Overcoming Old in Age-Friendliness

In this article, we explore views on an age-friendly space in the Netherlands by analysing the responses of older individuals (N = 54) in focus groups and by examining the perspectives around an age-friendly zone in the Netherlands, Parkstad Limburg. We found that a central issue in the wishes for living at a later age are adjustments to envisioned physical limitations that come with the ageing process; this includes adjustments to ensure safety, accessibility and mobility, in order to facilitate older individuals' efforts to stay engaged with the world around them. In their wishes, the older participants constructed ideal dwelling places that closely resembled a senior home, but at the same time they rejected wishing to live in a place that was identified as a senior home. We explain this paradox by the representation of such a space as being for old people, i.e. needy older individuals, which was not how the older participants wished to be identified. We conclude that the conception of age-friendly environments will have to face the difficult challenge of overcoming the association with old age, while simultaneously taking into account adjustments that signify and relate to the ageing process and that seem inescapably tied to oldness.     

The disembedded digital economy: Social protection for new economy employment in China

This research focuses upon employment in the new economy, exploring labour protection and social protection in the digital age in China. Through an empirical survey conducted in three Chinese cities, social insurance and the labour rights of employees in the digital economic sector, such as gig employment, e-commerce, and various other forms of online employment, have been examined in-depth. This study reveals new regulatory loopholes in the digital labour market, which have substantially eroded the basis of social policy arrangements in China, “softening” participation in social insurance branches and compliance with labour regulations remarkably. Drawing upon the theoretical concepts of Polanyi on embeddedness and disembeddedness, we argue that the digital employment sector in China has been increasingly disembedded from social institutions and social control. The new configuration in the digital field of social policy requires novel conceptual models and institutional settings to cope with increasing social risks in virtual spaces.     

中国农村研究的主体回归与方法论创新

21世纪以来,中国农村治理研究陷入了本土化与主体性双重困境,中国农村社会基础的深度转型,农村研究方法的缺陷以及大规模村庄研究的局限,要求中国农村研究回归深度的村庄研究,尊重农民主体性。在回归村庄研究的方法论上,文章认为要突破国家政权建设理论等研究视角的局限,把市场化这一变量纳入分析视野中。村庄主位、农民主体、市场化过程同国家宏观治理体系的互动逻辑,应该构成后中国农村治理研究时代的主要内容。     

Childbearing and Marriage: Investigating the Importance of Context for Meaning-Making of First-Time Marriage

Previous research reveals that the temporal ordering of childbearing and marriage can have an impact on the meaning of first-time marriage. This article aims to obtain a deeper understanding of meaning-making of first-time marriage in relation to childbearing. Narrative interviews with 16 brides and grooms in 8 couples in Sweden were conducted. The material was analyzed in relation to the temporal ordering of childbearing and marriage. The study reveals that the construction of meaning of marriage does not only relate to the temporal context. Social factors such as social class or family formation might also be relevant for how meaning is constructed. This article contributes to a deeper understanding of meaning-making as a relational process constructed within particular contexts.     

Institutional evolution and abrupt change: Reforming the administration of social assistance in Finland

Historical institutionalist studies have explained institutional change as resulting from critical junctures that interrupt long periods of stability or from endogenous, incremental evolution. Building on these theories, discursive institutionalists have focused on the roles of agency, ideas and discourse as explainers of change. Combining these approaches, this article analyses Finland’s decision in 2014 to transfer the administration of basic social assistance from municipalities to the central government. This study demonstrates that institutional change can be both abrupt and evolutionary. Due to sudden, exceptional political circumstances, the decision in question was made quickly and under pressure, circumventing possible veto players. However, it was possible only because of the incremental, endogenous change that had occurred in the way in which social assistance was administered at the municipal level. It enabled a change in political discourse, which eroded the credibility of the ideational frames that policy actors had previously utilised to reject the centralised model.     

“Who generates this city”? Socialist strategy in contemporary London

This essay, based on a “militant ethnography” of the attempts of the small radical grassroots activist group, Our London (a pseudonym), to mobilize a collective oppositional politics through activities around an election campaign, engages critically with E. Laclau and C. Mouffe's arguments on discourse and collectivity in Hegemony and Socialist Strategy (London: Verso, 1985). I argue, on the basis of my findings, that while their model does provide insights that help describe the process of building collectivity from among disparate perspectives and identities, we need to go beyond a focus on discourse alone and consider the ways politics is shaped by material contexts. This is necessary if we are to understand the continued appeal of class politics as well as the difficulties in mobilizing collectivity in highly unequal and fragmented cities. From an activist perspective, the essay also highlights how developing a conception of collective interests and a critique of overarching systems of exploitation can be important in building political unity.     

娄底市实现农业和农村可持续发展的探索

可持续农业和农村发展”(SARD)是联合国粮农组织倡导的世界未来农业和农村发展的大趋向。本文探究了可持续农业和农村发展的内涵及来源 ;立足娄底地情 ,分析了其农业和农村可持续发展中存在的问题 ;提出了实现娄底可持续农业和农村发展的目标和对策     

论政治冲突的功能

政治冲突的功能理论是政治冲突与整合理论的重要组成部分。由于目前对政治冲突与整合理论的研究非常少,所以作为它的重要组成部分的功能理论研究更为鲜见。本文在历史与逻辑相统一的理论框架下,结合前人的相关论述,特别是重点围绕马克思与L·科塞的观点,对政治冲突的功能:负功能和正功能进行了比较系统地分析。     

湖北省乡镇企业1978—2002年发展概况、问题及对策研究

1978～2002年,湖北省乡镇企业在企业单位数量、对经济增长贡献及转移农村剩余劳动力等方面对该省经济产生了重要的推动作用。然而,随着市场经济体制的深入发展和不断完善,乡镇企业发展也遇到了前所未有的困难。本文在深入分析当前乡镇企业所面临的问题基础上,提出了乡镇企业未来发展的战略对策。     

Juvenile Delinquency Under Conditions of Rapid Social Change

Increased juvenile delinquency can be seen as an indicator for a deteriorating social fabric under conditions of rapid social change. Criminological theories suggest, however, that such conditions do not per se produce delinquency: They force youth into prodelinquent leisure activities with peers, leading to an endorsement of delinquent behavior and offering the infrastructure for it. Resources acquired in family and public life, however, may prevent youth from drifting into such prodelinquent leisure activities and indirectly from delinquent behavior. Empirical tests of these hypotheses have to employ simultaneous analyses of societal-level and individual-level data. On the basis of an international youth study, the paper undertakes such an analysis: In the years 1992–95, data from 42 independent samples of seventh graders from East and West Germany, Poland, Russia, Bulgaria, Slovakia, Hungary, Czechia, and Greece were surveyed. Data on deviant school behavior, delinquent drift, nurturant parenting, and subjective feelings of justice in public were obtained from 7282 thirteen- to fourteen-year-olds. Processes of rapid social change were incorporated as data on changes in GNP in the years proceeding the surveys. Analyses show that delinquent drift is a valid predictor of deviant school behavior only on the individual level. The extent to which adolescents engage in prodelinquent peer activities depends more on the cultural context in which adolescents live than on their personal experience in the family and in public. Nurturant parenting does, however, covary negatively with deviant school behavior irrespective of level of analysis.