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The Counter Terrorism and Security Act came into force in July 2015 in the UK. This places a statutory duty on many front-line organisations, for example, schools, social services and prisons, to work within the PREVENT agenda, a policy arising from Britain's overall counterterrorism policy, CONTEST. We argue that PREVENT is representative of increasingly securitised social policies that serve to: first, view people within particular individualised neoliberal discourses and thin narratives; and, second, coerce the profession of social work into hitherto unknown areas, namely, national security and counterterrorism. We note the unapologetic linkage of traditional forms of what we term here 'welfare safeguarding', customarily the domain of social work, with what we term 'security safeguarding'. If the profession of social work in the UK, and we suspect other Western regimes, wishes to avoid becoming a profession of 'downpressor men', the uncritical incursion into issues of national security and counterterrorism must be highlighted.

AbstractRising economic insecurity in recent decades has focused attention on the importance of social welfare programs in managing household financial stability. Some governments are more effective than others in managing this outcome, and informal social institutions help explain why. Social capital is expected to shape economic security through multiple mechanisms, but whether the effect is to magnify or mitigate volatility is an open question. Part of the answer has to do with how social capital interacts with policy implementation, and whether it conditions the effectiveness of government spending. Evidence from the U.S. states from 1986 to 2010 fails to support a benevolent social capital thesis—not only is social capital associated withgreatereconomic insecurity, there is no evidence that it improves social welfare effectiveness. However, greater spending on some social programs can mitigate the adverse impact of social capital on economic security.

This book provides a critical review of global environmental governance as part of the broader process of sustainably transforming modern society. The author argues for substantial modifications, outlining potential improvements in knowledge bridging processes, integration and synthesis that offer valuable information for environmental policy and governance. These improvements, he argues, should be achieved through the use of theoretical and empirical knowledge gleaned from global scenario analysis and interdisciplinary environmental research, and with the aid of new practices for knowledge sharing, cooperation and collective learning. The analysis presented in the book is based on recent developments in social ecology and the author's interdisciplinary theory of society-nature interaction (Social-Ecological Transformation: Reconnecting Society and Nature, Palgrave Macmillan, 2016).--

Africa remains an intensely agrarian continent, with two-thirds of its people directly or indirectly deriving their livelihood from agriculture. Higher agricultural education has thus emphasised production of graduates with the requisite skills to drive agricultural development. Despite these efforts, too few graduates in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) have the employable skills necessary to transition to the labour market. A similar situation is observable among agricultural science graduates, who are vital to serving rural smallholder farmers. Most Colleges of Agriculture in Africa offer field attachment internships in agriculture and related fields but they are largely designed to cater for undergraduate students and are not part of the training programs at graduate level. To ameliorate this gap, the Regional Universities Forum for Capacity Building in Agriculture (RUFORUM), a network of 55 member universities in SSA, designed and rolled out an innovative field attachment program award (FAPA), launched in 2010, to serve graduate students. The FAPA is competitively based and designed to encourage students to follow through with the dissemination of their research and to enable them to link more closely with the communities and agencies working in the geographical area where the research was undertaken.During the period 2010–2015, five grant cycles were successfully implemented and 114 graduate students from 17 countries in SSA awarded. This article discusses the lessons learned during this period by examining two key areas: (1) the application process and implementation of the awards; and (2) the reported outcomes and challenges for grantees. Establishing the award has generated key technical and implementation lessons that the network and individual universities have been able to use to improve and institutionalise processes. Grantees have reported gaining a range of cross-cutting skills in personal mastery, initiative leadership and innovativeness, proactivity, flexibility, communication, analytical capacity, teamwork, networking and advocacy, and technical capacity, particularly in engaging with smallholder farmers. They have also noted significant challenges, in particular around establishing productive and sustainable engagement with smallholder farmers. These outcomes have influenced curricular reviews by member universities, with particular emphasis on these skills sets. Keywords: graduate employability, internships, sub-Saharan Africa, university

Colloque organisé par le CES-Matisse / Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne les 11, 12 et 13 septembre 2006 à l'INHA ; This paper discuss the theories of crisis of the Social State. It examines the transformations of the norms of social control on production and distribution of income in France since thirty years. It show that Social State is no more the framework of french institutions. As consequence, the « rigidities of Social State » cannot be seen as the reasons of inefficiency of french economy. Perverse effects of neo-liberal policies must be pointed to explain such a bad performances. ; Cette contribution discute les théories de la crise de l'Etat social. Par un examen des transformations des normes de contrôle social de la production et la répartition des revenus en France au cours des trente dernières années, elle soutient que nous sommes déjà sortis de l'Etat social. L'inefficacité du modèle actuel n'est dès lors pas attribuable aux « rigidités » de l'Etat social, mais aux effets pervers des politiques néo-libérales dont l'impact sur les formes de contrôle de l'investissement et de la répartition des revenus est d'ores et déjà avéré.

Colloque organisé par le CES-Matisse / Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne les 11, 12 et 13 septembre 2006 à l'INHA ; This paper discuss the theories of crisis of the Social State. It examines the transformations of the norms of social control on production and distribution of income in France since thirty years. It show that Social State is no more the framework of french institutions. As consequence, the « rigidities of Social State » cannot be seen as the reasons of inefficiency of french economy. Perverse effects of neo-liberal policies must be pointed to explain such a bad performances. ; Cette contribution discute les théories de la crise de l'Etat social. Par un examen des transformations des normes de contrôle social de la production et la répartition des revenus en France au cours des trente dernières années, elle soutient que nous sommes déjà sortis de l'Etat social. L'inefficacité du modèle actuel n'est dès lors pas attribuable aux « rigidités » de l'Etat social, mais aux effets pervers des politiques néo-libérales dont l'impact sur les formes de contrôle de l'investissement et de la répartition des revenus est d'ores et déjà avéré.

1. The political economy of penality and the sociology of punishment : past and present -- 2. Post-Fordism and the emergence of the multitude -- 3. The government of surplus : preliminary incursions in the field of post-Fordist social control -- 4. Mass confinement and actuarial penology -- 5. The criminalisation of international migrations : towards an actuarial model of control?

One reason why people avoid using social media to express their opinions is to avert social sanctions as proposed by the spiral of silence theory. We here elaborate on individual-level sensitivity to social rejection in relation to voicing political opinions on social media sites. Given the uncertainty about sharing political views in social media, and the fact that social acceptance, or rejection, can be easily communicated through, for instance, likes, or a lack of likes, we argue that rejection sensitive individuals are less likely to share political information in social media. Combining an analysis of unique survey data on psychological characteristics and online political activity with focus group interviews with Swedish youth supports our argument, showing that rejection sensitive individuals are less inclined to engage politically in social media. The results extend on previous research by establishing the role of rejection sensitivity in political engagement in social media.

When we come across the word 'eugenics' it is impossible to avoid thinking of Hitler's eugenics and racial project. The latter, however, is hardly representative of eugenics. According to the definition provided by the Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy, eugenics is 'a scientific attempt to improve the human gene pool', which includes not only genetic engineering technologies but also the practice of husbandry, which some scientific utopias proposed to extend to human reproduction already in the seventeenth century. This is the historical background inspiring the most important theories of eugenics of the twentieth century. In the paper, I will first outline and compare Huxley's centrally planned eugenics to the liberal type of eugenics recently proposed by Nicholas Agar. In Huxley's view, eugenics was a social science with a genetic background, which required both public coordination of genetic enhancement and social planning. In contrast, Agar argues that, as long as it is entirely left to market regulation, not only eugenics is compatible with the liberal ideology but it actually constitutes the ultimate fulfilment of liberal society. In spite of remarkable differences, Huxley's and Agar's eugenics share the same utopian dream of physical and social perfection, which arguably finds its origins in the philosophical shift that led Puritan medicine to switch from treating human diseases but to improving the performances of the human body. This conception later found different expressions, depending on the dominant political ideology of the time. As a result, Huxley proposed eugenics in a context of social planning and collective internationalism whilst Agar has recently reformulated eugenics in a context of liberalism, individualism and market economy. Yet, whether through social planning or radical liberalisation, eugenics keeps being a crucial issue in the contemporary political agenda, never ceasing to be an inspiring dream as well as a tragic nightmare.

SOCIAL SECURITY HAS BECOME A GLOBAL PHENOMENON, SPREADING WELL BEYOND THE CLIQUE OF INDUSTRIALIZED COUNTRIES THAT DOMINATED THE FIELD IN THE LATE 19TH CENTURY. AT LEAST 150 COUNTRIES NOW PROVIDE SOME FORM OF SOCIAL SECURITY. AS A MECHANISM FOR MEETING AT LEAST MINIMAL HUMAN NEEDS, SOCIAL SECURITY HAS ACHIEVED NEAR-UNIVERSAL ACCEPTANCE. ACCESS TO SOCIAL SECURITY IS A FUNDAMENTAL RIGHT GUARANTEED IN NUMEROUS NATIONAL CONSTITUTIONS AND IN THE 1948 UNIVERSAL DECLARATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS. THIS RIGHT IS FULFILLED IN VARYING DEGREES AND IN A WIDE RANGE OF PROGRAMS AS DETERMINED BY THE TRADITION, HISTORY, SOCIOECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT, POLITICAL AND SOCIAL PHILOSOPHIES, AND THE POLITICAL REALITIES IN VARIOUS COUNTRIES.

This paper analyzes the development of political science in Argentina taking into account the social, political, cultural and economic processes in which the discipline developed during the twentieth century. Analytically, this paper emphasizes actors, scientific-academic products, teaching and research institutions, and networks. The process of institutionalization and professionalization initiated in the eighties is studied based on the conformation of disciplinary areas, including: State, administration and public policy; institutions, political processes and comparative politics, and international relations. ; Este trabajo analiza el desarrollo de la ciencia política en Argentina, teniendo en cuenta los procesos sociales, políticos, culturales y económicos en los que se desenvuelve la disciplina durante el siglo XX. Analíticamente, se da énfasis en los actores, los productos de la actividad científico-académica, las instituciones de docencia e investigación y las redes. El proceso de institucionalización y profesionalización iniciado en los años ochenta, se estudia sobre la base de la conformación de las áreas disciplinarias, entre ellas: la política del Estado, la administración y el público, las instituciones, los procesos políticos y de política comparada, y relaciones internacionales.