Education and Training"
|
The goal of this paper is to examine the communitarian and socio-economic implications of knowledge
creation, education and training in the global information economy. Through this paper, the reader will be
given an overview of the social and economic forces that give rise to information, knowledge creation,
education and training as agents of socio-economic transformation, development and integration of nations-
states in the global market system. More specifically, this paper examines the roles and responsibilities of
governments to citizens and civil society as nations move to respond to new forms knowledge creation and
transfer in an age of globalization. In this respect, the reader is given a clear overview of the challenges and
opportunities that face governments and citizens in the emerging "information society" and global
information economy, and the growing importance of education and training as mechanisms for knowledge
creation and transfer within and between nations in the 21st century.
In this context, the paper discusses the current and emerging public policy challenges that face
governments and civil society as they move to maximize the benefits and reduce the costs of integrating
into the global information economy. In this respect, the communitarian and socio-economic frameworks of
rights, responsibility, equity and morality are used to examine the growing trend of unequal and
inaccessible knowledge, education and training, and the development of a growing "digital divide"
between social classes, communities and nations in the global information economy. Moreover, the reader
is given a conceptual framework to examine and analyze the moral and socio-economic dimensions of
knowledge creation and transfer in the advanced industrial/core capitalist nations, and the need for more
access to knowledge, education and training in the emerging and developing nations and regions of Latin
America, Africa and Asia. When viewed in this context, the paper provides new and innovative thinking on
the roles and responsibilities of governments, business and civil society for the public and private
management of information and knowledge for education and training on behalf of the collective good of
communities and nations.
|
Lu-Lin Cheng (Academia Sinica, Taiwan)
E-Mail address: llcheng@sinica.edu.tw
Community Ethics and Market Discourse
|
Before the Cable TV Law in 1993, the cable TV industry of Taiwan was a vibrant informal sector that was
highly differentiated and was a democratic alternative to the formal media. In less than a decade, however,
drastic merger movements formed a monopolistic structure and the abuse of market power is now
pervasive.
In 1998, a large-scale protest of subscribers broke up in Taipei City after an abrupt raise of viewing fee. It
quickly turned into a political turmoil and resulted in serious social conflicts. The mainstream opinions
ironically regarded the fee raise as an inevitable adjustment after years of cutthroat competition, while the
consumer protest was portrayed as either due to "irrational greed", "rigid habit" or "market intervention
from politicians."
Inspired by Hirschman, Scott, and Kahneman's works and relying on data from in-depth interviews, my
paper intends to 1) show why the mainstream was made possible and constrained by the underlying market
discourse; 2) reveal the weakness and problems of these explanations; and 3) demonstrate how moral
economy can better explain the protest (i.e., empirically more valid and analytically more integrative).
|
Anup Kumar Dash/Souvagya Laxmi Saran (Utkal University/K.K.S. Women's College, India)
E-mail address: dashanup@hotmail.com
The Social Economy of Self-Help Groups : A Study of Poor Women in Orissa
|
|
In the context of the State and Market failures, the emergence of Self-Help Groups (SHGs) as Institutions
of poor women (who are marginalised and excluded from the mainstream) provide Living examples of
interesting and powerful experiments in societal self-(re)organisation at the bottom. The paper seeks to
focus on the impact of these groups on the micro-dynamics of poverty as they mature. The authors - -
drawing empirical evidence from NGO-promoted SHGs of poor tribal women in Orissa (India) - - argue
that beginning with savings and credit activities, a new Socio-economic space is created for social
transformation and a developmentally effective civil society is born at the margins of the society as this
societal self-(re)organisation stimulates a new range of collective social action, social capital and civic
engagement among the disenfranchised geared to a bottom-up development process.
|
Robert M. Fishman (University of Notre Dame, USA)
E-Mail address: fishman2@nd.edu
Explaining the Iberian Unemployment Paradox: Social and Political Underpinnings of Portugal's Success and Spain's Failure in Generating Employment
|
|
The contrast between Portugal's consistently low unemployment and Spain's persistently high
unemployment stands as a puzzle of considerable interest to economists and other social scientists. I argue
in the paper that much of the difference is attributable to social and political factors that sharply distinguish
the two Iberian neighbors, and their recent histories, from one another. As proximate explanations for
Portugal's success I emphasize 1) the vitality of small business; 2) the high level of financing a large state-
owned bank makes available to small business; 3) the successful incorporation of women into the labor
force in the 1970s; and 4) certain employment-friendly features of the Portuguese welfare state – all of
these factors which set Portugal apart from Spain. I argue that enduring socio-political legacies of
Portugal's relatively revolutionary transition to democracy in the 1970s help to account for this
configuration of proximate causes. I also examine the role of national identity and social solidarity in
generating this configuration. In developing this argument, which departs significantly from existing
claims in the literature, the paper draws on aggregate data and a wide range of additional sources.
|
Johanna Gibson (University of Edinburgh, Scotland)
E-Mail address: johanna.gibson@aar.com.au
Communitarian Obligations to Indigenous Intellectual Resources
|
A major problem arising in any legal regime for the protection of Indigenous or traditional intellectual
production is that of the emphasis on the material form or work in intellectual property law, upon which
litigation may be based in order to enforce and protect and therefore realise that form, and protect the
property rights vested in the individual. Protective regimes must grapple with the concept of the Indigenous
community and the potential for that community to be recognised as a legal agent under the law, whilst at
the same time avoiding a meaningless generalisation of the entity.
This paper aims to understand the way in which community may enjoy capacity and authority as legal actor
in the Australian context, and to theorise the concept of community towards an internationally relevant
process of communitarian obligations as distinct from individual (property) rights. A community model
must not simply be a moralising "protection" of traditional community but must offer a development of the
concept of community that operates within a contemporary legal framework. This consideration represents
an effort to shift the emphasis from that of localised and exclusionary individual property, to that of
communitarian relationships beyond place and property.
|
Vera Gouchtchina (Voronezh State University, Russia)
E-Mail address: root@vng.vsu.ru
Division of Labor and its Value Interpretation in Russian Philosophy
|
This paper tries to trace cultural roots of the Russian social capital and to find out how cultural traditions
influenced its development and specifics. The case in point is Russian philosophical thought revised from
the cultural point of view. National philosophy embodies cultural meanings, values and their interpretations
in a concentrated way. Its studying can substitute many empirical ethnological and sociological researches.
Moreover, philosophy not only rationalizes common sense and everyday meanings but also, as any cultural
phenomenon, constructs them and implants into the people's heads in the process of education and
socialization. As such it works as a constituent of social reality and makes its impact on it.
The concept in the center of interest is division of labor for it constitutes one of the ontological foundations
of social and economic integration and based on them senses of solidarity and trust. Attention is paid to
such phenomena as citizenship, sociality, communality and other forms of social organization, which were
considered by Russian philosophers (Fyodorov, Berdyaev, Bulgakov and others) and were summarized in
the notion of sobornost (togetherness). The latter is typical for the Russian political and social tradition and
is activated today in Russian social life and scholarship.
|
Michel Goyer (MIT, USA)
E-Mail address: migoyer@yahoo.com
French Political Economy after Statism
|
The aim of this panel is to investigate the transformation of the French model of political economy. The
reduced role of the French state has created a huge vacuum. As a result, the study of France allows us to
test processes of transformation under a situation of institutional decomposition and potential rebuilding.
Moreover, the French case does not fit neatly within the literature on the varieties of capitalism. The
combination of restrictions on the functioning of markets and the absence of coordinating institutions
constitute characteristics of the French model.
Hancke addresses the extent to which restructuring in the 1980s and 1990s has led to a redefinition of the
role of the state. The paper investigates the question whether the recent dismantlement of elite co-
ordination will lead to a shift in the comparative advantage of the French economy. Trumbull examines the
development of radical innovative technologies. It investigates efforts by firms to promote the
commercialization of new information and biotechnologies through privately financed startups. Goyer
examines the process of transformation of the system of corporate governance and its sustainability. It
examines the extent to which the introduction of shareholder value friendly practices has been a negotiated
process.
|
Ruth Horowitz (New York University, USA)
E-Mail address: rh40@nyu.edu
Democratic Voice in the US Medical Disciplinary Process?
|
Medicine in the United States became a self- regulating profession at the end of the 19th Century with the
passing of the Medical Practice Acts in each state. Although a "state function," the profession retained
almost total control until the early 1970s when public members began to be appointed to the state licensing
and disciplinary boards through changes in the legislation. Today, all but two states have public members
on boards dominated by physicians. Despite representation, it is unclear that these boards have become
more democratic in the sense that multiple voices are heard and given weight in the discussion of policy
issues and disciplinary hearings. In medical boards that have asymmetries of knowledge and an unequal
number of physician and public representatives, many theories would suggest that the public
representatives (15-40% of most boards) would have little or no real voice in the process. On position
posits lack of public voice occurring because of medical control of discourse (Foucault). The public would
not be able to penetrate medical language. Interest group theorists, however, view voting as expressions of
self interest and would argue that the smaller percentage of public representation would never permit them
to outvote the physicians. The latter position assumes that the physicians would generally all have the same
interests, that the public would have a different interest (and all public the same interest), and that no one
would take the position of a greater good. Neither theory envisions decision making as a process, that
arguments are made and public members may be able to persuade others to go along, that interests are often
divided, and that many cases and issues require little medical knowledge.
My observations of four state medical licensing and disciplinary boards demonstrate that the first two
perspectives are limited. Although medical discourse can, and sometimes does, obscure what is really
going on, it is possible for public members to see what is going on and take independent positions.
Additionally, many disciplinary cases and issues do not involve medical/technical knowledge such as sex
and fraud cases. Not only are the interests of the public members and physicians not always divergent, but
often neither the interests of all physicians or all public members are similar. Board members make
arguments during meetings and disciplinary hearings and people change their minds. This paper explores
the issues that divide and unite the boards and examines the boards' structural and cultural differences that
facilitate and impede the independence of public members.
|
Edward W. Lehman (New York University, USA)
E-Mail address: edward.lehman@nyu.edu
Culture, Social Structure, and Agency: A Strong Approach
|
|
The addition of sociological hylomorphism – i.e., the view that all social reality is a synthesis of ideal and
material dimensions – to a strong theory of culture enhances the latter's ability to clarify the venerable but
murky topic of "agency and culture" by locating specific attributes and social sites of symbolic bundles that
foster agency. The more robust approach furthers the search for both by postulating that: (1) symbols have
ideal and material dimensions as do cultural and social structures; (2) cultural and social structures are
analytical properties of the same concrete social formations; (3) symbols have sites in both cultural and
social structures; (4) symbolic bundles move back-and-forth across cultural and social boundaries which
means that these two structures interpenetrate; (5) symbols and cultural structures are not synonymous and
neither are "objects" and social structures; and (6) only when symbolic bundles are accessed by social-
structural actors do they possess the capacity to become agentic; and (7) agency is defined in terms of
actors' consciousness, knowledgeability, commitment, and power. These assumptions permit us to argue
that a symbol's agentic profile rests on balancing four properties: being energizing, contributing to reality
testing, producing ethical gain, and being malleable. They also assist in understanding how "cultural"
symbols are interpreted and institutionalized by prospective agents in social structures and in locating the
main agentic sites of symbols in the latter. As a consequence, we are able generate a series of hypotheses
about social structures' key symbolic bundles and their distinctive agentic profiles. The significant agentic
potentials of scientific knowledge and ideologically linked discourses are discussed and compared.
|
Michael Lewis/Eri Noguchi (SUNY/Columbia, USA)
E-mail address: mlewis@notes.cc.sunysb.edu/en16@columbia.edu
An Exploratory Study of the Determinants of Civil Participation
|
|
This paper will explore the factors that affect civic participation, defined as people's propensity toward
becoming actively involved in community-based efforts, either as volunteers in community service
endeavors such as local fire departments, tenants or block associations, charities, and even community
policing units, as members of parent associations in local schools, as volunteers in local political
organizations, as volunteer activists in various cause-based groups (i.e. environmentalists), or even in
election campaigns and voter registration drives. While this study will consider a wide variety of
determinants, including gender, race, income, occupational status, educational level, socioeconomic
background, special characteristics of the locale in which individuals reside, especially vis a vis
opportunities for voluntarism and activism, special attention will be paid to the relationship between non-
earned income, especially government-based income transfer policies and the propensity of individuals
toward civic participation. The paper will begin by presenting a review of the theoretical literature relevant
to this topic area, the factors that have been found to affect civic participation in past research, and some
preliminary evidence base on interviews with directors of local charities and community groups as well as
existing survey data on this topic.
|
David Mednicoff (University of Massachusetts, USA)
E-Mail address: mednic@legal.umass.edu
The "Rule of Law" in Contemporary Arab Societies: New Norms for National Political Community?
|
|
The paper considers current efforts by Arab intellectuals and social movements to foster and shape the
meaning of legalism, or the idea that states should be ruled by laws rather than particular people. Legalism,
also known as the ideal of the rule or law, has been important to recent indigenous and Western discussions
of political liberalization in Arab societies. This paper legalism in the illustrative Arab societies of Morocco
and Egypt in an effort to answer three questions. First, what are the similarities and differences between the
idea of the rule of law as understood and articulated by Arabs and Westerners? Second, what are the
specific implications of these similarities and differences for the importance of the rule of law to
contemporary Arab political community? Third, given the influence of transnational and international legal
norms, what do contemporary Arab struggles to shape the content of legalism suggest more generally about
local Middle Eastern processes of adapting and resisting cultural and political globalization? Interviews
from field work in Egypt and Morocco, qualitative content analyses and studies of the two countries legal
institutions are used to answer these questions and illuminate diverse Arab perspectives on the rule of law
more generally.
|
Russell Muirhead (Harvard University, USA)
E-Mail address: muirhead@fas.harvard.edu
Left and Right: A Defense of Party Spirit
|
Party spirit, or partisanship, has a bad name: as an expression of inherited prejudice, petty ambition, or
dogmatic ideological conviction, it does not seem morally respectable. It also seems at odds with good
citizenship, which asks that we deliberate about issues impartially.
Would the good society contain party spirit? Would this be fueled by permanent ideological contestation?
Is party spirit consistent with justice? What are the roots of party spirit, and in what forms, if any, is it
respectable or even admirable?
This paper will address these questions by assessing the way several powerful strains of contemporary
political theory accommodate or undercut party spirit.
|
Hans Nuebel (Freiburg University, Germany)
E-Mail address: dekomnetz@aol.com
Give World Religions a Chance toJustify "Communitarian" World Relations?
|
|
The twin virtues, that crown the communitarian normative account (A. Etzioni NGR 245):
moral order and autonomy, we find in different equilibriums in every religious community.
Referring to recently edited texts of Max Weber we address them as world views (Weltbilder);
each world religion thereby is devoted to world mission. Meeting in global interdependence
they also seem to be functionalized by the economy and the media, by political powers and
ecological threads. In a continuous stream of reinterpretation of their original texts
their message is transferred or translated into modern language - but interpretation never
is an innocent undertaking. World religions have been confronting each other from the
very beginning. - New concepts of "mission" are under way, so that Christian mission from
the RC side may be described as a sort of "mediation" or, from the Protestant, as an embrace
after which the other must be let go in his alterity, so that his identity, enriched by the
encounter, may be preserved. Related contributions have been made by the Swiss theologian
Karl Barth and by the New Communitarian Philipp Selznick. It is important to eliminate
opposing tendencies like the idea of apocalyptic sharpening and a "mission" by rituals of
killing and self- killing. Hopeful developments appear in everyday partnerships, in the
dialogues on the global equilibrium and in the spread and growth of locally based religious
communities, especially attractive for migrants between religious traditions.
|
|
Paul Reed/Kevin Selbee (Statistics Canada/Carleton University, Canada)
E-Mail address: paul.reed@statcan.ca
What Difference Do Tax Incentives Make for Charitable Giving?
|
|
Deliberations about the magnitude and nature of tax incentives for charitable donations are routinely
framed in terms of economic reasoning and its assumption that individuals use a calculus of self-interest in
their decision-making. This study reports findings from a social analysis of traits and decision-making
associated with charitable donations, based on a very large-sample national survey of giving and
volunteering in Canada and a sub-survey of the social reasoning that donors and non-donors use. This
analysis indicates that a large proportion of charitable giving is unresponsive to tax incentives.
|
|
Paul Reed/Kevin Selbee (Statistics Canada/Carleton University, Canada)
E-Mail address: paul.reed@statcan.ca
The Significance of Social Embeddedness as an Explanatory Variable
|
|
The search for determinants of positive health has shifted away from preoccupation with biological factors
as the significant influence of such social factors as income, position in the status hierarchies, and self-
determination have become understood. Analysis of data from four large national surveys in Canada has
revealed a powerful link between individuals' social embeddedness - the extent and nature of their social
connections and anchoring values - and the level of their self-rated health. In addition to summarizing this
analysis, the paper discusses other effects of social embeddedness and the link between social
embeddedness, social engagement, and social capital.
|
|
Sean Safford (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA)
E-Mail address: ssafford@mit.edu
Agency, Social Capital and Divergent Experiences of Transformation in the Rust Belt
|
This paper explores the interaction of agency and social capital in two well-matched "rust belt" cities facing
economic crisis. By the 1970s, Allentown, Pennsylvania, and Youngstown, Ohio were remarkably well
matched in terms of geography, politics, history, culture and economic composition. They were also facing
the same set of challenges stemming from the decline of basic steel making and the restructuring of
manufacturing more generally. Today, it has become clear that the two cities responded very differently to
that crisis. Allentown has transcended its rust-belt identity through the transformation of existing firms, the
attraction of new ones and the development of a substantial entrepreneurial sector. Youngstown, on the
other hand, has suffered from a critical inability to define a new role for itself in the global economy.
The paper traces the development of communitarian social capital in both cities over the course of their
industrial development in the twentieth century. It then analyzes the ways in which actors in both cities
"deployed" accumulated stocks of social capital in responding to the economic crises of the 1970s and early
1980s. This analysis is supported by a unique network analysis that identifies the structure and
characteristics of social networks in the two cities before, during and after the steel crises. In doing so, the
research uses network analysis to explore how agency and social capital interact to pinpoint the causal
mechanisms that produce divergent histories.
|
|
Nana Sumbadze/George Tarkhan-Mouravi (Institute for Policy Studies, Georgia)
E-mail: nana@ips.ge/gia/ips.ge
Emergence of the New Community in Georgia and Its Social Impact
|
Societal patterns and institutions in Georgia have changed dramatically. In order to understand the role
and the essence of community in Georgia, taking into account of both post-Soviet and Caucasian contexts
is important, as they jointly determine its specific character here, which is mostly covering normative
aspects of everyday life, rather than coordination of collective efforts or shared responsibilities.
Socio-economic transition in Georgia exposed local developments to profound institutional
transformations, bringing basic survival strategies and subsistence economy to the front. Community
development paths here still are qualitatively different from Western analogues, even if international
actors often ignore these particularities. Due to market forces and some deliberate efforts western-type
community emerges, leading to mixture and adaptation - either traditional community acquires new roles
and responsibilities, or new type of community emerges and transforms.
Traditional communities played important role in cushioning the implications of recent economic crisis.
Emerging communities have also increasing impact on development of the civil society. At the same time,
existing communitarian patterns may also create favourable ground for clientelism and protectionism, as
obligations toward kin are often placed before responsibilities to the state and the society at large.
|
|
Kenneth H. Tucker, Jr. (Mount Holyoke College, USA)
E-Mail address: khtucker@mtholyoke.edu
Social Capital and the Public Sphere
|
|
In recent years, theorists have contended that the strengthening of civil society can facilitate the conditions
for a more vibrant democracy and a strong community. The concepts of social capital and the public
sphere encapsulate many of the most timely approaches to the issues of civil society and democracy.
Scholars such as Robert Putnam and Francis Fukuyama, representing the social capital approach, argue that
the informal values or norms promoted by participation in community life teaches people the skills of
cooperation necessary for a good society and a robust democracy. Proponents of the public sphere
approach, such as Jurgen Habermas and to some degree Anthony Giddens, claim that people need public
spaces in order to freely exercise their rational capacities to arrive at a shared sense of justice, a prerequisite
for the good society from their standpoints. In this paper, I explore the tensions between the social capital
and public sphere viewpoints. I argue that a synthetic perspective can inform a culturally rich and rational
approach to public life that can help reinvigorate civil society and democracies.
|
|
Berna Turam (Queen's University, Canada)
E-Mail address: turam@post.queensu.ca
Between Islam and the State: Misplaced Trust or Unhealthy Distrust?
|
|
The study analyzes contemporary transitions of the interaction between a leading moderate Islamic
movement and secular states in the Muslim world. Extensive, in-depth ethnographic evidence is used to
challenge the predominant juxtaposition of Islam against secular states, civil society and the West in
general. Using Turkey and Kazakstan as case studies, the paper reveals the expansion of a culture of trust
from the level of Islamic community (grass-root) to the level of secular state-Islam interaction (political-
institutional). Both Turkey and Kazakstan share the reputation as the staunchest protectors of secular
regimes in the Muslim world. They also have distinct, yet different, historical backgrounds of hostility to
Islam. However, similar to other Muslim countries, they have recently not only encountered Islamic revival
but also accommodated the Islamic movement at hand. Revealing the emergence of "political" trust, the
trust in the "state of the nation" in the Muslim world, my empirical findings problematized the taken-for-
granted hostility and threat of revivalist Islam. The major argument of the present study is that both civil
and uncivil options that Muslim societies currently have are shaped by the micro-borders, where the state
and Islamic movements engage each other. I found that the engagements ranged from contestations and
negotiations to cooperations. Hence, instead of focusing exclusively on the cause and nature of Islamization
and the taken-for-granted clash, the paper explores the conditions, under which modern Islamic revival
adapts to the secular political order, global market economy, and secular education.
|
|
Barbara Wejnert (Cornell University, USA)
E-Mail address: bw15@cornell.edu
An Interactive Model of World Democratization: A Multilevel Analysis
|
|
This study assesses the impact of a broad range of predictors on the level and rate of growth of democracy
in the world and across world regions since the early 1800s. Three features distinguish the study from
previous research on democratization. First, it proposes an interactive model of democratization based on
two sets of socioeconomic and diffusion predictors. While supporting prior findings that economically
developed countries with broad access to media are more predisposed to democratization, this study
demonstrates that equally strong predictors of world, as well as each region's democratization are processes
of diffusion. The interactive effects among socioeconomic and diffusion factors in explaining democratic
growth are tested and the extent to which the impact of each set of factors is conditional on the presence of
the other is assessed. Second, using cross-lag analyses between specific indicators and world and regional
democratization, this study examines the temporal relations between predictors and democratization,
shedding light on the causes vs. outcomes of democratization processes. Third, this study employs
multilevel modeling techniques that allow for simultaneous estimation of individual country variation each
year, as well as distinct country to country and regional variation in socioeconomic and diffusion factors.
Therefore, in addition to yearly changes in predictors within each country, the model examines the
contribution of contextual (specific to country and region) factors to democratization, independent of an
individual country's circumstances and experiences. Vast regional differences in the patterns and temporal
rate of democratization are observed thereby illuminating different paths of democratization that reflect
variations in regions' economic, social and cultural development.
|
|
Dennis Wrong (New York University, USA)
E-Mail address: dhwrong@voicenet.com
The Symbolic Animal
|
|
The earliest humans were quite probably interested in the differences between themselves and other
animals. Aristotle identified rationality as the differentia specifica of humanity and centuries later the tag
for the species became homo sapiens . Other thinkers have singled out speech, mind or consciousness,
morality, tool making, culture, "time-space distanciation" (as Giddens has called it), image making,
neurosis or emotional conflict, and awareness of mortality as distinctively human. A precondition for all
these attributes, including those with motor or motivational components, is the capacity to create symbols,
justifying Ernst Cassirer's definition of Man as "the symbolic animal." It was George Herbert Mead,
however, who showed precisely how what he called "symbolic communication" accounted for all the
distinctive human attributes including the "taking the role of the other that made his argument so appealing
to sociologists. Not "consciousness," "nor the dependence of humans on an omnipresent "society," but
"self -consciousness," the genesis of the self as an object of cognition out of a shared corpus of symbolic
"vocal gestures" was the crucial distinctively human property on which all others depended. Equivalents
of Meads's "I" and "me" have been identified by other thinkers as the essence of human consciousness such
as Sartre's "pour-soi" and "en-soi," but only Mead has traced precisely how they originate in symbolic
communication in the development of the child and, presumptively, in the prehistory of the species.
|
|