Twenty‐Five Years After the Fall of Communism: The Cultural Peculiarities of Fighting Corruption and Building Civil Society in Romania

Even when the domestic political system has undergone reform, it sometimes seems unlikely that any outside force can introduce enough of a “carrot and stick” approach to persuade a country to maintain momentum. This article is concerned with understanding the cultural peculiarities of fighting corruption and building civil society in Romania, where despite the tough EU monitoring and domestic anti‐sleaze efforts, corruption, and low trust remain significant problems. Many of the theorists in the post‐communist literature argue that socioeconomic factors and the communist legacy have weakened post‐communist civil society in the region. This article explores the question whether corruption has replaced the legacy of communism as a factor undermining trust in others and government in Romania and presents an examination of the association between corruption and post‐communist civil society. The article argues that future research needs to switch focus from discussing Romanian social, political, and cultural behaviors from a longue durée perspective to evaluating the impact of political corruption on trust and, hence, civil society in Romania.     

Pacification of Rio's Favelas and the “Pacification of the Pacification Police”: The Role of Coordinating Brokerage in Police Reform

Rio de Janeiro's drug dealer–dominated favelas are territories where the state lacks the monopoly of violence. They have historically been sites of sporadic and violent police operations. Rio's favela “pacification” program aimed to consolidate state control via the establishment of a Pacification Police Unit (UPP). This proximity policing program initially experienced mixed results in different “pacified” favelas. I take advantage of this state intervention at the urban margins to ask, what explains the positive reception of this policing initiative in some communities but not others? I concentrate my fieldwork in two communities sharing a UPP that represented extreme cases of success in terms of the program's reception by residents. I find that the coordinating brokerage of respected local organizations helps acculturate police to the community and minimize offensive police behavior, thereby “pacifying the Pacification Police.” Residents are receptive to these resocialized police who comply with local norms of respect. This police‐reforming brokerage is possible due to the high level of closure in the local network and due to a vibrant local community with a strong history of organizing. My findings emphasize the importance of considering the role of local civil society in police reform at the urban margins.     

Performing Beauty: Dove's “Real Beauty” Campaign

Dove, a popular beauty brand, impressed some in the advertising world with its unique “Campaign for Real Beauty” and made others cringe. But little is known about how real women respond. “Real” beauty according to Dove means various shapes and sizes—flaws and all—and is the key to rebranding, rebuilding women's self‐esteem, and redefining beauty standards. Drawing on interviews and focus groups with sixteen Canadian women and guided by social semiotics and dramaturgy, I examine Dove's presentation of beauty and women's reactions to it from a “beauty as performance” frame. This study examines processes of interpretation and finds that expressing beauty, the self, and a public image inextricably requires elements of performance.     

Confronting “Victim” Discourses: The Identity Work of Battered Women

In this article I explore how battered women both draw from and reject victim discourses in their processes of self‐construction and self‐representation. Data gathered from semistructured interviews with forty women who experienced violence from an intimate partner in a heterosexual relationship demonstrate that available “victim” discourses are both enabling and constraining. Four common representations of a victim emerged as most influential to women's identity work: as someone who suffers a harm she cannot control; as someone who deserves sympathy and/or requires some type of action be taken against the victimizer; as someone who is culpable for her experiences; and as someone who is powerless and weak. “Victim empowerment” and “survivor” discourses also played a role in how women understood and made sense of their experiences. In their attempts to construct identities for themselves, battered women become caught between notions of victimization, agency, and responsibility.     

Representations of “the West,”“Japan,” and “the Periphery” in the Discourse of Lafcadio Hearn Studies

The purpose of this article is to analyze representations of “the West,”“Japan,” and “the Periphery” in the discourse of research on Lafcadio Hearn (“Hearn studies”) from pre‐war Japan. The nature and construction of nationality will be analyzed by examining where the representations of “the West,”“Japan,” and “the Periphery” intersected. During the 1900s, researchers in the field of Hearn studies recognized that “Japan” lacked—and thus sought—a universality similar to what existed in “the West.” The tone of the discourse shifted during the 1910s through 1920s however, and what came to be emphasized was “Japan's” peculiarity. By the 1930s through 1940s, “Japan” aimed to show to “the West” a new universality that was different from what existed in Europe and America. Yet simultaneously, in order to legitimize its representation of its self, “Japan” portrayed “the Periphery” as an object that was both excluded and absorbed or appropriated into that image. On the one hand, “Japan” received and internalized the Orientalist viewpoint of “the West.” In fact, “Japan” was always conscious of its self‐image as something to display to “the West.” On the other hand, in order to create that self‐portrayal, both a representation of “the Periphery” and a reflection from that same “Periphery” were essential. While representations of “Japan” were produced, reproduced, and reinforced through interactions with “the West” and “the Periphery,” the intersecting behavior of these three entities also points to a residual ambiguity in “Japan's” nationality. By analyzing the discourse in Hearn studies, this paper reveals how the interaction between “Japan” and the two others of “the West” and “the Periphery” helped construct and destabilize its nationality.     

The meanings and motives for women's use of violence in Canadian college dating relationships: Results from a national survey

Data from a Canadian nationwide representative sample of 1,835 female college students were used to test a variety of propositions about women's use of violence in dating relationships. It has become progressively common in both Canada and the United States to argue that women are as violent as men. Although in a crude counting of violent acts these data confirm the contention that women commit a large number of such acts, a further investigation of the women's motives shows that a substantial amount of their violence was in self‐defense, or “fighting back.” The more these women had been victimized, whether physically or sexually, the more likely they were to report that they had used self‐defensive violence. The finding that a substantial amount of women's     

“Anarchy all over Baščaršija”: Yugoslavia's new socialist culture and the New Primitives poetics of the local

The paper analyses Sarajevo's music movement of New Primitives and its “poetics of the local” as a struggle against the cultural hypocrisy of Yugoslavia's “new socialist culture” and its privileging of “external‐cosmopolitan” as apotheosis of cultured refinement and sophistication while denigrating “local‐parochial” as epitome of uncultured primitiveness. I argue that the movement's praxis is best understood as a call to reject externally‐imposed frames of reference as the basis for self‐understanding, and to embrace a socio‐cultural awareness that the only way to be in the world is to be authentically “primitive”– i.e. to exist as a distinct and autochthon socio‐cultural self.     

Poverty,oil and corruption: the need for a Quad‐Sector Development Partnership (QSDP) in Nigeria's Niger Delta

This article starts by charting the conflicting position in Nigeria's Niger Delta between its petroleum wealth and the poverty of its inhabitants before observing how government corruption has hampered development agencies from rectifying this situation. It then examines trans‐national company (TNC) Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) initiatives via a case study of the Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC). It concludes that, while there are useful projects, their success is felt at a micro level that cannot supplant wider government development. Finally, the article sets out why Quad‐Sector Development Partnerships (QSDP) between an international development agency, the state, TNCs and civil society will help to neutralise the national problem of corruption so that Niger‐Delta socioeconomic development can be improved.     

Multi‐stakeholder Groups for Better Sector Performance: A Key to Fighting Corruption in Natural‐Resource Governance?

Multi‐stakeholder groups – involving representatives from civil society, government and the private sector — are increasingly seen as a means of promoting improved service delivery and operational performance in natural‐resource sectors. Although the intention is to promote dialogue, learning and collaboration towards agreed goals and the implementation of standards for better sector governance and performance, the impact of these initiatives will be shaped by members' incentives and external constraints. This article describes how incentive incompatibilities will prevent the group from effectively addressing fundamental problems in the sectors, such as corruption. Multi‐stakeholder groups can be a viable forum for debate, but should not be expected to perform a role in fighting corruption in natural‐resource management.     

Second‐Generation “Return” to Greece: New Dynamics of Transnationalism and Integration

Based on in‐depth narrative interviews with 64 second‐generation Greek‐Germans and Greek‐Americans who have “returned” to Greece, this article explores intersections between return, transnationalism and integration. Having grown up with a strong Greek identity in the diaspora, second‐generation “returnees” move to Greece mainly for idealistic, lifestyle and life‐stage reasons. However, most find living in Greece long‐term a challenging experience: they remark on the corruption and chaos of Greek life, and are surprised at the high level of xenophobia in Greek society, not only towards foreign immigrants but also towards themselves as “hyphenated Greeks”. The “return” to Greece provokes new “reverse” transnational links back to their birth country, where they still need to keep in touch with relatives and friends, including caring obligations towards parents who remain abroad. Some contemplate another “return”, back to the US or Germany.

Policy Implications

• Policymakers responsible for integration should not assume that the second generation has no connections with its parents' country of origin.
• In the diasporic home country (in this case Greece), more effort should be made to facilitate the reintegration of the second generation returning ‘home’ and to break down discrimination towards hyphenated Greeks.
• Greek policymakers should pay heed to homecoming second‐generation Greeks in order to benefit from their bicultural insights into how Greek society can be improved, especially as regards efficient public services, transparent employment opportunities, better environment management, gender equality, and the elimination of racism and discrimination.

     

An “Oasis of Freedom” in a “Closed Society”: The Development of Tougaloo College as a Free Space in Mississippi's Civil Rights Movement, 1960 to 19641

Abstract Based on archival research and in‐depth interviews, this study explores how Tougaloo College in Jackson, Mississippi developed into a pivotal movement center in Mississippi's civil rights movement and the ways in which Tougaloo's faculty and administrators as organic intellectuals helped to create, maintain, and augment such a free space and the social networks who utilized it. The school served as an interracial “safe haven” for those involved in and sympathetic to the civil rights movement who in turn, helped to cultivate networks, ideas, and strategies that contributed to the movement in meaningful ways. The school's heritage, its sources of financial support, and its relative physical isolation allowed Tougaloo College to challenge Mississippi's closed society from within.     

Ebenezer Obadare: <Emphasis Type="Italic">Humor,Silence and Civil Society in Nigeria</Emphasis>

This is a book review of Ebenezer Obadare’s “Humor, Silence and Civil Society in Nigeria.” It examines conceptual issues around the role of civil society in Nigeria, the nexus (or lack thereof) between ngo’s and civil society, and the roles that humor and silence play as roles of agency in how a population responds to oppression and the suppression of dissent.     

Constructing a Modern Society Through “Depillarization”. Understanding Post‐War History as Gradual Change

The term “depillarization” (“ontzuiling”) emerged in the Netherlands during the 1970s to proclaim the end of a society dominated by “pillarization” (“verzuiling”). In breaking away from the past, a groundbreaking renewal of religious and civic life through secularization and individualization was proclaimed or deplored. As hopes of an emancipation from the past subsided in the face of a considerable continuity, depillarization became a narrative of loss and frustration. This article shows how metaphors of disaggregation such as depillarization have produced an inability to conceptualize contemporary society, accompanied by a distortion of the past as the “other” of the present. It demonstrates how such metaphors may become dominant through their ability to incorporate competing visions of social order and the integration of scholarly and popular discourse. In conclusion, this article proposes to overcome the narratives of disaggregation by interpreting post‐war history as a gradual transformation from the ideals and practices of heavy communities to those of light communities in the domains of politics, civil society and religion.     

“Now I am also Israeli”: From Illegality to Legality ‐ Life experiences and identities of migrant workers’ children after receiving civil status in Israel

In 2006 and 2010, following demands from local and international civil society organizations, Israel granted civil status to approximately 1500 undocumented migrant workers’ children. This was considered a “one time humanitarian gesture,” not to be repeated. Thousands of other children, who did not fulfill the required criteria, were left without civil status. Within the context of Israel, the homeland of the Jewish people, this mixed‐methods study explored how the children's life experiences have been constructed and reconstructed since the inception of their new civil status. According to the findings, 80 per cent of migrant workers’ children reveal a high degree of belonging to Israeli society, defining themselves as Israelis. For them, receiving civil status has four practical implications: being able to serve in the Israeli army; the ability to travel abroad; better access to the job market; and freedom from fear of deportation. Our study also revealed difficulties due to their religious and ethnic identities, reflected in the children's understandings of what it means to be Israeli. The complex manifestations of their newly acquired civil status is embedded in the concept of “freedom,” i.e. to do and to be what they really want to be.     

Between the Procedural and the Substantial: Democratic Deliberation and the Interaction Order in “Occupy Middletown General Assembly”

This article analyzes interaction from an intentional, self‐reflexive democratic meeting of ordinary citizens—a “General Assembly” from the 2011 Occupy Movement—to explore two competing theories of democracy: Habermas's democratic deliberation and Mouffe's agonistic pluralism. The group's rational ideals and procedures for democratic deliberation approximate those of Habermas's “ideal speech situation,” but appear limited in their capacity to ensure Habermasian understanding or consensus. Intertwined with these rational procedures are practices best explained in terms of what Goffman called “face‐work”—the ways in which participants maintain a working consensus of mutual acceptance and respect in conversation. These face‐work procedures—rather than sincere, rational intentions—help constitute the civility necessary for rational deliberation and participation. Such symbolic valuing of self and other provide interactional grounds for the liberty and equality of agonistic democratic conversation as conceived by Mouffe.     

“I” and Self-Consciousness in the Japanese Language and in Sociology

Abstract It is often said that the Japanese lack the firm consciousness of “self” namely, they yield to groups and are absorbed in an anonymous state. Some ascribe this to the Japanese language, in which the first and the second person are expressed by various pronouns (or, in many cases, are even omitted) in accordance with the relationships between persons. By contrast the Westerner's “I,” which is usually the only pronoun for the first-person, is rarely omitted. They conclude from this that the Japanese individual does not possess as clearly defined a conception of “self” as does the Westerner. Underlying this issue are the fundamental, interwoven questions of language and self-consciousness: does “self” really exist, and does the analysis of the I in language pertain to the first question? This paper discusses these questions by considering Wittgenstein's argument that “I” does not refer to self-consciousness: rather, “self” is a metaphysical reification of “I.” These problems concern sociology, in which the “subject” of action has been the focal point of methodological arguments. I will show that Meadian interactionism and critical theory are deeply rooted in the metaphysical, subjectivist understanding of “I,” while ethnomethodology offers a perspective which overcomes both subjectivism and objectivism for studying communication.     

Recollection and Relocation in Immigration: Russian‐Jewish Immigrants “Normalize” Their Anti‐Semitic Experiences

This study conceptualizes the relationship between recollection of the past and relocation in the context of immigration. Combining symbolic interactionist and narrative paradigms, it explores how immigrants'representations of past experiences inform their identity construction and the process of entering the host society. Our interpretive analysis of personal narratives related spontaneously by eighty‐nine Russian‐Jewish immigrants in Israel and Germany reveals that they choose to “normalize” their anti‐Semitic experiences by representing them as secondary, expected, and “normal.” They do so via four narrating tactics of normalization: obscuring, self‐exclusion, vindication, and essentializing stigma. Each tactic devalues the cultural depiction (grand narrative) of anti‐Semitic experiences as transformative and traumatic. By normalizing their past, the immigrants deconstruct and resist the authority and moral commands of the national narrative they encounter in both societies. Putting forward normalization as an alternative interpretation, the immigrants claim ownership of their biography and cultural identity.     

Towards “cognitively complex” problem‐solving: Six models of public service reform

This article proposes “cognitively complex problem‐solving” as a refinement of the recent problem‐solving approach to public service reform, and as an addition to existing political and institutional explanations for the frequent failure of reform. It substantiates the new problem‐solving model by identifying and selectively reviewing six models of reform that have been practised in developing countries over the past half‐century: public administration, decentralization, pay and employment reform, New Public Management, integrity and corruption reforms and “bottom‐up” reforms. A short case study of Myanmar is presented to illustrate the problem‐solving approach in practice.     

“The troublesome other and I”: Parallel stories of separated parents in prolonged conflicts

This qualitative study aims to explore how noncohabiting parenting couples in prolonged conflict construct the other parent and themselves. Ten parents from five parent couples were interviewed. A dyadic analytical design was used, where parent's stories of conflict were analyzed in parallel with their co‐parent. Drawing on positioning theory, self‐identity as parents emerged as implicit counter positions in storylines, which construct the co‐parent as “the troublesome other.” Two typologies of conflicted storylines were prominent in the findings: storylines of violations of trust, positioning the co‐parents in relation to traumatic events in the past and, storylines of who is bad, positioning the co‐parent as either a disloyal co‐parent or a dysfunctional parent. The findings indicate that prolonged conflicts made it impossible to find available positions for cooperation. We argue that family therapists should aid each household toward promoting child and family resilience rather than continued efforts to solve chronic conflicts.