‘Reading the ads in al-Daʿwa magazine: commercialism and Islamist activism in al-Sadat’s Egypt’

ABSTRACT

This article probes the return of the Muslim Brotherhood to prominence in 1970s Egypt through a systematic analysis of advertisements in the organization’s flagship periodical, al-Da?wa (The Call). In every issue of the magazine, which was published between June 1976 and October 1981, entreaties to proper conduct and appeals to Islamic solidarity appeared alongside advertisements for everything from Pepsi to breakfast biscuits to automobiles. We utilize the methodological insights of social and cultural historians to the value of advertisements to cast new light on the reconstruction of the Brotherhood, its relationship with the diverse institutions comprising the Egyptian state, and on how the Muslim Brotherhood’s vision of piety both reflected and challenged a changing economic reality. Moving beyond a story of the Brotherhood’s return as a product of independent Islamist enterprise that had emerged due to both the Gulf oil boom and Egypt’s economic liberalization programme, significant public sector advertising in al-Da?wa, especially prominent across the most valuable advertising real estate, underscores both internal divisions within the Egyptian state as well as the tangible ways that various state institutions were patrons of religious change.     

Measuring Trade Profile with Granular Product-Level Data

The product composition of bilateral trade encapsulates complex relationships about comparative advantage, global production networks, and domestic politics. Despite the availability of product-level trade data, most researchers rely on either the total volume of trade or certain sets of aggregated products. In this article, we develop a new dynamic clustering method to effectively summarize this massive amount of product-level information. The proposed method classifies a set of dyads into several clusters based on their similarities in trade profile—the product composition of imports and exports—and captures the evolution of the resulting clusters over time. We apply this method to two billion observations of product-level annual trade flows. We show how typical dyadic trade relationships evolve from sparse trade to interindustry trade and then to intra-industry trade. Finally, we illustrate the critical roles of our trade profile measure in international relations research on trade competition.     

Understanding xenophobic hate crime in South Africa

Hundreds of violent incidents of anti‐immigrant hate crimes have been recorded in South Africa over the past two decades. Understanding how the public views this issue helps us better understand how it can be resolved. The paper identifies determinants of public attitudes towards anti‐xenophobia strategies. Data from the South African Social Attitudes Survey for the period 2015–2018 were used for this study. Using these data, the link between anti‐immigrant sentiment and lay attributes of anti‐immigrant violence can be mapped. The results show that most citizens externalise the causes of this kind of hate crime and blame the victims (i.e., foreigners) for the conflict. What people believe about the etiology of an intergroup conflict was found to influence their desire for conflict resolution as well as the type of solutions preferred. Victim blaming was found to predict the adoption of prejudicial solutions to anti‐immigrant hate crime (such as the mass expulsion of foreign nationals). If an individual attributed the violence to the internal attributes (e.g., emotional factors or beliefs about foreign nationals) of the perpetrators, they were more likely to adopt progressive solutions (such as education and awareness campaigns).     

Network of Networks: Preliminary Lessons from the Antwerp Port Authority on Crisis Management and Network Governance to Deal with the COVID-19 Pandemic

In this article, the authors describe and illustrate what they call a “network of networks” perspective and map the development of a lead network for the Antwerp Port Authority that governed organizations and networks in the port community before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. They find that setting a collective focus and selective integration are crucial in the creation and reproduction of an effective system to adequately deal with a wicked problem like the COVID-19 pandemic. The findings on crisis management and network governance are used to engage practitioners and public policy planners to revisit the current design and governance of organizational networks within organizational fields that have been hit by the COVID-19 pandemic.     

Street-Level Bureaucrats’ Attitude toward Clients: A Study of Work Group Influence in the Dutch and Belgian Tax Administration

Abstract

Classic street-level bureaucracy literature has suggested that individual bureaucrats are shaped by their work group. Work group colleagues can impact how bureaucrats perceive clients and how they behave toward them. Building on theories of work group socialization, social representation, and social identification, we investigate if and how the attitude of individual street-level bureaucrats toward clients is shaped by the client-attitude of the bureaucrat’s work group colleagues. We also test whether this relation is dependent on conditions of attitudinal homogeneity and perceived cohesion of the work group. Results of a survey among street-level bureaucrats in the Dutch and Belgian tax administration (1245 respondents from 210 work groups) suggest that different mechanisms underlie the work group’s impact on the individual street-level bureaucrat in this specific attitude. The analysis furthermore reveals that work groups have a limited impact on the individual’s client-attitude. Theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.     

FOSTERING CULTURALLY RESPONSIVE COURTS

This article focuses on how mediation services can be improved to better reflect the culture-based needs and expectations of Latino litigants. The research on which this article is based was conducted in a court-attached custody and visitation program in one U. S. community with a large Latino presence. The findings, recommendations, and conclusions are based on the problems, concerns, and general expectations of more recent arrivals to the United States – for the most part mono-lingual Spanish speaking. The study found that those Latino families have needs in resolving family disputes that differ from those of most Anglo families. The justice system needs to better understand the culture of Latino family life and the ways in which Latinos interact with governmental authority. The Latino families need education, direction and representation in dealing with governmental authority. The mediator can help both the justice system and the Latino family in meeting these needs.     

Toward the development of a roles framework for police psychology

The past two decades have seen major transformations in the way police departments conduct business. These transformations have impacted all aspects of policing from evidence collection to how officers perform their duties while on patrol. One aspect of policing that is still in the throes of transformation is the role of the police psychologist. Picice psychologists have moved from a beginning of counseling police officers involved in critical incidents (see Kurke & Scrivner, 1995) to a broad range of law enforcement related activities. The traditional aspects of their jobs such as providing assistance to crisis negotiation teams, conducting counseling sessions for officers, and developing and presenting in-service and cadet training are part of an ever-changing picture of the police psychologist. Today's police psychologists operate at all levels of police department. Some of the newer roles to emerge in recent years are organizational and management consulting, counseling crime victims, and coordinating community involvement. This paper provides a framework for looking at both new and old roles of police psychologist and to argue for an expanded and better defined role within the policing profession.     

The 2008 Election

The 2008 presidential election will be significant both for domestic and for foreign policy. Issues of security in domestic policy will continue to trump issues of freedom. The difficulties of resolving our military presence in Iraq will be the first among many important issues the new administration must confront. In both domestic and foreign affairs the new administration will have to deal with the unanticipated consequences of inherited policies even as it creates its own agenda and its own set of unintended consequences.

Social Status Attainment During the Transition to Adulthood

The transition from adolescence to adulthood is a critical time for status attainment, with income, education, work experience, and independence from parents accruing at varying speeds and intensities. This study takes an intergenerational life-course perspective that incorporates parents’ and one’s own social status to examine the status attainment process from adolescence into adulthood in the domains of economic capital (e.g., income) and human capital (e.g., education, occupation). Survey data from three waves of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (analytic n = 8,977) are analyzed using latent class analysis to capture the ebb and flow of social status advantages and disadvantages from adolescence (Wave 1) through young adulthood (Wave 3) into adulthood (Wave 4). The analytic sample is composed of 50.3 % females and 70.2 % Whites, 15.3 % Blacks, 11.0 % Hispanics, and 3.5 % Asians ages 12–18 at Wave 1 and 25–31 at Wave 4. Four latent classes are found for economic capital and five for human capital. The importance of parents’ social status is demonstrated by the presence of large groups with persistently low and persistently high social status over time in both domains. The capacity of individuals to determine their own status, however, is shown by equally large groups with upward and downward mobility in both domains. These findings demonstrate the dynamic nature of social status during this critical developmental period.