bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Civil Society Versus Organized Crime
Authors: Schneider Jane , Schneider Peter
Published: February 2009

Based on fieldwork in Palermo, this article analyzes the city’s antimafia movement in which the words ‘civil society’ have ample resonance. On the one hand, they convey an ecumenical meaning, suited to overcoming the otherwise polarized Communist and Christian Democratic political identities that anti-mafia activists inherited from the Cold War era. On the other hand, they evoke cultural hegemony, exemplified by antimafia initiatives in the public schools. To understand the contemporary currency of ‘civil society’, the article argues, requires revisiting the Cold War years when the overt and covert exercise of political violence not only impeded the formation of democratic institutions, but made a mockery of such institutions where they existed. Social movements emerging from that era often make rhetorical use of the civil society concept as an umbrella under which to demand transparency, democracy, and human rights. Coincidentally, civil society discourse has acquired enormous currency with the United Nations, the IMF and World Bank, and a vast array of nongovernmental organizations. At this level, the issue is the marginalization of new global enemies, no less threatening than the (Soviet) ‘evil empire’ - specifically, the uncivil forces of crime and corruption that, under the post-Cold War conditions of triumphant neo-liberal capitalism, can only grow and thrive if not held in check.
‘It Takes a Serb to Know a Serb’
Authors: van de Port Mattijs
Published: February 2009

In this article I discuss two domains of knowledge that my Serbian informants labelled as impenetrable to Western knowledge: carousing in Gypsy bars (a practice called lumpovanje) and Serbian history. ‘This is something only Serbs can understand’ is what my friends and informants would tell me over and over again. Uncovering the realms of lived experience that inform this sense of being definitely Other, I will explore the theoretical implications of this obstinate otherness for the anthropological project.
‘We Wondered what Human Rights He Was Talking About’
Authors: Engelke Matthew
Published: February 2009

This article addresses the recent debates on homosexuality and human rights in Zimbabwe, particularly as they relate to the controversy surrounding the Gays and Lesbians of Zimbabwe (GALZ) participating in the Zimbabwe International Book Fair. These debates highlight the problems inherent in talking about universal human rights when appeals to ‘cultural difference’ are made. In Zimbabwe, for example, critics of GALZ and homosexuality have tried to argue that ‘homosex is not in African culture’. Drawing from recent scholarship on human rights in anthropology and elsewhere, as well as the work of the philosopher Richard Rorty, the author argues that appeals to human rights on behalf of GALZ in Zimbabwe must consider the moral sentiments involved in arguments over human rights more carefully if claims to those rights are to be realized.
The Mondragón Model as Post-Fordist Discourse: Considerations on the Production of Post-Fordism
Authors: Kasmir Sharryn
Published: February 2009

This article is intended as a contribution to the ethnography of contemporary capitalism. I analyze the case of the Mondragón cooperative model and consider what its international fame tells us about the regime of post-Fordism. I explore the constitution of the Mondragón model through the singular discourse of labor–management cooperation. I show how the model is produced by the discursive practices of omission and decontextualization. Mondragón can only be constructed as an alternative to and critique of capitalism if (1) workers’ experiences are erased; (2) politics are marginalized; and (3) the cooperatives are de-territorialized from the global economic context. By providing the missing contexts, I offer a competing narrative, portraying cooperation as a class-interested discourse that undermines workers’ power. My account of how the Mondragón model was produced is a revealing case of the production of global capitalist discourses in a period of economic and ideological shifts to post-Fordism.
The Empire of Direct Sales and the Making of Thai Entrepreneurs
Authors: Wilson Ara
Published: February 2009

This article offers an ethnographic investigation of contemporary capitalist discourses about entrepreneurship by exploring the expanse of the direct sales industry into Thailand. Direct selling is a century-old merchandising approach that developed in the United States as an ‘alternative’ form of capitalism. Since the 1980s, the direct sales approach of Amway, Avon, and other firms has become increasingly globalized and has achieved some success in Thailand. This article demonstrates the implication of local meanings and social hierarchies for the translation of entrepreneurial rhetoric into Thai contexts through the case studies of two direct sales distributors in Bangkok. This ethnographic exploration of the production and reception of discourses about entrepreneurial self-help offers a cardinal illustration of the cultural processes of post-Fordist capitalism.
Knowledge Society or Leisure Society?
Authors: Vattimo Gianni
Published: February 2009

Such is the scale of information production today that the verb ‘to know’ may be heretofore declined in the impersonal. A new ‘subject of knowledge’ - the machine - is seen as removing from homo sapiens the so far uncontested role of ‘learned subject’. This calls for a rethinking of our notions of knowledge and democracy. To think of a knowledge society where every single person would be capable of knowingly taking any type of decision on community life, points to an incapacity to rethink the concept of knowledge. The fragmentation of knowledge transforms democracy into a simple possibility for each and every person to choose ‘the expert’ by whom he wishes to be guided. Kant had distinguished between ‘knowledge’ and ‘thought’, associating the latter with leisure. It appears today that pleasure and games may be the ultimate bulwarks of humanity. Perhaps we ought to be speaking of a leisure society rather than a knowledge society.
Educational Challenges of the Liquid-Modern Era
Authors: Bauman Zygmunt
Published: February 2009

A liquid modernity, where the traditional certainties have become fluid and blurred, presents a major challenge for education. The world is changing so quickly that homo sapiens, learning animal par excellence, can no longer rely on strategies acquired through learning experiences, let alone those derived from traditional values or wisdom. The excess of useless information creates a glut. When saturation level is reached, accumulation ceases to be a sign of wealth and becomes undesirable. Knowledge is confined - discarded like refuse - in the infinite capacity of cybercomputers. What should we humans keep and what should we reject in this process? In times of liquid modernity, how and what should our children be taught in order to be able to develop survival strategies throughout their lives?
Democracy De-realized
Authors: Bhabha Homi K.
Published: February 2009

In times of crisis, when democracies are under threat, our lessons of justice and equality are best learnt from those who are marginalized or oppressed. There could be hope for democracy if responses to the attacks of September 11, for example, were characterized not by blind revenge but by democratic solidarity. To think of democracy in terms of non-realized ideals does not adequately challenge the failures of its promises. ‘Not to respond’ is often a strategic necessity for democratic discourse, which recognizes failure as part of its evolutionist and utopian narrative. The internal dialectic of the unrealized finds in the negative instance of failure a strange moral coherence. Thus it is proposed to consider democracy as something de- realized rather than unrealized. The term ‘de-realized’ places the democratic experience at a distance, in a context not of its making, in order to de-familiarize it and to block its natural or normative reference. The idea is to see the potential of democracy in translation or in an extraterritorial sense. Democracy's potential lies not in its failure but in its frailty.
Religion and Knowledge
Authors: Rouanet Sergio Paulo
Published: February 2009

The attacks of September 11 oblige us to revise a prevalent view of religion as harmless and incompatible with rational forms of knowledge. Three modes of knowledge coexist today: theological knowledge involves adhesion to a system of beliefs; technological and natural science knowledge is value-free and neutral with regard to beliefs; lastly, knowledge in philosophy, social and human sciences relates to values, transcends national and cultural specificities and involves freedom and reason. Is this latter form of knowledge more apt to preserve one's critical conscience than other modes of knowledge? History does not, alas, corroborate this theory. All three knowledge modes, taken separately, lack both a wider rationality which would enable them to legitimize their actions in light of universal criteria, and the properties of democratic debate, the only way to avoid pathologies in thought, be they of a religious or scientific nature. In a post-secular society, religions resist all forms of secularizing influences. A true secular society is, however, able to preserve the contents of religion without destroying them.
Learning and Reason in the Muslim West: The Case of Algeria
Authors: Oussedik Fatma
Published: February 2009

A genealogy of the relationship between Islam and knowledge focusing on the Muslim West and, in particular, Algeria explains the current chaos within Muslim societies. The West, on its side, has difficulties understanding a cultural tradition which differs from its own. Islam did develop an aptitude for knowledge that put into play ‘different intellectual modalities, among which were dialectic argument, intuition and controversy’. However, ‘the accession to knowledge is shown by assent’. A long tradition of debate and controversy drew to a close and was abandoned in favour of the exercise of authoritative and absolute power. Intellectual life in the region suffered notably from the successive departures of the elite, at the end of the Ottoman Empire, at the onset of the colonial period and upon independence. Colonialism founded a new system born of different traditions and entailed the breaking up of traditional scholastic institutions. After Independence, fewer and fewer interlocutors were capable of undertaking a reasoned critique of the West. ‘Mistrust with regard to the West’ translated into a ‘refusal even of controversy’. It is a vicious circle that can be broken only through a minimum of democracy.
Global Cities in Informational Societies
Authors: Freitag Barbara
Published: February 2009

Modern cities have recently evolved as centres for material and intangible exchanges and this obliges us to rethink the urban scene. The passing from the industrial era to the new age of information has rendered obsolete the models envisaged by Max Weber, Georg Simmel and Walter Benjamin. Basing her argument on the typology put forward by Saskia Sassen, Barbara Freitag sketches out the different profiles of contemporary cities. Urban centres are now defined by the level, scale and intensity of the exchanges to which they give rise. On the first level is the global city, nerve centre of the globalized economy (Tokyo, New York, London …) and capable of challenging the power of the state. On the second level are the megalopoles (Mexico, São Paulo …), which are only prevented from joining the ranks of the global cities because much of their population is excluded from the global economy. Next come the metropoles, cities like Paris (‘19th-century capital’), which have retained a way of life global centres can no longer provide. However, most of the world's population is concentrated in the peripheral boroughs of the information society's global economy. It is for the sake of this population that attention must be paid to the transformations endured by 21st-century cities.
Reflections on Paradigms of Philosophizing
Authors: Moreva Liubava
Published: February 2009

Among the most recent unforeseen events of this modernity, those of 11 September 2001 exposed the dark side of globalization. If science reduces the whole universe to its one logic, philosophy retains a crucial role as a process of production of meanings for the human being, a being incapable of situating himself or herself in relation to the universe except through dialogue. To the extent that no fragment of truth can be absolutized, only permanent thought can constitute a universal cognition.
Flashes of a Century: A Breviary of Images
Authors: Argullol Rafael
Published: February 2009

The 20th century bears witness to the extent to which the potential scale of destruction is proportional to the dimensions of human knowledge. Simultaneously, an ethical disarray grows prevalent within a civilization obliged to do away with the hopes and ideals of the Enlightenment. Continuous entertainment is replacing models capable of nourishing the leisure of human thought and learning. We are threatened with ‘the loss of the different perspectives of human memory’, which can but ‘facilitate the repetition of past mistakes’.
Depriving Civil Rights
Authors: Johnson Brian R. , Bridgmon Phillip B.
Published: February 2009

To date, very little empirical work has been conducted that examines the Department of Justice's (DOJ) prosecutions of criminal civil rights violations under federal criminal code 18 U.S.C. 242. The purpose of the research is to begin a formal examination of the DOJ prosecutions of justice system officials by examining the types of cases that are selected for prosecution, in which area of the justice system do they occur, and their relationship to the overall number of complaints. Using a unique dataset, all prosecutions under 18 U.S.C. 242 from 2001-2006 were examined. Findings reveal that most complaints are levied against local police and correctional officers, prosecutions are not evenly distributed across federal circuits, and acquittal rates are extremely low. Additional noteworthy findings include significant variations in offense type among justice professions, whereby police officers typically are charged with robbery/theft while correctional officers are prosecuted for excessive force.
Neurologic Outcome at School Entry for Newborns Treated With Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation for Noncardiac Indications
Authors: Waitzer Elana , Riley S.P. , Perreault Therese , Shevell Michael I.
Published: February 2009

The neurologic outcomes at school age in children who underwent neonatal extracorporeal membrane oxygenation for noncardiac indications in a single institution surviving till the age of 5 years was determined by standardized neurologic assessment. Of 42 newborns undergoing extracorporeal membrane oxygenation, 24 underwent neurologic assessment by a single neurologist at 5 years of age. In all, 12 (50%) had a normal neurologic outcome. Lower gestational age and birth weight was found to be associated with an abnormal outcome as was septic shock as an indication for extracorporeal membrane oxygenation initiation. The number of peri-extracorporeal membrane oxygenation complications experienced by a child was associated with later epilepsy. Although invasive and implemented in critically ill infants, half of newborns undergoing extracorporeal membrane oxygenation will have a normal neurologic outcome at school age. Preexisting factors, rather than factors related to the extracorporeal membrane oxygenation itself, appear to be greater determinants of later neurologic outcomes.
Social Work, Women, and Feminism: A Review of Social Work Journals, 1988-1997
Authors: Barretti Marietta
Published: February 2009

This article surveys articles containing women's content that were published in 17 social work journals from 1988 to 1997. It discusses the journals in which content on women was most and least likely to appear, which social roles were most frequently used to depict women, which themes pertaining to women captured the most attention, which social work curricular areas were most frequently mentioned, and which analytical methods were used. Moreover, it determines the extent to which the articles were feminist or reflected a variation of feminism.
Never Mind the Law: Legal Discourse and Rape Reform in Israel
Authors: Ajzenstadt Mimi , Steinberg Odeda
Published: February 2009

In 1988, Israel changed its rape laws, inflicting harsher penalties on convicted rapists. Using quantitative and qualitative methods, this study compared punishment meted out before and after the reform and content analyzed the judicial discourse created in the courts in both periods. The findings revealed little change in the severity of sentencing and in judges' attitudes toward rapists, victims, and the crime. The mechanism of normalization allowed judicial authorities to make concessions to rapists, reducing the severity of the offense, while continuing to ignore the plight of the victims.
“Creating a Little Mischief”: A Portrait of Mildred Jeffrey's 65 Years as an Activist
Authors: Alvarez Ann Rosegrant
Published: February 2009

Mildred Jeffrey has contributed significantly to the labor movement, the civil rights movement, and the women's movement. Her many years of commitment to major U.S. social movements, coupled with her vital personality and indefatigable energy, have resulted in both an impressive list of accomplishments and increasing public recognition. Her story is important for its historical significance; as amodel of the use of primary sources, such as interviews and archival materials; and as a reminder of the many compelling stories still to be told and shared.
Sexism and the Social Work Curriculum: A Content Analysis of the Journal of Social Work Education
Authors: Grise-Owens Erlene
Published: February 2009

Five themes of subtle and systemic sexism emerged in a content analysis of the Journal of Social Work Education, 1998-1999: discrepancies in pronoun usage, sexist language, inconsistent attention to gender as a variable or construct, and inattention to gender as a framework in understandingtopics. The analysis also discovered a preponderance of nongender language, which raises questions about the implicit messages of gender-blind language.
A Feminist Approach to Practice in Working With Midlife and Older Women With HIV/AIDS
Authors: Emlet Charles A. , Tangenberg Katy , Siverson Claire
Published: February 2009

Older women with HIV/AIDS constitute an invisible population that is often ignored by organizers of HIV prevention efforts as well as by HIV and aging organizations. This article explores the importance of a feminist approach to practice with a population affected by the intersection of ageism, sexism, and AIDS phobia. A support group for midlife and older women with HIV/AIDS is described, and four themes that were identified by the group participants are discussed. AIDS service organizations, the aging network, and policy makers must begin to recognize the critical need to support and assist older women with HIV/AIDS.
A Feminist Analysis of Welfare Reform: The Personal Responsibility Act of 1996
Authors: Jimenez Mary Ann
Published: February 2009

This article presents a feminist analysis of the Personal Responsibility Act of 1996, which ended women's and children's federal entitlement to welfare. It draws on the congressional hearings preceding the act's passage to argue that the act was crafted to discipline poor women who seemed to challenge traditional gender roles and deep-seated values about women's place in American society.
Image Busters
Authors: Burayidi Michael A. , Coulibaly Mamadou
Published: February 2009

Since the 1980s, rural communities have embraced prisons as a tool for economic development following the decline in resource-based industry in rural areas. Although there are economic benefits from prisons, the drawback is that for small rural communities, prisons change the demographic composition of the communities' residents and, as portrayed by Census Bureau data, make them unattractive locations for industry. The inmate population affects factors such as high poverty rate, lower educational achievement, and low per capita income. This article suggests that rural communities should take proactive measures to change this image by providing a methodology for reanalyzing census data to portray their “true” image to potential investors.
Modern Morals in Postmodernity
Authors: van Meijl Toon
Published: February 2009

This article provides a critical analysis of the topical debate about the revision of anthropological codes of ethics in the 1990s. Ethical codes are approached from the viewpoint of postmodern ethics, which rejects the foundation of morality in a hierarchy of values on which professional codes of ethics are based. Whereas ethical codes are founded on the proposition that morality is non-ambivalent and universal, in postmodern ethics it is argued that the condition of morality is essentially ambivalent and not universalizable. The institutionalization of moral rules and regulations in an ethical code for anthropologists is therefore exposed as characteristic of morality in modernity, allowing the substitution of a code of ethics for the moral self. Postmodern ethics instead aims at the emancipation of the autonomous moral self and the vindication of its moral responsibility. In many ways this anti-Enlightenment project of postmodern philosophy bears interesting similarities with the premodern tradition of Socratic philosophy.
Can Words Produce Order?
Authors: Defoort Carine
Published: February 2009

This article presents and evaluates a dominant traditional Chinese trust in language as an efficient tool to promote social and political order. It focuses on the term shi(regicide or parricide) in the Annals (Chunqiu).This is not only the oldest text (from 722–481 BCE) regularly using this term, but its choice of words has also been considered the oldest and most exemplary instance of the normative power of language. A close study of its uses of ‘ regicide’ leads to a position between the traditional ‘praise and blame’ theory and its extreme negation. Later commentaries on the Annals and reflection on regicide in other texts, in different ways, attest to a growing reliance or belief in the power of words in the political realm.
Family and Law in Former Han China (206 BCE – 8 CE)
Authors: Vankeerberghen Griet
Published: February 2009

This paper examines the controversy surrounding two Han laws that concern the relatives of criminals. The one law ordered that, in certain cases, the relatives of a criminal should be tried and punished together with the criminal (‘coadjudication’). The other stated that people who had hidden a criminal relative should no longer be punished. Those in Former Han who opposed coadjudication and favored hiding, drew their arguments from ancient philosophical literature. They believed that a person was innocent unless he was himself involved in criminal acts, they ‘could not bear’ ( bu ren) to punish an innocent person; they also held that the law should respect the feelings of love existing within the family. The defenders of coadjudication argued that a group was collectively responsible for the crimes of one of its members; they also believed that co-punishing a criminal's relatives would deter crime and enhance law and order.
A Cultural Approach to Social Policies
Authors: Licha Isabel
Published: February 2009

In this article I explore the idea that the enormous social inequality that has historically prevailed in ‘peripheral’ countries is a result of the economicist approach to development policies. This approach presumes a set of results and effects for the benefit of all that is obviously not achieved. In order to understand, attend to and/or overcome this situation, a rethinking of the development model is needed. I suggest that we need to pay careful attention to the key role that knowledge plays in supporting inequality because the conception, reconception, instrumentation/implementation and enrichment of knowledge are a continuous process. I would like to propose an inclusive model of development that requires an alternative approach (wide, democratic and cultural) to the development of public policies. The focus of this article is on this model and I will pay particular attention to its social policies and their cognitive basis. The inclusive model is a ‘cultural approach’ that aims to include a group of immaterial factors, such as social values, collective ‘imaginarios’, people's interests, creativity and capabilities.
Cultural Re-Constructions of an Adoptive Child: Science
Authors: Bauchspies Wenda K.
Published: February 2009

In this article, I take the idea of science as a cultural construct in order to understand the formation of boundaries, the maintenance of boundaries, and the permeability of margins within and between cultures. I use the metaphor of the child, my experiences working in science education on two continents, and my social theory toolbox to structure my discussion. I begin by describing the relationship between science and inquiry, and how inquiry organizes and structures human reality. Then a brief history is provided of education in Togo, West Africa. The next section addresses the classroom and schooling practices I observed in Togo in the 1990s. Using western theories I identify and characterize the cultures of training and education and analyze their implications for education. The final section offers interpretations and warnings on the use of ‘science’ in order to highlight the use of boundaries and our own colonialization.
Italy's Racial Cauldron
Authors: Angel-Ajani Asale
Published: February 2009

This article explores how race and racism shape Italian state practices and policies, and how these policies shape popular opinion on immigration. It is concerned with the ways in which African immigrants to Italy, as racially marked subjects, are affected by the discourses of race and criminalization. Rather than discuss immigrants in Italy's social landscape generally, this article focuses attention on immigration policies and forms of racism and racialized violence that have been on the rise as immigrant populations in Italy increase in number and become more visible.
Diversity of Experience, Experience of Diversity
Authors: Soysal Levent
Published: February 2009

In public, popular, and scholarly discourses, Turkish migrant youth appear as relentless agents of revitalized Turkishness or Islam in the midst of European modernity. Contrary to this seemingly intuitive assumption, I argue in this article that the manifest diversity of migrant youth cultures is facilitated and authorized by the discursive and institutional resources available to them in Berlin, the metropolis in the making. Particularly significant for the cultural projects of Turkish youths are transnational cultural flows and contemporary discourses of plurality, human rights, and equality, which (en)gender their presence in the public spaces of Berlin and complicate ‘national’ configurations of belonging and conventional conceptions of otherhood.
Theory of Culture
Authors: Zeuner Lilli
Published: February 2009

The intention of this article is to show some of the contradictions which arise when Margaret Archer, in her theory of culture and agency, utilizes Durkheim's and Weber's analyses of culture as examples of cultural morphogenesis. Additionally, the intention is to explore which principles for the development of a sociological theory of culture can be deduced from these classical texts. By confronting Archer's theory with the analyses of Durkheim and Weber, it can be shown that, while Archer perceives the individual as a rational actor pursuing material interests, thetwo classical sociologists see the individual as an object of cultivation. Furthermore, while Archer perceives the relation between structure and culture as an exchange relationship, in which legitimacy is exchanged for resources, the two classical sociologists see society as the source of cultural development. The conclusion is that, if one wishes to utilize Durkheim's and Weber's analyses of culture, one has to read these texts on their own premises. A rereading of their analyses enables the development of four basic tenets of a sociological theory of culture: (1) culture is a subject–object relationship; (2) mechanisms exist, whereby objective culture is transferred to the subject; (3) as a consequence of its content, culture can influence society; (4) as a consequence of its organization, society can influence culture.
Organizing Women
Authors: Moghadam Valentine M.
Published: February 2009

This article examines the women's movement in Algeria in the context of domestic developments, such as the post-Boumedienne restructuring of the state, regional liberalization, and global developments such as the rise of Islamism and the expansion of feminism. It points to the emergence of the Algerian feminist movement during the crises of the 1980s and 1990s, and to its current interface with regional and transnational feminist organizations.
The Spiritual Roots of Civil Society
Authors: Loya David R.
Published: February 2009

English and American civil society has spiritual origins, and those origins survive today as roots still necessary for its nourishment. We cannot understand the historical development of civil society without seeing how its current crisis is related to the atrophy of those roots. This seems to imply that, in order for civil society to become revitalized, its spiritual dimension needs to be recuperated.
The Political Philosophy of Islamic Resurgence
Authors: Khan M. A. Muqtedar
Published: February 2009

This article is an attempt to synthesize and extract the philosophical elements of the Islamist discourse. It argues that contained within the discourse of contemporary Islamic resurgence are the foundations of an Islamic political philosophy. The article identifies three central dimensions—critical, reconstitutive, and programmatic—in the political philosophy of Islamic resurgence and explores the arguments developed under those categories. The article also makes a distinction between first-generation and second-generation Islamists and illustrates the evolution of the Islamist discourse from critical to programmatic. In essence the article claims that there is significantly more to what the Islamists are saying than just polemics.
Knowledge Systems and Islamic Discourses
Authors: Lotfalian Mazyar
Published: February 2009

This article reviews the elements of social production of scientific knowledge in the Islamic world in the context of the political discourse of modernity. Elements such as institutional building, educational programs, and the development of the modern secular state underwent changes during the 20th century. I discuss the effect of the Muslim encounter with the political discourse of modernity upon these elements. I argue that the development of technoscientific enterprise in the Islamic world has been communicative and dialogical in relation to the West, in part, through the process of cultural translation. I discuss how ‘keywords’ such as sahwa(awakening) and asala (authenticity) have played deconstructive roles in the Muslim encounter with modernity in Iran and Malaysia.
Imitatio Muhammadi
Authors: Devji Faisal Fatehali
Published: February 2009

This article looks at the way in which the Prophet Muhammad has been reconstituted into a model of citizenship for much of modern Islam. In particular it investigateshowsuch a citizenship emerges as a global model during the Rushdie Affair, especially in the version ofAyatollah Khomeini, which allowed Muslims to address the event of globalization itself through the figure of the Prophet.
Three Approaches to Cultural Psychology
Authors: Ratner Carl
Published: February 2009

This article identifies the strengths and weaknesses of three predominant schools of cultural psychology. These schools are activity theory, the symbolic approach, and an individual approach. Activity theory explains psychology as grounded in practical cultural activities. The symbolic approach explains psychology as formed by collective symbols and concepts. The individual approach emphasizes individual construction of psychological functions from collective symbols and artifacts. By identifying the strengths and weaknesses of these approaches, this article seeks to illuminate the elements which can subsequently be integrated into a coherent framework for cultural psychology.
Ways of Knowing, Forms of Power
Authors: Dilley Roy
Published: February 2009

This article calls for attention to be given to differing cultural forms of learning, especially to how people claim to learn, and what it is they claim to learn. The analysis highlights the value of participation and human experience as a mode of learning, and constitutes a critique of earlier forms of social anthropological methodology. It suggests that the concept of mimesis should be treated as a central feature of fieldwork enculturation. Moreover, experiences and understandings gained from participation forml a vehicle to help uncover indigenous theories of learning, and these ideas in turn reflect back upon our own culture-specific ways of conceiving the processes of learning. The ethnographic focus is on learning a craft and on performing routinely practical activities among Senegalese Tukulor weavers and praise-singers, the mabube.
The Place of Law in the Prc's Culture
Authors: Hintzen Geor
Published: February 2009

Cultural values are of determining influence for the way law is viewed in a society. Culture is presented as a coherent form of communication that is part of group socialization. In the first part of this article three elements of the PRC's culture will be put forward as an analytical framework. The three cultural elements are the basic social relation between father and son, the notion of power, and the nature of reality. In the second part the discussions on law that were held at a forum in 1996 will be used to offer an overview of the different opinions on three different aspects of law: its relation to personal power, its relation to morality, and its relation to policy.
Tradition and Change
Authors: Zhiping Liang
Published: February 2009

Since the 1980s, China has undergone another wave of modernization characterized by rapid social change, fast paced economic growth and the proliferation of new legislation. Does this imply the triumph of a universal project of modernity in China? Or is China modernizing on its own terms? What is the relation between tradition and modernity, and between the state and society, given that modernization has been planned and pushed forward by the state from the beginning. This article examines cases that reflect incongruity and conflicts between formal and informal institutions in the process of modernization. It emphasizes the positive role tradition has played and might play in the formation of norms and orders, and suggests a way to rethink the relation between tradition and modernity and the implication of tradition for the ‘rule of law’ and modernity in China.
The Criminal Body and the Body Politic
Authors: Turner Karen
Published: February 2009

The contemporary Chinese state's preoccupation with controlling, measuring and extracting human and material resources from its rural population has deep roots in the Chinese tradition. So too the use of convicted criminals as a source of disciplined, ordered labor in the People's Republic of China hearkens back to practices as old as the centralized state itself. What is new in socialist China is the link between hard labor and thought reform. In the early empires, despite Confucian rhetoric that advocated reform through moral education, the state aimed to deter crime rather than to reform individuals deemed guilty of deviance. It was the criminal body, its economic needs, potential for labor, significance to rulers bent on displaying their power over matters of life and death, and didactic value to potential deviants, that commanded official attention. As this article argues, however, discourse about the body of the sentenced criminal illuminates more than pragmatic, economic concerns, but gets to the heart of deeper preoccupations about the relationship between political and cosmic order and the human body.
Multiple deprivation and persistent poverty in the European Union
Authors: Whelan Christopher T. , Layte Richard , Maître Bertrand
Published: February 2009

The literature on social exclusion has focused attention on the processes leading to exposure to multiple disadvantage. Despite the influence this perspective has had on both academic and policy discussions, conceptual analysis has remained imprecise and empirical evidence modest. We have made use of the European Community Household Panel (ECHP) in order to examine the extent to which persistent income poverty results in multiple deprivation. Our analysis shows that only a modest proportion of the persistently poor can be characterized as being exposed to such deprivation. While persistent poverty and multiple deprivation combine to produce extremely high levels of economic strain, there is no evidence that they interact in a significant fashion. We argue that understanding deprivation is not facilitated by focusing on a cleavage between a multiply deprived minority and a comfortable majority, and we consider the policy implications of this argument.
Protective Europe: does it Exist for People with Mental Disorders?
Authors: Prior Pauline M.
Published: February 2009

The aim of this article is to examine the impact of some of the major European institutions on mental health law and policy formation, with a view to establishing whether or not the European ‘project’ has made a difference in protecting individuals with mental disorders from interference or neglect by national governments. The discussion is divided into two parts: first, the role of Europe in protecting the human rights of people with mental disorders through the work of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR); and second, the role of Europe in ensuring standards of mental health care through the work of the European Commission (EC) and the European Parliament (EP). Focusing in the first instance on cases brought before the ECHR, and in the second on the policy directives of the EC and the EP, it is clear that while in the area of protecting human rights, the European ‘project’ has indeed made a positive impact on national laws and procedures. However, in the area of monitoring and raising standards of mental health care, there is little evidence of a similar impact.
Sex and Gender Discrimination Within Eu Pension Systems
Authors: Leitner Sigrid
Published: February 2009

Drawing on the philosophical differentiation between sex and gender, this article focuses on structural mechanisms of gender discrimination within European pension systems. For this purpose, the article distinguishes between two dimensions of the gender category: the work behaviour dimension and the care dimension. It is argued that the differentiation between employment and family work on the one hand and specific living arrangements on the other is structurally implemented within old age security systems. All countries have established earnings-related schemes which, to various extents, refer to former earnings and continuous working careers. Many of the earnings-related schemes incorporate family work in one way or another by granting entitlement for the care of children and/or elderly or handicapped people. Most of the schemes are combined with additional benefits for spouses and/or survivors, referring to married heterosexual couples. Only a few countries have additionally established universal pension schemes based on residence instead of employment or family work. The comparative analysis of pension systems in the 15 EU member states gives an idea about national varieties of structural gender differentiation.
Conceptual Innovation and Public Policy: Unemployment and Paid Leave Schemes in Denmark
Authors: Compston Hugh , Madsen Per Kongshøj
Published: February 2009

The Danish paid leave schemes of the early 1990s are an important innovation in labour market policy because they not only directly reduce unemployment but also contribute to achieving other economic and social goals. In this article we investigate why they were brought into being by tracing their development to identify the salient causal influences on the crucial decisions from a historical point of view, then evaluate the extent to which contemporary policy-making approaches can account for these results. Our analysis shows that a number of factors influenced the development of the schemes, including the rise in unemployment, public opinion, parties, institutions and policy learning. The role of conceptual innovation was especially important. Overall the policy-making process can be best understood in terms of John Kingdon's multiple streams theory.
Families and Informal Support Networks in Portugal: The Reproduction of Inequality
Authors: Wall Karin , Aboim Sofia , Cunha Vanessa , Vasconcelos Pedro
Published: February 2009

This article analyses informal support networks in Portugal. Using data from a national survey on families with children (1999), it explores the dynamics of support, in terms of the characteristics of, and variations in, families' experience of support. The analysis underlines the importance of social factors, such as the position of families in social and educational structures, and family variables, such as position in the life course, in determining the extent of support received by families. The results show that many families have a low level of support and that extended kinship does not play a significant role in providing support. As in other European countries, assistance flows mainly from parents, from the wife's family and from women rather than men; it is also strongly related to families' position in social structure, with low educational levels and less favourable occupational categories determining lower levels of support over the course of married life. Thus welfare provision stemming from informal relationships reinforces existing social inequalities rather than compensating for them, and the idea of a strong pre- and post-modern welfare society must be challenged.
Another Dutch Miracle? Explaining Dutch and German Pension Trajectories
Authors: Haverland Markus
Published: February 2009

This paper compares old-age pension policy trajectories in the Netherlands and Germany. These two advanced welfare states have developed different financial arrangements despite similarities in policy legacies, political institutions and party systems. Both countries established and extended comprehensive pay-as-you-go financed public pension schemes in the 1950s and 1960s. However, the Netherlands achieved a fully fledged multi-tiered pension system with a strong funded component, while until recently the German system relied almost exclusively on pay-as-you-go financing. The Netherlands has, therefore, a financially more viable and sustainable set of pension arrangements than Germany, at least under the current and foreseeable economic and demographic conditions. The paper reconstructs the pension trajectories in the two countries in order to explore the role of path dependency, political choice and contingency in explaining this divergence. It is argued that divergence is essentially unrelated to different strategic choices or variations in institutional capacities for reform. Instead, divergence is the largely unintended consequence of a series of incremental decisions in combination with contingent events and developments.
Child Poverty and Family Transfers in the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland
Authors: Förster Michael F. , Tóth István György
Published: February 2009

Governments of the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland implemented reforms of family benefits in the mid-1990s. What were the common features of those reforms and what were the possible effects on child poverty? Based on household micro data, trends in poverty among children, large families and single parents are presented for two data points: one before and one after the restrictive reforms in family policies. The focus of the analysis is on changes in the effectiveness of benefits on child poverty reduction. Child poverty increased during the observed period in all three countries, despite the efforts of governments to smooth the harmful effects of the economic downturn. Large differences in poverty levels and patterns between the three countries persisted. A relative worsening of the income position of children was accompanied by an increased level of targeting, reflected in general attempts to exclude higher-income groups from the benefit regimes. The results in the paper suggest that social transfers in general, and family benefits in particular, contributed to reduce significantly child poverty in the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland. However, reduction rates decreased between the early and the later 1990s. Current and future reform considerations should therefore include the objective to reverse this trend.
Towards an Equal Division of Paid and Unpaid Work: the Case of the Netherlands
Authors: Plantenga Janneke , Schippers Joop , Siegers Jacques
Published: February 2009

Both the Netherlands and other European countries are involved in the transition from a breadwinner society towards a more individual-oriented society. What is unique in the Dutch case is the strong emphasis on the equal sharing of time, between paid and unpaid work as well as between women and men. Despite the preferences among citizens for a more equal sharing of paid and unpaid work, in practice it appears that general participation in paid labour is being achieved more rapidly than general participation in unpaid labour. The article looks at the obstacles and sticking points which stand in the way of the process of redistribution and investigates how this process can be accelerated. It includes an empirical analysis on survey data for the Netherlands with respect to both actual and preferred working hours for married and co-habitating men and women. The authors conclude that a consistent government policy is lacking. As a consequence neither individuals nor organizations get signals that might contribute to those steps in the area of part-time work, child-care provision and leave facilities that would bring about a redistribution of paid and unpaid work between women and men.
Welfare Reform in the Nordic Countries in the 1990S: Using Fuzzy-Set Theory to Assess Conformity to Ideal Types
Authors: Kvist Jon
Published: February 2009

This article uses a new method for policy analysis, fuzzy-set theory, which is a framework that allows for a precise operationalization of theoretical concepts. Fuzzy-set theory is used to assess the conformity of the Nordic countries to a pre-conceptualized ideal-typical Nordic welfare model. This permits us to assess recent welfare reform and judge whether changes are of a qualitative or quantitative nature, i.e. whether reform amounts to differences in kind or degree. Comparing the development of benefits in kind and cash within three welfare areas (families, the unemployed and the elderly) during the 1990s and across the Nordic countries gives us an opportunity to assess patterns of welfare reform. The patterns of welfare reform are complex, but fuzzy-set theory permits the study of diversity. Despite numerous changes, all the countries still belong to the Nordic welfare model, although to varying degrees. Generally, Finland and Sweden have implemented more cut-backs than Denmark and Norway, and all countries have both expanded and contracted welfare programmes. Resilience at the national level thus masks a differential development between welfare areas and within welfare programmes. Tentatively, it seems that welfare policies operate within upper and lower limits which in turn are likely to vary over long time periods and among different types of welfare states; the most generous programmes are liable to cut-backs and the least generous programmes to improvements.