Penny for Your Thoughts: Beggars and the Exercise of Morality in Daily Life1

Urban sociology has tended to study interactions between passersby and “street persons” with an emphasis on the ways street persons become bothersome, harassing, or dangerous. This article moves away from the focus on the ways interactions in public go awry and focuses on how individuals account for the mundane, everyday exchanges they have with strangers who seek their help. Based on interview data (N = 31) and qualitative analysis of data from an Internet survey (N = 110), this article suggests that the presence of beggars does not inherently symbolize urban decay to passersby and does not necessarily elicit anxiety, but instead provides a valuable texture of urban life. Further, the article argues that individuals, when justifying their responses to requests for help from needy persons (beggars) in urban spaces, use a variety of cultural strategies to maintain their perception of themselves as moral persons, both when they choose to help and when they refuse. Drawing from these findings, the article suggests that urban sociology and the sociology of risk would benefit from sensitizing their studies of public interactions to the diverse meanings individuals assign to them, rather than presupposing annoyance, anxiety, or fear as their predominant characteristic.     

Changes in risky gambling prevalence among a New Zealand population cohort

Evidence suggests that problem gambling is an unstable state where gamblers move into and out of risk over time. This article looks at longitudinal changes in risky gambling and the factors associated with an increased risk (measured by the Problem Gambling Severity Index [PGSI]) in the current New Zealand context, which has experienced a doubling of the electronic gaming machine (EGM) market over the last two decades. Respondents from a nationally representative baseline sample (n = 2672) were recontacted two years later to assess changes in gambling behaviours. Among the 901 respondents reached at follow-up, average gambling risk increased over time, and the prevalence of those who had at least some level of gambling risk (i.e. low-risk or greater) more than doubled (from 4.7% to 12.4%). The majority (80.2%) of those who were at risk at follow-up had not been at risk at baseline. Multivariate linear regression analyses show that the predictors of low to moderate increased risk include Pacific ethnicity; high neighbourhood deprivation status; baseline frequent, continuous gambler type; baseline PGSI status; and playing EGMs. These findings highlight the need to develop theories of gambling addiction trajectories and to identify the earliest point along the trajectory where public health interventions should occur.     

三次党内集中学习教育活动的回顾与思考(英文)

21世纪以来,中国共产党相继开展了农村三个代表重要思想学习教育活动,以实践三个代表重要思想为主要内容的保持党员先进性教育活动和深入学习实践科学发展观活动。通过这三次活动,广大党员、干部受到深刻的马克思主义教育,进一步增强了对三个代表重要思想的认识。这三次活动对于在新的历史起点上推进党的建设的伟大工程,具有十分重要的启示意义。     

Building Community Leaders in Underserved Communities: An Exploration of the Role of Seed-Funding for Community Projects by Program Graduates

Investing in community leadership development (CLD) remains a strategy with promise in creating vibrant communities. Although many low-income CLD programs teach effective leadership skills, these often lay fallow due to lacking opportunities for graduates to apply the skills. This study explores how providing competitive minigrants fuels the creation of value-adding community projects. In-depth interviews were conducted with 55 graduates of a low-income CLD program, 19 facilitators, and 12 community members knowledgeable about the program. The study observed that by providing seed money for graduate projects, CLD programs can help translate skills into practice thereby increasing community engagement and socio-economic wellbeing.     

Exploring the role of the Senate Majority Leader's political public relations efforts

Grounded in first- and second-level agenda building, this study explored the role of the U.S. Senate Majority Leader in shaping the salience of issues and issue attributes in news media coverage and policymaking in 2011. A total of 358 public relations messages, 164 newspaper articles, and 83 policymaking documents were analyzed. Significant correlations were found supporting agenda-building linkages at both levels. Different types of information subsidies were explored, including press releases, blog posts, Facebook posts, and Twitter messages.     

Exploring the nonverbal facet of ethnic discrimination: a field experiment on anti-Roma racism in the Paris métro

A field experiment on the discrimination of Roma migrants from Eastern Europe was conducted in two stations of the Paris metro to explore the behaviors that may communicate misrecognition in everyday encounters. An actress asked for help to randomly chosen passengers on a metro platform, wearing a glaringly Romani skirt in the treatment condition but an unconspicuous middle-class style in the control condition. In interaction with the actress wearing the Romani skirt, passengers were found to enact the so-called “visual dominance pattern”, and male passengers in particular were found to keep greater distances. Reverse discrimination also occurred as women kept shorter distances from the actress bearing the ethnic stigma. Last, passengers helped less the stigmatized actress, but only in one of the two metro stations where trials were conducted.     

Area-based urban regeneration comparing Denmark and Japan

In this paper, we study the characteristics and results of two different approaches to urban regeneration which we have termed ‘Metagovernance’ and ‘Pluricentric coordination’ following. We studied this through a comparative study of area-based, participatory urban regeneration projects in Denmark and Japan, representing each one approach. The paper aims to clarify results of the two approaches in terms of five aspects of urban regeneration, relevant to the process and results: (1) strategic spatial improvement, (2) influence of the legal system and transparency of the processes, (3) empowerment of citizens and diversity of participants, (4) innovative capacity (diversity and creativity of the projects) and (5) continuity and flexibility of the projects. The paper concludes that each approach has strengths and weaknesses and that each country can learn from the other to strengthen future participatory urban regeneration.     

贵州社会管理创新:经验、问题与出路

近年来,贵州社会管理创新取得了一些成效,其主要经验是强化中国共产党在社会管理创新中的领导地位,发挥政府在社会管理创新中的主导作用,创新内容要关注民生。尽管如此,贵州社会管理创新还存在社会矛盾化解机制不健全、基层政府社会管理力量薄弱、社会组织培育机制不健全等问题,应通过完善源头治理机制、改革基层社会管理体制、优化社会组织培育机制等途径来解决。     

Is social partnership the way forward for Indian trade unions? Evidence from public services

Since the start of economic reforms in 1991, India's trade unions have found themselves increasingly excluded from the political process and marginalized in collective bargaining. Using survey and interview data from the Maharashtra affiliates of two national union federations, this article examines whether social partnership with employers is a viable option for Indian unions to regain influence and protect workers' interests, as some analysts have advocated. Its findings indicate that despite Maharashtra's supportive regulatory framework, which in theory should facilitate cooperative industrial relations, the realities of workplace employment relations – coupled with state indifference and adverse judicial interventions – weaken labour's prospects for meaningful social partnership.     

侵权人不明的高楼落物侵权的法律规制

《侵权责任法》第87条对侵权人不明的高楼落物侵权责任的承担进行了规定,具有保障受害人得到补偿、统一司法实践、降低致害概率的积极意义。但是,该规定也存在许多不足之处,主要表现为不利于社会和谐、容易引发道德风险、预防功能不充分、适用前提不明确等,没有很好地解决高楼落物侵权所面临的困境。采取社会救济、高楼落物赔偿基金、保险赔偿等多种途径相结合的救济方式,行政法、刑法与《侵权责任法》相配合的惩罚制度,不仅可以使受害人得到及时的、充分的补偿,而且可以有效预防此类侵权损害的发生。