The Search for Paradigms as a Hindrance to Understanding

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Albert O. Hirschman
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
Social Science ◽  
Cognitive Style ◽  
Mexican Revolution ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Scientist ◽  
Young Colleague ◽  
American Social Science ◽  
The Social

This chapter examines the kind of cognitive style that hinders, or promotes, understanding. The topic is introduced with a critical look at two books that exemplify opposite styles—one a study of the Mexican revolution by Hirschman's young colleague at Harvard, John Womack, and the other a study of violence in Colombia by the political scientist James L. Payne. Hirschman has little sympathy for the latter and reserves some unflattering words for what he had seen as a disease in the social sciences—the search for models and paradigms that aim to prove theories rather than understand realities; among other things, the tendency had collapsed into old failurist nostrums Hirschman was combating in Latin America, and that were now infecting North American social science.

scholarly journals The Political Trends of the Youth of University in Palestine and Algeria: A Comparative Field Study

2017 ◽  
Vol 13 (12) ◽  
pp. 160
Author(s):  
Saida Khedrane ◽  
Al-Sayed Abdel-Mottaleb Ghanem
Keyword(s):  
Social Science ◽  
Political System ◽  
Political Stability ◽  
The Other ◽  
Constitutional Amendment ◽  
The Political ◽  
The Social ◽  
National University ◽  
The University ◽  
Academic Year

The current study aims to measure the level of political trends of University’s youth in Palestine and Algeria. A questionnaire has been used for collecting data about the opinions of a sample of students at Al - Najah National University of Palestine and Kasdi Merbah University of Algeria enrolled in the academic year 2015- 2016. The study has adopted the Statistical Package for the Social Science (SPSS) for the purposes of measurement. It has concluded that the nature of the political trends of the university youth at the Palestinian University tends to the negative level more than the positive one due to the conditions of occupation and political instability in the Palestine arena. On the other hand, the nature of the political trends of the university youth in the Algerian university tends to the positive level more than the negative one. This is due to the state of political stability characterized by the political system in Algeria, as well as the political reforms that have positively affected the nature of the political trends of the university youth since President Abdul Aziz Bouteflika took power in Algeria, down to creating a higher council for youth in the new constitutional amendment of 2016.

“We Speak the Truth!”

2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 53-80
Author(s):  
Sari Hanafi
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Content Analysis ◽  
Social Science ◽  
The Political ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Social Phenomena ◽  
The Social ◽  
Academic Qualifications

This study investigates the preachers and their Friday sermons in Lebanon, raising the following questions: What are the profiles of preachers in Lebanon and their academic qualifications? What are the topics evoked in their sermons? In instances where they diagnosis and analyze the political and the social, what kind of arguments are used to persuade their audiences? What kind of contact do they have with the social sciences? It draws on forty-two semi-structured interviews with preachers and content analysis of 210 preachers’ Friday sermons, all conducted between 2012 and 2015 among Sunni and Shia mosques. Drawing from Max Weber’s typology, the analysis of Friday sermons shows that most of the preachers represent both the saint and the traditional, but rarely the scholar. While they are dealing extensively with political and social phenomena, rarely do they have knowledge of social science

Social, Political, and Environmental Impacts in Latin America

2018 ◽  
pp. 284-318
Author(s):  
Rhys Jenkins
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
Environmental Impacts ◽  
Economic Impacts ◽  
Political Influence ◽  
Local Communities ◽  
The Political ◽  
Negative Consequences ◽  
Political Implications ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Caribbean

Rather less has been written about the social, political, and environmental impacts of China on Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) than the economic impacts. In terms of social impacts, the chapter considers the effects in terms of both employment and the way in which Chinese companies in the extractive industries have affected local communities. In LAC, discussion of the political implications have mainly focussed on whether or not China’s growing presence represents a threat to US interests in the region, but there is no evidence that China is exercising undue political influence in the region as the case studies of Brazil and Venezuela illustrate. There is little systematic evidence concerning the environmental impacts, although the case of soybeans illustrates the potential negative consequences of growing demand from China.

International Courts in Latin America and the Caribbean

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-24
Author(s):  
Salvatore Caserta
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
Social Groups ◽  
Social Processes ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Environment ◽  
Methodological Issues ◽  
International Courts ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Caribbean

This introductory chapter presents the main theoretical and methodological issues of the book. In terms of theory, the chapter explains that the book relies on the concept of de facto authority, according to which international courts become authoritative and powerful when their rulings are endorsed by relevant audiences in their practices. To complement this approach, the chapter explains that the book proposes five original analytical markers, which are central for analysing and explaining the social processes through which international courts, in general, and regional economic courts, in particular, gain or lose de facto authority. These are: (i) the nature of the political environment surrounding them; (ii) the timing of their institutional founding; (iii) the material and/or abstract interests of the agents interacting with them; (iv) the fundamental support of different social groups relating to them; and (v) the societal embeddedness in their operational context.

Conclusion

2019 ◽  
pp. 211-232
Author(s):  
Jason Beckfield
Keyword(s):  
Social Science ◽  
The Political ◽  
European Level ◽  
The Third ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Europe

This concluding chapter summarizes the book’s main findings, details the limitations of the research, and elaborates the implications of the argument for the social science of stratification, as well as for the political questions of where Europe goes from here. It begins with an analysis of the recent recession through the lens of unequal Europe. It then evaluates three counterfactual scenarios. The first is Global Europe: what if Europe globalized instead of regionalized? The second is Economic Europe: what if Europe integrated economically without integrating politically? The third is Social Europe: what if the technocratic capitalist turn had failed to dominate European-level policy and jurisprudence in the 1980s?

History in Art

Antiquity ◽  
1931 ◽  
Vol 5 (19) ◽  
pp. 277-290
Author(s):  
Flinders Petrie
Keyword(s):  
Applied Sciences ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Political Power ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Political ◽  
History Of Knowledge ◽  
Moral Standards ◽  
The Social ◽  
Different Ages ◽  
History Of

When we look at the great diversity of man’s activities and interests, it is evident how much space they afford for reviewing his history in many different ways. To most of our historians the view of the political power and course of legislation has seemed all that need be noticed; others have dealt with history in religion, or the growth of mind in changes of moral standards, as in Lecky’s fine work. In recent years the history of knowledge in medicine, in the applied sciences, and in abstract mathematics, has been profitably studied, as affording the basis of civilization. The purely mental view is shown in the social life and customs of each age, and expressed in the growth of Art. This last expression of man’s spirit has great advantages in its presentation; the material from different ages is of a comparable nature, and it is easily placed together to contrast its differences. Moreover it covers a wider range of time than we can et observe in man’s scope, but it is as essential to his nature as any of the other aspects that we have named.

A Theme for Social Sciences?

1970 ◽  
Vol 4 ◽  
pp. 82-90
Author(s):  
Michael Drake
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Higher Education ◽  
Latin America ◽  
Science Studies ◽  
Rapid Expansion ◽  
The Other ◽  
Human Knowledge ◽  
The Past ◽  
Proper Form ◽  
The Social

In recent years the quest for the proper form and content of social science studies has been a major preoccupation of academics. The reasons for this are numerous: the very rapid expansion of higher education generally and the particularly marked demand for the social sciences has led to a proliferation of new departments; brash young men have been promoted early (too early, many would say) to positions of power within the universities; the increasingly vocal criticism by the consumers of education – the students themselves – and, perhaps most important of all, a growing desire to re-aggregate human knowledge to counter the trend towards ever narrower degrees of specialism. All these factors have contributed to a mounting dissatisfaction with the traditional ways of studying the social sciences – that is, in almost hermetically sealed departments of economics, of politics, of sociology, and so on. Instead attempts have been made to draw the various social sciences together in studies of particular areas (Britain, Latin America, the underdeveloped world, the ‘new nations’); or of particular processes such as industrialisation, or urbanisation; or of particular problems as associated with, for instance, poverty or race. Each of these represents, of course, a multi- or inter-disciplinary approach to the study of the social sciences. Over the past four years I have been associated with two attempts to produce an integrated, inter-disciplinary course in social sciences. One was a failure; the other, my current preoccupation, is, I think, promising. What I have to say tonight is concerned with an analysis of these two intellectual experiments.

Politics and Morality in the Thought of Karl Popper

1995 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 74-85 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kenneth Minogue
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Political ◽  
Karl Popper ◽  
Open Society ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
The Social

LIKE MANY PEOPLE, I FIND KARL POPPER BOTH FASCINATING and irritating. His vigour and lucidity are irresistible, and no one could complain that he fails to engage with the big questions. The problems begin when we consider his political thought. Some think him one of the great liberal philosophers of the century. I on the other hand, while being fascinated by The Open Society and its Enemies, am repelled by the grossness of its caricaturing of most of the thinkers it touches. The Poverty of Historicism is a marvellous text in the philosophy of the social sciences, but the idea of historicism is a straw man. The paradox seems to be that while there is a lot that refers to the political questions of the day, there is virtually nothing which takes up issues of political philosophy directly. The result is that he seems to me always to be on the wrong foot, and my problem is to discover why.

Moving against Disappearance

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jens Richard Giersdorf
Keyword(s):  
East Germany ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Systems ◽  
Berlin Wall ◽  
The West ◽  
Pedestrian Movement ◽  
Political Situation ◽  
The Social ◽  
East German

Nearly a year after the fall of the Berlin Wall, East Germany was subsumed into the West German national structure. As a result, the distinct political systems, institutions, and cultures that characterized East Germany have nearly completely vanished. In some instances, this history was actively—and physically—eradicated by the unified Germany. This chapter works against the disappearance of East German culture by reconstructing the physicality of the walk across the border on the day of the opening of the Berlin Wall and two choreographic works depicting East German identities on stage. The initial re-creation of the choreography of a pedestrian movement provides a social, political, and methodological context that relates the two dance productions to the social movement of East German citizens. Both works take stances on the political situation in East Germany during and after the opening of the Berlin Wall in 1989, although one is by a West German artist, Sasha Waltz, and the other by East German choreographer Jo Fabian.

Webs of Belief or Practices: the Problem of Understanding

2010 ◽  
Vol 51 (3) ◽  
pp. 403-427 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen P. Turner
Keyword(s):  
Social Science ◽  
Scientific Practice ◽  
Social Study ◽  
The Other ◽  
Scientific Enterprise ◽  
Philosophical Concept ◽  
Philosophical Position ◽  
Major Symptom ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of

ObjectivityandThere is No Such Thingas a Social Science make an odd pair: one is a substantive historical discussion of a philosophical concept central to philosophy and to scientific practice and debate which provides an explanation of the history of the development and changes in the concept; the other is a defense of a philosophical position which in effect denies that any such explanation is possible, and attacks “the craving for explanation” as a philosophical disease whose major symptom is social science itself. Galison and Daston, the authors of Objectivity, are historians of science whose approach is connected to the “social study of science” without explicitly adopting any of its methodological theses. But in taking on the concept of objectivity they go to the philosophical heart of the scientific enterprise itself.

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