Edward Abramowski's concept of stateless socialism and its impact on progressive social movements in Poland in the twentieth century

The author traces the impact of Abramowski's ideas on the recent history of Poland. His concepts were not only popular in the Polish Socialist Party (PPS) and the syndicalist movement in the interwar period (1918–1939), but they also exerted a profound influence on the cooperative movement and democratic left-wing opposition in the 1970s and 1980s. The leaders of the Workers’ Defence Committee (KOR) were much influenced by Abramowski's ideas and, according to some researchers, the Solidarity movement from 1980 to 1981 in Poland was the culmination of his concepts. Today's anti-systemic movements in Poland (anarchists, syndicalists, alter-globalists) are also inspired by Abramowski. The author also draws attention to certain similarities between Abramowski's ideas, Kropotkin's idea, Gramsci's concept of civil society and the thought of the young Marx. The author also outlines Abramowski's social ideas in the context of ideas promoted by the main theoreticians of the Polish left in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.     

How to deal with migrants and the State’s backlash – Polish cities’ experience

Over the last decades, Poland has witnessed a relatively dynamic increase in the number of immigrants. At the same time, current Polish central authorities, politicians of the ruling party and the majority of the population perceive migrants mostly as a threat and a challenge. Municipal authorities lack complex support from central authorities. However, the situation is slowly changing. Some Polish cities are adopting migration policies or including migration issues in the local development strategies. Considering this, the article aims to examine migrants’ integration policies in selected Polish cites considered leaders in this field: Lublin, Gdańsk, Kraków and Wroc?aw. The main research question is: how do Polish cities deal with the backlash from the national government and absence of clear legal regulations on their role and competences in the area of migrant integration? The research method is that of a legal-institutional analysis and case study. The former is used to interpret the legal acts and other documents. Its application is justified by the fact that this paper examines strategic documents adopted at the level of urban governments regarding the integration of migrants. Case study methods made it possible to examine the migrants’ integration policy in four Polish cities.     

Morality and the Concept of the Market Seller among Gehamo

This paper examines the negative moral evaluations of people who buy and resell fresh food by Gahuku and Gehamo people in and around Goroka, the capital of Eastern Highlands Province, Papua New Guinea. During my fieldwork from 2010 to 2015, vendors in the Goroka fresh food market argued that the value of fresh food should be based on the work that people did to produce it rather than on price competition, or on supply and demand. An examination of market vendors’ practice of ‘giving extra’ to customers, and the responses of vendors who resold food to negative moral evaluations of their activities, led me to an examination of the morality of production in relation to land, ancestors, and social relations; the morality of the marketplace; as well as ideas about what makes someone a good social person. Drawing on Erik Schwimmer's (1979) discussion of the concept of work in Melanesian societies, I argue that vendors in the Goroka market continue to emphasize use value and their own identification with the food that they are selling rather than the exchange value of alienated produce. While marketplaces are the apparent locus par excellence of capitalist economic activity, a consideration of the morality of Goroka market vendors leads to the caution that just because one sees something that looks like a marketplace in which people are engaging in commodity transactions does not necessarily mean that it is a marketplace in which people are engaging in commodity transactions. Similarly, just because something looks like a price does not necessarily mean that it is a price. Those considerations, in turn, lead to a re‐examination of Kenneth Read's (1955) characterization of morality and personhood among Gahuku in light of contemporary market exchange.     

Marketplaces and Morality in Papua New Guinea: Place,Personhood and Exchange

In Papua New Guinea (PNG) more rural people, and especially rural women, earn cash from selling in marketplaces than from any other source. PNG's marketplaces are critical for food security, and for the redistribution of wealth. They are also important meeting places where people gather to see friends, hear the latest news, attend court cases, play cards and be entertained. This introduction to this special issue on ‘Marketplaces and Morality in Papua New Guinea’ reviews the history of PNG marketplaces and their contemporary forms. It charts their transformation from introduced colonial spaces into dynamic Melanesian places, which, as places to buy, sell and socialise, have become pervasive institutions in the lives of both urban and rural Papua New Guineans, and places where people interact with both known and unknown others. From this, marketplaces emerge as important spaces of moral evaluation and contestation in relation to what constitutes morally acceptable exchange and what practices are acceptable in these places. The paper demonstrates that exchange in the marketplace should not be reduced to commodity transactions, and questions assumptions about the types of people marketplaces create. It argues that the country's marketplaces are productive sites to consider ideas of exchange, social relations and social personhood, and that there is a critical need to understand the concrete details of what takes place in contemporary marketplaces.     

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.