Suchergebnisse

AbstractThis special issue commemorates the 50th anniversary of Social Policy & Administration. Much has been written over the last two decades about the role of ideas in social policy, especially as they relate to institutions. For instance, a decade ago in this journal, I published a now widely cited article titled'Ideas and social policy: An institutionalist perspective'. The present contribution returns to some of the issues raised in that 2005 article, while assessing the recent ideational scholarship, with the goal of formulating a new research agenda for scholars in the field. Special attention is paid to the need for clear analytical distinctions and rigorous empirical analysis to study the explanatory role of ideas in social policy change, as they may interact with institutions. This article concludes with a discussion about the meaning of institutionalism in ideational analysis and how to concretely explore the interaction between ideas and institutions in the study of social policy stability and change.

This paper employs a phenomenological approach to examine the centrality of embodied habit in both the proliferation and the transmission of COVID-19. The analysis focuses not only on the difficulty of amending embodied habits but on the question of the ethics of social distancing and the role of human agency in the amendment of such habits. To this effect, the relation between passivity and activity in the uptake of habit is emphasized and the active and agential aspects of embodied habit are highlighted. In contrast to the predominance of more negative accounts of social distancing, the paper considers the kind of ethical reorientation that is required to amend embodied and social habit in the face of the mutual vulnerability evoked by COVID-19. This analysis is distinguished from more far-reaching government measures in relation to COVID-19; instead, it offers a consideration of the kinds of responsibility towards one another at the level of everyday life. Peer review process: Guest edited

Horizontality is a salient social phenomenon of the last decade. It asserts itself against hierarchies in social movements and countless other collective practices around the world. It constitutes a characteristic of an emergent sociality that demands the attention of the social sciences. The 2010s are a moment as important as "the Sixties", a time when Ivan Illich called for the development of tools of conviviality, and horizontality may be categorized as one of them. Today's horizontality may be related to that of populations that have been the focus of anthropologists interested in their longstanding propensity to work against the affirmation of the authority of commanding. Public squares, roundabouts, and the courtyards of apartment buildings welcome the early symptoms of democratic experimentation that circulates also among groups, collectivities, and associations with varied purposes. In all these places, equality asserts itself and cuts across differences. The Yellow Vests and an educational cooperative in São Paulo are the empirical foundation of this study.

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "GAO discussed the usage of the Social Security number (SSN), focusing on: (1) the ways that the federal government uses SSNs and current restrictions on these uses; (2) the nonfederal purposes for which the number is used; and (3) what businesses and state governments believe the effect would be if federal laws limiting the use of SSNs were passed."

The economic crisis of 2007/2008 presented a challenge to the welfare state in the UK, and, more widely, across Europe. It also presented a challenge to many citizens, who were on the receiving end of the austerity agenda, and subsequent tightening of welfare spending. If nothing else, the financial crisis demonstrated the hegemony of economic theories prominent in neoliberal capitalism. As many academics and commentators have identified, however, the current period of instability is indicative of a systemic crisis. In addition to this analysis, the crisis also exposed the intricate and opaque links between western governments and the financial sector. During and after the crisis an eruption of activity in civil society galvanised many that had been directly affected by either the crisis itself – through loss of employment – or by the subsequent austerity measures imposed. This paper aims to examine the current crisis affecting the welfare state in the UK, and social policy more broadly, and, begins to suggest how social movements are seeking to challenge the dominant discourses surrounding austerity politics. The paper will suggest some reasons as to why traditional forms of resistance and organisation – such as the mobilisations of the trade union movement – have largely been unsuccessful in challenging such narratives. The paper will conclude by considering the shift from trade unionism in the UK to post-crisis social movements, and where an anti-austerity movement more broadly might develop further in pursuit of defending the principles of social welfare, and, ultimately, the welfare state.

Abstract:The scholarly discourse on social norms in the tradition of Thomas Schelling (1960) often makes a sharp distinction between social norms and social conventions. In attempting to apply that distinction to actual practices and to teach it to practitioners and students I encountered frequent difficulties and confusions, and finally concluded that it is untenable. I recommend a return to some version of Ullman-Margalit's (1977) distinction between social norms of cooperation and social norms of coordination. Social norms, I say, are distinguished by beliefs in a relevant group that the rule is typical among them and approved of among them. I describe four ways that social norms of coordination, including conventions of social meaning, are influenced by social approval and disapproval. I contend that the effort by Southwood and Eriksson (2011) to show that social conventions and social norms are essentially different breaks down because their conception of social norms is overly moralized. I present a more social conception of social norms that does without the regnant distinction between "social norm" and "social convention" and instead allows for social norms of cooperation, social norms of coordination, and other kinds of social norms.

Introduction: Receiving social support can result in a better job performance. For this reason, this study aimed to investigate the relationship between social support and job performance of social workers in Tehran.
Methods: The statistical population included all social workers working in Tehran. For this purpose, 325 social workers in Tehran in 2017 were selected and studied by non probability convenience sampling and Cochran's formula. Phillips Social Support Inventory (PSSI) and Patterson Job Performance (JPQ) were used for data collection. In order to analyze the data, the correlation coefficient test, independent t-test, and multivariate regression were used.
Results: The results indicated a positive correlation between all components of social support (family members' support, friends' support, and the others' support) and job performance among social workers (P < 0.01). Regression analysis showed that it is only the others' support which can predict changes in job performance (P < 0.01). Other results indicated that female and older social workers had a better job performance than male and younger social workers.
Conclusion: Receiving enough social support puts the job performance of social workers in a desriable place and thus provides better quality services.

Collective identity entered the social movements literature as an early recognition of the importance of meaning-making in shaping movement participants and influencing movement actions In this article, we go against the more usual practice of treating movements as unified actors, and instead, take a decentered, dialogic approach that recognizes the difficulties and contentiousness of producing movement identities amidst multiple discourses and practices. We illustrate this framework with three ethnographic cases from Canada, Scotland and Nepal, which highlight collective identity and meaning-making through place-based, contingent cultural processes. The cases use the concepts of figured worlds, alter-versions of identity, and cultural artifacts to show how collective identity develops dialogically in practice both within and outside of movements.

Political elections in the early modern Republic of Venice used to generate tension between republican, legal, social and religious behavioral norms. As a result, Venetians developed a culture of informal practices called broglio to harmonize these norms. This culture ran parallel to elections and could both thwart and smooth them. The analysis aims to highlight how a pre-election culture of political campaign managed to establish itself though it was forbidden. 1500 Patricians sat in the Great Council every Sunday and even on public holidays to elect candidates. The electoral system was strict: through a complex procedure, only the best, the most competent, and those most loyal to the motherland were to be elected, without any consideration of familial and friendship ties. Patricians called it distributive justice, a concept dating back to Aristotle. Patricians had to favour the interests of the family. Besides, they were integrated in clientele networks, where mutual obligations had to be honoured. Whoever did not respect his social duties was excluded from political life. To reconcile republican norms with familial and friendship's issues, they established an informal culture that existed in parallel with the elections: the broglio. Some practices were legally not permitted, yet tolerated to a certain extent. Others, such as monetary bribery were inacceptable at all levels. ; Les élections politiques dans la République de Venise provoquaient des tensions entre normes républicaines, légales, sociales et religieuses. En conséquence, les patriciens développèrent une culture informelle constituée de diverses pratiques appelée "broglio" pour concilier ces normes. Cette culture se déroulait en parallèle aux élections et pouvait à la fois les dévier de leur objectif principal que les rendre plus fluide. Cette étude a pour objectif de mettre en lumière comment une culture pré-électorale de la campagne politique a réussi à s'imposer alors qu'elle était interdite.1500 patriciens prenaient place dans le Grand Conseil ...

The Sahel region is home to several groups that profess to be jihadi in orientation. To raise funds, these groups rely on criminal activity that nets them millions of dollars, and helps them embed within local communities. As worrying as the presence of these entities is, what is of greater concern is the way the United States and France have militarized the region. The argument made in this article is twofold. First, the appeal of the Sahel jihadi-criminal groups is based in pervasive human insecurity and not theological affinity with radical Islam. Second, the counterterrorism and counterinsurgency policies promoted by the United States and France militarize the region and are likely to cause more instability. It is imperative to rethink interventionist policy in the region.

In 13 semi-structured, face-to-face interviews at a social service organization, workers were asked to discuss the problems and challenges that made their day-to-day jobs difficult. Most workers identified problems and challenges at the client-level, while secondarily discussing organizational and societal challenges. The findings in the research speak to Michael Lipsky's 'Street-Level Bureaucracy' in that the people that administer social policy on a day-to-day basis with their clients identify the most difficulties in carrying out their organizational objectives of changing their clients not husbanding material resources.