scholarly journals Poverty as a Political Choice: a Comparative Analysis of Reports of the UN Rapporteur’s Visits to the UK and Spain

Author(s):  
Ian Cummins ◽  
Emilio José Gómez-Ciriano

AbstractThis paper presents a comparative analysis of two reports by the UN Rapporteur on Extreme Poverty and Human Rights, one for Spain and one for the UK. In both countries, austerity policies were introduced following the banking crisis of 2008. The UN Rapporteur reports highlight the damage that was done by welfare retrenchment. In particular, the reports document the impact of austerity on the most vulnerable individuals and communities. The paper uses Somers' (2008) conceptual model of citizenship as the basis for a comparative analysis of two reports. Somers' (2008) model of citizenship is a triadic one which sees the state, market and civil society as competing elements. Each one can serve to regulate and limit the influence or excesses of the other two. Somers argues that neoliberalism has seen the dominance of the market at the expense of the role of the state and the institutions of civil society. Austerity policies saw the market dominating. Having examined the context of the two reports and their conclusions, the paper discussed the implications for individual social workers’ practice and the role of social work as a profession in tackling poverty and marginalisation.

Author(s):  
Magda Yadira Robles Garza ◽  

Protection for people or social groups that do not have a home or who have it lost because of wars, internal or external displacement, violence and insecurity, require special attention from States. To address this approach, the criterion or standard established in the Inter-American System of Human Rights with respect to the protection of this right through the connection of rights will then be analyzed. The judgments could set out the standard of protection that from national governments must be afforded to people who lose their homes in these contexts and, on the other hand, the role of the State in complying with these claims, in order to conjecture the autonomous declaration of the right to housing in the judicial headquarters of the region of the Americas.


Author(s):  
Harriet Samuels

Abstract The article investigates the negative attitude towards civil society over the last decade in the United Kingdom and the repercussions for human rights. It considers this in the context of the United Kingdom government’s implementation of the policy of austerity. It reflects on the various policy and legal changes, and the impact on the campaigning and advocacy work of civil society organizations, particularly those that work on social and economic rights.


Author(s):  
Vicki Dabrowski

Using interviews with women from diverse backgrounds, the author of this book makes an invaluable contribution to the debates around the gendered politics of austerity in the UK. Exploring the symbiotic relationship between the state's legitimization of austerity and women's everyday experiences, the book reveals how unjust policies are produced, how alternatives are silenced and highlights the different ways in which women are used or blamed. By understanding austerity as more than simply an economic project, the book fills important gaps in existing knowledge on state, gender and class relations in the context of UK austerity. Delivering a timely account of the misconceptions of policies, discourses and representations around austerity in the UK, the book illustrates the complex ways through which austerity is experienced by women in their everyday lives.


Author(s):  
Svetlana Koryagina ◽  
Irina Kravchenko

The article describes the impact of the Mass Media on the formation of the worldview of the young. This impact may be positive or negative. On the one hand, the media educate young people and enhance their participation in public life. On the other hand, they may mislead or promote false values, and manipulate the young generation’s consciousness. What helps people not to get involved into the tried-and-true crowd manipulation scheme in the media landscape is critical thinking, whose lack results in inability to choose the right guidelines in the flow of false information provided by various Media. The authors emphasize the role of the state, which, regarding the needs of the society, should enculturate the young generation, as well as exercise tight control over communication in the global web and publications in the Internet Media and social networks. One of the directions of the state’s policy is expanding the geography of information and communication technologies, and the other is ensuring information security of the young in general and adolescents in particular. To provide this, the state develops organizational and legal mechanisms aimed at protecting children from harmful information in the web, and requirements for the content, its expert evidence and government control. The article demonstrates the results of a study carried out by the authors to assess the current youth Media and their influence on criminality. The key criterion for selecting participants of the focus group was young age, since the young are the most active and the least protected players in the media landscape. The sampling was made by random choice in order to ensure equal opportunities for participation in the study.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Agustinus Sumaryono ◽  
Sugiyono Sugiyono

This research investigates how curriculum has contributed to society, especially in the context of maintaining peace in Indonesia. Unlike former studies that have paid the most attention to the fundamental role of the state actors or civil society, this study emphasizes the importance of school to build peace. This research pays attention to the case of catholic senior high school in Bali. The finding suggests that school can be agent of peace through implement the peace curriculum in school. This study demonstrates that the peace curriculum should be implemented in school to prevent the violence action. Hence, providing space for further discussion about the content of peace curriculum that can be implemented in Indonesia.


Author(s):  
Serhii O. Komnatnyi ◽  
Oleg S. Sheremet ◽  
Viacheslav E. Suslykov ◽  
Kateryna S. Lisova ◽  
Stepan D. Svorak

The article deals with the mechanism of impact of sociopsychological phenomena such as the national character and the political mentality in the construction and functioning of civil society. It aims to show the impact of climate, religion, and the perception of happiness on the state of civil society through details of a national nature. The main research method is to compare data from global research on the state of civil society with data from climatic conditions, dominant religions, and happiness indices. The article proves coincidently that these factors are reflected in such essential characteristics of civil society as "openness" and "closed-mindedness". The interaction between the national character and the construction of civil society has two stages. It is concluded that the results obtained are important to evaluate the prospects for the construction and development of civil society in different countries and regions of the world. Further research in this direction involves the study of other aspects of the impact of national character and political mindset on the functioning of civil society.


Author(s):  
Jennifer N. Fish

This chapter looks at the role of NGOs, global and national unions, and feminist government leaders in the movement to support domestic workers’ global rights. Here, the merger of civil society activism, labor struggles, and government influence reveals how a cross-sectional range of players served in pivotal roles as allies in the determination of policy protections. Relations between domestic workers and the state are analyzed to show the potential for opening up new spaces of worker activism. The discussion of feminist government leaders, or femocrats, reveals how the unexpected alliance of women in positions of power and women in some of the world’s most marginalized positions resulted in a synergy that shook a staid, bureaucratic institution to its core, and enabled its reorientation to more effectively address issues of global human rights.


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