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Human rights are intertwined with large processes of globalisation. One of these processes is the rapid world-wide growth of multinational business enterprises. This volume argues that normative and legal developments to regulate and govern the behaviour of transnational businesses represent a new frontier in the struggle for human rights. This frontier has borne witness to many victims, but there are also glimpses of hope and opportunities for expanding the respect and protection of human rights in the corporate sector at local, national, and global levels. The volume presents essays discussing current international challenges and efforts to advance human rights duties of transnational businesses. An introductory essay provides an overview of the debate and the individual chapters discuss legal, institutional, political, and social dimensions and obstacles to advancing business enterprises' social and legal commitment to human rights norms. The book is aimed at legal and development scholars, public servants, and civil society practitioners with an interest in human rights commitments of transnational businesses. It is also of use for teachers and students in human rights law, corporate social responsibility courses, and courses in global development in degree programmes, and professional training programmes

In this exploration of the social context of reading and writing in pre-industrial England, David Cressy tackles important questions about the limits of participation in the mainstream of early modern society. To what extent could people at different social levels share in political, religious, literary and cultural life; how vital was the ability to read and write; and how widely distributed were these skills? Using a combination of humanist and social-scientific methods, Dr Cressy provides a detailed reconstruction of the profile of literacy in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century England, looking forward to the eighteenth century and also making comparisons with other European societies

To discover the essential differences in cultural and linguistic patterns of a certain society, we need to look no further than to the most common relations of all – those between family members. When studying, working and living in, or for instance marrying into another culture, we must not only learn, but also acquire and utilise a whole new set of relationships and terms in order to be able to function and communicate. Without this knowledge we will quickly encounter a multitude of social difficulties in the other environment. On a deeper level, if we follow the assumption that a language is the mirror of its culture, and that language also influences culture, the linguistic terms designating family relations present a number of interesting phenomena, such as: which relations occupy the centre of importance in the society; the concept and understanding of a core family; which family relations are considered "worth" having a term for, and thus meaningful to keep up; the relations after a crisis, for instance a divorce; and several more, including the transfer of family relations to friendship and business contacts.
This qualitative pilot study discusses some important aspects of family relations from the perspectives of Swedish-language (Sweden and Swedish-speakers in Finland) family terminology, in comparison with Serbian and Bulgarian. The study also includes a Serbian-language survey about kinship terms, and it raises questions about further research into cultural and social patterns and connotations reflected in kinship terminology. Social and cultural differences specifically between the Serbian and Swedish spheres are highlighted; the Bulgarian and Swedish-speaking terminologies in Finland are used here mainly as references and for comparative purposes. The study combines different scientific fields in mapping out some aspects of cognitive, social and cultural patterns. It emphasises the importance and necessity of multilingual and multicultural learning instead of foreign language and culture learning, and shows some of the pitfalls and possibilities students of languages and cultures encounter when learning new kinship concepts and terms.

"En esta publicación se reconoce que los hechos económicos son hechos sociales y por tanto los estudios de historia económica deben conjugar los aportes de distintas disciplinas. Los artículos presentados en este libro, que tienen como eje la moneda y el régimen político, se ubican en una perspectiva de economía política distanciandose de aquellas interpretaciones que conciben la moneda solo como un instrumento que cumple unas funciones (unidad de cuenta, medio de cambio, depósito de valor) y cuya operación es neutral frente a la economía ya los grupos sociales. Más que un intrumento que cumple las funciones de unidad de cuenta, medio de pago y almacén de valor; la moneda es una manifestación de la totalidad social que refleja la relación del individuo con el conjunto social en el cual está inmerso. Deuda, confianza y soberanía son tres formas a través de las cuales se puede comprender ese vínculo social, que no es inmanente sino que está sujeto a fuertes variaciones en razón de las distintas fuerzas que pugnan por la apropiación de una parte del valor. El orden monetario expresa un compromiso político que puede ser puesto en cuestión por un cambio en la correlaciones de fuerzas sociales, de ahí que las normas que rigen la moneda revelen la desigual incidencia de esas fuerzas sobre el establecimiento de la regla monetaria así como la afectación diferencial sobre distintos grupos sociales. La discusión en torno a las concepciones sobre la institución Estado y la naturaleza de la moneda esclarece cómo el manejo monetario responde a decisiones de carácter político en el marco del desarrollo de la soberanía estatal. Con el análisis de las disputas por la extensión del poder del Estado se determina la asociación entre las dificultades para fijar una política monetaria, las crisis de confianza en la moneda y la falta de legitimidad política. El estudio de los mecanismos con los que la lucha por la soberanía política compromete el ordenamiento monetario muestra cómo el Estado genera un orden monetario."--Page 4 of cover

The aim of this paper is to investigate the role of mental causation in the context of rational choice theory. The author defends psychological aspect of rational explanation against the challenge of contemporary reductive materialism.

[Excerpt] Social Protection for Informal Workers in Asia addresses social protection gaps ranging from issues of financing, design, governance, and political economy of social protection for informal workers in Asia. It presents various case studies from countries with distinct social protection systems and analyzes the institutional aspects and design challenges of each system. It also makes recommendations for improving program implementation and for expanding social protection systems for informal workers in Asia. ; ADB_Social_protections_for_informal_workers_in_Asia.pdf: 346 downloads, before Oct. 1, 2020.

Considering an increasingly repressive focus on sex buyers in recent years, the focus of this study is to explore social work in Sweden targeting individuals who purchase sex. The aim of this study is to explore social workers' understanding of the purchase of sex as a social problem. More specifically, the study focuses on social workers' approaches to the purchase of sex in relation to values, professional practices, and political goals, and how they navigate these aspects in their encounters with individuals who purchase sex. Based on interviews with 10 social workers who meet such individuals, an inductive thematic analysis has been employed. The participants navigated between focusing on the individual sex purchaser and his situation, and having moral opinions on the issue, with some being positive to force change through repressive measures. The participants tried to navigate social work's role in relation to social policy and political ambitions regarding the purchase of sex in Sweden, and did this by navigating between doing moral work, being diplomats or specialists. They did moral work both as individuals and as working groups, which was influenced by moral values, professional ideals, and ideas about social work's role in relation to the judiciary system.

This book examines the social aspects of healthy ageing for older individuals. It features more than 15 papers that explore the relevance of the social environment for health on the micro, meso, and macro level. Overall, the book applies a comprehensive contextual approach that includes discussion of how family and friends, neighborhoods, nations, and welfare regimes influence health. The book first explores the issue on the individual level. It looks at the importance of social capital for health among older people, examines types of social networks and health among older Americans, as well as discusses dynamic social capital and mental health in late life. Next, the book looks at the issue through a neighborhood and societal context, which takes into account day-to-day interaction in the immediate environment as well as the social, health, and economic policies in place in different regions in the world, including America, Europe, Asia, and Africa. From there, the book goes on to offer implications and recommendations for research and practice, including the management of related concepts of research on well-being and health. It also offers a psychosocial approach to promoting social capital and mental health among older adults. This book provides health professionals as well as researchers and students in gerontology, sociology, social policy, psychology, and social work with vital insights into the social factors that increase healthy life years and promote well-being.

The article presents the genesis of the process of formation of multi-partyism in Russia in relation to the changes at the institutional-decisional-legal level that were carried out in the last years of the USSR under Mikhail Gorbachev's perestroika policy. Firstly, proceedings of an institutional-normative nature initiated by the then authorities are discussed, namely the reorganisation of the organs of state power: first and foremost, the holding of elections of deputies to the Congress of People's Deputies of the USSR. This was to be a genuinely competitively elected body, which it was decided to resurrect in line with an appeal to the origins of communism - an overturning of the model of power based on the functioning of councils with its superstructure the Congress, which constituted the main decision-making body in the state. Secondly, the transformations at the decision-making level, concerning the sphere of elite alternation in the process of transformational change, were analysed. Thirdly, the legal changes that effectively changed the basis of the Soviet system and initiated the emergence of a new order are shown. The totality of these proceedings initiated by the authorities at the time were, according to the logic assumed by those in power, actually intended to strengthen the position of the Communist Party and its apparatus as a force supporting perestroika. In reality, these actions laid the groundwork for future systemic, social and worldview changes and paved the way for multipartyism in an already different (new) political, legal and state environment (Russian Federation).

Introduction. In today's globalising world, science acquires a crucial importance: integrating humanity within the framework of solving global problems, it becomes one of the leading factors in social development, facilitating work and diversifying leisure time, as well as serving as an instrument of transformations in the political sphere. Undoubtedly, the social aspects of contemporary science are capturing the attention of a huge number of researchers. However, it is not clear that all areas of the sociology of science treat the object of their study in the same way. Aim. A lack of reflection on the unity or otherwise in the understanding of the essence of science in the various fields of sociological research makes it difficult to compare different theories of the institutional, cultural, social and communicative contexts of scientific development. An urgent methodological task therefore consists in developing an understanding of the various definitions of the concept of "science" used in the framework of contemporary sociological analysis of this phenomenon. Results and scientific novelty. In this paper, two dominant sociological views on science – as an experimental-mathematical approach to cognising the world and as a system of representations in general – are compared. We conclude that while researchers studying institutional aspects of science tend to interpret it in terms of the "heritage" of post-Enlightenment European rationalism, constructionist and communicatively-oriented researchers tend to approach science as the system of knowledge and cognition that is formed in any human society, having its own specific sociocultural features in each respective case. While each of these two approaches undoubtedly has its own methodological potential, in order to provide such a diverse field of studies with a common ground, it would be necessary to balance them with a third aspect. We argue that this balancing role, since both common for all mankind and unique for every culture, could be played by Heidegger's conceptualisation of science as "the theory of the real". Practical significance. In order to avoid a pluralism of incompatible theories, it is important to continually pose the question "what is the object of study when conducting a sociological study of various scientific phenomena?" – as well as to understand the "limits of applicability" of the particular interpretation of science on which basis sociological analysis proceeds. ; Введение. В современном глобализующемся мире научные знания приобретают все большую значимость: они интегрируют усилия человечества для решения общих проблем, становятся одними из ведущих факторов развития общества, облегчают труд и разнообразят досуг людей. Кроме того, они используются и в качестве инструмента социально-политических трансформаций. Не случайно сегодня внимание огромного количества исследователей приковано к социальным аспектам науки, а также образования как важнейшего взаимосвязанного с ней социального института. Однако вопрос о том, все ли направления социологии науки трактуют объект своего изучения одинаково, остается открытым. Между тем практически полное отсутствие рефлексии по поводу единства в понимании существа науки в поле социологических исследований затрудняет сопоставление различных теорий развития научного знания в институциональном, культурном, социально-коммуникативном контекстах. Такое положение дел актуализирует поиск решения одной из центральных методологических задач по осмыслению вариантов определения понятия «наука», используемых в рамках современного социологического анализа данного феномена. Цель публикации заключается в попытке сопоставить основные трактовки науки – как экспериментально-математического способа познания мира и как системы представлений о существующих реалиях. Результаты и научная новизна. В ходе обсуждения проблемы авторы приходят к выводу о том, что исследования, посвященные изучению институциональных аспектов, тяготеют к пониманию науки как рационалистического «наследия» Европы Нового времени, а конструкционистски и коммуникативистски ориентированные течения склонны рассматривать ее как систему знания и познания, которая формируется в любом человеческом сообществе, имея, однако, в каждом случае свои специфические социокультурные черты. Каждое из двух указанных направлений, несомненно, обладает своим методологическим потенциалом. Тем не менее в целях выведения таких разноплановых исследований на единую почву предлагается уравновесить их третьей точкой зрения, согласно которой наука есть «теория действительного», имеющая черты универсально-общечеловеческого и уникально-культурного феномена. Практическая значимость. Ответ на вопрос: «Что мы изучаем, когда проводим социологическое исследование науки?» позволит избежать плюрализма несопоставимых теорий и понять «границы применимости» той трактовки науки, от которой мы отталкиваемся в социологическом анализе.

This book uses the North American Chinese Invitational Volleyball Tournament (NACIVT) to examine processes of constructing identity, belonging, and community, and how these processes mobilize, deploy, and are therefore embedded in intersecting and socially constructed notions of race, gender, class, and culture.