Nation-states as empires,empires as nation-states: two principles,one practice?

Empires and nation-states are generally opposed to each other, as contrasting and antithetical forms. Nationalism is widely held to have been the solvent that dissolved the historic European empires. This paper argues that there are in fact, in practice at least, significant similarities between nation-states and empires. Many nation-states are in effect empires in miniature. Similarly, many empires can be seen as nation-states “writ large.” Moreover, empires were not, as is usually held, superseded by nation-states but continued alongside them. Empires and nation-states may in fact best be thought of as alternative political projects, both of which are available for elites to pursue depending on the circumstances of the moment. Ultimately empires and nation-states do point in different directions, but it is not clear that the future is a future of nation-states. Empires, as large-scale and long-lasting multiethnic and “multicultural” experiments, may have much to teach us in the current historical phase of globalization and increasingly heterogeneous societies.     

Expanding the boundaries of sex research

Sex researchers come from a vast array of disciplines, and sexual science is advanced through interdisciplinary communication and collaboration. Today, a greater number of academic disciplines are involved in this scientific network. In addition, our research has become more global in focus. This cross‐cultural study of sexuality has challenged some of our most basic assumptions and theoretical formulations. We have recognized that so many of our concepts, models, and theories are culturally bound (Herdt, 1989). The boundaries of topics of sex research are also expanding. We have moved beyond the scientific paradigm of reproductive biology and have begun to recognize that sexuality has many more purposes. Research on attraction, communication, types of relationships, gender, sex roles, sexual attitudes and values becomes a part of sexual science. In addition, our methodologies have been expanding beyond empirical research, and we have recognized the value of humanistic and phenomenological scientific methods. As we approach the next decade and the next century, we will find a new era of sex research—exploring and expanding the boundaries of sex research.     

The Imperial Origins of Nation-States: Revisiting Hannah Arendt's Genealogy of Totalitarianism1

Against the backdrop of World War II, Hannah Arendt explores the origins of totalitarian rule, arguing that they date back to as early as the late nineteenth century. Alongside anti-Semitism, overseas colonialism and pan-nationalism paved the way for the totalitarian regimes that crystallized a few decades later by weakening the system of nation-states from within. Using the example of Germany, I will argue in this article that we need to revise Arendt's narrative. It focuses too narrowly on how nationalism turned into its categorical opposite, imperialism, neglecting the complementary dynamics of how empire facilitated the nation-state. Only then can we acknowledge the deep rupture that World War I brought about when it created in its wake a dynamic that culminated in the destruction of European nation-states.     

Teaching About Organized Religion in Social Work

Abstract

Schools of social work commonly teach that the origin of the profession lies in the humanistic principles of the many world faith traditions. However, beginning as early as the days of the Charity Organization Societies (COS) in the late nineteenth century and the Social Security Act of 1935, social work education, research, and practice have increasingly disassociated themselves from religion and its contribution to the profession. Furthermore, a large number of social workers, regardless of their personal religious affiliations, were trained to think that their religion has no relevance for their everyday professional practice. Meanwhile, society, especially in the last two decades, is marching toward greater integration between social services and organized religion. The rift between religion and professional social work practice, extenuated in the past fifty years, is being challenged by devolutionary trends of government funding and social service delivery that encourage faith-based social service provision. These trends also challenge the dogmatic exclusion of religious contents in social work education. In this article, we review the place of organized religion in social work education and present our innovative course to re-link organized religion with social work curriculum.     

Self–organization and trade union democracy

This article is an offshoot of a three year study into the self–organized groups for women, black members, disabled members and lesbians and gay men which have been enshrined in the constitution of the UK’s public sector union UNISON. The argument is that self–organization has become a significant axis around which trade union democracy is being reconstituted in the late twentieth century. However, our understanding of this phenomenon has been obscured by the ascendancy of mainstream union perspectives over self–organized perspectives, which has unfortunately been compounded by academic researchers. A re–conceptualization of self–organization proceeds in three stages. First, it is contextualized politically and theoretically in terms of trade union histories, new social movements and models of a diversified democratic polity. Second, it is re–signified by attending to its actual unfolding over the past two decades and the self–understandings of its activists. Third, is problematized with reference to exogenous pressures towards bureaucracy and oligarchy, and endogenous pressures towards essentialisms and exclusions.     

Structuration d’un champ d’action publique : l’intervention publique sur les copropriétés dégradées

This article focuses on the social construction of the problem, which emerged in France during the 1980s, of dilapidated condominium apartment buildings and on the public policy instruments that have been used. A sociology of organized action serves to analyze this twofold process, which has resulted from the formation of networks of persons unfamiliar with the legal aspects of condominium ownership. Linking the periphery to the center, these networks have crystallized around norms ensuing from housing policy. The concept of “field” in the Weberian sense explains this crystallization, and also applies to the symmetrical process of conserving civil law on joint ownership. Parties attached to this normative system denied the problem of dilapidated condominiums, when it was presented to them. By pursuing a social activity based on applying and producing rules, individuals in the networks related to housing policy and persons concerned by condominium ownership contributed to maintaining and, too, revitalizing rules and norms.     

Diasporic kinship hegemonies and transnational continuities in the Hmong diaspora

ABSTRACT

Although hegemony has been understood as the property of nation-states and the ruling classes, this paper explores cultural hegemonies among diasporic peoples by examining the pervasive compliance of Hmong living in Laos and the United States with the principles of their kinship system. Since these kinship rules are inculcated through parental education from an early age and are seen as essential for maintaining the cohesion of their dispersed diasporic community in the absence of a territorial ancestral homeland, they have become culturally engrained and taken-for-granted by Hmong through their voluntary consent and no longer have to be enforced by overt power and coercive means. However, like all hegemonies, the Hmong kinship system may also confront increasing challenges and contestation as it is enacted in the different nation-states where Hmong reside, and may eventually become an ideology that needs to be actively enforced and imposed by the direct use of power.     

SOCIOLOGY AND THE CRISIS OF THE PRESENT (2007 PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS)

This essay attempts to take a broad view of the historical forces that have shaped the discipline of sociology and continue to shape it. It is organized around the concept of crisis, arguing that sociology has been produced by crises and that it has been defined by its responses to crises. It identifies an ethic of control and manipulation as a chief product of 19th century responses. It suggests that we have once again entered a period of disruption and rapid change, and that the current challenge of sociology is to situate ourselves, reflexively, within a dense web of philosophical, psychological, social, biological, and environmental linkages, recognizing that we can never see the network in its entirety because we ourselves are nodes within it. However, the ethic of control and manipulation that we have inherited from earlier sociological responses often prevents sociologists from developing an immanent, reflexive, and ecological approach to the crisis of the present that would enable us to place ourselves within this web.     

Higher education students as political actors: evidence from England and Ireland

Higher education (HE) students have often been viewed as important political actors in wider society, stemming largely from their activities in the 1960s. Nevertheless, like much of the literature on youth political participation, research has rarely explored the extent to which student political participation varies across nation-states. This article begins to redress this gap by drawing upon data collected from focus groups with undergraduate students in England and Ireland, alongside an analysis of relevant policy documents from both countries. Overall, we argue that, whilst English and Irish students expressed similar desires to be politically active, they differed in the extent to which they felt empowered to take up such roles and the perceived scope of their influence. Similar differences were evident, to some extent, in the way in which students’ political activity was seen by policymakers. These cross-national differences are explained with reference to contextual factors and, in particular, variation in the degree of HE marketisation in the two countries. There is also evidence to suggest that students are sensitive to the way in which they are constructed in policy, which affects their sense of themselves as political actors.     

The limits of the decentred state: the case of policing insurance claims fraud

Existing research clearly shows that the public–private divide is continuously being challenged, recast and transformed. However, this article argues that a sharp distinction between public and private continues to operate as an important norm for professionals involved in the investigation of insurance claims fraud in Sweden. It shows how power within private insurance companies and the police authority is organized around the public–private divide, which is in turn mobilized to justify repression and to give investigations legitimacy. The article indicates that the formal public–private distinction is far more thoroughly maintained than is suggested by the existing literature. Rather than challenging the centrality of state power, private insurers and the police construct, maintain and have a stake in the reproduction of a state‐centric monopoly of crime control.     

Donald R. Cressey: An Intellectual Portrait of a Criminologist

The late Donald R. Cressey (1919–1987) was a central figure in twentieth century American criminology. A distinctive feature of criminology since the 1930s has been the dominance of sociology among the various disciplines studying crime and criminal justice. Cressey's contributions to the sociology of crime and delinquency came from his teaching, scholarship, and involvement in criminal justice policy. He was best known for his carrying on the tradition of Edwin Sutherland in taking Sutherland's criminology textbook through many revised editions after Sutherland's passing and for his pioneering, innovative contributions to the study of organized crime, prisons, and criminological theory. He also made central and lasting contributions to the sociology of criminal law and white collar crime. His ideas in each of these areas are reviewed to produce a portrait or profile of what he added to criminology, to remind those who know it already and to introduce it to those who may not.     

Resilience in Arab American couples after September 11, 2001: a systems perspective

Guided by a family resiliency model grounded in systems theory and social constructionism, we conducted in-depth interviews to explore how 18 Arab American couples living in New York and New Jersey perceived and dealt with the terrorist attacks and aftereffects of September 11, 2001. Results are organized around five themes: Making sense of the attacks; the social environment after September 11, 2001; construction of identity: Arab and/or American; how couples cope: reactions and resources; and immigration and acculturation. Clinical recommendations include helping couples to uncover and to explore conflicts in both Arab and American identities, using genograms to deal with family-of-origin histories, recognizing specific couple dynamics linked to traditional gender roles, helping couples connect to religious and cultural communities, and assessing acculturation.     

Finance capital markets and corporate decision-making processes: The case of W. T. Grant Company's bankruptcy

The effect of capital markets on corporate decision making has been a focus of scholarly attention for more than a century. The existing literature has remained sparse, however, in detailed analyses of the processes and effects of organized finance capital markets on managerial discretion. The case of W. T. Grant Company's bankruptcy illustrates the mechanisms by which the banking community's organized control of the finance capital markets posed a constraining influence on the firm's decision-making processes. This influence extended to the decision to throw the company into involuntary bankruptcy. The case also illustrates finance capital to be both a unique resource (having no alternatives) and a special relationship that, unlike material capital supplier relationships, has long-term consequences for the borrowing firm.     

CONTESTING OUR EVERYDAY WORK LIVES: The Retention of Minority and Working-Class Sociology Undergraduates

Efforts to improve retention and graduation among minority students have been commonplace in higher education, but few such efforts have been undertaken in sociology. In this presidential address, I document that in sociology, as in other disciplines, disproportionate numbers of African American and Latino/a students do not graduate. I examine sociological research on the barriers to success that face students of color in predominantly white colleges, and on what can be done to help overcome these barriers. An example of a successful program to increase the graduation rates of minority and working-class students in sociology is discussed, and the sociological discipline is challenged to use its knowledge and insights to help improve opportunities for minority and working-class students in sociology.     

A PLACE TO CALL HOME: Identification With Dwelling, Community, and Region

The concept of place identity has been the subject of a number of empirical studies in a variety of disciplines, but there have been relatively few attempts to integrate this literature into a more general theory of identity and environment. Such endeavors have been limited by a lack of studies that simultaneously examine identification with places of different scale. This article addresses this critical omission by analyzing how residents of Cape Cod, Massachusetts, develop a sense of home with respect to dwelling, community, and region. Our results suggest that different social and environmental factors discriminate identification across place loci: specifically, that demographic qualities of residents and interpretive residential affiliations are critical to dwelling identity; that social participation in the local community is essential for community identity; and that patterns of intercommunity spatial activity promote a regional identity. Such understandings, we propose, are important to constructing an integrated theory of place identity, one sensitive to the complex ways the self is situated in the social-spatial environment.     

Quand l'expertise se heurte au pouvoir souverain : la nation américaine face à la prolifération nucléaire, 1945-1953

After the Second World War, the applications of nuclear science raise a crucial threat to international security as far as their civil applications can be turned into military devices. Debates about nuclear proliferation offer a fruitful site to analyze the production of an expertise in bio-security. This paper analyzes in particular how experts have envisioned the role of nation-states and sovereign power in relation to policies aimed at ensuring the security of populations against the risk of nuclear annihilation. It explores what conceptions of sovereignty different experts constructed; what disciplines (political science, natural science, law) were mobilized in this debate; what strategies of institutionalization American experts followed; what publics were targeted by these experts (officials, think tanks, academic publics, media). Experts' conceptions of threats and insurances as well as the institutional paths they build to access policy circles explain which of the experts' policies diffused among policy circles. This approach, which focuses on the production of ideas rather than on the diffusion of administrative norms, complements neo-institutionalist studies of the internationalization of scientific modes of regulation.     

Emerging Orientation to the Life Course Approach In Japan

Abstract  This paper reviews and describes the various results of the life course approach in Japan in the decade since its introduction. During the latter half of the 1960s and the early part of the 1970s young researchers of the postwar generation were searching for a new perspective with which to describe and explain the world. It was at this time that the life course approach was developed in the American academic community among several interrelated disciplines, such as sociology, anthropology, psychology, and history. In this preliminary phase the FLC research group, organized and administered by Kiyomi Morioka, played a significant role. Since its dissolution, many former members have continued to introduce the life course approach to other researchers, and much work has been done.     

Two dynamics of globalization in the context of a sports mega-event: the case of UEFA EURO 2012 in Poland

ABSTRACT

The article uses the theoretical framework of Saskia Sassen’s two dynamics of globalization in order to analyse the relations between a nation-state and a non-state global actor when applying and preparing for a sports mega-event, namely UEFA Euro 2012 in Poland. The first dynamic of globalization is created by global institutions, organizations – such as global sport organizations, regimes, and processes. UEFA used the application process, and preparation, to confirm and consolidate its role as a global governor of an increasingly important area of globalization. The way Polish public institutions accommodated the UEFA requirements illustrates the second dynamic of globalization. The context of sports mega-events – ‘organized’ by global sports organizations and ‘hosted’ by nation-states – merges the two dynamics and makes it possible to emphasize the mechanisms involved in forming the new global order, defined by the complex interplay between the nation-state and non-state actors.     

The globalization of care work: Neoliberal economic restructuring and migration policy

Abstract

Significant scholarly research has focused on the ‘globalization of care work’, or how care has been distributed and redistributed in an international system where immigrant workers provide care in wealthier countries. We argue that nation-states, through a range of contradictory policies and bilateral agreements, explicitly create and reinforce the redistribution and internationalization of care work. We show how economic restructuring has helped create both demand for and a supply of immigrant care workers, while migration policies have played a key role in shaping migration flows. We examine two dyads of sending and receiving flows: Morocco/France and Poland/Germany. These cases share both similarities and differences, which allows us to consider how the global political and economic processes shaping the international division of care work play out in different contexts.     

Identification with the Human Species: A Challenge for the Twenty-First Century

The unanticipated proliferation of ethnicconflicts, after the collapse of the Soviet Union andEastern European satellites, poses a perplexingquestion: Can human beings develop an identificationwith more inclusive social units than ethnic/racialgroupings and nation-states? A concentric circle modelis presented of multiple identities, from the self tothe human species. Achieving an identification with the human species — a substantialchallenge for the twenty-first century — wouldhave profound implications for the incidence andresolution of interethnic and internationalconflicts.