Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine how much value national governments worldwide place on political, economic, scientific, artistic, religious, legal, sportive, health-related, educational and mass media-related issues. This knowledge is critical as governments and policies are typically expected to be congruent with the importance these issues have for society. Design/methodology/approach Drawing on theories of polyphonic and multifunctional organization, the authors recoded and analyzed a US Central Intelligence Agency directory to test the cabinet portfolio of a total of 201 national governments for significant biases to the above issues. Findings The results suggest that governments worldwide massively over-allocate their attention to economic issues. Originality/value The authors conclude that this strong pro-economic governance-bias likely translates into dysfunctional governance and development at both the national and supra-national level.
Purpose This paper aims to contribute to the sociological literature on moral communication and disciplinary apparatuses in a functionally differentiated society. It combines Luhmannian and Foucauldian theories to further the understanding of social system complexity. Design/methodology/approach The paper draws on the work of Niklas Luhmann, Michel Foucault and others to explore resonance capability, disciplinary apparatuses and the complexity–sustainability trade-off. The argument is illustrated with a discussion of the late-nineteenth- to early-twentieth-century anti-child labor movement. Findings The paper argues that organizations are better equipped than function systems to draw moral distinctions. Given the amorality of the function systems and the increasing secularization of modern society, a great deal of moral communication now occurs in non-religious organizations. These social systems increase their complexity in response to new problems, but the increased system complexity may become unsustainable. Research limitations/implications The paper contributes to the growing sociological literature that compares and sometimes attempts to synthesize the theories of Luhmann and Foucault. It also contributes to the literature on organizational theory. Originality/value The paper brings together the work of Luhmann, Foucault, Valentinov and others to advance the understanding of organizations and moral communication in a functionally differentiated society. It uses Google Books Ngrams, among other resources, to support the argument.
This article draws on Luhmannian and Foucauldian social theories to analyse the decline of the “nobility/commoner” distinction. Evidence from 17th‐ and 18th‐century tracts, treatises, letters, novels, and other sources suggests that the distinction between the nobility and the commoner lost currency as functional differentiation overruled social stratification in the second half of the eighteenth century. But to preserve a sense of difference, defenders of the nobility/commoner distinction adopted a “true nobility/pretended nobility” distinction, according to which the hereditary nobility possessed noble qualities by nature, whereas the rising commoners could acquire only false nobility. Functional differentiation was met with a countermovement that attempted to establish a tighter, grid‐like social order in place of the looser medieval social order. Finally, the complexity–sustainability trade‐off principle helps to explain why the hereditary nobility might have ignored the seemingly clear evidence of an impending threat to their privileged status.
Purpose This paper aims to elucidate the systemic processes underlying the enhanced information-control measures taken by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) under the leadership of President Xi Jinping. The tightening of state information control has stimulated increasingly sophisticated methods of disseminating information on the part of professional and citizen journalists. Drawing on social systems theory as articulated by Niklas Luhmann and others, the authors frame the CCP’s enhanced information-control efforts as a response to the increasing systemic complexity of Chinese journalism, which is part of a self-reproducing, self-regulating (autopoietic) global journalism system. The authors use both subtle and overt protests over Chinese censorship as evidence for the journalism system’s increasing complexity and autonomy. The authors observe that levels of complexity ratchet up as the CCP and Chinese journalism counter each other’s moves. Finally, the authors suggest that the increasing complexity of the CCP’s information-control apparatus may be unsustainable. Design/methodology/approach The authors ground their argument in Luhmannian social systems theory. Findings The CCP's effort to control journalism leads to increased internal complexity in the form of huge bureaucracies that themselves must be overseen in an almost endless proliferation of surveillance. Research limitations/implications This paper contributes to theoretical work in post-humanism. Originality/value To the authors’ knowledge, no studies have examined the tension between CCP censors and Chinese journalism from a Luhmannian systems theory perspective.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
hi@scite.ai
10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614
Henderson, NV 89052, USA
Copyright © 2024 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with 💙 for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.