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Keith E Rice's Integrated SocioPsychology Blog & Pages

Aligning, integrating and applying the behavioural sciences

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What is Globalisation? #2

PART 2 New International Division of Labour The so-called ‘old international division of labour’ reflected the colonial and immediate post-colonial realities that the industrialised societies of the West produced manufactured goods while the rest of the world tended to produce one or 2 primary products per country. However, the Neo-Marxists Folker Fröbel, Jürgen Heinrichs & Otto Kreye (1980) state that, from the 1970s onwards, there have been substantial movements of industrial capital from the ‘advanced’ industrialised world to the developing world. This movement has been driven by rising labour costs and high levels of industrial conflict in the West which reduced the profitability of transnational corporations.  With globalisation, the tendency is for the Western industrial societies to export capital and expertise while poor countries provide cheap labour for manufacturing. According to Dawlabani, this destruction of homeland jobs in the West is justified by economists and financial  leaders via Joseph Schumpeter’s (1942) theory of Creative Destruction. In this paradigm, in a free market entrepreneurs will always introduce innovation which is disruptive to the current economic model but which improves productivity and, thus, economic growth. The cost to those impacted by the ‘destruction’ is not important. Thus, manufacturing is outsourced to low wage countries in… Read More

Leadership – a SocioPsychological Perspective

Updated: 26 May 2016 What makes a successful leader successful? is a question that appears to have vexed politicians and philosophers from the beginnings of civilisation. Certainly, the number of books and articles on leadership by ‘management gurus’ and social psychologists since the end of World War II indicates an ongoing fascination with the topic and, arguably, a vital need to understand the nature of leadership. Peter F Drucker, Stephen Covey, Warren Bennis, Howard Gardner, James MacGregor Burns, John William Gardner, John Kotter and Peter Senge are just a handful of the heavyweight names who have contributed high-profile books on the subject. One unequivocal key factor which has emerged from the multitude of investigations into ‘leadership’ is that leadership and management are not the same thing. Drucker (1967) was perhaps the first to say this, articulating: “Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things.” Covey (p101, 1989) provides an illuminating example to illustrate this point: “…envision a group of producers cutting their way through the jungle with machetes. They’re the producers, the problem-solvers. They’re cutting their way through the undergrowth, clearing it out. The managers are behind them, sharpening their machetes, writing policy and procedure manuals, holding muscle… Read More

Humber MeshWORKS

  A Tribute to a World-renowned Web Site Updated: 15 October 2017 1988-1996    1997   1998     1999     2000     2001    2002      2003     2004     2005     2006     2007     2008     2009     2010     2011     2012     2013     2014      2015     2016     2017     2018      2019     2020    2021-2023 21st Century Group     HemsMESH     Humber MeshWORKS     Humberside MESH Network Humber MeshWORKS was a site I ran for just over 3 years in the early noughties. It was concerned with promoting the MeshWORK application of the Gravesian approach and its Spiral Dynamics ‘build’ and Neurological Levels into the Humber sub-region of the United Kingdom to improve the design of social and economic regeneration strategies. To enhance business leaders’ and business advisers’ understanding of organisational growth issues, the site also promoted Adizes’ LifeCycle. The original impetus to do something came from a chance meeting with Angela Ogilvie at a barbecue in Beverley in the East Riding of Yorkshire in the Summer of 2000. I had only recently moved into the area; and Angela was then Head of Year 9 at St Mary’s College in Hull. We discussed Hull, the major city in the sub-region, being in a near-continuous pattern of occupying bottom of the… Read More

What is Globalisation?

Relaunched: 13 December 2016 “Despite huge differences in distance, upbringing and social context, many of us now listen to the same music, read the same books and watch the same films and television. Youth in Soweto listen to LA rap; viewers in southern China’s Guandong province watch pirated tapes of Jackie Chan; Sri Lankan refugee kids in Toronto come home from school to settle down in front of Tamil movies rented from the local grocery store. Teenagers and their young siblings in almost every place on earth know Bart and Lisa Simpson. I can sit at my home computer downloading the latest comminqués from Mexico’s indigenous Zapatista rebels and out of the corner of my eye watch the World Cup live from Korea on the TV in the next room.” Peter Steven (2004, p16-17) is describing the communication aspect of globalisation. Alan Cochrane & Kathy Pain (2000) describe other aspects:- “Drugs, crime, sex, disease, people, ideas, images, news, information, entertainment, pollution, goods and money now all travel the globe. They are crossing national boundaries and connecting the world on an unprecedented scale and with previously unimaginable speed. The lives of ordinary people everywhere in the world seem increasingly to be shaped by events,… Read More

Bibliography C

A    B    C    D    E    F    G    H    I    J    K    L    M    N    O    P-Q    R    S     T     U    V    W    X-Y-Z Cadoret, Remi, William Yates, Edward Troughton, George Woodworth & Mark Stewart (1995): ‘Genetic-Environmental Interaction in the Genesis of Aggressivity and Conduct Disorders’ in Archives of General Psychiatry #52 Cadwalladr, Carole (2017): ‘Robert Mercer: the Big Data Billionaire waging War on Mainstream Media’ in The Observer (26 February) Cairns, R B, D J McCombie & K E Hood (1983): ‘A Developmental-Genetic Analysis of Aggressive Behaviour in Mice I: Behavioural Outcomes’ in Journal of Comparative Psychology #97 Caledonian Foundation (2013): ‘Engaging Discussions at So Say Scotland’ https://www.caledonianfoundation.org/index.php/news/44-engaging-discussions-at-so-say-scotland  (Accessed: 2015) Callaway, Ewen (2009): ‘Murderer with ‘aggression genes’ gets Sentence cut’ in New Scientist (3 November) Calvert, Jonathan, George Arbuthnott & Jonathan Leake (2020):  ‘Coronavirus: 38 Days when Britain sleepwalked into Disaster’ in Sunday Times (19 April) Camber, Rebecca (2011): ’Supergran Unmasked: Pensioner who saw off Hammer Raiders speaks out… as Friend reveals She has spent Ten Years fighting Violent Crime’ in Daily Mail (9 February) Cameron, David & Dylan Jones (2010): ‘Cameron on Cameron: Conversations with Dylan Jones’ (4th Estate, London) Cameron, Catherine, Stuart Oskamp & William Sparks  (1977): ‘Courtship American… Read More

Biological Factors in Crime

Updated: 7 December 2016 Are criminals born or ‘made’? This is a question which has vexed philosophers for millennia and psychologists and sociologists since the dawn of the behavioural sciences early in the 19th Century. The deterministic view offered by biological explanations for criminality – ie: you have no real choice, it’s in your biological make-up – have major implications for how society treats criminals – especially violent ones.  Biological theories assert criminal behaviour has a physiological origin, with the implication that the ‘criminal’, therefore, has difficulty not committing crime because it is ‘natural’ –  ie: the ‘born criminal’ concept. Biological determinism can be used to undermine the legal concept of criminal responsibility: criminals are held to be personally and morally accountable for their actions. Only when the Law of Diminished Responsibility is applied in cases of self-defence and mental illness – and in some countries (eg: France) ‘crimes of passion’ (temporary insanity) – is the defendant assumed not to have acted from their own free will. 3 cases illustrate how biological arguments have been used as mitigating factors to reduce the level of criminal responsibility:- In 1994 Stephen Mobley was sentenced to death for shooting dead the manager of an American branch of Domino’s Pizza. He was also found… Read More

Can the Lib Dems get off the Torture Rack?

Can the Liberal Democrats get off the torture rack they’ve put themselves on before next Thursday’s (9 December) vote on the university tuition fees proposal…? One can only hope so. That this was a potential destroyer was recognised by the architects of May’s Coalition Agreement who gave Lib Dem MPs the right to abstain when this issue came up for the vote. Unfortunately, a number of Lib Dem MPs are threatening to vote against Government policy – including former Lib Dem leaders Charles Kennedy and Sir Menzies Campbell, both of whom still carry considerable influence amongst backbenchers. Understandably perhaps in the past week or so Nick Clegg and Vince Cable have tried to resolve the confusion and bitterness by getting the Lib Dems to block vote on the issue…for the proposal, of course. Clegg and Cable are, after all, senior ministers in the Coalition Government. But with the party now as low as something like 14% (Guardian/ICM, 22 November) in the opinion polls – though some pollsters believe that figure is artificially low – and with rioting students calling for Clegg and Cable to dare to meet them in person, it can hardly be surprising that Clegg and Cable are desperate for a… Read More

Obama a 2nd Tier Thinker?

Since shortly before his election last November, I’ve seen a number of articles putting forward the view that Barack Ombama is an advanced thinker. I’ve even seen it proposed by some on the Spiral Dynamics e-lists that he is a ‘2nd Tier thinker’. Even that the TUQUOISE vMEME is activated in his head.   Alongside the jubilation in many parts of the world at his election was the expectation that now things would be different – things would change. Obama would make America better and that would help make the world better. I doubt there has been so much excitement and so much expectation of an American president since John F Kennedy. The anticipation has been of almost of messianic proportions!   And Obama got off to a great liberal electorate-pleasing start. On his second day in office, he signed the order which will effectively close Guantánamo Bay. From there, he went on to do another electorate pleaser – by blocking the bonuses of many of the ‘fat cat’ bankers whose greed has all but brought Capitalism to its knees.   And now he’s stumbled. Badly.   Last Friday’s decision to stand by the position of George W Bush’s administration that… Read More

Should the Democrats have chosen Hilary?

To an outsider looking in, it seems astonishing that on 4 November 2008 John McCain might actually be voted the next president of the United States of America. According to the latest Gallup Poll, Barack Obama has a slender lead of 2 points (47:45) but running mate Sarah Palin is said to be stealing large numbers of female voters over to McCain’s side. How, I ask in wonderment, is this possible? This election terminates one of the most woefully-inadequate American presidencies in modern history. Think about just how incompetent and/or deluded George W Bush has been. One vital military victory (Afghanistan) derailed by 5 years of not winning another, totally-unnecessary war (Iraq), with world-wide sympathy for 9/11 and tolerance of the Afghan invasion turned to detestation of the United States as the world’s bully boy. (A perception only just begiining to change as Russia is now up for the title!) Incompetence reflected in Bush’s simply not knowing what to do as the federal government’s inaction cost lives in New Orleans 3 years ago – reflected in the federal government’s missupervision of the sub-prime lending market becoming a catalyst for a partial meltdown of America’s – and thus the global – economy.… Read More

Prisoner abuse and the mess in Iraq

So Donald Rumsfeld has not only admitted to Congress that, yes, American soldiers have been doing rather nasty and degrading things to Iraqi detainees but there is, in fact, far worse to come – including videos! (It’s already been confirmed that 2 Iraqis have died in US custody – one with ‘strangulation’ identified as the cause of death on his post-mortem report! – and there will almost certainly be more come to light if allegations of firing on unarmed prisoners from a prison watchtower are accurate.) However, the abuse, according to Rumsfeld, has not been ‘systematic’ but merely the actions of some ‘bad apples’. As his President, George W Bush, points out, there are some 200,000 American troops in Iraq and the vast majority are doing a demanding and highly-dangerous job with bravery and integrity. In the larger scheme of things, the average ‘GI Joe’ in Iraq is probably epitomising Bush’s case on a daily basis. Unfortunately for Bush and Rumsfeld, the International Committee of the Red Cross, Red Crescent, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have them squarely in their sights. According to the Red Cross, they recorded regular abuses at Baghdad’s Abu Grhaib jail between March and October 2003 – the worst being in the October – and presented the… Read More