Crossing the boundary: Peasants, shepherds, and servants in a western Alpine community

In the historical and anthropological literature, western Alps servants were widely assumed to be few in number, and the importance of the institution of service therefore negligible. This study combines historical-demographic and ethnographic methods to investigate whether this was true of a community in the Italian western Alps with a mixed population of peasants and transhumant shepherds. Surprisingly, a valuable 1951 census reveals that seemingly small numbers hide what was actually a normal phase in the life course of peasant sons whom shepherds recruited to work as servants. Distinct patterns of life-cycle and lifetime service seem to have coexisted in the same community. The evidence also confirms that in southern Europe, as some recent studies have pointed out, the institution of service often was not just the circulation of young men and women between households but an asymmetrical exchange between different socioeconomic groups. Otherwise rigid social and cultural boundaries were thereby crossed.     

Political Constitutionalism and the Question of Constitution‐Making

The debate on political constitutionalism has entirely neglected the constitution‐making dimension. This is probably due to the fact that constitution‐making usually brings with it undesirable outcomes such as the entrenchment of rights or structures. These outcomes do not respect reasonable disagreement among citizens because they violate the only fair system for settling disagreement: majority rule and equal voting rights. This article argues that political constitutionalists may regret the absence of any claim about constitution‐making. Either they are overlooking certain problems inherent to the electoral process that is supposed to tackle disagreement or, even worse, they are downplaying the entrenching effect of ordinary political processes by ignoring the redemptive properties of constituent power. In both cases, their claims undermine the political dimension of constitutionalism.     

Working women in France,nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Where,when, and which women were in work at marriage?

We look at women's labour force participation for the whole of France in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. We study to what extent young women were working at the time of their marriage, in which occupations, and how differences in labour force participation might be explained. Using a sample of 53,451 marriage records from the TRA project, we identify regional and temporal differences in rates of female labour force participation and in types of work in France between 1860 and 1986.We observe rather stable levels of female labour force participation between 1860 and 1950 of about 60 per cent, but higher levels in the second half of the twentieth century. Over time, women started to work across virtually all occupational sectors. Regional differences declined over time but continued to exist in the late twentieth century. We formulate a set of hypotheses to explain which women worked, taking into account their resources, as well as their expectations, in a male-breadwinner-dominated society. The results of our hierarchical logistic analysis indicate that women with fewer parental resources were more likely to work.     

Intellectual Capital and Public Management： A Bibliometric Analysis

Starting from the premise that public management, in the context from the emergent knowledge society, needs new forms to act and new tools to reach its objectives, this paper aims to find evidence of the adoption of the principles of intellectual capital under the public management, by raising scientific articles about the subjects, and aims to select theoretical referential about intellectual capital and public management, by bibliometric analysis. The processes presented 100 constant articles in the final portfolio, available in the data base Web of Science, Science Direct and Scopus. The bibliometric indicators show that the studies were published as from 1969, released by 15 international periodicals, written by 164 authors, used 241 key words related to the constructs of this study. It is believed that the identification of the main references helps the understanding of the foundations of this research field. Additionally, this paper provides many inputs that contribute to the comprehension of the subject at an international level, and that can be utilised in the development of future works.     

How Many Europes? Fragmentation in the European Space since the Great Recession

ABSTRACT

Since the Great Recession started in the late 2000s, the European Union (EU) has experienced an acute crisis that has triggered internal divisions among EU members. Three factors can help shed light on this tendency towards political fragmentation: economics and finance, culture, and territory. Each of these reveals a specific ‘geography’, in terms of policies and narratives, of the current malaise regarding the EU project and the limits of the Union in addressing issues important for the domestic debates of its members. Such discontent, as well as anti-EU sentiment, fuels strong political reactions including populism and anti-elitism that could further fragment the EU in the future.     

Hezbollah and the framing of resistance

Abstract

Hezbollah is a holistic network whose social, political, military and cultural dimensions are all parts of a discourse of resistance. Conducting a qualitative frame analysis of speeches by Hezbollah’s General Secretary Nasrallah, supported by interviews with Hezbollah leadership privy to its ideology, this study analyses the construction of muqawama (resistance). It argues that resistance is a complex social phenomenon, which can be manifested, for example, in the differences in how resistance is framed in varying contexts, often addressing different audiences. However, three unifying themes emerged from the frame analysis: diversity of resistance, normalisation of resistance and social dimensions of resistance.     

Hold your nose and vote: corruption and public decisions in a representative democracy

This paper analyzes how corruption alters policy decisions in democracy, and examines whether this distortion can result in a long-term persistence of corruption even when the voters are well informed and rational. By applying a citizen-candidate model of representative democracy, the paper analyzes how corruption distorts the allocation of resources between public and private consumption, altering the policy preferences of elected and nonelected citizens in opposite directions. The outcome is a reduction in real public expenditure and, if the median voter??s demand for public goods is sufficiently elastic, a reduction in taxes. In this case, some citizens benefit indirectly from corruption. The paper also presents some empirical evidence that, in democratic countries, corruption results in lower tax revenue, and proceeds to show that, when this occurs, citizens anticipating a shift in preferences in favor of public expenditure may support institutions that favor corruption. This result complements the findings of other studies that have attributed the persistence of corruption in democracy to some failure on the part of the voters or the electoral system. It also bears implications for developing effective anticorruption strategies and for redefining the role that can be played by the international community.