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Above the Fray: The Red Cross and the Making of the Humanitarian NGO Sector

Shai M. Dromi

Humanitarian nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) present themselves as servants of the most longstanding and universal human values. And yet, the idea that NGOs like Médecins sans Frontières, ... More

Humanitarian nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) present themselves as servants of the most longstanding and universal human values. And yet, the idea that NGOs like Médecins sans Frontières, International Rescue Committee, or Oxfam should provide humanitarian relief is relatively new and—when proposed in the mid-nineteenth century—was surprisingly controversial. Above the Fray examines the origins of the political and organizational culture that provides humanitarian NGOs today with extraordinary influence in international politics. Drawing on archival research, the book traces its origins to a mid-nineteenth-century Geneva-based orthodox Calvinist movement. The book shows that the founding members of the Red Cross—essential figures for the emergence of the humanitarian sector—were convinced by their Calvinist faith that the only way relief could come to the victims of armed conflict was through an international volunteer program that would be free of state interests. These early activists were the first to advocate the establishment of volunteer relief societies in all state capitals, and they were the ones to propose the 1864 Geneva Convention, which has become the ethical standards for humane conduct on the battlefield. The analysis follows the remarkable international spread of humanitarian ideas over the second half of the nineteenth century, and shows how the Red Cross project struck a chord in numerous quarters for different reasons—national, professional, religious, and others—and popularized the notion of organized humanitarian volunteer societies. The book highlights the imprint of mid-nineteenth-century Calvinism that contemporary humanitarian relief organizations and policies continue to bear.Less

Active social policies in the EU: Inclusion through participation?

Rik van Berkel and Iver Hornemann Moller (eds)

This book challenges the underlying presupposition that regular employment is the royal road to inclusion. Drawing on original empirical research, it investigates the inclusionary and exclusionary ... More

This book challenges the underlying presupposition that regular employment is the royal road to inclusion. Drawing on original empirical research, it investigates the inclusionary and exclusionary potentials of different types of work, including activation programmes. This book makes an important contribution to the debates in this area by: reporting on original international comparative research; reflecting on and critically assessing current activating policies; evaluating the consequences of these policies, as well as challenging the premises they are based on; including the perspectives of service users in its analyses; and offering recommendations for the future design of activating policies.Less

Administering welfare reform: International transformations in welfare governance

Paul Henman and Menno Fenger (eds)

While reforms of welfare policies have been widely analysed, the reform of welfare administration has received far less attention. Using empirical case studies, this book provides significant new ... More

While reforms of welfare policies have been widely analysed, the reform of welfare administration has received far less attention. Using empirical case studies, this book provides significant new insights into the way welfare administration is being internationally transformed. Particular attention is given to the effect on welfare clients, staff and agencies. This book presents a critical analysis of governance practices in welfare administration and examines shifts in the participants, practices and processes of welfare administration. It presents original empirical case studies that highlight the effects of reforming welfare governance on welfare subjects, staff and agencies and provides a much-needed international and comparative perspective of changing welfare governance. It is aimed at scholars and advanced students of sociology, social policy, economics, public administration and management, as well as social policy practitioners and service delivery workers.Less

American Exceptionalism in Crime and Punishment

Kevin R. Reitz (ed.)

The idea of American exceptionalism has made frequent appearances in discussions of criminal justice policies—as it has in many other areas—to help portray or explain problems that are especially ... More

The idea of American exceptionalism has made frequent appearances in discussions of criminal justice policies—as it has in many other areas—to help portray or explain problems that are especially acute in the United States, including mass incarceration, retention of the death penalty, racial and ethnic disparities in punishment, and the War on Drugs. While scholars do not universally agree that it is an apt or useful framework, there is no question that the United States is an outlier compared with other industrialized democracies in its punitive and exclusionary criminal justice policies. This book deepens the debate on American exceptionalism in crime and punishment through comparative political, economic, and historical analyses, working toward forward-looking prescriptions for American law, policy, and institutions of government. The chapters expand the existing American Exceptionalism literature to neglected areas such as community supervision, economic penalties, parole release, and collateral consequences of conviction; explore claims of causation, in particular that the history of slavery and racial inequality has been a primary driver of crime policy; examine arguments that the framework of multiple governments and localized crime control, populist style of democracy, and laissez-faire economy are implicated in problems of both crime and punishment; and assess theories that cultural values are the most salient predictors of penal severity and violent crime. The book asserts that the largest problems of crime and justice cannot be brought into focus from the perspective of a single jurisdiction and that comparative inquiries are necessary for an understanding of the current predicament in the United States.Less

'An offer you can't refuse': Workfare in international perspective

Ivar Lodemel and Heather Trickey (eds)

In the last decade, developed welfare states have witnessed a pendulum swing away from unconditional entitlement to social assistance, towards greater emphasis on obligations and conditions tied to ... More

In the last decade, developed welfare states have witnessed a pendulum swing away from unconditional entitlement to social assistance, towards greater emphasis on obligations and conditions tied to the receipt of financial aid. Through administrative reforms, conditions of entitlement have been narrowed. With the introduction of compulsory work for recipients, the contract between the state and uninsured unemployed people is changing. The product of research funded by the European Union, this book compares ‘work-for-welfare’ — or workfare — programmes objectively for the first time. It considers well-publicised schemes from the United States alongside more overlooked examples of workfare programmes from six European countries: France, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, Denmark and Britain. It is the first time that details of workfare programmes have been collated in such a format. This book provides an analysis of the ideological debates that surround compulsory work programmes and gives a detailed overview of the programmes implemented in each country, including their political and policy contexts and the forces that have combined to facilitate their implementation. Similarities and differences between programmes are explored. Explanations for differences and lessons for policy makers are discussed.Less

At the Margins: Discourses of Development, Democracy, and Regionalism in Orissa

Jayanta Sengupta

In comparison to other linguistic movements in India, Orissa is the single instance of a pan-regional linguistic identity that made a successful negotiation with the colonial state by using ... More

In comparison to other linguistic movements in India, Orissa is the single instance of a pan-regional linguistic identity that made a successful negotiation with the colonial state by using constitutional means. Subsequently, like many other linguistic movements that culminated in statehood in postcolonial India, its appeal waxed and waned. It gradually declined in the second half of the twentieth century, as language came to be displaced by issues of development as the prime movers of identity politics. This book addresses these broader questions of poverty, marginality, ethnicity, and identity in Orissa in the twentieth century. The work challenges the idea of 1947 as a watershed and seeks to grapple with the themes of regionalism, language-based ethnicity, centre–state relations, and the interrelationships between development and democracy across this divide.Less

Being Muslim in South Asia: Diversity and Daily Life

Robin Jeffrey and Sen Ronojoy (eds)

The 500 million Muslims who live in Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka constitute roughly one-third of the world’s Muslims. Their lives in the twenty-first century are challenging and ... More

The 500 million Muslims who live in Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka constitute roughly one-third of the world’s Muslims. Their lives in the twenty-first century are challenging and diverse. Too often in recent years, they have been unfairly associated with terrorism, as anyone with a Muslim name who has passed through a Western airport will attest. But South Asian Muslims do what other people do: they educate their children, earn livings, travel widely, discuss their faith, settle disputes, arrange marriages, cope with politics, struggle with governments, and support football teams. United by shared adherence to the Holy Quran and the teachings of the Prophet Muhammad, Muslims of South Asia speak numerous languages, follow different local customs, and have varied aspirations for their own lives and those of their children. The essays in this book probe such aspects of Muslim life. The authors’ concerns range from great political debates that have affected Muslim lives to marriage on the east coast of Sri Lanka, schools and media in Pakistan, women’s groups in Bangladesh, and football teams in Kolkata. This work will interest readers who wish to discover the multi-faceted lives of South Asia’s Muslims.Less

Child welfare: Historical dimensions, contemporary debate

Harry Hendrick

Children and child welfare sit at the heart of New Labour's plans for social inclusion — but how does the government view ‘children’ — is it reflecting public opinion, or leading it? How does New ... More

Children and child welfare sit at the heart of New Labour's plans for social inclusion — but how does the government view ‘children’ — is it reflecting public opinion, or leading it? How does New Labour perceive ‘child welfare’? What are the motivations behind, and objectives of, current social policy for children? Are the ‘Rights of the Child’ being subsumed under ‘duties and responsibilities’? This revisionist account provides critical answers to these questions within a historical framework and from a child-centred perspective. The book not only offers a provocative account of contemporary policies and the ideological thrust behind them, but also provides an informed historical perspective on the evolution of child welfare during the last century.Less

Child well-being, child poverty and child policy in modern nations (Revised 2nd Edition): What do we know?

Koen Vleminckx and Timothy M. Smeeding (eds)

Child poverty and the well-being of children is an important policy issue throughout the industrialised world. Some 47 million children in ‘rich’ countries live in families so poor that their health ... More

Child poverty and the well-being of children is an important policy issue throughout the industrialised world. Some 47 million children in ‘rich’ countries live in families so poor that their health and well-being are at risk. The main themes addressed in this book are: the extent and trend of child poverty in industrialised nations; outcomes for children – for example, the relationship between childhood experiences and children's health; country studies and emerging issues; and child and family policies. All the contributions underline the urgent need for a comprehensive policy to reduce child poverty rates and to improve the well-being of children. Findings are clearly presented and key focus points are identified for policy makers to consider.Less

A Child's Day: A Comprehensive Analysis of Change in Children's Time Use in the UK

Killian Mullan

We routinely judge how well children are doing in their lives by how they spend their time, yet we know remarkably little about it. This rigorous review of four decades of data provides the clearest ... More

We routinely judge how well children are doing in their lives by how they spend their time, yet we know remarkably little about it. This rigorous review of four decades of data provides the clearest insights yet into the way children use their time. With analysis of changes in the time spent on family, education, culture and technology, as well as children's own views on their habits, it provides a fascinating perspective on behaviour, well-being, social change and more. This is an indispensable companion to the work of policy makers, academics and researchers, and anyone interested in the daily lives of children. The book begins by tracing some of the major strands of social change thought to have had an impact on different areas of children's daily time use. The past several decades have witnessed rapid social, economic, and technological change, widely thought to have affected many aspects of children's daily lives. It then examines the relationship between children's time use and outcomes relating to their health, development, and well-being, drawing together strands of thought from the sociology of childhood and research on child well-being. The book discusses overall trends in children's time doing homework and study. It examines associations between children's time use and a range of different health outcomes, and moves on to investigate the context of children's daily life linked to family, in particular concentrating on the time children spend at home and with parents. It evaluates children's time using technology, and focuses on the affective component of subjective well-being, specifically in connection with how children feel about how they spend their time. In conclusion, the book identifies areas of expected change as well as other areas of surprising stability. It reveals how change and stability in children's time use blend together to comprise a child's day, uncovering also the multi-layered contexts of a child's day.Less

Childhood poverty and social exclusion: From a child's perspective

Tess Ridge

Childhood poverty has moved from the periphery to the centre of the policy agenda following New Labour's pledge to end it within twenty years. However, whether the needs and concerns of poor children ... More

Childhood poverty has moved from the periphery to the centre of the policy agenda following New Labour's pledge to end it within twenty years. However, whether the needs and concerns of poor children themselves are being addressed is open to question. The findings raise critical issues for both policy and practice – in particular the finding that children are at great risk of experiencing exclusion within school. School has been a major target in the drive towards reducing child poverty. However, the policy focus has been mainly about literacy standards and exclusion from school. This book shows that poor children are suffering from insufficient access to the economic and material resources necessary for adequate social participation and academic parity. It will be an invaluable teaching aid across a range of academic courses, including social policy, sociology, social work and childhood studies. The book will also be of interest to those who want to develop a more inclusive social and policy framework for understanding childhood issues from a child-centred perspective.Less

Civic Gifts: Voluntarism and the Making of the American Nation-State

Elisabeth S. Clemens

Civic Gifts traces how practices of reciprocity and organized mass benevolence—that is, philanthropy—have contributed to the development of novel forms of national solidarity and impressive governing ... More

Civic Gifts traces how practices of reciprocity and organized mass benevolence—that is, philanthropy—have contributed to the development of novel forms of national solidarity and impressive governing capacities in the United States, contributing even to a famously anti-statist political culture. Sociologist Elisabeth Clemens paints a picture of the US, whether as nation or as state, as a puzzle. How, she asks, did a sense of shared nationhood develop despite the linguistic, religious, and ethnic differences among the settlers? How did a global power emerge from an often anti-statist political culture? How did some version of this collective identity come to be articulated with organized governance? With Civic Gifts, Clemens reveals that an important piece of the answer to these questions can be found in the unexpected political uses of philanthropy and the power of gifts to mobilize communities and to create solidarity among strangers.Less

Comparing social policies: Exploring new perspectives in Britain and Japan

Misa Izuhara (ed.)

At the beginning of the twenty-first century, both Britain and Japan are facing similar issues caused by globalisation, slower economic growth and a rapidly ageing population. Social policy in the ... More

At the beginning of the twenty-first century, both Britain and Japan are facing similar issues caused by globalisation, slower economic growth and a rapidly ageing population. Social policy in the two societies, which has developed differently due to the differences in their national resources, socio-economic systems, cultural values and political agendas, is at an interesting turning point. This book examines topical issues with up-to-date information; compares and contrasts selected policy areas between the two societies; and presents original material written by leading scholars in each country.Less

Contemporary fathering: Theory, policy and practice

Brid Featherstone

Since 1997, child-welfare services have been faced with new demands to engage fathers or develop father-inclusive services. This book emerges from work by the author as a researcher and educator over ... More

Since 1997, child-welfare services have been faced with new demands to engage fathers or develop father-inclusive services. This book emerges from work by the author as a researcher and educator over many years, on the issues posed by this agenda for child-welfare practitioners, in a variety of contexts. In locating fathers, fathering, and fatherhood within a historical and social landscape, it addresses issues seldom taken up in practice settings. The book explores diversity and complexity in fathering in different disciplines such as psychoanalysis, sociology, and psychology, and analyses contemporary developments in social policies and welfare practices. The author employs a feminist perspective to highlight the opportunities and dangers in contemporary developments for those wishing to advance gender equity. A key strength of the book is its inter-disciplinary focus.Less

Corporate power and social policy in a global economy: British welfare under the influence

Kevin Farnsworth

Spanning the complete era of the Conservative governments and the first term of New Labour, this book looks at mechanisms of corporate power and influence; corporate opinion and influence in a range ... More

Spanning the complete era of the Conservative governments and the first term of New Labour, this book looks at mechanisms of corporate power and influence; corporate opinion and influence in a range of social policy areas including: education, training, health and social security; changing business influence on social policy in recent years in an international context and business involvement in social policy initiatives and welfare delivery. By exploring business views and opinions, power, influence and involvement in social provision, this book helps to address important questions in social policy.Less

Democratic Practice: Origins of the Iberian Divide in Political Inclusion

Robert M. Fishman

This book offers a new way to conceptualize and study differences among democracies, focusing on political conduct and interaction as well as related taken-for-granted assumptions. With an empirical ... More

This book offers a new way to conceptualize and study differences among democracies, focusing on political conduct and interaction as well as related taken-for-granted assumptions. With an empirical basis in a multimethod study of Portugal and Spain, pioneers in the worldwide turn to democracy that began in the 1970s, the argument identifies how political inclusion and equality vary substantially as a result of processes that the book theorizes: Nationally predominant forms of democratic practice constitute cultural legacies of the countries’ pathways to democracy during the 1970s. Whereas Portugal moved from dictatorship to democracy through a social revolution that inverted hierarchies and reconfigured cultural patterns while also generating thorough political democratization, Spain experienced a regime-led process of political transition under pressure from the opposition. The book shows how this contrast in pathways put in place ways of understanding democracy that have had deep consequences for political inclusion and conduct. Points of contrast in contemporary democratic practice include patterns of interaction between social movement protest and elected power holders as well as conduct within representative entities and in crucial secondary institutions such as the news media and the educational system. Consequences are identified in distributional outcomes, housing and welfare state policies, employment policy, and in the handling of economic crises. The implications of Spain’s less inclusionary democratic practice for cultural “others” such as Catalans are taken up in the chapter on the Catalan crisis. Implications for democratic theory and for sociological and political science theory are also taken up.Less

Denial of Violence: Ottoman Past, Turkish Present, and Collective Violence against the Armenians, 1789-2009

Fatma Muge Gocek

To this day, the Turkish state officially denies that what happened to the Armenians in 1915 was genocide, while the Western scholarly community is almost in full agreement that what happened to the ... More

To this day, the Turkish state officially denies that what happened to the Armenians in 1915 was genocide, while the Western scholarly community is almost in full agreement that what happened to the forcefully deported Armenian subjects of the Ottoman Empire in 1915 was genocide, in which approximately 800,000 to 1.5 million Armenians perished. This book studies why denial of collective violence persists in Turkish state and society. To capture the negotiation of meaning, it undertakes a qualitative analysis of 356 contemporaneous memoirs penned by 307 authors in addition to secondary sources, journals, and newspapers. The main theoretical argument is that denial is a multilayered, historical process consisting of the interaction of the structural elements of collective violence and situated modernity with the emotional elements of collective emotions and legitimating events. In this empirical case, denial emerged through four stages: (1) the initial imperial denial of origins of violence commenced in 1789 with the advent of systematic modernity until 1907; (2) the Young Turk denial of the act of violence lasted for a decade from 1908 to 1918; (3) early republican denial of actors of violence took place from 1919 to 1973; and (4) the late republican denial of responsibility for violence started in 1974 and was still present in 2009 when the book was completed.Less

Desegregating the Past: The Public Life of Memory in the United States and South Africa

Robyn Autry

At the Apartheid Museum in Johannesburg, South Africa, visitors confront the past upon arrival. They must decide whether to enter the museum through a door marked "whites" or another marked ... More

At the Apartheid Museum in Johannesburg, South Africa, visitors confront the past upon arrival. They must decide whether to enter the museum through a door marked "whites" or another marked "non-whites." Inside, along with text, they encounter hanging nooses and other reminders of apartheid-era atrocities. In the United States, museum exhibitions about racial violence and segregation are mostly confined to black history museums, with national history museums sidelining such difficult material. Even the Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture is dedicated not to violent histories of racial domination but to a more generalized narrative about black identity and culture. The scale at which violent racial pasts have been incorporated into South African national historical narratives is lacking in the U.S. Desegregating the Past considers why this is the case, tracking the production and display of historical representations of racial pasts at museums in both countries and what it reveals about underlying social anxieties, unsettled emotions, and aspirations surrounding contemporary social fault lines around race. Robyn Autry consults museum archives, conducts interviews with staff, and recounts the public and private battles fought over the creation and content of history museums. Despite vast differences in the development of South African and U.S. society, Autry finds a common set of ideological, political, economic, and institutional dilemmas arising out of the selective reconstruction of the past. Museums have played a major role in shaping public memory, at times recognizing and at other times blurring the ongoing influence of historical crimes. The narratives museums produce to engage with difficult, violent histories expose present anxieties concerning identity, (mis)recognition, and ongoing conflict.Less

The Diary of Manu Gandhi: 1943-1944

Manu Gandhi, M.K. Gandhi’s grand-niece, joined him in 1943 at the age of fifteen. An aide to Gandhi’s ailing wife Kasturba in the Aga Khan Palace prison in Pune, Manu remained with him until his ... More

Manu Gandhi, M.K. Gandhi’s grand-niece, joined him in 1943 at the age of fifteen. An aide to Gandhi’s ailing wife Kasturba in the Aga Khan Palace prison in Pune, Manu remained with him until his assassination. She was a partner in his final yajna, an experiment in Brahmacharya, and his invocationof Rama at the moment of his death. Spanning two volumes, The Diary of Manu Gandhi is a record of her life and times with M.K. Gandhi between 1943 and 1948. Authenticated by Gandhi himself, the meticulous and intimate entries in the diary throw light on Gandhi’s life as a prisoner and his endeavour to establish the possibility of collective non-violence. They also offer a glimpse into his ideological conflicts, his efforts to find his voice, and his lonely pilgrimage to Noakhali during the riots of 1946.Less

Disenfranchised: The Rise and Fall of Industrial Citizenship in China

Joel Andreas

Disenfranchised recounts the tumultuous events that have shaped and reshaped factory politics in China since the 1949 Revolution. The book develops a theoretical framework consisting of two ... More

Disenfranchised recounts the tumultuous events that have shaped and reshaped factory politics in China since the 1949 Revolution. The book develops a theoretical framework consisting of two dimensions—industrial citizenship and autonomy—to explain changing authority relations in workplaces and uses interviews with workers and managers to provide a shop-floor perspective. Under the work unit system, in place from the 1950s to the 1980s, lifetime job tenure and participatory institutions gave workers a strong form of industrial citizenship, but constraints on autonomous collective action made the system more paternalistic than democratic. Called “masters of the factory,” workers were pressed to participate actively in self-managing teams and employee congresses but only under the all-encompassing control of the factory party committee. Concerned that party cadres were becoming a “bureaucratic class,” Mao experimented with means to mobilize criticism from below, even inciting—during the Cultural Revolution—a worker insurgency that overthrew factory party committees. Unwilling to allow workers to establish permanent autonomous organizations, however, Mao never came up with institutionalized means of making factory leaders accountable to their subordinates. The final chapters recount the process of industrial restructuring, which has transformed work units into profit-oriented enterprises, eliminating industrial citizenship and reducing workers to hired hands dependent on precarious employment and subject to highly coercive discipline. The book closes with an overview of parallel developments around the globe, chronicling the rise and fall of an era of industrial citizenship.Less