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871. Mechanisms in the Analysis of Macro-Social Phenomena

Author:
Renate Mayntz
Publication Date:
04-2003
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies
Abstract:
The paper is a contribution to a forthcoming special issue of the Journal Philosophy of the Social Sciences, edited by Andreas Pickel. The term (social) mechanism can be found frequently in recent social science literature, but only few authors have attempted to spell out systematically what exactly the term refers to. The paper begins by trying to close this gap. Use of the term (social) mechanism is the hallmark of an approach that is critical of the emphasis on correlational analysis, and on the covering-law model of explanation. The term mechanism, it is argued, should be used to refer to recurrent processes generating a specific kind of outcome or event; mechanism statements are accordingly statements about recurrent processes. Explanation of social macro phenomena by mechanisms typically involves causal regression to lower level elements, as stipulated by methodological individualism. But while we already have a good-sized tool-box of mechanism models at hand to explain emergent effects of different forms of collective behavior, we lack a similarly systematic treatment of generative mechanisms where structural configurations and corporate actor constellations play the decisive role in the production of an effect.
Topic:
Civil Society, Government, and Human Welfare

872. Problem-Solving Effectiveness and Democratic Accountability in the EU

Author:
Fritz W. Scharpf
Publication Date:
02-2003
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies
Abstract:
The paper begins by examining the functions of input-oriented and output-oriented legitimating arguments in liberal democracies. At the European level, input-oriented arguments remain weak, but legitimacy problems are generally avoided since the policies which can in fact be adopted under prevailing institutional conditions are still based on broad intergovernmental consensus. For a variety of new policy challenges, however, consensus on the choice of European solutions is unlikely to be reached, even though member states are unable to cope with such challenges on their own. Among the examples discussed are the notorious problems of a common foreign, security and defense policy and the spillovers of European economic integration that are challenging national welfare regimes. The resulting problem-solving gaps, which may undermine political legitimacy nationally and in the EU, could not be legitimately overcome by moving from consensual to majoritarian governing modes at the European level. What could help are modes of differentiated integration which allow groups of member states to adopt consensual European solutions applying only to members of the group.
Topic:
International Relations and Civil Society
Political Geography:
Europe

873. Global Challenges: Beating the Odds

Author:
P.J. Simmons
Publication Date:
08-2002
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Abstract:
The global to-do list has never been more daunting. New arteries for transport, trade, finance, and communications require constantly updated rules. Freer, faster movement across borders necessitates filters to separate terrorists from traders and levees to contain infectious disease, pollution, invasive species, and financial disruption. Once-sovereign responsibilities such as poverty, child labor, and human rights shift to become international moral concerns. Technologies of literally world-shaking power—capable of destroying humans en masse, altering Earth's ecology, or upsetting atmospheric stability—create a set of truly global issues.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Civil Society, and Government

874. Strategic Culture and the English School: Conceptualising Strategic Adjustment in the Nordic Region

Author:
Henrikki Heikka
Publication Date:
04-2002
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Finnish Institute of International Affairs
Abstract:
The Nordic region seems to be in the midst of a thorough transformation-process, involving all of the countries in the region as well as the key institutional players. The aim of this paper is to define some of the key concepts needed for understanding and explaining this process. In particular, the paper focuses on sketching a method for differentiating between structural and cultural sources of strategic adjustment. The concept of structure connects the discussion to structural realism, while the concept of culture is linked to the theoretical debates within IR about strategic culture and international society. The method outlined in the paper borrows from Max Weber's use of ideal types and scientific realists' use of iconic modeling. The paper argues for ontological clarity in dealing with causal mechanisms (at the level of the real) that are used to explain grand strategies (at the level of the actual) and their empirical referents such a military doctrine or alliance choices. Three ideal types of strategic culture – realist, liberal, and revolutionary – are suggested as a hermeneutical tool for evaluating the potential effects of causal powers of strategic cultures within strategic thinking.
Topic:
Civil Society, Government, International Political Economy, Political Economy, and Politics

875. Cities as Economic Development Tools

Author:
Nigel Harris
Publication Date:
12-2002
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
The Wilson Center
Abstract:
Increasing globalization – the economic integration of national economies – and the resulting governmental decentralization have obliged cities in many countries to take seriously the economy of the city. On the other hand, unless cities can be made to work, national economic growth is seriously impeded. Hence, city managers become increasingly important in economic management. The old fatalism – that economic growth is a matter exclusively for national governments – comes under threat.
Topic:
Civil Society, Development, Government, and Politics

876. Against the Feminization of Policy

Author:
Ananya Roy
Publication Date:
11-2002
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
The Wilson Center
Abstract:
In recent times, there has been avid policy interest in paradigms of enablement. From declarations that the poor are “heroic entrepreneurs” (de Soto 2000) to recommendations on how to capitalize on the social capital of poverty, there is a loud call to help the poor help themselves. I want to focus on a key characteristic of the enablement framework: the attention to women. The policy investment in poor women now spans a range of institutional actors – a kinder and gentler World Bank, the UN shelter debates, and the NGOs that crowd the stage of development. Microcredit programs targeting women, mothers' clubs in squatter settlements, female farming cooperatives have become standard fare. One could say that women have become the currency of this latest round of development, the “instrument,” as Jackson (1999) puts it, of enablement. Drawing upon a rich corpus of feminist research, I want to critically examine the implications of this feminization of policy.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Civil Society, Development, and Politics

877. Toward an Uncivil Society? Contextualizing the Decline of Post-Soviet Russian Extremely Right-Wing Parties

Author:
Andreas Umland
Publication Date:
06-2002
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, Harvard University
Abstract:
This paper uses some findings of research into non-Russian civil societies and ultra-nationalisms as well as selected examples of non-party Russian right-wing extremism to illustrate that the relative decline in radically nationalist party politics towards the end of the 1990s should not be seen as an unequivocal indication that „anti-liberal statism“ has lost its appeal in Russia. It also attempts to show that the considerable diversification in the non-governmental, not-for-profit sector of Russian society since the mid-1980s cannot be regarded as exclusively beneficial in terms of Russia's polyarchic consolidation, and further democratization. Not only is a Russian „civic public“ or „civic community“ developing only slowly. Some of the more significant preand post-Soviet groups, movements, and trends within the Russian voluntary sector are unsupportive, or explicitly critical of liberal democracy. A number of major non-state institutions and networks in Russian society contain ultra-nationalist, fundamentalist, and, partly, protofascist sub-sectors that question using the construct „civil society“ to designate them. These organizations' or groupings' primary function is less — or not at all — to enhance peoples' inclination and ability to participate effectively in political activities that could promote further democratization. Instead, they provide — sometimes expressly so — a medium for the spread of radically particularistic world views, ascriptive notions about human nature, and illiberal or/and bellicose political ideas, as well as an organizational training ground for potential political activists holding such ideas.
Topic:
Civil Society, Democratization, Government, and International Organization
Political Geography:
Russia

878. Managing Change: The Reform and Democratic Control of the Security Sector And International Order

Author:
Theodor H. Winkler
Publication Date:
10-2002
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Geneva Centre for Security Sector Governance (DCAF)
Abstract:
When the Berlin Wall came crashing down and the Cold War reluctantly proved, to everybody's surprise, to be truly over, there was an apparent, almost embarrassing inability to define the key parameters that would mark the new era that had obviously dawned. Even to give it a name proved difficult. The best attempt still remains “Post Cold War World”, i.e. a negative description (the absence of the Cold War) and not a positive analysis of what truly marks the emerging new international system.
Topic:
Security, Defense Policy, Civil Society, Cold War, Democratization, and Reform
Political Geography:
Europe

879. Security Sector Reforms in Slovenia: Waging Success and Failure Before the End of Transition

Author:
Ljubica Jelusic
Publication Date:
10-2002
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Geneva Centre for Security Sector Governance (DCAF)
Abstract:
Until Ten-Day War in 1991, and independence after it, Slovenia was one of the six republics of the Socialist Federal republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY). Therefore, its security sector was part of broader Yugoslav national security system, established on the basis of a total national defence doctrine. The police was organised within republics and was controlled by the Government of the Republic. It had responsibilities towards the Federal Ministry of Interior, for example, in forming joint special police units, in common border control, etc. but it was allowed to form its own education system and to carry some special insignia, which differentiated the policemen from different republics. Since Autumn 1968, the federal armed forces had consisted of two components, federal standing army The Yugoslav People's Army (YPA), and militia units, organised within republics, Territorial Defence (TD). The system of rescue and self-protection was a part of total national defence and was also organised within republics, which followed the reality, that the types of the most dangerous natural catastrophes were very different in each republic, so, rescue and self-protection units had to be expertised in different kinds of rescue operations.
Topic:
Security, Civil Society, and Development
Political Geography:
Europe

880. Ukraine's Security Sector Reform: Is Progress Conditioned by the Interest of Society

Author:
Leonid Polyakov
Publication Date:
10-2002
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Geneva Centre for Security Sector Governance (DCAF)
Abstract:
The Ukrainian people are making a conscious and sincere bid for democracy, but at the same time, Ukraine has a still weak democratic system of governance. In practice it means that transparency, accountability and other essential elements in the maintenance of a democratic society in general, and in the functioning of security structures, in particular, are officially declared in Ukraine, but not consistently enforced.
Topic:
Security, Civil Society, and Development
Political Geography:
Europe and Ukraine