scholarly journals Outlines of a Global Power-Field (GPF) Theory (Part 1)

2021 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 545-565
Author(s):  
Omer Awass

This essay takes modern world-system theory and maps it into a political-economic field of power. This re-modeling of the theory better illustrates the diffuseness and the spatiality of the operations of global forces; thus, helping us have a greater appreciation of the durability and scope of Western economic and political hegemony across the world. Our exposition also tracks the structural transformation undergone by the Global Power-Field (GPF) throughout its history showing the evolving character of its dominance. Moreover, this field paradigm does not restrict its considerations to matters of political economy but also centralizes factors of politics and international relations that play a fundamental a role in driving historical dynamics. The workings of this emerging model are then illustrated by a historical case study from the Middle East: The nineteenth and early twentieth century Ottoman Empire.

Author(s):  
Viviana A. Zelizer

This chapter argues that the utilitarian approach to money is a theoretical and empirical straitjacket. Money belongs to the market, but not exclusively so. And while money is indeed an objective means of rational calculation, it is not only that. It first considers the traditional interpretation of money, that is, as “market money,” and then proposes an alternative model of “special monies” that incorporates the social and symbolic significance of money. Next, it presents a historical case study of domestic money as one example of a special money. It argues that domestic money—which includes a wife's money, husband's money, and children's money—is a special category of money in the modern world. The discussion focuses on the changing meaning of married women's money between the 1870s and 1930s, showing how this money, whether given by the husband or earned in the household or in the labor market, was marked as a different form of currency from an ordinary dollar.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Johann Peter Murmann ◽  
Zhijing Zhu

Chinese firms have been widely seen as imitative. This historical case study explores what organizational mechanisms allowed Tencent, a Chinese firm in the fast-changing instant messaging (IM) service sector, to achieve a new-to-the-world innovation with its WeChat smartphone app. Tracing the competitive dynamics in the Chinese IM sector from its inception, we found that Tencent was able to create the innovative WeChat product through a crisis-induced intrafirm coopetition dynamic that was embedded in variation-selection-retention evolutionary processes spanning the market, the firm, and the business unit levels. Building on the intrafirm coopetition and evolutionary literatures, the paper shows that three business units simultaneously competed and cooperated in developing alternative IM products while being exposed to market selection for survival. The coopetition dynamic took place in three key areas: technology, product promotion, and complementary assets of suppliers. The relative balance between competition and cooperation changed over time, and top management guidance and firm-level routines were essential in managing the challenges of coopetition within the firm.


2017 ◽  
Vol 28 (3) ◽  
pp. 1221-1238 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adib ◽  
Paul Emiljanowicz

This article argues that colonial time is fractured, uneven, and co-constituted by tension. Despite coercive violence and instruments of temporal control, non-internalized alternative conceptions of time can/do exist, hybridize, and transform autonomously. We explore these tensions through an examination of post-revolution Iran's attempt to project colonial time through the prison system, and the persistence of non-internalized temporal alternatives as articulated through prisoner memoirs and narratives. Prisons and imprisonment, by removing bodies from the body politic, functions to colonize time to erase, homogenize, and mediate past, present, and future – thereby reproducing ideational-material governance. Yet prisoner memoirs and narratives reveal this process to be incomplete as the agency of individuals to retain, create, and testify provide indications of non-internalized decolonial temporal imaginaries. In taking into consideration our case study and recent trends in anthropology, we inject into the field of International Relations an understanding of colonial time as tension, which can be applied to political-economic and cultural contexts in which time is actively being colonized.


Leadership ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 14 (4) ◽  
pp. 435-459 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gazi Islam ◽  
Macabe Keliher

Ritual performance is well understood in organizational maintenance. Its role in leadership and processes of change, however, remains understudied. We argue that ritual addresses key challenges in institutionalizing leadership, particularly in fixing the relation between a charismatic leader and formal governance structures. Through a historical case study of the institutionalization of the emperor in Qing China (1636–1912), we argue that the shaping of collective understandings of the new emperor involved structural aspects of ritual that worked through analogical reasoning to internalize the figure of the leader through focusing attention, fixing memory, and emotionally investing members in the leader. We argue that data from the Qing dynasty Board of Rites show that ritual was explicitly designed to model the new institutional order, which Qing state-makers used to establish collective adherence to the emperorship. We further discuss the implications of this case for understanding the symbolic and performative nature of leadership as an institutional process.


2013 ◽  
Vol 38 (4) ◽  
pp. 58-69
Author(s):  
Yasser Elsheshtawy

This paper in its first part aims at contextualizing Abu Dhabi's urban development and understanding the factors that have governed its urban growth through a historical case study approach. Relying on archival records and primary sources five stages of urban growth are identified. Data mining of media archives allows for a first hand account of developments taking place thus grounding the depictions. The second part contextualizes this review through a case study of the Central Market project — also known as Abu Dhabi's World Trade Center. The paper concludes by elaborating on the significance of such a historical analysis as it shifts the discourse away from a focus on the ‘artificiality’ of cities in the Gulf to one that is based on a recognition about the historicity of its urban centers, however recent it may be. Additionally the pertinence of such an analysis for cities worldwide is discussed as well.


2021 ◽  
Vol 74 (1) ◽  
pp. 20-26
Author(s):  
Oleksandra Severinova ◽  

The article analyzes the theoretical and methodological aspects of the formation and development of doctrinal ideas about the meaning of the concept of «armed conflict» in the history of world political and legal thought. The question of the name of the branch of law that regulates armed conflict, by analyzing its historical names such as «law of war», «laws and customs of war», «law of armed conflict», «international humanitarian law» and «international humanitarian law, used in armed conflicts». As a result of this analysis, it can be concluded that it would be most appropriate to use the terms «international humanitarian law» only in a narrow sense or «international humanitarian law applicable in armed conflicts», which is more cumbersome but most accurately describes the field. It is emphasized that due to the availability of new powerful weapons (economic, political, informational, cultural and weapons of mass destruction), which are dangerous both for the aggressor and for the whole world; the aggressor's desire to downplay its role in resolving conflicts in order to avoid sanctions from other countries and international organizations, as well as to prevent the loss of its authority and position on the world stage; the attempts of the aggressor countries to establish their control over the objects of aggression (including integrating them into their political, economic and security systems) without excessive damage to them is the transformation of methods and means of warfare. It is determined that the long history of the formation of the law of armed conflict has led to the adoption at the level of international law of the provision prohibiting any armed aggression in the world, which is reflected in such a principle as non-use of force or threat of force. At the same time, the UN Charter became the first international act in the history of mankind, which completely prohibited armed aggression and enshrined this principle at the international level, which is binding on all states of the modern world.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Alexander Gordon

<p>Through a specific historical case study, Another Elderly Lady to be Knocked Down applies discourse theory and the Authorised Heritage Discourse (AHD) to the context of urban built heritage in Aotearoa New Zealand. Previously, only limited work had been done in this area. By examining an underexplored event this dissertation fills two gaps in present literature: the history of the event itself and identification of the heritage discourses in the country at the time. Examination of these discourses in context also allows conclusions about the use of the AHD in similar studies to be critically examined.  In 1986 the Missions to Seamen building in Wellington, New Zealand, was threatened with demolition by its government owners. In a remarkable display of popular sentiment, individuals, organisations, the Wellington City Council (WCC) and the New Zealand Historic Places Trust (NZHPT) worked together to oppose this unpopular decision. This protest was a seminal event in the history of heritage in New Zealand.  This study relies upon documentary sources, especially the archival records of the Historic Places Trust and the State Services Commission, who owned the building, to provide the history of this watershed moment in New Zealand’s preservation movement. The prevalent attitudes of different groups in Wellington are examined through the letters of protest they wrote at the time. When analysed in context, these discourses reveal the ways in which heritage was articulated and constructed.  The course of this dissertation has revealed the difficulty of identifying an AHD in this context. The level of collaboration between ‘official’ and ‘unofficial’ heritage perspectives, and the extent to which they shaped each other’s language, creates considerable difficulty in distinguishing between discreet discourses. To better explore the ways that heritage meaning is constructed and articulated, heritage must be recognised as a complex dynamic process.</p>


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