ABSTRACT
Introduction If, as many urge, the twentieth century could be characterised by changes which transformed the political, economic and social environment of the world, then one of the paradoxes of the century was the resistance to such changes and their consequences (Giddens 1999). Despite this resistance, many of the hopes implicit in the original Enlightenment have been achieved. The most important of these can be seen in the democratisation of politics, in the drive for equality and in the continuing insistence that there are universal values such as human rights (Sen 1999). The continuing impact of capitalism, science and technology reinforce the view that change has become pervasive.
