For Njosh only - Sociology

5 Getting Along in a Global, Changing World

The great thing about social movements is everybody gets to be a part of them.

—Jim Wallis

Learning Objectives

By the time students complete this module they will be able to do the following:

1. Become familiar with the concept of globalization and why it is important in today's world.
2. Identify major global issues that sociologists and the public will confront in the future.
3. Examine why global problems occur from a functionalist, conflict, and symbolic interaction theoretical perspective.
4. Identify demographic changes and challenges throughout the world.
5. Examine the impact of urbanization on today's societies.
6. Learn the difference between the concepts of first, second, and third world societies.
7. Learn about what social movements are and how they contribute to social change.
8. Examine major theories of social change.
9. Explore the issues of war and peace in society.

Welcome to the world of tomorrow—today. Scientists have long predicted that the world would look different in the future. This is particularly the case with the prediction of overpopulation, growing diversity, social change, environmental and technological concerns, and the looming possibility of increased warfare. Many of the changes that they predicted are here now. In the increasingly diverse world in which we live, people are more likely to be successful when they rise above stereotypes and discriminatory behaviors. We can use the knowledge we have gained about human behavior to meet global challenges and create a new future for us all. Major global problems will be explored in this module, along with the sources, types, consequences, and theories of social change.

5.1

 Diversity: The New Social Norm

Look around you. You will likely find yourself surrounded by people who do not look like you, and who come from different cultural backgrounds, other faiths, races, or nations. The United States is a multicultural society. This is unlike a monocultural society in which everyone looks and acts alike and believes pretty much the same thing. Diversity brings with it both opportunities and challenges; it brings opportunities for people to find commonalities and share unique beliefs and practices that make people kinder, richer, and wiser. It poses challenges because when people do not see things the same way, distrust, suspicion, competition, and conflict may occur.

The increased diversity of a society occurs thanks to improved transportation and communication systems. People can hop onto a plane or boat and travel to far–off places that were once almost impossible. They can share information with one another almost instantaneously through phone and email. Television, film, and the Internet provide opportunities to view different parts of the world and different lifestyles, and result in people considering how living somewhere else may impact their lives. Individuals are less likely to live in silos, or isolated groups of family and community. Increased economic opportunities make it possible to travel or move, where long ago people had few options except to stay put.

Within the United States, official census data indicates that California is the most diverse state (Martin, 2010; Ralph and Goldy Lewis, 2001). In California, Latinos now make up almost 38% of the population and are projected to constitute over 50% by 2020. The state's Asian population, at almost 13%, has the fastest rate of growth. Whites and Blacks have both declined in number since the last census was taken there.

Worldwide, the United States is often considered the most diverse nation, which is in keeping with the Statue of Liberty's invitation to "give us your poor, huddled masses yearning to breathe free." However, diversity depends largely on how it is measured. Diversity could include race, ethnicity, religion, sexual preference, or a variety of other factors, so it is possible to arrive at different nations being most diverse as a result (Fearon, 2003). Canada has more immigrants than original Canadians; India has more than 7,800 cultures and 10,000 languages represented. India is regarded to have the most ethnic diversity, Mongolia the largest diversity in language, and the United States the largest religious diversity (Eck, 2001).

Globalization

An Indonesian group protesting the International Monetary Fund, or IMF, an organization of 187 countries that works to facilitate global growth and reduce poverty. Some argue that the IMF's policies and lending programs exploit poorer countries.

The term globalization refers to structural and interpersonal connections between people around the world so that there are webs and linkages developed that unite them. International trade and investment has a symbiotic relationship with political, economic, cultural, and national forces. It is an inevitable outcome of the world being smaller due to the diversification of countries, increase of multinational corporations, greater ease of travel, and electronic communication. Advocates feel globalization is a good thing because less–developed countries can advance their economic standard of living. Globalization occurs thanks to the spread of technology because people can communicate with each other online in real time. They can share the same images, news, and music. They can exchange viewpoints. They can chat and get to know one another, even if they live in very different parts of the world. The global technological revolution has made it possible to do banking, trade, and other forms of product and monetary exchange, linking us even more than ever before.

Problems of Globalization: Exploitation of Resources

Critics of globalization argue that globalization exploits common people in areas that are viewed as potentially viable economically to people in power. Their resources may be overtaken by large corporations or people with vested political interests that do not reflect the needs or desires of the masses. It is hard for indigenous and impoverished peoples to really understand what has happened to their resources or lifestyle until after the fact; leaders in charge of the media and information exchange may twist facts to support their own interests and omit details that may have long–term negative implications. When a dominant culture deliberately exports ideology, whether interpersonally (as some baby formula manufacturers did by going to third–world nations and marketing infant formula to mothers, encouraging them to use it instead of superior breastmilk) or through information via media sources (such as the Internet or television promoting conspicuous consumption of Coca–Cola or cell phones), this is referred to as cultural imperialism. Most of the world speaks English now, instead of French, Spanish, or other languages. This is another example of cultural imperialism, where one group of people sways others to adhere to their own ways of seeing and doing things.

Applying Sociology

Nestlé Corporation Baby Formula and the Breast Feeding Protests

In 1977, a global protest began against the Nestlé Corporation because of its marketing practices to women in less developed countries that favored formula over breast milk for infants. Breast milk is regarded as the gold standard of nutrition for infants, as it provides them with essential nutrients and antibodies that help them fight disease. Nestlé indicated that they had humanitarian interests at heart when promoting the use of formula over breast milk for mothers, saying that the breast milk of undernourished mothers may be lacking in essential nutrients. Those who found fault with Nestlé's claims point out that formula could cost up to half of a family's income in an underdeveloped country, and that it poses significant health risks to infants.

Sometimes new mothers were provided with formula in hospitals when they had their babies, which interfered with their ability to nurse their infants after going home. Families often could not afford the formula. The formula had to be mixed with water, which posed challenges for families that did not have easy access to clean drinking water. When contaminated water was used to mix into the dry formula, it could result in diarrhea, which could be life–threatening for infants. Lack of clean, sterile bottles was also a health problem. UNICEF found that a non–breastfed child living in disease–ridden and unhygienic conditions is between six and 25 times more likely to die of diarrhea and four times more likely to die of pneumonia than a breastfed child. In order to make the formula last longer, and avoid high costs for more, families may mix more water than recommended, resulting in babies not getting the nutrition they needed. In order to ensure that babies would be nursed, in 1981 the 34th World Health Assembly (WHA) adopted Resolution WHA34.22, which included an International Code of Marketing for Breast–milk Substitutes. It bans the promotion of breast–milk substitutes and gives health workers the responsibility of advising parents. Many groups such as Baby Milk Action and other student groups continue to advocate for families in disadvantaged communities.

 

Sources

From "Nestlé baby milk marketing scam," by author for Baby Milk Action. Baby Milk Action, 2011. Retrieved from http://www.babymilkaction.org/

Save the Children. (2007, May). A Generation On: Baby milk marketing still putting children's lives at risk. Save the Children UK. No. 178159. Retrieved from http://www.savethechildren.org.uk/en/docs/a_generation_on.pdf

Taylor, A. (1998, April 11). Violations of the international code of marketing of breast milk substitutes: prevalence in four countries. British Medical Journal 316: 1117.

UNICEF. (2002, May). Global strategy for infant and young child feeding. Rome: UNICEF. Retrieved from http://www.unicef.org/programme/breastfeeding/

 

Questions to Consider:

1. Were you aware of how aggressively Nestlé, and other corporations, market products to people in less developed nations? As Becker asks, whose side are they on as they sell products like infant formula?
2. Breastfeeding is known to have significant health benefits for babies. Why do you think some people feel so uncomfortable about women nursing their infants, especially in public forums?

Problems of Globalization: Job Transfer

Corporations look for the best way to maximize their profits, and one way to do so is to find less expensive work forces. This has resulted in the closing of factories in the United States while jobs are created in other countries. This is known as outsourcing or offshoring.

Why do companies move jobs abroad? They cite the following reasons: cost savings, improvement of quality, greater access to talent, increased capacity, opportunities for change, and tax benefits. Unions, environmentalists, workers, and a variety of groups have protested against such global trade agreements. Yet a study by Duke University found that of 1,600 service corporations, 54% had created corporate–wide offshoring strategies, and 60% of the companies who had already outsourced jobs in 2008 planed to expand their outsourcing in the next three years (Marschall and Clawson, 2011). They found that while corporations may acknowledge the public's dismay over moving jobs abroad, they continue to do so, only more undercover; outsourcing was a $500 billion global business in 2009. Workers abroad may be paid low wages and experience harsh working conditions, which results in lower–priced goods that are desirable to consumers who are looking to buy more with their money. While workers may be exploited, companies argue that their businesses have improved because of the opportunity to work in these new markets. Just a few of the U.S. corporations that have outsourced jobs abroad include Hershey, IBM, Aerospace Industry: Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Raytheon, Northrop Grumman, and General Dynamics.

Need for Aid and Assistance

Some nations have adequate resources to take care of their citizens, and some do not. There is an interrelationship between those nations that have and those that do not; some feel that those nations with resources have a moral or economic obligation to assist those that do not. In a time when it was difficult to know what was going on in other parts of the world, people may not have been able to observe the differences in quality of life. Due to increased technology, it is possible to have visual accounts of life elsewhere and to observe the differences and the disparities. For instance, the tri–fold tragedy in Japan in March 2011, when the country experienced a tsunami, an earthquake, and a nuclear explosion, was shared by the rest of the world thanks to formal news and information networks like television, radio, and the Internet, and informal information sharing on forums such as blogs, Twitter, and Facebook. Organizations and individuals around the world have been mobilized to provide assistance, similarly to how they provided assistance to the victims of Hurricane Katrina in 2005 or the 2010 Haiti earthquake.

Government aid.Governments have created a variety of organizations that provide assistance to individuals, communities, and countries in need. In the United States, some organizations are very large and multifaceted, such as the U.S. Agency for International Development (http://www.usaid.gov), which provides aid from the United States to peoples around the world, including in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean, Europe, Eurasia, and the Middle East. It provides assistance in the areas of health, economic growth, agriculture, democracy, humanitarian assistance, and food security. Other types of aid may be smaller scale and more individually based, such as the Peace Corps, which was created under President John Kennedy's administration to assist young people who wanted to serve the cause of peace by living and working in developing countries. Since that time, almost a quarter–million Peace Corps volunteers have served in 139 host countries to work on issues ranging from AIDS education to information technology and environmental preservation.

Liberian president Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, center, and World Bank President Robert Zoellick in a joint news conference announcing that Liberia had significantly reduced its foreign debt. Like the IMF, the World Bank extends financial assistance and other resources to developing countries.

Most governments around the world have some mechanisms of helping those in need. Many join together through the United Nations, which has a variety of sub–organizations designed to meet specific needs. For instance, UNICEF supports child well–being through a variety of programs and its convention on the rights of the child (http://www.unicef.org/index.php) that sets forth standards for universal, humanitarian care for children worldwide. The UN Development Program (http://www.undp.org/) is the United Nations' global development network, helping countries build solutions to the challenges of democratic governance, poverty reduction, crisis prevention and recovery, energy and environment, information and communications technology, and HIV/AIDS. The World Health Organization is the UN's health advocacy organization.

The World Bank (http://www.worldbank.org/) is a vital source of financial and technical assistance to developing countries around the world. Its mission is to fight poverty with passion and professionalism for lasting results and to help people help themselves and their environment by providing resources, sharing knowledge, building capacity, and forging partnerships in the public and private sectors. It is a bank in the common sense; it consists of two unique development institutions owned by 187 member countries: the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) and the International Development Association (IDA).

Charities and private sources of aid. Charitable organizations have rallied to assist the poor, hungry, and needy throughout the world. These include organizations such as the Salvation Army (http://www.salvationarmyusa.org), the Red Cross (http://www.redcross.org/), Save the Children (http://www.savethechildren.org), Doctors Without Borders (http://www.doctorswithoutborders.org), or Oxfam (http://www.oxfam.org). Private foundations such as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (http://www.gatesfoundation.org/), the Ford Foundation (http://www.fordfoundation.org/) and the MacArthur Foundation (http://www.macfound.org/) have set forth programs in the United States and in developing countries to address issues of health, hunger, poverty, democracy, and human well–being. There are also a variety of religious organizations from all faiths that provide assistance. Sometimes the public assumes that private organizations rely entirely on donations, but it is important to realize that many receive federal dollars; for instance, the USAID provides significant funds to over 159 faith–based communities (The Boston Globe, 2006) such as the YMCA, Catholic Relief Services, or the Heifer Project.

The United States, as an affluent nation, has assumed the role of caregiver of the world. This may be a laudable position, but it has resulted in providing food, money, services, and support to nations that may have a challenging time paying for them. People may disagree about how much of what kind of aid to provide people far away, and how that impacts what is available to citizens. The debate between the views of being "our brother's keeper" versus "charity begins at home" is a complex one indeed.

Multinational Corporations

A Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant in Shanghai, China. KFC is an example of a multinational corporation. Can you think of other examples?

Multinational corporations are corporations that produce or sell goods and services in several or many different countries. Many multinational corporations earn profits that exceed the gross national product of some nations. They may provide jobs and taxes to nations, and as a result they may be seen as attractive to governments who wish to increase their economic base. In 2007, of the world's 100 largest economies, 29 were corporations, not nations (Piasecki, 2007). The combined sales of the top 200 global corporations were the equivalent of 28% of world gross domestic product. Roughly a third of all world trade took place among multinational corporations.

It is almost impossible not to do business with multinational corporations because their acquisitions are varied and widespread, and exist under many different names and sub–organizations. Multinational corporations hire workers in foreign countries, produce goods and services, and harvest natural resources such as oil, minerals used in electronic devices, or diamonds. There are responsible and irresponsible ways to obtain natural resources, but corporations are sometimes accused of acting in ways that damage the environment, destroy local businesses, or exploit workers or residents of the areas. Multinational companies present specific regulatory problems to ensure socially responsible conduct, particularly when they operate in developing countries where the regulatory mechanisms are relatively weaker. This is more apparent with companies in the extractive industry where their activities usually have a harmful effect on the environment and the local community. The host country usually lacks the capacity or the political will to effectively regulate the company in order to protect the environment and the local population. Most are not bound by any particular national oversight because they do business within many different countries. As a result of their power and influence, multinational corporations may be able to break or bend laws that may not otherwise be possible (Mujih, 2008; Tripathi, 2005). There have been some attempts to regulate multinational corporations, but the organizations that attempt to do so often do not have the power or authority to enforce demands, and often rely on the corporation's good will to self–monitor (http://www1.umn.edu/humanrts/bibliog/businessconductlinks.html). Even with catastrophic oil spills, the oil industry still has not stepped up regulation efforts, according to experts (Rehm, 2011). A universal declaration of human rights has been signed by many nations, but laws are only as good as their enforcement (Kuper & Singer, 2005).

     

     

5.2

 Demography and Population Trends

The composition of the world today is very different than the days of long ago. The population of the planet has increased dramatically, and so has the racial composition of the individuals who inhabit it. The study of the distribution of the human population is known as demography. It explores the size of the population, the age and sex composition of society, and where people live.

Fertility and Fecundity Rates

Fertility is the incidence of childbearing within a society's population, while fecundity refers to the possible number of children a woman could bear. Once women begin menstruation they may be able to become pregnant and bear children; this process may continue until they reach menopause. This means that if a female started her period at age 12 and continued until the woman reached age 50, she would have almost a forty–year span of potential childbearing. The fecundity, or potential childbearing rates, could be forty children if a woman had one child during each of those childbearing years. In agrarian societies, it is common to have high fertility rates because it was beneficial for parents to have large numbers of children to work the fields. Sometimes big families were seen as blessings from God, and having no children was akin to being barren or forsaken. Lack of birth control or knowledge about how babies were created also resulted in larger families. Most people today do not have that many children. Culture, health, poverty, finances, and lifestyle preferences reduce the likelihood that women will have as many children as their bodies might be able to bear. It is hypothesized that parents today may limit their family size in order to allocate more resources to each child; other researchers hypothesize that family members tend to encourage each other to have children while non–kin members do not; as families have become smaller, there is less pro–reproductive encouragement coming from family, and thus people are less likely to have children. The record for how many children a woman has had goes to Mrs. Feodor Vassilyev, who reportedly had 69 children in Russia between 1725 and 1765, 67 of whom survived infancy. Today, having 20 children, as do Jim and Michelle Duggar in Arkansas, seems unusual. When women have occupational options, as they tend to do in more developed societies, they often do not want to have many children; the emphasis is on quality of life instead of the quantity of children parents could have (Foster & Shirira, 2009; Mulder, 1998).

Mortality Rates

The population composition of a society is influenced by the number of people who die, and the age at which they pass on. Mortality rates are calculated by taking the number of deaths in a given year among a particular group of people and dividing by the total number of people in that group. For instance, infant mortality rates are frequently calculated because they provide information about the overall well–being of a society. Infant mortality rates are higher, meaning there are more deaths, among babies who are born into poverty stricken homes and cultures. In wealthier societies, people live longer than in poor societies. Mortality rates are strongly related to life expectancy.

Population Distribution

Populations vary by age and gender. In most societies, women live to be older than men. Often demographers refer to the population pyramid, which assumes that the largest segment of people in a society are young, and fewer grow to be old. But the population pyramid may not be a pyramid at all; if a society has a high infant mortality rate and few people live to be old, the majority of people would be found in the middle of the distribution. If elders in a population as a group live to be quite old, then the shape of the population distribution may appear more like a rectangle than a pyramid. Looking at the shape of the population pyramid tells much about the age distribution of a society. For instsance, Figure 5.1 shows the population of the United States for 2010 by gender, age, and size.

Figure 5.1 Gender Comparison of U.S. Population, 2010

http://www.census.gov/ipc/www/idb/country.php

If every couple in a society has three children, over time that society will experience a significant growth in its population. If every couple has only one child, as government policy encourages in China, the society should expect to experience a population decline. If a couple has two children, they have replaced themselves; when they die, the population size would neither increase nor decrease. Zero population growth (ZPG) results when this type of childbearing pattern occurs, and the population does not change over time.

In countries like the United States, Canada, and Western Europe, the birth rates are closer to ZPG, but in countries like India, Mexico, and Kenya, the population has been increasing because people tend to have more than two children per family. This results in very different lifestyles, quality of life, and opportunities for these two types of societies. When we speak of world population growth, it has gone from about 2.5 billion people in 1950 to 6,909,045,527 in 2010, with an estimated 9 billion in the year 2050. See Figure 5.2. The lives of people in 2050 will be much different than people a hundred or two hundred years before had experienced. It is important to note that the population explosion is not evenly distributed throughout the world; some societies experience much more population growth than others. As a general rule, the more affluent a society is, the more a population seems controlled, and the less affluent a society is, the greater the population growth. The reasons for this are complicated and include economic resources, health care availability, cultural norms and values, gender roles, and lifestyle preferences.

Figure 5.2 World Population Estimates through 2050

http://www.census.gov/ipc/www/idb/worldpopgraph.php

Worldwide, it is predicted that in the year 2050 China will continue to be the most populated nation, with over 1,747 million people, followed by India with 1,437 million citizens. The United States will have an estimated 420 million people in 2050, up from its 305 million today. Other populous nations include Indonesia (297 million), Brazil (260 million), Pakistan (295 million), Nigeria (282 million), and Bangladesh (231 million) (Population Reference Bureau, 2008; Haub & Kent, 2008).

Population Change

A society may change its composition not merely by birth and death rates, but also through changes in where people choose to live. Increased diversity within the world has resulted because of this population movement. Many years ago people did not have the resources or transportation to travel far from where they were born; they were used to being in homogenous societies. But as technology, transportation, and resources have increased to make travel possible, people may choose to live places where they were not born. Thus, they become citizens of a nation or community not by chance, but by choice. People may be initially suspicious of people who do not look, dress, talk, act, or think like them. With the increased diversification of the world, people are exposed to others and may learn that they experience the same kinds of needs, hopes, and struggles as each other. This increased tolerance of others takes awhile to emerge and is part of the evolution of societies. The issues of migration, immigration, and refugees will now be explored.

New York's Ellis Island, where about 16 million immigrants entered the United States between 1892 and 1924.

Migration refers to the movement of people in and out of new geographic areas. International migration refers to movement to another country, and in internal migration, people move around inside a particular nation. People are much more likely to move within their own nation so they can stay close to family and friends and be a part of a familiar society. Worldwide, only about 3% of people move to another country (Martin & Zürcher, 2008). The desire to move, or migrate, to other areas is influenced by push or pull factors. Push factors force people to move away from a problematic living situation and may include war, economic problems, discrimination or persecution, or natural disasters. Pull factors are things that attract people to want to move elsewhere to improve their quality of life, such as a new job, different climate, different political system, or more preferable lifestyle.

People who move out of a country are known as emigrants, while people who move into a new nation are called immigrants. While the United States is a nation made largely of immigrants, and much of the strength of the nation has historically come from the work of immigrant individuals, the issue of immigration has become more of a concern in recent years. Historically, immigrants came to the United States for many reasons. Some came here fleeing political oppression or war, as did many Europeans during the Holocaust and World Wars I and II. About 16 million immigrants entered the United States through Ellis Island in New York from 1892 to 1924. Some immigrants came as indentured workers or slaves, such as the Chinese who helped build the railroads, or the Africans who helped build the farming industry of the South. Immigration is part of the building of America, and can be seen in the Irish firefighters and police officers at the turn of the last century, or today with Latino migrant workers traveling across the nation harvesting crops.

There have been four major immigration periods in history between 1500 and 1800; one as Europeans began to colonize new areas around the world, another when peoples in Africa were involuntarily transported to the New World as slaves, a third during the late 1800s when East Asian immigration increased, and the fourth occurring during the early 1900s when people from Eastern Europe moved to the New World, South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand. The current immigration movement in the United States consists of people who are from all around the world, but emphasis often seems placed on those from Mexico because there is a language difference and physical attributes that are different from those of European descent. Part of the current immigration debate stems from the 1965 Hart–Celler Act, which sought to move away from a racially based quota system of immigration to a system that gave preference to immigrants with relatives in the United States and who had occupational skills deemed critical by the U.S. Department of Labor. Immigrants from Asia, the Middle East, Africa, and South and Latin America increased significantly in number as a result of the act.

Historically as well as today, suspicion and concern about outsiders, or out–groups, whose norms and cultures are different from that of the status quo, has soured intergroup relations. The issue of undocumented workers today has resulted in more concern about how many of what types of people to allow into the nation. Common concerns that include "they are taking our jobs," "they are taking our tax dollars," and increased crime or terrorist activity, inability to speak English, and increased demand for health, education, and human services. Immigration has provided many benefits to society, such as diversity, a younger and increased workforce, economic gains, and a skilled workforce (Borjas, 1995). The costs of immigration are estimated to be around $61 billion in 2000 ($35 billion from legal immigrants and $26 billion from illegal immigrants) after their tax contribution (FAIR, 2002). Hinojosa–Ojeda (2010) alleges that the United States needs to create a comprehensive immigration reform that includes a legalization program for unauthorized immigrants and enables a future flow of legal workers, which would result in a large economic benefit, an estimated $1.5 trillion in added U.S. gross domestic product over 10 years. In stark contrast, he found that a deportation–only policy of illegal immigrants would result in a loss of $2.6 trillion in GDP over 10 years.

In the state of Arizona in 2010, political debate occurred over whether suspected immigrants should be mandated to carry documentation with them at all times. The debate centered on whether the law enforcement authorities would engage in racial profiling, suspecting some people who looked Hispanic or Latino as illegal aliens, while people who looked more Anglo may avoid questioning altogether. The governor alleged that it was important to clear the state of people who were there illegally, since they cost the state much in aid and were contributors to crime. Whether immigrants are viewed as wonderful additions to a country, or burdens to society, shifts from time to time and place to place in accordance to what else is going on in a society at that time, and as Becker (1963) reminds us—whose side are we on? See Brooks 2001 for a discussion of the pros and cons of U.S. immigration policies.

Refugees are people who have been forced to leave their homeland under duress, often suddenly, and find themselves living in another country as a result. According to the United Nations, refugees may fear persecution on the basis of race, religion, or nationality and may find themselves unable to be protected in their own country, so they are willing to flee in order to find protection from another nation. Over 67 million people living today were forced to move from their home involuntarily, of which 16 million were refugees, with most being from Afghanistan, Iraq, the Sudan, and Somalia (Kimmel & Aronson, 2009).

Additionally, over 26 million moved unwillingly due to war and political strife, and 25 million were displaced due to natural disasters, which adds to the ebb and flow of population movement (Kimmel & Aronson, 2009).

Theories of Global Stratification

Global inequality exists—that is a fact. The residents of some nations live comfortably, with plenty to eat, nice homes, and access to good health and education. In other parts of the world, people struggle to find food and have no access to stable housing, education, or health care. Their lifestyles, aspirations, attitudes, needs, and contributions to society vary dramatically as a result. How did the world become so stratified between the have and have–not nations? And what should be done about global inequity? Three major theories attempt to explain different views: modernization theory, a functionalist–type approach; dependency theory, a conflict theory approach; and newer world systems theory.

Modernization Theory

Primitive or traditional societies existed for long periods of time without making major changes. In order for them to become more economically secure, the modernization theory assumes that there is benefit to a society in becoming more technologically advanced (Rostow, 1978). Poverty is thought to result because traditional values and customs prevent the society from being competitive in a global or international environment. If these traditional values can be replaced with ones that support the use of modern technology, material goods, and advanced services in a market–driven economy, the model presumes that poverty will be eradicated as more affluent ways of life are established.

This theory alleges that the process of modernization follows four general stages. In Stage 1, the traditional stage, poor societies rely on traditions and values to ward off technological encroachments. Bangladesh is a country in Stage 1. But as traditions become challenged and weakened, the economy starts to grow in Stage 2, the take–off stage. Many Southeast Asian and Latin American nations are examples of being in this second stage. In Stage 3 there is a drive toward technological maturity. Cities grow during this stage as traditional lifestyles are replaced with more cosmopolitan ones. Mexico is a good example of a nation in Stage 3. During Stage 4, there is high mass consumption of goods and services, and technology results in a higher standard of living for a society's residents. Japan and the United States are examples of countries in Stage 4 of the model. Social institutions will benefit from a more modern approach and values, which will in turn transfer down to benefit the lives of families and individuals. As societies modernize, they may become powerful because of this shift in attitudes and practices. Therefore, in order for a society to become globally competitive, they must change and become more modern.

Which are the most technologically oriented societies? In a study of most globalized countries, those who use the most communication technologies and participate in international organizations and financial investments include Singapore, Hong Kong, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Ireland, Denmark, the United States, Canada, and Jordan. Those with the lowest globalization scores include Pakistan, Bangladesh, Turkey, China, Brazil, Indonesia, India, and Iran (A. T. Kearney, 2006). Those societies that have access to technology have been able to benefit over those that do not. However, with the swift and easy transfer of technology, the balance of power of which nations are the most, or least, technologically powerful may be expected to change over time.

Dependency Theory

In this theoretical approach, the economic conditions of rich and poor nations around the world are interrelated. In its simplest explanation, rich countries become wealthy because they manipulate the resources of underdeveloped, poor societies. Traditional societies have resources that may be desirable to other nations or multinational corporations, resources that they cannot mobilize or extract on their own. Other governments or companies may enter the societies in a variety of ways to secure those resources, either through force, sales, or manipulated compliance. As a result, poor or less powerful societies become exploited by wealthier nations for the benefit of the latter.

Whereas colonialism began hundreds of years ago when powerful countries claimed underdeveloped countries, today poor nations are not politically conquered by other nations, but rather they become economically dependent on them for economic survival. This approach is sometimes referred to as neocolonialism, or the control of poor countries by rich ones through economic pressure but without direct political or military involvement. If an underdeveloped nation wants to improve its standard of living, allowing a corporation access to natural or human resources may be seen as desirable, even when they know they are being exploited. To those in need, any income into a poor nation may be seen as more desirable than no income at all. Such nations become dependent on the wealthy nations for income and loans. Many African and Southeast Asian nations are examples of this model. Unfortunately, while the nations may benefit some from such capitalist ventures, the majority of benefit goes to the corporation, not the people. Therefore, while the standard of living may improve somewhat, it is not increased enough to justify the exploitation, according to critics of this model.

World Systems Theory

In this theory advanced by Immanuel Wallerstein, no nation can be studied in isolation since each is dependent on other nations and external sources. A world system is thought to have existed during the Mongol empire during the thirteenth century when Chinese, Indian, European, and Muslim worlds were interlinked. Wallerstein asserts that the world system view emerged in the fifteenth century when the feudal economic system in Europe was transformed into a capitalistic economy. As Europe and the West gained economic advantages from capitalism, they gained control over much of the world's economic development. Industrialization and the creation of corporations led to inequality among nations, with some benefiting from this economic model and others suffering or being taken advantage of.

The world systems theory assumes that a global economic system exists that influences all nations. While countries are tied together in a variety of ways, it is the economic connections of goods, capital, and labor that unify them as they attempt to buy and sell goods and services in what is known as a commodity chain. The world system would occur in four stages: in Stages 1 and 2, which Wallerstein attributes to Europe between 1450 and 1670, there was increased bureaucratization, local populations that were homogeneous in nature, more powerful militaries, and a diversification of economic activities to maximize profits and strengthen the position of the people in power. Long–distance travel for merchants increased substantially and the merchants gained power over industries and agriculture, and the merchant class provided the capital investments necessary for industrialization.

After the eighteenth century, the economy moved from agriculture to industrialized economic bases, which set the stage for exploration of new markets around the world. This included Asia, Africa, and Latin America. In 1700, England was Europe's leader in both agricultural and industrial production, but by 1900 only 10% of England's population was engaged in agricultural pursuits. Their shift toward manufacturing enabled them to sell a variety of machines, goods, and services to the less developed nations around the world. Wallerstein did not regard his model as a theory but as a form of scientific knowledge that he hoped would transcend the illusions of the use of traditional views of society, economy, and politics. He was influenced by the work of both Marx and Weber, and his view is thought to be a more modern approach that could lead to a shift in the way people viewed the world. The world systems model leads to the creation of an international division of labor that puts profits in the hands of a few elites while exploiting the poorest and least powerful nations.

Applying Sociology

Are Indigenous People Threatened?

The 2009 film Avatar depicted an attack on the fictional Na'vi, but contemporary indigenous groups are still being threatened today.

The simple answer is yes. Many cultures have become extinct around the world, usually as a result of human intervention that impacts the lifestyle and culture of small groups of people. Many Native American and First Nations tribes no longer exist. Russia has lost dozens of groups because of technological changes. Dozens of languages die out each year. If you visit the Cultural Survival website (http://www.culturalsurvival.org/) you will learn that hundreds of cultures are currently at risk, usually because of man–made intrusions that impact their existence.

Human behavior is causing environmental and climate change, which in turn impacts the ability of people and animals to survive. The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) notes in a video that many species are threatened with extinction. In addition,

• 75% of genetic diversity of agricultural crops has been lost
• 75% of the world's fisheries are fully exploited or overexploited
• Up to 70% of the world's known species risk extinction if global temperatures rise by more than 3.5°C
• One–third of reef–building corals around the world are threatened with extinction
• Every second a parcel of rainforest the size of a football field disappears

Filmmaker James Cameron made the film Avatar, which explored how one group with agendas to make money and the technology to do it overcame a peace–loving community of indigenous peoples. A short while after the film was released, a real–life example occurred in the Amazon area. Take a look at this article to learn more: "Tribes of Amazon find an ally out of Avatar" (http://www.nytimes.com).

The Guardian in the UK has joined the international community in speaking out about the potential extinction of indigenous tribes. Five indigenous groups in South America identified by Survival International as the most threatened groups on earth found themselves forced to flee armed gangs and bulldozers as corporate invaders attempted to seize their land. They were never contacted by these corporations to gain permission to use their land. These semi–nomadic groups are in the forests of Peru, Brazil, and Paraguay, and they are at imminent risk of extinction as oil companies, loggers, and colonists invade their territories. Take a look at this article and video: "Oil firms and loggers push indigenous people to the bring of extinction" (http://guardian.co.uk).

Indigenous peoples of Columbia, Ecuador, and Chile are also at risk of extinction. But South America is not the only place where indigenous people have become extinct because of cultural changes. The is a long list of such groups in Russia (http://wikipedia.org).

 

Questions to Consider:

1. Which do you think is a better approach—to use resources today or to cut back use of resources today and have them available for the future? What are the pros and cons of each argument?
2. What do you think about having celebrities and filmmakers being the spokespeople for indigenous peoples? Why do you think that policymakers don't listen to them when they represent themselves?
3. Do you think it is fair that corporations may have their interests promoted instead of the interests of local citizens? Why do you think this occurs?
4. The trees of the Amazon area are the planet's major air filtering system; if too many trees are cut there, environmental catastrophes are predicted. Why do you think that governments don't protect the environment more?
5. When indigenous groups dwindle and die, so do their cultures. In your opinion, is the loss of a culture a natural evolution or a social problem?

Urbanization and Rurality

As the population increases, so will the need for new housing. Rural lands are declining around the world as people build houses, businesses, roads, and other buildings. Rural areas become towns, which become cities, which become metropolitan areas and then megalopolises, in which the boundaries of one urban area run smack into another, making cities virtually indistinguishable.

What are the most populous countries in the world, and what are the largest cities? In 2008, the most populous nations were China, followed by India, the United States, Indonesia, Brazil, Pakistan, Nigeria, and Bangladesh. It is projected that by 2025 there will be 27 megacities, or metropolitan areas with populations over 10 million. Tokyo is anticipated to be the largest city with 36 million residents. New York and Los Angeles will be the only megacities in North America, Paris will be the only one in Europe, and the rest will be in Asia (16), Latin America (4), and Africa (3) (United Nations Population Division, 2008). City life is markedly different from life in rural areas; cities do not just have more people, but also more resources and different types of challenges and opportunities. The world is becoming increasingly urbanized as a result of the increased population, and cities are growing in size. Similarly, as people move to cities for employment and lifestyle reasons, this has resulted in a shrinking of many rural areas; 45% of U.S. counties have experienced a decrease in their population since 2000, and 85% of those counties are rural (Mather, 2008). Today about 80% of the population lives in an urban area in the United States; this is much different than in 1900 when only 39% of the population lived in cities.

Effects of Urbanization

There are benefits and drawbacks to most things, and city life is no different. Urban areas provide more employment opportunities, increased educational and recreational options, more diversity in population, thought, and lifestyle, better transportation options, more health and social services, and more stores and restaurants, to name a few of the many benefits of city life. There may also be more congestion, crowding, waiting, crime, and lack of resources when the number of people who need them exceed their availability, as may be the case in housing.

Sociologist Louis Wirth (1938) alleged that urbanism was not just a way of life, but also a way of thinking and acting. Wirth felt that living in a city alienates people from the close ties they experienced with kin in small communities, and that living around so many people may lead to sensory overload, loneliness, and a sense of rootlessness, where people don't feel like they belong and may not even know their neighbors. Herbart Gans (1968) disagreed with this view and felt that people did make connections with others similar to themselves in the city in his study of urban villagers. He found five types of people lived in the city, including cosmopolitans, who were artists and intellectuals; Yuppies, or young single urban professionals; immigrants or ethnic villagers; the deprived, who he saw as poor and minority; and those he referred to as the trapped, or poor, elderly people.

Most cities are not planned; they develop erratically over time, with the result being urban sprawl as cities tend to grow outward instead of upward. Cities may have neighborhoods in which certain groups tend to congregate by race, religion, or social class. Poor people may find themselves pushed out of neighborhoods when middle class people buy and renovate areas, in a process referred to as gentrification. The Broadway musical Rent was based on the problem of people in cities being unable to find available housing and then to afford the rents.

Theories on Cities

Are cities good or bad places to live? Are they chaotic and frenetic and conflict–producing, or are they ordered and logical places in which to live? Everything in society can be looked at from different points of view, depending on the theory one uses. The way we look at cities will lead to ideas about how they should be developed, how they should be managed or planned, and how resources are allocated. Urban sociology is an important field in sociology and it explores a variety of ways in which cities are created, maintained, and changed (Macionis & Parillo, 2009).

Not all sociologists have looked at cities in the same way. For instance, sociologists at the University of Chicago during the 1930s developed theories of urban ecology, which is the study of people in their urban environments. Park and Burgess (1921) described communities that grow outward from a central point in a series of rings or zones where central businesses are located in the middle of the city, and where different residential areas span out from there, in what they called the concentric zone theory. This theory assumed that an inner city was vital to the community, and that different types of people would live in areas further away, and that different activities would occur there as a result. Advocates of the sector theory did not think the cities developed in a smooth orderly way, but may occur in segments or pie–shaped wedges where different segments of the city radiate out from the central business area, each with its own function and personality. The multiple nuclei theory proposes that a city contains more than one center of activity, and that different mini–centers develop around each hub, giving unique flavors to each of these residential zones. The peripheral theory of urban growth proposes that highways that link the major hubs of activity in cities form the basis for new residential and business growth patterns. These theories are useful because they provide different frameworks for consideration as one analyzes why cities take on the personality and functions that they do. If one was developing a brand new city, which type of layout would be best? If one is trying to alter the configuration of an existing city, what is the best way to do it? These theories all provide useful information to city planners.

Centennial Park, Atlanta, Georgia. Where does your city or town fit into the sociological theories?

Going back to the main three sociological theories, functionalist theorists allege that cities are functional because they enable people to find better jobs and improve their quality of life. They were analogous to machines that had to operate smoothly and efficiently; they were also compared to human organisms in which one part was dependent on the others. There may be commercial areas, residential areas, industrial areas, or educational areas, so zoning was important. Mapping was a way for these theorists to see how each of the parts of the community fit together. Each social function and structure needed to be coordinated to relate to the cultural, social, economic, and environmental needs of the community. Conflict theorists proposed that the structure of cities develops to meet the needs of the people in power, not necessarily the needs of the public as a whole. Where corporations, banks, developers, and capitalistic organizations locate will determine where the growth in a community will occur, where people will need to commute to in order to access their goods and services, and which parts will be left to deteriorate. Cities may choose to invest heavily in some parts of town but not invest much at all in other areas—which is by design according to whose interests are being met. Areas of town may decline or be abandoned so that the local residents are left to support them, instead of the city as a whole. Symbolic interaction theorists focus on the interactions that occur among residents in the city. What types of communication patterns exist in neighborhoods, or in the city as a whole? Where are the points of interest within communities, and how do people gain identities from belonging to one neighborhood or another? In many communities there is an elite section and others regarded to be less desirable, and people who live in each develop a social reputation as a result—which may influence how they are treated or interact. Urbanites are exposed to greater diversity, but are their modes of interaction more superficial or richer because they live surrounded by others? Is it possible for people to live surrounded by others but still feel emotionally and socially isolated? These are the types of questions that urban symbolic interactionists may explore.

     

     

5.3

 Where We Live Impacts Our Lives

What are some issues that confront different parts of the world? Earlier in this text the issue of social stratification was explored, with particular attention focused on life in the United States. The same stratification concepts will now be applied to the study of peoples around the world. It may be useful to go back to Module 3 to refresh yourself on these concepts.

Essentially, people are stratified, or layered, according to their wealth, prestige, and power. So are nations. Nations rank other nations similarly to how people judge others. Typically, nations are stratified into one of three categories and commonly referred to as first world, second world, or third world, and more recently the fourth world. These terms came into use around the time of the Cold War when the world was divided according to political, economic, and social distinctions (Diamond, 2005). Some critics argue that such labels of first, second, and third sound elitist and prefer the terms Most Developed Nations, Developing Nations, or Least Developed Nations.

First World: Most Developed Nations

Originally the term first world referred to the bloc of democratic and industrial influences that after World War II were aligned with the United States. These nations had capitalist, industrial–based economies and had common political and economic interests. These nations included Canada and most of Western Europe, as well as Japan, Israel, and Australia. The definition of first world has changed over time to be more encompassing of other nations that are economically and technologically developed. They are nations in which the residents have a greater quality of life in an economic and resource acquisition sense. Residents of the first world also tend to use more resources than people in other parts of the world, which ostensibly makes them a greater risk to the environment than others.

Second World: Less Developed Nations

Post–World War II, there was an Eastern bloc of socialist and communist societies that were under the influence of the USSR, or Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. These included Poland, Kazakhstan, and China. The term second world was originally one with clear political associations. These nations had centrally planned economies and were not as prosperous as the nations in the first world, but were on the cusp of being developed if they would allow capitalistic ventures and increased use of technology. They were not as poor as nations referred to as third world nations, to be discussed more in the next section. Over time, the meaning of the second world became less to do with political alignments and more to do with economic standards. Today second world, or less developed, nations include Russia; many Southern and Eastern European countries, such as Bosnia, Bulgaria, Croatia, Hungary, Belarus, Romania, Serbia, and the Ukraine; and some South–central Asian countries such as Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan, as well as China, North Korea, North Vietnam, and Mongolia.

Third World: Least Developed Nations

This is the largest group of nations, consisting of about three–quarters of the world's population. These nations were not actively aligned with any nation during World War II and tend to have poor economic bases. Many of the third world or least developed nations exist in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. The term third world today includes capitalist nations such as Venezuela, poor countries such as Mali, and rich nations such as Saudi Arabia. Today the definition of third world includes factors such as political rights, civil liberties, gross national income, poverty index, freedom of movement and freedom of information, and human development. While some people in nations like Saudi Arabia are wealthy, most people in third–world nations are poor, not well educated, lack health care services, and have curtailed freedoms. The term third world commonly is associated with poverty.

Poverty is more prevalent in less developed nations, where people are more likely to experience absolute deprivation, or extreme poverty, than they are to experience the types of poverty found in more developed nations, where people are poor relative to others (relative deprivation). The United Nations defines absolute poverty as living on less than $1 a day, which equates to over one billion people, or about one–fifth of the world's population, falling in that category. The poorest part of the world is now in Sub–Saharan Africa, as shown in Table 5.1.

Table 5.1 Ten Poorest Nations in the World (GDP Per Capita)

Country	GDP in 2000 dollars
Sierra Leone	400
Tanzania	523
Burundi	591
Malawi	615
Ethiopia	668
Niger	746
Guinea–Bissau	755
Dem. Rep. Congo	765
Mali	797
Congo	825

Source: http://www.economywatch.com/economies-in-top/poorest-countries-of-world.html

A five–year–old Costa Rican boy plays in the sink where his family washes their clothes, in the Viejo Carpentier shantytown outside of Alajuela.

While China has had high poverty rates, recently it has developed an economic base that has resulted in lifestyle improvements especially in urban areas. But it is important to note that the benefits of urbanization are not uniformly distributed; China is a large nation with many rural areas that still live more agricultural lifestyles resembling those of long ago (Wang, Shi, & Zheng, 2000). Poverty in Eastern Europe and Central Asia appears to be increasing, and communities are trying to find ways to tackle it.

Education in least developed nations may be very challenging for people to obtain, and health needs may be unmet. People of all ages in third world nations tend to work, from the very young to the very old, but few of them do work that yields much money. Women are particularly prone to be poor in these types of societies because they tend to have minimal education, and traditional gender roles result in discrimination in the types of jobs that they can get and the amounts that they are paid. Many leave rural communities to find work in the cities, only to learn that they make very little money and are exploited in a variety of ways. The lack of technology and traditional cultural patterns result in the presence of poverty, which is exacerbated in nations where there is a population explosion, largely due to the lack of contraception.

Fourth World

The term fourth world was coined in 1974 by Shuswap Chief George Manuel. It refers to widely unrecognized nations or cultural entities that are comprised of indigenous peoples. These are known as First Nations people. They may live within or across national state boundaries. In nations such as Canada the First Nations people are recognized and honored, and their needs are considered in political and economic decisions. Previously, First Nations peoples were often ignored and their needs discounted.

Human Development Index

Recently the United Nations created a measure called the Human Development Index, which shifts the focus from national income to people–centered policies such as literacy, life expectancy, and standard of living (see Figure 5.3, which describes where countries fall on the index). No matter what we call them, the notion is the same—that some societies are thought to be more advanced, with more advantages than others.

Figure 5.3 World Map Indicating a Human Development Index

World map indicating a Human Development Index (United Nations 2010: http://hdr.undp.org/en/statistics/)

The human poverty index, developed by the United Nations, is a measure of deprivation to show the different qualities of life in industrialized and poverty stricken nations. It incorporates measures of (a) long and healthy life, (b) knowledge and education, (c) economic well–being, and (d) social inclusion. In industrial nations, people tend to live longer, be healthier, have higher rates of education, and live more comfortable lives than do people in poor nations. Poverty is not then just an economic state, but also may include more social and physical factors as well.

The central difference between the poverty index and the human development index is that they focus on different variables on which they seek to make their comparison. The poverty index essentially measures things that are not going well while the human development index focuses on things that may encourage more positive outcomes. It is unlikely that a single nation would score high on poverty and high on human development, although it is possible. It is more likely that a country scoring high on poverty would score low on human development, since there would likely be less investment in education and healthcare and shorter lifespans.

Global Growth and Inequality as Social Problems

Economic and power imbalances are a problem for both poor and wealthy nations. In this module, both population and economic issues have been discussed, with the conclusion that countries with large populations will need more resources in order to adequately care for them. Yet the nations with the greatest populations are often those that struggle economically, which results in more poverty and strife.

Resource Depletion

Growing populations require more food, water, and resources. Increased industrialization, energy needs, and technology put demands on the use of natural resources. There are two forms of resources—renewable and nonrenewable. Renewable resources are those that can be replaced, such as agricultural products. Nonrenewable resources include many fossil fuels such as oil and coal, as well as fish, animals, and minerals. In the search for resources that are becoming harder to find, pristine environmental areas and animal habitats are now being compromised. Take for example oil—because we have a high dependency on it, companies are moving into the oceans to pump it out, pipelines are built across Alaska into previously protected lands, and environmental problems have occurred as a result. This has pitted man against nature, environmentalists against corporations, and confused the average citizen who wants to protect nature but have access to plenty of affordable oil to run their cars and heat their homes. As new homes need to be built, deforestation is occurring for buildings and roads to emerge. Deforestation is now so widespread that its environmental impacts are apparent, including carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, soil erosion, decrease of biodiversity, and changes in water cycles, and it is associated with increased global warming. Loss of wetlands disrupts the normal patterns in the food chain and affects the survivability of many species (Diamond, 2005; Foley, DeFries, Asner, Barford, Bonan, Carpenter, Chapin, Coe, Daily, Gibbs, Helkowski, Holloway, Howard, Kucharik, Monfreda, Patz, Prentice, Ramankutty, & Snyder, 2005; Bain, 2007).

Food and Hunger

In 2009 over 1 billion people, or 16% of the world's population, were at risk of starvation, and that number has increased steadily in recent years (Thurow & Kilman, 2009). While some people say that lack of food is the reason for hunger, food scholars argue that there is enough food to feed the world—the problem is unequal distribution (Anderson & Taylor, 2009). Poverty is strongly associated with hunger and malnutrition, since many of the peoples in the world cannot afford food when they live on a dollar a day. The World Health Organization estimates that 800 million people are malnourished, which leads to preventable disease, disability, and death. Even when food is made available, it may not get into the hands of the people who need it. Poor nations often lack the distribution systems to get aid to the people, as was shown during the 2010 environmental problems in Haiti.

     

     

5.4

 Social Movements Change the World

Sociologists have long studied movements (Smelser, 1963). Some movements are short lived and may be considered to be fads, while others result in sweeping social change. Social movements are important ways for collectivities of people concerned about a particular issue to bring it to the public's attention and evoke new behaviors and structures as a result. Social movements are organized activities that encourage or oppose some aspect of social action. They are a part of collective behavior, or actions of large numbers of people that may be perceived to be outside mainstream ways of doing things. Collective behavior represents the views of a group of people, not individuals, and tends to be planned. Movements are not irrational and quickly created but designed with goals and objectives in mind, even when in response to unexpected circumstances, like Hurricane Katrina. The members often act quickly to respond to new and changing circumstances and develop new strategies and tactics to produce desired results. Most social movements make a concerted effort to make their views public and to gain support for them. Supporters will organize meetings, rallies, and demonstrations, and work for increased education about the issues and policy support for them. In order for social movements to be seen as legitimate, they must be supported by large numbers of individuals who share a collective vision of what they believe should be accomplished, and a will or commitment to the accomplishments. The public must see the issues as important and worthy of attention (Tilly, 1978).

Types of Social Movements

Social movements can be classified into distinct types (Jenkins & Klandermans, 1995; Larana, Johnson, & Gusfield, 1994). One type is personal transformation movements, which aim to change individuals and the way they think and act. The evangelical and New Age religious movements both try to help people achieve a sense of personal meaning in life, but they do so using quite different approaches. Yet they can both be seen as personal transformative movements, both are highly organized, both have financial as well as ideological gain from the conversion of members, and both network like–minded individuals with others who share their beliefs, giving them a sense of community and purpose.

A more extreme variation of the personal transformation movements are the redemptive movements, which target individuals in an attempt to dramatically change their lives, such as religious organizations that encourage their members to be born again. Alternative social movements propose limited change in certain groups of individuals, encouraging them to give up one set of behavior for another. Examples of this may be seen by Planned Parenthood encouraging the use of birth control, or by the AIDS prevention community for the use of condoms.

Another category of social movements are political or social change movements, which aim to change some part of society. Political movements may include the Tea Party or Moral Majority movements, which seek to gain members who share a conservative agenda of how governmental and individual behavior should be regulated. Some of the movements that fall into this category straddle the political and social arenas, such as the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s or the gay rights movement of the 2000s. Reform movements seek change through and within mainstream institutions and use traditional means. The charter school movement in the United States is attempting to change the form and quality of education from within the public school sector. Trade unions may be created to make the workplace safer for employees. Radical social movements may seek more fundamental change within existing institutions, or challenging them altogether. They often work outside of the major institutions to achieve their goals. As examples of movements working to achieve environmental change, the Sierra Club works within mainstream institutions while Greenpeace tends to use more dramatic actions to protest the killing of whales, seals, and other creatures.

Revolutionary social movements are designed to create widespread social transformation and may call for extreme measures in order to do so. An example would be the Russian Revolution in the early 1900s. Reactionary movements are designed to resist change that members believe would be better, such as the one Hitler organized in order to promote the Aryan nation or white Anglo–Saxon Protestant supremacy. Revolutionary movements operate in opposition to social values and changes and often want to move back to some idealized version of the past. It is important to note that there are a variety of movements and they share the commonalities of mobilization and strategy (Gamson, 1990; Goodwin & Jasper, 2004; Tucker, 1991).

Stages of Social Movements

Youth march in the Annual Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Pride parade on Fifth Avenue in New York. Is there a social movement that resonates strongly with you?

Social movements tend to evolve in stages—they are not expected to last long–term. The first stage, emergence, is when widespread social change is deemed desirable by an identifiable group of people. It is often mobilized by a charismatic leader or set of individuals committed to a cause. The second stage is coalescence, when the movement defines itself, recruits members, and devises goals and actions. The third stage is bureaucratization, in which the movement becomes better organized, with specific roles and responsibilities of its members. This stage is critical because it helps a social movement have a better chance of long–term survival. The last stage is when the movement declines, either because it has been incorporated into mainstream institutions, or because it loses resources or members or has been unable to mobilize on its goals. Thus, the life cycle of a social movement indicates that it will grow and change, and over time will no longer exist (McCarthy & Zald, 1977; Blumer, 1969; Tilly, 1978).

Social movements are important vehicles to helping a society grow and change. Let us now explore some major social movements in more detail.

Anti–Poverty Movement

Every society has had a segment of the population that has been poorer than other groups. During the Great Depression of the 1930s in the United States, a large segment of the population was poor. Poverty was often thought to be a result of personal problems or imperfections, but during the 1960s, when the relationship between poverty, racism, sexism, and ageism became apparent, social movements occurred to do something about economic inequality. President Johnson waged a war on poverty that resulted in the creation of programs that constituted a social safety net that were designed to keep people out of poverty. However, more recent political administrations have not advocated as much for the poor. The number of homeless people has increased, and social movements have also emerged to assist them (Cress & Snow, 1996; Vissing, 1996; Harrington, 1961).

Civil Rights Movement

The Civil Rights movement in the United States began in the 1960s and fought to create racial equality. Before that time, segregation of Whites and Blacks was commonplace and often reinforced by the laws of the nation. Martin Luther King, Jr. is usually recognized as the movement's charismatic leader. Other Black leaders included Rosa Parks, Malcolm X, and Medgar Evers. They drew on the inspiration of people like Sojourner Truth, Harriet Tubman, and the nonviolence of Mahatma Gandhi. The civil rights movement was regarded as a success, resulting in the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which outlawed discrimination against Blacks and women. The movement that began with Black Americans has since morphed into civil rights movements of other racial, ethnic, and religious groups (Cone, 1992; Rosales, 1997).

Women's Movement

The women's rights movement has a long history, commonly attributed in the United States to the formation of the National Women Suffrage Association in 1869 by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony to achieve voting rights for women by means of a congressional amendment. Debate over women's rights has occurred around the world since ancient times, with some cultures more or less supportive of gender equality. Even today in many parts of the world, women have few rights. While women have achieved greater protection and more rights, it is important to note that the Equal Rights Amendment to the U. S. Constitution has not been ratified (McMillen, 1992).

Elderly Rights Movement

Elderly individuals today have access to a variety of legal protections, but this was not always the case in the United States. Many found themselves sick, poor, and unable to care for themselves. As a result, programs such as Social Security were created. But that program did not provide all the help elders needed. During the 1960s, the American Association for Retired Persons (AARP) worked with government agencies to improve the lives of elders, and groups like the Grey Panthers sought an activist approach to aging. Their efforts were successful; the 1961 White House Conference on Aging highlighted the problems of inadequate health care, social services, and nursing home care facing the elderly; the Older Americans Act of 1965 established the federal Administration on Aging and a nationwide network of Area Agencies on Aging and nutrition amendments of 1972 added programs to feed older people. Civil rights of older people were also written into legislation; the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 protects applicants and employees older than age 40 from discrimination, and the Age Discrimination Act of 1975 prohibits discrimination on the basis of age in programs receiving federal financial assistance. The age for mandatory retirement was raised to 70 in 1978 and eliminated for most workers in 1986 (Powell, Branco, & Williamson, 1996).

Children's Rights Movement

The children's rights movement has increased protection of young people around the world from issues such as abuse and sexual exploitation, employment, involvement in war, and access to education, health care, and a quality life. The main organization advocating for child rights and protections is the United Nations. It created a Convention on the Rights of the Child that all UN nations in the world have signed, except for Somalia and the United States. Children are one of the poorest and most exploited groups on the planet, so it is fair to say that while the children's rights movement has created some significant improvements for children, there is still much to do to protect them (Children's Defense Fund, 2011).

Gay Rights Movement

On July 26, 1990, President George H. W. Bush signed the Americans with Disabilities Act, which seeks to provide equal access for those with disabilities to employment, services, transportation, and more.

A homosexual rights movement was first thought to be mobilized in the 1920s in Germany. It was not until post–World War II when the gay movement became active in the United States, as returning gay soldiers and sailors began living in large cities like San Francisco and New York. The civil rights movement encouraged other social movements, such as the women's movement, elderly movement, and the movement for gay rights. As with many social events, a triggering incident may occur to push people into action. This was the case when the 1969 Stonewall riot in Greenwich Village of New York occurred. An active gay liberation front began, followed by the election of Harvey Milk in San Francisco as the nation's first gay official. The movement has since morphed into supporting gay, lesbian, bisexual, transsexual, and transgendered individuals. While AIDS is not a disease exclusive to the gay community, it has been a cause around which the community could unify (Marcus, 2002).

Disabilities Rights Movement

There are many reasons why an individual may be disabled, such as mental illness, physical impairment, cognitive issues, deafness, or blindness, to name but a few. When people focused on their disability as an individual problem, little was done about it since it was perceived to be a personal trouble. But as it became identified as a public problem shared by many different types of individuals, a movement began to advocate for the rights of all disabled persons. People who were wheelchair–bound led the charge, but it was quickly picked up by others whose disabilities had kept them silent. The civil rights revolution for the disabled began with the 1973 amendments to the Vocational Rehabilitation Act and later the Americans with Disabilities Act. Although similar language was included in the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1972 Education Amendments Act, the new wave of disability activism began with efforts to implement amendments which banned discrimination against any qualified handicapped individual in any program receiving federal financial assistance. The American Coalition of Citizens with Disabilities movement pushed for a strong compliance and enforcement program, which has encouraged social institutions to be more sensitive and attentive to the needs of those with disabilities (Shapiro, 1994).

Environmental Movement

Writings by Henry David Thoreau at Walden Pond in Massachusetts during the 1800s are often attributed to the creation of the environmental protection movement. The Audubon Society and scouting programs also brought attention to the preservation of nature. So did Teddy Roosevelt and John Muir, who popularized conservation. Rachel Carson's book Silent Spring (1962/2002) popularized the idea that nature has a delicate balance and humans are disrupting it to their own detriment. In 1963 the United States first created environmental protection laws, first for clean air, then to enforce water quality standards and protect wilderness areas. The fight against pollution became more rampant and covered not just air and water, but foods, pesticides, housing contaminants, and the proper disposal of both industrial and nuclear waste. Animal protection and habitat areas became part of the environmental movement as well, although they have splintered into social movements in their own right. The environmental movement and governmental legislation like the Environmental Protection Act (EPA) and organizations like the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) have helped create healthier communities for citizens. Environmentalists have made convincing arguments to the public for the need for social change and protection of nature as a limited resource. The environmental movement continues to be actively engaged because there remains significant tension between corporate interests, individual needs, animal rights, and the effects on nature, locally, nationally, and globally (Kline, 2007).

Green Movement

The green movement has been led by scientists and food production specialists, in conjunction with major food–producing organizations, to encourage the use of technology and techniques to increase food production worldwide. This includes developing high–yielding varieties of grains, new irrigation systems, and new distribution systems for seeds, fertilizers, and pesticides. The notion underlying this movement is that healthy foods could be made available to everyone, thereby reducing hunger and environmental toxification. The Green Revolution has helped nations like Israel produce foods from previously barren land, but has not been fully developed in Africa, where famine continues, as does increased need for foreign aid. The green movement also has encouraged people to purchase organic and local foods instead of those that were grown far away and shipped in. Over the last 20 years, Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) has become a popular way for consumers to buy local, seasonal food directly from a farmer. The term environmental sustainability has emerged to reinforce the notion that any environmental practice must be used to sustain, not destroy, the ecosystem. The movement also encourages recycling; there are over 413 million tons of garbage produced annually, which is an increase of 25 million tons from 2006. When the recycling movement began, it focused on paper (litter) and slowly added items. People interested in recycling would have to transport their own items to paper drives for items to be recycled. Today many cities either have curb–side recycling or they have town recycle centers, where glass, plastics, wood, metal, and other items are recycled and where trash can be disposed of in a non–hazardous manner. Recycling has been successful because advocates worked with community leaders and devised plans for removing the items that were cost–effective and manageable (Sale, 1993).

Animal Rights Movement

This social movement advocates for the humane care of animals. There is wide disagreement about whether animals are sentient beings, which contributes to how people feel they should be treated. Animals are regularly used as sources of food, both directly for their flesh and indirectly for by–products such as milk or oil. If animals are to be killed, many cultures have their own standards about what, how, and when. For instance, both Jewish and Muslim faiths have humane food slaughter procedures dictated by their faiths. This is different from slaughtering that may occur in meat processing plants or factories. The animal rights movement has included saving the whales, protesting the killing of Canadian harp seal pups, and killing that can lead to the extinction of many species, including many of the big game in Africa. The Humane Society and the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA) have long sought to protect animals from pain and suffering. More recently, organizations such as People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) have emerged to bring animal rights to the forefront. Some animal rights advocates oppose eating or wearing animal products. Appropriate use of animals for product and medical testing is also a concern for animal rights advocates. In many Scandinavian nations the courts have strong anti–abuse laws and have ruled on a variety of legal rights for animals. They include food, water, housing, and care, as well as keeping animals in isolation and away from members of their own species. Many zoos and aquariums have established standards that will lead to more natural lifestyles for their captive animals, birds, and marine lives. Research indicates that many primates and sea mammals have intelligence and emotions that rival those of humans. Animal rights advocates have made some inroads with how animals are treated and cared for, but they have not achieved their goals yet (Singer, 2009).

Human Rights Movement

This social movement advocates for the fair and just treatment of all human beings, anywhere. It is based on liberties assured in the U.S. Bill of Rights. Human rights are also a part of many religious ideologies. It also builds on the human rights laws and standards of many other nations, over the history of humankind. The United Nations is a premiere agency to advocate for assuring equal rights throughout the world. International treaty mechanisms are usually cumbersome and can be subject to political obstruction, which has resulted in human rights violations. The movement continues to fight for the fair and just treatment of all (Stammers, 2009).

Moral Majority Movement

The Moral Majority was a social movement that focused on incorporating evangelical Christian views into political lobbying. It was founded in 1979 and lasted for about a decade. Reverend Jerry Falwell used a television show to communicate views of the movement to a national audience. The leaders of the Moral Majority worked with a network of conservative clergymen to advocate for issues deemed important to the movement, such as a traditional vision of family life and opposition to the Equal Rights Amendment, abortion, and homosexuality. It also sought to convert non–Christians to the faith. Members of the movement felt their views represented the majority of citizens who were believers in moral values (Snowball, 1991).

The Tea Party

The Tea Party is a recent grassroots political movement in the United States that endorses particular candidates for public office and sponsors local and national protests. The Tea Party movement has no central leadership (although Sarah Palin of Alaska is sometimes regarded as its spokesperson) but is composed of a loose affiliation of national and local groups that determine their own platforms and agendas. Its members tend to be Republican, conservative or libertarian, and they call for reduced government spending, lower taxes, reduction of the national debt and budget deficit, strict interpretation of the Constitution, support of family values, and endorsement of a new contract with America (Rasmussen & Schoen, 2010).

Progressive Movement

Tea Party supporters protest at the Oregon state capitol in 2009.

The progressive movement began in the 1800s with demands for social reforms designed to help the average American citizen, and has continued since in one form or another. The progressive movement has advocated for health care for all; worker safety; government reform; improvements in education, medicine, finance, insurance, industry, railroads, and churches; and it has led anti–corruption efforts. The New Deal of President Franklin Roosevelt and President Lyndon Johnson's War on Poverty and Great Society programs are examples of how the progressive movement has affected society. It advocates for having more people involved in the political process and has a conviction that government has a responsibility to treat all citizens in a fair manner in all aspects of economic and social life, and that government must play a role in solving social problems (McNeese, 2007).

There are certainly more social movements that have existed, and exist now. The ones listed here provide merely a smattering of possibilities to provide the reader with an idea of the wide range under the conceptual umbrella of collective behavior and social movements.

What Could the Future Look Like?

No one knows for sure what tomorrow will bring. Social scientists look at the data and try to make predictions. There are some facts that seem likely. One is that there will be an ever–growing population on the planet, and the bulk of the growth will occur in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. This will inevitably change the balance of power as it is known today. It will also affect the resources needed to provide for them. This will inevitably impose new stressors and challenges on the population. Two, there will be increased diversification of the population in virtually every way—in race, religion, ability, and views. This will require that the leaders of tomorrow have good interpersonal and communication skills to treat others respectfully, and negotiate successfully when there are differences. Three, technology will continue to increase and create new inventions, opportunities, and challenges. Four, the world itself will be called on to meet the impact of so many new people and ways of doing things. How well it will be able to do so remains a question.

For instance, pollution has increased all across the globe. Concern over the environment has increased dramatically in the last 50 years, as increased pollution and climate changes have occurred. Few individuals (2%) report being very concerned about the environment as a major social problem; most people focus on problems like crime, war, and economic well–being. However, on average, every American has at least 116 toxic chemicals in his or her body that did not exist 75 years ago, produces five pounds of garbage a day (much of which is plastic and will not biodegrade), and consumes more water and natural resources than four dozen people in less developed nations (Benokratis, 2009; Biello, 2008). So much plastic is discarded that huge gyres have been found in isolated areas of the ocean, with expansive beaches that consist of granulated plastic pieces. There are five major gyres, one in each of the oceans, that have become the garbage dumps of the world. Many of these plastic and trash dumps are estimated to be as large as North America. The long–term impact of this type of pollution remains to be seen, but is projected to have catastrophic effects (Greenpeace, 2011).

Clean water is a necessity of life, and its quality is essential for good health. Water pollution has been the focus to date, but other water issues are looming. As population increases, so will the need for fresh water, and it is likely that the amount of available water will not be able to keep up. While water is renewable from rains, with rainforests being depleted, the environmental set of checks and balances may be at a tipping point. Water is already being sold when once it was free, and debates on the ownership of water have ensued. For instance, to whom does the water in the Great Lakes belong? Michigan? Wisconsin? Minnesota? Or are people in the desert Southwest entitled to a water pipeline, just as mainland residents felt entitled to oil in Alaska that was piped down for use in the lower 48 states? Is Canada, which bounds the Great Lakes to the north, equally entitled to the water? Or do governments not own the water, but do corporations, such as Nestlé, which own many of the water sales companies? One can anticipate that such arguments will be waged in the years to come. In the future, water will be an increasingly important issue as a source of acquisition conflict, as a political force, a military tool, and a target, as well as a target for terrorists (World Water Council, 2011; Kirby, 2000; Evans–Pritchard, 2008).

Air quality becomes an issue as technological advances are made and wastes are not managed. Smokestacks and tailpipes emit toxins into the atmosphere, which are picked up and deposited many miles away, resulting in high air pollution even in rural areas. Companies may balk at the cost of strict air control mechanisms, which pit business and individual needs against each other. As the population increases, so does the amount of feet walking on the ground, which disrupts dirt and creates dust clouds that produce air pollution of a human–made force (National Geographic, 2011).

There is an energy crisis in many parts of the world, as people struggle to find ways to heat their homes, cook, and acquire electricity. Businesses struggle with this as well, since they are dependent on energy to run their operations. Wood, coal, and petrochemical products have predominated until this point. Electric cars, solar energy, and wind and water power are all used somewhat, but massive financial investment in those technologies has not yet occurred. Nuclear energy remains a controversial choice of energy. Only 15% of the energy consumed in the United States comes from renewable sources. Americans make up 5% of the world's population but consume over a quarter of energy and emit five times the world average of carbon dioxide pollution (Kimmel & Aronson, 2009).

Energy. Food. Water. Breathable air. Global warming. Housing. Jobs. Money. Happiness. There are many fundamental issues necessary for a society to address. So what can the data predict about what the future of tomorrow will be like? Many sociologists and scholars have attempted to theorize about this. Some of the major approaches are described next.

Modernity Theory

Peter Berger (1977) understood that all things must change and that industrialization would result in societies becoming more modern. With increased use of technology and industrialization would come a decline of small, traditional communities, which would reduce the closeness and solidarity of people who lived together, and loneliness and isolation may result. Modernization would expand personal choices and allow for greater individualization, so that people may want to pursue their own goals instead of goals that were embraced by the community as a whole. Lifestyle choice would become increasingly important to individuals. While traditional societies encouraged conformity, modernization would increase secularization and diversity of beliefs. This may put them at odds with their traditions. Modern societies also were predicted to make people more aware of time and the future than living in the here and now or cherishing the traditions of the past. Berger anticipated that there would be both benefits and drawbacks of modernization. There would be benefits from increased choices, opportunities, and lifestyles, but there would also be increased isolation and discomfort from no longer living in close–knit communities where everyone cared about each other and the rules for behavior were clear. This view also was present in the work of Ferdinand Tönnies, who predicted there would be a loss of community as societies developed (Adair–Toteff, 1996). Essentially, these sociologists felt that the characteristics of traditional and modern societies would be quite different, especially in the following areas:

Status and role	Relationships	Communication
Social control	Social stratification	Gender patterns
Family	Religion	Education
Government	Economy	Health
Values	Norms	Technology

Technology may improve some aspects of society and create new opportunities, but scholars were concerned that in a mass society that people would struggle with issues of identity and role. They may not be sure what they should do for a living; where they should live; if they should marry, and if they should, then who is the right partner; and how to act honorably and with integrity in a world of ever–changing norms. While standards of living may improve in a modern society, scholars debate on whether modernization will really make people happier and improve their quality of relationships and life.

Malthusian Trap

English economist and demographer Thomas Robert Malthus theorized that a growing population would eventually outstrip the environment's ability to sustain it. This is known as the Malthusian trap.

Thomas Malthus (1766–1834) was an English minister who had a keen understanding of both economics and demography. He wrote an essay on the principles of population in which he surmised that the natural tendency of people was to be sexually active, which would result in reproduction. The amount of land, food, and water was fixed; there could be no more of these natural resources than what was available. As the population increased in size, it would eventually outstrip the environment's ability to sustain them (Malthus, 1798). This would result in poverty, misery, and famine for the peoples of the world. His premise has become known as the Malthusian trap. Some scholars refute his logic and allege that there are a variety of social interventions, such as disease, war, delayed marriage, contraception, creation of new food sources, and the like, that may alter his prediction. However, as the world population explodes, issues of humanitarian aid, lifestyle choices, and quality of life make discussion on how to avoid Malthus's predictions salient.

Limits to Growth Theory

In the 1970s, researchers were commissioned by the Club of Rome, which is a global think tank in Switzerland, to study crucial problems facing humanity and to communicate those problems to the public and world decision makers. The result was the Limits to Growth study (Meadows, Meadows, Randers, & Behrens, 1972). It investigated the effects of overpopulation on the world. In particular, it analyzed the interaction effects of five variables, including population growth, industrialization, pollution, food production, and resource depletion. The researchers saw a feedback loop existed between these variables and questioned how it could be altered to create more positive outcomes for the world. Using computerized projections, the report basically confirmed many of Malthus's predictions made some hundreds of years before. This research has been updated in 2004 and still predicts economic and societal collapse in the twenty–first century due to the inability of technology and food production to control pollution and increased population growth. Critics of this study argue that its doomsday approach is not necessarily a good predictor of what will happen. However, few people can debate that the variables of ever–increasing population growth, increased need for food and water, increased pollution, increased reliance on technology, and dwindling land mass, water supplies, and depletion of natural resources are global concerns.

Demographic Transition Theory

This view proposes that a society's population patterns are influenced by its level of technological development (Caldwell, 1976). Essentially, societies shift from high birth and death rates as they move from a preindustrial to an industrial economic and social system. In preindustrial societies, death and birth rates are high; in the second stage, when societies start to develop, death rates drop due to improvements in food production, better health and education, access to technology, and more adequate sanitation systems. Since birth rates remain high, there is an increase in the population. During the third stage of transition, during advanced industrial growth, population size starts to level off as childbearing decreases when there is access to contraception, increased wages, higher education, and more gender equality. In the fourth stage of the theoretical model that deals with post–industrial societies, low birth and death rates result due to good health care and lifestyle improvements. This may lead to decreased population growth, below replacement or ZPG levels. This is a stage common in more developed nations, such as the United States, Japan, or Italy. In Stage 2 there was an increase in population size, which now in Stage 4 poses an economic burden on societies to care for their citizens. When there is a decreased population, as in Stage 4, there is also a decreased workforce to subsidize or care for them. This model is more optimistic than Malthus's, since technology and resources may mitigate disaster.

Former U.S. Vice President Al Gore won the Nobel Peace Prize for his work and documentary on environmental issues in his book, An Inconvenient Truth. He incorporated the work of scientists around the world to look at the issues of global warming and environmental changes. In particular, he focused on disseminating knowledge about the impact of man–made changes that affect the climate, and makes recommendations for what needs to occur to counteract adverse environmental changes. The Inconvenient Truth model concludes that the effects of global warming and climate change are a moral issue that lies in the hands of every individual as they make choices about what they will use and how they will interact with the environment. Scientific data about global climate change are provided, and the book stresses how individual choices can alter environmental catastrophe. In particular, it stresses that what material objects people buy, how they use them, the types of transportation used, and use of electricity and energy may reduce harmful carbon emissions. This approach implores individuals to make wiser choices and that ultimately the future resides not in big structural factors but in small, everyday decisions that people make (Gore, 2006).

We cannot know today with certainty what tomorrow will be like. But concerns over the environment's ability to sustain us, health, education and illiteracy, gender equity, age discrimination, terrorism, and war are worthwhile to contemplate. Let us now turn to the issues of war and peace.

     

     

5.5

 War and Peace Efforts

When people think about history, sometimes they use a war model to explain social events. Students may learn about the Revolutionary War, move on to the Civil War, have minor mention of the Spanish American or French and Indian wars, and then move into discussion of World War I, then World War II, followed by Korea, Vietnam, and the Middle East Wars, including the Gulf War and the current wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. While there may be some mention of peace, it is usually in the context of discussion of social movements or the Nobel Peace Prize. The United States and the world have rich histories in which peace predominated. It is curious why war, not peace, has been the organizing conceptual framework for understanding societies. In this section, a brief discussion of war, followed by peace, will occur. But first, the issue of conflict will be explored.

It is normal and natural for people living in a collectivity to disagree. It is to be expected that societies and cultures who come from different backgrounds and experiences may not view phenomena the same ways. Even within families, tension and conflict are inevitable. However, disagreeing or being different does not mean that people will choose to become violent. In order to understand war and peace, it is first necessary to understand the social functions of conflict.

According to conflict resolution theorists (Thomas & Kilmann, 2010), when tensions occur, people resort to common ways of resolving them. These include accommodation, avoidance, collaboration, compromise, and coercion. With accommodation one person or side surrenders their own needs and wishes to please the other party. Avoidance is where one avoids conflict by denying or ignoring it, changing the subject, buying time, or removing oneself from the situation. With collaboration techniques, people who disagree decide to work together to find a mutually beneficial solution in a process of mediation, where the problems are openly discussed and a third party helps resolve the disagreement. In compromise, differences are settled by mutual concessions or changes in the stances of opposing parties. Lastly, in coercion one side forces its point of view onto the other without concern for the other side's position or the relationship. Since World War II, diplomacy and arms control have increased, as have international communication and trade. A variety of international organizations have emerged to assist nations with growth and development, and to avoid conflict, violence, and war. Nonviolent methods of conflict resolution are almost always tried first, before violence and war are enacted. Sometimes peaceful solutions to emotionally charged problems are difficult to achieve. Peace takes time and committed effort by both parties.

Sociologists discuss the role of sanctions to control the behavior of others in order to achieve socially desirable goals. Sanctions, as we recall from earlier in this book, may be positive or negative, formal or informal. With respect to managing potential conflictual situations, an informal positive sanction would occur when someone provides rewards or incentives for good behavior instead of addressing the bad. A positive formal sanction occurs when awards are made on a public level, such as receipt of the Nobel Peace Prize or the key to the city for being citizen of the year. A negative informal sanction is when someone is scolded, chastised, or made to feel embarrassed or guilty. A negative formal sanction would consist of arrest, imprisonment, execution, or war. Positive sanctions are usually not expensive and are good motivators for desired behaviors, whereas negative sanctions tend to foster anger, resentment, or retaliation. They are expensive socially and financially. Therefore, from a humanist point of view, war and conflict are undesirable. But from a social point of view, they may be functional indeed.

Theoretical Views of War and Peace

A government building burns during heavy bombardment of Baghdad, Iraq, by U.S.–led forces in 2003. Although some would argue that war is sometimes necessary, death and destruction are an intrinsic part of war.

It is important to remember information from Module 1 concerning culture and the creation of values and norms. Not everyone views war and peace the same way (Aron, 2003; Brown, 1998). From a functionalist perspective, the goal of society is homeostasis, balance, and equilibrium. This means smooth operations of a social system. So in an ideal sense, war is dysfunctional to those goals. However, war can be very functional from the point of view of those who stand to gain honor, wealth, land, resources, prestige, or power as a result of it. Warfare requires the use of a military industrial complex, which produces jobs and monetary rewards for both workers and business owners. From that point of view, war can be functional indeed. Therefore, both war and peace can be functional for society—depending on one's values.

Conflict theorists allege that those with powerful interests and resources may use them to overtake an enemy or territory. The powerful are able to overtake the powerless, and the goal of a warfare state is to be able to fight off future invaders or oppressors. The mere presence of weapons may deter an enemy from violence. In war, many innocent people and soldiers may be wounded or killed, and the social and environmental areas may be destroyed in the process. Often it is those who are socially powerless or seen as unfortunately expendable, not elites, who are harmed, in a process known as collateral damage. Sometimes conflict may be necessary in order to establish a new social order that is more receptive to the needs of the people, as in the case of overthrowing Hitler in World War II.

When war occurs, it is always conveyed as something necessary with benefits for a particular group of people, but the death, disability, pain, and suffering are often downplayed—otherwise people may not be eager to support it. From the symbolic interactionist point of view, both sides in a disagreement know the norms and values that predominate in a society. Those in power know that to violate those norms and values would not be supported by the majority of people. It is therefore incumbent on each of them to find ways to portray their positions as in the best interests of the people, and in the best interests of society. This is no small task. Ultimately, this manipulation of information and justification of why one side is best is why war is so confusing for people, and why they are willing to take sides in a conflict when they actually don't know very much about the essence of the conflict itself. One group of soldiers or individuals may be willing to take the lives of people they have never met because they believe the others are dangerous. Sometimes, people are ruthless and insensitive to the needs of others. Other times they are fighting for a cause they believe is just and in the best interests of those they love. Sometimes, people take sides in a conflict merely because they think they should. Use of the media has been important for both sides of a conflict laden situation; if they can get the television commentators, radio announcers, and writers of Internet articles to persuade listeners of their point of view, then they become those in positions to define reality. And, as Peter Berger reminded us in Module 1, reality can be arbitrary.

Is fighting a power that is exploiting the people good or bad? But who is exploiting whom, and why? Is attacking a nation that is perceived to be a danger an honorable and heroic act, or is it an aggressive and morally improper behavior? These are value–based decisions. The position that societies, and individuals, take is complicated indeed. Ultimately, individuals make a decision that they think is best—but this is usually without access to full information on what is going on behind the scenes. Individuals are generally not privileged to know details of the choices behind warfare. All they know is what they think they know, which may or may not accurately reflect reality.

When challenging an established power system, we know that those in power will not willingly abdicate their positions. How they are coerced to change their view depends largely on what they will receive in return. Stakeholders, be they individuals, governmental factions, or societies, will naturally choose a course of action that is in their own vested interests. So when might war be functional? It could be functional if people are being mistreated and the citizens support a moral imperative to do something about it. It could be functional when there are major corporations that stand to make a lot of money, such as corporations that make airplanes, weapons, or other related businesses. War could be functional when a society seeks to overtake lands or people that will yield them a strategic advantage in the future. There are many ways that war can be functional to a society, or to vested interest groups within it. War can also be devastating to a society; people may die or be injured; they may lose their housing and institutions, and services may be compromised or damaged, families may be torn apart, buildings and infrastructures may be eliminated, lifestyles may be gravely compromised, and the costs of war may skyrocket and shackle the nation with debt that will take generations to repay.

War

War is a system of premeditated, organized violence aimed at dealing with an internal or external conflict, usually with aggressive acts, social discord and disruption, and high morbidity and mortality. A military industry and set of related institutions are created for the engagement of war. Sociologist Quincy Wright (1942) studied war and found that there were five root causes. These included perceived threats (example: Iraq having weapons of mass destruction, which was later shown not to be the case but the public perceived they did as a justification for war); political objectives, in which war is a political strategy to increase wealth, prestige, and power (example: Roman Empire); wag–the–dog rationale to detract public opinion from internal problems; moral objectives, such as rallying around freedom or the immorality of another country's behavior (example: U.S. involvement in World War II); and absence of alternatives, such as when a country has no choice because they are being invaded by others. The view of war will always depend on if one is on the offense or the defense. The opposing side is referred to as the enemy, and enemies are the recipient of labeling that paint a particular picture of them, whether that picture is totally accurate or not. Weapons, armor, and modes of both aggression and protection are part of the culture of war.

A Brief Overview of War

Conflict is a normal social phenomenon and has existed between tribes and nations throughout the history of humankind. Conflict need not escalate into war, but technological inventions have made warfare more likely. Hand–to–hand combat has been replaced with computerized killing where troops never even see the faces of those who perish. Chariots have been replaced by tanks, planes, boats, and missiles. Bows and arrows have been replaced with grenades; guns of today have only a vague resemblance to guns of long ago. Cannons were first used in 14th century Europe during the Hundred Years War, and they hoisted stones, not crafted cannonballs. Technological developments transformed war into a more impersonal and horrific experience, with chemical warfare beginning during World War I, the atomic and nuclear bombs of World War II, and biochemical warfare during the Vietnam war. Space warfare now exists, as does cyberwarfare, making warring techniques dramatically different than those used hundreds of years ago.

World War I is an example of attrition warfare, in which each side attempts to wear down the enemy.

There are a variety of ways to sociologically classify war, such as civil war, regional war, world war, cyberwar, or terrorism. Another classification system is attrition warfare, maneuver warfare, and revolutionary war. In this system, attrition warfare focuses on large units of military forces who will follow predetermined orders and attempt to destroy the enemy's ability to fight, such as in World War I and World War II. It can result in large numbers of dead and injured and can be measured in the numbers of enemy destroyed and in ground captured. Maneuver types of wars are designed to destroy the enemy's will to fight, such as Desert Storm in Iraq, where key support structures were destroyed to break the morale of the enemy, and where soldiers are trained to take risks and take advantage of situations as they emerge. Revolutionary war, such as in the United States, Vietnam, Burma, or Ireland, tends to be bloody, expensive, and long–lasting, and it uses nontraditional methods against the enemies. This type of war is more about beliefs and emotions, where killing an enemy is a means to an end, not an end itself. As a result, innocent people may be killed, rebels may exist, and it may take a very long time to end this type of conflict. A third classification system alleges that there are three major types of war, including absolute war, agonistic fighting, and instrumental war. Absolute war is unregulated and unrestricted, and designed to annihilate those defined as evil and lawless. Agonistic fighting is regulated in accordance to norms, such as the British in the Revolutionary War with the colonies. Instrumental war requires expediency and may or may not be guided by rules (Spier, 1941). Types of war, then, may have different goals, means, and forms. Warfare of 2020 will not look like the type of warfare used in 1920.

Terrorism

Terrorism is the warfare approach of major concern during the early 2000s. It is a premeditated, politically motivated violence that is directed against a noncombatant group of people. It consists of the use of violence, or the threat of violence, by a group of individuals as a political strategy to evoke change. Terrorism can occur within small, weak organizations which seek to dismantle a stronger, more visible power. It can also occur as state terrorism, such as Iraq, where Saddam Hussein used state power to crush opponents. Terrorists tend to be people who feel excluded from access to traditional and legitimate means of power. Feeling marginalized with no ability to be a change agent as part of the system, they are forced to effect social, political, or economic change from the outside. They almost always use unconventional means, and often adhere to violent strategies to get people to comply with their demands. Fear is a significant behavioral motivator in peoples everywhere, so by keeping people afraid, terrorists know they have a greater chance of achieving their goals. Terrorism is also used as a strategy by people who are economically frustrated and are seeking to improve their status. As an example of this, during the 1970s people in Iraq lived in a relatively stable middle–class economy, but in the 2000s over one–third live in poverty (Anderson & Taylor, 2009). Global stratification exacerbates the likelihood of terrorism, especially when a transnational capitalist class with unprecedented wealth and power exists. At this moment in time, the transnational capitalists are from the Western nations, which fuels anti–American and anti–European actions. When there is a sense of sacred purpose associated with a violent act, such as with suicide bombers, the emotional intensity around terrorism increases. Terrorists may operate outside the bounds of normative behavior and create fear through a variety of nonconventional attacks. Targets are typically civilians, as opposed to the military.

Peace

Peace is an ongoing lifestyle, not one particular action. Peace proponents allege that there is no way to peace, because peace is the way. Those who advocate for peace, such as Mahatma Gandhi, try to live in everyday ways that practice this conviction. Peace is an attitude and value that transfers into beliefs and norms. Peace can be reflected in resistance to war, pacifism, nonviolence, diplomacy, and negotiation to resolve differences, or at least come to a respectful understanding of each other's positions.

Applying Sociology

Who Is Brave and Who Is a Coward?

It is curious that while most religions and philosophers applaud the value of peace and see the importance of peaceful pursuits, people who choose not to fight are labeled as cowards, weak, or sissies, and are often ridiculed for their lack of bravery and willingness to fight. The meaning of bravery could be used to incorporate nonviolence and pacifism; peace advocates have countered with the position that peace is patriotic.

According to Rev. J. Bryan Hehir, president of Catholic Charities USA, peace is difficult to achieve. It is not a "soft–headed idea." "Everyone recognizes that war is hard: It requires courage, bravery, risk and sacrifice. But peace is hard, also; it takes the same qualities of courage, bravery, risk and sacrifice. . . . War has a beginning and usually a definitive end. There are victories, treaties, settlements. Peace is an ongoing effort; we achieve it, then we have to solidify it."

Martin Luther King, Jr., reminded us that peace is not merely a distant goal that we seek, but a means by which we arrive at that goal (King, 2011). It is similar to that said by A. J. Muste, who noted that there is no way to peace—peace is the way (McNair, 2002).

Mahatma Gandhi (n.d.) said, "If we are to teach real peace in this world, and if we are to carry on a real war against war, we shall have to begin with the children." This is why the socialization of children is of utmost importance. If we socialized children today with the values that were best for the world, in twenty years we would have an entire generation committed to kindness and humanity.

 

Source

Sanford, John. (2003, June 18). Peace requires 'bravery, risk.' Stanford Report. Stanford, CA: Stanford University. Retrieved from http://news.stanford.edu/news/2003/june18/bac–618.html

 

Questions to Consider:

1. Why do you think that people may talk of peace but often act in defensive, aggressive, or violent ways when they disagree?
2. Why is peace controversial?
3. Why is the way we teach children how to resolve conflict so important to their futures, and the future of society?

Brief Overview of Peace Efforts

Alfred Nobel created the Nobel Peace Prize as part of his will because he regretted the deaths and injuries caused by his invention, dynamite.

Government entities have long pursued peace. They usually try diplomacy, sanctions, and nonviolent measures before war is undertaken. The pursuit of peace has been a value in every society over time. If we look back into history, we see a rich legacy built around the importance of peace. Ancient Greece and Rome were often credited for creating the Amphictyonic League, which prohibited one city–state from destroying the ability of others to care for their people. During the Olympic games, a month–long truce was established so that no one could bear arms or make war. The Pax Romana, or peace truce, lasted more than 200 years, from 27 BC to 180 AD. Religions of many types advocated for the peace of God to reign. In the early 1600s Maximilien de Bethune developed a grand design for peace in Europe. Dutchman Hugo Grotius wrote the book On the Law of War and Peace, which formed the basis of international law. Voltaire advocated for democracy to be the main governmental vehicle for the creation of peace. The Hague in the Netherlands became a major location for governmental disputes to be resolved. Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel invented dynamite and regretted the deaths and injuries caused by his invention, and in his will he set up a fund to reward people who made the world a better place. The first Nobel Peace Prize was awarded in 1901, and has been given yearly since then to a variety of individuals. This wide range of individuals and their contributions can be found in Box 5.4. The League of Nations and the United Nations were created to allow nations a forum to discuss problems and negotiate conflicts. Religious prophets from the Judeo–Christian–Islamic traditions advocated for peace, as did Chinese sages such as Lao–zi and Confucius, the Buddha, and the leaders of the Baha'i faith. Peace is not owned by any one religious or ideological group, but is universally appreciated as a lifestyle approach that can lead to greater social harmony and inner satisfaction. Presidents and scientists such as Albert Einstein and Albert Schweitzer incorporated peace tenets into their work, as did Martin Luther King, Jr., as he mobilized the Civil Rights movement, and as Caesar Chavez did in his farm–worker rights movement and Nelson Mandela in breaking apartheid in South Africa. These are just a few people whose everyday pursuits of peace have been recognized for making a difference in the world.

Alternatives to War

Living in a diverse, highly changing world means that people may not always see things the same way, and that they may disagree. But as the conflict theorists point out, conflict and tension are not necessarily bad—they can force debate and dialogue that can result in the creation of new norms, new social structures, and new ways of seeing and doing things. A great deal of money is spent on warfare and the institutions and infrastructures that support it. There will always be human and social debate on whether this is money well spent, in the cost–benefit analysis of all the needs of many different constituencies in the world. War is an option for dealing with conflict, but it is not the first option. Millions of people work for peace every day, and it is important to recognize that this is part of the human story too.

Applying Sociology

Nobel Peace Prize Winners

Nobel Peace Prize winners come from all around the world, and they have contributed to the well–being of the world in a variety of ways. More about the Peace Prize and a complete list of winners can be found at the Nobel website (http://nobelprizes.com/)

Examples include:

• 2010 Liu Xiaobo for his long and non–violent struggle for fundamental human rights in China
• 2008 Martti Ahtisaari for 30 years of international efforts to resolve conflicts
• 2007 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and Albert Gore for efforts to disseminate knowledge about man–made climate change
• 2006 Muhammad Yunus and Grameen Bank for economic and social development efforts
• 2002 Jimmy Carter for efforts to promote world peace
• 2001 United Nations and Kofi Annan for efforts to promote world peace
• 2000 Kim Dae June for work toward peace and reconciliation in Korea
• 1998 John Hume and David Trimble for efforts to find a peaceful solution to conflict in Northern Ireland
• 1997 International Campaign to Ban Landmines and Jody Williams for work to ban and clear anti–personnel mines
• 1994 Yasser Arafat, Shimon Peres, and Yitzhak Rabin for efforts to create peace in the Middle East
• 1993 Nelson Mandela and Fredrik DeKlerk for efforts to create peace and solidarity in South Africa
• 1992 Rigoberta Menchtu Tum for support for human rights for indigenous peoples
• 1991 Aung San Suu Kyi for human rights in Burma
• 1989 Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama, for support of peace and the people of Tibet
• 1983 Lech Walesa for human rights in Poland
• 1979 Mother Teresa, Order of the Missionaries of Charity in India
• 1977 Amnesty International for protecting prisoners of conscience
• 1970 Norman Borlaug, International Maize and Wheat Improvement of Mexico
• 1965 UNICEF for the protection of children worldwide
• 1964 Martin Luther King, Jr., for his work in civil rights
• 1962 Linus Pauling for efforts to ban nuclear weapons tests
• 1952 Albert Schweitzer, missionary surgeon in Gabon
• 1947 American Friends Service Committee for work toward peace
• 1933 Jane Addams, sociologist, International President of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom
• 1919 Thomas Woodrow Wilson for the League of Nations

 

Questions to Consider:

1. Do you think that working for economic justice and environmental protection are different ways of working for peace?
2. The list of peace prize winners represents the actions of leaders all around the world. Are you familiar with what they did to deserve the award? If not, are you willing to find out?
3. Do you think that all of the peace prize winners were engaged in actions that were pleasing to everyone, or do you think they confronted obstacles and challenges to the actions they took?

5.6

 Social Change

Tens of thousands of Egyptian protesters rallying in the streets were eventually able to oust longtime president Hosni Mubarak in 2011—a powerful example of how individuals can catalyze social change.

Throughout this book, we have used sociological theories and studies to point out that there are many aspects of society that are stable and ongoing, such as the institutions of the family, the economy, politics, religion, the quest for health, and the like. It has also been pointed out that society is in chronic flux, and that where people live, what they do, and how they act may change from time to time and place to place. Change is the name of the game. The interface between stability and change creates opportunities, tensions, and social transformation.

Sociologists point out that social change is universal, and it will occur everywhere, although it may vary in its speed and location. Some social changes are important, like the computerization of almost everything, and some will be fleeting or relatively unimportant in the big picture, such as body art. Social change may be intentional, such as the creation of automobiles and highway systems, or it can be unintentional, such as what people can wear or take onto airplanes. Social change may be controversial, because it forces people to give up some lifestyles in order to have other ones. For instance, the civil rights, women's rights, and gay rights movements have all been met with opposition from people who felt Blacks, women, and gays should stay in their place, and out of the mainstream of society. Yet all of these movements have resulted in allowing people with talents to better use them for personal satisfaction as well as the betterment of society.

Often, the world changes so fast around us that it takes awhile to mentally gear up to the changes around us. This is called cultural lag—when the physical world around us changes faster than our emotional and cognitive ability to deal with those changes (Ogburn, 1922). For instance, older people may find themselves to be technological immigrants because they are challenged to use computers, cell phones, texting, electronic chat forums such as Facebook or Twitter, or even the remote on the television with deft speed and accuracy.

Because of the increased diversification of populations, cultural diffusion has occurred as people share ideas and different ways of thinking and behaving. Increased use of media and technology results in changing cultures. People in undeveloped nations may use cell phones to talk with relatives around the world, and to check their e–mail and watch the news or films or listen to music that comes from far away. Tension and conflict cause social change too; the entire world has changed its ways of thinking and acting since the 9/11 World Trade Center attacks. Tension and conflict take a society in very different directions than tolerance and negotiation. As Dr. Helen Caldicott states in the film The Last Epidemic, each one of us has the power to be as powerful as the most powerful person ever on earth by what we say and what we do. Societies have a reciprocal relationship with individuals—they shape opportunities and create limitations on people, but each person's actions influence others, and collectively merge together to influence how a society functions.

5.7

 Back to Theory and the Importance of the Sociological Imagination

In this book, you have been provided with a brief overview of the field of sociology. Each topic covered here is a field of its own, with a rich body of research and literature. The American Sociological Association (http://www.asanet.org) can provide a wealth of information to people who are interested in learning more about specific topics, the field, further education, or jobs.

One of the goals of this text has been to challenge attitudes and to provide you with the knowledge that there are multiple ways of looking at any social issue. Who is right, who is wrong, and what should be done are all topics of social construction and are open to debate. It is important that you consider why you feel the way you do about social phenomena, and where those attitudes came from. As pointed out early in the text, we are all products of our environment; children are socialized in accordance to the values and norms deemed essential by their parents and social institutions. Whether we grow up in the United States, China, or Afghanistan, the same social principles are at work. Sociology provides us with a way of understanding similarities and differences within a conceptual framework.

Professor Gordon Fellman of Brandeis University asks whether we view the world from a cooperative or competitive framework. This is an important thing for us to consider. If we see the world and everyone in it as all working together, facing the same struggles and trying to help each other and make a positive difference in the world, the world looks very different than it does to the person who sees the world as a dog–eat–dog fight in which the cards are stacked against them, and the only way people get ahead is to step on the backs of others. How do you greet the world? Your views matter—to you, and to all of us.

Information creates knowledge, which creates action. Students of today will become society's leaders tomorrow. The choices will be in their hands. As Einstein said in one of his less mathematical moments, a human being is part of a whole, called the universe. Humans experience their personhood, their thoughts, and their feelings as something separated from others. However, he points out this is an optical delusion of our consciousness. The world, and everyone in it, is interrelated.

     

     

Web Links

The National Geographic website provides up–to–date information and photographs about what's happening in the world around us. If you go to their website, you can learn about environment, science, technology, culture, global warming, water, energy, the oceans, and a variety of other factors that impact our lives. Visit it at http://www.nationalgeographic.com/

Questions for Discussion

1. Thomas Malthus stated that poverty, misery, and famine would be the natural result if population continued to increase. The world's population is increasing at an exponential rate, so what do you think could be done to help create a healthier, happier, and more productive future for the peoples of the planet?
2. Scientists allege that global warming is real, yet some people refuse to accept their findings. Why do you think that there is resistance to believing that global warming is occurring? What are the implications if global warming is real?
3. What kinds of social movements have you been involved with? How effective were they? What were social factors that led to their degree of success?
4. Terrorism is a new evolutionary state of warfare that appears to be here to stay. Why do you think terrorism has occurred? What could be done to decrease the possibility of terrorism occurring in the future?
5. Life is very different in least–developed nations compared to life in the United States. To what extent do you believe that wealthy nations have an obligation to help poorer ones? What do you believe will happen if they don't?
6. Most people prefer to live in peace, not war. What could societies do to increase the possibilities for peace and reducing the possibilities for the use of violence?
7. As you end this course, explain why the sociological perspective is very important in helping students better meet the demands of the world.