Research Priorities for the Study of Urbanization and Development

The symposium on Social Research for Development was held on May 5-11, 1981, in Cairo, Egypt; by the Social Research Center (SRC) of The American University in Cairo (AUC). The Symposium was supported by funds from Battelle Human Affairs Research Center, Ford Foundation, International Development Re­search Center {IDRC}, and the Population Council. The theme of the Symposium was selected in respons.e to the increased con­cerns of social scientists, policymakers and funding agencies about the current status and new directions of social science research, its role in the pro­cess of social and economic development, and its contribution to policy-rele­vant issues. The Symposium, therefore, aimed at providing a valuable opportu­nity for the invaed participants to exchange ideas and views on social research findings, methodologies, priorities, strategies, and funding as they relate to policy issues of various aspects of social and economic developmenthttps://fount.aucegypt.edu/faculty_book_chapters/1829/thumbnail.jp

The Third wave in globalization theory

This essay examines a proposition made in the literature that there are three waves in globalization theory—the globalist, skeptical, and postskeptical or transformational waves—and argues that this division requires a new look. The essay is a critique of the third of these waves and its relationship with the second wave. Contributors to the third wave not only defend the idea of globalization from criticism by the skeptics but also try to construct a more complex and qualified theory of globalization than provided by first-wave accounts. The argument made here is that third-wave authors come to conclusions that try to defend globalization yet include qualifications that in practice reaffirm skeptical claims. This feature of the literature has been overlooked in debates and the aim of this essay is to revisit the literature and identify as well as discuss this problem. Such a presentation has political implications. Third wavers propose globalist cosmopolitan democracy when the substance of their arguments does more in practice to bolster the skeptical view of politics based on inequality and conflict, nation-states and regional blocs, and alliances of common interest or ideology rather than cosmopolitan global structures

The City is Dead -- Long Live the City

The theme of death and transfiguration recurs as a leit-motiv throughout the long history of sociological speculations about the city. Each time, so it seems, just as one particular manifestation of urbanism has approached its terminal stage, a theorist has hastened to equate its matured form with the essence of urbanism sui generie, and ideologists have responded, each according to his values, to eulogize the lost or to rejoice

Third world urbanization

ix, 395 p.; 21 cm