Katrina and the Social Organization of Disaster Recovery: Dissolving a Theoretical Antinomy

2006 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
pp. 143-162 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard E. Wagner
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Social Organization ◽  
Hurricane Katrina ◽  
Alternative Model ◽  
Disaster Recovery ◽  
Policy Instruments ◽  
The State ◽  
Conventional Model ◽  
The Social ◽  
Policy Measures

Abstract This paper explores the social organization of disaster recovery, using Hurricane Katrina to supply context for the theoretical effort. That effort distinguishes two contrasting models of political economy. The conventional model treats the state as a unitary actor that stands outside the economy and uses policy instruments to shift society to a different equilibrium. The alternative model treats the state as comprised of numerous loosely connected actors that operate inside the economy, with policy measures emerging out of interaction among differing desires and beliefs held by the various participants. This alternative model presents a different understanding of state policy, both in ordinary times and in the extraordinary times represented by natural disaster.

Explaining choice of development strategies: suggestions from Mexico, 1970–1982

1985 ◽  
Vol 39 (4) ◽  
pp. 667-697 ◽  
Author(s):  
David R. Mares
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Development Strategy ◽  
International Political Economy ◽  
Explanatory Power ◽  
Policy Instruments ◽  
The State ◽  
Recent Experience ◽  
The Social ◽  
Development Policies ◽  
The Face

Economic development requires choices among a broad spectrum of alternative strategies and, as the recent experience of Mexico suggests, those choices are not easy. A complex politics is involved in the transition from one development strategy to another. The international political economy and domestic social coalitions both influence the costs and benefits associated with various development policies; they rule out some choices, but numerous options still remain. How can one explain actual outcomes? Observers may significantly increase their ability to explain outcomes by incorporating a statist component into their analyses. Within the very broad parameters set by the international political economy the state influences (but does not determine) the creation and the demands of the social coalition itself. In addition, the state may use policy instruments and advantages from the domestic and international arenas to implement policy even in the face of domestic opposition. The structure of the domestic political economy determines the space within which the statist perspective contributes to explanatory power. Eventually, it is in a historically based ideology that the chief explanation for the state's choice of policy and the construction of particular domestic coalitions is to be found.

scholarly journals Selected Social Policy Instruments in Relation to Tax Policy

2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (11) ◽  
pp. 241 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vladimíra Žofčinová ◽  
Zuzana Horváthová ◽  
Andrea Čajková
Keyword(s):  
Social Policy ◽  
Minimum Wage ◽  
Tax Policy ◽  
Slovak Republic ◽  
Policy Instruments ◽  
Social Function ◽  
The State ◽  
Tax Collection ◽  
Subsistence Minimum ◽  
The Social

Tax sovereignty is now an expression of the phenomenon of state power. In general, there is a widespread but also accepted view that a citizen is dependent on the state and the state is dependent on tax resources. The social status of a citizen in the state is of great importance; it affects the development of personality and, last but not least, reflects the degree of democracy acquired in a particular state. Various tax law measures for the benefit of the citizen are important for the identification of social behavior and are an attempt to improve certain ways of life. The aim and ambition of this article is to emphasize the tools of social policy (e.g., minimum wage, subsistence minimum, social right to work) that are related to the social function of taxing income. In this context, the authors deal with a social function of tax collection and imposing of taxes, justice in taxation, and point out social aspects of the system of taxes in the Slovak Republic. In this article, the authors present the attitudes of both critics and proponents. It also deals with tax justice, which is often a category subjective to the evaluator. The benchmarking attribute of tax collection should be that citizens will have the certainty of social justice in the state and will therefore pay attention to the minimum wage and subsistence minimum as an integral part of tax policy under the legal conditions of the Slovak Republic. All tax legislation, especially tax reform, is perceived with a certain sensitivity regarding tax subjects.

The Gift Economy and State Power in China

1989 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
pp. 25-54 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mayfair Mei-Hui Yang
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
The State ◽  
Power Relationships ◽  
Gift Economy ◽  
State Apparatus ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Gift ◽  
Organization Of Production ◽  
China Today ◽  
And Control

The state apparatus in China today has taken upon itself almost total responsibility for administering the social and economic domain. The welfare and control of the population, the organization of production, planning all social activities, and the distribution of the means of subsistence have become primary concerns of organs of the state. The types of power relationships and their social and symbolic expressions, which have crystallized around the distribution and circulation of desirables in such a political economy, are the subject of the present study. The study will also examine how certain counter-techniques of power deviate from the larger strategy of power exercised through the state socialist political economy, forming pockets of intransigence from within.

States and Households: The Social Organization of Terrace Agriculture in Postclassic Mixteca Alta, Oaxaca, Mexico

2006 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-22 ◽  
Author(s):  
Verónica Pérez Rodríguez
Keyword(s):  
Social Organization ◽  
Agricultural Production ◽  
Agricultural Intensification ◽  
The State ◽  
Agricultural Systems ◽  
Ethnographic Methods ◽  
Postclassic Period ◽  
Agricultural Terraces ◽  
Mixteca Alta ◽  
The Social

AbstractThis is a study of agricultural intensification on the household scale in a Mixtec cacicazgo of Oaxaca, Mexico, during the Postclassic period (A.D. 800–1521). Through archaeological, ethnohistorical, and ethnographic methods this study investigates the roles of the state and the independent farming household in the emergence and operation of intensive agricultural systems, and agricultural terracing. I present data on two Postclassic houses and residential and agricultural terraces excavated at the site of Nicayuju in the municipality of San Juan Teposcolula, Oaxaca. Artifact and architectural data are reported. Ethnographic information is presented and used to create a model for terrace construction that is tested against the terrace excavation data presented in this article. It is argued that Robert Netting’s agrarian smallholder model may characterize the social organization of intensive agricultural production in prehispanic Mixtec society and that intensification may have functioned without direct state direction. The application of the agrarian smallholder model in Prehispanic Mesoamerica is significant in that it suggests that long-lasting and environmentally viable methods of agricultural production may originate and operate at the household and community levels.

Political Economy of the Crisis in Post-Colonial Zimbabwe

2008 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Smart E. Otu
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Social Organization ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
Short Circuit ◽  
Basic Material ◽  
Complex Nature ◽  
Current Crisis ◽  
The Social ◽  
Political Milieu ◽  
Organization Of Production

Conventional western social science scholars hold the view that the current crisis in Zimbabwe is but the consequence of misgovernance by President Robert Mugabe and his ZANU-PF led government. This paper debunks this viewpoint and considers it a short-circuit analysis of the complex nature of Zimbabwe’s crisis. Instead, the political economy approach is adopted which is considered more far-reaching, holistic, historic, dialectic, and more empirically-scientific-based. The critical analysis of the crisis reveals that the key to the current socio-economic and political impasse in Zimbabwe lies in the nature of the social organization of production and the class character of both colonial and postcolonial Zimbabwe’s social system which are strongly tied to the land issue. To this end, the paper confirms that Zimbabwe’s economy, polity and social relations are organized in a manner that many Zimbabweans are at the fringe of the social structure. The main argument of this paper is that social organization of production in Zimbabwe is such that does not guarantee ordinary Zimbabweans access to land to produce their basic material needs, and to participate in making decision about how this major means of production is organized for production, distribution and consumption. This paper concludes by noting that the way out of the current crisis in Zimbabwe lies in a radical overhauling of the feeble social organization of production while not undermining the importance of a congenial political milieu in Zimbabwe

Self-Knowledge, Estrangement, and Social Metabolism

2019 ◽  
pp. 40-57
Author(s):  
Boris Hennig
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Social Organization ◽  
Shared Values ◽  
Extended Self ◽  
Social Metabolism ◽  
The Social ◽  
Subject And Object ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Self Knowledge

Following two key themes in Karl Marx's thought—estrangement and political economy, in their relation to human self-knowledge—labor mediates the social metabolism. In this schema, organic (or functional) metabolism is distinguished from extended metabolism (or social organization). Socially extended metabolism gives rise to shared values and concepts in the same way that organic metabolism gives rise to life. On this basis, I suggest that both the subject and object of human self-knowledge is a socially extended self, which can connect to itself only when humans freely participate in socially extended metabolism—that is, economy, science, and industry. Estrangement, in contrast, is seen to result from a disruption within socially extended metabolism.

Legal Disintegration and a Theory of the State

2011 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 186-205
Author(s):  
William H. Clune
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Social Construction ◽  
The State ◽  
Social Conditions ◽  
Component Part ◽  
Legal Practice ◽  
Social Construction Of Reality ◽  
Legal Thought ◽  
The Social

This paper describes a topology of legal thought and the social conditions (the larger social construction of reality) of which that topology, that thought, is a component. Part I is a description of the structure of legal thought; Part II of the social conditions (a theory of the state, or political economy). The Conclusion considers the place of traditional legal practice on a new landscape.

What We Owe One Another

2019 ◽  
pp. 199-212
Author(s):  
Sarah L. Quinn
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Financial Markets ◽  
Social Life ◽  
The State ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Financial Instruments ◽  
The People ◽  
The Social ◽  
Credit Programs ◽  
Financial Transactions

This concluding chapter summarizes the main points of the book, points out areas for future research, and draws connections with later developments in securitization and credit programs leading up to the crash of 2007–2008. It also argues that understandings of the limits and possibilities of what people owe to each other and can expect from the state are written into the designs of financial instruments. These understandings help determine the distribution of profits and risks within specific financial transactions. This matters because the distributional politics of credit plays out simultaneously on the level of how credit fits within a political economy and on the level of specific exchanges and loans. The issue, in other words, is not just whether the people of a nation generally use credit to pay for housing or college, but the terms built into those loans. What people do in financial markets, what those financial markets are expected to do—together these dynamics make up the social life of credit in a nation.

The Dialectics of Village and State in Modern Thailand

1991 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 312-326 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeremy Kemp
Keyword(s):  
Social Organization ◽  
Rural Society ◽  
The State ◽  
Social Connections ◽  
Village Community ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Village ◽  
The Way

In selecting the “village community” as focus for an analysis of the social organization of relations between agents of the state and its subjects I bridge two distinct and sometimes contradictory themes. The first is the manner in which social connections within the countryside and with the state are handled in practice. The second is the way the concepts of “community” and, more specifically, “village community” are used to represent and sometimes misrepresent both how these relations are formally structured and what actually happens. Evaluation of these concepts is thus an important and necessary part of any interpretation of rural society and culture. Perceptions of community underlie and affect not only academic analyses but the actions and attitudes of officialdom and those experts who are involved with the administration and development of the countryside. They are intrinsically connected with matters of policy and administration, and the village — as we now observe it — is a consequent outcome.

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