The Effects of Free Trade on Development, Democracy, and Environmental Protection

Much literature in the social sciences addresses the relationship between economic development and democracy. Many large-scale surveys have found a strong relationship between economic development and democracy, while others indicate a more complex dynamic involving education and inequality. Comparative studies of fewer cases indicate ambiguous results but suggest the importance of historical contingencies, class conflict, unionization, and opposition parties. Free trade advocates argue that trade leads to economic development, which leads to increased demands for and gains in environmental protection. I argue, however, that the relationship needs to be understood in a more complex and dynamic way that takes into account a variety of political, cultural, and economic developments resulting from freer trade. Accordingly, I raise several reasons to be skeptical about claims linking free trade, development, democracy, and environmental protection. I further argue that free trade acts as a cultural constraint upon democratic and environmental protection initiatives.     

The future of equality and human rights in Britain--opportunities and risks for disabled people

The Government plans to introduce a new Commission for Equality and Human Rights (CEHR), covering disability, race, gender, sexual orientation, religion/belief and age. This presents both opportunities and risks for the achievement of disability equality. This paper analyses implications and proposes a long term disability rights agenda, geared to mainstreaming disability equality into the CEHR and major policy developments across Government. It suggests that the widest involvement of disabled people, policy makers and academics in the field of disability will be necessary to achieve this. The DRC will be very active in this work.     

The Role of Ethnicity in the Emergency Decision-Making Process*

Although sociologists have studied for decades the process whereby citizens make emergency decisions in response to disaster warnings, very little attention has been given to understanding the role of ethnicity in this process. Data derived from fatality and injury counts following disasters, though sparse, documents that minority group citizens tend to suffer disproportionately high negative consequences in connection with the impact of disasters. On the basis of this information, it is inferred that differences exist between the emergency decision-making processes of minority and majority citizens. This paper lays the theoretical groundwork for beginning to revise existing conceptual models of warning response behavior to more adequately address the variation associated with minority group status. This goal is accomplished through pursuing three general tasks: (1) examining the process through which personal emergency decisions are made, (2) delineating social factors which impinge upon the outcomes of this decision-making process, and (3) integrating into an existing model of warning response behavior, additional variables which are related to minority status.     

What governs governance,and how does it evolve? The sociology of governance‐in‐action

Governance addresses a wide range of issues including social, economic and political continuity, security and integrity, individual and collective safety and the liberty and rights to self-actualization of citizens. Questions to be answered include how governance can be achieved and sustained within a social context imbued with cultural values and in which power is distributed unevenly and dynamically, and how governance impacts on individuals and institutions. Drawing on Gramscian notions of hegemony and consent, and recent political science literatures on regulation and meta-regulation, this paper develops a sociological model of governance that emphasizes a dynamic and responsive governance in action. Empirical data from a study of pharmaceutical governance is used to show how multiple institutions and actors are involved in sustaining effective governance. The model addresses issues of how governance is sustained in the face of change, why governance of practices varies from setting to setting, and how governance is achieved without legislation.     

Developing the NICE/SCIE Guidelines for Dementia Care: The Challenges of Enhancing the Evidence Base for Social and Health Care

Internationally, interest is developing in the challenges ofdeveloping evidence-based guidelines for social work practice.The paper reports on the process of establishing the UK’sfirst joint health and social care evidence-based practice guideline,which is in dementia care. The paper addresses the methodologicaland procedural challenges of reviewing, meta-analysing and synthesizingknowledge for health and social care given the contrasting historiesof the two sectors in relation to the emergence of evidence-basedpractice. Dementia care is a complex domain within which socialand clinical perspectives intersect, reinforcing the desirabilityof producing ‘joined up’ health and social carepractice guidelines that are relevant to integrated services.It is suggested that the exemplar of producing a joint healthand social care guideline for dementia may be a model for futuredevelopment of practice guidelines. Some of the main recommendationsare presented to illustrate the character of the joint guideline,lessons are drawn for future guideline development, and implicationsfor policy and practice implementation are considered.     

Exploring the Potential of Shadow Controls in the Evaluation of Children’s Services

This article describes and presents a framework for an under‐used evaluation technique in the context of an evaluation of a programme for disaffected young people. Shadow controls—the use of expert judgement to estimate the success of a programme—are often dismissed in research design as an unreliable form of comparison, but can be useful in situations where there is limited scope for a control group or to enhance the causal inference attributable to non‐experimental evaluations. The exercise described uses a practice tool as a structure for making predictions about the situations of the young people on the programme, assuming they do not receive an intervention. These predictions (shadow controls) are then compared to outcome data for the young people at the end of the programme. The results of the exercise provide some important messages about the programme’s effectiveness and the potential for strengthening non‐experimental evaluation methods. The article also discusses how the method can usefully inform evaluations of social programmes and encourage agency and user collaboration.     

Bourdieu and the Sociology of Music Consumption: A Critical Assessment of Recent Developments

The French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu has been an extraordinarily influential figure in the sociology of music. For over three decades, his concepts have helped to generate both empirical and theoretical interventions in the field of study. His impact on the sociology of music taste, in particular, has been profound, his ideas directly informing our understandings of how musical preferences reflect and reproduce inequalities between social classes. But, recently his legacy has been under question and newer approaches to the music/society problematic have emerged. These have made important claims about the nature of the sociological enterprise when confronted with the specificity of cultural works, as well as how social change impacts on our relations with musical forms. This paper takes stock of the impact of Bourdieu’s ideas on the sociology of music, the debates sparked in their wake and the attempt at something like a “post‐Bourdieusian” sociology more faithful to music’s material properties. It will ask to what extent Bourdieu’s claims about social stratification and music consumption are still relevant and whether they are sophisticated enough to deal with the specific ways that we interact with musical forms.