Unraveling the enigma of Indira Gandhi’s rise in Indian politics: a woman leader’s quest for political legitimacy

This article employs Bourdieu??s notion of symbolic capital to explain how Indira Gandhi gained legitimacy in Indian politics. It reveals that, in spite of having belonged to the politically illustrious Nehru family, Gandhi suffered numerous indignities as a minister in the immediate post-Nehruvian period because the incumbent political elite at the time, the Syndicate, devalued the symbolic value of her family-name-based-capital of mass popularity. In the meantime, changes in the clientelistic relations between the landed and landless caste groups had created conditions for the failure of the Syndicate??s claim that their capital of popularity among politicians was the symbolic capital of the Indian political field. Aware of social changes taking place in the countryside, Gandhi took advantage of her access to the symbolic power of the state offices to classify the landless caste groups as garib (poor) in order to defeat the Syndicate electorally. Having established her capital of popularity among the masses as the symbolic capital of the Indian political field, she cemented its status by using her control over ruling party leaders?? access to state offices and simultaneously creating a new classification of a competent leader in the ruling party. This study contributes to the existing studies of leadership, especially leadership by women, and the legitimacy-gaining process by revealing the role of contest among the elite over the meaning of symbolic capital in creating or destroying their respective authority.     

Framing authoritarian legitimacy: elite cohesion in the aftermath of popular rebellion

ABSTRACT

Protest activity presents a significant threat to state legitimacy in nondemocratic settings. Although authoritarian regimes rely heavily on coercion, state officials must also justify their authority to both the public and other elites. Previous work has shown how elites vilify challengers to legitimize repression, but scholars have yet to examine how state officials engage in meaning work to prevent elite divisions from forming in light of popular challenges to regime legitimacy. In this study, we examine elite framing processes in a case of popular resistance to a 1953 currency reform in Communist Czechoslovakia. Using archival material, we trace the inter- and intra-organizational processes through which officials construct legitimacy claims by explaining and adjudicating blame for the popular rebellion. Results indicate that authoritarian rulers relied on a variety of discursive mechanisms to generate consensus among subordinate elites and protect regime legitimacy. We conclude by discussing implications for research on authoritarianism and social movements.     

Post‐Authoritarian State Formation in Argentina: Transitional Justice as the Accumulation of Symbolic Power

Looking at the transitions to democracy in Latin America during the late 20^th century, a number of scholars observed that human rights and transitional justice had become the central legitimizing axis of the new, post‐authoritarian order. But the question of how human rights and transitional justice measures became such powerful sources of legitimacy in the first place was left unexplored. In this article I use Bourdieu's concept of symbolic capital along with Mara Loveman's explanation of the accumulation of this capital to explain how transitional justice came to function as a form of post‐authoritarian state formation in Argentina.     

The Contested State vs. Contentious Workers: The Symbolic Labor Politics in Transitional China

How does the Chinese state maintain its legitimacy and manage labor conflicts during its transition to market economy? Through detailed analysis of a 10-year struggle by a group of state workers to defend their pensions by active engagement with state agents, this article attempts to explore the circular feature of the state and how this circular state functions to absorb the labor contentions. This state is composed of three intersecting circles—a circle between different petition offices, a circle between petition offices and courts, and a circle between the local and the center. On the one hand, the circulation of the workers’ case in this circular bureaucratic field elongates the struggles of the workers and prevents the radicalization of their resistance; on the other hand, this circle promotes the circulation and inculcation of statist capitals among workers. This process realizes both the discursive construction of the new state and the symbolic domination of the resisting workers.     

THE GLOBALIZATION OF A MINOR SPORT: THE DIFFUSION AND COMMODIFICATION OF MASTERS SWIMMING

ABSTRACT

We examine the global spread of Masters Swimming (MS) focusing on the economic, social, and demographic conditions associated with its initiation in the United States and its international growth. We characterize MS as a modern sport and look at its subcultural form, organizational structure, practices, and early pattern of organizational growth from bottom to top. Then we describe the top down role of La Federation Internationale de Natation Amateur (FINA) in supplying legitimacy, resources, organizational coherence, and corporate sponsors to spread the sport among FINA members. By establishing mutually beneficial relations with corporate sponsors, MS rapidly commodified and diffused to countries and territories with middle to high socio-economic development.     

弯道超车：湖南体育产业发展的优势、困境与对策

在阐释湖南体育产业发展基本态势的基础上,指出了“十二五”时期湖南体育产业实现“弯道超车”的有利条件和现实困境,并切合实际地提出了加快经济发展,着力提升民众体育消费水平;转变政府职能,健全体育产业管理体制;提升体育产业的自主创新能力和竞争力;加强产业人才队伍建设,重点培养一批高层次复合型人才;改善产业投融资环境,拓展资金融汇渠道;加强和改进体育产业统计工作;重点扶持体育本体产业的发展等方面的对策。     

Economic Transnationalism and its Ambiguities: The Case of Romanian Migration to Italy

Taking the case of migratory flows between Romania and Italy as a case study, this article investigates the ways in which spaces of economic transnationalism emerge and are reproduced over time. While the article finds that the role of the state in regulating the flow of money, people and goods across borders remains significant, it nevertheless provides evidence that state authority is systematically challenged by private actors even in the case of migration phenomena with a remarkably short history such as that of Romanians in Italy. Particularly interesting in this respect are labor recruiting networks in which informal headhunter operations, public officials and mobile manufacturing firms interact in surprising ways. While economic forms of transnationalism are the main focus of this investigation, the ways in which transnational capital and labor flows facilitated the symbolic reaffirmation of social institutions in the sending locality are also investigated.     

Defending illusions: the institution's struggle for survival

Based on participant observation and other qualitative data collected at 15 institutions for the mentally retarded, this study is directed to determining how institutional officials deal with outside criticism of their facilities. Over the past decade and a half, the legitimacy of institutions for the retarded has been challenged by professionals, courts, parent groups, and the media. Officials have reacted to outside criticism by developing new legitimating myths, increasingly sophisticated impression-management techniques, and detailed rationales for the all-too-visible discrepancy between goals and practices. Thus, this paper is concerned with the symbolic nature of the institution's struggle for survival.     

The Embedding of Russian State-Sanctioned Multipolarity in the Post-Soviet Conjuncture

This article demonstrates the manner in which key Russian officials engaged with and propagated the notion of multipolarity in the wider post-Soviet conjuncture—first in the 1990s and intensively during Vladimir Putin's first two presidencies. I argue that this demonstrates an earlier disarticulation of neoliberalism, globalisation, unipolarity, and hegemony than that offered in the nascent ‘multipolar turn’ in the sub-disciplines of International Political Economy and International Relations. Embedding understandings of multipolarity that cohere to state strategy, key Russian officials invite us to efface the divide between academic and political practice when understanding how world order concepts are propagated and normalised. A multifaceted treatment of multipolarity does not render it analytically dubious; rather, it cements its importance as a common sense and ‘polysemic’ understanding of global political affairs serving an explicit political function.     

Participative public relations: Power to the people or legitimacy for government discourse?

This article adopts a Foucauldian lens to critique public relations practices that engage stakeholders in participative processes with predetermined outcomes. It contests the popular notion that the role of public relations is to minimize or diffuse conflict, arguing that such efforts are in fact manifestations of power designed to legitimate the discourses, power and positions of the dominant coalition. The analysis concentrates on attempts to transform a national economic discourse at the Catching the Knowledge Wave Conference, held in New Zealand. It illustrates how a government–university alliance deployed public relations to gain legitimacy for economic change with the business community and more generally, New Zealand citizens.     

Commentary is free: Issue management and gaining capital with thought leadership

Expert commentaries are an avenue in which individuals and the organisations they represent position themselves on issues that are relevant to stakeholders. This paper considers the motivations for writing them, assessing this through two conceptual lenses: issue management and cultural, symbolic and economic capital. By writing an expert commentary an individual manages the way an issue is perceived and in doing so gains either immediate economic capital in the form of payment or symbolic or cultural capital which may in the future be converted into economic capital through increased career opportunities or promotion. We analyse expert commentaries in the Singapore news media and surveys their authors to investigate what prompted them to contribute their articles. We bring together (organisational) thinking on issue management and (individual) thinking on self-promotion as reflected in expert commentaries and suggest lessons for issue management through expert commentary.     

The Case of Cubans: Racial Inequality in U.S. Homeownership and Home Values

Prior research finds that human capital may explain racial housing inequality, whereas others note the historical role that race played in creating unequal housing conditions. This study uses the case of Cubans in the United States to examine whether human capital explains Black–White housing inequalities, or if they are a result of nativity/cohort differences—a proxy for the federal policies that supported Cubans’ economic and social incorporation. Using pooled data from the American Community Survey, I examine how human capital characteristics and nativity/migration cohorts shape odds of homeownership and predicted home values among Cubans. Extended analyses using decomposition methods find that although human capital characteristics are important, they play a smaller role in explaining Black–White differences in homeownership and home values. Indicative of the changing structure of racial stratification in the United States, results reveal substantial inequality among the oldest of Cuban immigrants and U.S.‐born Cubans, despite a trend toward declining inequality among recent arrivals. Supported by the literature of systemic racism, the case of Cubans shows how human capital explanations do not sufficiently explain racial housing inequalities and how the future of racial stratification is one of inter‐ and intra‐ethnic group inequality.     

广州体育产业发展的思路与实践

本文论述了广州体育产业发展所具备的人文、经济和设施等方面的优势,以及政府体育职能部门为扶植体育产业在立法、监管、服务等采取的一系列措施。展望未来,第16届广州亚运会的成功举办,必将给广州体育产业的发展注入新的活力。     

广州市体育产业发展探析——基于广州市体育产业现状调查的思考

国际体育产业快速发展,在社会经济的发展中扮演着越来越重要的角色。广州市在产业结构优化、产业升级的形势下应该如何谋划体育产业的发展。文章在广州市体育产业调查的基础上提出搭建体育产业公共创新平台、打造体育产业的集群经济、体育产业的＂区域一体化＂、完善体育产业的竞争环境、营造体育看台文化经济氛围等发展思路。     

Social Capital Investment and Immigrant Economic Trajectories: A Case Study of Punjabi American Taxi Drivers in New York City

Although the scholarship on social capital and immigrant economic incorporation has sufficiently documented how immigrants mobilize social capital in their search for employment which often leads to the formation of immigrant niches, how social capital is processed after immigrants acquire employment and its significance for the preservation of immigrant employment niches is less well explored. This paper addresses this gap in the literature with a case study of immigrant Punjabi taxi drivers in the New York metropolitan area. In particular, this study shows how a group of immigrant Punjabi taxi drivers mobilized social capital via embeddedness in co‐ethnic social networks and improved their working conditions – a process that must be considered in explanations of the Punjabi niche in the taxi industry for more than two decades. The study has implications for the relationship between social capital and the structure of the workplace or industry where immigrants are incorporated and its subsequent impact on immigrant economic trajectories. Further, this study contributes to the debate on the usefulness of ethnic communities for the adaptation of immigrant groups. Additionally, this research is relevant to the scholarship on the economic adaptation of South Asian (a subset of Asian Americans) immigrants, an understudied immigrant group in the United States.     

Economic infrastructure and the development of state autonomy: A case study of U.S. maritime policy

This paper interprets the development of the U.S. maritime industry as reflecting changes in the economic substructure of American capitalism. The analysis seeks to explain how the changing interests of the state, as well as the changing balance of power between capitalists, workers and the state stimulated changes in the maritime industry. Three time periods are used: the Revolution until 1867; 1868 to 1897; and 1898‐on. These three periods represent distinct periods of policy change and strategies of capital accumulation for the state and for capitalists. A combination of Marxian and Weberian theories of political economy are used to explain these capital‐state relations.     

The social bordering of lifestyle sports: inclusive principles,exclusive reality

Lifestyle sports are created and maintained through global youth cultural representations disseminated by many current media channels. Lifestyle sports attract young people due to their images of sociality, joyful creativity, speed and excitement, urban exoticism and their subcultural distinction from mainstream sports. This distinction is maintained with claims of social and cultural openness. Through a case analysis conducted for a research project we asked: How open are lifestyle sports communities and to whom? Who can take part in the subcultural world of lifestyle sports? What kinds of structural or personal attributes connected with individuals restrict certain young people's participation in this world? The research material consists of qualitative and quantitative data collected among skateboarding, longboarding, parkour and roller derby practitioners in Finland. Seeking answers brings researchers to the classical sociological background variables and their intersections: gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, disability and socioeconomic status. In lifestyle sports, these categorisations are linked with physical skills as subcultural symbolic capital, which is central in the exclusive and inclusive practices in lifestyle sports communities. Despite the inclusive principles that lifestyle sports practitioners emphasise, the ideal lifestyle sport practitioner seems to be represented by hegemonic masculinity, muscular strength and agility symbolising sporting abilities.     

Capital Usage in Adverse Situations: Applying Bourdieu’s Theory of Capital to Family Farm Businesses

The paper applies Pierre Bourdieu’s theory of capital to explore how farming family businesses respond to critical changes by using different forms of capital. The paper tells the story of three cases from the United Kingdom (UK): case one lost the entire farm business in the 2001 Foot and Mouth Disease (FMD) crisis; case two the family had to overcome the sudden death of the farmer; and in case three the farmer was diagnosed with a terminal illness. The results indicate that levels of economic capital are adversely affected, whilst social and symbolic capitals are important in assisting family members to cope and continue the business operations. The paper raises questions for future research and provides interesting findings for those involved with family business.