Putting a price on drugs: An economic sociological study of price formation in illegal drug markets

Prices in illegal drug markets are difficult to predict. Based on qualitative interviews with 68 incarcerated drug dealers in Norway, we explore dealers’ perspectives on fair prices and the processes that influence their pricing decisions. Synthesized through economic sociology, we draw on perspectives from traditions as different as behavioral economics and cultural analysis to demonstrate how participants in illicit drug distribution base their pricing decisions on institutional context, social networks, and drug market cultures. We find that dealers take institutional constraints into consideration and search for niches with high earnings and low risks. The use of transactions embedded in social networks promotes a trusting form of governance, which enables strategic network management and expedient distribution but also uncompetitive pricing. Finally, dealers’ pricing decisions are embedded in three different cultures narratives: business, friendship, and street cultural stories, with widely varying implications for prices. Our findings demonstrate how an economic sociology of illicit drug distribution can extend insights from behavioral economics and cultural studies into a coherent criminology of illegal drug markets.     

Digital Infrastructure for Diversity—On Digital Bookshelf and Google Books

Diversity is a core value of cultural policy, and new global digital conditions for creative industries mean new challenges for diversity at a national level. Internet has become a new infrastructure for services and platforms, and global actors as Google and Amazon are changing the play. This article concerns digitization of books, the collection of the National Library of Norway and cultural policy. The results indicate the National Library's digital collection contributes to diversity in terms of demography, content, dissemination and techno-cultural aspects. For policy makers, libraries and researchers the study demonstrates a national digital service's contribution to expanded diversity.     

期刊出版与妇女学学科建设

期刊出版与妇女学学科建设有着十分密切的关系,但从当前中国期刊出版的具体情况看,专业性妇女研究期刊出版数量的有限和大众普及性妇女期刊学术文化内涵的欠缺,都使得妇女学独立发展的空间受到很大限制,同时,妇女研究的成果也难以与妇女大众的生活实际／实践有效融合。因此,在综合性或专业性学术期刊中开辟妇女与性别研究专栏,将妇女研究领域先进的性别文化和知识与大众普及性的妇女期刊进行良性互动,在学术期刊和妇女期刊之外开辟新的言说天地,传播妇女研究成果,武装妇女大众头脑,是妇女学在期刊出版方面突破瓶颈的重要举措。     

“乡村政治研究”何以成为可能——当政治学“遭遇”乡村问题及之后

＂乡村政治研究＂发端于政治学与乡村问题的不期然＂遭遇＂,同时成长、演化于改革开放三十年尤其是1990年代以来的中国特定社会、政治时空场域中,并在时局变迁中走向日益紧密的互构与融合,最终成为一块可供学者在其中施展拳脚的研究领域。对中国政治学而言,这一＂相遇＂并＂联姻＂的过程,充满着从＂高昂＂到＂沉潜＂的震荡甚至创伤,经历了艰难曲折的转型,也收获了未曾预料的成果。通过这段政治学与乡村问题之间互动的学术发生、发展之历史的考察,可使我们对中国政治学及中国社会科学的特定生长逻辑有更深入的理解和认识,从而为探寻中国社会科学的中国社会之＂根＂提供些许线索。     

USING STATE LEGAL NEEDS STUDIES TO INCREASE ACCESS TO JUSTICE FOR LOW‐INCOME FAMILIES

State legal needs studies quantify and classify the legal problems faced by low‐income families, which is crucial to obtaining and allocating resources. Providers and courts perceive a greater need for family law help than do low‐income households, an important disparity to examine. State legal needs of the poor studies are most valuable when they provide insights into how families' legal needs are or are not being met, allowing for more informed and effective recommendations and action. These measurements of the justice gap go beyond mere recitations of statistics and are useful in increasing access to justice for families.     

Comparing trends in infanticides in 28 countries, 1960–2009

The term ‘infanticide’ refers to the homicide of a child younger than one year old. In this article, we describe infanticide trends in 28 industrialized countries between 1960 and 2009. The analysis is based on the cause of death data from the WHO Mortality Database and national materials. The purpose is to compare those trends in all these 28 countries not to compare countries per se. Cause of death statistics are based on ICD classification. During the review period, ICD classification changed three times. In addition to describing infanticide trends, we will analyse the impact of those changes on statistical infanticide levels, to be sure that changes in trends could be seen as real, not statistical artefacts. According to our analysis, the change from ICD-7 to ICD-9 in 1968–1970 seems to have had some impact on registered infanticide mortality levels in three of the studied countries. In other countries, the changes did not have any general impact on registered infanticide levels. During the period, infanticide rates decreased in almost all European countries, and increased or were stable in most non-European industrialized countries. Even in Europe, there were significant differences in the decreasing trend between countries. We also found some structural variation behind the trend figures, which raised the question of whether the aggregated infanticide levels really describe an identical phenomenon in different countries.     

Bourgeois Myth versus Media Poetry in Prime-time: Re-visiting Mark Frost and David Lynch's Twin Peaks

This article explores IVIark Frost and David Lynch's television series Twin Peaks from the perspective of the two dominant world-views it dramatized. The world-view based in bourgeois myth can be described as employing significations that are always present in naturally and mythically transcendent terms. The other world-view is generated by media poetry, which is a virtual mode of signification that re-mediates linguistic/audio/visual phenomena with contingent capacities for meaning. That generative potential for signification is an aspect of all media use, but media poetry specifically highlights and exploits the capacity of new multi-media to enhance “poetic” possibilities for meaning-making. This may occur through either the actual use of virtual media, through a critical ambiguity with regard to official ideologies and formal/generic con-straints, or through thematic content that destabilizes fixed meanings/representations and entertains possibilities for alternative significations. The article makes the case that the adolescent characters in the show specifically embody the productive world-view inherent in media poetry, and the “poetic” challenges they present to adult, mythic society allow for the continual re-mediation of any and all bourgeois myths. Those adolescents, especially Laura Palmer, embody cultural meanings that refuse ideological codification; that is, that can still become. Twin Peaks, as the article demonstrates, is a striking example of media poetry since it was aired on prime-time network television; it still deserves attention for the stunning ways it remediated the mythic nature of American, middle-class society.     

Strangers and Others: From Deconstruction to Hermeneutics

Abstract

It is not clear that "cultural recognition" should be a central goal of leftist politics. The idea that cultures have value simply by virtue of being cultures seems absurd, so it might be better to talk simply about eliminating prejudice and stigmatisation.