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AbstractCorporations are increasingly engaging in corporate social advocacy (CSA) by communicating on social issues that are controversial and contemporary and not necessarily linked to the corporations' business activities. The purpose of this study is to understand the desirability of CSA: Should corporations be communicating on these debated social issues, and to what extent? Using the online sampling platform Qualtrics, participants (N = 699, located in the United States and 18–35 years old) responded to a survey asking them how they perceived corporate communication on debated social issues. Findings indicate that participants view corporate communication on debated social issues as something that corporations should be engaging in, that this communication is helpful in solving these debated social issues, and that corporations should be the leaders in changing how society thinks about these debated social issues. At the same time, individuals do not trust the moral compass of corporations. Findings also show that certain corporate sectors (e.g., Health Care) should communicate more than other sectors (e.g., Chemicals), certain corporate characteristics (e.g., Reputation) matter more than other corporate characteristics (e.g., Size), and certain topics (e.g., Race Relations) should be discussed more than other topics (e.g., Confederate Flag Use). The implications, limitations, and directions for future research are also discussed.

The general aim of medical education is the same as in the case of any other ones: creating a professional person from a lay one. A special characteristic of this education is a deep rift between the lay and the professional perspective. One of the main trends of this trait is the discrepancy between the open and the hidden curricula. The contents of the hidden curricula, in many cases, cannot support the main messages of the formal one, on the contrary, they provide a different or even contradictory set of norms, values,attitudes. One of the main consequences of these discrepancies is that some medical students have been becoming more cynical since their entrance into medical education. The open curricula emphasize empathy, alleviating pain and suffering, the importance of trust and fidelity, and that the well-being of patients is one of the most important priorities. The hidden curricula at the same time emphasize objectivity, detachment, caution, and being suspicious against emotions. One of the outcomes of these eventually contradictory tendencies is that the 'wounded healer' is not a precondition for becoming a healer, like in archaic times, but a by-product of medical education.

Abstract
International studies students are often interested in understanding contexts of conflict and war and working with affected populations. Although various research has assessed different pedagogical tools for increasing students' understanding of war experiences and reducing the perceived distance between such populations, virtual encounters are an understudied means for achieving these aims. This article examines how a US international studies course integrated virtual dialogue sessions with Afghan students to reduce the distance between Americans and Afghans. Accordingly, we conducted pre- and post-surveys and interviews, engaged in participant observation, and analyzed reflection papers to understand how US students' views transformed from the program. We find that American students learned about the precarity and resilience of Afghans and recognized their humanity. Moreover, participants developed outgroup trust, reduced intergroup anxiety, and in some cases developed empathy for the other group. Students experienced these shifts despite technological and logistical challenges, a language barrier, and the power imbalance, which led to ethical concerns for program instructors. Thus, we argue that virtual encounters can be an effective pedagogical tool for reducing distance between international studies students and war-affected populations and helping them to connect across group differences despite the inherent challenges in such programs.

In the context of the intensified United States–China great power competition under Presidents Donald Trump and Joseph Biden, the U.S. strategic thinking about Taiwan has evolved. While the U.S. still expresses concern for peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait, it has more recently come to covet Taiwan as a strategic U.S. asset. As such it perceives Taiwan's continued separation from the Chinese mainland to be in the U.S. national interests. The enhancement of U.S. existing economic, political, and security interests as regards Taiwan and a "rediscovery" of Taiwan's intrinsic military value have combined to drive the evolution of the U.S. strategic thinking. Concurrently the policies and behaviors of both Beijing and Taipei have served to complement and facilitate this evolution. The new U.S. strategic thinking, even if it is incomplete and has limits, means that U.S. and Chinese perspectives on Taiwan have become much more incompatible, and that Chinese trust in the U.S.' long-term intentions has all but evaporated. Unless the Taiwan issue is managed with greater caution and restraint, the U.S. and China will likely be on a collision course to conflict over Taiwan.

AbstractThe process of corporatization in public services has led to the emergence of new, more autonomous organizational forms. However, while these reforms have been centrally about the development of management capabilities in public sector organizations, we know surprisingly little about what this process involves. To address this concern, we draw on the literature on administrative intensity (AI) to frame hypotheses about the likely relationship between corporatization and investments in management and administration, and the consequences of these investments for performance. As an empirical case, we then focus on the effects of Foundation Trust status on AI and efficiency, effectiveness, and responsiveness in the acute care hospital sector in the English NHS. Based on a database of nine years (2008/09–2016/17) and dynamic panel data regressions, the results show that corporatization leads to a leaner administration and improved organizational efficiency, effectiveness, and responsiveness. In addition, the analysis reveals that lower levels of AI positively mediate the relationship between corporatization and performance, although only in relation to the efficiency dimension. These findings highlight the crucial, but previously misunderstood, importance of lean administration as part of the corporatization reform package, with implications for theory, research, and policy.

The power literature's focus on criticizing power relations comes at the cost of deliberate attempts to improve organizational practices. How can critical performativity and other scholars address power as an enabling force, thereby also allowing for more engagement with practitioners? We integrate the literature on power in and around organizations with studies of organizational change and behavior. By focusing on enabling instead of restrictive power, we draw attention to the potentially pivotal role of key actors—managers, other practitioners, and scholars—in fostering empowerment and emancipation within organizations. Our review points at four social mechanisms that drive enabling power: formal authority, language-shaping-action, community formation, and the dynamics of safety and trust. Furthermore, we identify various types of actions that can trigger these mechanisms that, in turn, may give rise to outcomes such as empowerment and emancipation. The main contribution of this article involves an integrated framework of power as an enabling force. By synthesizing various separate discourses, this framework extends prior reviews focusing on power-over, resulting in a systemic understanding of enabling power and thereby creating novel avenues for research on power. The integrative framework also provides a foundation for an intervention-oriented body of knowledge on enabling power.

AbstractAimsTo outline key factors that contribute to oral health issues of refugees and asylum seekers and provide management strategies for dental providers to teach desensitization and fear reduction for this special population.Methods and ResultsWe researched published literature in the PubMed database and incorporated lessons gained from treating refugee and asylee patients at a Vulnerable Populations Clinic (VPC) at an urban academic dental school. Refugees and asylees are at high risk for oral conditions due to a tendency to not seek routine dental treatment, psychological stressors, and various systemic factors. Oral health providers can teach patients desensitization and fear reduction by working to gain patients' trust by having effective communication and prioritizing comfort in the dental operatory. Providers should also utilize translation, psychological, and/or multicultural support services during their management of care.ConclusionBy having a stronger understanding of the key causes of oral health issues among refugees and asylees in the United States, dental providers can better approach managing care for this vulnerable patient population. The concepts of teaching desensitization and fear reduction utilized for this special population can be applied to managing care for the wider special needs patient community.

AbstractGovernments often have contentious relationships with residents of urban informal settlements. Motivated by the desire for rents and dreams of becoming the next luxury destination, city governments worldwide have forcefully evicted and demolished informal communities in this pursuit. In such instances it would seem that the state has broken the social contract with its most vulnerable citizens. How do citizens respond? We might expect them to reciprocate in kind, by withholding taxes owed to the government. Using a survey of citizens living in informal settlements across Lagos State in Nigeria, we explore what predicts citizens' willingness to comply with government taxation. In this unlikely context for voluntary compliance, we observe that a third of respondents pay taxes and a majority are willing to pay absent enforcement. We find minimal support for standard theories of tax payment — trust in or reciprocity toward the government, or identification with the nation. Instead, we find that willingness to pay taxes is correlated with group membership, believing that community members respect taxpayers, and donating to the community. Our data suggest that local institutions and social relations are associated with citizens' willingness to comply with tax policy.

Historical analysis confirms that immigrants are poorly-rated in most societies. Their position in Finland does not seem to be any different compared to other countries, although Finland is ranked globally as the happiest country. Finnish statutory law ensures the legal rights of citizens regardless of their origin; however, immigrants must face a number of challenges caused by a lack of societal recognition from native Finns. The study explains 'social justice' from a theoretical point of view, applying the concept of experiences provided by Renault. Additionally, the study determines the key obstacles faced by immigrants in Finland and searches for suitable practical approaches to improve their status in the society. We argue that the historical consequences of the real facts on migration in Finland are that immigrants are struggling to establish their identities, which then leads to a complex phenomenon of understating their social status. We have applied the Renault concept of experiences of injustice to understand immigrants' social position and its influences on their settlement in Finland. The principles of this research can equally create sense and trust in public and private-public institutions, as well as promote transparency and conscious equitable treatment towards immigrants alongside other minority groups.

AbstractThis article studies practices of knowledge production during counterterrorism financing court cases in European courts. Developments in international law have contributed to novel regulations to criminalise and prosecute the funding of terrorism in advance of terrorist violence. In this study, we study how court cases have become important spaces for contesting and evaluating multiple knowledge claims on terrorist threat and suspicion by analysing case proceedings from both the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. Building on recent debates in International Relations and postcolonial theory, we make two contributions. First, building on insights from postcolonial literature on 'abyssal thinking', we illustrate how legal practices differentiate between different ways of knowing by dismissing certain experiences as 'emotional' or 'subjective' in contrast to the assumed objectivity of other knowledge claims. We argue that decisions on what counts as knowledge in a court setting are situated in a specific sociopolitical setting, whereby particular knowledge and life-worlds are recognised at the expense of others. Second, we empirically show how the novel criminal laws shifts the responsibility to know terrorist threat from the state to ordinary citizens. We illustrate how the court reinforces new security logics where the state can entertain doubt, uncertainty, and trust in their practices, while the citizens cannot.

Debates about the legitimacy of different kinds of civil society action have increasingly come to be framed in the language of 'culture wars', and this is contributing to the closing down of space for civil society in the UK. The focus of the article is on restrictions being experienced
by the charity sector, while drawing out the implications for other parts of civil society. A recent example is the National Trust, which in 2020 faced censure for publishing a report on the historical links between its properties and slavery and colonialism. In this case, as in others, although
the culture–wars framing was novel, there were continuities with long– standing debates over the legitimate space for civil society action, often discussed in terms of the obligations on charities to avoid being 'political'. Specific modes of discipline across a range of legal
frameworks are described, with a more detailed account of how these dynamics have affected Muslim civil society since the launch of the War on Terror, especially through Prevent. The article contributes to academic and activist debates about the best ways to organise to achieve progressive
ends in an increasingly hostile and authoritarian political context.

Sexual violence is underreported all over the world. In this article, I argue that democratic backsliding undermines the reporting of sexual violence even further. The author's team conducted in-depth interviews (n = 15) with representatives of civil society organizations, victims' services, clinical practitioners, and child and family welfare in Hungary in 2017 and 2018, in search of organizational and structural causes to why sexual violence remains vastly underreported in the country with the least reported case numbers in Europe. The small but diverse sample helped identify associations between the reporting of sexual violence and repressive, gender-related political decisions such as threatening the existence of civil organizations undertaking victim support roles and providing victim services, a family-centered political narrative, and confining women's roles solely for reproductive purposes. It is not possible to maintain causation since there are other factors interfering the association. Thus, instead of discussing it as a single cause of underreporting sexual violence, I present the Hungarian case to illustrate the consequences of illiberal politics on reporting. Furthermore, utilizing Slovič's risk-benefit model, I argue that recent products of illiberal politics such as politicizing "gender" undermine trust, a precondition of asking for help and providing support for victims of sexual violence.

This study focuses on Islamist women's organizations as civil society actors. Although this research is based on a comprehensive field study covering all women's organizations and activists in Eskişehir, only the data gathered from interviews at Islamist women's organizations were analyzed for this study. The study investigates the position of Islamic women's organizations in women's movements in terms of their advocacy of women's rights and their stance against patriarchal domination in line with their understanding of the female body. The discourse of women's rights advocated in Islamist women's organizations is established concerning Islam. The discourse criticizes gender equality as a universal value and replaces it with gender justice because Islamist women believe that Western Feminism does not cover the reality of Muslim women. In line with the Islamic narration of creation, Islamist women advocate the distribution of justice according to the vital religious notion of created/given natural characteristics (fîtra) of the sexes. In addition, they do not see their bodies as their own but as God's trust and are thus against abortion. Therefore, within the women's movement in Turkey, tension is growing between secular women and Islamist women, between gender equality and gender justice, causing division rather than solidarity among women.

Postconflict reconstruction programmes often aim to improve state–society relations but fail to spell out the underlying process. We specify a mechanism that links aid programmes through (1) short-term and (2) medium-term improvements in basic services and (3) subjective progress to (4) perceptions of the state and spell four conditions (quality, sustainability, magnitude and attribution to the state) that must be met for this process to occur. We use this framework to evaluate a large-scale reconstruction programme in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). We find that the programme improved basic services in the short term and midterm and positively affected beneficiaries' subjective well-being. However, we do not find evidence that aid benefits have translated into political trust towards state institutions—on the contrary, project villages display slightly more negative attitudes than control villages. We suggest that this is due to lack of attribution of the improvements to the state that which was included in the selection phase but largely absent in the implementation. This implies that improved services can erode state legitimacy when citizens interpret the provision by nonstate actors as a signal of the state's inability or unwillingness to provide these services.

Political misinformation is becoming an increasingly central topic in both public and academic debate. The main normative concern is that the diffusion of false political news might lead to distorted perceptions of the social and political reality. Indeed, existing research largely focuses on the determinants of public misinformation and the spread of false news. However, the mere awareness of the diffusion of fake news might have important implications, by reducing the public trust in the information environment. This study aims at explaining the contextual variation in citizens' perceived exposure to false information and their concerns for the impact of false information on society and democracy. We focus on two properties of the context: party polarization, as a proxy for the degree of political conflict, and media accuracy. We provide empirical evidence for our claims using a mix of data from Eurobarometer, the European Election Studies, the European Media System Survey, and Freedom House. We find that polarization and media accuracy are not related to the citizens' self-assessed exposure to false information, but they are significantly associated with their concerns. We also find that citizens' perceived exposure to false news is better explained by the degree of media freedom in the country.