Suchergebnisse

"This book writes a new history of money. It uses one of the most infamous examples of monetary innovation, the assignats--a currency initially defined by French revolutionaries as circulating land--to demonstrate that money is as much a social and political mediator as it is an economic instrument. Following the assignats from creation to abandonment, the book focuses on the slippages that so quickly arose between policies and practice, between intentions and outcomes. Stuff and Money is also a new history of the French Revolution, one in which an ever-widening gap between enunciated ideals and the actual functioning of daily life drove political radicalization. Wed to the idea that liberty required both political freedom and economic de-regulation, revolutionary legislators extended free trade to include even money"--Provided by publisher

[Quality of Life - A Multidimensional Approach] The term "quality of life research" refers to a general theoretical framework rather than to a specific theory of welfare or well-being. Most of the various definitions and conceptions of quality of life within this framework cite the multidimensional character of living conditions. In this respect, they differ from views of economic welfare that are primarily income or GDP driven. Another broadly used definition of quality of life utilizes the impact of subjective indicators to focus on the quality aspect of living conditions. The quality of life framework has laid the foundations for a large body of research on cognitive and affective dimensions of happiness and satisfaction- both satisfaction with life overall, and satisfaction with specific life domains. As such, quality of life is closely related to other (psychological) dimensions of subjective well-being such as worries, risks, attitudes, and their connections to different personality states and traits. The quality of life research is based on interdisciplinary approaches and has normative applications to the maintenance and improvement of living conditions. Quality of life approaches are therefore related on the individual level to research on inequality, poverty, and multiple deprivation; on a social level to research on advantaged and disadvantaged social groups or regions, the functioning of social and political institutions, and the preservation of living conditions; and on a national and global level to national and cross-national social and political indicators that are used widely to promote and establish fairer and better living conditions around the globe. This article takes a micro-level, individual-based perspective on inequality and quality of life to explore how inequality within and between different life dimensions impacts the overall quality of life. Section 2 describes the conceptual background and outlines the perspective of inequality assessment using economic welfare and subjective well-being as key dimensions within a multidimensional quality of life approach. Sections 3 to 5 summarize some of the empirical results on the distribution of and relationship between economic and subjective well-being. Section 3 illustrates the overall distribution and the age profiles for the economic and subjective well-being indicators. In Section 4, the case of German reunification is used to investigate how reference levels for subjective well-being converged over time with the distribution of new economic and political standards. Section 5 points out further principles for the evaluation of living conditions, giving special attention to the distribution and inequality of economic welfare levels. Section 6 provides a short summary of the main findings and a brief discussion of the main conclusions.

Expert groups in the government of Europe. Assessments and new research perspectives Abstract : This article sketches a new perspective on the expert groups of the European Commission which is situated in the international literature on expertise, roles of knowledge and government by committee in the European Union. It focuses on three dimensions: firstly, the main political uses of expert groups bearing in mind that knowledge-gathering and agreement-making are constantly intertwined in committee meetings (to what expert groups are of use?) ; secondly, the conditions and concrete processes in which expertise is built (How do experts work in those groups ?) ; thirdly, thecommontrajectories and social properties of experts identified by the European Commission (who are the European experts and on what grounds?) ; Cet article propose une nouvelle approche des groupes d'experts qu'il situe par rapport à la littérature internationale portant sur l'expertise, le rôle des savoirs et le gouvernement par comités dans l'Union européenne. Il en examine les apports sur trois dimensions : les principaux usages des groupes d'experts et notamment le fait que s'y trouvent constamment et inextricablement mêlés la recherche de savoirs et celle de l'accord politique, la délibération et la négociation ; les conditions et processus concrets de construction de l'expertise ; l'analyse des profils et trajectoires des experts européens et les conditions sociales d'accès et de réussite dans ces positions d'expertise.

Expert groups in the government of Europe. Assessments and new research perspectives Abstract : This article sketches a new perspective on the expert groups of the European Commission which is situated in the international literature on expertise, roles of knowledge and government by committee in the European Union. It focuses on three dimensions: firstly, the main political uses of expert groups bearing in mind that knowledge-gathering and agreement-making are constantly intertwined in committee meetings (to what expert groups are of use?) ; secondly, the conditions and concrete processes in which expertise is built (How do experts work in those groups ?) ; thirdly, thecommontrajectories and social properties of experts identified by the European Commission (who are the European experts and on what grounds?) ; Cet article propose une nouvelle approche des groupes d'experts qu'il situe par rapport à la littérature internationale portant sur l'expertise, le rôle des savoirs et le gouvernement par comités dans l'Union européenne. Il en examine les apports sur trois dimensions : les principaux usages des groupes d'experts et notamment le fait que s'y trouvent constamment et inextricablement mêlés la recherche de savoirs et celle de l'accord politique, la délibération et la négociation ; les conditions et processus concrets de construction de l'expertise ; l'analyse des profils et trajectoires des experts européens et les conditions sociales d'accès et de réussite dans ces positions d'expertise.

Expert groups in the government of Europe. Assessments and new research perspectives Abstract : This article sketches a new perspective on the expert groups of the European Commission which is situated in the international literature on expertise, roles of knowledge and government by committee in the European Union. It focuses on three dimensions: firstly, the main political uses of expert groups bearing in mind that knowledge-gathering and agreement-making are constantly intertwined in committee meetings (to what expert groups are of use?) ; secondly, the conditions and concrete processes in which expertise is built (How do experts work in those groups ?) ; thirdly, thecommontrajectories and social properties of experts identified by the European Commission (who are the European experts and on what grounds?) ; Cet article propose une nouvelle approche des groupes d'experts qu'il situe par rapport à la littérature internationale portant sur l'expertise, le rôle des savoirs et le gouvernement par comités dans l'Union européenne. Il en examine les apports sur trois dimensions : les principaux usages des groupes d'experts et notamment le fait que s'y trouvent constamment et inextricablement mêlés la recherche de savoirs et celle de l'accord politique, la délibération et la négociation ; les conditions et processus concrets de construction de l'expertise ; l'analyse des profils et trajectoires des experts européens et les conditions sociales d'accès et de réussite dans ces positions d'expertise.

Réunies traditionnellement sous l'appellation de psychose, la paranoïa et la schizophrénie semblent constituer en même temps des conditions pathologiques opposées du point de vue de la responsabilité et du pouvoir. De manière résumée et descriptive, le paranoïaque est envahissant, procédurier et " interventionniste " ; il délire " en actes " dans le sens de l'exercice ou du combat d'une puissance effective (persécution, préjudice, jalousie.) dont il est le sujet dominateur ou dominé. Les ennemis ou les protégés sont connus, identifiés, proches, la relation et la domination effectives lui sont nécessaires. Inversement, le schizophrène est solitaire, retiré, rétif ou étranger à la relation -- d'où la qualification initiale d'autisme promulguée par E. Bleuler ; il délire essentiellement " en pensée " dans le sens d'une responsabilité illimitée ou de la lutte contre un pouvoir abstrait transcendant dont il est l'instigateur ou l'objet. Contrairement au premier, les ennemis ou alliés sont abstraits, énigmatiques .

Réunies traditionnellement sous l'appellation de psychose, la paranoïa et la schizophrénie semblent constituer en même temps des conditions pathologiques opposées du point de vue de la responsabilité et du pouvoir. De manière résumée et descriptive, le paranoïaque est envahissant, procédurier et " interventionniste " ; il délire " en actes " dans le sens de l'exercice ou du combat d'une puissance effective (persécution, préjudice, jalousie.) dont il est le sujet dominateur ou dominé. Les ennemis ou les protégés sont connus, identifiés, proches, la relation et la domination effectives lui sont nécessaires. Inversement, le schizophrène est solitaire, retiré, rétif ou étranger à la relation -- d'où la qualification initiale d'autisme promulguée par E. Bleuler ; il délire essentiellement " en pensée " dans le sens d'une responsabilité illimitée ou de la lutte contre un pouvoir abstrait transcendant dont il est l'instigateur ou l'objet. Contrairement au premier, les ennemis ou alliés sont abstraits, énigmatiques .

Problems associated with providing efficient & equitable distribution of public services are attributable in part to the inabilities of gov or other public instit's to be responsive to requirements of their clientele. To permit a better understanding of the nature of such instit'al failures, & to suggest avenues of effective reform, the paper views instit'al systems of service provision in a "control systems" framework. In this perspective, the elements of "feedback" are seen as essential to successful system performance over time & changing conditions. The paper identifies the kinds of "error signals" a system needs to generate, & the types of "corrective mechanisms" that it may employ, & then discusses 3 basic modes of instit'al reform--performance evaluation, decentralization, & market competition--for improving the dynamic capability of systems & providing Ur public services. 2 service areas--sanitation & criminal correction--are used for illustrating possible implications of the reform strategies. Modified HA.

AbstractThis study develops a multi‐level approach on frontline interactions in the public sector. Previous research suggests that detailed analyses of frontline interactions are essential to our understanding of how welfare services take shape when policies and rules are applied and negotiated in individual cases. The dynamics and performances of real‐time interactions have, however, rarely been analyzed as such. This study shows how the methods developed in the field of Conversation Analysis can contribute to this research. Our multi‐level approach integrates analyses of the policy‐ and institutional transformations that shape conditions for frontline interactions; and analyses of how policies and rules are evoked, negotiated and reshaped in the turn‐by‐turn organization and performances of interaction. The approach is applied on an analysis of how rules regarding financial aid are applied in an authority highly affected by changes in welfare policy towards standardization and detailed regulations. The empirical case is the Swedish Board for Study Support. The empirical study includes analyses of documents, interviews and analyses of taped telephone conversations. The study shows how institutional arrangements of standardization, detailed regulations, monitoring and depersonalization, structure the frontline work and shape narrow frames for officials' discretion in interactions with clients. The study also shows how rules are invoked and negotiated in recurrent practices in the interaction: in the careful design of decisions; in the investigations of alternatives and exceptions from the rules in order to find solutions to the client's problems. The analyses of concrete interactional practices clearly indicate that also a rule‐governed work dominated by task discretion involves recurrent negotiations, flexibility and local policy‐making.

AbstractEconomic crises are said to challenge welfare states by forcing them to cut expenditure by pursuing reforms aimed at cost containment and efficiency enhancing strategies. The oil crises of the 1970s and early 1980s, the global financial crisis of the early 1990s, and those of the 2000s marked acute economic phases rooted within a larger period of austerity politics in which welfare states have been observed to undergo major changes. However, the question has yet to be posed as to whether decisions affecting health care policy during acute economic crises are indeed fundamentally different than what can normally be observed over the longer period of cost containment policy. Moreover, where policy differences do exist between economic periods, are these differences consistent over time and across health care systems? To answer these questions we examine changes in regulation over the past four decades for two cases of National Health Services (NHS): England and Italy. More specifically, we examine the underlying causes for reforms in order to identify whether economic crises versus 'system‐specific deficits' (i.e. those deficits or sources for inefficiency lodged within the health care system itself) are the true causes for motivating change in and across NHS systems. Our findings establish that while acute economic crises create windows of opportunity for change, it is the interaction of system‐specific deficits and the role of ideas and political factors that largely condition the content and timing of reforms. Regarding the nature of reforms passed, our findings reveal consistency over time and across health care systems in the types of regulatory measures adopted and advanced.

After the British government announced in March 1996 that a novel fatal human disease (now called variant Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease) had emerged and was almost certainly caused by consuming BSE–contaminated food, national and international authorities have been struggling to deal with the consequences of a serious loss of public confidence in the safety of foods and in food safety policy–making institutions. One of the main ways in which governments and officials have responded to those challenges has been by initiating a broad range of structural and procedural reforms to the ways in which public policies are decided, legitimated and communicated. This paper outlines some of the more important respects in which national and international authorities have changed the ways in which they assess and manage the risks to human consumers of food–borne hazards. The focus is on developments in the UK, the EU and, at the global level, the Codex Alimentarius Commission; the period covered runs from the late 1960s until summer 2002. The discussion focuses on the case for separating the responsibilities for regulating and sponsoring the agricultural and food industries, for conducting risk appraisals and decision–making in open and democratically accountable ways and for drawing on experts representing a wide range of interests and expertise rather than on a narrow industry–based group. The paper concludes by indicating some key structural and procedural conditions for effectively differentiating the scientific from the political aspects of risk appraisal and decision–making, and then for coupling them together in ways that would provide both scientific and democratic legitimacy.

International Relations, in both theory and practice, has been increasingly concerned with a proliferation of modes of violence that use, target, and construct bodies in complex ways that challenge notions of security. The central argument of this work is that the bodies that practices of violence take as their object are deeply unnatural bodies, constituted in reference to historical political conditions as well as acting upon our world

After the ending of the Atlantic slave trade West Africa experienced a period of transition to legitimate trade, which provided agricultural staples for the burgeoning European market. One early example was the groundnut trade, which developed along the River Gambia where myriad households grew the crop, which was purchased and transported by the merchant interest. Of crucial importance were pioneer migrant farmers, whose numbers were later swelled by other labour migrants drawn from a wide area. The trade pre-dated colonial partition, and producers were integrated into the international market by extended chains of merchant credit and indebtedness. By the latter part of the 19th century the vagaries of the world market were becoming apparent, as well as the climate, which together affected output and incomes. Colonial rule created conditions for the expansion of the trade, but food supply in the face of groundnut specialization became a fundamental issue and led to experiments with irrigation and mixed farming. In the 20th century the trade was marked by drought, the First World War, credit crises, de-monetization and trade depression, while throughout it remained a migrant driven economy. The book provides an account of the Gambian groundnut trade and the associated environmental, social and economic conditions, as well as commenting on liberal and radical analyses on the shift from the Atlantic slave trade through legitimate trade to colonial rule