The Institutional Order: Economy, Kinship, Religion, Polity, Law, and Education in Evolutionary and Comparative Perspective

1998 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 212 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frank J. Lechner ◽  
Jonathan H. Turner
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Perspective ◽  
Institutional Order

Unknown and Under-Researched: The Anatomy of Drinking Under Control Programs

2017 ◽  
Vol 63 (5) ◽  
pp. 277-288
Author(s):  
Harald Klingemann ◽  
Justyna Klingemann
Keyword(s):  
Quality Of Life ◽  
Harm Reduction ◽  
Evaluation Studies ◽  
Mission Statements ◽  
Community Response ◽  
Limited Resources ◽  
Admission Criteria ◽  
Control Programs ◽  
Institutional Order

Abstract. Introduction: While alcohol treatment predominantly focuses on abstinence, drug treatment objectives include a variety of outcomes related to consumption and quality of life. Consequently harm reduction programs tackling psychoactive substances are well documented and accepted by practitioners, whereas harm reduction programs tackling alcohol are under-researched and met with resistance. Method: The paper is mainly based on key-person interviews with eight program providers conducted in Switzerland in 2009 and up-dated in 2015, and the analysis of reports and mission statements to establish an inventory and description of drinking under control programs (DUCPs). A recent twin program in Amsterdam and Essen was included to exemplify conditions impeding their implementation. Firstly, a typology based on the type of alcohol management, the provided support and admission criteria is developed, complemented by a detailed description of their functioning in practice. Secondly, the case studies are analyzed in terms of factors promoting and impeding the implementation of DUCPs and efforts of legitimize them and assess their success. Results: Residential and non-residential DUCPs show high diversity and pursue individualized approaches as the detailed case descriptions exemplify. Different modalities of proactively providing and including alcohol consumption are conceptualized in a wider framework of program objectives, including among others, quality of life and harm reduction. Typically DUCPs represent an effort to achieve public or institutional order. Their implementation and success are contingent upon their location, media response, type of alcohol management and the response of other substance-oriented stake holders in the treatment system. The legitimization of DUCPs is hampered by the lack of evaluation studies. DUCPs rely mostly – also because of limited resources – on rudimentary self-evaluations and attribute little importance to data collection exercises. Conclusions: Challenges for participants are underestimated and standard evaluation methodologies tend to be incompatible with the rationale and operational objectives of DUCPs. Program-sensitive multimethod approaches enabled by sufficient financing for monitoring and accompanying research is needed to improve the practice-oriented implementation of DUCPs. Barriers for these programs include assumptions that ‘alcohol-assisted’ help abandons hope for recovery and community response to DUCPs as locally unwanted institutions (‘not in my backyard’) fuelled by stigmatization.

Public Administration in the Islamic World: Considering the Importance of Religion, its Values and Culture

2019 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
pp. 23-38
Author(s):  
Daniel Hummel
Keyword(s):  
Public Administration ◽  
Core Values ◽  
Comparative Perspective ◽  
Religious Values ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Islamic World ◽  
Salient Region ◽  
The People ◽  
Comparative Public Administration

A small but growing area of public administration scholarship appreciates the influence of religious values on various aspects of government. This appreciation parallels a growing interest in comparative public administration and indigenized forms of government which recognizes the role of culture in different approaches to government. This article is at the crossroads of these two trends while also considering a very salient region, the Islamic world. The Islamic world is uniquely religious, which makes this discussion even more relevant, as the nations that represent them strive towards legitimacy and stability. The history and core values of Islam need to be considered as they pertain to systems of government that are widely accepted by the people. In essence, this is being done in many countries across the Islamic world, providing fertile grounds for public administration research from a comparative perspective. This paper explores these possibilities for future research on this topic.

Transiting into Singaporean identity: Immigration and naturalisation policy

2015 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 33-48 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mathews Mathew ◽  
Debbie Soon
Keyword(s):  
Manpower Planning ◽  
The State ◽  
Comparative Perspective ◽  
Policy Discourse ◽  
Optimal Composition ◽  
Skilled Labour ◽  
Planning Policy ◽  
The Government ◽  
The Ideal

Debates in Singapore about immigration and naturalisation policy have escalated substantially since 2008 when the government allowed an unprecedentedly large number of immigrants into the country. This essay will discuss immigration and naturalisation policy in Singapore and the tensions that have been evoked, and how these policies are a key tool in regulating the optimal composition and size of the population for the state’s imperatives. It will demonstrate that although the state has, as part of its broader economic and manpower planning policy to import labour for economic objectives, it seeks to retain only skilled labour with an exclusive form of citizenship.  Even as the Singapore state has made its form of citizenship even more exclusive by reducing the benefits that non-citizens receive, its programmes for naturalising those who make the cut to become citizens which include the recently created Singapore Citizenship Journey (SCJ) is by no means burdensome from a comparative perspective. This paper examines policy discourse and the key symbols and narratives provided at naturalisation events and demonstrates how these are used to evoke the sense of the ideal citizen among new Singaporeans. 

Violence in Islamic Thought from the Qur'an to the Mongols

2015 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Perspective ◽  
Human History ◽  
Historical Approach ◽  
Islamic Thought

The topic of Legitimate and Illegitimate Violence in Islamic Thought (LIVIT) calls for an interdisciplinary, comparative and historical approach. This has been the underlying methodological assumption within the project which bore this name. Amongst the products of that three-year project is a series of collected studies by established and emerging scholars in the field, examining how Muslim thinkers have conceptualised violence and categorised (morally and legally) acts of violence. In this opening chapter, István Kristó-Nagy first explores how violence in Islamic thought can be set against a wider consideration of violence in human history. It is this comparative perspective which contextualises not only this volume, but also the two subsequent volumes in the LIVIT series. In the second half of this chapter, Robert Gleave explains how this volume is structured, addressing the different approaches used by the contributors, and examines the different ways in which violence can be categorised.

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