Pub Date : 2023-07-28DOI: 10.1177/08969205231189472
C. Besio, V. Tacke
This contribution demonstrates the potential of Niklas Luhmann’s organization theory to enrich current research on organizational phenomena. Although this theory originated more than half a century ago, we show that it is a powerful instrument to describe and understand the role that different old and new forms of organizations play in current crises and transformation processes. Hereby, we stress two combined advantages of the theory: (1) Luhmann offers a strong concept of organizations as self-referential networks of decisions. This helps to distinguish them from other social entities, for example, groups, social networks, or families. Moreover, the assumption of ‘substitutability of structures’ allows us to grasp the dynamics of a variety of organizations and does not fail to confront even ‘fluid’, ‘virtual’, ‘temporary’, and ‘unconventional’ forms of organization unknown at the time of the theory’s origin. (2) This theory of organization is unique as it is embedded in an encompassing theory of society that offers several concepts suitable to explain the reciprocal influence of organizations and broader social contexts. This prevents any under- and overestimation of the organization phenomenon in modern society.
{"title":"Old and New Organizational Forms in a Complex Society: A Systems-Theoretical Perspective","authors":"C. Besio, V. Tacke","doi":"10.1177/08969205231189472","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/08969205231189472","url":null,"abstract":"This contribution demonstrates the potential of Niklas Luhmann’s organization theory to enrich current research on organizational phenomena. Although this theory originated more than half a century ago, we show that it is a powerful instrument to describe and understand the role that different old and new forms of organizations play in current crises and transformation processes. Hereby, we stress two combined advantages of the theory: (1) Luhmann offers a strong concept of organizations as self-referential networks of decisions. This helps to distinguish them from other social entities, for example, groups, social networks, or families. Moreover, the assumption of ‘substitutability of structures’ allows us to grasp the dynamics of a variety of organizations and does not fail to confront even ‘fluid’, ‘virtual’, ‘temporary’, and ‘unconventional’ forms of organization unknown at the time of the theory’s origin. (2) This theory of organization is unique as it is embedded in an encompassing theory of society that offers several concepts suitable to explain the reciprocal influence of organizations and broader social contexts. This prevents any under- and overestimation of the organization phenomenon in modern society.","PeriodicalId":47686,"journal":{"name":"Critical Sociology","volume":"72 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2023-07-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"74893540","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-07-25DOI: 10.1177/08969205231189452
Matthew T. Huber
{"title":"Reflections on Climate, Class, and Strategy","authors":"Matthew T. Huber","doi":"10.1177/08969205231189452","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/08969205231189452","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":47686,"journal":{"name":"Critical Sociology","volume":"135 1","pages":"1343 - 1349"},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2023-07-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"77428711","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-07-13DOI: 10.1177/08969205231185675
Dina Bolokan
This study provides insights into mechanisms of underclassing in modern society based on interviews with recruiters of agricultural workers in Switzerland. I show that narratives that racialize and ethnicize workers are nurtured by colonial legacies. This reveals that plantation practices and discourses have shaped Switzerland and remain as powerful means of enforcing agricultural racial capitalism. Furthermore, I argue that postcolonial masculinities drive these intersubjective relations. Tracing and situating these postcolonial subject formations on farms allows one to see how caring narratives entangle with a dehumanizing grammar and how this colonial logic is incorporated into social consensus on extractive labor practices. Finally, this reveals how coloniality operates in a postcolonial country that claims political neutrality.
{"title":"Labor Recruitment and Coloniality in the Agricultural Sector: On Plantation Archives, Underclassing, and Postcolonial Masculinities in Switzerland","authors":"Dina Bolokan","doi":"10.1177/08969205231185675","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/08969205231185675","url":null,"abstract":"This study provides insights into mechanisms of underclassing in modern society based on interviews with recruiters of agricultural workers in Switzerland. I show that narratives that racialize and ethnicize workers are nurtured by colonial legacies. This reveals that plantation practices and discourses have shaped Switzerland and remain as powerful means of enforcing agricultural racial capitalism. Furthermore, I argue that postcolonial masculinities drive these intersubjective relations. Tracing and situating these postcolonial subject formations on farms allows one to see how caring narratives entangle with a dehumanizing grammar and how this colonial logic is incorporated into social consensus on extractive labor practices. Finally, this reveals how coloniality operates in a postcolonial country that claims political neutrality.","PeriodicalId":47686,"journal":{"name":"Critical Sociology","volume":"14 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2023-07-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"75273248","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-07-12DOI: 10.1177/08969205231185270
Pankil Goswami
The paper critically dissects the contemporary policy landscape and its ability to counter precarious work for construction workers in the Indian context. By focusing on the governance challenges faced by welfare institutions and the pre-existing fault lines exposed by the pandemic, the paper argues that social policies are languishing and inefficient to respond to the challenges of growing precarity. The paper uses Breman’s conception of ‘Footloose labour’ to understand informality related to construction workers and Gilbert and Terrell’s social policy analytical framework to understand the institutional response. The two major arguments that make the social policy languish are the inability of the policy to alter neoliberal employment relationships and the operational challenges that institutions face in implementing welfare schemes for many footloose labourers. Moreover, the situation is further exacerbated by inherent contradictions of the state which is entangled between promoting economic growth through neoliberal policies while consecutively ensuring labour welfare. If the Institutional challenges persist along with the persuasion of neoliberal reforms, footloose labour is only going to be further marginalized and pushed to limits.
{"title":"The Political Economy of Precarious Work in India: A Case of Languishing Social Policy?","authors":"Pankil Goswami","doi":"10.1177/08969205231185270","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/08969205231185270","url":null,"abstract":"The paper critically dissects the contemporary policy landscape and its ability to counter precarious work for construction workers in the Indian context. By focusing on the governance challenges faced by welfare institutions and the pre-existing fault lines exposed by the pandemic, the paper argues that social policies are languishing and inefficient to respond to the challenges of growing precarity. The paper uses Breman’s conception of ‘Footloose labour’ to understand informality related to construction workers and Gilbert and Terrell’s social policy analytical framework to understand the institutional response. The two major arguments that make the social policy languish are the inability of the policy to alter neoliberal employment relationships and the operational challenges that institutions face in implementing welfare schemes for many footloose labourers. Moreover, the situation is further exacerbated by inherent contradictions of the state which is entangled between promoting economic growth through neoliberal policies while consecutively ensuring labour welfare. If the Institutional challenges persist along with the persuasion of neoliberal reforms, footloose labour is only going to be further marginalized and pushed to limits.","PeriodicalId":47686,"journal":{"name":"Critical Sociology","volume":"86 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2023-07-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"86577261","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
To be effective, the battle against COVID-19 and other pandemics must address the social dimensions of the crisis. The objective of this study was to assess whether negative attitudes toward elite knowledge were associated with vaccine hesitancy in the United States during COVID-19. Attitudes toward elite knowledge were assessed using three measures: (a) the Epistemological Style Inventory’s ‘naive realism’ subscale, (b) a measure about supporting education to foster understanding of politics, and (c) a populism scale. Vaccine hesitancy was measured using a 9-item adaptation of the Vaccine Hesitancy Scale used by the World Health Organization. Multiple regression results revealed that naïve realism (.184, p < .001) and populism (.356, p < .001) were positively associated with vaccine hesitancy, while support of political education (−.296, p < .001) was negatively associated with vaccine hesitancy. These results indicate that to fully understand vaccine hesitancy, the role of attitudes toward elite knowledge must be considered.
要取得成效，抗击COVID-19和其他大流行病的斗争必须解决危机的社会层面。本研究的目的是评估对精英知识的负面态度是否与美国在COVID-19期间的疫苗犹豫有关。对精英知识的态度使用三个指标进行评估:(a)认识论风格量表的“朴素现实主义”子量表，(b)关于支持教育以促进对政治的理解的措施，以及(c)民粹主义量表。疫苗犹豫使用世界卫生组织使用的疫苗犹豫量表的9个项目进行测量。多元回归结果显示naïve现实主义(。184, p < 0.001)和民粹主义(p < 0.001)。356, p < .001)与疫苗犹豫正相关，而支持政治教育(-。296, p < 0.001)与疫苗犹豫负相关。这些结果表明，要充分了解疫苗犹豫，必须考虑对精英知识的态度的作用。
{"title":"Vaccine Hesitancy and Attitudes Toward Elite Knowledge in the United States During COVID-19","authors":"Jeremiah Morelock, Andressa Michelotti, Ly Hoang Minh Uyen","doi":"10.1177/08969205231180267","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/08969205231180267","url":null,"abstract":"To be effective, the battle against COVID-19 and other pandemics must address the social dimensions of the crisis. The objective of this study was to assess whether negative attitudes toward elite knowledge were associated with vaccine hesitancy in the United States during COVID-19. Attitudes toward elite knowledge were assessed using three measures: (a) the Epistemological Style Inventory’s ‘naive realism’ subscale, (b) a measure about supporting education to foster understanding of politics, and (c) a populism scale. Vaccine hesitancy was measured using a 9-item adaptation of the Vaccine Hesitancy Scale used by the World Health Organization. Multiple regression results revealed that naïve realism (.184, p < .001) and populism (.356, p < .001) were positively associated with vaccine hesitancy, while support of political education (−.296, p < .001) was negatively associated with vaccine hesitancy. These results indicate that to fully understand vaccine hesitancy, the role of attitudes toward elite knowledge must be considered.","PeriodicalId":47686,"journal":{"name":"Critical Sociology","volume":"2 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2023-07-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"83686794","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-06-23DOI: 10.1177/08969205231181629
D. Stuart, Ryan Gunderson, Brian Petersen
In December 2022, a scientific breakthrough in fusion energy resulted in widespread media attention with a focus on fusion as a key strategy to mitigate climate change. In this article, we draw from Herbert Marcuse’s work on technological rationality to examine fusion technology in this context. We explore if fusion is seen as a way to master nature, if it protects current power relations, and if a focus on fusion might detract attention and resources from alternatives. Illustrating technological rationality, much attention is being given to the potential achievement of fusion energy, it is being championed by already powerful economic actors, and despite that it is unlikely to be ready in time to support necessary climate mitigation, it may be detracting support for more effective and just strategies that already exist. In this context, framing fusion as a solution to climate change represents what Marcuse calls ‘one-dimensional thinking’.
{"title":"Revisiting Marcuse’s Technological Rationality: Nuclear Fusion Advancement in the Age of Climate Change","authors":"D. Stuart, Ryan Gunderson, Brian Petersen","doi":"10.1177/08969205231181629","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/08969205231181629","url":null,"abstract":"In December 2022, a scientific breakthrough in fusion energy resulted in widespread media attention with a focus on fusion as a key strategy to mitigate climate change. In this article, we draw from Herbert Marcuse’s work on technological rationality to examine fusion technology in this context. We explore if fusion is seen as a way to master nature, if it protects current power relations, and if a focus on fusion might detract attention and resources from alternatives. Illustrating technological rationality, much attention is being given to the potential achievement of fusion energy, it is being championed by already powerful economic actors, and despite that it is unlikely to be ready in time to support necessary climate mitigation, it may be detracting support for more effective and just strategies that already exist. In this context, framing fusion as a solution to climate change represents what Marcuse calls ‘one-dimensional thinking’.","PeriodicalId":47686,"journal":{"name":"Critical Sociology","volume":"34 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2023-06-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"84676525","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-06-22DOI: 10.1177/08969205231181111
Zahir Kolia
The Black and Third World Marxist tradition have demonstrated that colonialism is inseparable from historical accounts of global capitalism. This paper contributes to that project through an account of heterochronic capitalist time by indexing both its uneven incorporation of socio-ecological temporalities and its disciplining of enslaved people. To illustrate this, I examine how Western industrial temporal relations are generative of, and imposed through, its conflictual relations with Indigenous Taíno and enslaved West African socio-ecological forms of time within the Caribbean sugar complex. In addition, I emphasize that despite colonial capitalism seeking to merge African and Indigenous socio-ecological temporal knowledge into abstract labour, it is never a totalizing process. In effect, while colonial capitalism wields various techniques to incorporate Indigenous and African life worlds, there are always phenomenological remainders of cultural temporal difference that do not reproduce the logic of capital. Highlighting two contrasting postcolonial readings of Marx’s notion of subsumption, I argue that we can index the existence of a multiplicity of non-linear and cyclical forms of eternal time that comingle and link past, present and futurity. Inscribing their own emergent dialectics, however, I caution that preserved forms of temporal difference can potentially be taken up in service to reactionary political projects.
{"title":"Colonial Capitalist Heterochronicity: Socio-Ecological Rhythms of the Sugar Plantation and the Formal Subsumption of Historical and Cultural Difference","authors":"Zahir Kolia","doi":"10.1177/08969205231181111","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/08969205231181111","url":null,"abstract":"The Black and Third World Marxist tradition have demonstrated that colonialism is inseparable from historical accounts of global capitalism. This paper contributes to that project through an account of heterochronic capitalist time by indexing both its uneven incorporation of socio-ecological temporalities and its disciplining of enslaved people. To illustrate this, I examine how Western industrial temporal relations are generative of, and imposed through, its conflictual relations with Indigenous Taíno and enslaved West African socio-ecological forms of time within the Caribbean sugar complex. In addition, I emphasize that despite colonial capitalism seeking to merge African and Indigenous socio-ecological temporal knowledge into abstract labour, it is never a totalizing process. In effect, while colonial capitalism wields various techniques to incorporate Indigenous and African life worlds, there are always phenomenological remainders of cultural temporal difference that do not reproduce the logic of capital. Highlighting two contrasting postcolonial readings of Marx’s notion of subsumption, I argue that we can index the existence of a multiplicity of non-linear and cyclical forms of eternal time that comingle and link past, present and futurity. Inscribing their own emergent dialectics, however, I caution that preserved forms of temporal difference can potentially be taken up in service to reactionary political projects.","PeriodicalId":47686,"journal":{"name":"Critical Sociology","volume":"6 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2023-06-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"78725621","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-06-19DOI: 10.1177/08969205231180384
Monique de Jong McKenzie
In an economic environment defined by precarious and gig-based labour contracts, academic research has been reimagined as a source of income for research participants. In addition, with the rise of online labour platforms, researchers have turned to online labour platforms as a solution to the increasing difficulty in recruitment of participants in research. This present context makes explicit the hidden labour that research participants have always done in the production of research outputs within academia. This paper develops a Marxist lens through which we can understand the material conditions of the circulation of capital through academia and the role of research participants in this mode of production. By developing this broad analytical framework for the academic mode of production, this paper further argues that our present economic epoch of the gig economy and specifically the use of digital labour platforms for academic research, has accelerated the subsumption of research participation as a source of income through the fragmentation of work and the gigification of everyday life.
{"title":"Precarious Participants, Online Labour Platforms and the Academic Mode of Production: Examining Gigified Research Participation","authors":"Monique de Jong McKenzie","doi":"10.1177/08969205231180384","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/08969205231180384","url":null,"abstract":"In an economic environment defined by precarious and gig-based labour contracts, academic research has been reimagined as a source of income for research participants. In addition, with the rise of online labour platforms, researchers have turned to online labour platforms as a solution to the increasing difficulty in recruitment of participants in research. This present context makes explicit the hidden labour that research participants have always done in the production of research outputs within academia. This paper develops a Marxist lens through which we can understand the material conditions of the circulation of capital through academia and the role of research participants in this mode of production. By developing this broad analytical framework for the academic mode of production, this paper further argues that our present economic epoch of the gig economy and specifically the use of digital labour platforms for academic research, has accelerated the subsumption of research participation as a source of income through the fragmentation of work and the gigification of everyday life.","PeriodicalId":47686,"journal":{"name":"Critical Sociology","volume":"42 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2023-06-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"83018928","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-06-07DOI: 10.1177/08969205231180263
Acar Kutay
In this paper, I examine the neoliberal transformation of civil society through Mitchel Foucault’s insights concerning knowledge, power, and governmentality. The objective of this paper is to trace the evolving understandings of civil society and how they relate to governmental rationalities and technologies of power. The traditional notion of civil society as a distinct and autonomous sphere has shifted toward an intermediary associations approach under neoliberalism. I posit that the mobilization of non-governmental organizations and civil society organizations by states, international organizations, and donor agencies since the 1990s constitutes a form of governmental technology, influenced by neoliberal rationalities. This technology serves the neoliberal agenda of undermining the social state, promoting market creation, and encouraging non-partisanship. This argument suggests that the rise of civil society as intermediary associations coincides with the decline of society.
{"title":"From Social Sphere to Intermediary Association: A Critical Analysis of Civil Society’s Neoliberal Transformation","authors":"Acar Kutay","doi":"10.1177/08969205231180263","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/08969205231180263","url":null,"abstract":"In this paper, I examine the neoliberal transformation of civil society through Mitchel Foucault’s insights concerning knowledge, power, and governmentality. The objective of this paper is to trace the evolving understandings of civil society and how they relate to governmental rationalities and technologies of power. The traditional notion of civil society as a distinct and autonomous sphere has shifted toward an intermediary associations approach under neoliberalism. I posit that the mobilization of non-governmental organizations and civil society organizations by states, international organizations, and donor agencies since the 1990s constitutes a form of governmental technology, influenced by neoliberal rationalities. This technology serves the neoliberal agenda of undermining the social state, promoting market creation, and encouraging non-partisanship. This argument suggests that the rise of civil society as intermediary associations coincides with the decline of society.","PeriodicalId":47686,"journal":{"name":"Critical Sociology","volume":"22 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2023-06-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"90191453","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-06-05DOI: 10.1177/08969205231177370
Stephen Maher, Joshua K. McEvoy
{"title":"Between De-Growth and Eco-Modernism: Theorizing a Green Transition","authors":"Stephen Maher, Joshua K. McEvoy","doi":"10.1177/08969205231177370","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/08969205231177370","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":47686,"journal":{"name":"Critical Sociology","volume":"36 1","pages":"1323 - 1330"},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2023-06-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"84627546","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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