Centralized Power Structure Research Articles

Cross-Border Cooperation Against the Odds?

What impact did changes in the geopolitical environment have on grassroots cross-border cooperation within the Barents Euro-Arctic Region in the years before Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022? Drawing on interviews, surveys and document studies from two evaluations made in 2007 and 2020 of the Norwegian Barents Secretariat’s grant programme, conducted by the authors of the present article, we analyse the development over time of cross-border cooperation in Russia’s northwestern and Norway’s northernmost regions. The context in which the programme was conducted in 2020 differed significantly from that in 2007. The period was one of increasingly strained relations between Russia and the West. In particular, the 2014 events in Ukraine resulted in a new geopolitical environment that posed a challenge to the ideals of cross-border trust and people-to-people cooperation. Moreover, internal political developments in Russia led to more centralized power structures and control, also regarding civil society. Although we had expected these developments to have had a negative impact on the programme’s goal achievement, we find that the programme was closer to achieving several of its objectives in 2020 than in 2007. Competence transfer went both ways, both sides benefitted more equally and despite the geopolitical complications, the number of groups involved on both sides of the border did not decrease. The article identifies the main challenges between partners, and how they were overcome.

Digitalization, sustainability, and coffee. Opportunities and challenges for agricultural development

CONTEXTDigital technologies have the potential to address several sustainability challenges of the coffee value chain, however, given potential backlash consequences, this process must be assessed thoroughly. Descriptions of digital tools designed for this value chain have been presented in the literature, however, a critical examination of socio-environmental consequences of the process of digitalization is still lacking. OBJECTIVEUsing a socio-technical approach, this article examines innovation pathways proposed by the process of digitalization in the coffee value chain and identifies the opportunities and challenges of these pathways to contribute to sustainability goals in this value chain. METHODSTechnical characteristics of 20 digital tools oriented to the coffee producing sector are examined. We carried out a review of secondary information and conducted online semi-structured interviews with developers of these tools. Qualitative analyses of these characteristics were conducted across three themes: 1) knowledge and value systems represented, 2) power structures, 3) effective use of digital technology. RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONSOur analysis identified two digitalization pathways that are likely to affect different dimensions of sustainability. On the one hand, digital advisory services are focused on the diffusion of conventional agricultural practices to optimize production for a commodity market. On the other hand, trade platforms and traceability systems are associated with enhanced visibility of producers to facilitate their participation in differentiated markets. However, access barriers to technologies create asymmetrical participation of producers in these scenarios. Additionally, evidence shows that, more than a revolution, digitalization of the coffee value chain is about optimization of production based on the use of synthetic inputs and of traditional extension models, and more efficient social coordination within already centralized power structures. SIGNIFICANCEThe analytical framework based on the technical characteristics of digital tools and their interaction with social systems revealed that sustainability outcomes derived from the process of digitalization in the coffee value chain are far from being straightforward. Considering digital technologies not as a homogeneous category, but as a configuration of different technical arrays, each one with distinctive patterns and impacts, provides a more nuanced understanding of the role of digitalization for agricultural development.

Development of Trade and Financial-Economical Relationships between China and Russia: A Study Based on the Trade Gravity Model

This article empirically assessed new opportunities and provides a conceptual justification for promising areas of trade and financial and economic relations between China and Russia amidst ongoing global turbulence, the post-COVID situation, and sanctions pressure. The study utilized the trade gravity model, taking into account the latest trends in the development of the research subject and object, as well as current challenges and trends in the global economy. The study revealed similarities between the political systems, reforms, and policies of China and Russia, with centralized power structures overlapping and supporting each other at international forums such as the UNSC. The findings suggest that both countries plan to increase trade volume in the next two years, with China focusing more on trade and economic development, while Russia works to promote security and political stability. This study provides valuable insights into the economic relationship between Russia and China, its impact on the US and Europe, and highlights the need for effective policy interventions to address the challenges posed by this relationship. It offers significant theoretical and practical contributions, including the potential to unlock the potential of national economies, increase their competitiveness and help states enter a phase of advanced and sustainable development. This article provides several policy recommendations to ensure the long-term sustainability of the economic relationship between Russia and China and foster mutual understanding and trust between their peoples. These include promoting trade diversification, enhancing financial cooperation, addressing trade barriers, strengthening political and security coordination, mitigating negative impacts on other countries, promoting sustainable development, and fostering people-to-people exchanges.

Politically-driven public administration or co-creation? On the possibility of modernizing public services in rural Hungary

IMPACT This article reports an empirical study of a pilot programme which aimed to help local initiatives to co-create services for supporting household economic activities in disadvantaged rural regions of Hungary. The authors show how local governments—functioning within centralized power structures—can answer the challenges of public service modernization. They also assess to what extent and in which areas leaders, mentors and service users are open to new and innovative forms of work.

A Cross-Cultural Comparison of Government Influence on Collaborative Watershed Institutions in Ohio (USA) and the Dominican Republic and Implications for Decentralization of Resource Management

Collaborative watershed institutions (CWIs) have been promoted as effective vehicles for facilitating decentralization and collaboration between government and local stakeholders in both developed and less developed nations. While governmental actors may see CWIs as a means to increase stakeholder participation, they may also use a variety of mechanisms to influence these institutions to advance agency policies. This article describes the authors’ experiences with CWIs in two very different contexts: the state of Ohio (USA) and the Caribbean nation of the Dominican Republic. Using the Government Impacts Framework, the authors identify mechanisms by which government institutions influence CWI form and function. The degree and nature of impacts of governmental influence varies across CWIs, but, in general, CWIs that are closely aligned with government agency priorities experience fewer and less disruptive impacts. This influence can, in some instances, hinder efforts to decentralize water resource management, and instead reinforce existing centralized power structures.

From flabby to fit: Restructuring the public broadcasting system in Egypt

The Egyptian public broadcaster, newly named the National Media Council (NMC), has been under pressure to undergo comprehensive restructuring. Many changes have taken place recently to enable this transformation. Through analysing financial reports, evaluating the new regulatory framework and conducting in-depth interviews, this study examines the likelihood of the NMC adapting to the recent changes and the extent to which the new regulatory framework promotes a public service system suggesting a model for implementation. Findings show that the NMC must respond to four main challenges: lack of strategic vision and identity, a centralized regime power structure, an acute financial deficit, and a weak digital presence. Interviewees evaluated the new regulatory framework as inexhaustive with an intention to maintain grip on power. Interviewees proposed an integrated decentralized model that combines the public service mission with private partnership.

Becoming (Trans)ient: Queer Motherhood and Becoming-Queer in Maggie Nelson’s The Argonauts

Becoming (Trans)ient: Queer Motherhood and Becoming-Queer in Maggie Nelson’s The Argonauts Yasmina Jaksic (bio) Transformation, or as Maggie Nelson borrows from Deleuze and Guattari, “becoming,” is a trajectory threaded throughout Nelson’s work, namely Bluets and The Argonauts, which theorize hybridized or multiplied identities. The Argonauts marks a distinct turn to autotheory1 as Nelson details her journey through maternity and motherhood as a queer woman questioning what it means to be or become (if possible) a “queer” family. An appreciation of modes of becoming is not a dismissal of forms of identity, however; what I examine in this paper is the slipperiness Nelson comes up against in examining the lived reality of becoming-queer and the assemblage of queer kinships. By bearing us witness to her life, Nelson exposes the gap between becoming-queer for oneself and becoming-queer in public, emphasizing the stagnation embedded in the discourses [End Page 141] of queer and feminist identity. I look to Nelson’s Argonauts (and how it builds off her earlier work of poetry Bluets) as an example of life writing which embodies personal and political becoming. The Argonauts is a text in movement, in the middle, as Nelson narrates her own shifting thoughts and transforming body, converses with theorists in the margins, and continually displaces any claim to a fixed knowledge of self and being. What makes The Argonauts a uniquely twenty-first century autotheoretical text is her mimicking of social media forms and her awareness of the complexity of self-representation in the age of the selfie. Nelson uses these new forms to pose new questions that articulate life experiences that exceed the existing approaches to life writing, queer, and feminist theory. “Becoming,” for Deleuze and Guattari, indicates an “increase in valence” (229), a “becoming-molecular” (277), a “middle” and “movement” without “beginning nor end, departure nor arrival” (293). “Becoming” as a mode of existing in the world then is intrinsically linked to multiplicity as beings seek bonds with each other and are transformed by every encounter. “There is no becoming-majoritarian; majority never becomes” (291), Deleuze and Guattari emphasize, as becoming is a rhizomatic process of multiple linkages and assemblages that destabilize the hierarchal structure of the majority state. As each being takes on new forms and becomes a part of multiple stable bonds, centralized power structures and allegiances to fixed entities are weakened. For Nelson, this becoming is the lifelong practice in which we engage as creatures who evolve without a finite teleology (143). In Bluets, Nelson examines practices of becoming by embedding personal, almost confessional, poetry in a narrative of passion for the colour blue. “Some things do change, however. A membrane can simply rip off your life, like a skin of congealed paint torn off the top of a can” (9), she writes, allowing personal transformation to be intimate, individual, portrayed as a series of painful, bruised blues: “18. A warm afternoon in early spring, New York City. We went to the Chelsea Hotel to fuck. Afterward, from the window of our room, I watched a blue tarp on a roof across the way flap in the wind. You slept, so it was my secret” (7). The fragment is at once intimate and public, listing the facts of the memory alongside details of eros and pain. Bluets reads as if written by an anonymous blogger describing, captioning, and uploading memories like personal photographs, tagging time and place. “Tagging” on most social media platforms allows the user to indicate a photo or text post’s location, people involved or pictured, or “hashtag” key words that link the post to other related posts within an online space. The user thereby creates rhizomatic instances of [End Page 142] “becoming”: they come into contact with others, making connections and communities, transforming the meanings of words, images, and identities, and consequently transforming the corporeal world. Nelson’s text is at once intimate and impersonal—New York City, springtime, the Chelsea Hotel, and the figures “you” and “I” create multiple associations, tag multiple realities, experiences, and memories. The sparsity of words mimics the limited word counts of social media posts and indicates the awareness of a public...

The moral limits of autonomous democracy for planning theory: A critique of Purcell

This article tests the moral limits of autonomous democracy applied to planning theory by offering a critique of the recent work of Mark Purcell. In the first part, I situate Purcell’s view as a pure example of autonomous democracy applied to urban politics and planning. I argue that his view relies on the claim that there is something morally problematic about decision-making in planning that is not exercised autonomously and democratically. Indeed, his approach depends on the claim that autonomous democratic control in planning is morally superior. I consider two arguments for why we might agree. The first is by arguing that indirect centralized (heteronomous) power structures alienate people from their originary state of autonomous control. The second is by arguing that autonomous democracy will lead to the morally best outcomes. Ultimately, I conclude that neither argument works well and that there are not conclusive reasons for thinking that there is something morally better about autonomous democracy as a decision-making structure in planning compared to other forms that don’t rely on direct democratic control.

How Bureaucratic Power Structure Affects Personnel Structure

Parallel streams of literature in economics and management suggest that a centralized power structure tends to produce a top-heavy personnel structure in government bureaucracies. Supportive evidence is derived from a hand-collected dataset of ministry organization charts from 22 European countries. The structure of the bureaucratic pyramid is more top heavy in Eastern Europe than it is in Western Europe. Within Eastern Europe, countries that have preserved Soviet-style bureaucratic power structures have the most top-heavy ministries, whereas others that have reduced power centralization by separating political and administrative power have less top-heavy ministry pyramids that are more like those found in Western Europe.

Arguments About the Dictatorship

term modern dictatorship can be found in classic works of political thought, including The Politics of Aristotle, the Republic of Plato, Leviathan of Hobbes, and The Social Contract of Rousseau, much of analysis of modern political science generally (implicitly) based on concept of legitimate authority of Max Weber.Classification of authoritarian political institutions: authoritarian political non-development; authoritarian political development. To switch from non-democratic regimes, dictatorship to democracy, thong usually politicians often use three methods to switch, that is: innovation, reform and social revolution. All three methods are three different category to only three modes of creating change in different levels.In summary, dictatorship is political regime formed in social terms too speed up modern capitalism. That in that political power was centralized in nature. It appeared in historical conditions when that bourgeois nationalism is still weak and forces of democracy are not yet strong enough to have ability to organize and operate a democratic Government. To solve task of socio-economic urgency put country escape crisis and prevent risk of incurring a social revolution, gender-related political chop-a-z bu, thong is often about senior army officers began tough actions as military coup, declared emergency page status or martial law to organize construction of a centralized power structure.

Modelo de procesos para el desarrollo del front-end de aplicaciones web

The phrase ‘divide and rule’ and which proposes a strategy of dividing a centralized power structure into smaller power groups. Based on this principle, this study proposes that in the project management for the development of a web application, where the application’s implementation can be divided in processes with their own tools, resources and life cycle. Both O’Reilly (2007) and Ginige (1998) mention that the technologies to be used in the front-end of a web application are different from those of the back-end, making it possible to decouple the implementation into its own components from the side of the customer or web browser and from the applications servers, databases and static files.

Treaty Commitment as a Signaling Device: Explaining the Ratification of the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights

This study investigates the determinants of the ratification of International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights (ICESCR). To do so, it proposes an explanation that postulates that states employ treaty ratification as a device to signal their resolve to implement polices required by the treaty at issue in order to appease demanding domestic constituencies, predicting that states with lower compliance capacity tend to commit faster than states with higher compliance capacity. Applying this explanation to the ICESCR leads to two expectations. First, the larger government spending a proxy of high compliance capacity is hypothesized to delay the ratification process. Second, states with the unitary system are expected to ratify the ICESCR more promptly because the centralized power structure in unitary states significantly restricts the pursuit of the policy autonomy by minorities at local level that the right to self-determination entails. The Cox proportional hazard analysis lends support to both hypotheses.

Adaptive Environmental Interfaces: Biomimetic Morphologies and Tactical Urbanism

Human social needs, once facilitated by cities are now satisfied through the internet of everything (IoE) and the internet of me (IoMe). Historically, centralized power structures have shaped urban environments to support human interaction. These interactions are now also satisfied through the distributed power structures of the internet; undermining the built environment. Forces of sustainability combined with the grafting of technology onto bodies and buildings are re-shaping urban development – catalyzing the emergence of new urban morphologies. Here stochastic and biomimetic research methods and modeling generate new morphological urban forms. Opportunities are revealed through IoE sensory information and infrastructural systems’ analysis.

The Historical Origins of Frail Party Politics in South Korea: The Abortive Experiment of Democratic Republican Party, 1963-1979

This article explores sources of party underdevelopment in South Korea by examining the historical origins of weak parties since the 1960s. To unravel the historical origins of weak political parties, this article focuses on the rise of and fall of Democratic Republican Party, the governing party during the authoritarian era in South Korea. It argues that the strong state and patron-client structure worked against DRP’s experiment for strong party. Lacking stable social roots and extensive party organizations across the country, DRP had to rely upon the traditional patron-client structure of society and state administration organizations for electoral mobilization. Yet the U. S. pressure, domestic demand and factional strife within the regime served to mitigate those constraints. The gradual decline of DRP and electoral politics from the mid-1960s resulted not solely from the influence of the environmental factors such as the weakening of U.S. influence and factional conflict which were powerful and intense until the mid-1960s, but also from Park’s own effort to build up authoritarian regime. The implication of the fall of the DRP has to do with its lasting legacy on party politics in Korea. Initially, the DRP represented a new experiment in Korean party politics that had long been plagued by the lack of programmatic coherence, organizational stability and linkage to the civil society. Eventually, DRP turned out to be not an exception to traditional Korean political parties. Highly centralized power structure around personal network, subsequent organizational frailty and incompetence on policy matters characterized the DRP.

Rethinking eu Energy Security Considering Past Trends and Future Prospects

euenergy policy objectives are directed at three highly interdependent areas: energy supply security, competitiveness and decarbonization to prevent climate change. In this paper, we focus on the issue of energy supply security. Security of energy supply for the immediate and medium-term future is a necessary condition in the current context of the global political economy for the survival of the Union and its component member states. Since the Lisbon Treaty entered into force, energy policy no longer comes onto the agenda of the European Commission through the backdoor of the common market, environment and competitiveness. The Treaty created a new legal basis for the internal energy market. However, securing external supplies as well as deciding the energy mix, remain matters of national prerogative, though within the constraints of other parts of eu’s legislation in force. Without a common defense policy, the highly import dependent Union and its members face external instability in the energy rich Arab Middle East and North Africa.Concern about energy security has been triggered by declining European energy production as well as the strain on global demand exerted by newly industrializing economies such as China and India and the Middle East, as well as the political instability in this reserve-rich part of the world. This paper explores the following two topics [1] the current situation and past trends in production, supply, demand and trade in energy in the eu, against the background of major changes in the last half decade and [2] threats to the security of the supply of oil and natural gas from import regions.Fossil fuel import dependence in the eu is expected to continue to increase in the coming two decades. As global trends show, and despite new fields in the Caspian region and the Eastern Mediterranean, conventional fossil oil and gas resources remain concentrated in fewer geopolitically unstable regions and countries (i.e. the Middle East and North Africa (mena) and the Caspian Region (cr) including Russia), while global demand for fossil energy is expected to substantially increase also within the energy rich Gulf countries. This combination directly impacts eu energy supply security. It should be noted that the trend towards higher levels of import dependence was not interrupted when the era of low energy prices, between 1980 and 2003, came to an end.Within the eu itself, domestic resistance to the development of unconventional resources is an obstacle to investment in unconventional sources in this part of the high-income world. This should therefore not put at risk investments in either renewables or alternative sources at home or conventional resources mainly in the Arab-Middle East.The situation is exacerbated by the spread of instability in the Arab-Middle Eastern countries. There are three domestic and geopolitical concerns to be taken into consideration:(1) In the Arab-Middle East, threats to eu energy supply security originate in the domestic regime of these countries. Almost all Arab resource-rich countries belong to a type ofpatrimonial, rentier-type of state-society relation. These regimes rely on rents from the exploitation of energy resources and the way in which rents are distributed.Regimes of this type are being challenged. Their economies show uneven economic development, centralized power structures, corruption and poverty at the bottom of the social hierarchy. The discrimination of females is a major obstacle to the development of the service sector. At present, even the monarchies fear the spread of violent conflict.Offshoots of these consequences have proven to cause civil unrest, exemplified by what optimists have called the ‘Arab Spring.’(2) The second concern is the domestic and global impact of Sovereign Wealth Funds (swfs) managed by Arab patrimonial rentier states. swfs have proven to be an asset in both developing and developed economies due to their ability to buffer the ‘Dutch Disease,’ and to encourage industrialization, economic diversification and eventually the development of civil society. In patrimonial states, however, swfs are affected by corruption and the diversion of funds away from long-term socioeconomic development to luxury consumption by political elites. In fact, Arab swfs underpin the persistence of the Arab patrimonial rentier state system.(3) Finally, the post-Cold War, me and cea geopolitical landscape is shifting. The emergence of China and other Asian economies has increased their presence in the Middle East due to a growing need for energy and the expansion of Asian markets. The recent discovery of energy resources in the us has led to speculation that there will be less us presence in the region. There would be a serious risk to eu energy security if emerging Asian economies were to increase their presence in the Middle East as us interests recede.

Gestão de recursos humanos em pequenas e médias empresas

A especialização das funções de gestão teve e tem efeito a possibilidade de aprofundamento de cada uma das áreas de gestão como uma área de conhecimentos específicos, embora, em contrapartida, possa ter feito perder alguma validade pragmática aos corpos de conhecimentos específicos assim desenvolvidos. A análise da literatura e da prática da gestão de recursos humanos sugere a sua inadequação no caso das PME. O artigo explora esta hipótese através da análise de um estudo de caso em que são analisadas as práticas de gestão de recursos humanos que têm lugar uma empresa em que não existe uma função de recursos humanos diferenciada. A análise do caso sugere que existem vários intervenientes na gestão de recursos humanos que agem de formas não explicitamente coordenadas, as quais se foram desenvolvendo ao longo do tempo. Em atuação obtém, no entanto, efeitos em termos de gestão de recursos humanos que correspondem a dois critérios centrais da estrutura de gestão da empresa: a manutenção de uma estrutura de poder centralizada e autocrática e a rapidez de resposta adequada ao mercado em que opera. Esta forma de atuação é instável dadas as alterações no contexto da empresa, que implicaram, entre outras coisas, o início de um processo de certificação de qualidade. Não parece, contudo, possível pensar na sua modificação à luz dos quadros tradicionais da gestão de recursos humanos sem considerar modificações mais profundas de todo o processo organizativo da empresa, o que sugere a necessidade de aprofundar esta questão da validade pragmática do corpo de conhecimentos especializado da gestão de recursos humanos.DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.17575/rpsicol.v13i1/2.568

Society of Imperial Power: Reinterpreting China’s “Feudal Society”

Abstract To call the period from Qin Dynasty to Qing Dynasty a “feudal society” is a misrepresentation of China’s historical reality. The fengjian system only occupied a secondary position in Chinese society from the time of Qin. It was the system of prefectures and counties (junxianzhi) that served as the cornerstone of the centralized power structure. This system, together with the institution of selecting officials through the imperial examination, constituted the centralized bureaucracy that intentionally crippled the hereditary tradition and the localized aristocratic powers, and hence bolstered the unity of the empire. Feudalism in medieval Western Europe shares many similarities with that of China during the Shang and Zhou dynasties, but is quite different from the monarchical centralism since the time of Qin and Han. Categorizing the social form of the period from Qin to Qing as “feudal” makes the mistake of over-generalizing and distorting this concept. It runs counter to the original Chinese meaning of fengjian, and severely deviates from the western connotation of feudalism. Moreover, the decentralized feudalism in pre-Qin dynasties and the later centralized imperial system from Qin onwards influenced the generation and evolution of Chinese culture in vastly different ways.

The Constitution, Citizenship, and Corporations – A Critical Look at Citizens United v. FEC

“Associations of citizens” is a phrase the US Supreme Court used in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission (2010) to refer to corporations. This notion was, apparently, an important element in shaping the Supreme Court’s judgment that permitted corporations to participate in the democratic process through campaign funding. Presumably, the “citizens” the court had in mind are the shareholders of corporations. Treating corporations as citizens in the collective, the Supreme Court upheld their political rights, and there is evidence of disquiet with the decision in Citizens United.This paper examines the Supreme Court’s characterization of corporations as associations of citizens and granting them “citizenship” rights. These have serious constitutional implications. The idea that corporations are groupings of citizens can be traced to the 19th century and in this paper, I question how far this conception is relevant to modern business corporations with their features such as centralized power structures, relative shareholder passivity, and widespread concerns about corporate power and influence. The characteristics of contemporary corporations leave little room for treating them as “associations of citizens.” My paper points out the need for greater clarity and realism in our understanding of corporations, particularly in the context of constitutional law. This can facilitate the development of more nuanced approaches to deal with the corporate phenomenon.

Occidentalism: Jack Goody and Comparative History

This article introduces the special section on the contribution of Jack Goody, which focuses on The Theft of History (2006). Goody attacks the notion of a radical division between Europe and Asia, which has become built into the commonsense academic wisdom and categorical apparatus of the social sciences and humanities. Eurocentrism is a constant target as he scrutinizes and finds wanting the claims of the West to have invented modern science, cultural renaissances, the free city, capitalism, democracy, love and secularism. Goody’s approach favours a dynamic long-term basis for comparisons between societies and focuses on the exchange of information and goods across Eurasia to argue that the comparative advantage one society gains has been only temporary, swinging between different parts of Eurasia a number of times over the millennia. Goody suggests that China developed an active mercantile urban culture before Europe. Cities and towns with their mixture of luxury and learning, should not be seen as inevitably subordinate to centralized power structures in both eastern and western Eurasia. Goody criticizes the theoretical assumptions and the handling of evidence of Perry Anderson, Fernand Braudel, Norbert Elias, Moses Finlay, David Landes, Karl Marx, Joseph Needham, Immanuel Wallerstein and Max Weber. His concern is that the master categories of world history, such as antiquity, feudalism and capitalism, have been developed against a background of the particular European trajectory, then projected onto the world at large. Goody remains sceptical, not just about eurocentrism, but also the additional danger of being eurocentric about ethnocentricity, which he regards as a trap that postcolonialism and postmodernism frequently fall into.

Operational versus Rhetorical Sustainability: Conflicting Goals, Values and Functions

The ideal of - what I am calling sustainability - as introduced in the 1987 report of the Brundtland Commission and institutionalized in the form of Agenda 21 at the 1992 Rio Earth Summit is a false and counterproductive ideal. It stands for the impossible proposition that we are almost god-like, capable of perceiving, integrating, monitoring, organizing and controlling our world on levels that are considerably beyond human capability. Even we somehow developed the capacity to master the complexity we will never have the willingness to do so. Nor would we really want to we understood the centralized power structures, enormous national and transnational bureaucracies, and inevitable use of unrelenting power and force that would be required to compel the recalcitrant malingerers who resisted the imposition of such a political system. Rhetorical is a utopian vision of the perfect that truly is the enemy of the possible and the good. On paper we can always sketch detailed and elegant pipedreams that appear to have the ability to do what we claim we desire if only everyone would come together and behave in the way laid out in the blueprint. One lesson learned from the French Enlightenment's failure to accurately comprehend the quality and limits of human nature is that the if only is a utopian vision we will never achieve. It represents an inaccurate conception of human nature, including how we act and will continue to act. The argument introduced here is that rhetorical ignores the fact that nothing humans create is sustainable. Entropy grinds down on all of us and erodes, undermines and alters every system or institution we create, sometimes for the better and frequently for the worse. In the face of inevitable non-sustainability we need to focus on strategies aimed at adaptation and the buffering of unacceptably harsh consequences for those affected by change. The reality of ordinary human nature and the intensity of our self-centered motivation obstruct our ability to invent new institutions of the kind required to achieve rhetorical sustainability. The answer is that we need to embrace change while retaining as much of the positive virtues as possible throughout the repeated cycles of transformation. In part the problem is a function of the combination of scale, of the cyclical dynamism that is part of any human system, of energy loss and the ultimate emergence of dominant self-interest in all human power structures. There is an irremediable disconnection between individual decision-makers, the consequences of their actions, and their ability to bring about desired consequences on a scale that matters in terms of fixing a critical situation or taking advantage of positive opportunities. But our failure is also a problem of our naturally limited intellectual and emotional capacity, the inevitable tendency to act in one's self-interest, and the formal and informal system of rewards and sanctions that come with different kinds of behavior. I will address such considerations toward the end of the paper by using a series of case studies and examples and by focusing on the ideas of strategic small wins and identifying and manipulating points of maximum leverage. This approach attempts to better understand how we can increase the likelihood of achieving productive solutions on the scale of the possible rather than be content with dreaming grand unachievable visions that blind us to the fact of our profound limitations.