Current Sociology

Herrera-Vega, Eliana

doi: 10.1177/0011392111419754pmid: N/A

This article proposes a functional analysis of torture, following Luhmann’s social systems theory. Its guiding hypothesis is that torture belongs to a specific type of politics, namely antagonistic politics, and that violence is an essential part of this particular presentation of politics. The article goes on to propose a view on the praxis of torture, which is observed by making a case based on two seemingly isolated situations: the first, a systematic practice in the context of the Colombian conflict: torture followed by dismembering of identified enemies. The second one is torture of presumed terrorists at Abu Ghraib, in the context of the Iraq war. The analysis identifies the common aesthetic elements in the technology of torture in order to ascertain their function within political communication. The analysis finishes by examining the response to torture from an artist’s stance: Fernando Botero’s paintings of both the Colombian violence and the torture in Abu Ghraib. This association introduces the observation of the uses of torture within artistic communication, in contrast with former uses within antagonistic politics. The article concludes by situating the relation between politics and aesthetics, and the conditions for their mutual dialogical interference: from politics towards aesthetics, and from aesthetics towards politics.

Wan, Poe Yu-ze

doi: 10.1177/0011392111419756pmid: N/A

In the field of sociological theory, after the decline of Parsons’ version of structural functionalism, Niklas Luhmann’s systems theory came to be seen as the major representative of systems thinking. While Luhmann’s autopoietic systems ontology is sophisticated and deserves serious consideration, the author argues that the prevailing identification of Luhmann’s constructivist-oriented approach with the systems approach itself is problematic mainly for two reasons. First, as the works of the Argentinian-Canadian systems theorist Mario Bunge demonstrate, the systems approach can be fruitfully based on (some version of) scientific realism. Second, the adherents to Luhmann’s constructivist epistemology in sociology seldom engage in a detailed examination of the various critiques of anti-realism offered by scientific and critical realists. Drawing on the literature on philosophy of science, especially the writings of Bunge and a few leading critical realists, the author suggests that a serious Luhmannian sociologist is obligated to provide more cogent and detailed discussions on philosophy of (social) science before taking an opinionated position on epistemology.

Olesen, Thomas

doi: 10.1177/0011392111419757pmid: N/A

The article identifies a political-cultural deficit in the expansive literature of the last 10–15 years on transnational activist communication. To illustrate the utility of a political-cultural sociological approach the article discusses how contemporary jihadist activists, and especially al-Qaeda, have actively transformed the Guantanamo Bay detention camp set up by the United States following the attacks of 9/11 into a transnational injustice symbol. Transnational injustice symbols are events and situations (both past and present) constructed and employed by political actors to condense and perform perceived injustices before geographically, socially and culturally dispersed audiences. Guantanamo Bay and other injustice symbols such as Palestine, Abu Ghraib and the Muhammad cartoons published in Denmark in 2005 are key elements in the creation of a transnational jihadist injustice community.

Soliman, Hussein; Cable, Sherry

doi: 10.1177/0011392111419748pmid: N/A

The United Nations adopted the 2003 Convention Against Corruption to reduce corruption in developing nations. Corruption’s determinants include political systems’ permeability to economic influence, state economic intervention, weak political competition and officials’ discretionary power to allocate resources. Corruption’s outcomes are slowed economic development, misallocation of government resources, income inequalities and, less frequently, disasters. Using archival and interview data, this article documents corruption’s shaping of the 2006 sinking of an Egyptian ferry in the Red Sea, which killed 1034; high-level corruption not only caused the disaster but exacerbated its impacts. The study’s findings confirm much of the empirical literature but contradict assertions that corruption is associated with high levels of government intervention in the economy. Based on the findings, the article gives a critique of neoliberal reform that associates it with high-level corruption.

Arteaga, Nelson

doi: 10.1177/0011392111419744pmid: N/A

In 2008, following the assassination of the son of a renowned Mexican businessman, the Mexican government, social organizations, businesses and the media signed the National Agreement for Security, Justice and Legality. This body proposed the creation of a Citizen Identification Card (CIC). Converting the assassination into a ‘big event’, it has generated a ‘moral panic’ in the country, which allowed the justification to put in place mechanisms of control and population surveillance – such as the CIC. In 2009, the federal government announced the creation of an identity card with biometric elements. However, this project had an obstacle: the struggle for databases and collection of data from the Mexican population. This article analyses how the CIC project, in Mexico, has generated a debate on the implications of concentrating on an identification card, using two forms of citizen identification: biometric and territorial reference identity.

Raddon, Mary-Beth; Ciupa, Kristin

doi: 10.1177/0011392111419759pmid: N/A

Employing the concepts of risk and individualization of Beck and Beck-Gernsheim, this article analyses moral discourse in Canadian advice books on how to write a will and situates this advice within a history of inheritance in English Canada. The main finding is that estate planning experts downplay specific familial obligations and instead present estate planning as a procedural matter that entails risk calculations in areas such as familial relationships, care in old age and financial management. The moral issues in writing a will derive from this administrative emphasis. Our prime duty, apparently, is to avoid burdening others with decisions that were ours to make. Hence, the advice literature of estate planning affirms Beck and Beck-Gernsheim’s individualization thesis by asserting that in death, as in life, our social responsibility is to arrange and manage our personal affairs.

Darab, Sandy; Hartman, Yvonne

doi: 10.1177/0011392111419751pmid: N/A

Empirical linkages between structure and agency, or system and life world, have traditionally not been overabundant in sociology, though work emerging in the field of the sociology of emotions does offer some illumination on this topic. This article uses data obtained in a project which investigated the impact of the Howard government’s dual reforms in the industrial relations and welfare policy arenas. In this article, we seek to explore in some depth how a system that is underpinned by the notion of dignity and rights produces shame in its supposed beneficiaries, based on the evidence in the data collected. As well, we attempt to expose the processes by which shame is produced and how it manifests among the participants in the study. The first part of the article focuses upon the broader structural context, while the second proceeds to examine how this impinges upon agents at the microsocial level. Workfare recipients are constructed as dependants, in a society that privileges independence and ignores the crucial fact of our mutual interdependency. The transcripts reveal that the denial of autonomy and respect are key mechanisms by which dignity is injured. In exploring these phenomena, the purpose of the article is to demonstrate the usually veiled connections between individuals and their larger social context.

Muzio, Daniel; Kirkpatrick, Ian; Kipping, Matthias

doi: 10.1177/0011392111419750pmid: N/A

In the recent literature on knowledge-based occupations it is frequently noted that some groups, such as management consultants, have been far less successful than others in developing a system of professional regulation and organization. This is generally attributed to the functional characteristics of their knowledge base, which is too elusive, fuzzy and perishable to sustain traditional professionalization projects. It is also suggested that these groups have little interest in becoming professions and have relied instead on alternative occupational strategies. In this article, drawing on a range of secondary sources, the authors highlight certain limitations of this account and offer an alternative. Focusing on the historical development of professional associations in the context of management consulting in the UK, the authors illustrate the role played by the state and large firms in undermining efforts to professionalize. A key contribution of the article is to highlight the need for a more inclusive approach to understanding why new knowledge-based occupations have failed to professionalize, one that gives more weight to the historical context and the role played by other key actors in shaping change.