Covid-19 and the Social Construction of Reality in Jordan

Almost all nations are struggling to slow down the transmission of Covid-19 by restricting large gatherings and close social interactions. However, it is not expected that people will stop all social gatherings and interactions voluntarily. This situation requires the construction of a new social reality that compels people to abandon their traditional practices, particularly in countries such as Jordan that have a traditional social order and strong bonding social capital. Nevertheless, Jordan had the lowest rates of Covid-19 in the Middle East during the first four months of the pandemic, because its government used its power to impose restrictions and new regulations. However, the situation has become one of the worst cases in the entire world after the government eased its restrictions. The example of Jordan provides strong evidence that the social construction of reality sometimes requires coercive intervention. Thus, this article reconsiders and extends Berger and Luckmann’s theory of social construction by examining it in the realm of social power. The theory includes three significant processes of social construction: externalization, objectivation, and internalization that should consider the concept of social power to extend the range of its powerful explanation.

State and COVID-19 Response in the Asian Tiger Economies

By comparing the response to the COVID-19 pandemic in the Tiger economies, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Singapore, this article examines the advantages and limitations of the statist command and control approaches to crisis management. Local, regional, and global politics as well as global political economy impinge and influence the state response. The article argues that a combination of factors – the institutional memory, overall state capacity and efficacy rooted in the preexisting institutional nexus, performance legitimacy, trust, reliance on scientific rationality, and integration with global scientific networks – stood in good stead in dealing with the crisis. Yet, as the crisis rolled on, some of the stellar performers showed considerable gaps in planning and politics trumped sensible policies. Despite the commonality, the article shows that there were important differences in the responses of the three Tiger economies, especially in rolling out the vaccines, which can be explained not only by the state capacity but also the larger global politico-economic contexts. The article argues that the state capacity is affected by the global dynamics, the specificity of geopolitical and historical contexts, which must be factored in in explaining successes and failures of state responses.

The Legitimacy of Traditional Leaders in Democracies

This study analyses the issue of legitimacy that unfolds to understand the authority claims of traditional leaders underpinned by customary law in contrast to modern law and legislations in the democracies of two erstwhile British colonies: South Africa and the Tangkhul Nagas of India and Myanmar. The study enquires: if the warrant of modern and traditional law, the fulcrum of traditional leaders’ legitimacy, is questioned in the democratic dispensation, what is the underlying basis of legitimacy that makes traditional leaders resilient? It employs historical, cultural and linguistic analysis to understand how traditional leaders mediate legitimacy. It concludes that cultural cognitive categories like metaphors and aphorisms are instrumental in leveraging the legitimacy claims of traditional leaders across countries.

Between-Class Earnings Inequality in 30 European Countries

This article studies earnings inequality between social classes across 30 European countries. Class inequality in earnings is found across the board although there are some exceptions. However, the degree of class inequality varies strongly across countries being larger in Western and Southern European countries and smaller in Eastern and Northern European countries. Furthermore, we find that differences in class composition in terms of observed characteristics associated with earnings account for a substantial proportion of these between-class differences. Differences between classes in the returns to education and other characteristics play less of a role. In all these respects there is a sizeable cross-national variation. This points to important differences between countries in how earnings are structured by social class.

The Socioeconomic Covariates of Violent and Property Crime Rates in Azerbaijan

The majority of the studies exploring the relationship between socioeconomic factors and crime levels are confined to major industrialized nations. As a post-Soviet, transitional economy with a predominantly Muslim population, Azerbaijan provides a different setting to explore how socioeconomic indicators affect police-recorded violent and property crime levels across cities and districts. This study finds a positive relationship between GRP per capita, the proportion of pupils admitted to university and population size property crime levels. The relationship was linear in all cases. The geographical units with more social benefit (pensions, disability, and family care) recipients had lower acquisitive crime levels, though the significance was marginal. The higher the number of targeted social assistance recipients for poverty alleviation is, the higher the rate of violent crime is, which differs from the findings of similar previous studies. Overall, socioeconomic predictors were significantly better in explaining variations for offences against the property (r=.481) than violent crimes (r=.073). These findings suggest that different crime types are better explained by different economic indicators in the Azerbaijani context. Furthermore, the study shows that most of the covariates function in ways which are observed in the societies covered by the literature.

The Role of Actual Democracy in the Link between National Identity and Support for Democracy

This article analyzes the interplay between national identity and democracy. Multilevel models were tested using European Value Survey (EVS 2017), which includes 30 countries in total. On the individual level, emphasis on non-voluntary features of national identity, where national membership depends on the accident of origin, relates to lower support for democracy. At the country level, the level of actual democracy was taken in to account (Varieties of Democracy 2017). In general, higher levels of actual democracy correlate with stronger support for the ideal democracy, yet, a high level of actual democracy amplifies the negative relationship between non-voluntary national identity and support for democracy.

The Populist Revolt against the West

The question this article tries to answer is: to what extent can the recent rise of populism outside of the West be attributed to anti-Western sentiment? Interest in populism has focused on Western democracies, with far less attention devoted to regimes in non-Western parts of the world. This article takes three major cases – India, China, and Turkey. The article examines the recent intensification of populism in the three cases, but also shows how populism fits into the longer comparative-historical trajectories of a revolt against Western domination. The conclusion puts populism in a wider perspective: how do these non-Western assertions of populism shed light on debates about alternative paths within modernity and on the nature of populism in Western democracies?

In and Out of Control

The present study aimed to predict job control (i.e., task discretion) based on class and occupation with skill use as a (hypothesized) mechanism in four Western European countries by using the OECD adult skill survey (PIAAC). The countries were Denmark, Belgium, Italy, and the United Kingdom (UK). The study used a Bayesian approach that included multilevel models combined with measurement models. The study uses the international standard classification of occupations with two digits (clustering variable) as well as the European socioeconomic classification (ESeC) measured with three social classes. The results indicate that greater worker technical skills (computer use) and social skills (e.g., negotiate and influence) predict higher levels of job control. Social classes interact with skills to predict job control (except Belgium). Occupational computer skills predict job control (in Belgium and Italy). In conclusion, the study supports predictions by neo-Durkheimians, neo-Weberians, New Structuralists, and relational approaches to inequality.