Sociología

This article presents results from the first statistically significant study of cost escalation in transportation infrastructure projects. Based on a sample of 258 transportation infrastructure projects worth US$90 billion and representing different project types, geographical regions, and historical periods, it is found with overwhelming statistical significance that the cost estimates used to decide whether such projects should be built are highly and systematically misleading. Underestimation cannot be explained by error and is best explained by strategic misrepresentation, that is, lying. The policy implications are clear: legislators, administrators, investors, media representatives, and members of the public who value honest numbers should not trust cost estimates and cost-benefit analyses produced by project promoters and their analysts.

Herbert Marshall McLuhan, ex-professor de literatura inglesa no Canadá, professor de diversas universidades dos Estados Unidos e hoje autoridade mundial em comunicações de massa, é, sem dúvida, o pensador contemporâneo cujas idéias, mercê do seu caráter visceralmente revolucionário, têm provocado as mais acesas e apaixonadas polêmIcas intelectuais de que se tem notícia nos últimos tempos. O ardor com que macluhanistas e antimacluhanistas quebram lanças em defesa de suas posições advém do fato de McLuhan ser um pensador de vanguarda, que não teme levar às últimas conseqüências — ao profetismo inclusive (ou sobretudo) — suas formulações teóricas, as quais buscam abarcar todas as implicações, no plano humano, daquilo que singulariza o mundo de nossos dias: a complexíssima rede de comunicações em que está imerso o Homem na era da eletrônica, da cibernética, da automação, e que afetam profundamente sua visão e sua experiência do mundo, de si mesmo e dos outros.
Os MEIOS DE COMUNICAÇÃO COMO EXTENSÕES DO HOMEM — que a Editora Cultrix se orgulha de ora apresentar ao leitor brasileiro numa notável tradução de Décio Pignatari, poeta de vanguarda e professor de Teoria da Informação — é por excelência a summa do pensamento de Marshall McLuhan. Neste livro, o chamado “filósofo da era eletrônica” ou “humanista da era da comunicação” passa em revista as tecnologias como extensões do corpo e da inteligência do Homem e mostra como elas nos estão levando, do mundo linear, aristotélico, tipográfico, mecânico, da Primeira Revolução Industrial, para o mundo audiotáctil, tribalizado, cósmico, da Segunda Revolução Industrial, a Era Eletrônica em cujo limiar rios encontramos agora. Desmistificador no esquematismo agressivo de seus aforismos; estimulante e amiúde entontecedor nas perspectivas intelectuais que desvenda ao leitor — este livro irá certamente merecer do público ledor brasileiro, universitário ou não, a mesma consagradora acolhida que teve nos Estados Unidos e nos países da América e da Europa em que já foi traduzido.

This article presents results from the first statistically significant study of traffic forecasts in transportation infrastructure projects. The sample used is the largest of its kind, covering 210 projects in 14 nations worth U.S.$59 billion. The study shows with very high statistical significance that forecasters generally do a poor job of estimating the demand for transportation infrastructure projects. For 9 out of 10 rail projects, passenger forecasts are overestimated; the average overestimation is 106%. For half of all road projects, the difference between actual and forecasted traffic is more than ±20%. The result is substantial financial risks, which are typically ignored or downplayed by planners and decision makers to the detriment of social and economic welfare. Our data also show that forecasts have not become more accurate over the 30-year period studied, despite claims to the contrary by forecasters. The causes of inaccuracy in forecasts are different for rail and road projects, with political causes playing a larger role for rail than for road. The cure is transparency, accountability, and new forecasting methods. The challenge is to change the governance structures for forecasting and project development. Our article shows how planners may help achieve this.

The article first describes characteristics of major infrastructure projects. Second, it documents a much neglected topic in economics: that ex ante estimates of costs and benefits are often very different from actual ex post costs and benefits. For large infrastructure projects the consequences are cost overruns, benefit shortfalls, and the systematic underestimation of risks. Third, implications for cost–benefit analysis are described, including that such analysis is not to be trusted for major infrastructure projects. Fourth, the article uncovers the causes of this state of affairs in terms of perverse incentives that encourage promoters to underestimate costs and overestimate benefits in the business cases for their projects. But the projects that are made to look best on paper are the projects that amass the highest cost overruns and benefit shortfalls in reality. The article depicts this situation as ‘survival of the unfittest’. Fifth, the article sets out to explain how the problem may be solved, with a view to arriving at more efficient and more democratic projects, and avoiding the scandals that often accompany major infrastructure investments. Finally, the article identifies current trends in major infrastructure development. It is argued that a rapid increase in stimulus spending, combined with more investments in emerging economies, combined with more spending on information technology is catapulting infrastructure investment from the frying pan into the fire.

As the use of qualitative inquiry increases within the field of social work, researchers must consider the issue of establishing rigor in qualitative research. This article presents research procedures used in a study of autoethnographies that were written regarding the experience of being Jewish. In this project, the researchers utilized reflexivity, audit trail, triangulation by observer, peer debriefing, member check and prolonged engagement in order to manage the threats to trustworthiness as discussed by Padgett (1998). Implications of the project suggest that research procedures utilized by qualitative researchers to establish rigor are an important way to increase our confidence that the voice of the participants is heard, therefore fitting the mission of the social work profession.

This paper focuses on problems and their causes and cures in policy and planning for large-infrastructure projects. First, it identifies as the main problem in major infrastructure developments pervasive misinformation about the costs, benefits, and risks involved. A consequence of misinformation is cost overruns, benefit shortfalls, and waste. Second, it explores the causes of misinformation and finds that political-economic explanations best account for the available evidence: planners and promoters deliberately misrepresent costs, benefits, and risks in order to increase the likelihood that it is their projects, and not those of their competition, that gain approval and funding. This results in the ‘survival of the unfittest’, in which often it is not the best projects that are built, but the most misrepresented ones. Finally, it presents measures for reforming policy and planning for large-infrastructure projects with a focus on better planning methods and changed governance structures, the latter being more important.

A major source of risk in project management is inaccurate forecasts of project costs, demand, and other impacts. The paper presents a promising new approach to mitigating such risk, based on theories of decision making under uncertainty which won the 2002 Nobel prize in economics. First, the paper documents inaccuracy and risk in project management. Second, it explains inaccuracy in terms of optimism bias and strategic misrepresentation. Third, the theoretical basis is presented for a promising new method called "reference class forecasting," which achieves accuracy by basing forecasts on actual performance in a reference class of comparable projects and thereby bypassing both optimism bias and strategic misrepresentation. Fourth, the paper presents the first instance of practical reference class forecasting, which concerns cost forecasts for large transportation infrastructure projects. Finally, potentials for and barriers to reference class forecasting are assessed.

"Over budget, over time, over and over again" appears to be an appropriate slogan for large, complex infrastructure projects. This article explains why cost, benefits, and time forecasts for such projects are systematically over-optimistic in the planning phase. The underlying reasons for forecasting errors are grouped into three categories: delusions or honest mistakes; deceptions or strategic manipulation of information or processes; or bad luck. Delusion and deception have each been addressed in the management literature before, but here they are jointly considered for the first time. They are specifically applied to infrastructure problems in a manner that allows both academics and practitioners to understand and implement the suggested corrective procedures. The article provides a framework for analyzing the relative explanatory power of delusion and deception. It also suggests a simplified framework for analyzing the complex principal-agent relationships that are involved in the approval and construction of large infrastructure projects, which can be used to improve forecasts. Finally, the article illustrates reference class forecasting, an outside view de-biasing technique that has proven successful in overcoming both delusion and deception in private and public investment decisions.

Vigilance status was continually monitored in socially stable groups of rats exposed to the modified multiple platform (MMP) technique for sleep deprivation. For comparison, sleep parameters were also monitored in socially isolated rats deprived of sleep by the single platform (SP) method. In all cases, sleep was continuously recorded during baseline, during 96 h of sleep deprivation and during 4 days of recovery. Both multiple- and single-platform techniques completely abolished paradoxical sleep (PS) during the deprivation period, but also resulted in significant decreases in slow wave sleep (SWS) (−31% and −37%, respectively). Unexpectedly, animals on large platforms, which are normally intended as controls, also showed significant reductions in PS and SWS, and these effects were more pronounced in rats deprived in groups than in animals deprived in isolation. Another control preparation, rats placed on wire-mesh grids in the deprivation tank, also showed PS reduction (−39%) but no loss of SWS during the 4 test days. Paradoxical sleep rebound was observed in the first 24 h in all groups, except for grid controls. Overall, no significant differences were found between single- and multiple-platform procedures during the 4 days of deprivation. However, sleep rebound was more pronounced in MMP-deprived rats than in SP-deprived rats. Sleep loss in both control groups may reflect residual effect of stress that remain in the platform technique. These findings indicate that the MMP technique is effective in inducing PS deprivation (PSD). However, the fact that SWS is also affected may have implications for conclusions on paradoxical sleep function based upon paradoxical sleep deprivation.

R. Sassatelli (2007) Consumer Culture. History, Theory and Politics, Sage, London.
The book is organized to offer an historically-grounded and theoretically-informed discussion of contemporary consumer culture as well as a critical understanding of its diversity, reach and ambivalence. Throughout the book a variety of empirical examples illustrate the rich texture of consumer culture(s). The ambivalence of consumption is shown by looking at the various ways in which it can be conceived as an ordinary and yet socially regulated practice of appropriation: people typically remove commodities from their commercial codes and contexts, but do so by negotiating with routines and meanings which are otherwise deemed culturally appropriate, reasonable, fair and even “normal”. The book chapters are thus divided into three parts organized around three main dichotomies: production/consumption; rationality/irrationality; freedom/oppression. Both in lay and social scientific discourse, these dichotomies have been applied to understand contemporary consumer culture. Reference to them thus helps discussing its history, theory and politics, even though much of the book is concerned with showing that consumption challenges them and involves other, more complex patterns of relation. The first part on history maps the multifarious, spatially and temporally articulated historical development of (Western) consumer culture, thus providing a cultural reading of the vast socio-economic and geo-political transformations this has entailed. The second part on theory critically discusses the main theoretical approaches which have tried to model consumer agency from neo-classical economics to sociological classics, from critical theory to communication approaches, up to the recent emphasis on theories of practice and ritual de-commoditization. The third part on politics considers the political dimension of consumer culture, looking at the issue of representation and intermediation and in particular the role of advertising, at de-commoditization as a contested terrain where social actors negotiate hegemonic views of identity and choice, and finally the issues of globalization, localization and alternative consumption. While one part naturally leads into the following, each of them can be read separately. The text closes with a brief conclusion both helps drawing its overarching theses and threads together and offers some analytical tools for further investigation. Finally, at the very end of the book, the reader will find some selected suggestions for further reading. Their purpose is twofold: to mark out key studies related to the arguments proposed, and to point to auxiliary resources to orientate research and writing in the field of consumption.

Przejawy globalizacji, tego najbardziej chyba istotnego procesu, jaki zachodzi we współczesnym społeczeństwie, można także obserwować w różnych postaciach w życiu naukowym. Jedną z nich jest ruch wydawniczy, polegający na rosnącej liczbie tłumaczeń prac naukowych, a przede wszystkim podręczników, z języków obcych. Proces ten jest obserwujemy w naszym kraju, gdzie od roku 1990 ukazało się już szereg tłumaczeń przede wszystkim z literatury angielskiej i amerykańskiej. Poniższe rozważania nie są oczywiście nawet wstępną próbą refleksji na ten temat. Są jednak w jakiejś mierze powiązane z tym problemem. Otóż zainteresowanie potencjalnymi tłumaczeniami na język polski rozmaitych pozycji podręcznikowych wzmacnia -moim zdaniem -konieczność śledzenia przez polskich socjologów międzynarodowego rynku podręczników. I nie chodzi w tym przypadku tylko o to, aby taki czy inny tekst rekomendować do tłumaczenia. Poniższa recenzja nie ma absolutnie takiego charakteru. Chodzi -jak sądzę -przede wszystkim o to, iż współczesna sytuacja wymaga nieustannego monitorowania tego, co piszą inni. Choćby po to, aby powstające w kraju i pisane przez rodzimych autorów podręczniki spełniały międzynarodowe standardy i aby dostarczały studentom wiedzy, która ułatwi im obecność na globalnym rynku. Taki i tylko taki powód kryje się za podjętą w tych rozważaniach próbą oceny publikacji, przygotowanej przez brytyjskiego autora Grahama Daya. Jednocześnie -i taka jest moja druga intencja -niech będzie to zachętą dla innych polskich socjologów, aby zechcieli częściej niż do tej pory dzielić się swoimi uwagami na temat zagranicznych publikacji na łamach krajowych czasopism naukowych.

The Supplementary Green Book Guidance on Optimism Bias (HM Treasury 2003) with reference to the Review of Large Public Procurement in the UK (Mott MacDonald 2002) notes that there is a demonstrated, systematic, tendency for project appraisers to be overly optimistic and that to redress this tendency appraisers should make explicit, empirically based adjustments to the estimates of a project’s costs, benefits, and duration. HM Treasury recommends that these adjustments be based on data from past projects or similar projects elsewhere, and adjusted for the unique characteristics of the project in hand. In the absence of a more specific evidence base, HM Treasury has encouraged departments to collect data to inform future estimates of optimism, and in the meantime use the best available data. In response to this, the Department for Transport (henceforth DfT), has contracted Bent Flyvbjerg in association with COWI to undertake the consultancy assignment "Procedures for dealing with Optimism Bias in Transport Planning". The present Guidance Document is the result of this assignment.

The purpose of this review is to appraise the literature regarding psychological distress, burden and expressed emotion (EE) in caregivers of people with eating disorders (EDs). Electronic databases were searched up until October 2008. Selected studies contained carers of people with ED and employed one measure of burden, EE or psychological distress. Twenty studies were identified measuring psychological distress burden and EE. Most of the studies examined these features in families of anorexic patients. The majority of the studies found high levels of psychological distress, burden and EE in this population. Only few studies included a control group. Carers of people with ED presented high levels of psychological distress and burden. ED carers tend to have levels of EE resembling that found in families of depressed patients, rather than schizophrenic patients. There is some evidence (particularly for EE) that these factors can impact the outcome of ED.

The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file. All in-text references underlined in blue are added to the original document and are linked to publications on ResearchGate, letting you access and read them immediately. This article appeared in a journal published by Elsevier. The attached copy is furnished to the author for internal non-commercial research and education use, including for instruction at the authors institution and sharing with colleagues.

2008. 352 pp. r150.00 (hardcover). This volume is intended to explain why major investment projects (the so-called mega-projects) often are not completed on time and cost more than originally budgeted. Drawing from experiences of European and North American countries, the book also suggests ways to avoid such failures. Although the topic is rather specific, the book is worth reading for both experts and nonexperts as infrastructure development continues to be a major key to economic expansion across the globe.g row_486 380.. 408 For those who only have a vague idea of what a mega-project is, the book begins by introducing the topic and reviewing the most important recent literature. The first part of the volume, then, provides numerous insights on the complexity of mega-projects, starting from the large number of reasons why mega-projects might fail. For example, the project might be "underdesigned," thus less costly but less robust to unforeseen developments, or it might be "overdesigned," when a large number of weaknesses and possible problems are considered in advance, and solutions are evaluated before the problem actually occurs. Overdesigned projects are more robust, less likely to fail, but are much more costly. The project might involve the use of innovative technologies that have never been applied to a similar context, and that involve more uncertain implementation costs and results. Most projects have an impact on the environment and might face opposition for example from environmentalist groups. If representative of these groups have not been directly involved in the design of the project, they might try to stop it, thus causing delays and increasing costs. Finally, because of incorrect predictions of 380 GROWTH AND CHANGE, JUNE 2009

Risk, including economic risk, is increasingly a concern for public policy and management. The possibility of dealing effectively with risk is hampered, however, by lack of a sound empirical basis for risk assessment and management. This article demonstrates the general point for cost and demand risks in urban rail projects. The article presents empirical evidence that allow valid economic risk assessment and management of urban rail projects, including benchmarking of individual or groups of projects. Benchmarking of the Copenhagen Metro is presented as a case in point. The approach developed is proposed as a model for other types of policies and projects in order to improve economic and financial risk assessment and management in policy and planning.

This paper explores how theories of the planning fallacy and the outside view may be used to conduct quality control and due diligence in project management. First, a much-neglected issue in project management is identified, namely that the front-end estimates of costs and benefits – used in the business cases, cost-benefit analyses, and social and environmental impact assessments that typically support decisions on projects – are typically significantly different from actual ex post costs and benefits, and are therefore poor predictors of the actual value and viability of projects. Second, it is discussed how Kahneman and Tversky’s theories of the planning fallacy and the outside view may help explain and remedy this situation through quality control of decisions. Third, it is described what quality control and due diligence are in the context of project management, and an eight-step procedure is outlined for due diligence based on the outside view. Fourth, the procedure is tested on a real-life, multibillion-dollar project, organized as a public-private partnership. Finally, Akerlof and Shiller’s recent discussion in economics of “firing the forecaster” is discussed together with its relevance to project management. In sum, the paper demonstrates the need, the theoretical basis, a practical methodology, and a real-life example for how to de-bias project management using quality control and due diligence based on the outside view.

"Corruption has become one of the most popular topics in the social scientific disciplines. However, there is a lack of interdisciplinary communication about corruption. Models developed by different
academic disciplines are often isolated from each other. The purpose of this paper is to review several major approaches to corruption and draw them closer to each other. Most studies of corruption fall
into three major categories: (i) rational-actor models where corruption is viewed as resulting from cost/benefit analysis of individual actors; (ii) structural models that focus on external forces that determine corruption; and (iii) relational models that emphasize social interactions and networks among corrupt actors. Focusing on actors’ behavior and the social context, this article explains corruption concepts taken from sociology, economics, organization studies, political science, social anthropology, and social psychology."

In this introductory essay to our special issue on elites, we outline some of the major challenges to research in this area and propose a series of theoretical and methodological pathways to address them. Theoretically we make four recommendations: (a) greater attentiveness to and specificity about the relationship between elites and power; (b) a clearer articulation of the relationships between elites and the varieties of capitalism; (c) far more attention to diversity within elites and the use of elites to understand forms of domination like white supremacy and masculine domination and (d) expanding beyond the orthodox form of Bourdieusian theoretical frameworks. Methodologically we outline how research using survey instruments, social network analysis (SNA) (and multiple correspondence analysis), interviews, ethnographic observation, experiments, archival research, administrative data and content analysis can each be deployed, built upon or redirected to help bring elites into greater focus.

Actors in competitive environments are bound to decide and act under conditions of uncertainty because they rarely have accurate foreknowledge of how their opponents will respond and when they will respond. Just as a competitor makes a move to improve their standing on a given variable relative to a target competitor, she should expect the latter to counteract with an iterative lagged asymmetric response, that is, with a sequence of countermoves (iteration) that is very different in kind from its trigger (asymmetry) and that will be launched at some unknown point in the future (time lag). The paper explicates the broad relevance of the newly proposed concept of " iterative lagged asymmetric responses " to the social study of temporality and to fields as diverse as intelligence and counterintelligence studies, strategic management, futures studies, military theory, and long-range planning. By bringing out in the foreground and substantiating the observation that competitive environments place a strategic premium on surprise, the concept of iterative lagged asymmetric responses makes a contribution to the never-ending and many-pronged debate about the extent to which the future can be predicted.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/0961463X17752652

National identity is constructed through successive identifications with significant Others. This article discusses the phenomenon of change and continuity in Czech identity. It is focused here on the identification towards the EU, which has become the most significant Other of today in two ways: (a) (change) contributing to overcoming the identity crisis provoked by the drastic changes that occurred between 1989 and 1993 (change of regime, disappearance of the USSR and the break-up of Czechoslovakia), and therefore the subsequent drastic changes in relations with past significant Others: communism, the USSR, and the Slovaks; and (b) (continuity) reaffirming one of the fundamental elements during the national revival in the nineteenth century, democracy, upon which the various identifications towards the EU have been aligned. According to the differing interpretations of what democracy means, and three other criteria of the “levels of Othering,” the EU has been “imagined,” on the one hand, as an entity where Czechs can flourish in their identity and ensure their freedom and democratic values (positive Other), and, on the other, as an “oppressor” entity which portrays democratic deficit, restricts freedom, and threatens Czech national identity (negative Other).

The immediate post-war period was defined by shifts in capitalism's socioeconomic and institutional underpinnings. Commonly known as Fordism, until the early-1970s models of standardized industrial mass-production and robust state planning and intervention were relatively successful in maintaining secular growth in employment, productivity and demand as well as establishing the national economy and society as unified, governable fields. This paper considers how migration controls in Canada and Australia enhanced and extended such arrangements. In simultaneously boosting production and demand, diversifying and integrating industrial activities and assimilating European migrants into a mass consumer culture while excluding non-Europeans perceived as disruptive of material and sociocultural homogeneity, such policies provided central vectors of economic and cultural nationalism that complemented other monopolistic and redistributive interventions.

El cuerpo es para el activismo contemporáneo el primer territorio de resistencia. Mediante una etnografía multisituada, desarrollada de 2008 a 2012 en España y otros países europeos, el análisis de sus usos políticos permitirá pasar de las «técnicas del cuerpo» (observadas por Mauss) a las tácticas del cuerpo. Además, en un contexto internacional de crisis política y socioeconómica, la ciudad se vuelve no solo el escenario de la acción, sino aquello que está en juego. El objetivo es comprender las resistencias del activismo con base en las interrelaciones del cuerpo y la ciudad, sabiendo que cuanto más se extiende esta última más importancia adquiere el primero. De la antiglobalización a movimientos recientes como el 15M, el cuerpo y la ciudad ganan un peso considerable.

The current paper contributes to organizational thinking about cultural mixture as an embodied, sensory process, by examining the concept of organizational anthropophagy as a metaphor for a particular mode of organizational understanding. An emerging Brazilian literature on anthropophagic thinking combines a focus on the body, the passions and ideas of physical desire and aggression with cultural notions of hybridity and mixture, making the notion ripe for debates in contemporary organization theory. To develop these connections, I give a background to the anthropophagic movement, an artistic and cultural vanguard movement, discussing how this movement provided a unique angle on embodied forms of knowledge that can be applied to understanding dynamics of self-and otherness in organizations. Next, I examine how the body can be understood anthropophagically, linking issues of selfhood, authenticity and relationality to the bodily emphasis in anthropophagy. Finally, I discuss directions and limitations of anthropophagic thinking, suggesting that metaphorical and local movements like the anthropophagic movements can have ramifications for the literal and general in organizational theory.

This intervention contributes to recent work in urban geography that integrates the conceptual frameworks of assemblages and actor-network theory by highlighting two additional directions that require a more rigorous and detailed theorization. The first direction concerns the relationship between contingency and necessity in urban assemblages and actor-networks and this paper delineates four specific propositions as a starting point for further reflection. The second direction suggests that urban assemblages and actor-networks require a more explicit vocabulary for thinking about competition and cooperation within and between cities. To this end, the paper introduces a new concept – delayed asymmetric counterforces – that can foster a better understanding of competition-induced urban change and destabilization. The novel concept is developed in conjunction with a typology of delays in competitive urban dynamics, which helps illuminate how delayed asymmetric counterforces are both a cause and an effect of the complexity inherent in the urban realm.

Do different types of megaprojects have different cost overruns? This apparently simple question is at the heart of research at the University of Oxford aimed at understanding the characteristics of megaprojects, particularly in terms of how they are established, run and concluded. In this study, we set out to investigate cost overruns in the Olympic Games. To do so, we examined the costs of the Games over half a century, including both summer and winter Olympics. We looked at the evolution of final reported costs and compared these to the costs established in the Games bids, submitted to the International Olympic Committee (IOC) up to seven years before the Games occurred. In so doing we established the largest dataset of its kind, and documented for the first time in a consistent fashion the costs and cost overruns for the Olympic Games, from 1960 to 2012. We discovered that the Games stand out in two distinct ways compared to other megaprojects: (1) The Games overrun with 100 per cent consistency. No other type of megaproject is this consistent regarding cost overrun. Other project types are typically on budget from time to time, but not the Olympics. (2) With an average cost overrun in real terms of 179 per cent – and 324 per cent in nominal terms – overruns in the Games have historically been significantly larger than for other types of megaprojects, including infrastructure, construction, ICT, and dams. The data thus show that for a city and nation to decide to host the Olympic Games is to take on one of the most financially risky type of megaproject that exists, something that many cities and nations have learned to their peril. For the London 2012 Games, we find that: (1) With sports-related real costs currently estimated at USD14.8 billion, London is on track to become the most costly Olympics ever. (2) With a projected cost overrun of 101 per cent in real terms, overrun for London is below the historical average for the Games, but not significantly so. (3) The London cost overrun is, however, significantly higher than overruns for recent Games since 1999. London therefore is reversing a positive trend of falling cost overruns for the Games.

Over the last decades Barcelona has experienced social and economic
transformations brought by the conversion of peripheral
urban neighborhoods into tourist attractions. In this sense urban
tourism has been the latest chapter of spatial reorganization to
sustain capitalism within the global neoliberal environment in the
Catalan city. In addition, the urban commodification process has
expanded into not only central and historical districts, but also
more peripheral zones outside the tourist bubble. Those transformations
signify a symbolic turn: they became part of the centre.
Since the 1992 Olympic Games, Barcelona’s brand, both for the
city and for tourism, has experienced an important promotion
where the urban periphery has become both part of the centre,
as well as part of its global city imagery through placemaking,
public policy, and political decisions. In short, the steady inclusion
of neighborhoods such as Vila de Gracia and Poblenou into the
tourist experience enhances the Barcelonan tourist imagery. The
inclusion of new cultural icons and tourist attractions embody a
slight spatial and symbolic turn to boost the city’s visitor activities.
In order to facilitate an in-depth comprehension, the ethnographical
approach has been taken.

"ABSTRACT: This study provides an empirically based analysis of corrupt governmental networks. We conducted 45 interviews in Hungary with different organizational actors who were actually participating in corrupt transactions or at least had first-hand
experiences of corruption. Given the secret nature of the topic, this article provides a unique insight into the phenomenon. Our findings show that corrupt elite cliques consciously design and coordinate multilevel structures of corrupt networks within and among organizations that involve a large amount of people. We identified the major network elements and their functions in corrupt transactions. The article also provides a typology of corrupt networks. The networks have different structural characteristics based on location of the ‘‘cash cows,’’ points from where the system is fed, and the actors’ positions of power. Our findings are compared with the already existing literature on dark networks, terrorist, and organized crime formations."

To refine wholesale accounts of transnationalism, scholars have cited the amplification of border enforcement and immigration control. Whilst received analysis emphasizes multiple processes whether border militarization, mass deportation or the crossdeputization of local authorities, other trends remain unexplored. Employing the insights of scholarship on the diffusion and decentralization of policing and crime control, this work interrogates the enlistment of private individuals in official gatekeeping efforts. Drawing on relevant empirical examples -anonymous tip lines, voluntary immigration posses, border vigilantes, local anti-immigrant ordinances and other practices that compel, encourage and include societal participation -it assesses three modalities of citizen involvement: deputization, responsibilization and autonomization. Each displays distinct state-society relations and techniques for mobilizing societal actors and energies. In addition to illuminating the complexities, consequences and contradictions of contemporary immigration control, this article enriches understandings of social exclusion and the redistribution and transposition of government amidst neoliberal restructuring.

The study of collective cognition has taken many forms in recent years, including collective managerial cognition, organizational learning, shared mental models, transactive memory and psychological climate. However, few studies have confronted the foundational ideas underlying group mentality directly, leaving the concept as largely metaphorical. The current work reviews foundational debates around the conceptual components of group minds to serve as a meta-theoretical heuristic to orient future research. To lay out this framework, conceptual distinctions are drawn between phenomenal, vehicle, content and context elements of cognition. Next, existing approaches are reframed as conjunctions of claims across the four levels, leading to a distinction between configurationalist, situated and extended views of collective cognition. Finally, future research is proposed regarding the interfaces between conceptual levels and the possibility of establishing bona fide group mental entities.

Nowhere does the need to appreciate a diverse range of different intercultural
experiences appear more obvious than in the context of intercultural education.
Yet, in times of neoliberal hegemony over educational politics and policies, less socioculturally
dominant and often more colloquial funds of intercultural knowledge risk to
suffer continued institutional marginalization and curricular obliteration. To counter
such forms of symbolic violence and to create learning environments that value a
wide range of processes of intercultural capital realization, intercultural education
needs to overcome ideas of “bad habitus” and “good reflexivity”, for they prematurely
discredit the value of people’s practical sense, while failing to problematize
the sociocultural contingency of their reflexive capacities. In a critical appropriation
of Bourdieu’s conceptualization of human agency, the present article highlights the
reconcilability of reflexivity and habitus, with a particular interest in processes of intercultural
capital realization and the (unfulfilled) potential of intercultural education

This article introduces the Religions issue on Latin American religiosity exploring sociological perspectives on the Latin American religious situation, from a Latin American perspective. The Secularization Theory proposes "the more modernity, the less religion", but in Latin America we see both, modernity and religiosity. The Religious Economy model, on the other hand, affirms "the more pluralization, the more religion", but in Latin America there is not so much pluralization, and it is not easy to switch from one religion to other. Finally, the article presents a Latin American model, the "popular religiosity" one. The problem with it, is that it is mostly 'Catholic,' and so does not account for the growing religious diversity in the region. It also emphasizes the "popular" aspect, excluding middle socioeconomic status individuals and elites, assuming they practice "real" religion. This introduction presents a critical approach as a way to recover, describe, and understand Latin American religious practices. This methodology might be a path to creating sociological categories to understand religion beyond the north Atlantic world.

Demonic geography is an approach to practicing human geography that operates from the premise that there are no such immaterial entities as 'souls', 'spirits', 'minds', integrated, stable 'selves', or conscious 'free will'. This paper elaborates the theoretical framework of demonic geography by spelling out how it is different from non-representational theory and by articulating it with recent developments in experimental psychology, neuroscience, and the philosophy of mind. Counterintuitively, the paper shows that the deflationary, materialistic ontology of human nature espoused by demonic geography need not lead to meaninglessness, unhappiness, or the collapse of moral behaviour. Instead, subscribing to demonic geography opens up new ways to find meaning, to pursue happiness, and to live the good life.

geografia da universidade de Nova Iorque. Suas pesquisas são orientadas para os estudos sobre as áreas de geografia urbana e da globalização. Autor de diversos livros de muita influência nas áreas das ciências humanas e sociais, Harvey vem publicando desde os anos 1960, destacando-se Explanation in Geography de 1969, Social Justice and the City na década de 1970, e por fim, no auge da sua vida acadêmica publica nos anos 1990 a obra A Condição Pós-moderna, muito conhecida no Brasil, onde ele afirma que a globalização econômica, cultural e política em curso disponibilizou novas imagens e identidades no mundo global, e que ocorreu uma intensificação na forma de se fazer comunicação em todo o planeta -esse fator, é outro elemento sociológico a ser considerado nessa atual configuração social que estamos inseridos. A compressão entre o Tempo e o Espaço também alteraram-se consideravelmente, e a obra resenhada é de certa forma uma continuação desse raciocíno, mas agora com uma forte inspiração marxiana dos aspectos econômicos globalizados pelo capital.

This article analyzes the ways in which Canadian and Australian immigration policies represent causes and consequences of neoliberal restructuring. Interrogating neoliberalism as a series of political-economic and moral changes derived from the marketization of societal and governmental arrangements, it illustrates how numerically-based ‘points systems’ have been employed as mechanisms for: gauging human capital; establishing indices of risk and undesirability; and promoting the ‘responsibilization’ of incoming migrants. In doing so the points systems' historical trajectory is traced through a variety of administrative reforms characteristic of neoliberal government and flexible accumulation. Ultimately, this article contends that as rational, technical and economically guided systems of enumeration and assessment, both governments' policies mirror, enhance and extend neoliberal arrangements and sensibilities. In providing ostensibly objective techniques of evaluation the points systems have assisted in injecting the ideal neoliberal citizens- who are, above all, flexible, cosmopolitan, entrepreneurial and autonomous- from abroad. Overall this paper contributes to studies of state restructuring by providing new insights into the links between the neglected domain of immigration control and emergent techniques of societal regulation and citizen-making.

The Shapley-Shubik power index in a voting situation depends on the number of orderings in which each player is pivotal. The Banzhaf power index depends on the number of ways in which each voter can effect a swing. If there are n players in a voting situation, then the function which measures the worst case running time for computing these indices is in Oðn2 n Þ. We present a combinatorial method based in generating functions to compute these power indices efficiently in weighted double or triple majority games and we study the time complexity of the algorithms. Moreover, we calculate these power indices for the countries in the Council of Ministers of the European Union under the new decision rules prescribed by the Treaty of Nice.

Sow-controlled' housing has been developed to address welfare and production concerns associated with close con®nement of the lactating sow and her litter, by permitting the sow to leave the litter at will. However, there is a risk that variation in the use of the piglet-free (`get-away') area may lead to inadequate maternal care in some cases or to failure to bene®t from the system in others. To understand use of a get-away area more fully and to develop ways to predict or modify it, we analysed a large data set (n 96 litters) derived from three previous experiments and a new study on sow-controlled housing. Sows use of the get-away area was highly variable, and the variation increased with piglet age from 1 to 4 weeks. Relative use of the get-away area was consistent among individual sows over the course of lactation and negatively related to nursing frequency. Sows tested in two or more lactations showed no consistency from one lactation to another. Sows that used the getaway area more, especially late in lactation, tended to be lighter at parturition and to have larger litters at birth and at weaning. Sow weight loss and average piglet weight gain tended to decrease as use of the get-away area increased and nursing frequency decreased. Five tests of maternal responsiveness to stimuli associated with piglet distress revealed consistent individual differences and a positive association between sensitivity to an isolated piglet and the amount of get-away use. We conclude that use of the get-away area is an expression in part of the sow's investment in her offspring, and that it is not necessarily indicative of low parental motivation. #

The task of studying the impact of social class on physical and mental health involves, among other things, the use of a conceptual toolbox that defines what social class is, establishes how to measure it, and sets criteria that help distinguish it from closely related concepts. One field that has recently witnessed a wealth of theoretical and conceptual research on social class is psychology, but geographers' and sociologists' attitude of diffidence toward this " positivistic " discipline has prevented them from taking advantage of this body of scholarship. This paper aims to highlight some of the most important developments in the psychological study of social class and social mobility that speak to the long-standing concerns of health geographers and sociologists with how social position, perceptions, social comparisons, and class-based identities impact health and well-being.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2017.11.037

This paper uses spatial data of cases of intimate partner violence against women (IPVAW) to examine neighborhood-level influences on small-area variations in IPVAW risk in a police district of the city of Valencia (Spain). To analyze area variations in IPVAW risk and its association with neighborhood-level explanatory variables we use a Bayesian spatial random-effects modeling approach, as well as disease mapping methods to represent risk probabilities in each area. Analyses show that IPVAW cases are more likely in areas of high immigrant concentration, high public disorder and crime, and high physical disorder. Results also show a spatial component indicating remaining variability attributable to spatially structured random effects. Bayesian spatial modeling offers a new perspective to identify IPVAW high and low risk areas, and provides a new avenue for the design of better-informed prevention and intervention strategies

Resumen
En 1977 ve la luz el primer número de la revista Cuadernos de Sociología, promovida desde la Facultad de Sociología de la Universidad Santo Tomás. Hasta el 2011, la Revista se publicó ininterrumpidamente, excepto en 1996, 1997 y 1998. Bajo el amparo metodológico de un estudio de caso, antecedido por un trabajo de archivo y recuperación documental, se realizó un ejercicio de sistematización de la información de la Revista, con la que se generó una base de datos de 592 registros, que facilitó el análisis del contenido de los documentos. Para completar la recolección de información, se realizó una entrevista en profundidad a su fundador, Guillermo Páez Morales.

Como resultados de la investigación, se obtuvo información acerca del contexto y las motivaciones del nacimiento de la Revista, su desarrollo (reflexiones publicadas, eventos, autores y autoras, y temas abordados) y las circunstancias que causaron que dejara de publicarse. Se destaca la fuerte participación femenina, tanto en la redacción de artículos, como en el proceso editorial. Más de la mitad de los artículos publicados corresponden al tipo reflexión, con énfasis en aspectos antropológicos y filosóficos, perspectivas políticas, reflexiones teóricas, reflexiones disciplinares o profundización en temas coyunturales. Temáticamente, hay un énfasis en la sociología política, la sociología urbana, el conflicto armado, la sociología de la familia y los estudios culturales.

Como conclusiones, se plantean la importancia de la revista como herramienta para la generación de comunidad académica; su carácter divulgativo, según el cual priman los artículos de reflexión y, dentro de estos, los de reflexión sobre la sociología como ciencia social; la pertinencia de profundizar en los contenidos de la Revista desde un análisis hermenéutico, para trazar un paralelismo entre estos y el proceso de institucionalización de la sociología en Colombia; la relevancia de esta y otras revistas ya desaparecidas para hacer “sociología de la sociología”; y una propuesta para rescatar en las publicaciones y en los procesos de investigación el dinamismo, la creatividad y la espontaneidad que siempre ha acompañado a la sociología colombiana.

Abstract
The first issue of the journal Cuadernos de Sociología of the School of Sociology of Universidad Santo Tomás appeared in 1977. The journal was published uninterruptedly until 2011, except in 1996, 1997, and 1998. On the basis of the case study methodology, preceded by archival and document recovery work, we systematized the journal’s information, generating a database with 592 entries, which facilitated the analysis of the contents of the documents. In order to complete the collection of information, an in-depth interview was carried out with the journal’s founder, Guillermo Páez Morales.

As a result of the research, information was obtained regarding the context and motivations leading to the founding of the journal, its development (published reflections, events, authors, and topics addressed), and the circumstances causing the end of its publication. The article highlights the high female participation in both writing articles and the editorial process. Over half of the articles published are reflection articles focused on anthropological and philosophical aspects, political perspectives, theoretical reflections, disciplinary reflections, or in-depth analysis of pressing issues. There is a thematic emphasis on political sociology, urban sociology, the armed conflict, sociology of the family, and cultural studies.

As part of the conclusions, the article points out the importance of the journal as a tool for the creation of an academic community; its focus on dissemination, reflected in the predominance of reflection articles, particularly on sociology as a social science; the pertinence of in-depth research on the journal’s contents through a hermeneutical analysis, in order to draw parallelisms between them and the process of institutionalization of sociology in Colombia; the relevance of this journal and other already disappeared ones for doing “sociology of sociology”. Finally, it suggests that the dynamism, creativity, and spontaneity that have always characterized Colombian sociology should be recovered in both publications and research processes. 

Resumo
Em 1977, vem à luz, o primeiro número da revista Cuadernos de Sociología, promovida pela Faculdade de Sociologia da Universidad Santo Tomás. Até 2011, a revista foi publicada ininterruptamente, com exceção dos anos de 1996, 1997 e 1998. Com o amparo metodológico de um estudo de caso, antecedido por um trabalho de arquivo e de recuperação documental, foi realizado um exercício de sistematização da informação da revista, com o qual se gerou uma base de dados de 592 registros, que facilitou a análise do conteúdo dos documentos. Para completar a coleta da informação, foi realizada uma entrevista em profundidade com seu fundador, Guillermo Páez Morales.

Como resultados da pesquisa, obteve-se informação sobre o contexto e as motivações do nascimento da revista, seu desenvolvimento (reflexões publicadas, eventos, autores e autoras, e temas abordados) e das circunstâncias que levaram a que deixasse de ser publicada. Destaca-se a forte participação feminina, tanto na redação de artigos quanto no processo editorial. Mais da metade dos artigos publicados correspondem ao tipo de reflexão, com ênfase em aspectos antropológicos e filosóficos, perspectivas políticas, reflexões teóricas, reflexões disciplinares ou aprofundamento de temas conjunturais. Quanto à temática, há ênfase na Sociologia Política, na Sociologia Urbana, no conflito armado, na Sociologia da Família e nos estudos culturais.

Como conclusões, destacam-se: a importância da revista como ferramenta para a geração de comunidade acadêmica; seu caráter de divulgação, segundo o qual primam os artigos de reflexão e, dentro desses, os de reflexão sobre a Sociologia como Ciência Social; a pertinência de aprofundar nos conteúdos da revista a partir de uma análise hermenêutica, para fazer um paralelo entre esses e o processo de institucionalização da Sociologia na Colômbia; a relevância desta e de outras revistas já desaparecidas para fazer “sociologia da sociologia”; e uma proposta para resgatar, nas publicações e nos processos de pesquisa, o dinamismo, a criatividade e a espontaneidade que sempre acompanharam a Sociologia colombiana.

Este texto se propone explicar el significado de las representaciones del tiempo vin- culadas a la ética del trabajo postfordista. Para entender el sentido de estas representaciones se propone un análisis diacrónico. De este modo, el presente artículo se estructura en tres partes. Primeramente se describe la temporalidad de las sociedades preindustriales. En la segunda parte se muestra el proceso a través del cual el trabajo se elevó a la principal de las actividades humanas. Por último, en la tercera parte se analiza el significado de las concepciones del tiempo integradas en la ética del trabajo postfordista.
Para la realización de este trabajo se han utilizado fuentes secundarias de carácter histórico y sociológico. En la tercera parte se han utilizado también los textos producidos por los especia- listas en managament y por los representantes de las principales instituciones políticas interna- cionales, que legitiman la actual ética del trabajo.

The moral enhancement (or bioenhancement) debate seems stuck in a dilemma. On the one hand, the more radical proposals, while certainly novel and interesting, seem unlikely to be feasible in practice, or if technically feasible then most likely imprudent. But on the other hand, the more “sensible” proposals – sensible in the sense of being both practically achievable and more plausibly ethically justifiable – can be rather hard to distinguish from both “traditional” forms of moral enhancement, such as non-drug-mediated social or moral education, and non-moral forms of bioenhancement, such as “smart drug” style cognitive enhancement. In this essay, I argue that bioethicists have paid insufficient attention to an alternative form of moral bioenhancement—or at least a likely candidate—that falls somewhere between these two extremes, namely the (appropriately qualified) use of certain psychedelic drugs.