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To identify the Obama administration’s policy responsiveness to the (African) American LGBT communities.

Theory development and content analysis.

Civic universalism, as a theory, can explain President Obama’s evolution on his support for marriage rights for same-sex couples. Obama employed the concept of e pluribus unum in his many approaches to LGBT responsive politics.

To date, theoretical development within the social sciences of LGBT policy responsiveness is limited.

Very little is written on the subject of LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgendered) politics in the 21st century. The study of the LGBT experience generally has been devoid of political variables because of a lack of attention toward LGBT issues, until recently, in national political party agendas. In this chapter, we review some of the contours of the LGBT community’s fight for political recognition in the United States as a precursor to the election and reelection of President Obama. Drawing parallels with presidential responsiveness toward Blacks in their quest for rights, we examine the Obama administration’s LGBT public policy initiatives as administrative policy and programs. We conclude by identifying new areas of research to explore on LGBT politics.

The ‘Transition Town’ (TT) movement pioneered by Rob Hopkins initially in Kinsale (Ireland) and Totnes (United Kingdom) has become the fastest growing environmental movement in the global north (Hopkins, 2008). With over 30 official TT initiatives in the United Kingdom, the concept is now spreading into New Zealand, Canada, and many more countries.¹ The movement starts from two premises: (i) the reality and implications of rapid and potentially catastrophic climate change; (ii) the reality of ‘peak oil’ – an imminent, permanent short fall in oil supply, increasing year on year with massive geo-political, economic and social consequences.² Whilst supporting national and multilateral efforts to reduce emissions and to develop new energy technologies and infrastructures, TT leaves climate change protest to environmental campaigning groups, NGOs and activists oriented towards a global civil society. Acknowledging the need for ‘government and business responses [to climate change and peak oil] at all levels’, the role of TT is to ‘create [a] sense of anticipation, elation and a collective call to adventure’ and that this grass-roots bottom-up, local activism could potentially prepare the way for more directly political action at the level of national government (Hopkins, 2008, p. 15).

Civil society-based institutions have had a significant historical impact in Europe on the one hand in formation of modern notions of the nation and on the creation of national identity and on the other hand in definition of citizenship rights and understanding of the democratic culture. If support for citizenship rights through civil society organizations – at the workplace and in public institutions – is weakly articulated, it creates a fragile democratic culture and, consequently, less comprehensive social protection. The possibility of civil society becoming a locus for democratic learning, political reflexivity and governance depends, firstly, on its specific institutional mechanisms and, secondly, on the broader institutional configuration, which civil society forms part of.

Jürgen Habermas is one of the most important authors in contemporary philosophy. In this chapter, we analyse his contribution to the philosophical debate on universalism and relativism and consider its implications for organization studies and organizations operating in an intercultural environment. We briefly describe the critique of a universal concept of reason that has been forwarded by sceptical and postmodern philosophers. As a response to this critique, we outline the contribution of discourse ethics and analyse the theories of Jürgen Habermas and his colleague Karl-Otto Apel. We explore the justification of discourse ethics and point out some problems in its argumentative logic. In the light of this critique, we outline some characteristics of an intercultural ethics that is based on constructivist philosophy and point to some encouraging prospects on the consolidation of the debate between relativistic and universalistic philosophers.

Immigration represents one of the most contentious and complicated issues for social democracy in many national contexts. In Scandinavia, the social democratic parties have been particularly tormented, being split internally on central concerns related to immigration policy. Social democratic parties in Scandinavia have had a basically ambiguous relationship to the issue from the initiation of the era of ‘new immigration’. This chapter argues that this can be explained by the specifically strong attachment and ‘ownership’ of these parties to the Scandinavian welfare model, with its particular claims on a strong tax base and an orderly labour market. ‘Social democracy’ is dealt with mainly as an institutional and political entity, close to what goes as ‘The Nordic Model’ in the international literature. The chapter describes and analyses similarities and differences between the three Scandinavian countries, through a historical exposé of the period after the early 1970s; on the one hand, the institutional and normative prerequisites for social democracies in handling migration, and on the other hand, the way in which recent flows of migrants have influenced the very same social democracies. Theoretically, the chapter is drawing on conceptual tools from political economy, citizenship discourse and institutional theory.

In this chapter the restructuration of the Finnish welfare state is examined in the context of rural Finland and especially within the framework of the structural change in agriculture. After briefly outlining the context of globalizing food markets and the Common Agricultural Policy for the condition of Finnish farmers, the chapter focuses on the economic impacts of the ongoing structural transformation on ex-farmers' position in society and the cultural and political aspects of this transformation. After this, the transitions in the overall position of the farmers will be connected with the current restructuring of the Nordic welfare state in Finland. The conclusion highlights the most critical features in the structural change of the welfare state regime as they are recognized against this background. A special concern of this chapter is how the remodelling of the welfare state treats the principle of universalism, which is justly regarded as the focal characteristic of the Nordic welfare states. The changing position of farmers has been selected as a point of departure for two reasons: agriculture is still the most important rural livelihood in Finland and, consequently, transitions in agriculture have a strong impact on rural areas.

Education is the main training grounds for citizenship. With the decline of military conscription, it has the mission of instilling a sense of national civic consciousness (see Janowitz's, 1983, critique; also Merle, 2010). But it also inculcates world cognitive perspectives as well. Hence, “global citizens” emerge. They carry much larger macro frames of reference that go beyond the nation-state. This change adds another layer of complexity to national identity.