Societies — Open Access Journal

This study delves into the relationship between income inequality and subjective well-being by gauging the role played by opportunities at the country level. Using data from the World Value Survey, we estimate multilevel models to explain cross-country differences in individuals’ life satisfaction. Opportunity and inequality exert a significant effect per se on life satisfaction, and their joint effect explains the puzzling positive relationship between income inequality and life satisfaction in low- and middle-income countries. Income inequalities reduce the well-being of individuals if opportunities are low, but inequality is not relevant for life satisfaction if opportunities in the country are high. Among the aspects of opportunity that really matter, we show that inclusiveness and access to advanced education play a more major role than political freedom or personal rights. Results apply for different social, income, and education groups. Full article

Popular and scholarly accounts of Trump’s ascendency to the presidency of the United States on the part of the American white working-class use different variables to define the sociodemographic group because there is no “working-class White” variable available in benchmark datasets for researchers to code. To address this need, the Author ran a multinomial regression to assess whether income, education and racial identity predict working-class membership among white Americans, finding that income and education are statistically significant predictors of working-class whiteness, while racial identity is not. Arriving at a robust definition of “white working-class” in light of these findings, the paper next turns to a review of the extant literature. By retrieving studies from searches of computerised databases, hand searches and authoritative texts, the review critically surmises the explanatory accounts of Trump’s victory. Discussion of the findings from the review is presented in three principal sections. The first section explains how working-class White communities, crippled by a dearth of social and geographic mobility, have been “left behind” by the political elites. The second section examines how white Americans, whose dominant group position is threatened by demographic change, voted for Trump because of resonance between his populist rhetoric and their latent “racist” attitudes. The third and final section explores the implications of a changing America for native-born whites, and how America’s increasing ethnoracial diversity is eroding relations between its dominant and nondominant groups. The Author surmises by arguing that these explanatory accounts must be understood in the context of this new empirical approximation of “working-class White”. Full article

Overthe years, the role of victims in the criminal process has considerably evolved in common law jurisdictions, particularly in the United States and England and Wales. These notable developments have varied greatly between these two jurisdictions. These differences are in great part attributed to the different forces and rationales behind the emergence of the early victims’ movements in these respective jurisdictions. Indeed, the movements in the United States and England and Wales adopted different philosophies, strategies, and members came from different backgrounds, which can account for the differences in policies. This article engages in a process of comparative distancing between the forces that drove the movements, as well as the context under which they operated in order to understand the different policies, legal responses and debates that relate to the role of victims of crime in the two selected jurisdictions. Full article

The determinants of domain satisfactions could be differently evaluated depending on the aspect of life considered, which would lead to different implications for public policies. To test this hypothesis, using the German Socio−Economic Panel (GSOEP), we analyse the effect of different economic and non−economic factors on satisfaction with financial situation, job and health status. The main results confirm that several determinants exert different effects depending on the aspect of life that people are evaluating. For instance, household income only improves satisfaction with financial situation but it does not explain job or health satisfaction. However, those people with an active social life, who are less worried and distrustful, are more satisfied regardless of the aspect of life considered. These findings reflect the importance of studying the main determinants of the domain satisfactions using a comparative perspective to design and evaluate specific public policies, since some measures could be effective for improving satisfaction in one area of an individual’s life but not for others. Full article

The Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) creates duties for States Parties and UN agencies to ensure that individuals under their protection have equal enjoyment of the full range of human rights. This includes the Article 25 right to enjoy ‘the highest attainable standard of health without discrimination on the basis of disability.’ However, refugees, who are forced to seek protection outside their state, face particular obstacles to maintaining an adequate level of wellbeing and accessing services to meet their health needs. Among this group, those who have a disability may confront multiple intersecting challenges. This paper draws on the findings of research across countries that play host to significant refugee populations. It explores the contribution of the CRPD to the international human rights framework for refugees, with particular attention to the right to health. Incorporating evidence from the field, it discusses the implementation of these rights and related duties in humanitarian responses across the world. This article discusses common barriers to health services for refugees with disabilities in six host countries. Based on the broad conceptualization of health and wellbeing established in the international legal framework, it also examines the relationship between the fulfilment of Article 25 and other basic socioeconomic rights. It provides examples of good practice and identifies strategies to better ensure the rights set out in Article 25 of the CRPD. Full article

Blind and visually impaired people have to cope with the safe movement through public space and the (lack of) knowledge of spatial issues and walkable routes. These challenges often lead to a fear of accidents and collisions, frequently also of disorientation. This, in turn, can result in a reduced radius of action, restricted mobility, and later on, in social isolation. Against this background, the project TERRAIN aims at developing a technical guidance system for orientation and navigation in urban space. For the development of this assistance system, the project pursues an approach in which reflexive, responsive, and deliberative dimensions have been integrated to address the ethical, legal and social implications (ELSI) in a co-design process. This paper focuses on the participation of citizens independent of vision impairments in the project which provided a variety of relevant indications of impacts and potential technical adaptations from an ‘outer’ point of view. In addition, conclusions can be drawn about the existing desirability and acceptance of the technical solution among the potential users as well as their social environment of potential users. In addition, it turned out that the citizen participation process raised different expectations among the project partners. Therefore, this article evaluates the participation results from the perspective of the technology developers and the technology assessors. Full article

This paper examines the role of the victim through the prism of prosecutor in the first third of the nineteenth century when England did not have a public prosecutor or national police force and most crimes were prosecuted in the courts by the victim. The selection of cases is drawn from a larger investigation of female offenders punished by transportation to New South Wales, Australia. The cases demonstrate the diversity of victims, the power they held as prosecutors and highlight the process from apprehension to conviction. Historical records of regional English Assizes and Sessions were investigated to identify the victim and record the prosecution process. Full article

The United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) recognizes the role of Assistive Technologies (AT) in enabling independent living and inclusion of people with disabilities. Research into the provision of AT and disability services in general has highlighted the importance of social context and its influence on individual outcomes. However, there is little recognition of sibling roles, relationships and rights in the guidance available for practitioners. This paper explores the socio-technical context of home modification practice and the importance of involving siblings. The international context and concepts behind AT provision, including home modifications, and issues emerging from practice in Australia’s new National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) are discussed. Based on extensive practical experience and peer review, the “5 S’s for Siblings” is presented as a practice approach for involving siblings in the home modification process. Policy and practice implications are presented, including communication strategies for working in partnership with individuals and their families, and alignment with national standards and human rights principles. Involving siblings in the home modification process recognizes the important role they play in the lives of people with disabilities, both now and in the future. Full article

This article examines one element of the state’s responses to crime: the provision of a taxpayer-funded compensation scheme for victims of personal and sexual violence. The Criminal Injuries Compensation Scheme 2012 sits within a political context that seeks to ensure that victims of crime are better served by the criminal justice system of England and Wales, the jurisdiction that is the focus of this article. The government’s fundamental policy is that this scheme exists to compensate only those victims who are ‘blameless’, either in terms of their character, criminal record, conduct at the time of the incident, or in their engagement with the criminal justice agencies. It is a policy that illuminates elements of two of the questions that the editors posed for this Special Issue of Societies. Reviewing the increased urgency in government policies concerning the treatment of victims of crime, the first section addresses the question of how, why and when victims came to shape political and criminal justice discourse and practice. The question of how, and to what end, cultural representations have shaped perceptions of victims is addressed in the second and third sections, which examine the notion of victim status and illustrate the ways in which eligible (‘ideal’) victims are perceived and their claims under this scheme are determined. Full article

In 2015, the Belgian Health Ministers launched a plan intended to evolve towards an integrated care system for chronic patients. This plan is implemented through pilot projects involving local actors. Therefore, the researcher raised the following research question: how does the use of pilot projects as implementation instruments structure the collaboration between parties involved in a pilot project? The term “pilot project” refers to a collaborative work method coupled with an experimentation purpose. This is further developed in the paper via a literature study. This qualitative research draws on interviews, focus groups, direct observation, and a documentary analysis. During the two first phases of the process, field workers had to create multidisciplinary local consortia and write an application file describing the project they would implement during the third phase, which raised challenging collaboration issues. Many people learned to work together over time, progressively overcoming the traditional fragmentation of care. They met regularly, understood their respective roles, and dealt with controversies through negotiation to reach an agreement on a common project. In conclusion, the researcher shows that, thanks to its characteristics, the pilot project instrument supports the development of collaborative care networks; in this example of community-based integrated care networks. Full article

Child abuse in youth custody in England and Wales is receiving an unprecedented degree of official attention. Historic allegations of abuse by staff in custodial institutions which held children are now being heard by the courts and by the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA), and some criminal trials have resulted in convictions. A persistent question prompted by these investigations is that of why the victims of custodial child abuse were for so long denied recognition as such, or any form of redress. Drawing on original documentary research, this article aims to explain why and how state authorities in England and Wales failed to recognise the victimisation of children held in penal institutions between 1960 and 1990, and argues that this failure constitutes a disavowal of the state’s responsibility. We show that the victims of custodial child abuse were the victims of state crimes by omission, because the state failed to recognise or to uphold a duty of care. We argue further that this was possible because the occupational cultures and custodial practices of penal institutions failed to recognise the structural and agentic vulnerabilities of children. Adult staff were granted enormous discretionary power which entitled them to act (and to define their actions) without effective constraint. These findings, we suggest, have implications for how custodial institutions for children should think about the kinds of abuse which are manifest today. Full article

Although wealth inequality has many established negatives, this study investigates a potential positive, unprecedented wealth concentration makes it possible for solutions to large and seemingly intractable problems to be deployed by convincing a relatively small number of individuals to invest. In order to probe this potential outcome of inequality, this study quantifies the number of people necessary to radically reduce the greenhouse gas emissions responsible for global climate destabilization from the U.S. electric grid, which is one of the largest sources of emissions. Specifically, this study determined that 1544 GW of solar photovoltaic (PV) technology must be deployed to eliminate the use of fossil fuels on the U.S. electric grid, if PV is conservatively deployed as a function of population density. The results showed that only 79 American multi-billionaires would need to invest in PV. This investment would still leave each investor with a billion dollars of liquid assets as well as substantial long-term profits from PV. The analysis also concluded that 79 people is a conservative upper estimate of those that would need to be convinced of the usefulness of moving to a solar U.S. grid and that this estimate is likely to decrease further in the future. Full article

A community benefit agreement (CBA) that provides tax breaks to a company often has provisions to help uplift the area where the business resides. A number of San Francisco companies, especially those in the technology sector, have received tax relief, a tangible benefit granted in exchange for operating in designated blighted areas, the details of which are delineated in publicly available CBAs. One CBA requirement for the tax break—community engagement—defies easy measurement. This paper assesses whether San Francisco companies were held accountable for fulfilling this unclear but core CBA requirement, namely, engagement with disenfranchised community members, an important part of their corporate social responsibility. To assess the community engagement stipulation of CBAs, this paper presents background on CBAs followed by interview data from two anonymous community liaisons who were formerly or are currently responsible for community engagement at companies that received the tax break. Themes found in the interview data highlight the limitations of CBAs that result from the unequal social exchange between companies and the indigent residents of blighted areas where the businesses are located. The study concludes that the benefits of the vague and unenforceable community engagement provision of CBAs do not justify the companies’ payroll tax exclusion. The disproportionality of this quid pro quo risks aggravating impoverished residents’ resentment of companies and their employees. The relevance of this study’s low participation rate among community liaisons is also discussed. Full article

In this paper, the outline, design, and findings of an ongoing research project on the effects of globalization on the transformation of political ideology in the Arab world at the political party level are presented. It is argued that globalization has altered the dimensionality, type, and structuration of political ideology in the Arab world. The structure of preferences among political actors in the region shifted from a unidimensional one in the post-independence era to become multidimensional in the contemporary period, defined by high rates of economic, cultural, and political globalization. Arab political parties no longer organize their platforms based on the Islamic–liberal, Islamist–secular, or cultural divides. An economic values-based dimension has emerged to divide party programs, adding a second, distinct and statistically independent dimension to the already existing classic church versus state cleavage. Further, a new family of Islamist parties has emerged due to the economic, cultural, and political gains from globalization. This project argues that globalization causes political ideological shifts in attitudes through formulating new groups, schedules of preferences, and political/economic opportunities. This research contributes to the ongoing debate on the influence of globalization and any other social transformation process on changing political actors’ preferences across time and space. Full article

Post-industrial urban landscapes connected with neo-liberalism may provide novel opportunities for the emancipation of working-class women who were traditionally, like women of other social classes, largely subjugated to men socially and economically in the period of collective male-led unionization and manufacturing. Based on qualitative data, our interpretative study locates itself in an international field of criminality and illuminates the criminal practices of women connected with the criminal world of illicit drugs. Our contribution extends this field of scholarship into the culture of the West of Scotland. We identify through an intersectional sensibility of ‘doing femininity’ on the street and the nexus of a familial domicile, the ways in which women’s agency remains restricted, contrary to an emancipation argument. We conclude that their ‘liberation’ is negatively truncated for two reasons: firstly, criminality necessarily distorts freedoms and secondly, subtle ties with an overarching violent masculinity were retained. Full article

The various (s)cenes of Anthropocene discourse are attempts to conceptualize the problem of anthropogenic global warming and to better understand the problem with a view to possible solutions. This paper explores, in a series of theoretic vignettes, ways that these attempts are too myopic and narrow, and tend to ignore the possibility that the most fundamental levels of social organization might be the very conditions under which other ‘cenes’ can function at all. Specifically, Jason Moore’s Capitalocene describes and explains many symptoms of a world enraptured by capital. However, the beginning of the Holocene marks an historical stage wherein humans changed their thoughts and behaviours in such a way as to make something like capitalism possible at all. The dualism that Moore cites as fundamental to the Capitalocene did not begin with Descartes, it began with anatomically modern humans circa 10,000 years ago. Full article

The Brass Bodies Study is an exploratory cross-sectional study designed to describe and understand the experience of female brass players. This report discusses selected data from close-ended and open-ended responses to questions regarding gender equity, parity, and sexual harassment within a web-based survey that launched the first phase of the study. The survey queried subjects’ physical changes to their brass playing due to various catalysts: life-cycle events; injury, illness, harassment, mental health, racism, and homophobia. The survey instrument further queried whether subjects received support about these changes and the effectiveness of support. The following report discusses survey responses to questions about gender parity and changes to brass playing due to sexual harassment. Additional qualitative data were generated from open-ended questions in the survey and were qualitatively coded and thematically presented to supplement the descriptive statistics provided. The information presented explores and defines salient items and themes of a population that is under researched with the hopes of generating hypotheses for continued research. Full article

Ethiopia has made a strong commitment to strengthen its social protection system. However, resource constraints pose significant challenges in seeking to meet the basic needs of all people. We employ a qualitative research design to identify issues of policy incoherence, within the social protection policy and in relation to other sectoral policies. Policy incoherence has high costs. Strengthening policy coherence is necessary to improve the utilization of limited resources and set a pathway through which the government can ensure no one is left behind. We also present examples of implementation coherence, which provide insight into viable means through which improved policy coherence might be pursued. Full article