Suchergebnisse

In this study, we analyze the personal networks of 379 college students in Singapore to explore the social affordances of traditional and new channels in communicating with different types of social relationships and their associations with personal well-being. Results suggest communication channels play a complex role in how strong and weak ties are related to personal well-being. On one hand, face-to-face communication, landlines, mobile phones, text messaging, and social network sites are associated with the strong ties that boost personal well-being. On the other hand, mobile phones, text messaging, social network sites, and video chat (but not face-to-face or landline communication) are associated with weak ties and personal well-being. This study contributes to the literature in two ways. First, we show that strong and weak ties are both important to the personal well-being of college students in Singapore; second, we show how different communication channels are associated with different kinds of social ties. Mobile and social media play a critical role in these social ties.

In this special issue on "Multiculturalism During Challenging Times," we present six articles focused on multiculturalism as it is currently practiced or implemented in Canada, across Europe, in Mauritius, and in South Korea. We apply SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats) analysis to assess the strengths and weaknesses of its application and the opportunities and threats it presents for the countries studied here. Strengths: We find that multiculturalism fosters national identity, promotes cultural tolerance and modernization, and assists with the incorporation of cultural minorities. Weaknesses: At the same time, multiculturalism also creates "faultlines" along cultural and religious groups, could promote separate and parallel lives, and could pose a challenge to equality in liberal societies. Opportunities: Multiculturalism has the potential to be used as a tool for attracting talents, a source of competitive advantage for nations, and a discourse for politicians to score political gains. Threats: Multiculturalism also has the potential to be perceived as incompatible with Western, liberal values, a burden to the state welfare, and challenge existing national identities. We conclude with some suggestions for future research to extend our understanding of multiculturalism within the context of increasing globalization and greater international migration.

On September 30, 2010, discontented police officers and military troops plunged Ecuador into a political crisis as they took President Rafael Correa hostage, seized airports, and stormed the National Assembly building. In response, Correa declared a state of emergency and denounced what he termed a coup attempt. To outside observers, what appeared to be in process was yet another potentially extraconstitutional transfer of power in Ecuador's tumultuous political history, with some pointing to the presence of the heavy imperial hand of the United States. Some grassroots activists, however, cast the political disruptions as little more than a labor dispute that Correa manipulated to entrench his increasingly authoritarian control over the country. At play in these competing narratives were debates over what political and economic direction Ecuador should take and whose interests those developments would benefit. Furthermore, the September 30 protests raise questions of how various domestic and international actors opportunistically exploit political developments to advance their own competing interests. Analyzing these events leads to a deeper understanding and appreciation for the compromises local social movements make, as well as the difficulties inherent in building transnational solidarity networks. El 30 de septiembre de 2010, tropas militares y oficiales de la policía descontentos sumieron al Ecuador en una crisis política al tomar como rehén al Presidente Rafael Correa, ocupar aereopuertos y asaltar el edificio de la Asamblea Nacional. En respuesta, Correa declaró un estado de emergencia y denunció lo que él consideró un intento de golpe de estado. Para los observadores externos, lo que parecía que estaba ocurriendo era un nuevo intento de cambio de poder potencialmente extra constitucional en la tumultuosa historia política del Ecuador, y algunos llegaron a señalar la presencia de la pesada mano imperial de los Estados Unidos. Algunos activistas populares, sin embargo, vieron las perturbaciones políticas como poco más que una disputa laboral que Correa manipuló para afianzar su control cada vez más autoritario sobre el país. En juego en estas narrativas antagónicas estaba el debate sobre qué dirección política y económica el Ecuador debería tomar y a quiénes beneficiarán esos desarrollos. Además, las protestas del 30 de septiembre suscitan interrogantes sobre cómo varios actores domésticos e internacionales explotaron de manera oportunista estos desarrollos políticos para adelantar sus propios intereses antagónicos. El análisis de estos acontecimientos nos lleva a un mejor entendimiento y apreciación sobre las conceciones que los movimientos sociales locales tienen que hacer, y también sobre las dificultades inherentes en la creación de redes de solidaridad transnacionales.

Urban megaprojects are contentious sites in the politics and restructuring of local governance. In Ecuador, the state supported entrepreneurial urban governance under neoliberal administrations, and the "post-neoliberal" governments continue to employ an entrepreneurial approach to urban infrastructures. Building urban megaprojects does not mean building inclusive territories, as large investments divert attention from everyday practices to politically motivated disputes and reinforce uneven spatial development. The case of the Quito international airport illustrates the tensions in the production of space, the socio-spatial externalities, and the rescaling of the power relations between actors under different political regimes. Los megaproyectos urbanos son espacios de conflicto en la política y la reestructuración de la gobernanza local. En el Ecuador el Estado apoyó una gobernanza urbana empresarial bajo las administraciones neoliberales y los gobiernos "post-neoliberales" siguen empleando un enfoque empresarial hacia las infraestructuras urbanas. La construcción de megaproyectos urbanos no implica la construcción de espacios inclusivos en tanto que las grandes inversiones desvían la atención de las prácticas cotidianas hacia conflictos claramente políticos y refuerzan un desarrollo espacial desigual. El caso del aeropuerto internacional de Quito ilustra las tensiones en la producción del espacio, las externalidades socio-espaciales y el reajuste de las relaciones de poder entre actores bajo regímenes políticos diferentes.

The Yasuní-ITT (Ishpingo-Tambococha-Tiputini) Initiative consisted of leaving the oil underground in a part of Yasuní National Park in the Ecuadorean Amazon, one of the most biodiverse regions in the world. The financial compensation was to be invested in renewable energy, protection of biodiversity, and conservation of 44 protected areas. This initiative proposed a change of imaginaries. One of its most important contributions was questioning the fundamental role of oil in our capitalist and productivist society. With this project, which was linked to the National Plan for Living Well, Ecuador was moving toward a post-petroleum-based society and the pursuit of better living standards through bio-knowledge. La Iniciativa Yasuní-ITT (Ishpingo-Tambococha-Tiputini) consistió en dejar el crudo bajo tierra de una parte del Parque Nacional Yasuní, en la Amazonía ecuatoriana, considerada como una de las más biodiversa del mundo. La compensación financiera seriá invertida en diferentes ámbitos como las energías renovables para cambiar la matriz energética, el cuidado del ambiente para proteger la biodiversidad, conservar las 44 áreas protegidas. Esta iniciativa propuso un cambio de imaginarios. Una de sus aportaciones más importantes era su cuestionamiento del rol de la base de nuestra sociedad capitalista y productivista: el petróleo. Con este proyecto que estaba vinculado al Plan Nacional para el Buen Vivir, el Ecuador se dirigió hacia una sociedad post-petrolera y apuesta a una sociedad del buen vivir basado en el bioconocimiento.

Existing studies have been inconclusive on whether and the extent to which gendered social networks contribute to the gender gap in business performance. Drawing on a random sample of Chinese Canadian entrepreneurs, this research examines the nexus of social networks, Internet use, and the gender gap in business performance. Results reveal a marked gender difference in firm size, which becomes narrowed after social networks, voluntary association participation, Internet use, and business characteristics are controlled. More important, network composition and structural position have different implications for men and women entrepreneurs. Men are more effective in converting relational advantages into business advantages. Interaction effects suggest that kin homophily hurts women's business performance but not men's. Yet, women gain more from participating in transnational entrepreneurship.

This article proposes a Chinese network structural phenomenon—the guanxi circle. Parallel to the reasoning of leader–member exchange theory, Chinese leaders categorize their staff members into in-group and out-group members and apply different rules of social exchange to them. In addition, they divide the guanxi circle into core and peripheral members. The latter forms a bridging link keeping the guanxi circle open, and thus maintains room for flexible operations. Five types of workers are identified—a supervisor's core members, peripheral circle members, an informal leader's core members, bridges, and outsiders. We surveyed 354 workers in a Chinese hi-tech company with our data analysis confirming the existence of the five role types. Our analyses illustrate the differences between the roles in terms of organizational trust.

Migrant remittances comprise an important capital source for developing countries. Research connects migrants' remittance behavior to altruism, exchange, insurance, and investment motives or to a desire to maintain options available through origin communities. This study provides an alternative "network" perspective: Remittance behavior may depend on the remitting patterns of those in one's social ties—(a) to members of the origin household; (b) to members of "sibling" households, where a member of the ego household has a sibling; and (c) to members of the origin village. We use censuses from 51 villages in Nang Rong, where one in four residents migrated to internal destinations in either 1994 or 2000, and about one in two migrants remitted to their origin households. We observe network effects: Migrants' likelihood of remitting increases with the number of remitters in the household and with the share of remitters in the village, net of village and year fixed effects, and other potential confounders. We link the former pattern to inheritance-seeking behavior in the household, and the latter to shared norms in the village.

This study examines empirically the relationship between the economic conditions back home and the friendship patterns of migrants at the new destination. The migrant adjustment process is not just associated with the individual socioeconomic status, but is also related to family economic conditions in their place of origin. Our study, based on data collected in 2010 on migrant workers in seven cities located in Pearl River Delta and Yangzi River Delta in China, confirms the relationship. Our findings indicate that rural migrants in China with higher income and better economic conditions back home are associated with more friends in the host society. We also find friendship patterns to be different between male and female migrant workers. In particular, family economic conditions back home are particularly important for males' friendship pattern, but not for females. Implications of the findings are discussed.

Engagement in voluntary associations and the organizational social capital their members accumulate in the public arena may grow generalized trust by exposing members to diverse social ties outside the individual social network. Taking Korea as a case and using a nationally representative data set, I test a set of hypotheses to identify the relationship between organizational social capital and generalized trust. Specifically, empirical tests verify that (a) organizational social capital comprises organizational diversity and resources and (b) it has a positive relationship with generalized trust. Apart from the relationship between organizational social capital and generalized trust, the results indicate that political dissatisfaction and corruption in the public service constitutes a political institutional contingency that decreases generalized trust in Korea.

We test the Spiral of Silence theory about Internet use in Japanese Internet society. We looked at Twitter and analyzed whether the Spiral of Silence theory would hold for it. Twitter's speed and scope of information dissemination is fast and extremely wide ranging. For these reasons, Twitter is an appropriate field for analyzing the influences of the Internet on the formation of public opinion. By integrating social investigation and behavioral log analysis, we test a model that incorporates an individual's attitudes (measured via a questionnaire) and an individual's communication network structure and actual communication behavior (measured via behavior log analysis). The results from our analysis show a positive correlation between individuals' perception that their opinion represents the majority view and the number of times they have spoken out. Moreover, while homogeneity of opinions of a personal network on Twitter influenced speaking out by a majority group, homogeneity of opinions does not influence speaking out by a minority group.

An extensive research has suggested the positive and capital-enhancing implications of information and communication technologies (ICTs). However, the mechanisms connecting ICT use to capital-enhancing opportunities for users' social well-being and social participation remain undertheorized. To address this agenda, we examine how e-mail, instant messenger, and mobile phones are used to maintain interpersonal networks and participation in voluntary organizations, along with engagement in community affairs. We analyze survey data collected from a sample of rural Taiwanese residing on an outer island of Kinmen County, finding that different ICTs allow participants to connect to different types of personal contacts and, in turn, encourage social participation in various ways. Respondents with a larger e-mail network tend to be more involved in civic organizations, whereas participants with a mobile phone network, including more close friends, tend to participate more in civic organizations and community affairs. We conclude with a future research agenda for investigating the link between networked individualism and digital inequality.