Cultural foundations of military diffusion

2006 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 69-91 ◽  
Author(s):  
EMILY O. GOLDMAN
Keyword(s):  
Social Networks ◽  
Power Relations ◽  
International System ◽  
Military Power ◽  
Cultural Foundations ◽  
History Of ◽  
Military Innovations ◽  
Technological Opportunities ◽  
Transnational Social Networks ◽  
Cross National

This article examines cross-national variation in the diffusion and adoption of military technologies and ideas. The history of warfare has been marked by periods of innovation in which the institutions and practices of war-making adapted in response to technological opportunities, and social and political developments. As information about new practices spreads, through the demonstration effects of innovating states or transnational social networks, military innovations have diffused throughout the international system. Diffusion can restructure power relations as states leverage new capabilities to increase their military power and enhance their international influence.

PLAYING WITH FIRE COLLECTIVELY: CONTEMPORARY CULTURAL RITES AS DEVISERS AND OUTCOMES OF COMMUNITY NETWORKS

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alba Colombo ◽  
Jaime Altuna ◽  
Esther Oliver-Grasiot
Keyword(s):  
Social Networks ◽  
Social Context ◽  
Power Relations ◽  
Symbolic Capital ◽  
Community Networks ◽  
Mutual Dependence ◽  
Community Solidarity ◽  
Symbolic Content ◽  
The Relationship

Popular festivities and traditional events are important moments in which symbolic content, deep emotions and community solidarity are developed. However, there has been little research on the relationship between such events and their social networks and the power relations within these networks. This paper explores the ability of community events and networks to reflect and strengthen social context. Rather than observing the capacity of the event to generate a network, we focus on identifying how the event network is constructed, and how it creates relationships between the different groups, or nodes, within broader social networks. The case analysed is the Correfoc de la Mercè, a traditional firework event in Barcelona involving the Colles de diables, or Catalan popular fire culture groups. Our findings show that there is a bidirectional link or a mutual dependence between the groups (or nodes) and the event, which also support the development of shared social and symbolic capital.

When the World Laughs

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
William V. Costanzo
Keyword(s):  
Far East ◽  
Close Attention ◽  
The Far East ◽  
Regional Trends ◽  
Values And Beliefs ◽  
History Of ◽  
National Boundaries ◽  
Lost In Translation ◽  
Cross National ◽  
Film Comedy

This is a book about the intersection of humor, history, and culture. It explores how film comedy, one of the world’s most popular movie genres, reflects the values and beliefs of those who enjoy its many forms, its most enduring characters and stories, its most entertaining routines and funniest jokes. What people laugh at in Europe, Africa, or the Far East reveals important truths about their differences and common bonds. By investigating their traditions of humor, by paying close attention to the kinds of comedy that cross national boundaries and what gets lost in translation, this study leads us to a deeper understanding of each other and ourselves. Section One begins with a survey of the theories and research that best explain how humor works. It clarifies the varieties of comic forms and styles, identifies the world’s most archetypal figures of fun, and traces the history of mirth from earliest times to today. It also examines the techniques and aesthetics of film comedy: how movies use the world’s rich repertoire of amusing stories, gags, and wit to make us laugh and think. Section Two offers a close look at national and regional trends. It applies the concepts set forth earlier to specific films across a broad spectrum of sub-genres, historical eras, and cultural contexts, providing an insightful comparative study of the world’s great traditions of film comedy.

scholarly journals The hierarchical society: the politics of self-determination and the constitution of new states after 1919

2019 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 372-396
Author(s):  
Maja Spanu
Keyword(s):  
World War I ◽  
International Relations ◽  
International Society ◽  
International System ◽  
World Politics ◽  
League Of Nations ◽  
Self Determination ◽  
World War ◽  
New States ◽  
History Of

International Relations scholarship disconnects the history of the so-called expansion of international society from the presence of hierarchies within it. In contrast, this article argues that these developments may in fact be premised on hierarchical arrangements whereby new states are subject to international tutelage as the price of acceptance to international society. It shows that hierarchies within international society are deeply entrenched with the politics of self-determination as international society expands. I substantiate this argument with primary and secondary material on the Minority Treaty provisions imposed on the new states in Central, Eastern and Southern Europe admitted to the League of Nations after World War I. The implications of this claim for International Relations scholarship are twofold. First, my argument contributes to debates on the making of the international system of states by showing that the process of expansion of international society is premised on hierarchy, among and within states. Second, it speaks to the growing body of scholarship on hierarchy in world politics by historicising where hierarchies come from, examining how diverse hierarchies are nested and intersect, and revealing how different actors navigate these hierarchies.

Dialect contact and phonological reallocation: “Canadian Raising” in the English Fens

1997 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 15-46 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Britain
Keyword(s):  
Social Networks ◽  
Demographic History ◽  
Structuration Theory ◽  
Compelling Evidence ◽  
Dialect Contact ◽  
British English ◽  
Speech Communities ◽  
Allophonic Variation ◽  
History Of ◽  
Local Variable

ABSTRACTThis article reports on research carried out in the Fens in Eastern England, a region noted in the dialectological literature as the site of a number of important phonological transitions, most notably [] and [a – a:], which separate northern and southern varieties of British English. Recordings of 81 speakers from across the Fens were analyzed for the use of (ai), a particularly salient local variable. A “Canadian Raising” type of allophonic variation was found in the central Fenland: speakers in this area used raised onsets of (ai) before voiceless consonants but open onsets before voiced consonants, morpheme boundaries, and //. The article weighs a number of possible explanations for the emergence of this variation in the Fens. Based on compelling evidence from the demographic history of the area, it supports a view that such an allophonic distribution, previously thought not to be found in Britain, emerged as the result of dialect contact. The sociolinguistic process of koinéization that is commonly associated with post-contact speech communities (Trudgill 1986) is held responsible for the focusing of this allophonic variation from the input dialects of an initially mixed variety. The article concludes by suggesting a socially based explanatory model to account for the way that speakers implement processes of focusing and koinéization in areas of dialect contact. [English, dialects, contact, koiné, geographical linguistics, social networks, structuration theory)

Dependency in Africa: Stages of African Political Economy

1983 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 229-247 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amechi Okolo
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
International System ◽  
Raw Material ◽  
The West ◽  
Cheap Labour ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Common ◽  
First Contact ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Relationship

This paper traces the history of the relationship between Africa and the West since their first contact brought about by the outward thrust of the West, under the impetus of rising capitalism, in search of cheap labour and cheap raw material for its industries and expanding markets for its industrial products, both of which could be better ensured through domination and exploitation. The paper identifies five successive stages that African political economy has passed through under the impact of this relationship, each phase qualitatively different from the other but all having the common characteristic of domination-dependence syndrome, and each phase having been dictated by the dynamics of capitalism in different eras and by the dominant forces in the changing international system. Its finding is that the way to the latest stage, the dependency phase, was paved by the progressive proletarianization of the African peoples and the maintenance of an international peonage system. It ends by indicating the direction in which Africa can make a beginning to break out of dependency and achieve liberation.

Brothers or others in arms? Civilian constituencies and rebel fragmentation in civil war

2017 ◽  
Vol 55 (1) ◽  
pp. 62-77 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eric S Mosinger
Keyword(s):  
Social Networks ◽  
Regression Analysis ◽  
Collective Action ◽  
Diffusion Model ◽  
Theoretical Framework ◽  
Quantitative Evidence ◽  
Rebel Groups ◽  
Two Factors ◽  
Cross National

Why do united rebel fronts emerge in some insurgencies, while in other insurgencies multiple rebel groups mobilize independently to challenge the state, and often, each other? I develop a diffusion model of rebel fragmentation in which participation in rebellion spreads, completely or incompletely, through networks of civilians and dissidents. Using this theoretical framework I hypothesize that two factors jointly determine whether a rebel movement remains unified or fragments: the rebels’ investment in civilian mobilization, and the overall level of civilian grievances. The theory predicts that widely shared grievances motivate the formation of many small dissident groups willing to challenge the regime. Given the difficulty of collective action between disparate opposition actors, an emerging rebel movement will tend towards fragmentation when popular grievances are high. Yet extremely high civilian grievances can also help rebels activate broad, overlapping civilian social networks that serve to bridge together dissident groups. Mass-mobilizing rebel groups, benefiting from the participation of broad civilian networks, are most likely to forge and maintain a unified rebel front. I test this theory alongside several alternatives drawn from cross-national studies of conflict using regression analysis. The quantitative evidence lends considerable credence to the role of rebel constituencies in preventing or fomenting rebel fragmentation.

The Cambridge History of America and the World

2021 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
The United States ◽  
Military Power ◽  
American Empire ◽  
Global Power ◽  
Cultural Terms ◽  
The World ◽  
Fourth Volume ◽  
History Of

The fourth volume of The Cambridge History of America and the World examines the heights of American global power in the mid-twentieth century and how challenges from at home and abroad altered the United States and its role in the world. The second half of the twentieth century marked the pinnacle of American global power in economic, political, and cultural terms, but even as it reached such heights, the United States quickly faced new challenges to its power, originating both domestically and internationally. Highlighting cutting-edge ideas from scholars from all over the world, this volume anatomizes American power as well as the counters and alternatives to 'the American empire.' Topics include US economic and military power, American culture overseas, human rights and humanitarianism, third-world internationalism, immigration, communications technology, and the Anthropocene.

Investigating the political economy of the territory: The contradictory responses of organisations to spatial inequality

Organization ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 135050842110612
Author(s):  
Daniel S Lacerda
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Power Relations ◽  
Division Of Labour ◽  
Spatial Inequality ◽  
The Political ◽  
Civil Society Organisations ◽  
Dialectical Tension ◽  
History Of ◽  
Territorial Division

The spatial imaginations of organisations can be particularly insightful for examining power relations. However, only recently they have gone beyond the limits of the workplace, demonstrating the role of the territory for organised action, particularly in mobilising solidarity for resistance. In this article, I investigate power relations revealed by the political economy of the territory to explain contradictory actions undertaken by organisations. Specifically, I adopt the theoretical framework of the noted Brazilian geographer Milton Santos, who recognises spatial multiplicity and fragmentation while maintaining an appreciation of the structural conditions of the political economy. This perspective is particularly useful for the analysis of civil society organisations (CSOs) in a Brazilian favela (slum), given the context of high inequality perpetuated by the selective flows of urban development. First, I show that the history of favelas and their role in the territorial division of labour explain the profiles of existing organisations. Then, I examine how the political engagement of CSOs with distinct solidarities results in a dialectical tension that leads to both resistance based on local shared interests and the active reproduction of central spaces even if the ends are not shared. The article contributes to the literature of space and organisations by explaining how territorial dynamics mediate power relations within and across organisations, not only as resistance but also as the active reproduction of economic and political regimes.

The International System, Labor-Force Structure, and the Growth and Distribution of National Income, 1950–1980

1992 ◽  
Vol 35 (2) ◽  
pp. 249-282 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Fiala
Keyword(s):  
Labor Force ◽  
World Economy ◽  
International System ◽  
National Income ◽  
National Development ◽  
Developed Countries ◽  
Force Structure ◽  
The World ◽  
Residual Plots ◽  
Cross National

The primary goal of the present study is to use cross-national data on labor-force structure to examine the manner in which the international system shapes the character of national development, and the consequences of variation in development strategy for the growth and distribution of national income. A complementary goal is to illustrate the use of residual plots to overcome the “black box” character of cross-national studies, and thereby provide a bridge to case-study research. Multivariate analyses and residual plots provide results congruent with both world-political-economy and developmental perspectives, and indicate that the world economy may be used by lesser developed countries to obtain more rapid and equitable economic growth, although this was not a natural outcome of the world economy in the 1960s and 1970s.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document