To Look Like a Modern Ruler: Diffusion of Fashion among StateElites Público
Sechandice, Aristide Pasqual Javier (2009)
Abstract
Abstract To Look Like a Modern Ruler: Diffusion of Fashion among State Elites by Aristide Sechandice
The end of colonial regimes across the globe has left in its wake a striking and ubiquitous phenomenon: the tendency among leaders of newly independent countries to dress in Western clothing styles rather than in indigenous garments. As an aspect of cultural globalization, this transition to Western dress has accelerated even as Western political and economic dominance has receded. Appeal to three broad substantive literatures - the sociological literature on fashion, the social-psychological literature on impression formation, and the literature on cultural imperialism stemming from critical theory - offers insights into the motivations of non-Western state elites for Western presentations of self. Case studies of both exemplary and deviant cases are presented to show the operation of this process in local and national contexts. A data set of 104 countries in Africa and Asia, the continents most intensively colonized by Europeans, supplies the basis of a quantitative analysis. I use event history analysis, a statistical technique for longitudinal event data, to model this process and adjudicate between candidate explanatory theories. Functionalist theory is ruled out on theoretical grounds for this particular research problem. World-system theory is shown by a model-fitting strategy to yield no explanatory power for this phenomenon. Evidence in favor of a spatial model and world-culture theory is adduced. The status of a country as a socialist state is found to be positively and significantly associated with the hazard of a transition to Western dress by rulers, while a heritage as an erstwhile British or French colony is positively though more weakly associated with this propensity. The population of a country is found to have no effect on the hazard rate, and a world-system position index variable is not associated with the tendency of heads of state to adopt Western dress.
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Chapter One: Statement of the Problem 1 Chapter Two: Case Studies 25 Chapter Three: Modes of Fashion Diffusion 56 Chapter Four: Theoretical Perspectives 76 Chapter Five: Data and Methods 99 Chapter Six: Data Analyses 124 Chapter Seven: Conclusion 153 Appendix A: List of Transitions to Western Dress Represented in the Data Set 159 Appendix B: Countries Coded as Socialist Represented in the Data Set 162 Appendix C: Maps of Transitions to Western Dress by Period 163 References 181
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