scholarly journals Transformative Social Innovation and Multisystemic Resilience

2021 ◽  
pp. 493-506
Author(s):  
Katharine McGowan ◽  
Francis Westley

To illustrate the relationship between transformative social innovation and multisystem resilience, this chapter summarizes three transformative social innovations, the National Parks in the United States, the internet, and the challenging or social engineering–like case of the intelligence test. Each case study demonstrates how innovations shift several systems as they develop, scale up, and even became challenged themselves, as well as the authors’ overarching assertion that transformative social innovation and multisystem resilience are deeply interrelated. Additionally, it is by understanding our social innovation history that we can be better prepared for our future and avoid the pitfalls of social innovation’s underappreciated dark side, the risk of social engineering. This chapter is based on over a decade of work on multisystem resilience and social innovation at the Waterloo Institute of Social Innovation and Resilience.

Author(s):  
Stijn Oosterlynck ◽  
Andreas Novy ◽  
Yuri Kazepov

In this chapter, we draw a range of overall conclusions from our case-study based investigation of how local social innovations operate as vehicles of welfare reform. We reflect on the impact of the increased interest of policy-makers in social innovation and on the relationship between social innovation and other social policy paradigms, notably the established paradigm of social protection and its main contender, the social investment paradigm. We also discuss our main findings with regard to the mix of actors, resources and instruments supporting localized social innovations, the multi-scalar nature social innovations, its empowerment dimension and relationship with knowledge. Finally, we look at the consolidation of social innovation in specific welfare-institutional contexts.


Author(s):  
Terence Young ◽  
Alan MacEachern ◽  
Lary Dilsaver

This essay explores the evolving international relationship of the two national park agencies that in 1968 began to offer joint training classes for protected-area managers from around the world. Within the British settler societies that dominated nineteenth century park-making, the United States’ National Park Service (NPS) and Canada’s National Parks Branch were the most closely linked and most frequently cooperative. Contrary to campfire myths and nationalist narratives, however, the relationship was not a one-way flow of information and motivation from the US to Canada. Indeed, the latter boasted a park bureaucracy before the NPS was established. The relationship of the two nations’ park leaders in the half century leading up to 1968 demonstrates the complexity of defining the influences on park management and its diffusion from one country to another.


Author(s):  
Kristina Kironska

Abstract This article combines the study of Taiwan’s New Southbound Policy with a case study of Taiwan–Myanmar relations from a perspective of political relations, economic cooperation, and Taiwan’s (un)recognisability in Myanmar—i.e. Taiwan’s soft power in Myanmar. The first part of the paper introduces the policy and compares it with the previous ones, and sheds light on Taiwan’s motivation to engage with Myanmar. It considers the ongoing trade war between the United States and China, due to which investment relocation from China is expected to sharply increase. The second part of the paper provides an insight into the relationship between Taiwan and Myanmar after Myanmar’s state-led political transformation from military rule and economic liberalisation since approximately 2010. It explains the main aspects and determinants of the relationship between two countries that share a neighbouring potential hegemon which they both wish to balance against.


Author(s):  
Gudrun-Christine Schimpf ◽  
Georg Mildenberger ◽  
Susanne Giesecke ◽  
Attila Havas

The chapter deals with the trajectory of social housing as a social innovation in European countries from the nineteenth century to the present. The long-term analysis of this comprehensive case study is guided by the Extended Social Grid Model (ESGM). Following a short description of seven different phases of social housing, the chapter turns to the role of social powers and the capability approach. All in all, the involvement of various actors and social networks in shaping a successful innovation becomes visible. Another important point is the insight that social innovations have to adjust to ever changing contexts du their trajectory. The analysis sheds light on supporting conditions of successful social innovations and reflects on the co-evolution of social and business innovations.


2020 ◽  
Vol 57 (4) ◽  
pp. 581-596
Author(s):  
Asif Efrat ◽  
Abraham L Newman

Are states willing to overlook human rights violations to reap the fruits of international cooperation? Existing research suggests that this is often the case: security, diplomatic, or commercial gains may trump human rights abuse by partners. We argue, however, that criminal-justice cooperation might be obstructed when it undermines core values of individual freedoms and human rights, since the breach of these values exposes the cooperating state to domestic political resistance and backlash. To test our argument, we examine extradition: a critical tool for enforcing criminal laws across borders, but one that potentially threatens the rights of surrendered persons, who could face physical abuse, unfair trial, or excessive punishment by the foreign legal system. We find support for our theoretical expectation through statistical analysis of the surrender of fugitives within the European Union as well as surrenders to the United States: greater respect for human rights correlates with the surrender of fewer persons. A case study of Britain confirms that human rights concerns may affect the willingness to extradite. Our findings have important implications for debates on the relationship between human rights and foreign policy as well as the fight against transnational crime.


2018 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 333-361
Author(s):  
Robin Hui Huang

Abstract China has a civil procedure for collective litigation, which is dubbed Chinese-style class action, as it differs from the U.S.-style class action in some important ways. Using securities class action as a case study, this Article empirically examines both the quantity and quality of reported cases in China. It shows that the number of cases is much lower than expected, but the percentage of recovery is significantly higher than that in the United States. Based on this, the Article casts doubt on the popular belief that China should adopt the U.S.-style class action, and sheds light on the much-debated issue concerning the relationship between public and private enforcement of securities law. The Article also discusses the future prospects of securities class action in China in light of some recent developments which may provide its functional equivalents, including the regulator-brokered compensation fund and public interest group litigation.


In this study, the activities of a volunteer based grassroots development in rural India - Food for Life Vrindavan (FFLV) - are presented. A thorough examination of how it complies with the dimensions established in the scientific literature about grassroots and social innovations and what the characteristics of its activities are in the light of the latest trends in human development is performed. The article is organised into six sections: after a short introduction about the subject, the objectives and the layout of the paper, section 2 presents the timeline of the development industry with a particular emphasis on the process of turning from national economy boosting initiatives to the dimensions of human development. In section 3 the key elements in the literatures on the capability approach and grassroots/social innovations are presented. Section 4 introduces the case of FFLV, followed by a detailed analysis in section 5 where FFLV’s position with regards to the different perspectives is discussed. In section 6, the quantitative analysis is conducted. Concluding the paper in the final section, some reflections on the usefulness of the study are mentioned. Based on the results of the conducted research the following conclusions have been made: 1) In the beginning, Food for Life Vrindavan was an entirely volunteer based grassroots innovation. With a gradual increase in the number of people it served and subsequent expansion in it’s fields of services, it has become a social innovation. 2) The characteristics of FFLV’s activities fit into the dimensions of human development established by the United Nations based on Amartya Sen’s concept of capability approach. 3) The financial resources of FFLV are modest in comparison to the OECD financed development industry, with the former having access to merely a quarter of the latter’s “per capita” funds available for the area of activity around Vrindavan.


2017 ◽  
Vol 10 (9) ◽  
pp. 39
Author(s):  
Weidong Li ◽  
Sisi Chen

In this case study, we developed a theoretical framework for examining the relationship between acculturation strategy and educational adaptation. By interviews and observations of one Chinese visiting scholar’s family in the United States, we found that the family utilized integration as the acculturation strategy to adapt to the US educational environment. However, we also found that the family’s perceived integration attitudes and behaviors were opposed to its actual integration attitudes and behaviors, which we called integration paradoxes. These integration paradoxes included the following four areas: a) cultural difference; b) academic and non-academic problem solving; c) academic expectations; and d) bicultural competence. The findings indicated potential moderated and/or mediated effects of the four integration paradoxes on the relationship between integration and educational adaptation.


2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 175-198
Author(s):  
Tariq Dana

This article sheds light on the relationship between Israeli high-tech innovation and military/security production in the framework of settler-colonialism and the prolonged occupation of the Palestinian territories. It analyzes the global rise of Israel in military and security innovation as a result of decades-long colonial ventures and regional wars, which have been a key variable for dynamic and extensive innovation and productivity. Moreover, the article argues that Israeli military and security would not have been attainable without the extraordinary official assistance and private investment from the United States, especially since the aftermath of the 1967 war. Besides the structural dependency on the US, this article highlights other characteristics that define Israel’s military and security production, such as the vicious nature of these innovations, complicity in global atrocities, and profitability of innovation to Israel’s war economy. Finally, the article presents Gaza’s Great March of Return (gmr) as a case study to present evidence on the ways in which Israeli military forces and security companies are jointly involved in experimentation, using new weapons and unmanned devices on the Palestinian civilians.


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