On the underestimation of migration’s income and poverty impact

In estimating the impact of migration on income and poverty, most existing studies have overlooked the fact that migration changes the size of the household. The ‘corrected’ impact that accounts for changes in household size is presented analytically and is estimated on the basis of data from nationally representative household surveys in Albania and Ghana. The analysis considers three poverty measures and four groups of migrant households: those with internal, international, internal and international, and internal and/or international migrants. The ratio of the corrected to the uncorrected impact on per capita income for Ghana (Albania) averages from 2.7 to 4.5 (2.5–3.8), and the ratio for the poverty impact averages from 2.6 to 4.4 (2.1–6.4). Thus, abstracting from changes in household size may result in a substantial underestimate of the impact of migration on income and poverty.

Erickson’s identity theory and the importance of ethnic exploration for transnational adoptees

In an effort to promote their child’s ethnic identity development, parents of transnational adoptees regularly engage in cultural exploration activities with their children. This practice is aligned with Erik Erikson’s identity theory and constructs of exploration and commitment. Using qualitative analysis of interviews with adult adoptees, this study identifies four themes common to participants including: (1) travel to one’s birth country is a transformative experience; (2) relationships with other adoptees are important; (3) adoptees feel differently about the importance of cultural activities during childhood; and (4) adoptees feel both unique in their personal ethnic identity and have feelings of marginality.     

Progressive taxation and redistributive taxation: Different labels for the same product?

The paper examines different approaches to measure tax progressivity. In particular the distributional aspect of taxation is considered in some depth. For each member of a parametric class of inequality concepts, including more than only the relative and the absolute view of inequality, a necessary and sufficient condition for a tax function to be inequality reducing with respect to this concept for all admissible pre-tax income distributions is derived, both in strong and weak form. Only three very natural properties are required to prove this result: each tax liability is less than the corresponding pre-tax income, taxation does not reverse ranks on the income scale, and inequality is reduced if a rich gives to a poor such that they do not interchange their ranks. A definition of tax progressivity based on the shown equivalence is suggested. It is demonstrated that inequality reducing taxation is equivalent to progressive taxation in the sense of an increasing average tax rate if and only if the concept of relative inequality is used.An early version of this paper was presented at the seminar on Distributive Justice and Inequality at the Wissenschaftskolleg, Berlin, May 20–24, 1986. Some of the material contained previously circulated under the heading Generalized concepts of tax progression and inequality reduction.The author is indebted to Peter Lambert whose survey of tax progressivity inspired the present analysis incredibly. James Foster, John Weymark, and two anonymous referees provided helpful comments. Remaining errors and omissions are all mine.     

The reconstruction of childhood–implications for theory and practice

First, the article deals with selected aspects of change that have framed the lives of contemporary families and children in Scandinavia: urbanization; secularization and norm-pluralism; changes in work-conditions; ideologies about the role of mothers; structural changes in family patterns; and the modern professionalization of care. Second, how change induces a crisis in the grand developmental approach within child psychology is investigated. It is argued that any a priori universal and non-contextual derived type of knowledge about development fails to grasp what is going on within families and in care and socialization in rapidly changing cultures such as Scandinavia and other Western European countries. An alternative paradigm is presented that should make us better able to understand development as embedded in culture and time. Third, some new challenges for educating the skilled practitioner are focused upon. Here reflective competence will be addressed: expertise as an ‘eternal process of inquiry; the ability to use multi-based and often conflicting knowledge about families and children in order to solve problems in everyday situations; the strengthened emphasis on the practitioner-as-person and the ability to use practical and reflected knowledge in different contexts. Finally, new bases of scientific knowledge are suggested for use in the future education of practitioners.     

Triadic balance in the brain: Seeking brain evidence for Heider’s structural balance theory

Structural balance theory is a foundational theory of social network research. Despite enduring interest in seeking network evidence for the theory, the fundamental question of why people care about structural (im)balance has received relatively little attention. The original answer to the question, dating back to Heider’s work six decades ago, is that structural imbalance causes a person to experience cognitive dissonance and sentimental disturbance. In this paper, we used a state-of-the-art neuroimaging technique to test the argument. Our study shows that individuals’ psychological states, evidenced by the activation of brain areas, are different when they are situated in unbalanced rather than balanced triads. More specifically, the differences in the brain activation between triadic imbalance and balance were found in brain regions known for processing cognitive dissonance, as discovered by previous research. Our study provides novel brain evidence in support of Heider’s original account for the psychological and biological foundations of structural balance theory in the formation of social networks.     

The particularity of the universal: critical reflections on Bourdieu’s theory of symbolic power and the state

A critical review of Bourdieu’s theory of the state is developed here against the backdrop of both his wider theoretical project and empirical studies. Elaborating the concepts of symbolic capital, symbolic violence, and symbolic domination, the centrality that Bourdieu accords to symbolic forms is compared to benchmark Weberian accounts that start with the state monopoly of violence. Reviewing also some of the burgeoning secondary literature discussing his theory of the state, Bourdieu’s writings, which encompass various antinomies, are shown to vacillate between two distinct perspectives—a strong and a weak theory of the state. His rejection of the “physicalist” approaches of Marx, Elias, and Tilly is elaborated and subject to a counter-critique, particularly in relation to the notion of symbolic “violence.” Bourdieu’s account of the state is shown to be as much a political as theoretical intervention. His antagonism towards Marxist accounts in particular is shown to be rooted in a pragmatic interest in the role of the “left hand of the state” in progressive reform; and this perspective is traced back to the twin influences of Durkheim and Hegel, French republicanism, and in particular the potential of the state to express a universal interest. At the same time, compared with sophisticated Marxist and Weberian accounts and the work of Norbert Elias and Gramsci, Bourdieu’s theory is shown to be severely lacking in the way that he deals with violence and coercion. His “expanded materialism,” particularly with the “strong theory,” bends the stick too far and overplays the symbolic basis of consent. Nevertheless, Bourdieu’s insights with regard to the pervasive influences of state practices of classification, taxonomy, delegation, and naming are shown to have real utility with regard to focused empirical investigations of the state in modern societies.     

Risky bodies in risky spaces: disabled people’s pursuit of outdoor leisure

Risk is used to deny disabled people access to many parts of mainstream life. Using qualitative data we explore disabled people’s views and experiences of outdoor recreation, bringing together ideas from two areas of sociology – disability studies and risk using the concepts of edgework and psycho-emotional disablism. Many people felt that the outdoors represented a risky environment. For some, risk was one of the main drivers for going out into the countryside; whilst for others, risk was a major cause of their reluctance to venture into the countryside. Engaging in risk both can disable and can challenge disablist views.     

Rothschild and Stiglitz’s mean preserving: revisited

Lemma 1 in the classic paper by Rothschild and Stiglitz (J Econom Theory 2:225–243, 1970) is incorrect. We use the concept of “single” mean preserving spread to provide a version of this critical lemma. It is shown that this modified lemma can in fact be used to prove Rothschild and Stiglitz’s principal result.     

Collecting for the cabinet of freedom: the parliamentary history of Thomas Clarkson’s chest

This article discusses a wooden chest used by the abolitionist Thomas Clarkson, to display samples of African natural resources and artefacts. It explores the role played by the chest during the 1788–1789 Privy Council enquiry into the slave trade, and suggests that the box (which is usually thought of as travelling showcase employed by Clarkson in public lectures and meetings) was in fact firmly embedded in – and spoke directly to – the 1788–1789 enquiry process. Its initial purpose was to conjure alternate cargoes in the minds of those debating the slave trade; to enable Parliament to visualise an Africa filled not with potential slaves, but with alternate resources, having a multitude of domestic and commercial uses.     

‘Globalisation’, Governance and social work: Some implications for theory and practice

Abstract

This article focuses cautiously on the implications of ‘globalisation’ for social work theory and practice. In drawing on recent debates it is argued that, despite its contested meaning, ‘globalisation’ points to a range of rapid and fundamental socioeconomic and political transformations that have impacted upon entire regions of the work. Some of these transformations are identified and analysed in terms of their consequences for transnational, national and local populations. It is proposed that the prevailing consequences of globalisation in terms of social inequality and allied modalities of governance are negative, and that this has important implications for the profession of social work. Effective strategies for confronting the challenges posed by ‘turbo capitalism’ may be found in alliances across global social movements and professional groups, including social workers. The challenges are profound.     

More wages,more income,more leisure? Evidence from Thailand’s time use survey

ABSTRACT

Does more income mean more leisure? This paper investigates the impact of wages and income on leisure time using merged data from two nationally representative samples in Thailand: (1) the Time Use Survey, and (2) the Labor Force Survey. Results will depend on our definition of income or wages. The data indicate that Thai people tend to reduce their leisure time in response to monthly income changes. The reason for such a negative relationship is that monthly income is composed of extra income other than wages, for example, overtime and bonus pay, which are found to be inversely related to leisure time. However, when the relationship between leisure time and hourly wage is estimated, we find that an increase in hourly wage substantially and significantly induces people to engage in more leisure and that a percentage change in hourly wage also provides a positive percentage change in leisure time.     

Weber’s theory of domination and post-communist capitalisms

Theory and Society - This article has four main objectives. First, it introduces the ideal types of domination of Weber. Contrary to the received wisdom, which knows only “three ideal...     

Education for the love of the world: Hannah Arendt’s philosophy of education and communication studies

Amidst a challenging moment of transition in American higher education, this article uses Arendt’s examination of American educational institutions and her reflections on the human condition to develop a philosophy of education that speaks to communication studies. Sharply critical of the unreflective emphasis on newness and normalization that she saw in American schools, Arendt suggests an alternative philosophy of education grounded simultaneously in the contemplation of tradition and the pursuit of natality through the active life of labor, work, and action. Together, tradition and natality open a new approach to communication education in the liberal arts tradition that challenges educators and students alike not only to understand the world around them but also to take responsibility for its renewal.     

Etzioni’s new theory: a synthesis of liberal and communitarian views

There has always been a rather strong contrast between liberal and communitarian views. The liberal doctrine of “irreversible plurality of philosophical and moral ideas” for instance does not only mean that consensus about social values is difficult. “A public consensus about the necessary conception of the good cannot be obtained,” says Rawls. On the other hand, communitarians such as MacIntyre, Sandel, and Walzer, are deeply convinced by the idea of an “immanent telos” of societies, which in their opinion have the utmost influence on the development of individuals. A similar strong contrast exists between the liberal universalism of values and the communitarian particularism. Etzioni’s New Theory now tries to overcome these unsatisfactory “tyrannies of dualism” (A. Gutmann) Instead of the traditional and hostile either- or, Etzioni puts a reconciliatory as well as. “As many other dichotomies the dualism between universalism and particularism stands in the way of the development of a social Paradigm,” he regrets. Therefore Etzioni wants to combine instead of dividing. For example, social order (communitarian value) and personal autonomy (liberal value). So he proposes to install more personal autonomy in states with strong social order, as for instance Japan, and he demands more social order in traditional individualistic states like the United States (“Inverse Symbiosis”). Such “combining and balancing solutions” coincide with the theory of a “Flexible System of Private Rights” created and proposed by the famous Austrian Legal Scholar Walter Wilburg. On the level of “value principles” in the sense of Ronald Dworkin (instead of “rules” of law), Wilburg combines the differing “weights and strengths” of values (elements). An example of this is negligence, dangerous behavior, and economic capacity of risk spreading to more or less far reaching compensations of private damages, instead of the traditional either-or. The underlying idea is that of proportion. In terms of Etzioni, “The more social order within a state or society—the more individual autonomy has to be promoted.”     

The invention of theory: A transnational case study of the changing status of Max Weber’s Protestant ethic thesis

This article investigates the status assigned to Max Weber’s The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism as a case study on the development of the concept of theory in twentieth century sociology. I trace this development in the interplay between scholars in the United States and Germany and distinguish three waves of meaning given to the text. The transitions between these phases were brought about by an initial process of mystification of the text in the 1930s and a dynamic of de- and re-mystification beginning in the 1980s. Following this process of (re)interpretation over time, I show that at the beginning of the century the work was perceived as an empirical inquiry, while at the end of the century it was treated as pure theory. Based on the example of the peculiarities of the Weberian expert communities in the United States and Germany, I analyze how the invention of a concept of theory as independent from empirical evidence helped to stabilize the value of scholarly expertise on Weber in the face of otherwise declining resonance of the text. The analysis of this paradigmatic case adds to our understanding of the development, uses, and meaning of theory in contemporary sociology.