WOMEN AS 'ANOMALIES': THE ANOMALIES REGULATIONS OF 1931, THEIR BACKGROUND AND IMPLICATIONS

In 1931, the fraught government discussion over the unemployment insurance scheme resulted in the introduction of a set of Anomalies Regulations which greatly restricted the nights of certain categories of workers to claim unemployment benefit. The group most affected by these Regulations were married women, 320000 of whom had been downed benefit under these Regulations by the end of 1936, out of a total of 650 000 insured married women.
Recently (Benjamin and Kochin 1979) this measure has been cited in the revived arguments about the effects of unemployment benefit on the level of unemployment. Important as this issue is, the Anomalies Regulations are also of much broader interest in that they open up the whole question of the place of women in the unemployment insurance system.
This article is divided into four sections. The first outlines the position of women in the unemployment insurance system prior to 1931. The second looks at the immediate circumstances of the Regulations enactment. The third looks at their immediate consequences. The fourth looks more broadly at the problems of women and the unemployment insurance system.     

Morality,Corruption and the State: Insights from Jharkhand,Eastern India

Corruption is analysed by addressing the interrelations between the moral and political economy regulating state-based welfare provision in Jharkhand, India. On the one hand, the article focuses on the rural elite to show that ‘corrupt’ practices are not just guided by financial utility but also by non-material interests, underpinned by a multivarious moral economy. On the other hand, the article shows that the poorest in the rural areas (adivasis or Scheduled Tribes) keep away from the state, seeing it as beyond the moral pale, and instead resurrect an alternative sovereign structure. The adivasi perspectives are influenced by a political economy of historical experiences of the state and interrelations with the elites. The paper concludes that a particular political economy is intimately connected with a moral economy, and that transformations in political economy affect the moral economy.     

全球技术革命中的可持续性标准与对华影响

在全球技术革命不断演进的背景下,标准问题日渐成为国家间经济与科技竞争的焦点。随着联合国2030年可持续发展议程进入落实阶段,可持续性标准也成为最具潜力的技术治理手段之一。当前,由西方发达国家不同行为体推动形成的自愿性可持续性标准体系正在对广大发展中国家产生复杂的影响。许多发展中国家在采纳和推广西方标准的同时,也面临新的贸易壁垒。值得关注的是,西方背景的自愿性可持续性标准大量兴起,其中一部分已沦为发达国家向发展中国家推卸责任、转移压力甚至进行政治打压的工具。尤其对中国等新兴大国,更是如此。西方可持续性标准给中国带来政治风险的同时,也推动中国积极塑造自身的可持续性标准体系。展望未来,中国应继续在政府主导下,鼓励和支持国内相关行业组织联合产业界、国际标准机构以及其他国际组织,共同培育更加完善的自主可持续性标准体系,从而对冲和化解西方发达国家以可持续性标准之名行打压之实的风险。     

Constructing communism in the Romanian People's Republic. Orthodoxy and state, 1948 – 49

This article analyses the ambiguous and contradictory relationship between the Orthodox Church and the communist regime during the first two years of the Romanian People's Republic. The installation of communism and the process of Stalinisation led to an unprecedented control of the church. The church was actively employed in propaganda and the regime imposed its own people in the hierarchy. On the one hand, Romanian communists followed the Soviet model regarding the place of the church in the communist state while, on the other hand, the church hierarchy adapted to the new political system by creating a theory of ‘social apostolate’. Lacking popular support, the communists used the church as an instrument through which they could acquire the political support of the masses. The church thus enjoyed a favoured position in society mainly because the communists employed it in their ideological expansionism and confrontation with the West.     

The partisan–professional dichotomy revisited: Politicization and decision‐making of senior civil servants

Politicization has an ambivalent reputation among public administration scholars. While considered an effective instrument to safeguard political control over ministerial bureaucracy, partisanship of senior civil servants is likewise associated with patronage and is deemed detrimental to professionalism and meritocracy. To scrutinize this contradiction, the article examines how the party‐political background of senior civil servants influences their decision‐making behaviour. Two theoretically derived conceptions of loyalty are therefore put to the test: responsiveness and responsibility. Effects are captured by using the vignette technique in 40 in‐depth interviews with former senior civil servants from ministerial departments at federal and state level in Germany. The results are surprising in so far as they reveal that politicized senior civil servants act neither more responsively nor less responsibly than their non‐politicized peers. These findings challenge common assumptions and call for a more refined analysis of the conditions under which politicization leads to negative effects.     

The performance of Illinois' unemployment insurance system over business cycles

The back-to-back recessions of the early 1980's drove Illinois and most other states deep into debt to the Federal government for their unemployment insurance systems. As part of the process of debt repayment, Illinois created a model of the state's unemployment insurance (UI) system to analyze legislation geared to debt repayment. This paper describes Illinois' UI forecasting model, and examines two uses of the model for UI system evaluation. Illinois' system is found to be solvent, as it accumulates little or no debt over severe business cycles and repays debt automatically. It is also found to be counter-cyclical, as benefits increase during recessions, and tax rates tend to increase at times of low unemployment.     

Global Pressures,National Policies,and Labor Rights in Latin America

This paper examines the impact of countervailing external pressures on labor rights in 17 Latin American countries. On the one hand, these countries have been urged to reform their labor laws and practices to comply with international labor standards, including protections for the collective rights of workers. On the other hand, they have been pressured to adopt more flexible labor markets, which often undermine collective labor organization. After dividing the countries by the type of political regime that prevailed when the pattern of relations between labor and the state was being established, the paper presents and explains the results of indices created to measure two outcomes: labor standards and labor market flexibility. It then analyzes the impact of four types of external actors (the ILO, national governments pursuing trade agreements, multinational corporations, and international financial institutions) on these outcomes, both de jure and de facto. The paper's main finding is that these actors have had an impact on labor outcomes in the region, but that their influence is heavily mediated by domestic factors, particularly historical legacies of state-labor relations.     

Political Thuggery and Democratic Dividends in Nigeria

This study focuses on political thuggery and democratic dividends in Nigeria. Utilizing secondary and personal observation data the authors sought to address the following concerns: meaning of political thuggery and democratic dividend, manifestation and spate of political thuggery, and causes and effect of political thuggery and democratic performance since 1999 to date. The study reveals that poverty, unemployment, financial attractiveness of elective positions, the value system of wealth accumulation, and an ineffective security agency account for the incidence of political thuggery in Nigeria. Political thuggery hinders public accountability of elective officers and thus is a bane to good governance in Nigeria. Itg also increases the crime rate and the emergence of credible candidates in elections and thus is a threat to the achievement of democratic dividends and exercise of citizenship rights in Nigeria. On the basis of these findings, the study recommends that government should make elective offices less attractive financially and conceited government programs and policies should be aimed at alleviating unemployment and poverty and strengthening the capacity of security agencies. Government must consistently educate citizens and youth on the evil of political thuggery and violence.     

Democratic Consolidation in Timor-Leste: Achievements,Problems and Prospects

Timor-Leste has had three rounds of major elections, all of which have been widely regarded as meeting international criteria for being free and fair. There has also been one change of government on the basis of these elections. On these grounds, some observers have suggested that Timor-Leste has met the benchmark for having consolidated its democracy. Timor-Leste can be said to meet the criteria for an expanded minimalist definition of democracy, holding regular, free and fair elections within an open competitive political environment, with relatively little violence and intimidation and general freedom of expression. This political process has, as defined by the literature, also consolidated. However, Timor-Leste continues to face future economic challenges. The literature indicates that states with high levels of poverty, unemployment and with food shortages are more prone to political instability. Given that Timor-Leste's political party system relies heavily on charismatic individuals and, apart from Fretilin, has poor party structures, loss of current political leaders will add a further destabilising effect. Expected economic problems are likely to manifest around the same time that the current generation of political leaders are no longer active. The question will be, in this increasingly challenging environment, whether Timor-Leste can sustain its democracy.     

An historian writes Poetry

The territory of this new European state is crossed by strategically important passes, the lowest in the entire Alps, leading from the Danubian basin to the Mediterranean (Italy). Thus, the Slovenes had been under cultural, civilizational and political domination of centers from these two parts of Europe until 1918. Because the mountainous land forms, dissected also by valleys and basins, were prone to processes of diffusion rather than fusion, the Slovenes became a national and political subject of their own as late as the nineteenth century. From 1918 to 1990 they were joined to Yugoslavia, a South‐East European state, and learnt, to their cost, all the differences between the cultures of West and Central Europe on the one hand, and South‐East and Eastern Europe and the Near East on the other. Hence the plebiscite decision by the nation for an independent state.     

Unemployment Risks and the Origins of Unemployment Compensation

This paper focuses on the distribution of sectoral unemployment risks and the role of political regimes in the foundational moments of unemployment compensation. The institutionalization of unemployment compensation is a function of two factors. First, it depends on the distribution of unemployment risks by economic sectors. Second, the effect of risk inequality is conditional upon the political regime type. I employ event history analysis of 144 countries throughout the world for the long historical period from 1880 to 2000. The results show that an overall societal level of unemployment risk and inequality of sectoral unemployment risks in a society are positively associated with the likelihood of the institutionalization of unemployment compensation. In addition, the effect of risk inequality is much higher under democracy than under dictatorship. A broader implication is that the creation of unemployment compensation is not only a function of homogeneous working class power but also a function of working class conflict that stems from the heterogeneity of unemployment risks among workers.     

Consequences of increased third-party payments for health care services.

The growth of third-party programs to pay the costs of health care has occurred in an unplanned manner. As a result, the country presently is faced with a number of uncoordinated payment programs that sometimes work against each other. While the expansion of health insurance programs has provided the financing necessary to keep our health care system up-to-date, and while such programs doubtlessly have reduced the financial barriers to seeking health care for some population segments, health insurance also has produced some problems. Generally, the contribution of health insurance to these problems is subtle and cannot be quantified. Yet, policymakers increasingly are recognizing that there are factors at work in our health care system that, if continued unabated, will exacerbate the country's health care cost problem. Many of these factors owe their existence to the socially unacceptable incentives provided by most health insurance programs. This article focuses on some of the adverse consequences of health insurance programs and indicates that the future of private health insurance depends upon how these problems are addressed.     

Lives on the border: language and culture in the lives of ethnic Russian women in Baltinava,Latvia

This study draws on ethnographic research conducted in a small village, Baltinava in Latvia, 2.5 kilometres from the border with Russia. The research examines how ethnic Russian women create a specific Latvian Russian identity by contrasting themselves from ethnic Latvians and Russians who live in Russia and identifying with both groups at the same time. To narrate their lives and to make them meaningful, real and/or perceived “attributes” are combined to draw boundaries between “us” and “them.” Thus, the same thing such as language can be used not only both to distinguish themselves from Russians in Russia or Latvians but also to form coherent identities and to emphasize similarities. This study suggests that ethnicities cannot be reduced to a list of set ethnic groups that are very often used in official government statistics. Ethnic identities have to be viewed as fluid and situational. Moreover, this study shows the dialectic nature of ethnicity. On the one hand, external political, historical and social processes create and recreate ethnic categories and definitions. Yet, on the other hand, the women in this study are active agents creating meaningful and symbolic ethnic boundaries.     

Socio-economic status and political support in post-communist Romania

How is socio-economic status linked to political support? The analysis of a Romanian national probability sample suggests that there are two distinct and opposite routes. On the one hand, status is positively associated to political support, via well-being and, on the other hand, it is negatively associated to political support, probably via expectations and values. Whereas the negative route implies that upper status Romanians are more critical of current politics without questioning democratic principles, the positive route reveals that Romanians' discontent erodes not only trust in political actors but also more diffuse levels of political support, and leads to positive attitudes toward communism.     

Occupational Logics and Political Commitment: American Artists Against the Iraq War

This article analyzes the political commitment of American artists, belonging to various art worlds, against the recent war in Iraq. Through the construction of three types of trajectories, I distinguish several mechanisms of commitment and forms of political involvement. I show how artists' heterogeneous professional identities structure their political commitment throughout the protest, how occupational logics shape the possible forms of action, in the artists' eyes. In the second part of the article, I focus on what is changing, in this context, in the relationships between the artistic and the political spheres, and what is revealed about their ordinary functioning. As a result of the increasing differentiation and specialization of the spheres of action in our societies, it has become more and more difficult and illegitimate for artists to fuse their artwork and their political positions. At the same time, individuals with strong resources of notoriety, especially in the film industry, have demanded a new role of public representation, challenging the exclusive political legitimacy to represent people.     

The Congo war and the prospects for state formation: Rwanda and Uganda compared

This article analyses the effect of the Congo war on state power in Rwanda and Uganda. Drawing on theories of European state formation, it asks whether the Congo war has led to a strengthening of the state in the two countries. It is argued that this has not been the case. Neither the Rwandan nor the Ugandan state has been strengthened as a result of the war. While the war has weakened the state in Uganda, the remarkable strength of the Rwandan state just a few years after the 1994 genocide must be understood as a result of the security threat faced by the regime from Hutu militias, and not as a result of the Congo war. This means that security threats against the regime can, in certain circumstances, have the same effect on state formation as war had in early modern Europe. I also argue that changes in the state system have altered the links between war and state formation. The ‘war makes states’ connection presupposes a positive relationship between war, regime survival and state formation. In contemporary Africa there is no such link. On the one hand, state survival is guaranteed anyway, no matter how weak the state is. On the other hand, regime survival does not depend on mobilisation of resources through taxation, since resources are available from elsewhere.     

State formation,development, and the politics of self-help in Kenya

Issues of rural development, state formation, and political effectiveness are of paramount importance in Africa today. Analysis of Kenya's Harambee self-help approach to development contributes to our understanding of these issues by clarifying not only the ways in which political and economic concerns are linked in one African nation in a hierarchy based on a patrimonial model of political behavior but also some facets of elite behavior and peasant-state relationships. This paper argues that self-help is central to Kenyan politics and hence to the operation of this model of political behavior, serving the interests and needs of both Kenyan elites and rural communities. Through their self-help projects rural Kenyans neither reject the state retreating into the economy of affection nor permit elites exclusive access to the benefits of both public and private resources. Rather, using elite networks to gain support for self-help projects, residents of rural communities improve their access to highly valued collective goods. These processes are currently being modified in some important ways by the Moi government.     

Hearing the voice of Donbas: art and literature as forms of cultural protest during war

This paper analyzes literary, visual, and street art works of writers and artists from Eastern Ukraine produced during 2014. Two Donetsk artists, Serhii Zakharov and Anzhela Dzherikh, and two Luhansk writers, Serhii Zhadan and Olena Stepova, play with the myth of the proletarian Donbas, on the one hand, and debunk the popular perception of Donbas people as being in consent with the politics of the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics, on the other. They explore familiar tropes and images of Donbas and use guerrilla tactics (shock effects, provocativeness, and deception) to initiate public reaction to the war. Their works are united by their search for a shared communication space and direct access to the audience on occupied territories. These artists challenge the accepted perception of Donbas as a free but uncivilized space and participate in the creation of a new Donbas text. The interaction between politics, art, and activism makes their voices and vision powerful and infectious and can help achieve civic consolidation in Donbas.     

Stalin's Genocides

In this essay I explore the ways in which the internal Albanian politics of memory in Kosovo rely on a longer, lived history of militant self-organisation than the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) war period alone. On the basis of recent ethnographic research, I argue that the memory of prewar militant activism is symbolically codified, ritually formalized, and put on the public stage in Kosovo today. Not only has this process effectively rehabilitated and consolidated the personal, social, and political status of specific former activists, it also has produced a hegemonic morality against which the actions of those in power are judged internally. On the one hand, this process reproduces shared cultural references which idealise ethno-national solidarity, unity and pride and which have served militant mobilisation already before the 1990s. On the other, it provides the arguments through which rival representatives of the former militant underground groups (known as Ilegalja) compete both socially and politically still today. Although this process demarcates some lines of social and political friction within society, it also suggests that international efforts to introduce an identity which breaks with Kosovo's past and some of its associated values, face a local system of signification that is historically even deeper entrenched than is usually assumed.     

“自由”与“不自由”:高科技跨国公司的政治化与国家化

由于高科技或新技术本身具有一定的公共产品特性,并且决定着一个国家的综合国力,因此高科技的发展与一国内部政治及国家间竞争的关联度逐渐加大。一方面,企业利益进一步与国家利益重合,高科技跨国公司在开展跨国业务时愈发受到母国与东道国“政治正确”的规制;另一方面,在逆全球化背景下,国家对技术的理解形成了较为明确的技术主权观念,高科技跨国公司与母国之间的“捆绑”由此亦愈发明显。在此背景下,随着西方排他性技术同盟的形成,非西方的高科技跨国企业遭受打压的态势在中短期内并不会缓解,国家间、企业间的技术合作将极大受阻,全球技术进步的成本和门槛也将因此显著提升,最终影响人类的整体利益。对中国而言,一方面,要继续扩大开放,坚持技术多边主义,积极推动跨国技术合作;另一方面,仍需凸显技术进步过程中的国家角色,建构国家引导下的以高科技跨国企业为主体的技术创新体系,最终实现关键核心技术的自主可控。