Shared Paradigm Research Articles

The revolutionary imagination in the Americas and the age of development

In The Revolutionary Imagination in the Americas and the Age of Development, Maria Josefina Saldana-Portillo boldly argues that crucial twentieth-century revolutionary challenges to colonialism and capitalism in the Americas have failed to resist - and in fact have been constitutively related to - the very developmentalist narratives that have justified and naturalized post-war capitalism. Saldana-Portillo brings the critique of development discourse to bear on such exemplars of revolutionary and resistant political thought and practice as Guevara, Malcolm X, the Sandinista government of Nicaragua, and the Guatemalan guerrilla resistance. She suggests that in each of these diverse sites, developmentalist constructions frame the struggle as a heroic movement from unconsciousness to consciousness, from a childlike backwardness toward a disciplined and self-aware maturity. Reading governmental reports, memos, and policies, Saldana-Portillo traces the arc of development narratives from its beginnings in the 1944 Bretton Woods conference through its apex during Robert S. McNamara's reign at the World Bank (1968-1981). She compares these narratives with models of subjectivity and agency embedded in the autobiographical texts of three revolutionary icons of the 1960s and 1970s-those of Ernesto Che Guevara, Guatemalan insurgent Mario Payeras, and Malcolm X-and the agricultural policy of the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN). Saldana-Portillo highlights a shared paradigm of a masculinist transformation of the individual requiring the transcendence of ethnic particularity for the good of the nation. While she argues that this model of progress often alienated the very communities targeted by the revolutionaries, she shows how contemporary insurgents such as Rigoberta Menchu, the Zapatista movement, and queer Aztlan have taken up the radicalism of their predecessors to re-theorize revolutionary subjectivity for the twenty-first century.

Specification and analysis of real-time systems with PARAGON

This paper describes a methodology for the specification and analysis of distributed realdtime systems using the toolset called PARAGON. PARAGON is based on the Communicating Shared Resources paradigm, which allows a realdtime system to be modeled as a set of communicating processes that compete for shared resources. PARAGON supports both visual and textual languages for describing realdtime systems. It offers automatic analysis based on state space exploration as well as userddirected simulation. Our experience with using PARAGON in several case studies resulted in a methodology that includes design patterns and abstraction heuristics, as well as an overall process. This paper briefly overviews the communicating shared resource paradigm and its toolset PARAGON, including the textual and visual specification languages. The paper then describes our methodology with special emphasis on heuristics that can be used in PARAGON to reduce the state space. To illustrate the methodology, we use examples from a realdlife system case study.

Rereading Early Twentieth-Century IR Theory: Idealism Revisited

The article presents a “revisionist” synopsis of the thinking of some important early twentieth-century “Idealist” IR writers. I contend that these writers ground their interpretations of international relations on a shared paradigm that has hitherto gone largely unrecognised. Following a critique of certain widely held views of IR Idealism, I draw attention to a number of aspects or themes in this body of writing in an attempt to establish the underlying paradigm. I argue that the authors in question were familiar with the type of thinking that later came to be called Realist, but held that industrial modernisation rendered it increasingly anachronistic and dangerous. The crucial difference between Idealism and Realism is in their respective theories of history. In order to understand Idealist IR thinking, it is essential to realise the extent to which it relies on the notion, not so much of progress (as is usually asserted) as of an inescapable, directional historical process.

Alternative Inquiry Paradigms, Faculty Cultures, and the Definition of Academic Lives

Introduction and Context The rise of alternative inquiry paradigms has provoked controversy and discord among scholars. The emergence of critical and interpretive scholarship has caused them to perceive fluctuating and out groups. Shared paradigms separate and define scholars in the same manner as disciplines, but along different, and sometimes less apparent, lines. With the rise of new paradigms, particularly over the past two decades, scholars working in the same university departments increasingly find themselves grounded within quite different intellectual traditions and distinct academic cultures. Scholars working in different paradigms view the purposes of their work differently, apply different evaluative standards, rely upon different methods and frameworks, and accept different types of values. With the evolution of new paradigms, wars have arisen in much of academe, particularly in the social sciences and humanities, as well as in related professional fields. Given the impact of the friction among scholars upon institutions, scholarship, and professional lives, higher education scholars must come to understand the dimensions and sweep of the discord (Weiland, 1995; Lincoln, 1992). In describing this intellectual scene, researchers have focused on the theoretical and philosophical bases of alternative paradigm scholarship, which includes varieties of critical theory or models based upon hermeneutics, phenomenology, structuralism, and so on. They also have continued to analyze the conceptual foundations of work within the established postpositivist paradigm. Few have explored what ensues, however, when new ways emerge of viewing what we can understand about the world and how we can understand it. In other words, even though scholars have focused considerable attention upon the increasingly pluralistic scholarly output in various academic fields and have offered some comment upon the emerging pluralistic professional environment that results from paradigm changes, they have paid only scant attention to the effects upon the individual scholars involved (Collier, 1993; Delgado, 1993; Post, 1992; Levinson & Balkin, 1991; Posner, 1987; Kissam, 1986; Allen, 1983). In response I explore in this study how paradigm choices influence the professional lives of scholars, particularly alternative paradigm scholars but also those who work in conventional paradigms. I focus upon a single discipline, law.(1) I adapt a social science-based typology of paradigms to law and suggest where my findings might extend to other academic fields, particularly those in the social sciences. The research literature on faculty culture indicates that scholars work within several cultures concurrently, including those defined by the discipline, institution, profession, and society (Austin, 1990; Tierney & Rhoads, 1993). I suggest that scholars, including law faculty, work within an additional culture determined by their inquiry paradigm. In turn, paradigm culture, in conjunction with the other cultures, shapes the overall climate within which individual scholars work. For alternative paradigm scholars, their paradigm influences their daily lives and scholarly careers in both positive and negative ways.(2) My exploratory study aims to improve understanding of the overall faculty culture that defines the debates that have accompanied the advent of critical and interpretive inquiry. Advancing substantive arguments within disciplines, including those that emerge from paradigmatic differences, has long occupied the attention of scholars, particularly those in law. Improving our understanding of the social and cultural factors that influence these debates in several disciplines--the connection between increasing discord and the advent of alternative inquiry paradigms--poses an appropriate and engaging set of questions for the higher education scholar. Paradigmatic differences, for instance, often coexist with identity-based differences among faculty, but paradigm issues may be less apparent than those of gender, race, ethnicity, and sexual orientation. …

Economics and Ecosystem Management: Discussion

The transitional period in the development of a new field is often characterized by competing articulations, recourse to philosophy, and a debate over fundamentals (Kuhn 1970). As exemplified by numerous articles and books providing alternative definitions in the recent academic and policy literature, it is clear that the emerging field of ecosystem management is still struggling to identify a shared paradigm. Thus it is not a surprise that, in surveying the ecosystem management literature, Swallow (1996, p. 83) finds this field to be “one of the vaguest ideas or mandates of the decade.” A critical concern is that this debate over definitions may not be resolved in the foreseeable future, inhibiting policy-relevant research progress in this important area.

Why Falsification is the Wrong Paradigm for Evolutionary Epistemology: An Analysis of Hull's Selection Theory

Contemporary empiricism has attempted to ground its analysis of science in a falsificationism based in selection theory. This paper links these evolutionary epistemologies with commitments to certain epistemological and ontological assumptions found in the later work of K. Popper, D. Campbell, and D. Hull. I argue that their assumptions about the character of contemporary empiricism are part of a shared paradigm of epistemological explanation which results in unresolved tensions within their own projects. I argue further that their claim to be doing a science of science is not defensible. Hull's selectionism is analyzed to show how this epistemological agenda has played itself out in late empiricism. I suggest some directions that Hull might take toward an historical epistemology.

Social networks as normal science ∗

Social network analysis has emerged as an integrated scientific specialty concerned with the structural analysis of social interaction. Historical evidence suggests that members of this specialty are connected by an invisible college, a shared paradigm and a primary journal. The journal Social Networks is a primary outlet for researchers in this specialty, particularly those concerned with methodological issues. By examining the pattern of citations within this journal we are able to confirm this historical evidence and gain insight into how science is being conducted by members of this specialty. Using main path analysis, we examined the pattern in the citation network in the first 12 volumes of the journal. We found six main path structures of connected articles that define and describe core developments in the specialty. The most important of these structures focuses on role analysis, and spans all 12 volumes of Social Networks. We find a high density of multiple citations, both to articles within the journal and to key articles outside the journal, and many authors who have published more than a single article in the journal. In addition, the main path tree structures extend through much of the total network, have a single identifiable coherent substantive concern, and are incremental in nature. The pattern of these main paths, and the overall citation pattern, is consistent with a pattern of scientific development labeled by Kuhn as ‘normal science’.

The Commons: A Multidisciplinary Approach to Nonprofit Organization, Voluntary Action, and Philanthropy

The task of identifying nonprofit organizations, voluntary action, and phil anthropy as the principal constituents of a single "sector" within the larger economy, society, and polity has been a central challenge for the multidis ciplinary paradigm that seems to be emerging in this field. The concepts of the commons and common goods are presented in this article as having important multidisciplinary implications. The commons is characterized by uncoerced participation, shared purposes and resources, mutuality, and fairness; the derivative concept of common goods is characterized as desir able ends that are universal and indivisible within a commons but not nec essarily beyond. Taken together, the concepts of the commons and common goods offer the basis for a shared paradigm that can resolve the sector problem.

PEDAGOGICAL KNOWLEDGE AND ELEMENTARY READING METHODOLOGY TEXTBOOKS: IN SEARCH OF A SHARED PARADIGM

Abstract The purpose of the present study was to investigate whether there is evidence to support the existence of a shared paradigm of pedagogical knowledge in elementary reading methodology textbooks. To accomplish this purpose, a computer‐based citation concordance was prepared that represented 5,760 references from 12 elementary reading methodology textbooks with copyright dates ranging from 1985 to 1989. The results suggest the existence of a shared paradigm of pedagogical knowledge in elementary reading methodology textbooks. The shared paradigm is not sharply defined and unambiguous in content, instead, it is composed of a complex amalgam of knowledge on philosophies, principles and practices representing a variety of perspectives.

Validity Revisited: A Critical Review of Braun and Knoche's Study of the Predictive Validity of Psychological Appraisal Testing

The aim of the present paper is to critically review a study by Braun and Knoche (1978) which claims to demonstrate the predictive validity of psychological appraisal testing. As Lansbury and Spillane (1983) have noted, “in Australia there is surprisingly little research evidence to support the claims of managers and their consultants who persist in subjecting people to personality tests” (p. 44). Given this dearth of Australian research, it is not surprising that Braun and Knoche's study is frequently cited at seminars and in the Australian literature (eg. see Saul, 1980) as an example of the utility of psychological testing in general and personality testing in particular. In other words, this study has become something of a ‘classic’ study among the Australian psychological testing community. As Carey (1976) has shown in his review of a number of classic studies in the area of industrial psychology, classic studies tend to be frequently cited but rarely read. Thus, over time, any flaws in these studies were overlooked as they became part of the common body of knowledge of the field — in Kuhnian terms, these studies became part of the shared paradigm of industrial psychology (Kuhn, 1970). It is therefore of some importance that academics and practitioners are familiar with the details of frequently cited papers in their field and the aim of the present paper is to examine a frequently cited paper in the field of psychological testing.

Modernity and Conflict

Abstract In this essay, seek to provide a plausible alternative to Maclntyre’s bold and provocative conception of modernity. I contest his claim that modern social life is marked by (1) the absence of any shared paradigm of the good, tradition, and social morality; (2) rationally interminable normative conflict; (3) characteristically instrumental poweroriented social relations; and (4) the impossibility of genuine human achievement and virtue. I argue that modern conflict is rooted not in the absence of a shored paradigm of the good or the moral; but rather in a structure of social irrationality built into the modern conception of the good or the achievement of individual recognition in and through socioeconomic activity. I argue that while this conception has affirmative dimensions and does permit genuine virtue, the way it is culturally interpreted and institutionally embodied in modern capitalist society reproduces destructive scarcities in human recognition and the degradation of ordinary persons’ capacity for virtue. Where Moclntyre argues for a restoration of the pre-modern (Aristotelian) conception of the moral to be realized in spheres of activity external to socio-economic life, I argue for on immanent critique of modern liberal individualism which would humanize the meaning, conditions, and results of lobar and livelihood.

Walls within Walls Religion and Rough Behaviour in an Ulster Community

A paradigmatic structure generates idealized images of ( inter alia) social groups. These provide frames for the description and evaluation of particular objects and events. This article shows how, in an Ulster community, images of the siege of Derry, the household, the church, certain secret societies and, by implication the human body, are all articulations of the same paradigm. This process of framing is a cause of discontinuity in the description of experience. What is deemed good in relation to one ideal image, may be thought bad in relation to another. Because descriptions of the world and specifically of people and social groups often imply self evaluation, it follows that members of one social group will tend to prefer certain frames and avoid using others. Choice of frames will therefore reflect social status. Nevertheless, the different descriptions of the world given by members of this community are all articulations of the same shared paradigm.