The Will to Consume: Schopenhauer and Consumer Society

Consumer society has negated Freud's thesis presented in Civilization and its Discontents. The hindrance of desire affirmation is no longer the foundation of discontent. The inverse is now true. A seemingly limitless number of desires have been manufactured and administered with a solitary route to their affirmation via consumption. Because of this, consumer society's members find themselves in a lifeworld of aimless striving, dissatisfaction, disappointment and boredom. I demonstrate that the attempt to flee the sufferings of estranged labour through consumption has pushed consumer society into a new web of suffering brought on by a continual development of manufactured desires, creating a minor yet perpetual pain that is best understood in the light of a sociologized and historicized Schopenhauerian philosophy.     

The deportation continuum: convergences between state agents and NGO workers in the Dutch deportation field

The social field in which deportations of illegalized migrants are operationalized is often perceived to be comprised of two opposing sides that together form a deportation regime: on the one side, street-level state agents, on the other side, civil-society actors. Focusing ethnographically on deportation case managers and NGO workers in the Netherlands, a country known for its consensus politics, our study reveals significant convergences in the manners that illegalized migrants are treated by both sides in usage of terminology, handling of face-to-face interactions and worldviews on issues like belonging and justice. Given these convergences, we argue that the field in which deportation is being negotiated and practiced amounts to a continuum formed by state agents and NGO actors. We argue that a deportation continuum is underlined by shared political subjectivities and creates a sealed-off political realm that restricts the initiatives of activist citizens, imaginaries of citizenship and alternatives for deportation policies.     

The settlement utopia: brotherly love,discipline, and social critique

The Settlement movement, which originated in late nineteenth-century England, was a pioneer in bettering the conditions of the working poor. It pursued the utopian project of locating ‘settlements’ within poverty-ridden neighbourhoods where respectable students should meet slum dwellers on equal terms. This article explores the trajectory of the comparatively under-researched Danish offspring of the movement. It demonstrates the tempering and compromise that occurred when utopian ideals of ‘brotherly love’, ‘God’s Kingdom’, and ‘radical social change’ were realized in concrete social arrangements. Contradictions and ambiguities arose when utopian ideas were confronted with what could be done. The Settlement became a highly ambiguous space, a ‘heterotopia’. The roots of the contradictions cannot simply be identified in the external pressure of legal requirements and funding criteria represented by public welfare agencies. The contradictions can also be excavated from the Settlement’s own ideological doctrines and its historical development.     

Making sense of the legal and judicial architectures of regional trade agreements worldwide

Regional trade agreements (RTAs) constitute one of the most important elements of the international economic order. Researchers have accordingly embarked on comparative analyses of their design. Yet one fundamental question remains unanswered: how have officials in different RTAs responded to the challenge of regulatory misalignments among the member states? In this article, I turn to 10 of the most established RTAs in the world and document three types of responses. Some RTAs rely on the principle of mutual recognition or references to existing international standards; the same agreements also rely on technical dispute resolution mechanisms. Other RTAs, by contrast, make use of extensive harmonization and permanent courts charged with interpreting law. Yet a third group exhibits a hybrid design. This heterogeneity in legislative and judicial design invites explanation. I show that there is a remarkable correspondence between the legal traditions of the member states (common vs. civil law) and the design of RTAs. This correspondence undermines the claims of world polity theorists about the nature of the international order, but is consistent with other strands of sociological institutionalism and certain elements of rationalist and neoliberal institutionalism. I conclude by reflecting on the implications of different RTA designs for the regulation of everyday life in the member states, the World Trade Organization as an international regulatory body, and national sovereignty and democracy.     

A new conceptual framework to strengthen internal corporate image: A stakeholder-inclusive perspective

The potential influence that internal stakeholders’ image of the organisation could have on external stakeholders’ image of the organisation, is strongly supported in the literature. This research project attempted to address the need for an approach that facilitates employee engagement, coupled with a leadership approach that allows collaboration, inclusion and cooperation within the organisation, to strengthen internal corporate image. This article reports on the results of the second phase of this research project, where a proposed stakeholder-inclusive conceptual framework for strengthening the internal corporate image, built from a stakeholder-inclusive perspective as depicted in the King III report on corporate governance, was explored in practice. A quantitative, self-administered web-based survey was conducted with the 2014 winners of the Deloitte Best Company to Work For (BCTWF) survey. The results not only indicated that these organisations’ practices resonate with the proposed stakeholder-inclusive framework, but also that the principles of the framework, namely stakeholder theory; integrated internal communication; peace arena; stakeholder engagement by means of the AA1000 Stakeholder Engagement Standard (AA1000SES) and responsible leadership and stewardship correlate with one another. The stakeholder-inclusive conceptual framework expands on the body of knowledge on corporate image and provides corporate communication professionals with a guide for strengthening their organisation’s internal corporate image, which could serve as starting point for strengthening the external corporate image and eventual corporate reputation.     

The “killer of the cane fields”: The social construction of the Australian coastal taipan

This paper makes an original contribution to human–animal studies through the application of social construction theory to an iconic species of Australian snake, the coastal taipan. Little research attention using this approach has been focused on reptiles, and this study addresses this gap in the literature. The taipan has achieved a high level of notoriety in Australia. This paper seeks to understand why and how this has occurred. Drawing on a range of data derived from analysis of newspaper articles, popular magazines and books, and the scientific literature, four dominant narratives are identified: the taipan as an object of science and natural history, as social problem, as object quest and as celebrity. The insights gained from this study support the contention that the meanings made of Australia's fauna are fluid, historically contextualised and socially constructed. In the specific case of the taipan, key individuals, including scientists, popular natural historians and snake men contributed greatly to the species’ construction, as did popular cultural forms such as newspapers and natural history books.     

Are America’s public mass shooters unique? A comparative analysis of offenders in the United States and other countries

Public mass shooters are often assumed to be an exceptionally American problem, but little is known about what proportion of global offenders attack in the United States, or how America’s offenders compare to those in other countries. The present study offers the first quantitative analysis of all known offenders from 1966 to 2012 who attacked anywhere on the globe and killed a minimum of four victims. The results suggest that public mass shooters in the United States are significantly more likely to arm themselves with multiple weapons and attack at school and workplace settings, while offenders from other countries are more likely to strike at military sites. These differences may be partially attributable to America’s national gun culture and its particular set of social strains.     

What Executioners Can—and Cannot—Teach Us About the Death Penalty

Those who work with the condemned often come to reject the death penalty not only in individual cases, and not only on the ground that it is poorly implemented. They tend to conclude that the punishment is wrong. I argue that the perspective of the executioner helps illuminate the debate about whether to abolish capital punishment, and that indeed the perspective of those who work with the condemned raises the troubling possibility that support for the death penalty can survive only at a great remove. Jeffrie Murphy has also argued that the executioner’s perspective can be useful, but I contend that Murphy asks the wrong question. His essay considers whether an executioner may, under some circumstances, take pride in his work. The better question is whether anyone ought to be asked to do such work. On this latter question, the perspective of the executioner sheds important light. Like Murphy, I draw on works by and about Albert Pierrepoint, the “last hangman” of Britain. I also draw on the perspectives of numerous executioners, wardens, chaplains, and other death row personnel. I argue that their perspectives offer a powerful argument against the main rationale for the death penalty: retribution. If retribution is keyed to the offender’s character as well as his wrongful act, then post-conviction character ought to matter. The executioners’ accounts share a common theme: that death row inmates change over time and hold the potential for redemption.     

Fear,Social Interactions,and Violence Mitigation

The fear of crime is generally considered as a social ill that undermines dimensions of individual well-being. Prior research generally specifies the fear of crime as an outcome variable in order to understand its complex etiology. More recently, however, researchers have suggested fear has a deterrence function whereby it reduces individuals’ involvement in violent encounters. This notion could hold important clues to understand the social sources of violence. We examine whether the fear of crime inhibits involvement in violent encounters, both as offender or victim, and if adjustments in routine activities explain these effects. The results suggest fear of crime reduces violence involvement, in part, by constraining routine activities. We conclude that the fear of crime appears to be a mechanism of violence mitigation that, paradoxically, bolsters physical well-being. The results are discussed with regard to their implications for criminological theory and research on interpersonal violence.     

Legislative success in open sky congresses: weak gatekeeping prerogatives and the loss of majority support

In legislatures with weak gatekeeping institutions and constrained plenary time, scheduling rules and majority requirements explain inter-party differences in the consideration and approval of law initiatives. In this paper a mixture survival model is used to analyse legislative success in a legislature with very weak gatekeeping prerogatives, the House of Representatives of Uruguay. Evidence is provided that the loss of majority support depletes plenary time more rapidly and yields an ideological drift that benefits the median voter of the House. The results inform recent debates on the endogenous formation of a plenary schedule in open sky legislatures.