Keynote 2. Viewing Participants as Resources for One Another,Communities and Societies

Abstract

The new millennium has heralded fundamental shifts in our sense of security and solidarity. Systemic changes are warranted to restructure human relationships both within and between diverse communities. The call for establishing ‘resilient’ communities is becoming a common theme as governments worldwide struggle to maintain social cohesion. The primary purpose of this paper will be to advance the proposition that communities are strengthened economically and socially through the creation of strategic initiatives that foster the establishment and ongoing maintenance of intergenerational solidarity. Intergenerational solidarity is described as an effective vehicle for converting life into a dynamic learning laboratory with mutual benefits for individuals, groups and society. Ageist attitudes and aged-based stereotypes, particularly as applied to older adults and aging, are seen as a threat to intergenerational solidarity. The conventional solidarity model requires comparison and challenge from a framework that incorporates the possibility for negative tensions arising from intergenerational competition for scarce resources and services. A lifespan development perspective is offered as an effective means for viewing how socio-economic conditions and the policy agenda influence interactions between the generations. Core ingredients for developing and sustaining meaningful interaction between generations are proposed and a view of the future is given where aging and the social roles of older adults are transformed.     

Constructs of childhood,generation and heroism in editorials on young people's climate change activism: Their mobilisation and effects

We analyse the effects of constructions and mobilisations of childhood, generation and girl heroism in 30 Canadian editorials written in response to 2019 climate change protests. We discuss how the editorials strategically position—and sometimes dismiss—young activists through discourses of childhood innocence, becoming and social participation. Second, we focus on how the editorials mobilise generation to emphasise either generational division or cross-generational solidarity. Finally, we problematise the editorials' concentration on individualised girl heroism. We thus contextualise and deconstruct truth statements around age, generation and heroism, emphasising instead their effects and the potential for certain narratives to better recognise the diversity and solidarity in climate change activism.     

Les apories de la solidarité familiale Contribution à la sociologie des configurations de justice entre les familles et l’État, dans le cas français

Despite its many meanings, “solidarity” has once again become current in French to describe macro as well as microsocial relations. Social relations in and outside the family have not always been understood as instances of solidarity. But is this solidarity the same as the one established by the welfare state? Forms of family solidarity that have risen in esteem over the past two decades are “deconstructed”. The conditions for family solidarity are examined; and conceptual paradoxes, described. This approach suggests that family solidarity, as this concept is normally used, mixes together several systems of justice that should be clearly distinguished, especially if we want to put this phrase to a judicious social use.     

Where is the exit? Intergenerational ambivalence and relationship quality in high contact ties

We challenge the common idea that solidarity has positive, whereas conflict has negative implications, by investigating intergenerational ambivalence – defined as the co-occurrence of solidarity and conflict – and relationship quality. We use representative data on non-coresident adult children and parents with high levels of contact (weekly or more; N = 2,694 dyads). Results show that over half of high contact parent–child ties can be characterized as ambivalent and of high-quality. The likelihood of negative instead of positive ambivalent ties is greater if adult children have few exit options because they are socially isolated or have a small number of siblings. Ties between fathers and sons, and those between caring daughters and aging parents also have a high probability of belonging to the negative ambivalent type.     

The Solidary Relationship’s Consequences for the Ebb and Flow of Activism: Collaborative Evidence from Life-History Interviews and Social Media Event Analysis,

Acting in solidarity with deprived others has become a central topic in social movement research. The explanations of solidarity activism or political altruism are few. However, social movement researchers have claimed that solidarity with out-of-group others is a by-product of in-group interaction. In contrast, we argue that out-group interaction with the deprived other and the formation of a solidary relationship is central to the ebb and flow of solidarity activism. We investigate the Danish refugee solidarity movement and show that the meeting with the deprived other 1) brings about an interaction order which makes an ethical demand on the activists to care for the other both within the bounds of the situations and in the future; 2) enacts and amplifies activists’ values and beliefs because the deprived other becomes an exemplar of the injustice and the need to help the broader group of people in the same fragile situation. We develop and test this theory drawing on 42 life-history interviews and a social media dataset containing a panel of 87,455 activists participating in refugee solidarity groups.     

The lesbian rights movement and feminism in South Korea

The lesbians' rights movement in South Korea has undertaken various projects for solidarity with feminist movement groups for over 10 years. In spite of these efforts, lesbian issues have been blatantly excluded from all the agendas of women's rights. The same thing has happened in Women's Studies. Some feminists express homophobic thoughts without understanding the reality of lesbians, and other young scholars take on a lesbian identity temporarily as a sign of being progressive and liberated; in neither situation are they committed to dealing with the oppression of lesbians or seeing lesbian rights as a feminist concern. In order to further lesbian rights there are two strategies possible: forming a movement only for lesbians or forming solidarity with feminists. In the latter case, a concern about lesbian rights will help achieve the goals of a true feminism as patriarchy is built upon heterosexism. doi:10.1300/J155v10n03_11.     

Solidarity in choosing a location on a cycle

We study the implications of two solidarity conditions on the efficient location of a public good on a cycle, when agents have single-peaked, symmetric preferences. Both conditions require that when circumstances change, the agents not responsible for the change should all be affected in the same direction: either they all gain or they all loose. The first condition, population-monotonicity, applies to arrival or departure of one agent. The second, replacement-domination, applies to changes in the preferences of one agent. Unfortunately, no Pareto-efficient solution satisfies any of these properties. However, if agents’ preferred points are restricted to the vertices of a small regular polygon inscribed in the circle, solutions exist. We characterize them as a class of efficient priority rules.     

Cooperative production with unequal skills: The solidarity approach to compensation

We consider a simple production model and we assume that agents have unequal production skills which can in no way be attributed to their responsibility. We study how it is possible, if at all, to compensate for differential skills by applying Rawls's idea of a collective sharing in the benefits of skills. For this purpose, we introduce an axiom of solidarity, according to which agents should all be affected in the same direction if the profile of personal skills changes. We show that particular allocation rules are characterized be combining this axiom with a requirement of non-discrimination among preferences, or with a property capturing Nozick's idea of guaranteeing a minimal benefit from one's own skill. Received: 1 July 1996/Accepted: 25 May 1998     

International Charity: For the Poor?

We show how international charity leads to reduced self-help, exacerbated internal income inequality, and less charity for needy countries when international funds transfer is costly and there are information asymmetries. Mechanism design techniques are used to analyze international income transfer programs in the context of moral hazard, principal-agent, and adverse selection problems. We show that the burden of information asymmetry is borne by the most needy even when charities design incentive contracts which limit informational rents.     

Does Institutional Trust Increase Willingness to Pay More Taxes to Support the Welfare State?

We evaluate the effect of institutional trust on the willingness to pay more taxes to support the welfare state. We found a positive effect of institutional trust on the willingness to pay more taxes to support the welfare state irrespective of the empirical approach used. Our instrumental variable analysis shows that causality run from institutional trust to welfare state support. A one-unit increase in institutional trust leads to a 15 percentage point increase in the willingness to pay more taxes to help the needy. Similarly, a one-unit increase in institutional trust leads to a 16 percentage point increase in the willingness to pay more taxes to support public health care and education. Consequently, institutional trust should be viewed as one of the most important mechanisms that protect the welfare state from dismantling and retrenchment. We also found a stronger effect of support for more universal programs such as public health care and education than for helping the needy.     

Social Solidarities

This study explores the concept of social solidarity by elaborating on five propositions about mutually supportive social relationships. These five propositions are that social solidarity was a key issue for the founding figures of the discipline of sociology in the 19th century; that this sociological interest in social solidarity has continued down to the present day; that in the development of sociological analyses of social solidarity there has also been fruitful engagement with neighbouring disciplines; that social solidarity can sometimes be associated with social problems as well as with desirable social outcomes; and that the nature and causes of social solidarity are matters of important on-going debate.     

Toddlers Involve Their Caregiver to Help Another Person in Need

Three experiments with 18‐ to 35‐month‐old children (n = 169) studied toddler–caregiver interactions when being confronted with another person in need. In particular, we explored whether toddlers would request their caregiver to help a needy other when they are not able to help themselves. Children observed another person who needed help to accomplish a task, but were either not able to provide help as the object was out of reach (Experiment 1) or because an obstacle prevented children from interacting with the other person (Experiments 2, 2b). The experiments revealed the same developmental trend with 2.5‐year‐olds selectively involving their caregiver to help the needy other. The results are interpreted in terms of toddlers’ motivation to see others helped and with respect to their developing ability to actively involve others to regulate their emotions.     

Welfare-domination under preference-replacement: A survey and open questions

The objective of this paper is to describe various applications of a requirement of solidarity pertaining to situations in which the preferences of some of the agents may change. It says that the welfares of all agents whose preferences are fixed should be affected in the same direction: they should all weakly gain, or they should all weakly lose. We show how this condition, which we name “welfare-domination under preference-replacement”, can help in evaluating allocation rules. We discuss it in several contexts: private good allocation in classical economies, public good decision, binary choice with quasi-linear preferences, economies with indivisible goods, economies with single-peaked preferences, both in the private good case and in the public good case, and economies with time. For some of these models the implications of the property are well understood. For others, we state a number of open problems. Received: 2 January 1997/Accepted: 26 February 1998     

The making and breaking of solidarity between unwaged and waged workers in the UK

ABSTRACT

This article explores in what way solidarity relationships are made and unmade between waged and un-waged workers in the UK. It thereby feeds into the broader discussion on the decline and future of trade unionism and new ways of organizing struggle. In particular, it engages with the literature on community unionism. Methodologically it draws on Participatory Action Research undertaken between 2013 and 2017 with 12 unwaged workers’ groups organizing outside of established trade unions. Conceptually the article challenges understandings of solidarity based on self-interest by emphasising its relational complexity. It argues for a concept of workers’ solidarity that is based on a broadened understanding of work but which at the same time goes beyond a common identity by paying attention to power-discrepancies and current inequalities. Through such a lens, solidarity is created through affective bonds and is based on a shared anger about injustice and a common desire for transformation.     

The distant core: social solidarity,social distance and interpersonal ties in core–periphery structures

We examine three hypotheses at the foundation of theories concerned with the organization of social space and social solidarity in differentiated groups. The most important of these hypotheses is that interpersonal ties between actors in different positions of a social structure foster social solidarity; however, the theories are silent on the question of whether this effect of interpersonal ties is maintained regardless of the distance that separates the positions of two actors in the group’s social space. In addition, the current zeitgeist on the organization of social space hypothesizes that interpersonal solidarity and ties are negatively associated with the distance that separates the positions of actors in social space. Although interpersonal ties foster solidarity, social distance reduces the likelihood of interpersonal ties and solidarity. Our evidence suggests unqualified support only for the first hypothesis. Surprisingly, the expected negative effects of social distance on interpersonal ties and solidarity appear to be properties of particular forms of social organization and are not ubiquitous implications of social differentiation. These negative effects are more or less pronounced (even reversible) in core–periphery structures depending upon the distance between the core and peripheral positions in the social space of the group.     

Studies of Social Solidarity in Russia: Tradition and Modern Trends

The article provides an overview of the development of studies of social solidarity in Russia from the mid 19th century to the present day. Basing on the analysis of major works of leading social thinkers of pre-revolutionary Russia which address issues of social solidarity, cooperation and altruism we show that the study of these problems revealed the paradigmatic dichotomy of Russian social thought, reflected, in particular, in the discussions between the Westerners and the Slavophiles. Studies of social solidarity in modern Russia, a review of which is presented in the final part of the present paper, rest upon this rich heritage, but also reflect the current processes in contemporary sociology. Along with this, research on social solidarity is now a necessary component of the study of post-communist social transformations in Russia. In a situation of crisis or social trauma (P. Sztompka) the regulatory function of solidarity relations becomes especially pronounced. At the same time such conditions reveal a fundamental contradiction associated with the widespread prevalence of narrow group solidarities over broader solidarities. These issues are enhancing interest in issues of social solidarity among Russian sociologists.     

Division of power in legislatures with two cohesive subgroups

We formulate a voting model for a legislature composed of two disjoint and cohesive subgroups. Each subgroup has a leader, and its cohesiveness is measured by the probability that a member votes the same way as the leader, which is presumed to be the same for all non-leader members within a subgroup. We examine the relative powers of the subgroups as a function of their sizes and cohesiveness.     

The Institutionalization of Solidarity and Globalization: The Case of Darfur1

This article uses the suffering in Darfur and the world's responses to it to discuss how contemporary solidarity and globalization is characterized by an institutionalization that contains elements of both extension and limitation. The extension thesis is supported by the involvement of international institutions such as the UN, the EU, and the AU. It also draws support from the involvement of civil society organizations. The limitation thesis is supported by observations of state activities, which do not always adhere to cosmopolitan norms. The limitation thesis is also strengthened by the fact that civil society organizations played a relatively marginal role in the debate and that those who did take part were a small group of large professional organizations. This leads to the conclusion that solidarity and globalization risk becoming de-popularized and de-democratized. On the other hand, it is also remarked that this institutionalization of civil society responses is an advance because it allows a routine professional response to distant suffering.     

Virus interruptus: An Arendtian exploration of political world‐building in pandemic times

Building upon a series of blog posts and conversations, two feminist scholars explore how political community, trust, responsibility and solidarity are affected by the COVID‐19 pandemic. We explore the ways in which we can engage in political world‐building during pandemic times through the work of Hannah Arendt. Following Arendt’s notion of the world as the space for human togetherness, we ask: how can we respond to COVID‐19’s interruptions to the familiarity of daily life and our relationship to public space? By extending relational accounts of public health and organizational ethics, we critique a narrow view of solidarity that focuses on individual compliance with public health directives. Instead, we argue that solidarity involves addressing structural inequities, both within public health and our wider community. Finally, we suggest possibilities for political world‐building by considering how new forms of human togetherness might emerge as we forge a collective ‘new normal’.     

Solidarität

Which socio-psychological terms are connected with the term “solidarity”? Solidarity is understood as a specific attitude and quality of relationships between individuals in groups and organizations and on the level of society. A disturbed balance between “self-enhancement” and “self-transcendence” caused by socio-cultural developments diminishes solidarity. The questions that are considered and discussed, are the following: Under which conditions does solidarity arise, which conditions in groups allow individuals to learn about solidarity, do current organizational structures affect the well tried forms of organized solidarity and how does empowerment conflict with the balance of power in society?