Migrants in the closet: LGBT migrants,homonationalism, and the right to refuge in Serbia

This case study examines the accommodation of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transsexual (LGBT) migrants both de jure, in law, and de facto, in practice, in Serbia. The Balkan passage was a critical gateway for migrants throughout the 2015 European migrant crisis. Wedged between Eastern and Western politics, Serbia in particular faces pressure to promote LGBT rights arising from its candidacy for EU accession. The plight of LGBT communities seeking asylum is animated by interviews conducted with service providers working with these migrants in Serbia. The findings reflect the challenges of accommodating LGBT migrants in view of Serbia’s geopolitical dynamics, while situating this community’s rights in the broader human rights and legal discourse of continental Europe. Recommendations to service providers working with queer migrant communities are provided.     

Science as a Strategy for Social Work

For more than one hundred years, various forms of science have been promoted to boost social work’s status as a profession. Evidence-based practice and talk about the science of social work are only the most recent manifestations of this pattern. Counter to this trend, this article argues that the latest upsurge of interest in scientific social work is no more likely than any of its predecessors to address the problems of the profession. Beginning with a linguistic analysis of the words science and scientific as positive signifiers, the article traces social work’s long history of science talk as a means of reassuring funding agencies and bolstering the profession’s status. Drawing on a critique of this discourse as the latest example of abstracted empiricism, it then contends that while scientific social work can only rarely capture what occurs in the field, its attempt to do so actually undercuts practitioners’ professional judgment and discretion. Last, after rejecting science talk as counterproductive, the article concludes with recommendations for an alternative strategy that might better position social work to reconcile its advocacy of social justice with its concerns about its professional status.     

Land ownership,the subsistence constraint,and the demographic transition

We develop a novel model of fertility choice predicting an increase and subsequent decrease in fertility levels without introducing a quality–quantity tradeoff, mortality changes, or urbanization. The model highlights the roles of a subsistence constraint and non-wage income deriving from the ownership of land. We show that the sign of the effect of the wage rate on fertility depends on whether non-wage income is greater or less than a minimum consumption level. Suggestive evidence supporting the model, on changes in fertility from 1851 to 1891 across French départements, is provided. Finally, we embed our static model in a model of endogenous growth, and provide a numerical illustration of the working of the model.     

Committee Decision Making in Organizations: An Experimental Test of the Core

One concept that has been widely supported in experiments on predicting the outcome of majority-rule voting committees is the Core, the set of alternatives that cannot be defeated by any other in a binary contest. Unfortunately, the applicability of these experiments to organizations is limited by a set of rigid controls intended to ensure that the experiments are internally valid. This paper tests the Core in a laboratory environment that relaxes these controls. The Core is found to be highly predictive under these relaxed conditions, thereby enhancing confidence in its external validity.     

Interpreting MSHA Citations Through the Lens of Occupational Health and Safety Management Systems: Investigating Their Impact on Mine Injuries and Illnesses 2003–2010

Since the late 1980s, the U.S. Department of Labor has considered regulating a systems approach to occupational health and safety management. Recently, a health and safety management systems (HSMS) standard has returned to the regulatory agenda of both the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA). Because a mandated standard has implications for both industry and regulating bodies alike, it is imperative to gain a greater understanding of the potential effects that an HSMS regulatory approach can have on establishment‐level injuries and illnesses. Through the lens of MSHA's regulatory framework, we first explore how current enforcement activities align with HSMS elements. Using MSHA data for the years 2003–2010, we then analyze the relationship between various types of enforcement activities (e.g., total number of citations, total penalty amount, and HSMS‐aligned citations) and mine reportable injuries. Our findings show that the reduction in mine reportable injuries predicted by increases in MSHA enforcement ranges from negligible to 18%. The results suggest that the type and focus of the enforcement activity may be more important for accident reduction than the total number of citations issued and the associated penalty amount.     

Popular Hazards and Policy Rhetoric

Popular hazards are common activities that involve some risks of harm, such as driving a car, possessing or shooting a gun, drinking alcohol, or smoking marijuana. In each of these cases, many millions of Americans engage in the activity, but only a small fraction of them harm themselves or other people. Because the activity is so common, the number harmed may be substantial, although more serious harms tend to be much more infrequent than less serious harms. Social policy debates almost always focus on some particular popular hazard, yet we can see rhetorical similarities—parallel arguments—in how advocates frame what are understood to be very different social issues. Thus, discourse about legalizing recreational marijuana use tends to invoke claims that are quite similar to those opposing further gun control. The category of popular hazards allows us to recognize parallels in policy debates about seemingly unrelated social issues. Focusing on the underlying policy issue—balancing popularity and hazardousness—encourages considering alternative ways to construct social policies.     

The effect of earthworms on roadway-derived Zn deposited as a surface layer in storm water retention basin soils

Increased urban development, including an increase in impervious surfaces has the potential to alter the biogeochemistry of surface systems due to storm water runoff contaminated with potentially toxic trace metals (e.g. Zn, Cu and Pb). A major source for urban metals is dust that accumulates on roadways. This roadway dust is derived from vehicle wear sources and tends to be enriched in trace metals such as Pb, Zn, Cu, Cd, Ni and Cr. This continuous source is then being transported via storm water runoff to receiving systems, such as storm water retention systems, which become important focusing environments for trace metal deposition. The fate of these roadway derived metals and their bioavailability once deposited in these urban ecosystems is not well understood. In this investigation we tested the hypothesis that the distribution and form of surface deposited roadway-derived Zn is a function of earthworm processes and is species dependent. The results of this investigation indicate that roadway dust derived Zn deposited as a surface layer on urban soils is readily removed from the surface in less than 30 days whether earthworms are present or not. However, after 90 days, the presence of earthworms and the life habit of the earthworm species present was found to have a significant impact on the physical and chemical cycling of roadway derived trace metals in storm water retention basin soils.     

Prevention interventions of alcohol problems in the workplace

The workplace offers advantages as a setting for interventions that result in primary prevention of alcohol abuse. Such programs have the potential to reach broad audiences and populations that would otherwise not receive prevention programs and, thereby, benefit both the employee and employer. Researchers have implemented and evaluated a variety of workplace alcohol problem prevention efforts in recent years, including programs focused on health promotion, social health promotion, brief interventions, and changing the work environment. Although some studies reported significant reductions in alcohol use outcomes, additional research with a stronger and integrated methodological approach is needed. The field of workplace alcohol prevention also might benefit from a guiding framework, such as the one proposed in this article.     

Limited liability and its moral hazard implications: the systemic inscription of instability in contemporary capitalism

The principle of limited liability is one of the defining characteristics of modern corporate capitalism. It is also, we argue in this article, a powerful structural source of moral hazard. Engaging in a double conceptual genealogy, we investigate how the concepts of moral hazard and limited liability have evolved and diffused over time. We highlight two parallel but unconnected paths of construction, diffusion, moral contestation, and eventual institutionalization. We bring to the fore clear elective affinities between both concepts and their respective evolution. Going one step further, we suggest that both concepts have come to be connected through time. In the context of contemporary capitalism, limited liability has to be understood, we argue, as a powerful structural source of moral hazard. In conclusion, we propose that this structural link between limited liability and moral hazard is an important explanatory factor of the systemic instability of contemporary capitalism and, as a consequence, of a pattern of recurrent crises that are regularly disrupting our economies and societies.