Descriere: Writing about ideas, John Maynard Keynes noted that they are "more powerful than is commonly understood. Indeed the world is ruled by little else." One would expect, therefore, that political science--a discipline that focuses specifically on the nature of power--would have a healthy respect for the role of ideas. However, for a variety of reasons--not least of which is the influence of rational choice theory, which presumes that individuals are self-maximizing rational actors--this is not the case, and the literature on the topic is fairly thin. As the stellar cast of contributors to this volume show, ideas are in fact powerful shapers of political and social life. In Ideas and Politics in Social Science Research, Daniel BĂ©land and Robert Henry Cox have gathered leading scholars from a variety of subdisciplines in political science and sociology to provide a general overview of the theoretical, empirical, and methodological issues raised by social science research on ideas and politics. Throughout, they hone in on three central questions. What is the theoretical basis for studying ideas in politics? What are the best methods? What sort of empirical puzzles can be solved by examining ideas and related phenomena such as discourse, policy paradigms, and framing processes? In sum, this is a state-of-the-art academic work on both the role of ideas in politics and the analytical utility that derives from studying them.
| Editura: Oxford University Press, USA | Anul aparitiei: 2010 | ISBN: 9780199736874 | Numar de pagini: 288 | Categorie: Sociology
Emile Durkheim
Deborah Potts
Circular migration, whereby rural migrants do not remain permanently in town, has particular significance in the academic literature on development and urbanization in Africa, often having negative connotations in southern Africanist studies due to its links with an iniquitous migrant labour system. Literature on other African regions often views circular migration more positively. This book reviews the current evidence about circular migration and urbanization in sub-Saharan Africa. The author challenges the dominant view that rural-urban migration continues unabated and shows that circular migration has continued and has adapted, with faster out-migration in the face of declining urban economic opportunities. The empirical core of the book illustrates these trends through a detailed examination of the case of Zimbabwe based on the author's longstanding research on Harare. The political and economic changes in Zimbabwe since the 1980s transformed Harare from one of the best African cities to live in over this period to one of the worst. Harare citizens' livelihoods exemplify, in microcosm, the central theme of the book: the re-invention of circulation and rural-urban links in ...
Peter F. Drucker
The Age of Discontinuity: Guidelines to Our Changing Society
The closing decades of the twentieth century have been characterized as a period of disruption and discontinuity in which the structure and meaning of economy, polity, and society have been radically altered. In this volume Peter Drucker focuses with great clarity and perception on the forces of change that are transforming the economic landscape and creating tomorrow's society. Drucker discerns four major areas of discontinuity underlying contemporary social and cultural reality. These are: (1) the explosion of new technologies resulting in major new industries; (2) the change from an international to a world economy-an economy that presently lacks policy, theory, and institutions; (3) a new sociopolitical reality of pluralistic institutions that poses drastic political, philosophical, and spritual challenges; and (4) the new universe of knowledge based on mass education and its implications in work, leisure, and leadership. Peter Drucker brings to this work an intimate knowledge and objective view of the particular and general. The Age of Discontinuity is a fascinating and important blueprint for shaping a future already very much with us.