This essay reconsiders the well-known thesis that, under conditions of crisis, administrative decision making becomes centralized. It discusses the theoretical and administrative underpinnings of this thesis and focuses on the role of small groups in crisis decision making, central government intervention in crisis situations, and crisis government doctrines. Using findings from recent comparative case research in crisis management, alternative patterns of governmental response to crises are outlined. These include formal and informal decentralization, non-decision making, and paralysis. This article concludes with a set of hypotheses that outline the conditions for the emergence of alternative structural patterns in coping with crises and a call for more contingent and reflective thinking about crisis management issues.

Crisis Decision Making The Centralization Thesis Revisited

The focus of the paper is on the process of organizational desexualization which has taken place over a long historical period and upon the resistance which this process has engendered amongst organizational subordinates. The eradication of the high level of sexual activity which took place in pre-industrial organizations was sought by those in positions of authority and the paper considers the variety of mechanisms which were developed to attain this expulsion. These mechanisms are well entrenched in contemporary organizations, yet have met with considerable resistance from lower-order organizational members. The paper considers certain forms of resistance in this light in an attempt to suggest a dialectical approach to sexuality. It is concluded that the issue of sex is one which organizational analysis has avoided for too long.

Sex and Organizational Analysis

Oscar Wilde is considered to be the iconic victim of 19th‐century English puritanism. Yet the Victorian authorities rarely and only reluctantly enforced homosexuality laws. Moreover, Wilde’s sexual predilections had long been common knowledge in London before his trials without affecting the dramatist's wide popularity. Focusing on the seemingly inconsistent Victorian attitudes toward homosexuality and the dynamics of the Oscar Wilde affair, this article develops a general theory of scandal as the disruptive publicity of transgression. The study of scandal reveals the effects of publicity on norm enforcement and throws into full relief the dramaturgical nature of the public sphere and norm work in society.

A theory of scandal: Victorians, homosexuality, and the fall of Oscar Wilde.

This article provides a historical perspective on how both American and European psychiatrists have conceptualized and categorized sexual deviance throughout the past 150 years. During this time, q...

/pdf/pathologizing-sexual-deviance-a-history-45bkggufle.pdf

Pathologizing Sexual Deviance: A History

Buggery and the British Navy, 1700–1861

michel foucault. The History of Sexuality. Volume 1, An Introduction. Translated by robert hurley. New York: Pantheon Books. 1978. Pp. 168. $8.95

Doctor, patient, and onanist diseases in the nineteenth century.

There can be no doubt that those who joined the officers corps in the eighteenth century became members of an exclusive club with its own distinctive values. These values were imposed on all members of the corps and, as is the case with most exclusive organizations, only a very few individuals were confident or perverse enough to challenge the group standards. The officers corps had an honour code; a set of principles which was informally enforced to ensure that each member soon learned proper from improper behaviour. When there were violations of the code the subaltern officers would bring peer group sanctions to bear in the form of social and professional ostracism until the offender cleared his name by removing the blot on his honour.

/pdf/law-and-honour-among-eighteenth-century-british-army-1qe9eyfycm.pdf

Law and Honour Among Eighteenth-Century British Army Officers

This article provides an assessment and critique of the current state of crisis management literature with special emphasis on what historical case studies reveal about the validity of this approac...

Arthur N. Gilbert

Papers

Buggery and the British Navy, 1700–1861

michel foucault. The History of Sexuality. Volume 1, An Introduction. Translated by robert hurley. New York: Pantheon Books. 1978. Pp. 168. $8.95

Doctor, patient, and onanist diseases in the nineteenth century.

Law and Honour Among Eighteenth-Century British Army Officers

Crisis Management An Assessment and Critique