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Terrorism has much in common with genocide and sometimes may even be a form of genocide. In this chapter I systematically compare these two phenomena.
Abstract
Purpose
Terrorism has much in common with genocide and sometimes may even be a form of genocide. In this chapter I systematically compare these two phenomena.
Methodology/approach
Drawing mainly from Donald Black’s work on terrorism and my own work on genocide, I examine the conceptual and theoretical overlap between terrorism and genocide.
Findings
Terrorism and genocide are similar and sometimes overlapping, and they occur under similar social conditions – in response to conflicts between socially distant and unequal groups. Conceptually they differ mainly in that terrorism is covert and carried out by civilians, and genocide may not be. The main theoretical difference is that terrorism tends to be upward – against more powerful targets – while genocide tends to be downward – against less powerful targets. Terrorism tends to be less effective than extreme genocide, then, and the most extreme cases have death tolls much lower than the most extreme cases of genocide.
Originality/value
This analysis draws from previous theories of terrorism, genocide, and social control to better place terrorism in a broader sociological context. In doing so it highlights and explains key features of terrorism, and it even helps us to speculate about the future of terrorism. That is, technological advances might in the long run destroy the social conditions conducive to terrorism, thus leading to terrorism’s ultimate demise, but in the short run they might allow terrorists to more effectively kill, leading terrorism to resemble extreme genocide in its deadliness.
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Brenda Jones Harden, Brandee Feola, Colleen Morrison, Shelby Brown, Laura Jimenez Parra and Andrea Buhler Wassman
Children experience toxic stress if there is pronounced activation of their stress-response systems, in situations in which they do not have stable caregiving. Due to their…
Abstract
Children experience toxic stress if there is pronounced activation of their stress-response systems, in situations in which they do not have stable caregiving. Due to their exposure to multiple poverty-related risks, African American children may be more susceptible to exposure to toxic stress. Toxic stress affects young children’s brain and neurophysiologic functioning, which leads to a wide range of deleterious health, developmental, and mental health outcomes. Given the benefits of early care and education (ECE) for African American young children, ECE may represent a compensating experience for this group of children, and promote their positive development.
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Young men and women dominate different niches of science education in Australia, but how this divide varies between university and post-secondary vocational education and training…
Abstract
Young men and women dominate different niches of science education in Australia, but how this divide varies between university and post-secondary vocational education and training (VET) is not well understood. Therefore, I compare courses in both sectors to assess if the male–female gap at later stages of education mirrors adolescent career plans and subject choices made in secondary school. Multinomial logistic regressions estimated on data from the Longitudinal Survey of Australian Youth (Y06) illustrate the extent to which the gender divides in secondary and post-secondary education correspond with one another. Y06 started with the 2006 Australian Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). Each year until 2013, a nationally representative sample of youth, who were nearly 16 years old in 2006, reported their schooling and work experiences. I find that Australian women rarely specialise in physics, engineering and technology (PET); in contrast, they dominate the life sciences. While post-secondary science is segregated by gender everywhere, the disparity within VET is much deeper due to a large share of PET enrolments. VET students, who come from modest socio-economic backgrounds and have less academic success at school, learn in more segregated environments than their university peers. This analysis suggests that gender divides will be particularly hard to close within post-secondary VET, even if schools succeed in eradicating gender differentials in students’ career aspirations, science performance, self-concept and choices of science subjects.
The Mondragon cooperatives are the most thoroughly studied and well-known example of worker cooperatives in the world. Yet while there has been much discussion and wide…
Abstract
Purpose
The Mondragon cooperatives are the most thoroughly studied and well-known example of worker cooperatives in the world. Yet while there has been much discussion and wide recognition of the empirical growth of the Mondragon co-ops, there is substantial confusion about the lessons we can draw from this case in thinking about workplace democracy more broadly.
Design/methodology/approach
The normative and empirical literature on Mondragon is carefully analyzed to draw out the main implications from this case study for the broader issue of workplace democracy.
Findings
I contend that Mondragon teaches us two main lessons. First, that workplace democracy can indeed operate in a way that is economically sustainable and socially superior to conventional firms. Second, Mondragon sheds light on the question of whether co-ops are doomed to degenerate.
Research limitations/implications
This paper advances our understanding and conceptualization of workplace democracy.
Practical implications
This paper provides practitioners with an up-to-date and comprehensive analysis of the world’s most successful cooperative network.
Social implications
This paper provides insight into the practical feasibility and normative desirability of alternative organizations of workplaces in the form of worker cooperatives.
Originality/value
This paper will be of particular interest to scholars and activists interested in democratic alternatives to conventional hierarchical firms by illustrating the strengths and weaknesses of the Mondragon cooperatives and drawing out the lessons that this specific yet influential example has for issues of workplace democracy more broadly.
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As world society develops and nations become embedded in it, cultural patterns that began as properties of Western modernity diffuse to other areas. Individualism has long been…
Abstract
As world society develops and nations become embedded in it, cultural patterns that began as properties of Western modernity diffuse to other areas. Individualism has long been noted as a unique feature of American nationalism (Arieli, 1964; Greene, 1993; Lipset, 1963, 1996). But both the spread of democracy and the declining legitimacy of dictatorship and racism after WW II opened the gates for forms of egalitarianism and individualism to spread transnationally (see Elliott & Lemert, 2006; Gaddis, 2005, p. 164ff). This chapter considers the consequences of this transformation.
João Carvalho Santos, Hortênsia Barandas-Karl and Francisco Vitorino Martins
In this chapter we test a conceptual model to shed light on the psychic distance (PD) hazards in cross-border acquisitions’ (CBAs’) performance. Only a few studies have sought to…
Abstract
In this chapter we test a conceptual model to shed light on the psychic distance (PD) hazards in cross-border acquisitions’ (CBAs’) performance. Only a few studies have sought to examine the impact of national-level dimensions on CBAs’ performance, such as cultural distance or PD, with non-conclusive and contradictory results. Event study methodology is used to scrutinize the impact of the five key dimensions of psychic distance stimuli (PDS) on the stock market performance of the US acquirer firms and 26 countries involved in the CBA. Our results support that PD, as a whole, has a negative impact on CBAs’ performance although only in the short term there is a statistically significant negative impact, whereas in the long term no effect is statistically significant. Analyzing the different dimensions of PDS, only differences in language, education, and political systems are significant. This chapter is the first to empirically examine the PD hazards on CBAs by breaking down the PDS and test the effect of each dimension on CBAs´ performance. The findings of this study may be useful for managers of firms that wish to undertake CBAs as it denotes important dimensions which hinder post-deal performance.
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