Search results

Is the need for stability pre-empting the need for democratic values? How can the EU cope with two contradictory security requirements: the need to promote democratic norms and to secure geostrategic interests? This paper takes on the security-democracy dilemma in a complex way that transcends the realpolitik frame overshadowing the analysis of the EU’s policy orientation in the Southern Mediterranean while considering its normative role as a fig leaf for security interests.

This paper investigates the EU’s foreign policy orientation reflected in the ENP in terms of the two logics of action of consequentialism and appropriateness. Tracing changes at the policy level over time between 2011 and 2015, the paper zooms into the implementation of the “new” ENP in the aftermath of the Arab uprisings in Egypt, Libya and Tunisia to highlight additional variation across countries.

Building on a document analysis of the official declarations for the policy-making level and of ENP action plans for the implementation level, the paper argues that local political dynamics and the level of the EU’s threat perception shape the EU’s response to the partner countries.

To examine whether indigenous critiques of globalization and critical theories of modernity are compatible, and how they can complement each other so as to engender more realistic theories of modern society as inherently constructive and destructive, along with practical strategies to strengthen modernity as a culturally transformative project, as opposed to the formal modernization processes that rely on and reinforce modern societies as structures of social inequality.

Comparison and assessment of the foundations, orientations, and implications of indigenous critiques of globalization and the Frankfurt School’s critical theory of modern society, for furthering our understanding of challenges facing human civilization in the twenty-first century, and for opportunities to promote social justice.

Modern societies maintain order by compelling individuals to subscribe to propositions about their own and their society’s purportedly “superior” nature, especially when compared to indigenous cultures, to override observations about the de facto logic of modern societies that are in conflict with their purported logic.

Social theorists need to make consistent efforts to critically reflect on how their own society, in terms of socio-historical circumstances as well as various types of implied biases, translates into research agendas and propositions that are highly problematic when applied to those who belong to or come from different socio-historical contexts.

An effort to engender a process of reciprocal engagement between one of the early traditions of critiquing modern societies and a more recent development originating in populations and parts of the world that historically have been the subject of both constructive and destructive modernization processes.

Policing in much of the developing world has always been, in many respects, both dominated by the nonstate and pluralised. Yet, plurality and the nonstate are predominantly conceptualised, by scholars and practitioners alike, as problematic, noninclusive and/or undemocratic. Yet the reality is far more complex than this. In this chapter, we turn the tables on conventional wisdom by looking to the positive features of plural or polycentric forms of security governance by asking how these features might be utilised to provide for more inclusive forms of security governance in the Global South. Drawing on empirical research in South Africa on plural policing arrangements, this chapter considers how Sustainable Development Goal 16 which seeks to ‘promote peaceful and inclusive societies’ might be realised within plural governance systems. This chapter seeks to demonstrate that certain conditions need to be in place for plural or polycentric systems of security governance to coprovide effective and inclusive security for the collective good and, furthermore, that the positive features of the nonstate can be harnessed to give effect to the SDGs.

For Moldova and Albania, the promise of integration into the European Union (EU) has led to a reimagining of the purpose of schooling. Once charged with producing loyal communist citizens, their schools and educational policies are now focused on producing democratic citizens of an expanded Europe. This chapter examines how educational discourses are reconstituting notions of national citizenship to fit within a broader pan-European identity. We find that despite the adoption of common European standards, the EU imaginary nonetheless produces divergent results in classrooms through the perpetuation of uneven power relations, the displacement of local needs, and the contradictory fusion of new principles and old practices. Thus, in these cases, the social imaginary is invoked to convey the semblance of progress amidst the absence of change.

This paper aims to show preliminary evidence of the link between the perceived low vulnerability of vital energy systems (LVRE) and social acceptance of renewable energy (SARE) while treating environmental opportunities and threats (EOPT), renewable energy technological innovations (TECH) and business model innovations as possible antecedents.

The objectives are delivered through a survey of 199 households (potential and actual customers/suppliers of electric power and renewable energy gadgets in Kampala and Wakiso districts of Uganda), and the data obtained were analysed using ordinary least squares (OLS) regression.

Both LVRE and EOPT, on their own, significantly predict SARE. TECH significantly mediate in the relation between EOPT and SARE. The highest form of SARE is market acceptance. Also, the current state of vulnerability of vital energy systems in the two Ugandan districts seems to espouse energy security as the real value of renewable energy. The study further finds that to deliver high SARE, there is a need to encompass potential user performance expectations of renewable energy technologies.

Because the current results are from only two cities (districts) of Uganda and also based on a non-probability sample, generalizing them can be considered remote. In other words, it appears that more complex models need developing and testing in the future concerning LVRE and SARE. The present preliminary results are offered as a stimulus to such efforts. Well, it is expected, and, consistent with the diffusion of innovations theory (Rogers, 1995), that the population in Kampala and Wakiso districts are potential change agents (i.e. capable of influencing others in rural areas of Uganda).

The study estimates the direct and indirect effects to show how strongly TECH operate. Basing on OLS regression coefficients, the indirect effects are larger. Using the medgraph, we find probably for the first time, the adoption of technological innovation explains a significant part of the link between EOPT and SARE in the current study setting.