The Myth of a Systemic Crisis in Russia After the Great Reforms of the 1860s-1870s

The material situation of Russia's population measurably improved between 1861 and 1913.     

Feminism,the state,and the centrality of reproduction: abortion struggles in 1970s Italy

This article analyses an episode of intense socio-political conflict over the question of abortion in 1970s Italy. Considering the shifting positions of feminist groups and other pro-legalization actors on the one hand, and institutions, political parties and the Church on the other, it offers a new analysis of social mobilization, leading to parliamentary debate and legal change. It presents an original approach to an understanding of feminist challenges to patriarchal cultures and institutions, and of the latter’s immediate responses. Focusing on Italy but referring to developments in other industrialized countries, the article inscribes the history of the battle for reproductive rights in 1970s Italy within a framework centred on the Foucauldian notion of biopolitical power. It is argued that the legal settling of the issue came to be seen by state actors as central to the wider socio-political stabilization of the country. For feminists, the question of abortion was less straightforward than is often assumed. Italian feminist debate, while visibly impacting on wider society, was marked by dilemmas around the private and the public, the relationship to the state, and concerns around centring the feminist agenda on reproduction.     

The politics of gendered emotions: disrupting men's emotional investment in privilege

This paper explores the implications of the neglect of emotions in critical masculinity studies and profeminist masculinity politics. This neglect in part results from feminist and profeminist critiques of the literature on emotional inexpressiveness as a tragedy for men that ignores male privilege and men's social power. To focus on men's emotions is seen by some profeminist commentators as psychologising men at the expense of sociological understandings of men's social power. However, in neglecting the place of emotions in men's lives, critical masculinity studies has overlooked the ways in which men's emotional attachment to privilege can perpetuate oppressive gender relations and male violence against women. By exploring men's emotional investment in unequal gender relations, the article outlines ways in which emotions can also be used as a catalyst to disrupt men's attachment to male privilege.     

Moral emotions in early childhood: Validation of the Chinese moral emotion questionnaire

Moral emotions such as pride, guilt and shame play an important role in the social-emotional development of preschool children. However, there are not many instruments available for measuring moral emotions in the preschool age. Moreover, relatively few research had examined cross-cultural validity of measures for moral emotions. The present study tested the Chinese version of the Moral emotion questionnaire (MEQ) upon a group of (N = 182) Chinese preschool children aged from 2 to 6 years. The Chinese MEQ is a parent-report translated from Dutch, assessing behavioural responses of pride, guilt and shame in preschool children. Confirmatory factor analysis showed satisfactory goodness-of-fit indexes for a three-factor structure (Pride, Guilt, Shame) with 15 loading items. For concurrent relations, the results suggested an adaptive role of pride and guilt and a maladaptive role of shame in the social-emotional development of preschool children. We could conclude that the 15-item Chinese MEQ is a valid and reliable instrument for measuring pride, guilt, and shame in 2–6-year-old children in the Chinese context.     

Public corruption: A study across regions in Italy

This work explores the determinants of public corruption using a regional panel dataset on crimes perpetrated in Italy by public officials against the public administration in combination with a set of demographic and socio-economic variables. The results suggest that both the size and the composition of public spending at the local level explain corruption. We also find that regions where social capital is higher are more likely to face a lower incidence of corruption crimes. Moreover, regions which have historically placed less importance on rooting out corruption may be stuck in a vicious circle of higher levels of corruption.     

"Killed by its mother": infanticide in Providence County, Rhode Island, 1870 to 1938

This article analyzes infanticide based on the Coroners' Records for Providence County, Rhode Island, from the 1870s to 1938 to determine doctors' and coroners' attitudes toward mothers who killed. The nineteenth century witnessed a medical discourse on the possibility of postpartum insanity as a cause of infanticide. While some women claimed temporary insanity, and some doctors and coroners legitimated this defense, its application to mothers who killed was arbitrary. They determined who deserved this diagnosis based on the woman's character, her forthrightness, and extenuating circumstances. Infanticide divided the profession nationally and at the local level and prevented doctors or coroners from speaking in a united voice on the issue. This article does not attempt to follow cases of infanticide through to jury verdicts. Instead, it provides an opportunity to analyze the circumstances women faced that led them to kill their newborns, and to analyze the responses of doctors and coroners to these mothers who killed. Unlike the findings of other studies, neither physicians nor coroners in Rhode Island were united in a claim of ignorance to save these women from guilty verdicts.     

Activation and Local Welfare in Italy: Trends and Issues

This article deals with the development of local welfare in Italy and is grounded on a research project focusing on activation as a main feature of change in Italian social policies. Along with decentralization processes, many Italian regions have been acting as policy laboratories, developing and testing very different approaches according to their political attitude. On the one hand this results in a fragmented policy landscape which is difficult to recompose, and, moreover, in growing inequalities in the Italian welfare system. On the other hand, it opens opportunities for experimentation on institutional and organizational structures on a regional scale, creating a variety of practices for research and policy analysis. In the article we first describe the main trends in national social policies, with a specific focus on the dynamics of change referring to activation. We will then focus on a pilot programme which is aiming at the promotion and implementation of innovative practices in health and social care services in Friuli‐Venezia Giulia, a region in which there is a significant orientation towards enhancing social citizenship and enforcing the central position of the public actor. We investigate how the dynamics of territorialization and personalization, implied by the programme, trigger specific logics and practices of activation. Finally, referring to this case study, we propose an analytical overview of some relevant issues in the development of ‘local active welfare’ in Italy.     

Family Commitments under Negotiation: Dual Carers in Finland and Italy

This paper makes a comparison between Finnish and Italian working dual carers. Dual carers have responsibilities simultaneously at two different fronts. The selected Finnish and Italian samples of carers are doing similar care work in different settings. They negotiate care with a variety of actors and under differing circumstances. A care life story has been constructed for each participant. Then these care life stories have been compared with each other, especially at points where the need for negotiation has been evident, at life's various turning points. There are many individual similarities in negotiations performed in Finland and in Italy. However, their divergent contexts create considerable variation.     

Long-term Care Policies in Italy, Austria and France: Variations in Cash-for-Care Schemes

Cash benefit provisions have been at the core of many recent reforms in the long-term care sector in Europe. The respective schemes, however, vary widely in terms of the definition of entitlements, the level of benefits, and the ways in which benefits can be used by recipients. This article investigates cash-for-care schemes in three European social insurance countries. It asks whether the diversity of these schemes indicates different paths or just differences in the pace with which the respective policies address the risk of dependency. A characterization of the three schemes and a discussion of the implications for care work arrangements lead to the conclusion that the context and timing of long-term care reform processes are in fact quite variegated. All three countries have histories of cash schemes and of applying the cash approach to support – and to some extent relieve – traditionally strong family obligations. Differences predominate in terms of linking cash to employment, although some convergence is apparent in the effects on qualifications, working conditions and wages in care work.     

The Development of Peer Interaction in Infancy: Exploring the Dyadic Processes

Peer interaction is an important component of children's social repertoires that is associated with a variety of developmental outcomes and life skills. The present study provides an in‐depth study of early dyadic peer behaviors during the infancy period, during which social competence with peers is first being developed. Results from variable‐centered analyses highlight the effectiveness of behaviors, such as offering objects to peers, and point to the importance of the social context set by a peer's prior social behavior and processes for eliciting peer responses. Findings from person‐centered analyses reveal marked individual differences in the processes through which infants are successful in eliciting responses from their peers, illustrating the presence of multiple pathways to achieving social competence with peers.     

Public investment and growth: Lessons learned from 60-years experience in Southern Italy

This article analyses the contribution of public investment to economic growth in Southern Italy in the second half of the twentieth century (1951–2011). The Bai–Perron tests suggest that economic growth followed three distinct regimes: accelerated growth in the years 1951–1973 (average growth rate 5.3%); low growth in the period 1974–1995 (average growth rate 1.6%); zero growth on average after 1995. Using cointegration analysis, we find a positive effect of public investment on per unit of labour output of the Mezzogiorno in the whole period, 1951–2011. However, the estimates of the model show statistically significant parameters of public investment in the first regime, but not in the second regime, when economic growth is sustained by business investment and technical change. The last phase of growth sees the negative influence of the social and institutional environment on the functioning of the economy. The different impact of public investment on growth over time is ascribed to changes in the quality of institutions.     

Health system decentralization and recentralization in Italy: Ideas,discourse, and institutions

This paper explores the dynamics of health system decentralization and recentralization in Italy, investigating why and how the territorial organization of the health system has changed over time. Drawing from discursive and historical institutionalism, the explanatory framework revolves around the role of ideational and institutional factors. The methods include process tracing and interpretive‐discourse analysis. Empirical material is drawn from documents and in‐depth interviews to experts and decision‐makers. Through the analysis of the reform trajectories in light of decentralization and recentralization processes, the paper shows that the territorial organization of the Italian health system has changed through a mechanism of gradual transformative change that I here call ideational and institutional bricolage, which involves the interplay between ideas, discourse, and institutions.