Constructing ‘active citizenship’: single mothers,welfare, and the logics of voluntarism

Across welfare states, rights-based conceptions of citizenship are losing ground to obligation-centred notions. Drawing on in-depth longitudinal interviews with lone mothers receiving income assistance in British Columbia during a period of significant welfare reform, we explore the mothers' practices and narratives of volunteer labour in relation to conceptions of ‘active citizenship’. Volunteer work and the narratives women construct about it emerge as key sites of struggle and tension over the meaning of motherhood, work, and social contribution.     

Housing prices and wealth inequality in Western Europe

Abstract

Comparative political economy (CPE) has robustly examined the political and institutional determinants of income inequality. However, the study of wealth, which is more unequally distributed than income, has been largely understudied within CPE. Using new data from the World Income Database (WID), this article examines how economic, political and institutional dynamics shape wealth-to-income ratios within Western European and OECD countries. It is found that the political and institutional determinants that affect income inequality have no short- or long-run effects on the wealth-to-income ratio. Rather, the rise in wealth-to-income ratios is driven by rising housing prices, as well as price changes in other financial assets, not home ownership or national saving rates. The article concludes by examining how the changing dynamics of housing prices and wealth inequality will increasingly shape intergenerational – and associated class-based – political conflict in Western Europe.     

Privacy law as price control

The median Internet user is concerned about digital advertisers collecting personal information. To address these fears, the European Union passed the Privacy Directive to regulate the common business practice of information collection. This paper investigates the potential effects of this regulation, finding that the law is likely to generate several unintended consequences. Economists and legal scholars acknowledge that personal data serves as the “price” for accessing many digital platforms. I extend this logic to argue that if a regulation enables consumers to stop supplying this information, while continuing to consume the site’s content, it is equivalent to a price control. Next, I discuss unintended consequences that this price control may generate: tie-in sales, investment flight, and altered exchange characteristics. Lastly, I conclude that, just as with traditional price controls, the privacy price control may be a way for government officials to enhance their popularity with the citizenry. In short, my analysis suggests that one of the most well-researched policy interests of economics—the theory of price controls—can shed light on one of economists’ newest interests: digital privacy.     

Exploring Social Capital: as Concept and Practice in Australian Public Health Policies and Programs

Over the past twenty years interest has grown in the concept of social capital in international and Australian public policy. We explore how social capital is understood as a concept and used in practice for guiding policy development and program delivery in South Australian public health programs. The empirical research compared policy makers’ and practitioners’ understandings of social capital and how theories about social capital and health inequality were translated into practice in three case study projects. It found that there are shifting discourses between social capital and related concepts, including community capacity building, and social inclusion/exclusion. Policy makers reported less use of the concept of social capital in favour of social inclusion/exclusion reflecting changing political and policy environments where terms come into favour and then go out of fashion. In this transition period the two terms are often used interchangeably although there are some conceptual points of difference.     

Are individuals' familiarity judgments diagnostic of prior contact?

The extensive eyewitness memory research literature has been restricted to memory for strangers. Although it is often assumed that eyewitnesses are more accurate identifying familiar than unfamiliar individuals, little is known about whether individuals' familiarity judgments are diagnostic of prior contact. Caucasian and Asian sophomores (N=139) in two small private high schools viewed yearbook pictures of (a) graduated students from their school who were seniors (fourth year) when participants were freshmen (first year) (familiar) and (b) unfamiliar individuals, and responded whether each was ‘familiar’. The design was completely crossed; familiar faces at each school served as unfamiliar faces at the other school. Based on d′ data, the cross-race effect resulted for familiarity judgments. Also, although individuals' familiarity judgments were diagnostic of prior contact, accuracy was low (mean hit rate=0.42; mean false alarm rate=0.23), rendering an eyewitness's report of having seen a perpetrator casually in the past of limited forensic value.     

Plea bargaining and appraisals of eyewitness evidence by prosecutors and defense attorneys

A sample of defense attorneys and prosecutors from matched California counties participated in a two-part study. Study 1A reports the results of a survey regarding how influential each of the 17 eyewitness factors is in affecting the accuracy of real eyewitness identifications. Generally, both attorney groups considered all eyewitness factors to be influential; on only 6 of the 17 factors were defense attorneys more likely than prosecutors to provide higher importance ratings. In Study 1B, the attorneys answered questions regarding their willingness to plea bargain after reading each of four scenarios in which (1) same- versus cross-race identification and (2) whether the perpetrator was familiar were experimentally manipulated. Both eyewitness factors influenced plea bargaining decisions, and effects were generally consistent for both attorney groups. Results confirm that plea bargaining decisions at least by defense attorneys are made ‘in the shadow of the trial,’ and that appraisals of the strength of eyewitness evidence play a significant role in these decisions.     

France's last sociologist

Abstract

The publication of Michael Grenfell's Pierre Bourdieu: Agent Provocateur provides an ideal opportunity for a career retrospective of the academic sociologist who, in recent times, has taken most seriously his role as a public intellectual, indeed, one who gradually warmed to the status of ‘universal intellectual’ with increasing postmodernist disapproval. The French context of Bourdieu's development and reception is highlighted.