Showing papers in "British Journal of Sociology in 2001"
TL;DR: This article argues that effective entitlement was based on participation in work, war and reproduction, resulting in three types of social identity: worker- citizens, warrior-citizens and parent-citizens, which are described as 'reproductive citizenship'.
Abstract: The Marshallian paradigm of social citizenship has been eroded because the social and economic conditions that supported postwar British welfare consensus have been transformed by economic and technological change. This article argues that effective entitlement was based on participation in work, war and reproduction, resulting in three types of social identity: worker-citizens, warrior-citizens and parent-citizens. The casualization of labour and the technological development of war have eroded work and war as routes to active citizenship. Social participation through reproduction remains important, despite massive changes to marriage and family as institutions. In fact the growth of new reproductive technologies have reinforced the normative dominance of marriage as a social relation. These rights of reproduction are described as 'reproductive citizenship'. The article also considers the role of voluntary associations in Third-Way strategies as sources of social cohesion in societies where social capital is in decline, and argues that the voluntary sector is increasingly driven by an economic logic of accumulation. With the erosion of national citizenship, Marshall's three forms of rights (legal, political and social) have been augmented by rights that are global, namely environmental, aboriginal and cultural rights. These are driven by global concerns about the relationship between environment, community and body such that the quest for social security has been replaced by concerns for ontological security.
437 citations
TL;DR: It is suggested that as new sites of social anxiety have emerged around environmental, nuclear, chemical and medical threats, the questions motivating moral panic research have lost much of their utility.
Abstract: This paper compares moral panic with the potential political catastrophes of a risk society. The aim of the comparison is threefold: 1. to establish the position of risk society threats alongside more conventional moral panics; 2. to examine the conceptual shifts that accompany the new types of threats; and 3. to outline the changing research agenda. The paper suggests that as new sites of social anxiety have emerged around environmental, nuclear, chemical and medical threats, the questions motivating moral panic research have lost much of their utility. Conceptually, it examines how the roulette dynamics of the risk society accidents expose hidden institutional violations that redound into ‘hot potatoes’ that are passed among and fumbled by various actors. Changing conceptions of folk devils, claims making activities, and of a safety are also discussed.
300 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the effects of early motherhood on later outcomes due to childhood precursors, especially experience of childhood poverty, were examined. But the effect of early mothers' early mother-hood on adult outcomes was not explored.
Abstract: Childhood poverty and early parenthood are both high on the current political agenda. The key new issue that this research addresses is the relative importance of childhood poverty and of early motherhood as correlates of outcomes later in life. How far are the 'effects' of early motherhood on later outcomes due to childhood precursors, especially experience of childhood poverty? Subsidiary questions relate to the magnitude of these associations, the particular levels of childhood poverty that prove most critical, and whether, as often assumed, only teenage mothers are subsequently disadvantaged, or are those who have their first birth in their early twenties similarly disadvantaged? The source of data for this study is the National Child Development Study. We examine outcomes at age 33 for several domains of adult social exclusion: welfare, socio-economic, physical health, emotional well-being and demographic behaviour. We control for a wide range of childhood factors: poverty; social class of origin and of father; mother's and father's school leaving age; family structure; housing tenure; mother's and father's interest in education; personality attributes; performance on educational tests; and contact with the police by age 16. There are clear associations for the adult outcomes with age at first birth, even after controlling for childhood poverty and the other childhood background factors. Moreover, we demonstrate that the widest gulf in adult outcomes occurs for those who enter motherhood early (before age 23), though further reinforced by teenage motherhood for most adult outcomes. We also show that any experience of childhood poverty is clearly associated with adverse outcomes in adulthood, with reinforcement for higher levels of childhood poverty for a few outcomes.
257 citations
TL;DR: The argument developed is that the approach to deliberative democracy may be renewed by rethinking its motivational and cognitive elements.
Abstract: Power in communication takes two main forms. As 'external' power, it consists in the ability to acknowledge or disregard a speaker or a discourse. As 'internal' power, it is the ability of an argument to eliminate other arguments by demonstrating its superiority. A positive or negative value may be ascribed to these forms of power. Four ideal-typical positions are discussed--strategy, technocracy, constructionism, and deliberation. Public deliberation has three virtues--civic virtue, governance virtue and cognitive virtue. Deliberation lowers the propensity to, and the benefit of, strategic behaviour. It also increases knowledge, enhancing the quality of decisions. For Habermas, the unity of reason is expressed in the possibility of agreement on the most convincing argument. However, sometimes conflicts are deep-lying, principles and factual descriptions are profoundly different, and uncertainty is radical. The best argument cannot be found. There is no universal reason. The question is whether non-strategic agreement may spring from the incommensurability of languages. In search of an answer, Rawls's concept of overlapping consensus, the feminist theory of the public sphere, and the idea of deliberation as co-operation are discussed. The argument developed is that the approach to deliberative democracy may be renewed by rethinking its motivational and cognitive elements. Public deliberation is grounded on a pre-political level of co-operation. Intractable controversies may be faced at the level of practices, looking for local, contextual answers.
231 citations
TL;DR: It is argued that material inequality, as a set of outcomes relating to life conditions, life chances and solidary processes, is informed by claims and struggles over resources of different types, undertaken in terms of gender, ethnicity/race and class.
Abstract: Within most approaches to stratification gender and ethnicity are seen to pertain primarily to the symbolic or cultural realms, whilst class is regarded as pertaining to material inequality. This constructs gender and ethnic positioning as entailing honour, deference, worth, value and differential treatment (sometimes expressed through the notion of ‘status’), but the social relations around these are themselves not seen as constitutive of social stratification. In this paper I will rethink social stratification away from the polarity between the material and the symbolic, and argue that material inequality, as a set of outcomes relating to life conditions, life chances and solidary processes, is informed by claims and struggles over resources of different types, undertaken in terms of gender, ethnicity/race and class. This formulation allows us to include these categorial formations, alongside class, as important elements of social stratification i.e. as determining the allocation of socially valued resources and social places/locations.
175 citations
TL;DR: The paper addresses some macro-sociological questions about changes in broad categories of time-use from developed countries in paid and unpaid work, and leisure, and suggests relative stability in the balance between work and leisure time over the period covered by the analyses.
Abstract: The paper addresses some macro-sociological questions about changes in broad categories of time-use. The focus is on large-scale cross-national time trends from developed countries in paid and unpaid work, and leisure. Reference is made to some well-known sociological and historical accounts of such change, and to the fact that time-use diary data has only relatively recently become available for analysing trends over time. The data used are drawn from a comparative cross-time data archive held by the Institute for Social and Economic Research at Essex University, comprising successive time-use diary surveys from a range of industrialized countries collected from the 1960s to the 1990s. The time use evidence suggests relative stability in the balance between work and leisure time over the period covered by the analyses. Some alternative explanations are advanced for why there seems to be a gap between this evidence and, on the one hand, the burgeoning literature in both academic and popular media addressing the 'time famine' and, on the other, people's professed experience of what is happening to their time.
138 citations
TL;DR: It is argued that for children, many of these policies represent attempts to increase the social control of children, and thus, in spite of the requirements of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, children continue to be marginalized.
Abstract: The recent move to revitalize social democracy in the UK under the New Labour government, explored by Giddens as 'the Third Way', embraces many of Etzioni's ideas on communitarianism. The principles that emerge from these political philosophies, such as the involvement of local communities in policy consultations and implementation, have largely been welcomed as a reflection of the aim of revitalizing civic society in the context of a range of social policies. It is argued, however, that for children, contrary to this general trend, many of these policies represent attempts to increase the social control of children. Their effect has been to restrict children's agency and their rights, rather than to increase their participation as citizens, and thus,in spite of the requirements of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, children continue to be marginalized.
97 citations
TL;DR: There is no significant difference between Christians and non-Christians concerning environmental attitudes; Roman Catholics are the most sceptic toward nature among Christian denominations; and irrespective of religious identification, the two most notable and consistent factors in determining pro-dominion attitudes in Britain are educational attainment and particularly levels of scientific knowledge about the natural environment.
Abstract: Religious institutions have been identified as important conduits in shaping social attitudes toward nature and the environment. Using Lynn White's historical thesis that Judeo-Christianity has cherished the domination of nature ('dominion' belief) by humans as our frame of reference, this article examines the impact of religion, specifically Abrahamic and Judeo-Christian beliefs, on environmental attitudes in Britain. Based on the 1993 British Social Attitudes Survey, a nationally representative sample of the adult population in Britain, the multivariate results of this paper suggest that: (a) there is no significant difference between Christians and non-Christians concerning environmental attitudes; (b) Roman Catholics are the most sceptic toward nature among Christian denominations; and (c) irrespective of religious identification, the two most notable and consistent factors in determining pro-dominion attitudes in Britain are educational attainment and particularly levels of scientific knowledge about the natural environment.
76 citations
TL;DR: It is found that age and educational differences in participation rates follow patterns expected on the basis of secularization theory with no evidence of resurgence among younger groups, however, Catholic participation rates are significantly higher than Orthodox ones, indicating the importance of denomination in understanding patterns of religiosity in the post-communist context.
Abstract: It is generally thought that processes of modernization generic to industrialized societies have resulted in a process of secularization with respect to conventional religious participation and observance in most Western countries. It is not at all clear, however, whether the post-communist societies of Eastern Europe have followed this pattern. In this we paper we examine whether levels of religiosity in ten post-communist societies – five generally Catholic in orientation and five Orthodox – are consistent with secularization theory, or whether instead they display, as some have suggested, the impact of seven decades of atheistic communism followed by a recent resurgence among the young. For this purpose we examine denominational membership and church attendance using descriptive and multivariate analysis of large-scale national sample surveys conducted in the mid-1990s. We find that age and educational differences in participation rates follow patterns expected on the basis of secularization theory with no evidence of resurgence among younger groups. Also, however, Catholic participation rates are significantly higher than Orthodox ones, indicating the importance of denomination in understanding patterns of religiosity in the post-communist context.
68 citations
TL;DR: Hypotheses on differentiated institutional barriers against pressures from the processes of transnationalization of the economy, as well as possible convergence effects of the supra-national policy making within the European Union, are discussed in the last section.
Abstract: Convergence of policies and institutions across countries has been a recurrent theme within social sciences. 'Old' and 'new' convergence hypotheses have been associated with changing concepts and catchwords, such as modernization, logic of industrialism, post-industrialism, post-Fordism and globalization, but share some underlying theoretical perspectives. The purpose of this paper is to analyse tendencies towards convergence of social insurance systems in 18 OECD countries between 1930 and 1990, a period which has seen our sample of countries develop from predominantly agricultural societies to industrial or post-industrial market democracies. Data from the Social Citizenship Indicator Program (SCIP) are used to examine the development of institutional variables within the various national social insurance systems. Sub-samples of larger and smaller countries are examined separately, in order to test the open-economy hypothesis that smaller countries, being more exposed to international pressures than larger ones, could be expected to show higher degrees of social protection and also more convergence. Hypotheses on differentiated institutional barriers against pressures from the processes of transnationalization of the economy, as well as possible convergence effects of the supra-national policy making within the European Union, are discussed in the last section.
63 citations
TL;DR: It is observed that the family of origin has not lost its importance for its sons' educational attainment and occupational status yet, and the effects of parental social class on educational attainment are smaller in technologically advanced societies.
Abstract: In this study, we present a comparative sibling analysis. This enables us to test two major social mobility hypotheses, i.e. the modernization hypothesis and the socialist ideology hypothesis. We employ survey data on brothers in England, Hungary, the Netherlands, Scotland, Spain, and the USA, covering a historical period from 1916 till 1990. Results show that the effects of parental social class on educational attainment are smaller in technologically advanced societies, and that the effects of parental social class on occupational status are smaller in social-democratic and communist societies. In addition, the total family impact on occupational status declines with modernization. But overall, we observe that the family of origin has not lost its importance for its sons' educational attainment and occupational status yet.
TL;DR: This essay begins with Hegel's figures of Master and Slave portraying the struggle of speech for recognition, which culminates in a duel for mastery, which implies the repression and silencing of the other's speech.
Abstract: In the present essay I intend to explore 'dialectical dialogue' in three distinct moments: the battle for recognition, the ethics of giving recognition, and the multiplicity of conversation. The essay begins with Hegel's figures of Master and Slave portraying the struggle of speech for recognition. This struggle culminates in a duel for mastery, which implies the repression and silencing of the other's speech. Ethical dialogue comes as a response to repressive silence, calling the other into egalitarian exchange. Ethical dialogue as such, however, remains within the dialectical framework of agonistic relations. To shift from dialectics to multiplicity, the essay turns from the politics of recognition to the poetics of conversation, to polyphony and to passage. I will follow the three moments both separately, through particular dialogic instances and theoretical perspectives, and as they develop, respond to, and shift from one to the other. Together they will portray an idea of the 'social' as a critical dialogic stance with its inherent dialectical betweenness and potential opening and expanding multiplicity.
TL;DR: It is shown that class crystallization processes that result from the differentiation of employment contracts in the marketplace produce a relatively common level of inequality of opportunity in Israel, across sub-populations and over time.
Abstract: Despite the fact that in many societies ethnicity plays an important role in stratification processes, a common view held by students of stratification argues that the role of ascriptive criteria in stratification processes is diminishing, and that the main axis of the modern stratification system is rooted in the division of labour in the marketplace. Despite this, most Israeli sociologists have taken the ethnic and national cleavages to be the main axes of stratification in Israel. This paper utilizes the 1974 and 1991 mobility surveys in Israel to examine changes over time in the association between ethnicity/nationality (i.e., Ashkenazi-Jews, Sephardi-Jews and Israeli-Arabs) and class position in the Israeli stratification structure. It also examines the extent to which inequality of opportunity within the Israeli class structure is affected by ethnicity/nationality. Here it is found that the ethnic/national cleavage in Israel appears to have played a less important role over time in the allocation of Israeli men to class positions. It is shown that class crystallization processes that result from the differentiation of employment contracts in the marketplace produce a relatively common level of inequality of opportunity in Israel, across sub-populations and over time. Any difference in the level of inequality of opportunity between the various sub-populations would appear to result, in part, from different historical process of, and government policy towards, the three sub-populations.
TL;DR: The research suggests that minority ethnic groups - especially women - will be disproportionately dependent on means-tested benefits in later life, due to the combined effects of low private pension coverage and the policy of shifting pension provision towards the private sector.
Abstract: This study examines the extent of ethnic disadvantage in private pension scheme arrangements and analyzes variation according to gender and specific ethnic group, using 3 years of the British Family Resources Survey, which provides information on over 97,000 adults aged 20-59, including over 5,700 from ethnic minorities. Both men and women in minority ethnic groups were less likely to have private pension coverage than their white counterparts but the extent of the difference was most marked for Pakistanis and Bangladeshis. Ethnicity interacted with gender, so that blacks showed the least gender inequality in private pension arrangements, reflecting the relatively similar full-time employment rates of black men and women. A minority ethnic disadvantage in private pension coverage, for both men and women, remained after taking account of age, marital and parental status, years of education, employment variables, class and income.
TL;DR: Analysis of managerial careers in six large firms that have experienced organizational restructuring finds some evidence of the shift predicted by these models amongst the younger generation of managers, but it is striking that not all young managers are able to take advantage of the opportunities offered by the new career model.
Abstract: This article examines the objective and subjective aspects of managerial careers in six large firms that have experienced organizational restructuring. We begin by assessing the dominant models of change in career structures, particularly those which emphasize the 'portfolio' route to career success. Although elements of the bureaucratic career remain, we find some evidence of the shift predicted by these models amongst the younger generation of managers. However, it is striking that not all young managers are able to take advantage of the opportunities offered by the new career model. Indeed, cultural capital has an increasing impact on career achievement. Younger managers are responding by reorienting away from organizational loyalty towards a concern with individual career projects.
TL;DR: The existence of the sociological critique of science, and SSK in particular, suggests that the meaning of science in modernity is not monolithic but multiple, arising out of a central dilemma over the universal form of knowledge-claims and their necessarily particular, human and social grounding.
Abstract: This paper contributes to the reappraisal of sociological theories of modernity inspired by the sociology of scientific knowledge (SSK). As much as these theories rely on received ideas about the nature of science that SSK has called into doubt, so do they rely on ideas about the public understanding of science. Public understanding of science has been assumed to conform to the monolithic logic and perception of science associated with rationalization, leading to an impoverished view of the cognitive outlook of the modern individual. Rationalization has become the basis for the construction of theoretical critique of science divorced from any clear reference to public understanding, with the result that theory has encountered considerable problems in accounting for public scepticism towards science. However, rather than question rationalization, the more typical strategy has been to propose radical changes in the modernization process, such as postmodernism and the risk society. Against this, an alternative view of public understanding is advanced drawn from SSK and rhetorical psychology. The existence of the sociological critique of science, and SSK in particular, suggests that the meaning of science in modernity is not monolithic but multiple, arising out of a central dilemma over the universal form of knowledge-claims and their necessarily particular, human and social grounding. This dilemma plays out not only in intellectual discourses about science, but also in the public's understanding of science. This argument is used to call for further sociological research into public understanding and to encourage sociologists to recognize the central importance of the topic to a proper understanding of modernity.
TL;DR: It is argued that the (dialectical) critical realist mode of abstraction ultimately fails to embed concepts and categories internally within the specific ideological and historical forms of social relations.
Abstract: A prominent strand within both sociological and social theory has been concerned to develop a 'systems approach' with which to explore social life One of the most original contributions to a systems approach has arisen within critical realism In particular critical realism demonstrates that it is possible to abstract the causal powers of different objects of analysis to examine their interaction within concrete and contingent 'open systems' The recent dialectical turn of critical realism develops this systems approach in a much more rigorous manner However, in this paper I argue that the (dialectical) critical realist mode of abstraction ultimately fails to embed concepts and categories internally within the specific ideological and historical forms of social relations Or rather, critical realists do not seek to develop concepts that reflect the self-movement of a historical and contradictory essence This self-movement is what I prefer to call a 'system' Consequently critical realists are led to separate method from system in theory construction and such a separation leads to a problematic dualist mode of theorizing I make these observations from a Hegelian-Marxist position
TL;DR: It is argued that the necessary condition to think sociologically about morality is the concept of reciprocity and thus one can arrive at a view of morality in postmodernity consistent with Bauman's earlier theory of practice.
Abstract: Bauman's attempt to develop a sociological theory of morality turning around fundamental premises of Durkheim's approach fails in the last analysis, since in Bauman's view the 'moral party of two' does not constitute a social situation. It is argued that the necessary condition to think sociologically about morality is the concept of reciprocity and thus one can arrive at a view of morality in postmodernity consistent with Bauman's earlier theory of practice. If Bauman's idea about responsibilty as the core of morality is transformed to the idea of an appeal of history to compassion and is supplemented with the idea of reciprocity as an emerging norm it is possible to outline a sociological theory of moral practice according to postmodern conditions.
TL;DR: Polanyi's relevance for social theory is explicated, through a comparison with Weber's essay 'Science as a Vocation', and an understanding of the personal dimensions of trust and authority in science suggests practical limits to the position of Giddens on the disembedding of social relations and on the scepticism and reflexivity of modernity.
Abstract: Science, as an institution, is widely taken by sociologists to exemplify the modern tendency towards vesting trust and authority in impersonal offices and procedures, rather than in embodied human individuals. Such views of science face an important challenge in the social philosophy of Michael Polanyi. His work provides important insights into the continuing role of embodied personal authority and tradition in science and, hence, in late modernity. I explicate Polanyi's relevance for social theory, through a comparison with Weber's essay 'Science as a Vocation'. An understanding of the personal dimensions of trust and authority in science suggests practical limits to the position of Giddens on the disembedding of social relations and on the scepticism and reflexivity of modernity.
TL;DR: Overall, colonial rule did not simply diffuse modern science from the core to the periphery, Rather the colonial encounter led to the development of new forms of scientific knowledge and institutions both in the periphery and the core.
Abstract: In this paper, the role of scientific knowledge, institutions and colonialism in mutually co-producing each other is analysed. Under the overarching rubric of colonial structures and imperatives, amateur scientists sought to deploy scientific expertise to expand the empire while at the same time seeking to take advantage of the opportunities to develop their careers as 'scientists'. The role of a complex interplay of structure and agency in the development of modern science, not just in India but in Britain too is analysed. The role of science and technology in the incorporation of South Asian into the modern world system, as well as the consequences of the emergent structures in understanding the trajectory of modern science in post-colonial India is examined. Overall, colonial rule did not simply diffuse modern science from the core to the periphery. Rather the colonial encounter led to the development of new forms of scientific knowledge and institutions both in the periphery and the core.
TL;DR: Japan's distinctive pattern of postwar social mobility is characterized by a combination of rapidly changing absolute mobility rates and comparatively stable relative mobility rates, reflecting the Japanese experience of late but rapid industrialization.
Abstract: This study examines intergenerational class mobility in Japan using cross-national comparisons with Western nations and cross-temporal comparisons of five national surveys conducted in postwar Japan. Cross-national comparisons highlight the similarity in relative mobility pattern between Japan and Western nations and at the same time the Japanese distinctiveness in absolute mobility rates especially regarding the demographic character of the Japanese manual working class. The results of cross-temporal comparisons of mobility pattern report some systematic trends in total mobility, inflow and outflow rates, reflecting the Japanese experience of late but rapid industrialization. The pattern of association between class origin and class destination, however, was stable in postwar Japan. It is therefore the combination of distinctive absolute mobility rates and similar relative mobility rates that characterizes the Japanese mobility pattern in comparison with the Western experience. Furthermore, Japan's distinctive pattern of postwar social mobility is characterized by a combination of rapidly changing absolute mobility rates and comparatively stable relative mobility rates.
TL;DR: It is shown that the historical context and the minority position of religious group should be taken into account in explanations which relate modernization to the pattern of religious intermarriage.
Abstract: There are strong theoretical reasons for hypothesizing that those sections of the population who are most exposed to modernization processes are more likely to marry outside their own religious group. We examine this for Catholic-Protestant intermarriage in the Republic of Ireland. We use a multivariate analysis on survey data to test the hypotheses that urban dwellers, persons of non-farming parents, persons with higher levels of education and the young are more likely to be religiously intermarried. While the odds of being in an intermarriage are greater for urban dwellers, this is in large part due to their being non-farmers. The farming effect is not necessarily related to religiosity. The odds of being in an intermarriage do not increase significantly for persons with third level education and this can be explained in terms of the marriage market for minority groups. It is shown that the historical context and the minority position of religious group should be taken into account in explanations which relate modernization to the pattern of religious intermarriage.
TL;DR: An empirical comparison of the BSE-related risk-constructions of five business associations in the German meat industry sector shows that the associations construct the risk in close relation to their horizons of globalization, thereby reflecting provision problems, which the companies they are representing face.
Abstract: This article examines the BSE problem as an example of the 'globalization of risk'. In order to determine whether the 'globalization of risk' is a social construction depending on the context, the paper emphasizes the particular role of organizations. It makes an empirical comparison of the BSE-related risk-constructions of five business associations in the German meat industry sector. The results show that the associations construct the risk in close relation to their horizons of globalization, thereby reflecting provision problems, which the companies they are representing face. While the main organizational domains in the sector tried to cope with the risk problem by different means of local market 'closure', one association, founded in reaction to the BSE problem, took over a 'reflexive' role with regard to the emerging risk communication on BSE in Germany.
TL;DR: There is no evidence that Catholics' constitutional preferences are related to their mobility experiences, and the relationship between social mobility and constitutional preferences and political preferences among Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland is examined.
Abstract: During the past thirty years Catholics in Northern Ireland have experienced unprecedented upward social mobility. Some commentators have suggested that this has led Catholics not merely to adopt the lifestyles of the middle class but also to modify their constitutional preferences, leading to a decline in nationalism. In this paper I examine the relationship between social mobility, on the one hand, and, on the other, both constitutional preferences and political (left or right wing) preferences among Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland, using survey data collected in 1996. There is no evidence that Catholics' constitutional preferences are related to their mobility experiences.
TL;DR: This paper examines urban China's socio-political control crisis under the impact of economic reforms as an epitome of a more general social crisis.
Abstract: This paper examines urban China's socio-political control crisis under the impact of economic reforms as an epitome of a more general social crisis. The traditional urban institutional form of socio-political control in the People's Republic of China (PRC), the work unit form of control, is a variant of age-old forms. The latter's reproduction in variant form in the former was premised upon the fact that the PRC's industrialization was carried out by a peasant-based party creating a new working class of rural migrants engaged in non-market production and exchange. The persistence of non-market economic relations ensured this form of control's continued reproduction. Post-1978 market-oriented reforms have undermined this form. As the emergence of new forms has been slow, a socio-political control crisis has arisen, at a time when millions of urban employees are being thrown out of work. In dealing with the crisis, the official trade union, an organic constituent institution of the work unit form of control, plays a prominent part, in being given the tasks of sustaining this decaying form, and preventing and defusing potential social explosion. Yet, the very economic reform programme that has undermined the work unit form of control, is also gravely weakening the union.
TL;DR: The paper reveals the complexity and fragility of the circumstances of these entrepreneurs and suggests that commentary in both Russia and the West that pins its hopes for social stability on the emergence of a new property owning middle class in Russia are, at best, premature.
Abstract: The paper seeks to explore via a series of interview-based case studies aspects of the emergence of an entrepreneurial middle-class in Russia. The paper notes the origins of those studied in the professional or highly skilled workers in the former Soviet Union. The paper reveals the complexity and fragility of the circumstances of these entrepreneurs and suggests that commentary in both Russia and the West that pins its hopes for social stability on the emergence of a new property owning middle class in Russia are, at best, premature.
TL;DR: Whether the increased entry of women, particularly married women, into the labour market challenges the conventional way of assigning class positions to women by simply deriving them from their husband's class positions is discussed.
Abstract: The main purpose of this study is to examine how to determine the class position of women, especially married women, in Japan. This study examines three different approaches to conceptualizing women's position in the class structure: the conventional approach, the individual approach, and the dominance approach. Since 1975, the overall rate of female labour force participation in Japan has increased, and given this growth, particularly of employees working outside home, I discuss whether the increased entry of women, particularly married women, into the labour market challenges the conventional way of assigning class positions to women by simply deriving them from their husband's class positions. The data set used in this study is derived from the 1995 Japanese Social Stratification and Mobility Survey. An examination of class distributions suggests that the pictures of macro-class structure provided by the conventional approach and the dominance approach show very little difference. Married women who belong to the female-dominant family still form a very small minority of all married women in the society. Furthermore, the male-dominant family shows the greatest stability over the life course whereas the female-dominant family, where the wife experiences withdrawal from the labour market, is least stable. The increasing number of married women in the labour market, thus, has not yet become a major threat to the conventional way of assigning women to a class position in contemporary Japan. Women, even among those working on a full-time basis, perceive their position in the stratification system using not only their own work, but also their husband's. In contrast, men's perception is determined by their own education and employment, not by their wives'. This asymmetry in the effect of the husband's class and of the wife's class on class identification is related not only to gender inequality within the labour market but also to the division of labour by gender within the household.
TL;DR: It is concluded that the practical value of social scientific knowledge is not dependent on a faithful, in the sense of complete, representation of social reality and has to attend and attach itself to elements of social situations that can be altered or are actionable.
Abstract: The assertion about the unique 'complexity' or the peculiarly intricate character of social phenomena has, at least within sociology, a long, venerable and virtually uncontested tradition. At the turn of the last century, classical social theorists, for example, Georg Simmel and Emile Durkheim, made prominent and repeated reference to this attribute of the subject matter of sociology and the degree to which it complicates, even inhibits the development and application of social scientific knowledge. Our paper explores the origins, the basis and the consequences of this assertion and asks in particular whether the classic complexity assertion still deserves to be invoked in analyses that ask about the production and the utilization of social scientific knowledge in modern society. We present John Maynard Keynes' economic theory and its practical applications as an illustration. We conclude that the practical value of social scientific knowledge is not dependent on a faithful, in the sense of complete, representation of social reality. Instead, social scientific knowledge that wants to optimize its practicality has to attend and attach itself to elements of social situations that can be altered or are actionable.
TL;DR: The paper suggests an enlargement, through the addition of a proposed conceptual tool, of the framework that comprises Weber's typology of social action, and argues that the common human properties of the person in whom social action is embedded should not arbitrarily exclude questions of the genesis of values.
Abstract: This paper is concerned with the implications for conceptualizing social action which arise from a consideration of whether human beings are capable of knowing ultimate (universal, unconditionally valid) values. This issue is framed within the view that the validity of our understanding of social action is inextricably linked with the validity of our conception of humankind: the scope and variety of social action has potentialities and limitations that are inscribed by the nature of human beings qua human beings. The paper suggests an enlargement, through the addition of a proposed conceptual tool, of the framework that comprises Weber's typology of social action. It argues that the common human properties of the person in whom social action is embedded should not arbitrarily exclude questions of the genesis of values. An analytical argument is put forward through an examination of the extent to which a faculty for values insights is implicated in Weber's concept of charisma and ethical analysis of political leadership. The notion of values-intuitive rational action is then outlined and discussed. The analytical argument is supported by theorizing from developmental psychology and examples of such action are given. Methodological difficulties in investigating the latter and the interrelationship of such action with institutional and social contexts are briefly discussed.