Social identities and political cleavages: the role of political context

Summary. Using a novel method, the paper investigates the influence of social group identities on attitudes and on voting in a variety of political contexts. Examining the major regions of Britain, Canada and the USA, we find considerable national and regional diversity in the nature of social cleavages. For example, social class and race had widely different effects across societies, but within societies their effects on attitudes and on voting were very similar. However, despite that, age and religion had a similar effect on attitudes across societies; the effects on voting varied considerably. The significant within-country differences underline the importance of using region, rather than country, as the unit of analysis. More importantly, these results highlight the role of political context, especially competing cleavages and the structure of party competition, in the establishment of politically relevant social cleavages.     

新城市社会学视域下我国当代城市空间生产的特征

以新城市社会学理论的新马克思主义政治经济学来分析我国当代城市空间生产的特征,是一个新的视域。转型时期我国当代城市的空间生产呈现出新的特征,表现为资本、技术——工业理性刺激着城市的快速扩张,出现环境污染、建设破坏、文化破坏等社会问题,城市空间的生产是不同社会群体对空间的角逐过程和结果,反映着政府、公共领域与个人的边界。城市空间的生产能动地、全面地反映着资本、权力、财富、社会地位、利益等社会关系的生产。     

“期刊承认”VS“共同体承认”:我国学术知识生产动力机制的“悖论”

共同体的承认是知识生产的根本动力,在西方期刊承认乃共同体承认的有机组成部分,学术人努力生产、发表创新性的知识以赢得共同体的承认.然而在我国,量化考评下的期刊承认并未得到大部分学术人的真正认同,已非共同体承认的一部分,学术人生产知识主要是为了取得形式化的期刊承认以满足各种实用性的目的,而非生产出创新性的知识以赢得实质性的共同体承认,期刊承认与共同体承认之间的冲突导致了我国学术知识生产动力机制的失灵.为了化解两者之间矛盾,我们一方面应使同行评议机制在各种学术评价活动中占据主导地位,另一方面要进一步完善学术期刊的匿名评审制度,以弥合期刊承认与共同体承认之间的断裂,从而真正激励学术知识的生产.     

流浪乞讨人员救助管理制度的实践社会学分析——以北京市C救助站为例

基于对北京市C救助站的个案调查,以实践社会学为理论指导,比较分析我国救助管理制度的核心理念从＂收容＂转向＂救助＂的转变,尤其对实施过程中的实践逻辑进行了深入探究。研究认为,救助管理制度在运行中,其实践逻辑发生了偏误。要完善救助管理制度,不仅要充分调动社会救助主体的积极性,加强部门合作,而且要从理念上升为行动,确保制度的执行。     

Ethnic conflict without ethnic groups: a study in pure sociology1

Despite growing awareness of the limitations of group‐level analyses in ethnic studies, research on ethnic conflict has paid virtually no systematic attention to variation at the individual or micro level. Addressing that gap, the present paper draws upon data from interviews conducted with members of two broadly‐defined categories recently arrived in the Republic of Ireland, Muslims and Nigerians. Results indicate that while members of both immigrant categories experience a good deal of ethnic conflict or hostility, such conflict is rarely collective and invariably varies across individuals. The research data are consistent with Donald Black's theory of moralism. Black's theory, based on his theoretical system known as pure sociology, predicts that ethnic hostility increases with the social inferiority and cultural distance of the immigrant, and that higher status immigrants are more assertive in responding to hostility, though they experience less of it (the status paradox).     

二胡音乐的地域特色及其社会影响

二胡独奏艺术从上个世纪至今，在众多二胡音乐家的努力下，已经发展成初具规模的各自的流派，有细腻、甜美风韵的南派，有在演奏上比较注重运弓功力的北派，还有富有秦腔、眉户等戏曲特色的秦派等。各流派在特殊的人文社会环境里形成了自己的特色，产生了不同的社会影响。     

Transnational queer sociological analysis of sexual identity and civic‐political activism in Hong Kong,Taiwan and mainland China

The sociology of homosexuality lacks engagement with queer theory and postcolonialism and focuses primarily on the global metropoles, thus failing to provide a plausible account of non‐Western non‐normative sexual identities. This research adopts the author’s newly proposed transnational queer sociology to address these deficiencies. First, it critiques the Western model of sexual identity predominantly employed to elucidate non‐Western, non‐normative sexualities. It does so by examining not only the queer flows between West and non‐West but also those among and within non‐Western contexts to produce translocally shared and mutually referenced experiences. Second, the proposed approach combines sociology with queer theory by emphasizing the significant role of material, as well as discursive, analyses in shaping queer identities, desires and practices. This article employs the approach to examine young gay male identities, as revealed in 90 in‐depth interviews conducted in Hong Kong (n = 30), Taiwan (Taipei, n = 30) and mainland China (Shanghai, n = 30) between 2017 and 2019. More specifically, it highlights the interplay between the state and identity by investigating the intersection and intertwining effects of these young men’s sexual and cultural/national identities, revealing three different forms of civic‐political activism. The article both demonstrates the way in which sexuality and the state are mutually constituted and provides nuanced analysis of the heterogeneity of contemporary homosexualities in Hong Kong, Taiwan and mainland China. In applying a new sociological approach to understanding sexuality, this research joins the growing body of scholarship within sociology that is decentring the Western formation of universal knowledge.     

Making space for ‘the social’: connecting sociology and professional practices in urban lighting design

Lighting is increasingly recognized as a significant social intervention by both lighting professionals and academic social scientists. However, what counts as ‘the social’ is diverse and contested, with consequences for what kind of ‘social’ is performed or invented. Based on a long‐term research programme, we argue that collaboration between sociologists and lighting professionals requires negotiating discourses and practices of ‘the social’. This paper explores the quality and kinds of spaces made for ‘the social’ in professional practices and academic collaborations, focusing on two case studies of urban lighting that demonstrate how the space of ‘the social’ is constrained and impoverished by an institutionalized division between technical and aesthetic lighting. We consider the potential role of sociologists in making more productive spaces for ‘the social’ in urban design, as part of the central sociological task of ‘inventing the social’ (Marres, Guggenheim and Wilkie 2018) in the process of studying it.     

Hard and Soft Commitments to Human Rights Treaties, 1966–20001

What factors determine whether and how deeply countries will commit to the international human rights regime? Using data for up to 142 countries between 1966 and 2000, this article analyzes patterns of membership to the International Human Rights Covenants. The analysis produced two main conclusions. First, the potential costs associated with joining a treaty, rather than its substantive content, motivates the decision to join. Treaties that protect different rights but establish comparable implementation mechanisms exhibit similar patterns of membership, whereas treaties that protect identical rights but establish different implementation provisions exhibit dissimilar patterns of membership. Second, rates of treaty membership differ by level of commitment. Countries that sign human rights treaties differ from countries that ratify. Results are interpreted with respect to four theories of commitment and compliance: realism, liberalism, constructivism, and sociological institutionalism. Theories that emphasize the importance of a treaty’s costs (realism and institutionalism) fare better than theories that prioritize a treaty’s content (liberalism and constructivism).