The persistence of national differences in a globalizing world: the Japanese struggle for competitiveness in advanced information technologies

This paper represents a critique of that aspect of globalization theory that predicts the convergence of national economic institutions and practices toward some single optimal model. This is done through the examination of the innovative practices of Japanese firms and government within the context of US–Japanese competition in high-technology industries. A profile of Japanese innovative competencies is developed through an overview of competition in consumer electronics and personal computing and the emerging wireless Internet industry. The paper argues that different national systems of innovation result in levels of competitiveness that vary according to the technological profile in a given industry, thus undermining one of the basic premises of convergence theory.     

Hierarchization and segmentation of informal care markets in Slovenia

The article is the result of qualitative research of informal care markets in Slovenia in the field of childcare, elder care, and cleaning. The author assesses Slovenia's position in the “global care chain” and finds that “local care chains” prevail in the field of childcare and elder care, while a co-occurrence of female gender, “other” ethnicity, and poverty is typical in the field of household cleaning. The main emphasis of the article is on the analysis of hierarchization of the informal market of care work according to following two criteria: social reputation of individual type of care work and citizenship status of care workers.     

Exploring the roles of government involvement and institutional environments in the internationalization of Chinese Internet companies

The interactions between government, institutions, and Internet companies have gained attention in the research on the globalization of China’s Internet. However, few studies have been conducted at the company level, and the knowledge about the roles of government and institutions remains limited. Drawing on institutional theory, this empirical study explored the roles and mechanisms of government involvement and the institutional environment in the internationalization of Chinese Internet companies. The results indicated that government involvement could improve these companies’ degree of international breadth through both state ownership and governmental affiliation. However, the results showed that state ownership had a restraining function on their degree of international depth. In the context of institutional transition in China, these effects could vary according to whether Internet companies operate in good or poor institutional environments. By revealing these relationships, this study contributes to both the theoretical and the empirical understanding of governmental influence and institutional roots in the globalization of China’s Internet.     

A glamorous feminism by design?

Glamour is often understood as a capitalist technology of allure and as a device with which women are objectified. The consumption glamour has also been theorized as representing a refusal to be imprisoned by the norms of gender, class, and race, as well as a form of escape from everyday life. In this article, I explore the attractiveness of glamour both as a technique of feminine performance and as a technique of capitalism. By defining and historicizing the aesthetic, I consider if, and how, glamour could be utilized to strengthen a feminist politics. I argue that glamour has become more salient in a contemporary context in which the myth of natural beauty has generally been debunked, and in which the performance of femininity constantly refers to its own artifice. Through analysis of examples of the material practices of glamour, such as putting on lipstick, wearing high-heel shoes, and drinking cocktails, I suggest that glamour works as an imaginative resource by both triggering a sense of the already enjoyed and provoking idealized visions of the future. I document how everyday experiences of glamour involve the acknowledgement of artifice, fantasies of ‘the good life’, and inevitable failure. I argue that these qualities make glamour a powerful existing resource that can be used to explore how femininity functions and to speculate about the future of feminism. Just as feminist discourses have been incorporated and reterritorialized by capitalism, I suggest that feminism could incorporate and reterritorialize the material practices of glamour in order to counter capitalist neoliberal imperatives. I explore how speculative design could allow feminists to use existing optimistic attachments, such as glamour, to think beyond capitalism.     

Science, Power, Bodies: The Mobilization of Nature as State Formation

Abstract This paper brings together recently developed perspectives in science studies and the historical sociology of state formation. It focuses on how scientific and government practices together construct the relationalities, identities, natures, and material environments of the bodies that constitute the modern state. The paper argues that the modern state is an effect of these practices, a techno-scientific political formation in which political government and scientific practice are woven together in a heterogeneous yet definitive network.     

Diaspora,cyberspace and political imagination: the Eritrean diaspora online

Abstract In this article I analyse the Eritrean diaspora and its use of cyberspace to theorize the ways transnationalism and new media are associated with the rise of new forms of community, public spheres and sites of cultural production. The struggle for national independence coincided with the rise of the Internet and the Eritrean diaspora has been actively involved in the new state. Eritreans abroad use the Internet as a transnational public sphere where they produce and debate narratives of history, culture, democracy and identity. Through the web the diaspora has mobilized demonstrators, amassed funds for war, debated the formulation of the constitution, and influenced the government of Eritrea. Through their web postings, ‘Internet intellectuals’ interpret national crises, rearticulate values and construct community. Thus, the Internet is not simply about information but is also an emotion‐laden and creative space. More than simply refugees or struggling workers, diasporas online may invent new forms of citizenship, community and political practices.     

A Disabling Education: the case of disabled learners in Malaysia

Currently there is a move by the government towards improving the state of education for disabled learners in Malaysia. It is believed that current policy and practice do not meet the needs and requirements of these learners, partly because of the different definitions of disability adopted by various government agencies that are empowered to assist them. Employing a social constructivist framework, these definitions are examined specifically in the way they have been developed into different practices. It is argued that some of the common practices in educating disabled learners are discriminatory and haphazardly planned. The material effects of these practices on the actual provisions of education for these learners are then observed and evaluated. It is suggested that the education system be improved by including disabled learners in mainstream education, so as to help instigate positive changes in the lives of these learners through the wider process of social inclusion.     

The Efficacy of a Program Promoting Rice Self‐Sufficiency in Ghana during a Period of Neoliberalism*

The number of the world's food insecure rose at the end of the first decade of the twenty‐first century. Despite these negative developments, however, a 2010 United Nations report argues that food security could be improved if development efforts are supported by government programs that target smallholder farmers. This report is significant because it challenges the neoliberal perspective, which tends to promote a private‐enterprise market system and favor large‐scale producers. These competing visions for agricultural development frame our evaluation of the impact of the Africa Rice Center's (AfricaRice) efforts to promote new rice varieties among smallholder farmers to narrow the rice consumption‐production gap in Ghana. We begin by distinguishing the outreach efforts to help farmers increase production and the political‐economic conditions that limit the longevity of that outreach effort. We reviewed program documents revealing expenditures and yields among the smallholder farmers, and we conducted intensive interviews with the farmers. Although we find that the program succeeded in mobilizing farmers to increase rice production, we question the sustainability of the program's impact because state funding for the program has ended.     

Multiculturalism, “political correctness,” and the politics of identity

American society, in the course of its earlier history, was shaped by the competing visions of nativism and cosmopolitan liberalism. The first defined the American identity in restrictive fashion, and sought to curtail naturalization and immigration. The second, taking an expansive view of American identity, pressed opposing policies. In the period following World War II, new visions of American society have developed in the course of the struggles of people of color to overcome their historical exclusion from the American cultural identity. The latest of these visions are expressed in the movements of multiculturalism and political correctness, which are seen here as facets of a new, and morally assertive, view of American society, revolving around the efforts of previously excluded groups to construct new identities. All of these forms of consciousness—nativism, cosmopolitan liberalism, and multiculturalism—now compete on the American scene in the politics of identity.An earlier draft of this paper was presented at the Eastern Sociological Society annual meeting, Arlington, Virginia, March 1992.     

Offshoring in the core: Russian software firms onshoring in the USA

Offshoring and outsourcing have become the buzzwords of the IT community and the popular media discourse about the current era of globalization in services. Acknowledging the geographic perspective expressed in these dominant terms, in this article I examine the processes and activities that are oriented in the opposite direction. Capturing this inversion, I develop the concept of ‘onshoring’ and use research material from fieldwork conducted with IT firms in St Petersburg, Russia and their affiliates, agents and clients in the USA to provide an empirical case study. Onshoring encompasses the corporeal, representational, material and legal practices of offshore firms developing a presence onshore, with Russia as offshore and the USA as onshore in this case. The lack of an established Russian professional diaspora in the USA created a context in which developing a recognizable onshore presence was necessary for firms based in Russia. By explicitly recognizing that the efforts, risk‐taking and experimental strategies of offshore firms to create connections, networks and contacts onshore in the USA are a constitutive part of offshore outsourcing, I document and examine the less acknowledged complex flows and practices of onshoring. I argue that although these actors and processes may seem marginal to the widely recognized narrative of offshore outsourcing, in fact, they are creative and strategic compensations that reveal how the globalization of services is enacted at the micro‐level.     

Place and tactical innovation in social movements: the emergence of Egypt’s anti-harassment groups

This study examines the first two years of a tactical innovation that emerged in 2012 in Egypt, which involved activist groups organizing patrol-type "intervention teams" to combat sexual violence against women in public spaces. Findings reveal that the new tactic took different forms in the two places in which it was deployed, even though the same actors employed it. I argue that the place in which a new tactic emerges shapes the form it takes. When coming up with a new collective action tactic, activists elaborate visions about how to carry out their actions based on their collective identities and taste in tactics. But as they start experimenting with the new tactic on the ground, they learn about the places' material affordances, symbolic valence, and power relations, as well as the constraints and opportunities that they represent. The material properties of places shape activists' possibilities of movement, patterns of communication, field of vision, and capacity to escape repression or reach safe spaces. The configuration of actors in a place shapes the nature of their interactions with others on the ground, possible alliances, and sources of conflict. The symbolic meanings of places shape the resonance of a group’s actions and the degree of resistance that actors face. Place in part determines the ability of activists to develop a tactic in the form that best fits their preferences.     

Spirit Writing in Vietnam: Political Lessons from the Beyond

Spirit writing is a rare form of trance mediumship in contemporary urban Hanoi and part of the resurgence of popular religious practices in late Socialist Vietnam. This article explores the transmission of otherworldly messages from heroic political and military leaders of the past via an urban female spirit medium and examines practices of translation, decoding and implementing celestial directives. Based on ethnographic fieldwork, the paper investigates how efforts to execute instructions from the beyond are intertwined with mediation, materiality, and technology. Drawing on an analysis of messages from the spirit of H? Chí Minh and other heroes of the past, this paper argues that spirits interfere in Vietnam’s current political matters by questioning issues of injustice and by advising the authorities with regard to ritually safeguarding the country’s borders.     

Collective belonging and mass media consumption: unraveling how technological medium and cultural genre shape the national imaginings of Australians

Sociological literature lacks a firm evidentiary base with respect to how mass media usage works to forge patterns of collective attachment among socially diverse individuals within contemporary societies. This paper seeks to engage with this absence by examining the detailed ways in which complexities of media consumptions are linked with divergent popular visions of national belongingness and identity. Focusing in particular on variations in cultural genre and delivery technology, the study aims to help clarify extant disciplinary discussions about if and how media consumption interconnects with the substance of individual national imaginings in an era of cultural globalization. Using data from a large social survey of changing visions of national identity among contemporary Australians, the study shows that established media technologies and the consumption of lowbrow genres harden individual attachment to a traditional imagining of the nation. By contrast use of the Internet and highbrow genres foster a more inclusive vision of nation identity. In terms of sustaining these different national identity configurations, cultural genre is revealed to be of greater consequence than technological medium. Furthermore, and in a more general way, the findings suggest that notwithstanding the complexity of effects, mass media usage stands up alongside a more established concern with individual social structural background as a highly salient factor in shaping contemporary formations of national attachment.     

Connecting Parliament to the Public via the Internet

A number of scholars have argued that the Internet could strengthen representative democracy. This article presents two case studies of online consultations run on behalf of the UK Parliament and tests a series of hypotheses about online public deliberation. One consultation involved women survivors of domestic violence; the other was linked to the examination by a Parliamentary Committee of the draft Communications Bill. The article concludes by suggesting that the success of online parliamentary consultations is dependent upon two groups of actors, parliamentarians and citizens, each of which must acquire new types of communication skills and develop new practices of operating.     

Counter-conducts: A Foucauldian Analytics of Protest

The influence of Foucault on studies of social movements, dissent and protest is not as direct as might be imagined. He is generally regarded as focusing more on the analysis of power and government than forms of resistance. This is reflected in the governmentality literature, which tends to treat dissent and protest as an afterthought, or failure of government. However, Foucault's notion of ‘counter-conducts’ has much to offer the study of dispersed, heterogeneous and variegated forms of resistance in contemporary global politics. Using the protests that have accompanied summits including Seattle, Johannesburg, Prague, London and Copenhagen to illustrate an analytics of protest in operation, this article shows how a Foucauldian perspective can map the close interrelationship between regimes of government and practices of resistance. By adopting a practices and mentalities focus, rather than an actor-centric approach, and by seeking to destabilize the binaries of power and resistance, and government and freedom, that have structured much of political thought, an analytics of protest approach illuminates the mutually constitutive relationship between dominant power relationships and counter-conducts, and shows how protests both disrupt and reinforce the status quo, at the same time.     

'E-health': the internet and the transformation of patients into consumers and producers of health knowledge

This article analyses the use and production of health information on the Internet. The paper will show that users of health services have also become significant providers of health information and advice. This analysis is based on two studies. The first involved a qualitative study of households that used home computers to find health information on the Internet. The second piece of research involved the examination of home pages that contained accounts of ill health and an e-mailed questionnaire to home page authors. Drawing upon this research the consumption of health information is examined and related to how users make discussions about their health. This is followed by an analysis of the provision of health information on home pages. It is shown that these include web sites that provide simple accounts of an individual illness as well as sites that advocate a particular approach to health or offer services and products. The interweaving of personal experience with advice is considered and linked to debates about the quality of health information on the Internet and the reconfiguration of 'expertise'.     

"Flying by the seat of our pants": current processes to share best practices to deal with elder abuse

We examined current processes used to identify, communicate, and adopt "best practices" in the field of elder abuse using an iterative process involving literature and Internet reviews, surveys completed by stakeholders, and key informant interviews. Results indicate minimal research evidence exists to support current assessment and intervention strategies; there is an immediate need for more evaluation and research in this area and for improved knowledge exchange and translation. Two strategic directions are recommended: to (a) build capacity for research and program evaluation to advance knowledge of effective practices, and (b) build capacity for knowledge exchange to enhance professionals' efforts.     

THE NEED TO KNOW: Cultured Ignorance and Jewish Resistance in the Ghettos of Warsaw, Vilna, and Łódź

This article explores the role of knowledge in collective action with an examination of resistance efforts in the Jewish ghettos of Nazi-occupied Warsaw, Vilna, and Łódź during World War II. Because sustained collective resistance took place in Warsaw but not in the other two ghettos, a comparison of these cases is useful toward an understanding of the factors that facilitate collective action. Drawing on Schwartz's concept of "structured ignorance" and Snow and Benford's discussion of "empirical credibility," I show that resistance occurred when and where Jews were able to gain information about the Nazi regime's genocidal plans and believed that information to be credible. The cases therefore suggest that in addition to being "structured," ignorance may also be "cultured," in the sense that there may be limits to what individuals will interpret as possible and true. Warsaw Jews fought back in part because they were able to overcome both structured and cultured ignorance, while Jews in the other ghettos were not able to overcome these barriers to collective action. Suggestions for further research are outlined.