Situational Crime Prevention and its Discontents: Rational Choice Theory versus the 'Culture of Now'

The rational choice theory of crime and its cognate field of study, situational crime prevention, have exerted a considerable influence in criminal justice policy and criminology. This article argues that, while undeniably useful as a means of reducing property or acquisitive crime, rational choice‐inspired situational crime prevention initiatives are limited when it comes to offering protection against a growing number of so‐called ‘expressive crimes’. Developing this critique, the article will criticize the sociologically hollow narrative associated with rational choice theories of crime by drawing on recent research in social theory and consumer studies. It argues that the growing tendency among many young individuals to engage in certain forms of criminal decision‐making ‘strategies’ may simply be the by‐product of a series of subjectivities and emotions that reflect the material values and cultural logic associated with late modern consumerism.     

Situational Crime Prevention and Its Discontents: Rational Choice and Harm Reduction versus 'Cultural Criminology'

In this journal, in 2007, Keith Hayward criticized situational crime prevention (SCP) and rational choice. The main thesis was that SCP cannot tackle expressive crimes of anger, hostility and excitement. The secondary thesis was that this was because the rational choice perspective cannot account for intangible aspects of offender decision-making. Hayward's cultural criminology was offered as better explaining expressive and other crimes. The present article suggests fundamental issues may have been overlooked. Some of the many ways SCP applies to expressive and irrational crimes, and how readily they fit into the choice framework, are outlined, and a preliminary critique of Hayward's cultural criminology is offered.     

On Being Unemployed and Being a Victim of Crime—A Commentary

In a paper illustrating the shifting ground of Australian criminological debate Braithwaite and Biles claim the results of the National Crime Victim Survey (showing the unemployed have higher victimization rates for certain crimes: breaking and entering, peeping and assault, than ‘the wealthy’ or ‘the poor’) amount to a refutation of ‘a long tradition of radical criminology’. This tradition is portrayed as ‘crime is a manifestation of working class rebellion against the ruling class’. It is argued that this belated entry into confrontation with marxist oriented radical criminology, evaded for so long, is to be welcomed. However certain formal requirements: properly reading, representing, documenting and referencing ‘the radical critique’ are essential for theoretical advance. On these criteria the Braithwaite and Biles paper is deficient and distorted. The results of the victimization survey bolster rather than deny adequately represented radical critiques.     

Signature Scents

ABSTRACT

Perfume critique is an underdeveloped academic field, and this includes considerations of perfume as a theme within other art forms such as literature. In this article, Angela Carter's Wise Children and Monika Fagerholm's Wonderful Women by the Sea are read alongside perfume blogs in order to analyze the significance of perfume references in the novels. It is demonstrated that the authors' choice of perfumes for their characters plays a crucial part in their characterization, especially in relation to the theme of identity change. Using Alfred Gell's analysis of perfume use as bound up with “the transcendence of the sweet life,” it is argued that female characters use perfume to become someone else, sometimes a past self. Furthermore, the use of perfume as a literary device in these novels is shown serve as the vehicle for a feminist critique of the division between “masculine” “high” and “feminine” “low” culture.     

Let's not get tied into knots: a response to Newman, (2018)—Vygotsky,Wittgenstein and sociocultural theory

The September 2018 issue of this journal included an article by Newman, (2018) that challenges research carried out on second language acquisition (henceforth, SCT‐L2) informed by the psychological theory proposed by L. S. Vygotsky. We would like to respond to Newman's critique, which he problematizes as three “knots” that he then undertakes to untie through analysis of Vygotsky's writings contained in Vygotsky's two most popular works, Thought and Language and Mind in Society. We first summarize Newman's knots and his approach to untying them. We then present our response to each of these in turn.     

试论费孝通的“乡寰视野”

本文根据费孝通的有关理论、观点提出“乡寰视野”、“劦业乡”两个概念，尝试以此来诠释费孝通关于中国城乡社会发展与世界经济之“休戚与共”的理论和实践活动。文章阐述了费孝通“乡寰视野”观的渊源、演进；从概念结构上解明“乡寰视野”中的“乡”和“寰”，以及“劦业乡”各自的内涵构成；通过对映衬费孝通“乡寰视野”历史意识的理论梳理，以及对费孝通晚年就“乡”“寰”关系问题所作阐述的把握，试图以更具综合性的视域对费孝通的这一重要思想作出较为系统的学理解释。文章最后指出，费孝通倡导“文化自觉”体现出了更为宽广、更为仁至的人文关怀的情愫。“乡寰视野”中的纯真的愿景，是“‘美好社会’的意念”。     

Beyond Symptoms: Crime Prevention And Community Development

Crime and crime prevention are currently ‘hot’ political and social issues. Fuelled by public calls for ‘solutions’, the responses by politicians and planners are typically ‘quick‐fix’ with emphasis on management of particular problems as, and where, they arise. We argue for longer term strategies aimed at dealing with the political, social, economic and cultural factors associated with crime. In doing so, we explore the potential of community development to contribute to crime prevention, particularly ‘community’ or ‘street’ crime and violence. Theoretical and practice intersections between community development and certain crime prevention approaches are identified – notably those which link crime and violence with dis‐empowerment, poverty, inequality, exclusion, the learning of violence within families and communities, and lack of opportunity for children and young people to develop their potential. We conclude that there is plenty of evidence to support the view that community development processes should be used more frequently in crime prevention programmes.     

广松涉物象化论在日本左翼运动中的位置与影响

战后日本的旧左翼运动呈现追随大众现实意识状态的倾向,新左翼运动旗手广松涉对此展开批判,他主张发达资本主义国家的革命具有首要意义,认为马克思主义迎来了“第三阶段”,在日本应该通过理论斗争与实践运动相结合的方式实现社会变革。一般被视为纯哲学问题的广松物象化论就是用来指导新左翼运动的理论武器。与“异化革命”论相比,物象化论是对资本主义价值体系进行的原理上的、更加彻底的批判,因而不容易与现实运动形成直接关联,广松立足于物象化论的革命论自然也无法解决他自己所批判的在革命运动中“前卫”与“大众”相脱离的问题。     

An Important Problem in the Holistic Study of Marxist Doctrine—The Inner Logic and Implications of Marx's Philosophical and Economic Revolution

马克思的哲学革命与经济学革命的内在逻辑联系,是关于马克思学说整体性研究 中的一个关键性问题。马克思的哲学革命与经济学革命的内在逻辑联系是在马克思 超越政治经济学领域的政治经济学批判和超越哲学领域的哲学批判的过程中展现出来 的,即：在超越哲学领域的哲学批判中构建政治经济学的方法论系统,同时在超越政 治经济学领域的政治经济学批判中丰富和发展初步完成的哲学革命的成果,最后在这 两种“互动”的批判中基本完成经济学革命并使哲学革命的内容和形式趋于完善。马 克思的哲学革命与经济学革命的内在逻辑联系对当代中国马克思主义哲学研究的重要 方法论启示是：作为马克思主义创始人的马克思（和恩格斯）,其学说的整体性实际 上包含着对后人研究和发展其哲学的一个最为根本的方法论要求——从其学说的整体 性出发来研究和发展其哲学。为此,就必须形成由批判理念、问题理念和时代理念构 筑而成的跨学科意识。

关键词: 哲学革命?政治经济学批判?跨学科意识

The inner logical connections between Marx's philosophical and economic revolutions are a crucial issue in the study of Marx's theory in its totality. They unfold in the course of Marx's critique of political economy, which goes beyond the domain of political economy, and his critique of philosophy, which goes beyond the domain of philosophy. Specifically, Marx formulated his methodology for political economy in his critique of philosophy and at the same time expanded the achievement of his initial completion of a philosophical revolution in his critique of political economy. Finally, in these two “interactive” critiques, he basically accomplished his economic revolution and perfected both the substance and form of his philosophical revolution. The inner logic connecting Marx's philosophical and economic revolutions offers important implications for research on Marxist philosophy in contemporary China. That is to say, the integrity of the theory of Marx (and Engels), the founder(s) of Marxism, in fact implies a fundamental methodological requirement for later generations in studying and developing Marxist philosophy, namely, that they should always keep in mind the holistic nature of theory. Therefore, we need to have a cross‐disciplinary consciousness which consists of critical awareness, problem awareness and awareness of the times.     

Foucault's Apology

I read Foucault’s essay “What is Enlightenment?” as his apology. Responding perhaps, to those who claim his work undermines Enlightenment thinking, Foucault sketches a way to continue that liberatory tradition, offering his own genealogical critique as an heir to Kant in the promotion of human freedom. This recovery is questionable. In commenting on Kant’s version of the Enlightenment, Foucault fails to examine the archaeology of the key notion of public reason. I attempt a Foucauldian reading of Kant’s essay as an assertion of power rather than of the freedom of thought from power, Foucault’s silence here makes conspicuous the relations of critique. This silence is not fatal, but his apology must be depended for a recovery of critique. The emerging aporia, that in order to criticize power we must first be invested by and implicated in it, is a profound, but not unanswerable, challenge to any contemporary attempt to retain the liberatory promise of Enlightenment thinking.     

The Social as Heaven and Hell: Pierre Bourdieu's Philosophical Anthropology

Many authors have argued that all studies of socially specific modalities of human action and experience depend on some form of “philosophical anthropology”, i.e. on a set of general assumptions about what human beings are like, assumptions without which the very diagnoses of the cultural and historical variability of concrete agents' practices would become impossible. Bourdieu was sensitive to that argument and, especially in the later phase of his career, attempted to make explicit how his historical‐sociological investigations presupposed and, at the same time, contributed to the elaboration of an “idea of the human being”. The article reconstructs Bourdieu's philosophical anthropology, starting with his genetic sociology of symbolic power, conceived as a form of critical theory (latu sensu), and concluding with an account of the conditio humana in which recognition (“symbolic capital”) appears as both the fundamental existential goal through which human agents strive to confer meaning on their lives and the source of the endless symbolic competition that keeps society moving. The agonistic vision of the social universe that grounds his sociological studies returns in his philosophical anthropology under the guise of a singular synthesis between Durkheim's thesis that “Society is God” and Sartre's idea that “hell is other people”.     

Understanding the Harm of Hate Crime

This article provides an overview of the context and content of this issue devoted to hate crime. Working definitions of hate crime and hate speech are situated within the broader context of intergroup relations, prejudice, aggression, and law and social policy. Theory and research from social psychology, criminology, and legal studies are utilized to describe this context. We present summaries of the multidisciplinary contributions to this issue and note how these articles emphasize the origins of hate crime, the harm that it creates, and victims' and society's response to hate crime. They also highlight tensions between the First and Fourteenth Amendments of the U.S. Constitution. Finally, we note the interrelationships among these contributions and discuss the policy implications that arise from their analyses.     

The Failure of Roy Bhaskar's Explanatory Critique

According to Roy Bhaskar, social science can derive values from social facts by a process called “explanatory critique.” Bhaskar offers two different versions of explanatory critique: a belief-based version and a need-based version. Both versions are faced with a difficult objection. They seem either to employ an invalid inference or to assume the values that they are attempting to derive. I argue that at least the need-based version of Bhaskar's explanatory critique falls to the objection, and that the belief-based version on its own is insufficient. Bhaskar anticipates the objection and offers a defense. I show that his defense is unsuccessful. I also suggest a Baskar-inspired alternative explanatory critique.     

Critical Latitude

From his educational background both in France and America, Professor Pavel not only expresses his endorsement, understanding and judgment of the concept of “imposed interpretation,” but also his opinion and further academic expectations. The article has three parts. First, he confirms the existence of the specific problems of “imposed interpretation,” “subjective assumption prior to interpretation,” and “reversed route of cognition.” Second, he points out that the phenomen on of imposed interpretation is not unique in contemporary times and has existed in Western literary research since the beginning of the 19^th century— from the Zeitgeist of the age of Hegel, the social environment of positivism, the narratology of structuralism, and to contemporary literary critique, all of which have the feature of using concepts to cover the multiformity of literary works. Pavel finally points out that the contemporary phenomen on of “imposed interpretation” embodies the features of American culture and exposes the problem of American education. He hopes that scholars can keep critical latitude and vitality while rectifying the errors in literary research.     

马克思意识形态批判的三重向度与文化微观视域的历史性介入——从马尔库什的角度谈起

挖掘并梳理散见于马克思诸经典论断中的意识形态理论,是马尔库什后期一项重要的学术任务。借此,他大致归纳出马克思意识形态批判范式的三重特质:其一,通过抨击先前各种思想幻象所彰显出的论战-揭露性;其二,凭借分析这些幻象由以产生的社会根源而突显出的解释-功能性;其三,立足更为广泛的文化视角进而生发出的批判-哲学性。由此可见,针对马克思的意识形态批判体系,马尔库什旨在建构一种"思想-日常生活-文化"三位一体的解读模式,从而真正实现马克思意识形态批判范式从宏观维度向微观视域的历史性转向。值得一提的是,该转向在完善马克思意识形态理论的同时,又成为日后马尔库什进行现代文化批判的实践生长点。     

Devolution and Centralism in the National Health Service

The reforms to the NHS following the White Paper, Working for Patients, were presented by the Conservative government as promoting devolution, defined as “decisions … taken at the lowest possible level” by Douglas Hurd (1991) — reflecting a senior Minister's interpretation of the overall policy agenda, including health. It was further claimed that such policies (“reforms in hospitals, in schools and in housing”) were a way to “empower citizens”. This approach was naturally an attempt to present the Conservatives' policy as pro-community and ‘practical’ rather than ‘ideological’ or free-market obsessed. It is worth renewing the debate about whether power and/or responsibility were devolved in the NHS — or, indeed, to the NHS from the Department of Health. Rudolf Klein, in the first edition of his The Politics of the National Health Service (1983), had no sooner pointed to the ‘devolution’ inherent in the 1982 reorganization of the NHS (based on the document Patients First (HMSO, 1981) when the Griffiths Inquiry recommendations were accepted. As a result, he was soon to observe that the pendulum — at that time — had quickly swung back to centralism, an observation reiterated after a few years when The Politics of the National Health Service came out in its second edition (Klein, 1989). In other words, there may be a cycle from centralism to devolution and back, or at least an interpretation of events as such in health policy, which makes a current reassessment timely. Which direction did the NHS Act of 1990 and related initiatives embody?     

Ideological Expectations for Value Consensus in Chinese Society

Surveys have shown that popular ideology has tended to move from pluralism to clustering around dualism at this sensitive and critical moment for the formation of value consensus in contemporary China. The formation of a “value consensus” or “common values” must answer three questions: “What is ‘common’ about this consensus?” How can ‘consensus’ be reached?” “How can ‘values’ be legitimated?” On the basis of survey information, this paper presents the basic argument that what is common lies in ethics; consensus in spirit; and value legitimacy in our national cultural home. Ordinary people have three major ideological expectations of value consensus in contemporary China: expectation of ethical enlightenment with the theme of turning “I” into “we”; expectation of a spiritual baptism with the value “unity of the individual and the universal” and expectation of the endeavor to “return home.” Specifically, their content is as follows: to protect ethical existence and undertake the re- enlightenment of ethical consciousness at the national, family and group levels; to sublate “atomistic exploration” of the theory and mode of rationalistic ethics and carry out the “spiritual’ construction of the three great ethical entities of society, state and family; and to “go back home” to national cultural traditions and ethics and build value legitimacy. These three major expectations can be condensed into three ideas: protecting ethics, reviving “spirit” and going back “home.”     

Kurt Lewin's Leadership Studies and His Legacy to Social Psychology: Is There Nothing as Practical as a Good Theory?

This paper re‐examines Kurt Lewin's classic leadership studies, using them as a concrete example to explore his wider legacy to social psychology. Lewin distinguished between advanced “Galileian” science, which was based on analysing particular examples, and backward “Aristotelian” science, which used statistical analyses. Close examination of the way Lewin wrote about the leadership studies reveals that he used the sort of binary, value‐laden concepts that he criticised as “Aristotelian”. Such concepts, especially those of “democracy” and “autocracy”, affected the way that he analysed the results and the ways that later social scientists have understood, and misunderstood, the studies. It is argued that Lewin's famous motto—“there is nothing as practical as a good theory”—is too simple to fit the tensions between the leadership studies and his own views of what counts as good theory.     

“桑梓情谊”的现代转化：费孝通社会理论的情感维度

费孝通的社会理论在社会结构方面更受学界重视，而其中的情感维度尚未得到足够关注。本文试图在费孝通早年有关中国现代化的理论视域中，梳理他有关“桑梓情谊”与“亲属情谊”“乡土工业”“村镇地方团体”之间关系的探索和讨论，进而呈现费孝通社会理论中对于情感的重视。 在费孝通看来，中国的现代化应该以中国传统社会组织为基础来嫁接西方现代技术， 从而推动整个社会从传统向现代的有效过渡。 在此过程中，他尝试将既旧且新的“桑梓情谊”阐释为现代中国社会的情感基础。 文章认为，“桑梓情谊”表征并构造了本地的根源与大社会的流动以及地方与国家的人际关联， 是理解费孝通社会理论之情感维度的关键，对我们思考当代中国现代化建设也有一定的启示。     

VICTIMS OF CRIME AND LAW AND ORDER IDEOLOGY: A CRITICAL ANALYSIS

This article will argue that conservative forces in the community have used the renewed concern for crime victims in order to further their own political positions, rather than to genuinely advance crime victims' interests. These forces, commonly referred to as the ‘law-and-order’ lobby, include right wing politicians, the police and some sections of the media. The ideology which informs their approach will be critically examined, as well as the most important specific policies relating to crime victims deriving from this ideology.