Commoning the State Forest: Crafting Commons through an Indonesian Social Forestry Program

Studies of the commons grew out of responses to Hardin's bleak prediction of “tragedy of the commons,” that without state intervention or privatization, any commons will eventually be destroyed by allegedly self-interested users. As such, the commons studies traditionally tend to demonstrate cases where common pool resources (CPR) can be sustainably managed by groups of people beyond the state and market interventions. This paper shows a case from Sulawesi, Indonesia, where a state social forestry program can create a space for the program beneficiaries to build a commons. Through fieldwork that involves participant observation and in-depth interviews with program extension workers and beneficiaries in two social forestry farmer groups, this study found that the program can stimulate beneficiary groups to build collective action in managing the state forest plots admitted to them and that the two groups are the only successful ones among 14 neighboring groups that are involved in the same program. The study also shows that the management of the state-sponsored commons requires extension workers with deep knowledge about local people and landscape, economic incentives, and the flexibility of the local state agency in bending the rules based on bottom-up demands. Therefore, the case study shows that, on the one hand, the state program can actually stimulate the creation of the commons. On the other hand, commoning seems to be the only way to ensure a successful social forestry program.

Civil Society in Macro Social Work

The connection between macro social work practice and civil society is inextricable. Macro practice focuses on forming and strengthening people’s organizations, communities, and other collectivities that make up the structure and foundation of civil society, defined as the sphere outside of the state and market where people can exercise their right to participate in decision-making on political, social, and other matters that affect their lives. Working with civil society can compensate for some of the limitations of working within state institutions. Civil society’s potential and ability to serve as an arena for realizing individual and community well-being, human rights, and social justice warrant positioning it on equal footing as the state as an area of practice for the social work profession.

PROFILE OF THE ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE IN YOUTH CLUB FOOTBALL (THE PRESENT SITUATION IN BLAGOEVGRAD REGION)

The end of the crisis in Bulgarian football is discussed through the perspective of solving the problems in youth football. Although organizational culture is essential for effectiveness within organizations, few studies are related to the organizational culture in (youth) football clubs in Bulgaria. The article aims at studying the organizational culture in three clubs from the Youth-17 League in the South-West Bulgaria Zone 1 and Zone 2. 60 players and 3 coaches participated in a survey conducted through OCAI (Cameron and Quinn). The weight of certain factors considered important for achievement in clubs was measured through dispersion analysis. The hierarchy and clan types are predominant in the club’s profiles. According to the analysis, the present state is characterized by fewer distractions than the desired state. ANOVA shows that the team success factor has the strongest influence regarding the differentiation of the clan (present state) and market (desired state) types of cultures. The competing experience factor has a lesser effect and differentiates the market and the adhocracy type of cultures (the desired state). The prospect factor differentiates between the clan and market type in the desired state. Both groups surveyed have similar preferences for the types of organizational culture in the teams, with the “strength” of the preference criteria having higher value with the coaches. The typical team sport profile of organizational culture is observed. Coaches can influence the sports training activities and manage the organizational culture in the clubs through the factors mentioned above when players are still young. The study is not representative of the South-West League and Bulgaria as a whole. Organizational culture significantly influences competing efficiency and good youth football players’ making.

Who should care? Exploring the views and experiences of individuals in negotiating solutions for health security

PurposeThe Indonesian healthcare system has been reformed in tune with economic and political changes. The reform was pursued by encouraging growing reliance on individual contributions. Consolidating citizens' support has become increasingly important for the long-term sustainability of the programme. This study explores individual views and experiences in negotiating solutions for health security under the situation where pre-industrial modes of informal network remain intact, while private healthcare continues to be in demand by population segments targeted by the system.Design/methodology/approachIndividual attitudes toward the current healthcare system were explored using online interviews (N = 75) in the cities of Jakarta and Yogyakarta, Indonesia. The qualitative exploratory approach resorted to personal views on the importance of the state, family and market in health risk management. Perceptions on who should be responsible for healthcare, and the political legitimacy of the welfare-state approach to healthcare were also observed. A thematic coding strategy was used for the data analysis.FindingsThose interviewed value and support the formal system (either state and market), yet place reliance on informal support (family and relatives). Intertwining views of religious teaching, filial piety, moral obligation were the most common reasons for individuals to support such dual welfare systems. The findings reflect the common attitudes toward welfare in the context of changing realities of individualised society at the early stage.Originality/valueThis article represents a valuable contribution at the empirical level because it provides an assessment of individuals' attitudes toward Indonesia's recent health arrangements. Such individuals are those belonging to the targeted population of the contributory system. This study also offers an alternative framework for understanding the nature of the healthcare regime generated from the perspectives of individuals.

Using a Resistance Lens to Understand Performative Compliance of Low-Income Lone Mothers

The agency of lone mothers who rely on government income supports is often erased by the discourse of dependency, especially under welfare-to-work eligibility criteria. Here we apply the concept of small acts of micro-resistance in constrained circumstances, augmented by conceptualization of resistance as conscious oppositionality and intentionality to understand the agency of lone-mothers who receive income-assistance (IA) as they make-do and raise children under state- and market-enforced rules. Using a resistance lens reveals the interconnected importance of everyday acts like “talking back” to income-support staff, surreptitious gleaning of goods for resale, and re-storying the self. We describe these in three modalities: resistance as evasion and subterfuge; resistance through asserting positive identities; and resistance in forging their own path. Using a conceptual framework of resistance reveals the extent to which women’s survival and capacity to raise children are contingent on a performance of compliance, demonstrating the impacts of welfare-to-work on female-headed lone parent families.

China’s “Embedded Neoliberal” Home-Based Elderly Care? A State-Organised System of Neighbourhood Governance

Embedding the program of elderly care into community-based service system seems to imply that China is reorganising capacities of neighbourhood governance. The program, created by transformation of neighbourhood governance, represented the state government’s frustration with the institutional embodiment of neoliberalism. However, stimulating neighbourhood organisations in elderly care service through involvement of market instruments demonstrated the neoliberal approach. In this study, we provided a research framework in the context of embedded neoliberalism to explore the dilemma of neighbourhood governance in China. By interviewing 100 elderly people in five neighbourhoods in Nanjing, China, we examined the home-based elderly care (HEC) model to analyse the changes in socio-spatial relationships of neighbourhoods. We argued that the state-organised system of market instruments as a form of neighbourhood system weaken the spontaneity of elderly residents in developing social capitals. Moreover, the emerging program is struggling to operate because the devolution of conservative governance capacity from the state to the neighbourhood does not provide resources, leading to the restrained market provision. Thus, this transformation of neighbourhood governance can only be effective if there is a clear complementarity relationship between the role of state and market instruments. The attention of further studies on neighbourhood governance needs to re-examine the reciprocal relationships in the context of declining neoliberalism.

Genesis of corporations in the liberal model of market economy

The article is concerned with studying of the history of corporations and the evolution of scientific and theoretical justification of the activities in corporate sector, the effective corporations’ structure and their importance for society and economy. The author emphasizes the importance of corporations in the economy in the context of interaction between state and market. The purpose of the article is to study the evolution of theoretical approaches to determining the place of the corporate sector in the liberal model of market economy. The methods of comparative studies and the problem-personified approach to the study of the history of economic ideas are used. Based on the historical and economic generalization of corporate sector’s activities in the twentieth century, the main stages of evolution of the importance of corporations in the economy are determined. The results of the study give a description of the main stages of formation of corporations during which their role in the economy evolved in response to changes in the economic environment. The dual nature of the influence of corporations on economy and society in a free market is determined, which consists in ensuring economic growth and accelerating technological progress as opposed to the negative effects of monopoly. It is established that the need to minimize the impact of destructive factors and strengthen the driving factors of the corporate sector contributed to changes in the relationship between state and market with the strengthening of state regulation of the economy. The results of research are important for understanding the need to create such conditions for the functioning of the corporate sector, which would ensure the most efficient use of corporate opportunities for society.

China’s “Economic Miracle” and the Universal Modernization Model

Neoclassical economics relies on highly formalized deductive logic to create an overly simplified picture of economic practices. Its universalized model of modernization assumes that the relationship between state and market is antagonistic. This presumption reduces China’s “economic miracle” to a simple transformation into a market economy and underestimates the role played by the government, making it impossible to construct a theory that considers China’s subjectivity. Studies on China’s economy should focus on its practices, which may appear to be paradoxical if seen only from the perspective of Western neoclassical economics, in order to construct an accurate depiction of the foundations of China’s development experience. Only through such an endeavor will it be possible to incorporate into any new theory of economic modernization the distinctive features of China’s development.

Families, States, and Markets

The primary objective in this chapter is to understand family as an object of state policy on the one hand, and market functioning on the other, in a range of countries today. This is accomplished through an analysis of the expansion and reform of family-related policies over the past ten years and a consideration of how these are to be explained, especially in light of the classical approaches to the family. The empirical line of analysis is to identify emerging policy approaches to the interrelations between family, state, and market, in their own right as they evolve in particular countries and in light of a seeming consensus on the part of the European Union (EU) and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) about the appropriate focus and organization of family and work life today.The chapter proceeds in four steps. The first introduces the field, outlining the main features of family policy as it has developed over time and the insights of scholarship. Following this, the piece moves on to consider the main contours of current reform, especially in light of the model(s) of family policy being promoted by the EU and the OECD. The third section considers explanatory factors and the utility of the main approaches to understanding family policy. A conclusion brings the piece to a close.