越南槟榔文化初探

越南人食槟榔的习俗有着悠久的历史.槟榔深入到了越南社会生活的方方面面,它不仅是越南人平日待客的小食品,还是民间传统庆典、庙会活动和家庭红白喜事中最不可缺少之物.本文试图通过对越南人食槟榔习俗的探析,以窥越南民族传统文化之一斑.     

Networks of Reciprocity: Precarity and Community Social Organisations in Rural Myanmar

ABSTRACT

Growing precarity amongst rural households in Myanmar is characterised by increasingly debt-fuelled agriculture, decreasing sufficiency and sustainability of rural livelihoods and an absence of social safety nets. This constrains the capacity for viable livelihoods, as risk-averse coping strategies undermine long-term economic sustainability. In this context, informal support networks may be expected to decline or collapse. However, recent evidence demonstrates the widespread emergence of community-based social organisations in rural communities, formed along traditional principles of reciprocity. Analysis of large-scale rural household surveys demonstrates that such organisations are found in nearly 40% of communities in rural Myanmar. These organisations collect and redistribute funds to help with healthcare, education, funerals and other social needs. The presence of such organisations is linked to higher levels of household resilience, achieved through reducing the inequalities linked to gender, disability and poverty, and through providing enabling environments for effective income diversification. Communities with higher levels of migration are more likely to have community-based social organisations, possibly a result of economic and social remittances. In the absence of effective formalised social protection, these social organisations provide most of the social assistance in rural communities, representing new networks of reciprocity in the face of increasing precarity.     

解构美国话语霸权--对"中国威胁论"的话语分析

话语分析为解构美国话语霸权、分析美国的"中国威胁论"提供了一种很好的理论工具.话语就是指谈论和理解世界的方式,话语分析是以社会建构主义为理论基础的一种批判性分析方法,它以我们习以为常的话语为分析对象,以解构隐藏在话语背后的逻辑结构为主要方法.对美国"中国威胁论"的分析表明,"中国威胁论"是以现实主义理论为依据的,而现实主义在逻辑推理上是存在严重错误的.     

Security relations in the Black Sea region: Russia and the West after the Ukrainian crisis

The Ukrainian conflict – as all post-Soviet conflicts – has three interrelated dimensions – global, regional and local – with deep implications for international security including the Black Sea region. The strategic interdependence between Russiaand West during the last decade became not only anaemic but antagonistic. The regional implications of that can be compared to the boomerang effect: problems at the strategic level affect the regional level and return to the originators. Generally speaking, Commonwealth of Independent States conflicts can be viewed as the product of the Soviet legacy and the patchy collapse of the USSR as well as the ill-conceived policies and mistakes of the involved parties, Russia and external actors – USA, NATO and EU.     

Pearson and Responsibility: (Mis‐)Understanding the Capabilities Approach

Aboriginal Australian public intellectual Noel Pearson has gained prominence and influence for his brand of policy reform in Indigenous affairs by drawing upon the capabilities approach. This article challenges the coherence of Pearson's position, arguing that his unrelenting focus on personal responsibility leads him to conflate different elements within capabilities thinking. Pearson 1) mistakes social capabilities (to which people are entitled) for human potential to be unfolded, and 2) casts and prescribes personal responsibility as a type of latent capability. The latter a) inverts the capabilities approach wherein phenomena such as personal responsibility arise as an effect of the realization of latent capabilities rather than serving as latent capabilities themselves, and b) is at odds with the liberal basis of the capabilities approach that rejects imposing “good” ways of life on people. This is illustrated through reference to Pearson's advocacy of Direct Instruction teaching and engagement with the “real economy”. The paper recognizes Pearson's contribution to the policy debate and that the problems he highlights are real, but argues that the remedial approaches adopted are problematic, including in terms of Pearson's stated stance against assimilationist policy agendas.     

What's 'Social' about 'Social Capital'?

Debates around the concept of social capital are often also debates about the level at which social capital can be abstracted for analytical use. Yet while many theorists and commentators involved in these debates implicitly discuss the issue of abstraction it is rarely done explicitly. In this article I attempt to overcome this missing link in the social capital literature by theoretically examining the 'social' in 'social capital' through interconnected levels of abstraction. In particular, and at a high level of abstraction, I argue that social capital is underpinned by a contradictory relationship associated with what I term as 'isolated reciprocity'. At lower levels of abstraction I show how isolated reciprocity poses problems for the establishment of 'good' social capital in the UK.     

Brismes Lecture: The Future of British Foreign Policy in the Middle East

Former Foreign Secretary Jack Straw draws on his experience and Britain's colonial legacy to argue that while the United Kingdom needs to recognise the effects of past policy and how it is perceived in the Middle East, the UK should not be a prisoner of its legacies from the past. In this annual address to the British Society for Middle Eastern Studies (BRISMES) he argues that knowledge should be used to create in-depth understanding that in turn should be built on to create more enduring foreign policy goals. He puts forward a coherent case for a more positive and comprehensive relationship with Iran and Turkey as potential allies in building more stable and yet also more democratic and accountable governments throughout the Middle East. Jack Straw argues that the UK is better placed than many to learn from past mistakes and create more robust strategic goals for the future.     

Review essay: Western Marxists in flux over Chinese Marxism

Abstract

Where is Marxism going in China? Not far, according to Chinese Marxism in Flux (1978-84). A prominent claim throughout this collection of essays is that Marxism has been used as an ideological club rather than a liberating theory and that this misuse of Marxism can be traced to metatheoretical mistakes. The result, the authors seem to claim, is that revolutionary change has been restricted to economic reforms. There is “constant stress on the reality of Marxist [and sometimes Althusserian] categories” (p. 9), and “some [most?] contributors … are quite sympathetic to aspects of the ‘left’ thinking of previous years” (p. 2).     

Von Heterogenit?ten zu Ungleichheiten: Soziale Mechanismen als Erkl?rungsansatz der Genese sozialer Ungleichheiten

Various fields of research on social inequality, such as studies in education and social mobility, pursue sophisticated theoretical and methodological approaches and have produced a wealth of relevant empirical findings on specific aspects. Nonetheless, research on social inequalities is nowadays extremely fragmented along theoretical, conceptual and methodological lines across which there is little communication and cross-fertilization. There are no comprehensive accounts which would bundle the numerous empirical findings. Therefore, inequality research in the social sciences needs to be conceptually reoriented. Towards that end we have to take advantage of the significant theoretical and methodological advances in the different fields, such as education, labor markets, justice, migration and gender. Our programmatic contribution rests on two pillars. First, we go beyond the conflation of heterogeneities and inequalities and draw a clear conceptual distinction where both terms are always used in plural forms. Second, we identify and systematize social mechanisms. The concept of social mechanism helps to track the genesis of inequalities out of heterogeneities. In this way heterogeneities constitute the point of departure and inequalities the outcome of a social mechanismic approach. Social mechanisms can be fruitfully connected to approaches such as boundary making.     

俄罗斯修宪与普京长久国家

普京对1993年《俄罗斯联邦宪法》进行修改,俄罗斯将从叶利钦宪法过渡到普京宪法。1993年宪法是一部以超级总统制为特征的基本法,它保证了俄罗斯主权国家的建立和社会政治的稳定。但是这部宪法赋予总统的权力异常大,限制了其他权力机构和地方对决策的影响。修宪的目的是使权力机构更加平衡,运行更加有效。普京认为,修宪过程中必须遵守几个基本原则:俄罗斯只能是总统制共和国,不能搞议会制;俄罗斯不能出现双重权力,不能出现寡头政治;俄罗斯宪法高于国际法律和条约;重视劳动者、母婴、养老金领取者的社会保障。修宪能否实现俄罗斯政治进程从以保证社会政治稳定为主过渡到以发展为中心,是2024年以后俄国家领导人面临的主要任务。普京表示,如果人民有希望,宪法法院有裁决,不排除2024年继续竞选总统。     

ERRATA

The Editors regret that the following mistakes occurred in thetext of the article ‘The Great West African Drought, 1972–74’,by Jonathan Derrick, which appeared in the October 1977 numberof the journal. The main reason for these mistakes was a breakdownin communications between the editors and the author, whilethe article was being processed for publication. P. 540—line 36: The word ‘population’ shouldbe inserted after ‘West-Indian style’. P. 543—line 33: ‘1969–70’ should read‘1970–71’. P. 544—line 34: ‘Ivory Coast’ should read‘Upper Volta’. P. 546, Table: The Maiduguri figures are incorrect and shouldbe ignored (The author apologizes to the source of the statisticsfor this misquotation). P. 548—line 12: ‘eruption’ should read ‘irruption’. P. 564—note 69 refers to the sentence ‘In fact ...for tax’, not to the preceding sentence. P. 569—note 87: ‘Protection’ should be ‘Production’. P. 571—note 94 should be deleted. P. 582—line 34: ‘affected’ should be ‘effective’.      

Arenen des demokratischen Experimentalismus. Zur Konvergenz von nordamerikanischem und französischem Pragmatismus

In their works on The public and its problems and Politics of nature John Dewey and Bruno Latour develop theoretical models of a democratic experimentalism. Taking their assumptions as a base, this paper examines the thesis of a convergence of North American and French pragmatism. This thesis is supported not only by further analogies in the works of Dewey and Latour, but also by the pragmatic sociology of justification upheld by Luc Boltanski and Laurent Thévenot, which can be on the one hand integrated into the frame-work of Latour’s theory on democratic experimentalism. On the other hand, comparisons can readily be drawn to the pragmatic theory of social worlds and arenas of Anselm L. Strauss. The theories differ in respect to their expectations as to whether, where and how social arenas are formed, once different social worlds and conventions come into critical conflict with each other and need to be rearranged by experimental processes. However, any remaining disparity in the assumptions regarding such arena figurations of democratic experimentalism could definitely have a stimulating effect on their empirical cartography and analysis.     

Promises made,promises broken: a political economic perspective on German unification

The article provides an overview of the state of the East German economy after more than ten years of unification. It demonstrates that, contrary to what had been promised in 1990, the situation is far from ‘flourishing landscapes’. We argue that a number of policy mistakes, based in the desire of the then government to maintain electoral support, is responsible for this. In addition, the behaviour of West German labour market participants is held responsible for the dismal record of unemployment in East Germany. Hence, political and distributional conflicts lie at the root of the still present East German problem.     

Soziale Sicherheit und Gerechtigkeit

This article shows that social security can be viewed as an important determinant of social inequality. Individuals holding secure positions not only are structurally privileged, but these privileges tend to grow over time. Moreover, structural and dynamic effects of social security on social inequality contradict widely accepted standards of social justice, and therefore undermine the legitimacy of social inequality. Preliminary empirical analyses based on the GSOEP illustrate these hypotheses and give some hints for further investigation.     

Challenges of globalization

In these comments on Kawamoto's paper, made during the first session of the conference on “Challenges of Globalization,” Dr. John Yeabsley of the New Zealand Institute of Economic Research draws on the experience of New Zealand to highlight some salient features of regulatory reform. He points out that the process can take a long time to complete, that the costs are complex, and that people find it hard to adjust to the idea of constant change. Dr. Yeabsley emphasizes that a redistribution of the important products of the economy and society—jobs, incomes, wealth, and prestige—is inevitable, and is a necessary part of the process, although the consequent social costs can be high and seem unfair. Intervention to mitigate the risks and social concern should not, however, be allowed to compromise the reforms.     

Negative Classifications and the Symbolic Order of Social Inequality: Evidence from East Asia

ABSTRACT

This article explains a cultural sociological approach to research on social inequality. “Cultural sociological” means that we do not regard social inequality as resulting only from a distributive order of goods, income and positions, but also from an evaluative order created and reproduced by the actions of social groups. Concerning the topic of this thematic issue, this means that, from a sociological perspective, we see “weakness” not only as the social vulnerability of actors and groups resulting from a lack of material resources, education and power, but also as an attribution and assessment which can have a variety of social consequences. “Weakness” can compel others to help the weak and defend their interests. But if the weak are to be protected and empowered, they must be identified as “weak” in the first place, and this act of identification can have paradoxical consequences. As we demonstrate with evidence from East Asia, the social designation as “weak” can have many adverse effects for the weak groups themselves, because it blames them for their own weaknesses and publicly condemns, disparages, or stigmatizes them. Based on an analysis of the situation of victims of the Fukushima disaster in Japan and of rural migrants and their offspring living in Chinese metropoles, we show how social designations of weakness can produce negative classifications that signal disrespect to weak actors and limit their opportunities for action.     

Kollektives Handeln im Internet. Eine akteurtheoretische Fundierung

Swarms, crowds, networks, e-movements, e-communities—the Web offers a new sphere of action for an ample variety of collective formations. However, a sociological substantiation of these different types of collective behavior or action is still missing. In order to bridge this gap, we discuss the questions, how online-based social formations can be classified in the context of actor-based social theory and to what extent their development is shaped by the technological infrastructures they are embedded in. First of all, we introduce two basic variants of social formations situated between individuals and organizations: non-organized collectives and collective behavior on the one hand and collective actors with a comparatively high strategic capability on the other. Subsequently, we explore the distinct features of online-based collective formations, which are characterized by a formerly unknown level of interdependence of influential technological infrastructures and still indispensable social dynamics of coordination and institutionalization. Conventional patterns of social dynamics in the development and stabilization of collective behavior and collective actors are now systematically intertwined with technology-induced processes of structuration.     

Im Auftrag des Staates. Die geheime Gesellschaft der Folterer

Torture is an extreme act of collective violence that is secretly executed in the name of a state. In order to explain the reasons why people torture others, individualist approaches concentrate on individuals?? motives or interests. Contrary to that, the article argues that torture should be understood as a social relation. Thus, it takes the social relations of the group of torturers as a starting point. Firstly, following Georg Simmel??s analysis of the secret society the paper argues that the group of torturers can adequately be conceptualized as a secret society; secondly, against this background the article reconstructs the conditions which structure torturers?? agency; finally, this article offers an outline of the processes and dynamics that allows for explaining the phenomenon of torture. The thesis of the article argues that a relational sociology helps better explain and understand the social phenomenon of torture.     

Laufbahnklassen. Zur empirischen Umsetzung eines dynamisierten Klassenbegriffs mithilfe von Sequenzanalysen

Based on Bourdieu??s notion of trajectory-classes, the article proposes a dynamic concept of social class that accounts for typical patterns of intra-generational mobility. The hypothesis is that social class trajectories cluster into stable as well as upward and downward mobile trajectory-classes. This assumption is tested empirically by applying sequence analysis to individual trajectories of class positions measured by means of the Goldthorpe class scheme. The data are drawn from the German Socio-Economic Panel Study and cover 15 years of individual occupational histories for four different age cohorts of men and women. In addition to a striking stability of class positions, there are also specific patterns of class mobility for men that point to institutional mechanisms of social closure and career paths. Women??s trajectory-classes are shaped by class-specific patterns of labor market (re-)entries and exits. Furthermore, analyzing the process of capital accumulation based on various indicators of economic, cultural and social capital, the trajectory-classes can be interpreted as a result of investment strategies.