What's wrong is right: A response to the state of the discipline

In the June issue ofSociological Forum, several authors addressed the question, What's Wrong with Sociology. Answers included increased fragmentation of the discipline, and the lack of an identifiable cumulative core of sociological knowledge. This paper examines many of the claims made by the contributors to the June 1994Sociological Forum, reframes their arguments, and by placing debates regarding the problems in sociology in a broader perspective, identifies many of the recent advances made by the discipline. Focusing on such notable contributions to the field as feminist and postmodern scholarship, we locate the positive side of multiple perspective research.Feminist Scholars in Sociology is a collective of researchers and teachers at the University of Colorado interested in exploring and sharing feminist theory and methodology.     

How Does Relative Income and Variations in Short-Run Wellbeing Affect Wellbeing in the Long Run? Empirical Evidence From China’s Korean Minority

Cognitively appraised life satisfaction is relatively stable over time and can be considered as reflecting subjective wellbeing in the long run. Affect is transitory and can be considered as reflecting subjective wellbeing in the short run. Using the Personal Wellbeing Index to measure cognitively appraised life satisfaction and the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule to measure positive and negative affect we examine how income relative to one’s comparator group and variations in short run wellbeing impact upon wellbeing in the long run. We do so for China’s Korean ethnic minority. We find that affective state has an effect on wellbeing in the long run and that a negative shock to affectivity is more persistent than a positive shock. We also find that relative income, rather than absolute income, matters for wellbeing in the long run and that the results are consistent with a status effect.     

Reconsidering the Marielito Legacy: Race/Ethnicity,Nativity, and Homicide Motives*

Objective. This article investigates how race/ethnicity is associated with specific types of violent crime such as killings between intimates, robbery homicide, or drug‐related killings. We extend the study of the role of race and ethnicity for violence by examining five ethnic/immigrant groups, including the Mariel Cubans—a group singled out by many as particularly drug‐crime‐prone. Methods. Using 1980 through 1990 homicide data for the City of Miami, we use multinomial logistic regression to examine the association between race/ethnicity, nativity, and several types of homicide motives. Results. Contrary to popular expectations, ethnicity and immigration status rarely play a role in the types of homicide involvement of victims or violators. Incident characteristics, such as multiple offenders, or gender and age, were consistently more important influences in shaping homicide circumstances. Conclusions. The analyses revealed few significant relationships between immigration status and homicide motives, suggesting that immigrant groups like the Marielitos have more in common with native groups' experiences of criminal violence than is commonly assumed.     

Transnational political practices and the receiving state: Turks and Kurds in Germany and the Netherlands

This article examines how the social and political contexts in receiving countries affect the transnational political practices of migrants and refugees, such as their mobilization around political events in their homeland. The case study explores the political participation of Turks and Kurds in Germany and the Netherlands in its full complexity, that is in both the immigration country and in homeland politics. The findings suggest that transnational political practices should not be reduced to a function of the political opportunity structures of particular receiving countries for two main reasons: (a) more inclusive political structures, which provide for more participation and co‐operation on immigrant political issues, may at the same time, and for that very reason, serve to exclude dialogue on homeland politics; (b) homeland political movements may draw on a different range of resources than their immigrant political counterparts, including those outside the local political institutional context.     

Asymptotic Inference on Cointegrating Rank in Partial Systems

The likelihood ratio test for cointegrating rank is analyzed for partial (or conditional) systems in the vector autoregressive error-correction model. Under the assumption of weak exogeneity for the cointegrating parameters, the asymptotic distributions are given and tables of critical values are provided. A discussion is given of some of the assumptions of the model, why they are needed, and how they are tested.     

Likelihood Inference for Unions of Interacting Discs

Abstract. This is probably the first paper which discusses likelihood inference for a random set using a germ‐grain model, where the individual grains are unobservable, edge effects occur and other complications appear. We consider the case where the grains form a disc process modelled by a marked point process, where the germs are the centres and the marks are the associated radii of the discs. We propose to use a recent parametric class of interacting disc process models, where the minimal sufficient statistic depends on various geometric properties of the random set, and the density is specified with respect to a given marked Poisson model (i.e. a Boolean model). We show how edge effects and other complications can be handled by considering a certain conditional likelihood. Our methodology is illustrated by analysing Peter Diggle's heather data set, where we discuss the results of simulation‐based maximum likelihood inference and the effect of specifying different reference Poisson models.     

The Prevalence of Destructive Leadership Behaviour

This study investigates the prevalence of the four types of destructive leadership behaviour in the destructive and constructive leadership behaviour model, in a representative sample of the Norwegian workforce. The study employs two estimation methods: the operational classification method (OCM) and latent class cluster (LCC) analysis. The total prevalence of destructive leadership behaviour varied from 33.5% (OCM) to 61% (LCC), indicating that destructive leadership is not an anomaly. Destructive leadership comes in many shapes and forms, with passive forms prevailing over more active ones. The results showed that laissez‐faire leadership behaviour was the most prevalent destructive leadership behaviour, followed by supportive–disloyal leadership and derailed leadership, while tyrannical leadership behaviour was the least prevalent destructive leadership behaviour. Furthermore, many leaders display constructive as well as destructive behaviours, indicating that leadership is not either constructive or destructive. The study contributes to a broader theoretical perspective on what must be seen as typical behaviour among leaders.     

Government,Culture and Sustainability in Greenland: A Microstate with a Hinterland

In population terms Greenland is one of the world's smallest states, but it occupies one of the world's largest land masses. It also brings together two very different cultures, those of the indigenous Inuit hunter society and those of the Danish colonial administration. There is now a substantial measure of self-government, building on what this article sees as a surprising measure of common ground between the cultures. Today economics and technology present significant challenges, and the article suggests that the cause of social sustainability will not be well served by giving in to contemporary global pressures.