scholarly journals The Systems Perspective on the Transformation Towards Sustainability

2020 ◽  
pp. 105-124
Author(s):  
Ariel Macaspac Hernandez
Keyword(s):  
Natural Hazards ◽  
Unexpected Events ◽  
Systems Perspective ◽  
Preventive Effort ◽  
The Us ◽  
National Governments ◽  
Us Intervention

AbstractFrom the systems perspective, the ultimate ‘Angst’ of societies is the occurrence of ‘dystopian’ system rupture, which can be the outcome not only of unexpected events leading to the elimination of principles that bind actors together (e.g., identity), but also by purported solutions that create further ‘horrendous’ events. System ruptures are not only linked with natural hazards such as earthquakes, hurricanes, floods, and pandemics (such as the Ebola outbreak), but also with collapsing national governments and regimes, for example following the outbreak of a popular revolt after a state-sanctioned escalation of violence (e.g., Mubarak’s Egypt and Ghadafi’s Libya) or an outside intervention (e.g., Saddam Hussein’s regime in Iraq following the US intervention). Assuming that transformation can be either a response to a collapsed system or a preventive effort to avert collapse, this chapter starts by looking at the cognitive aspects of transformation in terms of experiences.

Epilogue

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
José van
Keyword(s):  
Paradigm Shift ◽  
Information Age ◽  
The Other ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Checks And Balances ◽  
The Us ◽  
Autocratic Regime ◽  
Digital Strategy ◽  
National Governments ◽  
State Interference

The epilogue sketches a few scenarios on potential geopolitical consequences of the global paradigm shift toward multiple online platform “spheres.” Currently, the neoliberal US-based platform ecosystem dominates. This ecosystem revolves around the promotion of individualism and minimal state interference, leaving checks and balances to the market. On the other end of the ideological spectrum is the Chinese ecosystem, in which the autocratic regime controls the platform ecosystem via regulated censorship of tech corporations. Squeezed between the US and the Chinese models is the European Union, whose member states neither own nor operate any major platforms in either ecosystem. For European democracies to survive in the information age, its cities, national governments, and supranational legislature need to collaborate on a blueprint for a common digital strategy toward markets and public sectors.

The globalization of TikTok: Strategies, governance and geopolitics

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 273-292
Author(s):  
Lianrui Jia ◽  
Fan Liang
Keyword(s):  
Business Models ◽  
Global Media ◽  
Digital Platforms ◽  
Government Relations ◽  
Platform Governance ◽  
The Us ◽  
Rise Of China ◽  
Global Platform ◽  
National Governments ◽  
The Rise Of China

This article examines the rise of TikTok in three aspects: globalization strategies, data and content policies, and geopolitical implications. Instead of focusing on app features and uses within the platform proper, we situate and critically analyse TikTok as a platform business in a global media policy and governance context. We first unpack TikTok’s platformization process, tracing how TikTok gradually diversifies its business models and platform affordances to serve multisided markets. To understand TikTok’s platform governance, we systematically analyse and compare its data and content policies for different regions. Crucial to its global expansion, we then look at TikTok’s lobbying efforts to maintain government relations and corporate responses after facing multiple regulatory probing by various national governments. TikTok’s case epitomizes problems and challenges faced by a slew of globalizing Chinese digital platforms in increasingly contested geopolitics that cut across the chasms and fault lines between the rise of China and India as emergent powers in the US-dominated global platform ecosystem.

Internationalization of the State under US Hegemony and Japanese Quasi-Hegemony: Promoting Industrialization and Disciplining Labour, 1945–2000

2004 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jim Glassman
Keyword(s):  
Trade Unions ◽  
Industrial Development ◽  
Labour Force ◽  
The State ◽  
Industrial Transformation ◽  
Industrial Manufacturing ◽  
State Apparatus ◽  
The Us ◽  
Depth And Complexity ◽  
Us Intervention

The fashion in which the Thai peasantry was captured has heavily conditioned the development of the industrial labour process and labour markets. Thai workers did not simply appear at the factory gates when and where they were needed and in possession of the requisite skills. Rather, new streams of marginalized peasants began to join older streams of immigrant Sino-Thai workers as the capitalist transformation of agriculture proceeded, and the ways in which these new streams entered the industrial labour force depended in part upon the ways they were removed from agriculture. Beyond this, the state did not merely passively witness the absorption of former peasants into the industrial labour force but actively abetted the process through a variety of measures, ranging from state promotion of industrial development to investment in education and training of workers. The Thai state also actively shaped the labour market through its alternating suppression and promotion of trade unions, a matter addressed in this chapter. The state functions that are integral to the industrial transformation described here were carried out by internationalized segments of the Thai state, including one—the Department of Labour—that would typically be associated with national corporatism, thus illustrating the depth and complexity of the internationalization process. The internationalization of capital and the state around industrial manufacturing development has been more complicated than the internationalization of capital and state in the capture of the peasantry both because of this depth and complexity and because of the overlapping roles played by two hegemons. Whereas the capture of the peasantry was the product of collaboration between Thai and US elites, the disciplining of the industrial labour force involves more multifaceted collaboration among Thai, US, and Japanese elites—as well as transnational statist institutions. Furthermore, there has been some historical phasing of the relative influence of the two hegemons, with US influence declining after the mid-1970s and Japanese influence increasing. Finally, whereas the US intervention in Thailand aimed directly at transforming the structures of state power along with the economy, the Japanese state has been more inclined to make use of the existing state apparatus and to transform its functions, where necessary, through sheer economic power.

Turning Point

Peacemakers ◽  
2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
James W. Pardew
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Turning Point ◽  
Former Yugoslavia ◽  
International Effort ◽  
The Balkans ◽  
The Us ◽  
Western Values ◽  
Us Intervention ◽  
The Eu ◽  
Local Leaders

The breakup of Yugoslavia is a turning point in international relations with consequences far beyond the region. The US intervention in the former Yugoslavia reestablishes American leadership in Europe. It revitalizes and reforms NATO and the EU and creates new relationships with the UN. The international effort in the former Yugoslavia creates seven new nations oriented toward Western values. Importantly, the US engagement creates an opportunity to replace ethnic conflict with democracy in the Balkans. While the US should remain engaged, success depends on the commitment of local leaders to change.

The First World War and the Institutionalization of International Relations as an Academic Discipline

2020 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
pp. 58-64
Author(s):  
Veronika Stoilova
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Academic Discipline ◽  
Decisive Role ◽  
Political Life ◽  
Diplomatic History ◽  
Woodrow Wilson ◽  
Military Alliances ◽  
The Us ◽  
National Governments

This paper focuses on the stimulating role of WW1 in the process of separation, establishment and institutionalization of international relations (IR) as an academic discipline in its own right. It is well documented that these processes began immediately after 1919 with the creation of IR departments in European and American universities where training in International relations, International law, International politics, and other specific disciplines in the larger area of IR was provided.Our main thesis is that the atrocities of the first European and world catastrophy led to a better understanding of the decisive role which the relations between national governments, and especially the relations between military alliances, played in the world political arena. This, in its turn, led to the realization that these relations should be the prime target of the investigations of specific disciplines which must have their legitimate share in Bachelor, Master and Doctoral programs.In this paper we also examine the significant role of the US President Woodrow Wilson, himself an outstanding academic authority, in International history and relations, and his efforts to raise awareness and to the establishing of IR departments as legitimate entities of university structures. Special emphasis is put on the hopes of the international community that through separating IR from Diplomatic history, Law, Politology and other kin disciplines, under the auspices of which IR had previously existed, the international political life could be significantly ‘humanized’ since the future diplomats, the international and governmental leaders will be trained in the IR departments in the spirit of humanistic values related to peace, stability and prosperity.

The Pitfalls of Realist Analysis of Global Capitalism: A Critique of Ellen Meiksins Wood's Empire of Capital

2007 ◽  
Vol 15 (3) ◽  
pp. 71-93 ◽  
Author(s):  
William Robinson
Keyword(s):  
Recent Work ◽  
Global Capitalism ◽  
Nation State ◽  
Capitalist System ◽  
Us Imperialism ◽  
State Apparatus ◽  
The Us ◽  
Realist Analysis ◽  
New Imperialism ◽  
Us Intervention

AbstractThe dynamics of the emerging transnational stage in world capitalism cannot be understood through the blinkers of nation-state-centric thinking. In her study Empire of Capital, Ellen Meiksins Wood exhibits the reification and outdated nation-state-centric thinking that plagues much recent work on world capitalism and US intervention, expressed in the confusing notion of a 'new imperialism'. The overarching problems in Wood's study – and, by extension, in much of the 'new-imperialism' literature – is a reified notion of imperialism, a refusal to draw out the analytical, theoretical, methodological, and epistemological implications of capitalist globalisation, and an incessant reification of the state. Instead of a 'new US empire', the current epoch is best understood as a new transnational phase in the ongoing evolution of world capitalism, characterised in particular by the rise of truly transnational capital, globalised circuits of accumulation, and transnational state apparatuses. 'US imperialism' refers to the use by tansnational élites of the US state apparatus to continue to attempt to expand, defend and stabilise the global capitalist system. US militarisation and intervention are best understood as a response to the intractable contradictions of global capitalism.

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