British women's anti-suffragism and the forward policy, 1908-14

This article reinstates prominent female leaders within the organised opposition to women's suffrage in late Victorian and Edwardian Britain. More specifically, it focuses upon the evolution of a positive, constructive anti-suffragism, labelled the Forward Policy by Mary Ward and other women campaigners who were active in the period leading up to the First World War. These women participated in contemporary citizenship debates through their writings, through their commitment to social action, and through their sometimes problematic relationship with male antisuffragism. The article concludes that women's anti-suffragism deserves closer study in its own right, and through its supporters’ own records, as well in relation to suffragism and the wider women's movement.     

Faith and palliative care: a partnership of care in low- and middle-income countries

ABSTRACT

The provision of holistic palliative care has been identified by WHO as a human right, important for all people, at all ages, with all life-limiting illnesses. When faced with death and dying, issues of meaning and relationships with others, the world, and with the sacred are intensified even more in communities where faith and spiritual beliefs have a significant place. Being able to understand the significance of dying and interpreting the experience and period of living with life-limiting illness, presents an important challenge for palliative care. This article sets out the contribution that faith communities have made in understanding the significance of spiritual issues in health and in delivering palliative care in lower to middle-income contexts where palliative care has been prioritised.     

Satisfaction with and Success of Employee Training from a Public Service Motivation Perspective

New public management requires modernization processes, including modern human resource practices, to enhance public sector performance. According to human capital theory, well-qualified and highly motivated public sector employees improve institutional performance; this study investigates the extent to which employee training as human resource practice can enhance one component of employees’ public service motivation (PSM), namely public interest, and their competencies as employee outcome. We examine public interest as a mediator or a moderator of the relationship between satisfaction with employee training and the resulting competence gain. The findings indicate a positive direct effect of satisfaction with employee training on competence gains and a mediating effect of public interest.     

Young women’s negotiations of gender,the body and the labour market in a post-feminist context

This article explores the ways the body and femininity is understood and negotiated in relation to employment. This article draws on interview data from an Australian study which aimed to explore what it meant to be a ‘young woman’ in neoliberal late modernity, and in relation to the paradoxes of post-feminism. Though there has been an unprecedented rise in youth post-secondary school participation in Australia and elsewhere, girls’ and young women’s increased investment and participation in education has not provided the same gains as for their male counterparts. All interview participants described being aware of gender inequalities and gender discrimination in the workplace, including the glass ceiling, the gender pay gap, and demands and pressures on women to balance career and motherhood, however many did not associate these issues with ‘feminism’. We explore the dynamics of notions of equality, difference and the body in participants’ discussions of work and their anticipation of motherhood and the logics by which gender inequalities are sustained.     

Public service motivation and continuous organizational change: Taking charge behaviour at police services

Building change capabilities into public organizations is a challenge for strategic management. This study focuses on the micro‐level of extra‐role behaviours that contribute to continuous improvements in working procedures at the front‐end of organizations (i.e., taking charge behaviour; TCB). More particularly, we examine public service motivation (PSM) as a key variable mediating between perceived practices and TCB of street‐level bureaucrats. The analyses are based on survey data from a state police force in Germany (N = 1,165). Results confirm the role of PSM as full mediator, but this mediation is limited to the relationship between leadership behaviours and TCB, while perceived organizational characteristics—except for red tape—have direct positive impact on TCB.     

“But it is our duty!” Exploring Gazprom’s reluctance to Russian gas sector reform

Reform of the Russian domestic natural gas sector has been discussed for several decades but has not been carried out. The state-controlled energy company Gazprom holds a dominant position in the domestic market, supplying the population with gas, carrying out societal functions, and in return getting privileges from the state. Recently, however, independent gas producers have increased their market shares and are lobbying for liberalization. While Gazprom might gain from reform, it continues to warn against the dangers of altering the gas market structure too abruptly. Analyzing Gazprom’s reasoning through an ideational analytical lens, this article finds that Gazprom’s reluctance to change can be explained not only by its interests but also by norms and beliefs. Reform studies should take note of Gazprom’s idea of “keeping the country together,” not least because the company has a sounding board in the President, who makes the final decisions.     

‘What can I do next?’: Cosmetic Surgery,Femininities and Affect

This article is based on a study of young people's understandings and experiences of body work (or body modification) in relation to gender and health. Drawing on feminist and Deleuzian–Spinozan approaches to the body, the article explores the embodied sensations, or affects, associated with the body's physical modification through cosmetic surgery as one practice of body work. This approach pursues a non-dualist analysis of the body and contributes to new understandings of body-modification practices such as cosmetic surgery as processes influenced, and informed, by affect. Through examples of differing experiences and trajectories relating to the practice of cosmetic surgery, which has long been a contentious issue in feminism, the article makes evident what a feminist Deleuzian approach means in practice and what it can contribute to analyses of the body in/and society. This approach can assist in exploring the complex ways in which gendered embodiments assemble, and in understanding the dynamics and processes informing differing bodily possibilities related to gender.