IT in Education: Sociological Perspective

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IT in Education Sociological Perspective

• The Political Consequences of IT Development
• The Rise of the Empire
• the Advent of the Competition State

Wing-kwong Tsang Ho Tim Bldg. Room 416 Ext.
6922 wktsang_at_cuhk.edu.hk www.fed.cuhk.edu.hk/wk
tsang
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Thinking Sociologically about IT in Education

• Think sociologically the relationship between IT
  and education
• Karl Marxs thesis on base and superstructure
• Marxs thesis on the determinism of
  means/technology of production and
  socio-educational institutions
• Does IT determine education or education
  determine IT?

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IT Development, Globalization and the Advent of
the Empire A Historical Account

• The constitution of the United Nations in 1945
• The constitution of the bipolar world system
  between the Free World and the Communist Bloc
  in post-war era
• The International Monetary and Financial
  Conference was held in Bretton Woods, New
  Hampshire, July 1944
• International Monetary Fund (IMF) held its
  inaugural meeting in 1946
• World Bank formally began operations in 1946
• General Agreement for Trade and Tariff (GATT) was
  established in 1948. In 1995, it transformed to
  World Trade Organization (WTO)
• North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) was
  established in 1950

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IT Development, Globalization and the Advent of
the Empire A Historical Account

• The emergence of the Third World and the
  tri-polar world system in the 1970s
• The first meeting of the Organization of the
  Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) was held in
  1960. The oil crisis in the 1970s triggered by
  the Arab oil embargo in 1973 and the outbreak of
  the Iranian Revolution in 1979.
• The Non-Aligned Organization was founded in
  Belgrade in 1961. It consists of 120 members and
  17 observer countries.
• The liberalization of the authoritarian regimes
  among socialist states in the 1980s
• The collapses of the soviet bloc in 1989

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IT Development, Globalization and the Advent of
the Empire A Historical Account

• The USs just wars in the 1990s
• The first Gulf War in 1990-91
• Civil War in Somali in 1993
• War in Bosnia in 1993
• War in Afghan in 2001
• The second Gulf War in 2003
• The constitution of the Capitalist Empire in the
  21st century

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The Nature of the Empire of the 21st century

• Empire refers to a new form of sovereignty that
  has succeeded the sovereignty of the
  nation-state, an unlimited form of sovereignty
  that knows no boundaries or, rather, knows only
  flexible, mobile boundaries. (Hardt and Negri,
  2003, p. 109)
• Perhaps the most significant symptom of this
  transformation is the development of the
  so-called right to intervention. What stands
  behind this intervention is not just a permanent
  state of emergence and exception, but a permanent
  state emergency and exception justified by the
  appeal to essential value of justice. (Hardt and
  Negri, 2000, p. 18)

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The Nature of the Empire of the 21st century

• The constitution of the Empire has embodied three
  classic forms of government monarchy,
  aristocracy, and democracy
• Monarchical constituents the US Government and
  in particular the Pentagon, the WTO, the World
  Bank, and the IMF.
• Aristocratic constituents the G8, the Security
  Council of the UN, and major transnational
  corporations
• Democratic constituents General Assembly of the
  UN and various forms of Non-Government
  Organization (NGO)

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Political Consequence of the Advent of the Empire
I Replacement of the KWNS by SWPR

• The concept of the state A modernist conception
• Max Webers conception of the modern state
  Today, however, we have to say that a state is a
  human community that (successfully) claims the
  monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force
  within a given territory. Note that territory
  is one of the characteristics of the state.
  Specifically, at the present time, the right to
  use physical force is ascribed to other
  institutions or individuals only to the extent to
  which the state permits it. The state is
  considered the sole source of the right to use
  violence. (Weber, 1946, p.78)

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Political Consequence of the Advent of the Empire
I Replacement of the KWNS by SWPR

• The concept of the state
• Pierre Bourdieus conception of the modern state
• Using a variation of Max Webers famous formula,
  that the state is an X (to be determined) which
  successfully claims the monopoly of the
  legitimate use of physical and symbolic violence
  over a definite territory and over the totality
  of the corresponding population. (Bourdieu,
  1999, p. 56)
• The state is the culmination of a process of
  concentration of different species of capital
• capital of physical force or instruments of
  coercion
• economic capital,
• cultural /or information capital, and
• symbolic capital. (p. 57)

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Political Consequence of the Advent of the Empire
I Replacement of the KWNS by SWPR

• The concept of the state
• In summary, the institutional bases of the modern
  state are made up of three elements
• Monopoly and accumulation of physical force and
  military power
• Accumulation of cultural and information capital
  as bases of legitimation, and inculcation of
  social identity of citizenship.

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Political Consequence of the Advent of the Empire
I Replacement of the KWNS by SWPR
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Political Consequence of the Advent of the Empire
I Replacement of the KWNS by SWPR

• Conception of the Industrial Welfare State (IWS)
• The essence of economic nationalism
• National tariff policy and trade protectionism
• National exchange policy
• The developmental state thesis for Asian later
  comers
• National development as dominant objectives of
  economic policy
• State policies and mechanisms intervening
  industrial development
• Export-led industrialization
• The essence of corporatist and welfare state
• Development of welfare services as forms of
  social wages, public housing, public health and
  public education
• Corporatist state mediating negotiations between
  big corporations and labor unions
• Public and unemployment assistances as
  compensation for market failures

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Political Consequence of the Advent of the Empire
I Replacement of the KWNS by SWPR

• Bob Jessops thesis of the Keynesian Welfare
  National State (KWNS)
• Keynesian It signifies the orientation of
  economic policies of the state, which aims to
  secure full employment in a relatively closed
  national economy and to do so mainly through
  demand-side management (Jessop, 1999, p. 350)
  such as increase in government expenditure.
• Welfare It signifies the orientation of social
  policies of the state, which aims to facilitate
  the process of reproduction of labor power for
  capitalistic economy. They mainly take the forms
  of provision of social wages, such as education
  and training, housing, medical services, other
  forms of social welfare.

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Political Consequence of the Advent of the Empire
I Replacement of the KWNS by SWPR

• Bob Jessops thesis of the Keynesian Welfare
  National State (KWNS)
• National It indicates the scale of provision of
  economic and social policies is confined within
  the historically specific (and social
  constructed) matrix of a national economy, a
  national state, and a society seen as comprising
  national citizens. (ibid)
• State It signifies that statist orientation,
  which assumes the efficiency of state
  institutions in supplementing, facilitating, and
  coordinating economic and social policies within
  the state boundary.

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Political Consequence of the Advent of the Empire
I Replacement of the KWNS by SWPR

• The erosion of economic nationalism and the
  crisis of external governance of the nation-state
• The dominance of international institutions, e.g.
  WTO, MIF, World Bank, etc.
• The constitution of the Washington Consensus
• Fiscal discipline
• Public expenditure priority
• Tax reform
• Financial liberalization
• Exchange rates
• Trade liberalization
• Foreign direct investment
• Privatization
• Deregulation
• Property rights

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Political Consequence of the Advent of the Empire
I Replacement of the KWNS by SWPR

• The advent of the competition state
• Philip Cernys conception of competition state
• Globalization as a political phenomenon
  basically means that the shaping of the playing
  field of politics is increasing determined not
  within insulated units, i.e. relatively
  autonomous and hierarchically organized
  structures called states rather, it derives from
  a complex congeries of multilevel games played on
  multi-layered institutional playing field, above
  and across, as well as within, state boundaries.
  (Cerny, 1997, p.253)
• Rather than attempt to take certain economic
  activities out of the market, to decommodifiy
  them as the welfare state in particular was
  organized to do, the competition state has
  pursued increased marketization in order to make
  economic activities located within the national
  territory, or which otherwise contribute to
  national wealth, more competitive in
  international and transnational terms. (2000, p.
  122-23)

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Political Consequence of the Advent of the Empire
I Replacement of the KWNS by SWPR

• The advent of the competition state
• Policy features of competition state
• Erosion of economic nationalism
• Retreat of the welfare state
• Collapse of societal corporatism between labor
  and capital
• The advent of fragmented state and the process of
  hallowing out the state by means of
  privatization, corporationization and
  marketization
• Compliance to the imperatives of global
  competitions, multinational corporations and
  transnational agencies of governance

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Political Consequence of the Advent of the Empire
I Replacement of the KWNS by SWPR

• Bob Jessops conception of Schumpeterian Workfare
  Postnational Regime (SWPR)
• Schumpeterian It signifies the replacement of
  Keynesian orientation in economic policy by the
  Schumpeterian orientation, which aims to promote
  permanent innovation and flexibility in relative
  open economies by intervening on the supply-side
  and to strengthen as far as possible their
  structural and/or systemic competitiveness.
  (Jessop, 1999, 355) In other words, the goal of
  securing full employment in economic policy has
  been overshadowed if not completely replaced by
  the objective of promoting competitiveness.

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Political Consequence of the Advent of the Empire
I Replacement of the KWNS by SWPR

• Bob Jessops conception of Schumpeterian Workfare
  Postnational Regime (SWPR)
• Workfare It indicates that the welfare
  orientation in social policy has been superseded
  by the policy orientation, which focuses on
  subordinating the logic of social policies to
  that of economic policies, submitting the demand
  of social welfare to the demands of labour market
  flexibility, the imperative of workplace, and the
  strive for structural or systemic
  competitiveness.
• Postnational It signifies the withering of the
  sovereignty of nation-state over economic and
  social policies within its national territory. It
  also indicates the prominence of international
  agencies, such as the IMF, World Bank, OECD etc,
  in determining economic and social policies at
  national level.

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Political Consequence of the Advent of the Empire
I Replacement of the KWNS by SWPR

• Bob Jessops conception of Schumpeterian Workfare
  Postnational Regime (SWPR)
• Regime It indicates that phenomenon of
  hollowing out of the state, which has been
  undertaken in capitalist states in the past three
  decades. It also implies the proliferation of
  non-governmental or even private agencies in the
  sector of public-policy provisions. As a result,
  the cohesive and coercive capitalist states have
  given way to the governance of policy networks.

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The Emergence of the network state
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The Emergence of the network state

• Manuel Castells in his book Communication Power
  (2009) re-conceptualizes the modern state as
  network state. In his own words, he suggests
• We witness the transformation of the sovereign
  nation-state is that emerged throughout the
  modern age into a new form of state which I
  conceptualized as the network state. The emerging
  network state is characterized by shared
  sovereignty and responsibility between different
  states and levels of government flexibility of
  governance procedures and greater diversity of
  times and spaces in the relationship between
  governments and citizens compared to the
  preceding nation-state. (Castells, 2009, P. 40)

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The Emergence of the network state

• As a result, the network state faces
  coordination problem, with three of aspects,
  organizational, technical, and political.
• Organizational Agencies invested in protecting
  their turf, and their privileged commanding
  position vis-à-vis their societies, cannot have
  the same structure, reward systems, and
  operational principles as agencies whose
  fundamental role is to find synergy with their
  agencies.
• Technical Protocols of communication do not
  work. The induction of computer networking often
  disorganizes the participating agencies rather
  than connecting them.

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The Emergence of the network state

• As a result, the network state faces
  coordination problem,
• Political The coordination strategy is not
  horizontal between agencies, it is also vertical
  in two directions networking with their
  political oversees, thus losing their
  bureaucratic autonomy and networking with their
  citizen constituencies, thus being obliged to
  increase their accountability. (Castells, 2009,
  P. 41)

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Political Consequence of the Advent of the Empire
II The Crises and Opportunities of Democratic
Counter-power Movement

• Erosion of the basis of national democracy
• Democracy as unity of identity of the people has
  been threatened by mobile and virtual identity of
  global citizenship
• Democracy as representation of the people has
  been threatened by representations of
  international organizations
• Democracy as measure of democratic rule of the
  people has been threatened by rule of
  international laws and organizations

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Political Consequence of the Advent of the Empire
II The Crises and Opportunities of Democratic
Counter-power Movement

• The limitations of national counter-power
  movement
• The three constituents of counter-power movement
• Resistance Passive and implicit resistance of
  the suppressed against the suppressor
• Insurrection Active and explicit insurrection
  aiming at to overthrow the suppressors regime
• Constituent power Setting up of new state and
  its ruling apparatus
• The paradox of national insurrection in the
  international context of the Cold War
• The Cold War provide the space as well as the
  arena for counter-power insurrection
• The Cold War conditions and codifies national
  insurrections in pre-defined class terms.

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Political Consequence of the Advent of the Empire
II The Crises and Opportunities of Democratic
Counter-power Movement

• The politics of the Internet
• Transformation of the nature of social movement
  The emergence of network social movement
• Replacement of material-based or even class-based
  social movement of the Cold-War era by
  post-material social movement or movement
  mobilized by cultural values. Replacement of
  struggles of space of place, e.g. class struggle,
  position war by struggle of space of flow, e.g.
  struggle for cultural ideas
• Replacement of vertically integrated
  organization, such as political parties, trade
  unions, by horizontally connected, loosely
  coalized, semi-spontaneously mobilized networks
• Social movement are elevating from local
  political arena to global context by means of the
  technological infrastructure of the Internet and
  the symbolic superstructure of the global culture

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Political Consequence of the Advent of the Empire
II The Crises and Opportunities of Democratic
Counter-power Movement

• The politics of the Internet
• The Transformation of civil society
• Formation of citizen networks New forms of civil
  associations have emerged in the Internet
• The emergence of cyber public-sphere and
  check-and-balance mechanism operating through the
  Internet
• Paradoxically, the Internet also brings about the
  prevalence of scandal politics (Castell,
  2001, p. 157) and the degradation of the public
  from a group of rational and critical
  deliberators of public issues to a bunch of
  spectators on public shows

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Political Consequence of the Advent of the Empire
II The Crises and Opportunities of Democratic
Counter-power Movement

• The politics of the Internet
• Changes in the political ecology through the
  Internet
• The constitutions of informational warfare and
  cyber-guerilla-warfare The more a government
  and a society depend on their advanced
  communications network, the more likely they
  become exposed to (informational) attacks.
  Furthermore, unlike conventional or nuclear
  warfare, these attacks could be launched by
  individual hackers, or by small, able groups, who
  could escape detection or retaliation.
  (Castells, 2001, p. 158-9)

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Political Consequence of the Advent of the Empire
II The Crises and Opportunities of Democratic
Counter-power Movement

• The politics of the Internet
• Changes in the political ecology through the
  Internet
• The rise of noopolitik The concept of
  noopolitik generates from the Greek word noos for
  the mind (Ronfeldt and Arquilla, , 1997). It
  refers to the political issues arising from the
  formation of a noosphere, or global information
  environment, which includes cyberspace and all
  other information systems. Noopolitik can be
  contrast with realpolitik (and its underlying
  military power). In a world characterized by
  global interdependence and shaped by information
  and communication, the ability to act on
  information flows and on media messages, become
  an essential tool for fostering a political
  agenda. (Castells, 2001, p. 160) As a result,
  public diplomacy has become a new department in
  international diplomacy.

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Political Consequence of the Advent of the Empire
II The Crises and Opportunities of Democratic
Counter-power Movement

• The politics of the Internet
• Changes in the political ecology through the
  Internet
• Swarming operation and the flash mobs
  Swarming represents a sharp departure from
  military concepts based on massive build-ups of
  fire power, armored hardware, and large
  concentrations of troops. It calls for small,
  autonomous units, provided with high fire power,
  good training, and real-time information. These
  pods would form clusters able to concentrate
  on an enemy target for a small fraction of time,
  inflicting major damage, and dispersing.
  (Castells, 2001, 161) Analogues to this
  network-centric warfare at the grassroots level
  is the flash mob.

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Political Consequence of the Advent of the Empire
II The Crises and Opportunities of Democratic
Counter-power Movement

• Hardt and Negris proposal of democratic
  counterpower of the multitude
• The multitude is an active social agent a
  multiplicity that acts. The multitude is not a
  unity, as is the people, but in contrast to the
  masses and the mob we can see that it is
  organized. It is an active, self-organizing
  agent. (Hardt and Negri, 2003, p.114)
• The advent of the Empire spawns crisis to
  national insurrection but opportunity to global
  counter-power movement of the multitude

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Political Consequence of the Advent of the Empire
II The Crises and Opportunities of Democratic
Counter-power Movement

• Hardt and Negris proposal of democratic
  counterpower of the multitude
• Political action aimed at transformation and
  liberation today can only be conducted on the
  basis of the multitude.
• To understand the concept of the multitude in its
  most general and abstract form, let us contrast
  it first with that of the people. The people is
  one. The population, of course, is composed of
  numerous different individuals and classes, the
  people synthesizes or reduces these social
  differences into one identity.

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Political Consequence of the Advent of the Empire
II The Crises and Opportunities of Democratic
Counter-power Movement

• Hardt and Negris proposal of democratic
  counterpower of the multitude
• The multitude is composed of a set of
  singularities and by singularity here we mean
  a social subject whose difference cannot be
  reduced to sameness, a difference that remains
  different. The multitude, however, although it
  remains multiple, is not fragmented, anarchical,
  or incoherent. The concept of the multitude
  should thus also be contrast to concepts, such
  as the crowd, the mass, and the mob. The crowd
  or the mob or the rabble can have social effects
  often horribly destructive effects but
  cannot act of their own accord. The multitude,
  designates an active social subjects, which acts
  on the basis of what the singularities share in
  common. The multitude is an internally different,
  multiple social subject whose constitution and
  action is based not on identity or unity but on
  what it has in common. (Hardt and Negri, 2004
  Pp. 99-100)

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Topic 4The Political Consequences of IT
Development The Rise of the Empire the Advent
of the Competition State

• END