Custom,class and change: The trade societies of Birmingham∗

E. P. Thompson, The Poverty of Theory and Other Essays (1978), v+406 (The Merlin Press, paperback £3.95).

W. Bick, P. J. Müller and H. Reinke (eds), Quantum Dokumentation. Quantitative historische Forschung. Historisch‐Sozialwissenschaftliche Forschung‐en Bd. I (1977), 236 (Klett‐Cotta Verlag, Stuttgart, DM. 39). (Quantum Documentation. Quantitative Historical Research)

P. J. Müller (ed.), Die Analyse prozess‐produzierter Daten. Historisch‐Sozialzvissenschaftliche Forschungen Bd. II (1977), 226 (Klett‐Cotta Verlag, Stuttgart, DM. 29). (The Analysis of Institutionally produced Data)

H. Best and R. Mann (eds), Quantitative Methoden in der historisch‐sozialwissenschaftlichen Forschung. Historisch‐Sozialwissenschaftliche Forschungen Bd. Ill (1977), 253 (Klett‐Cotta Verlag, Stuttgart, DM. 39). (Quantitative Methods in Historical and Social Science Research)

F. Irsigler (ed.), Quantitative Methoden in der Wirtschafts‐und Sozial‐geschichte der Vorneuzeit. Historisch‐Sozialvnssenschaftliche Forschungen Bd. IV (1978), 171 (Klett‐Cotta Verlag, Stuttgart, n.p.). (Quantitative Methods in the Economic and Social History of the Early Modern Period)

P. D. A. Garnsey and C. R. Whittaker (eds), Imperialism in the Ancient World (1978), 392 (Cambridge University Press, £12.50).

Guy Cabourdin, Terres et Hommes en Lorraine (1550–1635). Toulois et Comté de Vaudémont (1977), 2 vols., 763 (Université de Nancy, n.p.).

Sharon Kettering, Judicial Politics and Urban Revolt in Seventeenth‐century France: The Parlement of Aix 1629–1659 (1978) xi+370 (Princeton University Press, £15.00).

R. J. Morris, Class and Class Consciousness in the Industrial Revolution 1780–1850 (1979), 79 (Macmillan, £1.75).

Clyde Binfield, So Down to Prayers: Studies in English Nonconformity, 1780–1920 (1977), xiv+296 (Dent, £8.50).

Ian Sellers, Nineteenth‐century Nonconformity (1977), ix+102 (Arnold, £5.95, paperback £2.95).

Lynn Hunt, Revolution and Urban Politics in Provincial France: Troyes and Reims, 1786–1790 (1978), viii+187 (Stanford University Press, $11.50).

Gwynne Lewis, The Second Vendée (1978) x+250 (Oxford University Press, £10.00).

Joseph F. Kett, Rites of Passage: Adolescence in America, 1790 to the Present (1977), 327 (Basic Books, New York, $16.50).

Alain Corbin, Les filles de noce. Misere sexuelle et prostitution aux 19e et zoe siècles (1978), 576 (Editions Aubier Montaigne, Paris, 96 f).

(The Good‐time Girls. Sexual Poverty and Prostitution in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries)

A. J. Youngson, The Scientific Revolution in Victorian Medicine (1979), 237 (Croom Helm, £9.95).

F. B. Smith, The People's Health 1830–1910 (1979), 436 (Croom Helm, £14.95).

Ian Carter, Farm Life in Northeast Scotland, 1840–1914: The Poor Man's Country (1979) xiv+258 (John Donald, Edinburgh, £12.50).

Shulamit Volkov, The Rise of Popular Antimodernism in Germany. The Urban Master Artisans 1873–1896 (1978), ix+399 (Princeton University Press, £16.80).

Stefan Collini, Liberalism and Sociology. L. T. Hobhouse and Political Argument in England 1880–1914 (1979), vii+281 (Cambridge University Press, £12.00).     

Radical change or more of the same? Public attitudes towards social citizenship in New Zealand since neoliberal reform

International empirical evidence, including that from Australia, suggests that neoliberal reform has not changed public attitudes towards the social rights of citizenship as much as one might predict. But do these international findings hold true for New Zealand, whose institutions were more rapidly transformed by neoliberal reform than similar countries? Drawing upon public opinion data regarding economic protectionism and the welfare state over the past two decades, this paper argues that while some significant changes have emerged there is no overwhelming evidence of a paradigmatic shift in public attitudes towards social citizenship rights as a result of New Zealand's neoliberal reform. Indeed, New Zealand's experience appears as ambiguous and ambivalent as that of Australia, albeit different policy and historical settings have produced some differences in public attitudes.     

The New “Bridge to Adulthood”: Searching for Meaning and Cohesion in the Nexus of “Hook-ups,” Internet Porn,and Instant Messages

The transition from adolescence to young adulthood has sometimes been referred to as the “bridge to young adulthood.” This period is critically important for consolidating identity and for developing a deeper capacity for sexual and nonsexual intimacy. However, widening reliance on cyber technology, social media websites, and instant text messaging, in combination with newly emerging patterns of sexual relations and recreational drug and alcohol use, has complicated the navigation of the developmental transition to young adulthood. We review psychoanalytic theory pertaining to the transition from adolescence to adulthood with a focus on Erikson’s theory of psychosexual/psychosocial epigenesis in order to explicate the developmental tasks specific to this transition. This developmental stage will also be examined through the lens of developmental neurobiology. Recent theorizing on Internet-mediated sexuality will be discussed as it relates to the case studies presented. Case material will demonstrate difficulties with the transition to adulthood, manifested in part-object relating, and the use of cyber-mediated and compulsive sexuality to resolve dysphoric self-states.     

Social stability and agrarian change in the eastern lowlands of Scotland, 1810–1840

John J. McCusker, Essays in the Economic History of the Atlantic World, Routledge Studies in International Economic and Social History, I (1997), xxiii + 426 (Routledge, London and New York, £65.00/$65.00).

Francesca Bray, Technology and Gender: Fabrics of Power in Late Imperial China (1997), xvi + 419 (University of California Press, London and Berkeley, £40.00/$50.00, paperback £15–95/$19–95).

Helen Bradley Foster, ’New Raiments of Self’: African American Clothing in the Antebellum South (1997), ix + 359 (Berg Publishers, New York, £39.95/$46.00, paperback

Howard B. Rock, Paul A. Gilje and Robert Asher (eds), American Artisans: Crafting Social Identity, 1750–1850 (1995), xx + 251 (Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, £37.00/$45.00, paperback £14.00/$16.95).

David R. Green, From Artisans to Paupers: Economic Change and Poverty in London 1790–1870 (1995), xvii + 298 (Scolar Press, Aldershot £45.00/$76.95).

Gary B. Cohen, Education and Middle‐Class Society in Imperial Austria 1848‐igi8 (1996), xxi + 386 (Purdue University Press, £34.95/$40.95).

Pieter M. Judson, Exclusive Revolutionaries. Liberal Politics, Social Experience, and National Identity in the Austrian Empire, 1848–1914 (1996), xi + 304 (University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor, £42.50/$49.50).

Geoff Eley (ed.), Society, Culture, and the State in Germany, 1870–1930 (1996), viii + 522 (University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor, £47.50/$59.50, paperback $26.95).

Neil MacMaster, Colonial Migrants and Racism:Algerians in France, 1900–62 (1997), vii + 307 (St Martin's Press, New York, £45.00/$65.00).

Gerd‐Rainer Horn, European Socialists Respond to Fascism. Ideology, Activism and Contingency in the 1930s (1996), xii + 211 (Oxford University Press, Oxford, £42.50/845.00).

Eric D. Weitz, Creating German Communism, 1890–1990: From Popular Protest to Socialist State (1997), xviii + 445 (Princeton University Press, Princeton, £52.50/$65.00, paperback £19–95/$24.95).

Ryan Bishop and Lillian S. Robinson, Night Market. Sexual Cultures and the Thai Economic Miracle (1998), x + 278 (Routledge, London and New York, £45.00/$65.00, paperback £12.99/$17.95).

Katharine H. S. Moon, Among Allies. Military Prostitution in U.S.‐Korea Relations (1997), xiii + 240 (Columbia University Press, New York, $47.50, paperback $16.95).     

Partisanship,continuity, and change: Politics in Finnish unemployment benefit reforms 1985–2016

The apparent decline of partisan effects on social policies since the 1980s has encouraged the development of theories that challenge the traditional partisan politics theory. Although the new politics approach pointed to institutional path-dependence and to the unpopularity of radical retrenchment, recent research has highlighted shifts in electoral landscapes, differences in party systems and institutional contexts, and changing party-voter linkages. This in-depth case study contributes to debates on partisan effects by focusing on Finland, whose dualistic unemployment benefit system and institutional and political conditions provide an interesting case to analyse changing partisan effects. The aim is to explain, through qualitative policy analysis, why government partisanship has not had a significant effect on unemployment benefit levels since 1985. The explanations are different for earnings-related and flat-rate benefits. For the former, retrenchment efforts have seen a distinct partisan divide, but trade unions have thwarted most cutbacks; thus, although partisanship has not mattered much for policy outcomes, power resources have remained important as inhibitor of cuts. For the latter, parties that in the late 1980s still had differing priorities have since converged on policies emphasizing activation and work incentives. Universal flat-rate benefits have lacked political support and have been left to stagnate. The study suggests that one single theory is not sufficient to explain developments even in one single welfare policy—there are too many aspects to cover—not to speak of the entire welfare state consisting of an array of different schemes.