Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
In addition, at various points the way in which societies are organized has
been mentioned as a feature helping or hindering their development. A strong
“civil society” is increasingly being brought into the equation as an explanatory
factor, and this term is used to refer to all kinds of organization below the state
level, including firms, clubs, the family, and other groupings of formal and
informal nature. Where the main levels of organization are restricted to the state
and the individual, there is a partial vacuum as far as the organization of
economic activities is concerned, and this is a poor base for development
(Fukuyama 1995). Part of the explanation of success in the USA, historically,
and in Japan and the Far East today, is to be found in the strength of civil
society, according to Fukuyama.
What the social concerns do present to the geographer is a role for a social
scientist who is not confined by sectoral limitations, and who may be trained to
take into account both society and economy. In other words, the very breadth of
the development theme presents a special opportunity to geographers. Both in the
area of human aims and priorities, and in the matter of identifying and examining
civil society, there are areas of research available to this discipline.
And finally…
In Chapter 9 , another kind of case for the geographer was made out. Part of the
endowment of the current vogue for post-modernist thinking is that people and
places are different, and should be treated as such, rather than as examples of a
type. With reference to regions, this means that there is a role to play in the
administration of plans for regions in terms of their special characteristics and
the linkages between these characteristics. This was the classical area of
expertise of regional geographers up to the 1950s, except that they were often
inclined to classify the regions into types. Now there is some recognition that
each region does have a special mix of economy, society and environment, and
in each region a separate cultural history is to be sought.
These differences can be aligned with differences in aims for development
between regions, so that planning for regions in their own right can be
undertaken, combining knowledge of special problems and special aims of the
population, and linking all of these to possible plans or policies for the future. To
consider the political conditions under which such local decision-making is made
possible goes beyond the frame of reference of this topic.
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