Great Transformation Research Articles

Great transformations: Social revolutions erupted during energy transitions around the world, 1500–2013

Over the past 500 years, the transition to fossil fuels has been accompanied by sociopolitical upheaval, revolution, and counterrevolution in countries around the world. Previous research found that social revolutions occurred during energy transitions in a limited sample of 38 countries. This research expanded the investigation to examine the relationship between shifts in the energy base of societies and transformative sociopolitical change in 66 countries since 1500, and to address new questions about these transitions. We found that two-thirds of all 52 identified revolutions occurred during the initial phase of the transition to fossil energy use (between 0.7 and 7.2 GJ/cap/year), a “critical energy transition phase” that lasted 42 years on average. This “critical energy transition phase” can be understood as an arena where social and economic adversaries met to contest past and future relations, a contest that resulted in turmoil, violence, and transformative social change. We also assess the impact of revolutions and counterrevolutions on the speed of energy transitions, finding that revolutions might accelerate transitions and repressions might slow them down. We also find that, in our sample, colonial rule slowed the pace of energy transitions for colonized subjects. These findings are significant because similar sociopolitical developments may be associated with the current energy transition in response to catastrophic climate change, a product of the previous transition.

The Role of Trust on Social Media Purchase Behavior: A Study on Young Consumers in the Context of the Technology Acceptance Model

In today's dynamic market conditions, it has become a critical competitive element for businesses to use social media platforms in their marketing activities in order to raise awareness about their products and services, improve their brand image, make their relations with existing customers sustainable, and reach new customer groups. Social media platforms, whose number of users is increasing day by day, have caused a great transformation not only in the daily lives of individuals but also in their businesses, especially in their marketing activities. The purpose of this research is to evaluate the impact of social media marketing activities on young consumers within the framework of the technology acceptance model. In the research, the perception of trust in the social media purchasing behaviors of young consumers was emphasized, and trust in social media was adapted to the Technology Acceptance Model as an external factor. In this context, a research model was established as a result of examining the relations between the related theoretical and applied research and the related variables, and the research was designed quantitatively based on the cause-and-effect relationship in order to test the hypotheses put forward in the conceptual framework. Survey data collected from young consumers in Turkey was analyzed with PLS-SEM. The findings of the research show that young consumers' perception of trust in social media shows that the perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness of social media use positively affect and are an important determinant of purchasing behavior. In addition, it is among the research findings that the social media purchasing behaviors of young consumers are positively affected by perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness, two important factors of the technology acceptance model

‘The Sustainable State’ of STS

What is the role of science & technology studies (STS) in the collective search for a new ‘constitutional vision’ of the sustainable state, one that respects planetary ecological boundaries and enacts a ‘great green transformation’ of state, society, and its infrastructures? In this text – originating as a keynote presentation to the 2022 DASTS conference – I discuss, first, the kind of socio-technical imagination needed for STS research to navigate this contested knowledge-political terrain. Second, based on my co-authored book The Sustainable State (“Den bæredygtige stat”), I suggest four dimensions and collective research agendas that builds on and extends STS’s contribution: new ecological citizenships, new civil society transition alliances, new institutions of ecological democracy, and new socio-ecological markets. In extending established and fostering new analytical proclivities in alliance with other select knowledge practices, STS research will be key, I claim, to this collective building-site, arguably the overarching challenge facing our more-than-human societies.

Ukraine War: Policy Miscalculations or Contradictions of Capitalism?

There are competing narratives regarding the causes of the war in Ukraine. One focuses on the provocation by the United States and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, while others emphasize Russian aggression. The approach implemented below is to focus on the long-term contradictions of capitalism, including the formation of Communist states themselves in Russia in 1917 and China in 1949. The subsequent relation between capitalist industrial powers and the leading Communist powers has been an important factor in the post-World War II expansion of capitalism and its conflicts. The role of key ideological frameworks, such as the definition of money, is also a factor emphasized in this analysis. Such a wider lens may enable us to judge more accurately the potential for another “Great Transformation” or a Zeitenwende. JEL Classification: B51, E58, F33, N20

The Black Aesthetic in Rita Dove’s Playlist for the Apocalypse

To Rita Dove, a renowned poet of great transformations and eclectic artistry, blackness is an aesthetic that must be embraced and celebrated. It is the project of this paper to reflect on the black aesthetic depicted in Rita Dove’s Playlist for the Apocalypse (2021); a breakthrough volume presenting blackness as an “Ars Poetica” an “X marks the spot” leading to Dove’s signature crossing. In this volume, Dove presents a playlist of the everyday and of the nation's history over the past fifty years. The title of the volume, while acknowledging the sequential playfulness of a music playlist, it maintains a cadence of finality brought about by the word “apocalypse.” Playlist for the Apocalypse presents “a lifetime of song” dramatizing Dove’s view of the idea of the apocalypse as both end and resurrection recorded in personal triumphs and pains as her stories meet with the grand arc of history. Keywords: Black aesthetic, grand arc of history, music, vocalization, orchestration, memory, race, anger, resignation, disease, death, resurrection

The Role of Locomotory Ancestry on Secondarily Aquatic Transitions.

Land-to-sea evolutionary transitions are great transformations where terrestrial amniote clades returned to aquatic environments. These secondarily aquatic amniote clades include charismatic marine mammal and marine reptile groups, as well as countless semi-aquatic forms that modified their terrestrial locomotor anatomy to varying degrees to be suited for swimming via axial and/or appendicular propulsion. The terrestrial ancestors of secondarily aquatic groups would have started off swimming strikingly differently from one another given their evolutionary histories, as inferred by the way modern terrestrial amniotes swim. With such stark locomotor functional differences between reptiles and mammals, we ask if this impacted these transitions. Axial propulsion appears favored by aquatic descendants of terrestrially sprawling quadrupedal reptiles, with exceptions. Appendicular propulsion is more prevalent across the aquatic descendants of ancestrally parasagittal-postured mammals, particularly early transitioning forms. Ancestral terrestrial anatomical differences that precede secondarily aquatic invasions between mammals and reptiles, as well as the distribution of axial and appendicular swimming in secondarily aquatic clades, may indicate that ancestral terrestrial locomotor anatomy played a role, potentially in both constraint and facilitation, in certain aquatic locomotion styles. This perspective of the land-to-sea transition can lead to new avenues of functional, biomechanical, and developmental study of secondarily aquatic transitions.

Aesthetic references for reductive forms in contemporary Iraqi sculpture

Reduction has been linked visually in art since man began making functional and aesthetic forms, and this beginning can be identified with cave paintings. Reduction is one of the clearest indications of intellectual presence in aesthetic experience. Modernism was greatly supported by the great transformations that the intellectual movement witnessed in the world in general and in Europe in particular. There, and their transfer of European artistic experiences, and the reflection of this influence in their aesthetic sculptures, and for this reason the researchers find that the study of the aesthetic references of the reductive forms in the Iraqi sculptural experience represents a great importance in the study of the history of contemporary sculpture, to consider the concept of reduction and its performance applications, so the research includes four chapters The first chapter included the methodological framework for the research, and in it we reviewed the research problem, as we explained in it the plastic art’s dealings in general with the concept of reduction, and then the applications of reduction in the art of European and Iraqi sculpture, starting from this question: What are the references for selection in contemporary Iraqi sculpture? Then we presented the importance of the research and its aim in identifying the working mechanisms of the concept of shorthand and its references in contemporary Iraqi sculpture, and the limits of research between (2003-2023), and we showed a number of definitions of shorthand linguistically, idiomatically and procedurally.Then, in the second chapter marked by the theoretical framework of the research: we presented three topics, the first of which was devoted to the concept of shorthand and its performance applications in the arts of ancient civilizations. The second topic was devoted to the study of reductionism in the arts of European modernity, and in the third topic, we dealt with reductionism in contemporary Iraqi sculpture, and then presented the theoretical framework indicators.In the third chapter tagged: the procedural framework of the research: we presented the research community, which included all the Iraqi artists who worked in the shorthand format in their sculptural works within the limits of the research, and we set a number of conditions for choosing the research sample, and it was chosen in an intentional way, and it included four samples, and we also used the observation tool to collect The research sample information, and the analysis was done according to the descriptive analytical method.The researchers reached a number of results, including: that the act of reduction is a dominant and distinctive feature in the outputs of contemporary Iraqi sculpture, which depends on simplification, pruning and deletion, and also achieved by symbolic abbreviations in the artwork and the concentration and intensification of the significance, as it appeared that the contemporary Iraqi sculptor was influenced by the European artistic schools and trends that dominated On the global artistic act in the twentieth century, and what followed within the precursors of preoccupation with the arts of modernity and beyond, in addition to being affected by the cultural depth of the civilization of the Mesopotamia Valley, just as reductionism achieved for the sculptor proof of his self and personal style, then we presented recommendations and proposals. Then we included proven sources, references and appendices.

People and Culture in Republican Philosophy

Human has been subject to different definitions in the historical processes. The variability in the starting points while investigating the nature of the human has brought about the differentiation of the results achieved. All these cultural processes, produced by human beings and therefore related to humans, have also differentiated our world view, our conception of the universe, search for ideals, and good life experience. Human philosophy, which investigates the issues related to human and human existence in the integrity of existence, has dealt with all aspects of cultural structure. From this point of view, we can express culture as an effort to create a background for existence or as another name for sublimity. The construction of the meaning of life within life rather than a theoretical framework or meta-narratives reflects the characteristic of culture. The philosophical approach, which bases on what makes human different, started to show itself at the end of the 19th century. This situation has led people to explain in a holistic way based on anthropological foundations, especially despite the definitions made on the positivist and progressive values of the Enlightenment. The human philosophy that emerged in this direction, in the most general sense, has started to deal with the biological and cultural origins of the human as a cultural entity, the values that provide its existence, the institutions and traditions. The replacement of the "political" with the "cultural" in ideologies after the 19th century caused the main field of struggle in the formation of identity to shift to the cultural field, and this situation increased the importance of the issue. With the key role of culture and the definition of human being made accordingly, the coordinates of existence have been repositioned. The situation in question has led to great transformations in Western thought, especially in the understanding of human connected to the philosophical approach. In Turkey, on the other hand, we can see the debates on Turkism, Islamism, and Westernism, which started with the Constitutional Monarchy and continued with the Republic, and were labeled with philosophical content, as debates involving culture, civilization and value designs, rather than political debates. We can also detect that many of our thinkers have shown an interest in “culture” as a concept and reality and have offered important insights, thoughts and suggestions about culture. We can say that these searches reflect the effort to reduce the tensions between tradition and modernity experienced in the Republic of Turkey and to determine the use of the options within the culture that will lead our people to unity within themselves. Thus, instead of conflict, it is aimed to shape the meaning pattern, harmony and balance of life with culture in mutual harmony. From this point of view, our study focuses on the initiatives of our earlier philosophers such as Hilmi Ziya Ülken and Takiyettin Mengüşoğlu in the aforementioned context, but also considers the approaches of our later philosophers (such as Nurettin Topçu, Bozkurt Güvenç and Doğan Özlem) to the issue, and tries to deal with the problem of culture and human in a comparative way. It aimed to focus on the possibilities and limits of the reconstruction of the Republican period Turkish thought as a cultural philosophy. At the end of our study, we can state that despite some valuable studies mentioned above, a systematic and integrated cultural philosophy could not be put forward because the subject of researching human as a cultural entity in the philosophy of the Republic did not receive enough attention, and in this context, more original studies related to the dominance of our culture are needed.

SOCIAL STOCK EXCHANGE IN INDIA – TIME TO TAKE CAPITAL MARKET TO SOCIAL WELFARE OBJECTIVES

With major transformations happening in the National Stock Market it comes up with the new launch idea of Social Stock Exchange after decades in the upcoming months. This paper focuses on the framework and the various regulations fixed for listing in the social stock exchange. The concept was down for discussion from the year 2019 but the final nod for the launch of social stock exchange was announced in the month of February 2023 by SEBI. With its discussion and approval process going on various charitable organizations started their talks on the listing process in the social stock exchange. After decades a great transformation and introduction of new sector into the stock market making the investors meet the growth of the social enterprise. Will this be leverage in building a newer network or an added challenge with more intermediaries involving.

E-commerce development and its contribution to agricultural non-point source pollution control: Evidence from 283 cities in China

Agricultural non-point source (ANPS) pollution is a pressing environmental issue in developing countries that poses a substantial threat to sustainable development. With the rapid growth of e-commerce and its great penetration and transformation in many socioeconomic sectors, e-commerce plus agriculture is widely regarded as the solution to sustainable agricultural development. However, the environmental impacts of e-commerce on agriculture, as well as the underlying mechanisms have yet to be fully explored and verified. Based on China's practices of e-commerce development and its integration with agriculture, a panel dataset of 283 prefecture-level cities from 2009 to 2019 was collected, and a spatial difference in difference (SDID) model combined with a Durbin model was constructed to examine the local and spatial spillover effects of e-commerce development on ANPS pollution. It is found out that e-commerce development has significant positive environmental impacts achieved by stimulating industrial structure upgrading and promoting green technology innovation, while the mechanism of cultivation scaling up tends to aggravate the ANPS pollution. Spatial analysis demonstrates that e-commerce development also helps alleviate the ANPS pollution of neighboring regions with a decayed effect over a distance. Meanwhile, the impact of e-commerce on mitigating ANPS pollution shows regional heterogeneity. Those developed regions present significant positive effects, while those regions dominated by agriculture economy and without sufficient supporting facilities for e-commerce development, show significant negative effects. Therefore, we argue that the positive environmental contribution of e-commerce is not bound to happen but instead is contingent, while policies should be adapted to local conditions and enhanced to encourage the integration of e-commerce and other socioeconomic sectors, in order to develop beyond the immature pioneering stage.

Wachstumsunabhängigkeit: Transformation und Wohlstand erneuern – ohne Wachstum

Abstract Radically changed global conditions are forcing a “Great Transformation” of the economy and society. Predominantly, this is understood as a modernisation process associated with massive investments and a surge in (green) growth. However, the likelihood of such a scenario is fading and it seems necessary to invest more research activity and more political attention in alternative scenarios. The resilience of the economic and social order will depend on whether it is possible to establish a prosperity perspective that is independent of growth. With “Renewing Prosperity,” the German Federal Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate Action has presented some building blocks that can be part of a strategic reorientation.

Deindustrialization and the Real-Estate– Development–Driven Housing Regime. The Case of Romania in Global Context

Abstract The article examines how deindustrialization as economic restructuring and housing regime changes evolved interconnectedly in Romania during the Great Transformation from state socialism to neoliberal capitalism. This article also explores how they acted as conditions for the emergence of a real-estate-development-driven housing regime (REDD-HR) alongside other factors. The analysis is from the perspective of the geographical political economy on the variegated pathways of these phenomena across borders and secondary statistical data collected by two research projects conducted in Romania in the past two years. In the Eastern semiperiphery of global capitalism or a country of the Global Easts with a socialist legacy, after 1990, the state restructured the economy by privatizing industry and public housing. During state socialism, the housing regime supported industrialization-based urbanization, whereas deindustrialization-cumprivatization in emerging capitalism facilitated the appearance of real estate development. On the one hand, the article enriches studies on deindustrialization by highlighting the role of housing in the transformation of industrial relations; on the other hand, the paper revisits housing studies by analyzing deindustrialization as a process with an impact on the changing housing regime. Altogether, deindustrialization-cum-privatization and the changing housing sector are analyzed as prerequisites of the REDD-HR.

Education in times of digital culture: opportunities and challenges

Education has been treated throughout its history as a space for experiences and innovations. In a time of digital culture, cyberspace and cyberculture are inescapable spaces, generating in educators and students the deterministic notion that there are no alternatives. Between apocalyptic and integrated, this article reflects on the role of digital culture in the educational field, trying to show that it is still possible to preserve values and transmit them in a moment of great and rapid transformations. Learning the dominant language (digital culture) is essential to change the system from within. This learning can create new worlds and new opportunities for educators and students.

The impact of financial deepening on Iraqi economic growth for the period (2004-2021): an analytical study

The study aimed to track the impact of the financial deepening on the economic growth of Iraq for the period (2004-2021), as the Iraqi economy has witnessed great transformations, perhaps the most important of which is the liberation of the Iraqi banking sector, and the transformation of the Iraqi economy from the planned economy to the market economy after 2003, and the subsequent problems in the economy In addition to the changes in the Iraqi market for securities and its integration with developments in the global financial markets, the problem of the study lies in the decline in financial deepening in Iraq, which was reflected on the role of the banking sector in raising the rate of economic growth. The study relied on the Autoregressive Distributed Slow Periods (ARDL) model for quarterly data to show the effect of the explanatory variables represented by (liquidity ratio, credit granted to the private sector, net interest rate margin, trading volume, stock turnover rate) on the dependent variable expressed in the output The local total at constant prices, and tests were done by Eviews10 program, and the results of the unit root test showed that the time series in most of them stabilized when taking the first difference and the level The stability within the permissible limits, and that there is a long-term equilibrium relationship between financial deepening and economic growth, and the study found that the indicator (trading volume, stock turnover rate, and net interest rate margin) has a negative impact, while the indicator (liquidity ratio, credit granted to the sector) private) has a positive effect.

PECULIARITIES OF AGRARIAN ENTREPRENEURSHIP IN THE CONTEXT OF DECENTRALIZATION

The article examines the peculiarities of development of agrarian entrepreneurship under the influence of strengthening the role of local authorities and changes in the regulatory framework for land resources. 83% of Ukraine's land is used for agricultural purposes. Changes in land ownership, transformation of the state governance system, and constant demand for agricultural products have contributed to the differentiation of entrepreneurial structures and their potential capabilities. The economic level of the agricultural sector is represented by small, medium and large enterprises. It is proved that agricultural entities with the number of employees from 10 to 249 people form the bulk of the industry's income. It is found that the greatest transformations in the period of decentralisation in the agricultural business have been experienced by state-owned enterprises, production cooperatives, and business associations. An objective assessment of the activities of agroholdings is provided and their impact on local development is determined. In the context of decentralization of governance in communities, it is advisable to develop projects to intensify entrepreneurial activity. To form a capable community, it is necessary to: create an appropriate business environment, investment climate, and propose land development projects located within the community. Introduce strategic management of existing and creation of new communal enterprises in order to provide income to a special community budget. Create a participatory budget to plan rural development and support the initiative of its residents. Cooperation between agricultural holdings and local authorities should strengthen the activation of small businesses in the countryside, solving social, environmental, and economic problems of communities. Effective implementation of the decentralization reform is impossible without public support. We believe that participation budgets, which are involved in the implementation of agricultural projects, are capable of solving the tasks of sustainable development of communities.

Measuring food‐energy‐water nexus footprint using a systematic input–output approach: A case study of Pune district

AbstractThe advent of climate change with the recognition of interlinkages between Food‐Energy‐Water (FEW) resource security has brought forth a renewed emphasis on ascertaining the FEW footprints of varied policy interventions. The nexus approach through an IO framework explores the interplays and synergies between sectoral flows and their FEW footprints. India is currently undergoing great transformations under policy interventions on both the economic and environmental front. The country has been attracting investments to expand its manufacturing base, while also aiming to transition into a greener economy. The district of Pune has a balanced and diversified economic profile, spread across manufacturing, as well as knowledge‐based tertiary sectors. However, rapid urbanization has put an undue burden on its FEW resources, challenging urban sustainability. Hence cohesive strategies are of priority to ensure sustainable and equitable development. Toward this end, the current study presents the first‐ever district‐level economy‐wide FEW nexus study in India. Results indicate that the most resource‐intensive sectors in Pune district include the food processing sector, motor vehicles, and electrical engineering and instruments. Based on this comprehensive footprint analysis, priority sectors are identified to pursue sector‐wise efficiency analysis.

Innovative reform strategy of Chinese language and literature education practice for college students based on information fusion technology

Abstract With the rapid development and updating of information technology and the gradual increase of economic and social influence, the Chinese language, as an important discipline in China’s higher education, has undergone a great transformation in its teaching conditions and teaching environment in the information age. To obtain more reliable information and better reform and innovation, this paper analyzes the machine model established based on information fusion and investigates the employment situation of Chinese language and literature graduates in university colleges and universities in the past five years to analyze the improvement of employment under the information fusion model establishment. The results show that the teaching process of Chinese language and literature can be well optimized through the machine learning model and is no longer homogeneous compared with the traditional teaching process of Chinese language and literature. The information fusion model can provide a certain degree of help in the employment of students in this major. Therefore, the introduction of information fusion technology is indispensable in the process of reform and innovation of the Chinese language and literature, and schools should also increase relevant courses and policies to encourage college students to actively cooperate with the reform and practice process.

European Regional International Society and the Political Economy of the Global Sugar Regime

AbstractThis paper seeks to contribute to the English School's (ES) understanding of the European Regional International Society (ERIS) through the work of Karl Polanyi. While ES theory has long been interested in regional international societies, its general approach remains limited to a methodologically internationalist frame that fails to capture the dynamism and historical change of regional formations. We therefore aim to better ground the ES account of the ERIS within a more robust political economy framework that incorporates domestic dynamics with international processes. The article first examines the making of the nineteenth-century liberal order and its eventual breakdown during the turn of the century—the “great transformation”, which ultimately informed the rationale for the European Community (EC). We then focus our analysis on the EC's Common Agricultural Policy. With specific examination of sugar production, we explore the tensions and contradictions bound up with the formation of a protected domestic and regional sugar market, the pressures it exerted on the wider international society, and the ways in which European officials skillfully exploited the post-Cold War liberalization of international society as a means of (partially) “disembedding” European sugar. Lastly, we hope that this article begins a new conversation on how the tenets of political economy (Polanyian or otherwise) might, at long last, make an impact on ES theory.

Expropriation and the Natural World: Some Reflections on Karl Polanyi and Thorstein Veblen

Karl Polanyi’s masterpiece, The Great Transformation, and Thorstein Veblen’s last book, Absentee Ownership and Business Enterprise in Recent Times, offer acute diagnoses of the relationship between capitalism and the natural environment. From Polanyi’s fictitious commodities to Veblen’s absentee ownership, this study explores the differences and similarities between these perspectives regarding the natural world. To organize our analysis, we follow Nancy Fraser’s and Rahel Jaeggi’s understanding of capitalism as an exploitative and expropriative system. In this sense, we state that despite their differences, Veblen and Polanyi emphasize seizure and confiscation when regarding the statute of the natural world in market societies.

‘서사의 귀환’과 역사의 거대한 전환

‘서사의 귀환’과 역사의 거대한 전환