Interracial homicide: A macrostructural-opportunity perspective

Using data for 154 cities, we test a model of the determinants of interracial homicide that is informed by both Blau's macrostructural theory and elements of the general criminal opportunity perspective. Consistent with Blau's theory, in a multivariate analysis the relative frequency of interracial homicide is positively related to racial heterogeneity, population size, and population density, and inversely related to racial residential segregation and racial socioeconomic inequality. We also find that the level of employment is positively related to the rate of interracial homicide. This result is consistent with the hypothesis, derived from routine activities theory, that the dispersion of activities away from primary group locations and toward more racially heterogeneous settings increases the volume of intergroup contacts. Overall, our analyses reveal that a macrostructural-opportunity perspective offers considerable insight into the determinants of intercity variation in the racial patterning of homicide.An earlier version of this paper was presented at the annual meeting of the American Society of Criminology, Reno, Nevada, November 8–12, 1989.     

Designing an effective financial planning and control system

This article addresses the problems to be found in the design of financial planning and control systems. The primary purpose of an effective planning and control system is to minimize the possibility of management crises and to accomplish this, management must plan for the development of such systems as it would plan for plant expansion or new product development, recognizing the changing needs of the system as the company evolves.     

Gut reactions to matters of the heart: reflections on rationality, irrationality and sexuality

The aim of this paper is to analyse tensions between the concepts of rationality and irrationality as they are deployed in modern discourses around heterosexuality. These discourses, we argue, are profoundly gendered and often contradictory. On the one hand, the pursuit of sexual pleasure is seen as a rational life goal, to be integrated into consciously constructed and commodified lifestyles and identity choices. On the other, sexuality is still seen as 'special’ and spontaneous – an intractable inner drive which is not amenable to rational management. We seek to trace the genealogy of these discourses, arguing that heterosexual relations have been subject to increased rationalisation from the nineteenth century onwards: a process we call‘the Taylorisation of sex'. In the process, rational sex has been defined largely in masculine terms. We consider whether this has changed and whether there has been a shift to‘post-Fordist’ forms of sexuality permitting greater diversity and flexibility. We conclude, however, that there has been no radical break, but rather an intensification of pre-existing trends in which sex, and increasingly emotions as well, continue to be subject to rational management while always threatening to exceed the bounds of manageability.     

Action, movement, and intervention: Reflections on the sociology of Alain Touraine

Cet article examine les déclarations qu'Alain Touraine fait pour sa sociologie de Taction. On argumente qu'alors que Touraine presente une critique puissante des assomptions des fonctionnels en sociologie, sa propre analyse de la société'post-industrielle' ou 'programmée'à des implications historiques et théologiques qui le raménent à une analyse des fonctionnels plus conventionnelle. Nous continuons ensuite à examiner les implications de cette tension centrale pour sa méthode 'd'intervention sociologique' et pour son analyse substantielle de la nature de 'nouveaux mouvements sociaux.
This paper examines the claims Alain Touraine makes for his sociology of action. It is argued that while Touraine presents a powerful critique of functionalist assumptions in sociology, his own analysis of the 'post-industrial' or 'programmed' society has historicist and teleological implications which lead him back towards more conventional functionalist analysis. We examine the implications of this central tension for his method of 'sociological intervention' and for his substantive analysis of the nature of 'new social movements.     

Predicting welfare benefit claiming using expectancy theory

Explanations for why over 600,000 UK pensioners do not claim their entitlement to Supplementary Pensions (a means-tested benefit) can be attributed to three types of attitudinal factors: (1) their perceptions of their situations; (2) their beliefs that applying leads to certain outcomes and has certain implications; and (3) their feelings about these outcomes. Although beliefs and feelings about the outcomes of applying are central insofar as many of them represent responses to factors which government can hope to influence, it is clear that these beliefs and feelings are not important to all pensioners. Thus in order to identify and to determine the importance of key beliefs and feelings, a method must be devised to locate those non-claimants for whom such expectations are strongly related to their behaviour. This small study of Scottish pensioners tests the effectiveness of a conceptual model which employs pensioners' perceptions of need, of the utility of the benefit, and of the stability of their situations both as predictors of non-claiming and as moderators of the relationship between their beliefs and feelings about the outcomes of applying and their actual claiming behaviour.     

Thirteen theorems in search of the truth

We review recent work on the accuracy of group judgmental processes as a function of (a) the competences (judgmental accuracies) of individual group members, (b) the group decision procedure, and (c) group size. This work on individual competence and group accuracy represents an important contribution to democratic theory and a useful complement to the usual emphasis in the social choice literature on individual preference and preference aggregation mechanisms. The work reported on is rooted in a tradition which goes back to scholars such as Condorcet, Poisson, and Bayes.