‘Leadership’ as a Project: Neoliberalism and the Proliferation of ‘Leaders’

It is increasingly common for anyone with formal, hierarchical status at work to be called a ‘leader’. Though widespread, this relatively recent change in day-to-day discourse is largely passing by unnoticed. We argue that using ‘leader’ in this way is not simply fashion or empty rhetoric; rather it can be understood in relation to neoliberalism. We argue that the language of ‘leadership’ represents a particularly subtle but powerful opportunity for the pursuit of individual elite interests to be disguised so that it looks as if it is for the benefit of all. This opportunity has arisen because using ‘leader’ has tangible effects that reinforce implied values and assumptions about human relationships at work. In terms of implied values, the label ‘leader’ is celebratory and predisposes us to see elites in overly positive ways. In terms of implied assumptions, referring to executives as ‘leaders’ draws a veil over the structured antagonism at the heart of the employment relationship and wider sources of inequality by celebrating market values. Making ‘leadership’ recognizable as a political project is not intended primarily to suggest intentionality, but to help challenge representational practices that are becoming dominant. ‘Project-ing’ leadership also helps us to emphasize the risks inherent in taking this label for granted; which, we argue, is an important contribution because the language of leadership is increasingly used but is hardly questioned within much contemporary organizational life as well as organization theory.

Between Deference and Defiance: Hierarchical Status Roles and International Conflict

According to recent international relations research, an actor's status ultimately depends on commonly accepted ratings of that actor's valued attributes (e.g., wealth, competence, culture, or coercive capabilities). This manuscript argues that asymmetric reciprocal roles (leaders versus followers, patrons versus clients, teachers versus students, etc.) constitute another, even more fundamental, kind of stratification that can provoke far more acrimonious status conflicts. Such role-based hierarchies remain stable as long as subordinate actors deem their superiors entitled to deferential treatment. Disputes over asymmetrical roles arise when subaltern actors begin to question the right of dominant actors to command, or when actors fear that co-equal parties are trying to establish their social dominance through a series of faits accomplis. In such circumstances, defiance is the status tactic of choice because it directly undercuts disconcerting patterns of deference. By systematically theorizing defiance in status hierarchies, the paper provides an overdue addition to the literature on the breakdown of cooperation and the dissolution of order. It first sketches a theory that lays out the motives and forms of defiant behavior in international status disputes and then illustrates its value in explaining Russian and Greek resistance to domineering Western “partners.”

Reservation of Dalit in theCivil Service of Nepal: Efficacious or Not?

The concept of reservation in state mechanism attaches itself to the idea of breaking or at least stagnating the cycle of perpetuation of hierarchical status in those mechanisms. Reservation of Dalit in such mechanism is guaranteed via both statutory and constitutional requirement in context of Nepal. So much so, that ‘Right of Dalit’ recognised as a fundamental right of Dalit in the constitution encapsulates this requirement exclusively. The study investigates whether the guaranteeing of legal requirement has translated into an efficacious material realisation. It takes representation of Dalit within the civil service as a reference point for this investigation and analyses whether hierarchical status borne out of true phenomenology of caste have been truly shredded by policies of perceived empowerment in civil service symbolic to breaking of hierarchies in state machinery.

Social Justice as a Category in Political Science Analysis

The purpose of this paper is to attempt to determine an objective definition of social justice as a category in political science. The author draws attention to the fact that since the times of ancient Greece, this has been a central concept accompanying in–depth analyses of politics. Making references to classical approaches, the author tries to determine the main formal elements common in publicly postulated interpretations. The concept proposed by the author relies on differentiation between two perspectives on the idea as part of a discursive understanding of politics. Within this framework, solely integration of distribution and recognition allows for capturing the phenomenon of overlapping economic inequalities and hierarchical status orders in societies. Both mechanisms are united by the fact that the starting point for implementing the principles of social justice is the sanctioning of equal moral significance to every member of a political community.

Zich verzoenen met het voorzetselvoorwerp : Over de invloed van Vandeweghe (2011)

Reconciling with the prepositional object. On the influence of Vandeweghe (2011)In this paper I argue for the positive aspects of the claim in Vandeweghe (2011) that there are two types of prepositional object: a primary and a secondary type, which have a different relationship to the predicate. The most discussed consequence of this theory is that it allows a simple sentence to contain two prepositional objects provided that they have a different hierarchical status. Here I focus on sentences with only one possible secondary prepositional object and no other objects. These sentences show that a fixed preposition is not a sufficient condition for a PP to be considered a secondary prepositional object; the preposition should also be used in a non-literal, abstract way. When it is difficult to decide whether this is the case, other semantic properties have to be taken into account, such as the reciprocal character of the predicate.

Karimojong Religion and the Metaphysics of Collective Survival

When studying the Karimojong religion, it is instructive to examine the role of elders (ngikathikou), the centrality of animals in ritual ceremonies, and the pragmatic solutions that the religion provides to social problems. Elders act as intermediaries between the immediately present world and the supernatural. The Karimojong believe in God (akuj) who is believed to reside in the sky, overseeing and responsible for everything that is happening on earth. The hierarchical status of individuals prominent in the society reflects their relative proximity to the sacred and the Divine. Respected elders intercede and communicate with God differently, concerning social matters on behalf of the whole community. Special categories of elders gifted in communication such as prophets (ngikadwarak) attributed with the ‘know how’ of the society, diviners (ngimurok) who foretell the future, dreamers (ngikejurak) who interpret important prophecies and black magicians (ngikapilak). The black magicians are known to do bad things to others, but when they do good to save the community, they are regarded as virtuous and reliable. Not only the sacredness of such persons, but also places (ngakiriketa) where no creatures are killed, objects whose uses are reserved for religious ceremonies, and time periods reserved for such ceremonies, all have a correspondingly paramount importance in the Karimojong religious understanding of reality.

Metabolic signature in nucleus accumbens for anti-depressant-like effects of acetyl-L-carnitine

Emerging evidence suggests that hierarchical status provides vulnerability to develop stress-induced depression. Energy metabolic changes in the nucleus accumbens (NAc) were recently related to hierarchical status and vulnerability to develop depression-like behavior. Acetyl-L-carnitine (LAC), a mitochondria-boosting supplement, has shown promising antidepressant-like effects opening therapeutic opportunities for restoring energy balance in depressed patients. We investigated the metabolic impact in the NAc of antidepressant LAC treatment in chronically-stressed mice using 1H-magnetic resonance spectroscopy (1H-MRS). High rank, but not low rank, mice, as assessed with the tube test, showed behavioral vulnerability to stress, supporting a higher susceptibility of high social rank mice to develop depressive-like behaviors. High rank mice also showed reduced levels of several energy-related metabolites in the NAc that were counteracted by LAC treatment. Therefore, we reveal a metabolic signature in the NAc for antidepressant-like effects of LAC in vulnerable mice characterized by restoration of stress-induced neuroenergetics alterations and lipid function.

Sexual Violence on University Campuses: Differences and Similarities in the Experiences of Students, Professors and Employees

This article presents a portrait of sexual violence on university campuses (SVUC) at six universities in Québec (Canada) and explores differences and similarities in the experiences of students, professors and employees. Data are drawn from the Enquête Sexualité, Sécurité et Interactions en Milieu Universitaire (ESSIMU). They reveal disturbing rates of SVUC among students (36.2%), professors (38.8%) and employees (38.7%). The results show that the hierarchical status of perpetrators was higher than that of victims for a significant proportion of professors (33%) and employees (50.7%). When asked about the type of assistance they would want in the event of SVUC, the majority of students, professors and employees affirmed they would want support during the reporting/complaint process, information about available recourse within the university to report the incident, and psychological support provided by a resource outside the university.

Interactive Effect of Perceived Organizational Politics and Hierarchical Status on Workplace Victimization

Drawing upon deviant place theory, we examined the role of organizational politics in workplace victimization considering the moderating effect of employees hierarchical status in the context of higher educational institutions in Pakistan. Data was collected from 313 employees holding various positions in the teaching faculty of selected universities in Lahore. The survey instrument consisted of existing validated scales to measure the proposed variable; the same were also found consistently reliable in this study. We performed correlation, simple regression, and multiple regression analyses to test hypotheses. Organizational politics indicated to be a strongly positive associate of workplace victimization. The moderated model explained significant variance in workplace victimization indicating that victimization initiated by organizational politics varied with the positional status that the victim holds in the hierarchy. We suggest that a political climate should be discouraged to prevent negative outcomes of victimization at work.