bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
The cosmopolitan perspective: sociology of the second age of modernity*
Authors: Beck Ulrich
Published: December 2003

‘Second age of modernity’ is a magical password that is meant to open the doors to new conceptual landscapes. The whole world of nation sovereignty is fading away – including the ‘container theory of society’ on which most of the sociology of the first age of modernity is based upon. In this article I propose a distinction between ‘simple globalization’ and ‘reflexive cosmopolitization’. In the paradigm of the first age of modernity, simple globalization is interpreted within the territorial compass of state and politics, society and culture. This involves an additive, not substitutive, conception of globalization as indicated for example by ‘interconnectedness’. In the paradigm of the second age of modernity globalization changes not only the relations between and beyond national states and societies, but also the inner quality of the social and political itself which is indicated by more or less reflexive cosmopolitization as an institutionalized learning process – and its enemies.
When things strike back: a possible contribution of ‘science studies’ to the social sciences
Authors: Latour Bruno
Published: December 2003

The contribution of the field of science and technology studies (STS) to mainstream sociology has so far been slim because of a misunderstanding about what it means to provide a social explanation of a piece of science or of an artefact. The type of explanation possible for religion, art or popular culture no longer works in the case of hard science or technology. This does not mean, it is argued, that science and technology escapes sociological explanation, but that a deep redescription of what is a social explanation is in order. Once this misunderstanding has been clarified, it becomes interesting to measure up the challenge raised by STS to the usual epistemologies social sciences believed necessary for their undertakings. The social sciences imitate the natural sciences in a way that render them unable to profit from the type of objectivity found in the natural sciences. It is argued that by following the STS lead, social sciences may start to imitate the natural sciences in a very different fashion. Once the meanings of ‘social’ and of ‘science’ are reconfigured, the definition of what a ‘social science’ is and what it can do in the political arena is considered. Again it is not by imitating the philosophers of science's ideas of what is a natural science that sociology can be made politically relevant.
The temporal gaze: the challenge for social theory in the context of GM food
Authors: Adam Barbara
Published: December 2003

The temporal gaze in socio‐environmental theory can take many forms. Time may be added to existing approaches without disturbing the status quo of theory and methodology. Alternatively, focus may be on the time–space of socio‐environmental existence or typologies constructed of the complexity of socio‐environmental time. Finally, phenomena, processes and events may be conceptualized as timescapes. Through the focus on genetic modification of foods, the paper demonstrates the pertinence of this timescape perspective for social theory and socio‐environmental analyses. A thorough‐going temporal gaze is important because a) such reconceptualization forms an integral part of rethinking the social sciences' relationship to nature and environmental matters; b) the implications at the level of theory tend to be glossed over and ignored; and c) it is central to changing practice at the level of public and personal action. The paper thus uses a timescape perspective to set out substantive and conceptual issues that present some of social theory's challenges for the new millennium.
New frontiers facing urban sociology at the Millennium
Authors: Sassen Saskia
Published: December 2003

The article examines some of the major challenges facing urban sociology at century's end given its traditions and lineages. These challenges arise out of the intersection of major macrosocial trends and their particular spatial patterns. The city and the metropolitan region emerge as one of the strategic sites where these macrosocial trends materialize and hence can be constituted as an object of study. Among these trends are globalization and the rise of the new information technologies, the intensifying of transnational and translocal dynamics, and the strengthening presence and voice of specific types of socio‐cultural diversity. Each one of these trends has its own specific conditionalities, contents and consequences for cities, and for theory and research. Cities are also sites where each of these trends interacts with the others in distinct, often complex manners, in a way they do not in just about any other setting. The city emerges once again as a strategic lens for the study of major macrosocial transformations as it was in the origins of sociology. Can urban sociology address these challenges and in so doing once again produce some of the analytic tools for understanding the broader transformation?
Archiving cultures
Authors: Featherstone Mike
Published: December 2003

This paper argues that to understand the legitimacy of a culture we need to investigate its relation to the archive, the site for the accumulation of records. Archive reason is a kind of reason which is concerned with detail, it constantly directs us away from the big generalization, down into the particularity and singularity of the event. Increasingly the focus has shifted from archiving the lives of the good and the great down to the detail of mundane everyday life. One implication here is that rather than see the archive as a specific place in which we deposit records, documents, photographs, film, video and all the minutiae on which culture is inscribed, should we not seek to extend the walls of the archive to place it around the everyday, the world? If everything can potentially be of significance shouldn't part of the archive fever be to record and document everything, as it could one day be useful? The problem then becomes, not what to put into the archive, but what one dare leave out. Some of the implications of these questions were considered by Georg Simmel, in his argument that there has been a build up and overload in the production and circulation of objective culture. This is now beyond our subjective capacity to assimilate and order, given the finite limits of the human life course we all face. It is something which confronts the individual with irresolvable dilemmas over selectivity, with each particular choice amounting to a wager which inevitably closes off others. Related questions about the difficulties of handling cultural completeness, were also addressed by Jorge Luis Borges in his discussion of the Library of Babel and the Aleph. Yet both could hardly have anticipated the full implications of the electronic archive: the development of new technologies for storing, searching and communicating information through the Internet with its databases and hypertext links. The electronic archive offers new possibilities for speed, mobility and completeness of access to cultures which have become digitalized, which raise fundamental questions about ownership, intellectual property rights, censorship and democratic access. The implications for culture are clear: the new electronic archives will not only change the form in which culture is produced and recorded, but the wider conditions under which it is enacted and lived as well.
Mobile sociology1
Authors: Urry John
Published: December 2003

This article seeks to develop a manifesto for a sociology concerned with the diverse mobilities of peoples, objects, images, information, and wastes; and of the complex interdependencies between, and social consequences of, such diverse mobilities. A number of key concepts relevant for such a sociology are elaborated: ‘gamekeeping’, networks, fluids, scapes, flows, complexity and iteration. The article concludes by suggesting that a ‘global civil society’ might constitute the social base of a sociology of mobilities as we move into the twenty‐first century.
Globalization and the German model of capitalism – erosion or survival?
Authors: Lane Christel
Published: December 2003

The German business system has been regarded as a particularly tightly coupled system, with embeddedness of even multinational companies (MNCs) in their home base as particularly deep. A study of the impact of companies' changing internationalization, if not globalization, strategies is therefore especially suited to test competing claims about their effects on the German business system. Are we experiencing an erosion of this system, an adaptation in a largely path‐dependent way, or even a greater specialization and stronger crystallization of the German business system?

To investigate these questions, the paper examines a small number of German MNCs in their domestic and international context. More particularly, the work focuses on whether and how their emergent globalization activities affect the reproduction or erosion of the three institutional complexes which shape the factors of production: the financial system; the innovation system; and the industrial relations system. The paper concludes that a new type of transformation – hybridization – is emerging. It is regarded as a consequence of German companies' growing integration into a global economic system.
Compromising positions: emergent neo‐Fordisms and embedded gender contracts
Authors: Gottfried Heidi
Published: December 2003

This paper adopts a regulation framework to chart the emergence of neo‐Fordism as a flexible accumulation regime and mode of social regulation. Neo‐Fordism relies on old Fordist principles as well as incorporating new models of emergent post‐Fordisms; old and new social relationships, in their particular combination, specify the trajectory of national variants. I argue that Fordist bargains institutionalized the terms of a compromise between labour, capital and the state. These bargains embedded a male‐breadwinner gender contract compromising women's positions and standardardizing employment contracts around the needs, interests and authority of men. A focus on compromises and contracts makes visible the differentiated gender effects of work transformation in each country.
Market returns? Gender and theories of change in employment relations
Authors: Irwin Sarah , Bottero Wendy
Published: December 2003

This paper explores recent arguments about the marketization of female labour, in the context of a wider analysis of the role of concepts like ‘the market’ and ‘individualization’ in sociological accounts of change in employment relations. It will be argued that within sociology there has been a tendency for rapid, large‐scale changes in employment relations to be characterized as the breakdown of social influences or structures and as the emergence of atomized, individuated market forces. In the most recent models, change in the nature of gendered positions within employment are presented in terms of a decline of social structuring and social constraint. These emergent accounts hold similarities to classical economics, and to Marx's and Weber's accounts of employment, which also characterized new forms of employment relations in terms of the emptying of their social content and their replacement by market forms. We offer an alternative, moral economy, perspective which foregrounds the continued significance of social relations in the structuring of employment and employment change. We develop the argument through an analysis of gendered patterns of employment and change in family form.
The concept of social care and the analysis of contemporary welfare states
Authors: Daly Mary , Lewis Jane
Published: December 2003

Care is now a widely‐used concept in welfare state research, firmly established in the literature by feminist analysis. We believe that the concept as it has been used and developed to date has limitations that have hampered its development as a general category of welfare state analysis. In essence we argue that the political economy aspects of the concept have remained underdeveloped. The main purpose of this article is to elaborate a care‐centred concept – which we name social care – that countenances and develops care as an activity and set of relations lying at the intersection of state, market and family (and voluntary sector) relations. We are especially concerned to examine what the concept of social care can tell us about welfare state variation and welfare state change and development. The article works systematically through these themes, beginning with a brief historical sketch of the concept of care and then moving on to elaborate the analytic potential of the concept of social care. In the latter regard we make the case that it can lead to a more encompassing analysis, helping to overcome especially the fragmentation in existing scholarship between the cash and service dimensions of the welfare state and the relative neglect of the latter. The concept of social care serves to shift the centre of analysis from specific policy domains so that instead of focusing on cash benefits or services in isolation it becomes possible to consider them as part of a broader set of inter‐relating elements. In this and other regards, the concept has the potential to say something new about welfare states.
Technology and social interaction: the emergence of ‘workplace studies’
Authors: Heath Christian , Knoblauch Hubert , Luff Paul
Published: December 2003

Despite the substantial body of literature concerned with the ways in which digital media are transforming contemporary society and institutional life, we have relatively little understanding of the ways in which new technologies feature in day to day organizational conduct and interaction. There is however a growing corpus of empirical research which places the situated and contingent character of new technologies at the heart of the analytic agenda, but as yet, these studies are relatively little known within sociology. They include ethnographies of command and control centres, financial institutions, the news media, and the construction industry. They address the ways in which tools and technologies, ranging from paper documents through to complex multimedia systems, feature in work and collaboration. In this paper, we discuss these so‐called ‘workplace studies’ and consider their implications for our understanding of organizational conduct, social interaction and new technology.
Subalterns of technopoly: brokering techno‐power in academic sociology
Authors: Keenan William
Published: December 2003

Drawing on responses to a small‐scale sensitizing sociological probe of ‘technological stratification’ in academic sociology, this article considers the role of academic staff delegated to oversee the distribution of information and communications technology resources within their departments between the years 1987–1996. From their recollections as local ‘gatekeepers’ of the new knowledge technologies, these ‘subalterns of Technopoly’ perceived themselves as relatively powerless ‘techno‐power brokers’ unable to make a significant difference to the ‘technological stratification’ they encountered in their working environments in that period.
Consumerism, disorientation and postmodern space: a modest test of an immodest theory
Authors: Woodward Ian , Emmison Michael , Smith Philip
Published: December 2003

There has recently been an explosion of theoretical literature on social space. A central claim in this literature is that postmodern spaces are experienced as confusing or disorienting by human subjects. This claim remains untested. The paper reports results from a small‐scale survey conducted in one form of postmodern space – the shopping mall. It suggests that unsupported assertions about the disorienting effects of postmodern space and their associated influence on consumerist activities should be treated with scepticism. Through practice humans are able to develop routines which enable them to competently navigate these spaces.
Is it a different world to when you were growing up? Generational effects on social representations and child‐rearing values*
Authors: Scott Jacqueline
Published: December 2003

In this paper, I explore the way in which people view how the world has changed since they were growing up. This is done both quantitatively and qualitatively, using open‐ended responses from the British Household Panel Survey. The theoretical perspective draws on Mannheim's insight that generational location predisposes individuals to characteristic modes of thought and experience and Moscovici's contention that generations may have distinctive social representations. The data largely support the generational hypothesis. The ten most frequent changes mentioned are unemployment, lack of safety, lack of discipline, increased pressure, moral decline, increased crime, drugs, environmental problems, and family breakdown. These social representations of how the world has changed are significant predictors of child‐rearing values, especially for women. More generally, I argue that despite the broad consensus concerning the problems facing children born today, the social representations of men and women who grew up in different epochs exacerbate the value clash between generations.
REVIEW ARTICLE A hundred years of town planning and the influence of Ebenezer Howard
Authors: Steuer Max
Published: December 2003

Book Reviewed:

Hall, Peter and Ward, Colin 1998 Sociable Cities: The Legacy of Ebenezer Howard
The Irish brawn drain: English League clubs and Irish footballers, 1946–19951
Authors: McGovern Patrick
Published: December 2003

This paper draws on world systems and resource dependency theories to show how the changing recruitment practices of English League clubs have deepened the brawn drain from Irish football, thereby compounding its underdevelopment. An analysis of the origins, method of recruitment and destinations of Irish players (North and South) who appeared in the English League between 1946 and 1995 shows that English clubs imported large numbers of Irish players throughout the second half of the twentieth century. However, it was the inclusion of Irish teenagers within the youth policies of the largest clubs in the period after the 1970s that marked a break from the traditional pattern of buyer‐supplier relations. Instead of continuing to purchase players who had established reputations within the Irish leagues, English clubs began to hire the most promising schoolboys before they joined Irish sides. As this practice spread, it eventually eliminated a valuable source of income: the selling of players to English clubs. Despite this development it would, however, be inappropriate to view the relationship between the Irish and English football industries as a simple zero sum game as Irish clubs benefit from employing highly trained young players who return home after failing to establish careers in England.
Football fandom and post‐national identity in the New Europe
Authors: King Anthony
Published: December 2003

Through European club football, we can begin to detect the outlines of a new Europe of competing cities and regions which are being disembedded from their national contexts into new transnational matrices. Focusing on a specific network of Manchester United fans, broadly located in the city of Manchester, this article examines the development of European consciousness among this group of individuals. This consciousness does not consist of a European supranationalism but rather of a new emphasis on the locale of Manchester and an increasing recognition that Manchester United and the city of Manchester must compete autonomously with other major clubs and cities in Europe.
‘Bataille's boys’: postmodernity, Fascists and football fans
Authors: Smith Tom
Published: December 2003

In his analysis of football hooliganism, Anthony King claims to reveal the historical, conceptual scheme young, male supporters draw upon. This ‘masculine vision’, he states, is similar to that held by the Freikorps. Both groups are said to adhere to modernist notions of masculinity, sexuality and nationhood, reinforced by rituals which maintain boundaries between these ‘proper’ males and deviant ‘others’. Occasionally, football hooligans breach these boundaries in acts of postmodern transgression. King also claims that fans link sex and violence in their imaginations. In this response I examine King's critique of his fellow theorists; challenge his ‘Freikorps‐Fans’ analogy; demonstrate the problem he has in establishing the sex‐violence link and question the relevance of his concept of postmodernity.
Electoral democracy, revolutionary politics and political violence: the emergence of Fascism in Italy, 1920–21
Authors: Elazar Dahlia Sabina
Published: December 2003

This study examines the determination of the Italian Fascists' extra‐parliamentary, para‐military, violent strategy. What were the effects of the socialists' political strategy, relying on electoral democracy, on the creation and strategy of the Fascist Action Squads? A comparison among Italy's 69 provinces, based on quantitative and qualitative historical evidence reveals a distinct pattern in the Fascists' violence. They attacked mainly provinces where the Socialists enjoyed the greatest electoral support. This pattern was a product of two historical processes: (a) the threat of the Socialist party to the landlords' economic and political hegemony, and (b) the landlords' tradition of militant anti‐worker organization which culminated in their alliance with the Fascists.

The Fascists' struggle for, and takeover of, political power was not an immanent historical necessity. It was first and foremost an anti‐socialist reaction. It was shaped both ‘from below’, by the political power and radicalism of the PSI and the para‐military capacity of the Fascist Squads; and ‘from above’, by the active support the Fascists received from the landlords and the state. Supported by organized landlords and blessed with the authorities' benevolence, the Squads were able to destroy – physically and politically – the legitimately constituted provincial governments of the Socialists. The alliance with the landlords determined the Squads' almost exclusive attacks on Socialist provincial strongholds that constituted the greatest threat to the landlords' interests, while provinces dominated by the ruling Liberal party were excluded from the Squads' path of ‘punitive expeditions’.
On sources and narratives in historical social science: a realist critique of positivist and postmodernist epistemologies*
Authors: Bryant Joseph M.
Published: December 2003

Critics of the interdisciplinary enterprise of historical sociology commonly contend that the narrational accounts of past social phenomena provided by historians are inadequate to the task of theory‐building and testing. In support of this negative assessment, opponents will adduce informational deficiencies in the available data (the standard positivist appraisal of historical evidence), or cite the interpretive anarchy that seemingly prevails at the narrative phase of emplotment (the skeptical, postmodernist contention that historiographic texts ‘construct’ rather than veridically represent the events they artfully contrive to signify). Both of these lines of criticism are unbalanced, and therefore seriously misleading as regards the epistemic foundations of historical‐sociological inquiry. The ‘social authenticity’ and ‘informational density’ of historical evidence does allow for veridical reconstructions of the past, while the reflexive interpretive protocols of source criticism and the sociology of knowledge can be deployed to provide warrant for discriminating arbitrations between competing theories and narratives. The various epistemological deformations in the study of human affairs that have been encouraged by the old idiographic–nomothetic polarity – chronic ahistoricism within the social sciences, the atheoretical predilections of much conventional historiography – are rectifiable through the consolidation of a fully integrated sociological history, a unified and inclusive historical social science.
The power and limits of ethnonationalism: Palestinians and Eastern Jews in Israel, 1974–1991*
Authors: Kraus Vered , Yonay Yuval
Published: December 2003

The relative standings of four ethnic groups – Muslim Palestinians, Christian Palestinians, Asian‐African Jews, European Jews – were compared, using mobility data from 1974 and 1991. The findings show that despite the lack of government support and the prevalence of inexorable discrimination against Israeli Palestinians, they have narrowed the gap with Asian‐African Jews in both education and occupational prestige. This finding demonstrates that ideological and political hegemony is not always effective in improving the socio‐economic standing of preferred minorities (Asian‐African Jews), and that social and economic structures may counterbalance the anti‐Palestinian nationalist ideology. The analysis suggests that residential and educational segregation of Palestinians protects them from direct competition with European Jews, whereas Asian‐African Jews have to compete with this dominant group in schools, as well as in the labour market.
Spencer is dead, long live Spencer: individualism, holism, and the problem of norms*
Authors: Zafirovski Milan Z.
Published: December 2003

The debate between the advocates of sociological individualism and those of holism has been pervasive in the development of social theory. This debate is often situated in the false problems of sociology, since it is seen as a particular form of the perennial and irresolvable dilemma between social nominalism and realism, as well as between freedom and determinism. Nevertheless, the debate is far from over within contemporary sociology and other social science, as indicated by the resurgence of individualism in rational action theory and its repudiation by holistic social theories. The aim of this paper is to identify some modern variations on this theme as well as to discern certain common tendencies of two seemingly opposite theoretical perspectives, viz. the convergence upon a normative solution to the problem of social order. This convergence is therefore denoted normative convergence between sociological individualism and holistic sociology.
Autopoiesis and socialization: on Luhmann's reconceptualization of communication and socialization
Authors: Vanderstraeten Raf
Published: December 2003

In 1984, Niklas Luhmann published Soziale Systems in which he applies the idea of autopoiesis (= self‐production) to social systems. Abstracted from its biological connotations, the concept of autopoiesis leads to a sharp distinction between different kinds of autopoietic organization, i.e. between life, consciousness and communication. According to Luhmann, the relationship between social systems and human beings cannot be adequately analysed except by taking into account that they are environments for one another. If this theoretical background is accepted, the concepts and theory of socialization need to be revised. Luhmann takes issues with classical notions such as internalization, inculcation, or ‘socialization to the grounds of consensus’ (Talcott Parsons). After a historical overview of social systems research and general systems theory, it is indicated how communications trigger further communications and realize the autopoiesis of social systems. In the second part of the article, the distinction between social systems and psychic systems is used to discuss issues crucial to socialization theory. Both a revision of the concept of socialization, and lines for an empirical research programme are proposed in accordance with Luhmann's theory of social systems.
Multi‐outlet retail site location assessment
Authors: Mendes A. B. , Themido I. H.
Published: December 2003

One of the most important decisions a retailer can make is where to locate a retail outlet. Because convenience is so important to today's consumers, a retail store can prosper or fail solely based on its location. Recently, a changing retail environment is augmenting the location importance as retail economic groups develop multi‐outlet chains of small stores. The methods used in the development and calibration of location models for commercial spaces and sales forecast are multiple, varying from simple analogy forecast models to very complex spatial interactions models, which may incorporate dependence models in a gravitational or logit structure and many exploratory variables. More recent developments incorporating meta‐heuristics such as genetic algorithms for the global problem of the multi‐outlet chain configuration, or the use of Voronoi diagrams in store trade area delimitation, are also presented. Finally, the Geographical Information Systems' role on the decision support process is equally explored.
Stochastic unit commitment problem
Authors: Shiina Takayuki , Birge John R.
Published: December 2003

The electric power industry is undergoing restructuring and deregulation. We need to incorporate the uncertainty of electric power demand or power generators into the unit commitment problem. The unit commitment problem is to determine the schedule of power generating units and the generating level of each unit. The objective is to minimize the operational cost which is given by the sum of the fuel cost and the start‐up cost. In this paper we propose a new algorithm for the stochastic unit commitment problem which is based on column generation approach. The algorithm continues adding schedules from the dual solution of the restricted linear master program until the algorithm cannot generate new schedules. The schedule generation problem is solved by the calculation of dynamic programming on the scenario tree.
Reduction constraints for the global optimization of NLPs
Authors: Liberti Leo
Published: December 2003

Convergence of branch‐and‐bound algorithms for the solution of NLPs is obtained by finding ever‐nearer lower and upper bounds to the objective function. The lower bound is calculated by constructing a convex relaxation of the NLP. Reduction constraints are new linear problem constraints which are (a) linearly independent from the existing constraints; (b) redundant with reference to the original NLP formulation; (c) not redundant with reference to its convex relaxation. Thus, they can be successfully employed to reduce the feasible region of the convex relaxation without cutting the feasible region of the original NLP.
Impacts of information systems and technology on productivity and competitiveness of the Portuguese banking sector: an empirical study
Authors: Pereira M. J.
Published: December 2003

This paper presents a study of the Portuguese financial sector during the period 1994–1999. The research, based on previous studies about the productivity paradox of information systems and technology (IST) investments, examines the ‘services sector’ and includes the ‘human subsystem’ of an organisation, clients and employees, as variables of analysis. The conclusion from this research indicates a complementary effect (not substitution effect) between IST and labour, the strategic impact of IST in several organisation areas, and the need to design new functions, other than the traditional Cobb‐Douglas function, to evaluate the impact of IST on organisations.
Comparison between multiple‐choice and analytic hierarchy process: measuring human perception
Authors: Sato Yuji
Published: December 2003

The objective of this study is to examine the effectiveness of the multiple‐choice method in measuring human perception. Specifically, the results of comparisons of the answers to two questions on the same issue are shown, each formatted in a different way: multiple‐choice (MC) and Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP). AHP not only clearly identifies the most important alternative but also the preference for each alternative by each decision‐maker. Therefore, using AHP to analyze the decision‐making process results in a precise clarification of preference for alternatives. Based on public opinion research using AHP, two findings are shown: (1) MC and AHP yield different aggregated rankings of alternatives, and (2) AHP reveals that in modified MC format, which gives respondents the option of indicating their second‐best alternatives, the choice of a second‐best alternative is independent of the difference in the degree of importance between the best and the second best.
An alternate approach to developing a total celebrity endorser rating model using the analytic hierarchy process
Authors: Knott C. L. , James M. St.
Published: December 2003

Using the analytic hierarchy process to develop an overall rating of a celebrity is a new approach to enhance procedures such as the Q‐Rating currently in practice. The Q‐rating approach has received criticism on its usefulness because it essentially only considers familiarity and likeability of the celebrity. Using the AHP model approach allows users to input judgments as to how they feel about one celebrity compared to another with a specific set of criteria in mind. The model is an improvement over the Q‐rating system because it includes a more complete set of attributes and, more importantly, has the ability to capture and analyse trade‐offs among those attributes. Another improvement is that as situations change or evolve, the model can be easily updated to capture new information. This allows for celebrities' ratings to change over time and be more accurate given all available information.
An expert module to improve the consistency of AHP matrices
Authors: Ishizaka A. , Lusti M.
Published: December 2003

In AHP (Analytical Hierarchy Process), the calculated priorities are plausible only if the comparison matrices are consistent or near consistent. This condition is reached if—within the pairwise comparison process—the transitivity and reciprocity rules are respected. We describe a Prolog application which helps the decision‐maker to build a consistent matrix or a matrix with a controlled error. An expert module detects rule transgressions, explains them (How‐explanations), suggests alternatives (What If‐explanations) and gives hints on how to continue the comparison process.
A model to support the search for consensus with conflicting rankings: Multitrident
Authors: Valadares Tavares L.
Published: December 2003

A general problem of collective decision‐making can be formulated in terms of the N rankings of a discrete set of alternatives expressing the preferences of the N members of the group. Helping to reach a consensus is quite important for team building and organizational development and several contributions were developed by different disciplines like organizational sciences, human resources management and operational research. However, very few models were proposed to support the process of reaching consensus and such models assume a concept of distance between rankings implying an assumption of equal distance between adjacent alternatives. Unfortunately, this hypothesis is hardly acceptable in most cases. In this paper, a model is proposed to search for a ranking in terms of the weights space avoiding the previous assumption and providing useful insights to help decision‐makers adopting such ranking as a consensus decision.
Dynamic modeling of ethnic conflicts
Authors: Penzar D. , Srbljinović A.
Published: December 2003

The paper presents two formal models of ethnic conflicts: an agent‐based model of ethnic mobilization and a system‐dynamics model of societal conflicts. Models are based on recent social‐science theories of preconditions, causes, and dynamics of ethnic violence and on experience in the former Yugoslavia in the last two decades. We present the architecture and main models' elements, and roughly compare their dynamics with observed patterns of behavior in the Yugoslav crisis. We conclude that computerized modeling of ethnic conflicts and similar complex social behavior cannot predict or accurately replicate real‐world events, but can help in developing and understanding relevant scientific concepts and theories.
Ethnic Stratification and Inter‐Generational Differences in Japan: A Comparative Study of Korean and Japanese Status Attainment
Authors: Myungsoo Kim
Published: December 2003

Abstract: There are plenty of stereotypical discourses concerning the Korean minority in Japan that are widely accepted, not because of their plausibility, but because of the lack of basic empirical data. In order to fill this intellectual vacuum, I conducted a social stratification and mobility survey focusing on resident Korean men in 1995, comparable with the Japanese sample. The purpose of this article is exploratory rather than aimed at hypothesis testing, given the extreme paucity of the earlier empirical data for the ana‐lysis of Korean minority status attainment.

The results show that:  

For the Korean minority in Japan, class resources translate into educational attainment to a much lower extent than for the Japanese.

Korean status attainment patterns deviate from those of their Japanese counterparts. For the Japanese, the crucial status attainment path is secured through educational attainment, which is not the case among Koreans.

Despite being denied access to such mainstream status attainment paths, major status indicators for Koreans are not significantly different than those of Japanese, and regarding this equality of outcomes, one of the possible explanations is that Korean ethnic disadvantages in the status attainment process may have been overcome by mobilizing informal bilateral ethnic networks.
Revitalization of Local Community and Ethnicity: Nagasaki's Lantern Festival Among the Immigrant Chinese
Authors: Wang Wei
Published: December 2003

Abstract: The Nagasaki's Lantern Festival is gaining popularity through the continued partnership between the immigrant Chinese (Kakyo) and Nagasaki city, largely owing to the ethnic Chinese revitalization movement and the distinct way of life typical in Nagasaki. Following my past research, I would like to discuss the development and modification of Nagasaki's Lantern Festival, to examine the relationship between the features specific to the Nagasaki area and the changes in the Kakyo community's sense of ethnicity amid the wave of globalization.

 By the Meiji period, ethnic Chinese society in Nagasaki consisted mainly of immigrants from Fu Jian province. Today the community is experiencing rapid transformation. In particular, the restoration of Sino–Japanese relations and the wave of internationalization have led to the creation of the Nagasaki Shinchi Chinatown Shopping District Promotion Association and the renewal of Chinatown for the ethnic Chinese. The Chinese Spring Festival, originally aimed toward community vitalization, not only included the Kakyo (immigrant Chinese) but the Japanese in the district and private corporations.

 Nagasaki was transformed not only into a strategic point for East Asia's multilateral trade, but also served as a trading center for the entire nation. But as Japanese ports opened their doors to the world after 1850, Nagasaki was reduced to only one of the local trading centers.

 As for overseas business, Nagasaki took advantage of its heavy industry by expanding its share in the Asian international market and has been striving in the domestic market to activate the local economy through tourism. Such strategy hinges on the rich historical and cultural resources formed and nurtured within the 400 years of relations with Asian nations. The historical merger between the Kakyo community and its cultural tradition in Nagasaki society served as one of the incentives for such development and progress. The enlargement of Nagasaki's Lantern Festival has been achieved as part of this concept of “Asian‐oriented region”, in line with the city's plan on tourism promotion.
What's Driving Brazil‐Japan Migration? The Making and Remaking of the Brazilian Niche in Japan
Authors: Higuchi Naoto , Tanno Kiyoto
Published: December 2003

Abstract: Since the late 1980s the Brazilian population in Japan has steadily increased, despite the long‐term recession in the late 1990s. In this paper we will examine the mechanism of the constant increase of Brazilians in Japan, focusing on the institutional context of their incorporation into the Japanese labor market. On the demand side, Brazilians solved an acute labor shortage in the economic boom period, but long‐term recession and casualization of the labor market made them compete with other peripheral workers such as Japanese women and the aged. Thus Brazilians have been marginalized within the secondary labor market since the late 1990s. On the supply side, recruiting agencies and labor contractors established a “just‐in‐time” labor delivery system, which enabled “flexible staffing” in a highly fluctuating labor market. As a result, demand and supply for Brazilian workers is still on the increase. Working in Japan is getting less attractive for Japanese Brazilians but is more of a viable option for them, driving further migration from Brazil to Japan.
Resettlement and Border Crossing: A Comparative Study on the Life and Ethnicity of Vietnamese in Australia and Japan
Authors: Kawakami Ikuo
Published: December 2003

Abstract: This paper deals with the life world and ethnic identity of Vietnamese residents who entered and settled in Australia and Japan as refugees after the end of the Vietnam War. It focuses on how social and cultural conditions in the host countries and global influences affect the lives of overseas Vietnamese and consequently transform their ethnic identities. Through this comparative research study conducted in Australia and Japan, I have focussed on Vietnamese religion, social networks, perceptions of the homeland and the host country, notions of Vietnamese identity between generations, and images of Vietnamese in the media of the host country. I explore the features of each host society in accepting refugees and also the commonalities and differences in how the overseas Vietnamese construct their life world and ethnic identity. I also discuss the “location of Vietnamese identities” in Australia and Japan. I will also rethink the meaning of “settlement” and “crossing borders” related to the politics of Vietnamese identities that confirm the importance of investigating the effects of displacement on the life of the Vietnamese diaspora in contemporary world context.
Chinese Newcomers in the Global City Tokyo: Social Networks and Settlement Tendencies
Authors: Tajima Junko
Published: December 2003

Abstract: What I will present here is mainly about the research I engaged in from 1988 until now, on the Chinese newcomers problem in the global city of Tokyo. From the community‐study point of view, I explored the migration process of Chinese newcomers from sojourning to settling. Migration processes of Chinese newcomers are different from those of old overseas Chinese in Japan. This paper presents the new immigration tendencies of Chinese newcomers. A transnational social space is forming between Japan and the places where immigrants come from. In the age of globalization, there will be new circumstances and formations of ethnic networks of Chinese newcomers at the global level. At present, both of these tendencies can be found in Japan's society. The process for Chinese newcomers to new overseas Chinese differs from that of the old overseas Chinese. In the near future, Japan may bring in some high‐level specialized personnel by adopting a method of welcoming immigrants. At the same time, new immigrants can also form a new transnational social space. The field research I have carried out on the Chinese newcomers during these ten years fully illustrates these points.
Japanese Education in an Era of Internationalization: A Case Study of an Emerging Multicultural Coexistence Model
Authors: Nukaga Misako
Published: December 2003

Abstract: Responding to the pressure of internal internationalization, some local communities and schools in Japan started to generate and practice a new philosophy known as “multicultural coexistence” (tabunka kyousei). Based on a long‐term ethnographic research in one of the most progressive multicultural communities and elementary schools in Japan, this paper elucidates the shape of an emerging “multicultural coexistence” education model in Japan and provides some implications for its further development. By focusing on returnee and newcomer students enrolled, the paper argues the transformation of school culture, which will be delineated as an interaction among different agencies at the school: “the margin”, “the top”, “the outside” and “the inner core”. From these ethnographic findings, the paper draws five main features of the emerging model—three that are positive and two that are potentially problematic:

community‐based school reform movement,

teachers as decision makers, learners, and cooperators,

students’ knowledge and experience as a shared resource,

country‐oriented approach in difference/similarity framework,

treating all differences equally same.

Referring to the critiques of multicultural education in the United States of America, the discussion suggests that the issue of social justice should be addressed more in the model by highlighting the issue of ethnicity in Japanese society. Changing teachers’ attitudes toward such direction is vital and the paper proposes that coherent set of institutional changes, which centre around social justice, are necessary to raise teachers motivation.
Development of the Mental Illness and Disorder Understanding Scale
Authors: Tanaka Goro
Published: December 2003

Abstract: Although administrative bodies such as community health centers have implemented various awareness campaigns to promote community understanding of mental health and to reduce the stigma associated with mental illness and disorder, there have been few reports that have quantitatively analyzed the effects of these campaigns in Japan. Therefore, this study was conducted for the purpose of developing the evaluative “Mental Illness and Disorder Understanding Scale (MIDUS)” for awareness campaigns and assessing its reliability and validity. A survey was conducted on 1 004 community residents using a self‐administered questionnaire. An assessment of the reliability and validity of the scale was then conducted. The Cronbach a coefficient of the MIDUS was 0.78, thus indicating adequate reliability. Factor analysis of the MIDUS revealed three factors: “Treatability of illness”, “Efficacy of medication” and “Social recognition of illness”. In addition, a significant correlation was observed between the MIDUS and existing scales, and fixed criterion‐based validity was demonstrated. The MIDUS utilizes items worded in the form of affirmative expressions so as to avoid promoting new bias. It was confirmed to be both reliable and valid, thereby suggesting its usefulness as an evaluative scale of awareness campaigns.