scholarly journals Social workers’ collective policy practice in times of austerity: Italy and Spain compared1

Author(s):  
Riccardo Guidi

Although political responsibility lays at the core of social professions, until recently it has only been weakly exerted. Effectively acting for social justice in a context shaped by neomanagerialism, economic crisis and (permanent) austerity has become crucial for the profession, the users and democracy but is particularly difficult. Based on a critical policy theoretical framework, this chapter illustrates and interprets the features of social workers’ policy practice in Italy and Spain in the austerity age. Against deactivation hypotheses, social workers’ potential in affecting welfare politics is enriched in both countries through the action of collective bodies from within the profession. Beyond flat visions of social workers’ policy practice, the analysis also shows that different mobilisation paths exist. The peculiar interactions between the political opportunities’ structure and the characteristics of professional bodies (political culture, resources, skills) in the medium term can account for the divergence. These interactions seem to be pushing social workers’ policy practice towards particularistic/professional or universal/political achievements.

2017 ◽  
Vol 65 (2) ◽  
pp. 165-182
Author(s):  
Bernadette Connaughton

Abstract Ministerial advisers were first formally appointed as support for individual Irish ministers in 1973, and since then their numbers and tasks have considerably expanded. As ‘temporary civil servants’, they are regarded as both an accepted and criticised feature of executive government. This article focuses on the role of political staff during the period 2011-16 and centres on the period of the economic crisis and its immediate aftermath. It considers themes arising in the international literature that raise questions for the reform of the Irish ‘special adviser’. In order to unpack the specifics of the Irish case, the position and function of special advisers are explored through two theoretical perspectives - public adviser bargains and the core executive. It is argued that the special adviser continues to fit somewhat uneasily within the imperatives of the political-administrative system because they are personally appointed by ministers and their selection is determined by the level and type of support required by individual ministers, as opposed to any preordained skills set.


2018 ◽  
Vol 40 (1) ◽  
pp. 42-64 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lorenzo Feltrin

This article focuses on the part played by Moroccan and Tunisian labour in the 2011 Arab Uprisings and their outcomes, aiming to add fresh evidence to the long-standing debate over the place of social classes in democratisation processes. In Morocco, most labour confederations supported a new constitution that did not alter the undemocratic nature of the political system. In Tunisia, instead, rank-and-file trade unionists successfully rallied the single labour confederation in support of the popular mobilisations, eventually contributing to democratisation. The most important facilitating factor for these divergent processes and outcomes was the different level of working-class power existing in the two countries. On the eve of the Uprisings, working-class power was higher in Tunisia than in Morocco and this enabled Tunisian workers to mobilise more effectively. Democratisation in Tunisia, however, has so far failed to address the demands for social justice that were at the core of the Uprisings.


PMLA ◽  
1937 ◽  
Vol 52 (4) ◽  
pp. 1062-1071
Author(s):  
Werner Paul Friederich

Graviseth's anonymously published Heutelia, only superficially mentioned in manuals of Swiss literature (except Ermatinger's), deserves a short analytic study both on account of its interest as a state-satire preceding the Age of Enlightenment and on account of the rarity of its editions, which are not accessible to scholars in America.The book, published in 1658, does not greatly point to the past, although its satirical trends, its realistic and grobianistic elements, and its dislike of monks and women do indeed remind us of the esprit gaulois of Rabelais and the mentality of Fischart and the pamphleteers of the Reformation. More important is the political aspect of this diary of a critical journey through Switzerland; and the whole tenor of Heutelia, the penetrating analyses of men and their institutions, the sharp attacks against the vices of the ancien régime and the bigoted intolerance of the church, make the book an early forerunner of Montesquieu's Lettres persanes. Its style is still baroque and its vocabulary full of foreign words; but in its keen political criticism this book inaugurates an era of greater liberalism. Graviseth, a German aristocrat from the Palatinate who had become citizen of Bern, may well be likened to Albrecht von Haller, because both of them, though aristocrats to the core, tried equally discreetly to work for greater social justice for all. Haller's state-novels attempt it in the realm of pure thought, in carefully worded philosophical and political dialogues; while Graviseth, much more realistic and earthy, mingles jokes and coarseness in his paragraphs, ridiculing the masses for their materialistic viciousness.


Author(s):  
Gary Craig

This chapter summarises key themes and presents some final thoughts. It argues that there will be occasions when community workers armed with the values of social justice, of whatever ethnic origin, should have no option but to intervene to promote those values. Too often, community workers, social workers, the police, and others have veered away from facing difficult issues within the community for fear of being labelled as racist. Culture is not in itself good, and the acid test should be one of fundamental human rights: does a culture impinge on the human rights of its members? Does it challenge the core values of social justice? Community workers have to arm themselves with these core values in theory and in practice. In the turmoil and confusions of cross-cultural work, and in a context of ever-increasing and more violent forms of racism, this remains their clearest and most important line of defence.


This concluding chapter reexamines the Cyber Left against the backdrop of informational capitalism and history. Through this lens, it discusses indymedia as a precursor to Occupy Wall Street and many of the emergent social movements that have developed since the economic crisis of 2008. It also explains how the core logic and strategy of the Cyber Left played a significant role in the inability of the Global Social Justice Movement to build long-term power. It identifies four interrelated, core problems: (1) a retreat from class and capitalism as analytic and political categories; (2) a tendency toward technological determinism; (3) an anti-institutional bias; and (4) no emphasis on political education and leadership development.


Author(s):  
Jacqueline Castledine

This chapter demonstrates how a host of social justice causes remain at the core of U.S. leftist women's postwar activism, including civil rights and women's equality, and more importantly, peace. Response to their attempts to push the boundaries of good mothering to include such endeavors as political organizing and peace activism suggests the difficulties they would face balancing the personal and the political in the immediate postwar era. The experiences of a group of Progressive Party organizers working across the nation at both national and local levels shows how their determination to continue working for leftist causes, while also performing their social roles as mothers, wives, daughters, and waged workers, was increasingly complicated by domestic reaction to international events.


2013 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 161-183
Author(s):  
Mary L. Mullen

This article considers the politics and aesthetics of the colonial Bildungsroman by reading George Moore's often-overlooked novel A Drama in Muslin (1886). It argues that the colonial Bildungsroman does not simply register difference from the metropolitan novel of development or express tension between the core and periphery, as Jed Esty suggests, but rather can imagine a heterogeneous historical time that does not find its end in the nation-state. A Drama in Muslin combines naturalist and realist modes, and moves between Ireland and England to construct a form of untimely development that emphasises political processes (dissent, negotiation) rather than political forms (the state, the nation). Ultimately, the messy, discordant history represented in the novel shows the political potential of anachronism as it celebrates the untimeliness of everyday life.


Author(s):  
Nguyen Van Dung ◽  
Giang Khac Binh

As developing programs is the core in fostering knowledge on ethnic work for cadres and civil servants under Decision No. 402/QD-TTg dated 14/3/2016 of the Prime Minister, it is urgent to build training program on ethnic minority affairs for 04 target groups in the political system from central to local by 2020 with a vision to 2030. The article highlighted basic issues of practical basis to design training program of ethnic minority affairs in the past years; suggested solutions to build the training programs in integration and globalization period.


2018 ◽  
Vol 13 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 135-143
Author(s):  
Irina V. Rudneva

The article examines the issue of how, under the conditions of growing nationalism in the Socialist Republic of Croatia in the late 1960s, Miloš Žanko, one of the Croatian leaders, bravely opposed the political trends, which threatened both the region and his country. In the newspapers and magazines, at the Party congresses, he entered into harsh polemics with Croatian nationalists, who were exposing their insidious schemes and defending the idea of brotherhood and unity. However, Žanko did not anticipate how deeply nationalist ideology was rooted and how strong it was in Croatia, at what a high level of the establishment this ideology was supported, and what price the person who was daring to oppose it would have to pay.


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