“重返阶级”:理论与意义

“重返阶级”是作为对“阶级消亡”的回应和反击而出场的。“重返阶级”论主张，社会阶级结构和阶级关系的确在历史中变化，但阶级和阶级关系的本质没有改变，阶级继续存在并持续地影响着社会，阶级分析仍然是分析社会的有效工具。“重返阶级”的努力得益于将工作场所作为权力体系和阶级对抗场所的当代劳工研究，这种从“工场权力”的角度来划分阶级的研究正确地揭示了社会阶级不平等的现象。阶级话语的再出场是社会不平等的理论回声，新时代阶级存在表现出工人阶级“新贫困”、中产阶级“再无产阶级化”和全球工业阶级形成等新特点和新趋势，应当重返阶级，把工人带回分析的中心，以新视角坚持和重塑阶级话语。     

Index insurance and climate risk management: Addressing social equity

Fair distribution of benefits from index insurance matters. Lack of attention to social equity can reinforce inequalities and undermine the potential index insurance holds as a tool for climate risk management that is also pro‐poor. The aims of this article are to: (a) examine social equity concerns raised by index insurance in the context of climate risk management, (b) consider how greater attention can be paid to social equity in index insurance initiatives, and (c) reflect on the policy challenges raised by taking social equity into account as a mechanism for climate risk reduction. The article draws on learning from the CGIAR's Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS) and presents the cases of the Index Based Livelihoods Insurance (IBLI) and Agriculture and Climate Risk Enterprise Ltd. (ACRE) in East Africa. It proposes a framework for unpacking social equity related to equitable access, procedures, representation and distribution within index insurance schemes. The framework facilitates identification of opportunities for building outcomes that are more equitable, with greater potential for inclusion and fairer distribution of benefits related to index insurance. The article argues that systematically addressing social equity raises hard policy choices for index insurance initiatives without straightforward solutions. Attention to how benefits and burdens of index insurance are distributed, suggests the unpalatable truth for development policy that the poorest members of rural society can be excluded. Nevertheless, a focus on social equity—facilitated by the framework—opens up opportunities to ensure index insurance is linked to more socially just climate risk management. At the very least, it may prevent index insurance from generating greater inequality. Taking social equity into account, thus, shifts the focus from agricultural systems in transition per se to systems with potential to incorporate societal transformation through distributive justice.     

Gender inequality in mobile technology access: the role of economic and social development*

ABSTRACT

Digital inequality is a burgeoning field of study across disciplines, yet few papers address categorical digital inequality in cross-national samples. Using the only available cross-national data on access to Information and Communications Technologies (ICTs) disaggregated by gender from the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), I add to existing literature by examining factors associated with women’s unequal access to mobile phones across 51 countries. The largest of such samples, the ITU data demonstrates that the type and levels of gender inequality in mobile phone use are not consistent throughout countries. In fact, the distribution is quite variable, from incorporating a small-sample of nations where women have marginally higher access, to sub-samples close to parity, to a larger sub-sample where women are at a substantial disadvantage. Using Quantile Regression Methods to assess these variations, I test how major gender and international development theories inform inequality patterns. My findings suggest that women’s wellbeing, as measured by their access to modern contraception (i.e., reproductive autonomy), overwhelmingly promotes women’s relative access to mobile phones, regardless of preexisting levels of access. Other perspectives like the growth imperative and world polity theory show some staggered associations along the distribution that remain substantively inconclusive.     

Rising powers,people rising: neo-liberalization and its discontents in the BRICS countries

ABSTRACT

The rise of the BRICS countries – Brazil, Russia, China, India, and South Africa – has called into question the future of Western dominance in world markets and geopolitics. However, the developmental trajectories of the BRICS countries are shot through with socio-economic fault lines that relegate large numbers of people to the margins of current growth processes, where life is characterized by multiple and overlapping vulnerabilities. These socio-economic fault lines have, in turn, given rise to political convulsions across the BRICS countries, ranging from single-issue protests to sustained social movements oriented towards structural transformation. This article presents an innovative theoretical framework for theorizing the emerging political economy of development in the BRICS countries centred on neo-liberalization, precarity, and popular struggles. It discusses the contributions to this special issue in terms of how they illuminate the intersection between neo-liberalization, precarity, and popular struggle in Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa.     

The emotional costs of computers: an expectancy-value theory analysis of predominantly low-socioeconomic status minority students’ STEM attitudes

There is a strong push to increase American students’ interest in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematic (STEM) careers. However, minority and female students remain underrepresented in the STEM fields. Therefore, it is essential that we continue to examine the potential factors that both incite and dissuade STEM interest. We apply Expectancy-Value Theory (EVT) to examine STEM attitudes of predominantly low-socioeconomic status minority elementary school students over the course of a computing intervention. Furthermore, we integrate the digital inequality mental access conceptualization of ‘emotional costs’ into the EVT model in order to predict students’ negative STEM attitudes. Data are from a large-scale computing intervention that took place in a primarily minority, high poverty, urban elementary school district located in the southeastern USA. Results indicate that positive expectancies for success and subjective task values predict students’ positive STEM attitudes. Emotional costs toward technology primarily predict negative STEM attitudes. Students’ expectancies/values and emotional costs may have a ‘push-and-pull’ effect on the formation of STEM attitudes. This study successfully links digital disparities to STEM disparities by integrating the digital inequality concept of emotional costs. Practically, we conclude that future computing interventions should increase students’ academic-related expectancies and values while also minimizing their emotional costs in order to address both digital and STEM inequalities. Theoretically, we conclude that broad conceptualizations of emotional costs should be included in future studies to help explain negative attitudes/motivations toward STEM-related topics.     

The speed of life and death: migrant fatalities,territorial boundaries,and energy consumption

This article considers how migrant deaths – particularly in the borderlands of Europe and the United States – relate to the speed at which migrants travel. It argues that the most dangerous boundaries for migrants, and the most difficult ones to traverse, are those which embody the sharpest divides in energy consumption, divides reflected in the vulnerability of migrants who typically move at relatively slow speeds and have insufficient access to safe modes of travel. Thus, migrant deaths and the boundaries that produce them embody the injustices associated with grossly unequal levels of access to, control over, and consumption of environmental resources.     

Culture,Region, and Cross‐National Violent Crime

Past cross‐national crime research has focused on structural factors with considerably less attention paid to cultural predictors. We extend the culture of honor thesis by identifying the importance of cultural gender inequality and test a direct measure of it on cross‐national violent crime rates. While prior research typically uses regional variables as proxies for culture, by using a direct cultural measure we are also able to identify whether culture contributes to explaining the regional associations found previously. Based on national surveys of 153 nations and more than a million respondents, this study is able to explore cultural, structural, and regional predictors of violent crime rates cross‐nationally. Two regions, Latin America and sub‐Saharan Africa, are far above the rest of the world in terms of violent crime rates. It turns out that most of the standard structural variables found to be important in previous cross‐national studies no longer have significant effects when controls for these two regions are imposed. On the other hand, we find that our measure of cultural gender inequality has one of the largest associations with violent crime rates, net of region, and also explains portions of both regional associations.     

The microfinance promise—can it be kept? A macro perspective

After five decades of rapid expansion of microfinance worldwide, little is known about its aggregate effects and whether the “microfinance promise” of poverty reduction holds at the macro level. Challenging questions have arisen. Here we explore the dynamic response of microfinance on economic growth, financial deepening and income inequality. Countries are grouped into three broad clusters (stable, moderate and poor) based on macro‐institutional variables. Our results show that microfinance has a significant long‐term ability to affect the broader economy. However, the impact and dynamics of microfinance differ substantially across macro‐institutional environments. It grows in weaker environments, reaches its peak in developing economies, and then gradually “dies out” in more stable economies. While there is evidence of a positive impact of microfinance at the aggregate level, the response is different depending on whether countries are poor, moderately developed or economically stable. Once countries climb up the macro‐institutional “ladder,” microfinance can take a different shape and its relationship with other macroeconomic fundamentals can change. Our results indicate that microfinance has the strongest effect when the external environment is supportive and proactive; in weak environments, microfinance cannot grow sufficiently. Therefore, more attention should be given to supporting the socioeconomic dimensions of economies.     

中国地区间教育不平等的分解及治理

采用中国1997—2008年的省级面板数据和夏普里值分解法对地区教育不平等进行分析,研究表明,发达地区教育发展的先发优势是导致地区教育不平等的重要原因,但其贡献度越来越小;各地财政性教育投入和经济发展之间的差异已成为影响地区教育不平等的最主要因素,二者的累计贡献率达60%以上。政府教育投入努力程度的贡献度有所降低,各地城市化差异的贡献度维持在10%左右。因此,应加大政府投入的水平和对落后地区的转移支付力度,提高教育的投入效率,提升地方政府发展教育的激励;通过提升城市化水平以实现城乡间、区域间教育的均衡发展。     

福建省服务业空间差异性研究

计算福建省67个空间单元的服务业区位商、非均衡和极化水平,描述各地区服务业发展基本情况和空间差异性特征。对2000—2009年福建省服务业发展水平进行空间自相关分析,发现服务业空间依赖关系确实存在,服务业空间集聚显著,但是这种空间差异性逐渐减弱。建立福建省服务业空间误差模型,实证分析结果表明,服务业增加值滞后项、城市化水平、农民纯收入以及服务业空间误差项是福建省服务业发展水平的主要解释变量。