The transformative power of civil society in South Africa: an activist’s perspective on innovative forms of organizing and rights-based practices

ABSTRACT

This essay analyses recent campaigns to fulfil human rights to quality basic education and access to mental health care services, led by SECTION27, a social justice organization in South Africa. It investigates how these campaigns were able to impact on inequality in education and health care and the ways in which they mobilized and empowered communities to demand social justice and drive pro-poor transformation. In particular, it looks at the way SECTION27 used human rights law and the Courts to advance social justice. It records many positive outcomes. But concludes by asking whether, if inequality is enabled by elite power can it only be disabled by people’s power? How can civil society overcome fault-lines in its sustainability, representativity and power structure? It argues that civil society must do more to tackle the systems and not just scratch at the symptoms of a more and more unequal world.     

Interorganizational Conflict in the Southern Civil Rights Movement

Moderate social movement organizations (SMOs) often denounce radical SMOs for statements and actions that threaten to alienate potential sources of external support. This paper analyzes the development of such interorganizational hostility in the Southern civil rights movement over the issues of Communist participation, the Vietnam War, and black power. In demonstrating how the moderate SMOs' perceived need for external support aggravated divisions over these issues, this paper calls attention to a major source of interorganizational hostility in the movement that previous work has overlooked.     

Knowledge,Tasks and Strategies for Teaching About Persons with Disabilities

Abstract

Persons with disabilities are a distinct and insular minority group within the United States. Given the fact that social workers offer critical social services to this group, it is important for social work programs to offer meaningful curriculum content on persons with disabilities. This article presents key issues that social work educators should find useful for teaching about persons with disabilities. Specifically, a discussion is offered on the disability civil rights movement, the culture of disability, models for defining disability, knowledge areas on disability issues, teaching tasks and strategies for focusing on persons with disabilities.     

Videotaped interviews in child sexual abuse cases: the Texas example

Suchrara writes [1977: 296] that "a child's right to humane treatment must be considered not an option on the part of adults, but an obligation." The use of videotaped interviews as admissible judicial evidence is an important step toward Suchrara's goal; videotaped testimony attempts to balance the emotional, psychological, and developmental needs of the child with the civil liberties afforded to alleged perpetrators. The Texas State Legislature, with the passage of Senate Bill 836, broadened the civil rights of children to include the notion of humane treatment in civil and criminal investigations and proceedings. The Texas law establishes explicit guidelines to enhance the child's dignity in a traumatic and personal experience. Furthermore, the law protects the civil rights of the accused guaranteed by the sixth and fourteenth amendments to the U.S. Constitution. The successful implementation of the videotape law, however, depends on the skills and expertise of the social worker. The practitioner must possess specialized training in the dynamics of child sexual abuse and an extensive understanding of related law and legal processes. This expertise is built on a foundation of knowledge and skills required for effective interviewing, counseling, and an exhaustive understanding of human behavior theory. Given the complexity and interplay of law, rights, and human behavior, the social worker requires ongoing training in these areas in order that the interests of all concerned parties be protected. The Texas State Legislature provides an opportunity for the social welfare and legal communities to determine jointly how and to what extent the rights of a victim and an alleged perpetrator may be protected. The law is in hand; the success of its implementation now rests with the practitioners.     

Culture And The Court: The Judiciary As An Arbiter Of Cultural Disputes In The USA

The law has enormous cultural significance; it creates many of the roles and statuses that structure people's lives, represents a society's values, establishes rights of cultural expression, and places restrictions on these rights. The cultural dimensions of the law are especially important for marginalized groups, as the law can act as a barrier to political and social inclusion or offer protection from discrimination. This essay argues that cultural studies of the law have overlooked the significance of the different sources of law. In the USA, culturally significant laws and legal interpretations can come from the judiciary or the legislature. Laws that are recognized by the judiciary or established by it through common law have a much different cultural significance from laws that are passed by legislatures. Judicial decisions are more symbolically meaningful, but may have a more limited power to produce deep cultural changes. Some major judicial decisions on minority rights, such as that in Brown vs. Board of Education, have even incited backlash. Legislative decisions tend to be seen as more legitimate and more reflective of the popular will, yet it may be more difficult for minority groups with limited resources to act through the legislature. Moreover, the legislature can also be used to by larger groups to block minority groups' attempts to gain rights. This essay illustrates the differences between these two sources of law and their comparative power to influence culture with key examples drawn from the civil rights movement and the gay rights movement.     

Evangelical Women and Feminism:

Although a number of studies have demonstrated that evangelical women are more likely than other women to take anti-feminist positions, recent research suggests that there might be substantial support among evangelicals for certain feminist positions. Using data from the 1984 American National Election study, we find that evangelical women are indeed more antifeminist than other women, but that a sizable minority take feminist positions on a number of issues. Approximately one in six can be classified as having a politicized feminist consciousness, while an additional quarter are potential converts to the feminist cause. These potential feminists are fairly negative toward the feminist movement, however. This is due in part to the association by many evangelical women between the women's movement, lesbian rights, and abortion.     

Public Attitudes Toward the Ethics of Organ Donation

Abstract

This study expanded on previous investigations exploring public attitudes toward the human rights issues involved in organ donation practices and personal support for these practices. Participants included college and graduate students, and senior citizens (N = 99). Attitudes were assessed prior to and following the presentation of a brief informational DVD on major organ donation practices. Results indicated that participants were largely divided in their attitudes toward human rights issues, as well as in personal support for donation practices. Registration status was correlated with education, r = .47, p < .001. Support for donation incentive programs varied. Registered donors showed a change in attitudes toward human rights issues, t(22) = 2.18, p = .04. For non-registered donors, personal support for donation practices decreased after viewing the DVD, t(51) = - 3.06, p = .004. Results are discussed in terms of implications for increasing donation.     

The flight from universalism

Up to the beginning of the 1990s Sweden had been considered a paragon welfare state in its realisation of universalist principles and an institutional welfare model. This seems to be changing rapidly. Mass unemployment, welfare expenditure cuts and institutional transformation have introduced several selective mechanisms into the Swedish welfare system, adding up to a retreat from universalism. New forms of selectivity can be seen in all layers of the welfare system, both transfer benefits and social security, public personal social services and the relation between state and voluntary organisations. The shifting of burdens from universal social security and insurance-based welfare onto local means tested systems has already meant a restigmatisation of unemployment, as the unemployed lose eligibility for the insurance-based systems, and an increase in the proportion of people who have to rely on poor relief instead of rights-based welfare, and when unemployment has gone up, so have work requirements for benefits. A rising proportion of labour market programmes are now municipally organised obligations instead of state administered rights. Conditioning the right to day care, appraising needs-tested services for the elderly, like home help and care, make personal social services change in the same directions. This may endanger the classical alliance between women and the welfare state.     

The poverty of social control: explaining power in the historical sociology of the welfare state

The concept ‘social control’ has been criticised from a variety of quarters in recent years, particularly by historians and historical sociologists. However, it remains in common usage in sociological studies of welfare, deviance and social control. This paper shows, first, how this reliance on the concept of social control is rooted in a wider-ranging argument in social and political theory concerning the liberal-democratic fusion between the state and civil society, and that the lack of resolution of this argument is the foundation of the persistence of the concept social control in other areas of social inquiry, despite its repeated ‘falsification’. Second, the paper highlights the main arguments against the use of ‘social control’ in explaining social order, in particular the misunderstanding of class, culture and power which its use encourages, and the paper will conclude with a discussion of alternative ways of conceptualising the operation of power in contemporary societies.     

Changing the structure of medical discourse: implications of cross-national comparisons

In the discourse of medical encounters, social problems arise frequently. Such problems typically derive from work and economic insecurity, family life and gender roles, aging, and conditions that foster substance use or other self-destructive behavior. The structure of medical discourse tends to marginalize the social issues that generate personal troubles in everyday life. Long-range strategies to alter medical discourse aim toward basic modifications of power and finance in the larger society of which medicine is a part; such strategies seek to change the contextual issues that create personal troubles on the individual level. As shown by the examples of the Soviet Union, eastern Europe, and China, social revolution does not necessarily resolve the micro-level contradictions of the doctor-patient relationship. In contrast, the Cuban revolution apparently has succeeded in transforming both the context and the structure of medical encounters. Short-range strategies in countries such as the United States involve more direct ways in which patients and doctors can alter their communication. These alterations involve reducing devices of language that maintain professional dominance, avoiding the medicalization of nonmedical problems, attempting not to marginalize contextual issues, and encouraging active attempts to change social conditions that generate personal troubles.     

State Constitutions and Women:

This article examines the content and success rate of constitutional changes relating to women's issues that were proposed in the 50 states between 1977 and 1985. Women's issues are defined as those that impact disproportionately on women as a consequence of demographic, socioeconomic, biological, or attitudinal and policy preference patterns. The results show that change proposals benefiting women have been most successful in the economic (taxation, pensions), personal safety (victims' rights, individual right to self defense, restrictions on bail and release of repeat offenders [especially for sexual and violent crimes]), suffrage,health, and gender and racially neutral language arenas. Slightly lower but still relatively high success rates are observable with regard to civil rights and civil liberties issues. Successes were greater when proposals targeted rights or services for the elderly (e.g., economic, taxation and retirement, health, and some housing) but were less common when they specifically singled out the poor (e.g., housing). (Women make up a disproportionate percentage of each of these groups, the elderly and the poor.) The study shows also that constitutional changes proposed through the formal citizen-intiative process were less likely to be approved than those submitted by state legislatures or constitutional conventions. But many of the defeated citizen-intiative proposals-especially in the health, education, and personal safety areas-proposed government funding or support for private sector ventures.     

Disability-policy models in European welfare regimes: comparing the distribution of social protection,labour-market integration and civil rights

This paper examines different models of disability policy in European welfare regimes on the basis of secondary data. OECD data measuring social protection and labour-market integration is complemented with an index which measures the outcomes of disability civil rights. Eurobarometer data is used to construct the index. The country modelling by cluster analysis indicates that an encompassing model of disability policy is mainly prevalent in Nordic countries. An activating and rehabilitating disability-policy model is predominant mainly in Central European countries, and there is evidence for a distinct Eastern European model characterized by relatively few guaranteed civil rights for disabled people. Furthermore, the Southern European model, which indicates a preference for social protection rather than activation and rehabilitation, includes countries which normally have diverse welfare traditions.     

The Authority of the Holy Revisited: Habermas, Religion, and Emancipatory Possibilities

This article argues that Jürgen Habermas's view of religion as anathema to rational critical discourse reflects his misunderstanding that religion comprises a monolithic and immutable body of dogma that is closed to reason. Illustrative data from Catholic history and theology and empirical data gathered from contemporary American Catholics are used to show the weaknesses in Habermas's negation of the possibility of a self-critical religious discourse. Specifically, I highlight the doctrinal differentiation within Catholicism, its longstanding theological emphasis on the coupling of faith and reason, institutional reflexivity, and the doctrinally reflexive reasoning that contemporary Catholics use in negotiating what might appear as "contradictory" identities (e.g., being gay or lesbian and Catholic). Although the data presented take issue with Habermas's disavowal of religion, the article shows that the practical relevance of doctrinal reasoning at both the institutional and the individual level vindicate Habermas's faith in the emancipatory potential of reasoned argumentation to advance participative equality.     

Beyond the Numbers: Institutional Influences on Experiences With Diversity on Elite College Campuses

In this article we bring together the burgeoning qualitative literature on the socializing influence of residential colleges, the survey‐based literature on campus racial climate, and the literature on diversity work in organizations to analyze how two elite universities’ approaches to diversity shape students’ experiences with and feelings about diversity. We employ 77 in‐depth interviews with undergraduates at two elite universities. While the universities appear comparable on measures of student demographics and overall diversity infrastructure, they take different approaches. These varying approaches lead to important differences in student perspectives. At the university that takes a power analysis and minority support approach, students who participate in minority‐oriented activities develop a critical race theory perspective, while their white and nonparticipating minority peers frequently feel alienated from that programming. At the university that takes an integration and celebration approach, most students embrace a cosmopolitan perspective, celebrating diversity while paying less attention to power and resource differences between racial groups. The findings suggest that higher education institutions can influence the race frames of students as well as their approaches to multiculturalism, with implications for their views on a variety of important diversity‐related issues on campus and beyond.     

ELITE VERSUS GRASSROOTS: Disjunctures between Parents' and Civil Rights Organizations' Demands for New York City's Public Schools

Much of the sociological and historical literature, ignoring long-standing interclass disputes over integration, takes for granted that during the 1950s, all blacks, parents, and members of civil rights organizations included, sought desegregation. This article examines the interests of different segments of New York City's black community regarding the public schools during that era. I use contemporary newspaper accounts of protests and more recent theoretical insights to analyze and interpret differences in expressed goals and demands. This article not only documents considerable educationally oriented protest in a Northern city during a decade often overlooked by scholars, but highlights important class-based differences within a single city's black community regarding changes needed. Of particular interest to social movement scholars are findings that reveal a large disjuncture between the demands of the grassroots parents' organizations and established, elite civil rights organizations. While civil rights organizations sought abstract ideals of integration, parents demanded tangible improvements in their children's schools. Class-based cultures and experiences are posited as the root of this disjuncture.     

Law and Older People—The Rise and Fall of Israel's Senior Citizens' Act

Within the broad and complex framework of those Israeli laws that relate to the social welfare of the older population, this article uses a case study approach to focus on Israel's Senior Citizens' Act of 1989. During its hitherto brief life, this law has undergone numerous transformations, additions, and deletions as well as successes and failures. At the time of its enactment, many hoped that this law would considerably bolster the rights of older people. Echoing legal and political theories of the 1980s, it seemed to reflect the fact that politicians were sensitive to the potential power of the pensioner vote, while echoing the approach to social engineering that advocated the use of the law both as a means for social change and a symbol of power. As of today, however, this article argues that the law has failed to realize what were declared to be its objectives. Instead of promoting social change and providing older people with political power, the Senior Citizens' Act has become an empty symbol that hides the fact that the older generation in Israel still lacks the real political power it needs in order to use the law to improve society's treatment of older people.     

Contesting the Welfare State in a Neo-Conservative Era

With the triumph of neo-conservatism, the Left has faced a number of dilemmas. The example of Britain is used to show that while the Left has attempted to remain critical of the liberal welfare state without giving support to Right attacks, it has also learned to be more concerned with issues of individual choice and state control in social welfare than it has in the past. Analysis of the problems of the "old welfare state" and an understandmg of the roots of the ideological successes of the Right provides one basis for a new progressive politics of social welfare.     

Desperately seeking fusion: on 'joined-up thinking', 'holistic practice' and the new economy of welfare professional power

This paper argues that social welfare research on joined-up thinking is underpinned by two theses. The 'systemic move' thesis suggests that joined-up thinking is needed to fill gaps in welfare service provision arising from a lack of interorganizational co-ordination. The 'epistemological move' thesis advises that joined-up thinking is needed to overcome deficiencies in the institutional division and distribution of welfare knowledge. Both theses macro-systematize blame for previous social welfare failures, and both are teleological because they present joined-up thinking as a progressive solution that results in a more effective (and thus less fallible) welfare system. In this paper, I argue thatjoined-up thinking can also create a new economy of welfare professional power. First, I show how some versions of 'joined-up' thinking manifest themselves in holistic practices that can 'see everything', 'know everything' and 'do anything', and thus a 'holistic power' to discipline and control every aspect of welfare recipients lives. Since holistic power is seen as infallible, its failure to produce 'active bodies' necessitates the creation of secondary 'joined-up powers' that individualize blame and exclude those to blame from welfare resources. These 'secondary powers' match the social disciplines enforced by one welfare agency (e.g. the responsibility to work enforced by the employment service) with legal rights under another agency (e.g. the right to housing from social landlords), so that breach of the former leads to exclusion from the latter. I conclude that this power strategy is primitive and punitive because it simply excludes welfare recipients. Exclusion is also uneconomic because it pushes welfare recipients into the shade of welfare institutional power.     

Civicness and Civility: Their Meanings for Social Services

Civicness and civility are discussed as intertwined notions. To the degree they flourish, societies can be seen as civil societies. Providing some reflection on them may make a difference to the usual civil society and third sector debates. These concepts are not based on or confined to a specific sector like the third sector; basically all social sectors can contribute to and be marked by them, depending on their constellations and interplay. Therefore, a mediating public sphere and democratic governance have a key role to play. However, beyond an overlapping consensus, civicness and civility can mean different things and the dominant meanings change over time. This is discussed with respect to changing discourses on welfare as they have crystallized in the field of social services. Despite the contested meanings of civility and civicness shown here, introducing these points of reference could help to enrich concerns with the quality and overall designs of personal services in a civil society.     

Transnational social capital: the socio‐spatialities of civil society

Civil society remains a contested concept, but one that is widely embedded in global development processes. Transnationalism within civil society scholarship is often described dichotomously, either through hierarchical dependency relations or as a more amorphous networked global civil society. These two contrasting spatial imaginaries produce very particular ideas about how transnational relations contribute to civil society. Drawing on empirical material from research with civil society organizations in Barbados and Grenada, in this article I contend that civil society groups use forms of transnational social capital in their work. This does not, however, resonate with the horizontal relations associated with grassroots globalization or vertical chains of dependence. These social relations are imbued with power and agency and are entangled in situated historical, geographical and personal contexts. I conclude that the diverse transnational social relations that are part of civil society activity offer hope and possibilities for continued civil society action in these unexpected spatial arrangements.