Ascriptive hierarchies: Caste and its reproduction in contemporary India

2015 ◽  
Vol 64 (2) ◽  
pp. 228-243 ◽  
Author(s):  
Surinder S Jodhka
Keyword(s):  
Social Science ◽  
Open System ◽  
Large Volume ◽  
Closed System ◽  
Social Stratification ◽  
Social Inequalities ◽  
Social Hierarchy ◽  
Science Literature ◽  
Social Science Literature ◽  
Individual Achievement

Social science literature on caste tends to view it as a peculiar institution of the Hindus, emanating from their past tradition and religious beliefs/scriptures. This view also presumes that the processes of urbanization and industrialization, unleashing the process of modernization, will end caste, eventually producing a shift from a closed system of social hierarchy to an open system of social stratification based on individual achievement, merit and hard work. Drawing from a large volume of recent writings the author argues in this article that this approach to the understanding of caste is based on an assumption of Indian exceptionalism. Such an orientalist view of caste also denies the possibility of deploying the framework of caste for understanding caste-like ascriptive hierarchies that exist in many other (if not all) societies. Some of the recent theorizations of caste could perhaps provide useful conceptual tools for developing a comparative understanding of social inequalities.

Was Stalin’s Revolution from Above a Rational Strategy of Modernization?

2021 ◽  
pp. 85-90
Author(s):  
George W. Breslauer
Keyword(s):  
Social Science ◽  
Science Literature ◽  
The Social ◽  
Revolutionary Violence ◽  
Social Science Literature

Strategies of modernization are legion within the social science literature. Stalin’s Revolution from Above—but not the Great Terror—is set within this literature as a revolutionary, as opposed to a reformist, strategy. Features of the revolutionary strategy may have been considered necessary to urgently create the capacity to defend the country in a hostile world. But the extent of revolutionary violence against the peasantry cannot be justified in those terms.

Drunk Others

Drunk Japan ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 100-122
Author(s):  
Mark D. West
Keyword(s):  
Social Science ◽  
Peer Pressure ◽  
Employment Law ◽  
Science Literature ◽  
Alcohol Poisoning ◽  
Social Science Literature

This chapter explores the responsibilities of sober people for intoxicated people. It first explores general duties created by relationships and employment law. It then examines responsibilities in two specific contexts: university tragedies in which students, often because of peer pressure, die from alcohol poisoning, and insurance cases in which intoxicated people or their heirs sue their insurers for damages incurred while drunk. In general, absent extreme circumstances, courts place liability with the intoxicated and not people around them. Although some of these outcomes might be attributable to specific legal doctrines or facts, the cases nevertheless stand in contrast with social science literature that finds that people in Japan tend to place responsibility for behavior with groups and circumstances, not individuals.

scholarly journals A formative evaluation of a pay-for-performance system

2012 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Lindsey Joseph ◽  
Kate Emmett ◽  
Joha Louw-Potgieter
Keyword(s):  
Social Science ◽  
Formative Evaluation ◽  
Pay For Performance ◽  
Administrative Staff ◽  
Science Literature ◽  
Line Managers ◽  
Staff Members ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Science Literature ◽  
Managerial Implications

Orientation: Pay-for-performance (PFP) systems emerged during the 1980s as performance improvement tools. However, research findings have shown contradictory evidence as to whether these systems motivate employees to improve their performance. Research purpose: The main aim of this evaluation was to assess whether a PFP system, which a South African university introduced for administrative employees, improved their performance. A secondary aim was to examine whether the university implemented the system as it intended to.Motivation for the evaluation: The motivation for this evaluation was to add to the social science literature on the effectiveness of PFP systems. There are many contradictions in the literature and further exploration of whether these systems deliver their intended outcomes seemed overdue.Research design, approach and method: The evaluators used a descriptive design. They administered a customised questionnaire, to which 391 university staff members responded. Of these, 129 were line managers and 262 were administrative staff.Main findings: The administrative staff, whose working lives the PFP system affected, thought that it did not improve their performance. Both line managers and administrative staff indicated that the pay aspect of the system did not differentiate between poor and excellent performance.Practical/managerial implications: The evaluators made practical recommendations for improving the implementation of the system.Contribution/value-add: This evaluation contributed to the social science literature on the effectiveness of PFP systems by showing that poor implementation rather than poor design often lies at the root of a system that does not deliver its intended outcomes.

scholarly journals The Courts in American Public Culture

Daedalus ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 143 (3) ◽  
pp. 140-156 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susan S. Silbey
Keyword(s):  
Social Science ◽  
Rule Of Law ◽  
Legal Reasoning ◽  
Public Culture ◽  
Science Literature ◽  
The Rule Of Law ◽  
Institutional Practice ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Science Literature ◽  
Public Imagination

In American public imagination, courts are powerful but also impotent. They are guardians of citizens' rights but also agents of corporate wealth; simultaneously the least dangerous branch and the ultimate arbiters of fairness and justice. After recounting the social science literature on the mixed reception of courts in American public culture, this essay explains how the contradictory embrace of courts and law by Americans is not a weakness or flaw, nor a mark of confusion or naïveté. Rather, Americans' paradoxical interpretations of courts and judges sustain rather than undermine our legal institutions. These opposing accounts are a source of institutional durability and power because they combine the historical and widespread aspirations for the rule of law with a pragmatic recognition of the limits of institutional practice; these sundry accounts balance an appreciation for the discipline of legal reasoning with desires for responsive, humane judgment.

The Negro in the Social Science Literature: 1961

1962 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
pp. 111 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert P. Stuckert ◽  
Irwin D. Rinder
Keyword(s):  
Social Science ◽  
Science Literature ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Science Literature
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