Introduction to “charting,tracking, and mapping: new technologies,labor, and surveillance”

Advances in information technologies over the last two decades have offered the promise of revolutionizing workplaces and other settings by expanding the capabilities of individuals working in various professions. Enabled by high-speed computing systems and marked by an intensification of command and control properties, new technologies have expanded, and in some cases intentionally surpassed, the scope of the senses. Technologies such as drones, surveillance cameras, and airport and border security systems promise the seemingly infinite catchment and infinitesimal account of human actions, while computer processing software provides real-time data on large-scale transactional processes occurring in monetary systems and security markets. Charting, tracking, and mapping functions open up new vistas for quantifying social behaviors and detecting misbehaviors, creating new frontiers for criminal justice, the military, and economic activity. The papers in this special issue reveal the processes guiding the rapid transformation and flexible adaptation of institutional structures, economic and financial systems, and threat surveillance and military/police mobilization in the near future.     

Obstacle race? ‘race’, racism and the recruitment of British Asian professional footballers

Burdsey examines the ways in which British Asian footballers perceive ‘race’ and racism as factors influencing their under-representation in the professional game. He argues that issues of ‘race’ and racism in football often manifest themselves in forms that are far more complex, nuanced and subtle than are recognized within dominant discourses. Using their oral testimonies, Burdsey demonstrates that the attitudes and opinions of British Asian footballers often contradict the viewpoints proposed by anti-racist football organizations and the media. In particular, for a variety of reasons, the British Asian players in this research, many of whom have first-hand experience of playing at professional clubs, do not attribute the under-representation of British Asian professional footballers to racism in the professional game. These players believe that it is necessary to examine how issues of ethnicity, ‘race’ and racism manifest themselves at the amateur levels of the game, and how this situation inhibits the progression of British Asians into professional football. At amateur levels, racism from opponents, together with the role of football clubs as symbols of ethnic identity, means that British Asian players often play in all-Asian teams and in all-Asian leagues. This restricts their opportunities for being identified and recruited by professional clubs. Finally, Burdsey analyses the use of British Asian coaches as cultural intermediaries in facilitating the inclusion of British Asians in professional football. He argues that not only can this approach be disadvantageous, but also that it is hypocritical, and thus causes offence to many British Asian players.     

Sex and Race: Are Black Candidates More Likely to be Disadvantaged by Sex Scandals?

A growing body of work suggests that exposure to subtle racial cues prompts white voters to penalize black candidates, and that the effects of these cues may influence outcomes indirectly via perceptions of candidate ideology. We test hypotheses related to these ideas using two experiments based on national samples. In one experiment, we manipulated the race of a candidate (Barack Obama vs. John Edwards) accused of sexual impropriety. We found that while both candidates suffered from the accusation, the scandal led respondents to view Obama as more liberal than Edwards, especially among resentful and engaged whites. Second, overall evaluations of Obama declined more sharply than for Edwards. In the other experiment, we manipulated the explicitness of the scandal, and found that implicit cues were more damaging for Obama than explicit ones.     

Fiscal adjustments: do labor and product market institutions matter?

This paper investigates the role played by labor and product market institutions in determining the likelihood of initiating and of successfully concluding a fiscal adjustment. Using data for 16 OECD countries over the period 1970 to 2000, we find that a less generous unemployment benefit system—rather than temporary caps on spending (e.g., wage freezes)—contributes to the success of fiscal consolidation. Weaker forms of bargaining coordination and centralization facilitate the fiscal adjustment effort. On the other hand, product market deregulation and more flexible employment protection legislation do not contribute positively to fiscal consolidation.     

Tariff liberalization and product standards: Regulatory chill and race to the bottom?

Does tariff liberalization cause regulatory chill by putting downward pressure on health, safety, and environmental standards? Or does it cause a race to the top as governments seek to use standards as nontariff barriers to trade? There remains remarkably little empirical evidence to answer these long-debated questions. We seek to address this lack by analyzing annual country-by-industry data on notifications of changes in sanitary and phytosanitary standards by world trade organization members. Our results suggest that the impact of increased trade pressure depends on whether domestic producers are likely to gain or lose from a change in standards. Regulatory chill is the dominant response in most countries, but countries in which producers can adapt to standards relatively cheaply appear to race to the top. Consequently, tariff liberalization encourages divergence in standards across countries.     

Stability and change in political attitudes: Observed,recalled, and “explained”

Using data from a panel survey of members of two generations, this study explores observed change in policy opinions across a 9-year span and respondents' recollections and explanations of their self-perceived attitude shifts. In general, remembrances corresponded poorly to opinions as originally expressed, with respondents perceiving that they were more attitudinally stable than was actually observed. When attempting to reconstruct their past political attitudes, individuals appeared to rely on simple rules of thumb such as one might employ to account for another's behavior. Finally, respondents readily supplied explanations for their self-perceived attitude history, even when those perceptions directly contradicted observed opinion change. It is argued that these results are not artifacts of survey measurement problems. Instead, they indicate that policy attitudes generally do not have strong cognitive representations, are eminently changeable, and once they are changed, an individual's cognitive autobiography is revised so as to render the changes invisible.     

Psychodynamics,symbolism, and socialization: “object relations” perspectives on personality,ideology, and political perception

Psychodynamic aspects of the perceptual process by which individuals relate to the distal symbolism of the political environment are explored through a conjunction of object relations theory and intensive analysis methodology. Drawing upon the joint theoretical perspective that object relations theory and the transference postulate bring to bear on personality and perception, a psychodynamic account of the attributional interface that exists between political symbols aspublic objects, on the one hand, andprivate symbolic meanings, on the other, is advanced and the dynamics at play demonstrated through detailed consideration of selected specimen cases. The individual dynamics demonstrated in each of the cases were found to obtain as well in the cases of others holding similar political views; moreover, certain of these group-wide personality patterns were discovered to have predictive significance in distinguishing radical ideologues from individuals subscribing to more moderate political views. Finally, the implications for a psychodynamic theory of political perception and socialization are considered.A revised and abbreviated version of a paper presented before the panel on Intensive Analysis in Political Psychology at the annual meeting of the Midwest Political Science Association, Chicago, April 20–22, 1978, under the title, Personality, Perception, and Political Ideology: Psychodynamic Aspects of Political Socialization and Symbolism.     

Men and Sex Equality: What Have They Got to Lose?

This paper explores the gains and losses that might be involved in a shift to greater sex equality. It argues that in addition to practical changes, genuine equality would displace men and their needs as the unquestioned standard of humanity. Men are likely to find this deeply threatening. They could, however, benefit in the long run. Some men might, therefore, support sex equality on the grounds of self-interest as well as justice; they will, however, also experience short-term losses, and women cannot rely on their support.     

‘Everybody else just living their lives’: 9/11, race and the new postglobal literature

ABSTRACT

López's essay focuses on three questions or concerns: globalization, its aftermath and how those on the bottom survive it. During globalization's rise through the 1990s even the most virulent critics treated its eventual hegemony over the planet as a fait accompli; the only relevant questions were how it would change us, and whether those changes were desirable. Today the question is how to live now that globalization has failed us. As the aftermath of each of the global cataclysms of the last decade have amply demonstrated, it is the poor, the disenfranchised and marginalized who bear the brunt of the suffering and anxiety set in motion by the economic, political and cultural changes unleashed by globalization at the level of neighbourhoods and communities. What López calls the ‘postglobal’ emerges precisely at those moments when globalization as a hegemonic discourse stumbles, when it experiences a crisis or setback. The first section of his essay consists of a detailed exposition of the term ‘postglobal’ and its efficacy for the study of contemporary literature and culture. The rest focuses on Monica Ali's novel Brick Lane as an exemplar of what he calls the new postglobal literature.     

Human Rights, “Orientation,” and ASEAN

This article will first look at the recent promulgation by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) of its ASEAN Human Rights Declaration (AHRD). This development follows on from ASEAN's official attempts since the development of the 2007 ASEAN Charter to promote a “people-oriented” ASEAN. This article explores the various criticisms that have arrived of the ASEAN Human Rights Declaration, and, in particular, considers the criticisms concerned with or relevant to sexual orientation and gender identity rights. Second, the article uses the context of the arrival of the AHRD and, indeed, the arrival of its auspicing institution, the ASEAN Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights (AICHR), to ask broader and deeper questions about the cultural politics of making rights claims and the manner in which these claims may contribute to the development of a more democratic politics.     

Social capital and labor politics in Japan: Cooperation or cooptation?

Policy Sciences - Social capital, derived from voluntary cooperative relationships and memberships, is thought to enhance a group's capacity to attain a common good. Japan enjoys plentiful...     

No Sex Scandals Please,We’re French: French Attitudes towards Politicians’ Public and Private Conduct

The notion of distinct ‘public’ and ‘private’ spheres underpins much normative and practical engagement with political misconduct. What is less clear is whether citizens draw distinctions between misdemeanours in the ‘public’ and ‘private’ spheres, and whether they judge these in systematically different ways. This paper explores attitudes to political misconduct in France. French citizens are often said to be particularly relaxed about politicians’ private affairs, but there has been little empirical evidence for this proposition. Drawing on original survey data, this paper demonstrates clearly that French citizens draw a sharp distinction between politicians’ public and private transgressions, and are more tolerant of the latter.     

Cheap talk,costly talk,crazy talk: patterns in North Korea’s English language propaganda*

This article examines the patterns in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea’s (North Korea’s) use of hostile rhetoric in its internationally-directed messaging. The article first places North Korea’s belligerent rhetoric in the context of that country’s capacity to threaten the US and its Northeast Asian allies; indeed many analysts worry that Pyongyang’s rhetoric represents a conflict escalation risk or even a casus belli. Following this, the article discusses the common explanations – irrationality/incompetence, lack of audience costs, inter alia – for why the North Korean regime employs such hostile rhetoric, and finds these explanations wrong or misleading. The main analysis section describes the results of a study of 10 years of English-language propaganda published by the KCNA (North Korea’s state news agency). A multiple regression model is used to test the relationship between North Korea’s hostile rhetoric and a set of independent variables. The statistical tests indicate a mixed correlation of North Korean rhetoric to the independent variables. One major finding is that there is no correlation between hostile North Korean rhetoric and the country’s kinetic provocations. The conclusion discusses the role that North Korea’s rhetoric plays within the country’s larger adversarial relationship to the US, South Korea, and Japan.     

Defending the white race: White male faculty opposition to a “white racism” course

The structures and processes of curriculum censorship are a microcosm of the racial organization and dynamics of America and other modern societies. They offer valuable insights into how the issue of systemic white racism is kept off organizational agendas. Whether successful or unsuccessful, censorship efforts typically become visible only in those rare instances when they are challenged publicly. In this paper arguments made against and for an intensely opposed “White Racism” course are examined to delineate the relationship between power, voice, and social change. This curriculum conflict is the analytical vehicle through which we explore the role of race-defensive denial in the persistence of systemic white racism. This case study also reveals effective ways of overcoming such denial and placing white racism at the center of social discourse.