The ‘Class Struggle’ in Africa: An Examination of Conflicting Theories

1964 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
pp. 379-393 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kenneth W. Grundy

Wellover 50 years ago, John Mensah Sarbah, a Gold Coast lawyer, romantically described the traditional social order in these terms: ‘In the African social system the formation of a pauper class is unknown, nor is there antagonism of class against class.’1Similar views still prevail throughout most of Africa and the western world. Moreover, a rationale based on this ostensible ‘classlessness’ is employed by Africa's leaders to justify single-party rule and the repression of dissident elements in society, and to explain and defend policies of African socialism.

Worldview ◽  
1968 ◽  
Vol 11 (6) ◽  
pp. 6-12
Author(s):  
Paul W. Blackstock

The Liberal's Dilemma and the Anarchism of Youth. The sensitive individual in the Western world has nearly always been impelled to protest the injustices of. the political and social order in which he finds himself. For example, very early in life Stephen Spender observed that "to be born is to be a Robinson Crusoe, cast up by elemental powers upon an island," that "all men are not free to share what nature offers here … are not permitted to explore the world into which they are born." Throughout their lives they are "sealed into leaden slums as into living tombs." To this general awareness of the plight of the poor, the New Left in this country has added a sense of burning moral indignation that the colored minority has also been sealed into ghettos and deprived of civil rights and human dignity.


2021 ◽  
pp. 3-38
Author(s):  
Debasish Roy Chowdhury ◽  
John Keane

This introductory chapter traces the origins and resilience of the idea of India as the world’s largest democracy. Democracy was neither a gift of the Western world nor uniquely suited to Indian conditions. India was in fact a laboratory featuring a first-ever experiment in creating national unity, economic growth, religious toleration, and social equality out of a vast and polychromatic reality, a social order whose inherited power relations, rooted in the hereditary Hindu caste status, language hierarchies, and accumulated wealth, were to be transformed by the constitutionally guaranteed counter-power of public debate, multiparty competition, and periodic elections. Efforts to build an Indian democracy are said to have done more than transform the lives of its people. India fundamentally altered the nature of representative democracy itself. India’s democratic credentials, however, face new scrutiny as a result of the executive excesses of a populist demagogue as governing institutions crumble. The chapter argues that India’s democratic decline actually goes back further. It looks at the destructive effects of the long-standing neglect of the social foundations of India’s democracy and considers the possible mutation of democracy into a strange new kind of government called despotism.


1986 ◽  
Vol 40 (4) ◽  
pp. 322-329
Author(s):  
Homer A. Bain

Discusses the issues of whether caregivers expect their clients to return to society primarily to conform to or to reform the larger social order. Points out some of the tensions implicit in soul care as it becomes more involved in the social arena, and offers suggestions for seeing the complementarity as well as the tension between individual and social system interventions.


2017 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 111-120
Author(s):  
Indah Sri Utari

The community of inmates children as a unique and unique social system is difficult to understand when viewed only from the outside, so it is necessary to systematically attempt to know the values, norms, relationships, and objectives-through where and with what they are living, and understand both their own experiences and the world in which they liveThe situational system of the inmates children as human beings (although in this case is the child) to be fostered, is one of the important elements in the whole process of assistance in the Penitentiary is no exception to the Children Penitentiary in Kutoarjo. The entire penitentiary system design, from the assistance program, the assistance mechanism, and the assistance implementation, is actually determined by the circumstances and the reality of the people who are to be fostered, the inmates.The reality of the children inmates who are always on the "social order" in their various communities is essentially constantly changing. Specifically, this study finds links between: the institutional reality of a children penitentiary, which includes the factual circumstances concerning facilities and infrastructure, and the administrative aspects of KutoarjoChildren Penitentiary. The reality of the member of KutoarjoChildren Penitentiaryin the form of identified number of occupants, placement systems, and formal and informal groupings of the targeted children in addition to the build and formed a community of the assisted children in KutoarjoChildren Penitentiary and the basic elements of the Social System of the Auxiliaries in all the community of assisted children and etc.As Soerjono Sukanto said that even though human "convicts" live in a confined state, they instinctively want to interact with fellow inmates. This instinct is referred to as "gregariousness" (Soekanto: 1998: 73), which in the last instance will give birth to so-called "social groups". In this context created social structure, social system, norms and so on.


2019 ◽  
Vol ENGLISH EDITION (1) ◽  
pp. 112-125
Author(s):  
Tomasz Kuźmicz

In my essay I try to depict the superheroes from Polish People’s Republic and how they served as embodiments of the ideal vision of a proper citizen, as advocated by the communist authorities. I also trace the differences between them and their Western counterparts, such as Superman or Batman, based on the example of Andrzej Kondratiuk’s Hydro-puzzle. First of all, the social order they upheld and tried to maintain was presented by propaganda as a total antithesis of the Western world – consumptionist, filled with depravation – the root of all imaginable evil. In spite of that, Hydro-puzzle was not only a grotesque parody of American superhero films but also a mocking critique of the communist reality.


2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 91-108
Author(s):  
A. Т. Sikharulidze

Georgia’s turn to the West signifi cantly aff ected its geopolitical and foreign policies. The author shares the view expressed by Georgian scholars that the country’s continued commitment to the Western vector is a direct consequence of ideas expressed by political elites (constructivist theory) and their self-identifi cation as “European,” coupled with Western-style liberal democracy as a social order preference (liberal theory). Georgia’s political elites are driven by the concept of “Europeanness” and thus focus primarily on the state’s aspirations to be integrated into the “Western world,” which is pushing the state towards European and North-Atlantic integration. Georgian elites believe that institutional reunifi cation with “European family” under the NATO defence shield will not only deter Moscow but will fi nally put an end to Moscow’s attempts to bring the post-soviet state under its control. Moreover, due to the tensions between the generalized West and Russian Federation, the Kremlin’s aspirations to stop what it perceives as a geopolitical expansion of the West to the east, Georgia’s approach has become even more radical. The paper argues that the concept of “Europeanness” has been transformed into “radical Europeanness,” meaning that the political elites maintain economic cooperation with non-Western countries, but there is no proactive foreign policy beyond that, even with its most important strategic partners, namely Armenia, Azerbaijan and Turkey. In spite Tbilisi enjoys trade relations with these countries, the existing level of political and military cooperation between them conceals signifi cant bilateral challenges. Additionally, this approach is perfectly refl ected in Georgia’s relations with China, when the country’s political elites pushed for free trade, without attention to the political and geopolitical aspects of economic cooperation. Thus, Georgia – China relations are also the part of research interest in this paper, as the free trade regime between the two countries is subject to serious scrutiny after the Donald Trump administration made it clear that Washington would not welcome Chinese economic and geopolitical expansion in Georgia.


Author(s):  
Hryhorii Sytnyk ◽  
Mariia Orel

The purpose of the article is to analyze the factors on which the stability of the social order depends and to substantiate the expediency of its priority in the sphere of national security. The scientific novelty of the article is the justification of the interrelationship between national security and the stability of the social order in the need’s context to merge society around the goals that guarantee its security. Conclusions. The study shows that the sustainability of the social order ensures the existence and security of society and social institutions. We analyzed the axiological dimension of social order and sustainability through the disclosure of the social function of value orientation. We see them as the basis for the choice of action of the elements of social systems. In this context, we emphasized justifying the importance of a conceptual framework for its sustainability that considers the socio-cultural specificities of society and the values of the indivisible. We have shown that the main reason for the danger of social order and stability leading to the disintegration of society is the disparity of traditional values. They inform society of the ideological principles, program goals, and legal norms concerning its existence and the development of the State, which are determined by the highest political leadership. This makes it advisable to study the social system in question, its hierarchical levels, and their interrelationships. Hierarchical levels (moral, legal, conceptual) are described, their interrelationship is described, and it shows the category of sustainability to reflect the qualitative and quantitative assessment of the social order as a social system. Level – the quality (conflict-free) of its internal structuring. Emphasis has been placed on the desirability of distinguishing, at the conceptual level, the social order from the conceptual and ideological, and programmatic aspects this ensures that political decisions are made at the strategic level of public administration and that the strategic objectives of society, the means, and means of achieving them in national security, are justified. It has been established that the most effective means of destroying the State is to generate the prerequisites for threatening the stability of the social order, Therefore, the priority task of the actors of public administration and administration is to develop and implement a set of measures aimed at structuring and harmonizing principles, values and objectives at and between hierarchical levels of social order. We have identified basic prerequisites for the effectiveness of these measures, including mutually agreed goals, timetables, means, and methods of implementing strategies for socio-political and socio-economic development. Key words: social order, national security, public administration, social order and stability risks, value orientations, social order levels


Worldview ◽  
1978 ◽  
Vol 21 (4) ◽  
pp. 6-11 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter L. Berger

A specter is haunting the Western world— the specter of the New Class. The apparition is new, as yet not clearly perceived; even the language by which it is to be described is only beginning to be constructed. This is not surprising. Whenever a class makes its debut on the societal stage it is at first not recognized as such, either by outside observers or by those- who are themselves part of it. Instead, society continues for a while to be perceived and interpreted in terms that were appropriate to the class system that is already passing away. This was very much so during the last great transformation of the Western class system, as the bourgeoisie rose to power under the facade of the ancien regime and, until the very moment of its victory, continued to be seen as the "third estate" of a feudal order. Then as now it is the hard facticity of power rather than the play of ideas that finally must shatter the old perceptions. Then as now it is the antagonists of the rising class who have the clearer vision of what is going on.


Open Theology ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jessica Wai-Fong Wong

AbstractRecent surges of immigration in Western countries have produced statements about what successful assimilation requires. While it is commonly believed that proper assimilation in the West is rooted in shared democratic values, this article argues that beneath such values lies a Christian image of humanity, which, due to the colonial endeavor, is mostly clearly manifest by the white body. As a result of the link between whiteness, Christianity, and civility that develops within the western colonial context and persists into early twentieth-century U.S. immigration, one’s spiritual state as well as one’s fitness for social inclusion are judged along racial lines. By identifying this relationship, the present essay demonstrates the role that Christianity has played in the relentless, racially rooted visual distinction of those who are judged to fit within civilized society and those who are seen as a threat to the established social order.


1988 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
pp. 317-334 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bernard H. Moss

France is perhaps the only country in the Western world which because of the predominance of class-struggle unionism has not developed a system of mutually binding collective bargaining. The Auroux Laws enacted under the presidency of Francois Mitterrand were chiefly designed to encourage workplace participation and contractual partnership between unions and management. This article examines their origins, rationale and short-term results to illustrate the dependency of legally-induced collective bargaining on the broader economic and political environment. Under depressive labour market and political conditions the reforms barely altered existing relationships. Their potentially integrative effects were vitiated by union weakness, radical opposition and the absence of material incentives for cooperation. While the reforms helped shift the focus of labour relations from the industry to the firm, it was a process dominated by management that left little room for collective participation or free and consensual bargaining.


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