Showing papers on "Economic Justice published in 2012"

Media, Society, World: Social Theory and Digital Media Practice

Abstract: Media are fundamental to our sense of living in a social world. Since the beginning of modernity, media have transformed the scale on which we act as social beings. And now in the era of digital media, media themselves are being transformed as platforms, content, and producers multiply. Yet the implications of social theory for understanding media and of media for rethinking social theory have been neglected; never before has it been more important to understand those implications. This book takes on this challenge. Drawing on Couldry's fifteen years of work on media and social theory, this book explores how questions of power and ritual, capital and social order, and the conduct of political struggle, professional competition, and everyday life, are all transformed by today's complex combinations of traditional and 'new' media. In the concluding chapters Couldry develops a framework for global comparative research into media and for thinking collectively about the ethics and justice of our lives with media. The result is a book that is both a major intervention in the field and required reading for all students of media and sociology.

The Race Discrimination System

Abstract: To understand the persistence of racial disparities across multiple domains (e.g., residential location, schooling, employment, health, housing, credit, and justice) and to develop effective remedies, we must recognize that these domains are reciprocally related and comprise an integrated system. The limited long-run success of government social policies to advance racial justice is due in part to the ad hoc nature of policy responses to various forms of racial discrimination. Drawing on a systems perspective, I show that race discrimination is a system whose emergent properties reinforce the effects of their components. The emergent property of a system of race-linked disparities is uber discrimination—a meta-level phenomenon that shapes our culture, cognitions, and institutions, thereby distorting whether and how we perceive and make sense of racial disparities. Viewing within-domain disparities as part of a discrimination system requires better-specified analytic models. While the existence of an emerg...

Epistemic Justice as a Virtue of Social Institutions

Abstract: In Epistemic injustice, Miranda Fricker makes a tremendous contribution to theorizing the intersection of social epistemology with theories of justice. Theories of justice often take as their object of assessment either interpersonal transactions (specific exchanges between persons) or particular institutions. They may also take a more comprehensive perspective in assessing systems of institutions. This systemic perspective may enable control of the cumulative effects of millions of individual transactions that cannot be controlled at the individual or institutional levels. This is true not only with respect to the overall distribution of such goods as income and wealth, but also with respect to the goods of testimonial and hermeneutical justice. Cognitive biases that may be difficult for even epistemically virtuous individuals to correct on their own may be more susceptible to correction if we focus on the principles that should govern our systems of testimonial gathering and assessment. Hence, while Fri...

On the Currency of Egalitarian Justice

Abstract: In his Tanner Lecture of 1979 called “Equality of What?” Amartya Sen asked what metric egalitarians should use to establish the extent to which their ideal is realized in a given society. What aspect(s) of a person’s condition should count in a fundamental way for egalitarians, and not merely as cause of or evidence of or proxy for what they regard as fundamental? In this study I examine answers to that question, and discussions bearing on that question, in recent philosophical literature. I take for granted that there is something which justice requires people to have equal amounts of, not no matter what, but to whatever extent is allowed by values which compete with distributive equality; and I study what a number of authors who share that egalitarian view have said about the dimension(s) or respect(s) in which people should be made more equal, when the price in other values of moving toward greater equality is not intolerable. I also advance an answer of my own to Sen’s question. My answer is the product of an immanent critique of Ronald Dworkin, one, that is, which rejects Dworkin’s declared position because it is not congruent with its own underlying motivation. My response to Dworkin has been influenced by Richard Arneson’s work in advocacy of “equality of opportunity for welfare,” but my answer to Sen’s question is not that Arnesonian one, nor is my answer as well formulated as Arneson’s is.1 It needs much further refinement, but I nevertheless present it here, in a rough-and-ready form, because of its association with relatively fi nished criticisms of others which I think are telling. If this study contributes to understanding, it does so more because of those criticisms than because of the positive doctrine it affi rms.

Differentiating the effects of status and power: a justice perspective.

Abstract: Few empirical efforts have been devoted to differentiating status and power, and thus significant questions remain about differences in how status and power impact social encounters. We conducted 5 studies to address this gap. In particular, these studies tested the prediction that status and power would have opposing effects on justice enacted toward others. In the first 3 studies, we directly compared the effects of status and power on people’s enactment of distributive (Study 1) and procedural (Studies 2 and 3) justice. In the last 2 studies, we orthogonally manipulated status and power and examined their main and interactive effects on people’s enactment of distributive (Study 4) and procedural (Study 5) justice. As predicted, all 5 studies showed consistent evidence that status is positively associated with justice toward others, while power is negatively associated with justice toward others. The effects of power are moderated, however, by an individual’s other orientation (Studies 2, 3, 4, and 5), and the effects of status are moderated by an individual’s dispositional concern about status (Study 5). Furthermore, Studies 4 and 5 also demonstrated that status and power interact, such that the positive effect of status on justice emerges when power is low and not when power is high, providing further evidence for differential effects between power and status. Theoretical implications for the literatures on status, power, and distributive/procedural justice are discussed.

The Justice Cascade: How Human Rights Prosecutions are Changing World Politics:

Abstract: The Spectacular State explores the production of national identity in post-Soviet Uzbekistan. The main protagonists are the cultural elites involved in the elaboration of new state-sponsored mass-spectacle national holidays: Navro’z (Zoroastrian New Year) and Independence Day. The overall argument is that despite their aspirations to reinvigorate national identity, mass spectacle creators in Uzbekistan have reproduced much of the Soviet cultural production. National identity has been one of the most fraught questions in Central Asia, where nationality was a contradictory and complicated product of the Soviet rule. Although the category of nationality was initiated, produced, and imposed by the Soviet state in the 1920s, it eventually became a source of power and authority for local elites, including cultural producers. The collapse of the Soviet Union opened up possibilities for revising and reversing many understandings manufactured by the socialist regime. Yet, upon her arrival in Tashkent to conduct her research on the renegotiation of national identity in 1995, Laura Adams discovered that instead of embracing newly-found freedom to recover a more authentic history, most Uzbek intellectuals, especially cultural producers working with the state, avoided probing too far in this direction. Rather than entirely discarding the Soviet colonial legacies, they revised their history selectively. Whereas the ideological content of their cultural production shifted from socialism to nationalism, many of the previous cultural ‘‘forms’’ have remained. Similarly, the Uzbek government continued to employ cultural elites to implement the task of reinforcing its nation-building program, thus following the Soviet model of cultural production. The book consists of four chapters. The first chapter delineates the broad themes of national identity building, and the remaining chapters explore mass spectacle creation by distinguishing between three elements: form (Chapter Two), content (Chapter Three), and the mode of production (Chapter Four). The study is based on content analysis of two Olympic Games-style national holidays, interviews with cultural producers, and participation observation of festivals and behind-the-scenes preparation meetings. Although Adams provides a few references to viewers and their attitude toward the public holiday performances, her book does not offer an extended engagement with reception and consumption of these holidays. The comprehensive and multi-layered overview of the process of revising national identity in Uzbekistan is one of the book’s major accomplishments. For Adams, the production of national identity is not a selfevident and seamless production forced by the state but instead a dynamic, complex, and dialogical process of negotiation between various parties (intellectual factions, state officials, mass spectacle producers, etc.). Her account reveals the messy and often contradictory nature of national identity production and thus moves away from the tendency to reify the state and its policies. The book makes a significant contribution to studies of nationalism by suggesting that the production of national identity in Uzbekistan was centrally constituted by the consideration of the ‘‘international audience.’’ Although public holidays, studied by Adams, aimed at fostering national identification, the forms in which these celebrations are performed (including national dances and music) indicate the aspiration of cultural producers to be part of the international community. This kind of national production self-consciously oriented toward the international viewer has been the legacy of the Soviet nationalities policy where all cultural producers had to produce art ‘‘socialist in content, national in form.’’ Notwithstanding the difference in generations or genres,

The roots of modern justice: cognitive and neural foundations of social norms and their enforcement

Abstract: Among animals, Homo sapiens is unique in its capacity for widespread cooperation and prosocial behavior among large and genetically heterogeneous groups of individuals. This ultra-sociality figures largely in our success as a species. It is also an enduring evolutionary mystery. There is considerable support for the hypothesis that this facility is a function of our ability to establish, and enforce through sanctions, social norms. Third-party punishment of norm violations ("I punish you because you harmed him") seems especially crucial for the evolutionary stability of cooperation and is the cornerstone of modern systems of criminal justice. In this commentary, we outline some potential cognitive and neural processes that may underlie the ability to learn norms, to follow norms and to enforce norms through third-party punishment. We propose that such processes depend on several domain-general cognitive functions that have been repurposed, through evolution's thrift, to perform these roles.

Free Market Fairness

Abstract: Can libertarians care about social justice? In Free Market Fairness, John Tomasi argues that they can and should. Drawing simultaneously on moral insights from defenders of economic liberty such as F. A. Hayek and advocates of social justice such as John Rawls, Tomasi presents a new theory of liberal justice. This theory, free market fairness, is committed to both limited government and the material betterment of the poor. Unlike traditional libertarians, Tomasi argues that property rights are best defended not in terms of self-ownership or economic efficiency but as requirements of democratic legitimacy. At the same time, he encourages egalitarians concerned about social justice to listen more sympathetically to the claims ordinary citizens make about the importance of private economic liberty in their daily lives. In place of the familiar social democratic interpretations of social justice, Tomasi offers a "market democratic" conception of social justice: free market fairness. Tomasi argues that free market fairness, with its twin commitment to economic liberty and a fair distribution of goods and opportunities, is a morally superior account of liberal justice. Free market fairness is also a distinctively American ideal. It extends the notion, prominent in America's founding period, that protection of property and promotion of real opportunity are indivisible goals. Indeed, according to Tomasi, free market fairness is social justice, American style.

Climate Justice and Capabilities: A Framework for Adaptation Policy

Abstract: This article lays out a capabilities and justice-based approach to the development of adaptation policy. While many theories of climate justice remain focused on ideal theories for global mitigation, the argument here is for a turn to just adaptation, using a capabilities framework to encompass vulnerability, social recognition, and public participation in policy responses. This article argues for a broadly defined capabilities approach to climate justice, combining a recognition of the vulnerability of basic needs with a process for public involvement. Such an approach can be used to engage stakeholders with varied perceptions of what is at risk, and to develop priorities for adaptation policy. It addresses both individual and community-level vulnerabilities, and acknowledges that the conditions of justice depend on a functioning, even if shifting, environment.

Political Feasibility: A Conceptual Exploration

Abstract: To date there is no systematic exploration of the concept of ‘political feasibility’. We believe that feasibility is a central issue for political philosophy, conceptually as well as practically, a...

Justice in transport as justice in accessibility: Applying Walzer's 'Spheres of Justice' to the transport sector

Abstract: This paper seeks to provide a theoretical basis for a distributive approach to transport. Using the theory developed by Michael Walzer in his ‘Spheres of Justice’ (1983), I argue that the transport good, defined as accessibility, should be distributed in a so-called separate sphere, i.e. independent from the way in which other key goods, like money or power, are allocated. I subsequently explore what kind of justice principle could guide the distribution of the transport good, once a separate sphere would be established. This preliminary exploration results in the elimination of a number of widely supported distributive principles, and in the tentative identification of a criterion matching the particularities of the transport good. The explorations in the paper are not intended as final answers, but rather seek to open the debate about the need for an explicit distributive transport policy and the distributive principle that should guide such a policy.

Weighing in: Obesity, food justice, and the limits of capitalism

Abstract: In the case of obesity, writes Julie Guthman, ‘the solution in some sense wags the dog of the problem statement’ (p. 16). In this compelling book, Guthman offers a lucid account of the ‘obesity epidemic’ said to plague the USA. The book’s core argument is twofold: first, that obesity is an ecological condition, and second, that the political, sociocultural and economic dimensions of ecologies have been largely absent from both popular and scholarly discussions about obesity. At the outset, Guthman is clear that the book’s purpose ‘is not to falsify myths * or even necessarily to reveal another certain explanation’ in terms of the purported causes of weight gain trends (p. 16). This is what is perhaps most crucial about Weighing In. It is not another attempt to explain away the field of possible causes and feel-good solutions for weight gain, in favour of a magic bullet. To be sure, it is a well-researched book about public health, food systems and alternative food movements. But it is at its heart a book about capitalism, and as such offers health scholars of all methodological stripes an outstanding example of how to foreground the political. Conceptually, the book traces how late twentieth-century neoliberal ideologies permeated American socio-economic structures, and how the infusion of freemarket values into public goods shifted city planning, labour conditions, environmental regulations and agricultural policies. In this same space, Guthman argues, neoliberal ideals of self-governance, self-control, interpersonal competition and personal risk management transformed aesthetic values of thinness into matters of good health. This political ecological framework acknowledges that people may be getting bigger, but it also asserts that many definitions of the obesity ‘problem’ (often unintentionally) inhibit social justice and leave weight gain and its ‘logical’ fixes as foregone conclusions. If obesity is the material result of capitalism in neoliberal times, then we must reckon with how ‘bodies as material entities are literally absorbing the conditions and externalities of production and consumption’ (p. 182). The book’s structure examines specific potential causes and consequences of obesity. Chapter 2 asks how we know obesity to be a problem, and unravels the politics of body mass index that underlie the medicalisation of body size. Chapter 3 examines some of the discursive threads that constitute the notion of ‘healthy lifestyle’, namely the concept of ‘healthism’ as an ideology that pins the responsibility for good health onto individuals. Guthman contextualises healthism Global Public Health Vol. 7, No. 8, September 2012, 911 913

The I in We: Studies in the Theory of Recognition

Abstract: Preface I. Hegelian Roots From Desire to Recognition: Hegel's Grounding of Self-Consciousness The Realm of Actualized Freedom: Hegel's Notion of a "Philosophy of Right" II. Systematic Consequences The Fabric of Justice: On the Limits of Contemporary Proceduralism Labour and Recognition: A Redefinition Recognition as Ideology: The Connection between Morality and Power Dissolutions of the Social: The Social Theory of Luc Boltanski and Laurent Thevenot Philosophy as Social Research: David Miller's Theory of Justice III. Social and Theoretical Applications Recognition between States: On the Moral Substrate of International Relations Organized Self-Realisation: Paradoxes of Individualisation Paradoxes of Capitalist Modernisation: A Research Programme (with Martin Hartmann) IV. Psychoanalytical Ramifications The Work of Negativity: A Recognition-Theoretical Revision of Psychoanalysis The I in the We: Recognition as a Driving Force of Group Formation Facets of the Presocial Self: A Rejoinder to Joel Whitebook Disempowering Reality: Secular Forms of Consolation

Cities, social cohesion and the environment: towards a future research agenda

Abstract: It will be argued in this paper that the problematic of social cohesion is also one of socio-ecological cohesion whereby the urbanisation of nature and its socio-environmentally enabling and disabling conditions are key processes. By viewing the contradictions of the urbanisation process as intrinsically socio-ecological ones, the terrain of social cohesion is shifted both epistemologically and politically. The paper critically examines three contemporary schools of thought that consider in different ways the relationship between cities, social cohesion and the environment. It begins with a critical examination of the notion of urban sustainability. The paper will then move on to consider two approaches that emphasise issues of (in)equality and (in)justice in the urban environment, those of environmental justice and urban political ecology. The final part of the paper pinpoints four areas of research that urban researchers must examine if we are to understand more fully—and act more politically on—the nex...

The “Justice Gap” for Sexual Assault Cases: Future Directions for Research and Reform

Abstract: Media coverage often reports "good" news about the criminal justice system's ability to effectively respond to sexual assault, concluding that the past two decades have seen an increase in rape reporting, prosecution, and conviction. The objective of this article is to examine the validity of such conclusions by critically reviewing the strengths and weaknesses of various data sources and comparing the statistics they produce. These statistics include estimates for sexual assault reporting rates and case outcomes in the criminal justice system. We conclude that such pronouncements are not currently supported by statistical evidence, and we outline some directions for future research and reform efforts to make the "good news" a reality in the United States.

Land Conflict and Distributive Politics in Kenya

Abstract: This paper argues that even with the incorporation of land policy provisions into Kenya’s new constitution, there is every reason to believe that in the near future, highly politicized land conflict will continue. This is because land politics in Kenya is a redistributive game that creates winners and losers. Given the intensely redistributive potential of the impending changes in Kenya’s land regime—and the implications of the downward shift in the locus of control over land allocation through decentralization of authority to county governments—there is no guarantee that legislators or citizens will be able to agree on concrete laws to realize the constitution’s calls for equity and justice in land matters. This article traces the main ways in which state power has been used to distribute and redistribute land (and land rights) in the Rift Valley, focusing on post-1960 smallholder settlement schemes, land-buying companies, and settlement in the forest reserves, and it highlights the long-standing pattern of political contestation over the allocation of this resource. It then traces the National Land Policy debate from 2002 to 2010, focusing on the distributive overtones and undertones of the policy and of the debate over the new constitution that incorporated some of its main tenets.

Linguistic Justice for Europe and for the World

Abstract: Linguistic Justice for Europe and for the World Philippe Van Parijs Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2011 xi + 299 pp., ISBN 9780199208876, £27.50, US$45.00 (hardback) Although the title does not s...

Empirical social choice

Abstract: Since Aristotle, many different theories of distributive justice have been proposed, by philosophers as well as social scientists. The typical approach within social choice theory is to assess these theories in an axiomatic way – most of the time the reader is confronted with abstract reasoning and logical deductions. This book shows that empirical insights are necessary if one wants to apply any theory of justice in the real world. It does so by confronting the main theories of distributive justice with data from (mostly) questionnaire experiments. The book starts with an extensive discussion on why empirical social choice makes sense and how it should be done. It then presents various experimental results relating to theories of distributive justice, including the Rawlsian equity axiom, Harsanyi's version of utilitarianism, utilitarianism with a floor, responsibility-sensitive egalitarianism, the claims problem and fairness in health.

Youth Studies: An Introduction

Abstract: Youth Studies: an introduction is a clear, jargon-free and accessible textbook which will be invaluable in helping to explain concepts, theories and trends within youth studies. The concise summaries of key texts and the ideas of important theorists make the book an invaluable resource. The book also raises questions for discussion, with international case studies and up-to-date examples. The book discusses important issues within youth studies, for example: education and opportunity employment and unemployment family, friends and living arrangements crime and justice identities health and sexuality citizenship and political engagement. Suitable for a wide range of youth-related courses, this textbook provides a theoretical and empirical introduction to youth studies. It will appeal to undergraduate students on international academic and vocational courses, including sociology, politics, criminology, social policy, geography and psychology.

Children, Citizenship and Environment: Nurturing a Democratic Imagination in a Changing World

Abstract: 1. Ecology and Democracy as if Children Mattered 2. Neoliberalism and Children's Everyday Citizenship: Bowling with a Sponsor 3. Growing Greener Citizens: FEARS, SMART or SEEDs Experiences? 4. Social Agency: Learning How to Make a Difference With Others 5. Environmental Education: Growing Up on Google Earth 6. Embedded Justice: Rethinking Eco-Social Responsibility 7. Decentred Deliberation: Storytelling and Democratic Listening 8. The Social Handprint

The Return to the Family: Welfare, State, and Politics of the Family in Turkey

Abstract: This article examines the transformation of the Turkish state's social work policy to engage recent debates in anthropology about welfare restructuring and neoliberalism. Building on ethnographic research from top to bottom, I trace welfare policy through the discourse of politicians and bureaucrats into everyday bureaucratic practice. Drawing attention to the stark contrast between the discursive image of the nurturing three generational extended family put at the center of the AKP (Justice and Development Party) government's political rhetoric and policy-making and the experience of urban poor women who pass through the welfare orbit, I argue that for poor women and children, the globally influenced transformation in welfare corresponds to the reinforcement of socio-economic vulnerabilities, all of which constrain their already precarious lives. [Keywords: Welfare restructuring and neoliberalism, state, bureaucracy, politics of the family, turkey] In memory of Dicle Kogacioglu Introduction During the last week of October 2005, a single topic dominated the headlines and primetime news in turkey: debates over how to reform the state social work system. the heated debates were triggered by secret camera footage, broadcast on a national channel, of caregivers' physical violence towards children in a residential home run by the state social work agency, the social services and children's Protection Agency (sscPA).1 these heated debates were informed by and fed back into the ongoing restructuring of state-sponsored social work, crystallized in the return to the Family Project which aims to return institutionalized children to their families. the period when this shift from state-provided institutional care to familial care began also corresponded to Prime Minister Erdogan's invocation of stories of the "strong turkish family." these stories pointed to a nurturing three-generational extended family-specifically contrasted with the presumed weakness of familial ties in "the West"-to pose "the turkish family" as the best agent to provide social protection and lift "social burdens" on the state. Around the same time, female clients who pass through the welfare orbit-such as Aysen and Gulsum, whose stories I discuss below-were seeking help in social work offices precisely because their family experiences were in stark contrast to those put at the center of political rhetoric and policy-making. In this article, I combine the different levels of political discourse analysis, state social policy, and everyday institutional practice to examine the ongoing restructuring of the field of state-sponsored social work as part of a larger neoliberal-conservative project unfolding in turkey in the early 2000s.2 Welfare restructuring constitutes a significant component of this neoliberal-conservative project. the ongoing transformation in the turkish welfare regime has been affected by the IMF-guided structural adjustment programs, preparations for integration with the European Union (EU), the emergence of new actors in the welfare field (such as the World bank), and the neoliberal politics of the Justice and Development Party (AKP) government which has particularly encouraged familial responsibility in social care. In what follows, I draw from two years of ethnographic research.3 In the spirit of anthropology of public policy (shore and Wright 1997; Wedel et al. 2005; shore, Wright, and Pero 2011), I "study through" (reinhold 1994) sites of policy formulation and implementation. Mapping the connections among the sites, actors, discourses, and practices of the field of social work, I illuminate the continuities and disjunctures that occur as policies of welfare restructuring are translated into practice. studying from top to bottom, I move from media debates and policy discussions in five-star hotels to poorly furnished welfare offices in Ankara and Istanbul and conflict ridden interactions among welfare workers and their clients, the urban poor. …

Responsible Citizens: Individuals, Health and Policy under Neoliberalism

Abstract: Documents the rise of ‘responsibility discourse’ in social policy in the UK and worldwide and sows how it is one of the most important themes of the early 21st century. Brings together scholarship, policy and debate across a variety of fields where responsibility is concerned, including health, social care, behaviour management, housing, therapy and the justice system. Develops a theoretical framework, inspired by key scholars such as Michel Foucault and Nikolas Rose and extends its reach into a variety of contemporary phenomena such as health advice, screening programmes, self-help, therapy and public order. Shows how taking responsibility is never quite as simple as it seems. Being responsible is very likely to mean doing what you’re told.

Anticipating the Past: Transitional Justice and Socio-Economic Wrongs

Abstract: Even as transitional justice struggles to deliver on its original promises of truth, justice and reconciliation, more demands are being placed on it. Over the past several years, the transitional j...

Everyday (in)justices and ordinary environmentalisms: community gardening in disadvantaged urban neighbourhoods

Abstract: Recent years have witnessed increased academic interest in the relations between poverty, environment and place. Studies of poverty in disadvantaged urban neighbourhoods have pointed to the contribution of despoiled local environments to social exclusion. Work in urban political ecology has highlighted the socioenvironmental hybridity of injustices in the city, bringing a political dimension to debates on urban sustainability, while research on environmental justice has directed critical attention towards the local and everyday (urban) contexts of socio-ecological forms of injustice. This paper explores the everyday spaces and mundane forms of (in)justice through a case study of community gardening in cities. Drawing on materials derived from a recent study of 18 community gardening projects in disadvantaged urban neighbourhoods in the UK, this paper highlights how these projects are using ordinary forms of environmentalism to produce new socioecological spaces of justice within the city.