bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
The Outer Limits: Monsters, Actor Networks and the Writing of Displacement
Authors: Bloomfield Brian P. , Vurdubakis Theo
Published: March 2007

This article focuses on science fiction and actor network theory as ways of writing displacement which are relevant to organization studies. Recent work within organizational theory and related (sub)disciplines has suggested that the articulation of organization as a privileged site of presence is made possible by that which is Othered and excluded (or rather deferred) as representing disorganization and disorder. Organizations in this view constitute `incomplete and transient' accomplishments always under threat from various forms of intrusion and displacement. By way of illustration, two examples of displacement! intrusion and their associated organizational `dramas of proof' are examined as a way of exploring how the Other, the alien and out of place, is realized in representation.
Is Culture Independent of National Security?
Authors: OREN IDO
Published: March 2007

The dominant, positivist, approach to the study of culture and national security specifies `culture' as an independent variable. It assumes that culture, and the study of culture, are uncontaminated by the politics of national security. This formulation contrasts with the dominant understanding of `culture' in the humanities, where culture and power are viewed as constituting a `nexus', and where politics is claimed to shape cultural knowledge, including knowledge about culture, as much as the other way around. I demonstrate the utility of the `nexus' approach by exploring the origins of Gabriel Almond's `political culture' research. I show that Almond built on ideas that originated in national security work, that he enjoyed an intimate relationship with national security agencies, that his scholarship tracked US foreign policy concerns, and that it was part of a broader Cold War cultural formation. `Political culture', thus, was not pure of the politics of national security. I conclude by raising some questions about the `purity' of the present literature on culture and national security.
`Lean Citizenship':
Authors: THAA WINFRIED
Published: March 2007

This article critically examines scenarios of global democracy which aim at a political `catching up' with globalization by shifting the political arena away from the nation-state to the multiple networks of a global civil society. It will refer to the controversies between advocates of cosmopolitan democracy and their communitarian critics. The deficit of this debate will be identified in its concentration on the status of universal moral principles and its neglect of the practical (`Praxis') character of politics. More specifically, a discussion of proposals that try to solve the identity problem of democracy by substituting transnational and global civil associations for particular political communities will show how they tend to reduce political citizenship to its moral and legal dimensions. The specific political rationality of democracy as expressed in plurality, judgement and participation falls by the wayside. The author will conclude that political democracy may do without a clearly defined sovereign `we' but not without a distinct common world as a necessary basis for political action.
Neorealism and the English School:
Authors: LITTLE RICHARD
Published: March 2007

The aim of this article is to reassess the contribution made by members of the English School to the analysis of international relations in the light of Buzan's attempt to harness their analysis to neorealism. It is argued that while Buzan displays a subtle appreciation of the strengths of both these schools, he fails to acknowledge fully the logic underpinning the position adopted by the English School. When this logic has been exposed, it becomes apparent that it can be grafted onto the framework developed by Buzan and used to capture additional complexities associated with the historical evolution of international relations. In the process of exposing the logic, however, it also becomes apparent that there are further complexities linked to the evolution of international relations which neither the neorealists nor the English School can accommodate.
Economic Policy and International Security:
Authors: WEEDE ERICH
Published: March 2007

Although states engaging in free trade may go to war against each other, free trade nevertheless promotes the avoidance of war, although not necessarily directly nor instantaneously. Free trade promotes prosperity and prosperity promotes democracy. Democracies do not fight each other, i.e. they constitute separate zones of peace. Also there is some feedback from zones of peace, whether defined by hegemony or alliances, to free trade. In order to exploit these relationships for the sake of international security and peace, the West should maintain its unity and deepen its commitment to free trade. Unfortunately, special interest groups are both influential in democracies and opposed to free trade. Free trade and rent-seeking are incompatible one with the other. The future world order depends on whether Western democracies succeed in subduing special interests, or on whether special interest groups undermine prosperity in the short run and democracy and peace in the long run.
The European Challenge to Foreign Policy Analysis
Authors: WHITE BRIAN
Published: March 2007

This article explores `European foreign policy' as an important new empirical domain of foreign policy and also as a challenging vehicle for evaluating the current status of Foreign Policy Analysis (FPA). It begins by identifying the weaknesses of the dominant institutionalist mode of analysis of foreign policy activity in Europe which include a restrictive definition of `foreign policy' in this context. A case is then made for arguing that critics of FPA have underestimated the significance of developments in this sub-field of International Relations over the last 30 years and that `traditional' FPA can be adapted to aid the task of understanding the complex arena of European foreign policy defined here as constituted by three interrelated types of activity; Community, Union and National (member states') foreign policy. Having sketched out an analytical framework which demonstrates the continuing strengths of FPA, the article reflects upon what we might learn from this application about the weaknesses of this mode of analysis. Continuing problems notwithstanding, a revitalized FPA is revealed here which has the potential to incorporate both positivist and `post-positivist' approaches.
A Commentary on Discursive and Cultural Psychology
Authors: Edwards Derek
Published: March 2007

Discursive psychology offers a perspective and methodology for dealing with many topics in cultural psychology, especially those that call for relativistic analyses. It addresses the issue of how participants in interaction construct their sense and the relevance of situated activity settings. Discursive psychology builds upon the traditions of rhetoric (in the sense of Michael Billig) and ethnographic studies of cultures. People are viewed as having ways of describing and explaining their actions within the set of cultural practices. Discursive psychology investigates how cultural categories are used in social practices.
Green, Red and Happiness: Towards a Framework for Understanding Emotion Universals
Authors: van Geert Paul
Published: March 2007

This commentary presents an extension and further elaboration of Wierzbicka' (1995) semantic perspective on emotions. It discusses three dimensions along which universals can be ordered: technical vs experiential universals, static vs dynamic universals, and, finally, universals as entities or dimensions. It is argued that universals, such as universal emotions, are usually placed in one specific corner of the taxonomic space, and are seen as experiential, static and entity-defined. The paper goes on to discuss another conceptualization of universals, based on a dynamic and transformational view. It is argued that some of the semantic problems that Wierzbicka has raised can be solved by employing this dynamic perspective on universality.
Will Adding Halves Make a Whole? Comments on Ratner's 'Activity as a Key Concept for Cultural Psychology'
Authors: Lima Simone
Published: March 2007

This commentary on Ratner's (1996) article on the concept of activity in cultural psychology stresses the importance of making explicit the conceptual frameworks used in psychological research. The individual-society and activitysemiotics dualisms identified in psychology are discussed in the light of the original dualisms present in the appropriation by developmental psychology of Marxist and evolutionary theorizing about the nature and origin of humankind. Vygotskian attempts to overcome such dualities are contrasted to the activity theory tradition. Attention is directed to the need for further research striving to elaborate on concepts which will mediate sociological and psychological aspects of humankind, superseding biological and social determinisms.
Enactivism and the Experiential Reality of Culture: Rethinking the Epistemological Basis of Cultural Psychology
Authors: Baerveldt Cor , Verheggen Theo
Published: March 2007

The key problem of cultural psychology comprises a paradox: while people believe they act on the basis of their own authentic experience, cultural psychologists observe their behavior to be socially patterned. It is argued that, in order to account for those patterns, cultural psychology should take human experience as its analytical starting point. Nevertheless, there is a tendency within cultural psychology to either neglect human experience, by focusing exclusively on discourse, or to consider the structure of this experience to originate in an already produced cultural order. For an alternative approach, we turn to the enactive view of cognition developed by Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela. Their theory of autonomy can provide the epistemological basis for a cultural psychology that explains how experience can become socially patterned in the first place. Cultural life forms are then considered as consensually coordinated, embodied practices.
Emotion Discourse ‘Speaks’ of Involvement: Commentary on Edwards
Authors: Campos Gilberto Pèrez , Ramos Claudia Saucedo , Bernal Juan Josè Yossef
Published: March 2007

Edwards’ (1999) paper is taken as an invitation to reflect on core issues that seem relatively overlooked in the current construction of cultural psychology. Our main focus is the critical analysis of an assumption at the basis of Edwards’ discursive psychology (the essential equivalence between scientific and everyday descriptions, accounts, etc.). On the way we find that other issues must be addressed as well: the nature of social action, the reproduction and transformation of social practices, and the role of agents in those processes. Then, in broad outline, we suggest a way of addressing the complexity of the problems involved and a possible complementary relationship between discursive and cultural psychology.
Mobilization and Support of Minor Parties
Authors: Donovan Todd
Published: March 2007

This paper develops models of minor-party mobilization and electoral success. Models are estimated with data from Australian Senate elections from 1922 to 1998. Existing literature and the Australian experience demonstrate that long-term minor-party activity is conditioned by election rules, economic conditions and other factors. Australian Senate elections have been conducted under a variety of election rules, and thus provide a rare opportunity for modelling the effects of variation in these forces on minor-party activity. Results demonstrate that minor parties mobilize more candidates and receive more votes when electoral rules reduce the proportion of votes necessary to win a seat. Economic decline is also found to increase the mobilization of minor-party candidates and increase voter support.
Electoral Mechanisms and Electioneering Incentives
Authors: Kreuzer Marcus
Published: March 2007

Why do politicians act in some countries as individual entrepreneurs, seeking a personal vote, and in others as team players soliciting a collective, party vote? This paper argues that different forms of electoral organization are determined by how electoral mechanisms, campaigning regulations and political finance laws structure the career prospects of politicians, as well as the logistical costs they face in communicating with voters.
Party Elites in Multilevel Europe
Authors: Johansson Karl Magnus
Published: March 2007

This article addresses the role of party elites in the setting of European multilevel governance and transnationalization. Emphasis is placed on informal networks, elite socialization and policy coordination. The analysis focuses on the 1985 Intergovernmental Conference, which led to the Single European Act (SEA), and the political family of Christian Democrats, most notably party leaders' meetings. The research material consists of interviews and archival sources. It can be shown that the SEA was to a large extent shaped through transnational party elite socialization. Challenging previous analyses, there is sufficient documentary evidence to claim that political parties, or rather party elites, were centrally involved in the making of this historic treaty. Such involvement of elected political representatives could further the democratic legitimacy of the European Union, but reinforces problems of intra-party democracy.
Crisis of Parties and Change of Party System in Italy
Authors: Morlino Leonardo
Published: March 2007

In the early 1990s, Italian democracy has entered a phase of farreaching change, particularly of parties and the party system. This article proposes an assessment of what has changed, and why, with specific reference to the most basic features of parties (electoral performance, name, symbol, splits and alliances) from a systemic perspective. Also, to check the depth of change, party organization, the emergence of new models of parties and the turnover of parliamentary leadership are analysed. Finally, the impact of the party crisis and changes on the party system is evaluated and the degree to which the party system has changed is assessed. The concluding remarks will suggest how changes in the party system are related to the wider crisis of Italian democracy over the recent period, and the possible choices of the leaders as regards the future party system.
The Dynamic Diversity of Latin American Party Systems
Authors: Coppedge Michael
Published: March 2007

Most Latin American party systems change so often and in so many respects that the `typical' party system of each country can be described only in imprecise terms, if at all. However, the nature of party systems as they are defined in individual elections can be described in rich and fairly reliable detail. This article compares the party systems of 20th-century Latin America election by election through indicators of fragmentation, volatility, personalism, ideological clarity, mean left-right tendency and polarization. The data cover approximately 150 lower or single-house legislative elections in 20th-century Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Mexico, Peru, Uruguay and Venezuela.
Racial Attitudes and Partisan Identification in the United States, 1980-1992
Authors: Morales Dana Ables
Published: March 2007

According to some scholars, racial issues have transformed US politics by shaping the development of partisan identification among voters who have entered the electorate since 1964. This theory of `issue evolution' argues that the racial attitudes of Democratic and Republican supporters have become increasingly polarized over the last 30 years, and that this transformation can largely be attributed to generational displacement. Others have challenged this conclusion, arguing that the evidence connecting racial attitudes and partisanship is much less conclusive than has been suggested. This research note addresses the controversy from a different angle. Instead of focussing on the direct effects of racial issues on partisanship, it attempts to illustrate how issue positions on social welfare and economics work together as composite indicators of underlying racial attitudes. The extent to which these social opinions are reflections of latent racial feelings is explored using NES data from the years 1980-92 and creating an index of composite racial attitudes. The data ultimately illustrate how issues concerning race have indeed influenced partisan identification during the period studied, although not in the direct manner that was previously assumed.
Physical Education, Sporting Excellence and Educational Excellence
Authors: Penney Dawn
Published: March 2007

This paper explores the relationship between excellence in the context of physical education (and the National Curriculum for Physical Education (NCPE) in England, in particular) and excellence in sport. The ways in which progression and excellence are defined in the ‘official texts’ of the NCPE are examined. It is argued that discourses of performance in sport strongly ‘frame’ these definitions, while the notion of educational excellence remains apparently underdeveloped in the context of physical education. The processes of policy development, the structure of curricula and the histories (personal and collective) of the subject and profession are identified as critical influences (and origins of strong discursive frames) that collectively reinforce a direct association between excellence in physical education and excellence in sport. Parallel texts, associated with another subject (music), are examined to highlight possibilities for the development of alternative understandings and definitions of achievement and excellence in physical education, informed by and privileging educational discourses.
Motivational Climate and Perceived Strategies to Sustain Pupilsí Discipline in Physical Education
Authors: Spray Christopher
Published: March 2007

This study examined relationships among pupils’ perceptions of task-involving and ego-involving climates in their physical education (PE) classes and perceived teacher’s strategies to sustain discipline. The Learning and Performance Oriented Physical Education Classes Questionnaire and the Strategies to Sustain Discipline Scale were completed by 488 pupils aged 12–14 years. Canonical correlation analysis revealed a positive association between pupils’ perceived task-involving climate and theirperceptions of teaching strategies promoting pupils’ internal locus of causality for the regulation of disciplined behaviour. On the other hand, the perception of an ego-involving climate was linked with the promotion of an external locus of causality. Moreover, different combinations of perceived climate were associated with perceived teaching strategies to keep discipline. The perception of a teacher emphasizing more internalized reasons for discipline was stronger among pupils perceiving a high task-involving PE climate, regardless of their perceptions of the salience of a prevailing ego climate.The results have implications for teachers wishing to maximize pupil involvement and discipline in PE classes.
Validity of a Pictorial Perceived Exertion Scale for Effort Estimation and Effort Production During Stepping Exercise in Adolescent Children
Authors: Yelling Martin , Lamb Kevin L. , Swaine Ian L.
Published: March 2007

Recent developments in the study of paediatric effort perception have continued to emphasize the importance of child-specific rating scales. The purpose of this study was to examine the validity of an illustrated 1–10 perceived exertion scale: the Pictorial Children’s Effort Rating Table (PCERT). Four class groups comprising 104 children, 27 boys and 29 girls, aged 12.1±0.3 years and 26 boys, 22 girls, aged 15.3±0.2 years were selected from two schools and participated in the initial development of the PCERT. Subsequently, 48 of these children, 12 boys and 12 girls from each age group, were randomly selected to participate in the PCERT validation study. Exercise trials were divided into two phases and took place 7 to 10 days apart. During Phase 1, children completed 5 three minute incremental stepping exercise bouts interspersed with two minute recovery periods. Heart rate (HR) and ratings of exertion were recorded during the final 15 seconds of each exercise bout. In Phase 2 the children were asked to regulate their exercising effort during 4 four minute bouts of stepping so that it matched randomly prescribed PCERT levels (3, 5, 7 and 9). Analysis of data from phase 1 yielded significant ( p<0.01) relationships between perceived and objective (HR) effort measures for girls. In addition, the main effects of exercise intensity on perceived exertion and HR were significant ( p<0.01); perceived exertion increased as exercise intensity increased and this was reflected in simultaneous significant rises in HR. During phase 2, HR and estimated power output (POapprox) produced at each of the four prescribed effort levels were significantly different ( p<0.01). The children in this study were able to discriminate between four different exercise intensities and regulate their exercise intensity according to four prescribed levels of perceived exertion. In seeking to contribute towards children’s recommended physical activity levels and helping them understand how to self-regulate their activity, the application of the PCERT within the context of physical education is a desirable direction for future research.
Cricket's Global 'Finishing School': The Migration of Overseas Cricketers into English County Cricket
Authors: Stead David , Maguire Joseph
Published: March 2007

This paper introduces the controversial topic of the international movement of sport labour and explains its significance for the understanding of modern sport develop ment. Specific emphasis is placed on the impact of sport labour migration on the maintenance and development of sporting talent pipelines in both host and donor countries. The motives and objectives of the migrant athletes themselves provide a central focus. Reference is made to the historical development of cricket migration, the cases for and against and the steps taken to facilitate or restrict such movement. Player directory based quantitative analysis reveals the size and complexity of the practice, and interviews with migrant players offer insights into the athlete's experience.
Law Made Flesh: Homosexual Acts
Authors: MORAN LESLIE J.
Published: March 2007

This article examines the intelligibilities and unintelligibilities through which the sense and nonsense of the male body in its sexual relations with other male bodies is made in law. Taking as its point of departure a recent high profile prosecution against seven men, `the Bolton Seven', for consensual sexual relations, its particular focus is the metaphors of space through which the truth of this male body is imagined within the law. The article examines the simultaneous production of various spatio-corporeal regimes within the specific context of English law. Through these regimes the flesh is made law and law is made flesh.
Anorexia Nervosa in a Young Boy with Gender Identity Disorder of Childhood: A Case Report
Authors: Walters Elizabeth , Whitehead Linda
Published: March 2007

Prepubertal anorexia nervosa and gender identity disorder of childhood, both rare conditions, are described. The aetiology of both conditions is discussed and the relevance of psychosexual problems to eating disorders is explored. A case is reported of a 12-year-old boy with both conditions where there was a clear aetiological precipitant for the onset of anorexia. His assessment, treatment, response and prognosis are described. The ethical conditions relating to treatment of gender identity disorder of childhood are discussed.
Health and Socio-economic Position
Authors: Carroll Douglas , Smith George Davey
Published: March 2007

This Special Issue focuses on health variations contingent on socio-economic position. Among the numerous reasons why health psychologists should attend to such variations are their pervasiveness, their magnitude and their continuation into better-off social groups. The latter raises the possibility that psychosocial factors may be involved. Recent data revealing that socio-economic health inequalities have increased in recent years, in parallel with increasing income inequalities in countries such as the UK and USA, provide further reason. Understanding the underlying physical, behavioural and psychosocial mechanisms is clearly an important research mission. However, effective intervention will require structural approaches that directly counter socio-economic disparity.
A House Turned Inside Out
Authors: Vom Bruck Gabriele
Published: March 2007

Based on the analysis of the organization of space in Yemen, this article explores whether Bourdieu's model of the Kabyle house is applicable outside Algeria. While agreeing with Bourdieu's contention that spatial meanings are invoked through the practice of men and women, I argue that the embodiment of socio-spatial divisions is contingent upon both gender and non-gender-based principles such as age and status affiliation. I suggest, furthermore, that the space of the house is never unambiguously private or public. Boundaries between these domains cannot be meaningfully drawn because they constantly shift in accordance with the categories of actors who inhabit space. The moral codes governing behaviour and the practical activities of men and women produce continuities and discontinuities in the ordering of space both inside and outside the house.
Prison Officers, Policing and the Use of Discretion
Authors: LIEBLING ALISON
Published: March 2007

This article considers the relevance of the policing literature to the work of prison officers. It explores the role of discretion in the distribution of privileges in prison, the results of an exploratory observational research project recently completed in a maximum security prison and the implications of the findings to date for penology. `Policing' in its broadest sense is a term meaning `the whole craft of governing a social order', as Reiner observes in his Oxford Handbook of Criminology review of the policing literature. This craft, of governing a social order, is a key problem of the prison. The policing literature—with its emphasis on `law in action', peacekeeping, the need for community consent and the observed social practices of `low visibility' police officers, offers some useful sensitizing tools to apply to the less researched practices of prison officers. Many relevant issues arise: the use of informal rules, the deployment of authority rather than the rules, the significance of `talk', and the need for scrutiny and management of discretion. Important (and possibly more distinct) aspects of prison life include the role of relationships, which are arguably `instruments of power', and the shifting power base of prison staff away from exchange and accommodation towards coercion. There is a gulf between the `rule following' or `compliance model' of prison work favoured by risk-averse officials and the `negotiation model' actually delivered by most prison staff. The sociology of prison life needs to turn its attention to these significant and changing forms of the penal enterprise.
Gender, Delinquency and Child Welfare
Authors: ERICSSON KJERSTI
Published: March 2007

The article explores how assumptions about gender are made visible in child welfare work.

Boys and girls considered delinquent in post-war Norway have been placed in institutions for different reasons; boys for committing crimes, girls for being `sexually delinquent'. Socialization into the appropriate gender roles has been a main objective for correctional institutions: rebellious boys are to be subdued and made law-abiding without hurting their masculinity, while girls are to be restored to virtuous femininity.

Standards used by child welfare to evaluate the parental performance of mothers and fathers also mirror the implicit, `self-evident truths' of the gendered order of society. The child welfare officials themselves, the vast majority of whom are women, are caught in the dichotomy between `professional' (with its masculine connotations) and `personal' (with its feminine connotations), and thereby have problems gaining professional recognition.

Change seems to have occurred primarily in the applied, relatively flexible, `regulative rules', rather than in the basic `constitutive rules' of the gendered order.
I’m Not Ill, it’s Just This Back: Osteopathic Treatment, Responsibility and Back Problems
Authors: Lee-Treweek Geraldine
Published: March 2007

Personal responsibility has become a central focus for British health policy, professional ideologies and lay ideas around health. This article focuses upon the issue of personal responsibility and long-standing back problems. It uses material from interviews with osteopathic patients to illustrate the ways that patients’ ideas about responsibility for and control over their symptoms are often moulded by their interactions with health care practitioners. Such interactions often lead to contradictions in patients’ attitudes to their health: passive acceptance of treatment on the one hand and desperate attempts to re-establish some control through self-blame on the other (Taussig, 1992). The article ends by arguing that the osteopathic profession needs to critically evaluate its role in encouraging such contradiction and confusion in patients’ understandings of their health states.
Evaluating Health Interventions for Older People
Authors: Burch Sarah
Published: March 2007

In recent years there has been a growing emphasis on evidencebased medicine and measuring outcomes of health care. The evaluation of health interventions for older people has increasingly relied upon the use of standardized assessment instruments, which are seen as providing detailed, holistic and patient-centred information. This article argues that such an approach has several drawbacks which may have serious implications for the evaluation and provision of health care. Standardized assessment instruments ignore the social dimensions of interviewing, decontextualize scores and contain an implicitly individualistic biomedical ideology of health. These factors undermine the effective evaluation of interventions. This is particularly significant when health care is purchased on the basis of delivering demonstrable gains. Provision for older people may be under threat if methods of evaluating its efficacy are inadequate.
Mouthrules and the Construction of Sexual Identities
Authors: Thorogood Nicki
Published: March 2007

The current work on the sociology of the body has shown it to be a key site of both the production of meaning and of regulation. There has however been little attention given to particular `body parts'. The research presented here suggests that mouths are particularly symbolic and that our oral hygiene habits are not just disciplinary techniques, but are one way in which our particular sexual and gender identities are constituted. This article, drawing on a series of in-depth interviews with lesbians and heterosexual men and women, explores how our `mouthrules', that is, what we do and more particularly don't do, with our mouths, construct, through the notion of intimacy, the contours of sexuality and gender. Differences are apparent between the groups. Developing Douglas's (1966) theory of `grid' and `group', it is suggested that adherence to mouthrules takes place along two axes: the level of personal `strictness' with which rules are applied (grid) and the rigidity of the gender/sex boundaries within which mouthrules are organized (group). The conclusion is drawn that, through the performance of these apparently trivial aspects of daily life we are performing aspects of our gender and sexual identities.
The Undetectable Crisis: Changing Technologies of Risk
Authors: Race Kane
Published: March 2007

This article explores how medical technologies used to monitor and treat HIV/AIDS have affected the bodies, selves and sexual identities of gay men. In the wake of antibody and viral load testing, HIV-positive individuals have become responsibilized in an historically unique way, one that yields the virus up as an object of specific and individuated management. This provides conditions for the castigation of HIV-positive sexual actors. Yet, by positing a homogenous gay experience, some accounts of `post-crisis' have the effect of bracketing the intensification of responsibility at this site. I suggest that the optic of genealogy may help render current needs in the epidemic `detectable', by drawing attention to the changing ways in which medical technologies produce socio-sexual subjects in terms of risk.
Sex/Bodywork: Discourses and Practices
Authors: Oerton Sarah , Phoenix Joanna
Published: March 2007

Drawing upon theoretical work which locates the body, sex and sexuality as discursively constituted, this article moves towards a richer understanding of how such discursive formations are mapped on to, and yet simultaneously disavowed in, the narrative accounts of women engaged in sex work and bodywork. Based upon interviews with sauna- and home-based prostitute women and women therapeutic massage practitioners, the article examines those discursive interstices of the self, body, sex and sexuality that firstly, permit similar practices to become constituted as variously embodied and disembodied, and secondly, permit various self/other identifications to be deployed by the two different groups of women. We argue that for both professions, the effects of this are similar; such discursive devices allow the women to repudiate the taint of sex whilst simultaneously allowing them to be publicly re-inscribed as illicit, disreputable and, above all, sexy. This creates near-intractable difficulties for women involved in sex/bodywork.
When Women Take: Lesbians Reworking Concepts of Sexuality
Authors: Bolsø Agnes
Published: March 2007

This article applies a perspective on the study of lesbian sexuality, in which lesbian sexuality is seen as a process where the power domains of heterosexuality are reinscribed. Using empirical material, consisting of interviews with Norwegian lesbians, I analyse the way informants use the term `to take somebody' in a (hetero) sexual interpretation of the word. It is demonstrated how heterosexual connotations of the term are reinscribed, and at the same time being reworked and given different meanings. The article briefly discusses the question of lesbian specificity on the basis of this kind of analysis.
John H. Gagnon and William Simon's Sexual Conduct: The Social Sources of Human Sexuality.
Authors: Schneider Beth E. , Nardi Peter M.
Published: March 2007

John Gagnon and William Simon's Sexual Conduct was first published in 1973; a paperback edition was published in 1974. It has been a highly influential study on the sociological aspects of sexuality — in many ways the fons et origo of the social constructionist approach, and the foundational text to view sexuality as scripted. Two essays are provided by the original authors in this 25th Anniversary Retrospective. Gagnon locates the work in place, career and history; Simon identifies the book as a `prematurely postmodern' study engaged in an anti-essentialist formulation for approaching sexualities. Both writers pay homage to the influence of Kenneth Burke on their work.
Logistical and Methodological Challenges in Conducting a Mental Health Survey of Mount Pinatubo Disaster Victims
Authors: Howard William T. , Loberiza Fausto R. , Pfohl Bruce M. , Thorne Peter S. , Magpantay Rio L. , Woolson Robert F.
Published: March 2007

On 12 June 1991, Mt Pinatubo in the Philippines erupted in what was the largest volcanic disaster of this century. Three hundred and fifty-one tribal and nontribal disaster victims were interviewed 6 years after they were displaced following the eruption. The acute and chronic effects of the eruption and the populations affected by Mt Pinatubo are described. The culturally and ecologically diverse population imposed logistical and methodological challenges that were expressed in ways not ordinarily encountered when conducting a community survey. Translating and administering survey instruments involved modifications of traditional methods to minimize item, method, construct and selection bias. Investigators conducting cross-cultural field studies in developing countries must strive to maintain high standards of scientific rigor, yet remain flexible, efficient and culturally sensitive.
From Vastation to Prozac Nation
Authors: Bullard Alice
Published: March 2007

Victims of major depressive illness often find that this disease shapes their sense of self in profound and lasting ways. Exactly how individuals experience and give meaning to their depression, however, varies through history and across cultures. This article considers two revolutions in the conceptualization of depression: the modern revolution in the late nineteenth century that turned from a religious to a psychological outlook; and the postmodern revolution, that supplants the psychological with the biochemical. Historically western culture has valued melancholy for its poetic, artistic and philosophical virtues. The depressed conciousness has often been viewed as a fount of genius or inspired truth. What if, in fact, it primarily reflects biochemical instabilities? What can or should the depressed ‘do’ with their biochemically unstable consciousness? What kind of self emerges from the biochemical understanding of depression? This article argues that the psychological self retained significant ties with the divine soul, and that it retained depression as a central locus of meaning and cultural effervescence. The biochemical revolution cuts the self free from depression’s narratives. This radical freedom opens onto uncharted terrain for the elaboration of selfhood. Whether individuals will seize this freedom to create new narratives and what those narratives might be remains to be seen.
Narrative Construction of Distress and Therapy: A Model Based on Work with Ultra-Orthodox Jews
Authors: Witztum Eliezer , Goodman Yehuda
Published: March 2007

Based on therapeutic work and research carried out in a psychiatric clinic in Israel that specializes in the Jewish Ultra-Orthodox community, we suggest a culturally adapted narrative paradigm for the understanding and treatment of mental disorders. We analyze five stories of illness to show how individual distress is constructed as a dramatic narrative inspired by shared cultural symbols and enacted in specific interpersonal and social contexts. The proposed model is grounded in mental illness narratives told by anti-heroes, the patients, who are trapped in relationships with non-human figures. The therapeutic interventions aim to help them find and exercise alternative plots that adhere to common cultural themes in their society, in which they become active agents. Culturesensitive ‘reading’ of such narrativization processes, combined with strategic psychological considerations, is important for successful therapeutic efforts in cross-cultural settings, and also aids in the creation of an empathic attitude and a therapeutic alliance.
Exploring stress in children's nurses
Authors: Doman Margaret J.
Published: March 2007

■ Little research into stress has been conducted on nurses caring for children in hospital wards

■ Delegates at children's nursing conferences completed questionnaires which sought to identify potential work- related stressors and mediating factors

■ Quantitative analysis identified stress/difficulty in relation to various situations and caring for children with mental health problems

■ As predicted, qualified children's nurses reported lower levels of stress/difficulty overall than those without such training

■ The value of children's nursing courses and the apparent influence of the workplace on reported stress require further investigation
Social Identity Precursors to the Hostile Media Phenomenon: Partisan Perceptions of Coverage of the Bosnian Conflict
Authors: Matheson Kimberly , Dursun Sanela
Published: March 2007

Perceptions of bias in an impartial media have been consistently documented among partisan audiences. It is argued that this phenomenon is grounded in the processes associated with a group identity that evoke cognitive differentiation between the in-group and the out-group and motivate in-group bias. Bosnian Serb and Muslim partisans and a group of nonpartisan controls responded to media coverage of the 1994 Sarajevo market bombing. Results indicated a strong hostile media effect. This effect was associated with in-group identification and cognitive differentiation between groups, the latter of which appeared to mediate the effect of identification. The extent to which the hostile media effect is a mechanism for enhancing a positive and distinct in-group identity was further supported by self-serving perceptions concerning which group was responsible for the bombing. It was suggested that the hostile media phenomenon reflects a form of in-group bias.
The Reevaluation of Information during Group Discussion
Authors: Wittenbaum Gwen M. , Stasser Garold
Published: March 2007

Communication in small groups often yields uniform judgments among members, particularly when members are similar to one another. This investigation empirically tested whether group discussion leads members' evaluations of information to become more uniform, particularly in groups composed of similar members. Group members evaluated the desirability of positions held by three candidates for student body president before and after discussing the candidates in three-person groups. Results showed that the disparity in evaluations within groups decreased from pre- to post discussion for candidate positions discussed, but not for positions omitted from discussion. This effect was stronger when members were told before discussion that they were similar. These results suggest that Festinger's (1950, 1954) propositions regarding (a) pressures toward uniformity of opinion in groups and (b) greater uniformity in similar groups, also hold for members' evaluation of information related to objects of judgment in addition to judgments of the objects.
Leadership Endorsement: The Role of Distributive and Procedural Behavior in Interpersonal and Intergroup Contexts
Authors: Platow Michael J. , Reid Scott , Andrew Sarah
Published: March 2007

Previous research (Platow, Hoar, Reid, Harley, & Morrison, 1997) showed that the difference in the strength of endorsements provided for a distributively fair over an unfair leader in interpersonal contexts attenuates when the unfairness is ingroup-favoring in intergroup contexts. We extended this to the realm of procedural fairness, and manipulated a leader's distributive fairness, procedural fairness, and the interpersonal versus intergroup context of these behaviors. Results revealed independent intergroup attenuation effects as a function of distributive and procedural fairness; procedural fairness did not moderate the distributive fairness by social context interaction. These findings are discussed within a social identity framework.
Transgressive Competence
Authors: Nowotny Helga
Published: March 2007

Relying on a powerful collective narrative through which political, legal and social decision-making is guided in the name of science, the authority of scientific experts reaches beyond the boundaries of their certified knowledge base. Therefore, expertise constitutes and is constituted by transgressive competence. The author argues that (1) changes in the decision-making structure of liberal Western democracies and changes in the knowledge production system diminish the authority of scientific expertise while increasing the context-dependency of expertise - thereby altering the nature of its predictive claims; (2) the societal distribution of expertise, while displaying emancipatory features of empowerment of citizens, also raises issues of quality control; and (3) in order to regain a balance between public and private, i.e. individual-based societally distributed expertise, future expert systems will need to adopt a longer time-perspective. The author also reflects on directions in which future expert systems might evolve.
Sociology's Eurocentrism and the `Rise of the West' Revisited
Authors: McLennan Gregor
Published: March 2007

Under the impact of `postcolonial' critique, it is increasingly assumed in radical social theory that traditional disciplines like sociology remain palpably Eurocentric. However, this important challenge is typically advanced at a very general level, often lacking adequate instantiation. In this article some general formulations of the problem of Eurocentrism are connected to the work of three pairs of theorists in historical sociology. Foregrounding recent approaches to the classic `rise of the West' question, these authors are probed for either substantive or `meta-theoretical' expressions of Eurocentrism. Overall I argue that charging sociology with Eurocentrism is problematical, partly due to continuing uncertainty about the status of the concept of ideology in social science.
Crimes Against Humanity
Authors: Fine Robert
Published: March 2007

The institution of crimes against humanity at Nuremberg in 1945 was an event which marked the birth of cosmopolitan law as a social reality. Cosmopolitan law has existed as an abstract idea at least since the writings of Kant in the late eighteenth century, but Nuremberg turned the notion of humanity from a merely regulative idea into a substantial entity. Crimes against humanity differ significantly from the traditional categories of international law: war crimes and crimes against peace. While the latter generally treats states as subjects of right and upholds the principle of national sovereignty, the former treats individuals as subjects of right and encroaches on national sovereignty. I focus here on the writings of Hannah Arendt on the Nuremberg trials, the Eichmann trial and the actuality of crimes against humanity perpetrated in totalitarian regimes. I explore her relation to the optimistic and naive cosmopolitanism of Karl Jaspers, as well as to the two prevailing forms of critical thought: the cynical realism towards the law adopted by many of the defendants, including Carl Schmitt, and the deconstructive attitude to humanism and technology adopted by Martin Heidegger. I maintain that Arendt's rugged cosmopolitanism, tested against its critics, remains exceptionally revealing on the issue of crimes against humanity now that this issue has re-emerged, after many years of silence, as arguably the most important question of our own day.
Divided Government and International Cooperation in Austria-Hungary, Sweden-Norway and the European Union
Authors: Pahre Robert
Published: March 2007

A growing consensus maintains that divided government makes international cooperation more difficult. This paper takes issue with this claim. While divided government does make treaty ratification more difficult, it also affects the outcome when cooperation breaks down. To understand this effect of divided government, I bring the reversion point into the heart of the analysis of cooperation. If divided government makes this reversion point more unattractive than the reversion point under unified government, it may make cooperation more likely. Divided government also varies in ways previously overlooked in the literature, most importantly in whether the negotiator or ratifier controls the reversion point (or status quo). I test these claims against three supranational polities, the dual monarchies of Austria-Hungary and Sweden-Norway and the European Union today.