Showing papers in "British Journal of Sociology in 1992"

Political power beyond the State: problematics of government

Abstract: This paper sets out an approach to the analysis of political power in terms of problematics of government. It argues against an overvaluation of the 'problem of the State' in political debate and social theory. A number of conceptual tools are suggested for the analysis of the many and varied alliances between political and other authorities that seek to govern economic activity, social life and individual conduct. Modern political rationalities and governmental technologies are shown to be intrinsically linked to developments in knowledge and to the powers of expertise. The characteristics of liberal problematics of government are investigated, and it is argued that they are dependent upon technologies for 'governing at a distance', seeking to create locales, entities and persons able to operate a regulated autonomy. The analysis is exemplified through an investigation of welfarism as a mode of 'social' government. The paper concludes with a brief consideration of neo-liberalism which demonstrates that the analytical language structured by the philosophical opposition of state and civil society is unable to comprehend contemporary transformations in modes of exercise of political power.(1).

Ideology and Modern Culture

Abstract: L'A. vise a reconstruire les arguments de J. Thompson (« Ideology and Modern Culture », 1990) contre les versions theoriques qui proclament la fin de l'ideologie et a engager sa contribution au debat actuel sur l'ideologie, i.e. sa theorie de la mediatisation de la culture

Farewell to flexibility

Abstract: Part 1 Change and continuity in work and employment: the orthodoxy of flexibility, Anna Pollert the employment strategies of large firms, Paul Marginson task flexibility and the intensification of labour in British manufacturing during the 1980s, Tony Elger. Part 2 Restructuring rationales - productivity, cost controls or flexibility?: in a state of change - flexibility in the Civil Service, Peter Fairbrother the fragmentation of industrial R&D, Richard Whittington "flexible" employment in the retail and hotel trades, Tim Walsh. Part 3 Flexible specialization - a new paradigm of production?: flexible specialization and small firms in Italy - myths and realities, Ash Amin from 1960s automation to flexible specialization - a deja vue of technological panaceas, Chris Smith restructuring and the politics of industrial renewal - the limits of flexible specialization, Peter Noland and Kathy O'Donnell. Part 4 Employment fragmentation and the enterprise culture: survey evidence on trends in "non-standard" employment, Bernard Casey the self-employed - small entrepreneurs or disguised wage labourers?, Helen Rainbird franchising - a testimony to the "enterprise economy" and economic restructuring in the 1980s?, Alan Felstead the small firm and the UK labour market in the 1980s, Steve Johnson. Conclusion: Plus ca change? - the theory of productions and the production of theory, Richard Hyman.

Theories of Modernity and Postmodernity

Abstract: Part 1 Introduction - defining postmodernity: modernity and postmodernity, Bryan S.Turner modernity, postmodernity and the present, Barry Smart. Part 2 Nostalgia and modernity: reading Wall Street - postmodern contradictions in the American social structure, Norman K.Denzin after nostalgia? wilful nostalgia and the phase of globalization, Roland Robertson postmoderism as humanism? urban space and social theory, Scott Las Simmel and the theory of postmodern society, Deena Weinstein and Michael A.Weinstein. Part 2 Critical theory and the modern project: Habermas and the completion of "The Project of Modernity", David Ashley Lyotard and Weber - postmodern rules and neo-Kantian values, Charles Turner towards a reinterpretation of modernity in an age of postmodernity, Adam B.Seligman. Part 3 Politics, women and postmodernity: women between fundamentalism and modernity, Aysegul Baykan women between modernity and postmodernity, Lieteke van Vucht Tijssen citizenship in the semiotic society, Philip Wexler.

The re-emergence of small enterprises : industrial restructuring in industrialised countries

Abstract: Based on case studies of the largest industrialized market economy countries, this book summarizes what we know to date about the recent development of the small enterprise sector, its composition by type of firm, and its status and role in the community.

Mega-events and micro-modernization: on the sociology of the new urban tourism

Abstract: This paper focuses on one aspect of this field, namely the staging of cultural or sporting mega-events. Social science interest in mega-events tends to be dominated by economic impact studies. This paper attempts to go beyond a narrow economistic approach and explores the wider socio-economic impacts of mega-events. It also suggests that we need to take account of a range of contexts (from macro-level post-industrial/post-national shifts to micro level urban politics and tourism strategy formation), if we are to develop a sociologically adequate understanding of touristic mega-events and their contemporary social significance. The paper throughout takes the opportunity presented by mega-event analysis to discuss some of the main issues involved in developing a structural sociological and political economic account of tourism events and policies. The focus of the paper on income, employment and economic modernisation impacts means that the cultural impacts of urban tourism are not dealt with in any detail. However the paper concludes by briefly considering : a) tourism as a cultural phenomenon (indeed as one of the archetypal forms of the « post-modern » culture of modernity) and thus; b) the need for the sociology of tourism to attempt to comprehend tourisms's various different dimensions (i.e. economic, political and cultural). It is suggested that dialectical forms of conceptualisation will be needed in addition to empirical studies if the sociology of tourism is to respond adequately to the challenge of its subject matter

Culture and society : contemporary debates

Abstract: Introduction Part I. Analytic Debates: 'Understanding the Relative Autonomy of Culture' introduction The case for culture 1. The human studies 2. Values and social systems 3. Culture and ideological hegemony 4. Signs and language Approaches to culture Functionalist 1. The normative structure of science 2. Values and democracy Semiotic 3. The world of wrestling 4. Food as symbolic code Dramaturgical 5. Out of frame activity 6. The Balinese cockfight as play Weberian 7. Puritanism and revolutionary ideology 8. French catholicism and secular grace Durkheimian: 9. Lininality and community 10. Symbolic pollution 11. Sex as symbol in Victorian purity Marxian 12. Class formation and ritual 13. Masculinity and factory labor Post-structuralist: 14. Artistic taste and cultural capital 15. Sexual discourse and power Part II. Substantive Debates: Moral Order and Crisis: Perspectives on Modern Culture The Place of Religion: Is modernity a Secular or Sacred Order? Introduction: 1. Social sources of secularization 2. The future of religion Wolfgang 3. Civil religion in America The debate over the 'End of Ideology': can secular reason create cultural order? 4. Culture industry revisited 5. From consensual order to instrumental control 6. The end of ideology in the west 7. Beyond coercion and crisis: the coming of an era of voluntary community 8. Ideology, the cultural apparatus, and the new consciousness industry Modernism or post-modernism: dissolution of reconstruction of moral order? 9. Post-modernism and the dissolution of moral order 10. The post-modern condition 11. Modernity versus postmodernity 12. Mapping the post-modern.

Green Ambivalence about Science: Legal-Rational Authority and the Scientific Legitimation of a Social Movement

Abstract: Unlike many social movements, the environmental movement has a profound dependence on scientific evidence and scientific expertise. Without modern science no-one would know about the ozone layer, much less about the well publicized « holes » in it. Yet, at the same time, many within the green movement are distrustful of scientific authority and of the fruits of technology. This paper examines the way this incipient paradox affects the environmental movement and analyses, through case-study material, the practical implications of the movement's dependence on science

Tomb, temple, machine and self: the social construction of the body.

Abstract: The body is socially constructed; and in this paper we explore the various and ever-changing constructions of the body, and thus of the embodied self, from the Greeks to the present. The one word, body, may therefore signify very different realities and perceptions of reality; and we consider briefly how and why these meanings changed. Plato believed the body was a 'tomb', Paul said it was the 'temple' of the Holy Spirit, the Stoic philosopher Epictetus taught that it was a 'corpse'. Christians believed, and believe, that the body is not only physical, but also spiritual and mystical, and many believed it was an allegory of church, state and family. Some said it was cosmic: one with the planets and the constellations. Descartes wrote that the body is a 'machine', and this definition has underpinned biomedicine to this day; but Sartre said that the body is the self. In sum, the body has no intrinsic meaning. Populations create their own meanings, and thus their own bodies; but how they create, and then change them, and why, reflects the social body.

Black and blue: an analysis of the influence of race on being stopped by the police

Abstract: This article addresses the debate over the disproportionate representation of black people in the criminal justice system, with particular reference to the link between a person's race and the process of being stopped on the street by the police. On the basis of a participant observation study of routine police patrol in inner city London, the article explores the influence of race in relation to citizen and officer demeanour, and on the actions taken by police in initiating, processing and terminating a stop. Demeanour and process variables are derived from quantified observational data recorded on codified observation schedules from 213 police stops involving 319 members of the public. Among the findings reported, blacks prove over two and a half times more likely to be stopped than their presence in the local population would suggest, with a higher disproportion in the case of young black men. However, blacks and whites prove equally likely to be calm and civil to police at contact and during processing, and there are scant differences in police demeanour and action toward the two groups.

Life and work history analyses : qualitative and quantitative developments

Abstract: Life history analyses in perspective - qualitative and quantitative developments, Shirley Dex histories of sickness - making use of multiple accounts of the same process, Paul Bellaby a land of "boundless opportunity" - mobility and stability in 19th century England, Andrew Miles and David Vincent from methodological monopoly to pluralism in the sociology of social mobility, Daniel Bertaux handling work history data in standard statistical packages, Catherine Marsh and Jonathan Gershuny ageing and life history - the meaning of reminiscence in late life, Peter G.Coleman life histories and the cultural politics of history knowing - "the dictionary of national biography" and the late 19th-century political field, David Amigoni labour markets and industrial structures in women's life histories, Sylvia Walby unemployment incidence following redundancy - the value of longitudinal approaches, Leslie Rosenthal youth unemployment and work histories, Meredith Baker and Peter Elias.

Towards a critical victimology

Abstract: Acknowledgements - List of Contributors - Preface - Prologue: The Need for a Critical Victimology E.A.Fattah - PART 1: CRITICAL VIEWS ON VICTIMOLOGY AND VICTIM POLICY - Victims and Victimology: The Facts and the Rhetoric E.A.Fattah - Research Implications of Conflicting Conceptions of Victimology D.R.Cressey - Which Victim Movement? The Politics of Victim Policy R.Elias - The Wrongs of Victim's Rights L.N.Henderson - PART 2: CRITICAL CONSIDERATIONS ON THE VICTIM'S ROLE IN THE JUSTICE PROCESS - The Victim's Role in the Penal Process: A Theoretical Orientation L.Sebba - The Victim's Role in the Penal Process: Recent Developments in California D.R.Ranish & D.Shichor - Victim Particpation in Sentencing Proceedings H.C.Rubel - The Alleged Molestation Victim, The Rules of Evidence, and the Constitution: Should Children Really be Seen not Heard? T.L.Feher - PART 3: INITIATIVES TO HELP VICTIMS OF CRIME: A CRITICAL APPRAISAL - Placebo Justice: Victim Recommendations and Offender Sentences in Sexual Assault Cases A.Walsh - The Victim/Offender Reconciliation Program: A Message to Correctional Reformers T.Dittenhoffer & R.V.Ericson - Restitution as Innovation or Unfilled Promise? B.Galaway - Community Control, Criminal Justice and Victim Services R.Elias - Epilogue: The United Nations Declaration of Basic Principles of Justice for Victims of Crime and Abuse of Power: A Constructive Critique - Index

Streetlife and delinquency.

Abstract: The correlation between class and delinquency often observed in areal studies and assumed in prominent sociological theories is elusive in studies of individuals commonly used to test these theories. A restricted conceptualization of class in terms of parental origins and the concentration of self-report survey designs on adolescents in school have removed from this area of research street youth who were once central to classic studies of delinquency. We argue that street youth experience current class conditions that cause serious delinquency, and that life on the street is an important intervening variable that transmits indirect effects of control and strain theory variables, including parental class origins. Data gathered from nearly 1000 Toronto school and street youth are analyzed with important implications for the conceptualization of class and delinquency, testing and integrating sociological theories of delinquency, the measurement of delinquency, and the use of cross-sectional and longitudinal research designs. Our findings especially encourage incorporation of street-based samples into research on class-based aspects of theories of delinquency.

Women at work:Psychological and organizational perspectives

Abstract: The experience of women at work is very different from that of men, and this book examines that experience from a psychological and organizational perspective. It is divided into three main sections: the first presents underlying gender issues at work; the second considers problems faced by women at work simply because they are female; and the third considers the implications of these in relation to specific occupations. Each of the contributors is concerned with the practical implications of research findings, and with proposing changes in individual and organizational behaviour to improve the experiences of women at work.

Organizations in Society

Abstract: Introduction - Work in Organizations - Management and Bureaucracy in Organizations - Rational Calculation, Professional Power and the Managerial Division of Labour - Rationalization and Institutionalization in the State and Civil Society - Organizations and Environments - Organizations in and Across Societies - Conclusion: Organizational Futures: Organizational Dilemmas

Come on Down? : Popular Media Culture in Post-War Britain

Abstract: Contributors: Dominic Strinati, Stephen Wagg, Deborah Philips, Alan Tomlinson, Janice Winship, Philip Dodd, Christine Geraghty, Garry Whannel, Graham Murdock, Alan Clarke, Rosalind Brunt, John Street, Dick Hebdige

Protest, Acquiescence and the Unemployed: A Comparative Analysis of the 1930s and 1980s

Abstract: The political quiescence of the unemployed has provided much sustenance for social commentators. If the historical record is examined, however, quiescence is not necessarily the only response to unemployment. Widespread protests were organized by the National Unemployed Workers' Movement during the inter-war period. A comparison of the Trades Union Congress' Centres for the Unemployed of the 1980s with the NUWM reveals that changes in the forms of unemployment relief, and changes in the organizational and cultural resources of the unemployed account for these differences. The acquiescence and political fatalism of the unemployed during the 1980s derives from the state being impervious to their political protest, and the unemployed's lack of organizational and cultural resources for mobilization.

Robert K. Merton : consensus and controversy

Abstract: Part 1 Editorial introduction: Robert K. Merton - consensus and controversy, Jon Clark et al general introduction: Robert Merton as sociologist, Jon Clark Robert Merton as teacher, James S. Coleman polished pebbles, pretty shells - an appreciation of OTSOG, Stephen Jay Gould. Part 2 Consensus and controversy: systematic social theory - R.K. Merton's theoretical systems - an overview, Piotr Sztompka Merton's systematic theory, Robert Bierstedt "interchange" - Sztompka replies to Bierstedt - Bierstedt replies to Sztompka structural analysis - social structure in the work of Robert Merton, Arthur Stinchcombe R.K. Merton on structural analysis, Anthony Giddens "interchange" - Stinchcombe replies to Giddens - Giddens replies to Sitnchcombe unanticipated and unintended consequences-latent functions and dysfunctions - the two facets of the unintended consequences paradigm, Raymond Boudon Merton's functionalism and the unintended consequences of action, Jon Elster "interchange" - Boudin replies to Elster structural constraints and opportunities, Merton's contribution to general theory, Peter M.Blau status-sets and role-sets - reflections on Merton's role-set theory, Rose Laub Coser role-sets and status-sets, Richard A.Hilbert "interchange" - Coser replies to Hilbert - Hilbert replies to Coser the dysfunctions of bureaucracies the dysfunctions of bureacracies - Merton's work in organizational sociology, Charles Crothers Merton's theory of anomie - Merton's instrumental theory of anomie, Marco Orru Merton in search of anomie, Phillippe Besnard "interchange" - Orru replies to Basnard - Basnard replies to Orru the self-fulfilling prophecy - the self-fulfilling prophecy in the work of Robert Merton, Lee S.Shulman and Sam Wineburg sociology of science - Robert K. Merton's sociology of science, Nico Stehr animadversiones in Merton, Pierre Bordieu "interchange" - Bordieu replies to Stehr the "Merton Thesis" - puritanism and science - some documentary reflections on the dissemination and reception of the "Merton Thesis", I. Bernard Cohen puritanism and science - the "Merton Thesis" after, Piyo Rattansi infant giants are not pygmies - the "Merton Thesis" and the sociology of science, A. Rupert Hall the interplay of social theory and empirical research, Hubert M. Blalock Jr the interplay of general sociological theory and empirical research, Mark Gould "interchange" - Blalock replies to Gould - Gould replies to Blalock the sociology of time - Robert K. Merton's contribution to sociological studies of time, Simonetta Tabboni. Part 3 Concluding comment - consensus and controversy as an example of organized scepticism, Robert K. Merton.

Between the State and Solidarity: one movement, two interpretations the Orange alternative movement in Poland*

Abstract: The movement known as Orange Alternative emerged in Poland in early 1980s and it continues to operate even though the original conditions of the socialist reality changed. From a relatively small and vanguard form of street theatre it grew to a form of manifestation of one's discontent with the world of symbols. A similar movement exists in Hungary. In this work the Orange phenomenon is analyzed as a form of response to dichotomous organization of social space in the preand post-revolutionary period in Eastern Europe.