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Recent political debate over transgender military service and gendered bathroom use highlights a dramatic increase in salience over transgender issues in the US. In this essay, we examine a potential new front in the culture wars by reviewing recent empirical research in social science on the politics of transgender rights in the context of morality politics. Research on morality politics has often focused on LGBT rights, with an emphasis on gay and lesbian rights and little attention to transgender issues. We highlight the progress of research on transgender issues in the US, focusing on the study of attitudes about transgender people and rights, transgender rights in states and localities, and broader findings affecting transgender populations. Although there is ample research still needed, the current state of empirical social science on transgender issues has made great advancements in the past decade and shows that morality continues to shape LGBT politics and policy.

Prostitution is a standard case of morality politics (MP), defined as a particular type of politics that engages issues closely related to religious and/or moral values, giving way to strong and uncompromising value conflicts in both societal and political spheres. This kind of issues have increasingly become a European policy matter due to their transnational nature and the tensions they create between different legal principles. Our hypothesis is that this leads to the emergence of a specific type of European morality politics (EMP) reflecting the particular constraints of the policymaking of the European Union (EU). The purpose of this article is to understand to which extent the rise of prostitution on the EU agenda alters usual patterns of MP to shape a distinctive type of EMP. Our findings suggest that prostitution characterizes EMP albeit with a significant difference, namely the challenge to regulatory inertia through the successful mobilisation of European values by some policy entrepreneurs to promote a neo-abolitionist approach. ; info:eu-repo/semantics/published

This paper explores the heuristic power as well as the limits of the American literature on religion and politics in the analysis of EU morality politics. Secular Europe is presently confronting some challenges raised by the increased politicization of morality issues. Morality issues feed value-based conflicts between actors holding diverging worldviews. Religious groups in particular seek to promote their own ethical interests on a variety of matters such as bioethics, environment, LGBT issues, etc. The American literature on religion and politics offers valuable insights into how to theorize the involvement of religious groups in morality politics. The religious restructuring theory, popularized under the "culture wars" label, explains how ideological differences crosscut denominational lines and create new religious alignments with political parties. The paper considers the possibility of transposing this American theory to the European Union; in other words: how and to what extent the American culture wars can provide a useful theoretical framework for studying EU morality politics? Taking into account the limits of such a transposition, the objective is to define how the culture wars scenario fits EU morality politics in the light of the social, institutional and political features of the Union. For this purpose, the culture wars theory is given two different – not necessarily antagonistic, rather possibly complementary – meanings: 1/ a political style emphasizing group differences in order to substantiate policy positions and to attract public attention; 2/ a polarizing force creating new and sustainable cleavages between and within social and political groups. This paper is arguing that EU morality politics corresponds more to a sensationalizing and absolutizing political style than to new deep and structural cleavages. In other words, religion does not produce a strong and structural polarizing effect as is the case in U.S. politics. ; info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

L'intensification des débats définis en termes de valeurs au sein de l'Union européenne ainsi que la montée en puissance des flux transatlantiques (c'est-à-dire des phénomènes de mimétisme et d'échange d'idées et de pratiques) amènent à considérer la morality politics de l'UE au regard du scénario américain des guerres culturelles. En particulier, la question de la mobilisation de la société civile européenne autour de l'avortement permet de tester les deux facettes du cadre théorique des culture wars :soit il existe une polarisation avérée et irréductible entre deux camps formés et fermés d'acteurs, soit il ne s'agit que d'un répertoire d'actions et d'un style politique particuliers visant à la dramatisation d'une cause en vue d'obtenir une reconnaissance politique et médiatique. Dans tous les cas, il s'agit d'étudier comment une morality issue ponctuelle devient le symbole d'un enjeu plus large :celui de la définition des valeurs, de l'identité et de la culture publiques. ; The intensification of the debates defined in terms of values inside the European Union as well as the growing relevance of the transatlantic flows (i.e. phenomena of mimesis and exchange of ideas and practices) are justifying the study of EU morality politics through the prism of the American scenario of culture wars. The mobilization of the European civil society around the abortion issue in particular enables us to test both facets of the theoretical framework of culture wars, i.e. either there is a patent and implacable polarization between two defined and closed groups of actors, or it only corresponds to a particular political communication style aiming at dramatizing an issue in order to get political and media attention. In both cases, the objective is to analyze how a punctual morality issue becomes the symbol of a broader stake: the definition of the public values, identity, and culture. ; info:eu-repo/semantics/published

The literature on morality politics is well-documented, but has mostly taken place at the national level. Yet, morality politics increasingly appears on the European Parliament's agenda. Abortion has been tackled through parliamentary reports on sexual and reproductive health and rights; while human embryonic stem cell research has been dealt with through the successive European research framework programmes. Using semi-structured interviews with (former) MEPs, this research examines how the central actors involved in these parliamentary debates perceive and explain their vote on these issues. The analysis particularly focuses on the role of religion and values, and uncovers its effects at several levels: national culture, political affiliation and personal believing. In that regard, respondents emphasise the great degree of freedom that the European parliamentary arena offers to its members to express their personal values and convictions–and not exclusively on morality issues. ; SCOPUS: ar.j ; info:eu-repo/semantics/published

The articulation between religion, politics and the law in contemporary European societies is a complex matter. In this article, we argue that classical secularization approaches fail to capture the ambivalent form of Catholicism in Europe, and we advance an alternative approach that reconsiders two elements: temporality and social space. Firstly, we propose to adopt an "eventful temporality", which enables the consideration of the impact of unexpected social and political events in altering the direction as well as shaping the public presence and form of religion. Secondly, we stress the need to focus on understanding the specificity of the different fields in which religion is mobilized, and the configuration and dynamics of each of these fields to explain the current weight of Christian majority churches in European societies. Drawing on empirical data from Spain, we examined the role and influence of Catholicism in three fields of public life: that of public services, that of morality politics and finally, that of the politics of belonging. In doing so, we identified their different temporalities (a long-term inertia in the first case, more abrupt changes in relation to the other two) as well as their specific dynamics in terms of actor constellations, issues at stake and symbolic repertoires.

We derive predictions from several social movement theories-grievance, resource mobilization, and political process-regarding social movement behavior with respect to bill introductions and bill progress in state legislatures. We test these predictions using an original dataset gathered in six states on legislation in issue areas important to the Christian Right. Results show some support for predictions generated by all three theories. In the introductions model, Christian Right strength in the Republican Party and Republican control of lawmaking in the state are positive predictors of the amount of socially conservative bill introductions. Liberal state ideologies are also, counter intuitively, associated with more conservative bill introductions. The dispositions model shows that liberal socio-moral bills are actually more likely to pass than conservative ones and that socio-moral bills (regardless of ideology) enjoy more legislative success in states with conservative political ideologies.

The production, consumption, and regulation of tobacco is presently the subject of much discussion and debate. While the issues surrounding tobacco have been debated for decades, much of the current attention on tobacco is due to the many proposals to regulate tobacco, the state and class action lawsuits pending against the tobacco industry, and the damaging tobacco company documents that have recently been made public. Most tobacco control proposals are intent on expanding the presence of government in the tobacco industry through increased regulation and taxation. A majority of the controversy over tobacco regulation focuses on the role of government in a capitalistic market. How much regulation is allowed by law, or required by morality; How much regulation is too much? Or when it comes to a product proven to cause death, such as tobacco, is it ethical to allow it on the market virtually unregulated, as it has been for decades? Where do we draw the line between fostering capitalism and promoting public health when the interests conflict with one another? After tracing the history of governmental regulation of tobacco and the concurrent antitobacco movement, this thesis will emphasize the most significant aspects of the current proposals to increase the governmental regulation of tobacco products. As history and the facts present themselves, it becomes clear that the opposing sides in this controversy do not possess equally compelling arguments. However, the debate is not simply two-sided; there are many issues at hand, each of which intertwine with one's own subjective reality.

The production, consumption, and regulation of tobacco is presently the subject of much discussion and debate. While the issues surrounding tobacco have been debated for decades, much of the current attention on tobacco is due to the many proposals to regulate tobacco, the state and class action lawsuits pending against the tobacco industry, and the damaging tobacco company documents that have recently been made public. Most tobacco control proposals are intent on expanding the presence of government in the tobacco industry through increased regulation and taxation. A majority of the controversy over tobacco regulation focuses on the role of government in a capitalistic market. How much regulation is allowed by law, or required by morality; How much regulation is too much? Or when it comes to a product proven to cause death, such as tobacco, is it ethical to allow it on the market virtually unregulated, as it has been for decades? Where do we draw the line between fostering capitalism and promoting public health when the interests conflict with one another? After tracing the history of governmental regulation of tobacco and the concurrent antitobacco movement, this thesis will emphasize the most significant aspects of the current proposals to increase the governmental regulation of tobacco products. As history and the facts present themselves, it becomes clear that the opposing sides in this controversy do not possess equally compelling arguments. However, the debate is not simply two-sided; there are many issues at hand, each of which intertwine with one's own subjective reality.

The production, consumption, and regulation of tobacco is presently the subject of much discussion and debate. While the issues surrounding tobacco have been debated for decades, much of the current attention on tobacco is due to the many proposals to regulate tobacco, the state and class action lawsuits pending against the tobacco industry, and the damaging tobacco company documents that have recently been made public. Most tobacco control proposals are intent on expanding the presence of government in the tobacco industry through increased regulation and taxation. A majority of the controversy over tobacco regulation focuses on the role of government in a capitalistic market. How much regulation is allowed by law, or required by morality; How much regulation is too much? Or when it comes to a product proven to cause death, such as tobacco, is it ethical to allow it on the market virtually unregulated, as it has been for decades? Where do we draw the line between fostering capitalism and promoting public health when the interests conflict with one another? After tracing the history of governmental regulation of tobacco and the concurrent antitobacco movement, this thesis will emphasize the most significant aspects of the current proposals to increase the governmental regulation of tobacco products. As history and the facts present themselves, it becomes clear that the opposing sides in this controversy do not possess equally compelling arguments. However, the debate is not simply two-sided; there are many issues at hand, each of which intertwine with one's own subjective reality.

The articulation between religion, politics and the law in contemporary European societies is a complex matter. In this article, we argue that classical secularization approaches fail to capture the ambivalent form of Catholicism in Europe, and we advance an alternative approach that reconsiders two elements: temporality and social space. Firstly, we propose to adopt an "eventful temporality", which enables the consideration of the impact of unexpected social and political events in altering the direction as well as shaping the public presence and form of religion. Secondly, we stress the need to focus on understanding the specificity of the different fields in which religion is mobilized, and the configuration and dynamics of each of these fields to explain the current weight of Christian majority churches in European societies. Drawing on empirical data from Spain, we examined the role and influence of Catholicism in three fields of public life: that of public services, that of morality politics and finally, that of the politics of belonging. In doing so, we identified their different temporalities (a long-term inertia in the first case, more abrupt changes in relation to the other two) as well as their specific dynamics in terms of actor constellations, issues at stake and symbolic repertoires.

In this dissertation I examine the alterglobalization of computer expertise with a focus on the creation of political, economic, moral, and technical ties among computer technologists who are identified by peers and self-identify as "computer hackers." The goal is to investigate how forms of collaborative work are created on a local level alongside global practices and discourses on computer hacking, linking local sites with an emergent transnational domain of technical exchange and political action. In order to advance an understanding of the experience and practice of hacking beyond its main axes of activity in Western Europe and the United States, I describe and analyze projects and career trajectories of programmers, engineers, and hacker activists who are members of an international network of community spaces called "hackerspaces" in the Pacific region. Based on ethnographic research at community spaces, professional meetings, and informal gatherings I pursue the question of the conditions for cultivation of skills, moral sensibilities, and political orientations which allow for active participation in computer expert collectives. Drawing from ethnographic work, I suggest that "hacking" has become a global rubric for disparate cultural practices due to the confluence of Free and Open Source technologies and elite technologists with local community centers to support pedagogical practices for technical experimentation and political formation. In describing global and local level applications of computing expertise, I demonstrate how hackerspaces and computer technologists are, respectively, formed at cross-cultural contact points with the project of rearranging, challenging, and transforming established technical practices, infrastructures, and political imaginaries.

"The first chapter . was published in Ugens tilskuer (11th November 1910) Two essays in Gads danske magasin (October 1908 and July 1910) may be considered studies for the section of the book dealing with 'Home politics'."--Pref. ; Mode of access: Internet.

"The first chapter . was published in Ugens tilskuer (11th November 1910) Two essays in Gads danske magasin (October 1908 and July 1910) may be considered studies for the section of the book dealing with 'Home politics'."--Pref. ; Mode of access: Internet.

I'm afraid this blog post focuses on something that might appear esoteric to most of us: the nexus between economics and our moral compass. This has come up in several presentations I've had the good fortune to attend and is something that people seem to be paying more attention to than usual given a desire to reimagine a "new normal" – or in government parlance to "build back better".