Militarism, Capitalism, and the Nation-State: Towards a Realist Synthesis

1987 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 283-302 ◽  
Author(s):  
J Lovering
Keyword(s):  
Industrial Complex ◽  
Science Literature ◽  
Theoretical Frameworks ◽  
Capitalist Production ◽  
State Institutions ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Social And Economic Development ◽  
The Many ◽  
The Military ◽  
The Relationship

Military activities currently play a major role in social and economic development, even in noncombatant countries, This fact has received remarkably little attention in the social science literature, until recently. As a result, the theoretical frameworks which are available for the analysis of military activities arc underdeveloped. In this paper it is argued that there are in effect two such frameworks, derived from the Marxist and Weberian traditions, respectively. The many weaknesses of these, and the conflicts between them, are blurred rather than resolved in most recent studies of military phenomena, such as the ‘military industrial complex’. This is because the theory of the relationship between capitalist production and state institutions embedded in each perspective is seriously inadequate. A realist reconstruction is presented which highlights the significance of the national form of the state, and the contingent nature of capitalist production. This is designed to provide a new framework for appraising military activities, but it has implications for a wide range of questions concerned with the relationship between capital and state.

Biological Diversity and Ecosystem Functions

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Oswald J. Schmitz
Keyword(s):  
Ecosystem Services ◽  
Environmental Change ◽  
Biological Diversity ◽  
Ecosystem Functions ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
The Many ◽  
The Relationship

This chapter reflects on the relationship between biodiversity and ecosystem functions. Drawing connections between ecosystem functions and ecosystem services can make the concept of sustainability less nebulous. It offers tangible ways to translate science into practice by revealing the intricacies of nature and the many threads that link humans to nature through such intricacies. Establishing such connections illustrates why it is important to ensure that ecosystem functions endure. The chapter shows how the New Ecology is helping us appreciate how and why the complex ways that species that have evolved and forged interdependencies with each other matter to sustainability. It argues that maintaining diversity within ecosystems ensures that a wide range of options is available for adapting to environmental change.

scholarly journals The Needs for Developing Experiments on Reservoirs in Hantavirus Research: Accomplishments, Challenges and Promises for the Future

Viruses ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (7) ◽  
pp. 664 ◽  
Author(s):  
Madrières ◽  
Castel ◽  
Murri ◽  
Vulin ◽  
Marianneau ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Evolutionary Ecology ◽  
Experimental Studies ◽  
Mortality Rates ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
The Future ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Many ◽  
Human Infections ◽  
The Relationship

Due to their large geographic distribution and potential high mortality rates in human infections, hantaviruses constitute a worldwide threat to public health. As such, they have been the subject of a large array of clinical, virological and eco-evolutionary studies. Many experiments have been conducted in vitro or on animal models to identify the mechanisms leading to pathogenesis in humans and to develop treatments of hantavirus diseases. Experimental research has also been dedicated to the understanding of the relationship between hantaviruses and their reservoirs. However, these studies remain too scarce considering the diversity of hantavirus/reservoir pairs identified, and the wide range of issues that need to be addressed. In this review, we present a synthesis of the experimental studies that have been conducted on hantaviruses and their reservoirs. We aim at summarizing the knowledge gathered from this research, and to emphasize the gaps that need to be filled. Despite the many difficulties encountered to carry hantavirus experiments, we advocate for the need of such studies in the future, at the interface of evolutionary ecology and virology. They are critical to address emerging areas of research, including hantavirus evolution and the epidemiological consequences of individual variation in infection outcomes.

Introduction

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew Ford
Keyword(s):  
Industrial Complex ◽  
Military Innovation ◽  
Military Industrial Complex ◽  
Personal Rights ◽  
Democratic Control ◽  
Alliance Partners ◽  
Distribution Of Power ◽  
The Military ◽  
Back Office ◽  
The Relationship

There are many ways of thinking about guns. Guns can be seen through the lens of gender or identity, as a matter of personal rights or from the perspective of the engineer interested in design features and standardization. This book considers firearms from the perspective of military innovation and seeks to map socio-technical change from the battlefield to the back-office: from soldiers and engineers to scientists and bureaucrats, from alliance partners to industry. In the process this book describes the distribution of power within the military industrial complex and asks us to reflect on the relationship between technology and strategy and democratic control over weapon selection.

Liberal hospitality

The Athenaeum ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 133-156
Author(s):  
Michael Wheeler
Keyword(s):  
Public Life ◽  
The Political ◽  
Science Literature ◽  
Religion And Science ◽  
New Members ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Arts ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Social Backgrounds

This chapter assesses the Athenæum's 'hospitality' towards a wide range of ideologies and social backgrounds among candidates and members. Non-partisan politically, it accommodated both sides in the Reform debates of the 1830s, with members engaging in pamphlet wars rather than calling for resignations, as happened at the political clubs. Similarly, the pattern of early Rule II elections indicates a willingness to introduce new members of outstanding ability in science, literature, and the arts who were known to be the chief antagonists of equally prominent existing members. The chapter looks at some of the flashpoints in the club's history between 1860 and 1890, when liberal opinion in politics, religion, and science assumed the ascendancy in Britain, and the Athenæum strove to maintain its tradition of tolerance and balance. It is at these flashpoints, and at times when conservative sexual mores influenced public life, that the relationship between national developments and the life of the club, conducted on the margins between the private and the public, is most revealing.

The Practice of Fulfilling the State Order by Private Industrial Enterprises at the Beginning of the XX Century (On the Example of the “Trade and Industrial Society of Alafuzov’s Factories and Plants”)

2021 ◽  
Vol 17 (4) ◽  
pp. 329-340
Author(s):  
Viktor M. Arsentyev ◽  
Andrey E. Makushev
Keyword(s):  
Life Support ◽  
The State ◽  
Industrial Society ◽  
Industrial Complex ◽  
Legal Analysis ◽  
Additional Material ◽  
Industrial Enterprises ◽  
Imperial Russia ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
The Military

Introduction. One of the priorities of economic policy in imperial Russia has traditionally been to ensure the effective performance of functions and the satisfaction of the military-strategic needs of the state. At the same time, the most important instrument for the implementation of this kind of policy was the system of state orders. At the beginning of the XX century it was a key component of the state’s life support system. Methods. The study was carried out on the basis of the principles of historicism, objectivity and consistency, the use of which in aggregate made it possible to interpret the available information on the topic as fully and deeply as possible, to consider the object of research, taking into account the peculiarities of the historical environment in conjunction with a wide range of external factors. To solve the set tasks, elements of the methods of historical and legal analysis were used, which made it possible to consider the object of research in the context of the development of Russian legislation. Results. On the basis of materials from archival files, regulatory legal acts, as well as data from published sources, the process of making state supplies to the military department was analyzed on the example of a separate industrial enterprise – “Trade and Industrial Society of Alafuzov’s Factories and Plants”. In the context of studying the practice of interaction between the management of Alafuzov’s company and government agencies, the authors consider the key features of the organization of the system for fulfilling a government order for the supply of industrial products, and also identifies the main difficulties that arose in the course of its implementation. Discussion and Conclusion. The study showed that the execution of state supplies by Alafuzov’s factories was fraught with a number of difficulties. The urgency of fulfilling orders required the mobilization of additional material and labor resources, complicating the process of managing a rather extensive and diversified industrial complex, requiring additional efforts, knowledge and abilities from representatives of the management level. The main part of the difficulties in the execution of contracts was associated not so much with the organization of the production and labor process, but with the interaction with the departments responsible for the acceptance of the supplied products. On the example of Alafuzov’s factories, it is possible to see inconsistency in the activities of individual structural links of this system, which gave rise to a number of difficulties for the executors of the state order. The reasons for this kind of difficulties were, on the one hand, failures in the operation of the mechanism for accepting goods when organizing state supplies, on the other hand, factors of a subjective nature, generated primarily by insufficient competence of responsible persons.

Why the Soviets Buy the Weapons They Do

1984 ◽  
Vol 36 (4) ◽  
pp. 597-618 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew A. Evangelista
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Bureaucratic Politics ◽  
Industrial Complex ◽  
Internal Factors ◽  
Military Industrial Complex ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Nuclear Policy ◽  
Weapons Procurement ◽  
The Military

The authors of three recent books attempt to account for Soviet military developments by exploring a wide range of possible explanations. In Soviet Strategic Forces, Berman and Baker adopt a“requirements“approach; they argue that the Soviet strategic posture has developed mainly in response to threats generated by the West. Andrew Cockburn, in The Threat, maintains that internal factors—in particular, bureaucratic politics and the workings of the military-industrial complex—are responsible for Soviet weapons decisions. David Holloway's more eclectic explanation, in The Soviet Union and the Arms Race, describes both the internal and external determinants of Soviet military policy. The evolution of Soviet regional nuclear policy, and particularly the deployment of the SS-20 missile, can be accounted for by several different explanations—indicating a problem of overdetermination of causes. One way to resolve this problem is by adopting a framework developed by James Kurth to explain U.S. weapons procurement. It suggests that the“modes of causation” for Soviet weapons decisions are generally the opposite of those for American decisions. This generalization is consistent with what an analysis based on the relative strengths of state and societal forces in the two countries would predict.

scholarly journals Les dépenses militaires soviétiques ou le fardeau de la défense soviétique

2005 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 535-548
Author(s):  
Carl G. Jacobsen
Keyword(s):  
Political Culture ◽  
Industrial Complex ◽  
The West ◽  
Goods And Services ◽  
Military Industrial Complex ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
New Research ◽  
The Military ◽  
Defence Expenditure ◽  
Independent Calculation

Our understanding of the Soviet defence burden remains woefully inadaquate. The official Soviet defence expenditure figure is not helpful. It is not inclusive. There is no concensus on what or how much is covered by other budget accounts. Soviet statistics do not allow independent calculation. Official Western estimates, on the other hand, are equally dubious. They reflect more on Western political dynamics than on Soviet reality. The Soviet defence industry is not immune from the vicissitudes of the economy at large. The Soviet military do not enjoy carte blanche. They contribute extensively to civilian needs, both in terms of goods and services. But, in turn, they extract benefits from a wide range of civilian endeavors. The military-political culture, rooted in an older Moscovy, and reinforced by Lenin's Clausewitzian leanings, is quite different from that which prevails in the west. There is no military-industrial complex threatening the Soviet State. In the USSR the military is OF the State, integral to a wider establishment. The military burden cannot be specified, for much is inextricably fused with the burden of State, and culture. It is systemic. It will be sustained. Because it is OF the System. Western debate is ethnocentric. We need new research, new under standing.

The Many Lines of Defense: The Political Economy of US Defense Acquisition

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eugene Gholz ◽  
Harvey M Sapolsky
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Dynamic Balance ◽  
The United States ◽  
Direct Result ◽  
Industrial Complex ◽  
Defense Acquisition ◽  
Private Companies ◽  
Public And Private ◽  
The Many ◽  
The Military

Abstract Political economy infuses the process that generates military power, notably including weapons acquisition. In the United States, defense acquisition follows a dynamic balance of interests among the private companies that design and build weapons, the military services that use weapons, and the legislators that appropriate money to pay for weapons. That process belies the simplistic conventional wisdoms that explain acquisition as a direct result of strategic need or as dictated by a unified military-industrial complex. A political economy approach that recognizes the complexity of interests—public and private, expert and political—best explains what weapons get built, by whom, where, and when.

EARLY FORMATIVE PERIOD BIRD USE AT PASO DE LA AMADA, MEXICO

2018 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
pp. 311-330
Author(s):  
Katelyn J. Bishop ◽  
Thomas A. Wake ◽  
Michael Blake
Keyword(s):  
Holistic Approach ◽  
Formative Period ◽  
Archaeological Sites ◽  
Early Date ◽  
Ritual Performance ◽  
The Pacific ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
The Many ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Early Formative

Avifaunal remains from archaeological sites have a largely unrecognized explanatory potential. Archaeological, ethnohistoric, and ethnographic records have shown that, especially in Mesoamerica, birds and their products have served a wide range of utilitarian, decorative, and symbolic purposes. Despite their ability to inform research on many aspects of prehistoric life, avifaunal remains from archaeological contexts remain under-studied. This paper demonstrates how a holistic approach to their analysis—one that explores several types of human-bird interaction—can move beyond studies of subsistence. A previously reported and newly updated avifaunal collection was reanalyzed to shed light on the relationship between the many uses of birds and the establishment of hereditary inequality at Paso de la Amada, an Early Formative period ceremonial center on the Pacific coast of Chiapas, Mexico. Results indicate that Early Formative people used birds as a source of food, feathers, and bone, and that the ritual use of birds was an important component of status display. Even at this early date, birds were symbolically valuable and played a role in ritual performance, suggesting that their later significance in Mesoamerican ritual, religion, and iconography has an antecedent beginning no later than 1700 BC.

An Organizational Perspective on the Military-Industrial Complex

1978 ◽  
Vol 52 (2) ◽  
pp. 250-267 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert D. Cuff
Keyword(s):  
World War I ◽  
The United States ◽  
Industrial Complex ◽  
World War ◽  
Goods And Services ◽  
Military Industrial Complex ◽  
Private And Public ◽  
The Military ◽  
Future Work ◽  
The Relationship

Is there a “military-industrial complex” in the United States? What is the relationship between business, government, and the military with its needs for vast quantities of goods and services? How has organization for war and defense changed since the demands of World War I first made such questions important? How much do we know about what actually happened between World War I and Vietnam to change the relationship between private and public organizations? Professor Cuff discusses the complexities involved in trying to answer such historical questions, and prescribes a professional historian's regimen for future work on this subject.

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