Security Sector Reform and Development Assistance: Explaining the Diffusion of Policy Priorities among Donor Agencies

This paper employs a world society theoretical framework to examine the recent trend among foreign aid donors to focus on security sector reform as an aid priority. Through a comparative qualitative case study based on interview data collected from aid officials and development workers in Canada, Sweden, and the United States (n = 41) in 2006–2007, this paper finds that the extent to which the security sector reform agenda is integrated into donor policy and programs is mediated by catalytic policy processes linked to intergovernmental organizations and the degree of donor agency autonomy from the rest of government. These findings are used to illustrate how common processes of globalization in world society shape similar approaches to foreign aid among donor agencies despite disparate domestic contexts. These processes lead to convergence of donor policy around security issues and at the same time can account for decoupling of practice from world society policy models.     

Minimum winning versus oversized coalitions in public finance: the role of uncertainty

This paper extends Persson et al.’s (J Polit Econ 108:1121–1161, 2000) simple legislature in the context of public finance with certainty to uncertainty. In our uncertain world, oversized coalitions (OSCs) as well as minimum winning coalitions (MWCs) may arise in equilibrium, and the agenda setter’s proposed policy may fail to receive a majority support. This is in marked contrast to the certain world, in which only MWCs can arise in equilibrium and the agenda setter’s proposal never fails to pass. When OSCs arise, we show that both public good provision and redistribution are likely to achieve their first-best solution, even if the legislature is simple.     

Europe and the Euro: Do not Indulge in Misinterpreting Strength as Weakness

The change was not only promised during Obama’s electoral campaign but urgently invoked by all the major international actors in view of the financial and economic crises: the world foreign policy has suddenly entered a new age not being yet prepared to govern globalization and its wide interdependence conditionality. Even Russia has changed tune now and President Medvedev announced vigorously a new strategy, a new policy, and a new drive for Russia. Until a few years ago, the theories of International Relations were simply an American intellectual and governance exit of the growing role of the US in the world, a kind of field of competence for the greatest power in the global economic, political, strategic and innovative sectors. The British School was an island of the core American thinking and the rest of the world mostly absent. FSU has not expressed a relevant contribution to the various schools of thinking related to the IR theories and even the Marxist political scientists did not dedicate specifically to this main research area because convinced that first it was not a real “science” but a derivative outcome from Philosophy or Political Science; secondly, for the reason of the monopoly of the power in the hands of an autocratic regime where these issues were not left to the researchers and experts but only to the institutional and military leadership. Today Russia—after having caressed and found opportunistically convenient to resume the realism doctrines of the past US almost decennial Presidency, with modest attempts to assume the great changes in international affairs intervened— has the chance to take the last train for a competitive power role, “de facto” under the unavoidable strict rules of engagement of the global governance. In the 2020–2030 the world would be completely reshape by the present metamorphosis.     

Sustainable Conservation of Cultural Heritage: A Global Responsibility. Sichuan Towers Case Study

This paper has been developed in the framework of a larger research program, in which the University of Rome “Tor Vergata”, Tsinghua University and Yangzhou University are jointly involved to study and preserve historic towers. Cultural heritage is the intangible and tangible attributes of a society, including the natural heritage, that are inherited from past generations, preserved in the present and granted for the next generations. Nowadays we consider the cultural heritage as a world heritage belonging to all the people of the world, irrespective on which territory they are located. This paper presents a model and a methodological hypothesis to conserve cultural heritage in a sustainable way throughout the case study of Sichuan Towers (China) that could become an example for other cultural sites around the world, connecting the environmental and socio-economical aspect to the tourism development.      

The Rise of International Nongovernmental Organizations: A Top-Down or Bottom-Up Explanation?

This study examines the conditions that facilitate the growth of international nongovernmental organizations (INGOs) in 126 countries, from 1982 to 2000. To explain the uneven growth of INGOs around the world, I test two competing theoretical approaches. The “top-down” perspective of growth focuses on the degree of a country’s integration into the world polity and international economy. The “bottom-up” perspective emphasizes the development of democracy and the prosperity of the domestic economy as significant factors in facilitating INGO growth within a given country. An econometric analysis of panel data with ordinary least squares (OLS) suggests that both economic and political factors at the global and national level explain the rise of INGOs, rather than viewing either in an isolated fashion.     

Toward a reflexive sociology

Gouldner’s call for a “reflexive sociology” in 1970 remains a largely unexamined idea, yet with the breakdown of functionalism’s begemony and the present ferment in theory its time may finally have come. In attempting to clarify and reconstruct Gouldner’s idea, I begin with his concepts “background assumptions” and “domain assumptions,” linking them with Kubn’s ideas. Employing levels of abstraction to approach Gouldner’s material systematically, I proceed to develop and illustrate two contrasting background assumptions or world hypotheses: “stratification” and “interaction.” Finally, I examine some methodological implications of these world views, centering on defining problems, ratio scales and images of measurement, sampling and multivariate-analysis procedures. Introduced to sociology by C. Wright Mills, Bernard Phillips studied with Robin N. Williams, Jr. and taught at the University of North Carolina and the University of Illinois (where he overlapped with Alvin W. Gouldner for a year) before coming to Boston University. A cofounder of the ASA section, Sociological Practice, Phillips’ interests are in Societal Change, Theory and Methods.     

Trauma,World Assumptions,and Coping Resources among Youthful Offenders: Social Work,Mental Health,and Criminal Justice Implications

The purpose of this study was to contribute to the extant literature by examining the relationship of traumatic and stressful life experiences among youthful offenders aged 18–24 years old. The sample included 38 youthful offenders incarcerated in the New Jersey Department of Corrections in 2008. During in-person interviews, youthful offenders completed a survey that gathered information on cumulative trauma, world assumptions, and coping resources using the Stressful Life Experiences Screening Inventory-Long Form, World Assumption Scale, and Coping Resources Inventory. A series of OLS regression analyses revealed partial support for the study hypotheses that cumulative trauma is significantly and negatively associated to youthful offenders’ basic world assumptions about the world having meaning. Opposite of what was expected, it was found that cumulative trauma was significantly and positively associated with spiritual coping resources among youthful offenders. These findings have important implications for developing and improving interdisciplinary and multi-level trauma assessment and intervention strategies with youthful offenders.     

The role of Islamic and western foundations in education and research in the Arab world

This paper is an exploration of research funding by western, local and Islamic foundations in the Arab world. Arab and Islamic foundations supporting research present a very recent phenomenon, so their numbers are limited and basic institutional traditions are still being developed. At the same time, they do have their own ‘ideologies’ and their own experiences which are not the same as those of the West. The findings in this paper are largely drawn from three case studies of foundations in the Arab world. There are several differences among the cases, although all of them are acting as non-profit organisations funding research work and making grants to individuals and institutions. It is difficult to compare precisely the contribution of the three foundations in all aspects of grant-making, but we can build the comparison on the scope of activities and their final contributions in education and culture. This paper closes with a discussion of potential research agenda on the future role of foundations in this part of the world.     

Philosophy on the Ground: An Appreciation of a “Spirit Master”

This essay is an appreciation of Melvin Pollner’s distinctive sociological approach to topics that are usually associated with philosophy. Pollner’s dissertation and early writings took up the theme of “mundane reason,” which he defined as an incorrigible presumption of a real world that is implicit in everyday conduct. Pollner addressed mundane reason, and the reciprocal idea of “reality disjunctures”—momentary divergences between perceptual accounts of the “same” mundane reality—by describing routine exchanges in traffic court and confrontations between doctors and patients in psychiatric settings. Pollner’s work anticipated current enthusiasms for developing novel “ontologies” in social and cultural studies of science, medicine, and other subjects. Although he did attempt to locate metaphysics in the midst of everyday experience, this essay suggests that his “philosophy on the ground” radically transformed philosophical ontology into an original and imaginative way to investigate constitutive activities.     

Another Production is Possible. Beyond the Capitalist Canon

It is now widely accepted that ‘another world is possible’,as the negative 1990s came to an end and with them the notionthat there is no alternative. But there has been little attemptto date to flesh out what that alternative might be, to concretisethe vision to put it that way. This book is both     

Of yarmulkes and categories: Delegating boundaries and the phenomenology of interactional expectation

Based on ethnographic fieldwork and interviews, this article delineates a process through which members of an Orthodox Jewish neighborhood in Los Angeles unintentionally delegate boundary work and membership-identification to anonymous others in everyday life. Living in the midst of a non-Jewish world, orthodox men are often approached by others, both Jews and non-Jews, who categorize them as “religious Jews” based on external marks such as the yarmulke and attire. These interactions, varying from mundane interactions to anti-Semitic incidents, are then tacitly anticipated by members even when they are not attending to their “Jewishness”—when being a “Jew” is interactionally invisible. Through this case, I argue that, in addition to conceptualizing boundaries and identifications as either emerging in performance or institutionally given and stable, the study of boundaries should also chart the sites in which members anticipate categorization and the way these anticipations play out in everyday life.     

The Tango of Loving Hate: Couple Dynamics in High-Conflict Divorce

This article explores the dynamics of couples embroiled in high-conflict divorce through the theoretical prism of British object relations theory. Such couples are often characterized by primitive object relations, and use splitting and projection as a way of “being in the world.” The fear of the ex-spouse’s retaliation is accompanied by fear of their own destructiveness and a desire to make reparation; however, attempts at reparation at this level of relational functioning rarely achieve reconciliation. In fact, such dynamics create a cycle of terror, retaliation, and failed reparation attempts that in turn leads to further terror, splitting and projection, with the resulting outcome often a high-conflict divorce.     

Władysław Konopczyński: a Polish Historian of European Caliber

Władysław Konopczyński, a Polish scholar and an investigator of modern history, certainly deserves to be recalled and to reappear yet again in all-European awareness. It must be done due to the fact that the name of that very outstanding and titled pre-war scholar was forced to disappear completely from the European humanities for fifty years. The decision of expelling Konopczyński from the world of European historians was made by the communist leaders of Poland. However, before that time, Konopczyński had played an important role in Europe. It is just enough to mention that during Poland's twenty years of independence after World War I, in the year 1931, Konopczyński was granted a membership in the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in Stockholm. Moreover, he was awarded the Swedish Royal Order of the Polar Star and the French Legion of Honour. Furthermore, the historian participated in many international congresses and his works were printed in many countries of Western Europe. In 1947 in Stockholm the heir to the throne himself attended Konopczyński's lecture. An erratum to this article is available at .     

Can preferences for catastrophe avoidance reconcile social discounting with intergenerational equity?

A social welfare function treating all generations equally is derived from a set of axioms that allow for preferences for catastrophe avoidance or risk equity. Implications for the case where there is a risk of world extinction are studied. We show that substantial time discounting can arise from the planner’s taste for catastrophe avoidance, even if the probability of the world ending is infinitesimally small. We wish to thank Marc Fleurbaey, Thibault Gajdos, two anonymous referees and an associate editor for many valuable comments.     

The freedom of information act and sociological research

Passed in 1966, The Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) has provided nearly thirty years of access to government information virtually unmatched throughout the world. Used heavily by the media, it has been virtually ignored by sociologists. Nonetheless, it promises access to a potential wealth of data for sociological research. Following a brief discussion of the history of federal information policy and the FOIA, some suggestions for possible research applications are made. Implications for further research are presented, including the emergence of two new classes, information “haves” and information “have-nots,” indicating a new dimension for stratification research in contemporary society.     

International Disaster Compensation Fund: A New International Financial Aid Mechanism

In May 2008, two consecutive disasters shocked the whole world. Both the China earthquake and the Myanmar cyclone forced people all around the world to realize how harsh and merciless the power of nature is. The massive devastation influenced not only the two countries but also the whole world. The world today is highly interdependent. One country’s disaster can spill over to other countries through political and economic channels. There is no disaster limited to one country, and human beings cannot solve the issue of living without mishap when facing a disaster. Therefore, no country can escape by sheer luck from disaster and solve the problem alone. Indeed no country lives in absolute safety. In this case, the whole world should unite together to share the risks. Human beings should work together to face, resist and eliminate risks. But unfortunately, such a kind of system which can effectively deal with natural disaster has never existed. In this situation, we have designed the International Disaster Compensation Fund (IDCF) to give a new idea of how to manage the risk together.     

Neither clear nor present: The social construction of safety and danger

Perceptions of safety and danger are “intersubjective”—products of social construction, collective agreement, and socialization. While objective danger certainly exists, perceptions of danger do not derive directly from observation of the empirical world. The objective environment provides only inconsistent and ambiguous information, permitting ample room for socially constructed beliefs. Three cognitive frameworks—the Cautious, Confident, and Neutral frameworks—organize perceptions of safety and danger. Each framework begins with a default assumption about safety and danger and “marks” certain items as different from this default. In shaping expectations, these frameworks also contribute to perceptions of horror, humor, excitement, and fear. Finally, I use these frameworks to analyze the psychological concept “phobia” as a sociological phenomenon.     

Glassblowing Tools: Extending the Body Towards Practical Knowledge and Informing a Social World

Understanding tools in the development of practical knowledge and in the formation of social worlds is critical for the sociology of culture insofar as they reveal how matter, or material, informs practice and discourse. This article is an ethnographic exploration of the variations of the maker-tool-material relation in glassblowing, informed by Bourdieu's logic of practice as well as phenomenological considerations of the body's dispositions towards and interactions with the material world. These relations form the backbone of the glassblowing studio, and more importantly provide the subject matter of ‘tool talk,’ studio talk about tools, which forges feelings of empathy and consequently contributes to the formation of the glassblowing social world. Through this exploration, we come to understand how material, the subject of much studio discourse, is a structuring force of a lifeworld, the glassblowing studio.