a migrant ethic of care? negotiating care and caring among migrant workers in London's low-pay economy

A care deficit is clearly evident in global cities such as London and is attributable to an ageing population, the increased employment of native-born women, prevalent gender ideologies that continue to exempt men from much reproductive work, as well as the failure of the state to provide viable alternatives. However, while it is now acknowledged that migrant women, and to a lesser extent, migrant men, step in to provide care in cities such as London, there is less research on how this shapes the nature, politics and ethics of care. Drawing upon empirical research with low-paid migrant workers employed as domiciliary care providers in London, this paper explores the emergence of a distinct migrant ethic of care that is critically shaped by the caring work that migrant women and men perform.     

Squatting for Survival: Precarious Housing in a Declining U.S. City

Despite severely depressed property markets, housing in declining U.S. cities can be surprisingly unaffordable for poor residents. Yet the characteristics of decline, such as abundant vacant property and constrained economic/political conditions, also provide opportunity for squatting. This article explores survival squatting—illegal occupation of property as a means for procuring suitable housing by marginalized residents. Drawing on a 4.5-year ethnography in Detroit, I examine the mechanisms by which people strategically choose squatting as a method of sheltering in the context of local conditions, and the experiences and conditions of this practice. I situate these empirical findings within a broader discussion comparing squatting and other forms of housing that have received considerable attention by researchers (e.g., shelter use, sleeping rough, doubling up). Squatting is particularly risky and unstable, and often very hidden. Substandard housing conditions prevail, and substance abuse is common. Squatting may have negative implications for child welfare, but may also provide measures of independence, self-determination, and comfort for illegal occupiers. There is a critical need for further research in this area, both to inform comprehensive housing policies and to anticipate how squatters’ well-being is impacted by other urban initiatives, such as blight demolition.     

Institutional anomie and cross-national differences in incarceration†

Messner and Rosenfeld's (2007) institutional anomie theory (IAT) has mainly been applied by criminologists to explain crime rates at various aggregate levels. However, Messner and Rosenfeld also suggest that the same social and cultural forces that lead to high crime may explain differences in punishment, although this latter proposition has yet to be subject to empirical testing. Using a variety of data sources for 41 countries measuring various structural and cultural configurations, in this study we assess the extent to which IAT can explain cross-national differences in incarceration. Our results indicate that the strength of the economic institution and the extent of institutional imbalance reflecting a dominant economic institution are positively associated with incarceration rates when the national culture is characterized by individualism, a competitive achievement orientation, or both. A national culture characterized by both collectivism and a cooperative achievement orientation, however, serves as a buffer against the punitive effects of an institutional imbalance that favors the economy. Our results are discussed in the context of the extant IAT literature and future research on cross-national incarceration.     

The 1990 German federal election and the national unification: A watershed in German electoral history?

The December 1990 German election resulted in a dramatic weakening of the Social Democratic and Green opposition parties, a moderate strengthening of the government coalition, and a unprecedented low voter turnout. This article explains the electoral outcome in terms of the interpretive frames each party employed to address the issue of unification in the election campaign in light of their past voter appeals and stances on the German question. Within the Social Democratic and the Green left‐libertarian discourse, it was particularly difficult to assign a meaningful role to the concept of the nation and national unification.     

Higher education and confidence in institutions: A secondary analysis of the ‘European values survey’, 1981–83

A secondary analysis of the ‘European Values Survey’ tests some of the theoretical conclusions regarding the rationality of trust and distrust in established institutions. A reanalysis of the data set's question relating to confidence in ten particular institutions shows that the expected impact of higher education on confidence in institutions to punish governments for breach of trust applies only to those countries with a long, uninterrupted tradition of upholding civil liberties. In these countries multivariate analyses reveal a latent pattern of ‘civil society’ which is the most important dimension of how institutions are perceived by respondents.     

Postrecession Drivers of Preferences for Homeownership

The analysis presented in this article finds little evidence to suggest that individuals' preferences for owning versus renting a home have been affected by their exposure to recent house price declines and loan delinquency rates, or by knowing others in their neighborhood who have defaulted on their mortgages. Instead, this analysis finds individual characteristics, particularly current housing tenure, to be the strongest predictors of postrecession demand for homeownership.     

Book reviews

This article addresses the concern that democratization may contribute to the reproduction of neo-patrimonialism, rather than to counteract it. The article reports the result of a survey among members of parliament in Ghana regarding their election campaigns. Total spending, sources of funds, and their usage are analysed in the context of the consolidation of liberal democracy. The survey results are supplemented with data collected in 34 interviews with MPs. The data show that MPs are involved in patron-client relationships to a significant degree to reproduce their political power. Furthermore, the prevalence of patronage politics among MPs in Ghana has increased throughout the period of democratic rule. This persistent pattern of patronage politics threatens the very heart of democratic consolidation. Vertical accountability and legitimacy is threatened by alternative pacts of loyalty, expectations of corruption, and tendencies to delegative mandates. Horizontal accountability risks pervasion by 'big man' interventions, and by insufficient allocation of time to monitoring the government and legislative activities.     

Regional integration: Japan and South Korea in America's Asian policy

Abstract

Ever since the late 1940s, U.S. Asian policy sought to use the southern half of the Korean peninsula and Japan to create a configuration of military and economic power which would enable the United States to contain the might of both China and the Soviet Union, while simultaneously insuring its own hegemony over Pacific-Asia. This basic strategy, which may be termed the regional integration of U.S. imperialism, turned on making industrialized Japan dependent on the U.S., and economically backward South Korea dependent, ultimately, on Japan. Its psychological roots lay in a traditional, shared Japanese-American ruling class attitude of contempt for the Koreans and the other formerly colonized peoples of Asia. If Theodore Roosevelt exemplified such an outlook early in this century, John Foster Dulles was its exemplar by the middle of the century. Dulles's first memorandum on Japan, dated June 6, 1950, and summarized by Frederick Dunn, stated that “… it might be possible to capitalize on the Japanese feeling of racial and social superiority to the Chinese, Koreans and Russians, and to convince them that as part of the free world they would be in equal fellowship with a group which is superior to the members of the Communist world.”     

Foreword papers in honor of chester I. Barnard

I hope that I will not be regarded as demeaning either myself or my fellow contributors to these papers in honor of Chester Barnard if I suggest that the most valuable product of this exercise may be to cause some readers who have never done so to read The Functions of the Executive, and some others who have done so in the distant past, to read it again.⁽¹⁾ Barnard's book is often referred to as "hard," both in the senses of hard to read and rigorous; no one is likely to recommend if for bedtime or ocean beach reading. But I believe that its "hardness" is closely related to the depth and rigor of its ideas, and that it is written about as clearly and simply as the nature of these ideas will admit. Barnard does not use long words where short words will do, nor many words where few will do. For anyone who devotes thought to organizations, its messages are pretty clear, and refreshingly creative. When read attentively, it can be read with enjoyment.