scholarly journals Mattering as a Political, Scientific, and Professional Basis for Welfare Services

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Steinar Krokstad

The dominant political ideology of recent decades, neoliberalism, have resulted in diminished sense of mattering for several groups in the society, not at least people outside the labor market. This has left its mark on vocational rehabilitation programs in welfare states like Norway. Higher requirements shall be set for benefit recipients, and compulsory work are more often applied. The problem with this policy is that it suggests that benefit recipients have a guilt to make up for and are themselves to blame for the unemployment. However, the majority of people in need for vocational rehabilitation, have had poor living conditions since childhood, and have failed in education and employment for or reasons they have no control over. They often do not feel valued and have a lot of experience with not being able to add value. The problem with blaming the victims, is that it reinforces their sense of worthlessness, and thus reduces their ability to believe that they can contribute with something of value. In this way, the policy becomes counterproductive. Some even respond to these humiliating pressures by becoming more depressive or aggressive. To make vocational rehabilitation programs effective, we must make sure that everyone in need for it feel valued, we must align the political, scientific, and professional basis for welfare service politics thereafter. We must balance adding value to self with the opportunity to adding value to others, work and community. Mattering is suggested as a political, scientific, and professional basis for welfare services.

Author(s):  
Mark I. Vail

This chapter situates the book in theoretical and empirical contexts. It provides a brief overview of competing theoretical approaches to explaining trajectories of economic reform in continental Europe in the era of austerity and transnational neoliberalism since the early 1990s. Since standard analyses of “neoliberal” reform fail to capture these dynamics of economic reform in continental Europe, as do conventional institutionalist and interest-based accounts, it argues for an approach that emphasizes the political power of ideas and highlights the influence of national liberal traditions—French “statist liberalism,” German “corporate liberalism,” and Italian “clientelist liberalism.” It provides a brief overview of the remainder of the book, which uses a study of national liberal traditions to explain trajectories of reform in fiscal, labor-market, and financial policies in France, Germany, and Italy, three countries that have rejected neoliberal approaches to reform in a neoliberal age.


Author(s):  
Christie Hartley

In modern liberal democracies, the gendered division of labor is partially the result of men and women making different choices about work and family life, even if such choices stem from social norms about gender. The choices that women make relative to men’s disadvantage them in various ways: such choices lead them to earn less, enjoy less power and prestige in the labor market, be less able to participate in the political sphere on an equal basis, make them to some degree financially dependent on others, and leave them at a bargaining disadvantage and vulnerable in certain personal relationships. This chapter considers if and when the state should intervene to address women’s disadvantage and inequalities that are the result of gender specialization. It is argued that political liberals can and sometimes must intervene in the gendered division of labor when persons’ interests as free and equal citizens are frustrated.


2021 ◽  
Vol 80 (2) ◽  
pp. 431-437
Author(s):  
Meredith L. Weiss

Much of the work of political science revolves around institutions—the structures through which politics happens. Leaders enter the frame, of course, but often as institutions in human form: presidents, premiers, populists, and mobilizers who serve to channel and direct who does what and what they do, much like an agency or law. We might trace this pseudo-structural, largely mechanical reading of human agency to political scientists of an earlier era: the behavioralists of the 1950s and 1960s. James C. Scott began his career as just such a scholar. For his dissertation-turned-book, Political Ideology in Malaysia: Reality and the Beliefs of an Elite, Scott surveyed a gaggle of Malaysian bureaucrats to examine, effectively, the extent to which their values and assumptions supported or subverted the new democracy they served. Although itself fairly prosaic, that work foreshadows the political grime and games that soon pulled Scott in more promising directions theoretically, whether scrutinizing Southeast Asia or global patterns: disentangling structure from norms, finding agency around the margins of class and state, and rethinking how power looks and functions.


1977 ◽  
Vol 5 (4) ◽  
pp. 1-25 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ian Gordon ◽  
Paul Whiteley

2020 ◽  
pp. 52-57
Author(s):  
Эдиль Канатбеков

В статье рассматривается политическая культура Кыргызстана как одна из важных основ политической жизни общества. Уделяется внимание на необходимость развития политической культуры общества, как фундаментальной основы цивилизации, основ существования общества и общественных отношений. В работе анализируется сущность политической культуры. Описывается проблема формирования политической культуры Кыргызстана как одной из актуальных тем, на протяжении многих лет. Рассматривается формирование и становление политической культуры Кыргызстана, как очень трудоёмкий и долговременный процесс, обусловленный определенными аспектами политико-культурологического характера. Политическая культура конкретной общности состоит из представлений индивидов, их взглядов, политических ценностей, политической идеологии и символики, политических норм, стандартов, стереотипов. Каждый субъект страны являясь гражданином так или иначе становиться свидетелем и даже участником политической реальности, тем самым на основе этих элементов и опыта человек формирует собственный взгляд и определяет для себя систему ценностей и линию поведения. Макалада Кыргызстандын саясий маданияты коомдун саясий турмушунун маанилүү негиздеринин бири катары каралат. Цивилизациянын фундаменталдык негизи, коомдун жана коомдук мамилелердин негиздеринин маңызы катары коомдун саясий маданиятын өнүктүрүү зарылдыгына көңүл бурулган. Изилдөө ишинде саясий маданияттын маани-маңызына анализ жүргүзүлгөн. Кыргызстанда саясий маданияттын калыптануу көйгөйү көп жылдардан бери актуалдуу темалардын бири катары эсептелинет. Кыргызстандын саясий маданиятынын калыптанышы жана калыптануусу саясий жана маданий мүнөздүн айрым аспектилерине байланыштуу өтө эмгекчил жана узак мөөнөттүү процесс катары каралат. Белгилүү бир коомдун саясий маданияты жеке адамдардын идеяларынан, алардын көз караштарынан, саясий баалуулуктарынан, саясий идеологиясынан жана символдорунан, саясий нормаларынан, стандарттарынан, стереотиптеринен турат. Өлкөнүн ар бир субъектиси, ошол өлкөнүн жараны болуп туруп, кандайдыр бир жол менен саясий чындыктын интригасынын күбөсү, ал тургай, катышуучусу болуп калат, ошентип, адам ушул элементтердин жана тажрыйбанын негизинде өзүнүн көз карашын калыптандырат жана өзү үчүн баалуулуктар системасын жана жүрүм-турум линиясын аныктайт. Тhe article considers the political culture of Kyrgyzstan as one of the important foundations of the political life of society. Attention paid to the need to develop the political culture of society as the fundamental basis of civilization, the foundations of the existence of society and social relations. The paper analyzes the essence of political culture. The article describes the problem of forming the political culture of Kyrgyzstan as one of the topical issues for many years. The article considers the formation and formation of the political culture of Kyrgyzstan as a very labor-intensive and long-term process, due to certain aspects of political and cultural character. Тhe Political culture of a particular community consists of individual representations, their views, political values, political ideology and symbols, political norms, standards, and stereotypes. Each subject of the country, being a citizen, in one way or another becomes a witness and even a participant in the intrigue of political reality, thereby the basis of these elements and experience, a person forms his own view and defines for himself a system of values and a line of behavior.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wei Shi ◽  
Chongwu Xia ◽  
Philipp Meyer-Doyle

Although prior research on shareholder activism has highlighted how such activism can economically benefit the shareholders of targeted firms, recent studies also suggest that shareholder activism can economically disadvantage nonshareholder stakeholders, notably employees. Our study extends this research by exploring whether shareholder activism by institutional investors (i.e., institutional investor activism) can adversely affect employee health and safety through increased workplace injury and illness. Furthermore, deviating from the assumption that financially motivated institutional investor activists are homogeneous in their goals and preferences, we investigate whether the influence of institutional investor activism on employee health and safety hinges on the political ideology of the shareholder activist and of the board of the targeted firm. Using establishment-level data, we find that institutional investor activism adversely influences workplace injury and illness at targeted firms and that this influence is stronger for nonliberal shareholder activists and for firms with a nonliberal board. Our study contributes to shareholder activism research by highlighting how the political ideology of shareholder activists and boards affects the impact of shareholder activism on stakeholders and how shareholder activism can adversely affect the health and safety of employees. Furthermore, our paper also contributes to research on workplace safety and the management of employee relations and human capital resources by highlighting the detrimental effect of a firm’s ownership by investor activists on its employees and how the board’s political ideology may enable a firm to reduce this risk.


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