Using "risk" as a conceptual lens, this book analyzes how communities across East Asia responded to the disruption unleashed by the COVID-19 pandemic. The contributors to this book look at how governments, societies, and individuals have perceived, experienced, dealt with and interpreted the pandemic and the transformations it has brought across countries like Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Vietnam, and the Philippines. They examine pressing concerns such as infodemic, digital health literacy, media cynicism, telework, and digital inequalities in conjunction with issues such as public trust, identity formation, nationalism, and social fragmentation. They look at a wide range of questions relating to communication, mediation, and reactions to the challenges of the pandemic. An insightful resource for scholars of risk studies and of East Asian societies, the book is also a valuable reference for students and researchers of media and communication studies and sociology.

This book considers the role of experts and expertise in contemporary politics and the ways in which digitalisation and the use of technique are transforming practices of governance. Asking whether the Covid-19 crisis is likely to further advance or weaken these processes, it examines their impact on the future of democracy and urges rejection of the idea of technocracy as an alternative to politics. An examination of the relationship between social elites and technique, this volume highlights the threat posed to representative democracy of this fundamental mechanism of governance in the global world and reflects upon new forms of the political-economic regime. It is important reading for scholars of sociology and politics with interests in questions of power, governance, and representation.

This book explores two public sector scandals in the UK, drawing on Max Weber's thought on 'the iron cage' to understand how these cases of patient-neglect in NHS hospitals and failures by police and social workers to address the organised sexual exploitation of young girls occurred. Through examination of the management failures and institutional vulnerabilities, and with attention to the trends of bureaucratisation and rationalisation that characterised both scandals, it reveals the explanatory power of Weber's thought, developing a theoretical model that updates and extends Weber's work in light of the cases discussed. The final chapter examines the response to the COVID-19 pandemic and highlights how the focus on a rational techno-medical solution to the pandemic offered by the vaccines together with bureaucratic expansion has created an authoritarian and totalitarian society which represents the ultimate realisation of Weber's iron cage. Showing that ordinary people, including professionals, are still trapped in the 'iron cage', it will appeal to scholars of sociology and social theory, as well as those providing training and working within the caring and service professions of policing, social work and nursing.

i)Everyone has experienced trusted and betrayed in the past. Read this book to see how professionals analyze TRUST from a sociological perspective. ii)As the countryside life fades away, how can strangers in the city be trusted? Will enlarging discussion group and sending greetings to friends in the New Year help to build trust relationship? Answers are in this book.

Presenting a wide range of international case studies, the contributors to this book study the impact of Covid-19 on the risks faced by communities around the globe. Examining cases from the Americas, Europe and Asia - including Mexico, Brazil, China, India, France, and Belgium - Kuah, Guiheux, Lim and their collaborators look at how communities have coped with the social and economic impacts of the pandemic, as well as the public health concerns. Using a framework of risks, fear, and trust, they evaluate how the global health crisis has both revealed and exacerbated a deep crisis of confidence in institutions and systems around the world. In reaction to this they also look at how individuals, social groups and communities have faced fears and built trust at a more local level. The units of spatial analysis in these cases include urban cities, neighbourhoods, slum settlements, migrant camps, schools, markets and homes, for a broad spectrum of case types and rich empirical data. Essential reading for social scientists including sociologists, anthropologists and scholars of other disciplines looking to understand the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic internationally and on a multi-scalar level.

This book is about tax and social policy and how they interact with each other. The impact of taxation as an instrument of social policy is central in influencing redistribution and behaviour. This broad-based edited collection fills a significant gap in both literatures, bringing together disparate debates in this emerging area of analysis. It guides readers through the key interactions of tax and social policies and the central debates and challenges posed by their effect on each other. It examines how analyses might be combined and policy options developed for more effective delivery and impact in both areas.

The idea of civilization recurs frequently in reflections on international politics. However, International Relations academic writings on civilization have failed to acknowledge the major 20th-century analysis that examined the processes through which Europeans came to regard themselves as uniquely civilized - Norbert Elias's On the Process of Civilization. This book provides a comprehensive exploration of the significance of Elias's reflections on civilization for International Relations. It explains the working principles of an Eliasian, or process-sociological, approach to civilization and the global order and demonstrates how the interdependencies between state-formation, colonialism and an emergent international society shaped the European 'civilizing process'.

This handbook offers a collection of scholarly essays that analyze questions of reproductive justice throughout its cultural representation in global literature and film. It offers analysis of specific texts carefully situated in their evolving historical, economic, and cultural contexts. Reproductive justice is taken beyond the American setting in which the theory and movement began; chapters apply concepts to international realities and literatures from different countries and cultures by covering diverse genres of cultural production, including film, television, YouTube documentaries, drama, short story, novel, memoir, and self-help literature. Each chapter analyzes texts from within the framework of reproductive justice in an interdisciplinary way, including English, Japanese, Italian, Spanish, and German language, literature and culture, comparative literature, film, South Asian fiction, Canadian theatre, writing, gender studies, Deaf studies, disability studies, global health and medical humanities, and sociology. Academics, graduate students and advanced undergraduate students in Literature, Gender, Sexuality and Women's Studies, Cultural Studies, Motherhood Studies, Comparative Literature, History, Sociology, the Medical Humanities, Reproductive Justice, and Human Rights are the main audience of the volume.

Originating in the popular Sociologia en Cuarantena blog, this volume provides a detailed and multifaceted analysis of the social impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in Spain. This book originates in the great upheaval caused by the COVID-19 pandemic when the unprecedented announcement of global lockdowns paralysed the world and put social relations on hold. In response, a loose collective of sociologists, historians and philosophers from various Spanish universities began to share their reflections on the pandemic on the Sociologia en Cuarantena blog. This book takes some of those thoughts and delves deeper into the recurring themes as they relate to the Spanish experience of the pandemic. The chapters in the first part of the book address the social and political context of the various measures put in place by the government to deal with the health, economic and social effects of the pandemic. Subsequently, several chapters examine how the pandemic led to important reflections on uncertainty and authority in processes of scientific knowledge production. Other chapters analyse the effects of the pandemic on demographics, the organisation of care, the education system, the organisation of work and the recognition of essential workers, immigration policies and the digitalisation of society. Collectively, the contributions call into question the narrative of exceptionalism that views the pandemic as a singular event that is uniquely responsible for the present situation of uncertainty and instability. They also draw attention to the fragility of social prestige and trust in neglected and weakened public institutions, as well as identifying a growing socio-political polarisation that may be highly significant in the future. This collection will appeal to students and researchers with an interest in contemporary Spain and the socio-political effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.

In an age of extreme political polarization and waning of reasoned debate across political divides, Capitalism for Realists carefully explores the inner workings of capitalism in a consciously non-partisan and balanced way. Does the modern capitalist economy alleviate poverty and exploitation, or exacerbate them? What, exactly, is 'neoliberalism,' and how well or poorly has it performed in the past 40 years? Does capitalism undermine democracy, or is it rather one of its key necessary conditions? How have altruism, cooperation, tolerance, violence, and trust fared under the influence of the modern market society? Should we analyse capitalism through the mainstream economic lens or a more critical Marxist perspective? This book offers answers to these questions. Synthesizing decades of research across disciplines, Capitalism for Realists offers an overarching perspective on the modern economy by theoretically unifying many of the claims and conclusions about it offered by various traditionally rivalrous social science paradigms, such as institutional, neoclassical, and public choice economics on the one hand, and Marxist sociology on the other. The book presents and critically assesses the latest data and debates on such crucial contemporary issues as the relationship between poverty, exploitation, inequality, and capitalism, the nature of 'neoliberalism' and the successes and failures of both state-led industrial policy and the Washington consensus, capitalist peace theory, historical origins of modern capitalism, and more. What emerges is a clear picture of the merits and demerits of the modern economy too nuanced to be simplified and categorized by the prevailing political discourses. Rich in empirical detail, this lively, accessible book will appeal to undergraduate and graduate students with interests in sociological theory, political theory, economics, and political and economic sociology.

In an age of extreme political polarization and waning of reasoned debate across political divides, Capitalism for Realists carefully explores the inner workings of capitalism in a consciously non-partisan and balanced way. Does the modern capitalist economy alleviate poverty and exploitation, or exacerbate them? What, exactly, is 'neoliberalism,' and how well or poorly has it performed in the past 40 years? Does capitalism undermine democracy, or is it rather one of its key necessary conditions? How have altruism, cooperation, tolerance, violence, and trust fared under the influence of the modern market society? Should we analyse capitalism through the mainstream economic lens or a more critical Marxist perspective? This book offers answers to these questions. Synthesizing decades of research across disciplines, Capitalism for Realists offers an overarching perspective on the modern economy by theoretically unifying many of the claims and conclusions about it offered by various traditionally rivalrous social science paradigms, such as institutional, neoclassical, and public choice economics on the one hand, and Marxist sociology on the other. The book presents and critically assesses the latest data and debates on such crucial contemporary issues as the relationship between poverty, exploitation, inequality, and capitalism, the nature of 'neoliberalism' and the successes and failures of both state-led industrial policy and the Washington consensus, capitalist peace theory, historical origins of modern capitalism, and more. What emerges is a clear picture of the merits and demerits of the modern economy too nuanced to be simplified and categorized by the prevailing political discourses. Rich in empirical detail, this lively, accessible book will appeal to undergraduate and graduate students with interests in sociological theory, political theory, economics, and political and economic sociology.

Climate change is not just a scientific fact, nor merely a social and political problem. It is also a set of stories and characters that amount to a social drama. This drama, as much as hard scientific or political realities, shapes perception of the problem. Drs Smith and Howe use the perspective of cultural sociology and Aristotle's timeless theories about narrative and rhetoric to explore this meaningful and visible surface of climate change in the public sphere. Whereas most research wants to explain barriers to awareness, here we switch the agenda to look at the moments when global warming actually gets attention. Chapters consider struggles over apocalyptic scenarios, explain the success of Al Gore and An Inconvenient Truth, unpack the deeper social meanings of the climate conference and 'Climategate', critique failed advertising campaigns and climate art, and question the much touted transformative potential of natural disasters such as Superstorm Sandy.

This book looks at how sociological concepts that were first invented and applied to describe social inequality in Europe were also used to understand and explain inequality in the US. Hess analyzes changing uses of concepts and measurements of social inequality by looking at how some of the most prominent American sociologists have tried to conceptualize their own society while at the same time addressing the complex relationship between an assumed political equality and de facto social inequality.

Connecting Practices develops a distinctive method of conceptualising significant trends and global issues including environmental sustainability and inequalities in wealth and health, arguing that these are outcomes of the ways in which social practices interact and combine across space and time. Engaging with the question of how connections are made between practices and how past and present combinations make some futures more likely than others, this book brings practice theory to bear on large problems in society. Richly illustrated with examples from the spreading of germs to the history of shipping containers, this powerful analysis of how societies hang together and how they change will appeal to scholars and students of sociology and social theory.

--Riveting accounts of difficult expeditions-some historically famous-offer a unique window onto polar ventures. --Exemplifies historical and social science methods for student readers. --Draws valuable findings that apply to many forms of modern disasters and challenges.

1. Unlike more conventional texts, this book offers over 50 pithy and thought-provoking essays on a wide range of socially and legally prohibited acts, offering students a critical analysis of these issues. 2. Each entry offers further readings and suggestions for other media to develop the reader's understanding of these issues. 3. The new edition has been updated and extended and includes new entries on issues such as the alt-right, protest, online abuse, cybercrime, drug trafficking, populism and use of weapons.

Drawing on an ethnographic study on young Moroccan immigrants in Europe (France and Italy), this book analyses the hegemonic power of heteronormativity and its plural expressions. It tries to give an answer to the following main questions: How the normative power of heterosexuality is socially constructed among men? How and why heterosexuality is interpreted as the socially "appropriate" norm to be recognised as a "true" man by other men? Attention is focused on those people who use heteronormativity in order to produce and reproduce heterosexual identifications through performing hegemonic masculinities. The objective is to deconstruct the "normality" of heterosexuality and the ways through which it is commonly used as a normative reference to talk about sexual life as well as to build masculinities, especially within homosocial relationships. An enlightening book consisting of a rich empirical material and theoretical analysis, this volume will appeal to undergraduate and postgraduate students, as well as postdoctoral researchers who are interested in fields such as Sociology, Anthropology and Gender Studies.

Introduces and develops new concepts of general sociological value for the study of interpersonal relations Develops the understanding of the role of intentions, ideals and hope in organizations Explores love and intimacy in a new and unexpected organizational context Provides a novel analytical framing to explore core features of monastic life Offers unique insights into the social relations of a closed world with great historical importance

1. The concept of social harm is gaining in ground in Criminology as an alternative way of reconceptualizing crime within a wider context. This book offers a major intervention in taking stock of the field and suggesting ways forward. 2. This book would certainly be used as supplementary reading across a number of courses in criminological and social theory, as well as upper level courses on social problems and advanced criminological theory. 3. This book is multi-disciplinary, moving beyond criminology to consider liberal political economic theory and moral philosophy.

Renowned social and political theorist Bob Jessop explores the idea of civil society as a mode of governance in this bold challenge to current thinking. Developing theories of governance failure and metagovernance, the book analyses the limits and failures of economic and social policy in various styles of governance. Reviewing the principles of self-emancipation and self-responsibilisation it considers the struggle to integrate civil society into governance, and the power of social networks and solidarity within civil society. With case studies of mobilisations to tackle economic and social problems, this is a comprehensive review of the factors that influence their success and identifies lessons for future social innovation.

The concept of risk is an outgrowth of our society's great concern about coping with the dangers of modern life. The Perception of Risk brings together the work of Paul Slovic, one of the world's leading analysts of risk, risk perception and risk management, to examine the gap between expert views of risk and public perceptions. Ordered chronologically, it allows the reader to see the evolution of our understanding of such perceptions, from early studies identifying public misconceptions of risk to recent work that recognizes the importance and legitimacy of equity, trust, power and other value-laden issues underlying public concern.

This innovative book provides a critical analysis of diverse experiences of Co-creation in neighbourhood settings across the Global North and Global South. A unique collection of international researchers, artists and activists explore how creative, arts-based methods of community engagement can help tackle marginalisation and stigmatisation, whilst empowering communities to effect positive change towards more socially just cities. Focusing on community collaboration, arts practice, and knowledge sharing, this book proposes various methods of Co-Creation for community engagement and assesses the effectiveness of different practices in highlighting, challenging, and reversing issues that most affect urban cohesion in contemporary cities.

This book explores the thought of Olive Schreiner, the internationally famous writer, feminist theorist, social critic, opponent of imperialism and nationalism, and analyst of violence and war, best known for her novels and short stories, articles and critical commentaries, and her feminist treatise, Women and Labour. Expounding her groundbreaking ideas and analyses to a new generation of sociologists, it presents Schreiner as one of the first proponents of an intersectional analysis, in her treatment of the great questions of the age - on labour, women and race - as mutually reinforcing and also bound together with capitalism, imperialism and war in society. Through an analysis of her use of different genres of writing in representing the complexities of social life and oppressions, the author reveals a combination of social theory with practical substantive examples and analysis at the core of Schreiner's intellectual and moral project - an approach that put her at odds with her contemporaries but shows her to be a forerunner of present-day sociological thinking. An examination of the significance for sociology of the work of a figure, the importance of whose thought is only now being recognised, Reintroducing Olive Schreiner will appeal to scholars of sociology and social theory with interests in the history of the discipline, intersectionality and methods of research and analysis.

This book explores the thought of Olive Schreiner, the internationally famous writer, feminist theorist, social critic, opponent of imperialism and nationalism, and analyst of violence and war, best known for her novels and short stories, articles and critical commentaries, and her feminist treatise, Women and Labour. Expounding her groundbreaking ideas and analyses to a new generation of sociologists, it presents Schreiner as one of the first proponents of an intersectional analysis, in her treatment of the great questions of the age - on labour, women and race - as mutually reinforcing and also bound together with capitalism, imperialism and war in society. Through an analysis of her use of different genres of writing in representing the complexities of social life and oppressions, the author reveals a combination of social theory with practical substantive examples and analysis at the core of Schreiner's intellectual and moral project - an approach that put her at odds with her contemporaries but shows her to be a forerunner of present-day sociological thinking. An examination of the significance for sociology of the work of a figure, the importance of whose thought is only now being recognised, Reintroducing Olive Schreiner will appeal to scholars of sociology and social theory with interests in the history of the discipline, intersectionality and methods of research and analysis.

Strong, salient introduction to a notable 20th century critical theorist Key texts from the corpus provided in new or premiere English translations Provides an introduction that gives a robust, systematic orientation to Freitag's work and legacy Selected primary texts and essays will be attractive for courses and researchers