The Birth of a Noble Tea Country: on The Geography of Colonial Capital and The Origins of Indian Tea

This paper looks at the origins of the British tea industry of India from the standpoint of colonial and semicolonial involvement in, respectively, British India and Qing China. The imposition of the tea industry in Assam was integrally tied to the wars in East Asia fought in order to open markets for the movement of opium and other commodities. British officials championed both policies in the name of modern economic progress, liberalizing trade with the Qing and establishing a productive industry in Assam. The agricultural science of political economy aimed to extract the value of various objects which could then be united in a land hitherto considered a wasteland. Plants, soil and labor were each viewed as isolatable things whose values were objective and calculable. Such static representation, however, was already belied by the dynamic process of gathering and transporting these "things" across the vast and unevenly developed regions of Asia, ultimately valorizing them as a breakfast drink commodity enjoyed worldwide. The origins of the Assam tea plantations, mirroring developments elsewhere, relied upon spatio-economic connections that force us to reevaluate how the specific histories of British India, Qing China and Southeast Asia are inseparably linked.     

China's pursuits of indigenous innovations in information technology developments: hopes,follies and uncertainties

Although the Chinese state has allowed US-based transnational corporations to play an instrumental role in China's information technology (IT)-led development strategy, a dominant segment of Chinese political and technological leadership has always been wary of the negative political, economic and cultural implications of continued American domination in digital technological developments. Chinese efforts at asserting greater control over a rapidly evolving networked communication infrastructure have been multifaceted. Significantly, the past few years have seen an escalation of domestic discourses on “network sovereignty” and “indigenous innovations” or the mastery of core technologies at the industrial development strategy and technological policy levels. An elite consensus has crystallized around the mobilization of national resources to catch up with the United States in hardware and software IT developments, particularly to achieve potential leadership in next-generation network technologies. However, China's quest for technological leadership in the network age continues to be constrained by a range of domestic political economic forces on one hand, and mediated by the paradoxical dynamics of interstate cooperation and rivalry in the political economy of global communication on the other. The growing transnational nature of the capitalist accumulation process, of which China's deepened global integration through its rapidly expanding and increasingly market-driven information industry has been a critical component, has further complicated these endeavors.     

做好大学生网络思想政治教育工作的探索

大学生对新生事物好奇敏感、学习欲望强,渴望交流,但他们的思想、心理又不成熟,很容易沉迷网络、精神颓废,思想消极,丧失理想信念,甚至走上违法犯罪的道路。如此,深入研究如何通过网络思想政治教育更好地指导青年大学生使用网络,更充分地发挥网络资源和平台的优势,更好地利用网络教育载体,对进一步做好大学生的思想政治教育工作具有十分重要的意义。     

网络环境下大学生思想政治教育研究

现代社会是一个信息化的时代,随着现代科技的进步、网络技术的广泛推广,网络对人们生活的影响作用越来越明显。大学生日益成为重要的网民,网络环境下,大学生思想政治教育不仅关系到大学生自身的发展,更关系到一个民族的进步。本文从网络环境下大学生思想政治教育研究的相关概念及起源和发展、面临的机遇和挑战及相应的对策三个方面进行了论述。我们应该充分利用网络环境,趋利避害加强大学生思想政治教育,提高大学生的综合素质,从而为中国特色社会主义现代化建设贡献力量。     

A Sociological Look at Biofuels: Ethanol in the Early Decades of the Twentieth Century and Lessons for Today

Abstract This article develops a broad sociological understanding of why biofuels lost out to leaded gasoline as the fuel par excellence of the twentieth century, while drawing comparisons with biofuels today. It begins by briefly discussing the fuel‐scape in the United States in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, examining the farm chemurgic movement, New Deal agricultural policies, mechanization trends within agriculture, and, finally, the invention of leaded gasoline. The second half of the article applies insights from that historical analysis to the biofuel craze currently under way. By employing a political‐economy interpretation of the socioeconomic context combined with a path‐dependency‐informed analysis of the technological trajectories, the article reveals the social forces that structured the trends and outcomes in biofuel innovations across the two eras.     

Whither the Third Sector? A Response to Estelle James

Nonprofit research and resulting theory have evolved in a limited context of North American and West European historical experience, culture, and political economy. Recognizing this fact, Estelle James proposes, among other things, a widening of the research arena. This response to her proposals argues that existing studies of nonprofits involved in international development already provide significant comparative evidence that can enrich existing theory. This body of work suggests complementary and alternative research priorities.     

Capturing change: Doing research in a society undergoing transformation

Systematic review and synthesis methods have gained wide acceptance within the social sciences and, as a result, many postgraduate students now consider using them for their thesis or dissertation research. However, students are rarely aware of all the concrete implications that their decision entails. This reflective narrative reports the experience of a political science student who began to conduct a systematic review as part of his Ph.D. dissertation but who did not complete it. The aim of this article is to identify challenges and lessons learned from this experience and to formulate recommendations for postgraduate students who wish to make an informed choice with respect to the use of these methods.     

Networked discontent: The anatomy of protest campaigns in social media

We analyze the communication network that emerged in social media around an international protest campaign launched in May 2012. Applying insights from network science and the theory of brokerage, we examine the cohesion of the network with community detection methods, and identify the users that spanned structural holes, creating bridges for potential information diffusion. We also analyze actual message exchange to assess how the network was used to facilitate the transmission of information. Our findings provide evidence of fragmentation in online communication dynamics, and of a distribution of brokerage opportunities that was both uneven and underexploited. We use these findings to assess recent theoretical claims about political protests in the digital age.     

Comparing Varieties of Agency Theory in Economics, Political Science, and Sociology: An Illustration from State Policy Implementation

As rational choice theory has moved from economics into political science and sociology, it has been dramatically transformed. The intellectual diffusion of agency theory illustrates this process. Agency theory is a general model of social relations involving the delegation of authority, and generally resulting in problems of control, which has been applied to a broad range of substantive contexts. This paper analyzes applications of agency theory to state policy implementation in economics, political science, and sociology. After documenting variations in the theory across disciplinary contexts, the strengths and weaknesses of these different varieties of agency theory are assessed. Sociological versions of agency theory, incorporating both broader microfoundations and richer models of social structure, are in many respects the most promising. This type of agency theory illustrates the potential of an emerging sociological version of rational choice theory.     

Just how small is this world really? An application of small world theory to the study of globalization

Abstract Inspired by recent research on the dynamics of ‘small‐world’ networks, in this article I apply its basic arguments and findings to the study of integrative processes in the international system. Employing the logic of network models we can learn, by analogy, from fields as diverse as neural science and forest fire prevention, much about the likely changes caused in the international political environment by increased interaction among its various units. I first explain recent developments in network theory and demonstrate their relevance for the study of international politics and economics. I then develop the most important insights to be transferred from network theory to the study of globalization. Network theory suggests that our world truly ‘shrinks’ only to the extent that relations among international actors cross pre‐existing alliances or cooperative arrangements. Making the world a single place seems to require flexibility in forming attachments with other actors which goes beyond culturally and historically justified efforts at exchange and cooperation.     

“FOI POR ACASO”*:

Everyone knows that most of the things that happen to them happen “by accident,” and this is particularly true of the things that are most important to us, like our choice of a career or a mate. Yet social science theory looks for determinate causal relationships, which do not give an adequate account of this thing that “everyone knows.” If we take the idea of “it happened by chance” seriously, we need a quite different kind of research and theory than we are accustomed to.     

North Central Sociological Association 2012 Ruth and John Useem Plenary Address. Political Renewal: Occupations,Springs, and Tea Parties

Novelty is paramount in the development of sociological theory—so much so that sometimes novelty is attributed even when it does not really exist. The study of social movements is hardly exempt from this problem and at times the craving for newness can become palpable. Despite that desire, however, some have concluded that things really have not changed much over a score of years—at least in terms of the implications for theory—but now, we think the time has finally come. Three recent mobilizations have provided us with something new into which we can sink our collective teeth. The Tea Party, the Arab Spring, and Occupy Wall Street represent changes in the motivations and tactics driving social and political change that can renew the study of protest and collective political influence. These three bursts of political behavior reveal important edges of social movement study even as they exhibit roots in the now classic ideas in the field.     

Political Asymmetry and Systems of Information and Social Organization: A Characterization

This article aims to develop a taxonomy and a further definition of the concept of political asymmetry for operationalization into social science research inquiry. On the one hand the article accounts the single main categories to offer a taxonomy of the concept, exposing the semantic context of symmetry and asymmetry, and depicting the idea of the political sphere from a classical Aristotelian tradition as well making use of public political science and philosophy of law. Later on, drawing on contributions of critical constructivism and particularly Habermas communicative action theory, the article depicts how political asymmetry can be found in contemporary social structures at the level of subsystems of administration such as institutions as well as at the level of individual interaction. The question this article aims to address is how political asymmetry can be represented for political science, and how it can be further operationalized for organizational and social research inquiry. The concept of political asymmetry is taken into account since it is often isolated on debates regarding the way in which institutions transforms historically, and how such settings affect normative constructions enacted and developed within contemporary governance structures. On the other hand it aims to reflect about its role over governance practices that avoid to ensure free and enough interaction within political actors with different cultural baggage and normative representations.     

THE TURN TO THINGS:

Things and artifacts are usually treated in sociological theory as marginal, irrelevant, or passive with respect to the production of social order. In contrast to that, in the past decade the sociology of knowledge and science has developed several aproaches that stress the processual character of the cognitive relationships between human actors and artifacts. In this perspective, both human actors and things appear as active entities involved in the production of social order. As knots of socially sanctioned knowledge, things shape the temporal structures, allowing for social order to be stabilized and reproduced. From the viewpoint of the cognitive relationships between human actors and things, the distribution and transfer of cognitive properties and dispositions in a network of such relationships is central with respect to these processes. Starting from a detailed examination of these arguments, this article argues that social order cannot be conceived exclusively as a web of intersubjective relationships. It discusses the methodological and conceptual implications of treating artifacts as active social entities, arguing for their general theoretical relevance with respect to the ways we conceive the constitution of society.     

Evidence of a transnational capitalist class‐for‐itself: the determinants of PAC activity among foreign firms in the Global Fortune 500, 2000–2006

Transnational capitalist class (TCC) theory is rooted in the claim that the globalization of the economy has led to a globalization of economic interests and of class formation. However, systematic evidence linking the indicators of transnational class formation with political behaviour is largely missing. In this article, I combine data on board of director interlocks among the 500 largest business firms in the world between 2000 and 2006 with data on the political donations to US elections of foreign corporations via the corporate political action committees (PACs) of their subsidiaries, divisions or affiliates. Controlling for the various interests of individual firms, I find that foreign firms that are highly central in the transnational intercorporate network contribute more money to US elections than do the less central foreign firms. Given prior research on board of director interlocks, this finding suggests that a segment of the transnational business community has emerged as a class‐for‐itself.     

Pluralism and ethnic conflict in Tanzania's arid lands: the case of the Maasai and the WaArusha

In Tanzania, the Maasai and Waarusha tribes are experiencing conflict because differences in their modes of productions and economic strategies undermine the peaceful coexistence that they have enjoyed since the 18th century. The Maasai are pastoralists, while the Waarusha are agricultural subsistence farmers who are encroaching on the best pasture lands. A sketch of the history of the two groups shows that the Maasai reached the peak of their land holding in 1880 before the arrival of European colonists who seized land and restricted the Maasai to a semi-arid reserve but allowed the Maasai to remain an autonomous and powerful group. The Waarusha began encroaching on Maasai land after independence due to land and population pressure. While closely tied, each group looks down on the other, and Maasai ascendancy has given way to Waarusha challenges. After independence, the tribal and ethnic rule that was protected by the colonial system was disrupted to allow for increased internal migration and new patterns of settlement. The rights of land ownership were transferred from tribes to the State, allowing privileged groups to benefit. The Waarusha began to engage in illegal land-grabbing and to encroach on the Maasai preserve using legal and illegal means. The Maasai view land as collective property and have had difficulty retaining title of traditional lands in the face of population pressure. This loss of grazing land has forced the Maasai into a mixed economy that depends upon agricultural production as well as livestock production. In the meantime, the Waarusha have deliberately sought political office to gain power to secure their holdings. Immediate action is needed to produce 1) a policy on spontaneous settlement, 2) an immediate adjustment of legal procedures for land acquisition, 3) a land tenure policy that equally emphasizes agricultural and livestock production, and 4) controls on undue expansion of subsistence agriculture into semi-arid rangelands.     

Rising powers,people rising: neo-liberalization and its discontents in the BRICS countries

ABSTRACT

The rise of the BRICS countries – Brazil, Russia, China, India, and South Africa – has called into question the future of Western dominance in world markets and geopolitics. However, the developmental trajectories of the BRICS countries are shot through with socio-economic fault lines that relegate large numbers of people to the margins of current growth processes, where life is characterized by multiple and overlapping vulnerabilities. These socio-economic fault lines have, in turn, given rise to political convulsions across the BRICS countries, ranging from single-issue protests to sustained social movements oriented towards structural transformation. This article presents an innovative theoretical framework for theorizing the emerging political economy of development in the BRICS countries centred on neo-liberalization, precarity, and popular struggles. It discusses the contributions to this special issue in terms of how they illuminate the intersection between neo-liberalization, precarity, and popular struggle in Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa.     

Correlates of plant nutrient use among Ohio farmers: Implications for water quality initiatives

Data were collected from 1,305 land owner-operators in the Scioto River watershed in Ohio to assess plant nutrient use at the farm level. The theoretical perspective used to guide the study was formulated from selected components of social learning theory and the farm structure model. Nutrient use was operationalized as pounds of nitrogen, phosphate and potassium applied per acre for corn, soybeans and wheat. The variance in nutrients per acre was regressed against selected predictive variables. Characteristics of the farm enterprise and measures of learning experiences were used as predictive variables to examine the merits of the theoretical perspective used to guide the investigation. While the study findings were consistent with research expectations, the amount of explained variance demonstrated that the theoretical model had limited utility for predicting nutrient application rates at the farm level. The research findings are discussed in the context of future resource conservation efforts in the study region.     

A note on images of networks

Visual imagery and visual representations have proven very useful in some of the most important discoveries in the history of science. It is not surprising, therefore, that the earliest students of network phenomena often made use of visual representations (e.g. sociograms) to assist in the analysis, interpretation and illustration of complex relational data: by creating such visual representations, human faculties for visual imagery and pattern recognition could be more fully utilized in the search for structural patterns in sociometric networks. What is somewhat surprising, though, is that the techniques for creating visual representations of relational data have remained virtually unchanged since the study of social networks began: the slow, tedious, pen-and-ink approach of forty years ago is still very much the method of the day.Readily available computer graphics technology, however, introduces potentially powerful possibilities, and some of these are explored. The results of this initial exploration suggest that the time is ripe for forging new tools that will facilitate the analysis of complex relational data, stimulate the development of network theory, and provide new perspectives from which to view previously hidden facets of society.