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Swedish service democracy is solidly based on a successful welfare state configuration. When good social services are received, citizens reciprocate with their stabilizing trust and legitimacy. Towards the turn of the last century, several economic, organizational and ideological foundations of Swedish representative democracy were faltering, owing to exogenous trends as well as to self-inflicted actions. A governmental commission was set up in 1997 in order to combat a weakening legitimacy. Confronted with extensive social science research, the commission chose to try to shift the focus from the output side to the input side of Swedish democracy. It argued for a legitimacy rooted primarily not in substantial qualities of social service but in procedural qualities such as citizen opportunities to gain influence and autonomy. Not completely disinterested (as its members were party representatives), it recommended leaving room for a participatory democracy with advanced deliberative qualities. In the ensuing debate, competing ideals of democracy were advanced.

This article addresses two concerns that are central to much of the qualitative research currently ongoing in both the social sciences and other fields of social research: the status awarded to biographical knowledges and, associatively, how such knowledges are dealt with in concrete research. The first section calls attention to the unreliability of memory in order to cast doubt on the veracity of lay actors' accounts and thus question their position in social research. The second section, taking up this challenge, addresses a number of critical issues related to both the theoretical and the empirical status of biographical knowledges in qualitative research. Foremost of these are how both 'ignorance' and the dynamic nature of memory are integral to the construction and reconstruction of biographical knowledge. The methodological considerations that arise from this discussion are then considered more explicitly. The article seeks to provoke, rather than foreclose, critical thought and debate.

Christine Hallett is Professor of Social Policy and Chair of the Department of Applied Social Science, University of Stirling, Scotland. She has written extensively in the area of child protection policy, child inquiries and inter-professional communication. In 1992, in conjunction with Elizabeth Birchall, she completed a major review of the literature on the issue of co-ordination in child protection work. It has formed the basis for a research study funded by the Department of Health Into inter-agency and professional co-ordination in the practice and policies of child protection.This interview was conducted whilst I was on a study tour of Great Britain supported by a Creswick Foundation Fellowship in Family Relations and Child Development and the Department of Social Work, Monash University. In the interview, Christine discusses her views about the efficacy of co-ordination, its drawbacks and the policy implications for emphasising the importance of inter-agency co-ordination in protecting children.

This article reviews the American literature in social science for the period 1975–1992 on the determinants of volunteer participation in programs and associations. It finds that most studies are too narrow in the hinds of variables that they include and that explanatory power is reduced as a result. Such participation is significantly greater for certain hinds of variables: contextual (for example, smaller community), social background (for example, higher education), personality (for example, more efficacy/internal locus of control), and attitude (for example, more group attractiveness) as well as situational variables (for example, being asked to join). Very few studies combine measures of each type of variable. When several predictor realms arc included, much higher variance is accounted for. Other social participation (political, mass media, recreational, and so on) is associated with volunteer participation. This association confirms a general activity model that posits a clustering of different types of socioculturally approved discretionary activity.

We start from the thesis that we cannot establish a radical division between the law and the theory which studies it as the main objective. All the theory of law, as much the dogmatics as the one which means the application of the social sciences, is in some way participator in the création and recreation of what in the society is lived as law. The criteria would be the one of the predominance that the respective theory will possess about the social conformation of the law. From that thesis different consequences are extracted which are the last unit between theory and praxis in the legal field : the possibility of an intersystematic reading of the lawful speech of the law, the improbability of a real "external point of view" about the law and the necessity that the sociology of law looks at itself as part of its inspection of the law and the social factors of production.

MALCOLM C. BROWN, The Financing of Personal Health Services in New Zealand, Canada and AustraliaRICHARD H. LEACH, Perceptions of Federalism by Canadian and Australian Public Servants: A Comparative AnalysisG. G. MEREDITH, Small Business Management in AustraliaRONALD WRAITH, Open GovernmentBRIAN SHOWLER, The Public Employment ServiceThe Commonwealth Foundation: The First Ten Years, 1966‐76ROBERT H. SIMMONS AND EUGENE P. DVORIN, Public Administration: Values, Policy and ChangeInformatics and AdministrationT.P. GOLDEN, Local Authority Accounting in IrelandPATRICIA TULLOCH and KERRY McDOUGALL, Retrospect: Social Welfare Issues in the ′75 ElectionMAX KELLY, A Certain Sydney 1900: A Photographic Introduction to a Hidden Sydney 1900Victorian Council of Social Service: Welfare Rights Task Force, We've Got No Choice: A Welfare Rights PerspectiveA Selected Annotated Bibliography on Welfare RightsELEANOR HARMAN and IAN MONTAGNES (eds), The Thesis and the BookN. ROBERTS (ed.), Use of Social Sciences LiteratureJOAN MARSHALL and DEAN JAENSCH (comps), APSA Directory of Political Scientists in Australasia, 1977–1978

The Open University has for some years run an Urban Development Course (DT 201), which Anthony Sutcliffe reviewed favourably in the 1974Yearbook. His only regret, from an urban historian's perspective, was 'the almost complete absence of a historical approach' from the course. He found it depressing that 'the relevance of urban history to contemporary urban studies is not yet apparent to the great mass of social scientists'. It is therefore good news that in 1977 the O.U. initiated Course A 322, 'English Urban History 1500–1780', of which most members of the Urban History Group will be aware from the publicity at Group meetings and from Peter Clark's article in the 1976Year-book. True, it is an arts rather than a social science course, and so may not entirely meet Anthony Sutcliffe's point; but O.U. policy discourages entry requirements for courses, and A 322 is expected to be taken by social scientists as well as by arts students.

Questions about the dignity of the human person give rise to many of the most central and hotly disputed topics in bioethics. In this book, the author investigates whether each human being has intrinsic dignity and whether the very concept of "dignity" has a useful place in contemporary ethical debates. The author explores a broad range of issues addressed in contemporary bioethics, including whether there is a duty of "procreative beneficence," the ethics of ectopic pregnancy, and the possibility of "rescuing" human embryos with human wombs or artificial wombs. The book also treats issues relevant to the end of life, including physician-assisted suicide, provision of food and water to patients in a persistent vegetative state, and how to proceed with organ donation following death. Finally, what are the duties and prerogatives of health care professionals who refuse in conscience to take part in activities that they regard as degrading to human dignity? Should they be forced to do what they consider to be violations of the patient's well being, or does patient autonomy always trump the conscience of a health care professional? Grounded in the Catholic intellectual and moral tradition, this book argues that all human beings from the beginning to the end of their lives should be treated with respect and considers how this belief should be applied in controversial cases

The last few years have become extremely difficult for the socioeconomic development of the country. In fact, despite the statistical growth of Incomes of the population, the commodity content is not growing, but rather decreasing. In this sense, we can agree with the conclusions of those experts who talk about stagnant phenomena in developing trends related to the monetary incomes of the population. The emerging wage disparity between the heads of state organizations in the field of education, healthcare, etc., which is also being noticed by a number of scientists and practitioners, requires an urgent and radical change in approaches to payroll in these state organizations. It should also be noted that the existing wage system was established as a result of post-reform reforms in 2005–2006. Almost 20 years have passed and the structure of, for example, the premium part of wages has significantly transformed not in the direction of its increase, but in the direction of reducing its volumes. This circumstance indicates that the bonuses given to the employees of a state organization for local regulation are not always really «fair» for everyone. Ultimately, this is reflected in a decrease in the incomes of a significant number of people employed in the public sector of the economy, their purchasing power and investment opportunities. This article presents the opinions of Russian scientists on the issues and problems of the growth of monetary incomes of the population, the formation and uneven distribution of monetary incomes and other important aspects of strengthening the financial position of the modern Russian household. Statistical data on the dynamics of monetary incomes of the population are presented.

Les méthodes couramment utilisées pour l'évaluation des politiques publiques rencontrent deux principaux écueils. Le premier est d'analyser les relations de cause à effet uniquement à partir des opinions et avis des parties prenantes (stakeolders). Quand ces schémas de causalité mobilisent les théories en sciences sociales (theory driven evaluation), le second écueil est qu'ils sont rarement confrontés aux faits. Pour pallier cette défaillance de validité empirique, les méthodes evidence-based proposent de mobiliser des connaissances scientifiques testées empiriquement. Toutefois, même si ces méthodes sont répandues dans les domaines de l'éducation ou de la santé dans les pays anglo-saxons, elles s'avèrent encore très rarement utilisées dans les deux domaines d'application étudiés dans ce papier, le conseil en agriculture et l'agri-environnement. ; The methods for the evaluation of public policies face two major limits. The first one happens when the schemes of causal relations involved in a given public policy are analysed only though the opinions and the knowledge of some stakeholders. When the description of these schemes is rather driven by some social sciences theories, a second limit may occur: the lack of confrontation with field observations. Both methods raise the question of their level of validity. In that respect, the EBP method proposes to ground the evaluation of public policies on scientific knowledge that rely on the best available empirical evidences. These methods are well spread in the cases of health or education policies evaluation in Anglo-Saxon countries. However, they are much less implemented in the two cases studied in this paper: agri-environement and agricultural extension.

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) or sustainable development (SD) have long been considered as individual ethics issues or public policy problems. By contrast, they are currently becoming a specific field for managerial action. However, many uncertainties remain regarding the durability of this movement, its potential and the most appropriate ways to maage such dynamics. This thesis focuses on the current waves of transformations in the field of sustainability and corporate social responsibility management. Starting from an historical analysis of academic and practical perspectives on corporate social responsibility, we identify several limitations of dominant paradigms devoted to the study of business and society interactions. We then propose a renewed research program, centred on sustainability management models. We define a management model as a combination af three elements: 1) a model of peformance, 2) a set of management objects, and 3) a set of organizational routines. The analysis unfolds at two levels. Firstly, we investigate the potential of a managerial model centered on external control through an in depth analysis of the institutionalization process of the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI). Secondly, sustainablitily management models are considered from a more internal perspective, under an organizational angle. After unveiling and analyzing the marginalization process of a sustainablility management initiative within a large company, we propose a renewed approach to corporate social responsibility / sustainability management.This approach, centered on innovative design, is founded both theoretically and empirically in several corporate practices. From a theoretical point of view, this work enables to discuss different theories in the field of corporate social responsibility and sustainability, as well as different theoretical frameworks used in strategy and organizational theory. ; Longtemps considérées comme des questions d'éthique individuelle et de politiques publiques, la responsabilité sociale de l'entreprise (RSE) et le développement durable (DD) se présentent désormais comme des objets d'expertise et d'intervention managériale. Toutefois, de nombreuses incertitudes subsistent quant à la pérennité de ces dynamiques, leur portée et les modalités de leur pilotage. Cette thèse vise à analyser les rationalisations gestionnaires en cours dans le domaine du développement durable et de la responsabilité sociale de l'entreprise. A partir d'une analyse historique des travaux académiques et des pratiques d'entreprises, nous identifions plusieurs difficultés des perspectives dominantes mobilisées pour l'étude des interactions entreprises / société. Nous proposons alors un objet d'étude nouveau, centré sur l'émergence de modèles de pilotage du développement durable. Nous définissons un modèle de pilotage comme une combinaison de trois éléments : 1) un modèle de performance, 2) un ensemble d'objets d'action et 3) un ensemble de dispositifs. L'analyse se déploie ensuite à deux niveaux. Dans un premier temps, nous étudions l'émergence du développement durable comme contrôle externe, en particulier à travers l'analyse détaillée du processus d'institutionnalisation de la Global Reporting Initiative (GRI). Dans un deuxième temps, la question des modèles de pilotage est envisagée à un niveau interne et sous un angle organisationnel. Après avoir présenté et analysé une expérience d'entreprise ayant abouti à la marginalisation de la démarche de développement durable, nous soulignons les enjeux et les fondements d'une approche renouvelée, où le développement durable est envisagé sous l'angle de la conception innovante. D'un point de vue théorique, ce travail permet de re-discuter différentes théories du champ de la responsabilité sociale des entreprises, ainsi que différents cadres mobilisés en stratégie et en théorie des organisations.

The people's power relies on a new strategy of emancipating social transformation which appeared in Latin America but with a universal aim. It consists in building up a plebeian power able to enlarge the democratic authority to form autonomous individuals and to create new ways of living in society. Such is the power of popular organizations when they are able to set up places where the capitalistic power can't prevail so that new social interactions are developed. Thanks to these organizations, the people's power first aims at creating a tension with the larger system not only in order to protect itself, but also to increase its influence on society and be able to make it evolve. It conveys a utopian vision of social transformation and intends to overrule all domination and to build a new social and local unity that would respect the people's diversity, as individuals or groups of individuals. Its political strategy relies on social hegemony and aims at controlling the capitalist state system in a democratic way and at transforming it, and, in the end, put it to an end. The people's power understands that its necessarily democratic political stance needs a long term transition period, as well as a transition type of society. This society, the condition to an emancipated one, is to be composed of both capitalistic and non-capitalistic forms of lives. ; Le pouvoir populaire est une nouvelle stratégie de transformation sociale émancipatrice, apparue en Amérique latine, mais avec vocation universelle. Elle est centrée sur la construction d'un pouvoir plébéien capable d'élargir l'exercice démocratique de l'autorité, de développer des sujets autonomes et de créer de nouvelles formes de sociabilité. Ce pouvoir est celui des organisations populaires, quand elles sont capables de construire des espaces où le pouvoir capitaliste ne peut pas s'exercer pour y développer de nouveaux rapports sociaux. À partir de ces organisations, le pouvoir populaire, cherche d'abord à établir un rapport de forces avec le pouvoir du ...

5208 "Murder - the perpetrators, victims, methods and motives - has been the subject of law, literature, chronicles and religion, often crossing genres and disciplines and employing multiple modes of expression and interpretation. As the chapters in this volume demonstrate, definitions of murder, manslaughter and justified or unjustified homicide depend largely on the legal terminology and the laws of the society. Much like modern nations, medieval societies treated murder and murderers differently based on their social standing, the social standing of the victim, their gender, their mental capacity for understanding their crime, and intent, motive and means. The three parts of this volume explore different aspects of this crime in the Middle Ages. The first provides the legal template for reading cases of murder in a variety of sources. The second examines the public hermeneutics of murder, especially the ways in which medieval societies interpreted and contextualised their textual traditions: Icelandic sagas, Old French fabliaux, Arthuriana and accounts of assassination. Finally, the third part focuses on the effects of murder within the community: murder as a social ill, especially in killing kin."--Back cover

"Al culminar este siglo XX, la educación superior colombiana se encuentra ante el desafío de formar recursos humanos adecuados a los nuevos procesos de trabajo en la globalización económica, y lograr mayores niveles de producción científica y tecnológica en el plano internacional. Desde la expedición de la ley 30 de 1992, la universidad vive una situación paradójica. Gracias a la autonomía las instituciones han sido dinámicas en crear programas de post y pregrado, pero poco innovadoras en materia de calidad educativa. Más aún esta liberación ha traído efectos negativos y la multiplicación de intereses exógenos a los ámbitos académicos. Según el diagnóstico de la periodista Constanza Cubillos: "tanto la politiquería como el narcotráfico han encontrado en la Educación Superior un instrumento para influir en la sociedad". La universidad colombiana refleja la crisis social, moral, política y económica que vive el país, al ser uno de sus espacios más representativos. El acelerado incremento de la oferta educativa no consigue disminuir el elitismo que la ha caracterizado. Se mantiene la devaluación del empleo profesional, la exagerada especialización de la enseñanza, y la precarización y deterioro de la función docente. Las investigaciones acerca de la enseñanza superior se inician en los años 60 con el impulso de la Sociología en el país. Las temáticas de mayor interés para investigadores e investigadoras han sido la evolución de la educación en Colombia, los movimientos estudiantiles y la universidad adolescente, la brecha entre empleo profesional y oferta educativa, la sociología de la ciencia y el impacto de las innovaciones tecnológicas. Se destacan como investigadores Gonzalo Cataño, Jesús Ferro, Angel Rama, Estela Restrepo, Gabriel Restrepo, Olga Restrepo, Jorge Vivas, Rodrigo Parra Sandoval y coinvestigadoras/es. Las agitadas protestas estudiantiles de los años 70 generaron reflexiones fatalistas acerca de la universidad latinoamericana; éstas llevaron a Mario Vargas Llosa a considerarla como una "moribunda". En la década del 80 aparecen trabajos acerca de la crisis universitaria, entre los cuales se destacan los de Antonio García (1985), y Jesús Ferro Bayona (1989). Estas consideraciones coinciden con las del movimiento pedagógico -creado en 1982- cuando presentan un diagnóstico crítico acerca de la enseñanza superior en 1991. En los 90 los debates se acentúan en el marco de la apertura educativa y de las reformas para la acreditación de la calidad de la educación terciaria. En este contexto, vale la pena destacar las reflexiones de Antanas Mockus acerca de los anfibios culturales y la Reforma Académica en la Universidad Nacional (1991, 1993), Luz Teresa Gómez de Mantilla sobre la extensión universitaria (1995), Víctor Manuel Gómez acerca de la equidad (1997), Guillermo Solarte Lindo and Héctor José Arenas Amorocho, en La Universidad Podrí(d)a (1996), y la reciente radiografía sobre la educación superior de Constanza Cubillos en su libro Saldo Rojo (1997). En los estudios acerca de la enseñanza universitaria hemos ignorado la suerte de uno de sus pilares fundamentales: el catedrático. El conocimiento de los valores que han definido el estatus del docente, sus expectativas intelectuales, las circunstancias de su vida familiar y social son elementos de juicio indispensables para explicar la depreciación ética de su trabajo, la prevalencia de modelos sexistas en la formación profesional y la calificación de la fuerza laboral. Se han realizado estudios acerca del maestro colombiano sobre su origen, perfil, imagen social y precarización de su labor. Pero aún no hemos indagado la subjetividad relacionada con la labor de enseñar Recientemente, investigaciones educativas han privilegiado las relaciones de poder, la calidad de la interacción pedagógica, y los vínculos escuela/comunidad (valores, violencia, paz). Estas indagaciones se han concentrado en preescolar, primaria y secundaria (trabajos pioneros de Gonzalo Cataño, Rodrigo Parra Sandoval y sus colaboradoras/es en las últimas décadas). En la cultura universitaria, la participación femenina ha sido lenta y silenciosa. El informe internacional Colombia, mujeres lationoamericanas en cifras (1993), los trabajos de Elsy Bonilla acerca de la mujer en la Educación Superior y el mundo del trabajo, Jesús Ferro sobre la Educación Universitaria permiten una primera aproximación a la situación de los sexos en el Sistema Educativo. Las docentes representan casi el total en educación preescolar, más de los tres cuartos de las enseñantes en primaria, cerca de la mitad en secundaria y menos de un cuarto en la universidad; en esta predomina su dedicación parcial y de hora cátedra. Así ellas están segregadas a los niveles inferiores y peor remunerados del aparato educativo. Aunque las mujeres hemos alcanzado paridad con los hombres en la matrícula universitaria, mantenemos un lugar secundario en el campo profesional la producción de conocimiento científico, las innovaciones tecnológicas y la enseñanza superior. A esto se adiciona, según Citlaly Aguilar y Etelvina Sandoval (1991, México), Ana María Fernández (1993, Argentina), María Amonia Gallart (1995, Chile), Luz Gabriela Arango y Mara Viveros (1996, Colombia) el escaso conocimiento acerca del papel de la profesionalización en las relaciones familia/trabajo en América Latina …" ; Maestría

The author of this volume examines the historical development and popularization of the ideological concept of the Volksgemeinschaft. This is a process of scientification, which the author describes using the examples of sociology, history, economics, demography, psychology, and geography. Its result is an ideologically based construct of knowledge determined by völkisch questions: the Volksgemeinschaft. The ContentIdeology and scienceUpdating/modernization of the völkisch ideologyHans Freyer's sociology of the völkisch society"German folk and cultural soil" - cultural space researchVölkische race research - dismissible or undeniable (people and/or race)Völkische sciencesVolk/Volksgemeinschaft - political catchword for an ideologically based knowledge construct The Target groups Lecturers, students and practitioners from the fields of SociologyPolitical scienceHistoryCultural studiesPsychology, human medicine, population scienceCultural studiesLawEconomicsJournalismThe Author Dr. Dieter Gessner is a journalist and historian