Reform or Radicalism: Left Social Movements from the Battle of Seattle to Occupy Wall Street

We examine two recent cases of relative Left success—the Battle of Seattle and Occupy Wall Street—and argue that in each case an effective dynamism between radical and reform wings drove gains. This analysis is not meant to deny political difference and hawk false unity. Instead we want to challenge the luxury of mutual dismissal with the actually existing benefits of movement dynamism. By dynamism we mean contributions arising from different activist wings and productively interacting to increase overall movement power. Our ultimate claim is that the North American Left will yield greater success by becoming more self-conscious about the concrete benefits of movement dynamism.     

Flooding Wall Street: Echoes from the Future of Resistance around Climate Change

The global capitalist system is ravaging ecosystems at a staggering and accelerating scale as it transgresses multiple ecological planetary boundaries, from massive species extinction to climate change, radically threatening life on this planet. Through analyzing power as a network of intersecting sets of relations, we can start to appreciate capitalism and the state not as entities, but as comprised by social relationships and local operations of power. This perspective reveals how effective resistance can be conceived in the form of destituent power – not as a direct clash with constituted power but instead as the withdrawal of our energies from and obedience to the political order. This destituent approach proceeds by deactivating the subjugating relationships constituting the system, thereby opening spaces to undertake constantly evolving experiments of developing new harmonious social and ecological relationships. Actions to disrupt and delegitimize the operations of capital, like Flood Wall Street, serve as tentative glimpses of ascendant destituent forces assembling against ecological collapse. The further challenge becomes how to connect the multiplicity of resistances, thought not in terms of a unity as a homogenous movement, but through actively cultivating their transversal relations across the rhizomatic network of experiments in practices of destituent power striving to realize new worlds.     

Ethnic Diversity and Organizational Performance: Assessing Diversity Effects at the Managerial and Street Levels

ABSTRACT

As the public sector workforce becomes more ethnically diverse and as government agencies make attempts to manage that diversity, the importance of understanding how diversity affects workplace interactions and work-related outcomes increases. Little public-sector research has examined the impact of diversity on performance outcomes. This article seeks to fill this gap by studying the effects of the ethnic diversity of managers and street level public officials on work-related outcomes. We use basic in-group/out-group theories from psychology to formulate research questions relating diversity and performance, along with empirical research on the effects of diversity on work-related outcomes. We then use data from schools to test the relationship between ethnic diversity and organizational performance, identifying different impacts for managerial diversity and diversity among teachers. Results are consistent across three different models: manager diversity is routinely non-significant in predicting organizational performance, while teacher diversity has a consistently significant, and negative, impact on performance. These findings suggest that process-oriented problems are causing diverse organizations to experience drawbacks instead of gains, and that any benefit that could be drawn from a diversity of viewpoints is overshadowed by communication and collaboration problems.     

街道办事处机构改革探讨

街道办事处是城市管理的主要执行落实者，长期以来，它为社会稳定和城市管理等做出了突出贡献。但随着现代化建设的深入，街道办事处体制本身显露出许多弊端，特别是由于与居委会之间职责不够清晰，使街道办事处长期陷入被动的应付事务之中，因工作质量不高而影响了在辖区中的威信，影响了在城市管理中的效果。街道办事处是区政府的派出机构，是代表区级政府在辖区内实行社会管理的基层组织，其管理手段是行政手段。社区居委会是居民自治组织，代表居民在社区内进行社区管理，其管理手段是自我管理。由于受历史等原因的影响，街道办事处与居…     

Presentation of this Special Issue

It may be possible to trace the origins of the sexual revolution of the 1960s and 1970s back to Sigmund Freud's psychoanalytic theories, changes in the social structure (in particular with respect to women working at home and outside the home), and, later, to the ready availability of contraceptives. This revolution brought about changes not only in the sexual behavior of men and women of all ages, but also in the characteristics and stability of families. It also resulted in a more open attitude toward sex in society as a whole and in mass media in particular.     

“上不能上,下不能下”——一个街角青年向主流社会回归的“内卷化”之路

对当前街角青年研究的重点应放在他们向主流社会回归过程的分析上。街角青年的回归心理呈交叉反复态势。本文以"资本"和"场域"为分析视角,并将宏观社会背景纳入视野,通过对一个街角青年向主流社会回归的一种"上不能上,下不能下"的路径进行历时性研究,解析了影响街角青年回归主流社会的资本障碍、社会环境障碍、社会结构障碍、经济结构障碍、家庭障碍、个体障碍等等,从而考察了街角青年回归过程的真实实践逻辑,展现了街角青年回归需求的非平衡性与回归场域的平面性,回归路径的非累积性等内卷化特征。