Thinking about civil wars with and beyond Bourdieu: State, capital and habitus in critical contexts

2021 ◽  
pp. 1468795X2110026
Author(s):  
Adam Baczko ◽  
Gilles Dorronsoro
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Civil Wars ◽  
Social Reproduction ◽  
The State ◽  
Theoretical Interest ◽  
Scientific Object ◽  
The Social ◽  
State Capital ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Social Orders

Building on Marx and Weber, Bourdieu developed a sociology for scrutinizing the processes of domination and accumulation that allow social reproduction to take place. Yet, Bourdieu rarely tackled the breakdowns of social orders and never construed war as a scientific object, even if he signaled the theoretical interest in an inverse sociogenesis of the state. Despite this limitation, we argue that his work furnishes conceptual instruments for thinking about change and remains heuristic for understanding the dynamics of civil wars. These extreme situations in return let us rethink some of the theory’s central concepts (fields, habitus, capital). Thus, in succession we examine Bourdieu’s definition of the state (which fits into the Weberian tradition), explain the consequences of defining civil war as a violent competition between social orders, and end with an exploration of the social impacts of civil war on habitus.

Achilles in French Tragedy (1563–1680)

2018 ◽  
pp. 322-335
Author(s):  
Tiphaine Karsenti
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Civil Wars ◽  
Major Part ◽  
Political Power ◽  
The State ◽  
Louis Xiv ◽  
Ethical Concerns ◽  
Tragic Hero ◽  
The Social ◽  
Definition Of

This chapter examines how French playwrights in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries appropriated the epic figure of Achilles. Inheriting both antique and medieval traditions, they made him into a flexible tragic hero, alternately noble, brutal, and romantic. Following the evolution of taste and aesthetics, love and passions progressively took a major part in their treatment of the hero. But the uses of this epic figure also reflect the social, political, and ethical concerns of a France facing profound transformation. From the civil wars opposing Catholics and Protestants in the sixteenth century to the establishment of absolute monarchy under Louis XIV, the definition of the state, the relations between nobles and political power, the vision of man and history were profoundly shaken. The ambivalent characterizations of Achilles, virtuous yet excessive, supportive yet a threat to the king, authorized manifold dramatizations of these contemporary issues.

Constructing Images of Deviance: A Look at State Intervention into the Problem of Wife-Battery

1983 ◽  
Vol 31 (1_suppl) ◽  
pp. 60-76
Author(s):  
Patricia A. Morgan
Keyword(s):  
Social Problem ◽  
State Intervention ◽  
The United States ◽  
The State ◽  
Structural Position ◽  
Wife Battering ◽  
The Social ◽  
Class Context ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
The Cost

Patricia Morgan's paper describes what happens when the state intervenes in the social problem of wife-battering. Her analysis refers to the United States, but there are clear implications for other countries, including Britain. The author argues that the state, through its social problem apparatus, manages the image of the problem by a process of bureaucratization, professionalization and individualization. This serves to narrow the definition of the problem, and to depoliticize it by removing it from its class context and viewing it in terms of individual pathology rather than structure. Thus refuges were initially run by small feminist collectives which had a dual objective of providing a service and promoting among the women an understanding of their structural position in society. The need for funds forced the groups to turn to the state for financial aid. This was given, but at the cost to the refuges of losing their political aims. Many refuges became larger, much more service-orientated and more diversified in providing therapy for the batterers and dealing with other problems such as alcoholism and drug abuse. This transformed not only the refuges but also the image of the problem of wife-battering.

scholarly journals Social commissioning in the sphere of social services provision

2021 ◽  
Vol 66 ◽  
pp. 113-117
Author(s):  
M.O. Buk
Keyword(s):  
Social Services ◽  
Social Order ◽  
Social Care ◽  
Social Issues ◽  
Public Procurement ◽  
The State ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Law ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
State Regional

This article is dedicated to the analysis of the essential hallmarks of social services procurement. The attention is focused on the absence of the unity of the scientists’ thoughts as for the definition of the term “social procurement”. It has been determined that in the foreign scientific literature the scientists to denote the term “social procurement” use the notions “social contracting”, “social order” and “social commissioning”, and they use these notions with slightly different meanings. Therefore, the notion “social procurement” is defined as: 1) activity of a country; 2) form of the state support; 3) complex of measures; 4) legal mechanism. The article has grounded the expediency of the definition of social procurement in the legal relations of social care as a special legal way to influence the behavior of the parties of the social care legal relations. The publication advocates the idea that social procurement is one of the conditions for the rise of the state and private sectors partnership. The state-private partnership in the legal relations regarding the provision of social services is proposed to be defined as cooperation between Ukraine, AR of Crimea, territorial communities represented by the competent state bodies, self-government bodies (authorized bodies in the sphere of social services provision) and legal entities, but for the state and municipal enterprises and establishments, and organizations (providers of social services) regarding the provision of social services, which is carried out on the basis of an agreement and under the procedure set by the Law of Ukraine “On Social Services” and other legal acts that regulate the social care legal relations. The article substantiates the thesis that the subject of the social procurement is social services and resolution of social issues of the state/regional/local levels in the aspect of the satisfaction of the needs of people/families for social services (state/regional/local programs of social services). It has been determined that the main forms of realization of the social procurement in the social care legal relations are public procurements of social services and financing of the state/regional/local programs of social services. The public procurement of social services is carried out under the procedure set by the Law of Ukraine “On  Public Procurement” taking into account the special features determined by the Law of Ukraine “On Social Services”. The social procurement in the form of financing of the state/regional/local programs of social services is decided upon the results of the tender announced by a client according to the plan for realization of the corresponding target program.

scholarly journals Language in social reproduction: Sociolinguistics and sociosemiotics

2009 ◽  
Vol 37 (1/2) ◽  
pp. 43-81
Author(s):  
Patrizia Calefato
Keyword(s):  
Social Reproduction ◽  
Social Dimension ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Sixties ◽  
Roman Jakobson ◽  
New Type ◽  
General Linguistics ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
The Relationship

This paper focuses on the semiotic foundations of sociolinguistics. Starting from the definition of “sociolinguistics” given by the philosopher Adam Schaff, the paper examines in particular the notion of “critical sociolinguistics” as theorized by the Italian semiotician Ferruccio Rossi-Landi. The basis of the social dimension of language are to be found in what Rossi-Landi calls “social reproduction” which regards both verbal and non-verbal signs. Saussure’s notion of langue can be considered in this way, with reference not only to his Course of General Linguistics, but also to his Harvard Manuscripts.The paper goes on trying also to understand Roland Barthes’s provocative definition of semiology as a part of linguistics (and not vice-versa) as well as developing the notion of communication-production in this perspective. Some articles of Roman Jakobson of the sixties allow us to reflect in a manner which we now call “socio-semiotic” on the processes of transformation of the “organic” signs into signs of a new type, which articulate the relationship between organic and instrumental. In this sense, socio-linguistics is intended as being sociosemiotics, without prejudice to the fact that the reference area must be human, since semiotics also has the prerogative of referring to the world of non-human vital signs.Socio-linguistics as socio-semiotics assumes the role of a “frontier” science, in the dual sense that it is not only on the border between science of language and the anthropological and social sciences, but also that it can be constructed in a movement of continual “crossing frontiers” and of “contamination” between languages and disciplinary environments.

scholarly journals Methodical basis of social security measurement of the state

2020 ◽  
pp. 56-62
Author(s):  
Oleh Dzoba ◽  
Nataliia Stavnycha
Keyword(s):  
Social Security ◽  
Social Protection ◽  
Calculated Data ◽  
The State ◽  
Security Assessment ◽  
The Social ◽  
Methodical Basis ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Selection Of ◽  
Integral Indicator

Summary the article has analyzed the existing scientific and methodological approaches to assessing the level of social security of the state. It was revealed that they differ because: scientists include various components that form social security; they use various indicators and calculation methods; have various aspects of both generalization and practical direction. It was revealed that most often the components of social security include: safety of life, health, social protection and aspects of social and labor relations. The methods that are most often used in calculating the level of social security were considered. It was proved that in assessment, the selection of indicators that pose a threat, is the difficult task. It was revealed that there is no legally approved methodology for assessing the social security of the state. The use of various social security assessment methodologies was analyzed. Emphasis was placed on the selection of indicators used in these techniques. It was concluded that for assessing the social security of the state, an integral indicator is used most often. At the same time, scientists prefer their own set of indicators. The author’s definition of «social security» was presented, which allowed the formation of four components of the state’s social security (life, poverty, health and education). It was established that the choice of indicators for assessing the social security of the state should cover a retrospective period and should be based on both reporting and calculated data. A hierarchical model of an integral indicator of state social security was proposed. There was defined a set of indicators for each of proposed component. The following algorithm has been proposed for assessing the integral indicator of state social security: the formation of the components of social security and the definition of indicative indicators for each of the components; formation of a database; determination of an integral indicator; determining the influence of each component on the change in the integral indicator; interpretation of indicators; determining the sustainability of hazardous trends.

Nation Branding

2020 ◽  
pp. 57-73
Author(s):  
Héctor Fernández L’Hoeste
Keyword(s):  
The State ◽  
Nation Branding ◽  
Business Managers ◽  
Imagined Community ◽  
Social Sciences And Humanities ◽  
Role Of The State ◽  
The Social ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Political Technology

This chapter proposes the practice of nation branding as a political technology, as an example of neoliberalism in which the definition of national identity, previously assessed primarily by the social sciences and humanities, becomes the domain of business managers and advertising executives, thanks to technologies associated with social media. It explains how the redefinition of social goods, the role of the state, and the role of experts entail the replacement of a more socially driven understanding of identity with an act of commercial prestidigitation by way of nation branding; the pertinent state entities are replaced by advertising and image consultancy firms; and, lastly, scholars of various disciplines are replaced by advertising and PR executives. In short, following neoliberalism, identity is reinterpreted as brand. Identity no longer results from the never-ending and instantaneous negotiation between a multiplicity of parties, representative of myriad aspects relevant to the configuration of individuals and communities, but is rendered instead as the quantifiable, concrete result of a variety of transactions. Through this reformulation, a new relationship is suggested between the idea of nation as imagined community and the reality of the state as a material expression of the concept of nation.

Battlefields, burials and the English Civil Wars

2018 ◽  
pp. 23-39
Author(s):  
Ian Atherton
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Civil War ◽  
Civil Wars ◽  
Social Memory ◽  
English History ◽  
Mass Graves ◽  
The Social ◽  
Civil War Soldiers ◽  
Parish Registers

Twentieth-century practices of battlefield preservation construct war graves as sites of memory and continuing commemoration. Such ideas, though they have led archaeologists in a largely fruitless hunt for mass graves, should not be read back into the seventeenth century. Hitherto, little attention has been paid to the practices of battlefield burial, despite the suggestion that the civil wars were proportionately the bloodiest conflict in English history. This chapter analyses the evidence for the treatment of the dead of the civil wars, engaging with debates about the nature and preservation of civil-war battlefields, and the social memory of the civil wars in the mid and later seventeenth century. It concludes that ordinary civil-war soldiers were typically excluded from parish registers as a sign that they were branded as social outcasts in death.

Lustration as a Problem of the Social Basis of Constitutionalism

1995 ◽  
Vol 20 (01) ◽  
pp. 245-273 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arthur L. Stinchcornbe
Keyword(s):  
Civil Wars ◽  
Social Supports ◽  
Authoritarian Regimes ◽  
Old Regime ◽  
Regime Changes ◽  
Social Basis ◽  
Cultural Boundary ◽  
The Social ◽  
Minor Part ◽  
Definition Of

One part of building a new constitution after wars, revolutions, civil wars, or dramatic regime changes is to draw a cultural boundary in time, declaring various aspects of the old regime illegitimate and various legalities and constitutional principles of the new regime legitimate. One part of that process, in turn, is to decide how the new regime should treat the guilt of individuals for terror, collaboration, betrayal of information to the regime, and the like. This essay argues that such lustration processes should be a very minor part of the definition of the meaning of the pat, and even less of a part of building social supports under the new constitution. It also assesses the contributions on lustration in this issue in light of this view of what place lustration should play in the construction of democratic constitutions after authoritarian regimes.

Making Merit: The Indian Institutes of Technology and the Social Life of Caste

2015 ◽  
Vol 57 (2) ◽  
pp. 291-322 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ajantha Subramanian
Keyword(s):  
Social Life ◽  
The State ◽  
Social Embeddedness ◽  
Ethnographic Research ◽  
Relational Approach ◽  
Institutes Of Technology ◽  
The Social ◽  
State Capital

AbstractThe politics of meritocracy at the Indian Institutes of Technology illuminates the social life of caste in contemporary India. I argue that the IIT graduate's status depends on the transformation of privilege into merit, or the conversion of caste capital into modern capital. Analysis of this process calls for a relational approach to merit. My ethnographic research on the southeastern state of Tamilnadu, and on IIT Madras located in the state capital of Chennai, illuminates claims to merit, not simply as the transformation of capital but also as responses to subaltern assertion. Analyzing meritocracy in relation to subaltern politics allows us to see the contextual specificity of such claims: at one moment, they are articulated through the disavowal of caste, at another, through caste affiliation. This marking and unmarking of caste suggests a rethinking of meritocracy, typically assumed to be a modernist ideal that disclaims social embeddedness and disdains the particularisms of caste and race. I show instead that claims to collective belonging and to merit are eminently commensurable, and become more so when subaltern assertion forces privilege into the foreground. Rather than the progressive erasure of ascribed identities in favor of putatively universal ones, we are witnessing the re-articulation of caste as an explicit basis for merit and the generation of newly consolidated forms of upper-casteness.

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