Globalization

I explore the political, economic, and cultural consequences of globalization of the reduction of space in the world. This work compares and contrasts the philosophical implications Jameson (and Marx) and Sloterdijk (with Heidegger) of globalization. The film 2001: A Space Odyssey is discussed as a metaphor for the cultural narratives Jameson and Sloterdijk provide.

O introducere în conceptele interdependente despre corupţie, globalizare prin instituţiile financiare internaţionale, şi neocolonialism înţeles ca exploatarea resurselor şi materiilor prime a ţărilor sărace şi în curs de dezvoltare de unele mari corporaţii multinaţionale. -/- CUPRINS: -/- Globalizarea - Organizarea globală a afacerilor - Comerţul internaţional - - Acordurile comerciale, blocuri economice şi zone comerciale speciale - Paradisurile fiscale - Guvernarea mondială - Mişcări anti-globalizare - - Ideologii şi cauze - - - Opoziţia faţă de instituţiile financiare internaţionale şi corporaţiilor (...) transnaţionale Colonialism - Definiţii - Tipuri de colonialism - Evoluţia socio-culturală - Consideraţii despre colonialism - - Universalism - - Colonialismul şi geografia - - Colonialism şi imperialism - - Vederea marxistă a colonialismului - - Liberalism, capitalism şi colonialism - - Gândiri ştiinţifice despre colonialism, rasă şi gen - - Post-colonialismul Neocolonialism - Dominanţa economică - - Teoria dependenţei - - Războiul Rece - - Corporaţii multinaţionale - - Fondul Monetar Internaţional Corporaţii multinaţionale - Dreptul internaţional privat - Corporaţii transnaţionale - Critici ale multinaţionalelor - Crime corporative - - Persoană juridică - - Politica de punere în aplicare - Paradisuri fiscale - - Clasificarea - - Metode de inginerie financiară - - - Rezidenţa personală - - - Rezidenţa corporativă - - - Folosirea activelor - - - Comerţul şi alte afaceri - - - Intermediari financiari - - - Acţiuni anonime şi la purtător - - - Controlul banilor şi al schimbului valutar - Mişcări anti-corporatiste - - Noua media digitală - - Creşterea globalizării anti-corporatiste - - Ajutorul tehnologiei - - Tehnologie şi politici culturale Instituţiile financiare internaţionale şi ajustarea structurală - Fondul Monetar Internaţional - - Critici ale Fondului Monetar Internaţional - Condiţiile impuse ţărilor îndatorate - Exportul de resurse şi materii prime din ţările sărace Corupţia - Nivele de corupţie - - Corupţia minoră - - Marea corupţie - - Corupţia sistemică - Corupţia în diferite sectoare - - Sectorul guvernamental/public - - Corupţia politică - - Corupţia în poliţie - - Corupţia judiciară - - Corupţia indicatelor - Metode de corupţie - - Mita - - Delapidarea, furtul şi frauda - - Extorcare de fonduri şi şantaj - Tipuri de câştiguri din corupţie - - Abuzul de putere decizională - - Favoritismul, nepotismul şi clientelismul - Prevenirea corupţiei - Programe anticorupţie - Corupţia legală - Corupţia politică - - Efecte ale corupţiei politice - - - Efecte asupra politicii, administraţiei, şi instituţiilor - - - Efectele economice - - - Efecte asupra mediului şi sociale - - - Efecte asupra ajutoarelor umanitare - Corupţia legală - Delictul de iniţiat (Insider trading) - - Analiza de securitate şi insider trading - - Uniunea Europeană Corupţia prin globalizare - Exploatarea ţărilor sărace prin corupţie - Complicitatea ţărilor bogate la corupţia din ţările sărace - Blestemul resurselor naturale: Corupţia - Globalizare > Corporaţii multinaţionale > Corupţie - Politici ale FMI şi Băncii Mondiale care încurajează corupţia Crime de stat - Încadrări în criminalitatea de stat - Practici şi riscuri ale criminalităţii de stat - Securitatea energetică - - Ameninţări la adresa securităţii energetice - Recuperarea valorilor - - Impactul social - - Descurajarea corupţiei - - Fezabilitatea curentă Activism - Activismul pe Internet - - Tipuri - Activismul transformaţional - Proteste - - Forme de protest - - - Demonstraţie publică sau miting politic - Mişcarea Occupy - - Mişcarea Indignaţilor şi Satul Democraţiei - - Sloganul "Noi suntem cei 99%" - - Scopuri ale Mişcării Occupy Legislaţie - LEGE nr.78 din 8 mai 2000 pentru prevenirea, descoperirea şi sancţionarea faptelor de corupţie - CONVENŢIA NAŢIUNILOR UNITE ÎMPOTRIVA CORUPŢIEI - - Legea nr. 365/2004 pentru ratificarea Convenţiei Naţiunilor Unite împotriva corupţiei, adoptată la New York la 31 octombrie 2003 Referinţe Despre autor - Nicolae Sfetcu - - De același autor - - Contact Editura - MultiMedia Publishing . (shrink)

In a world no longer centered on the West, what should political theory become? Although Western intellectual traditions continue to dominate academic journals and course syllabi in political theory, up-and-coming contributions of “comparative political theory” are rapidly transforming the field. Deparochializing Political Theory creates a space for conversation among leading scholars who differ widely in their approaches to political theory. These scholars converge on the belief that we bear a collective responsibility to engage and support the transformation of political theory. (...) In these exchanges, “deparochializing” political theory emerges as an intellectual, educational, and political practice that cuts across methodological approaches. Because it is also an intergenerational project, this book presses us to reimagine our teaching and curriculum design. Bearing the marks of its beginnings in East Asia, Deparochializing Political Theory seeks to decenter Western thought and explore the evolving tasks of political theory in an age of global modernity. (shrink)

Many of us assume that all the free editing and sorting of online content we ordinarily rely on is carried out by AI algorithms — not human persons. Yet in fact, that is often not the case. This is because human workers remain cheaper, quicker, and more reliable than AI for performing myriad tasks where the right answer turns on ineffable contextual criteria too subtle for algorithms to yet decode. The output of this work is then used for machine learning (...) purposes to generate algorithms constructed from large data sets containing thousands of correctly coded observations. The fact that ghost workers are treated as consumers distorts the basic logic of the employment relationship, effectively placing the worker-as-consumer in the worst of both worlds, in which they hold the legal rights of neither group. This puts them in a regulatory limbo position in which they have little or no protection, control, or guarantee of return on investment. This is because the platforms that facilitate ghost work have orchestrated a three-way virtual relationship that absolves all parties of responsibility, while placing nearly all the risks and opportunity costs squarely on the shoulders of the workers. As a result, we believe such a work arrangement as it stands, does not uphold basic standards of Rawlsian justice as fairness. (shrink)

Искусственный интеллект – последняя, хотя и иллюзорная надежда продажных и провалившихся режимов как на Западе, так и на Востоке остаться на плаву: ведь тонущий хватается и за соломинку. Но всё течёт и всё изменяется, и никаким деспотиям и деспотам не удастся остановить ход истории, как бы они этого не желали и тому не противились. Хотя у истории нет конца, но их история и история совершённых ими предательств уже закончилась. Plaudite, cives, plaudite, amici, finita est comoedia: „Рукоплещите, граждане, друзья, комедия окончена.“.

The problem of trickster leadership is discussed in this chapter in the context of the Romanian experience of modernity. This experience has emerged as a Post-Byzantine condition; it was strongly marked by the forty years of communist regimes and was loaded with a high amount of duplicity and ambivalence. The chapter argues that the communist type of trickster leadership in Romania was the outcome of a clash between two types of corruption: a domestic one and a global one. The idea (...) of ‘forms without substance’, coined in 1868 by the historian Titu Maiorescu, is shown to be indicative of the exilic condition in which Romanians remained caught even after their country became independent. The description of this paradoxical condition is followed by a review of the main eras of Romania as a modern state, arguing that this condition has led to an accumulation of disharmony and the absurd in the social fabric of the people. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to provide insights into how the proliferation of globalization has impacted labor markets both in a advanced industrialized nations and well as developing nations. Insightful analysis will be drawn from Oatley (2011) on division of labor, Jaumotte & Tytell (2007) on labor compensation, Hahn & Narjoko (2013) on the impact on South Asian Countries, Basu (2016) on wage as a share of GDP and Wallace, Gauchat & Fullerton (2011) on the impact of globalization and (...) labor markets on inequality. (shrink)

Globalization is seen positively by those to whose societies it brings measurable benefits. Claude Ake, one of the most outstanding African thinkers of the second half of the 20th century and a great advocate for constructing democracy in Africa, primarily viewed the progress of globalization in terms of its numerous dangers. In Ake's opinion, globalization negatively affects the condition of contemporary societies, whose members place increasing importance on market values and principles. He thought that when consumer identity finally triumphs over (...) civic identity, the culture of democracy will be at an end. Democracy, after all, is connected with the common good and consumption with particularism and egoism. Consumerism kills the sense of civic duty and political engagement. Even though the members of poorer societies, including African ones, are not significant consumers, the global consumer culture has an effect on their lives as well, destroying traditional ties of solidarity and transforming local cultures. In many such societies, this state of affairs produces a rise in frustration and stress, and often a desire to return to the society's origins and a strengthening of antipathy towards outsiders or 'others'. Although Ake's works contain finely-wrought arguments, his theories raise important questions and are very debatable in their trend. In this article, I consider the main underlying assumptions of Ake's ideas and analyze selected aspects. (shrink)

In this paper, I present and make a critical analysis of the thoughts of the Sierra Leonean philosopher George M. Carew, who is the author of one of the broadest contemporary visions of the political future of Africa. Carew is disappointed with the decades of authoritarian rule in African countries, which have brought about neither development nor prosperity. He believes that the only political system able to change this situation is democracy. In the opinion of this thinker, the prerequisite for (...) building and consolidating democracy in the African state is democratization of the mechanisms governing the current global political and economic order. The hierarchization and unfair, in Carew's opinion, principles governing the provision of assistance to poor countries are a substantial hindrance to the development of democracy there. Carew also enumerates several arguments supporting this thesis. The philosopher subjects various elements of the world order to a tough evaluation and is particularly critical of the mechanisms governing the decision-making processes. As a result, he is a proponent of far-reaching democratization of international economic and political relations. The significance of Carew's views consists mainly in the fact that he points out the importance of the concept of deliberative democracy for the African countries looking after their interests, as now they do not have any effective instruments of acting in the global environment. In Carew's opinion, the democratization of the world order should consist in the order being reformed in accordance with three principles which he considers the fundamental ideals of deliberative democracy: rational deliberation, participatory politics, and civic governance. Published in the book: Re-Visions and Re-Orientations: Non-European Thought in International Relations Studies, ed. by J. Zajączkowski, M.F. Gawrycki and A. Bógdał Brzezińska, Bloomsbury, London - New Delhi 2014, pp. 112-129. (shrink)

In an important article published in this journal, Dryzek, Bächtiger and Milewicz (2011) champion the convocation of a Deliberative Global Citizens’ Assembly (DGCA). In this article, I aim to further strengthen the case for a DGCA by addressing: (i) why a DGCA is likely to take a long-term perspective in the global interest and (ii) why it is so vital that a global institution should do so. I start by analyzing the nature of the issues requiring global policy. These issues, (...) I will argue, are typically global cooperation problems. Cooperation problems pose two major challenges. The first is to prevent freeriding – i.e. serving one’s short-term interests at the expense of the long-term global interest. The second is to align on an efficient global policy. In both respects, I will argue, a DGCA is a good candidate to yield desirable results (and is likely to do better than current supranational institutions). (shrink)

After the independence drive in Catalonia, we are forced back to reflect on the post-national vision for a unified Europe. Post-nationalism, at least as Habermas understands it, requires ethnic identities be replaced by rational-ideological bonds as the cornerstone of state-formation. Whether that political theory is valid remains up to debate. Yet, we must admit that post-nationalism is not the reality. The idea that we now live in a world beyond national and ethnic divides is nothing more than a preposterous pretension; (...) radical pushes toward European integration, without regard for national awareness, will surely prove to be unwise. (shrink)

[First paragraph]: On Wednesday, June 8, 2011, UK’s The Guardian reported that numerous US universities including Harvard and Vanderbilt were invested in companies that were buying large tracts of African farmland and kicking off the indigenous farmers in order for their employees (mostly non-Africans) to grow cash crops to sell to Europe.1 Harms associated with this land-grabbing include, in addition to the evictions themselves, corruption among African governments and among absentee African land owners, increased food prices, and accelerated climate change.

The discussion of the possibility of world government has been revived since the end of the Cold War and particularly after the turn of the millennium. It has engaged many authors. In this article, I provide a survey of the continuing debate on world government. I explore the leading question of the debate, whether the conditions of insecurity in which states are placed and other global problems that face contemporary humanity require the creation of a global authority, and consequently, the (...) establishment of a world state. After a careful analysis I suggest that a world state is neither necessary nor inevitable nor desirable. I argue that the plurality of nation-states that form an international society has a great advantage over a world state. It supports the diversity of character and culture, and sustains the continuous progress of humankind. (shrink)

У статті розглянуто поняття історичної ностальгії як феномену постмодерністської культури, виникнення якого спричинене кризою ідентичності та культурно-цивілізаційною кризою в глобалізованому світі. Проаналізовано низку можливих підходів до концептуалізації історичної ностальгії як туги за образом минулого. На прикладі сучасної ностальгії за Середніми віками, неомедієвалізму, що втілюється в популярних продуктах масової культури, досліджено питання ролі ескапізму і пошуку втраченої ідентифікаційної цілісності індивіда у виникненні цього явища. Сучасну історичну ностальгію автор порівнює з політичними міфами про Золотий вік.

This article reviews the recent crisis in Detroit focusing on the placement of an Emergency Manager in charge of financial decisions, and a bankruptcy process. This political disenfranchisement harmed the pensions of city employees and offered valuable real estate to investors at low prices. While the crisis was long in the making, with deindustrialization and residential segregation beginning in the 1950s, the crisis was exacerbated in 2008 with the mortgage crisis and with water shut-offs to residences. The greatest harms were (...) felt by African American families in the city. The article takes toll of the harms suffered and chronicles movements of resistance against Emergency Management and community organizing efforts. (shrink)

The recent global surge in large-scale foreign land acquisitions marks a radical transformation of the global economic and political landscape. Since land that attracts capital often becomes the site of expulsions and displacement, it also leads to new forms of migration. In this paper, I explore this connection from the perspective of a political philosopher. I argue that changes in global land governance unsettle the congruence of political community and bounded territory that we often take for granted. As a case (...) study, I discuss the European Union’s Renewable Energy Directive as a significant driver of foreign land acquisitions. Using its global power, the European Union (EU) is effectively governing land far outside of its international borders and with it the people who live on this land or are expelled from it. As a result, EU citizens ought to consider such people fellow members of their political community. This has implications for normative debates about immigration and, in particular, for arguments that appeal to collective self-determination to justify a right of political communities to exclude newcomers. The political community to which EU citizens belong reaches far beyond the EU’s official borders. (shrink)

Can international relations (IR) be a distinctive discipline? In the present paper I argue that such a discipline would be a social science that could be formulated within the perspective of comparative paradigms. The objections to scientific methods are thus overcome by the logic of international oppositions, in other words a model takes several paradigms into account and considers three kinds of foreign relation (enemy, friend, and rival) in the light of three main questions: what is IR about (ontology); what (...) does relate therein (epistemology); and how to assess such a relation (logic). (shrink)

Juha Raikka argues against disassociation from collective responsibility based on a premise of logical inconsistency insofar as the conclusion ‘one is not guilty’ does not necessarily follow from the premise that ‘everyone is guilty.’ Raikka builds his case on a fictionalized national, ethnic, or cultural group that participates in human sacrifices for the sake of ‘medical reasons’ or human health. He concedes that this fictionalized group bears an uncanny resemblance to Western society and their proposed collective responsibility for practices ranging (...) from (A) foreign conflicts to (B) Environmental pollution and (C) overconsumption of “third world” foreign natural resources. Arguably, these practices could be parsed as exercises conducive or equal to ‘human sacrifices’. Our discussion here will be all but entirely subsumed by (C). (shrink)

How should International Political Theory (IPT) relate to public policy? Should theorists aspire for their work to be policy- relevant and, if so, in what sense? When can we legitimately criticize a theory for failing to be relevant to practice? To develop a response to these questions, I will consider two issues: (1) the extent to which international political theorists should be concerned that the norms they articulate are precise enough to entail clear practical advice under different empirical circumstances; (2) (...) whether they should provide concrete practical advice on policy choice and institutional reform. These questions are related but distinct, and we should answer each quite differently. Regarding the first, I shall argue that it counts heavily against a theory if it is not precise enough to guide policy and reform given certain empirical assumptions. On the second, I will argue that theorists should be very cautious when engaging with questions of policy and institutional design. Some principles of IPT can be criticized for being insufficiently precise, but a degree of abstraction from concrete policy recommendations is a virtue, rather than a vice, of an element of IPT. I conclude that we should aim to be precise without being concrete. To help fix ideas and anchor my argument, I will discuss these issues with reference to a principle that John Rawls has advocated in his influential work The Law of Peoples (Rawls 1999a): a duty of assistance to societies that lack the capacity to satisfy the basic needs or protect the basic rights of their people. (shrink)

В настоящей статье рассматривается, как формировался, разви-вался и начал ослабевать мировой порядок, основанный на американской гегемонии, анализируются истоки установления современного мирового порядка. Дается анализ характерных черт и методов, которые используют США для поддержания своих позиций в мире. Автор показывает также, каким образом глобализация стала более выгодной для развивающихся стран, а не для развитых, а также как постепенно формировалось убеждение в неизбежности ослабления лидерских позиций США. В статье дается характеристика современной ситуации в международных отношениях как обстановки, в которой началась реконфигурация Мир-Системы. (...) Последнее должно означать наступление эпохи турбулентности и формирования новых коалиций. Это будет своего рода переходная эпоха к более устойчивому новому мировому порядку, установление которого будет нелегким делом. Во второй статье будет рассмотрено, в каком направлении и как этот новый порядок будет формироваться, каковы могут быть его принципы и возможные механизмы установления. (shrink)

Issues of sociopolitical systems’ stability and risks of their destabi-lization in process of political transformations belong to the most important ones as regards the social development perspectives, as has been shown again by the recent events in Ukraine. In this re-spect it appears necessary to note that the transition to democracy may pose a serious threat to the stability of respective sociopolitical systems. This article studies the issue of democratization of countries within globalization context, it points to the unreasonably high (...) economic and social costs of a rapid transition to democracy as a result of revolutions or of similar large-scale events for the countries unprepared for it. The authors believe that in a number of cases the authoritarian regimes turn out to be more effective in economic and social terms in comparison with emerging democracies especially of the revolutionary type, which are often incapable to insure social order and may have a swing to authoritarianism. Effective authoritarian regimes can also be a suitable form of a transition to efficient and stable democracy. The article investigates various correlations between revolutionary events and possibilities of establishing democracy in a society on the basis of the historical and contemporary examples as well as the recent events in Egypt. The authors demonstrate that one should take into account a country’s degree of sociopolitical and cultural preparedness for democratic institutions. In case of favorable background, revolutions can proceed smoothly (“velvet revolutions”) with efficient outcomes. On the contrary, democracy is established with much difficulty, throwbacks, return to totalitarianism, and with outbreaks of violence and military takeovers in the countries with high illiteracy rate and rural population share, with low female status, with widespread religious fundamental ideology, where a substantial part of the population hardly ever hears of democracy while the liberal intellectuals idealize this form, where the opposing parties are not willing to respect the rules of democratic game when defeated at elections. (shrink)

This article studies the issue of democratization of countries within globalization context, it points to the unreasonably high economic and social costs of a rapid transition to democracy as a result of revolutions or of similar large-scale events for the countries unprepared for it. The authors believe that in a number of cases the authoritarian regimes turn out to be more effective in economic and social terms in comparison with emerging democracies especially of the revolutionary type, which are often incapable (...) to insure social order and may have a swing to authoritarianism. Effective authoritarian regimes can also be a suitable form of a transition to efficient and stable democracy. The article investigates various correlations between revolutionary events and possibilities of establishing democracy in a society on the basis of the historical and contemporary examples as well as the recent events in Egypt. The authors demonstrate that one should take into account a country's degree of sociopolitical and cultural preparedness for democratic institutions. In case of favorable background, revolutions can proceed smoothly (‘velvet revolutions’) with efficient outcomes. On the contrary, democracy is established with much difficulty, throwbacks, return to totalitarianism, and with outbreaks of violence and military takeovers in the countries with high illiteracy rate and rural population share, with low female status, with widespread religious fundamental ideology, where a substantial part of the population hardly ever hears of democracy while the liberal intellectuals idealize this form, where the opposing parties are not willing to respect the rules of democratic game when defeated at elections. (shrink)

This article analyzes the global causes of the contemporary crisis and the possibilities to eliminate the most acute problems that have generated this crisis. It analyzes both the negative role of the world financial flows and their important positive functions including the ‘insurance’ of social guaranties at the global scale. In connection with the outcome of the crisis it analyzes the conditions of possible transformations of the world system and the possibility of various global scripts of its near future. It (...) gives a characteristic of the coming ‘epoch of new coalitions’; it gives some futuristic prognosis. (shrink)

Процесс старения населения захватил не только развитые страны, но и многие развивающиеся, превратившись в глобальный. Представляется, что он будет одним из самых важных процессов в ближайшие десятилетия, определяющим облик общества буду-щего и направление развития технологий. В статье дается анализ некоторых параметров процесса старения населения, показыва-ются его важные следствия для общества и мира в целом. На ос-новании этого анализа делается вывод о том, что грядущий тех-нологический переворот (обозначаемый авторами как завершаю-щая фаза кибернетической революции) и предполагаемый шестой технологический уклад, связанный с наступающей (...) шестой конд-ратьевской волной, будут связаны в первую очередь с прорывами в медицине и смежных с ней технологиях. Также авторы представ-ляют свой взгляд на финансовые инструменты решения проблемы пенсионного обеспечения увеличивающегося пожилого населения в развитых странах. Они считают, что при более целенаправленном использовании денег пенсионных фондов, направлении их (при нуж-ных гарантиях) на образование и рост квалификации молодежи развивающихся стран возможно частично облегчить указанную проблему в развитых государствах. (shrink)

With the further growth of the world population and the further intensification of the processes of interaction between countries and increasing movements of the masses of people, the role of Political Demography becomes more and more important. Issues of global ageing, migration, low fertility in developed countries (or very high fertility in some African countries), high mortality in many developing states (including deaths from AIDS); rapid change in the ethnic composition in Europe and in several other regions and many other (...) pressing issues are in the focus of this discipline. Some of these problems are analyzed in this yearbook. However, among those issues, the issue of global ageing becomes more and more pressing every year. It is sufficient to take into account the point that within two forthcoming decades a rapid global increase in the number of retirement-age persons will lead to its doubling within this fairly small historical period. The concerns about population ageing apply to both developed and many developing countries and it has turned into a global issue. In the next decades the population ageing is likely to become one of the most important processes determining the future society characteristics and directions of technological development. (shrink)

Мировой порядок как система определенных идей и правил, господ-ствующих в международной политике, стал формироваться в Европе начиная с XVI в., окончательно утвердившись в XIX столетии. Однако этот порядок держится обычно в пределах трех-четырех десятилетий, а затем под влиянием изменившихся обстоятельств и нового баланса сил меняется. В настоящее время мы как раз переживаем период смены ми-рового порядка и начала формирования новой его системы. В статье анализируется начало ослабления мирового порядка, основанного на американской гегемонии, рассматриваются характерные черты и методы, которые используют США (...) для поддержания своих позиций в мире. Автор показывает, почему не могла надолго установиться абсолютная американская гегемония, каким образом глобализация стала более выгодной не для развитых, а для развивающихся стран, как постепенно формировалось убеждение в неизбежности ослабления ли-дерских позиций США. В статье дается характеристика современного положения в международных отношениях как ситуации, когда началась реконфигурация Мир-Системы, что должно означать наступление эпохи турбулентности и формирования новых коалиций. Это будет своего рода переходная эпоха к более устойчивому новому мировому порядку, становление которого будет непростым. Автор высказывает идеи от-носительно того, в каком направлении и как этот новый порядок будет формироваться, о возможных принципах этого порядка и механизмах его установления. (shrink)

The paper discusses some aspects of integration of different regions and societies in the course of historical globalization. Within historical globalization one can observe a close correlation between such important processes as technological transformations, urbanization, political integration, struggle for political hegemony, etc. In the paper we analyze these correlations to associate historical globalization with phases of expansion. Within the expansion process we point out seven levels from the local level through the planetary one. The most significant changes were associated with (...) crucial technological breakthroughs, or production revolutions, and other related transformations like the Urban Revolution. The latter can be regarded as a phase transition of the Afroeurasian world-system to a qualitatively new level of complexity. There are also several periods which one can define as landmarks in the world-system history. The paper also offers some theoretical ideas about cycles of divergence and convergence. (shrink)

Section 1 of this article presents a mathematical analysis of the longterm global urbanization dynamics and demonstrates that it could be described as a series of phase transitions between attraction basins. This makes it possible to suggest new approaches to the analysis of global social macroevolution. Section 2 presents a threestage model of the macroevolution of the World System statehood (early – developed – mature state) that, we believe, describes the main features of political macroevolution better than the twostage model (...) proposed by Claessen and Skalník (early – mature state). This model has been used as a basis for the analysis of changes in the development of political structures from the prestate polities and the most primitive early states (and their analogues) till the modern supercomplex states. In this section we also analyze the relationship between the growth of the territory controlled by the World System states and the growth of the statehood complexity. Finally, Section 3 attempts at the detection of the correlation between the global evolution of political structures and global urbanization processes. This study confirms the presence of a system of attraction basins and phase transitions within the World System macroevolutionary development field, as well as the presence of mathematically interpretable correlations and interrelations between the analyzed global processes – political, urbanizing, demographic, technological, and sociostructural. (shrink)

he paper analyses migration flows from the Philippines in two gendered occupations: domestic helpers and computer programmers. The international division of labour theory claims that foreign investment determines migration from developing countries, especially of women, towards low-skilled gendered occupations in developed countries. This paper shows that the division of labour is neither gendered nor international in the predicted sense. For instance, data from Philippines Overseas Employment Agency shows that the theory is Eurocentric as Northern America and Europe are destinations for (...) only 3 per cent of domestic workers’ flows. The paper argues that neo-Marxism creates bias in gender and migration research and hinders understanding of important gendered effects concerning migrants. Two examples of such gendered effects are highlighted here: the higher vulnerability to legislative change of migrant men employed as domestic workers in Italy and the higher penetration of women into computer programming in the migrant flows to the U.S. (shrink)

This article has been on ways by which developing countries can go back to the basics of project management as a means for developmental goals. Project management has proven to be an effective and flexible management approach, which has the potential of being of great value to developing countries. There is a need for a stronger emphasis on project implementation as a training mechanism for developing indigenous skills. Improved planning, administrative and technical capacity must be defined as project outputs. The (...) need for highly trained development administrators, especially those with project management skills, is a recurring theme of international assistance evaluation reports. Developing countries require two types of trained project administrators: those who can plan and coordinate the entire project cycle as an integrated process and those who can manage the project as an organizational entity once it is selected and approved (Rondinelli, 1976). (shrink)

This chapter expounds relational values characteristic of indigenous Africa and considers how they might usefully be adopted when contemporary societies interact with each other. Specifically, it notes respects in which genuinely human or communal relationship has been missing in the two contexts of globalization and international relations, and suggests what a greater appreciation of this good by the rest of the world would mean for them.

This book explores the nature of moral responsibilities of affluent individuals in the developed world, addressing global poverty and arguments that philosophers have offered for having these responsibilities. The first type of argument grounds responsibilities in the ability to avert serious suffering by taking on some cost. The second argument seeks to ground responsibilities in the fact that the affluent are contributing to such poverty. The authors criticise many of the claims advanced by those who seek to ground stringent responsibilities (...) to the poor by invoking these two types of arguments. It does not follow from this that the affluent are meeting responsibilities to the poor. The book argues that while people are not ordinarily required to make large sacrifices in assisting others in severe need, they are required to incur moderate costs to do so. If the affluent fail consistently to meet standards, this fact can substantially increase the costs they are required to bear in order to address it. (shrink)

GLOBALIZATION, ARAB SPRING AND THE CHANGING SOCIAL VALUES By Socrates Ebo, PhD -/- ABSTRACT -/- The tumultuous and eponymous events that set-off socio-political changes in the Maghreb from November 2010 were a confirmation or, better still, manifestation of a lager process which had gradually but steadily emerged a major factor in the socio-economic formation of the globe. This factor is no other than the process of globalization; a process that was heightened by the revolutions in Information and Communication Technology (ICT) (...) and the emergence of the New Media. Until the days of the social media, strong men who held authoritarian sway in the Maghreb carried on without any qualms as to the security of their political formation. But the New Media revolution changed all that. This work captures the role of globalization in the revolutions that swept through the Maghreb which have come to be known as the Arab Spring. -/- . (shrink)

Caritas in Veritate leaves us with a question, Does Benedict XVI see politics as a practice or as an institution? How one answers this question has tremendous implications for how one should address the inequalities of contemporary society and the increasing globalization of the world. Alasdair MacIntyre, for instance, would consider politics to be primarily a practice with a good internal to its activities. This good consists in rational deliberation with others about the common good. If one considers politics an (...) institution, however, as seems to be the case with Jacques Maritain, then one pays less attention to the common good and more attention to the mechanics of the political institution. The difference in understanding goes a long way toward how one conceives of, determines, and achieves the common good, a central task for Catholic social teaching. It also prefigures whether and how one can justify self-sacrifice for the common good, demanded of police officers and soldiers, for instance, as well as whether and how one prioritizes the practices of a given political community. Caritas in Veritate (CIV) brings to the forefront issues of self-sacrifice and prioritization of practices at the global level. This paper shall address the position Benedict XVI lays out on globalization with reference to a global politics through the lens of the common good and the distinction between practice and institution. (shrink)

Walter Reese-Schäfer, Karl-Otto Apel, Zur Einführung (with an Afterword by Jürgen Habermas), Junis Verlag GmbH, Hamburg 1990, 176pp. DM 17.80 -/- The author, presently a freelance writer published in the newspaper “Die Zeit” and the magazine “Stern,” pro­vides in this small book a clear and concise introduction to sources, themes and conclusions in the philosophy of Karl-Otto Apel. Apel, Emeritus Pro­fessor at Frank­furt, and close colleague of Habermas, characterizes his viewpoint as a “transcen­dental pragmatism” in which a Kantian concern for (...) question regarding “the conditions for the possi­bility of some­thing,” (p.10) mixes with deontological discourse-ethics, semeiotic themes from Peirce, an ap­proach to fallibilism, the demand for “final justifica­tions” (Letzt­begründung) and German her­meneutics. In view of the “den­sity and concentration” of Apel’s texts, which often have a “deterrent effect” upon those not already at home with “the phil­osophical language game,” it is the announced aim of this book to provide a work of translation and clarification of Apel’s special­ized efforts --in effect an orientation to Apel’s work. The book divides into an Introduction, 8 chapters and a summary conclusion --with Habermas’ appreciation, “A Master Builder with Hermeneutic Feeling --The Way of Philosopher Karl-Otto Apel,” bringing up the rear. There is also a bibliography of primary and secondary sources and a short table outlining highlights of Apel’s career. The “Introduction” provides a good overview of the aims of the book and gets one started on central themes. (shrink)

Since the mid-twentieth century, treatments of code switching and associated practices have converged toward understanding linguistic hybridity and diverse sociality amid accelerating globalization of peoples, social groups, and commodified languages. This chapter reviews four traditions of code switching research that suggest divergent theoretical perspectives on language and identity. The first, established in the 1960s within the ethnography of communication, situates code switching as a product of local speech community identities. Research on language and political economy in the 1980s initiated a (...) second tradition, which analyzes language alternation with reference to the contrastive nation-state identities constituted through processes of nationalism. A third tradition, influenced by the discursive turn in the 1990s, views code switching as a resource in urban minority communities for the performance of multicultural and interethnic identities. A fourth tradition, developed since the millennium, focuses on hybrid identities as the social corollary to the language mixing brought about through accelerated globalization. (shrink)

While there need be no conflict in theory between addressing global inequality (inequalities between people worldwide) and addressing domestic inequality (inequalities between people within a political community), there may be instances in which the feasible mechanism for reducing global inequality risks aggravating domestic inequality. The burgeoning literature on global justice has tended to overlook this type of scenario, and theorists espousing global egalitarianism have consequently not engaged with cases that are important for evaluating and clarifying the content of their theories. (...) This chapter explores potential tensions between promoting global and domestic inequality. We introduce a class of second-best scenarios that global justice theorists have neglected to demonstrate the importance of such scenarios as an aid to constructing and evaluating ideals of global justice. (shrink)

This paper has two aims. The first is to describe several sources of the moral responsibility to remedy or alleviate global poverty—reasons why an agent might have such a responsibility. The second is to consider what sorts of agents bear the responsibilities associated with each source—in particular, whether they are collective agents like states, societies, or corporations, on the one hand, or individual human beings on the other. We often talk about our responsibilities to the poorest people in the world, (...) or what we owe them. So the question is who this we is. I shall argue that the answer depends on the source of the responsibility. Some responsibilities—one species of causal responsibilities—belong in the first instance to collectives, although they will also trickle down to at least some individuals within the collective. Other responsibilities—humanitarian responsibilities, and a different species of causal responsibilities—belong in the first instance to individuals, but can, I shall argue, “trickle up” to collectives of which individuals are members. (shrink)

It is a report on the Interim World Congress of Philosophy in New Delhi (India) in 2006.

In light of the relation between culture and markets, an analysis of cultural evolution reveals that globalization will not lead to the homogenization of world cultures.

Food Sovereignty is a vibrant discourse in academic and activist circles, yet despite the many shared characteristics between issues surrounding food and public health, the two are often analysed in separate frameworks and the insights from Food Sovereignty are not sufficiently brought to bear on the problems in the public health discourse. In this paper, I will introduce the concept of 'self-organised community viability' as a way to link food and health, and to argue that what I call the 'Health (...) Security' paradigm requires a 'Health Sovereignty' response modelled on Food Sovereignty. (shrink)