W. H. Hutt and The economics of the colour bar

Conclusion Long before the international climate of opinion made South Africa’s system of legalized racial discrimination untenable, it was under attack from within. A tiny part of that struggle was waged on moral grounds by decent South Africans both white and nonwhite. The much larger part of the war was waged not on moral grounds but on the economic battlefield where the stakes were profit and losses. As W. H. Hutt so aptly points out, the major disadvantages of apartheid were borne by South Africa’s nonwhite population, but the disadvantage was shared by whites as well. As such it produced widespread tensions leading to resistance, evasion, contravention, and modi-fication of apartheid law. Often evasion and contravention of apartheid law was led by the very people who shared the ideology of white supremacy. The final abolition of apartheid law may indeed reflect a change in heart by South African whites but the coup de grace was, as Hutt put it, the liberating forces “released by what is variously called the ‘free market system,’ the ‘capitalist system,’ or the ‘profit system.’”     

Part of the welfare mix: The third sector as an intermediate area

This article presents a conceptional framework which analyses the third sector as a part of a mixed welfare system, otherwise made up of the market, the state and the informal private household spheres. From this perspective, the third sector appears as a dimension of the public space in civil societies: an intermediate area rather than a clear-cut sector. Third sector organisations are understood as polyvalent organisations whose social and political roles can be as important as their economic ones; they are portrayed as hybrids, intermeshing resources and rationales from different sectors. In present policies of ‘welfare pluralism’ the emphasis is consequently more on ‘synergetic’ mixes of resources and rationales than on mere issues of substitution processes between different sectors of provision. The last section discusses the potential distinguishing features of such policies with respect to ‘pluralist’ approaches which try to safeguard the conventional hierarchies in a mixed economy of welfare. This paper draws in part on the author's introduction to Evers and Svetlik (1993).     

An Examination of ‘Irregular Competition’ between Corporations and NGOs

The purpose of this article is to develop a theory which frames the demands of civil society in such a way as to better enable corporate subjects to manage and navigate ‘irregular’ engagement from activist organizations. Activist NGOs engage in advocacy at times by mounting, facilitating or encouraging popular social campaigns and actions against targeted corporations. In many cases, radical ‘direct action’ tactics are adopted, taking such approaches, NGOs may capitalise on the broader, more ethically diverse strategic possibilities open to them than are available to their corporate adversaries. We employ institutional theory to map out this asymmetric distribution of strategic possibility. We theorise NGOs and corporate subjects as effectively ‘competing’ with one another to maximise their own strategic possibilities and to minimise those of their opponents, in the perennial battle for hearts and minds that plays out between NGOs, corporate subjects, and broader civil society actors who ultimately determine boundary rules for NGO-corporate conflict. Within this context we explore the normative challenge arising from the possibility that corporate subjects might seek to tip the competitive balance by learning from how the military has adapted to successfully engage with ‘irregular’ adversaries through what is often termed ‘asymmetric’ or ‘irregular’ warfare. Should corporations follow a similar adaptive process, by mirroring the ‘irregular’ strategies of activist groups? Drawing evidence from the military experience, we suggest—perhaps counter intuitively—that such adaptations can create new opportunities for conflict resolution and for building sustainable cooperation between former adversaries.     

Consistency between tastes and values: A universalization approach

The object of this paper is to propose a consistency test for an individual involved in collective choice process. Collective choice processes considered in the paper are those that transform individuals ‘tastes’– which reflect the self-interested view point of the individuals – into (social) ranking of alternatives. In addition to her tastes, an individual has values about the way by which collective decision should be made. We distinguish two categories of such values. First, there are end-values that restrict the class of social rankings that the individual considers ethically acceptable. Second there are aggregation-values that specify the way by which the social ranking should depend upon the individuals tastes. The consistency test stands on an hypothetical operation of universalization of the individual tastes to everyone. Five illustrations of the potential usefulness of our approach for interpreting social choice theory and welfare economics are proposed. These illustrations deal with utilitarian aggregation in the presence of income inequality aversion, the so-called ‘ethics of responsibility’ and the aggregation of individual ranking of opportunity sets based on their freedom of choice. A discussion of the relevance of the consistency test for addressing the problem of ‘laundering’ individual preferences is also provided. Received: 25 June 1998/Accepted: 16 March 1999     

Changes in local voluntary associations in Denmark

This article analyses the changes in the voluntary sector in Denmark at the local level, and compares associations in the ‘cultural field’ with those in the ‘social field’. The analyses, which are primarily based on research conducted in 1993, show that the voluntary sector changed significantly during the 1980s and the 1990s. First, over a third of the associations were established after 1979, and this has resulted in changes in the overall composition of the sector. Traditional value-oriented associations and associations that work for others have declined in relative terms, while narrow-interest associations that work for the members themselves are increasing. Second, the number of associations that are based and operate in a clearly-defined local area has declined. Third, despite professionalisation in some types of associations, more people than ever before are engaged in voluntary work in associations. Fourth, while public subsidies to the voluntary associations have increased, this has not changed the fundamental ‘political autonomy’ of the associations. Fifth, even though there are great differences in the political context of which the ‘cultural field’ associations and ‘social field’ associations are part, the associations in the two fields have many common features.     

To the Dark Side and Back: The Administrative Odyssey of an Academic Sociologist with Lessons Learned

My first semester as a tenure-track faculty member at a mid-size university began ignominiously and suggested that my academic career might be short-lived. It began with a blistering memo that was stridently critical of the academic dean’s policy which led to being taken to the proverbial woodshed. Other less serious episodes followed which put me at odds with the “administration.” Yet I have spent more than a third of my career in administrative positions, including a stint in the provost’s office (as an assistant vice chancellor), and only recently returned to faculty status. Over the course of my academic career I have noticed that a large number of academic sociologists have taken administrative positions in academia beyond that of the department chair. This paper will explore this phenomenon and discuss the reasons members of the ‘debunking’ discipline assume administrative roles. I will address this issue within the context of my personal odyssey in administration and how the sociological perspective and imagination has contributed to working in the ‘dark side’ of academia. Finally, I will discuss lessons learned and recommendations for the aspirant administrators among the ranks of academic sociologists.     

Italy and ‘Balkan Greece’: Albanian Immigration in the 90s

The article proposes an interview with Mr. M. Baldwin Edwards—director of the Mediterranean migration observatory (MMO) based in Athens—made in January 2007. Interview object was the analysis of the way Greece faced the Albanian migration flow in the 90s. Critically he points out the actors, the strategies, the historical and sociological reasons of this response. The protection of human rights and the role of the European Union are also pointed out. The overall picture gives the impression of a Greek answer that makes a confusion between a ‘border policy’ and a ‘migration policy’ leading to a (more or less conscious) ‘non immigration policy’.     

Sociology’s <Emphasis Type="Italic">Suicide</Emphasis>: A Forensic Autopsy?

For decades Durkheim’s theory of suicide has been tested and found wanting. Yet, rather than being consigned to the dust-bin of history, it lives on and is pointed to as an exemplar of the powers of sociological theory and research. If this rationalizing and/or dismissal of so many falsifications of the theory were an isolated phenomenon, it might be evidence of some lemming-like propensity for suicide or a disciplinary death-wish, among a few sociologists. But it appears to be a much more widespread and common occurrence. In this paper we explore some possible explanations of this ‘falsification denial’—‘The Social Misconstruction of Reality’ (Hamilton 1996), ‘When Prophecy Fails’ (Festinger et al. 1956), ‘Underdetermination’ (Duhem 1954; Quine Journal of Philosophy 67:178–183, 1970, Erkenntnis 9:313–328, 1975; Lakatos 1970), and ‘Boundary Maintenance’ (Erikson 1966), and we outline some of the more important and pernicious consequences of this falsification denial for the discipline and future of sociology.     

Education Assistance to Africa: We Can Do More and Better

Based on the problems of Global Education Assistance to Africa (GEAA), and combined with China’s rationale and practice of Education Assistance to Africa, this paper proposes a vision and assumption to improve the GEAA, that is, using the assistance rationale of ‘Africa-based’, ‘equal-relationship’, and ‘mutual-benefits’, through ‘multi-stakeholders cooperation’, ‘multi-modes operation’, and ‘multi-goals achievement’ to build one ‘harmonious world’.     

A Geometric Study of Shareholders’ Voting in Incomplete Markets: Multivariate Median and Mean Shareholder Theorems

A simple parametric general equilibrium model with S states of nature and K < S firms is considered. Since markets are incomplete, at a (financial) equilibrium shareholders typically disagree on whether to keep or not the status quo production plans. Hence each firm faces a genuine problem of social choice. The setup proposed in the present paper allows to study these problems within a classical (Downsian) spatial voting model. Given the multidimensional nature of the latter, super majority rules with rate are needed to guarantee existence of politically stable production plans. A simple geometric argument is proposed showing why a 50%-majority stable production equilibrium exists when K=S−1. When the degree of incompleteness is more severe, under more restrictive assumptions on agents’ preferences and the distribution of agents’ types, equilibria are shown to exist for rates ρ smaller than Caplin and Nalebuff (Econometrica 59: 1–23, 1991) bound of 0.64: they obtain for production plans whose span contains the ‘ideal securities’ of all K mean shareholders.Hervé Crès is a member of the GREGHEC, unité CNRS, UMR 2959.     

Relationships between Borda voting and Zermelo ranking

There are many situations wherein a group of individuals (e.g., voters, experts, sports writers) must produce an ordered list of ‘best’ alternatives selected from a given group of alternatives (e.g., candidates, proposals, sports teams). Two long established mechanisms that have been used for this task are ‘Zermelo’s Ranking Method’ (1929) and ‘Borda’s Voting Scheme’ (1781). The main purpose of this paper is to point out that they are, under certain common circumstances, identical. We then show that Zermelo’s Method can be used in situations that Borda’s Method is not designed to handle.     

The Chairman’s Paradox Revisited

This paper re-examines the so-called ‘chairman’s paradox‘ that was first noticed by Farquharson in his path breaking tract on sophisticated voting, Theory of Voting (1969). The Chairman’s paradox is concerned with the case of a three member committee in which a particular player who has a regular and a tie-breaking vote – the ‘chairman’ – not only will do worse in specific instances under the plurality procedure for three alternatives than if he did not have such a vote, but will also do worse overall. That is, the chairman’s a priori probability of success (‘getting what one wants’) for all possible games with linear (strict) preference orders is lower than that of the two regular members. It is demonstrated that this result, which comes about if voters act strategically rather than sincerely, is not as robust as it has been thought to be. By merely replacing the standard assumption of linear preference orders with weak preference orders, which allow for indifference, we can escape from the paradox for the canonical case of three players and three alternatives. With weak preference orders, the a priori success of the chairman is now greater than that of the other two players. We also point to a new paradox of sophisticated voting.     

Garfinkel before ethnomethodology

A short story titled “‘Color Trouble’” by Harold Garfinkel was published inOpportunity in 1940,The Best Short Stories 1941, andPrimer for White Folks in 1945. Garfinkel wrote this short story before World War II while a research fellow at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill under Howard W. Odum, the founder ofSocial Forces “‘Color Trouble’” narrates poignantly the racial victimization of a young black woman traveling on a public bus through the State of Virginia. The short story provides sociologists with a different medium through which to examine the seminal interests of ethnomethodology’s founder. In a literary form, the short story depicts such ethnomethodological concepts as the breaching experiment, the “et cetera clause,” “ad hocing,” and the status degradation ceremony. Garfinkel’s “‘Color Trouble’” also suggests the way in which ethnomethodology overlaps with, as well as diverges from, Erving Goffman’s dramaturgical perspective. He received his doctoral degree from the graduate program in sociology at York University, Toronto, Ontario. His article “Autonomy and Responsibility in Social Theory” will appear inCurrent Perspectives in Social Theory, Volume 10.     

From government to grass-roots reform: the Ford Foundation's population programmes in South Asia, 1959–1981

This article traces the history of Ford's involvement in population work in South Asia from the 1950s to the mid-1980s. The primary focus is on the transition from large-scale technical assistance programmes rooted in government and academe, to work with grass-roots women's groups and community-based non-governmental organisations (NGOs). In the process, the Foundation also moved from quantitative efforts designed primarily to distribute contraceptives, to a more holistic approach focusing on maternal and child health. The article concludes by relating these trends to a larger shift from a belief in the power of ‘disinterested expertise’ and university-based policymaking that marked the efforts of the major American foundations since the Progressive era, to a new emphasis on ‘self-interested expertise’ and grass-roots social activist and development NGOs that emerged in the 1970s. Changing development paradigms, political trends and a growing disillusionment with large-scale technical assistance all contributed to this transition.     

Internet Gamblers: A Latent Class Analysis of Their Behaviours and Health Experiences

In order to learn about the behaviours and health experiences of people who gamble on the Internet, we conducted an international online survey with respondents recruited via gambling and gambling-related websites. The mean (SD) age of the 4,125 respondents completing the survey was 35.5 (11.8) years, with 79.1% being male and 68.8% UK residents. Respondents provided demographic details and completed validated psychometric screening instruments for problem gambling, mood disturbances, as well as alcohol and substance misuse, and history of deliberate self harm. We applied latent class analysis to respondents’ patterns of regular online gambling activities, and identified subgroups of individuals who used the Internet to gamble in different ways (L ² = 44.27, bootstrap P = 0.07). We termed the characteristic profiles as ‘non-to-minimal gamblers’; ‘sports bettors’; ‘casino & sports gamblers’; ‘lottery players’; and ‘multi-activity gamblers’. Furthermore, these subgroups of respondents differed on other demographic and psychological dimensions, with significant inter-cluster differences in proportion of individuals scoring above threshold for problem gambling, mood disorders and substance misuse, and history of deliberate self harm (all Χ ²s > 23.4, all P-values <0.001). The ‘casino & sports’ and ‘multi-activity-gamblers’ clusters had the highest prevalence of mental disorder. Internet gamblers appear to be heterogeneous but composed of several subgroups, differing markedly on both demographic and clinical characteristics.     

Trust, repute and the role of non-profit enterprise

This article examines the trust hypothesis: the claim that asymmetric information can explain the existence of non-profit enterprise in certain markets. We argue that this hypothesis, in order to be viable, has to meet three challenges: ‘reputational ubiquity’, ‘incentive compatibility’ and ‘adulteration’. Drawing on modern agency theory, we conclude that the trust hypothesis stands on shaky ground. It can be sustained only under particular conditions that have been neither carefully described in theory nor subject to empirical assessment. The available evidence, patchy and inadequate as it is, seems to suggests that there are some ownership-related differences in aspects of organisational performance connected with asymmetric information. However, there is little evidence that this relates to trustper se or provides a rationale for the existence of non-profit ownership in these industries. We conclude with a plea for substantial research on consumer expectations and provider motivations. Visiting Associate Professor at Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New Jersey.     

Geometric models of consistent judgement aggregation

Given a set of propositions with unknown truth values, a ‘judgement aggregation function’ is a way to aggregate the personal truth-valuations of a group of voters into some ‘collective’ truth valuation. We introduce the class of ‘quasimajoritarian’ judgement aggregation functions, which includes majority vote, but also includes some functions which use different voting schemes to decide the truth of different propositions. We show that if the profile of individual beliefs satisfies a condition called ‘value restriction’, then the output of any quasimajoritarian function is logically consistent; this directly generalizes the recent work of Dietrich and List (Majority voting on restricted domains. Presented at SCW08; see , 2007b). We then provide two sufficient conditions for value-restriction, defined geometrically in terms of a lattice ordering or a metric structure on the set of individuals and propositions. Finally, we introduce another sufficient condition for consistent majoritarian judgement aggregation, called ‘convexity’. We show that convexity is not logically related to value-restriction.     

Coercion,contract and the limits of the market

It is a widely accepted principle of economics that if two or more adults voluntarily agree to a contract or an exchange that has no negative fall-out on others, then the government should not stop such a contract. This is often called the ‘principle of free contract’ (PFC). There is a body of writing in economics which upholds the PFC. Yet this ubiquitous principle is ill-defined and full of ambiguities. For instance, since it refers to voluntary choice, its proper use presumes an understanding of what is ‘voluntary’ and, therefore, also, of what is coercive. What is ironic is that, while philosophers and legal scholars have debated and analyzed these concepts and the validity of the principle of free contract, there is very little discussion of these in economics, even though so much of economics is founded on this principle. This has caused a lot of policy confusion. The aim of this paper is to construct general rules for when we may violate the PFC. The argument is constructed within the Paretian framework. Hence, the violation of the PFC is not justified by appeal to deontological ethics or non-welfarist criteria. This is not an easy task since the principle of free contract is often viewed as a rule that is a derivative of the Pareto principle.     

Charles A. Ellwood and the End of Sociology

Charles A. Ellwood was one of the larger than life figures of early American sociology. Into the 1930s he was recognized as the ‘father’ of sociological social psychology. His work theoretically and methodologically paved the way for Symbolic Interactionism. He also saw sociology as a means to an end, that is, to make the world a better place. True sociology could only be thought of in that light. By the 1920s however, sociology was changing. The advent of scientism and statistics amplified factions within the disipline. William F. Ogburn and his students began to push sociology away from the ideas of people such as Ellwood, Ross, Small and many of the early American sociologists. By 1930 a full scale battle was ensuing which Ellwood would lose. The following is an account of Ellwood’s fight with scientism through his publications and correspondence.