Convergence Theory Revisited: Kafkaesque Global Bureaucracies of Our Times with an Example of a Tool for Measuring whether Approaches to Accountability are Real or Sham
Journal Title: Social Evolution & History - Year 2014, Vol 13, Issue 1
Abstract
This article briefly re-examines the theories and hypotheses about the comparative trajectories of industrial administrative bureaucratic systems through the end of the Cold War (convergence, diffusion, co-dependency, and other kinds of social evolution), reviews system comparisons and measures that are available to test these theories of evolution and change, offers a form of evidence that anthropologists and social scientists can collect to test processes in these complex social systems in ways that other social scientists are unable (or unwilling) to test, and offers an example of an indicator that can objectively standardize such data and that can be used to test the quality of oversight and accountability of the systems of the administrative state. The piece then offers some speculations – a short cultural critique as a result of observa-tions – about whether human societies are caught in inflexible bureaucratic systems that are unable to plan for the future and that will continue to crash and re-emerge in the same forms, along with some suggestions for creating a more desirable human future.
Authors and Affiliations
Brooks Duncan
Keywords
Related Articles
- EP ID EP266046
- DOI -
- Views 126
- Downloads 0
Population Nucleation and Functional Interdependence in Prehistoric Coastal Ecuador
Increased specialization within communities is often explained as an epiphenomenal effect of political expansion and surplus accumulation. Here, I examine the possible role that community demography and settlement struct...
Convergence Theory Revisited: Kafkaesque Global Bureaucracies of Our Times with an Example of a Tool for Measuring whether Approaches to Accountability are Real or Sham
This article briefly re-examines the theories and hypotheses about the comparative trajectories of industrial administrative bureaucratic systems through the end of the Cold War (convergence, diffusion, co-dependency, an...
The Early Stages of Globalization Evolution: Networks of Diffusion and Exchange of Domesticates, Technologies, and Luxury Goods
The paper looks into the evolution of globalization at its earliest stages (from the Neolithic Revolution to the Urban Revolution). Building on the approach by Frank, Chase-Dunn, and Hall to defining the age of the World...
The Wameru of Tanzania: Historical Origin and Their Role in the Process of National Integration
The Meru live in one of the most fertile and densely populated areas of Tanzania, and their current population number is about 198,000 peo- ple. Today they are organized in 26 clans. Most Wameru claim their origin from t...
Predicting Political Systems Using Economic, Environmental, and Relational Variables
This article continues the elaboration of a multiple factor model for predicting the political systems that emerge in specific economic, environmental and relational contexts. While anthropologists have long sought to de...