The Revival of Non‐Traditional State Actors' Interests in Africa: Does it Matter for Policy Autonomy?

Africa's external relations are currently undergoing major changes. Non‐traditional state actors like China and India are reviving their ties with African economies and thereby affecting power relations between African states and traditional partners. Meanwhile, high commodity prices and improved credit ratings make external finance available for African governments. This article examines how non‐traditional state actors affect the possibility of African governments setting and funding their own development priorities. It argues that while the current situation may increase the policy autonomy for African economies this is largely a consequence of the increased availability of external finance – and not just from non‐traditional state actors.     

Post‐Authoritarian State Formation in Argentina: Transitional Justice as the Accumulation of Symbolic Power

Looking at the transitions to democracy in Latin America during the late 20^th century, a number of scholars observed that human rights and transitional justice had become the central legitimizing axis of the new, post‐authoritarian order. But the question of how human rights and transitional justice measures became such powerful sources of legitimacy in the first place was left unexplored. In this article I use Bourdieu's concept of symbolic capital along with Mara Loveman's explanation of the accumulation of this capital to explain how transitional justice came to function as a form of post‐authoritarian state formation in Argentina.     

The Swedish Welfare State and the Emergence of Female Welfare State Occupations

The Swedish welfare state has, during the twentieth century, developed into the primary guarantor of health and social services as well as economic security. As the welfare state has developed, a new group of professions has emerged which can be described as welfare state professions. In this paper I will point out a few central aspects of how female‐dominated welfare state professions have emerged and developed within the framework of the Swedish welfare state's expansion. These ideas will then be demonstrated on two female‐dominated occupations, nurses and occupational therapists, which have developed in close association with the expansion of the welfare state. The results indicate that the emergence of a centrally planned welfare state and the occupational groups' organizational resources have been of crucial importance for the professional development of female‐dominated health and care occupations in Sweden. The welfare state has opened up new professional fields and created a stable labour market, which has provided good conditions for professional organizing. The state has also been quick to establish relationships with occupational groups whose professional competence has been deemed to be suited to the welfare political context. However, the state's interests in professional matters have often been in conflict with those of the professions themselves, regarding, for example, education, sub‐specialization and certification. One conclusion that can be drawn is that the Swedish welfare state has acted both as an engine and a brake regarding professional development and status.     

Cultures of Denial: Avoiding Knowledge of State Violations of Human Rights in Argentina and the United States

Why and how do individuals distance themselves from information about their government's participation in torture and other human rights violations? Such citizen (non)response implicitly legitimates and thus facilitates the continuation of abusive state actions. Drawing on a model of socially organized denial, we explore how sociocultural contexts and practices mediate individuals’ avoidance, justification, normalization, silencing, and outright denial of human rights abuses in two sites: Argentina during the last military dictatorship (1976–1983) and the United States during the “war on terror” post September 11, 2001. The study is based on 40 in‐depth interviews with members of diverse civic, religious, community, and political organizations in both countries (20 in each site). Comparing the political circumstances of a dictatorship and an electoral democracy, the analysis shows the roles of patriotic and national security ideologies and practices of silence and talk as organizers of cultures of denial.     

Healing Victims and Offenders and Reducing Crime: A Critical Assessment of Restorative Justice Practice and Theory

The current article explores the growing restorative justice movement. It examines promising research indicating that face‐to‐face dialogue with crime victims and offenders may work to restore and heal participants, and reduce recidivism. In addition, the article assesses the current state of restorative justice theory, suggesting new avenues for future theory and research. I show how current thinking about restorative justice can benefit from a micro‐sociological reframing, focusing on the production of collective emotion and micro‐dynamics of interaction.     

COMMUNICATING THREAT: The Canadian State and Terrorism

Canada's position vis‐à‐vis September 11 differs substantially from the United States’ in both circumstance and rhetoric. Although Canada was not the target of the terrorist attack, the United States is Canada's closest neighbor. In the words of the Prime Minister in the weeks following September 11, the United States is “more like family than friends.” Given this, how has the terrorist threat been interpreted for and communicated to the public by the Canadian state? Through ethnographic content analyses of the documents (speeches and press releases) found on the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) Web site, we consider the communications by the Canadian state with respect to the events of September 11. We analyze this information within the overarching frameworks of risk and trust. In terms of risk, we examine the Prime Minister's communications and the framing of this communication as it relates to the discourse of probable harm and/or benefit. As for trust, we consider the emphasis on reputation and how this affects the information provided and its delivery. These risk/trust underpinnings speak to the Canadian state's construction of security, security threats, and the construction of the Canadian state more generally.     

The Emerging Migration State1

Since 1945, immigration in the core industrial democracies has been increasing. The rise in immigration is a function of market forces (demand‐pull and supply‐push) and kinship networks, which reduce the transaction costs of moving from one society to another. These economic and sociological forces are the necessary conditions for migration to occur, but the sufficient conditions are legal and political. States must be willing to accept immigration and to grant rights to outsiders. How then do states regulate migration in the face of economic forces that push them toward greater openness, while security concerns and powerful political forces push them toward closure? States are trapped in a “liberal” paradox — in order to maintain a competitive advantage, governments must keep their economies and societies open to trade, investment, and migration. But unlike goods, capital, and services, the movement of people involves greater political risks. In both Europe and North America, rights are the key to regulating migration as states strive to fulfill three key functions: maintaining security; building trade and investment regimes; and regulating migration. The garrison state was linked with the trading state in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The twentieth and twenty‐first centuries have seen the emergence of the migration state, where regulation of international migration is as important as providing for the security of the state and the economic well being of the citizenry.     

From Vagrancy Heterotopias to the Proximity of Homelessness. A Historical Ethnography of the State's Moral Dilemmas in the Management of Unease

This paper discusses the tension between the criminal justice system and the welfare state as expressed through practices focused on populations who are perceived as being ‘at risk’ and constituting ‘a danger’ to society, therefore challenging the national governance of social precariousness and public (in)security. The analysis of a paradigmatic institution of Portuguese Fascism has brought to light how the contradictions between the long‐term subjectivation of vagrancy processes and the uses of anti‐vagrancy policies promoted by the dictatorial state to arrest and punish a significant part of his citizens may justify the moral dilemmas underlying the current Portuguese State's response to homelessness and urban marginality.     

Certainty,Fairness, and Balance: State Resonance and Environmental Justice Policy Implementation1

Little research has examined how and why institutional context and framing dynamics shape the institutionalization of movement claims into the state’s formal policies, and what the implication of these processes might be for movements attempting to mobilize on the same conceptual terms after institutionalization. In this study, I explore the role institutional context and framing play in the institutionalization of movement claims in a case: the implementation of environmental justice policy in the California Environmental Protection Agency from 2002 to 2007. I ask: How and why were aspects of the environmental justice frame institutionalized into regulatory policy while others were not? I use ethnographic field methods and content analysis of archival data to answer this question and offer two contributions to previous research. First, I add to previous scholarship on the environmental justice movement by identifying the character of newer problems faced by movement actors as they engage in regulatory policy processes with opponents in the United States. Second, I extend social movement framing theory by developing the notion of “state resonance” to understand how and why a collective action frame is institutionalized and implemented in regulatory policy.     

Relationship Dynamics,Emotion State,and Domestic Violence: A Stress and Masculinities Perspective

We draw on the burgeoning masculinities literature to develop a framework for understanding how emotional reactions to stress may be associated with domestic violence. We conducted a daily diary study of 22 men with a history of domestic violence and a matched comparison group of 23 men with no known history of domestic violence. Each day, respondents completed a daily diary questionnaire on relationship dynamics, stress, and emotion state. This research design allowed us to examine relationship dynamics and emotion state as they unfolded over a 14‐day period. We find a difference between the two groups in the links between stress, relationship dynamics, and emotion state: Nonviolent men are more emotionally reactive to stress and relationship dynamics than are violent men. Among men with a history of domestic violence, it is as if the link between personal circumstances and emotion state has been disconnected. These findings support the idea that the demonstration of masculinity through repression of emotion and violent behavior may be linked.     

Engagement with Non‐State Service Providers in Fragile States: Reconciling State‐Building and Service Delivery

The OECD questions whether non‐state services in fragile states may delegitimise the state in the eyes of citizens, arguing that ‘state‐building’ depends on governments’ engagement in service management. This article reviews the available evidence to identify what types of engagement are feasible and most likely to contribute to service delivery, or not to damage it. It considers the capacity requirements and the risks associated with state intervention through policy formulation, regulation, contracting and mutual agreements, and concludes by identifying ways of incrementally involving the state, beginning with activities that are least likely to do harm to non‐state provision.     

Mind‐Mindedness as a Multidimensional Construct: Appropriate and Nonattuned Mind‐Related Comments Independently Predict Infant–Mother Attachment in a Socially Diverse Sample

In a socially diverse sample of 206 infant–mother pairs, we investigated predictors of infants’ attachment security at 15 months, with a particular emphasis on mothers’ tendency to comment appropriately or in a non‐attuned manner on their 8‐month‐olds’ internal states (so‐called mind‐mindedness). Multinomial logistic regression analyses showed that higher scores for appropriate mind‐related comments and lower scores for non‐attuned mind‐related comments distinguished secure‐group mothers from their counterparts in the insecure‐avoidant, insecure‐resistant, and insecure‐disorganized groups. Higher scores for appropriate mind‐related comments and lower scores for non‐attuned mind‐related comments also independently predicted dichotomous organized/disorganized attachment. General maternal sensitivity predicted neither attachment security nor organization, although sensitivity was found to relate to dichotomous secure/insecure attachment specifically in the context of low socioeconomic status. The findings highlight how appropriate and non‐attuned mind‐related comments make independent contributions to attachment and suggest that mind‐mindedness is best characterized as a multidimensional construct.     

The Politics of Migration,Church, and State: A Case Study of the Catholic Church in Ireland

This article investigates the ways in which a shift from post‐colonial nation building to neoliberal state restructuring has shaped church and Irish state relations regarding migrant welfare. It develops the extensive work of Bäckström and Davie (2010) and Bäckström et al. (2011) on how majority churches in European countries are reclaiming a social welfare role as the state relinquishes this responsibility: first, by examining the domain of migrant welfare which is not developed in their work; and second, by arguing that majority church pro‐migrant service provision, as it has evolved in recent decades, can be understood in relation to an emergent neoliberal mode of collective responsibility for migrant welfare. It suggests that in spite of other factors and forces that undermine Irish Catholic Church authority, the marketization of more domains of life in the first decades of the twenty‐first century has given new significance to Catholic Social Teaching and pro‐migrant church initiatives.     

Why Swedes Trust the State and Scots Do Not: An Exploration of the Diverse Protestant Roots of Modern Welfare Systems

This paper explores how the Protestant traditions of Calvinist Presbyterianism and Lutheranism have shaped church-state relations differently in Scotland and Sweden, resulting in different understandings of the role of the state and civil society in public welfare. It finds that high levels of public trust in the state's authority and state intervention in Sweden can be traced back to Lutheran doctrine and institutionally close links between the Swedish Church and the state, while in Scotland trusting independent civil society and its responsibility for welfare reflects the distance of the Presbyterian Scottish Kirk from the state both in theological and institutional terms.     

Non‐Citizen Mexican Youth in US Higher Education: A Closer Look at the Relationship between State Tuition Policies and College Enrollment

This paper examines state policies that extend or deny in‐state tuition to children of undocumented immigrants in the United States. Using the Current Population Survey (1997–2010), we assess changes in college enrollment among Mexican‐born non‐citizens — a proxy for the undocumented population. In contrast to previous analyses, we find that policies extending in‐state tuition to undocumented youth do not directly affect rates of college enrollment. However, we find that Mexican‐born non‐citizen youth residing in states that deny in‐state tuition have a 12.1 percentage point lower probability of being enrolled in college than their peers living in states with no such policies.     

Child abuse,child protection and disabled children: a review of recent research

This paper reports the results of a scoping study that reviewed research about child abuse, child protection and disabled children published in academic journals between 1996 and 2009. The review was conducted using a five stage method for scoping studies. Several studies have revealed a strong association between disability and child maltreatment, indicating that disabled children are significantly more likely to experience abuse than their non‐disabled peers. Those with particular impairments are at increased risk. There is evidence that the interaction of age, gender and/or socio‐cultural factors with impairment results in different patterns of abuse to those found among non‐disabled children although the reasons for this require further examination. It appears that therapeutic services and criminal justice systems often fail to take account of disabled children's needs and heightened vulnerability. In Britain, little is known about what happens to disabled children who have been abused and how well safeguarding services address their needs. Very few studies have sought disabled children's own accounts of abuse or safeguarding. Considerable development is required, at both policy and practice level, to ensure that disabled children's right to protection is upheld. The paper concludes by identifying a number of aspects of the topic requiring further investigation. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

International Travel Security and the Global Compacts on Refugees and Migration

This article examines the security dimension of the Global Compact on Refugees and the Global Compact for Migration and explains how the global compacts expand international cooperation on travel security. Although the Global Compact on Refugees contains relatively few security‐related provisions, many of the Global Compact for Migration's commitments are largely devoted to increasing security by strengthening border controls, improving travel documents, collecting data, using new technologies, like biometrics, and sharing data. By agreeing to increase cooperation on international travel security aimed at reducing irregular migration, migrant origin states have won commitments from migrant destination states to improve conditions for their nationals working abroad. Given that both global compacts are non‐binding and states may take actions to realize some of the compacts’ commitments but not others, the actual consequences of the compacts may vary greatly and lead to unanticipated outcomes.     

Conflicts over knowledge transfer across the border: Korean international students and the conversion of cultural capital

It is common knowledge that international students are a major conduit of international knowledge transfer and that they become transnational managerial elites and highly skilled migrants. However, few studies show how this transfer occurs. Moreover, people often assume that knowledge transfer is a smooth process. Drawing on in‐depth interviews of former and current Korean international students and non‐migrant Koreans in the United States and South Korea, my study shows that knowledge transfer can, in fact, be highly conflictual. I argue that conflicts in the country of origin between international students (the transferors) and non‐migrants (the recipients) mediate knowledge transfer. I see the conflicts as struggles over the conversion of cultural capital from the Global North into local power and wealth, which reworks Bourdieu's theory of cultural capital for transnational social fields. In so doing, I develop a framework that links knowledge transfer and transnational social reproduction.     

Even when those struggles are not our own: Storytelling and solidarity in a feminist social justice organization

This article draws on an eight‐month ethnography in a feminist social justice organization that supports survivors of domestic violence and shares the storytelling practices that fostered solidarity. These storytelling practices stemmed from decades of decolonizing work undertaken by Māori women to have their knowledge and ways of being equally integrated into the organization. The storytelling practices, grounded in Māori knowledge, emphasized that the land is actively productive of our identity and knowledge; our actions and beliefs are part of a non‐chronological intergenerational inheritance; the personal is collective. I contend that these practices fostered solidarity and situated feminism in a collective history of localized struggle. Accordingly, this article expands our imaginative capacity for how solidarity can be thought of and fostered between feminists in different contexts.     

Non‐state authoritarianism and diaspora politics

Diaspora politics has been celebrated as a form of transnationalism that can potentially challenge authoritarian regimes. Arguably, opposition groups and political activists can mobilize beyond the territorial limits of the state, thus bypassing some of the constraints to political organization found in authoritarian states. The literature on transnational and extraterritorial repression complicates this model, for it shows that states can use strategies of ‘long‐distance authoritarianism’ to monitor, intimidate and harass diasporic populations abroad. Yet, non‐state actors in the diaspora also sometimes use such repressive strategies to mobilize internally, gain hegemony within the diaspora, and marginalize or eliminate internal rivals. This raises the question of whether such activities can be understood as non‐state forms of authoritarianism. Cases of diasporic politics pertaining to Turkey and Sri Lanka are briefly explored with a view to examining how state and non‐state forms of transnational repression can, under some conditions, result in the dynamics of competitive authoritarianism within a diaspora. In such cases, ‘ordinary’ members of the diaspora may become caught between multiple forms of transnational repression in addition to potentially experiencing marginalization and securitization in their new home.