Reconceptualizing Development in the Global Information Age

Fernando Henrique Cardoso, Professor Emeritus of Political Science, University of So Paulo and Former President of Brazil This book stands out as one of the most provocative insights into the impact of the Global Information Age on all dimensions of the human experience. This book is a landmark in the area of human sciences.

Alain Touraine, Professor of Sociology Emeritus, Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, Paris Castells and Himanen reject the classical definition of development as the growth of available resources. They participate in Amartya Sens Intellectual Coup: not resources but access to resources define development, which is synonymous with Human Dignity, and the conditions of development are as much cultural and social as technological. This book will definitely make Dignity the most creative and respected word in the XXIst centurys vocabulary, as Solidarity was in the nineteenth and Reason in the seventeenth.

Manuel Castells, University Professor and the Wallis Annenberg Chair in Communication Technology and Society, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, Pekka Himanen, Professor, Aalto University, Helsinki Manuel Castells is University Professor and the Wallis Annenberg Chair in Communication Technology and Society at the University of Southern California, Los Angeles. He is also Professor Emeritus of Sociology and of City and Regional Planning, University of California, Berkeley, as well as Director of Research in the Department of Sociology, and Fellow of St. John's College, University of Cambridge. He has been Professor and Director of the Internet Interdisciplinary Institute, Open University of Catalonia, Barcelona. He has published 26 books, including the trilogy The Information Age: Economy, Society and Culture (Blackwell 1996-2003) and Communication Power (Oxford University Press 2009). He received the 2011 Erasmus Medal from Academia Europaea, the 2012 Holberg Memorial Prize from the Parliament of Norway, and the 2013 Balzan Prize from the Balzan Foundation. Pekka Himanen is Professor at Aalto University in Helsinki and a Visiting Scholar at UC Berkeley. His books include The Hacker Ethic and the Spirit of the Information Age (2001) and The Information Society and the Welfare State (co-authored with Manuel Castells, OUP 2002). Himanen's work has been recognized with several awards, such as the World Economic Forum's respected Global Leader for Tomorrow Award in 2003 and his appointment by the WEF as a Young Global Leader in 2005. Himanen has advised leading global organizations and corporations from the United Nations to Silicon Valley companies, and is also a co-founder of the Global Dignity initiative.

Introduction ; PART I: ANALYTICAL FRAMEWORK ; 1. Models of Development in the Global Information Age: Constructing an Analytical Framework ; PART II: CASE STUDIES ; 2. The Silicon Valley Model: Economic Dynamism, Social Exclusion ; 3. Reconstructing the Finnish Model 2.0: Building a Sustainable Development Model? ; 4. Toward a Welfare State 2.0: Crisis and Renewal of the European Welfare State? ; 5. Development as Culture: Human Development and Information Development in China ; 6. South Africa Informational Development and Human Development: Rights vs. Capabilities ; 7. Development, Democracy, and Social Change in Chile ; 8. Pacifism, Human Development, and Informational Development: The Costa Rican Model ; PART III: RECONCEPTUALIZING DEVELOPMENT ; 9. Rethinking Human Development ; 10. Dignity as Development: The Cultural Link Between Informational and Human Development