Latent Class Models in action: Bridging social capital & Internet usage

This paper explores how Latent Class Models (LCM) can be applied in social research, when the basic assumptions of regression models cannot be validated. We examine the usefulness of this method with data collected from a study on the relationship between bridging social capital and the Internet. Social capital is defined here as the resources that are potentially available in one’s social ties. Bridging is a dimension of social capital, usually related to weak ties (acquaintances), and a source of instrumental resources such as information. The study surveyed a stratified random sample of 417 inhabitants of Lisbon, Portugal. We used LCM to create the variable bridging social capital, but also to estimate the relationship between bridging social capital and Internet usage when we encountered convergence problems with the logistic regression analysis. We conclude by showing a positive relationship between bridging and Internet usage, and by discussing the potential of LCM for social science research.     

Devolution in a ‘Stateless Nation’: Nation‐building and Social Policy in Scotland

The implications of the 2011 Scottish election and the proposed referendum on Scottish independence for the future of social policy across the devolved UK are profound but far from certain. It is crucial to understand not only the historical nature of this conjuncture but to develop an adequate conceptual understanding of the place of social policy in the dialectic between state and nation in Scotland. To this end, we critically examine theories that depict Scotland as an essentially ‘stateless nation’ in the light of recent developments. In so doing, we examine the implications for social policy of the changing character of statehood in Scotland, the nature of civil nationalism, and the problem of legitimacy in Scotland for the UK as a multinational state. As the architecture of statehood is re‐negotiated, strong centrifugal pressures are being created for a more distinct divergence of social policy in Scotland from the rest of the UK regardless of the outcome of the independence referendum. Policy‐making is ensnared in a series of tensions, not just between Westminster and Holyrood but also, more broadly, tensions between competing principles of social justice and territorial justice, and competing demands between welfare nationalism and competitive nationalism.     

Introduction. Ce que les écrits font au travail

As is known, large numbers of writings circulate within every kind of professional environment. As a result, there is extensive research on the formats, uses and roles of writings in work. However, the approach taken here is not to describe what is done with writings in work. The central hypothesis rests on a performative vision of writings, one that gives them the power to act, agency. It can be summed up as follows: what do writings “do” to work? Studying work through its writings is a way to connect two dimensions that are too often kept separate: situated activities on the one hand, organizational functions on the other. Indeed, writings are material and robust — though not always lasting — traces of concrete activities, and they provide a handhold for the rigorous analysis of work as close as possible to its conditions of realization. However, writings travel and circulate. They form links between workers, groups, workshops, services, firms, without which production could not take place. They stretch work beyond its source. To track them is therefore to shift the field of enquiry to moments other than the present of the observed situation, and also to other nearby, surrounding workspaces. This brings out the procedural and interactive dimensions of organizations, their integrating capacity. Exploring what writings do to work is therefore not only to place oneself at an intermediate level between situated action and organized action. For the sociologist, it is a way of connecting these two perspectives “on paper”, by embedding the analysis of the actual work in spatially and temporally broader collective actions, and by documenting organizational analysis on the basis of observed work situations. It is a way of contributing to a more extensive ecology of activity, more clearly anchored within its organizational envelope.     

The Hobo Anomalous: Class,minorities and political invention in the Industrial Workers of the World

This article is an analysis of minority political invention in the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW). Against the tendency in recent social and cultural theory to dichotomize class and difference, it argues that it was in and through the IWW's formulation of class that minority political and cultural invention occurred. Using the framework of Deleuze and Guattari's minor politics, the article shows how the IWW's composition in the simultaneously diffuse and cramped plane of work operated against the major political identities and subjects of worker, immigrant, American, citizen and 'people', and towards the creation of minority political knowledges, tactics and cultural styles premised on the condition that 'the people are missing'. Seeking to understand the IWW's modes and techniques of invention, the article explores the general plane of IWW composition, its particular political and cultural expressions (in songs, manifestos, cartoons and tactics), and its minor mode of authorship. The article focuses in particular on two aspects of IWW minority composition, the itinerant worker, or hobo, and the politics of sabotage.     

Blood on the tracks: Critically re‐reading a government occupational health and safety inquiry

This paper brings to light forms of interpretive closure embedded in a Government inquiry into rail industry occupational safety and heath. The paper shows how particular interpretive moves by the Inquiry had the effect of obscuring a critical analysis of economic and political relations. The analysis uses publicly available documentary data and is undertaken using interpretive and political economic forms of analysis in a multiple framework approach.     

Class and ideological orientations revisited: an exploration of class‐based mechanisms

Studies of the relationship between class position and political outlooks still only have a limited understanding of the class‐related mechanisms that matter for ideological orientations. This article presents a comprehensive analysis of the mechanisms that link class position and left/right and authoritarian/libertarian orientations. Besides main factors such as income, career prospects, job security, education, class origin and class identification, the significance of work‐related factors such as work autonomy, working in a team, a physically demanding job and a mentally demanding job is studied. The findings are based on a survey specifically designed for this purpose and collected in Sweden in 2008/2009. A great deal of the association between class position and left/right orientations is explained by socio‐economic conditions; different classes sympathize with policies that will benefit them economically. Another important factor is class identification. Work‐related factors also have relevance, but the effect of class position on left/right orientations works mainly through the remuneration system. Class position is also related to authoritarian/libertarian orientations. However, this relationship is less explained by socio‐economic position per se, but is rather an effect of the educational system and its allocation of the workforce into different class positions. It also turns out that work‐related factors do not explain the class effects; however, a physically demanding job shows a unique effect. Overall, our findings suggest that besides factors such as class position, income, education and class identification, we need to consider work‐related aspects to derive a more complete understanding of the distribution of ideological orientations in Western societies.     

Patience moderates the class cleavage in demand for redistribution

Previous studies on class voting have yielded mixed results linking income and demand for redistribution. Why do some poor people oppose redistribution, while some rich people support it? This article argues that an individual's level of patience, an important personal characteristic that influences how people calculate immediate and distinct outcomes, may moderate the effect of class on redistributive preference. In a one-shot game, redistribution between the rich and the poor is zero sum. When people extend their time horizons, however, the poor see the possibility of upward mobility, while the rich emphasize future losses, such as unemployment and economic instability. Consistent with the hypotheses, analyses of the 2014 Cooperative Congressional Election Study and a representative Taiwanese dataset from 2016 reveal a clear class cleavage in demand for redistribution among impatient poor and rich respondents, but the cleavage between their patient counterparts diminished. This pattern of convergence extends previous studies on upward mobility and risk perception theory.     

Récession,austérité et genre: étude comparative sur huit marchés du travail européens

Si l'effondrement du PIB consécutif à la crise économique mondiale de 2008 a nui avant tout à l'emploi des hommes, les politiques d'austérité auraient davantage affecté celui des femmes. L'auteure cherche à vérifier ce scénario dans huit pays européens, en décomposant la variation trimestrielle du taux d'activité et du taux d'emploi des femmes et des hommes à l'échelon sectoriel. Elle montre que l'association entre he‐cession et she‐austerity ne se confirme pas toujours, mais que les politiques d'austérité peuvent nuire à l'égalité des sexes et aux droits de la femme par d'autres mécanismes d'action, qu'elle répertorie et commente.     

Structuration d’un champ d’action publique : l’intervention publique sur les copropriétés dégradées

This article focuses on the social construction of the problem, which emerged in France during the 1980s, of dilapidated condominium apartment buildings and on the public policy instruments that have been used. A sociology of organized action serves to analyze this twofold process, which has resulted from the formation of networks of persons unfamiliar with the legal aspects of condominium ownership. Linking the periphery to the center, these networks have crystallized around norms ensuing from housing policy. The concept of “field” in the Weberian sense explains this crystallization, and also applies to the symmetrical process of conserving civil law on joint ownership. Parties attached to this normative system denied the problem of dilapidated condominiums, when it was presented to them. By pursuing a social activity based on applying and producing rules, individuals in the networks related to housing policy and persons concerned by condominium ownership contributed to maintaining and, too, revitalizing rules and norms.     

阶层固化背景下底层青年的“中国梦”

时至今日,社会各个阶层的固化趋势渐趋严重,很大程度上成为中华民族复兴历程上最大的拦路虎,这不能不引起我们的关注和重视。而广大的新世纪底层青年正是在这一背景下踏上历史舞台,展开各自的人生传奇。当代底层青年面对着日益严峻的阶层固化态势,他们的崛起之路变得愈加坎坷和艰难。他们要破茧而出,打破阶层藩篱,实现逆袭,获得职业成功,必须把握该阶层的特点、构成,并依赖政府、社会各方面的参与和努力,更重要的是,个人的奋斗和坚持是不可或缺的。