Environmental determinism as Orientalism: The geo-political ecology of crisis in the Middle East

From ‘Resource Curse’ to ‘Climate Conflict’, more and more analyses of the current crisis in the Middle East start their reasoning from geo-physical or natural conditions as determinants of social life. Paradoxically, despite its resource riches giving rise to conflict, the region's ecology is portrayed as fragile, alien and hostile. This imperial oriental imagination, assumes that a scarce nature is mismanaged by societies and states overall incapable of negotiating modernity. This precarious, crisis driven environment is now pushed to the edge by the effects of climate change with looming desertification and weather extremes and a scramble for shrinking oil reserves threatening to make the region all but inhabitable. This article suggests that this environmental oriental determinism in Middle East can be overcome by entering political ecology into the register of historical sociological analysis. Re-socialising and historicising nature-society relations avoids reifying the Cartesian nature/society divide, offering historical sociology a better toolkit to navigate the current crisis. Vice-versa, it argues that political ecology can benefit from recognising the role of geopolitical relations in the social reproduction nature.     

Social Work Education's Role in Addressing People and a Planet at Risk

As the nature of the earth's ecological crisis becomes increasingly dire and impossible to ignore and as global concern continues to increase, social work, with its investment in issues of justice and its commitment to a person-in-environment perspective, needs to more aggressively evaluate its place in this crisis. This paper presents a study designed to explore US social work students' attitudes, interests in, and practices related to the environment, as well as their perceptions of the place for environmental issues in the social work curriculum. This study's findings suggest that social work students' attitudes toward the environment are generally consonant with those of the US population, and that there is strong interest in enhancing the amount and scope of exposure to environmental issues in the social work curriculum. A sizable majority of all social work students surveyed view environmental justice as an important aspect of social justice and a viable area of concern for social workers, and they expressed an interest in seeing more content on environmental justice in social work education. Suggestions for integrating this content into the curriculum via inter- and trans-disciplinary, and service-learning approaches are discussed.     

转型时期的中东社会和当前政治危机分析

二战后,中东国家进入社会发展的转型时期,目前处于矛盾集中爆发且极为动荡的"过渡政治发展阶段"。中东国家必须面对一系列既有来自外部也有自身发展无法回避的严峻挑战和重要任务。当前中东出现的政治危机大致分为三种类型,其产生既有多种现实动因,也有深层社会原因和外部势力的影响。政治危机已对中东各国政治发展产生了重大影响。中东国家已步入矛盾、危机多发期,下一次政治震荡可能会冲击中东君主制国家。     

The Black Family in the 21st Century and the Church as an Action System: A Macro Perspective

Abstract

The Black church has played a leadership function for African Americans during times of crisis such as slavery and the civil rights movement. This article suggests that the current crisis in the African American community is the disintegration of the African American family because of economic, social and value shifts, as well as misguided social policy. The Black church must again mount a spiritual and political campaign to save African American families, thereby ensuring their prosperity.     

Deny or bolster? A comparative study of crisis communication strategies between Trump and Cuomo in COVID-19

This study applied the situational crisis communication theory (SCCT) in political crisis communication amidst the COVID-19 outbreak, a “sticky crisis” that is longitudinal and politicized, thereby involving multiple challenges and complexities. Considering the critical role of Twitter in the information transmissions during the ongoing pandemic, this study considered politicians’ tweets as a proxy to access their crisis communication strategies and conducted a systematic content analysis to critically evaluate COVID-19 crisis communication strategies of two politicians, Trump and Cuomo, according to their perceived day-to-day circumstances during COVID-19. Three strategies categorized by SCCT, deny, diminish, and bolstering, surfaced with significance for both Trump and Cuomo. A new strategy specific to the political context, cohesion, was also identified. In addition, significant differentiation was observed in the strategic narratives between Trump and Cuomo, which reveals the evolving political dynamics in disease representation and crisis messaging. For example, Trump emphasized social exclusion and accusations of Democrats whilst Cuomo stressed care for vulnerable and minority groups and compassion delivery. Moreover, deny strategy, especially accusing other races, significantly boosted audience engagement for Trump. The results are discussed in relation to the idiosyncrasy of the complex COVID-19 pandemic and crisis communication in the political realm. Our findings demonstrate practical implications including online crisis messaging recommendations that foster public trust during politicized and polarized health emergencies and cultivate grounds for information exchange beyond partisan barriers.     

Environmental attitudes and the politics of distrust

This article reviews recent studies showing that distrust lies at the heart of the serious crisis of sustainability that humanity is failing to address, insofar as distrust of environmental scientists, communicators, and policymakers are all undermining public demand for better public policies. Generalised distrust of scientists is rare, but political distrust is ubiquitous, such that even people who are concerned about environmental problems are often opposed to potential policy solutions. There are also people, however, who do not even believe in some of the problems—most notably climate change. This scepticism is sometimes interpreted as a consequence of their preferring free markets to regulation; in other ways, though, the sceptics are not at all sympathetic to free markets. What appears more distinctive about them is their distrust of virtually all elite social institutions, including communities of experts, and a corresponding divide between their beliefs and preferences and those of experts generally.     

The Pleasures of Computer Gaming: Essays on Cultural History,Theory and Aesthetics

How do editorial cartoons represent gambling? What can visually oriented thinking give to gambling research? The answers are rooted in the expanding research about visual culture, methodologies and data in social sciences and cultural studies. The discussion about 170 editorial cartoons from the Finnish print media, from 1961 to 2005, shows how the cartoons profile the Finnish gambler and what emotions are associated with gambling. The discussion then turns to Finnish gambling culture and gambling's role in society. Space, communication, power relations, and the use of gambling as a political metaphor are highlighted. The assessment demonstrates the value of popular-cultural data for gambling studies. The examination complements the existing cartoon research and visual-cultural studies and has interdisciplinary pedagogical potential.     

Divorce and immigration: the social integration of immigrant divorcees in Israel

This paper attempts to supply information on what motivated some 7000 Jewish divorcees to leave their countries of origin in the last decade and settle in Israel. The study also examines the differences in social integration of immigrant divorcees who came to Israel from different political systems--authoritarian or democratic regimes. Finally, the study examines the extent to which immigrant divorcees, who generally arrive in Israel with children, are to be considered as a "high risk" social group requiring special attention and particular aid. Of the 287,487 immigrants aged 15 years and over who arrived in Israel between 1970-1980, 53.7% were women (sex ratio: 860 males per 1000 females), and 3.6% were divorced. The findings indicate that there are significant differences between divorcees from Anglophone and Eastern European countries in their motivation for immigrating to Israel. The former decide to immigrate primarily for individual reasons--generally after divorce--expecting that immigration will increase chances of remarriage. In contrast, those who came from Eastern Europe are motivated by political, economic, and ideological reasons; the issue of immigration often sparks the divorce crisis. Divorcees from Anglophone countries are less socially isolated, more likely to meet veteran Israelis, and more satisfied with their life in Israel. Eastern European divorcees usually restrict their social contact to encounters with other immigrants from their country of origin, are less satisfied with their life in Israel, and feel themselves more isolated and frustrated. Despite the difficulties encountered by this group, it was found that there are no marked differences between divorcees and married immigrant women in social integration. In Israel, immigrant divorcees cannot be considered as a "high risk" social group.     

Transforming Social Work Curricula: Institutional Supports for Promoting Sustainability

Due to the centrality of human rights and social justice in the profession, social work must collectively take a stand on ecological degradation and the climate crisis. Overall, social work education's engagement with issues of sustainability and an expanded ecological justice perspective has been peripheral and piecemeal. It is crucial that social work education expand opportunities to prepare social workers to respond to the global environmental crisis. This conceptual paper considers strategies for integrating environmental content in social work curricula and addresses the essential role of institutional supports for curricular change and professional development focused on sustainability. The role of institutional supports to advance curricular change to respond to environmental crises and promote sustainability is highlighted, along with specific examples from the authors' home institution, including (1) institutional commitment and culture, (2) curricular supports and guidelines, and (3) interdisciplinary faculty development.     

利比亚政治危机的历史探溯

卡扎菲集团没有构建合法型、传统型统治的基础,构建"魅力型统治"成为其目标。卡扎菲以"第三世界理论"和《绿皮书》为指导,以民众革命、伊斯兰社会主义、对抗西方等实践行为,构建"魅力型统治"。随着社会变迁和全球化的冲击,完全凭铁腕和魅力赢得民众认同来寻求合法性显得日益艰难。卡扎菲统治的42年,政治动员缺乏国民士气和公共精神所需求的能量。这次利比亚政治危机是北非政治危机"滚雪球效应"引发的利比亚国内政治斗争的扩大化,外来力量尤其是北约的干预直接放大了这种效应,反映了利比亚现代化中威权政治的衰朽,卡扎菲强人政治"魅力平凡化"的历程。     

The logic of social policy expansion in a neoliberal context: health insurance reform in Korea after the 1997 economic crisis

In the aftermath of the economic crisis of the late 1990s, the Korean government reformed health insurance system to enhance social equity and solidarity. This article identifies the institutional features and political dynamics involved in completing the reform. The Korean case suggests a model of counter-movement that differs from the historical experiences of both democratic corporatist and liberal welfare states. Two institutional conditions within the politics of crisis contributed to the reform. A legacy of limited state welfare was critical in providing the impetus for reforming health insurance system. More importantly, the crisis maximized the state’s coordination capacity by mobilizing a coherent bureaucracy under the presidential authority, and by limiting interest politics. The Korean experience has important implications for the study of economic crisis and social policy response. The way in which a crisis provides new contexts for welfare and policy making institutions, rather than the institutions themselves, should be the main focus in analyzing policy responses. The focus on the political dynamics of an economic crisis helps us acknowledge the limit of ideological forces of a crisis in facilitating a particular policy response.     

The regime’s worst nightmare: the mobilization of citizen democracy. A study of Podemos’ (aesthetic) populism and the production of affect in political discourse

In spite of not even being officially registered three months before the European Parliament Elections of 2014, the Spanish upstart party Podemos captured almost 8 percent of the vote, while barely nine months after its formation, in October 2014, social surveys were citing the party as the leading force in national politics. The overall purpose of this paper is to explore how Podemos’ aesthetic and its discursive strategies are being used to mobilize affect and create collective identities in the battle for political hegemony in Spain. I argue in dialogue with Laclau [2005. On populist reason. London: Verso], Errejón and Mouffe [2016. Podemos: in the name of the people. London: Lawrence & Wishart] that: (a) the articulation of a new political grammar and discursive conflicts in which the popular majority can identify themselves as subjects in opposition to an adversary ‘Other’ plays a central role in constructing ‘the people’ as a new form of political culture, especially in times of crisis whereby; (b) the notion of populism transgresses categories such as ‘oversimplification’ and/or ‘demagogy’ and can also be regarded in terms of exhibiting sensitivity to popular demands and participatory democracy. My findings show that welfare politics are not necessarily best communicated through traditional left-wing symbols, due to the left’s popular link with communism and political defeat; these having been repeatedly recounted by the media/culture industry throughout history. Indeed, many may share the idea of protecting a nation’s common social services without wanting to position themselves within a Marxist (leftist) framework. I point to the representative crisis as an affective crisis where there is a potential affective space to be filled. From here, I stress that resistance movements seem to need to learn the current media logic of conflict and recognition in order to mediate affect and produce identification.     

Releasing the full transformative power of feminism

ABSTRACT

In the current political situation - with the crisis of democracy, shrinking civic spaces and dominant repression along with the rise of right-wing political movements, the current article aims to show the powerful roles feminisms play in the struggles of social movements. It focuses on the aspect of power, domination, authority, neoliberal forces and systems of oppression in order to propose alternative models based on concrete experiences from the ground of anti-capitalist, anti-imperialist, and anti-patriarchy actions. Stories from Rojava, Kenya, and the Basque country; interviews; and literature review are used to show how women's efforts to achieve a balance of power and inclusion in decision-making is shifting the models of leadership, forcing changes in law and putting women at the centre of social movements by advocating for a change in social relations. All these interconnections propose a process of democratization as a tool for radical social change by delivering decision-making back to women and people.     

The social-mediated crisis communication research: Revisiting dialogue between organizations and publics in crises of China

The rapid diffusion of social media is ushering in a new era of crisis communication. To enhance our understanding of the social-mediated dialogue between organizations and their publics in crises of China, this study conducts a content analysis of 61 relevant journal articles published in 2006–2018. Results of this research present an overview of ongoing research trends such as theoretical frameworks and methodological preferences. This research also explores how the unique Chinese social media characteristics affect the dialogue between types of organizations and their publics. Contextual factors such as face and favor, relationship (Guanxi) and sentiment (Renqing), and the centralized political system that may facilitate/inhibit dialogue in crises of China are identified as well. Finally, this study suggests promising new directions such as a scholarly assessment tool for the social-mediated crisis communication research in China.     

After Cleveland: a crisis of confidence

SUMMARY. The article argues that social work is experiencing a crisis of confidence about child abuse. This lack of confidence is examined from various points of view; the social work skills needed to work with abused children and their families; the theoretical framework underpinning assessment and intervention; public confidence in social work; the legal processes; and departmental policy and practice. It suggests ways of overcoming the problems associated with the crisis of confidence including increased and better quality training, a more open approach to the community and an acceptance of professional independence     

Migration,crisis and theoretical conflict

The nature of the distinction between the equilibrium and historical-structuralist positions on migration is examined. Theoretical and political differences in the two positions are considered both historically and in the context of the current global economic crisis. The proposal of Wood to focus on households as a strategy for integrating the two perspectives and for achieving a better understanding of migration and social change is discussed.     

Grassroots Environmental Organizations in the United States: A Gramscian Analysis*

The theoretical approach utilized in this study is based on the pieces of information scattered throughout Antonio Gramsci's work and the extrapolation made out of his notion of hegemony. From a Gramscian perspective, social movements are creative reactions to contracting hegemony. To the extent that it provides room for the existence of collective actions, hegemony is expansive; yet, because it is not total, the condition for the existence of counter‐hegemonies that call to question its “essentials” also exists. The case of grassroots environmental justice organizations in the United States (GEJOs) that deal with first‐order quality of life issues falls within the province of the latter dynamics. GEJOs deal with an issue limited in scope, viz., environmental crisis; however, their movement participants have contested the multiple dimensions of existing hegemony. These organizations, as total counter‐hegemonies, have challenged the political, economic, intellectual, and cultural orders of the American society. The interest in distributive justice, participatory democracy, public‐oriented scientific endeavor, and a well‐ordered cultural realm based on a universal good sense are the fundamental elements of an alternative hegemony manifest or latent in the discursive formations and practices of GEJOs. The study is based on document analysis and interpretation of the literature on GEJOs in the United States.     

Perceived Need for Psychosocial Services in the Context of Political Violence: Psychological Distress Among Israeli Mothers with Young Children

The current study investigated the association between mothers’ perceived need for psychosocial services due to exposure to political violence, and theirs and their children’s psychological distress. A representative sample of 904 Israeli mothers of young children aged 2–6 were asked to fill out a questionnaire about exposure to war and other types of trauma, psychological distress, social support, and perceived need for help. The results showed that mothers who reported a need for psychosocial services due to exposure to political violence had higher levels of exposure to political violence, depressive symptoms and more emotional problems in their young children than mothers who reported no need for help. Those who reported a need for psychosocial services also had less social support even when all other variables are controlled. Furthermore, Arab mothers and mothers with low family income perceived a greater need for psychosocial services. The implications of this study are relevant for policies of outreach to vulnerable groups in situations of ongoing political violence.