Weathering the Storm: Social Policy and the Great Recession

This review discusses recent challenges to the welfare state arising from the Great Recession (GR). The GR was a significant event for social policy analysts, as it tested the responsiveness of welfare systems in the midst of a recent trend toward austerity politics in advanced economies. Social policy changes were part of the toolkit advanced democracies used to respond to the GR, and the welfare state mitigated the consequences of the GR. However, a stark limitation of the social safety net in the United States was the failure to assist immigrant households. The nexus of immigration and social policy is likely to be a significant controversy as we consider the meaning of social citizenship.     

Bringing Organizations Back In: Multilevel Feedback Effects on Individual Civic Inclusion

Policy feedback scholarship has focused on how laws and their implementation affect either organizations (e.g., their resources, priorities, political opportunities, or incentive structures) or individuals (e.g., their civic skills and resources or their psychological orientations toward the state). However, in practice the distinction between organizations and individuals is not clear‐cut: Organizations interpret policy for individuals, and individuals experience policy through organizations. Thus, scholars have argued for a multi‐level model of feedback effects illuminating how policies operating at the organizational level reverberate at the individual level. In this theory‐building article, we push this insight by examining how public policy influences nonprofit organizations’ role in the civic life of beneficiaries. We identify five roles that nonprofit organizations play. For each role, we draw on existing research to identify policy mechanisms that either enlarge or diminish nonprofits’ capacity to facilitate individual incorporation and engagement. From these examples, we derive cross‐cutting hypotheses concerning how different categories of citizens may need policy to operate differently to enhance their civic influence; whether policy that is “delivered” through nonprofits may dampen citizens’ relationship with the state; and how the civic boost provided by policy may be influenced by the degree of latitude conferred on recipient organizations.     

"近代城市发展与社会转型"学术研讨会综述

近代以来,城市发展引领着中国社会转型,社会转型以城市发展为先驱,为中心,为标识,为推力。而社会转型的过程,同样对于城市发展有着反馈与推动的作用。在城市化问题和社会转型话题愈来愈受人们普遍关注的当下,出席东华大学与上海市档案馆联合主办的“近代城市发展与社会转型”学术研讨会的学者们,以城市史与社会史复合研究为视野,分别就城市发展与社会变迁、城市管理与城市文化、工商金融与城市比较、社会群体暨重要人物、重大事件等方面进行了深入研讨,试图探寻历史的经验和教训,为现实提供借鉴与启示。     

朱熹《家礼》与明清徽州宗族以礼治族的实践

明清时期,在徽州社会中形成了对朱熹及其《家礼》极端崇拜的社会风气。徽州宗族多依据《家礼》进行本族内部的制度设计和制度建设,同时还十分重视对礼仪的执行与监督,旨在以此实现以礼治族、维持宗族社会秩序的目的。     

建国初期社会救助体系的构建与评析--以1949～1953年的广州市为个案

建国初期,中共在广州构建了一个过渡性的社会救助体系,在短短的4年内,广州市通过它救助了大量的失业者和城市贫民,基本上遏制了由于新旧转轨带来的社会危机,为新政权即将展开的社会主义各项建设奠定了基础.在救助理念和救助过程上,它体现了以往社会救助的一些特点,同时也反映了我党的诸多特色,诸如鲜明的意识形态性、广泛的群众参与性和严格的组织纪律性,隐隐约约闪烁着以统一调配为主要特征的计划时代社会政策的影子.     

国民经济恢复时期北京的失业知识分子救济政策及其成效

国民经济恢复时期,面对失业和人才需求关系的矛盾,城市失业知识分子受到党和政府的高度关注。北京市的失业知识分子虽人数不多,但呈现出一定程度的复杂性。为此,北京市根据党和国家的政策,从首都社会秩序的稳定和首都建设的人才需求出发,在较短的时间内,有计划有步骤地对失业知识分子进行了必要的社会救济,达到了预期的目标。同时,实际操作中也遇到了一些不容回避的问题。     

关于中国早期国家的几个问题

目前学术界对有关中国早期国家的概念存在着分歧.我们认为中国早期国家是指夏商周三代已具备公共权力,但社会仍滞留在居民血缘组织基础之上的政治组织.所谓中国在龙山时代就已出现了早期国家的说法是不能成立的.至于中国早期国家的产生,则是走的部落联盟酋长因其职务的“独立化“转变为“社会主人“这样一条路径.     

HISTORY AS PHILOSOPHY

Historians have taken a beating in recent times from an array of critics troubled by our persistent unwillingness to properly theorize our work. This essay contends that their criticisms have generally failed to make headway among mainstream historians owing to a little noticed cognitive byproduct of our work that I call history as philosophy. In so doing I offer a novel defense of professional history as it has been understood and practiced in the Anglophone world over the last half‐century or so while suggesting, in conclusion, that historians could not do other than they do without serious psychic and societal loss.     

Disparity Despite Diversity: Social Injustice in New York City's Urban Agriculture System

Many studies have documented the benefits of urban agriculture, including increased food access, job creation, educational opportunities, and green space. A focus on its social benefits has fed an association of urban agriculture with social justice, yet there is a distinction between alleviating symptoms of injustice (such as disparate access to food or environmental amenities) and disrupting structures that underlie them. Despite its positive impacts, urban agriculture systems may reinforce inequities that practitioners and supporters aim to address. This paper reports findings from a 2‐year study of urban agriculture in New York City, which found race‐ and class‐based disparities among practitioners citywide. Using the lens of critical race theory, it argues that a failure to examine urban agriculture's role in either supporting or dismantling unjust structures may perpetuate an inequitable system. The paper concludes with recommendations for urban agriculture supporters and scholars to help advance social justice at structural levels.     

Interrogating Madrid's “Slum of Shame”: Urban Expansion,Race, and Place‐Based Activisms in the Cañada Real Galiana

Following the spontaneous occupation of Madrid's Puerta del Sol in 2011, many academic accounts have found these mobilizations new and noteworthy for their technological savvy and networked capabilities. In this article, I argue that such depictions fail to capture both the influence of Spanish urbanism's material conditions on certain disadvantaged populations, and the broad diversity of these contemporary activisms. Looking to struggles over the proposed demolition of a squatter settlement in Madrid, I demonstrate how Madrid's planning has propagated racial imaginaries to legitimate dispossession and subvert anti‐poverty policies. Second, I examine how resistance and contestation emerge out of specific urban experiences of inequality, and transcend traditional modes of activist organizing through the formation of broad coalitions between various civil society actors. In doing so, I argue that Madrid's mobilizations have paradoxically opened new avenues for the inclusion minority voices, against popular understandings that read rising xenophobia during crisis.