Which is the ‘self’ in ‘self‐interest’?

This article contends that homogenisation of the term ‘self‐interest’– in sociological and economic discourse – has resulted in many misconceptions about what particular doctrines of ‘self‐interest’ were instituted to achieve at certain historical periods and in specific cultural milieux. At its worst, the article argues, this has led to a misunderstanding of the import of particular doctrines of self interest,which are read in terms of general tradition – such as that which views self‐interested conduct as a natural faculty – rather than in terms of the context specific aims of those advocating them. The article attempts to show how, historically, there have been quite significant changes in the characterisation of the ‘self’ deemed to be ‘self‐interested’. In particular, it focuses on the ‘self’ of certain early modern conceptions of self interest, and suggests this creation is best viewed not as a subjectivity transcendentally presupposed by experience, but as one historically cultivated to counter the exigencies of particular circumstances – the disaster of perpetual ‘warre’ in 17th century Europe – and to meet the purposes of a certain way of life – existence in the civitas.     

Comment confronter mobilité « subjective » et mobilité « objective » ?

The methods for analyzing objective social mobility and subjective mobility as perceived by individuals are reviewed in the case of two surveys: Trois générations by the French Old-Age Fund (CNAV, Caisse Nationale d'Assurance Vieillesse) and Formation qualification professionnelle by the French National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies (INSEE). These two surveys have formulated subjective mobility in quite different ways, but this observation also holds for objective mobility, which, for the purpose of comparison with respondents' subjective evaluations, is defined using specific procedures. A method is proposed for contrasting these two sorts of mobility based on classical mobility tables. When the latter are designed so as to cross three variables (social origins, destinations and average scores of subjective mobility), the spontaneous sociology that can be collectively detected in the assessments made by respondents turns out to be not very different from the scholarly sociology of social categories produced by sociologists. After showing that subjective and objective mobility vary coherently in relation to each other, an additional hypothesis is advanced to account for some discrepancies.     

‘Belonging’ and ‘Otherness’: Sex Equality in Banking in Turkey and Britain

The struggle for sex equality at work has largely been achieved in the developed world, it is claimed. The number of well‐qualified young women entering white‐collar employment and achieving promotion to first‐line and middle management positions now matches or exceeds their male peers. Many young women have high career aspirations and argue that sex discrimination no longer exists. However, this perception is over‐optimistic. Major sex inequalities persist at senior management level in the salaries and benefits offered to female and male staff and in access to certain favoured occupations and sectors of employment. Questionnaires, interviews and documentary evidence from three Turkish and six British banks and high street financial organizations showed that their claimed commitment to equal opportunities by sex was not matched by their practices. Members of managerial elites (who were almost exclusively male) held firm views about the characteristics of ‘the ideal worker’, which informed organizational ideologies, including human resource policies and practices concerning recruitment and promotion. They also permeated organizational cultures, which affected employees’ working practices and experiences. The outcome of these internal negotiation processes was to differentiate between a favoured group of staff seen as fully committed to the companies’ values, who were promoted and rewarded, and an ‘out’ group, whose members were denied these privileges. This distinction between ‘belonging’ and ‘otherness’ is gendered not only along the traditional lines of class, age, sexual orientation, religion and physical ability, but also along the new dimensions of marriage, networking, safety, mobility and space. Despite local and cross‐cultural differences in the significance of these factors, the cumulative disadvantage suffered by women staff seeking career development in the industry was remarkably similar.     

Généalogie et évolution de la catégorie de « cadre » en Italie

Conceptions of the social world in industrialized countries use categories worked out in the course of a nation's history. In this respect, the notion of cadre for referring to both a concrete social group and a statistical, cognitive category turns out to be a French invention. From a societal perspective, why are there no cadres in Italy? Why is this sort of catchall category for referring to persons in the middle range of employees missing there? Although the notion crystallized through the French experience does not fit the Italian situation, we can inquire into it by examining the history of two close but distinct socioeconomic categories: quadri and dirigenti. A constructivist approach is taken to examining several aspects of the emergence of these categories in Italian society: the place of the institutions that defend and objectify them as a socioeconomic category; the expectations and aspirations that motivate them; the impact of historical and symbolical events in making these categories; and the role of sociologists who persist in analyzing Italian cadres by using quite different theoretical and ideological presuppositions.     

“返乡”或“留城”:北京市流动儿童的教育分流

北京市适学流动儿童存在教育分流情况,在流动儿童小升初的时候,父母会根据孩子的成绩、家庭情况等相关因素进行"返乡"或"留京"的抉择。但是,无论是返乡还是留城,他们都难以实现社会向上流动,返乡只不过是延迟了教育分流的时间。加强职业教育,引导流动儿童转变职业观念,这既可以解决大龄流动儿童的出路问题,也有助于流动儿童的社会融入。     

Le modèle de « l'État-stratège » : genèse d'une forme organisationnelle dans l'administration française

Since the 1990s, a new organisational form of the administrative system in France has been steadily redefining relations between central administrations and local state units. Labelled “the steering state” or the “managerial state”, this new paradigm hinges on separating the strategic functions of steering and controlling the state from the operational functions of execution and policy implementation. The making of this new form of state organization involves two parallel processes: political and cognitive. For one thing, the adoption of concrete measures for “government at distance” results from power struggles between three major ministries (Home Office, Budget and Civil Service). For another, a new legitimate “categorization of the state” is being formed in the major committees involved in the reform process of the 1990s; it is borne by top civil servants and inspired by the ideas of New Public Management. — Special issue: New patterns of institutions.     

Contenir le marché : la transition de la criée à la cotation électronique à la Bourse de Paris

Open outcry was fully replaced at the Paris Bourse by an automated trade execution system (CAC) in the late 1980s. In this article, we focus on the circumstances that made this transition possible. We analyze the diverse compromises (both social and technical) that the officials and engineers in charge of the innovation process constructed in order to stabilize the new market device. They had to carefully inscribe into the new system the interests of the actors at stake: bankers and stockbrokers. This case study contributes to economic sociology by drawing a relation between a technical device and the interests set around the “modernization” of a market.     

La précarité de l'emploi au service de la prospérité du fast-food

The fast food industry offers an exception to the traditional rule that steady employment and employee qualifications are necessary for business to thrive. Since this industry sprang up in the United States during the 1950s, its major firms have offered unskilled jobs to a young, devoted labor force in transit between fast-food establishments. As a consequence, the itineraries of incoming new hires and outgoing employees crisscross. Though causing a few operational problems, this high turnover rate among wage-earners is good for business. The major (just-in-time) principle of sales and production requires an exceptionally high commitment. Only new, young team-members correspond to the profile defined in these eateries.     

Agency and clientship in public encounters: co‐constructing ‘neediness’ and ‘worthiness’ in shelter placement meetings

This article seeks to develop our understanding of the agency of vulnerable groups who at first sight may not seem to have much agency in their lives. It explores the co‐constructed nature of agency in three Danish homeless shelters. Unlike earlier interview‐based studies, our research is based on naturalistic data drawn from 23 video‐recorded placement meetings. Using concepts from Goffman, we examine how versions of the neediness and worthiness of homeless people are negotiated verbally and bodily between staff and clients. We find that homeless people have to juggle two partly contradictory roles when they are given or take the roles of either a (active) citizen or a (passive) client. Clientship is actively negotiated by both parties and demonstrates the agency of homeless people: they can collaborate with (as clients) or challenge (as citizens) the staff’s attempts to formulate solutions to their troubles. We further examine how the professional ideology of client centredness affects the meeting between the two parties. However, we show that, like any discourse, client centredness has no intrinsic meaning and is played out by actors in very different ways. In work with the homeless, the discourse of client centredness is related to discourses of ‘neediness’, ‘worthiness’ and ‘value for money’ that define agency in different ways and make three different client positions available: the resolute client, the acquiescent client and the passive client.     

La restructuration des PMI à Saint-Étienne après la crise : traces du passé et limites de l'intégration horizontale

On the basis of a survey conducted in Saint-Étienne, France, as part of a comparative European project on “modes of governance” in local economies (which, thus, takes into account the level of small and medium-sized industry and the middle level of the territory), questions are raised about the goods and services that enable these industries to be competitive with big firms or holdings. For these industries, solutions developed two decades ago for the machine tool industry, mechanics and metal-working are still significant resources. The momentum detected in a small number of fields can lead to an increasing specialization and horizontal integration that favor a more competitive growth. How to know whether this momentum results from still (temporarily) active remnants of the past or whether it is evidence of a collective impetus that can stimulate new economic growth?     

Les « intermittents » de l'Église. Modalités d'emploi des personnels laïcs dans le catholicisme français

Given the shortage of priests, bishops have assigned permanent religious duties to several thousand laypersons, a majority of them women. Many of these persons have employment contracts. The employment conditions of this new type of permanent personnel tend to be unfavorable: assignments for a few years despite contracts of unlimited duration, part-time work and a nearly minimum wage. Various factors account for this fragility: the dire financial straits of French dioceses; ecclesiastical authorities, determination to present the clergy as the only fully legitimate, permanent personnel in the Church; and the attitude of laypersons who seem to be satisfied with their lot. The efforts to institutionalize this work have encountered difficulties with respect to both the labor code and the unexpected effects produced internally by the advocacy of a “culture of limited duration commitment”.     

Revisiting the concept “dialogue” in public relations

This paper follows a critical approach in exploring the philosophical underpinnings and key features of dialogue in public relations practice and thinking. It argues that dialogue has been uncritically equated to two-way symmetrical communication, which has not done justice to the nature of dialogue, and has effectively stifled concrete development of a dialogic theory in public relations. The paper draws from a range of literature, including mainstream public relations and communication philosophy—in particular the philosophy of Martin Buber. The purpose of this paper is to inform public relations thinking by encouraging debate rather than proposing a new theoretical approach. As such, it sets out to explore the concept of dialogue and its philosophical underpinning, considers its practical application and suggests that it should not be seen as superior to persuasion.     

Managing contact in Scotland for children in non‐permanent out‐of‐home placement

There has been little research on social workers' views and experiences of managing contact for children in public care, and none focused in Scotland, where different institutional and legal features provide contrast with the rest of the UK. This study explored the views of 19 social work practitioners and managers and three Reporters to the Children's Hearing system regarding the management of contact for children in non‐permanent placements, using semi‐structured interviews and a focus group. The paper focuses on the themes of the supervision and assessment of contact, risks associated with contact and contact via ICT—e‐mail and the internet. It suggests improvements in assessing contact are needed and concludes that while there are strengths in practitioners' current awareness of risks, a risk‐based conception of contact, as exemplified by most respondents' views about the use of new technology, is in tension with the thrust of current legislation; conceptions of contact need to be flexible enough to embrace the variety of purposes contact might serve. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Les usages nationaux d'une science « globale » : La diffusion de nouveaux paradigmes économiques comme stratégie hégémonique et enjeu domestique dans les champs nationaux de reproduction des élites d'État

This paper analyses the production and international diffusion of different forms of State expertise, such as economics, from a threefold perspective: hegemonic strategies structured around the Cold War, professional rivalries between lawyers and economists within the field of state power and the internationalisation of the academic circuits for the reproduction of national elites. In order to understand the relatively low (or delayed) introduction of neo-liberal paradigm in Asia, it starts by highlighting the authoritarian genesis of these new fields of economic expertise, as an instrument for the developmental policies launched by the Cold War dictatures, such as Suharto in Indonesia or Marcos in the Philippinnes. Then, by focusing on the cases of India and South Corea, it analyses how the processes of institutionnalisation and consolidation of these new professional fields was structured around an international division of scientific labour, in which the elite US campuses control both the production of theoretical innovation and the academic networks for the reproduction of the elites of the periphery.