bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
DUI Arrestees versus Other Outpatients in Chemical Dependency Treatment: Initial Status and One-Year Outcome
Authors: Ninonuevo Fred , Hoffmann Norman G.
Published: March 2007

This study compared 538 male outpatients who were court-referred into chemical dependency treatment and had a Driving-Under-the-Influence (DUI) offense to 790 nonoffender male outpatients. DUI arrestees tended to be younger, more likely to complete treatment, have greater legal involvement, and have a more episodic and social chemical use pattern. DUI offenders were similar to other outpatients in demonstrating significant symptoms of dependency. One-year follow-up results on 199 DUI and 368 non-DUI offenders who had successfully completed treatment and been contacted revealed that the two groups were comparable in areas of reported abstinence, legal involvement, vocational functioning, and medical care utilization; AA attendance was significantly higher among DUI arrestees. The results indicate that outpatient substance abuse treatment can be an appropriate intervention for at least a portion of the DUI offender population, and may be a viable and vital component in an integrated policy on drunken driving.
Murder-Suicide—An Extended Suicide
Authors: Palermo George B.
Published: March 2007

The author reviews the syndrome of murder-suicide, focusing particularly on the jealous-paranoia type. After touching upon statistical data and psychoanalytical, sociological, and psychiatric theories, he proposes that a better name for this syndrome would be extended suicide. The author contends that the murderer acts primarily out of a realistic sense of loss, which might be, at times, compounded by psychological and sociological factors. In his view, the aggressor/killer is unable to accept the failure of what he thought was a good and satisfactory relationship. The killer is viewed as a fragile, dependent, ambivalent, aggressive individual who hides behind a facade of self-assertion, and is unable to withstand the reality of an unexpected rejection and, possibly, a drastic life change. He commits suicide after killing his extended Self.
A Comparison of Treatment Outcomes between Adolescent Rapists and Child Sexual Offenders
Authors: Hagan Michael P. , Cho Meg E.
Published: March 2007

This study assesses the differences between recidivism for adolescent perpetrators of sexual assault against children as compared to adolescent perpetrators of rape. The study finds, with a 2-year minimum follow-up, no evidence of significant differences between the success with either group of offenders. This holds true both for general recidivism and for recidivism of sexual assaultas well as for type and length of sentence for those that reoffended.
Wife Assault Treatment and Criminal Recidivism: An 11-Year Follow-Up
Authors: Dutton Donald G. , Bodnarchuk Mark , Kropp Randall , Hart Stephen D. , Ogloff James R. P.
Published: March 2007

The impact of court-ordered treatment for wife assault was assessed by monitoring 156 men who had completed such treatment for up to 11 years (mean = 5.2 years) after treatment completion. Recidivist assault and wife assault was assessed through access to Canadian Police Information Centre data that record crimes committed anywhere in Canada. Comparisons were drawn between this group and a group of 167 dropouts from treatment (noncompleters), 32 men rejected for treatment because of resistance or denial (rejects), and 91 men who never appeared for their treatment assessment (no shows). Whereas time-to-failure failed to reveal significant between-group differences, a recidivism ratio (total repeat offenses per man-in-group) revealed significantly lower recidivism rates for treatment completers (.23 versus .50). No shows recidivated at an equal rate to completers. Some inferences are drawn about spiral models of behavioral change.
Children in Front of the Bars
Authors: Van Nijnatten Carolus
Published: March 2007

In 1993 a counselling project was initiated in the Netherlands for the children of prisoners. These children were introduced to mentors (volunteers) with whom they would regularly undertake recreational activities. It was assumed that shared activities would free these children of their isolation and provide positive role models. Extra opportunities to visit their parents in prison were planned In this article, the progress of this project and results will be given. Following a description of the project, the effects of parental imprisonment will be related to our assumptions.
The Deterrent Effects of Initial Sanction on First-Time Apprehended Shoplifters
Authors: Deng Xiaogang
Published: March 2007

The deterrent effects of initial arrest are examined in a sample of first-time apprehended shoplifters in a court-referred treatment program. The findings indicate that a majority of first-time arrested shoplifters terminated their shoplifting activity after initial arrest. Those who attended the program have substantially lower recidivism rates and longer intervals than those who did not attend the program. Implications of the findings are discussed.
The Structure of Antisocial Attitudes among Violent and Sexual Offenders
Authors: Kroner Daryl G. , Mills Jeremy F.
Published: March 2007

This study examined the factor structure of antisocial attitudes with a sample of 331 male adult offenders. Principal components analysis on the Criminal Sentiments Scale resulted in a two-factorsolution using Velicer's Minimal Average Partial (MAP) test and Cattell's Scree test. Factor 1 was labeled Contempt for Criminal Justice Personnel, and Factor2 was labeled Disrespect for Conventional Law. Each of the factor scales had a similar pattern of correlations with the index offence measures and postdictive offending data In addition, this factor structure did not make an improvement over the original scales in the prediction of recidivism. An additional contributor to the two-factor structure was the presence of a response style. The first factor included mostly true-keyed items, and the second factor mostly false-keyed items. The discussion offers direction in constructing measures of antisocial attitudes.
The Political Ecology of Disease
Authors: Turshen Meredeth
Published: March 2007

Current medical definitions of health and disease are inadequate for an understanding of public health problems. The narrowest attribute causa tion to agents of disease (e.g., germ theory); the widest (e.g., medical ecology) take into account some social factors like behavior and culture. All focus on the individual rather than the collectivity. The evidence reviewed in this article, drawn mainly from England during the industrial revolution and the rise of capi talism, suggests that changes in health status are related to class struggle and to the international division of labor. An historical approach is adopted to expalin how health and disease came to be defined medically and why politics and economics were rejected as irrelevant to medicine. The holistic perspective of Marxism, which permits analysis of the dynamic interaction of public health, social organization, and the mode of production, is offered as the basis for a socialist alternative.
Class, Rent, and Sectoral Conflict: Uneven Development in Western U.S. Boomtowns
Authors: Markusen Ann R. , Markusen Ann
Published: March 2007

Western U.S. boomtowns accompanying energy production are a form of capitalist uneven development. The complexity of local boomtown struggles arises from traditional class composition, from sectoral competition, and from the potential appropriation of rent within regionally specific political and cultural institutions. The paper charts potential class alliances within and across regions, given the strength of various features of the development process.
Contemporary Marxist Theory and Practice: A Feminist Critique
Authors: Hartmann Heidi I. , Markusen Ann R.
Published: March 2007

Both Marxist theory and practice continue to ignore, for the most part, recent developments in feminist theory and practice. Feminist theory chal lenges a definition of production as narrowly confined to the production of com modities that is commonly used in much Marxist literature, examines the pro duction and reproduction of people under patriarchal relations, and focuses on the conflicts that arise between women and men because of their differing rela tions to these two types of production. Feminist practice emphasizes building consensus strategies, supporting women in their individual struggles (because women in their homes tend to face patriarchy as individuals), and helping each woman feel both her oppression and her power. The value of this strategy is largely misunderstood by the left. Feminist practice is as revolutionary as class struggle, but its object is different — the destruction of patriarchy. The antipathy of much of the left toward feminism seems to stem from a misuse of Mao's notion of "principal contradiction" as requiring a class-first strategy. In the contempor ary U.S. the "principal contradiction" encompasses class, gender, race, ethnic and age conflict. Moreover, a struggle aimed primarily at gender domination may destroy class domination as well.
The Energy War on the American West
Authors: Nafziger Rich , Wustner Mike
Published: March 2007

In many developed countries uranium reserves are found either on, or adjacent to, native lands. Exploitation of these resources invariably is accompanied by exploitation of native peoples. The United States is no exception to this rule, afact that is frequently ignored. Thus it is fitting that this collection begin with two contributions on how nuclear development in the western U.S. has harmed the health, environment, cultures, and economies of American Indians.

In "The Energy War of the American West", Rich Nafziger and Mike Wustner interview four women (three are American Indians) who have been affected by and have fought against coal and uranium development near their homes.
Nuclear Power in the Philippines: The Plague that Poisons Morong!
Authors: Bello Walden , Harris John , Zarsky Lyuba
Published: March 2007

In 1977 construction began on the first nuclear reactor in the Phillipines, part of an ambitious development program initiated by the Marcos dictatorship. As well as aiding the growth of industry, this program was to bring electricity to the urban and rural poor. Walden Bello, John Harris, and Lyuba Zarsky show convincingly that this "trickle-down" effect has not occurred, nor will it occur under existing social conditions, where much of the electricity produced supports export-led industrialization and personal consumption by a local elite. Yet electrification has helped legitimate the Marcos regime, it has forged an alliance with technocrats and bureaucrats, and has helped to fight counterinsurgency.

Why did Marcos choose nuclear power, rather than fossil fuels? The authors argue that the main determinant was U. S. influence, though other factors entered, such as enhancing the regimes prestige by.achieving "modernity. " Yet the Westinghouse reactor has been a thorn in Marcos' side. Plagued with exposures of corruption and financial waste and the discovery that it is built on active earthquake faults, it has become a unifying symbol for opposition to the regime.
The Cyclical Profit Squeeze: A Marxian Microfoundation
Authors: Goldstein Jonathan P.
Published: March 2007

This paper develops a microfoundation for the cyclical profit squeeze theory of crisis. An optimal cyclical mark-up pricing policy is derived. The mark-up rises from initial trough until midexpansion and then declines until the terminal trough. The necessary and sufficient conditions for the resulting decline in the profit rate are the capital-labor struggle which determines the behavior of costs and the competition among capitals which restricts rising costs from being fully passed on. It is also shown that this optimal mark-up behavior serves as a microfoundation for a profit squeeze theory of the business cycle.
"Nice Work If You Can Get It": Segmentation of White and Black Women Workers in the Post-War Period
Authors: albelda Randy
Published: March 2007

This article examines the convergence of black and white women's incomes, labor force participation rates in capitalist production and the state sector, and convergence of occupational distributions. It is argued that current labor market segmentation theory does not explain the existence and persistence of the racial and sexual division of paid labor. It then considers whether labor market segmentation theory can be refined to explain these changes in the labor market experiences of black and white women in the post WWII period. It is argued that since racism and patriarchy play important roles in the control of labor and the organization of work both historically and theoretically, segmentation theory can only provide an adequate explanation of the development of segmented markets and their racial and gender components by explicitly recognizing racism and patriarchy. Labor market segmentation is the historical process creating labor markets differentiated by race and sex in capitalist and government workplaces.
Autonomy and Dependency in the Lives of Dakota Women: A Study in Historical Change
Authors: Albers Patricia C.
Published: March 2007

This paper examines certain theoretical issues bearing upon the relationship between race, class and household as these impact the role and status of women. In doing so, it presents a case study of historical contradictions that have influenced the experiences of Dakota women during the past century.
The Theory of Unequal Exchange: An Indictment
Authors: Houston David , Paus Eva
Published: March 2007

Unequal exchange is inherent in the reproduction of capitalist relations and development on a national and international scale. It is a reflection, not an explanation, of the underdevelopment of the forces of production in the periphery. Marx in his analysis of exchange within capitalism showed why exchange in labor value terms must be unequal. Emmanuel's theory of unequal exchange based on the assumptions of international mobility of capital and exogenously determined wages is examined and criticized. While many of Emmanuel's critics redefine the notion for their own theoretical or empirical studies, we argue that the idea of unequal exchange should be abandoned as it cannot aid in the explanation of uneven development.
Capital, Competition, and Discrimination: A Reconsideration of Racial Earnings Inequality
Authors: Williams Rhonda M.
Published: March 2007

Where as neoclassical economists have responded to the theoretical irreconcilability of competition and discrimination by abandoning serious consideration of the latter, radical political economists have generally embraced the neoclassical formulation of competition while simultaneously arguing that capitalists benefit, and white workers lose from discrimination. This paper offers an alternative formulation. By deploying a specifically Marxian notion of competition, the author both restores a logical place for discrimination in competitive capitalist society and examines the material conditions conducive to the reproduction of racial conflict. In so doing, she challenges the notion that white workers unambiguously lose from discrimination and identifies the conditions under which racially dominant workers gain from the reproduction of racial inequality.
Raya Dunayevskaya, 1910 to 1987, Marxist Economist and Philosopher
Authors: Anderson Kevin
Published: March 2007

Raya Dunayevskaya's theory of state capitalism, first developed in the 1940s as an analysis of Stalin's Russia, is here related to her subsequent work (1953-87) on Hegel, on Marxist humanism and on Marxism and feminism. Her concept of Hegel's "absolute negativity as new beginning" is connected to her voluminous writings on Marx's major works: 1844 Essays, Grundrisse, Capital, Ethnological Notebooks. Contrasts and comparisons are drawn to the writings of others on these issues including Lange, James, Marcuse, Geras, Markovic, Rosdolsky, Krader and Shanin.
The Relation of Science to the Feminist Project
Authors: Perlich Pamela S.
Published: March 2007

Feminists in academics have over the past fifteen years made significant contributions to our understanding of the political role of "science." These critiques of the methods and practices of science are embedded within the larger oppositional struggles of women and other marginalized groups. Sandra Harding's The Science Question in Feminism has become a classic presentation of the literature. However, Harding's continued commitment to "objective' knowledge, which is indicative of her unwillingness to relinquish certain key aspects of the western humanist tradition, serves as the basis of this author's critique of her work.
Political Economy and Comparative Central Banking
Authors: Epstein Gerald
Published: March 2007

This paper introduces a Marx-Keynes-Kalecki model of the political economy of comparative central banking which suggests that monetary policy is determined by four key factors: capital-labor relations; industry-finance relations; the degree of central bank independence; and the position of the economy in the world economy. The paper presents econometric evidence suggesting that large OECD countries that have more independent central banks, more speculative financial markets, and more conflictual capital-labor relations, have lower rates of capacity utilization. This evidence is consistent with the model's predictions about the relationship between political-economic structure and central bank policy.
Market Socialism or Participatory Planning?
Authors: Devine Pat
Published: March 2007

This paper consists of a critical analysis of the British school of market socialism and a discussion of participatory planning as an alternative model for a socialist economy. It concludes that market socialism's claim to combine efficiency with socialist objectives is incoherent and that, unlike market socialism, models of participatory planning have the potential to contribute to the renewal of the socialist project.
Why Does Profitability Matter? Profitability and Stability in the U.S. Economy since the 1950s
Authors: Duménil Gerard , Lévy Dominique
Published: March 2007

This study empirically reveals a direct link between profitability and stability. To make the demonstration, we develop and then estimate a short-run dynamic disequilibrium model of a capitalist economy, with money, in which agents react to the observation of disequilibria. The condition for the stability of the general level of activity is expressed as a function of the reactions of economic agents. An increased reaction by quantities to disequilibria between supply and demand, on the part of firms, jeopardizes stability. It is demonstrated empirically that the variations of the profit rate influence this degree of reaction and, therefore, impact on stability.
Distribution and Growth: A Critical Note on "Stagnationism"
Authors: Sarkar Prabirjit
Published: March 2007

In the "stagnationist" macroeconomics, the long-term problem of growth and distribution has been discussed in a short-period Kaleckian framework which abstracts from labor market-output market interaction to determine real wages. However, even in this framework, one can challenge the stagnationist conclusion that there is no trade-off between wage and profit and between distribution and growth. One way of doing this is to bring in the role of foreign price competition. Another way is to allow the possibility of saving out of wage income in a closed "stagnationist" framework presented here. Evidently, in a general framework, there is no unambiguous relationship between distribution and growth. So distributive justice should be taken as a separate objective on its own merit.
American Workers and the Future of Minimum Wage Politics
Authors: Kamolnick Paul
Published: March 2007

This essay provides a detailed, worker-oriented assessment of the new federal minimum wage law. Using a class-analytic approach and empirical findings generated by the 1987-1989 campaign to increase the federal minimum wage, I examine specific provisions of the new law and key political-economic variables evident in the struggle to pass it. I conclude by offering strategic observations on key trends likely to shape future campaigns to increase the federal minimum wage.
Capital Concentration, Mexican Conglomerates and the Proposed North American Free Trade Agreement
Authors: Tanski Janet M.
Published: March 2007

Current research on the proposed North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) has neglected capital concentration in Mexico and the effect that free trade would have on Mexico's conglomerates. Data presented in this paper suggest that private Mexican conglomerates have benefited from trade liberalization while the working class and poor have suffered. It is argued that further liberalization under NAFTA would reinforce these effects.
Veblen and the Business Cycle: A Marxist Perspective
Authors: Mouhammed Adil
Published: March 2007

Many economists have explained Veblen's business cycle either by concentrating on competition, demand, etc., or by stressing Veblen's financial fragility theory. In this article, it is argued that Veblen has combined the rising labor cost theory with financial fragility theory to explain downturns in business activity. For Veblen, capitalism is not capable of eliminating business cycles because of the competitive friction between business capital and workers.
The Politics of Industrial Injury Rates in the United States
Authors: Wood Phillip J.
Published: March 2007

Conventional approaches to variations in occupational injury rates in the United States rest for the most part on neoclassical and rational-choice assumptions that obscure the fact that injury rates are political phenomena. This paper develops an alternative model that explains injury rates in the context of the politics of capital relocation and state-accumulation strategies. It produces statistical evidence that the frequency of reported injury cases and the proportion of work time lost to injury are lowest in states, especially in the South, where the industrial rate of exploitation is highest, where welfare state provision is least adequate, where the choice of case physician is legally placed in the hands of the employer or the state rather than the injured worker, and where the percentage of African-Americans in the state population is high. A compensation payment variable usually associated with rational-choice arguments also appears in these explanations, but the statistical results are not obviously inconsistent with the alternative theoretical approach. If rational individual calculation plays a role in either the frequency of injury cases or the proportion of work time lost, it does so within clear class, race and state policy constraints.
New Industrial Cities? The Four Faces of Silicon Valley
Authors: Gray Mia , Golob Elyse , Markusen Ann , Park Sam Ock
Published: March 2007

Silicon Valley has been admired and much emulated as an American version of a new industrial district based on its heavily networked, small-firm, innovative electronics sector. This industrial structure has been argued to give the region a uniquely cooperative, flexible, and dynamic structure. Based on field research and data analysis, we argue that Silicon Valley's success and culture owes much to the presence and success of large organizations-its defense industrial complex, its headquarters and high-tech branch operations of large domestic firms, and the recent entry of foreign firm operations. Relationships among these large organizations are more often characterized by competitive, arm's length relationships, market power imbalance, cooperation with organizations external to the district, and relatively low levels of interorganizational mobility of personnel. These relationships undermine the cooperation, innovation, and governance conditions celebrated by the new industrial districts scholars. Furthermore, their modus operandi tends to raise the regional cost of doing business and exacerbates centrifugal tendencies in corporate location and dualism in income distribution. Silicon Valley may not be as easy to replicate as many have assumed, nor does it deserve unalloyed high marks as a regional prototype.
Owners of Last Resort: The Track Record of New York City's Early Low-Income Housing Cooperatives Created between 1967 and 1975
Authors: Lawson Ronald
Published: March 2007

As housing abandonment became a major problem in New York City in the late 1960s and early 1970s, a program emerged which both rehabilitated abandoned multiple dwellings and created a system of cooperative ownership by low-income former tenants. This became the first program in the United States which transferred ownership of privately held buildings to low-income tenants. The program expanded rapidly so that by 1973 there were 136 properties, which included a total of 286 buildings, at various stages of the process. However, only 42 of these properties had completed rehabilitation and conversion when the program was aborted as a result of the New York City fiscal crisis in 1975. This paper assesses the track record of the 42 cooperatives over the years since that time. It finds a mixed, but disappointing, record, and explores the reasons for this. It then weighs the viability and significance of the strategy to the current crisis in the private low-income rental housing market. Finally, it raises questions concerning recent HUD initiatives encouraging both management and ownership of public housing developments by their tenants in the light of the track record of these early low-income cooperatives.
Comparative Study of the Therapeutic Factors of Group Therapy in Schizophrenic Inpatients and Outpatients
Authors: deChavez M. Gonzalez , Gutierrez M. , Ducaju M. , Fraile J. C.
Published: March 2007

Although there is great interest and development in the investigation of group therapeutic factors, there are few studies regarding group psychotherapy with schizophrenic patients. Given the importance of both aspects in our work, the authors of this work have analyzed the therapeutic factors for schizophrenic patients in two types of group psychotherapy - inpatients and outpatients - based on Yalom's questionnaire of the therapeutic factors (altruism, cohesiveness, universality, interpersonal learning output and input, guidance, catharsis, identification, family re-enactment, comprehension, instillation of hope and existential factors) and applying the Q-sort method to analyze it. The aim is to learn the preferential evaluations of the therapeutic factors in each group in order to establish similarities and differences with regard to the type of therapy, group stage and type of patient, and to establish guidance to enable us to approach the psychotherapy with more specific and adequate techniques.
Effects of Projective Identification on Therapists and Groupmates
Authors: Ganzarain Ramon
Published: March 2007

Projective identification (PI) is both an intrapsychic defence mechanism (Klein, 1946) and a vehicle for interpersonal communication (Bion, 1962). As a defence, PI can be used by the anxious self (after splitting and projection) to protect itselffrom annihilation fears through fantasies of entering the objects and omnipotently controlling them. Klein labelled this aspect of PI as an intrusive identification fantasy of defence which also elaborates wishes to get rid of, to evacuate, unacceptable mental contents onto objects. A group's scapegoating of a member is a similar device.
A Programme of Group Relations Research: Emphasis on Inquiry and the Trial of Techniques
Authors: Lipgar Robert M.
Published: March 2007

The Chicago Center for the Study of Groups and Organizations (CCSGO), one of eight regional centres of the A.K. Rice Institute in the United States, is committed to advancing the understanding of groups and social systems through scholarship and research as well as through consultation, training and experiential study. Towards fulfilling this commitment, members of CCSGO have collected different kinds of data from members and staffs offive non-residential, weekend group relations conferences in the Tavistock tradition conducted at the University of Chicago Medical Center. This work at the University of Chicago has been developed in close collaboration with Solomon Cytrynbaum at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, whose programme of research on group relations has been conducted for more than ten years in that university's Department of Education and Social Policy. Several doctoral dissertations and published papers have been based on the Northwestern University data. Other doctoral papers and research presentations have analysed portions of the University of Chicago conference data (Bodensieck, 1989; Bradley, 1987; Lipgar, 1989); several more are in preparation. This report describes the research plan at the University of Chicago, the kinds of data being collected, the questions under investigation, and early findings.
Superego Conflicts in Supervision
Authors: Olivieri-Larsson Rudolf
Published: March 2007

This paper shows how superego conflicts can affect and disturb supervision. On the one hand the supervisee's wish is to shift the responsibility for his or her group on to the supervisor; on the other, the supervisee would like to be independent and autonomous, to conduct his or her group the way he or she wants, without being forced to tell anyone about it. The supervisor has to refuse to take over the supervisee's superego functions completely, but he or she does have responsibility for ensuring that the trainee will be a capable group-analyst at the end of training. The supervisor has to watch out that the supervisee's group-analytic superego is neither too loose nor too strict. Supervision peer groups are of inestimable help in reaching these difficult and complicated, but very fascinating, goals of supervision. The use of the supervision group as a stage for hidden conflicts of the reported group has further advantages.
Sociopolitical Changes in Poland and the Changes in Clinical Syndromes in Groups
Authors: Pawlik Jerzy
Published: March 2007

The author describes the connection between changes in the social environment and changes in the psychic reality manifested in the feelings and clinical syndromes of patients. Depression can result from threat to basic truths and values. It emerged that attachment to these truths and values created a chance to break the specific Polish cycle of experiencing hope and then losing it. Three types of depression are discussed: the `bravery syndrome', `inner migration' and `giving up'.
The Self as a Group: The Group as a Self
Authors: Pines Malcolm
Published: March 2007

As `Self ` is constituted through multiple Self-other interactions then we can sustain the concept as `Self as a Group'. It is argued that conversely the concept of Self can be applied to a group under particular conditions, such as a family or in group-analysis.
Emotional Pain in Learning: Applying Group analytic Experience in Non-Clinical Fields
Authors: Nichol Brian
Published: March 2007

This paper considers the implications of emotional pain in learning and personal change. Such pain is a characteristic feature of the experiential group and one which therapists take for granted. Pain is also a feature of professional training and development in areas such as management and teaching, but one which is not acknowledged. A theory of emotions in learning and personal change in professional development would be helpful in applying group analysis to non-clinical fields.
A Dyadic Relationship in a Group-Analytic Setting
Authors: Skatun Marit Lokkebo
Published: March 2007

The article deals with clinical material obtained in a Group-analytic setting. It focuses on a dyadic relationship between one female patient and the female group conductor The patient either monopolizes the relationship with the therapist, `excluding' the other group members, or withdraws from the group interaction if not specifically addressed by the therapist. The author interprets this behaviour as the result of the patient's upbringing as an only child. An only child herself; the therapist describes the complicated transference and countertransference reactions that occurred within this dyad, hindering the group process as a whole. She describes the resolution of the problem when a male patient takes on the role of `good' father and identifies the roots of her own countertransference reactions by discussing her feelings with a peer group.
The Art of Conversation: The Group-Analytic Paradigm and Organizational Consultancy
Authors: Rance Christopher
Published: March 2007

The assertion that group analysis has nothing special to offer in the field of organizational consultancy ignores Foulkes's own view that it is a powerful model for researching and understanding organizations; it also ignores the practical experiences of many of us who work in this field. It may be of interest for colleagues to hear how I have found the Group-analytic world-view invaluable for my own consultancy work. I offer here a example of Group-analytically informed organizational consultancy.
Perspectives on the Study of Work-life Balance
Authors: Guest David E.
Published: March 2007

This article reviews aspects of contemporary theory and research on work-life balance. It starts by exploring why work-life balance has become an important topic for research and policy in some countries and after outlining traditional perspectives examines the concept of balance and its implications for the study of the relation between work and the rest of life. A model outlining the causes, nature and consequences of a more or less acceptable work-life balance is presented and recent research is cited to illustrate the various dimensions. Finally, the topic is linked to the field of work and organizational psychology and a number of theoretical and conceptual issues of relevance to research in Europe are raised.
The Zaqât in Muslim society: an analysis of Islamic economic policy
Authors: Ybarra Josep-Antoni
Published: March 2007

For the Muslim, the zaqât is an ethically compulsory payment of a religious character having material connotations. By means of the zaqât, a mechanism of individual and collective regulation is established that permits the promotion, consolidation and organization of the collective, Islam. It is a socializing precept that introduces the beginnings of the “welfare state”. However, it should also be pointed out that it instils in the Muslim ultraconservative behaviour and a disinclination to participate in the life of society; the practice of the zaqât de-incites individual demands, maintaining a status quo in relation to the social order and the logic of a class-conscious society.
Water-sharing systems in south-western Pakistani Baluchistan: between synchronization and desynchronization
Authors: Fabietti Ugo
Published: March 2007

This article describes the “logic” on which the system of water distribution among the cultivators of southern Pakistani Baluchistan (Makran) is founded. The aim of this work is not strictly “ethnographic”, in that it not only explains the logic of a system that until today had not been understood correctly; in fact it also tries to show the importance of the system in “synchronizing” the agricultural activities in regard to the distribution of water among the share-holders according to the kind of crops raised at different times of the year. At the same time, however, this article suggests that such a synchronization is accomplished by a process of “desynchronization”, which results from agreements reached on an individual basis by the share-holders. And it also shows that these agreements allow individuals to elude the formal logic of the system in order to cope with the necessities imposed by the “concreteness” of social life, without impinging on the “logic” of the system as a whole.
Science as an agent of change: finalization and experimental implementation
Authors: Krohn Wolfgang , van den Daele Wolfgang
Published: March 2007

This article proposes that goal-oriented sciences contribute not only theory-based knowledge but also strategies of research to processes of social and technological innovation. The finalization model focused on disciplinary programmes, we focus on networks of innovation in which scientists become agents of change. Their role implies taking a variety of political, economic, legal and moral considerations into account, and their activities not only are addressed to problem solution but also generate new risks and public concerns. Still, science does not merge with political choice, economic interest or moral values in a seamless web. The article presents a systems theoretical restitution of the “internal-external” distinction in sociological terms. On this conceptual basis two case studies are presented - the development of waste management technologies and the introduction of genetically modified plants in agriculture - which illustrate both the diversity and the specificity of the functions of science as an agent of change.
The Exxon Valdez disaster: environmental safety implementation in an incrementalist mode
Authors: Hellström Tomas
Published: March 2007

This article develops a view on environmental risk as produced by some of the dynamics of human organization, i.e. political and economic as well as communicative factors acting together to create a failure-prone context. The empirical focus is the implementation of environmental safety that grew out of many years of inter-organizational interaction between the oil industry and regulatory agencies in Alaska, and which was highlighted by the notorious Exxon Valdez oil-spill in 1989. In the article it is argued that failure to prepare for (or to avoid) a catastrophe of this kind represents a safety implementation failure, and that such a failure usually encompasses systemic causes stretching far beyond the immediate context of the actual occurrence of the event. The study sets out to show how, in the Exxon Valdez case, the failure of an inter-organizational culture to implement basic safety measures resulted from an incremental but systematic decrease in regulatory control, the emergence of counterproductive bargaining between corporate bodies, conflict-oriented policy-making with respect to oil-spill hazards and a misjudgement of the potential outcomes of an oil spill.
Articulating the World: Social Movements, the Self-Transcendence of Society and the Question of Culture
Authors: Fuchs Martin
Published: March 2007

Recent developments in social theory, and especially in movement research, have deepened our understanding of the self-instituting and self-transformative capabilities of society. However, as the case of Alain Touraine's notion of historicity shows, there is a real danger that social praxis is being reduced to the function of self-thematization and self-programming, enshrining society in a self-referential circle. Ideas of self-transcendence and the non-identity of society with itself cannot be adequately accounted for as long as full scope is not given to the interpretive dimension of human articulation. Moreover, the human ability of self-reflexivity and critique and the recognition of self-transformative faculties are often and principally denied to those societies which do not fit into the framework of modernity, thus subverting claims of universality. Against this Johann Arnason has suggested a return to an anthropology of the social subject which, over and above the constituting faculties, foregrounds the hermeneutical ability of (self-)distantiation and broadens the reference of human action and interpretation, or, rather, transcends the idea of a specific referent: constitutive of the human condition is the opening towards other possibilities, the opening towards the world. What seems required is an interactional approach towards society and culture which takes difference as constitutional, for society as well as social theory, and not as something which can be relegated to a secondary level of complicating conditions.
Tocqueville in the Antipodes? Middling through in Australia, then and Now
Authors: Beilharz Peter
Published: March 2007

The influence of Tocqueville in Australian cultural criticism is powerful, not least in the concern with the question of egalitarian democracy and its propensity to breed mediocrity. This article traces European criticism of Australia as the antipodes or other of Europe through the 19th century, ending with D. H. Lawrence's Kangaroo. It tracks the effect of the mediocrity thesis in local criticism, through Hancock and Horne to the work of Paul Kelly in The End of Certainty. How should we live? The argument is posited that Australia is a kind of alternative modernity or civilization which can still be exemplary; a little mediocrity goes a long way, in a world obsessed with the spirit of inner restlessness prescribed by the endless pursuit of the project of rational mastery.
The End of a Political Identity: French Intellectuals and the State
Authors: Doyle Natalie
Published: March 2007

Starting with a discussion of the crisis of French national identity that became fully apparent in the 1980s, this article examines the historical paradigm that conditioned the birth of French universalism and ultimately spelt its demise. Identifying as the determining experience the reification/deification of power performed by monarchical absolutism, it examines the evolution of what can be termed after Marcel Gauchet the French `political-intellectual system', with its exclusive emphasis on the ideological legitimacy of power, and highlights the crucial role played by intellectuals in its formation, be it on an oppositional mode. Looking back to the 17th century, it thus identifies in Montaigne's essays and their complex dialectic of order and revolt the fundamental paradox within which French intellectual culture evolved right up to post-structuralism, which, whilst it attempted a most radical critique of the French intellectual mystique, ultimately remained prisoner to its underlying statism. Post-structuralism is thus to be seen as the first manifestation of a profound crisis of French intellectual culture, triggered in the 1970s by the crisis of French republicanism, in the wake of the worldwide decline of national sovereignty. What characterized French political and intellectual culture from its inception was indeed the reductive absorption of the notion of society into that of state, and the concomitant belief in a rational vanguard. However, whilst post-structuralism belongs to a tradition of resistance to the republican legacy of the French Enlightenment, it remains deeply conditioned by the pessimism of its distant Augustinian and Jansenist origins: unable to conceive of any effective social action outside of the state, it condemns itself to the marginality of counter-culture. Rather than a total deconstruction of French universalism, post-structuralism must thus be identified as its last, contradictory manifestation.
The Meaning of Culture
Authors: Baecker Dirk
Published: March 2007

The article inquires into the uneasiness of sociological systems theory about culture. Culture alternatively is called the solution to the problem of double contingency (Parsons) and removed from this solution (Luhmann). It is shown that meaning is the more basic term whose description reveals a form rule of social systems which is only patterned, yet not understood by culture. Culture is a memory and control device of society. It may be conceived of as providing the distinction of correct versus incorrect behaviour. But who decides on the correctness or incorrectness of this distinction? Sociological thinking takes off where the cultural and the social are distinguished.
Intentional Self-Organization. Emergence and Reduction: Towards a Physical Theory of Intentionality
Authors: Atlan Henri
Published: March 2007

This article addresses the question of the mechanisms of the emergence of structure and meaning in the biological and physical sciences. It proceeds from an examination of the concept of intentionality and proposes a model of intentional behavior on the basis of results of computer simulations of structural and functional self-organization. Current attempts to endow intuitive aspects of meaningful complexity with operational content are analyzed and the metaphor of DNA as a computer program (the `genetic program') is critically examined in relation to an alternative metaphor of DNA as data. It is argued that relatively simple networks of boolean automata can classify and recognize patterns of binary strings on the basis of non-programmed, self-generated criteria, but lack a capacity for self-observation and interpretation. To overcome this problem it is necessary to clarify the relationships between the goals and underlying mechanisms of a process and between a system and its environment. It will be shown that memory devices that record the histories of interactions are essential for models of conscious and unconscious intentional behavior and that the possibility of infinitely sophisticated - and therefore unprogrammable - machines cannot be avoided. It will be argued that the notion of infinite sophistication allows the ideas of self-organization and physical determinism to be reconciled. These models will be used to suggest how the voluntary aspect of decision-making in general can emerge out of functional self-organizing processes. The conclusion will introduce the notion of `underdetermination' of theories, which imposes an intrinsic limitation on models of complex natural systems - a limitation that, at the same time, may be precisely what makes possible mutual understanding and intersubjectivity.
The Frail Emergence of Mexico's Democracy: Conquering Public Space
Authors: Lara Maria Pia
Published: March 2007

This article offers a new interpretation of Mexico's transition to democracy that differs from the pessimistic and less culturally oriented ones that currently prevail. In the article I develop a normative model, which emphasizes the moral capacities of civil societies and their ability to inspire altruistic actions. I suggest that this approach is not only more compelling philosophically but also more plausible empirically. To demonstrate this, I reconstruct a series of events from Mexico's recent past. My discussion suggests that social actors can reconfigure societal self-understandings through moral interventions in the public sphere and that such refigurations of the symbolic order are central for democratic transition.
Reciprocal Emotion Management
Authors: LIVELY KATHRYN J.
Published: March 2007

Using qualitative evidence, the concept of reciprocal emotion management is introduced and the role it plays in the reproduction of status inequality in the workplace is illustrated. Reciprocal emotion management is the reciprocal effort of similar others to manage one another's emotions. Three norms that exist in the workplace are also identified: professionalism, deference, and caretaking, and it is proposed that as paralegals strive to appear professional, they display deference to attorneys and accept having deference withheld. Reciprocal emotion management is one mechanism through which they are able to manage their emotional reactions to the status inequity in their daily interactions with attorneys. Ironically, pursuit of professionalism in these ways tends to perpetuate their marginal or inferior status in law firms.
The House Rules
Authors: SALLAZ JEFFREY J.
Published: March 2007

This ethnography of blackjack dealing at a corporate casino in Nevada reveals that dealers, to make tips, regularly violate the house's directives for regulating their interactive labor. Although the emergent sociology of service work has highlighted novel dilemmas of autonomy (workers must be free to provide “authentic” emotional labor) and interests (workers may team up with clients) for management, it too narrowly focuses on the service labor process and, thus, cannot fully account for the genesis and functions of the casino's system of labor control. This regime is analyzed as a “hegemonic” regime. This entails, first, specifying the structural changes in the American gambling industry that have led to the contemporary competitive casino's tipped labor system; and second, elucidating the functions for management of ceding to workers a degree of freedom: lower labor costs and customized service provision.