Somalis as Samaritans: A Glimpse into Christian–Muslim Relations in Eastern Africa from the Perspective of Evangelical Kenyan Christians

Long considered – perhaps naïvely – a relative oasis of Christian–Muslim calm, Kenya is seeing increased tension and conflict, mainly exacerbated by al-Shabaab militants, Kenyan military and Christian mobs. Concomitantly, the media and popular sentiment often vilify Somalis. This goes back to government agitprop during the ‘Shifta War’ of the 1960s. Among evangelical Christians, however, attitudes towards Somalis can prove more ambivalent. Drawing on interviews conducted with both Kenyan evangelical Christians and Somali Muslims, this article seeks to examine the theological shift among Kenyan evangelicals wherein they have re-cast Somalis as Samaritans and in doing so have made their primary approach to this conflict one of evangelization, not open hostility. This shift is due to a confluence of factors including community context, economic pragmatism and religious motivations, and the focus on evangelism does not necessarily preclude peace-building. What this article aims to present is a glimpse into the outlook of Kenyan evangelicals towards Somalis, particular Somali Muslims, and discuss these attitudes in the nexus of factors mentioned above. The article will reveal how, by re-casting the Somali ‘villain’ as Samaritan, some Kenyan evangelicals maintain boundaries and foster new identities in Eastern Africa for the sake of a longed-for peace.     

Towards Integration in Norway: Dynamics of Cultural Incorporation in the Context of Transnationalization

This article aims to study the incorporation of homeland-based cultural practices of minorities within a majority cultural space and the dynamics of mutual incorporation of cultural practices of the majority and first-generation minority Tamils and Somalis in Norway. Homeland-based cultural practices refer to culturally rooted practices and habits that had been followed by Tamils and Somalis while they were living in their home country. While discussing tensions around the minority cultural practices in a majority cultural space, the article suggests a model for mutual incorporation of cultural practices of the majority and minorities.     

The role of informal social support in needs assessment: proposal and application of a model to assess immigrants' needs in the south of Spain

Needs assessment models have been generally focused on the identification and prioritization of needs, analysing formal resources available in the community as possible solutions for existing problems. These kinds of models have assumed that formal services are the primary source of support for individuals in need. However, a great deal of the investigations in the field of Social Psychology have shown that the main source of help and support when facing a problem is not formal organizations, but people's own informal networks. In this article, we therefore propose a needs assessment model that emphasizes the importance of analysing both formal and informal social resources. The application of this model to assess Moroccan immigrants' needs in the south of Spain shows the anticipated low level of utilization of formal services and programmes, one that contrasts with the high use of informal networks as an essential source of social support for this group of immigrants. These results reveal the limitations of traditional needs assessment models, and the importance of incorporating the analysis of informal social support as a key resource for need satisfaction, particularly in the case of immigrant populations. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

非形式逻辑及其早期历史发展

“非形式逻辑”作为逻辑的子领域,最初出现于1970至1980年代的美国和加拿大,本文意在回顾非形式逻辑发展的早期历史进程。本文假定,当我们从历史的角度来考察时,非形式逻辑的本质能够得以阐明。因此,我将以观念史领域的评论作为出发点。之所以不从理论的要素谈起并把历史留给历史学家,其中一个理由在于“非形式逻辑”这个词并不指示一个理论。非形式逻辑部分地可看作是某个思潮,部分地可当作一种论证研究进路,部分地涉及到对逻辑之本质的看法,这些都可以通过考察非形式逻辑的发展史来加以理解。本文的第一部分追溯了非形式逻辑的兴起,概括了其思想史和社会史,并评述了其早期发展中的主要人物、教科书,以及主要的论旨及其社会化。第二部分简要描述了《逻辑的自我辩护》这本教科书中的一些革新。第三部分简要涉及非形式逻辑与其它领域的早期互动。     

Nanotechnology Governance: from Risk Regulation to Informal Platforms

Current nanotechnology regulation is focussed on risks. On the other hand, technical guidelines and other soft law tools are increasingly replacing hard law. This risk reduction approach does not seem to be fully aligned with open principles like sustainable nanotechnology. Indeed, risk optimization tends to be rather a continuous process than a way to settle ultimate lists of risks. There is therefore a need for a more dynamic view: Life cycle assessment contributes to add momentum and context to the models. However, a complementary perspective is here suggested, based on information technologies: nanotechnology platforms. Platforms for nanotechnology governance are supposed to complement and enhance the nano-regulation, adding risk assessment and management. These platforms are mainly offering information, coordination, and context or situational awareness. More recently, some informal platforms appear to play a, certainly limited but still clear, co-regulatory role. Can these informal platforms play a relevant role in nanotechnology governance? In the context of the EU Better Regulation strategy, why not envision some of these informal platforms as future co-regulation tools? The main goal of this paper is to start a discussion on the requirements these informal co-regulatory platforms should fulfill before their hypothetical inclusion in a future better regulation toolbox.     

Justice in Transnational Governance

The small portion of philosophical work on global distributive justice that directly discusses particular agents, institutions or practices in global politics tends to focus on a narrow range of the existing set. The emphasis is chiefly on bilateral diplomacy or intergovernmental organisations, to the neglect of a variety of more recent forms of transnational governance, many of which incorporate non‐state actors, have more limited membership, involve informal and dynamic structures, employ cooperative and reflexive methods for ensuring compliance, and operate largely out of the public eye. This article considers how philosophers should conceive of distributive justice in relation to these neglected sites of transnational governance, using the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) as an illustration.     

Investigating the Potentially Protective Effects of Neighborhood Processes in Intimate Partner Violence

Women who experience intimate partner violence (IPV) are often mothers. This study seeks to further the understanding of IPV in families, as well as social factors that can prevent violence from occurring. Based on existing literature and theory, we hypothesize that social cohesion and informal social control are associated with lower rates of IPV. To test this theory, we use a total sample of 2,344 mothers with partners surveyed in the Families and Child Wellbeing study and analyze the effects of neighborhood social cohesion and informal social control on reported IPV experiences. This was done by using a negative binomial regression. Findings show that informal social control is associated with lower levels of IPV experiences among mothers with partners.     

非正式支付,“红包”与治理——基于国际医疗服务领域的实证分析

在医疗服务过程中,非正式支付与红包现象是卫生改革所面临的一个难题,也是卫生管理在改善与治理过程中所面临的严峻挑战。影响非正式支付的因素包括体制、支付方式、薪酬、规制措施等,基于责任与激励为核心的竞争、绩效、监管等多层面治理措施,是控制非正式支付和红包的主要方法。     

Deviance and Social Control in an Alternative Community: The Unique Case of the Rainbow Family of Living Light

This article employs ethnographic fieldwork and interviews to examine social control and redefined deviance in a utopian countercultural group, The Rainbow Family of Living Light, to answer the question of how socially marginalized groups create and maintain collective identity. Working within a symbolic interactionist paradigm, and drawing on theoretical perspectives on reintegrative shaming, the authors examine the experiences of Rainbow Gatherers during a national gathering in the summer of 2010. Through interviews and observations, we illustrate how Rainbow Gatherers redefine deviance, use covert informal social control, create new definitions of proscribed behavior, and construct an internal hierarchical structure. We note a key paradox, in that although the very existence of a hierarchy and rules runs counter to their stated ideology, participants nonetheless acknowledge, observe, and culturally transmit rules and social norms. To navigate this paradox, Gatherers frame control within a familial reintegrative shaming paradigm, exerting covert informal social control within a milieu of family, peace, and cooperation. By drawing on members’ sense of collective harmony, belonging, and family (including often using sibling references), Gatherers can both foster integrations and reaffirm power-symmetry, and thus foster “appropriate” behavior in non-authoritarian ways. This framework allows them to simultaneously control the behaviors of their participants while maintaining their collective anti-control ideology. Findings show that the use of covert informal social control fosters collective identity in the group.     

A Cognitive Anatomy of Political Trust and Respective Bases: Evidence from a Two‐City Survey in China

Building on contemporary research on social cognition and psychology, trust, political representation and accountability, and candidate evaluation, this article proposes to decompose political trust into two cognitively distinct but related components for examination: competence versus intention evaluations. This article further argues that people's evaluations of their government's competence and intention in governance can have distinct bases due to the varying accessibility of pertinent information. Using valid instruments from a unique sampling survey in two Chinese cities in 2005, this article tests the validity of this cognitive scheme. Empirical evidence shows that (1) the surveyed Chinese urban residents effectively differentiated between their central government's competence and intention in governance: on average, they had a quite positive assessment of the central government's intention to serve its people, despite their relatively pessimistic views of its competence to deliver good governance; (2) the Chinese urbanites did consult different sources of information and heuristics when evaluating their central government's competence and intention, respectively.     

Connected to the wellspring: ecclesiological capabilities of small groups of adolescents

The relationship between adolescents and institutional manifestations of church is often problematic. Nevertheless, adolescents still have a need to talk about and to experience faith together with other adolescents. When institutional activities are not available or do not satisfy the needs of the adolescents they sometimes create their own small groups and (informal) meetings to affirm their faith integrated in their (social) lives. Sociological studies also show the tendency to create their own small groups (tribes) besides existing groups of institutional organisations. In this article the question posed is how this more tribal way of being together can be seen as church. Is a (new) form of ecclesiology possible in a world of small groups, networks, social media? This article describes ecclesiological capabilities in a complex sociological environment for adolescents.     

Assessing Informal Social Control Against the Highly Stigmatized

Both formal and informal social controls are powerful guides and restrictions on behaviors. This study assesses the types of informal social control—observations and interventions, and proposes a division of intervention strategies into two subforms—expressions of disapproval and direct sanctions. Using data from two states (Kansas and Oklahoma) analyses show that registered sex offenders are subject to a wide variety of informal community social control efforts. These offenders feel moderate to high levels of stress, with observation and direct sanctions, but not with expressions of disapproval. Examinations of differences between sex offenders with adult and child victims show no differences in receipt of informal social control efforts or resulting stress.     

The adjustment of social trust and Internet use on cognitive bias in social status: Perspective of performance perception

People in different social statuses have different perceptions due to differences in cognition. Combined with the characteristics of public behaviour and cognition, this study examined the impact of the widespread cognitive biases in social status on performance perception. This study used the ordinary least squares model to verify that the cognitive bias in social status has a significant positive impact on the perception of social governance performance. At the same time, a moderated mediation model was constructed to verify that social trust plays a partial mediating role in the influence mechanism of cognitive bias in social status on the perception of social governance performance. The use of the Internet significantly inhibited the influence of cognitive bias in social status on the perception of social governance performance. Although it also weakened the influence of cognitive bias in social status on social trust, the moderating effect on the mediating effect is not obvious. This study verifies and analyses the internal relationship and mechanism of social status cognition deviation and perception of social governance performance from multidisciplinary dimensions, which enriches the social cognition theory of social status, and expands the research on the perception of social governance performance.     

Does Social Capital Affect Immigrant Political Participation? Lessons from a Small-N Study of Migrant Political Participation in Rome

Social capital captures the idea that relationships hold value. While this idea has intuitive appeal, there is significant debate regarding its utility to political science research. This article employs original data collected in Rome, Italy, to test a new model that recognizes the distinction between levels of social capital and introduces the idea of conflict between these levels into the field’s current theorizing on immigrant political participation. The findings presented here lend further support for the proposed relationship between migration-related factors, such as language proficiency and length of stay and participation. The article’s main finding is that the interactions between group-level and individual-level social capital plays an important role in shaping participation. Specifically, because it reinforces group-level social capital, bonding social capital favors participation in the formal, institutionally sanctioned activity of voting, while bridging social capital—which mitigates the effect of group-level social capital—favors participation in the informal political activity, protest.     

Psycho-Social Processes in Dealing with Legal Innovation in the Community: Insights from Biodiversity Conservation

Mitigation measures for tackling the consequences of a changing climate will involve efforts of various types including the conservation of affected ecosystems. For this, communities throughout the world will be called on to change habits of land and water use. Many of these changes will emerge from the multilevel governance tools now commonly used for environmental protection. In this article, some tenets of a social psychology of legal innovation are proposed for approaching the psycho-social processes involved in how individuals, groups and communities respond to multilevel governance. Next, how this approach can improve our understanding of community-based conservation driven by legal innovation is highlighted. For this, the macro and micro level processes involved in the implementation of the European Natura 2000 Network of Protected Sites are examined. Finally, some insights gained from this example of multilevel governance through legal innovation will be enumerated as a contribution for future policy making aimed at dealing with climate change consequences.     

Les enjeux de l’entreprenariat immigré

This article reviews the major findings of the scholarship on immigrant economies and critically analyses the use of the notion of ethnicity therein. It first presents the context and the opportunities of entrepreneurs (micro- and macro-context, support policies, transnationalism, informal economies), before describing the resources mobilized by businesspeople. These include, in particular, networks and ethnic/social capital, whose relationships with factors such as class, gender, culture, and social mobility are investigated. The article concludes by questioning the very notion of ethnic economies, arguing that it may lead to an over-ethnicisation of business practices within immigrant groups.     

Differences in Perceived Levels of Informal Punishments for Noncompliance and Rewards for Compliance: A Comparison of Japanese and American Workers

The current article integrates differential association/social learning theory into Grasmick's extended deterrence theory to propose that rational actors, in deciding whether or not to comply with workplace rules, should be expected to consider not only costs of noncompliance but also rewards of compliance. The cultural differences in perceived levels of informal punishment threats of shame and embarrassment for the rule violations and informal rewards of pride and praise for the rule conformity are then examined in merged samples of employees in Japanese and U.S. hospitals. Consistent with the prediction, these punishment threats and rewards are perceived to be higher and lower, respectively, among Japanese employees than among Americans.     

社会治理中的心理学问题

近年来社会治理中的心理学问题开始受到心理学者的关注。要正确识别这些问题, 我们必须从社会治理的心理内涵出发, 认识到社会治理的核心是“人”：社会治理的主体是人, 治理的对象是以人为中心的社会事务, 治理的过程是多元主体的群体决策过程, 治理的路径之一是面向人的心理建设。由此, 心理学家应该着力研究社会治理内生的各种心理学问题, 包括各种主体的治理能力, 作为治理对象的现实社会心理问题(尤其是社会心态问题), 群体决策心理, 以及心理建设的战略和实践方案。对这些问题的深入研究, 有望建立“社会治理心理学”的原创理论体系, 实现“由心而治”。