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Simple Dichotomies (simple + dichotomy)

Distribution by Scientific Domains
Humanities and Social Sciences60%

Selected Abstracts

The Wealth of Nations at the Turn of the Millennium: A Classification System Based on the International Division of Labor,

ECONOMIC GEOGRAPHY, Issue 2 2002
Wolfgang Hoeschele
Abstract: Simple dichotomies, such as First World,Third World, developed,developing countries, and north,south, are no longer adequate for understanding the complex economic geography of the world. Even the division into core, semi-periphery, and periphery groups diverse economies into an excessively limited number of categories. It is time to develop a new scheme that better classifies the countries of the world into coherent groups. This article constructs a new classification based on the international division of labor, using three fundamental dimensions. The first dimension is the success of the industrial and services economy in providing employment to the people within a country. The second is the export orientation of a country, concentrating either on natural-resource-intensive products (e.g., agricultural produce, food and beverages, minerals and metals) or on core industrial manufactures (from textiles to computers). The third is the presence of control functions in the world economy: countries that include the headquarters of major firms and are the source regions of major flows of foreign direct investments. The combination of these three dimensions leads to the creation of eight basic categories. I introduce a terminology that combines these basic categories into larger groups, depending on the context. This new conceptual scheme should facilitate a more informed analysis of world economic, political, social, and environmental affairs. [source]

The Diffusion of Rights: From Law on the Books to Organizational Rights Practices

LAW & SOCIETY REVIEW, Issue 3 2006
Jeb Barnes
How does law change society? To gain new leverage on this long-standing question, this article draws on two lines of research that often ignore each other: political science research on the mobilization of law, and sociological research on the diffusion of organizational practices. Our insights stem from six case studies of diverse organizations' responses to the accommodation provisions in the Americans with Disabilities Act and related state laws. We found that different modes of exposure to the law combined with organizational attributes to produce distinct "rights practices",styles of standard operating procedures and informal routines that reflect the understanding of legal requirements within an organization. The diversity of the organizational responses challenges simple dichotomies between compliance/noncompliance, change through deterrence/change through norms, and mobilization/nonmobilization, and it underscores the importance of combining political science and sociological perspectives on law and social change. [source]

Gender, Nations and States in a Global Era

NATIONS AND NATIONALISM, Issue 4 2000
Sylvia Walby
Nations and national projects are gendered in different ways. Feminist theory has raised important questions about the conceptualisation of ,difference'. This article develops the conceptualisation of the different ways in which nations and national projects are gendered, arguing for a mid-level conceptualisation of gender relations. It argues against, on the one hand, the excessive fragmentation of gender, and on the other, too simple dichotomies of mordless unequal gender relations. This draws on a theorisation of gender relations which connects the different dimensions into specific kinds of gender regimes, either public or domestic gender regimes. This enables us to conceptualise different national projects as having a more or less public or domestic gender project. The conflicts between different national projects and with other polities, such as states, are then conflicts between differently gendered projects. The usefulness of this mid-level conceptualisation is demonstrated through examples of the competing relations between the UK, Ireland, the EU and the Catholic Church in a global era. [source]

How political parties frame European integration

EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF POLITICAL RESEARCH, Issue 4 2010
MARC HELBLING
This article analyses how political parties frame European integration, and gauges the consistency of their argumentation. Over the course of investigation, one can see how actors' positions are justified, and how the European Union is perceived (i.e., what forces give rise to Euroscepticism and Europeanism). It is argued here that the parties' framing of issues depends on the interests they traditionally defend at the national level, their general positions on European integration, and whether or not they belong to the established political actors in their respective countries. The coding approach enables the relation of frames to actors and positions, moving beyond the techniques employed by existing studies that analyse the media presentation of European integration. Sophisticated frame categorisations are provided to capture the complex structure of argumentation, going beyond a simple dichotomy of economic and cultural frames. Relying on a large and original media dataset covering the period 2004,2006, six Western European countries are investigated. [source]

Social capital, social currency, and portable assets: The impact of residential mobility on exchanges of social support

PERSONAL RELATIONSHIPS, Issue 2 2003
Lynn Magdol
We examined the impact of physical distance on mobilized social capital resources. Social capital theory assumes that physical proximity and residential stability are prerequisites to social capital assets. We tested these assumptions using a two-wave panel sample from the National Survey of Families and Households consisting of respondents who experienced residential moves between waves. We found local duration since the last move to be beneficial for involvement in social exchanges. Mobility distance was related to deficits for some exchanges but not for others. Rather than a simple dichotomy between material resources that require proximity and nonmaterial resources that do not, we found that emotional and financial support are not affected by mobility distance but that tangible favors and companionship are affected negatively. Although kin exchanges are negatively affected by distant and recent mobility, nonkin exchanges are more extensive for respondents whose kin ties are more distant, suggesting a process of substitutability whereby nonkin may replace kin in the network. Our findings confirm the assumption of social capital theory about distance. They also point to the importance of adding the dimension of distance to exchange theory. Our study demonstrates that place has not lost all relevance in our highly technological postmodern society. [source]