Xavier Rambla Sociologia

Michael Keating suggests an extremely relevant distinction when featuring the “rescaling of the European state” as “ the migration of functional systems, identities, and institutions to new levels”. This concept can be read as the presentation of three different mechanisms of policy rescaling. Mechanisms are causal patterns which are enacted in some contexts.

The current political and academic arguments on the currency area and the free trade agreement make reference to the migration of functional systems. On the one hand, many economists have blamed the institutional design of the currency union for the sovereign-debt crisis to the extent that policy-makers have failed to design and implement a reliable fiscal union, which in their view must underpin a currency union. On the other hand, the proposal to sign a free trade agreement between the EU and the US has been challenged on the grounds that a sound economic policy should nowadays localise as many activities as possible and engage in resolute de-financialisation.

Apparently, the varying attachment of identities has to do with democratic disaffection and the search for more accountable and responsible authorities. Thus, some political parties vindicate the strengthening of member states’ competencies vis à vis the Union, since the legal basis of the European Commission, the European Council and the European Parliament entail significant democratic deficits. At the same time, some regions pursue their independence from their respective member states in other to become new members of the EU on their own. These latter movements claim for new democratic decision-making procedures on the very limits of the ‘demos’.

Finally, institutions themselves migrate. The Europe 2020 Strategy keeps a frail equilibrium with the undergoing ‘energy transitions’ in France and Germany and the reliance of Eastern countries on carbon as far as renewable sources, emissions and efficiency are concerned. The European Central Bank is the new last resort lender beyond the former national banks, but the officials of the German Central Bank address severe criticism to its policies. Labour and education policies respond to an even more complex rescaling insofar as their framework goals are established in Brussels by means of the Open Method of Coordination, member states are accountable through the data base of benchmarks constructed by Eurostat, and regional and local governments are often expected to build territorial coalitions to align these goals with regional economic development.

In the end, these social changes are also influencing sectoral boundaries in the whole continent. Not only education and employment policies, but also macro-economic, trade, energy, transportation and other policy sectors are being connected in innovative complex ways. While Europeanisation brings this effect about at the upper level, simultaneous and disparate trends of both devolution and centralisation are doing so at the level of sub-state politics.

The Brookings Institution has also produced a short video on the Millennium Development Goals (here). Brookings is a private non-profit organisation aimed at fostering debate on fact-based policy proposals. Since its inception in 1916 experts based there have been very influential in shaping US policies concerning budgeting, war and peace, presidential transitions, tax reductions security and others.

Experts in international relations either highlight the cooperation between public and private institutions (e.g. Robert Keohane) or the potential of conflict between them (e.g. Robert Cox). This literature opens some relevant questions about their role in managing the MDGs and designing strategic planning for human development after 2015. What is the role of public and private political actors in this debate? To what extent does their interaction promote global democratisation? Are they opening new conflicts?

The Global Campaign for Education (GCE) collaborates with international organisations such as the Global Partnership for Education in order to foster progress towards the Education for All goals. To be precise, the Campaing claims that the involvement of the civil society is crucial for achieving these goals, since civil society organisations can raise awareness, put pressure on governments, provide services and become sustainable by means of institutional learning. It has been in charge of the Civil Society Education Fund.

The GCE was created by a coalition of NGOs and teacher unions in order to monitor the real deployment of the EFA programme. To the extent that these members have regional and national branches in Africa, Asia and Latin America, it has become an international player with a pluriscalar organisation.

Current debates on the global civil society suggest some questions about the role of the GCE. Particularly, some views highlight the innovative features of its organisation and activities, while other are concerned with the potential subordination of political actors likle the GCE to governments and international organisations. Can these innovation and subordination effects be observed in the case of the GCE?

SOCIAL CHANGE AND GLOBALISATION (Sociology & International students)

The World Economic Forum has advanced a definition and a measure of competitiveness that attributes economic prosperity to complex networks of societal interconnections. On these grounds the WEF elaborates a worldwide ranking of countries that you can browse in the same website.

A number of questions arise:

– How can we account for the specific effect of the twelve factors included in the index? Are all the possible hypotheses logically coherent?

– Can international strategic plans for development enact these interconnections? Europe 2020 strategy and UNDP Capability Development program posit two very relevant case studies.

– Michael Porter’s theory  reverberates with this concept of competitiveness. Do modernisation and institutionalist accounts of social change inspire this theory?

SOCIETAT DE LA INFORMACIÓ (Empresa i Tecnologia & Gestió Aeronàutica)

El Fòrum Econòmic Mundial ha avançat una definició i una mesura de la competitivitat  que atribueix la prosperitat econòmica a unes complexes xarxes d’interelacions que afecten el conjunt de les societats. Sobre aquesta base el FEM elabora un rànquing mundial de països que podeu consultar al seu mateix web.

Tot plegat suggereix un seguit de preguntes:

– Com podem observar l’efecte dels dotze factors inclosos a l’índex? És clara la coherència lògica de totes les possibles hipòtesis?

– Poden els plans estratègics internacionals per al desenvolupament activar aquestes interconnexions? L’estratèia Europa 2020 i el programa Capability Development del PNUD ens ofereixen dos casos d’estudi força significatius.

– El disseny de la tecnologia contribueix a engegar aquestes interconnexions? Els sistemes de transport hi poden contribuir també d’alguna manera?

In the mid twentieth century two world wars devastated large areas, killed many people and caused havoc to the European ideology on global governance. While international powers had formerly relied on agreements, concerts and treaties between them, a new system based on international organisations was constructed to cope with the risk of massive war on new grounds. Simultaneously, intellectuals reacted to that shock by disseminating an ideological confidence on the continous progress of countries towards collective welfare. That expectation initially appeared to be confirmed by sound post-war economic growth. In this context, USA President Harry Truman labelled it as ‘development’ in his 1949 Inaugural Address (minute 9:35) and economists elaborated WW Rosstow’s Model. This model attempted to make sense of the international distribution of GDP per capita by hypothesising a sequence of societal stages from stagnant traditional societies, through an economic take-off up to the affluent mass society. However, current analyses of global development have challenged two assumptions that those politicians and experts shared, namely: their faith in continuous progress and their use of ‘national societies’ as units. While classical and mid-twentieth centuries had both relied on progress, recent analyses have actually retrieved the global perspective of classical sociologists that most of their post-war followers had overlooked.

To start with, in oder to spell out the laws of history, early sociologists (e.g. Comte, Spener) drew on the philosophers who found out the meaning of history in continuous improvement (Condorcet, Hegel, Marx). Thus they rejected alternative accounts of human diversity and the the cycles of history (Vico, Herder,Maistre). However, between the world wars some philosophers became extremely sceptic on the potential of progress, and highlighted the banality of evil to the extent that ordinary men often used technology for mass murder (Benjamin, Arendt). Afterwards, post-modern, post-structuralist, post-colonial and post-development writers have dismissed the Euro-centric narrative of modernity as a linear advancement (Foucault, Said, Escobar).

Moreover, in the mid twentieth century social scientists were not aware that classical sociology had not considered ‘national states’ to be a relevant unit of analysis. Marx thought that the emergence of capitalism responded to a distinct European process of original accumulation of capital in which international trade had place a very relevant role. Durkheim portrayed a social division of labour that cut accross national borders. Weber did not choose states but religions as his main units of comparison, and saw national legitimation as the consequence of a wider, international phenomenon such as the emergence of  legal-rational domination.

Recent analyses draw on methodological rather than speculative philoshophy of history so as to account for the two waves of globalisation in the late nineteenth (the first one) and twentieth (the second one) centuries. This methodology requires to look at contingent but regular structures of causes (mechanisms) that provoke social changes (Popper, Elser, Archer, Hedstrom), as well as to unveil either the social configurations and networks (N. Elias, S. Sassen) or the systems of strategic interaction (R. Boudon, P. Hall) that generate global transformations. Thus, globalisation is a social transformation featured by multi-layered geographies, the social construction of knowledge economies, complex international relations revolving around many political issues, and eventually individualisation and the making of new identities. In this vein, each of these social changes has to be accounted in terms of causal mechanisms and social interaction.

Enlace a este capítulo de libro.

Com l’entrada del mes de setembre, aquesta també va adreçada als estudiants de l’assignatura Societat de la Informació de la UAB.

Els canvis socials que han donat forma a la societat de la informació es poden interpretar a partir de les interaccions que s’han establert entre tres variables: les transformacions laborals (pel que fa al mercat laboral i a l’organització), la globalització i les desigualtats.

La globalització ha interactuat amb les transformacions laborals en la mesura que ha incidit sobre la intersecció entre els dominis del mercat, l’estat, la societat civil i l’espai domèstic. D’una banda, el fet que un seguit de fundacions i empreses (com ara les empreses de rating, l’ICAAN o les consultores que elaboren els ranking universitaris) hagin esdevingut autoritats privades, que operen a cavall entre el mercat i l’estat, ha generat noves incertes i reptes per a l’estratègia de les organitzacions de tota mena: empreses, administracions públiques i tercer sector. D’una altra, un seguit de processos globals com ara les deslocalitzacions industrials, el creixement del sector turístic o la formació de ciutats globals han activat el keynesianisme post-industrial per tal com han incrementat o reduït el nombre de llars de doble ingrés, les quals gaudeixen d’una protecció extra contra la pobresa i generen una part important de la demanda interna. Val a dir que un procés global com la subcontractació de tasques de cura a persones vingudes d’altres països també repercuteix força sobre els mercats laborals (i en un altre registre, sobre les desigualtats).

Les transformacions laborals i les desigualtats han interactuat també de diverses maneres. Per exemple, la varietat de les síndromes de guany i de pèrdua de competències amb l’edat detectades per l’OCDE suggereix un efecte laboral important sobre les desigualtats entre les edats. Però les distintes formes de polarització social també provenen dels mercats laborals, els quals a hores d’ara no generen tantes fractures a dins de les organitzacions com feien a l’època industrial.

Per últim, la darrera vessant del triangle es dibuixa en les interaccions entre la globalització i les desigualtats. Sobretot, l’enorme impacte de la “financialisation” i de les cadenes globals de valor sobre les desigualtats d’ingrés ha tingut una transcendència ineludible. A més a més, el discurs i les pràctiques institucionals inspirades en l’ideal de l’economia del coneixement han remarcat la rellevància de les desigualtats educatives.

Aquesta entrada conté notes per al curs Societat de la Informació, impartit als graus d’Empresa i Teconologia i de Gestió Aeronàutica de la UAB.

Els termes “la societat de la informació” i “l’economia del coneixement” normalment fan referència a les societats on les infotectnologies són utilitzades àmpliament. Malgrat les diferents accepcions d’aquests conceptes, ambdós termes acostumen a recolzar-se en una mateixa lectura dels canvis socials. La idea és que aquestes tecnologies impulsen un tipus específic de societat, que és diferent de les societats industrials occidentals de mitjan segle XX i de la industrialització de molts països del món durant les dècades de la guerra freda. També és un lloc comú indicar que aquesta transformació afavorirà la prosperitat, la resolució dels reptes ecològics mitjançant la innovació, i un alleujament significatiu de les desigualtats gràcies a l’accés generalitzat als nous mitjans de producció. Tanmateix, una confiança excessiva en aquestes tres expectatives ha provocat força confusions.

La qüestió de les fonts del creixement econòmic ha despertat una primera controvèrsia. Certament les economies poden prosperar tot evolucionat des d’una especialització en activitats de poc valor afegit fins a una especialització en activitats d’alt valor afegit (vg l’informe Spence). No obstant això, molts estudis indiquen que aquesta pauta d’evolució tan sols s’ha esdevingut, i molt puntualment, en els nuclis estratègics d’algunes cadenes de valor globals (vg R.  Kaplinsky). És difícil esperar-la a fora d’aquests nodes, és a dir, a la major part del món.

Sovint també s’entén que la nova capacitat d’innovació ens donarà a mig termini les solucions als enormes reptes que representen el canvi climàtic i la crisi energètica. Per exemple, les “smart cities” encarnen aquesta promesa; ara bé, és possible dissenyar una ciutat de bell nou? (vegeu els casos de Songdo i d’Amsterdam, així com aquesta entrevista amb la sociòloga Saskia Sassen).

Per últim, molts comentaristes de la societat de la informació entenen erròniament que la facilitat d’accés als ordinadors personals, internet, els telèfons intel·ligents, les xarxes socials i les múltiples aplicacions acabarà suavitzant les fractures socials. Ara bé, aquest optimisme ha xocat amb la realitat, si més no pel que fa al “gènere de l’economia del coneixement” (lectura S. Walby) i a les característiques del “capital hipotecari“, difós precisament gràcies a les infotecnologies.

In the late nineteenth century a small (but heterogeneous and influential) array of social agents including investors, traders, migrants, politicians, journalists and intellectuals already took the whole world as a relevant scale for envisaging collective projects and making decisions. Therefore, it would be an over-simplification to state that globalisation is a completely new phenomenon. Not only the roots of the current global transformations are really old, but also a type of significantly globalised society was emerging one hundred years ago (vid. David Held).

Short historical references may be helpful tools for teaching globalisation, particularly if the differences between the earlier and the current forms are highlighted. Here you have a couple of examples.

* The campaign against the Congo Free State and the action of the Inter-parliamentary Union pioneered the activities of the global civil society. The campaign was launched in the press published in the US and the UK so as to denounce the collusion of private and public interests in exploiting the population of this territory by means of slave labour. The government of this state was attributed personally to King Leopold of Belgium in an international conference hold in Berlin in 1885. The campaign was successful since the king had to relinquish his personal power due to international pressure, and the state was formally annexed by Belgium in 1908. The IPU was an association promoted by French and British politicians that played an important role in the setting of the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague in 1899. This court tried to avoid war by solving commercial conflicts through negotiation according to established rules. Although both initiatives were the initial spurs of a global civil society, it is noticeable that their success depended on the decisions of state governments (e.g. embassies putting pressure on Leopold, the tsar proposing The Hague Conference). In contrast, nowadays the global civil society consists of a more dense, heterogeneous and complex set of movements and advocacy networks that put pressure on multilateral agencies.

* At the end of the nineteenth century the British Empire managed to maintain its financial hegemony despite the increasing obsolescence of its industrial basis, mostly due to competition by the US and Germany. The Empire manipulated trade between its colony in India and the Chinese Empire in order to generate a surplus that underpinned the financial institutions based in London. In essence, it forced destitute Indian peasants to produce opium and other export crops that were afterwards sold in China, often by coercive means too. The resulting surplus was enough to compensate for the trade deficit of the British economy. Certainly, this example shows to what extent finance was global at that time, but it also shows how it was embedded in imperial politics. On the contrary, current denationalized financialisation is not submitted to politics, but has patterned some important transformation of politics (see S. Sassen)

La Editorial Miño y Dávila ha publicado un libro, producto de una investigación colectiva dirigida por mi mismo, sobre La Educación para Todos en América Latina. Este video presenta un breve resumen.