Social Movements and Patronage Politics: Processes of Demobilization and Dual Pressure

Why might social movements be highly contentious at one point in time and demobilize shortly after? Based on ethnographic fieldwork, this article examines the dynamics of demobilization of popular movements in a context of patronage politics. I argue that demobilization in these contexts results from relational processes creating a “dual pressure” stemming “from below” and “from above.” In social environments where patronage is pervasive, poor people develop survival strategies relying on clientelistic arrangements. They participate in a social movement organization (SMO) to voice their rights, but also to address pressing survival needs by gaining access to resources. These expectations of constituents create a pressure “from below” on leaders of an SMO, which respond by securing resources obtained through alliances with national political actors. In turn, these alliances create a pressure “from above,” because local leaders reciprocate this national support by eschewing the organization of collective actions. Drawing on data culled from 12 months of fieldwork on an Argentine peasant movement, this article inspects the interconnections between popular movements and patronage politics to refine our understanding of demobilization processes; contribute to discussions regarding the role of culture on contentious politics; and shed light on current demobilization trends in Latin America.     

Job quality,industrial relations and the crisis in Europe

This paper reports results from recent Eurofound research on the impact of the crisis on industrial relations and working conditions in Europe, based on the output of Eurofound's European Working Conditions Observatory and European Industrial Relations Observatory and data from the European Working Conditions Survey. Overall, the crisis – even if it is sometimes difficult to separate the effect of the crisis from megatrends in working conditions and industrial relations – seems to have had an impact on both domains. With reference to industrial relations, the impact of the crisis has influenced actors, processes, and outcomes. Regarding working conditions, the results appear to be in line with the literature on the topic, which relates the crisis to an increase in job insecurity, a decrease in work intensity, in working hours, and in anti-social working time arrangements, and a general improvement in terms of health risks and related outcomes.     

Media reputation in initial public offerings: A study of financial news coverage in Hong Kong

This study investigated media reputation in initial public offerings (IPOs) by proposing eight attributes of substantive media reputation from environmental and product-resource perspectives. A content analysis on financial news coverage (2281 newspaper articles from 2004 to 2010) in Hong Kong was conducted to examine how print media reported financial and nonfinancial information on 38 IPO firms in the sectors of financial, properties and construction, and consumer goods. Results from partial least squares analysis showed that, although substantive media reputation and recency of news coverage together only explained a small proportion of changes in IPO share price, substantive media reputation has a significant positive effect on changes in IPO share price. Apart from the significant positive effect from the presentation tone of environmental attributes, the tone of social attributes had a significant negative effect on substantive media reputation. With the increasing concern on measuring media reputation attributes in financial news coverage across different contexts, this study contributes to the applicability of environmental and product-resource attributes in the specific context of IPOs.     

Emotional Satisfaction and Physical Pleasure in Sexual Unions: Time Horizon,Sexual Behavior,and Sexual Exclusivity

This paper uses data from the 1992 National Health and Social Life Survey to examine emotional satisfaction and physical pleasure from sex in intimate unions for adults in the U.S. Using perspectives from evolutionary biology and rational choice theory, we examine the effects of the following factors on emotional satisfaction and physical pleasure: time horizon expected for the relationship, sexual behavior within the relationship, and sexual exclusivity. We find a significant effect of measures for all 3 of these dimensions on emotional satisfaction with sex. For both men and women, time horizon and sexual exclusivity are more strongly tied to emotional satisfaction than they are to physical pleasure from sex, but sexual behavior has the same impact on emotional satisfaction as it does on physical pleasure.     

北京、广东两省市城中村改造的经验与借鉴

通过对北京、广东两省市城中村改造的成效、模式及经验的调研,着重总结两地经验对上海城中村改造工作的有益启示。同时,对上海城中村改造工作提出思考和建议：解放思想,着力破解城中村改造难题;从实际出发,创新相关支持政策;开展试点,做好政策储备;动态地调整上海土地利用总体规划。     

Identity tensions of women with two leadership positions in India

Identity narratives enhance the understanding of women’s leadership, but there exist very few in-depth analyses of negative identity tensions that influence agency. In this study, we examine the negative identity tensions of well-to-do women from small towns in India, who hold two leadership positions: organizational and social movement. We borrow from the discourse on well-to-do women’s participation in social movements in India to draw on the notions of identity, perceptions of feminism, and patriarchal challenge. Our data are derived from 49 in-depth interviews with women leaders. Findings from qualitative analysis and creation of a composite narrative show that negative identity tensions arising from two leadership positions are gendered in nature. Furthermore, agency is (i) contingent on one’s reflection on challenges, (ii) rooted in an underlying principle, and (iii) practiced through the mechanisms of “managing femininity,” a concept that is widely discussed in the Western paradigms of postfeminism and neoliberalism. This paper contributes to the feminist dialog on the global South in the context of gender, class, and geographical location intersection by revealing certain non-Western ways of managing femininity. However, in the process, the hegemony of Indian men remains intact.     

Intergenerational Transfers to Adult Children in Europe: Do Social Policies Matter?

Understanding the role of social policies in intergenerational transfers from old to young people is especially important in times of population aging. This paper focuses on the influences of social expenditures and social services on financial support and on practical help from older parents to their adult children based on the first two waves from the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE, N = 60,250 dyads from 13 European countries). Multilevel models showed that social policy plays an important role for intergenerational transfer patterns: The more public assistance was provided to citizens, the more likely parents supported their adult children financially and practically, but this support was less intense in terms of money and time given. Thus, the analyses support the specialization hypothesis that posits a division of labor between family and state for downward intergenerational transfers.     

Moments in the Methodology of Meso History

Meso history is that branch of the history of sociology that focuses on social relations, that is, patterns of connection among groups, group members, and group meanings, as explanatory factors in the shaping of sociology. The methodology of meso history consists of strategies for discovering, documenting and patterning connections. This paper explores those strategies in terms of three moments generic to the research process in social science– moments of movement from intellectual curiosity to conceptualization, from research question to data collection and from data to presentation of findings–focusing on the distinctive permutations on this research process that occur in the practice of meso history.     

Altruism and monetary transfers in the household: inter- and intra-generation issues

The literature on altruism and monetary transfers in the household is here extended with new and recent evidence on different approaches with the final aim being to provide policy recommendations in order to reduce socio-economic inequality among households, from both inter- and intra-generational perspectives. Thus, we include issues which deal with transfers from parents to kids (downstream transfers), and with transfers from kids to parents (upstream transfers). On the other hand, we also include issues from intragenerational transfers beyond the household, studying such phenomena as charitable donations and remittances from migrants.     

Post-Chineseness as epistemology: identities and scholarship on China in the Philippines

The current study relies on the social psychological notion of altercasting and the anthropological notion of post-Chineseness to appreciate the identity strategies of the Philippine’s China watchers. Basically, the case study suggests that the attainment of the sympathetic capacity to understand China can enrich the knowledge of those China watchers coming from an external position. However, adhering to an internal position of China watching would disempower ethnic Chinese scholars in the Philippines in fully participating in the indigenous community. Therefore, in the long run, the trend is for all ethnic scholars to establish distance from internal perspectives on China and practice watching China from the outside from time to time.     

Diffusion of language change: Accommodation to a moving target

The paper focuses on motivations for the spread of new features within a speech community, and on the trajectories the changes follow during diffusion. One set of data represents language use, and here focus is on two changes which have been going on in Danish over the past 40 years, one grammatical and one phonetic. The other set of data are results from a nationwide speaker evaluation experiment which tests the subconscious attitudes to different types of speech among the youth in five different places covering Denmark from east to west. Results show that changes spread centrifugally from Copenhagen, even to the extent that reversal of changes spreads from Copenhagen. Furthermore, the attitudes reflected in the speaker evaluation experiment support the theory that language change is motivated by social psychological factors. Finally, it is argued that it is worthwhile considering the possibility of media being involved in processes of linguistic change.     

The Impact of Social Capital on Men's Mental Health from the Perspective of Social Support Theory

This study examines the effects of social capital as it affects men's mental health in the context of work–family balance. Multivariate analyses of data from National Family Research of Japan 2008 have revealed the following. First, the social capital that men receive from their spouses was found to have a direct effect on their distress. The effect of social capital from family other than a spouse does not have a direct effect on men's mental health. Second, only social capital from a spouse was observed to provide a buffering effect. This result implies that, in contemporary Japan, social capital derived from the spouse functions satisfactorily as a bulwark to mitigate the negative effects that the experience of role conflict between work and family has on men's mental health. Finally, the study examines the effect of social capital with reference to social support theory. Subsequent research might usefully focus on varieties of social capital other than those covered in the current study, which will leverage the unique potential of social capital by examining techniques and units of analysis.     

对民办博物馆发展策略的若干思考——以广州民办博物馆为重点论述对象

我国民办博物馆的发展与现代社会的要求存在较大差距,如何促进民办博物馆进一步发展,需要从战略层面加以深入思考:一是包括借鉴国外先进经验,建立健全的资金筹措体系和科学的管理方法;二是国家完善对民办博物馆的政策及法律法规,进一步明确民办博物馆的法律地位及经营性质;三是地方政府制定促进民办博物馆发展的具体办法,切切实实对民办博物馆加以扶持;四是民办博物馆加强自我完善,提升为公共文化服务的功能等四个层面。     

Juvenile Delinquency Under Conditions of Rapid Social Change

Increased juvenile delinquency can be seen as an indicator for a deteriorating social fabric under conditions of rapid social change. Criminological theories suggest, however, that such conditions do not per se produce delinquency: They force youth into prodelinquent leisure activities with peers, leading to an endorsement of delinquent behavior and offering the infrastructure for it. Resources acquired in family and public life, however, may prevent youth from drifting into such prodelinquent leisure activities and indirectly from delinquent behavior. Empirical tests of these hypotheses have to employ simultaneous analyses of societal-level and individual-level data. On the basis of an international youth study, the paper undertakes such an analysis: In the years 1992–95, data from 42 independent samples of seventh graders from East and West Germany, Poland, Russia, Bulgaria, Slovakia, Hungary, Czechia, and Greece were surveyed. Data on deviant school behavior, delinquent drift, nurturant parenting, and subjective feelings of justice in public were obtained from 7282 thirteen- to fourteen-year-olds. Processes of rapid social change were incorporated as data on changes in GNP in the years proceeding the surveys. Analyses show that delinquent drift is a valid predictor of deviant school behavior only on the individual level. The extent to which adolescents engage in prodelinquent peer activities depends more on the cultural context in which adolescents live than on their personal experience in the family and in public. Nurturant parenting does, however, covary negatively with deviant school behavior irrespective of level of analysis.     

Driving to Work: The Front Seat Work of Paramedics to and from the Scene

The work paramedics do in the front of the ambulance on their way to and from the scene is central to the safety and well‐being of both paramedics and patients. However, most research on paramedics and emergency medical services assumes rather than empirically explores the actual happenings of what paramedics do in the front of their ambulance. In this article, I move beyond this taken‐for‐granted understanding of front‐seat work by taking readers in the front of the ambulance and exploring the hidden work paramedics do on their way to and from the scene. I draw on data from an institutional ethnography into the socially organized work and work settings of paramedics, which included over 200 hours of observations and over 100 interviews with paramedics. This article adds to research on the sociology of work and health and illness by focusing explicitly on how paramedics give meaning to their work setting, the social conditions and relations central to their work practices, and how their work knowledge is actually put into practice. In doing so, I shed light on an ever‐important occupational group in health care that has garnered little sociological attention to date.     

Emigration dynamics: the Indian context

This report on emigration dynamics in India opens by providing background on short- and long-distance migration to and from India in response to such events as the formation of Pakistan as well as to the policies of the British Empire and Commonwealth. Section 2 discusses India's demographic and sociocultural setting in terms of population growth, urbanization, patterns of internal migration, growth of the labor force, economic growth, poverty alleviation, health, and education. The third section describes the lack of data on international migration. Some data are available on emigrants, but the only information on return migration is that gleaned from surveys in Kerala. Section 4 considers emigration to industrialized countries and notes that it is almost exclusively permanent and largely composed of individuals with professional, technical, or managerial skills. The resulting brain drain is described as is the incidence of illegal migration. India does not create conditions from which citizens must seek asylum, rather the country has absorbed flows of refugees from Pakistan, Tibet, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, and Sri Lanka. Available data on the characteristics of emigrants and return migrants are reviewed in the next two sections, and section 7 looks at the data on financial flows gathered from macro-level estimates of remittances. Section 8 is devoted to the community, family, and individual factors which influence emigration including the networks that facilitate migration and means of meeting migration costs. The ninth section summarizes the political setting with an emphasis on the adverse reaction of Nepal to population movement from India. The final section of the report projects future population movements. It is noted that if there were no restrictions on migration, millions of Indians would emigrate to the Americas, Africa, and Australia. Whereas poverty, unemployment, and population growth will likely erode living conditions in India, the government has no policy to encourage emigration. Labor migration to the Gulf countries will likely continue.     

The blurred edges of intellectual disability

The label of ‘intellectual disability’ can be a very blurred concept, because for those on the borders their label often arises from the interaction of the individual with their environment, from their socio-economic status, and from the social role which they choose to undertake. This paper explores the contested notion of intellectual disability in the context of people who have been in trouble with the law in England, and contrasts their situation with that of people who have been protected by best interests decisions under the Mental Capacity Act (England and Wales). People who are on the ‘borderline’ of having an intellectual disability, like any citizens, have a range of intersecting identities. Drawing on the notions of ‘interactional’ disability theory, we reflect on the shifting, relative nature of intellectual disability, and the need for the law to focus on support needs, rather than on impairment.     

La production de la sécurité sanitaire au quotidien : l’inspection des services vétérinaires en abattoir

Slaughterhouses are a decisive link in a healthy food chain. Officials from veterinary services, stationed there full-time, work next to personnel on the line so that the food produced is safe for human consumption. Each inspector has to lay the grounds for his/her individual position of authority to exercise controls. This control also depends on ongoing exchanges among inspection team members and on their knowing the distance to keep from workers on the line. Recent food and health scares, along with reforms for modernizing interventions by public authorities, have made controls more formalistic. References to standards and procedures for carrying out interventions and filing reports have been thoroughly modified. This study in France of the switch from an educational approach to food inspection to a procedural one, wherein written texts have an unprecedented scope, focuses on the concrete implications for inspectors, especially in terms of human relations. Light is shed on how the possibility of legal action has shaped these changes.     

Brexit and precarity: Polish female workers in the UK as second-class citizens?

Immigration was a decisive factor in pre-Brexit-vote debates and it remains one of the most divisive topics globally; therefore, it is worthy of attention. Whilst the British people had an opportunity to have their say on Brexit, EU migrant workers have not. This article gives them a voice as it is based on original data from 40 qualitative interviews with female EU citizens to the UK, conducted before and after the Brexit-vote. This article further develops the notion of precarity in relation to EU migrants to the UK in light of Brexit and adds to debates on gender in migration. This paper provides wider policy implications for the British and other EU countries' authorities as it engages with debates on Brexit from the point of view of the UK labour force as voices of economic women migrants from Poland are presented.