Welfare service privatization and opinions about service quality: The role of political ideology among local politicians and the public

In this article, we join the discussion about the potential consequences of welfare service privatization by examining the relationship between the privatization of welfare service delivery and public opinion about service quality in Sweden. Due to the politically polarized debate about welfare service privatization in Sweden, we also examine the extent to which individualsapos; ideological orientations influence this relationship in both local politicians and ordinary citizens. For local politicians, the results show that a higher municipal degree of privatization is generally associated with slightly lower levels of satisfaction overall with welfare services, although no such relationship exists for the public. Most importantly, however, the results indicate that political ideology constitutes an important moderator in the relationship between privatization and opinions about service quality. Local politicians and, to some extent, ordinary citizens who place themselves to the left on the ideological left–right scale tend to be less satisfied with services as the municipal degree of welfare service privatization increases. For local politicians who position themselves far to the right on the scale, the relationship between welfare service privatization and satisfaction is positive. These findings suggest that there is no clear-cut relationship between privatization and individualsapos; opinions about services; rather, this relationship depends on the ideological predispositions of local politicians and ordinary citizens.     

Reconciling care and justice in contesting social harm through performance and arts practice with looked after children and care leavers

The proportion of young people taken into the care of the state has increased recently and there is evidence that this social group suffer negative long‐term outcomes that might be conceptualised by the emergent criminological category of ‘social harm’. Debates in social work around an ethics of care and justice offer different ways of thinking about responding to social harm. This paper reports findings from an innovative arts‐based intervention with Looked After Children and young people and concludes that holding these competing value sets in creative tension is central to the success of the programme in helping young people to cope with and contest social harm.     

Diasporic kinship hegemonies and transnational continuities in the Hmong diaspora

ABSTRACT

Although hegemony has been understood as the property of nation-states and the ruling classes, this paper explores cultural hegemonies among diasporic peoples by examining the pervasive compliance of Hmong living in Laos and the United States with the principles of their kinship system. Since these kinship rules are inculcated through parental education from an early age and are seen as essential for maintaining the cohesion of their dispersed diasporic community in the absence of a territorial ancestral homeland, they have become culturally engrained and taken-for-granted by Hmong through their voluntary consent and no longer have to be enforced by overt power and coercive means. However, like all hegemonies, the Hmong kinship system may also confront increasing challenges and contestation as it is enacted in the different nation-states where Hmong reside, and may eventually become an ideology that needs to be actively enforced and imposed by the direct use of power.     

美好抑或悲哀:旅游演艺的文化真实性研究

文化是旅游演艺的灵魂,旅游演艺即为通过对真实的地域文化进行抽离、截取、裁剪等艺术性加工所形成的具有舞台美感的旅游表演,并使真实的文化转变成舞台上的文化。由于利益诉求不同,旅游演艺相关各方对于文化真实性的关注角度存在一定差异。旅游演艺在对地域文化进行艺术加工的同时,也在对地域文化进行着解构与重构。地域文化真实性在解构与重构过程中发生改变,也使得旅游演艺相关各方对文化真实性产生了不一样的理解。尽管地域文化真实性因旅游演艺的介入而发生变化这一客观事实引起了一定的悲哀性慨叹,但总体而言旅游演艺重构或生产"新文化"这一过程既是美好的现实,更是美好的"真实",另外,这类"新文化"同样值得尊重,其是地域文化变迁过程中的真实性存在。     

For better,for worse? Public support for the capitalist model of the economy

A capitalist market economy is based on several institutional elements, such as private ownership and competition. Does public support for this economic model rise if the economy prospers, and fall during a downturn? Or is public support largely independent of the ups and downs of economic cycles? We hypothesize that positive economic performance increases support and that persons profiting personally are more supportive of the economic system's constitutive institutional elements. Using multilevel regression we study the determinants of individual-level support for the economic system. We also test for differences in the perception of economic performance due to political attitudes and personal properties. The findings partly support the hypotheses, indicating that macro-economic factors matter for individual-level attitudes towards the economy. Attitudes towards different institutional elements of the economic system also differ in the degree to which they are political or economic, and influenced by economic performance. Individual features – education and personal economic stakes – affect attitudes towards the economy, but a substantial share of the individual-level variation in economic attitudes remains unexplained.     

The Normativity of the Concept of Heteronormativity

The aim of the article is to analyze and to critically examine use of the concept of heteronormativity. We find it important to adjust the concept to some extent in order to analyze, for example, changes occurring in homosexual families, contemporary gender-equal families, or the progressive youth culture. We find two approaches when using the concept. One minimizes the importance of how sexual practices are embedded in social institutions. The first approach becomes too idealistic, whereas the second approach often is based on a structural view of society. This approach makes it hard to imagine a transformation of the family that could lead to more equal and democratic relations in contemporary families. We suggest a third approach, and the possibility of finding creative ways of analyzing actual change and contestations of heteronormativity. An approach containing a space of reflexivity and aiming at political change both involving subjects as well as structures.     

“It Is What It Is”: Masculinity,Homosexuality, and Inclusive Discourse in Mixed Martial Arts

In this article we make use of inclusive masculinity theory to explore online media representations of male homosexuality and masculinity within the increasingly popular combat sport of mixed martial arts (MMA). Adopting a case-study approach, we discuss narratives constructed around one aspirational male MMA fighter, Dakota Cochrane, whose history of having participated in gay pornography became a major talking point on a number of MMA discussion/community Web sites during early 2012. While these narratives attempted to discursively rescue Cochrane’s supposedly threatened masculinity, highlighting both his “true” heterosexuality and his prodigious fighting abilities, they also simultaneously celebrated the acceptance of homosexual men within the sport that Cochrane’s case implied. Thus, we suggest that these media representations of homosexuality and masculinity within MMA are indicative of declining cultural homophobia and homohysteria and an inclusive vision of masculinity, as previously described by proponents of inclusive masculinity theory.     

中国儒法传统下武人心理结构的历史变迁

人是文化哲学的本质和核心，武术文化研究离不开与"武"相关的人本身。以拥有武技的武人在不同历史时期的社会角色及其处境为线索，从儒家、法家的文化传统所代表的现实秩序的兴衰与融合的历史变迁中梳理武人心理结构的演变过程，有助于更真实地理解历史文化变迁中武术与相关传统文化的深层关系。整体来看，不同历史时期国家主流文化驱使下的社会秩序形成外部强制，逐渐使武人的自然性情趋于内隐而转化为自我控制和调整，从而在各自的社会角色中实现了对暴力的文明转化以及自身心理结构的"理性化"。同时，传统武礼、武德的内涵也是在武人不断调整、适应社会的过程中逐步生成与发展的，并承载和体现了一定的儒法传统特征，这一过程整体上也影响了武术的发展走向。     

论“国际社会”的意识形态性——兼论我国国际话语权的提升

作为国际政治领域的重要概念，“国际社会”具有两面性。从表面上看，“国际社会”是国际行为体之间开展合作的场域，应建构和维护国际秩序的公平正义，因而在国际交往中不应以意识形态为标准和以意识形态划线；从本质上看，“国际社会”是国际行为体开展国家利益和意识形态博弈的重要场域，具有强烈的意识形态性。“国际社会”意识形态性的关键是国际话语权，其实质是国家(或国际社会成员)的国际利益。从意识形态的角度考察“国际社会”，有利于看清“国际社会”的本质，这对于深入理解国际热点问题和国际舆论的实质，特别是对于我国国际话语权的建设与提升，具有重要意义。