Suchergebnisse

At the very moment that humanity is facing a broadening ecological crisis, and that both policy makers and civil society are calling for a transition towards more sustainable societies, modern science seems incapable of providing operational solutions for managing this transition. In this context, both Noble prize laureates and high-level science officials have stressed the need of an in depth transformation of the modes of organization of scientific research for governing the transition to sustainable societies. However, existing analyses of on-going initiatives show that most of the barriers to a major, consolidated effort in sustainability science will not be removed without far-reaching institutional change. To address this challenge, this paper proposes an incremental institutional change approach, based on a gradual institutionalization process of existing initiatives. The analysis in this paper shows that strategic research for sustainability and reform of research funding mechanisms will only be effective if they are supported at the same time by reforms of career and training paths at higher education institutions. To promote this vision, the paper proposes a set of capacity building measures that can be undertaken at the level of research funding, higher education institutions and networking.

After years of political crises and negotiations, the deep-rooted conflict between Dutch- and French-speaking parties recently led to the 2011 agreement concerning a further reform of the Belgian state. This reform mainly furthers decentralises the – already federal – state structure, including the allocation of additional competences and fiscal powers to sub-national entities (Regions and Communities). But this new state reform also brings about a radical reform of the upper house: the Belgian Senate. Since 1995, the Senate was composed of three different types of members: Senators directly elected by two linguistically separated electorate (the Dutch-speaking and the French-speaking electorates), Senators indirectly elected by the Community parliaments and Senators coopted by the two other types. The French- and German-speaking linguistic minorities had a fixed amount of seats in this assembly. The reform of the state radically changed the legislative competences of the Senate and its composition as its members will now be designated by Regional and Community parliaments (plus 10 coopted senators). Broadly speaking, the appointment of the majority of the Senators moved from a system of direct and language-based election to a system of indirect and mixed regional and language-based designation. This change is not without consequence for the representation of linguistic minorities. In May 2014, regional, community and federal elections will be organised in Belgium, testing for the first time this new system of designation of Senators by regional and community parliaments. This paper intends to present the 2013 reform of the Senate in Belgium and its consequence for the representation of linguistic minorities. The situations before and after the reform of the Senate will be compared, not only in terms of the way Senators are appointed but in terms of its consequence on the linguistic aspects of the regional and community elections campaign and of the profile of the appointed Senators.

One of the first ethnographic studies to explore use of social media in the everyday lives of people in Tamil Nadu, Social Media in South India provides an understanding of this subject in a region experiencing rapid transformation. The influx of IT companies over the past decade into what was once a space dominated by agriculture has resulted in a complex juxtaposition between an evolving knowledge economy and the traditions of rural life. While certain class tensions have emerged in response to this juxtaposition, a study of social media in the region suggests that similarities have also transpired, observed most clearly in the blurring of boundaries between work and life for both the old residents and the new.

Venkatraman explores the impact of social media at home, work and school, and analyses the influence of class, caste, age and gender on how, and which, social media platforms are used in different contexts. These factors, he argues, have a significant effect on social media use, suggesting that social media in South India, while seeming to induce societal change, actually remains bound by local traditions and practices. - दक्षिण भारत पर सामाजिक मीडिया, जो तमिलनाडु में लोगों के दैनिक जीवन में सामाजिक मीडिया के उपयोग पर अन्वेषण करनेवाले पहले के नृवंशवैज्ञानिक अध्ययनों पर एक है, तेज़ी परिवर्तन का अनुभव करनेवाले एक क्षेत्र में इस विषय का ज्ञान प्रदान करता है. जो एक समय कृषि से हावी किया गया था, उस क्षेत्र पर पिछले दशक में आईटी कंपनियों का प्रवेश, एक उद्विकासी ज्ञान अर्थव्यवस्था और ग्रामीण जीवन की परिपाटी के बीच एक जटिल मुकाबला का कारण बन गया है. जबकि इस मुकाबले के उत्तरक्रिया के रूप में कुछ वर्गीय तनाव प्रकट हुए हैं, इस क्षेत्र के सामाजिक मीडिया पर अध्ययन इसका प्रस्ताव करता है कि समरूपता का भी पता चलता है, जो पुराने और नए निवासियों के काम और जीवन की सीमाओं के धुंधुला होने से अधिक स्पष्ट रूप से अवलोकन किया जाता है.

वेंकटरामन घर, काम और स्कूल पर सामाजिक मीडिया के प्रभाव पर अन्वेषण करते हैं और वर्ग, जाति, उम्र और लिंग के प्रभाव पर इसका विश्लेशण करते हैं कि जैसे और जो सामाजिक मीडिया के मंच विभिन्न सन्दर्भों पर उपयोग किये जाते हैं. वे ऐसा तर्क करते हैं कि ये कारक के सामाजिक मीडिया के उपयोग पर महत्वपूर्ण प्रभाव होता है और इसका प्रस्ताव करते हैं दक्षिण भारत में सामाजिक मीडिया, यद्यपि सामाजिक परिवर्तन को प्रेरित करने लगता है, वास्तव में सामाजिक परिपाटी और प्रयोग से सीमित हैं.

How the World Changed Social Media is the first book in Why We Post, a book series that investigates the findings of anthropologists who each spent 15 months living in communities across the world. This book offers a comparative analysis summarising the results of the research and explores the impact of social media on politics and gender, education and commerce. What is the result of the increased emphasis on visual communication? Are we becoming more individual or more social? Why is public social media so conservative? Why does equality online fail to shift inequality offline? How did memes become the moral police of the internet?

Supported by an introduction to the project's academic framework and theoretical terms that help to account for the findings, the book argues that the only way to appreciate and understand something as intimate and ubiquitous as social media is to be immersed in the lives of the people who post. Only then can we discover how people all around the world have already transformed social media in such unexpected ways and assess the consequences. - ஒன்பது மானுடவியலாளர்கள் பிரேசில், சீனா, இந்தியா, துருக்கி, இங்கிலாந்து, சிலி, டிரினிடாட், இத்தாலி போன்ற ஒன்பது வெவ்வேறு சமூகங்களில் 15 மாதங்களை தங்கியிருந்து நடத்திய ஆய்வின் கண்டுபிடிப்புகளை ஆராயும் "நாம் ஏன் பதிவிடுகிறோம்" என்ற புத்தக வரிசையின் முதல் புத்தகம் தான் உலகம் சமூக ஊடகங்களை எப்படி மாற்றியிருக்கிறது என்ற இந்தப் புத்தகம். இது மேற்கூறிய ஆராய்ச்சியின் முடிவுகளை தொகுத்து வழங்கியும், அரசியல், கல்வி, பாலினம், வணிகம் ஆகியவற்றின் மீது சமூக ஊடகங்களின் தாக்கத்தைப் பற்றி ஆராய்ந்தும், ஒரு ஒப்பீட்டு ஆய்வினை வழங்குகிறது. காட்சிக்குரிய தகவல் பரிமாற்றத்தின் மீதான அதிக முக்கியத்துவத்தின் விளைவுகள் என்ன? நாம் அதிக தனிமையானவர்களாக ஆகிவருகிறோமா அல்லது அதிக சமூகமயமானவர்களாக ஆகிவருகிறோமா? பொதுநோக்கிய சமூக ஊடகங்கள் ஏன் மிகவும் பழமைவாதம் நிறைந்ததாக இருக்கிறது? நிகழ்நிலையில் உள்ள சமத்துவத்தால், இயல்புநிலையில் உள்ள சமத்துவமின்மையை ஏன் மாற்ற முடியவில்லை? மீம்கள் எப்படி இணையத்தின் மரபுக் காவலர்களாக மாறின? போன்றவை தான் அவை.

Ever since the 1990's, deliberative theory has been heralded as the most promising new theory on political legitimacy. Democratic deliberation, conceived as the rational exchange of arguments, is claimed to improve the quality of democratic decision making because it instigates a more considered judgment; it allows citizens to hear other perspectives to a problem and to question their own opinions. However, deliberation's beneficial effects do not come about easily. If deliberative mini-publics want to contribute to the legitimacy of political decision making, they have to reflect the principles of legitimacy in their own functioning. It is therefore crucial to assess the internal legitimacy of deliberative mini-publics before making claims about their contribution to the legitimacy of the political system as a whole. In this paper, we set out to assess the input, throughput and output legitimacy of four deliberative events, namely the British Columbia Citizens' Assembly, the Irish "We, The Citizens"-project, the Belgian G1000, and the Dutch Burgerforum. Based on a most-similar comparison of these cases, we argue that their internal legitimacy differs a great deal, and that this is due to factors relating to their process design, such as funding, recruitment and moderation.

While a great deal of attention is devoted to the Pacific region as the new chessboard of international politics, Pakistan remains a key actor in terms of both threat and potential. Two observations back this argument: first, Pakistan's fundamental roles as a state are challenged by its ongoing conflict with India and internal insurgencies. Second, due to a power-status gap, Pakistan experiences difficulties in holding specific self-conceived roles. In addition to hampering its socio-economic potential, these developments prevent Pakistan's quest for normalization in the system. As a consequence, we argue that engaging with Islamabad should be a priority for Washington so as to prevent the country from further aligning with Beijing, thus reinforcing China's regional leadership and status as peer-competitor to the United States. Indeed, as the potential for deviance in the international system arises from its normative dimension, the US, as the global leader, counts among its roles that of norm-setter and primary socializer for most states. Our research proposes to look at an old puzzle with new theoretical insights. By addressing the question of Washington's engagement towards non-conforming states, we aim to document a set of socialization processes as intervening variables linking American global role as leader and primary socializer to Pakistan's process of social integration (normalization/deviance). Drawing from sociology and social psychology, the paper seeks to explore the ability of the leader to act as a primary source of role location and status recognition towards non-conforming states so as to integrate them (back) into the US-led system.

Transparency is a widely used concept in debates on international politics, from transnational anti-corruption campaigns to renewed requests for greater disclosure on health, finance, or even security issues. Calls for transparency date back at least to the League of Nations, when internationalists demanded open diplomacy. Yet, it is in the subfield of GEG, and its developments on nonstate actors as a key research topic (see introduction), where the practice and theory of transparency has made the most profound inroads (Gupta 2010a). GEG has been a particularly fertile ground for the development of informational governance (Mol 2008) and the rise of numerous transparency initiatives which have been analyzed in a rapidly developing literature. Importantly, current GEG research is also highly relevant for other IR subfields. For one, recent GEG research can help IR scholars to further refine the concept of transparency and to increase conceptual clarity and sophistication. Second, research on GEG has improved our understanding of the factors that determine the effectiveness of transparency as a governance tool in international politics.