What is Social Economics?

During the 1950s at the latest, Max Weber became a ‘founding father’ of sociology, chiefly on the basis of a restricted set of canonical writings and without any consideration of his wider relationships to law, economics and politics. During the last ten years of his life he was responsible for a major collaborative work, the Grundriss der Sozialökonomik—Outline of Social Economics. The title was of his own choosing; and so it might well shed new light on his work if we consider how this work was organised, and how Economy and Society, written as a contribution to this handbook, was intended to form part of it.     

Quo Vadis,Social Theory?

John R. Hall, Cultures of Inquiry: From Epistemology to Discourse in Sociohistorical Research     

A Model of Social Security?

This essay provides historical perspective to Senator Bernie Sanders’ appropriation of elements of the Nordic model in the 2016 campaign by studying how Scandinavia was used as a political image in 1930s United States. Departing from previous scholarship, this essay argues that accounts of Scandinavian achievements were variable in their ideological outlook and sometimes deliberately challenged the existence and goals of New Deal policies. Moreover, this essay explores the usage of Scandinavia in New Deal social legislation by examining the policymaking rhetoric of the Social Security Act and its 1939 amendments. The surprising plasticity of the Scandinavian image amongst policymakers ultimately reveals the fluid nature of both New Deal-era politics and the Scandinavian images it appropriated.     

Beyond the Technocrat? The Professional Expert in Development Practice

This article traces the use of the term ‘technocratic’ to describe development practice, and the concomitant use of ‘technocrat’ to describe professional experts who engage in development work. It locates the use of these terms as pejorative labels within understandings of professional experts as part of an apparatus of governmentality that depoliticizes development intervention. It argues, however, that such understandings miss the crucial point of engagement in development practice between these agents and other actors which opens ‘learning spaces’ that have the potential for a range of outcomes.     

Losing Control? Inequality and Social Divisions in Oslo

The debate on inequality and social divisions in Western cities has been dominated by three positions - the polarization thesis, the 'skills mismatch' thesis and a specific European approach emphasizing the significance of welfare state structures. These three positions are examined with data from Oslo, Norway. It is shown that although income inequality has increased, there is no consistent pattern of social divisions. The evidence provides support both for the polarization and the mismatch thesis, dependent on the unit of analysis and the group in question. It is difficult to spot influences of the welfare state in these data, and it is argued that rising inequality, contrary to service provision, poverty and segregation, approaches a 'closed process'. Increased earnings at the very top, however, may be explained in terms of social networks.     

After Geopolitics? From the Geopolitical Social to Geoeconomics

Abstract:  This paper makes two central arguments. First, the popular language of geopolitics needs to be understood as historically emerging from and helping create a "geopolitical social", which both crosses and crafts traditional borders of internal and external to the national state. Second, we suggest that geoeconomic social forms are gradually supplanting this geopolitical social. After establishing the geopolitical social associated with traditional geopolitics, from Ratzel to Bismarck, we examine the erosion of geopolitical calculation and the rise of the geoeconomic. We trace emerging geoeconomic social forms in three domains: the reframing of territorial security to accommodate supranational flows; the recasting of social forms of security through the market; and the reframing of the state as geoeconomic agent. Neither an exercise in "critical geopolitics" nor an endorsement of Luttwakian style geoeconomics, this paper assumes no straightforward historical succession from geopolitical to geoeconomic logics, but argues that geoeconomics is nonetheless crucial to the spatial reconfiguration of contemporary political geography.     

Circulation of Coronavirus Images: Helping Social Distancing?

As soon as the SARS-Cov2 disease was recognized by experts to potentially cause a serious pandemic, a three dimensional diagrammatic image of the virus, colored in strong red, conquered public media globally. This study confronts this iconic virus image with a historic image analysis of 33,000 biomedical articles on coronaviruses published between 1968–2020 and interviews with some of their authors. Only a small fraction of scientific virus publications entail images of the complete virus. Red as an alarm color is not used at all by scientists who don't aim for a non-scientific public. Circulation in this case concerns the movement of iconic images from a scientific context into a general public. On the basis of hps-studies on scientific diagrams and especially on color use in scientific diagrams to convey specific messages in public, the paper discusses the role of the claim of public corona-virus diagram as “scientific.” It points at relevant differences between most frequent scientific corona-virus images and the diagrammatic image used in public. Both author- and readerships (in science and public) follow contrasting aims and values. Thus, the images meet non-expert readers for whom the images entail very different – and potentially unintended – meanings then to virus experts.     

Private Life Dramas? Sexuality,Regulation and Social Identities

Lawrence Stone, Broken Lives: Separation and Divorce in England, 1680–1857 A. James Hammerton, Cruelty and Companionship: Conflict in Nineteenth-Century Married Life Diana Jeater, Marriage, Perversion and Power: The Construction of Moral Discourse in Southern Rhodesia, 1894–1930 Karen Dubinsky, Improper Advances: Rape and Heterosexual Conflict in Ontario, 1880–1928     

Entitled to Health? Social Protection in Chile's Plan AUGE

In theory everyone has the right to health. However, in reality many low income households are unable to fully access health services and therefore cannot fully claim their rights. Recently, in an attempt to overcome these limitations, health reforms in Chile under the Plan AUGE have proposed a series of legal entitlements to health care that are available to everyone regardless of income level. While this is an important starting point in ensuring more universal access to health, the process has raised a number of important issues, particularly on how these entitlements have been defined and how far they will be able to transform (gender) inequalities within the health system. Looking at this from a gender perspective enables us to see that despite the shift from a health care system based on redistributive rights towards one based on the right of recognition, certain sectors of the population remain excluded. Decision‐making processes have remained technocratic, and women's groups have been marginalized from the debate around the reform. Moreover, health policy makers continue to ignore the role of the unpaid care economy in health care provision. The current reform has served to reinforce the gender roles around health care.     

Corporate Social Responsibility: reinventing the meaning of development?

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has been adopted as an approach to international development. But who does it benefit and in what ways? Most importantly, does it allow certain interest groups to redefine the meaning of international development success? This article examines the historical relationship between business and development and compares how expectations of business as exemplified through CSR practices differ from those in the past. It then looks at the role and expectations of business in developing countries and proposes two tests for assessing if CSR makes a positive contribution to development goals based on whether it redefines the meaning of good business practice in the interests of the poor and marginalized, and if it helps development practitioners to manage more effectively the possibility and consequences of global capitalism for poor countries. The article argues that the interests of business are not adequately aligned with those of the poor, and explains why CSR does little to redress this. It argues that the business case in some instances overrides the developmental case for certain actions, and that business thinking is increasingly evident in the policies and practices of international development. Although CSR may have a positive contribution to make in some circumstances, its limitations need to be understood if development's case for involving business is not to be subsumed by business reasons for engaging with (and by‐passing) developing countries.     

Defining “Official” Built Heritage Discourses within the Irish Planning Framework: Insights from Conservation Planning as Social Practice

Conservation of built heritage is a key planning process and goal which shapes urban development outcomes across European cities. In Ireland, conservation of the built heritage is a key part of the planning framework, albeit one that is, in comparative terms, only recently established. While it is widely recognized that the underlying rationale for conservation of built heritage varies considerably (from cultural priorities to place marketing), the literature suggests that heritage and conservation professionals perform a key role in controlling decision-making through an official or “authorized” heritage discourse (AHD), emphasizing expert values and knowledge and based around selective heritage storylines often reflecting elite tastes. Drawing on policy and practice in Ireland, in this paper, we contribute to these debates by further unpacking the AHD, exploring tensions within the heritage policy elite through examination of competing views and representations relating to the purpose of built heritage protection. Based on a discourse analysis following interviews with key national actors, we identify two key narratives—a “museum-curatorial” discourse and an “inclusive heritage” discourse—which in turn frame conservation practices. We argue that subtle variations of heritage meanings have the potential to either reproduce (museum-curatorial discourse) or challenge (inclusive heritage discourse) conventional modes of practice, particularly relating to the relationship between built heritage and identity and the role of public engagement.     

Economics and Social Sciences: Complements,Competitors, Accomplices?

In November 2000 the 10th annual conference of the European Association for Evolutionary Political Economy (EAEPE) took place in Berlin. The meeting drew together 164 academics and researchers from America, Asia and Europe. The conference was organized with the title "Economics and Social Sciences: Complements, Competitors, Accomplices?". As well addressing its central theme, the conference was opened to different economic topics. In this paper, three participants present selected sessions and papers which are of interest for and related to spatial perspectives, that is 'Technology', 'Economy, Society and Territory', 'The Firm', 'Culture and Technology', 'Economics and Social Sciences', 'Borrowing Ideas from the Social Sciences', 'Economic Methodology', 'Conceptual Frameworks' and, in addition to these sessions, Michael Storper's opening keynote address on 'Economic Geography in the Internet Age'.     

?Theorising a Realm of Practice?: introducing archaeological heritage management as a research field

The paper introduces the field of archaeological heritage management, and the four papers on this subject here presented. Comparisons are made with Cultural Resource Management, Cultural Heritage Management and Archaeological Heritage Management. The research discussed here examines the management of archaeology in practical situations, including those involving indigeneity, to develop a body of theory that will help to illuminate such practice in terms of our own contemporary culture.     

Editorial: Social Spirituality: Monastic Cell or Hectic Street?

Abstract

What makes theology political? Is it the social location of the author, the sources drawn upon, or the content of the argument? Each of these three possibilities is theologically significant, but a little reflection proves none of them decisive in claiming the adjective ‘political’ for a theology. The ‘material production’ of theological works cannot, by itself, render one theology political and another apolitical; for all theological works share a similar ‘social location’ given the similar socio-economic reality of publishing. Whether or not theology is political, or adequately political, cannot finally be determined by material production, the authors' social location or the content of the argument per se. Such forms of apodictic reasoning cannot distinguish apolitical from political theology. It can only be a function of practical reasoning. It alone can advance the current stalemate among persons that theology should be characterized as ‘church’, ‘confessional’, ‘sectarian’, ‘liberatory’, ‘political’ or ‘public’. I argue that the best we can do to adjudicate these differences is to engage in, as Charles Taylor has so aptly put it, practical ad hominem arguments.