The Origins and Dynamics of Inequality

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jon D. Wisman
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Selection ◽  
Evolutionary Psychology ◽  
The Political ◽  
Human History ◽  
Central Importance ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Political Dynamics ◽  
The Past ◽  
Historical Role

Whereas President Barack Obama identified inequality as “the defining challenge of our time,” this book claims more: it is the defining issue of all human history. The struggle over inequality has been the underlying force driving human history’s unfolding. Drawing on the dynamics of inequality, this book reinterprets history and society. Beyond according inequality the central role in human history, this book is novel in two other respects. First, transcending the general failure of social scientists and historians to anchor their work in explicit theories of human behavior, this book grounds the origins and dynamics of inequality in evolutionary psychology, or, more specifically, Darwin’s theory of sexual selection. Second, this book is novel in according central importance to the critical historical role of ideology in legitimating inequality, a role typically ignored or given little attention by social scientists and historians. Because of the central role of inequality in history, inequality’s explosion over the past 45 years has not been an anomaly. It is a return to the political dynamics by which elites have, since the rise of the state, taken practically everything for themselves, leaving all others with little more than the means with which to survive. Due to elites’ persuasive ideology, even after workers in advanced capitalist countries gained the franchise to become the overwhelming majority of voters, inequality continued to increase. The anomaly is that the only intentional politically driven decline in inequality occurred between the 1930s and 1970s following the Great Depression’s partial delegitimation (this should remain delegitimation globally) of elites’ ideology.

Germany and Russia Since Reunification: Continuity, Change, and the Role of Leaders

2017 ◽  
Vol 35 (1) ◽  
pp. 42-62 ◽  
Author(s):  
Keyword(s):  
Image Analysis ◽  
International Relations ◽  
The Political ◽  
German Reunification ◽  
The Past ◽  
Personal Relations ◽  
Economic Trends ◽  
Economic Ties

How can we understand German-Russian relations since German reunification? Both the geopolitical positions of the two states and the political and economic ties between them have been transformed over the past twentyfive years. This paper will argue, however, that the role of the two countries’ leaders in shaping these relations has been surprisingly important. Building on the tradition of “first image” analysis in international relations, this paper shows that, along with larger political and economic trends, personal relations between these leaders have helped to set the tenor of bilateral ties. When the leaders were able to build trust and personal friendships, relations improved. Yet more recently, since 2012, relations have soured sharply. While there are obviously larger reasons for this, more negative personal ties between leaders have also played an important role. In short, just as issues of trust and friendship matter in personal ties, they also matter in International Relations.

Legal Reform and Social Construction: Violence, Gender, and the Law

1994 ◽  
Vol 19 (04) ◽  
pp. 829-852 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lisa Frohmann ◽  
Elizabeth Mertz
Keyword(s):  
Social Construction ◽  
Violence Against Women ◽  
Political Ideology ◽  
Direct Action ◽  
The Political ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Legal Reforms ◽  
The Past ◽  
Multiple Dimensions ◽  
The Social

As scholars and activists have addressed the problem of violence against women in the past 25 years, their efforts have increasingly attuned us to the multiple dimensions of the issue. Early activists hoped to change the structure of power relations in our society, as well as the political ideology that tolerated violence against women, through legislation, education, direct action, and direct services. This activism resulted in a plethora of changes to the legal codes and protocols relating to rape and battering. Today, social scientists and legal scholars are evaluating the effects of these reforms, questioning anew the ability of law by itself to redress societal inequalities. As they uncover the limitations of legal reforms enacted in the past two decades, scholars are turning—or returning—to ask about the social and cultural contexts within which laws are formulated, enforced, and interpreted.

scholarly journals STRATEGI DAKWAH SIASYAH PARTAI PERSATUAN PEMBANGUNAN DI JAWABARAT

2019 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 19-36
Author(s):  
Ridwan - Mubarok
Keyword(s):  
World Politics ◽  
Political Life ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Sphere ◽  
The Past ◽  
The People ◽  
Missionary Movement ◽  
Or Organization

For every Muslim, the role of civilization is identical to authentic mission as a leader as a leader in this earth, whose role is greater than leading a province or country. The participation of ulama, dai or da'wah movements in the political sphere is his right, but the missionary movement or organization must also be aware of and be aware of people or persons who want to manipulate da'wah as a vehicle for world politics. Da'wah movements or dai must be able to use various life instruments that exist today for the sake of da'wah. Ulama and the da'i who join in the organization movement or da'wah movement, must realize that they are part of the chain of struggle of the people. Now is the time for da'i or ulama to proclaim themselves from the past fetters that castrated the political life of the scholars.Bagi setiap muslim, peran peradaban identik dengan misi otentik sebagai pemimpin sebagai pemimpin dimuka bumi ini, yang perannya lebih besar dibandingkan memimpin sebuah provinsi atau negara. Keikutsertaan para ulama, dai atau gerakan dakwah dalam ranah politik merupakan haknya, akan tetapi gerakan atau organisasi dakwah juga harus menyadari serta mewaspadai terhadap orang atau oknum yang hendak memperalat dakwah sebagai kendaraan politik dunia. Gerakan dakwah ataupun para dai harus dapat menggunakan berbagai instrument kehidupan yang ada saat ini untuk kepentingan dakwah. Ulama maupun para da’i yang bergabung dalam gerakan organisasi atau gerakan dakwah, harus menyadari bahwasanya dirinya merupakan bagian dari mata rantai perjuangan umat. Kini sudah saatnya para da’i ataupun ulama dapat memproklamirkan diri dari belenggu masa lalu yang mengebiri kehidupan politik para ulama, PPP menjadi salah satu alternatif.

The Political Economy of Easy Credit Policies

2016 ◽  
pp. 84
Author(s):  
Karim Azizi ◽  
Thibault Darcillon
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Low Income ◽  
Recent Literature ◽  
Consumer Credit ◽  
Majority Voting ◽  
The Political ◽  
Aggregate Consumption ◽  
The Past ◽  
Marginal Effects

During the past thirty years, U.S. economic growth has disproportionately benefited the richest percentiles of the American population, i.e., the top income earners. Although this phenomenon is difficult to explain from a “standard” political economy perspective (i.e., majority voting), recent literature emphasizes the role of consumer credit as a means of circumventing costly public redistribution. According to this theory, most OECD and, notably, American policymakers should have facilitated middleclass and low-income households’ access to consumer credit to cushion the effects of increased income inequality (i.e., an increased share of GDP held by top earners). Our contribution to this literature is to argue that increases in inequality (as measured by expansions in the share of GDP held by top income earners) should be associated with aggregate consumption increases. Indeed, in response to increased inequality, easy credit policies stimulate low-income and middle-class consumption, which contributes to an increased aggregate consumption level. Using a panel dataset of 20 developed OECD economies between 1980 and 2007, we show that such increases in inequality are actually associated with expansions of aggregate consumption. Finally, when computing marginal effects, we conclude that these expansions increase with the size of the financial sector.

Reordering the Royal Dead

2021 ◽  
pp. 291-307
Author(s):  
John Parker
Keyword(s):  
West Africa ◽  
Political Life ◽  
The Political ◽  
Colonial Modernity ◽  
The Past ◽  
Private Citizen ◽  
Historical Role ◽  
Dead Bodies ◽  
The Dead

This chapter narrates Agyeman Prempeh's return to Asante in 1924 from exile in the Seychelles. It unfolds how he had changed in the course of his 28 years in detention and repatriated as a private citizen, Mr Edward Prempeh. Two years later, having cemented a reputation among British officials as a progressive figure, he was appointed 'Kumasihene', head of the reconstituted Kumasi division of colonial Ashanti. That said, in his own mind and in those of his people, Agyeman Prempeh remained Asantehene. Despite his embrace of Anglicanism and colonial modernity, Prempeh was acutely conscious of this historical role and worked assiduously until his death to heal the wounds of the past and to ensure a reinvigorated future by attending to the dignity of the royal dead. The chapter examines his project, which took the form of three interconnected campaigns: to reorder the dominion of the dead in Kumasi; to rebuild the destroyed mausoleum at Bantama; and to repatriate the remains of those who died in the Seychelles and elsewhere. Together, they constitute a key episode in the political life of dead bodies in colonial West Africa.

A Retrospect on the Limits of Postcolonial Studies

CounterText ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 59-75 ◽  
Author(s):  
Benita Parry
Keyword(s):  
Crucial Role ◽  
Postcolonial Studies ◽  
The Political ◽  
Critical Approach ◽  
The Past ◽  
Political Purpose ◽  
New Form ◽  
Raymond Williams ◽  
Different Order

Benita Parry here examines the political horizons of postcolonial studies, arguing for the crucial role of Marxism in sustaining the revolutionary impetus of postcolonialist thought. Addressing the career of the late Edward W. Said, Parry points out that while Said's approach to criticism may initially have been philological, political purpose and direction were ‘thrust upon him’ through the situation of his native Palestine in the 1970s, together with the retreat from radicalism within academia. The Said of this period thus urged upon intellectuals the need to engage with injustice and oppression. Parry writes of Said's ‘circuitous journey’ that returned him, in his later works, to a critical approach that eschewed the political, and aimed to contain conflict through his notion of the ‘contrapuntal.’ While Said, with many postcolonial critics, did not subscribe to Marxism, Parry suggests that his work retained a thoughtful and complex respect for Marxists such as Lukács, Goldmann, Raymond Williams, and Adorno. For Parry, Said's repudiation of Marxism is ‘of a different order’ from that of other postcolonial critics who drag revolutionary figures such as Fanon and Gramsci into their own agenda by attempting to stabilise and attune their thought to the ‘centre-left’. Parry goes on to criticise the editors of The Postcolonial Gramsci, for positing Marxist thinking as a restricting framework from which the editors aim to liberate Gramsci's writing. For Parry, these reappraisals of revolutionary thinkers constitute a new form of recuperative criticism that she terms ‘the rights of misprision’. If this is a strategy for ‘draining Marxist and indeed all left thought of its revolutionary impulses and energies’, Parry insists, ‘it is one to be resisted and countered, not in the interests of a sterile rigour, but – in Benjamin's words – to rescue the past and the dead, and a tradition and its receivers, from being overpowered by conformism’.

The Political Dynamics of Organizational Culture in an Institutionalized Environment

2005 ◽  
Vol 27 (4) ◽  
pp. 537-557 ◽  
Author(s):  
Suzana Braga Rodrigues
Keyword(s):  
Organizational Culture ◽  
Empirical Data ◽  
Culture Change ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Factors ◽  
Political Dynamics ◽  
Organizational Culture Change ◽  
Telecommunications Company

This paper addresses organizational culture change from a longitudinal perspective. It analyses how the organizational culture of a major Brazilian telecommunications company changed during its 27-year history from a condition of integration to one of fragmentation and then differentiation. The paper identifies the sources of these changes, paying particular attention to the role of institutional and political factors. Based on the empirical data, a framework for analysing the dynamics of culture change in organizations is proposed.

New Social Movements and the Egyptian Spring: A Comparative Analysis between the April 6 Movement and the Revolutionary Socialists

2013 ◽  
Vol 12 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 98-113 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bassem Nabil Hafez
Keyword(s):  
Social Movements ◽  
Comparative Analysis ◽  
The Political ◽  
New Social Movements ◽  
Egyptian Revolution ◽  
Protest Movements ◽  
Youth Movements ◽  
Political Dynamics ◽  
The Past ◽  
Conceptual Foundations

Abstract In this article I will comparatively analyze the conceptual foundations of two Egyptian protest movements, the April 6 Movement and the Revolutionary Socialists, two prominent instigators of the Egyptian revolution, as part of the global rebellion against the dystopia perceived as the creation of neo-liberalism and globalization. In Egypt, the limitations of conventional opposition led to the mushrooming of New Social Movements (NSMs) over the past decade. The political dynamics since 2000 have yielded, among many, the aforementioned youth movements that represent two different approaches to the rebellion against the dystopia, which speeded up the downfall of Mubarak.

Igor Zevelev, Russia and Its New Diasporas. Washington: United States Institute of Peace Press, 2001, xi., 219 pp.

2003 ◽  
Vol 31 (2) ◽  
pp. 233-234
Author(s):  
Justin L. Miller
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Cold War ◽  
World Politics ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Regional Stability ◽  
The Past ◽  
State Actors ◽  
The Cold War

One of the burgeoning areas of political study over the past ten years has concentrated on the role of non-state actors in world politics. In the wake of the Soviet collapse and the end of the Cold War rivalry, some social scientists began to construct paradigms and theories centered on identity and to concentrate their research on ethnodemographic challenges posed by migration and porous borders in the post-Soviet states, including how various groups facilitated secessionist movements and insurgencies, undermining regional stability and efforts at democratization in the process.

scholarly journals The Veterans Health Administration: A Preliminary Analysis of the Influence of The Independent Budget and Bureaucratic Performance on Funding Trends

2008 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 5
Author(s):  
Elizabeth Kidder
Keyword(s):  
Veterans Health Administration ◽  
Service Organizations ◽  
The Political ◽  
Veterans Health ◽  
Health Administration ◽  
The Past ◽  
Bureaucratic Performance ◽  
The Cost ◽  
The Impact

The Veterans Health Administration (VHA) is the largest integrated health system in the U.S. with 7.9 million U.S. veterans enrolled.  Both the number of veterans seeking VHA health services and the cost of delivering such services continue to rise as a result of myriad factors. Kidder examines VHA funding outcomes over the past 10 years in light of the participation of veterans' service organizations (VSOs) in committee hearings; the reliance of lawmakers upon The Independent Budget (IB); and the impact of new performance-based management initiatives on budget outcomes.  Her article highlights the political nature of the VHA budget and the influential role of VSOs in funding outcomes.

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