Collapsing the Boundaries? Fatherhood,Organization and Home‐Working

In the modern western world, the discursive construction of fatherhood and everyday fathering practices has been underpinned by the spatial separation of work from home, of public from private. However, increasing numbers of employees are now working from home and a disproportionate number of these are men with young children. This article draws on new empirical research to examine the implications for fathers and for organizations as home‐working disrupts earlier spatial configurations of fatherhood and fathering practices. The article concludes that as the spatial boundaries between home and work collapse, new accommodations between fatherhood/fathering and organization are emerging. However, these are underpinned by a traditional gender division of labour in the household. More broadly, these findings confirm the inadequacy of static distinctions between public and private, showing that while such distinctions are still used to mark space and time, this is relational, contingent and unstable.     

Television and Violence in the Economy of Memory

The present paper aims to consider the cultural function of television as a technology for the creation of a public memory. The television system records past images, preserves them, and broadcasts various historical programs. A viewer owns the public memory jointly, through watching/consuming programs. However, the process of production and consumption of programs is linked with the exclusion of other historical memories from the public space. After all, the creation of public memories in depth is related to social power. Through the analysis in concrete terms of a series of programs of Project X and the second episode of the Nippon Hoso Kyokai (NHK; Japan Broadcasting Corporation) series, Special Edition: Judging War, the relationship between the organization of public memories and social power is explored. Project X depicts the challenges of engineers of middle standing who initiated new industrial and technological developments in the 1960s and 1970s. Special Edition: Judging War is based on coverage of the Women's International War Crimes Tribunal on Japan's Military Sexual Slavery. This program was subjected to revision on the eve of its broadcast. What forms of expression were eliminated? These two programs should help us define more clearly what the Japanese media selects for incorporation into the public memory.     

论公共政策执行变异的成因与对策

公共政策执行在政策过程中具有十分重要的意义。然而由于多方面的原因,当前政策执行中出现了诸多变异行为,严重影响了公共政策目标的实现。因此,必须积极采取措施,治理公共政策执行中的变异行为。     

The Role of Family Income in the Intergenerational Association of AFDC Receipt

Daughters from low‐income families who did not receive Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) are compared to daughters from low‐income families who did receive assistance to better account for family income in the intergenerational association of AFDC. The research models the timing of a daughter's first birth and, for those who become mothers, the number of years a daughter receives any AFDC. Women whose families received AFDC during their childhood are more likely to receive AFDC as adults relative to those women whose families did not receive AFDC. Controlling for family income in a more careful and comprehensive way than past research explains part but not all of the effects of childhood AFDC receipt. Among daughters from chronically poor families, however, parental AFDC use is not associated with additional years of AFDC participation. Although the present research cannot confirm or deny a causal role for parental welfare use, the intergenerational transmission of financial resources does explain part of the intergenerational association of welfare use.     

International Tax Competition: A Case for International Cooperation in Globalization

The liberalization of international financial flows and foreign direct investment has induced countries to use diverse measures to attract inflow of foreign capital and foreign direct investment, which is expected to have a positive effect on the growth of GDP and thus a positive effect on social welfare. Tax exemption, reduction of tax rate, tax holiday, or diverse subsidies are some of the most important measures used. In this paper we study international tax cooperation, i.e., countries change and especially reduce tax rate for corporate income or for asset revenues to attract inflow of foreign direct investment. Both theoretical and empirical studies have shown the sensibility of foreign direct investment decision with respect to tax rate differences between home countries and host countries. In general, more inflow of foreign direct investment can be expected if the tax rate of the home country is lower than that of foreign countries. This is the main reason for international tax cooperation. In this paper we propose a simple model to prove the sub-optimal Nash non cooperative solution in a two-country tax-competition game. The model shows that international tax cooperation can improve welfare of the participating countries. How to reach a cooperative solution for an international tax competition game (ITCG) is therefore an important issue for further discussions and studies. International institutions can play a crucial role to reach international tax cooperation or international tax harmonization.     

Pluralism and Universality of Environmental Discourse: The Dilemma Between Damage Caused by the Japanese Macaque and its Protection

Abstract:  The subject of this paper is to describe the complexity of relations between man and wild monkeys, which causes difficulties in forming a social consensus related to their conservation and management. To present how the relations are in everyday life, and how they are simplified in universal discursive spaces, interviews and a questionnaire survey have been conducted. As a result, it is clarified that there are three kinds of discursive spaces, that of politics, natural science, and residents. People who share the land with wild monkeys have various terms and stories about their relations with monkeys. The monkeys have various values in the discourse of residents, including many troubles. The existence of monkeys is vivid and close, and can be described as "accessible" nature. However, in discussion of politics or natural sciences, there is less diversity in monkeys' values. In these discursive spaces, monkeys are described simply in the framework of "distant" nature, and wild monkey issues are constructed as a "pest animal issue". The simplified protocol between accessible and distant nature makes the wild monkey issues simple. And the attitudes of residents are shown as controversial through the contradiction between simple-complex issues. In conclusion, this contradiction cannot be solved only by filling the gap between accessible and distant nature with social consensus, but also by connecting the two and enhancing the dynamism of society as a whole.     

亲属称谓“公”“私”考

“公”“私”是两个出现较早的亲属称谓。祖父、父亲、夫之父、夫之兄均可称“公”,这与公有制下年长男子在父系氏族内部所处的领导地位有关,他们拥有安排和处理公共事务的权力。“私”是女子对姊妹之夫的称呼,源于建立在生产力水平低下的普那路亚婚制,反映了姊妹共夫、女子与姊妹之夫存在着合法的性关系的事实。透过二者,可以揭示古代的社会制度和婚姻制度的实质。     

Origins and destinies: Immigration to the United States since World War II

Contemporary immigration to the United States and the formation of new ethnic groups are the complex and unintended social consequences of the expansion of the nation to its post-World War II position of global hegemony. Immigrant communities in the United States today are related to a history of American military, political, economic, and cultural involvement and intervention in the sending countries, especially in Asia and the Caribbean Basin, and to the linkages that are formed in the process that open a variety of legal and illegal migration pathways. The 19.8 million foreign-born persons counted in the 1990 U.S. census formed the largest immigrant population in the world, though in relative terms, only 7.9% of the U.S. population was foreign-born, a lower proportion than earlier in this century. Today's immigrants are extraordinarily diverse, a reflection of polar-opposite types of migrations embedded in very different historical and structural contexts. Also, unlike the expanding economy that absorbed earlier flows from Europe, since the 1970s new immigrants have entered an hourglass economy with reduced opportunities for social mobility, particularly among the less educated, and new waves of refugees have entered a welfare state with expanded opportunities for public assistance. This paper seeks to make sense of the new diversity. A typology of contemporary immigrants is presented, and their patterns of settlement, their distinctive social and economic characteristics compared to major native-born racial-ethnic groups, and their different modes of incorporation in—and consequences for—American society are considered.     

What's wrong with sociology? Its public image

In response to editor Stephen Cole's question—"What's wrong with sociology?"—the answer is nothing that cannot be overcome by clearer communications and better public relations. The problem is that the field is not held in high esteem by college administrators, legislators, and the public. Many see us as rebels of the 1960s, political liberals, and impractical thinkers with a penchant for jargon. Even our research is derided by some as a waste of money. The solution consists of strategies for overcoming our poor public image. Seven strategies for doing so are discussed: (1) Write clearly. (2) Write for a mass audience. (3) Seek board positions. (4) Strengthen our identity. (5) Teach sociology in high school. (6) Develop academic partnerships. (7) Emphasize outcomes: increase in tolerance and research skills.     

De minimis and equity in risk

Indices and orderings are developed for evaluating alternative strategies in the management of risk. They reflect the goals of reducing individual and collective risks, of increasing equity, and of assigning priority to the reduction and to the equity of high risks. Individual risk is defined as the (random or non-random) level of exposure to a danger. In particular the role of a lower negligibility level is investigated. A class of indices is proposed which involves two parameters, a negligibility level and a parameter of inequality aversion, and several interpretations of the indices are discussed. We provide a set of eight axioms which are necessary and sufficient for this class of indices, and we present an approach to deal with partial information on the parameters.