Legislative responses to wrongful conviction: Do partisan principals and advocacy efforts influence state-level criminal justice policy?

The number of discovered wrongful criminal convictions (and resulting exonerations) has increased over the past decade. These cases erode public confidence in the criminal justice system and trust in the rule of law. Many states have adopted laws that aim to reduce system errors but no study has examined why some states appear more willing to provide due process protections against wrongful convictions than others. Findings from regression estimates suggest that states with a Republican controlled legislature or more Republican voters are less likely to pass these laws while the presence of advocacy organizations that are part of the ‘innocence movement’ make legislative change more likely. We thus identify important differences in the political and social context between U.S. states that influence the adoption of criminal justice policies.     

Depoliticising literature,politicising diversity: ethno-racial boundaries in Dutch literary professionals’ aesthetic repertoires

Although still a neglected area, over the years a growing body of sociological research on the position of ethno-racial minorities in Western artistic fields has emerged. With this article we aim to contribute to this research area by focusing on ethno-racial diversity in the Dutch literary field. Through in-depth interviews, we analyse how gatekeepers mobilise specific cultural repertoires and by doing so draw ethno-racial boundaries when discussing acquisition, assessing quality and positioning themselves in the literary field. We argue that literary publishers and other professionals (selectively) employ an ‘old school’ modernist repertoire that especially values the formal aspects of literary products, by which non-white writers and publishers concerned with diversity are often positioned in an identity politics framework. Their work is said to take in a less prestigious ‘political’/’subjective’ position rather than a ‘literary’/‘universal’ one. As such, this paper informs on how gatekeepers’ practices shape the position of non-white authors in the Dutch literary field.     

Young people,social media and connective action: from organisational maintenance to everyday political talk

Social media is pervasive in the lives of young people, and this paper critically analyses how politically engaged young people integrate social media use into their existing organisations and political communications. This qualitative research project studied how young people from a broad range of existing political and civic groups use social media for sharing information, mobilisation and, increasingly, as a means to redefine political action and political spaces. Twelve in-person focus groups were conducted in Australia, the USA and the UK with matched affinity groups based on university campuses. The groups were of four types: party political group, issue-based group, identity-based group and social group. Our focus group findings suggest that this in-depth approach to understanding young people's political engagement reveals important group-based differences emerging in young people's citizenship norms: between the dutiful allegiance to formal politics and a more personalised, self-actualising preference for online, discursive forms of political engagement and organising. The ways in which political information is broadcast, shared and talked about on social media by engaged young people demonstrate the importance of communicative forms of action for the future of political engagement and connective action.     

Enoch Powell,empires, immigrants and education

2018 marks the 50th anniversary of Enoch Powell’s infamous ‘Rivers of Blood’ speech, an intervention that is still viewed as one of the most incendiary statements of the perceived decay and violence likely to follow legislation intended to assure minoritised British citizens of equal rights regardless of their ethnic origin. In this essay, Sally Tomlinson (one of Britain’s foremost multicultural theorists) reflects on Powell’s legacy and the contemporary scene where in the US, UK and across Europe, White resentment and fear is increasingly shaping ‘mainstream’ debates about nationhood, migration and education.     

Humor and satire in politics: Introducing cultural sociology to the field

The landscape of political humor and satire is changing rapidly, and it is becoming an increasingly relevant aspect of our culture. Although scholars have been actively trying to capture this change, majority of the existing frameworks for understanding humor and satire in politics still reduce these phenomena to mere genres or rhetoric tools. In addition, they provide insufficient accounts concerning the reception of humor and satire, and neglect to interpret and explain what they communicate. In the article, a general understanding of humor and satire outside of a political context, followed by an overview of studies discussing humor and satire in politics through their applications in social movements, as leadership tools, and through their manifestations in mass media has been presented. Lastly, a cultural sociological perspective to the field has been introduced. It has been argued that approaching humor and satire in politics through a structural hermeneutic method of the Strong Program will enable us to recognize and treat political humor and satire as autonomous and complex cultural systems which carry an internal power to move people.     

Ambivalent Spaces—The Emergence of a New Gay Male Norm Situated Between Notions of the Commercial and the Political in the Swedish Gay Press, 1969–1986

Within sexual geographies, sexual struggles over urban public spaces are frequently explored. Less common is research on sexual struggles within sexually shared spaces and gay spaces. The aim of the article is to examine discursive struggles of meanings of gay male identity enacted in discussions of commodification/capitalism, disclosure, and space in Swedish gay press during 1969–1986. We trace the ambivalent feelings or the emergence of a new gay male norm situated between commercialism and non-commercialism within the Swedish gay press back to the 1970s. In the article we show how a monosexualization process was taking place in both the Swedish gay press as well as within sexual spaces. We explore rhetorical struggles between two competing discursive meanings of (ideal homonormative) male homosexuality, gay culture, and space: one wider (inclusive) and one narrower (exclusive).     

诗与士人的精神世界:试以王维的生命史和编年诗为例的社会学探索

费孝通先生晚年倡导面向“精神世界”的社会学研究，不仅强调了社会学的人文性格，而且指明了回溯和整理传统思想资源以理解人心的意义。古代士人在仕隐之间的进退趋避是精神世界研究的重要课题，盛唐诗人王维可作为重要个案。本文运用“知人论世”的方法，以王维的生命史、编年诗及他与其他诗人的交往为线索，考察其如何在仕隐之间调适精神世界的矛盾冲突。王维通过人际和诗文往来形成的社会交游空间、自然山水空间和灵性佛理空间，构成一个融和自然与人文的“人生圜局”，以寻求精神世界在“入世有为”和“消极退避”之间的平衡，而其精神苦痛也可以从这个圜局的层级变动或缺失中探寻根源。本文认为，把握世风民情、生命史的再现以及理解和体会的功夫，是研究士人精神世界的重要门径。     

公民·公民教育·思想政治教育

公民概念在西方由来已久 ,它直接与国家相连并被认为是政治民主的一个关键因素。西方公民教育的核心 ,就是通过政治社会化形成公民意识。我国传统上只有臣民而无公民和公民教育 ,民国建立后所实施的公民教育也不成体系。真正将公民教育单独提出并加以强调 ,是在我国社会的转型时期。在社会主义市场经济条件下 ,立足于公民的塑造 ,培养公民的意识、观念与精神 ,是思想政治教育与时俱进、顺应时代发展的客观要求     

试论建设社会主义政治文明

发展社会主义民主政治 ,建设社会主义政治文明是社会主义现代化建设的重要目标。随着我国经济发展、社会进步和改革的深化 ,社会主义政治文明建设具有其必要性和紧迫性。新中国成立 5 0多年来 ,我国民主政治、政治文明建设取得了一定成效 ,但离社会主义现代化建设的目标还有较大差距。因此 ,我们要积极稳妥地推进政治体制改革 ,在建设社会主义物质文明、精神文明的同时 ,抓好社会主义政治文明建设 ,实现有中国特色的社会主义现代化     

论美国宪法政治形成发展的基础

美国宪法政治形成和发展的原因 ,在于有英国立宪政治的深厚文化与思想做基础 ,在于社会各群体有在法治状态下生活的习惯和传统。济济的法律人才在国家政治制度的设计上起了主导作用 ;社会经济制度为美国的宪法政治确立与发展奠定了坚固的基础 ;国家不豢养和保存大规模的常备军 ,人民的代议机关能牢牢控制国家武装力量 ,尤其能控制国家武装力量的经济命脉。另外 ,北美独立运动不是一场专制王权与民主力量之间的冲突与斗争 ,而是一场殖民地力量壮大以后争取分离的运动