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Transitions to low-carbon energy technologies and other forms of climate mitigation tend to involve disempowerment and environmental injustices of various kinds. This paper argues that such tendencies are inherent in the social rationale of technological systems promoted by the logic of the world market. The production and operation of technological artifacts are imbued with economic rationality and must not be conceptualised as distinct from the organisation of society. This is illustrated by the energy transition that occurred during the Industrial Revolution, in which the underlying incentives of ecologically unequal exchange and environmental load displacements were transmuted into seemingly neutral concerns of economic rationality and technological progress. The distributive dimensions of markets and technologies become apparent as we now aspire to abandon the fossil energy regime, revealing how our concepts of 'energy' and 'technology' may obscure global processes of appropriation of human labour time and natural space. Such processes are as insidiously inscribed in low-carbon energy technologies as in the fossil-fueled technologies that they are intended to replace. To identify such pervasive injustices as inherent in technologies rather than contextual contingencies requires an acknowledgement of the social essence of technical artifacts. This in turn requires a deep transdisciplinarity that links physics, industrial ecology, the philosophy of technology, social theory, world trade, and the history of ideas. Current efforts to transcend the distinction between the social and the material pervasively fail to integrate social theory and physical resource theory. Rather than investigate the social and ecological repercussions of technological systems, the focus of energy justice research should be to discover the tacit, distributive functions that are inscribed in the technologies to begin with. • Technological artifacts are imbued with economic rationality. • Injustices are inherent in technological systems promoted by the world market. • Concepts of 'energy' and 'technology' obscure global appropriation of time and space. • Unequal exchange is transmuted into seemingly neutral concerns. • Global social theory must be integrated with physical resource theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Information Technology (IT) systems have become an important competitive element across the great majority of industries, and technology projects are entrenched within all domains becoming larger and encompassing cross functional components. This increased technological dependency and transformation also increases the risk to organizations as a whole if something goes wrong. Pragmatically things often do go wrong and despite the evolution and sophistication of project management frameworks and methodologies a great percentage of IT projects are still failing. Although multiple actions have attempted to address this costly and prevailing trend, they have yet to positively and/or consistently impact it, even though it has caused additional management burdens and costly compliance requirements along the way. As the projections for IT investment increase by a magnitude of 3.5% (annual average) and IT project failures report losses in the billions (Gartner, 2011), this trend has become ever steeper over time. It is likely that the rates are even higher than the industry reports because individuals and organizations fear back lash when identifying and communicating perceived failures. The alarming (and increasing) rates of IT Project Failure 4 are strong indicators that this systemic trend has not yet been addressed from a causal perspective. The authors hence conducted extensive research in order to enable the assessment of this pervasive and costly issue through a unique approach and leveraged the social “lens” (one of the three fundamental research methodology pillars). Hypothesizing that the underlining key factors associated with this costly and pervasive trend could be traced to “soft factors” an extensive (multi-method) research effort based on three fundamental pillars (Grounded Theory, System Dynamics an Social Theory) has been conducted and has unveiled a new theoretical model promising greater understanding of IT (and potentially other) programs and projects. The IT project construct is looked upon by the researchers as “mini organizations” characterized by multiple changes and natural disruptions to the Social Order over time. The philosophical research framework was then operationalized by means of a four phased multi-method approach promoting a root cause identification of key factors driving IT project success and/or failures as well as their interdependencies and impacts. This paper presents the outcomes of this research (emerging theory), its key challenges and how they were overcome and discusses the Adaptive and Preemptive IT Theory (“AdaPIT”). In essence the “AdaPIT” Theory does not replace any existing IT project Management framework: it simply incorporates the identified Intangible Soft Factor (“ISF's”) into the applicable project construct. The main theory unveiled has been modeled and presented through multiple views that will be discussed in this paper. A summary analysis of the research findings will also be provided. It encompasses the author's representation from all data points collected throughout this investigation inclusive of their own experiences (“all is data”) as well as the review and feedback from industry practitioners, Grounded Theory subject matter experts and other technical and/or managerial personnel. The summary outcome (AdaPIT Theory) encompasses the data collection, analysis and hypotheses support process within the multi-method research framework. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Highlights • The goal is to identify a set of nodes with the strong propagation ability. • Measuring the attractive power with neighbors based on the theory of conformity. • Measuring the initiating power based on community size and node location. • Providing a node selection strategy from the view of individual and group. • The results show that the enormous energy from the groups makes the node powerful. Abstract Identifying a group of influential nodes in social networks help us understand the hierarchical structure of the network and make a better control the spread of information. Moreover, it can offer guidance in avoiding the breakdown of the power system and the Internet, identifying drug targets and essential proteins. Undoubtedly, most of the influence measures suffer the low resolution. The same score corresponds to multiple nodes. What's worse is that the effect of overlapping between nodes is not fully considered. It causes resource waste in node selection. The purpose of this paper is to identify a set of distributed nodes with the strong propagation ability. Inspired by the interplay between the individuals and groups from sociological and complex networks, we propose a node ranking method based on the social conformity theory and community feature based on VoteRank. This proposed method calculates the node influence capability from two points of view, one is the individual, the other is the group. From the point of the individual, it quantifies the attractive power of the nodes with the feature of their neighbors based on the theory of conformity. It can distinguish the nodes with the same degree and similar structure. From the other point, it measures the initiating power with the scale of the community and the relative location of the node. Furthermore, a node selection strategy based on information coverage and community tightness is proposed to solve the problem of overlapping. Finally, node attractive power, initiating power and the node selection strategy are combined to improve VoteRank. The experimental results on real-world networks show the effectiveness of our methods. The results also explains that the enormous energy from the groups makes the node powerful. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract This paper considers the 'bands of action' discussed by Newell in 1990. Reasons are given for a larger range of intelligent processing to happen in the cognitive and rational bands than Newell described. Different reasons are given from those proposed by Newell for considering the social band to exist and be distinct from the rational band. Although Newell suggested ~10 minutes might be a minimal timescale for significant actions in the social band, reasons are given for minimal timescales of seconds. The importance of the social band in helping to create the cognitive and rational bands is discussed. The impact of modern technology on the social band is described. Some potential implications for the Common Model of Cognition are suggested. A question is asked about the timescale of inspirations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that anthropological texts are embedded in specific epistemological and methodological assumptions, although this logic is not always articulated by authors. An attention to these foundational premises is consequential in allowing a procedure for gauging the methodological rigour and conceptual coherence of theoretical formulations thus proposed. Using specific writings of Franz Boas and Lucien Levy-Bruhl, I demonstrate that this embedded, implicit logic can be abstracted from a close reading of texts. A comparison of the methodological routes by which Boas and Levy-Bruhl arrive at their respective conceptualizations of 'primitive thought and 'primitive mentality' is used here for the purpose of demonstration. My selection of these two theorists is not inspired by my interest in the content of their writings vis-à-vis the nature of human thought processes — primitive or otherwise. Rather, the corpus for this paper has been constructed and inspired with a view to articulating the conceptual and methodological processes by which ideas are developed into concepts and subsequently integrated to formulate theories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Complex patterns of human behaviour are difficult to capture in agent-based simulations of socio-ecological systems. Even knowing each individual agent's strategy at one point in time may not help when trying to predict the collective behaviour of certain systems – e.g. if it is in each agent's best interest to do the opposite of most other agents. In self-defeating situations like these, the collective population of agents may exhibit a panorama of simple or complex behaviour, depending on the extent to which useful information is shared. An extreme example is the bar problem, in which a simulated population of bar attendees oscillates in a seemingly random manner around a critical congestion level. This paper suggests that several resource management problems involving human interactions with ecosystems may possess a self-defeating character. This poses new challenges for integrated resources management. A case in point is the potential over-fishing of fisheries, which is addressed in the paper and likened to a minority game. It is concluded that a mix of innovative and imitative behaviour may be the key to overcoming self-defeating tendencies. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The preoccupation with power in mainstream Western social theory can be challenged from a number of perspectives. In this paper, I consider some alternative ways of conceptualizing ways-of-being in society that are implicit in a number of Asian traditions of thought and, in particular, in Buddhism and Gandhian ideas. In this paper, I challenge the necessity for a power-based approach to social relations. I suggest both that the models of society emerging from Foucault and other major Western theorists are examples of culturally bound local knowledge that have significant negative influences on the conception of alternative social possibilities, and that the resources for such alternatives lie not only in Western forms of utopian thinking but in existing Asian traditions — the full sociological implications of which have not yet been explored or worked out in detail. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper questions conventional approaches to measuring social welfare through gross domestic product (GDP). This paper is divided into two parts. The first part adopts a systems approach to development and incorporates this into the theory of social choice. The second part operationalises this approach through the development of a cost-benefit adjusted gross domestic product (CBAGDP) social welfare function, which overcomes certain limitations of this traditional measure of development. The CBAGDP is then used to estimate welfare in Thailand. This approach is justified because of its normative values and its plausible results. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The field of the collaborative economy is characterized by a wide spectrum of sustainability oriented grassroots initiatives such as cooperatives, social businesses, associations and informal initiatives. However, many of these organisations are facing isomorphic pressures from the purely for profit organisational models and lack institutional support. For the further development of these grassroots initiatives, it is therefore important to better understand the organisational models that allow them to maintain a strong social mission in spite of these pressures. To this purpose, this paper develops a hierarchical cluster analysis of 50 collaborative economy initiatives operating in the Region of Brussels Capital. The analysis shows the existence of four main clusters of enterprises operating in the Brussels Region: foreign for-profit enterprises, start-ups, citizen initiatives and partnership social enterprises. Each of these clusters is characterized by a specific combination of analytical features such as the mission, the governance structure, the legal form and the type of economic resource mobilisation. On this basis, the paper explores the likely organisational trajectories of these clusters in the collaborative economy and the various institutional strategies that can strengthen the recognition and support for the sustainability oriented grassroots initiatives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is motivated by a concern that adaptation and vulnerability research suffer from an under-theorization of the political mechanisms of social change and the processes that serve to reproduce vulnerability over time and space. We argue that adaptation is a socio-political process that mediates how individuals and collectives deal with multiple and concurrent environmental and social changes. We propose that applying concepts of subjectivity, knowledges and authority to the analysis of adaptation focuses attention on this socio-political process. Drawing from vulnerability, adaptation, political ecology and social theory literatures, we explain how power is reproduced or contested in adaptation practice through these three concepts. We assert that climate change adaptation processes have the potential to constitute as well as contest authority, subjectivity and knowledge, thereby opening up or closing down space for transformational adaptation. We expand on this assertion through four key propositions about how adaptation processes can be understood and outline an emergent empirical research agenda, which aims to explicitly examine these propositions in specific social and environmental contexts. We describe how the articles in this special issue are contributing to this nascent research agenda, providing an empirical basis from which to theorize the politics of adaptation. The final section concludes by describing the need for a reframing of adaptation policy, practice and analysis to engage with multiple adaptation knowledges, to question subjectivities inherent in discourses and problem understandings, and to identify how emancipatory subjectivities – and thus the potential for transformational adaptation – can be supported. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Time use survey data has been used to model household activities beyond market transactions. Accordingly, measures such as the ‘goods intensity of household activities’ and the ‘energy and carbon intensity of household activities’ have been derived. In this paper, we build on this approach by using time use data to model the direct and indirect energy use of households. From this, we present a decomposition analysis of the changes in the embedded and direct energy consumption of Finnish households from 1987 to 2009. Relevant questions that arise include that of whether increases in total energy consumption are due to changes in activity patterns, changes in the energy intensity of activities, or due to demographic changes. Beyond the empirical work, we suggest that time use approaches require a more explicit theorization of time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This paper contrasts conservative and liberal interpretations of the extended mind hypothesis. The liberal view, defended here, considers cognition to be socially extensive, in a way that goes beyond the typical examples (involving notebooks and various technologies) rehearsed in the extended mind literature, and in a way that takes cognition to involve enactive processes (e.g., social affordances), rather than functional supervenience relations. The socially extended mind is in some cases constituted not only in social interactions with others, but also in ways that involve institutional structures, norms, and practices. Some of the common objections to the extended mind are considered in relation to this liberal interpretation. Implications for critical social theory are explored. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: How should we aggregate the individual views of the members of a group so as to arrive at an adequate representation of the collective view of that group? This is a fundamental question of deep philosophical, economic, and political significance that, around the middle of 20th century, has given rise to the field of Social Choice Theory. More recently, a research trend known as Computational Social Choice has emerged, which studies this question from the perspective of Computer Science. This “computational turn” is fuelled both by the fact that questions of social choice have turned out to be central to a range of application areas, notably in the domain of Information and Communication Technologies, and by the insight that many concepts and techniques originating in Computer Science can be used to solve (or provide a new angle on) problems in Social Choice Theory. In this paper, I give a brief introduction to Computational Social Choice and discuss some of the prospects and challenges for this fast growing area of research. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

This paper explores potential new directions for a sociology linked more to Asian social theory and to new forms of knowledge emerging from ecology and the new social movements than to its older foundations in Western philosophy and conceptions of society. It suggests that there is a route beyond the trajectory of modernist and postmodernist social thinking and it calls into question the anthropocentric, Cartesian and dualistic assumptions of most conventional sociology. It does so by exploring the possible relationships between sociology and the existential issues thrown up by Asian philosophical and religious traditions, and in particular Buddhism, and the in many ways parallel arguments of Deep Ecology. In doing so it calls into question the adequacy of current sociology as a vehicle for addressing fundamental existential questions and in particular the issues of social suffering, the emerging ecological crisis and the alternative conceptions of society generated by many of the new social movements, and suggests ways in which this inadequacy might potentially be resolved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper explores the potential of Habermas'' theory of communicative action to alter the social reflexivity of material and energy flow analysis. With his social macro theory Habermas has provided an alternative, critical justification for social theory that can be distinguished from economic libertarianism and from political liberalism. Implicitly, most flow approaches draw from these theoretical traditions rather than from discourse theory. There are several types of material and energy flow analyses. While these concepts basically share a system theoretical view, they lack a specific interdisciplinary perspective that ties the fundamental insight of flows to disciplinary scientific development. Instead of simply expanding micro-models to the social macro-dimension social theory suggests infusing the very notion of flows to the progress of disciplines. With regard to the functional integration of society, material and energy flow analyses can rely on the paradigm of ecological economics and at the same time progress the debate between strong and weak sustainability within the paradigm. However, placing economics at the centre of their functional analyses may still ignore the broader social integration of society, depending on their pre-analytic outline of research and the methods used. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Public relations is often studied from a managerial, instrumental perspective or a psychological, behavioral perspective. To understand the role of public relations in building trust or mistrust and to develop – or destroy – a license to operate, it needs also to be studied as a social phenomenon. This special issue of Public Relations Review will attempt to broaden the theoretical scope of public relations studies by applying the works of a string of prominent social theorists – Jürgen Habermas, Niklas Luhmann, Michel Foucault, Pierre Bourdieu, Erving Goffman, Max Weber, and Anthony Giddens. What can be culled from using the perspectives of these scholars? None of them studied public relations as such, and hence it must be asked: can public relations fit into their theoretical frameworks, and if so, how? The papers in this special issue discuss these questions, after giving short overviews of the theorists’ key concepts and contributions. This introduction locates the purpose of the special issue within a broader research agenda in public relations. It is argued for a pluralistic approach to the field. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

In this paper, I am presenting a view that there is inherently a certain limit to the attempt by the non-Western Third World social scientists to advance alternative discourses in their academic endeavour. This I shall demonstrate by way of a modified modernization theory which stresses the unilaterally 'tilted' process of international acculturation while duly taking into account the effort to indigenize modernization by each late-comer society exposed to the global modernization process. In a way, my version of the modernization theory, in itself is an example of indigenization of social theory; hence offering some alternative discourses to the existing field of development and modernization studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Although the notion of collective intentionality has received considerable attention over the past decade, accounts of collective belief and intention remain individualistic. Most accounts analyze group intentional states in terms of a complex set of individual intentional states and, thus, it is individuals not groups that have intentional states. In this paper, I attempt to undermine one of the motivations for refusing to acknowledge groups as the bearers of mental states. The resistance to collective mental states is motivated by the view that mental states are located in minds and minds are in heads. Since groups do not have heads or brains, they cannot have minds or mental states. There is a significant and important thesis in cognitive science, however, which suggests that the mind is not bounded by skin and bones. If “the mind ain’t in the head”, then this removes a major barrier to the idea of collective minds. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]