Modernity and the Contingency of the Public

The idea of a public contingent on its participants is the analogue of resonance to music because neither would make sense without the other. This article introduces the concept of modernity as a framing device and explains the occlusion of the private by the public. Secondly, the article illustrates the Legal-Autonomous Public Model, and the Multiple Public Model in the work of John Dewey, Walter Lippmann, and Kenneth J. Arrow. Public space is what Foucault was alleged to have called '´ecriture', which refers to a convergence of and intermixing of signifiers within a de-gendered setting (hence ´ecriture, as opposed to l'´ecriture). The great contest between Lippmann and Dewey in the 1920s signified a clashing of the two interpretations of the public with one arguing about the need for a return to a constitutionally guaranteed, left-of-centre public philosophy that would entertain the elite while taking care of the poor, and the other a plea for a rationalistic recourse that surmised and envisaged rational public discourse as only one of several possible publics. The article concludes with the notion that the constructions of public space defined by Dewey, Lippmann, and Arrow promote distinct yet related interrogations of public space that is more than an agora of resonating ideas, but includes a kind of automatic reverberation on its own axes.     

Active Employment Policies in Europe

In this paper the authors examine the theoretical framework of the set of laws, provisions, regulations, recommendations and pronouncements that embody the active employment policies in Europe. They illustrate that the theoretical framework is influenced in its attribution of meaning and significance to its subject matter by its relationship with the definitions of employment. To do this they provide an analysis of: the collective agencies, the courses of action, the recipient groups, the relations between the collective agencies, the courses of action decided upon and their recipient subjects, the supporting measures by which these courses of action will be implemented.     

Book Review: Barbara Hobson (ed.), Recognition Struggles and Social Movements,Cambridge University Press,Cambridge, UK,and New York, 2003, 337 pp., bibliography,notes, $27.00

VOLUNTAS: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations -     

Social work with middle‐class Spanish families: The challenge of the work–family conflict

In the current economic crisis, middle‐class families often find themselves immersed in a process of downward social mobility. These are families in which both spouses work, and where many relational conflicts begin in the sphere of work–family reconciliation and the allocation of household responsibilities. This article presents the results of a research study we conducted on middle‐class families in Spain. We focus specifically on the problems associated with work–family reconciliation and gender, and the mitigating role played by social support. Based on our results, we want to call the attention to a prevalent and ‘new’ conflict in family‐based practice social work in Spain: the work–family conflict.     

Pruning regression trees for censored survival data: the recpam approach

RECPAM is a methodology, implemented in a computer program of the same name, for the construction of tree-structured models in Biostatistics. In this work we present algorithms for pruning and amalgamating terminal nodes of a tree, within the RECPAM approach. These algorithms construct sequences of nested models and calculate at each step the AIC of the corresponding model and correct significance levels, according to Gabriel's theory of Simultaneous Test Procedures. As an example, the analysis of data from clinical trials involving patients with Small Cell Carcinoma of the Lung is presented.     

The majority rule with a chairman

For the case of two alternatives and a given finite set of at least three individuals, seven axioms are shown to characterize the rules that are either the relative majority rule or the relative majority in which a given individual, the chairman, can always break ties. An axiomatization of the relative majority rules with a chairman is suggested that holds for an even number of individuals and that, for an odd number of individuals, characterizes the rules that are either the relative majority rule or a relative majority rule with a chairman.     

‘SUBTERRANEAN PASSAGES OF THOUGHT’: EMPIRE'S INSERTS

Scattered throughout Hardt and Negri's Empire are a number of short sections whose manifesto-like energy contrasts with the relatively expository style of the main text. These passages, modeled after the scholie of Spinoza's Ethics, are meant to suggest new ways of thinking about material already presented, to highlight the affective aspect of the material, and to point to hidden connections among different discursive elements. Several of these which did not appear in the published version of Empire for reasons of space are published here for the first time. The matters touched on are as diverse as those in Empire itself: Totality as a philosophical problem, the gender of biopolitical production, the relationship between genocide and the nationstate, the possibility of hope; the paradoxes of unemployment, the function of fear, postmodern prophecy,Hollywood's imperial fantasy, and the paradoxical relationship between being-against and love that has puzzled and fascinated many of Empire's readers.     

Aesthetic Understanding of Work and Organizational Life: Approaches and Research Developments

The aesthetic dimension of work and organizational life attracted the attention of organization scholars during the 1980s and 1990s, and its study burgeoned at the turn of the new millennium. There are today four main approaches to the study of organizational aesthetics: (i) the archaeological approach which privileges the symbolic dimension of aesthetic understanding; (ii) the empathic-logical approach which seeks to grasp the pathos of organizational life; (iii) the aesthetic approach which emphasizes the negotiation of organizational aesthetics; (iv) the artistic approach which examines flow, creativity, and playfulness. They all engage in an intellectual controversy with approaches to the study of organizations which privilege the mental, cognitive, and rational dimension of social action whilst neglecting the material, sensible, and emotional dimension of work relations in organizations. This article will illustrate and discuss these approaches by paying particular attention to the topics of the emancipation of people at work and the style of work and organizational practices.