African Political Change and the Modernisation Process

1963 ◽  
Vol 1 (4) ◽  
pp. 425-440 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martin Kilson
Keyword(s):  
Social Change ◽  
Conceptual Framework ◽  
Political Development ◽  
Political Change ◽  
Free Term ◽  
Political Systems ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
New Institutions ◽  
The Mind

This essay attempts to outline, and partially to expound, a conceptual framework for studying political change during the colonial and post-colonial periods.It should be noted at the outset that the term ‘political change’ is purposely used instead of such terms as ‘political development’ or ‘political progress’, with reference to nationalism, organised groups, administrative evolution, and so on, in developing areas. This is more nearly akin to the rather value-free term ‘social change’ used by sociologists and anthropologists ever since the 1920's.1 Basic alterations in political systems do not occur through a simple addition of new institutions, norms, and procedures; rather, the process of political change involves its own set of inter-related norms, institutions, and procedures. It may be that the term ‘political change’ may better evoke this image in the mind of students of politics, just as the term ‘social change’ seems to do for sociologists and anthropologists.

scholarly journals Political Development Crisis In The Arab Dimension

2015 ◽  
pp. 33-52
Author(s):  
I V Kudryashova
Keyword(s):  
Political Institutions ◽  
Political Development ◽  
Political Change ◽  
Social Groups ◽  
Institution Building ◽  
Political Systems ◽  
Low Efficiency ◽  
The Arab Spring ◽  
Growing Mass ◽  
Development Crisis

The article explores political change detected by the «Arab spring” in the Arab states. Its events and effects are interpreted as an expression of the destabilization of the Arab political systems under the pressure of growing mass expectations accompanied by the weakness of ties between different social groups, and low efficiency, as well as legitimacy, of political institutions. The development crises are studied in the contexts of regime change, formation of new political and cultural civic orientations, and institution building.

scholarly journals Institutions and Pastoralist Conflicts in Africa: A Conceptual Framework

2021 ◽  
pp. 154231662199573
Author(s):  
Dennis Amego Korbla Penu ◽  
Sebastian Angzoorokuu Paalo
Keyword(s):  
Conflict Management ◽  
Conceptual Framework ◽  
Relevant Literature ◽  
State Level ◽  
Typical Case ◽  
Institutional Changes ◽  
Policy Documents ◽  
Institutional Pluralism ◽  
Development Outcomes ◽  
New Institutions

Pastoralist conflicts are important global development outcomes, especially in Africa. Analysing relevant literature on this phenomenon, we identify “institutions” as a key but fragmented theme. This blurs a composite understanding of how institutions affect these conflicts and their management. Hence, this article proposes a conceptual framework that brings harmony to this discourse by analysing 172 relevant publications. The framework was then tested using evidence from interviews and policy documents collected on a typical case in Agogo, Ghana. The findings show that pastoralist conflicts in Africa are shaped from three main dimensions: institutional change, institutional pluralism, and institutional meanings. Thus, state-level institutional changes create different institutions at the community level, and stakeholders using these institutions place different evaluations on them based on obtained outcomes. These dynamics contribute to conflict management dilemmas. Hence, the study recommends that intervention efforts examine whether new institutions contradict existing ones and to resolve them before implementation.

Conceptualizing social media sub-platforms: The case of mourning and memorialization practices on Facebook

2021 ◽  
pp. 146144482110357
Author(s):  
Sarit Navon ◽  
Chaim Noy
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Social Change ◽  
Conceptual Framework ◽  
Integrated Approach ◽  
Social Practices ◽  
Personal Quality ◽  
Hybrid Nature ◽  
Communicative Functions

This article offers a conceptual framework of Facebook’s sub-platforms: Profiles, Groups, and Pages. We demonstrate the crucially different affordances that these sub-platforms possess, and the various resulting social practices and dynamics that they enable. With mourning and memorialization as a case study, our findings point at emergent practices ranging along a personal-to-public spectrum of communicative functions and media uses: Profiles offer a personal quality, albeit differently for the bereaved’s Profile and the deceased’s Profile; Groups possess a hybrid nature, combining self-expression alongside public aspects, reviving thus premodern bereaved communities; and Pages possess a distinctly public quality, serving as online memorialization centers where the deceased becomes an icon and a resource for mobilizing broad social change. This comparative and integrated approach may be applied productively to other contexts and other social media (sub-)platforms.

scholarly journals Securing Authority: The View from the Top

1972 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
pp. 271-292 ◽  
Author(s):  
Raymond F. Hopkins
Keyword(s):  
Political Development ◽  
Political Change ◽  
Nation Building ◽  
The Political ◽  
New States ◽  
Political Conditions ◽  
Traditional Patterns

Although the literature on political development has been remarkably insightful, hopes for a science of “nation-building” have not been realized. While numerous works have described the effects of traditional patterns, ethnic and linguistic cleavages, and rapid mobilization, and have investigated factors such as culture, bureaucracy, ideology, and parties, we have learned very little about how to alter favorably the political conditions these have fostered. Political scientists, more often than not, have documented obstacles to, and failures in, political change desired by leaders in new states, rather than explored strategies whereby such change might be realized.

scholarly journals The Metamorphosis of the Victim of Crime: From Crime to Culture and the Implications for Justice

2016 ◽  
Vol 5 (4) ◽  
pp. 4-16 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sandra Walklate
Keyword(s):  
Social Change ◽  
Side Effects ◽  
Third Party ◽  
Trauma Narrative ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
The Mind ◽  
Bear Witness ◽  
As If

Beck (2015: 81) observes, metamorphosis ‘is proceeding latently, behind the mind walls of unintended side effects, which are being constructed as ‘natural’ and ‘self-evident’. Thus Beck’s concept of metamorphosis conceives of social change as unnoticed and unacknowledged. Such change is evident in the contemporary ever present invocation of the ‘victim’ in a wide range of different, crime-soaked circumstances. This paper is concerned to explore this metamorphosis of the ‘victim’ in reflecting on two narratives: the victim narrative and the trauma narrative. The contemporary conflation of these two narratives has led Agamben (1999: 13) to suggest that policy has proceeded as if ‘“testis” (the testimony of a person as a third party in a trial or a law suit) can be conflated with “superstes” (a person who has lived through something and can thereby bear witness to it)’. The paper makes the case that this conflation has consequences for understandings of justice.

Experiments with Khomeini's Revolution in Kargil: Contemporary Shi‘a networks between India and West Asia

2014 ◽  
Vol 48 (2) ◽  
pp. 370-398 ◽  
Author(s):  
RADHIKA GUPTA
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Social Change ◽  
Local Politics ◽  
Religious Practice ◽  
Reform Movement ◽  
Financial Flows ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
Colonial India ◽  
Religious Networks ◽  
Insight Into

AbstractShi‘i scholars from India have been a sizeable presence in seminaries in Iran and Iraq, both historically and today. Yet there is a dearth of scholarship on Shi‘i linkages between India and West Asia, with the exception of historical work on the patronage of shrine cities in Iraq by centres of Shi‘ism in India. Departing from this geographical and historical focus, this paper lends insight into contemporary religious networks between India and West Asia, using the example of the Twelver Shi‘a in Kargil, a region located on India's ‘border’ with Pakistan in the province of Kashmir. Kargili scholars travelled overland via Afghanistan or by sea from Bombay to Basra to study in seminaries in Iraq and Iran from the nineteenth century onwards. Increasing fluency in Urdu in post-colonial India enabled them to connect with Shi‘i institutions in other parts of India, which mediate religious, cultural, and financial flows from a transnational Shi‘ite realm. These networks ofreligiouslearning are not only conduits for the transmission of textual, doctrinal knowledge, but also for politico-religious ideologies that are selectively harnessed, and often exaggerated, to effect significant social and political changes in micro-locales. While local conflicts are over-determined by the evocation of transnational links, they also reflect, even if only through rhetorical and partial reproduction, doctrinal and politico-religious schisms among Shi‘i leaders in West Asia. This is illustrated by an ethnographic account of the activities undertaken and contestations provoked by the Imam Khomeini Memorial Trust in Kargil, a modernist reform movement that has selectively appropriated Khomeini's revolutionary ideologies to instigate social change and shape local politics and religious practice in Kargil.

Variations among North African Military Regimes

2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 55-78
Author(s):  
Federico Battera
Keyword(s):  
Political Development ◽  
Armed Forces ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Systems ◽  
North African ◽  
Military Rule ◽  
Military Regimes ◽  
Supreme Council ◽  
The Stability ◽  
The Military

This article explores the differences between two North African military regimes—Egypt and Algeria—which have been selected due to the continuity of military dominance of the political systems. Still, variations have marked their political development. In particular, the Algerian army’s approach to civilian institutions changed after a civilian president was chosen in 1999. This was not the case in Egypt after the demise of the Hosni Mubarak regime of 2011. Other important variations are to be found in the way power has been distributed among the military apparatuses themselves. In the case of Egypt, a principle of collegiality has been generally preserved within a body, the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF), which is absent in the case of Algeria, where conflicts between military opposed factions are more likely to arise in case of crisis. How differences generally impact the stability of military rule in these two cases is the main contribution of this paper.

Compassionate Reasoning, the Mind, and Moral Choice

2021 ◽  
pp. 79-130
Author(s):  
Marc Gopin
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Social Change ◽  
Problem Solving ◽  
Moral Reasoning ◽  
Moral Choice ◽  
Extensive Training ◽  
Positive Social Change ◽  
Fierce Competition ◽  
The Mind ◽  
Obedience To Authority

The ethical schools of thought are essential to decision-making for peacebuilding and positive social change. The directives emerging from ethical schools often contradict each other, but Compassionate Reasoning can help resolve these contradictions and guide people in a more coherent direction of thinking and acting. The cultivation of compassion is shown to be a glue that bonds schools of ethics into one enterprise of moral reasoning as seen through several lenses. People who reason together are more adept at problem solving than when reasoning alone, but only if they have cultivated caring and compassionate relationships as a group. Moral reasoning in fierce competition with others, by contrast, retards the discovery of solutions to thorny problems. Compassionate Reasoning encourages collective reasoning rather than isolated and selfish reasoning. Excessive obedience to authority is also one of the most dangerous aspects of the human lower brain. A critical antidote is extensive training in taking the perspectives of others through Compassionate Reasoning.

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