Groups and individuals: conformity and diversity in the performance of gendered identities

The nature and role of social groups is a central tension in sociology. On the one hand, the idea of a group enables sociologists to locate and describe individuals in terms of characteristics that are shared with others. On the other, emphasizing the fluidity of categories such as gender or ethnicity undermines their legitimacy as ways of classifying people and, by extension, the legitimacy of categorization as a goal of sociological research. In this paper, we use a new research method known as the Imitation Game to defend the social group as a sociological concept. We show that, despite the diversity of practices that may be consistent with self‐identified membership of a group, there are also shared normative expectations – typically narrower in nature than the diversity displayed by individual group members – that shape the ways in which category membership can be discussed with, and performed to, others. Two claims follow from this. First, the Imitation Game provides a way of simultaneously revealing both the diversity and ‘groupishness’ of social groups. Second, that the social group, in the quasi‐Durkheimian sense of something that transcends the individual, remains an important concept for sociology.     

A Probabilistic Transmission Model to Assess Infection Risk from Mycobacterium Tuberculosis in Commercial Passenger Trains

The objective of this article is to characterize the risk of infection from airborne Mycobacterium tuberculosis bacilli exposure in commercial passenger trains based on a risk‐based probabilistic transmission modeling. We investigated the tuberculosis (TB) infection risks among commercial passengers by inhaled aerosol M. tuberculosis bacilli and quantify the patterns of TB transmission in Taiwan High Speed Rail (THSR). A deterministic Wells‐Riley mathematical model was used to account for the probability of infection risk from M. tuberculosis bacilli by linking the cough‐generated aerosol M. tuberculosis bacilli concentration and particle size distribution. We found that (i) the quantum generation rate of TB was estimated with a lognormal distribution of geometric mean (GM) of 54.29 and geometric standard deviation (GSD) of 3.05 quantum/h at particle size ≤ 5 μm and (ii) the basic reproduction numbers (R₀) were estimated to be 0.69 (0.06–6.79), 2.82 (0.32–20.97), and 2.31 (0.25–17.69) for business, standard, and nonreserved cabins, respectively. The results indicate that commercial passengers taking standard and nonreserved cabins had higher transmission risk than those in business cabins based on conservatism. Our results also reveal that even a brief exposure, as in the bronchoscopy cases, can also result in a transmission when the quantum generation rate is high. This study could contribute to a better understanding of the dynamics of TB transmission in commercial passenger trains by assessing the relationship between TB infectiousness, passenger mobility, and key model parameters such as seat occupancy, ventilation rate, and exposure duration.     

Reversing Nuclear Opposition: Evolving Public Acceptance of a Permanent Nuclear Waste Disposal Facility

Nuclear facilities have long been seen as the top of the list of locally unwanted land uses (LULUs), with nuclear waste repositories generating the greatest opposition. Focusing on the case of the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in southern New Mexico, we test competing hypotheses concerning the sources of opposition and support for siting the facility, including demographics, proximity, political ideology, and partisanship, and the unfolding policy process over time. This study tracks the changes of risk perception and acceptance of WIPP over a decade, using measures taken from 35 statewide surveys of New Mexico citizens spanning an 11‐year period from fall 1990 to summer 2001. This time span includes periods before and after WIPP became operational. We find that acceptance of WIPP is greater among those whose residences are closest to the WIPP facility. Surprisingly, and contrary to expectations drawn from the broader literature, acceptance is also greater among those who live closest to the nuclear waste transportation route. We also find that ideology, partisanship, government approval, and broader environmental concerns influence support for WIPP acceptance. Finally, the sequence of procedural steps taken toward formal approval of WIPP by government agencies proved to be important to gaining public acceptance, the most significant being the opening of the WIPP facility itself.     

Deciding Where to go: Policies,People and Perceptions Shaping Destination Preferences

There is considerable interest among European politicians and policymakers in the factors influencing the destination preferences of refugees and other migrants. Drawing on in‐depth qualitative interviews with more than 250 Syrians, Eritreans and Nigerians, this article examines the destination preferences of those crossing the Mediterranean in 2015 and the extent to which they were aware of, and/or influenced by, policies intended to control and manage their arrival. Our findings question the extent to which deterrence policies have their intended or assumed effects. Preferred destinations are rarely identified solely, or even primarily, on the basis of migration policies devised by different governments with the explicit aim of reducing the number of arrivals. Rather they reflect the “coming together” of a wide range of factors, including access to protection and family reunification, the availability/accuracy of information, the overall economic environment and social networks. Moreover perceptions of migration policies may be more significant than their content as the implications are often not known or misunderstood.     

ON ENDOGENOUS BUSINESS CYCLES UNDER INCREASING RETURNS TO VARIETY AND SECTOR‐SPECIFIC EXTERNALITY

We examine the theoretical as well as quantitative interrelations between endogenous business cycles, increasing returns to product variety and sector‐specific productive externalities within a two‐sector real business cycle model. In a calibrated version of our benchmark closed‐economy setting, the threshold level of investment externalities needed for equilibrium indeterminacy is found to be monotonically increasing in the degree of market competitiveness. We also study the model's local stability properties (i) when the parameters that govern the level of intermediate‐good producers' market power and the strength of variety effects are disentangled; and (ii) in the context of a small open economy. (JEL E30, E32, O41)