Beyond the Ballot Box: Changing Patterns of Political Protest Participation in Germany (1974–2008)

This article deals with the development of ‘unconventional’ political participation in Germany between 1974 and 2008. Our aim is to describe empirically the evolution of protest actions across time and differences between east and west. Moreover, we strive to unveil explanatory factors by analysing data from the Political Action Survey (1974/75) and the European Values Study (2008) in regard to lawful demonstrations. For this purpose, we draw on scholarly writing and test the causal effects of socio-demographic, social-structural and attitudinal factors. Our findings show that participation in lawful protest forms is not anymore a minoritarian, exceptional or unconventional act of political claims making, but a normal aspect of political behaviour. Demonstrations do not recruit exclusively a specific constituency with a clear social profile, but rather citizens from different social backgrounds and orientations. Moreover, our data suggest a gradual convergence between East and West Germany.     

Egg freezing,stratified reproduction and the logic of not

This commentary examines social and political implications of social egg freezing in a market that is stratified, globalized, and part of a larger bioeconomy. John Robertson''s article and public discourse prompted by Facebook and Apple''s ‘corporate egg freezing’ benefits provide touchstones for interrogating social and industry practices that embrace making reproductive capacity marketable. Supply of the cells and bodies necessary for assisted reproductive technology use depends on market thinking and structural inequality. What the industry produces are carefully calibrated social-political distances between participants in egg freezing and banking, as well as ‘third party reproduction.’     

THE PERSISTENCE OF POVERTY IN THE CONTEXT OF FINANCIAL INSTABILITY: A BEHAVIORAL PERSPECTIVE

We review recent findings regarding the psychology of decisionmaking in contexts of poverty, and consider their application to public policy. Of particular interest are the oft‐neglected psychological and behavioral consequences of economic scarcity coupled with financial instability. The novel framework highlights the psychological costs of low and unstable incomes, and how these can transform small and momentary financial hurdles into long‐lasting poverty traps. Financial instability, we suggest, not only has obvious economic ramifications for well‐being, but it also creates the need for constant focus and attention, and can distract from the very opportunities otherwise designed to alleviate the effects of poverty. We describe a variety of public policy strategies that emerge from this perspective that are not readily apparent in conventional theories that permeate the design of social programs.     

Etchings from the Attic: looking back at feminist print-making from the 1980s

ABSTRACT

Drawing on autobiographical memories of the influence of the Women's Liberation Movement, this article discusses feminist etchings made for my final undergraduate show. Etching, historically related to satire, was deliberately chosen to mock the disparaging treatment of the female artist. The article offers both an experiential and a contextual discussion of the atmosphere of social activism, political activity and consciousness-raising of the WLM as well as the journalism and feminist art history scholarship which informed my practice. Further, the article evaluates the potential naivety of my feminist strategy of ‘body art', as it risked being misunderstood as conventional sexually explicit imagery of female sexuality.     

Desublimating monstrous desire: the horror of gender in new extremist cinema

Known for graphic gore and formal experimentation, films of European new extremism stand out for the way in which they combine sex with violence, stressing the body in extreme modes of being and rendering its materiality emphatic, uncanny and profoundly disturbing. While this emphasis on sex and violence has been widely recognized in scholarly literature on new extremism, its connections to gendered conventions of genre cinema have not. In this article, we contend that films such as Philippe Grandrieux's Sombre (1998), Lars von Trier's Antichrist (2009) and Claire Denis's Trouble Every Day (2001) directly reference gendered tropes and conventions of horror cinema in their explorations of desire, sexual difference and violence. Far from being inconsequential or secondary concerns, we argue that emphatically gendered characteristics of cinematic horror are crucial to the disturbing impact of these films. By appropriating tropes from the horror film, but refusing them the closure and recuperation customary to narrative conventions of the genre, new extremist films critique these gendered implications, calling attention to the paradoxes and contradictions inherent in the gender politics of horror.     

‘We Must Advance,We Must Expand': architectural and social challenges to the domestic model at the College for Ladies at Westfield

This article examines the earliest principles of architectural design and social operation at one of the first higher education institutions for women in Britain. The domestic model for women's education combined residential design with a social emphasis on familial relationships in an attempt to inculcate what was understood to be women's domestic character and assuage contemporary anxieties about women's education. However, a coincident emphasis on the college's growth, necessary for it to be understood as effective, presented challenges to the college's original organisation. This article considers official memoranda alongside early students’ diaries, scrapbooks and letters to argue that Westfield's success contributed to the erosion of its foundational ideologies.     

Towards agonistic peacebuilding? Exploring the antagonism–agonism nexus in the Middle East Peace process

Many contemporary conflicts are framed as antagonistic and difficult to resolve because of their zero-sum framing among the disputants. This article addresses the antagonism–agonism nexus and the political and contested nature of building peace. It has a three-fold aim: (1) to critically assess the interplay between constructive and destructive dynamics; (2) to analyse the circumstances under which conflict may move from antagonism to agonism; and (3) to advance the novel notion of agonistic peacebuilding. The Middle East Peace process is used as a critical case of intractable conflict to elucidate the enabling and restraining conditions for agonistic peacebuilding.