Page 429 - The ISA Handbook in Contemporary Sociology

9781412934633-Chap-27 1/10/09 8:57 AM Page 400

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The Dynamics of

Local-Global Relations:

Conflict and Development

Henry Teune

The ecological paradigm is presented as the The formulation of this ‘revolutionary idea’
basic structure of one of the fundamental is relevant to one of the most important
dynamics of conflict and change. The struc- changes taking place today among human
ture of conflict is across levels of human social systems – local and global – a process
organization and aggregation that drives with many different results that are chal-
change that comes from the environment, the lenged in controversies that extend beyond
more encompassing level, affecting the traditional studies of international relations
‘lower’, less encompassing, living systems to global issues of the environment, the
that resist such intrusions. This paradigm is integrity of cultures, indeed, the basic human
readily applied to the dynamics of local- relationships that are part of the development
global relations, where the global influences of global human rights.
the local and the local the global. The global
today carries the elements of openness and
democratization that shape national, regional,
and local values, processes and practices. INTRODUCTION: THE ECOLOGICAL
How this happens is discussed at the end of PARADIGM
this chapter in the context of a large scale,
cross-national research program that assesses The concept of ecology entered modern
democratic values and change and how polit- sociology in the second half of the nineteenth
ical leaders in local governmental units relate century as one of its dominant theoretical
to them. modalities. Ideas about ecology as a theoret-
The systematic study of relationships ical framework have changed dramatically
among local and higher levels and neighboring since then. The conceptual history of ecology
niches of living systems has long standing in begins as an idea about the dynamic relation-
science as the ecologies of all living species. ships between living and physical systems