Costs and Benefits of Relational Contracting in China’s Transition

This paper is an attempt to account for the social foundations of China’s economic transition from central planning to a market economy which is a process of the completion and perfection of markets. In the early stage of China’s transition, relational contracts and interlinked arrangements constitute effective substitutes for missing and imperfect markets. However, relational contracting is becoming more costly as China’s economy develops. Its costs include, diseconomy of scale, undermining the development of arm-length transactions and formal institutions, among others. There are two possible future trajectories of China’s reform. One possibility is that the markets are so developed so that they are dis-embedded from sociopolitical powers. A second is that the markets are less developed and embedded in sociopolitical powers.     

More than the Sum of Its Parts: Cooperation and Mutual Commitment in Multi‐Issue Congregation‐Based Community Organizing

Congregation‐based community organizing (CBCO) federations play an important role in uniting a diverse array of religious congregations and community‐based organizations in movements for social justice at the neighborhood, regional, state, and national levels. Metropolitan‐level CBCO federations provide a novel and noteworthy example of meso‐mobilization contexts as described in the social movement literature in that many such federations engage in multiple concurrent issue campaigns. This study examines collaboration among organizational members of Communities Creating Opportunity, a CBCO federation based in Kansas City, Missouri. Qualitative interviews with organizers, clergy, and lay‐leaders, together with an analysis of organizational records, reveal a cooperative structure of interorganizational relations built upon specific organizing activities, roles, and relations. These activities, roles, and relations are in turn conditioned on each member organization's own level of connection to a particular organizing issue. Findings suggest that this innovative form of cooperative relational structure affords multi‐issue federations an enhanced capacity to mobilize voluntary labor resources and turn‐out at public events relative to single issue organizing.     

代表和维护妇女权益——我们责无旁贷(英文)

Promoting gender equality and representing and protecting women's lawful rights and interests are the primary functions of women's federations in China.In fact,women's federations,at all levels,have long attached importance to the protection of women's rights.Under the guidance and promotion efforts of the All-China Women's Federation(ACWF),women's federations,at all levels,have achieved excellent results in the protection of women's rights and interests.Regarding the protection of women's rights,the fed...     

Emerging Networks of Organized Urban Poor: Restructuring the Engagement with Government Toward the Inclusion of the Excluded

Aim of this article is to address the issue of citizen participation and democratic engagement within a specific area—slum upgrading—presenting and theoretically discussing the approach of an international network called Shack/Slum Dwellers International (SDI), which represents member federations of urban poor and homeless groups from about 30 countries in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. The article addresses the model of intervention embraced by the network, the activities carried out, its philosophy, etc., mainly focusing on the way it envisions and pursues the engagement of local governments in upgrading slum dwellers living conditions. The basic idea within SDI is that the lack of participation by the urban poor has historically been one of the major obstacles to achieve real development: either the government or the donors’ agencies, in fact, usually treat the poor as beneficiaries of someone else’s actions, thus undervaluing their knowledge and skills. Radically opposing this view, SDI interprets its role not as an intermediary agency of slum dwellers in the engagement/negotiation with local governments but rather as an “enabling tool” of direct negotiation between the urban poor and the public institutions. SDI’s most relevant feature, in fact, is surely the genuine leading role assigned to the slum dwellers grassroots organizations.     

参与基层社会治理,她们展示“软实力”

党的十九届四中全会提出,构建基层社会治理新格局。2019年11月,全国妇联主席沈跃跃在上海市调研时强调,要围绕中心服务大局,充分发挥妇联组织在基层社会治理中的积极作用。在基层,各地各级妇联组织扎根到妇女群众中,带动妇女姐妹一起做妇女工作,亮点纷呈。全面把握十九届四中全会对妇女工作提出的新要求新任务,不断加强基层妇联组织建设、提高基层队伍能力、活跃基层工作、强化基层服务,各地妇联正与广大妇女姐妹一起,为构建基层社会治理新格局作出更大贡献。     

Toward a Critical Social Theory of Youth Empowerment

SUMMARY

This article contributes to the development of a critical social theory of youth empowerment which emphasizes collective efforts to create sociopolitical change. It draws upon analysis of four youth empowerment models, and upon findings from a participatory research study which identified key dimensions of critical youth empowerment: (1) a welcoming, safe environment, (2) meaningful participation and engagement, (3) equitable power-sharing between youth and adults, (4) engagement in critical reflection on interpersonal and sociopolitical processes, (5) participation in sociopolitical processes to affect change, and (6) integrated individual- and community-level empowerment. It concludes with discussion of the measurement of outcomes, and the challenges and opportunities for empowerment in youth organization.     

Belonging and Acceptance: Examining the Correlates of Sociopolitical Involvement Among Bisexual and Lesbian Latinas

This article employs a national sample of almost 400 bisexual and lesbian Latinas to examine the impact of community-level support/comfort, as well as the importance of sexual orientation and racial identity, on sociopolitical involvement. Results indicate that feelings of connectedness to the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community are the most important predictor of sociopolitical involvement within both LGBT and people of color (POC) communities. While comfort within the LGBT community had no impact on LGBT sociopolitical involvement, it had a negative impact on POC sociopolitical involvement.     

Unpacking Civic Engagement: The Sociopolitical Involvement of Same-Gender Loving Black Women

Employing a national sample of over 600 same-gender loving (SGL) Black women, we explore the relative impact of community-level support/comfort and the importance of sexual orientation and racial identity on two dependent variables—sociopolitical involvement within lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) communities as well as sociopolitical involvement within people of color (POC) communities. Findings indicate that feelings of connectedness to the LGBT community are the most important predictor of sociopolitical involvement within both LGBT and POC communities; while, counterintuitively, being comfortable within the LGBT community had a negative impact. Further, the impact of the importance of identity was negligible.     

Policy, Preferences, and Patriarchy: The Division of Domestic Labor in East Germany, West Germany, and the United States

Individual agency observed in the gendered division of laboris shaped by structural factors, but only recently has evidenceemerged that the effect of women’s resources varies systematicallyin its sociopolitical context. Here we use the 1994 InternationalSocial Survey Program to assess whether the relative effectof a proxy for women’s and men’s preferences—hallmarkof individual choice—varies as well across three countrieswith divergent historical policy approaches regarding the privatesphere. East German socialist policies required and supportedwomen’s employment; West German policy promulgated a malebreadwinner model, and U.S. policy primarily remains silenton the private sphere. The division of domestic tasks and relativestrength of individual preferences on shifting it vary by region.In the former East Germany the division of domestic labor ismore egalitarian and the effect of preferences is small butequal for the genders. In West Germany the division is moretraditional and preference effects are greater, but gender differencesin these are insignificant. The U.S. division of domestic taskfalls between the two German regions, and the gender differencein preference effects is the greatest, with U.S. men’spreferences predicting significantly more variance than do U.S.women’s. Consequently, allowing the market to dominatedoes not yield equal strength of preferences in the individual-levelmodels used to predict the division of domestic tasks. Thissupports the dual-system feminist claims that capitalism canexacerbate nonmarket patriarchal hierarchies.     

妇女议事制议出新生活

自2001年起,江苏泰州姜堰市乡镇村妇联组织探索建立妇女议事制度,组织妇女代表议国家事、议集体事、议家庭事、议身边事,从而在议事中服务妇女,在议事中彰显作为,在议事中互帮互助,在议事中自我管理。在妇联组织的大力推动下,妇女议事制在各地蓬勃发展,目前已由农村和社区向机关、企业、女性团体等领域拓展。妇女议事制让女性成为基层民主自治的重要力量。     

Sociopolitical Development and Vocational Expectations Among Lower Socioeconomic Status Adolescents of Color

The well‐documented aspiration‐expectation gap refers to lower socioeconomic status (SES) adolescents of color expecting to attain occupations with lower pay and status than the occupations to which they aspire. Sociopolitical inequity, such as structural racism and asymmetrical access to resources, may explain this gap. This article examines the capacity to cope with sociopolitical inequity (i.e., sociopolitical development) and its relationship to vocational expectations among this population. Analyses revealed that sociopolitical development was associated with higher vocational expectations and may contribute to reducing the vocational aspiration‐expectation gap among lower SES adolescents of color. Furthermore, career counseling, guidance, and psychosocial interventions may be augmented by incorporating sociopolitical development.     

Diverse Sociopolitical Reactions to the 9/11 Attack and Associations with Religious Coping

Abstract

The September 11, 2001 (9/11) attacks in New York City and Washington, DC brought a historical terror to the United States. The aftermath of 9/11 will be felt for decades in the way Americans view the world and the national political sphere. Yet, it is unclear in what direction 9/11 impacted American sociopolitical reactions and how their styles of spiritual or religious coping in their general life might influence such reactions. On the basis of the literature on terrorism, we developed a scale of sociopolitical reactions to the 9/11 attacks using a student sample at three American universities. The results indicate that responses to 9/11 are diverse and patterns of sociopolitical reactions are associated with gender, years of education, religiousness, peritraumatic emotional response, being a veteran, being close to a 9/11 victim, concerns about future attacks, and two types of religious/spiritual coping. Our study calls for more research that investigates sociopolitical reactions and the role of faith matters in an era of international terrorism.     

THE NEW EPISTEMOLOGY AND THE MILAN APPROACH: FEMINIST AND SOCIOPOLITICAL CONSDDERATIONS*

While the new epistemology and related models of therapy are claimed to have radical social implications, the Milan approach is in ill repute amongst feminists who see it as conservative in relation to women's issues. This paper explores the sociopolitical implications of the new epistemology and the Milan approach, concluding that, while second order cybernetics has greater potential to incorporate a radical social analysis, it has, nevertheless, failed to do so. The application of second order cybernetics in family therapy appears to be constrained by the sociopolitical conservatism of its proponents.     

The Role of Curiosity in the Sociopolitical Development of Black and Latinx Adolescents

Sociopolitical development, the process of coming to understand and take action against systems of oppression, is associated with key outcomes for youth. Although rooted in Paulo Freire's work on critical consciousness, sociopolitical development models overlook a motivational attribute—curiosity—that Freire characterized as a catalyst of such development. This longitudinal study investigated the relationship between curiosity and two aspects of sociopolitical development (social analysis, societal involvement) in a sample of Black and Latinx adolescents (N = 659). Longitudinal growth models demonstrated positive growth in all constructs over 4‐years of high school. Multivariate growth models revealed a positive correlation at baseline between curiosity and both constructs; growth in curiosity was also positively correlated with growth in social analysis and societal involvement.     

Welfarist evaluations of decision rules under interstate utility dependencies

We provide welfarist evaluations of decision rules for federations of states and consider models, under which the interests of people from different states are stochastically dependent. We concentrate on two welfarist standards, viz. that the expected average utility for a person in the federation be maximized or that the expected utilities for the different people be equal. We discuss an analytical result that characterizes the decision rule with maximum expected average utility, set up a class of models that display interstate dependencies and run simulations for different dependency scenarios in the European Union. We find that the results that Beisbart and Bovens (Soc Choice Welf 29:581–608, 2007) established for two types of models without interstate dependencies are fairly stable if interstate dependencies are switched on. There are exceptions, though: sometimes the way in which alternative decision rules shape the welfare distribution is significantly affected by such dependencies. These exceptions particularly include cases in which the interests of people from different states are partly anti-correlated.     

IDEOLOGICAL THINKING AMONG MASS PUBLICS AND POLITICAL ELITES

Although the characterization of the general public's levelof attitudinal constraint and continuity as modest has restedin part on assumed contrasts with political elites, there arescarcely any systematic, parallel studies of the two populations.This article utilizes comparable measures from cross-sectionaland panel surveys included in the National Election Studiesand in the National Convention Delegate Studies. Overall, politicalparty elites have a vastly more constrained and stable set ofpolitical preferences—in terms of the traditional liberal-conservativedimension—than does the mass public, a conclusion thatapplies whether the test is a demanding one based on opinionsabout policy issues or a less stringent one based on appraisalsof sociopolitical groups and prominent political actors. Stratifyingthe mass public according to level of political activity generatesclear, steplike differences in constraint and continuity, butideological consistency among party elites substantially exceedsthat of even the most active stratum of the mass public. Theseresults demonstrate that, however flawed the standard surveyinstrument may be as a means of ascertaining ideological thinking,it performs exceedingly well in making the kind of distinctionsto be expected on a priori grounds. The contrasts between thetwo populations have strong implications for two-way flows ofcommunication.     

Sociopolitical and Cultural Correlates of Internalized Homonegativity in Gay and Bisexual Men: Findings from a Global Study

Objectives: Based on the premise that internalized homonegativity (IH) is a product of the incorporation of environmental heterosexism, the authors examined the influence of sociopolitical and individual influences on IH. Methods: The cross-sectional study consisted of 109,382 gay and bisexual men across 77 countries. Results: Variables at the (European) country-level that were associated with higher levels of IH included lack of laws recognizing same-sex relationships and perceived and actual negative gay-related public opinion about homosexuals. Individual-level variables significantly associated with IH were public opinion about homosexuals and exposure to gay-related victimization/discrimination. Conclusions: An improved sociopolitical climate for LGB individuals is needed.     

U.S. firms and black labor in South Africa: Creating a structure for change

Some have argued that U.S. firms should disinvest from South Africa as a means of putting pressure on the South African government to end apartheid. This argument, however, may ignore a dynamic of change in South Africa in which U.S. firms have played and are playing a large role: South African industrial relations have undergone significant evolution since 1979, the year in which major changes were introduced in that country’s labor legislation. Partly a result of these changes, black trade union membership has increased by 800 percent since 1979. By virtue of its unique exposure to varied constituencies, the multinational subsidiary in both home and host countries can be viewed as an agent of sociopolitical change in South Africa. The author wishes to thank Professors Herbert R. Northrup and Richard L. Rowan for helpful discussion.     

Religious Nongovernmental Organizations: An Exploratory Analysis

This paper represents the first systematic attempt at an analysis of religious nongovernmental organizations (RNGOs). Largely ignored as an organizational field, RNGOs constitute a new breed of religious actors shaping global policy–an organizational hybrid of religious beliefs and social activism at local, national, and international levels. This paper proposes a definition of RNGOs, traces the emergence of RNGOs from an historical perspective, and situates them in their current religious and sociopolitical contexts. Drawing on interviews and documentary data from a sample of 263 United Nations-affiliated RNGOs, the author proposes an analytical framework to examine the religious, organizational, strategic, and service dimensions of these organizations. Religious nongovernmental organizations' unique contributions to the redefinition of a just society as well as the sociopolitical challenges arising from their religious identity are discussed.