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Showing papers in "British Journal of Sociology in 2013"


Journal ArticleDOI
Vikki Boliver1
TL;DR: The empirical findings show that access to Russell Group universities is far from fair in this sense and that little changed following the introduction of tuition fees in 1998 and their initial increase to £3,000 a year in 2006.
Abstract: Now that most UK universities have increased their tuition fees to £9,000 a year and are implementing new Access Agreements as required by the Office for Fair Access, it has never been more important to examine the extent of fair access to UK higher education and to more prestigious UK universities in particular. This paper uses Universities and Colleges Admissions Service (UCAS) data for the period 1996 to 2006 to explore the extent of fair access to prestigious Russell Group universities, where ‘fair’ is taken to mean equal rates of making applications to and receiving offers of admission from these universities on the part of those who are equally qualified to enter them. The empirical findings show that access to Russell Group universities is far from fair in this sense and that little changed following the introduction of tuition fees in 1998 and their initial increase to £3,000 a year in 2006. Throughout this period, UCAS applicants from lower class backgrounds and from state schools remained much less likely to apply to Russell Group universities than their comparably qualified counterparts from higher class backgrounds and private schools, while Russell Group applicants from state schools and from Black and Asian ethnic backgrounds remained much less likely to receive offers of admission from Russell Group universities in comparison with their equivalently qualified peers from private schools and the White ethnic group.

339 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Occupy Wall Street was a thrilling protest that briefly dominated media attention and reshaped American public life, but it was perhaps more moment than movement, and it is important to distinguish specific protests and other relatively short-term manifestations from longer-term patterns of action seeking to produce major changes.
Abstract: Occupy Wall Street was a thrilling protest that briefly dominated media attention and reshaped American public life.As Todd Gitlin suggests, it was perhaps more moment than movement, but of course moments can be very important to movements. Movements are relatively long-term collective engagements in producing or guiding social change. Indeed, in the nineteenth century, the term social movement was often used to describe the actual course of social change, especially change bringing broader social participation. The term is now used to describe all manner of mobilizations, but it is important to distinguish specific protests and other relatively short-term manifestations from longer-term patterns of action seeking to produce major changes. Movements often proceed in alternating phases of intense public action and seeming dormancy, and much of the work that shapes the long term is in fact done during what appear superficially to be mere spaces between waves of activism. The waves, moreover, are often conjunctures among multiple movements. In the 1960s, for example, people were mobilized not only around peace (or against a specific war), but also in the civil rights struggle, union struggles, the women’s movement, the environmental movement and so forth. Likewise the Progressive Era saw a wave in which mobilizations for many causes around labour, immigration, women’s suffrage and other issues reinforced each other in a field of movement activity. The same goes for the era of the Second Great Awakening with religious revitalization itself, temperance, labour, women’s and above all anti-slavery movements. So there is no shame in being more moment than movement. It is no denigration of Occupy Wall Street (or the Occupy movement(s) more generally) to say it may not have a future as such. It may be a shaping influence on a range of movements and on the course of social change even if there is no continuing movement under the Occupy name. Even at its height, it was a loose-knit coalition among activists with a variety of different primary concerns: labour conditions in Walmart, fracking and energy policies, financial

192 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, an analysis of the Chinese concept guanxi is presented, including its possible association with corrupt practices and its particular cultural characteristics, and the possibility of conceiving Guanxi as a variant form of social capital is explored, which shows the way in which both the expressive and instrumentalized forms of Guansxi indicate otherwise neglected aspects of social and economic relationships not always recognized and addressed by analogous terms current in social theory but which are none the less important for its advancement.
Abstract: Western theoretical traditions can benefit from systematic engagement with non-Western concepts: This is shown through an analysis of the Chinese concept guanxi. After considering the general nature of guanxi, including its possible association with corrupt practices and its particular cultural characteristics, the paper goes on to identify the elements of its general form which have universal representation. The possibility of conceiving guanxi as a variant form of social capital is explored. This shows the way in which both the expressive and instrumentalized forms of guanxi indicate otherwise neglected aspects of social and economic relationships not always recognized and addressed by analogous terms current in social theory but which are none the less important for its advancement.

107 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
Dean Curran1
TL;DR: This paper argues that it is Beck's undifferentiated, catastrophic account of risk that undergirds his rejection of class, and that by inserting an account ofrisk involving gradations in both damages and calculability into Beck's framework, his theory of risk society may be used to develop a critical theory of class.
Abstract: Ulrich Beck states in the Risk Society (1992) that the rise of the social production of risks in the risk society signals that class ceases to be of relevance; instead the hierarchical logic of class will be supplanted by the egalitarian logic of the distribution of risks. Several trenchant critiques of Beck's claim have justified the continued relevance of class to contemporary society. While these accounts have emphasized continuity, they have not attempted to chart, as this paper will, how the growing social production of risk increases the importance of class. This paper argues that it is Beck's undifferentiated, catastrophic account of risk that undergirds his rejection of class, and that by inserting an account of risk involving gradations in both damages and calculability into Beck's framework, his theory of risk society may be used to develop a critical theory of class. Such a theory can be used to reveal how wealth differentials associated with class relations actually increase in importance to individuals' life-chances in the risk society. With the growing production and distribution of bads, class inequalities gain added significance, since it will be relative wealth differentials that both enables the advantaged to minimize their risk exposure and imposes on others the necessity of facing the intensified risks of the risk society.

85 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: This article looks at contemporary expressions of 'generationalism' in British public life, and identifies the salient themes which emerge, links these to the social and political contexts in which these ideas are produced, and examines the points where they are vulnerable to critique.
Abstract: Often, and increasingly, social and political life is narrated using the concept of generation. This article looks at contemporary expressions of 'generationalism' in British public life. It identifies the salient themes which emerge, links these to the social and political contexts in which these ideas are produced, and examines the points where they are vulnerable to critique. Bridging science and normativity, the generational view offers a convenient master-narrative for a variety of political orientations - yet one whose democratic credentials are doubtful.

83 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
Todd Gitlin1
TL;DR: The outlook for the effectiveness of the movement is decidedly limited unless an alliance of disparate groups develops to press for reforms within the political system.
Abstract: Occupy Wall Street has stalled in its attempt to make a transition from a moment to a movement. It had a sizable impact upon the presidential election, driving America's political centre of gravity toward the left, but has been unable or unwilling to evolve beyond its original core into a ‘full-service movement’ that welcomes contributions from a wide range of activists at varying levels of commitment and skill and plausibly campaigns for substantial reforms. In contrast to earlier American social movements of the twentieth century, the Occupy movement began with a large popular base of support. Propped up by that support, its ‘inner movement’ of core activists with strong anarchist and ‘horizontalist’ beliefs transformed the political environment even as they disdained formal reform demands and conducted decisions in a demanding, fully participatory manner. But the core was deeply suspicious of the ‘cooptive’ and ‘hierarchical’ tendencies of the unions and membership organizations – the ‘outer movement’ – whose supporters made up the bulk of the participants who turned out for Occupy's large demonstrations. The ‘inner movement's’ awkward fit with that ‘outer movement’ blocked transformation into an enduring structure capable of winning substantial reforms over time. When the encampments were dispersed by governmental authorities, the core lost its ability to convert electronic communications into the energy and community that derive from face-to-face contact. The outlook for the effectiveness of the movement is decidedly limited unless an alliance of disparate groups develops to press for reforms within the political system.

80 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: This article uses convention theory and a pluralist understanding of social goods to investigate how the social good of the environment is usurped by the alternate socialgood of the market and its conversion into a market commodity.
Abstract: A key response to environmental degradation, climate change and declining biodiversity has been the growing adoption of market principles in an effort to better value the social good of nature. Through concepts such as 'natural capitalism' and 'corporate environmentalism', nature is increasingly viewed as a domain of capitalist endeavour. In this article, we use convention theory and a pluralist understanding of social goods to investigate how the social good of the environment is usurped by the alternate social good of the market. Through analysis of interviews with sustainability managers and corporate documentation, we highlight how organizational actors employ compromise to temporally settle disputes between competing claims about environmental activities. Our findings contribute to an understanding of the processes of empirically grounded critique and the under-theorized concept of compromise between social goods. Rather than protecting the environment, the corporate promotion of sustainability facilitates the corruption of the social good of the environment and its conversion into a market commodity.

77 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: 'class' is too soft a category to capture the explosiveness of social inequality in world risk society, and those who reduce the problematic of risk to that of the life chances of individuals are unable to grasp the conflicting social and political logics of risk and class conflicts.
Abstract: We can distinguish four positions on the continuing, or maybe even increasing, relevance of the category of class at the beginning of the twenty-first century depending on the extent to which they accord central importance to (1) the reproduction or (2) the transformation of social classes with regard to (3) the distribution of goods without bads or (4) the distribution of goods and bads. One could say that Dean Curran introduces the concept of 'risk-class' to radicalize the class distribution of risk and charts who will able to occupy areas less exposed to risk and who will have little choice but to occupy areas that are exposed to the brunt of the fact of the risk society. As he mentioned it is important to note that this social structuring of the distribution of bads will be affected not only by class, but also by other forms of social structuration of disadvantage, such as gender and race. In order to demonstrate that the distribution of bads is currently exacerbating class differences in life chances, however, Curran concentrates exclusively on phenomena of individual risks. In the process, he overlooks the problem of systemic risks in relation of the state, science, new corporate roles, management the mass media, law, mobile capital and social movements; at the same time, his conceptual frame of reference does not really thematize the interdependence between individual and systemic risks. Those who reduce the problematic of risk to that of the life chances of individuals are unable to grasp the conflicting social and political logics of risk and class conflicts. Or, to put it pointedly: 'class' is too soft a category to capture the explosiveness of social inequality in world risk society.

70 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: If overseas gap years, often put forward in the UK as a way of becoming a global citizen, enable young Britons to 'broaden their mind' is considered, and representations of the people and places encountered during these periods of time out are explored through an analysis of young people's travel blogs.
Abstract: This paper engages with debates surrounding contemporary cosmopolitanism and the outcomes of cultural encounters. It considers if overseas gap years, often put forward in the UK as a way of becoming a global citizen, enable young Britons to ‘broaden their mind’. I explore representations of the people and places encountered during these periods of time out through an analysis of young people’s travel blogs. Four key themes are highlighted in these narratives: the exotic place; feeling ‘out of place’; the importance and outcomes of local interaction; and the historical legacies that are implicated in constructing places as ‘different’. Gappers display a willingness to interact with and gain knowledge about their host communities. Yet as gap years are designed to be distinct from the normal course of things, they also demonstrate the ‘difference’ of places. This can often result in the reproduction of established ways of representing the Other in order to frame them as meaningful. There is a tension in the narratives between ‘globally reflexive’ and ‘globally reproductive’ representations of difference, and I suggest that we might question the development of cosmopolitan attitudes and competencies through undertaking a gap year.

67 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: An analytical framework is developed that draws together recent research on everyday nationalism with micro-sociological and psychological studies pointing to the importance of routine practices, institutional arrangements and symbolic systems in contributing to a relatively settled sense of identity, place and community.
Abstract: This paper explores the reasons why national forms of identification and organization (might) matter in the contemporary era. In contrast to the majority of macro-sociological work dealing with this topic, I develop an analytical framework that draws together recent research on everyday nationalism with micro-sociological and psychological studies pointing to the importance of routine practices, institutional arrangements and symbolic systems in contributing to a relatively settled sense of identity, place and community. The second part of the paper focuses on the hierarchies of belonging that operate within a given national setting. Of particular interest is the largely taken-for-granted status of the ethnic majority and the degree to which it underpins claims to belonging and entitlement that are used to secure key allocative and authoritative resources.

62 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
Magne Flemmen1
TL;DR: Through a critique of some recent attempts by British authors to develop a 'Bourdieusian' class theory, the paper reasserts the centrality of the relations of power and domination that used to be the domain of class analysis.
Abstract: Recent developments in class analysis, particularly associated with so-called 'cultural class analysis'; have seen the works of Pierre Bourdieu take centre stage. Apart from the general influence of 'habitus' and 'cultural capital', some scholars have tried to reconstruct class analysis with concepts drawn from Bourdieu. This involves a theoretical reorientation, away from the conventional concerns of class analysis with property and market relations, towards an emphasis on the multiple forms of capital. Despite the significant potential of these developments, such a reorientation dismisses or neglects the relations of power and domination founded in the economic institutions of capitalism as a crucial element of what class is. Through a critique of some recent attempts by British authors to develop a 'Bourdieusian' class theory, the paper reasserts the centrality of the relations of power and domination that used to be the domain of class analysis. The paper suggests some elements central to a reworked class analysis that benefits from the power of Bourdieu's ideas while retaining a perspective on the fundamentals of class relations in capitalism.

Journal ArticleDOI
Karen Foster1
TL;DR: It is proposed that cohort is only convenient if the objective is understanding generations as definitive groups of people, and suggests a supplementary objective: understanding generation as a matter of discourse.
Abstract: Following Mannheim's (1970) Problem of Generations, many scholars have warned of the analytical and political risks of conflating generation with cohort. Yet the temptation persists, as relying on cohort is a convenient method of dividing a population to study it. This article proposes that cohort is only convenient if the objective is understanding generations as definitive groups of people. It suggests a supplementary objective: understanding generation as a matter of discourse. Qualitative data from interviews with 52 Canadians illustrates how the discursive forms of generation in their stories render difference, human agency and social change in atomistic or voluntaristic terms. The most extreme manifestations of this theme appear related to the perception of generational conflict. Guided by James' principle of pragmatism, this article maintains that understanding generation as a discursive, historically contingent 'thought' with 'effects' is as important as understanding its structural form and contents.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: It is argued that an affective approach to resistance would pay attention to those barely perceptible transitions in power and mobilizations of bodily potential that operate below the conscious perceptions and subjective emotions of social actors, which constitute a new site at which both power and resistance operate.
Abstract: This paper re-examines the sociological study of resistance in light of growing interest in the concept of affect. Recent claims that we are witness to an ‘affective turn’ and calls for a ‘new sociological empiricism’ sensitive to affect indicate an emerging paradigm shift in sociology. Yet, mainstream sociological study of resistance tends to have been largely unaffected by this shift. To this end, this paper presents a case for the significance of affect as a lens by which to approach the study of resistance. My claim is not simply that the forms of actions we would normally recognize as resistance have an affective dimension. Rather, it is that the theory of affect broadens ‘resistance’ beyond the purview of the two dominant modes of analysis in sociology; namely, the study of macropolitical forms, on the one hand, and the micropolitics of everyday resistance on the other. This broadened perspective challenges the persistent assumption that ideological forms of power and resistance are the most pertinent to the contemporary world, suggesting that much power and resistance today is of a more affective nature. In making this argument, it is a Deleuzian reading of affect that is pursued, which opens up to a level of analysis beyond the common understanding of affect as emotion. I argue that an affective approach to resistance would pay attention to those barely perceptible transitions in power and mobilizations of bodily potential that operate below the conscious perceptions and subjective emotions of social actors. These affective transitions constitute a new site at which both power and resistance operate.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The class-origin wage gap varies considerably across labour market segments, such as those defined by educational levels, fields of education, industries and occupations in both seemingly unsystematic and conspicuous ways.
Abstract: This paper uses unique population-level matched employer-employee data on monthly wages to analyse class-origin wage gaps in the Swedish labour market. Education is the primary mediator of class origin advantages in the labour market, but mobility research often only considers the vertical dimension of education. When one uses an unusually detailed measure of education in a horizontal dimension, the wage gap between individuals of advantaged and disadvantaged class origin is found to be substantial (4-5 per cent), yet considerably smaller than when measures are used which only control for level of education and field of study. This is also the case for models with class or occupation as outcome. The class-origin wage gap varies considerably across labour market segments, such as those defined by educational levels, fields of education, industries and occupations in both seemingly unsystematic and conspicuous ways. The gap is small in the public sector, suggesting that bureaucracy may act as a leveller.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: This paper examines the consequences of the recent economic downturn and UK government spending cuts on temporal perception, specifically as it relates to the adaptation of subjective anticipations of and projections into the future to objective prospects of unemployment by class.
Abstract: This paper examines the consequences of the recent economic downturn and UK government spending cuts, as exacerbations of prevailing trends in neoliberal employment policy, on temporal perception, specifically as it relates to the adaptation of subjective anticipations of and projections into the future to objective prospects of unemployment by class. Grounded in a phenomenologically-minded Bourdieusian conceptualization of class and time and contextualized by statistics on chances of job loss, it draws on qualitative research with 57 individuals from across the class structure to chart differing dispositions toward the future. In particular, it distinguishes three orientations - the future as controllable, the future as uncontrollable and the future as reasonably controllable - which appear to correspond with resources possessed.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The debate about value-free social science is also part of an epistemological counterrevolution of humanists (including many sociologists) against the more scientific social scientists who invaded and threatened to expropriate the human subject during the past century.
Abstract: A value judgment says what is good or bad, and value-free social science simply means social science free of value judgments. Yet many sociologists regard value-free social science as undesirable or impossible and readily make value judgments in the name of sociology. Often they display confusion about such matters as the meaning of value-free social science, value judgments internal and external to social science, value judgments as a subject of social science, the relevance of objectivity for value-free social science, and the difference between the human significance of social science and value-free social science. But why so many sociologists are so value-involved - and generally so unscientific - is sociologically understandable: The closest and most distant subjects attract the least scientific ideas. And during the past century sociologists have become increasingly close to their human subject. The debate about value-free social science is also part of an epistemological counterrevolution of humanists (including many sociologists) against the more scientific social scientists who invaded and threatened to expropriate the human subject during the past century.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: It is argued that gambling is a paradigmatic form of consumption that captures the intensified logic at the heart of late modern capitalist societies, and that a deeper understanding of the political and cultural economy of gambling environments is necessary, and a synoptic overview of the conditions upon which gambling expansion is based is provided.
Abstract: This article argues that gambling is a paradigmatic form of consumption that captures the intensified logic at the heart of late modern capitalist societies. As well as a site of intensified consumption, it claims that gambling has also become the location of what has been described as a new form of ‘social pathology’ related to excess play. Drawing on Castells' (1996) notion of techno-economic systems, it explores the ways that intersections between technology, capital and states have generated the conditions for this situation, and critiques the unequal distribution of gambling environments that result. It argues that, while the products of these systems are consumed on a global scale, the risks associated with them tend to be articulated in bio-psychological discourses of ‘pathology’ which are typical of certain types of knowledge that have salience in neo-liberal societies, and which work to conceal wider structural relationships. We argue that a deeper understanding of the political and cultural economy of gambling environments is necessary, and provide a synoptic overview of the conditions upon which gambling expansion is based. This perspective highlights parallels with the wider global economy of finance capital, as well as the significance of intensified consumption, of which gambling is an exemplary instance. It also reveals the existence of a geo-political dispersal of ‘harms’, conceived as deteriorations of financial, temporal and social relationships, which disproportionately affect vulnerable social groups. From this, we urge an understanding of commercial gambling based on a critique of the wider social body of gambling environments within techno economic systems, rather than the (flawed) individual bodies within them.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: It is argued that the enduring role of education in the formation of national identities should not be overlooked and that more detailed research is needed on the contextual specifity of transnationalism and the (re)production of elites.
Abstract: There is increasing interest in the emergence of a ‘global middle class’ in which high achieving young graduates increasingly look to develop careers that transcend national boundaries. This paper explores this issue through comparing and contrasting the aspirations and orientations of two ‘elite’ cohorts of graduates. Interviews with students at the University of Oxford, England, and Sciences-Po, France, reveal very different ambitions and allegiances. Our Oxford respondents portray their futures as projects of self-fulfilment as they build portfolio careers by moving from job to job and from country to country with limited social allegiances – epitomizing the nomadic worker of the transnational elite. Our Parisian respondents, on the other hand, display strong allegiances to the nation, state and civic duty. Their projects of the self involve reconciling their personal aspirations with strong allegiances to France. The paper concludes by discussing the significance of these differences. It argues that the enduring role of education in the formation of national identities should not be overlooked and that more detailed research is needed on the contextual specifity of transnationalism and the (re)production of elites.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: An interactionist account of mistreatment of older people in long-term care settings such as care homes and hospitals is presented, and it is argued that 'malignant' positioning can contribute to the creation of a climate that allows mistreatment to take place, or fails to prohibit its development.
Abstract: This article draws on a study aimed at developing theoretical and methodological understanding of the abuse and neglect (mistreatment) of older people in long-term care settings such as care homes and hospitals. It presents an interactionist account of mistreatment of older people in such establishments. Starting with an outline of definitional issues surrounding the topic, the allied concept of dignity is also briefly explored, and one important model described; we present dignity as the converse of mistreatment. The article argues for the potential of a positioning theory analysis of mistreatment. Positioning theory proposes that interactions are based on taking of 'positions', clusters of rights and duties to act in certain ways and impose particular meanings, which enable or prohibit access to certain storylines. It is argued that 'malignant' positioning can contribute to the creation of a climate that allows mistreatment to take place, or fails to prohibit its development. Mistreatment of people with dementia is used as an illustration, and it is argued that this is potentially generated by negative feedback loops of behaviour patterns, interpretations and malignant positioning by staff or family carers and subsequent response to these interpretations by the person with dementia. Positioning theory also allows for an explanation of the importance and impact of organizational cultures and social factors such as ageism. Individual staff members take positions, use meanings and develop storylines imbued with such factors. This understanding therefore overcomes some of the potential confusions created by concepts such as organizational or institutional abuse, removing the need to ascribe intentions and personal responsibility to such constructs. The article concludes with some suggestions for further research to develop an understanding of the kinds of cultures that allow mistreatment and consequently to inform the development of protective measures.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: A reconstructed Weberian conception of the problem of suffering is described, highlighting Weber's account of the tendency for problems of suffering to increase in volume and scale along with the intensification and spread of modern processes of rationalization.
Abstract: This article documents and analyses a reconstructed Weberian conception of the problem of suffering. In this setting a focus is brought to how the problem of suffering is constituted in the dynamic interplay between, on the one hand, the compulsion to impose rational sense and order on the world, and on the other, the necessity to find a means to satiate charismatic needs. The discussion highlights Weber's account of the tendency for problems of suffering to increase in volume and scale along with the intensification and spread of modern processes of rationalization. It offers a case for the development of further sociological inquiries into the role played by experiences of the problem of suffering within the dynamics of social and cultural change.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: By analysing the founding and disbanding rates of Turkish immigrant organizations in Amsterdam and Berlin during the period 1965-2000, the article demonstrates how the increasing density of Turkish ideologies has affected interdependencies in two main ways: by heightening competition, particularly between ideologically similar organizations, and by increasing counter activities between opposing movements.
Abstract: This article seeks to understand environmental effects on associational interdependencies, be they competitive or collaborative, in a polarized organizational population. To do so, it builds on the density-dependent model and the ecology of ideologies. Especially interested in the effect of context on density-dependent processes, I compare different Turkish ideological movements in Amsterdam and Berlin. Amsterdam represents an open and supportive environment for such movements, whereas Berlin constitutes a more closed and hostile one. By analysing the founding and disbanding rates of Turkish immigrant organizations in Amsterdam and Berlin during the period 1965-2000, the article demonstrates how the increasing density of Turkish ideologies has affected interdependencies in two main ways: by heightening competition, particularly between ideologically similar organizations, and by increasing counter activities between opposing movements. It also shows that the influence of context is limited. An open environment does not significantly influence the vitality rates of ideologies or further collaboration among or between them. On the contrary, it seemingly increases competition and fragmentation because more resources and opportunities are available. More signs of collaboration and mutualism are found in Berlin's closed environment.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: A comprehensive analysis of the mechanisms that link class position and left/right and authoritarian/libertarian orientations is presented, suggesting that besides factors such as class position, income, education and class identification, work-related aspects need to be considered to derive a more complete understanding of the distribution of ideological orientations in Western societies.
Abstract: Studies of the relationship between class position and political outlooks still only have a limited understanding of the class-related mechanisms that matter for ideological orientations. This article presents a comprehensive analysis of the mechanisms that link class position and left/right and authoritarian/libertarian orientations. Besides main factors such as income, career prospects, job security, education, class origin and class identification, the significance of work-related factors such as work autonomy, working in a team, a physically demanding job and a mentally demanding job is studied. The findings are based on a survey specifically designed for this purpose and collected in Sweden in 2008/2009. A great deal of the association between class position and left/right orientations is explained by socio-economic conditions; different classes sympathize with policies that will benefit them economically. Another important factor is class identification. Work-related factors also have relevance, but the effect of class position on left/right orientations works mainly through the remuneration system. Class position is also related to authoritarian/libertarian orientations. However, this relationship is less explained by socio-economic position per se, but is rather an effect of the educational system and its allocation of the workforce into different class positions. It also turns out that work-related factors do not explain the class effects; however, a physically demanding job shows a unique effect. Overall, our findings suggest that besides factors such as class position, income, education and class identification, we need to consider work-related aspects to derive a more complete understanding of the distribution of ideological orientations in Western societies.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The article highlights communication problems lay people encountered relating to courtroom conventions, discusses alternative procedures granting more room for narrative testimony, and draws parallels between such an approach and principles of research methods directed to securing valid, reliable data.
Abstract: The article considers the effect of criminal trial procedures on the experience at court of victims, witnesses and defendants. Trials for offences involving physical violence were observed, and interviews conducted with those involved. The article highlights communication problems lay people encountered relating to courtroom conventions, discusses alternative procedures granting more room for narrative testimony, and draws parallels between such an approach and principles of research methods directed to securing valid, reliable data.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: It is argued that if paired with a liberal commitment to pluralism, a Christian identity might even be more inclusive of minority religions than a narrowly 'liberal' state identity, which has been the dominant response in Western Europe to the challenge of immigrant diversity.
Abstract: It seems to be impossible for the liberal state to embrace a Christian identity, because ‘liberalism’ is exactly a device for separating state and religion. Discussing the implications of a recent decision of the European Court of Human Rights, Lautsi v. Italy (2011), I argue that this is not necessarily so. If paired with a liberal commitment to pluralism, a Christian identity might even be more inclusive of minority religions than a narrowly ‘liberal’ state identity, which has been the dominant response in Western Europe to the challenge of immigrant diversity, especially that of Muslim origins.

Journal ArticleDOI
Gundi Knies1
TL;DR: The research considers the three forms of mobility simultaneously and contrasts its effects on social ties with neighbours to those with family, showing that residential and physical mobility are negatively associated with social ties to neighbours and positively with ties to family.
Abstract: Following up on the prediction by classical sociological theorists that neighbours will become irrelevant as societies become more mobile, this research examines the strength of people's social ties with neighbours and the associations thereof with residential, physical and virtual mobility using longitudinal data for Germany. Unlike previous studies, the research considers the three forms of mobility simultaneously and contrasts its effects on social ties with neighbours to those with family. The results show that residential and physical mobility are negatively associated with social ties to neighbours and positively with ties to family. Virtual mobility does not weaken social ties with neighbours but ties with family. The positive association between mobility and social ties with family may not be strong enough to ascertain that people maintain as close social ties to others in the future as it does not outweigh the negative association with visiting neighbours.

Journal ArticleDOI
Dean Curran1
TL;DR: Following from the argument of the original paper, it is argued that a critical appropriation of Beck’s theory of the risk society provides the best means of realizing a critical theory of risk.
Abstract: I thank Ulrich Beck for his response, ‘Why “class” is too soft a category to capture the explosiveness of social inequality at the beginning of the twentyfirst century’ (2013) to my paper ‘Risk society and the distribution of bads: theorizing class in the risk society’ (Curran 2013). I am especially grateful to him for responding in both a generous and critical spirit to those who seek to engage with his own work. Before responding to specific points in his critique, it is necessary to state the central position that animates this reply to Beck and which will be pursued in the larger project of developing a ‘critical theory of class relations in the risk society’, of which my original paper is a first step.The contemporary world, still haunted by the after-effects of financial crises (including the most recent global financial crisis) and the spectre of current and future environmental crises, desperately needs a critical theory of risk. While some individuals and groups, occupying certain favourable ‘risk positions’, are able to enjoy the highest standards of consumption and amass enormous wealth from risk in financial institutions (Haldane, Brennan, and Madouros 2010), for others, who occupy other less fortunate ‘risk positions’, contemporary risk leads to impoverishment and extreme vulnerability to the damages from climate change. Following from the argument of my original paper, I would argue that a critical appropriation of Beck’s theory of the risk society provides the best means of realizing a critical theory of risk. However, this critical theory of the risk society must not reify risk and its damages as something emerging from the logic of risk itself, but rather must identify the key processes and power relations that structure the social production and distribution of risk. Consequently, as I argue in my paper, differentials in economic power constitute a key form of social power for avoiding certain risk positions and rendering others exposed to the worst of the emerging damages; hence, ultimately this critical theory of risk requires that the risk society thesis and class analysis mutually inform each other.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The role of different interest groups in defining risk expectations and thereby redefining the ash crisis as a regulatory crisis is examined, examining the social processes of defining and reacting to risk and crisis.
Abstract: This paper considers a key aspect of the 'risk society' thesis: the belief that we should be able to manage risks and control the world around us. In particular it focuses on the interface between risk and risk events as socially constructed and the insights that 'critical situations' give us into 'the routine and mundane', the otherwise taken for granted assumptions underlying risk regulation. It does this with reference to the events precipitated by the April 2010 volcanic eruption in the Eyjafjallajokull area of Iceland. The resulting cloud of volcanic ash spread across Europe and much of Europe's airspace was closed to civil aviation for six days, with far reaching consequences including huge financial losses for airlines. The social processes of defining and reacting to risk and crisis both reveal and generate dilemmas and challenges in regulation. This paper examines the role of different interest groups in defining risk expectations and thereby redefining the ash crisis as a regulatory crisis.

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TL;DR: This paper takes stock of post-Habermasian public sphere scholarship, and acknowledges a lively and variegated debate concerning the multiple ways in which individuals engage in contemporary political affairs, and sets out an alternative perspective on the notion of the public sphere.
Abstract: This paper investigates contemporary academic accounts of the public sphere. In particular, it takes stock of post-Habermasian public sphere scholarship, and acknowledges a lively and variegated debate concerning the multiple ways in which individuals engage in contemporary political affairs. A critical eye is cast over a range of key insights which have come to establish the parameters of what 'counts' as a/the public sphere, who can be involved, and where and how communicative networks are established. This opens up the conceptual space for re-imagining a/the public sphere as an assemblage. Making use of recent developments in Deleuzian-inspired assemblage theory - most especially drawn from DeLanda's (2006) 'new philosophy of society' - the paper sets out an alternative perspective on the notion of the public sphere, and regards it as a space of connectivity brought into being through a contingent and heterogeneous assemblage of discursive, visual and performative practices. This is mapped out with reference to the cultural politics of roadside memorialization. However, a/the public sphere as an assemblage is not simply a 'social construction' brought into being through a logic of connectivity, but is an emergent and ephemeral space which reflexively nurtures and assembles the cultural politics (and political cultures) of which it is an integral part. The discussion concludes, then, with a consideration of the contribution of assemblage theory to public sphere studies. (Also see Campbell 2009a).

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TL;DR: Anthony Giddens' earlier sociological theory provides the basis for a more reflexive understanding of climate change, and rejects the relevance of environmentalism and demarcates climate-change policy from life politics.
Abstract: Anthony Giddens' The Politics of Climate Change represents a significant shift in the way in which he addresses ecological politics. In this book, he rejects the relevance of environmentalism and demarcates climate-change policy from life politics. Giddens addresses climate change in the technocratic mode of simple rather than reflexive modernization. However, Giddens' earlier sociological theory provides the basis for a more reflexive understanding of climate change. Climate change instantiates how, in high modernity, the existential contradiction of the human relationship with nature returns in new form, expressed in life politics and entangled with the structural contradictions of the capitalist state. The interlinking of existential and structural contradiction is manifested in the tension between life politics and the capitalist nation-state. This tension is key for understanding the failures so far of policy responses to climate change.

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TL;DR: Flyvbjerg, Landman and Schram as mentioned in this paper argue that social science today often contents itself with trying to explain particular events in terms of general models without understanding those events as experienced by the people being studied and without providing insights that might help people address the problems they are experiencing.
Abstract: Social science today often contents itself with trying to explain particular events in terms of general models without understanding those events as experienced by the people being studied and without providing findings that might help people address the problems they are experiencing. It can be argued that the recent development of social science has focused too much on its own ‘evidence-inference methodological core’ and has lost sight of what is being studied, who is being studied, and how the results of research can challenge popular understanding, misconceptions, and power relations. At the most basic level, our edited volume Real Social Science: Applied Phronesis (Flyvbjerg, Landman and Schram 2012) is designed to provide examples of research that is situated in real communities, grows out of the concerns of people in those communities and is conducted in ways that can help those people address those concerns. These examples demonstrate that what we are calling ‘phronetic social science’ (as originally coined by Bent Flyvbjerg) offers a meaningful approach for making social science useful and relevant to real people experiencing real problems. Phronetic social science calls for social scientists foregoing the attempt to build generic models of social behaviour and instead situate their work in ongoing political struggles as they occur in specific contexts.