Volume 3 Issue 5

The Future of Democracy Challenged in the Digital Age

Reforming and expanding the UN is a necessary condition for the future of democratic states, international agreements and the subsidiarity allowing autonomous, equitable decision-making at regional and local levels ... Read more

Book Review: “Taming the Wicked” James Surwilo Get Full Text in PDF The SIMPOL Solution: A New way to think about solving the world’s Biggest Problems, 2018, Amherst: Prometheus Reviewed by James Surwillo* In The Simpol Solution, John Bunzl and Nick Duffell take a multi-disciplinary approach to what systems theorist Horst Rittel forty-five years ago called a “wicked problem”. Wicked problems are insoluble, contradictable, multi-... Read more	International Competitiveness and its threat to Democracy and the Planet John Bunzl Get Full Text in PDF Abstract When considering governments’ failure to act on global problems such as climate change, the comment often heard is “all that is required is the political will”; the implication being that governments are somehow negligent, irresponsible and do not care sufficiently about such issues. The article explains that it is not that governments do not want to solve... Read more
Research on Europeanization in Literature: From the Top-down Approach to Europeanization as a Multi-directional Process Goran Bandov, Nikolina Herceg Kolman Get Full Text in PDF Abstract Europeanization is a highly complex phenomenon researched through various approaches, methodological frames and concepts. One of the leading discussions in literature is whether Europeanization happens as a top-down or a bottom-up phenomenon. At the same time, other approaches emerge and Europeanization is increasingly being researched as a multi-directional... Read more	Scientific Reversal in the Offing? Robert Van Harten Get Full Text in PDF Abstract Quantum physics with quantum entanglement as its crown, has shaken up science as we knew it. ‘Is another powerful change in the offing?,’ we can ask. The consequences of implementing the universal truth that ‘the force is (always) anterior to the instrument’ into our general scientific approach, will be phenomenal and earthshaking. As it reverses... Read more
Urgent Need for the Establishment of the International Institute for Sustainable Technology in South-East Europe Ivo Šlaus Catalyzing Transformation: A Process Framework for Transformative System Change Sandra Waddock* Get Full Text in PDF Abstract This article offers a synthesized perspective on a future-oriented process for transformational change makers, here called transformation catalysts, to catalyze systemic change through processes of connecting, cohering, and amplifying the transformational change work of... Read more	Fighting the Debt Crisis’ Undertow: Greece and the Eurozone Dimitrios Kyriakou Get Full Text in PDF Abstract To measure the debt crisis in Europe in general, and in Greece in particular, there are different levels of analysis, rarely examined together: at the global, EU and the national levels. The global level involves the origins of the crisis in the infra-regulated practices of financial entities worldwide, whereas the EU level reflects architectural weaknesses... Read more
Techno-science and Ethics João Caraça Get Full Text in PDF Abstract The emergence of science-based industries after the Second World War, characterized by high technological intensity, created deep impacts on the economy, society, and on the scientific establishment itself. Science became a critical factor of competitiveness and economic growth and technology-driven research began to attract a majority of science-devoted... Read more	Global Governance, Human Needs, and Values Winston P. Nagan, Brittany DiCaprio Get Full Text in PDF Abstract The anthropological literature has given us a key to understanding life in a very elementary community. Life revolves around human beings energized to satisfy human needs. Anthropologists also identify the structures that emerge from society which are specialized in whatever degree of efficacy to facilitate securing those needs. When we map needs onto... Read more
On the Principles of a Social Theory Carlos Blanco Get Full Text in PDF Abstract This paper addresses the problem of how to identify a small and parsimonious set of principles or “postulates” that may help us understand the great theoretical foundations of the social sciences. From a philosophical point of view, it presents ten premises that are perhaps essential for any attempt at elaborating a social theory. When one tries to elaborate... Read more	The Leadership the World Needs Ashok Natarajan Get Full Text in PDF Abstract As society evolves in consciousness, the character of its leadership evolves as well. The physical stage of human development is characterized by the rule of physical strength and directed by military leaders with the capacity to mobilize and exercise physical force through violence. In the vital-social stage, leadership shifts to the authority of custom and... Read more
The Principle of ‘Unity in Diversity’ as a Measured Response to Resurgent Nationalism: Valuing local diversity as well as global citizenship is not a contradiction Thomas Reuter Get Full Text in PDF Abstract The ideological war between globalism and resurgent nationalism in recent years is seen as an invitation to take sides by many intellectuals. Demonising or dismissing followers of the new right-wing nationalism is easy, but the outcome of the Brexit referendum and the last presidential election in the USA should have taught us that ignoring the genuine... Read more	The Reunification of Germany & Global Social Evolution Dora Damjanović Get Full Text in PDF Abstract Almost thirty years since the fall of the Berlin Wall, it has become all too easy to say that the Wall “fell,” but what does that actually mean? The Wall did not vanish on its own. Rather it was the people, in a figurative sense, who unhinged it before the hammers and chisels could tear it down. It was the people who insisted on resisting the German... Read more
The Significant Individual, Values and Social Evolution:* How one man changed the world Janani Ramanathan, Garry Jacobs Get Full Text in PDF Abstract Great achievements of the past hold invaluable lessons for the future. Often we deify the leader and celebrate the outcome, but overlook the underlying principles they reflect. The American Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 60s is a testimony to the combined power of an idea, the catalytic role of dedicated individuals and the power of token actions in... Read more	System Change Investing and Political Reform Frank Dixon Get Full Text in PDF Abstract System change is the most important sustainability issue. Flawed economic and political systems compel all companies to degrade the environment and society. For nearly all of US history, these systems enabled vested interests to strongly influence government and unfairly concentrate public wealth, in large part by deceiving, dividing and disempowering... Read more
The Future of Democracy Challenged in the Digital Age Hazel Henderson Get Full Text in PDF Abstract Recent evidence is marshalled concerning the impact on democracies of the global explosion of electronic platforms and digital companies, based initially on the US government- supported and now worldwide Internet. These companies, driving Wall Street stock prices, are still largely unregulated and unchecked by conventional anti-trust regulations, especially... Read more	Inside this Issue The articles in this issue of Cadmus address some of the most pressing opportunities and challenges posed to humanity in the 21st century. Inspired by historical insights, they examine the process of social evolution and the successful and unsuccessful responses that have been the source of earlier crises and the impetus for the great advances of the 20th century. The human mind has a forward... Read more