STIRring the grid: engaging energy systems design and planning in the context of urban sociotechnical imaginaries

Since the first electrification systems were established in the United States between 1910 and 1930, energy systems governance at the municipal level has included competing visions for how engineering design and energy policy-making should foster particular social outcomes. Using Phoenix as a representative metropolitan area, and the cases of distributed generation and in-home power management devices as examples, this paper explores how the norms and values embedded in energy systems design and planning shape how residents experience change in the energy grid. Through these case studies, the authors argue that such “sociotechnical imaginaries” – collectively formed visions of social life related to science and technology development – are a crucial, yet overlooked, pathway for social science to engage in fostering socially reflexive mechanisms in energy development. To conclude, the authors outline a research program for applying the established methodology of socio-technical integration research (STIR) in order to develop socially reflexive capacities in municipal energy producing, regulating, and planning institutions. Such a program has the ability to produce a deeper intellectual understanding of how energy development occurs, and in doing so generate new pathways for fostering cultural and material changes in the structure of contemporary energy systems.     

Anti-Sex Trafficking Institutions

Many anti-sex trafficking analyses use the term institution in a narrow meaning, comprising mainly formal-legal political structures (public laws and governmental organizations). However, by bringing in the new institutionalism approach, it is argued that an anti-sex trafficking institution should refer to a relatively enduring collection of rules – including also informal rules such as norms and routines – and organized practices that prescribe appropriate behaviour for any actor, public or private, combating sex trafficking. Based on a review of current research it is concluded that anti-sex trafficking institutions in the early 21st century tend to focus on behaviour that aims at detection, prevention, protection, crisis management, consequence management, and response. Finally, reflecting different strands of the new institutionalism approach, it is argued that the design of anti-sex trafficking institutions depends on path-dependencies, social constructions, international institutions, and domestic politics.     

Strategic innovation in US anti-sweatshop movement

In this paper, I analyze the ways in which the US anti-sweatshop movement – particularly United Students Against Sweatshops and the Worker Rights Consortium (WRC) – has engaged in a process of strategic innovation in the face of new challenges. While scholars of social movements have studied the outcome of this process – strategy – there has been less attention to the process of how movements develop strategy – strategizing. This involves a dialectic between experience, consolidated in the form of strategic models, and ideology, that is the values, social theory, and norms of the movement. When the movement encountered new obstacles, they engaged in strategic innovation through a process of democratic deliberation where they reflected on their past experiences. During this phase, the anti-sweatshop movement drew on their ideology of worker empowerment to help them decide what goals they wanted to achieve and to make sense of how their social environment was creating obstacles for them. Their ideology served as an interpretive-analytic lens through which they reflected on and learned from their past experiences. In this paper, I focus on two periods of innovation in the anti-sweatshop movement: first, the development of the WRC as an independent monitor of apparel companies and second the development of the Designated Suppliers Program as a new means of disciplining them to respect workers’ rights.     

The Emerging Global Gender Equality Regime from Neoliberal and Constructivist Perspectives in International Relations

A global gender equality regime has emerged, identifiable by its norms, principles, legal instruments and compliance mechanisms. I suggest that neoliberal theories of international regimes provide insights into the identification of this regime and the conditions for its emergence. They acknowledge the role of transnational networks, international institutions and epistemic communities of experts in shaping state choices. Global women's networks, together with multilateral and bilateral development organizations, have been instrumental in shaping these global norms on gender equality by engaging in a learning process – framing issues, influencing negotiations by the information they provide and monitoring progress. But the neoliberal theories tell us nothing about the norms themselves, their contestation in different contexts and the structures that support them and give them meaning. A second theoretical framework in international relations, constructivism, opens the way to a crucial appreciation of gender as an analytical category, demonstrating how gender norms and identities are constructed, contested and reconstructed in historical, and socio-political contexts. It thus potentially allows us to examine how a "gender equality regime', as defined by its principles, norms and decision-making mechanisms, needs to be further deconstructed and analyzed to reveal how global norms get interpreted, reinterpreted, filled in and contested on a continuing basis within different and sometimes competing institutions. Otherwise, such norms are bound to remain superficial and may obfuscate rather than clarify.     

Critical humanism for public relations: Harnessing the synergy of gender,race and sexuality research

In the age of the Anthropocene, PR research has a role to play in making sense of and working to heal the widespread suffering of human and non-human beings. Public relations scholars have an ethical responsibility to work toward structural, systemic social change that reconciles suffering. Drawing from contemporary critical theories, we weave three strands of theory – critical feminism, critical theories of race, and queer theories – to carve out a theoretical trajectory in social justice guided by critical humanism. Critical humanism illuminates the subjugation and resistance of historically marginalized individuals and groups, attending to the influence of structures and institutions that underpin norms of whiteness, cisnormativity, and heterosexuality.     

In credit we trust: Building social capital by Grameen Bank in Bangladesh

In this paper we examine how a third-party – Grameen Bank in Bangladesh – created social capital that has been a boon to the explosive growth of Microfinance in Bangladesh and elsewhere. Using Putnam's definition, we show how Grameen Bank created social capital by forming horizontal and vertical networks, establishing new norms and fostering a new level of social trust to solve the collective action problems of poor people's access to capital. The fact that a Microfinance Institution (MFI) can create social capital has strong policy implications. Since social capital is a public good – non-excludable and non-rivalrous – the market will underprovide such good. This paper shows that Microfinance corrects another type of market failure—under provision of a public good, in addition to correcting the failure of the credit market. The social capital building aspects of an MFI need to be taken into account in the whole debate about the need for subsidy.     

Ambivalence and the paradoxes of grandparenting

This paper focuses on ‘normative talk’ about grandparenting. It is based on a secondary analysis of a study involving 46 interviews with grandparents. It identifies two main cultural norms of grandparenting that emerged from the data –‘being there’ and ‘not interfering’. There were very high levels of consensus in the study that these constituted what grandparents ‘should and should not’ do. However, these two norms can be contradictory, and are not easy to reconcile with the everyday realities of grandparenting. The study found that norms of parenting and also of self determination were also very important for the grandparents in the study. They had a keen sense of what being a ‘good parent’ (to their own adult children) should mean – especially in terms of allowing them to be independent – but this could sometimes conflict with their sense of responsibility to descendant generations of grandchildren. Using the concept of ambivalence and drawing on the accounts of grandparents in the study, the paper explores and offers an explanation for both the coexistence and conflict between different sets of norms, as well as for the remarkably high levels of consensus about ‘being there’ and ‘not interfering’. The paper concludes with a discussion of some of the limitations of the data and the analysis, and with suggestions for the development of further work in this area.     

The Disability Rights Movement in Japan: past, present and future

This paper introduces the history of the modern disability rights movement in Japan, which has been a driving force for change in social norms and policies, and for improving the lives of disabled persons and their families. It presents the traditional social norms and policies that resulted in the confinement of disabled people in their parents' homes and in institutions, a radical movement of people with cerebral palsy active in 1960-1980s, the emergence of the independent living movement in 1980s, and the current disability rights movement and its future challenges. This paper is based on a review of documents and on interviews conducted during the spring of 2000 in Japan with disability rights advocates and personnel working for centres for independent living.     

From personal troubles to public compassion: charity shop volunteering as a practice of care

This article analyses charity shop volunteering in the UK as an instance of individual commitment towards organizations devoted to combating suffering. Drawing on semi‐structured interviews focused on motives, the paper argues that some respondents found in volunteer work a way of regaining meaning, structure and belonging after experiences of social dislocation such as retirement and bereavement. The transition from social dislocation to ontological security via volunteering illustrates the way in which ‘the social’ – as expressed in fellowship, laughter, work, organizations and institutions – moderates charitable practice. From this perspective, volunteering appears as a relational, processual and affective practice of care; and as a sympathy catalyst – an institution that facilitates interpersonal sympathy exchanges and support for compassionate goals. The paper endorses a view of human subjectivity which takes seriously both human vulnerability and resilience – victimhood and agency – as well as the relevance of suffering and flourishing for social action. In so doing, the paper sheds light on the link between individual biographies and the institutionalized efforts to alleviate strangers' suffering that Natan Sznaider has termed ‘public compassion’.     

‘We,the Congolese,we cannot trust each other’. Trust,norms and relations among traders in Katanga,Democratic Republic of Congo1

Congolese traders in Katanga claim that they cannot trust their peers, customers, and employees. Existing literature about social capital in Africa does not enhance our understanding, as it tends to consider trust as depending on the degree of social knowledge. In the Congo, social proximity does not exclude suspicion, nor does social distance necessarily prevent trust. Based on ethnographic fieldwork, this article aims at developing a more detailed framework. It studies how Congolese traders negotiate two key norms for the building of economic trust – property and reciprocity – with non‐relatives, distant relatives, and close relatives.     

Mobilizing Gender to Promote Peace: The Case of Machsom Watch

The binary model that presents women as peaceful and men as warfaring is a common conception of war and peace. Despite increasing levels of gender equality in most spheres of public life and decreasing gender segregation in institutions in many parts of the world, the associational link of men to war and women to peace remains widespread. Focusing on the Israeli women??s peace organization, Machsom Watch, this article uses a content analysis of interactions between Machsom Watch activists, soldiers and Palestinians to examine how gendered political opportunity structures affect and are affected by interactions between individuals, organizations and institutions. The paper highlights the contradiction between Machsom Watch??s form as a women-only organization and their framing and report language, which is non-gender specific. I argue that this contradiction emerges from their strategic negotiation of the gendered political opportunity structure as well as their culturally bounded experiences of gendered interactions and embodied gender norms. More generally, I argue that by understanding political opportunity structures as being bound by cultural norms that create distinct sets of opportunities and constraints for different groups of people, scholars can better understand the particular manifestation of social movement action and thereby more fully account for human agency in social and political structures. Additionally, this paper encourages social movement scholars to understand social movement framing as both a product of political opportunities and constraints as well as an influence in the formation of the political opportunity structure.     

Sustainability as global attractor: the greening of the 2008 Beijing Olympics

If one interprets sustainability as an attractor, it means that across time and place notions and ideas of sustainability structure, order and pattern institutions and practices. One can effectively explore the idea that sustainability is turning into a global attractor through mega events. As high profile and very visible happenings that attract worldwide attention, it is difficult to ignore common and widely shared norms on sustainability in the route towards such events. In investigating the 2008 Beijing Olympics I conclude that sustainability norms indeed restructured and patterned this global mega event. Moreover, these sustainability norms are crystallized, institutionalized and fixed in material and social structures, and thus will likely have some permanency.     

Umhlaba 1913–2013

This essay argues that the violent explosion at Marikana is an indication that ordinary South Africans are rapidly losing faith in the democratic institutions and social contract arrangements that underpin the 1994 post-apartheid South African democratic social contract, whether Parliament, the collective bargaining system, or the National Economic Development and Labour Council (Nedlac). Similarly, “legitimate” institutions, such as political parties, trade unions and civic organisations – the organisations which pre-date 1994 – are also increasingly experienced by their members and supporters as not responsive, relevant or accountable. Marikana shows that if democratic institutions and “legitimate” institutions do not become more responsive, accountable and democratic quickly, ordinary people will increasingly look to new ones, including populists ones, or seek answers in violence. The essay concludes that although there are still many democratic and “legitimate” institutions which generate high levels of trust and enjoy widespread credibility and legitimacy, South Africa may have to renew aspects of its democratic social contract, institutions and rules, and in some cases, even create new, more relevant ones.     

Racialized parenting in the United States

Contrary to anti-black, cultural deficit logics that frame Black parenting as tied to the reproduction of social disadvantage, research shows that Black parents, and other parents of color, are agentic as they parent in direct response to the dominant racial order of the United States. In this paper, I review this scholarship and primarily focus on how Black parents approach raising children in the racialized worlds that they live in. To mitigate the disadvantages caused by racism, Black parents use various intentional racialized parenting approaches to instill in their children a resilience to a racist social world. The strategies used to cultivate resilience to racism exist in varied social and institutional contexts, and intertwine with how parents understand race, class, and identity. Laborious racialized parenting techniques do not solely matter at the micro-level as such practices are unevenly recognized by white-dominant social institutions. This uneven dynamic indicates how hegemonic norms of American parenting culture fit within a project of racial neoliberalism. Consequently, Black parents are structurally pushed to burden more responsibility to prepare their children to survive a deeply racist and hyper-competitive social world with no guarantee that such intensive, strategic parenting will be rewarded.     

Five concepts of religion

In the face of continuing debate about the adequacy and definition of the concept of ‘religion’, this paper argues that it is necessary for the social sciences to become more self-critical about their various – and changing – uses of the term. As this paper shows, three main uses are currently dominant: religion as belief/meaning, religion as identity, and religion as structured social relations. By contrast, some uses which were once important are currently recessive, including Marxist approaches to religion as ideology, and Parsonian conceptions of religion as norms and values. Some new uses are also emerging, including ‘material’ religion, religion as discourse, and religion as practice. Drawing these together, the paper proposes a taxonomy of five main major uses of the term. It reflects on their adequacy, and points out where there are still occlusions: above all with regard to ‘super-social’ or ‘meta-social’ relations with non-human or quasi-human beings, forces and powers.     

Structuring institutional analysis for urban ecosystems: A key to sustainable urban forest management

A decline in urban forest structure and function in the United States jeopardizes the current focus on developing sustainable cities. A number of social dilemmas—for example, free-rider problems—restrict the sustainable production of ecosystem services and the stock of urban trees from which they flow. However, institutions, or the rules, norms, and strategies that affect human decision-making, resolve many such social dilemmas, and thus, institutional analysis is imperative for understanding urban forest management outcomes. Unfortunately, we find that the definition of institutions varies greatly across and within disciplines, and conceptual frameworks in urban forest management and urban ecosystems research often embed institutions as minor variables. Given the significance of institutional analysis to understanding sustainable rural resource management, this paper attempts to bring clarity to defining, conceptually framing, and operationally analyzing institutions in urban settings with a specific focus on sustainable urban forest management. We conclude that urban ecologists and urban forest management researchers could benefit from applying a working definition of institutions that uniquely defines rules, norms, and strategies, by recognizing the nested nature of operational, collective choice, and constitutional institutions, and by applying the Institutional Analysis and Development framework for analysis of urban social-ecological systems (SESs). Such work promises to spur the desired policy-based research agenda of urban forestry and urban ecology and provide cross-disciplinary fertilization of institutional analysis between rural SESs and urban ecosystems.     

The global three: A Malaysian lens on the challenges and opportunities facing restorative justice planning and implementation

From the rise of restorative justice to evidence-based approaches to reducing recidivism, the intellectual landscape of criminal justice has seen considerable change in recent decades. The result is that an increasing number of countries have tackled the task of shifting preexisting political institutions to confirm with these new understandings. This is, of course, no easy feat. A great number of challenges confront willing policymakers, a reality that often puts philosophy at loggerheads with practicality. Moreover, the political process of change is subject to the influence of cultural and institutional norms. In this paper, we look at one particular case study – that of Malaysia’s juvenile justice system – to understand the challenges faced in changing criminal justice policy. We identify three primary categories of challenges and elucidate their shape and impact through the Malaysian example. We also briefly analyze potential opportunities to mitigate and overcome these challenges. Furthermore, we also conclude with several implications for future research that we deem are important to be taken place. In sum, we argue that criminal justice reform must be undertaken with an eye toward important societal and institutional norms, each requiring thoughtful analysis of complex local cases.     

Sent home: mapping the absent child into migration through polymedia

Migrants and their transnational families document their children and child‐rearing practices on social networking sites (SNS) to enhance their social mobility. In this article, I identify a new group of migrant children, namely those sent home to their parents’ countries of origin for an imagined ‘good childhood‘. I demonstrate that polymedia – SNS and other platforms – sustain these children and create new norms of publicness and visibility in transnational parenting. Exploring how families document child‐raising across international boundaries, I show how the trajectories of parenting relationships remain open ended. I counter the predominant focus on transnational parenting as a kind of abandonment attached to left‐behind children. Instead, I refocus the research on the opportunities polymedia give families to create and sustain intimacies, thus making the trajectories of migrant families and children increasingly dynamic. Polymedia create important shifts in global migration – a transformation that requires changes in the way scholars approach transnational families and long‐distance parenting.     

The adoption of women’s legislative caucuses worldwide

Recent decades have witnessed the rise, across a wide range of countries, of political institutions designed to promote gender equality and women’s political representation. Existing studies have shown how international diffusion processes have contributed to the adoption of two kinds of such institutions – gender mainstreaming and gender quotas. Mounting evidence suggests that institutional reforms within legislatures constitute the latest wave of gendered institutional reform. This article identifies and explains trends in the adoption of one kind of gender-focused parliamentary institution – women’s legislative caucuses (WLCs). We use a discrete time duration model to assess the effect of several factors on WLC establishment. While there is theoretical room to expect diffusion, structural and institutional variables to affect the likelihood of caucus adoption, we find the strongest empirical support for diffusion and institutional factors. A parliament’s likelihood of adopting a WLC rises when sub-regional peers have created WLCs, when women’s international non-governmental organizations are active in the country and when the country has implemented a gender quota. Understanding the factors that affect the adoption of gender-focused parliamentary institutions is critically important, we argue, since such bodies provide space to confront masculinized institutionalized rules and norms.     

Listening for policy change: how the voices of disabled people shaped Australia’s National Disability Insurance Scheme

Voice has become an important yet ambivalent tool for the recognition of disability. The transformative potential of voice is dependent on a political commitment to listening to disabled people. To focus on listening redirects accountability for social change from disabled people to the ableist norms, institutions and practices that structure which voices can be heard in policy debates. In this paper, I use disability theory on voice and political theory on listening to examine policy documents for the National Disability Insurance Scheme in light of claims made by the disability movement. Although my study finds some evidence of openness in the policy development stage, the scheme falls short of valuing the diverse voices of disabled people as partners in shared dialogue.