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65-700: ENAR is funded by the European Union, the Open Society Foundations , the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust, and the Sigrid Rausing Trust. ENAR is an outcome of the 1997 European Year Against Racism. Between March and September 1998, more than 600 NGOs were involved in national and European round table consultations to discuss the viability of such a structure. The 1998 Constitutive Conference of

130-534: A benefactor for civil society groups in countries around the world. In 1995, Soros stated that he believed there can be no absolute answers to political questions because the same principle of reflexivity applies as in financial markets. In 2012, Christopher Stone joined the OSF as the second president. He replaced Aryeh Neier , who served as president from 1993 to 2012. Stone announced in September 2017 that he

195-407: A catastrophic collapse in prices. In social theory , reflexivity may occur when theories in a discipline should apply equally to the discipline itself; for example, in the case that the theories of knowledge construction in the field of sociology of scientific knowledge should apply equally to knowledge construction by sociology of scientific knowledge practitioners, or when the subject matter of

260-435: A consequence of the prediction or prophecy being made. The prophecy has a constitutive impact on the outcome or result, changing the outcome from what would otherwise have happened. Reflexivity was taken up as an issue in science in general by Karl Popper (1957), who in his book The poverty of historicism highlighted the influence of a prediction upon the event predicted, calling this the ' Oedipus effect ' in reference to

325-411: A discipline should apply equally to the individual practitioners of that discipline (e.g., when psychological theory should explain the psychological processes of psychologists). More broadly, reflexivity is considered to occur when the observations of observers in the social system affect the very situations they are observing, or when theory being formulated is disseminated to and affects the behaviour of

390-483: A frequent critic of Israeli government policy, and does not consider himself a Zionist, but there is no evidence that he or his family holds any special hostility or opposition to the existence of the state of Israel. This report will show that their support, and that of the Open Society Foundations, has nevertheless gone to organizations with such agendas." The report says its objective is to inform

455-641: A grant of $ 20 million to the International Crisis Group in support of efforts to analyze global issues fuelling violence, climate injustice and economic inequality and providing recommendations to address them. OSF has given grants to Jewish Voice for Peace . In 2007, Nicolas Guilhot (a senior research associate at the French National Centre for Scientific Research ) wrote in Critical Sociology that

520-424: A point where the sentiment is reversed and negative expectations become self-reinforcing in the downward direction, thereby explaining the familiar pattern of boom and bust cycles. An example Soros cites is the procyclical nature of lending, that is, the willingness of banks to ease lending standards for real estate loans when prices are rising, then raising standards when real estate prices are falling, reinforcing

585-456: A solution in modern approaches to the problem of structure and agency , for example in the work of Anthony Giddens in his structuration theory and Pierre Bourdieu in his genetic structuralism . Giddens , for example, noted that constitutive reflexivity is possible in any social system, and that this presents a distinct methodological problem for the social sciences. Giddens accentuated this theme with his notion of " reflexive modernity " –

650-461: Is Roman Jakobson in his studies of deixis and the poetic function in language, but the work of Mikhail Bakhtin on carnival has also been important. Within anthropology, Gregory Bateson developed ideas about meta-messages ( subtext ) as part of communication, while Clifford Geertz 's studies of ritual events such as the Balinese cock-fight point to their role as foci for public reflection on

715-601: Is a mediating mechanism between structural properties, or the individual's social context, and action, or the individual's ultimate concerns. Reflexive activity, according to Archer, increasingly takes the place of habitual action in late modernity since routine forms prove ineffective in dealing with the complexity of modern life trajectories. While Archer emphasises the agentic aspect of reflexivity, reflexive orientations can themselves be seen as being "socially and temporally embedded". For example, Elster points out that reflexivity cannot be understood without taking into account

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780-463: Is a key characteristic of real-world social systems, differentiating the social sciences from the physical sciences. Reflexivity, therefore, raises real issues regarding the extent to which the social sciences may ever be viewed as "hard" sciences analogous to classical physics, and raises questions about the nature of the social sciences. A new generation of scholars has gone beyond (meta-)theoretical discussion to develop concrete research practices for

845-539: Is in connection to authenticity . Cultural traditions are often imagined as perpetuated as stable ideals by uncreative actors. Innovation may or may not change tradition, but since reflexivity is intrinsic to many cultural activities, reflexivity is part of tradition and not inauthentic. The study of reflexivity shows that people have both self-awareness and creativity in culture. They can play with, comment upon, debate, modify, and objectify culture through manipulating many different features in recognised ways. This leads to

910-633: Is located at 224 West 57th Street in Midtown Manhattan , New York City . In 2018, OSF announced it was closing its European office in Budapest and moving to Berlin , in response to legislation passed by the Hungarian government targeting the foundation's activities. As of 2021, OSF has reported expenditures in excess of US$ 16 billion since its establishment in 1993, mostly in grants to non-governmental organizations (NGOs) aligned with

975-431: Is multi-directional when the causes and the effects affect the reflexive agent in a layered or complex sociological relationship. The complexity of this relationship can be furthered when epistemology includes religion . Within sociology more broadly—the field of origin— reflexivity means an act of self-reference where existence engenders examination, by which the thinking action "bends back on", refers to, and affects

1040-501: Is part of social science's more general self-critique in the wake of theories by Michel Foucault and others about the relationship of power and knowledge production. Reflexivity about the research process became an important part of the critique of the colonial roots and scientistic methods of anthropology in the "writing cultures" movement associated with James Clifford and George Marcus , as well as many other anthropologists. Rooted in literary criticism and philosophical analysis of

1105-412: Is similar to the notion of autonomy . (See also structure and agency and social mobility .) Within economics , reflexivity refers to the self-reinforcing effect of market sentiment, whereby rising prices attract buyers whose actions drive prices higher still until the process becomes unsustainable. This is an instance of a positive feedback loop. The same process can operate in reverse leading to

1170-501: Is the major factor contributing to his successes as a trader. For several decades there was little sign of the principle being accepted in mainstream economic circles, but there has been an increase of interest following the crash of 2008, with academic journals, economists, and investors discussing his theories. Economist and former columnist of the Financial Times, Anatole Kaletsky , argued that Soros' concept of reflexivity

1235-543: Is useful in understanding China's economy and how the Chinese government manages it. In 2009, Soros funded the launch of the Institute for New Economic Thinking with the hope that it would develop reflexivity further. The Institute works with several types of heterodox economics , particularly the post-Keynesian branch. Margaret Archer has written extensively on laypeople's reflexivity. For her, human reflexivity

1300-710: The Congress for Cultural Freedom , created in 1966 to imbue 'non-conformist' Eastern European scientists with anti-totalitarian and capitalist ideas. In 1993, the Open Society Institute was created in the United States to support the Soros foundations in Central and Eastern Europe and Russia . In August 2010, it started using the name Open Society Foundations (OSF) to better reflect its role as

1365-730: The National Democratic Institute , a charitable organization which partnered with pro-democracy groups like the Gov2U project run by Scytl . On January 23, 2020, the OSF announced a contribution of $ 1 billion from George Soros for the new Open Society University Network (OSUN), which supports Western university faculty in providing university courses, programs, and research to serve neglected student populations worldwide at institutions needing international partners. The founding institutions were Bard College and Central European University . In April 2022, OSF announced

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1430-636: The first Trump Administration . Several right-leaning politicians in eastern Europe regard many of the NGO groups to be irritants if not threats, including Liviu Dragnea in Romania , Szilard Nemeth in Hungary , Nikola Gruevski in North Macedonia (who called for "de-Sorosization"), and Jarosław Kaczyński of Poland (who has said that Soros-funded groups want "societies without identity"). Some of

1495-553: The metaculture of conventions about managing and reflecting upon culture. In international relations , the question of reflexivity was first raised in the context of the so-called ‘Third Debate’ of the late 1980s. This debate marked a break with the positivist orthodoxy of the discipline. The post-positivist theoretical restructuring was seen to introduce reflexivity as a cornerstone of critical scholarship. For Mark Neufeld, reflexivity in International Relations

1560-847: The strong programme , reflexivity is suggested as a methodological norm or principle, meaning that a full theoretical account of the social construction of, say, scientific, religious or ethical knowledge systems, should itself be explainable by the same principles and methods as used for accounting for these other knowledge systems. This points to a general feature of naturalised epistemologies , that such theories of knowledge allow for specific fields of research to elucidate other fields as part of an overall self-reflective process: any particular field of research occupied with aspects of knowledge processes in general (e.g., history of science, cognitive science, sociology of science, psychology of perception, semiotics, logic, neuroscience) may reflexively study other such fields yielding to an overall improved reflection on

1625-609: The European Network Against Racism brought together more than 200 representatives of these organisations to draw up a common programme of action. ENAR's vision aims at guaranteeing equality for all, and recognizes the benefits of a diverse and racism-free Europe for European society and economy. Its mission is to end structural racism in the European Union and to build structures, institutions and attitudes based on race equality and equal distribution of power, privileges and rights. The following are some of

1690-546: The Greek tale in which the sequence of events fulfilling the Oracle's prophecy is greatly influenced by the prophecy itself. Popper initially considered such self-fulfilling prophecy a distinguishing feature of social science, but later came to see that in the natural sciences, particularly biology and even molecular biology, something equivalent to expectation comes into play and can act to bring about that which has been expected. It

1755-660: The Muslim Brotherhood. ENAR members include a wide range of organisations, from grassroots to advocacy organisations, from information centres, to trade unions, to faith-based organisations. NGOs in the following countries form the coalition: Open Society Foundations Open Society Foundations ( OSF ), formerly the Open Society Institute , is a US-based grantmaking network founded by business magnate George Soros . Open Society Foundations financially supports civil society groups around

1820-513: The OSF was reportedly the target of a cyber security breach . Documents and information reportedly belonging to the OSF were published by a website. The cyber security breach has been described as sharing similarities with Russian-linked cyberattacks that targeted other institutions, such as the Democratic National Committee . In 2017, Soros transferred $ 18 billion to the foundation. In 2020, Soros announced that he

1885-422: The OSF, claiming: "The evidence demonstrates that Open Society funding contributes significantly to anti-Israel campaigns in three important respects: The report concludes, "Yet, to what degree Soros, his family, and the Open Society Foundations are aware of the cumulative impact on Israel and of the political warfare conducted by many of their beneficiaries is an open question." In November 2015, Russia banned

1950-705: The Open Society Foundations is functionally conservative in supporting institutions that reinforce the existing social order, as the Ford Foundation and Rockefeller Foundation have done before them. Guilhot argues that control over the social sciences by moneyed interests, rather than by public officials, reinforced a neoliberal view of modernization . An OSF effort in 2008 in the African Great Lakes region aimed at spreading human rights awareness among prostitutes in Uganda and other nations in

2015-623: The Soros-funded advocacy groups in the region said the harassment and intimidation became more open after the 2016 election of Donald Trump in the United States. Stefania Kapronczay of the Hungarian Civil Liberties Union, which received half of its funding from Soros-backed foundations, claimed that Hungarian officials were "testing the waters" in an effort to see "what they can get away with." In 2017,

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2080-459: The Turkish government including detention of liberal Turkish intellectuals and academics even tangentially associated with the foundation. Reflexivity (social theory) In epistemology , and more specifically, the sociology of knowledge , reflexivity refers to circular relationships between cause and effect , especially as embedded in human belief structures. A reflexive relationship

2145-472: The United States. This funding included groups such as the Organization for Black Struggle and Missourians Organizing for Reform and Empowerment that supported protests in the wake of the killing of Trayvon Martin , the death of Eric Garner , the shooting of Tamir Rice and the shooting of Michael Brown . According to OpenSecrets , the OSF spends much of its resources on democratic causes around

2210-458: The area was rejected by Ugandan authorities, who considered it an effort to legalize and legitimize prostitution. Open Society Foundations has been criticized in the pro-Israel publications Tablet , Arutz Sheva and Jewish Press for funding the activist groups Adalah and I'lam , they accuse of being anti-Israel and supporting the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement. Among

2275-400: The argument that, over time, society is becoming increasingly more self-aware, reflective, and hence reflexive. Bourdieu argued that the social scientist is inherently laden with biases , and only by becoming reflexively aware of those biases can the social scientists free themselves from them and aspire to the practice of an objective science. For Bourdieu, therefore, reflexivity is part of

2340-428: The boom and bust cycle. He further suggests that property price inflation is essentially a reflexive phenomenon: house prices are influenced by the sums that banks are prepared to advance for their purchase, and these sums are determined by the banks' estimation of the prices that the property would command. Soros has often claimed that his grasp of the principle of reflexivity is what has given him his "edge" and that it

2405-524: The conditions for creating knowledge. Reflexivity includes both a subjective process of self-consciousness inquiry and the study of social behaviour with reference to theories about social relationships . The principle of reflexivity was perhaps first enunciated by the sociologists William I. Thomas and Dorothy Swaine Thomas , in their 1928 book The child in America : "If men define situations as real, they are real in their consequences". The theory

2470-494: The documents released in 2016 by DCleaks , an OSF report reads "For a variety of reasons, we wanted to construct a diversified portfolio of grants dealing with Israel and Palestine , funding both Israeli Jewish and PCI (Palestinian Citizens of Israel) groups as well as building a portfolio of Palestinian grants and in all cases to maintain a low profile and relative distance—particularly on the advocacy front." In 2013, NGO Monitor , an Israeli NGO, reported that "Soros has been

2535-528: The early 19th century, what he calls the "Age of Man", with the philosophy of Immanuel Kant . He finishes the book by posing the problem of the age of man and our pursuit of knowledge- where "man is both knowing subject and the object of his own study"; thus, Foucault argues that the social sciences, far from being objective, produce truth in their own mutually exclusive discourses . Economic philosopher George Soros , influenced by ideas put forward by his tutor, Karl Popper (1957), has been an active promoter of

2600-430: The entity instigating the action or examination. It commonly refers to the capacity of an agent to recognise forces of socialisation and alter their place in the social structure . A low level of reflexivity would result in individuals shaped largely by their environment (or "society"). A high level of social reflexivity would be defined by individuals shaping their own norms, tastes, politics, desires, and so on. This

2665-524: The fact that it draws on background configurations (e.g., shared meanings, as well as past social engagement and lived experiences of the social world) to be operative. In anthropology, reflexivity has come to have two distinct meanings, one that refers to the researcher's awareness of an analytic focus on his or her relationship to the field of study, and the other that attends to the ways that cultural practices involve consciousness and commentary on themselves. The first sense of reflexivity in anthropology

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2730-622: The fields in which ENAR works: Along with Equinox , ENAR has been denouncing the whiteness of the European institutions and argued for a greater representation or racialised communities in the policy discussions at the EU level. ENAR has been linked to the Muslim Brotherhood by MEP Frederique Ries, a claim also extended to its member organization FEMYSO. Michaël Privot, ENAR's former director, publicly admitted he had joined and then left

2795-429: The four main methodologies into which contemporary International Relations research can be divided, alongside neopositivism, critical realism, and analyticism. Flanagan has argued that reflexivity complicates all three of the traditional roles that are typically played by a classical science: explanation, prediction and control. The fact that individuals and social collectivities are capable of self-inquiry and adaptation

2860-522: The government of Pakistan ordered the Open Society Foundations to cease operations in the country. In May 2018, Open Society Foundations announced they will move its office from Budapest to Berlin , amid Hungarian government interference. In November 2018, Open Society Foundations announced they are ceasing operations in Turkey and closing their Istanbul and Ankara offices due to "false accusations and speculations beyond measure", amid pressure from

2925-619: The group on its territory, declaring "It was found that the activity of the Open Society Foundations and the Open Society Institute Assistance Foundation represents a threat to the foundations of the constitutional system of the Russian Federation and the security of the state". In 2017, Open Society Foundations and other NGOs for open government and refugee assistance were targeted by authoritarian and populist governments emboldened by

2990-447: The implementation of reflexivity. These scholars have addressed the ‘how to’ question by turning reflexivity from an informal process into a formal research practice. While most research focuses on how scholars can become more reflexive toward their positionality and situatedness, some have sought to build reflexive methods in relation to other processes of knowledge production, such as the use of language. The latter has been advanced by

3055-469: The individuals or systems the theory is meant to be objectively modelling. Thus, for example, an anthropologist living in an isolated village may affect the village and the behaviour of its citizens under study. The observations are not independent of the participation of the observer. Reflexivity is, therefore, a methodological issue in the social sciences analogous to the observer effect . Within that part of recent sociology of science that has been called

3120-454: The issue of "reflexive prediction" in economic science by Grunberg and Modigliani (1954) and Herbert A. Simon (1954), has been debated as a major issue in relation to the Lucas critique , and has been raised as a methodological issue in economic science arising from the issue of reflexivity in the sociology of scientific knowledge (SSK) literature. Reflexivity has emerged as both an issue and

3185-451: The long run at equilibrium reflect the underlying economic fundamentals , which are unaffected by prices. Reflexivity asserts that prices do in fact influence the fundamentals and that these newly influenced sets of fundamentals then proceed to change expectations, thus influencing prices; the process continues in a self-reinforcing pattern. Because the pattern is self-reinforcing, markets tend towards disequilibrium. Sooner or later they reach

3250-871: The organization's mission. On May 28, 1984, George Soros signed a contract between the Soros Foundation/New York City and the Hungarian Academy of Sciences , the founding document of the Soros Foundation/Budapest. This was followed by several foundations in the region to help countries move away from Soviet-style socialism in the Eastern Bloc . In 1991, the foundation merged with the Fondation pour une Entraide Intellectuelle Européenne ("Foundation for European Intellectual Mutual Aid"), an affiliate of

3315-442: The process of "writing culture" has become a necessary part of understanding the situation of the ethnographer in the fieldwork situation. Objectification of people and cultures and analysis of them only as objects of study has been largely rejected in favor of developing more collaborative approaches that respect local people's values and goals. Nonetheless, many anthropologists have accused the "writing cultures" approach of muddying

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3380-415: The relationship among the anthropologists, the people represented in texts, and their textual representations, this approach has fundamentally changed ethical and methodological approaches in anthropology. As with the feminist and anti-colonial critiques that provide some of reflexive anthropology's inspiration, the reflexive understanding of the academic and political power of representations, analysis of

3445-493: The relevance of reflexivity to economics, first propounding it publicly in his 1987 book The alchemy of finance . He regards his insights into market behaviour from applying the principle as a major factor in the success of his financial career. Reflexivity is inconsistent with general equilibrium theory , which stipulates that markets move towards equilibrium and that non-equilibrium fluctuations are merely random noise that will soon be corrected. In equilibrium theory, prices in

3510-690: The scientific aspects of anthropology with too much introspection about fieldwork relationships, and reflexive anthropology have been heavily attacked by more positivist anthropologists. Considerable debate continues in anthropology over the role of postmodernism and reflexivity, but most anthropologists accept the value of the critical perspective, and generally only argue about the relevance of critical models that seem to lead anthropology away from its earlier core foci. The second kind of reflexivity studied by anthropologists involves varieties of self-reference in which people and cultural practices call attention to themselves. One important origin for this approach

3575-545: The second-largest private philanthropy budget in the United States, after the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation budget of $ 3.9 billion. As of 2020, its budget increased to $ 1.2 billion. In August 2013, the foundation partly sponsored an Aromanian cultural event in Malovište ( Aromanian : Mulovishti ), North Macedonia . The foundation reported granting at least $ 33 million to civil rights and social justice organizations in

3640-578: The social order. Studies of play and tricksters further expanded ideas about reflexive cultural practices. Reflexivity has been most intensively explored in studies of performance, public events, rituals, and linguistic forms but can be seen any time acts, things, or people are held up and commented upon or otherwise set apart for consideration. In researching cultural practices, reflexivity plays an important role, but because of its complexity and subtlety, it often goes under-investigated or involves highly specialised analyses. One use of studying reflexivity

3705-482: The solution, not the problem. Michel Foucault's The order of things can be said to touch on the issue of Reflexivity. Foucault examines the history of Western thought since the Renaissance and argues that each historical epoch (he identifies three and proposes a fourth) has an episteme , or "a historical a priori ", that structures and organises knowledge. Foucault argues that the concept of man emerged in

3770-458: The work of Professor Audrey Alejandro in a trilogy on reflexive methods. The first article of the trilogy develops what is referred to as Reflexive Discourse Analysis, a critical methodology for the implementation of reflexivity that integrates discourse theory. The second article further expands the methodological tools for practicing reflexivity by introducing a three-stage research method for problematizing linguistic categories. The final piece of

3835-610: The world, and has also contributed to groups such as the Tides Foundation . The OSF has been a major financial supporter of US immigration reform , including establishing a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants. OSF projects have included the National Security and Human Rights Campaign and the Lindesmith Center , which conducted research on drug reform. The OSF became a partner of

3900-529: The world, with the stated aim of advancing justice, education, public health and independent media. The group's name was inspired by Karl Popper 's 1945 book The Open Society and Its Enemies . As of 2015, the OSF had branches in 37 countries, encompassing a group of country and regional foundations, such as the Open Society Initiative for West Africa , and the Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa . The organization’s headquarters

3965-413: Was also taken up by Ernest Nagel (1961). Reflexivity presents a problem for science because if a prediction can lead to changes in the system that the prediction is made in relation to, it becomes difficult to assess scientific hypotheses by comparing the predictions they entail with the events that actually occur. The problem is even more difficult in the social sciences. Reflexivity has been taken up as

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4030-597: Was characterized by 1) self-awareness of underlying premises, 2) an acknowledgment of the political-normative dimension of theoretical paradigms, and 3) the affirmation that judgement about the merits of paradigms is possible despite the impossibility of neutral or apolitical knowledge production. Since the nineties, reflexivity has become an explicit concern of constructivist , poststructuralist , feminist , and other critical approaches to International Relations. In The Conduct of Inquiry in International Relations , Patrick Thaddeus Jackson identified reflexivity of one of

4095-521: Was creating the Open Society University Network (OSUN), endowing the network with $ 1 billion. In 2023, George Soros handed over the leadership of the foundation to his son Alexander Soros , who soon announced layoffs of 40 percent of staff and "significant changes" to the operating model. The Library of Congress Soros Foundation Visiting Fellows Program was initiated in 1990. Its $ 873 million budget in 2013 ranked as

4160-452: Was later termed the " Thomas theorem ". Sociologist Robert K. Merton (1948, 1949) built on the Thomas principle to define the notion of a self-fulfilling prophecy : that once a prediction or prophecy is made, actors may accommodate their behaviours and actions so that a statement that would have been false becomes true or, conversely, a statement that would have been true becomes false - as

4225-474: Was stepping down as president. In January 2018, Patrick Gaspard was appointed president of the Open Society Foundations. He announced in December 2020 that he was stepping down as president. In January 2021, Mark Malloch-Brown was appointed president of the Open Society Foundations. On March 11, 2024, OSF announced that Binaifer Nowrojee would start as the group's new president on June 1, 2024. In 2016,

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