Vigilantism in Comparative Perspective

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ray Abrahams
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Comparative Study ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Good Life ◽  
The United States ◽  
Twilight Zone ◽  
The Good Life ◽  
Resistance Movements ◽  
The World ◽  
Thing In Itself

Vigilantes have arisen at many times in different regions of the world, taking the law into their own hands as defenders, often by force, of their view of the good life against those they see to be its enemies. They have a strong attraction for some commentators and they rouse equally strong hostility in others. For yet others, who attempt to take a broader view, they are a source of deep ambivalence. Academic interest in the phenomenon has grown strongly over recent years, and this has contributed significantly to an increase in knowledge of its distribution beyond the bounds of western Europe, the United States, and particularly in many parts of Africa. Although vigilantes are most commonly male, increased evidence of women’s vigilantism has also come to light in recent years. Vigilantism is difficult to define in rigorous terms, partly because of general problems of comparative study, but there are also special reasons in this case. Vigilantism is not so much a thing in itself as a fundamentally relational phenomenon which only makes sense in relation to the formal institutions of the state. It is in several ways a frontier phenomenon, occupying an awkward borderland between law and illegality. Many of its manifestations are short-lived and unstable, nor is it always what it claims to be. For these reasons, definitions of vigilantism are best treated as an “ideal type,” which real cases may be expected to approximate to or depart from. This approach provides the possibility of comparing different cases of vigilantism and also allows one to explore the differences and similarities between it and other “dwellers in the twilight zone,” such as social bandits, mafias, guerrillas, and resistance movements.

scholarly journals Beyond Religiosity: A Model to Explain Spirituality Among Middle-Aged and Older Adults

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (Supplement_1) ◽  
pp. 413-414
Author(s):  
Carlyn Vogel ◽  
Debra Dobbs ◽  
Brent Small
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Older Adults ◽  
Good Life ◽  
Multinomial Logistic Regression ◽  
College Experience ◽  
The United States ◽  
Strong Connection ◽  
Deep Appreciation ◽  
The World ◽  
High Level

Abstract Spirituality is difficult to define as researchers assign it different meanings and individuals’ perceptions can vary. For example, spirituality may connect to religiosity, while others consider religiosity a less significant part of spirituality. This study investigates factors outside of religiosity that are significantly associated with spirituality to inform the characteristics of the concept. Webster’s (2004) existential framework of spirituality was used to guide variable selection. The National Survey of Midlife in the United States wave three (MIDUS 3; 2013-2014; n = 2,594; Mage = 63.5, SD = 11, range = 39–92) was used to examine individuals’ reported levels of spirituality. Multinomial logistic regression was conducted to examine factors related to low and high levels of spirituality compared to a moderate level. Participants with low spirituality were more likely to be male, less likely to be mindful, mediate/chant, feel a strong connection to all life, to indicate that they cannot make sense of the world, and to be religious. Participants with high spirituality were more likely to be female, have at least some college experience, be mindful, meditate/chant, feel deep inner peace, have a sense of deep appreciation, think that a sense of purpose is important for a good life, and have a high level of religiosity. Framed by Webster’s conceptual model, the current study observed that religiosity is significantly associated with spirituality and that other mindfulness-based aspects are also present within this concept. Incorporating mindfulness with religious efforts will more accurately and holistically address spirituality.

Liberalism since the Cold War: an enemy to itself?

1999 ◽  
Vol 25 (5) ◽  
pp. 145-160 ◽  
Author(s):  
GEOFFREY HAWTHORN
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
World Order ◽  
The United States ◽  
International Markets ◽  
Political Rights ◽  
The World ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Regional Development Banks

Many expected that after the Cold War, there would be peace, order, increasing prosperity in expanding markets and the extension and eventual consolidation of civil and political rights. There would be a new world order, and it would in these ways be liberal. In international politics, the United States would be supreme. It would through security treaties command the peace in western Europe and east Asia; through its economic power command it in eastern Europe and Russia; through clients and its own domination command it in the Middle East; through tacit understanding command it in Latin America; and, in so far as any state could, command it in Africa also. It could choose whether to cooperate in the United Nations, and if it did not wish to do so, be confident that it would not be disablingly opposed by illiberal states. In the international markets, it would be able to maintain holdings of its bonds. In the international financial institutions, it would continue to be decisive in the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank; it would be an important influence in the regional development banks; and it would be powerful in what it was to insist in 1994 should be called the World (rather than Multinational) Trade Organisation. Other transactions in the markets, it is true, would be beyond the control of any state. But they would not be likely to conflict with the interests of the United States (and western Europe) in finance, investment and trade, and would discipline other governments.

Separated at Birth?

2010 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Baldwin
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Death Penalty ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
The United States ◽  
Unexpected Death ◽  
The World ◽  
Exit Option ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Fathers And Sons

To Return To The Bulk of our material in this book, what absolute differences separate the United States from Europe? The United States is a nation where proportionately more people are murdered each year, more are jailed, and more own guns than anywhere in Europe. The death penalty is still law. Religious belief is more fervent and widespread. A smaller percentage of citizens vote. Collective bargaining covers relatively fewer workers, and the state’s tax take is lower. Inequality is somewhat more pronounced. That is about it. In almost every other respect, differences are ones of degree, rather than kind. Oft en, they do not exist, or if they do, no more so than the same disparities hold true within Western Europe itself. At the very least, this suggests that farreaching claims to radical differences across the Atlantic have been overstated. Even on violence—a salient difference that leaps unprompted from the evidence, both statistical and anecdotal—the contrast depends on how it is framed. Without question, murder rates are dramatically different across the Atlantic. And, of course, murder is the most shocking form of sudden, unexpected death, unsettling communities, leaving survivors bereaved and mourning. But consider a wider definition of unanticipated, immediate, and profoundly disrupting death. Suicide is oft en thought of as the exit option for old, sick men anticipating the inevitable, and therefore not something that changes the world around them. But, in fact, the distribution of suicide over the lifespan is broadly uniform. In Iceland, Ireland, the UK, and the United States, more young men (below forty-five) than old do themselves in. In Finland, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and Norway, the figures are almost equal. Elsewhere, the older have a slight edge. But overall, the ratio between young and old suicides approximates 1:1. Broadly speaking, and sticking with the sex that most oft en kills itself, men do away with themselves as oft en when they are younger and possibly still husbands, fathers, and sons as they do when they are older and when their actions are perhaps fraught with less consequence for others. Suicide is as unsettling, and oft en even more so, for survivors as murder.

Politics

2020 ◽  
pp. 84-121
Author(s):  
David Damrosch
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
United States ◽  
Comparative Literature ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
The United States ◽  
Rapid Expansion ◽  
Institutional Politics ◽  
The World ◽  
International Comparative ◽  
Political Scene

This chapter discusses the comparatists who reshaped the comparative literature in the United States during the 1950s and 1960s. It mentions Anna Balakian, who became a leading figure in both the American and International Comparative Literature Associations. It also describes Anna and her family's emigration in 1921 from Turkey to western Europe and eventually to the United States. The chapter analyzes how comparatists sought to change the world in the postwar years, a time of rapid expansion in higher education and optimism about America's role in fostering international cooperation and understanding. It also focuses on the need of politics of comparative studies to have a dual focus on institutional politics, a wider political scene, and a postcolonial perspective.

scholarly journals Being-Disrupted and Being-Disruptive: Coping Students in Uncertain Times

SAGE Open ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 215824401882237
Author(s):  
Magnar Ødegård
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Comparative Study ◽  
Martin Heidegger ◽  
Disruptive Behavior ◽  
Modern Society ◽  
The United States ◽  
Research Project ◽  
Everyday Practices ◽  
Skillful Coping ◽  
The World

In the light of Martin Heidegger and Hubert Dreyfus’s concepts of being-in-the-world and skillful coping, this article addresses disruptions students face in modern society. Such disruptions involve pressure for achievement and lack of belonging to communities. In the discussion, the article presents the terms being-disrupted and being-disruptive. These terms outline ways students could cope with disruptions in their everyday practices. These practices include students’ relations to society and other people. Further elements addressed in the discussion are students’ interrelatedness with the world, their moods, and willingness to take risks. The article is part of the research project “A Comparative Study of Disruptive Behavior Between Schools in Norway and the United States.”

The Unity of the West and Free Trade: A Report From Washington

Worldview ◽  
1970 ◽  
Vol 13 (6) ◽  
pp. 14-16
Author(s):  
Lionel Gelber
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Free Trade ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
The United States ◽  
Common Market ◽  
The West ◽  
The World ◽  
The Future ◽  
The Common ◽  
De Gaulle

When the United States fostered the recovery and underwrote the security of Western Europe she had more than sentiment to impel her. That salient zone is a pivotal sector of the world balance, and while she may station fewer of her own troops upon its soil, she can entertain no total disengagement from it. But there is another West European item, the future of the Common Market, which calls for a fresh American scrutiny. The West will be better off if Western Europe acquires more of an ability to stand on its own feet. Gaullism, however, revealed a less modest goal, one that was not confined to France and did not vanish with the departure of General de Gaulle. On the contrary, it may have gained new leverage from his downfall.

Freedom of Information and the United Nations

1952 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 210-226 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carroll Binder
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
United Nations ◽  
Good Life ◽  
The United States ◽  
Freedom Of Information ◽  
The Good Life ◽  
Amount Of Information ◽  
The United Nations

Eight years ago the United States set out, at the request of American editors and press associations, to increase the amount of information available to its own and other peoples through international compacts. What began as a project for lowering barriers to the gathering and transmission of news soon developed into an effort to assure freedom of information and expression to all peoples in the belief that without such basic freedoms there can be no other enduring freedoms and very little progress towards the good life.

Industrialization, Hubs, and Catch-up

2020 ◽  
pp. 145-161
Author(s):  
Deepak Nayyar
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Industrial Revolution ◽  
The United States ◽  
First Century ◽  
Rapid Decline ◽  
The Past ◽  
Early Twenty ◽  
The World ◽  
Catch Up

This chapter analyses the striking changes in the geographical distribution of manufacturing production amongst countries and across continents since 1750, a period that spans more than two-and-a-half centuries, which could be described as the movement of industrial hubs in the world economy over time. Until around 1820, world manufacturing production was concentrated in China and India. The Industrial Revolution, followed by the advent of colonialism, led to deindustrialization in Asia and, by 1880, Britain became the world industrial hub that extended to northwestern Europe. The United States surpassed Britain in 1900, and was the dominant industrial hub in the world until 2000. During 1950 to 2000, the relative, though not absolute, importance of Western Europe diminished, and Japan emerged as a significant industrial hub, while the other new industrial hub, the USSR and Eastern Europe, was short lived. The early twenty-first century, 2000–2017, witnessed a rapid decline of the United States, Western Europe, and Japan as industrial hubs, to be replaced largely by Asia, particularly China. This process of shifting hubs, associated with industrialization in some countries and deindustrialization in other countries in the past, might be associated with premature deindustrialization in yet other countries in the future.

Chapter II. The World Economy

1971 ◽  
Vol 56 ◽  
pp. 22-35
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
North America ◽  
World Economy ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
The United States ◽  
Oecd Countries ◽  
Industrial Countries ◽  
Slowing Down ◽  
The World ◽  
Real Growth

Developments in the world economy have on the whole been much as we predicted in February. It is becoming increasingly clear that renewed expansion is under way in the United States at a pace which, even if it falls short of the Administration's hopes, is more than compensating for the slowing down in industrial countries outside North America. This deceleration has become quite marked in Japan as well as Western Europe, but we expect a faster pace to be resumed before the end of the year. We still put real growth in OECD countries at around 4 per cent in 1971, unless there is a prolonged steel strike in the United States. This compares with about 2½ per cent last year, and we expect the rising trend to continue into 1972.

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