Institutional woes of participation: Bulgarian disabled people’s organisations and policy‐making

This paper presents a critical study of the participation of Bulgarian disabled people’s organisations in the policy‐making process on a national level. It describes how the ‘representatives’ of disabled Bulgarians become depoliticised and even depersonalised when their participation becomes institutionalised through the National Council on Integration of People with Disabilities. It is argued that such an instance of ‘participation’ actually sustains the status quo of underdevelopment and dependency. A parallel is drawn with the concerns of the British disability movement. The paper ends by suggesting some tentative solutions to the highlighted problems.     

Commodities in action: measuring embeddedness and imposing values

Recent approaches in political economy look at the effects of technology and social values on economic action. Combining these approaches with those of economic anthropologists, this article poses that the way the economy is instituted can be understood by looking at reasons actors have for participating in actor‐networks of production, distribution and consumption. Using the author's research on American recycling, this article first shows that much of the‘making’or instituting of the economy happens outside the market, through political machinations, contracts and standards. Second, it suggests that these relationships impose value upon goods differently than do market relations. The details of the recycling‘chain’show the ways actors shape the network and demonstrate that the social values that add‘economic value’to goods are not uniform, but are highly contextual. Starting from Mark Granovetter's notion of 'social embeddedness', the article explains that the measure of social embeddedness is not as important as the values imposed upon other actors through social structure in the economy. It calls for a close observation of economic action in the locales within which production takes place to understand better the‘actions‐at‐a‐distance’where the politics of technology, social movements and power create the empirical, instituted economy.     

Beyond control? The mechanics and dynamics of ‘informal’ remittances between Europe and Africa

Abstract Policy making usually assumes that the best way to harness migrant remittances for development is by shifting them into the regulated money transfer sector. However, much research evidence concludes that alternative methods are often cheaper and more reliable, accessible and convenient. In this article, we explore this tension between policy objectives and evidence. Based on a review of remittance mechanisms in seven sub‐Saharan African countries, we question the validity of the distinction between ‘formal’ and ‘informal’ remittances. We conclude that the formalization of remittance systems should not be approached as a regulatory task carried out from the top down, but as a bottom‐up evolutionary and organic process that should be encouraged. We suggest that the current regulatory thrust in this area is likely to be counterproductive, since it risks undermining the many vibrant institutions emerging through the movement of migrants and their money, together with their potential to enhance much needed economic and social development.     

Military Occupations: Methodological Approaches and the Military–Academy Research Nexus

Military occupations are continually evolving in relation to the geopolitical changes of societies, their conflicts and conflict management strategies, and technological developments in military hardware and software. Military occupations studies undertaken by the academy have been key to informing government strategy towards the maintenance of functioning armed forces. Since the 1950s, such studies have prioritised ‘top‐down’ quantitative sociological methodologies. This paper reviews these studies and the role of the dominant Institutional/Occupational model. The paper then considers less influential ‘bottom up’ interpretive methodological studies of military occupations. It is suggested that the reliance on ‘top down’ modelling approaches has led to the paucity of studies describing the range and experiential detail of military occupations. The Military–Academy nexus, and the priorities of the discipline of sociology are suggested as reasons for this emphasis.     

Having the wrong kind of money. A qualitative analysis of new forms of financial, social and moral exclusion in consumerist Scandinavia

Consumerism not only promotes discourses emphasizing individualized consumer choices, but it also introduces new electronic, invisible and symbolic forms of money. The present article analyses social exclusion in contemporary Scandinavian society by focusing on patterns of consumption and the social meaning of money in low‐income households in Denmark and Sweden. Drawing on recent sociological theory on money and budgeting ( Pahl, 1999, 2002 ; Singh, 1997, 1999 ; Zelizer, 1997, 2005 ) and recent critiques of consumption studies ( Edgell, Hetherington and Warde 1996 ; Gronow and Warde, 2001 ; Lodziak, 2002 ), it argues that experiences of social and financial exclusion in consumerist society must be related to the amount of money available within the household, the social position that the household occupies, and the social form that this money takes. Pahl (1999 ) shows that the development of electronic money seems to alter and further constrain access to consumption for the ‘credit poor’ and ‘information poor’. To this ‘technological filter’, a ‘social filter’ may be added, as the results suggest that consumption patterns and the social meaning of money in low‐income families are largely incompatible with prevailing neo‐liberalist ideas of money and consumption in contemporary society.     

Reframing Tri Hita Karana: From ‘Balinese Culture’ to Politics

This article takes issue with the uncritical way in which claims of ‘culture’, ‘tradition’ or ‘local knowledge’ are used in science and policymaking around the Balinese irrigators' association (subak). The growing problems of Balinese irrigated agriculture are increasingly framed in ‘cultural’ ways that are not neutral: such accounts of irrigated agriculture in relation to Balinese culture deeply influence the world of policymaking. In this article we discuss the emergence of Tri Hita Karana (THK; ‘the three causes of well-being’) as an ideology, scientific concept and policy concept in irrigated agriculture and the subak domain. We argue that this ideological concept is not simply ‘local wisdom’, ‘tradition’ or ‘culture’ but requires critical scientific scrutiny as part of wider processes of socio-political change. How is it mobilised? What does its growing popularity mean for our knowledge of Balinese irrigated agriculture, of policy processes directed at the subak and of the workings of policies in real-life contexts?     

MONETARY POLICY AND ENDOWMENT RISK IN A LIMITED PARTICIPATION MODEL

A limited participation model is constructed to study the risk‐sharing role of monetary policy. A fraction of households exchange money for interest‐bearing government nominal bonds in the asset market and the government injects money through open market operations. In equilibrium, money is nonneutral and monetary policy redistributes consumption across households. Without idiosyncratic endowment risk, monetary policy becomes a perfect risk‐sharing tool, but with idiosyncratic endowment risk, it is not. The Friedman rule is not optimal in general. (JEL E4, E5)     

The persistence of cliques in the post‐communist state. The case of deniability in drug reimbursement policy in Poland

This article explores a key question in political sociology: Can post‐communist policy‐making be described with classical theories of the Western state or do we need a theory of the specificity of the post‐communist state? In so doing, we consider Janine Wedel's clique theory, concerned with informal social actors and processes in post‐communist transition. We conducted a case study of drug reimbursement policy in Poland, using 109 stakeholder interviews, official documents and media coverage. Drawing on ‘sensitizing concepts’ from Wedel's theory, especially the notion of ‘deniability’, we developed an explanation of why Poland's reimbursement policy combined suboptimal outcomes, procedural irregularities with limited accountability of key stakeholders. We argue that deniability was created through four main mechanisms: (1) blurred boundaries between different types of state authority allowing for the dispersion of blame for controversial policy decisions; (2) bridging different sectors by ‘institutional nomads’, who often escaped existing conflicts of interest regulations; (3) institutional nomads’ ‘flexible’ methods of influence premised on managing roles and representations; and (4) coordination of resources and influence by elite cliques monopolizing exclusive policy expertise. Overall, the greatest power over drug reimbursement was often associated with lowest accountability. We suggest, therefore, that the clique theory can be generalized from its home domain of explanation in foreign aid and privatizations to more technologically advanced policies in Poland and other post‐communist countries. This conclusion is not identical, however, with arguing the uniqueness of the post‐communist state. Rather, we show potential for using Wedel's account to analyse policy‐making in Western democracies and indicate scope for its possible integration with the classical theories of the state.     

Lone motherhood as a category of practice

This paper offers a critical examination of the category ‘lone mother’, which tends to be viewed as an identity category by both ‘lay’ people and social scientists. This in turn leads to the category ‘lone mother’ becoming reified, while the socially constructed nature of it remains hidden. The aim of this paper is to find a way of analyzing the lives of lone mothers without making totalizing claims about these women as individuals, but at the same time without depoliticizing the category ‘lone mother’. I argue that adopting Young's (1995 ), concept of ‘serial collectivity’ in the study of lone motherhood would enable social scientists to avoid positing that ‘lone motherhood’ is a unified category or the basis of self‐understanding, while at the same time being able to make pragmatic political claims regarding the inequalities that lone mothers face. Furthermore, this paper argues for studying ‘lone motherhood’ as a category of practice, focusing on how the category is defined, by whom, and to what ends, and the effects this has on the lives of ‘lone mothers’.     

The trouble with 'inclusion': a case study of the faith zone at the Millennium Dome

Some sociologists of religion would argue that there has been a move away from ‘religion’, in terms of institutionalised dogmas and established corporate ways of believing, towards ‘spiritualities of life’ where the emphasis lies on the personal, the individual and the experiential ( Heelas, 2002 ; Wuthnow, 2001 ). Given the evidence for the apparent popularity of spirituality in contemporary Western society, it is surprising that between 1996 and 2000, the Zone concerned with religion at the Millennium Dome in Greenwich was re‐named from‘The Spirit Zone’to‘The Faith Zone’. A range of political, economic and religious interests lay behind the Zone’s re‐naming, and both the name (and the content) changed to reflect ‘religion’ rather than ‘spirituality’. The process of constructing the Zone thus moved in a diametrically opposite direction to some of the trends associated with religious belief in modern Britain. An investigation of the dynamics behind the construction of the Faith Zone at the Dome provides an opportunity to evaluate what ‘counted’ as religion ( Beckford, 2003 ) at a specific time and context in British society. The paper also shows that behind the Labour Government rhetoric of ‘inclusion’, various dimensions of spiritual belief and activity in Britain are excluded from the public sphere. When it comes to religion, taken‐for‐granted criteria operate – resulting in the prioritisation of the official, the ‘representative’, the ‘respectable’, and ‘the unified’ over the unofficial, the deviant, the private, and the contested. This paper looks at the struggles and the conditions associated with the idea and the policy of inclusion in relation to religion in modern Britain, using the Faith Zone at the Dome as a case study.     

Over 1000 Aluminium Cans for Forty Dollars: The Provisioning Contributions of Older Children from the Perspectives of Welfare‐Reliant Lone Mothers

In this article, as a child and family mental health therapist, I connect the feminist concept of ‘provisioning’ and the experiences of ‘young carers’ to critically examine the family care contributions made by older children living in poverty. I present the findings of a qualitative study consisting of two focus groups in which ten (n = 10) welfare‐reliant lone mothers living in Toronto, Canada described the nature and significance of the contributions made by their older children (11–17 years old) to help their families ‘make ends meet’. Using grounded theory, two main categories emerged: (1) the nature of the provisioning by older children, and (2) the significance of the contributions. The implications of the findings suggest that mental health approaches with older children living in poverty inappropriately misrepresent and pathologise their emotional distress and family contributions.     

Reflexive modernization and reconstructing the Third Way: a response to Mouzelis1

Nicos Mouzelis has made a welcome intervention into the debate over Third Way theory and politics. The strengths of Mouzelis’ account are identified as being his incorporation of asymmetrical power relations and institutional imbalances into the theory of reflexive modernization, and his defence of the Left/Right dichotomy. Three interrelated criticisms are then made. The first is of a sociological reductionism which neglects the importance of ideology and politics in bringing about the processes of reflexive modernization underpinning the Third Way. Conversely, the second criticism is that Mouzelis drifts into voluntarism in the form of a conspiracy theory in his account of ‘cultural engineering from the top’ amidst the conditions of reflexive modernity. Further, it is suggested that it is not with regard to achieving ‘cultural rights’ against such top‐down engineering that the Left/Right distinction endures, but rather in relation to how the role of the market is analyzed. Thirdly, at the level of institutional differentiation and power relations, Mouzelis underestimates the extent to which market logic is able to ‘colonize’ other spheres of social life, and his regulatory proposals are insufficient to address this.     

Negotiating the dichotomy of Boffin and Triad: British-Chinese pupils' constructions of 'laddism'

Little research has examined constructions of gender among young British‐Chinese. This paper seeks to further understanding in this area, particularly in relation to notions of ‘laddism’ currently deployed in educational policy discourse around gender and achievement. As a group British‐Chinese boys tend to very high achievement in the British Education system. The notion of ‘laddish behaviour’ as an explanation for boys’ apparent underachievement in comparison to girls at GCSE level was discussed with British‐Chinese pupils. An overwhelming majority of British‐Chinese pupils supported this explanation, and a majority of these pupils applied notions of ‘laddish behaviour’ to British‐Chinese boys, to some extent contesting stereotypes of the Chinese as uniformly ‘good pupils’. However, the discourses of ‘the good Chinese pupil’ and ‘Chinese value of education’ were frequently drawn on by pupil respondents, with the result that the pupils often presented British‐Chinese manifestations of ‘laddism’ as mild versions in comparison with pernicious ‘others’. The paper discusses different presentations of laddism among some of the male respondents. It concludes by analysing the impact of ‘raced’ and gendered discourses on British‐Chinese constructions of masculinity. British‐Chinese boys may be able to adopt versions of masculinity which do not impede their learning, but this tended to result in their masculinity being problematised in teacher discourse.     

Drugs,the state and global change: A contemporary European perspective

Abstract

This article examines the issue of illicit drug control across three broad levels of analysis. On one level, it examines the nature of the response to a ‘global phenomenon’ and its impact on national sovereignty. On a second level, it considers emergent state forms and practices and their relationship to global changes; and, thirdly, it grounds the analysis temporally and empirically in the contemporary European Union (focusing on the issues raised in relation to an emergent European Police Office, better known as Europol). The complex, evolving and essentially fragmented character of state power is placed in the context of the classic state functions of authority and control. This is set against the growing transnational role of expert knowledge in policy‐making, and concludes with an assessment of the political implications that can be drawn from analysis of this complex set of factors.     

The ‘New Approach’ to Public Sector Reforms in Ghana: A Case of Politics as Usual or a Genuine Attempt at Reform?

Public sector reforms continue to preoccupy governments all over the world, compelled by the need to ‘get the state right’ through better policy development and implementation. Developing countries see this as the path to a developmental state. This article examines Ghana's quest to build such a state through its new public sector reforms, originally hailed in hyperbolic terms. We argue that the rejection of a top‐down and bottom‐up synergy in favour of an exclusively top‐down approach dooms this effort to failure.     

Mothering,equality and the individual: Feminist debates and welfare policies in the USA and Sweden

This paper addresses issues raised by ‘welfare reform’ in the USA by using the example of Sweden's women activists in constructing a ‘woman friendly’ welfare state. In the USA, feminist advocates see a tension between the argument that motherhood should be valued by the provision of care allowances, and the view that work should be reformed to meet the needs of parents. This reflects debates about gender difference/equality, the possibility of commonality, and the individual.

The Swedish ‘woman friendly’ welfare state was built on the recognition, through social policy, of the interrelationship among care, material resources, and public voice. The interrelationship was embodied in what I call the ‘social individual’, and articulated in public child care and other policies and collective services. The adequacy of those universal policies and services was frequently judged by the situation of lone mothers, who ceased being ‘deviant’, and often became a model for understanding the interrelationship. Cross-class solidarity among women was a prerequisite for, and was built on, the social individual. This solidarity is now threatened by neoliberal economic and social policies that fragment care, resources, and voice, and therefore the social individual.

It is possible to challenge the downsizing of welfare states by moving the terms of discussion away from the poor as deviant other, acknowledging that all women have much in common with the targets of current policy making. This involves the creation of concrete social policies that embody the relationship among care, resources, and voice, and recognize the inseparability of community, work and family.     

Sure Start: the development of an early intervention programme for young children in the United Kingdom

This article describes the development of the Sure Start programme in the United Kingdom, which marks an important new departure in the provision of services for the ‘early years'. Announced in July 1998 as part of the Labour Government's Comprehensive Spending Review, it is important not only in terms of its substance—£540 m to be spent in the United Kingdom over the Spending Review years 1999/2000 to 2001/2, 250 local programmes by the end of the Parliament covering up to 150 000 children—but in terms of the way the policy was developed and the way it is to be implemented. In many ways it is a prime example of ‘joined‐up government' and evidence‐based policy making. The first 60 ‘trailblazer' areas were announced in January 1999 and the programme will be rolled out from the early summer. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Making the Best of a Bad Job? Female Part‐Timers’ Orientations and Attitudes to Work

This article uses data from 50 qualitative interviews with female part‐time workers in low‐level jobs in Britain to illustrate their attitudes, orientations and aspirations towards paid work. The research reports two main findings. Firstly, even female part‐time workers at the bottom end of the occupational structure are not a homogeneous group of workers. Secondly, they are not all highly satisfied with their jobs. The article argues that many women (especially those in working‐class households) still do not have a genuine choice between ‘family work’ and ‘market work’. It concludes by presenting a theoretical model of orientations to work.