Labour and the Culture Wars of Modern Politics

Anyone who attempts to understand and reverse the major defeat suffered by Labour in the December 2019 general election needs first to appreciate why comparisons with the defeats of the 1980s are so unhelpful. In 1983 Labour was all but wiped out across southern England, but held on comfortably across the ‘red wall’. By contrast, in 2019 Labour did well in cities and university towns across the south, and appears to have solved its historic problem with the southern, educated middle class. However, this has been at the expense of alienating working class voters across the country, not just in its former industrial heartlands. But this is not inevitable. A reanalysis of testimony from hundreds of interviews with working people across England from the 1940s onwards allows insights into attitudes and values that are often obscured by survey techniques. Crucially, it points to a broad-based vernacular liberalism at odds with the culture wars model of a terminal crisis for social democracy.     

The effects of national cultures on two technologically advanced countries: The case of e-leadership in South Korea and the United States

The increased use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) has triggered enormous innovation in the public sector and created positive public value at the managerial, delivery of services, and policy levels. However, these positive outcomes do not automatically accrue simply by adoption of ICTs as public leaders can fail to adopt relevant new ICTs, use them poorly, or use them in ways that actually diminish public value, which raises the question of the importance of e-leadership. This article examines e-leadership and innovation capacity at the individual public manager level and fills in some gaps about the practice and implementation of ICTs in the public sector. We explore eight research questions useful in theorizing about e-leadership, develop constructs of e-leadership, and describe the current development of e-leadership. By comparing e-leadership in two country settings (South Korea and the United States), we also overcome the limitations of the existing Western-oriented studies about innovations in the public sector. In addition to the growth of e-leadership use and requirements for a variety of competencies equivalent to, but separate from, traditional communication competences, we find that national cultures exert significant influence on the major constructs of e-leadership, which implies that an effective e-leadership strategy should consider cultural contexts seriously.     

Just Use What You Have: Ethical Fashion Discourse and the Feminisation of Responsibility

ABSTRACT

The rise of fast fashion has meant that young women (even those on relatively low incomes) are able to ‘regularly consume and discard fashionable clothing’ [Buckley, Cheryl, and Hazel Clark. 2012. “Conceptualizing Fashion in Everyday Lives.” Design Issues 28 (4): 18–28. doi:10.1162/DESI_a_00172., 21]. While this development may be aligned with the democratisation of fashion—the fact that the supply chains that deliver fast fashion are not consistent with the principles of global democracy is now also relatively common knowledge in the democratised West. This, along with growing awareness of the ecological harms associated with the fashion industry has contributed to what Elke Gaugele [2014. Aesthetic Politics in Fashion. Vienna: Sternberg Press] has termed the ‘ethical turn’ in fashion. However, despite the fact that young women are often not deemed capable of translating their (ethical) attitudes into (ethical) behaviours [McNeill, Lisa, and Rebecca Moore. 2015. “Sustainable Fashion Consumption and the Fast Fashion Conundrum: Fashionable Consumers and Attitudes to Sustainability in Clothing Choice.” International Journal of Consumer Studies 39 (3): 212–222], nor able to be ‘trusted to consistently make good decisions’ [Brooks, Andrew. 2015. Clothing Poverty: The Hidden World of Fast Fashion and Second-Hand Clothes. London: Zed Books, 241], they are also increasingly being called to recognise their individual role in the politics of global fashion supply chains. Drawing on examples from scholarly and popular discourses as well as online peer to peer communications, this article explores the historical moment of fast fashion as an instance of both the feminisation of consumption and the feminisation of responsibility.     

东北老工业基地全面振兴中的劳模文化价值探析

东北老工业基地的劳模文化集中表现为以"爱岗敬业、争创一流、艰苦奋斗、勇于创新、淡泊名利、甘于奉献"为本质内涵的劳模精神,是东北老工业基地全面振兴的重要精神资源,应充分发挥其在全面振兴东北老工业基地中的重要价值。使劳模文化融入到政府的建设中,企业的实践中,人才的培养中。把劳模文化融入培育和践行社会主义核心价值观的全过程。     

Communication uncertainty and the fictional role of organizational culture

This theoretical investigation aims to critically analyze the concept of organizational culture as an example of ＂organizational fiction＂. In order to benefit from unveiling organizational fictions, it is necessary to be aware of how illusion is linked to stability and predictability. It is here proposed to consider communicational uncertainties as positive qualities in flexible organizations, where communicative flows between organizational spheres and individual spaces of employees or managers engender new ideas and foster creativity. Thus, a strong organizational culture, especially in intercultural contexts, may be a barrier to organizational health, but a strong and unified corporate identity is necessary to guarantee organizational stability and cohesion. The solution is the interplay between stability and contingent openness toward external influences.     

白族文化的包容性及其现实意义

包容性是白族文化最主要的特征之一。包容性几乎表现在白族文化的方方面面,但突出地表现在白族族源的多元性、白族文化源流的多源性、白族宗教信仰的多元性、南诏大理国与唐宋的关系、白族的民族观及婚俗观和丧葬观等方面;白族文化包容性的主要成因是受中原文化和白族生息的地理环境的影响;充分挖掘和利用白族文化的包容性有利于促进边疆民族地区的和谐社会建设。     

Co-Production and Health System Reform – From Re-Imagining To Re-Making

There is growing interest in the application of citizen participation within all areas of public sector service development, where it is increasingly promoted as a significant strand of post-neoliberal policy concerned with re-imagining citizenship and more participatory forms of citizen/consumer engagement. The application of such a perspective within health services, via co-production, has both beneficial, but also problematic implications for the organisation of such services, for professional practice and education. Given the disappointing results in increasing consumer involvement in health services via 'choice' and 'voice' participation strategies, the question of how the more challenging approach of co-production will fare needs to be addressed. The article discusses the possibilities and challenges of system-wide co-production for health. It identifies the discourse and practice contours of co-production, differentiating co-production from other health consumer-led approaches. Finally, it identifies issues critically related to the successful implementation of co-production where additional theorisation and research are required.     

英语文化渗透式教学的实践与探讨

语言与文化具有紧密的联系。英语教学不应以通过考试为目的,而应注重提高实际生活中运用语言能力和交际能力。本文强调教学过程中应加强文化的渗透,利用多种渠道使学生了解中西文化的差异,并对英语教学中应注意的问题进行分析和探讨。     

加强高职院校文化艺术教育的若干思考

切实加强大学生文化艺术教育,是全面推进素质教育、促进大学生全面发展和健康成长的重要途径。本文在简要分析高职院校文化艺术教育现状的基础上,论述了高职院校开展文化艺术教育的作用和意义,进而提出了加强高职院校文化艺术教育的策略。     

利用图书馆资源优势推广农村文化信息化建设

本文在分析利用图书馆资源推进农村文化信息化建设中存在的主要问题的基础上,提出以图书馆现有资源和设施为依托,更新观念,加大投资力度,建立城乡援助模式进行农村文化信息化建设：