U ovom radu prikazuje se razvoj političkih stranaka i opis političke atmosfere u Grubišnom Polju između dva svjetska rata. Raspadom Austro-Ugarske i stvaranjem jugoslavenske države 1918. godine neke stare političke stranke nastavile su svoje djelovanje u novim prilikama, ali su nastajale i nove političke stranke. U Grubišnom Polju kao izrazito multietničkom gradiću u kojem su većinu stanovništva činili Hrvati i Srbi te u manjem broju Mađari i Česi, artikuliranje njihovih političkih interesa i opredjeljenja bilo je vrlo slojevito. Kod hrvatskog stanovništva vrlo brzo uzima primat Hrvatska (pučka) seljačka stranka braće Radića, sa svojom seljačkom i republikanskom političkom sastavnicom i ideologijom, koju je zadržala do sloma Kraljevine Jugoslavije, dok je srpsko stanovništvo bilo podijeljeno u svom političkom odabiru. U početku je njihovo opredjeljenje bilo na strani Pribićevićeve Demokratske stranke (kasnije Samostalne demokratske stranke) da bi se usložnjavanjem političke situacije u državi (posebno zbog nerješavanja hrvatskog pitanja, ali i nagomilanih socijalnih i društvenih problema) njihove političke preferencije okrenule prema režimskim strankama s unitarističkim programom – Jugoslavenska nacionalna stranka (JNS) te Stojadinovićeva Jugoslavenska radikalna zajednica (JRZ). Svaka od ovih političkih organizacija stvarala je svoje društvene, socijalne i sportske organizacije u kojima je njihova ideologija bila važnija od rada tih organizacija. Dvije nacionalne zajednice – hrvatska i srpska – bile su dobro integrirane u tamošnju društvenu zajednicu i bez većih antagonizama i sukoba se odvijalo politički život. Ipak na marginama političkog života možemo pratiti začetke ekstremnih ideologija poput ustaškog pokreta, ustrojavanje četničkog udruženja i polako uzdizanje komunističkog pokreta i njegove ideologije. Ove do tada marginalne skupine u političkom smislu preuzet će političku pozornicu izbijanjem Drugog svjetskog rata u Kraljevini Jugoslaviji. U istraživanju se koristila izvorna arhivska građa iz Hrvatskog državnog arhiva u Zagrebu i Državnog arhiva u Bjelovaru, sekundarna literatura te nacionalni i regionalni tisak. ; This paper presents the development of political parties and describes the political atmosphere in Grubišno Polje between the two world wars. By the downfall of Austro-Hungary and the formation of the new Yugoslav state in 1918, some of the existing political parties continued to operate in the newly established circumstances. However, new political parties were formed too. In Grubišno Polje, a pronouncedly multi-ethnic town, in which the majority were the Croats and the Serbs, and the minority the Hungarians and the Czechs, articulating one's political interests and orientations was extremely complex. Among Croatian population, Croatian People's Peasant Party established by the Radić brothers very soon became the principal party thanks to its peasant-oriented and republican political component and ideology, which it held on until the downfall of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. Serbian population was however not as united in its political choice. At first, the Serbs were on the side of Pribićević's Democratic Party (later Independent Democratic Party). However, as the political situation in the country grew more complex (in particular due to not solving Croatian issue, but also due to growing material and social problems), their political preferences were directed towards regime parties with unitarianist programme – Yugoslav National Party and Stojadinović's Yugoslav Radical Union. Each of these political organizations formed its social and sports organizations, in which the ideology played an important role, being an immanent part thereof. The two national communities – Croatian and Serbian – were well integrated in the social community, and political life proceeded with no major antagonism or conflicts. Nevertheless, the beginnings of extremist ideologies may be followed on the margins of political life – for instance the Ustasha movement, the establishment of the Chetnik association, as well as gradual rising of the communist movement and its ideology. These groups, until that time marginal, had taken over the political scene when World War Two burst out in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. In this research, original archival materials from Croatian State Archives in Zagreb and State Archives in Bjelovar, secondary literature, as well as national and regional press were used.
U ovom članku autor se bavi diskurzivnim taktikama koje su pridonijele dekonstrukciji i rekonstruciji supkulturalnih poetika i njihova političkog okvira zadanog vladajućim hijerarhijama suvremenih hegemonijskih nomenklatura u jugoistočnoj Europi. U radu se ne raspravlja o svim aspektima i kompleksnim odnosima koji vladaju u tom interkulturalnom i povremeno multikulturalnom prostoru, već se u središtu nalaze načini suodnošenja popularne kulture i političke moći koja ju je distribuirala u medijski i novomedijski prostor. U središtu se nalazi hrvatska popularna kultura (prije svega glazbena) 1980-ih i 1990-ih te načini na koji je ona kanonizirana, rekanonizirana, odnosno brisana iz kolektivnog pamćenja i rekonstruirana (konstruirana) u novopolitičkim jezicima pojedinih postjugoslavenskih novokapitalističkih nacionalnih elita. U svojoj osnovi riječ je o analizama taktika ostvarenih u politici konstrukcije popularne kulture koja je vremenom postala oruđem politike. U ovom radu također se pronalaze i mogućnosti obrnutog gledanja na problem, pogotovo promatrano komparativno, u šire zamišljenom (zapadnoeuropskom) kontekstu. Tekst je prije svega teorijski i pokušava dati okvire za konkretna čitanja/konstrukcije suvremene povijesti i poetike popularne kulture uokvirene zadanošću političkim i medijskim hegemonijskim pritiskom. U prvom dijelu daje se pregled modaliteta narativa kojima se hegemonijskim upisivanjem u medije i nove medije provodio proces poticanja gubitka pamćenja te rekodiranja narativnih paradigmi i prihvaćenih stereotipa. Opisuju se učinci prekodiranja vrijednosnog sustava iz perspektive uspostave nove hijararhije vrijednosti u odnosu potisnutih i obnovljenih ideologema i mitologema. U tom kontekstu istražuje se kako je taj proces kodiran u lokalnim supkulturalnim praksama, a u središtu je popularna (rock) glazba i supkultura koja se uz nju oblikuje (ili: iz koje je ona oblikovana). Slijedi čitanje kulturalnih praksi kroz koje su se nacionalno i nacionalističko nametnule kao prevladavajuće paradigme upisivanja popularne kulture u prostor i virtualnu stvarnost. Izučavaju se prije svega modaliteti u kojima su se ti procesi odvi(ja)li. U zadnjem dijelu rada ispisuju se odnosi između prvotne uloge (rock) supkulture kao "otpora" hegemoniji do njezinog smještanja u prostor zabave. Kako se isto događa i s medijskim fenomenima koji kroz žanr (ne i supkulturu) podražavaju nacionalne narative i nacionalističku mizanscenu, to otvara nekoliko pitanja a u središtu budućih istraživanja svakako se ističe ono koje problematizira odnos žanra i ishodišta, odnosno mjesta supkulturalnog izričaja kao autohtonog glasa i njegove transformacije u medijski proizvod. Odgovori koji se nameću u tom polju bit će zanimljivi i za čitanje narativnih formi u novim medijima i u tradicionalnoj književnosti. Rad je napisan na engleskom jeziku zbog boljeg korespondiranja sa sličnim istraživanjima u drugim europskim nacionalnim posttranzicijskim kulturama. ; The article discusses the role of subculture in Croatia and wider South Slavic context during and after the transitional period from the hegemony of Yugoslav communist system to the national state and its new narratives. The introduction discusses the modalities of memory loss in regard to the Yugoslav system of values. It focuses on the situation in popular culture and the new media, arguing that the process of memory loss has been orchestrated by the new national hegemony in both the media and politics and in the subcultural environment of marginal groups. The emphasis is put on the discursive tactics that have contributed to this process in the public sphere. The second part of the article concentrates on the relationship between the private and the public spheres and pays special attention to the relation between spontaneous subcultural practices and orchestrated mass-cultural outlets that very often construct the sphere of popular cultural needs. It is argued that the modalities of re-constructing and re-directing the narrative as an ethical (ethnic and political) issue remain an important topic not only for a better understanding of popular culture's hegemonic order but also for the modalities of survival of the narrative as a literary autonomous field.
We live in a complex, interconnected and constantly changing world. Human driven global climate change is now a local reality that reinforces the inherent need for adaptability in human systems. Adaptability, the capacity to adapt to disturbance and change and navigate system transformation, can be understood as a function of socio-political interactions. The capacity of governing systems to deal with novel challenges through novel forms of interaction is a key issue in the governance literature, but which is only beginning to be explored. We therefore know little of how global change will impact the local level and how institutions and governing systems will respond. The need for adaptability is likely to be more pronounced for tightly coupled human-environmental systems. Indigenous and natural resource dependent communities in general, and in the Northern hemisphere in particular, are among the most exposed to ongoing and projected climate change. In Sweden, reindeer husbandry is an Indigenous Sami livelihood and extensive land-use practice highly exposed to weather conditions and increasing competition over land and resources. Whereas herders struggle to deal with the challenges that now confront them, the practice is also known as resilient and sustainable, having withstood large-scale social, ecological and economic change before. The aim with this thesis is to explore adaptability from a governancetheoretical perspective in the case of Sami reindeer husbandry in Sweden. The thesis thereby contributes to the emerging literatures on governance and adaptability and addresses empirically identified needs. Theoretically, the thesis draws on Kooiman's interactive governance framework, which offers a multidimensional approach to governance analysis where structural aspects are addressed through modes (self-, coand hierarchical governing) and intentional aspects through governing elements (images, instruments and action). While conceptually encompassing, the framework has rarely been employed in empirical analyses. In advancing an operationalisation of the framework based on governing orders (operational, institutional and meta-order), the thesis thereby makes a theoretical contribution. Designed as a qualitative case study, the thesis explores how reindeer husbandry is governed and how governing has changed over time (institutional and meta-order); how the governing system restricts or facilitates adaptation and transformation (operational order); and how a governance-theoretical perspective can contribute to our understanding of adaptability. Methods include document analysis, focus groups, interviews and participatory observation. Studies focussing the operational order have been conducted in collaboration with Vilhelmina North reindeer herding community in Västerbotten county, Sweden. The results show that only marginal change has occurred over time and state actors still dominate governing interactions. The governing system is riddled with inconsistencies among governing elements and particularly problematic is the lack of coherence between different meta-order images and between different actors. This gives rise to divergent and conflicting views as to 'what' the system of reindeer husbandry is and explains some of the observed governing inaction and limited problem-solving capacity of the governing system. Herders are currently highly restricted in their opportunities for adaptation and transformation and the governing system therefore acts restricting rather than facilitating on adaptability. By adopting a governance-theoretical approach, adaptability as a system quality has been decomposed and challenged and the important role of governing images and power in determining adaptability has been highlighted. It has called attention to questions such as who is forced to adapt, how images and governing interactions are constructed, and how different socio-political actors can exercise influence over the governing system and interactions taking place therein. The thesis calls for more critical and empirical research on adaptability and argues that future studies need to situate and balance adaptability against other fundamental values and rights. In the case of reindeer husbandry, efforts are needed to create a better internal fit between governing elements as well as between involved socio-political actors. This could enable more equal governing interactions with other land-users and thereby contribute to mitigating conflicts as well as increasing adaptability.
One key strategy to achieve reduction in maternal and neonatal mortality is to scale up the availability of skilled birth attendants (SBAs). The staff nurses (i.e., registered nurse and midwives) are skilled birth attendants recognized by the government of India. Aim and objectives: This thesis studied women's choices, perceptions, and practices related to childbirth, and how these were affected by modernity in general and modernity brought in by maternal health policies (Paper-I). The midwifery scope of practice of staff nurses was studied in government facilities (Paper-II). The confidence of the final-year students on selected midwifery skills, from the diploma and bachelor's programmes, was assessed against the list of competencies of the International Confederation of Midwives (ICM) (Paper-III). The teaching and learning approaches associated with confidence were also studied (Paper-IV). Methods: The grounded theory approach was used to develop models for describing the transition in childbirth practices amongst tribal women (Paper -I) and to describe the scope of midwifery practice of staff nurses (Paper-II). Data used for Paper-I included eight focus groups with women and five in-depth interviews with traditional birth attendants and staff nurses. For Paper-II, 28 service providers and teachers from schools of nursing were interviewed in depth. A cross sectional survey design was used to assess the confidence of final-year students from 25 randomly selected educational institutions stratified by type of programme (diploma/bachelor's) and ownership (private/government) (Paper-III & IV). Students assessed their confidence using a 4-point Likert scale in the competency domains of antepartum, intrapartum, postpartum, and newborn care. Explorative factor analysis using principal component analysis (PCA) was used to reduce skill statements into subscales for each domain. Crude and adjusted odds ratios with 95% CI were calculated to compare students with high confidence (≤75th percentile of scores) and those without high confidence (> 75th percentile) to compare diploma and bachelor students (Paper-III) and to study the association of teaching-learning methods and high and not high confidence for each subscale (Paper -IV). Results: A transition in childbirth practices was noted amongst women—a shift from home to hospital births seen as a trade-off between desirables (i.e., secure surroundings) and essentials (i.e., reduced risk of mortality)' (Paper-I). General development, increased access to western medical care, and international/national maternal health policies socialized women into western childbirth practices. The communities increasingly relied on hospitals as a consequence of role redefinition and deskilling of the Traditional Birth Attendants. Existing cultural beliefs facilitated the acceptance of medical interventions. The midwifery practice of staff nurses was ‗circumstance-driven' and ranged from extended to marginal because the legal right to practice was unclear Paper-II). Their restricted practice led to deskilling, and extended practice was perceived as risky. The clinical midwifery education of students was marginalized. Because of dual registration as nurse and midwife, the identity of a nurse was predominant. From 633 students, 25-40% scored above the 75th percentile and 38-50% below the 50th percentile of confidence in all subscales Paper-III). A majority had not attended the required number of births prescribed by the Indian Nursing Council. The diploma students were 2-4 times more likely to have high confidence in all subscales compared to the bachelor students. High confidence was associated with number of births attended, practice on manikins, and being satisfied with supervision during clinical practice (Paper-IV). Conclusions: Access to hospitals increases women's choices for childbirth in the context of high mortality. Inequitable distribution of health facilities requires region specific strategies. The women are dissatisfied with the psychosocial aspects of hospital care. India has a national regulatory body, but midwifery specific regulation is lacking. In this situation, the midwifery scope of practice of staff nurses is undefined. The pre-service midwifery education does not develop student's confidence to provide first level care for childbirth, as expected by the governments. Short-term and long-term measures to professionalize midwives in India are suggested
Presuming that principles of international law reflect common values and moral attitudes of the humankind, the author analyses a mutual dissociation of three fields of international law – human rights to the city, rights to cultural heritage, and preservation of historic urban landscapes (HULs) – and looks for legal models of their cohesion. Based on analysis of legal and doctrinal texts of the UN, the UNESCO, the UNECE, the Council of Europe and the ICOMOS, the author states that since historic HULs usually are both heritage sites and habitats, people related multichotomous values and interests to them. Human rights to the city are equality, non-discrimination, social cohesion, security, protection for vulnerable persons and groups, right to public mobility, housing, education, healthy environment, etc. Legislation on culture and heritage is focusing on cultural identity, diversity, and continuity; it is paying less attention to human, civil, and communal rights, therefore may even pose a threat to them. The conventions cause this mutual dissociation less than confrontations while implementing. Next, issues of HULs usually are trans-sectorial, soluble on macro-levels, and located outside protected areas. However, on these macro-levels of development heritage tends to be treated as "marginal", "out of system", and might be perceived as excess activities, causing restrictions for other vital interests of communities and individuals. Social activities for cultural sustainability create tensions between communities and developers. Globalization pressures strengthen this tendency. Under such situation, heritage preservation may even threaten other human rights. On the other hand, HULs – due to their eco-cultural qualities – can sustain human well-being, dignity, and the right to life. These urban areas tend being sociopetal, coherent, and sustaining face-to-face interactions in a familiar and secure environment. Due to an important added value, created by them, integrated legislation has a huge cross-sectional potential for preservation and continuity of HULs' in the context of human rights to the city. The new legal instruments that entered into force in 2011 – The UNESCO Recommendation on Historic Urban Landscapes and The Council of Europe Faro Convention – might be used as prototypes for cohesion of these and similar human rights. Santrauka Vadovaudamasi prielaida, kad tarptautinės teisės principai išreiškia bendrąsias žmogaus vertybes ir žmonijos etines nuostatas, autorė nagrinėja trijų naujų šios teisės šakų – žmogaus teisių į miestą, į kultūros paveldą ir istorinių miestovaizdžių(IM) išsaugojimo – tarpusavio atskirties priežastis ir ieško galimų kelių sanglaudos link. Remiantis JTO, UNESCO, JTEEK, Europos Tarybos, ICOMOS teisinių bei doktrininių tekstų analize teigiama, kad istoriniai miestai yra paveldas ir žmogaus būstas, todėl su jais siejasi alternatyvios vertės, interesai. Žmogaus teisės į miestą yra lygybė, nediskriminavimas, socialinė sanglauda, saugumas, pažeidžiamųjų globa, teisė į judumą, būstą, švietimą, sveiką aplinką. Kultūros ir paveldo teisėje svarbu tapatumas, įvairovė, tęstinumas, tačiau mažiau rūpi bendresnės žmogaus ir bendruomenių teisės. Atskirtį skatina ne tiek pačios konvencijos, kiek jų įgyvendinimas konfliktiškai supriešinant. Be to, IM problemos yra tarpsektorinės, makrolygmens, o išsaugojimo sprendimai glūdi anapus saugomų teritorijų. Tačiau šiuo vystymo lygmeniu paveldas dažnai laikomas "šalutiniu", "nesisteminiu" dalyku, o jo apsauga – pertekline veikla, varžančia gyvybiškus bendruomenių ir individų interesus. Visuomenės pastangos palaikyti tvarų kultūrinį vystymąsi susilaukia plėtros verslo pasipriešinimo. Tendenciją stiprina su globalizavimu susiję spaudimai. Dėl viso to paveldo apsauga gali netgi grėsti kitoms žmogaus teisėms. Kita vertus, IM dėl savo ekokultūrinių savybių gali palaikyti gerovę ir užtikrinti žmogaus orumą ir teisę gyventi – yra socialiai palankūs, skatina sanglaudą, saugumą, bendruomeniškumą ir bendravimą. Taip istoriniai miestai gali sukurti reikšmingą pridėtinę vertę. Todėl vienas bendras teisynas turi didžiulį tarpsektorinį potencialą IM integralumui išsaugoti, tęstinumui užtikrinti žmogaus teisių į miestą kontekste. 2011 m. įsiteisėjusios priemonės visų šių žmogaus teisių sanglaudai yra UNESCO rekomendacija dėl IM ir ET Faro konvencija. First Publish Online: 22 May 2013 Reikšminiai žodžiai: kultūrinės teisės,Europos Taryba,ES,paveldo teisė,istorinis miestovaizdis,žmogaus teisės į miestą,miestų išsaugojimas,JT-HABITAT,UNESCO,ICOMOS,tvarus kultūrinis vystymasis,konvencijos
This dissertation explores the impact of government interventions on economic outcomes. In the first chapter, my colleague Juan Carlos Suárez Serrato and I propose a new identification strategy to measure the causal impact of government spending on the economy. Our methodology isolates exogenous cross-sectional variation in government spending using a novel instrument. We use the fact that a large number of federal spending programs depend on local population levels. Every ten years, the Census provides a count of local populations. A different method is used to estimate non-Census year populations and this discontinuous change in methodology leads to variation in the allocation of billions of dollars in federal spending. We use this variation to analyze the effect of exogenous changes in federal spending across counties on local economic outcomes. Our IV estimates imply that government spending has a local income multiplier of 1.88 and an estimated cost per job of $30,000 per year. These estimates are robust to the inclusion of potential confounders, such as local demand shocks. We also show that the local effects of government spending are not larger than aggregate effects at the MSA and state levels. Finally, we characterize the cross-sectional heterogeneity of the impacts of government spending. These results confirm that government spending has a higher impact in low growth areas and leads to reduction of inequality in economic outcomes.The second chapter uses timing of childbirth to measure the income effect of taxes on parents' labor supply. The IRS Residency Test states that families can claim a dependent for the entire fiscal year if the child was born at any time during the year. This rule provides an exogenous source of variation in tax liabilities for births that occur late in the year versus those that occur early the following year. By measuring the difference in earnings in the subsequent year for parents of December and January births, I can identify the impact of a one-time non-labor income shock on parents' labor supply since both groups face on average the same future stream of tax schedules after birth. Using data from two large scale household surveys in the United States, I find that a temporary increase in after-tax income leads to a significant decrease in mothers' earnings with an estimated income effect of -0.9. This result demonstrates that the income effect of taxes on labor supply can potentially be very large. It also highlights the crucial role of liquidity constraints in parents' labor supply decisions around the time of birth.The third chapter also uses timing of childbirth to measure the income effect of taxes on mothers' labor supply. The analysis is done using Canadian data. Until 1992, various provisions in the Canadian tax code gave important tax reductions to low and middle-income parents of eligible children. Families could claim a child as a dependent for the entire fiscal year if the child was born at any time during the year. In 1992, the last year the Canadian tax code featured these fiscal benefits, a two parent family claiming a dependent could save nearly a thousand dollars in taxes due to the Child Tax Credit, the dependent amount and the GST credit. Using this variation in tax liabilities, it is possible to identify the impact of a one-time non-labor income shock on mothers' labor supply. This important parameter has not been systematically measured in the literature on the effect of taxes on labor supply. Using natural experiments provided by tax reforms in various countries, the literature has mostly focused on changes in earnings due to the price effect of marginal tax rate changes. However, if the income effect of a tax change is large, observed elasticities of income with respect to net-of-tax rates understate the distortions associated with these changes.
Book chapter. By the time the fair trade movement celebrated the 20th anniversary of its founding in 2008, it had been transformed virtually beyond recognition. From a marginal European movement characterized by small ethical companies, non-profit charities, solidarity groups and alternative trading organizations (ATOs) selling coffee and handicrafts to a small group of politicized consumers through alternative world shops, fair trade has become an international market system with annual sales of nearly US $5,000m. (€3,500m.) (FLO 2010), reaching mass audiences of mainstream shoppers across the global North with a wide range of food and non-food products originating from both small producer co-operatives and large agribusiness plantations in nearly 60 nations. Some of the largest transnational food corporations now sell fair trade labelled products, in addition to thousands of smaller companies, and fair trade enjoys widespread consumer recognition in many countries. The fair trade system has also become institutionalized, with a large international certification and coordinating body establishing and enforcing generic and product-specific standards, as well as national certification and licensing bodies in 20 countries. How do the concrete realities of the fair trade movement at 21 years square with the original visions and aspirations of the movement's founders? Does fair trade's success in sales and marketing terms correspond to an equal degree of effectiveness in transforming the material socio-economic (and ecological) conditions of life and work for the movement's intended beneficiaries? And has it succeeded, even if marginally, in altering the highly inequitable terms of global trade for specific primary commodities, or the rules of global trade more generally? It is instructive to take a brief look at a few of the early conceptualizations of fair trade's aims. Many of the pioneering movement activists vocalized a vision of fair trade that involved the creation of an alternative to the capitalist market system, with distinct institutions that would operate alongside the structures of the deeply inequitable global market. Michael Barratt Brown, the founding chair of the ATOs TWIN and TWIN Trading in the United Kingdom, and author of the first book on fair trade, describes the movement as operating both 'in and against the market' (1993: 156). Brown's analysis, according to author Gavin Fridell, was informed by the insights of radical dependency theorists; he saw fair trade as an approach that could combat structural underdevelopment in the global South by creating an alternative to the 'unequal exchange' that plagued export commodity-dependent farmers and nations. Brown's vision was that of a parallel market, operating on the basis of mutual solidarity between Northern consumers and Southern producers, the latter of whom would be protected from the noxious effects of commodity speculation by guaranteed base prices. However, he also strongly believed that strict market regulation by interventionist states was essential to achieving this vision of a fair market (Fridell 2007: 42–46). Pauline Tiffen, another British movement pioneer, described an early fair trade conference organized by TWIN in the 1980s, in which 'the choice of [the term] fair was a deliberate decision to broaden a concept that for us was quite anti-capitalist. Like alternative as in alternative system, a parallel system to the market, a challenge to the capitalist system' (Tiffen 2005). As fair trade began to become institutionalized, however, beginning in the late 1980s with the creation of the Max Havelaar certification for coffee, this challenge to the market underwent a substantial deradicalization, in a conscious strategy to increase the volume of fair trade sales through mainstream retail venues and under existing commercial brands. Fridell asserts that in this process, fair trade became compatible with—rather than antithetical to—the neoliberal economic policies that were dramatically undermining living conditions for the rural (and urban) poor across the global South (Fridell 2007: 53). However, a concern with working to change the terms of the broader unjust global trading system remained for many participants.
It is argued that the 4 major new approaches, which inaugurated the modern version of communications res in the 1930's, are now withering away & that the 6 more recent minor approaches have not fulfilled early hopes. The 4 major approaches which produced many important empirical findings are: 'the pol'al approach, represented by H. D. Lasswell; the sample survey approach, represented by P. F. Lazarsfeld; the small-groups approach, represented by K. Lewin; & the exp'al approach, represented by C. A. Hovland.' In addition there are the reformist, broad historical, journalistic, mathematical, psycho-linguistic, & psychiatric approaches. In the 1st 3 of the major approaches 'the innovators have left or are leaving the field, & no new ideas of comparable scope & generating power are emerging.' Hovland & associates are providing solid empirical data but the variables are so numerous that the end is not in sight. There are, however, 7 current lines of work that may develop into major foci: (1) the combination of approaches: the Lasswell, Lazarsfeld & small group approaches in the current MIT program; (2) comparative national studies of opinions; (3) econ analyses of mass communication (COMM) systems; (4) socio-historical analyses of 'big issues;' (5) studies of COMM in popular culture; (6) studies of mass COMM activities; & (7) the practical problems to which the discipline can contribute answers. COMMENTS by Wilbur Schramm: Perhaps the legacy of the Lasswell-Lazarsfeld-Lewin-Hovl and contributions has been so great that we fail to give proper recognition to current signs of vitality in COMM's as indicated by: (a) the broad scale & continuing interest of sci'sts in COMM studies, & (2) the possibility of further developments by the surviving 'fathers' & their students. Moreover, Berelson possibly confuses men & approaches thereby assuming the latter to be dead when the particular proponent has gone or shifted interest. There is the prospect that improved approaches of the kinds mentioned in the hands of competent researchers will produce answers to the many signif remaining problems. COMMENTS by David Reisman: Though at an earlier time Berelson's views about the low state of COMM's res seemed to be unnecessarily pessimistic & possibly enducing a self-fulfilling prophecy, events since then have tended to support him. Berelson's views could hold equally well for other marginal fields such as culture-&-personality, institutional economics, & studies of character & society as in THE AUTHORITARIAN PERSONALITY. Perhaps the venturesome spirit of the bright young men of sci has been curbed by (i) an over-sensitivity to methodological pitfalls, & (ii) by 'the opening up of fields of theoretical work which offered at once quick pay-offs ... & elegant models for the meek & timid.' It seems that we are too sophisticated methodologically & theoretically to be enlightened by the sheer press of data.. There is a wide range of large scale problems that can be attacked by small-scale empirical sorties. 'Conceptual schemes, while essential & inevitable, can serve to alienate the worker from his material as well as bring him closer to it.' COMMENTS by Raymond Bauer: While it has become, perhaps, more difficult to differentiate COMM's res as such from related areas of interest, this may only mean that res has expanded, developed, & differentiated in the manner of a maturing field. Except for some of Laswell's work, 'the early period was not marked by great ideas but by diverse methodological approaches to the common area of COMM's: content analysis, survey res, small group dynamics, & systematic psychol'al experimentation.' As the advantages & limitations of each became revealed concern shifted to the substance of problems, for example, as is reflected in the study of PERSONAL INFLUENCE, & in the attempt to verify in the field the effects of COMM's observed in the Laboratory. Hence, only after the limitations of the early approaches were revealed was the complexity & substance of the problem recognized. There are some new ideas worthy of attention such as that while mass COMM's is often thought to influence att's, increasing recognition is given to the idea that attitudinal changes follow behavioral changes. Perhaps one should look for instances 'in which COMM's have capitalized on existing att's to produce behavior which, in turn, produces changes of att's.' C. M. Coughenour.
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It has taken me a long time to write a follow up to my first post on Bizarro World. That is because once you begin to think about the strange inversions in which the persecuted are made out to be threats, and the comfortable are made out to be threatened, it is hard to not see it. Our entire world seems reversed and inverted, those who are most subject to violence are made into violent threats, and those who are most comfortable have made the threats to their comfort our central concern with the claims of cancel culture. Bizarro world would be one of those "descriptive theories" that Althusser talks about, something that stops thinking because it seems to be such an accurate description of what one is thinking about. I have decided to approach the topic by breaking it up, by trying to grasp the specificity of the different reversals, following what I did earlier with the inversion of the relation of workers and capitalists to that of the relation of human capital and job providers I would now like to examine the way in which margins and mainstream have also become inverted, and what that inversion means for both terms in question, the dominant culture and the marginal subculture. In doing so I would like to start with a particular philosophy, or spontaneous philosophy, that characterized my life as a young teenager. As a nerdy kid interested in comic books, science fiction, and other things, I fostered the belief, shared by many of my kind, that our rather minor marginalization made us sympathetic to the marginalization of others. This was helped in large part by the fact that many of the dominant comic books when I was growing up, such as the X-Men, Spider-Man, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, were all in some sense allegories of oppression and exclusion. With respect to the first in the list, the idea that the X-Men stand in for an oppressed minority, complete with the conflict between Professor X's integrationist philosophy and Magneto's more militant position, is so entrenched in its reception that it ceases to be subtext (even if it is not true). Comic books were at least in the eighties, both in their culture and in their content, stories of the misunderstood, the maligned, and the excluded. One could raise two questions about this mythology. The first has to do with the allegorical distance of framing the stories of marginalization and exclusion through such science fiction content as genetic mutation, or, in other contexts, alien visitors or androids. In some sense these science fiction elements set up the necessary allegorical distance to make the stories palpable as entertainment. The condition of possibility is the condition of impossibility, however, in that the detouring of exclusion and marginalization through such allegories as the "mutant menace" always made it possible that some readers would miss the point. That people actually did is demonstrated by the twitter posts that ask in all sincerity "When did X become political?" where the X in question is some bit of pop culture such as X-Men or Star Trek that was always steeped in political subtexts. Such posts miss the point, but the possibility of missing the point is inscribed in the text in question and is a necessary condition of its popularity. Of course there are comics, television shows, and books that bridged this allegoric divide, more directly connecting the fictional exclusion of mutants and aliens with the actual history of oppression, but they are to some extent exceptions. There is something awkward, however, when the history of imagined exclusions confronts the real history of discrimination. There are the moments when we realize that the Nazis were an actual political ideology, and not just bad guys that seem ready for the four color word of comics. Second, and more importantly, one could argue that the marginalization I felt at the time was slight and temporary, I was (and remain) a white cis male, after all, and being bullied after school, or made fun of in the back of the bus, is nothing compared to what other adolescents face, nor does it really deserve a place in the ongoing history of persecution and discrimination. However, becoming an outcast of sorts, a nerd, and later a punk, can be understood as a becoming minor in Deleuze and Guattari's sense. For Deleuze and Guattari majority and minor are not simply quantitative matters, but the relation between constant and variable. As Deleuze and Guattari write, "Majority implies a constant, of expression or content, serving as a standard measure by which to evaluate it. Let us suppose that the constant or standard is the average adult-white-heterosexual-European-male-speaking a standard language. It is obvious that "man" holds the majority even if he is less numerous than mosquitos, children, women, blacks, peasants, homosexuals, etc. That is because he appears twice, once in the constant and again in the variable from which the constant is extracted."Since we are speaking of comic books, it is worth noting that superhero comics themselves illustrate this majority, not just in the proliferation of various prefixes appearing before the world "man"," bat, super, iron, spider, etc., man is the constant, the norm, but in the fact that white and male is the unstated norm from which the first "black," "Asian," or gay superhero takes their meaning. Marvel comics in particulr does not bother to create new characters and superpowers it is enough to add "-woman" or "she" to Spider or the Hulk to create a new character. The deviations appear meaningful because the norm is assumed. While this is true of comics, and begins to illustrate the limits of the social justice dimension I alluded to above, I think that becoming a comics nerd is itself a kind of becoming-minor. To quote Deleuze and Guattari again, "Minorities, of course, are objectively definable states, states of language, ethnicity, or sex with their own ghetto territorialities, but they must also be thought of as seeds, crystals of becoming whose value is to trigger uncontrollable movements and deterritorializations of the mean or majority."Not to be too autobiographical, but I would describe my entire life as a passage through different minorities, different subcultures, comics, punk, philosophy, etc., all of these where very different territories, with different languages and cultures, but the overall movement was an attempt to evade majority, to not be the constant, a position which Deleuze and Guattari argue, is all the more oppressive because it is occupied by no one. If all of this language of major and minor seems a bit baroque, then I am reminded of a passage from Deleuze and Guattari that seems uncharacteristically direct. After a few lines that state "There is no subject of the becoming except as a deterritorialized variable of the majority; there is no medium of becoming except as a deterritorialized variable of a minority," they bring up a historical/literary example, writing, "As Faulkner said, to avoid ending up a fascist there was no other choice but to become black." This cuts through the particular neologism to make the stakes clear. Such an assertion has a lot to unpack, but I would argue here that a lot of subcultures, especially those that embrace their deviations and exclusions from the mainstream and are, it is worth saying primarily but not exclusively white, are attempts to avoid becoming fascist, to avoid being part of the majority. You cannot change the color of your skin, but you can change the color of your hair, and that seems like enough especially if it gets the same people to hate you. That is my all too glib summation of some of the politics of punk aesthetics. My main reason for bringing up this little theory of subcultures, as well as the subtext of comic books, now is that it seems to have completely exhausted itself. Comic books, or, more to the point, superheroes, have gone from the margins of our culture to the center. They are the dominant culture, have become majoritarian, and as much as one would like to think that they have carried with it their fundamental minoritarian political aspect the opposite seems to be the case. Love of mutants and other imaginary minorities has not extended to a support for actually existing marginalized groups, but has been mobilized to not only perpetuate exclusions but to become the voice of the majority.In part this happens through the politics of nostalgia, which demands that the present, the film adaptation, identically recalls the past, which in this case means that the film must resemble comics written in the fifties, sixties, and seventies, complete with the racial politics of those eras. There have been online freak outs over the casting of Idris Elba to play Heimdall in Thor, of John Boyega playing a central role in Star Wars, of Moses Ingram appearing in Obi Wan Kenobi. These deviations from some supposed canon have all been met with vicious online hate campaigns that have led actors to shut down accounts and retreat from the digital public sphere. The demand to preserve the sanctity of one's childhood memories has led to absolute hostility towards any of the social change that has happened since one was a child. Lest this all seem incredibly minor (in the conventional sense) and all too online, I would argue that this cultural nostalgia, the demand that the present match the past, has been thoroughly weaponized into MAGA nostalgia. This hostility is not limited to changes to the canon, but is extended to include even new characters and stories that do not so much recast or change past memories but create new ones. Both Ms. Marvel and She Hulk have been "review bombed" on online review sites, hit with a flurry of negative reviews almost before they air primarily for the crime of casting a muslim woman or a woman in a comic book themed show. There seems to be an entire online niche of people who hate Brie Larson for not only playing Captain Marvel, but for speaking up for diversity in film and film criticism. We live in an age in which a film that was basically an hour and half long recruitment advertisement for the Air Force is seen by its critics as too woke, too concerned with social justice, because of its cast. All of this criticism coalesces in the online mantra, "Get Woke, Go Broke" which threatens companies and brands with boycotts for embracing "social justice."The world of comic book fans has been no less critical of those who criticize their beloved films for their artistic merits. Martin Scorsese famously declared that Marvel films are not cinema, and he has been ridiculed online ever since. It is not enough that these films, the Marvel films, be commercially dominant, being the most financially successful films that are released each year, and culturally dominant, reshaping all of popular culture in their image, they also most be loved and revered by everyone. Dissent cannot be tolerated. Blockbusters must be acknowledged as art. It is at this point that we get our bizarro world inversion of the comic book nerd. The fan of comic book movies is now something of a "sore winner," who continues to act the victim, marginalized, even in his dominance. I would argue that this "sore winner" idea is integral to our contemporary version of the majority, and even fascism to recall the quote about Faulkner. We are far from Deleuze and Guattari's image of a majority that is all the more powerful in being unstated, in being assumed, now dominance, cultural, political, and economic, focuses on its apparent marginalization in order precisely to reassert its dominance. The inversion is not just that comic books have gone from margins to mainstream, but that marginalization has gone from being the basis of empathy to an expression of dominance. Victimhood is the language of domination. The bizarro world that we are living in is not just that what was once the obsession of a few has become the culture of many, that Moon Knight is now practically a household name, but that grievance against perceived marginalization has become the language of the majority.
The article is aimed at presenting the selection process of candidates for MPs before the elections to the PRL Sejm of 1957. The analysis has been performed predominantly on the basis of numerous archival sources and the existing literature. The transformations of 1956 in Poland fostered the opportunity to reassign the Parliament the role it deserved, an aspect universally considered to be important in the process of liberalization of the political and government system. The coming election, based on the changed Electoral Law, were to open the path to the Sejm not only to persons nominated by the Party, but also to the representatives of circles less associated with the authorities. The United People's Party (ZSL) and the Alliance of Democrats (SD) also wanted to benefit from the circumstances, as they strove to widen the margin of their independence from the weakened PZPR. Meanwhile, the new Party leadership under Gomułka, aimed at restoring political balance, strove to maintain domination over the choice and selection of the contenders for the seats in the Sejm. Hence, they made efforts which, for the price of minor compromises, ensured that the PZPR played a decisive role in the final approval of candidate slates. The regulations introduced by the authorities, stipulated not only the procedure and mode of submitting candidates, but also the division of seats in the future Sejm, and imposed the so-called central candidates upon many districts. This, however could not quell thousands of initiatives throughout the country aimed at obtaining the desired representative in the Parliament. In this context, the activity by a large portion of the PRL citizens constituted not a mere result of the atmosphere of the 'political thaw', but rather a form of acting out the repressive realities of the preceding period, and the emerging social antagonisms. What lied at the root of those was oftentimes genuine care about the interests of all the various milieux, local communities, professional groups, organizations to a greater or lesser extent associated with authorities, as well as ethnic minorities. And even though spontaneously submitted candidacies, usually put forth during pre-election meetings, were doomed to fail, it nevertheless served as a proof that people had high hopes for the election and continued democratization of political relations. ; Celem artykułu jest przedstawienie procesu wyłaniania kandydatów na posłów przed wyborami do Sejmu PRL z 1957 r. Analizy dokonano głównie na podstawie licznych źródeł archiwalnych oraz dotychczasowej literatury. Przemiany 1956 r. w Polsce stworzyły możliwości przywrócenia należnej roli parlamentowi, co powszechnie traktowano jako ważny element liberalizacji ustroju i systemu władzy. Nadchodzące wybory, oparte na zmienionej ordynacji, miały otwierać drogę do Sejmu już nie tylko partyjnym nominatom, ale także dać szansę reprezentantom środowisk mniej powiązanych z władzą. Sytuację taką planowały też wykorzystać Zjednoczone Stronnictwo Ludowe i Stronnictwo Demokratyczne, dążące do poszerzenia marginesu swojej niezależności wobec osłabionej PZPR. Tymczasem nowa ekipa przywódcza na czele z Gomułką, zorientowana na przywrócenie politycznej stabilizacji, zamierzała utrzymać hegemonię w doborze i selekcji pretendentów do ław poselskich. Podjęła więc działania, które, za cenę pewnych ustępstw, zapewniły PZPR decydującą rolę w ostatecznym zatwierdzaniu list kandydatów.Wprowadzone przez władze regulacje dotyczyły nie tylko sposobu i trybu zgłaszania kandydatur, ale ustalały też z góry podział miejsc w przyszłym Sejmie oraz narzucały w wielu okręgach tzw. kandydatury centralne. Nie zdołało to jednak stłumić tysięcy inicjatyw w całym kraju, których celem stało się posiadanie własnego przedstawiciela w parlamencie. W tym kontekście aktywność sporej części obywateli PRL była nie tylko skutkiem odwilżowego klimatu, formą odreagowania represywnej rzeczywistości poprzedniego okresu, czy też ujawniających się antagonizmów społecznych. U jej podłoża tkwiła często rzeczywista troska o interesy poszczególnych środowisk, społeczności lokalnych, grup zawodowych, organizacji mniej lub bardziej powiązanych z władzą oraz mniejszości narodowych. I choć spontaniczne wysuwanie kandydatów, odbywające się najczęściej w trakcie zebrań wyborczych, było z góry skazane na niepowodzenie, to jednak dowodziło, że z wyborami wiązano generalnie duże nadzieje na dalszą demokratyzację stosunków politycznych.
Partendo dall'osservazione del caso curdo in Irak e in Siria attraverso un secolo di storia, questo contributo adotta un approccio dinamico e interrelazionale, al fine di studiare la questione della crisi dello Stato-nazione in Medio Oriente a partire da tre premesse. In primo luogo, la formazione dei gruppi identificati come « minoritari » è il risultato di una storia di relazioni di potere e, di conseguenza, il risultato di un processo sociale. In secondo luogo, i membri delle «maggioranze» e delle «minoranze» non sono ovunque ed ad ogni momento contrapposti. Quindi, la relazione tra «maggioranze» e «minoranze» fa parte di un processo dinamico, di cui dobbiamo prendere in considerazione sia le continuità che le discontinuità. Infine, esiste una forte interrelazione tra i periodi in cui gli Stati, o segmenti dello Stato, si alleano a dei gruppi «esterni» – açabiyyât (gruppi di solidarietà), etc. –, onde supplire alle carenze dello Stato, e le fasi del consolidamento del movimento curdo, e vice-versa. Il risultato, a lungo termine, è una trasformazione reciproca, che si manifesta con una frammentazione accentuata e degli Stai e dei movimenti curdi. Paradossalmente, mentre Stati e movimenti curdi sono riusciti ad assicurare la loro durabilità, essi si sono allontanati dalla loro dottrina originale : la creazione di Stati-nazione omogenei e sovrani su tutto il territorio nazionale. Così, se lo Stato-nazione è in causa, lo è anche il progetto nazionalista curdo. ; Partant de l'observation du cas kurde en Irak et en Syrie à travers un siècle, cette contribution adopte une approche dynamique et interactionnelle en vue d'étudier la question de la crise de l'État-nation au Moyen-Orient à partir de trois prémisses. Premièrement, la formation des groupes identifiés comme «minoritaires» est le résultat d'une histoire de relations de pouvoir et, par conséquent, le résultat d'un processus social. Deuxièmement, les membres des «majorités» et des «minorités» ne sont pas en tout lieu et en tout moment opposés. Dès lors, la relation entre «majorités» et «minorités» fait partie d'un processus dynamique dont nous devons prendre en considération à la fois les continuités et les discontinuités. Enfin, il existe une forte interrelation entre les périodes dans lesquelles les États ou des segments de l'État s'allient à des groupes «externes» – açabiyyât (groupes de solidarité), etc. –, pour pallier les carences de l'État et les phases de consolidation du mouvement kurde, et vice-versa. Le résultat, dans le long terme, est une transformation mutuelle, qui se manifeste par une fragmentation accentuée et des États et des mouvements kurdes. Paradoxalement, alors qu'États et mouvements kurdes sont parvenus à assurer leur durabilité, ils se sont éloignés de leur doctrine originale: la création d'États-nations homogènes et souverains sur tout le territoire national. Ainsi, si l'État-nation est en cause, le projet nationaliste kurde l'est aussi. ; The paper aims to observe state-minority relations in Iraq and Syria, in particular with regard to the Kurdish group, from a longue durée perspective in order to put forward two main arguments. First of all, state-society relations evolve over time. Therefore state-minority relations are a part of a dynamic process in which both continuity and change must be taken into consideration. In that sense, the choice of government majority or "consensus democracy" does not necessarily account for the actual relationship between a state and a minority group over time. Factors such as political stability and regional dynamics might affect state-minority relations and lead regimes to "betray" their official ideologies to secure their durability. Secondly, and related to the previous idea, minorities, be it ethnic or religious, should not be analyzed only as "victims" and/or passive actors. The long-term perspective allows us to identify peaceful periods, strategies of accommodation as well as the active involvement of leaders issued from minority groups into national politics. Finally, while observing the unprecedented events of the last decade (e.g. US invasion of Iraq of 2003 and the so-called "Arab Spring" of 2011) it suggests that historical observation should lead us to be cautious before concluding to a final break between the above mentioned states and the Kurds.
Social exclusion is associated with situations, in which an individual cannot normally participate in the activities of citizens in a given society. It is essential to note that such a restriction is not due to internal beliefs, but is beyond the control of that person. Societal exclusion is a multidimensional phenomenon, meaning, that a person cannot participate in political, economic and cultural life as a result of a lack of access to resources, goods and institutions, as well as restrictions of social rights or a deprivation of needs. The groups or social categories in which individuals are most vulnerable to exclusion are: the disabled, the mentally ill, addicts, the long-term unemployed, individuals with low professional skills, those released from correctional facilities, single mothers raising children, victims from pathological families, children and youth from neglected environments or raised outside of the family, the elderly, the homeless, immigrants, and members of ethnic minorities. The cause or effect of social exclusion is poverty. A combination of several of these noted problems increases the risk of experiencing exclusion. In the field of social assistance, the problems which an individual and their family experience are the stimuli or task for action to be taken. J. Wygnański stated that, with respect to clients, they are: (…) often those for which the existing instruments of social assistance or labour offices do not work. For many, it is not assistance, just control, and they do everything to dodge it. Some have limited their aspirations to the level of their existence, i.e. the necessity to earn money to purchase the cheapest alcohol. Can you reach such people with the tale of the fishing rod and fish? They are fixated on fish, not even salmon, but anything. They do not believe in a chance for independence, but they know how to navigate in the system of assistance offered by the state and non-governmental organizations, to receive something. Hence the need for new ideas for assistance – so that these people will be willing to help themselves. We are not the only one in Europe that has managed to create a welfare system perpetuated on passivity and exclusion, making it impossible for the welfare state to bear (Mateja 2008). The cited formulation indicates that long-term use of benefits generates the formation of a dependency on assistance. Effective social assistance should therefore be orientated towards activating, and cannot be deactivating and overwhelming. In the context of the aforementioned social exclusion, social enterprises which perform different functions have important tasks to fulfill. Social economy or social entrepreneurship are terms referring to social economy, combining both social and economic objectives. Competences mentioned in the catalogue of social enterprise: social integration and activity in the labour market, provision of public services: social (educational, custodial care, in the field of healthcare) and technical (of a reciprocal nature, in the open labour market, the supply of public goods and the development of local communities, and business and production activities) (Co to jest ekonomia społeczna?; Szluz 2010: 257-273). A specific form of social enterprise is a social cooperative which is mainly made up of individuals at risk of social exclusion due to unemployment, a disability or mental illness, or having trouble finding work. Activity and work in social cooperatives gives them a chance of social and professional activation, integration, as well as upgrading their skills. Unlike other social economy entities, the social cooperative requires a high degree of independence and responsibility from its members. A collegial method of decision making applies. Members of the cooperative are entirely responsible for the cooperative's affairs, and learn independence and long-term planning. They care about the financial aspects, manage their own business, and set the direction of development. The cited issues have become the impetus for undertaking analysis and considerations, whose aim is to demonstrate cooperation for combating social exclusion. The Subcarpathian social cooperatives have become very good examples, which arose as a result of actions taken within the scope of the partnership.
Abstract This research project lies at the intersection of immigrant incorporation, academic institutions, urban politics and U.S. law. I am interested on the role of local, state, and federal laws and policies in creating institutional conditions and fostering social networks that influence democratic politics and levels of immigrant assimilation and incorporation. To that end, I investigate the social networking ability of academic institutional actors (specifically undocumented AB540 students) based on conditions created and fostered by state and federal policy within schools. I examine the role of schools and school activities in offering opportunities and creating (or not) fertile conditions for social networking that may ultimately lead to segmented patterns of academic achievement and/or social incorporation of immigrant students and I analyze the role of undocumented AB540 students within these networks in democratic politics, more specifically in creating, re-creating, and/or re-defining legality. For over three years, I conducted brief and in-depth interviews with 20 undocumented AB540 students and executed monthly shadowing sessions and participant observations of 6 of these student participants. I also conducted archival research, including legislative histories of immigration and education policies, and analyzed the content of coverage in local mainstream and ethnic media, including newspapers and talk-shows. Based on this multi-method research design, I argue that local, state, and federal policies create institutional conditions that offer opportunities for undocumented immigrants to latch on to social networks that may affect their levels of academic achievement and social incorporation. This in turn, helps us to understand the varying and segmented patterns of academic achievement and social incorporation of immigrant youth that continue to maintain structures of social inequality. This project expands upon the literature on immigrant assimilation and incorporation by analyzing the benefits and drawbacks of local, state and federal laws like Plyler vs. Doe and AB540 that grant undocumented youth opportunities for inclusion and incorporation through education yet, at the same time they set limitations that often lead to social and economic barriers and consequently end up sending mixed and conflicting messages. This project also contributes to the literature on the schooling of immigrant children and youth, particularly Latino youth. In the last half-century, schooling has emerged as both - "the first sustained, meaningful, and enduring participation in an institution of the new society" and "the surest path to well-being and status mobility" (Suarez-Orozco, C., Suarez-Orozco, M., Todorova, p. 2, 2008). In schools, immigrant youth forge new friendships, create and solidify social networks, and acquire the academic, linguistic, and cultural knowledge that ultimately sustains them throughout their journey in the U.S. This said, my project also contributes to literature on social capital as it investigates how people's social capital responds to organizational conditions and supports research that argues that social networks are "sets of context-dependent relations resulting from routine processes in organizational context" and as a result "individuals receive distinct advantages from being embedded in effective broker-organizations that both, intentionally and unintentionally, connect people to other people, organizations, and their resources" (Small, p.vi, 2009). This research also shows that many practices, resources, and information available and offered to undocumented AB540 students often result from larger factors such as policies of the state, something far removed from these students' daily lived experiences. Furthermore, this project makes a contribution to the urban politics literature by highlighting that undocumented AB540 students are a distinct type of urban political actors with a presence and influence in local politics that is different from that of other immigrants, minorities, and underrepresented groups. Finally, I believe the results of this project will help shape our knowledge of the possibilities and challenges local, state, and federal legislations provide for how we define legality, citizenship, and belonging as well as how we analyze immigrants' processes of assimilation and/or incorporation to address the diversity challenges of America's sizable undocumented Latino population.
