Moral Panics

Who would have thought that scuffles between teenagers on the southeast coast of England on a cold April weekend in 1964 would have produced the notion of moral panic? Originating as a concept used to understand the reaction to the behavior of these teenagers, moral panic is one of the few sociological ideas that has entered common parlance. The reaction was considerable in relation to the degree of harm or damage. However, local and national media picked up on the events and alarm expressed by civic leaders and local business groups and made hay with headlines decrying the behavior and announcing the arrival of riot police to relieve what was described as a besieged town. More headlines further contributed to a spiral of reaction, and the issues were raised in the Houses of Parliament. The police and judiciary were urged to “crack down.” In the climate of a much-distorted view of events and behavior, overlong and custodial sentences were handed out for petty offenses such as vandalism. The participants in the moral panics include “folk devils” (the English teenagers), an influential and exaggerating media, local interest and pressure groups (civic and business leaders, religious leaders, and those who make “claims” as to expertise on the perceived problem), local and national politicians, the police, and judges. An important feature of moral panics is the “reaching beyond” the immediate problem with claims that there are society-wide implications; in the case of the teenagers in 1964, their deviant conduct was claimed to be symptomatic of general decline in morals. A moral panic is distinguished from general social anxieties and specific moral crusades when there is first a heightened concern over behavior of a group and the consequences this poses for wider society. There must be a division between “them,” the folk devils, and “us,” the responsible and law-abiding citizens. There must be consensus within society, or at least considerable segments of it, that the threat proposed is very serious. Additionally, the threat, damage, costs, and figures proposed by claims-makers are wildly exaggerated and do not coincide with an objective reality. Finally, moral panics are volatile. They typically explode, reach a pitch, and subside. Classic moral panics can also result in illiberal laws. As we will see, children and young people, and childhood, have regularly been the sites of moral panics.

Engagement of ethics and regulatory authorities on human infection studies: Proceedings of an engagement workshop in Zambia

Human infection studies (HIS) have generally been used as a tool in the pathway for vaccine development in high income settings. Over the last decade, this model has been implemented in LMICs with the aim of accelerating development of next generation vaccines that would perform better in these settings. However, in most LMICs, the ethics and regulatory framework for the conduct of these studies are not in place. In Zambia, these studies are yet to be conducted and thus we conducted a stakeholder engagement workshop in October 2019. We engaged with bioethicists, regulatory authority officials, and scientists from within Zambia and other African countries to anticipate and address foreseeable ethical and regulatory issues when conducting HIS in Zambia for the first time. The workshop largely focused on sensitizing the stakeholders on the benefits of these studies with the following main points for consideration on the implementation of these studies in Zambia: need for in-country legal framework and guidelines; need for adequate informed consent based on comprehensive understanding of the concept of HIS and study requirements; and requirements for heightened vigilance to assure participant safety including good ethical and clinical practice with regulatory, ethical, data safety, and community oversight. Additionally, the workshop emphasized the need for rigorous health screening prior to enrolment; suitable infrastructure for containment; and personnel to provide appropriate treatment including emergency resuscitation and evacuation if indicated. Specific recommendations included compensation for burden of participation; access to care and provision for study related injury (e.g. no-fault insurance); and withdrawal and exit procedures to preserve individual and community safety. Finally, the meeting concluded that researchers should actively engage key gate keepers including civic leaders such as parliamentarians, universities, researchers, potential participants and laypersons to avoid circulation of misinformation.

Types of Anchor Institution Initiatives

Interest in universities as anchor institutions within their communities and cities is growing as civic leaders search for ways to build local wealth. Systematic analysis of the effects of anchor institution initiatives remains difficult due to the disparate nature of anchor initiatives and a relative lack of a shared language describing the work. This article reviews the anchor literature to summarize current understandings of universities and economic development, then develops a typology of anchor institution initiatives based upon the literature. The typology is based upon the type of capital leveraged by initiatives: (a) financial, (b) physical, (c) intellectual, and (d) human. The author then uses the typology to categorize a number of initiatives found within the literature and through a rough sampling process. This typology offers a shared language for scholars to use to guide discussions around universities as anchor institutions, and, more importantly, the typology can frame analyses of the differential effects, costs, and benefits of different anchor strategies.

The Temperance Internationale—Social Democrats against the Liquor Machine in Sweden and Belgium

Chapter 3 pivots to European social democracy and the role that the “liquor question” played in its evolution, both in Sweden and Belgium. In Sweden, the so-called Gothenburg system of disinterested management and municipal dispensary became the foremost alternative to prohibitionism. By entrusting the liquor trade to local civic leaders conducting the business on temperance principles, the profit motive was removed, and with it, the negative externalities of the unregulated liquor trade. The chapter charts the evolution of the liquor question in Sweden through the rise of social democratic leader Hjalmar Branting: from imprisoned journalist to Nobel Peace Prize winner and the first ever social democratic head of state. Similar developments are tracked in Belgium, with socialist minister Emile Vandervelde championing the downtrodden Belgian worker, while also opposing the murderous, capitalist-imperialist liquor exploitation of the Congo by its own sovereign, King Leopold II.

‘On behalf of the city’: wax and urban diplomacy in the late medieval Baltic and North Sea

Focusing on the largely unpublished ‘city accounts’ (‘Stadsrekeningen’) of Bruges, this article examines the city's giving of prestigious Baltic beeswax to their lords, the Valois and (later) Habsburg dukes of Burgundy. It sheds new light on urban government by analysing how civic leaders across north-western Europe used the apiary product to manage often fraught relationships with their rulers and reinforce their identities as trading centres or outposts of international repute. More broadly, the gifting of Baltic beeswax points to the political and diplomatic prestige associated with the trade and display of the commodity in the later medieval period and the desire of urban leaders and communities to extract symbolic and political capital from its exchange.

“Burnt by the scorching sun”: climate-induced livelihood transformations, reproductive health, and fertility trajectories in drought-affected communities of Zambia

Background Climate-induced disruptions like drought can destabilize household and community livelihoods, particularly in low- and middle-income countries. This qualitative study explores the impact of severe and prolonged droughts on gendered livelihood transitions, women’s social and financial wellbeing, and sexual and reproductive health (SRH) outcomes in two Zambian provinces. Methods In September 2020, in-depth interviews (n = 20) and focus group discussions (n = 16) with 165 adult women and men in five drought-affected districts, as well as key informant interviews (n = 16) with civic leaders and healthcare providers, were conducted. A team-based thematic analysis approach, guided by the Framework Method, was used to code transcript text segments, facilitating identification and interpretation of salient thematic patterns. Results Across districts, participants emphasized the toll drought had taken on their livelihoods and communities, leaving farming households with reduced income and food, with many turning to alternative income sources. Female-headed households were perceived as particularly vulnerable to drought, as women’s breadwinning and caregiving responsibilities increased, especially in households where women’s partners out-migrated in search of employment prospects. As household incomes declined, women and girls’ vulnerabilities increased: young children increasingly entered the workforce, and young girls were married when families could not afford school fees and struggled to support them financially. With less income due to drought, many participants could not afford travel to health facilities or would resort to purchasing health commodities, including family planning, from private retail pharmacies when unavailable from government facilities. Most participants described changes in fertility intentions motivated by drought: women, in particular, expressed desires for smaller families, fearing drought would constrain their capacity to support larger families. While participants cited some ongoing activities in their communities to support climate change adaptation, most acknowledged current interventions were insufficient. Conclusions Drought highlighted persistent and unaddressed vulnerabilities in women, increasing demand for health services while shrinking household resources to access those services. Policy solutions are proposed to mitigate drought-induced challenges meaningfully and sustainably, and foster climate resilience.

Legacies of Racial Violence: Clarifying and Addressing the Presence of the Past

Scholars increasingly agree that histories of racial violence relate to contemporary patterns of conflict and inequality, and growing interest exists among civic leaders in reckoning with these legacies today. This volume examines the contributions and limitations of scientific research on legacies of racial violence and suggests implications for policy, practice, and other forms of intervention aimed at redress.

The Great Fizzle

This chapter explores the promise of social unity through networks by looking at the religious nationalism that emerged in the United States around the Atlantic telegraph. As Americans tensely watched the struggle to transmit the world’s first transatlantic telegram, a diverse community—from Protestant missionaries to civic leaders—spoke of the newly united world that electric speech would create in explicitly Christian terms. Public statements that claimed the telegraph as destined and blessed by God were not merely religious ways of speaking about the telegraph; the affective weight born by this Christian vocabulary and imagery forged the affiliation of the telegraph with dreams of global unity in particularly durable ways. This chapter examines alternative imaginaries of obsolete telegraphs (e.g., grapevine telegraph, spiritual telegraph, optical telegraph) that have lost cultural meaning to demonstrate that affect, not the technology itself, produced and sustained network imaginaries of national and global connection. The fragile cable of 1858 and the united “whole world” it was said to create point to the materiality and contingency inherent in the discursive and affective labor of forming public culture.

Engagement of ethics and regulatory authorities on human infection studies: Proceedings of an engagement workshop in Zambia

Human infection studies (HIS) have generally been used as a tool in the pathway for vaccine development in high income settings. Over the last decade, this model has been implemented in LMICs with the aim of accelerating development of next generation vaccines that would perform better in these settings. However, in most LMICs, the ethics and regulatory framework for the conduct of these studies are not in place. In Zambia, these studies are yet to be conducted and thus we conducted a stakeholder engagement workshop in October 2019. We engaged with bioethicists, regulatory authority, and scientists from within Zambia and other African countries to anticipate and address foreseeable ethical and regulatory issues when conducting HIS in Zambia for the first time. The workshop largely focused on sensitizing the stakeholders on the benefits of these studies with the following main points for consideration on the implementation of these studies in Zambia: need for in-country legal framework and guidelines; need for adequate informed consent based on comprehensive understanding of the concept of HIS and study requirements; and requirements for heightened vigilance to assure participant safety including good ethical and clinical practice with regulatory, ethical, data safety, and community oversight. Additionally, the workshop emphasized the need for rigorous health screening prior to enrolment; suitable infrastructure for containment; and personnel to provide appropriate treatment including emergency resuscitation and evacuation if indicated. Specific recommendations included compensation for burden of participation; access to care and provision for study related injury (e.g. no-fault insurance); and withdrawal and exit procedures to preserve individual and community safety. Finally, the meeting concluded that researchers should actively engage key gate keepers including civic leaders such as parliamentarians, universities, researchers, potential participants and laypersons to avoid circulation of misinformation.

Conclusion

This chapter reviews Chicago's industrial base that had been eviscerated, and its place-dependent industrial and civic leaders who, by the 1960s, were fighting a losing battle to maintain the city's industrial prominence. It mentions the relentless structural forces arrayed against Chicago that was true of other industrial centers across the Manufacturing Belt. It also talks about the combination of attractive locational assets and corporate strategies that sought increased market share and profits at the expense of places that led to continued and uneven disinvestment in Chicago's industrial base. The chapter analyses the long-term consequence that saw fewer factories and industrial jobs found in Chicago at the beginning of each new industrial cycle. It reviews how the slow process of decline that began in the 1920s became a tsunami of industrial loss from the second half of the 1940s.