Author: Frederick Betz
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 1461412781
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 358
Get Book Here
Book Description
At both a micro-information level and a macro-societal level, the concepts of “knowledge” and “wisdom” are complementary – in both decisions and in social structures and institutions. At the decision level, knowledge is concerned with how to make a proper choice of means, where “best” is measured as the efficiency toward achieving an end. Wisdom is concerned with how to make a proper choice of ends that attain “best” values. At a societal level, knowledge is managed through science/technology and innovation. And while science/technology is society's way to create new means with high efficiencies, they reveal nothing about values. Technology can be used for good or for evil, to make the world into a garden or to destroy all life. It is societal wisdom which should influence the choice of proper ends -- ends to make the world a garden. How can society make progress in wisdom as well as knowledge? Historically, the disciplines of the physical sciences and biology have provided scientific foundations for societal knowledge But the social science disciplines of sociology, economics, political science have not provided a similar scientific foundation for societal wisdom. To redress this gap, Frederick Betz examines several cases in recent history that display a fundamental paradox between scientific/technological achievement with devastating social effects (i.e., historical events of ideological dictatorships in Russia, Germany, China, and Yugoslavia). He builds a new framework for applying social science perspectives to explain societal histories and social theory. Emerging from this methodological and empirical investigation is a general topological theory of societal dynamics. This theory and methodology can be used to integrate history and social science toward establishing grounded principles of societal wisdom.
Author: Katalin Martinás
Publisher: IOS Press
ISBN: 1607506521
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 280
Get Book Here
Book Description
Security Challenges and Opportunities. This book contains 20 papers drawn from presentations and discussions at the NATO Advanced Research Workshop on Complex Societal Dynamics Security Challenges and Opportunities, held in Zagreb, Croatia in December 2009. The theory of complex systems views
Author: The World Bank
Publisher: World Bank Publications
ISBN: 0821397087
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 245
Get Book Here
Book Description
Today's world is changing at breakneck speed, shaking the very foundations of many societies. Increased mobility through massive urbanization and migration allows people unprecedented access to different cultures and ideas; advanced technologies speed the pace of human interaction; the globalization of communication offers new forms of social relationships that may directly contradict traditional norms for behavior. These changes create tremendous stresses on relationships in societies - affecting the way youth interact with their elders, the way women and men relate to each other, how urban migrants and refugees relate to their new environments, and so on. The impacts of these changes are felt acutely in 'fragile' situations, where groups and institutions struggle to adapt to the stresses of rapid social change. In the worst cases, where fragility has given way to open violence - people are more than twice as likely to be malnourished, more than three times as likely to be unable to send their children to school, twice as likely to see their children die before age five, and more than twice as likely to lack clean water. In addition to these domestic challenges, the costs of fragility often spill over to neighboring regions in the form of trafficking in illegal goods and persons, corruption, and violence. 'Societal Dynamics and Fragility' frames a fresh approach to these challenges, by focusing on improving relationships across groups and institutions in society. Drawing on case studies from Yemen, Central African Republic, Haiti, Liberia and Aceh (Indonesia), the book provides a framework for understanding and healing the social divides that often get in the way of building capable institutions and exiting from fragility.
Author: Alexandre Marc
Publisher: World Bank Publications
ISBN: 0821396560
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 246
Get Book Here
Book Description
Societal Dynamics and Fragility aims to address the social dimensions of fragility. Prepared as a complement to the 2011 World Development Report, this book frames fragility as a problem not only of state capacity, but also of relationships in society. Drawing on analytical work in Liberia, Central African Republic, Yemen, Indonesia (Aceh) and Haiti, it recommends placing social cohesion at the center of development efforts in fragile environments by cultivating an in-depth understanding of the societal dynamics at play in each context and adapting programs to address the sources of division that hinder state building. Specifically, the book advocates a focus on perceptions of injustice at least as much as measurable inequalities, and for creating space to facilitate constructive connections between institutions, especially between customary and state structures as well as often-nascent civil society institutions.
Author: Jonathan H. Turner
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3031124480
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 260
Get Book Here
Book Description
This book by Jonathan Turner and Anthony Roberts proposes a new theoretical approach for explaining the dynamics of inter-societal systems. The authors argue that inter-societal systems have existed since the beginning of human societies and the dynamics of these systems are a fundamental property of the social universe. However, while world-systems analysis has emphasized this latter point, the authors argue the reluctance to theorize complex abstract models and systems of explanatory propositions on the dynamics driving inter-societal systems hinders scientific explanation of inter-societal dynamics. In this context, the authors critically look at contemporary theorizing and review key theories that have been developed to explain geo-economic, geo-political, and geo-cultural dynamics, from the classic period through present-day world-systems analysis and cliometrics. The book summarizes these theories clearly, emphasizing their strengths and weakness, finally developing a theoretical synthesis through new models and propositions on the dynamics of premodern and modern inter-societal systems. Professor Turner’s decades of experience writing theory books for undergraduates have ensured that this book presents abstract ideas clearly and with examples so that students can understand the arguments. This book is a must-read for all social theory researchers, academics, serious undergraduate students, graduate students, and interested laypersons.
Author: Rolf J. Kleber
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 1475794215
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 419
Get Book Here
Book Description
The editors of Beyond Trauma: Cultural and Societal Dynamics have created a volume that goes beyond the individual's psychological dynamics of trauma, exploring its social, cultural, politica!, and ethical dimensions from an international as well as a global perspective. In the opening address as International Chair of the First World Conference of the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies on Trauma and Tragedy: The Origins, Management, and Prevention of Traumatic Stress in Today's World, June 22-26, 1992, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, the conference that formed the foundation for the col lected chapters in this volume, 1 commented: This meeting is a landmark in accomplishing the Society's universal mission. Our distinguished International Scientific Advisory Committee and Honor ary Committee, whose membership was drawn from over 60 countries, the cooperation of six United Nations bodies, and the participation anei endorse ment of numerous nongovernmental organizations and institutions attest to the Society's emerging presence as a major international forum for profes sionals of ali disciplines working with victims and trauma survivors.
Author: Marvin Elliott Olsen
Publisher: Prentice Hall
ISBN:
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 644
Get Book Here
Book Description
Author: Jürgen Grimm
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317597362
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 382
Get Book Here
Book Description
Globalization, immigration and economic crisis challenge the conceptions of nations, trans-national institutions and post-ethnic societies which are central topics in social sciences' discourses. This book examines in an interdisciplinary and international comparative way structures of national identity which are in conflict with or supporting multi-ethnic diversity and trans-national connectivity. The book’s first section seeks to clarify the concepts of national identity, nationalism, patriotism and cosmopolitism and to operationalize them consistently. The next section regards the diversity within national states and the consequences for the management of identity and intra-national integration. The third section focuses on external integration between different nations by searching for the "squaring of the circle" between the bonding with co-patriots and the critical reflection of one's own national perspective in relation to others. The last section explores to what extent and in which ways media use shapes collective identity.
Author: Jan Busse
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351362364
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 389
Get Book Here
Book Description
To get a better sense of power dynamics in global politics, this book presents an innovative theoretical framework, combining a critical engagement with, and further development of, Michel Foucault’s governmentality on the one hand, and the theory of world society of the Stanford School of Sociology on the other. Making an original contribution to academic debates about power and global political order, this book develops a comprehensive theoretical perspective on power relations and political dynamics. The book starts from the presupposition that any theoretical engagement of that kind requires nuanced empirical study as well. It therefore analyzes the dynamics of world-societal order in the concrete empirical example of Palestine, and raises the question of how its political and societal order comes into existence. The author argues that governmentality represents a fundamental pattern of political order in world society that also profoundly affects power dynamics in Palestine. This insight has two important implications: First, power relations do not follow dichotomous distinctions such as international/domestic or global/local, but manifest themselves within world society. Second, therefore, order that comes into existence in Palestine needs to be understood as world-societal order. Offering a comprehensive understanding of power relations and patterns of political order(ing) embedded in world society, the book provides a deeper understanding of the complex dynamics that contribute to the political and societal order of Palestine. This book will be of interest to scholars and students of Middle East Studies, Palestine Studies, International Relations, International Political Sociology, International Relations Theory, Governmentality Studies, and Political Theory.
Author: Elizabeth Shove
Publisher: SAGE
ISBN: 1446290034
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 210
Get Book Here
Book Description
Everyday life is defined and characterised by the rise, transformation and fall of social practices. Using terminology that is both accessible and sophisticated, this essential book guides the reader through a multi-level analysis of this dynamic. In working through core propositions about social practices and how they change the book is clear and accessible; real world examples, including the history of car driving, the emergence of frozen food, and the fate of hula hooping, bring abstract concepts to life and firmly ground them in empirical case-studies and new research. Demonstrating the relevance of social theory for public policy problems, the authors show that the everyday is the basis of social transformation addressing questions such as: how do practices emerge, exist and die? what are the elements from which practices are made? how do practices recruit practitioners? how are elements, practices and the links between them generated, renewed and reproduced? Precise, relevant and persuasive this book will inspire students and researchers from across the social sciences. Elizabeth Shove is Professor of Sociology at Lancaster University. Mika Pantzar is Research Professor at the National Consumer Research Centre, Helsinki. Matt Watson is Lecturer in Social and Cultural Geography at University of Sheffield.
