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Oversee and Punish: Understanding the Fight Against Corruption Involving Government Workers in Brazil
Get PDFThis exploratory study leverages a major dataset of official penalties against Brazilian bureaucrats enforced between January 2003 and November 2014, when 5,005 expulsive sanctions were enforced, 68.5% of which concerned acts of corruption. The analysis and discussion also integrate qualitative data gathered through 24 semi-structured interviews with civil servants who were integrity enforcers. Despite the rapid increase in the number of penalties enforced over the years, the creation of a robust set of disciplinary norms and an anti-corruption agency have not secured a fully operational horizontal accountability system within the executive. A great variance of corruption control was observed across agencies, manifested through disproportionate enforcement, not only of overall sanctions but also of corruption and non-corruption-related penalties. In light of the self‐protective behaviour of civil servants, who openly say they do not feel comfortable in the role of corruption fighters, the article advances an argument on ‘convenient accountability’—a kind of institutional abdication combined with a reluctance for peer monitoring, with outcomes that can be described as satisficing for integrity agents. This institutional aspect poses a risk to internal disciplinary systems and increases dependence upon external actors of accountability, compromising the efficiency of both
Political Activity of Kwiek ‘Dynasty’ in the Second Polish Republic in the Years 1935–1939
Get PDFThe coronation of King Janusz Kwiek, which took place in 1937, was meant to integrate the Romani elite in the interwar sociopolitical life of Poland. Unfortunately, the creation of a homogeneous and centralized Romani representation through the royal institution ended in a fiasco. Firstly, the centralized model of power was in conflict with the Romani nomadic system in Poland, which was based on a multitude of leaders, including women whose power resulted from hierarchical dependence. Secondly, it quickly became clear that from the mid-1920s onward, when the presence of Polish Romani in mainstream social life crystallized, there has been no bottom–up social initiatives promoting King Janusz Kwiek’s attempts towards sociopolitical reform. Therefore, the Romani population was not prepared for changes and no effective state coercive measures were created to enforce the introduction of the postulated changes. Thus, although the activities of both actors—the Kwieks and the Polish authorities—often had a facade character, consisting in more or less weak ‘governance’ of the Romani minority, their joint activity favored the political maturation of the Romani elite and its comprehensive development. This was despite of the many shortcomings of the close relationship between the Romani people and the Polish administration, as a result from the dictatorial rule in Poland at the time
Implications of Digital Inclusion: Digitalization in Terms of Time Use from a Gender Perspective
Get PDFThe implications of digital technologies for the transformation of gender relations and identities have been discussed since the early days of the internet. Although gender studies have identified clear gender gaps in terms of digital inclusion as well as potentialities for the transformation of women’s subjectivity, there is a lack of empirical evidence of the impact of digitalization in terms of time use from a gender perspective. Public policies have begun to address the digital gender gap, but the incorporation of a gender perspective in digital inclusion programmes which promotes women’s emancipation by challenging the gender division of time through use of the internet has been not incorporated in the digital policies agenda. This article aims to provide empirical evidence of the mutual interrelation between the time allocation and digital inclusion from a gender perspective. It considers how gender inequalities in time use shape women’s experience of digital inclusion and, at the same time, how digital inclusion promotes the reconfiguration of time in women’s everyday lives. Qualitative analysis based on episodic interviews explored the representations and practices of internet use by women in their everyday lives. The sample was made up of 32 women who were digitally included through a lifelong learning programme in Spain and had experienced the effects of the Spanish economic crisis. The article argues that digital inclusion does not automatically lead to a more egalitarian allocation of time use for women, but rather places greater value on women’s free time
Inclusive Social Lettings Practice: Opportunities to Enhance Independent Living for Disabled People
Get PDFAppropriate housing is a key element of independent living for disabled people, yet research evidence confirms the continuing, often negative, impact of unsuitable housing on their lives. This article examines access to social rented housing as a route to independent living, through a study of lettings practice for accessible and adapted homes. Drawing on the social and social-relational models of disability, the study adopted a disabled-led, co-production approach. Qualitative research methods were used to compare social landlord practice and track home seeker/tenant experiences. While housing providers were proactive in reviewing policy and practice to better meet the housing needs of disabled people, there remained some ‘distance’ between landlord goals and applicant experiences. Disabled people’s extended lived experience of inappropriate housing, while waiting for a more accessible home, impacted negatively on their quality of life and physical and mental health. Social lettings policies and practice were necessarily complex, but often difficult for applicants to understand. The complexity of disabled people’s housing needs meant that the matching process for suitable housing was also complex, often requiring individualised solutions. Recommendations to improve practice include making better use of technology to improve data on accessible/adapted properties and applicant needs; flexibility in lettings practice to facilitate effective matches; and flexibility in fully recognising disabled people’s housing and independent living needs. Social rented housing remains an important mechanism for achieving disabled people’s independence. Explicit recognition of the social-relational interpretation of disability could deliver more inclusive lettings practice and achieve more sustainable tenancies
Creating Community and Belonging in a Designated Housing Estate for Disabled People
Get PDFIn recent years there has been an ideological push within social care away from segregated housing provision towards supported housing integrated within the wider community (McConkey, Keogh, Bunting, Iriarte, & Watson, 2016; Merrells, Buchanan, & Waters, 2019; Overmars-Marx, Thomése, Verdonschot, & Meininger, 2014). Despite this, many housing solutions for older and disabled people continue to be built on a designated basis, with physical and emotional wellbeing outcomes being both contested and mixed. After reviewing key policy relating to social care housing alongside some of the theoretical and ideological positions, this article explores the social and emotional outcomes of a diverse group of disabled people living with mental health difficulties, physical and intellectual impairments, illnesses and age-related conditions, who moved into a small, purpose-built estate of smart homes. Drawing primarily on qualitative data collected from tenants prior to moving and again seven months following relocation, the impact of moving into the estate on tenants’ sense of wellbeing and feelings of inclusion will be analysed and discussed in relation to efforts to build a new community
Gypsy Policy and Roma Activism: From the Interwar Period to Current Policies and Challenges
Get PDFThe editorial introduces the key ideas of this thematic issue, which originated within the European Research Council project ‘RomaInterbellum. Roma Civic Emancipation between the Two World Wars.’ The period between WWI and WWII in the region of Central, Southeastern and Eastern Europe was an era of worldwide significant changes, which marked the birth of the Roma civic emancipation movement and impacted Roma communities’ living strategies and visions about their future, worldwide. The aspiration of this thematic issue is to present the main dimensions of the processes of Roma civic emancipation and to outline the role of the Roma as active participants in the historical processes occurring in the studied region and as the creators of their own history. The editorial offers clarifications on the terminology and methodology employed in the articles included in this issue and their spatial and chronological parameters while also briefly introducing the individual authored studies of this issue
Do Mobile Phones Help Expand Social Capital? An Empirical Case Study
Get PDFThe rapid adoption of mobile phones, particularly in developing countries, has led a number of researchers to investigate their impact on socioeconomic activity in the developing world. However, until the recent advent of smart communication devices, mobile phones were primarily a relations management technology that enabled people to stay connected with each other. In this article, we focus on this basic function and analyze how people use this technology as a tool to expand their social capital. We use a dataset containing more than three billion call detail records from Rwanda’s largest telecommunication operator, covering the whole country during the period from 1 July 2014 to 31 March 2015, and combine these records with data from the fourth Integrated Household Living Conditions Survey conducted by the National Institute of Statistics of Rwanda in 2015. We found that people’s calling patterns significantly correlated with the income level of their region, which also dictated the destinations of their calls, with middle-income regions acting as a link between the richest and the poorest regions. From these results, we propose a framework for understanding the role of mobile phones in the development of social capital
Urban Arrival Infrastructures between Political and Humanitarian Support: The ‘Refugee Welcome’ Mo(ve)ment Revisited
Get PDFMaximilian Park in Brussels was the site of a makeshift refugee camp for three months in 2015 when the institutional reception system was unable to provide shelter for newly arriving asylum seekers. Local volunteers stepped in, formed a civic initiative and organized a reception area under the banner ‘Refugees Welcome!’ The civic platform which emerged claimed and asserted (existing) rights for one specific group, asylum seekers, exclusively, and thus did not challenge the exclusive migration regime nor demand transformation. While such a humanitarian approach risks reproducing the exclusive border regime and the inequalities it engenders, political support is a disturbing rupture in the name of equality that resists normative classifications and inaugurates transformation. This article maps out the complex dialectical interrelation between political and humanitarian support and argues that political implications can only be understood through longer-term research, emphasizing processes of transformation that have resulted from these moments of disruption. Therefore, the article revisits Maximilian Park two and four years after the camp and reveals how the humanitarian approach chosen in the camp sustainably transformed the park, adding arrival infrastructures beyond the institutional, and had an impact on how refugees were dealt with and represented. Concluding, the article suggests the notion of ‘solidary humanitarianism’ that providing supplies, meeting acute existential needs and simultaneously articulating political claims that demand structural transformation: the right to shelter, basic supply, presence, and movement for all in the city
The Role of Arrival Areas for Migrant Integration and Resource Access
Get PDFResearch on socio-economically disadvantaged neighbourhoods with high numbers of migrants tends to problematise such areas as hindering upward social mobility and further enhancing disadvantage. However, an emerging body of research on arrival areas is highlighting how such areas can provide newcomers with specific arrival resources, helping them to come to grips with their new circumstances. This article provides a conceptual overview and discussion of this newly emerging body of literature on urban arrival areas in the Global North. It argues that arrival areas offer infrastructures which can provide important support for newcomers, ranging from overcoming day-to-day problems to potentially enabling social mobility. In many cases, previous migrants act as knowledge brokers facilitating newcomers’ access to resources. The article shows how different forms of arrival-specific knowledge can be found in these areas, facilitating the exchange of resources across different migrant groups and across localities. However, arrival-specific infrastructures can be both enabling and disabling with regard to social mobility, as they often emerge in contexts of underlying disadvantage and discrimination where access to resources such as housing and jobs can be highly contentious. The article argues that understanding the dynamics of urban arrival areas and infrastructures and their specific role in providing resources for newcomers can contribute to our knowledge on integration and help us rethink the role of policymaking and urban planning in increasingly complex and mobile urban societies
Negotiations of Socio-Spatial Coexistence through Everyday Encounters in Central Athens, Greece
Get PDFOver the past decades, Athens has emerged as both a destination and gateway city for diverse migrant populations. Athenian urban development interrelated with migrants’ settlement dynamics has resulted in a super-diverse and mixed urban environment. This article focuses on the western part of Omonia, in central Athens, Greece, and investigates sociospatial trajectories of migrants’ habitation, entrepreneurship, and appropriation of (semi-)public spaces. It draws on scholarship about everyday encounters where negotiations of difference and interethnic coexistence take place at the very local level. It explores encounters between migrants, as well as between migrants and locals, that are created due to their everyday survival and social needs. The article argues that these ‘place-specific’ and ‘needs-specific’ encounters emerge as ‘micropublics’ that are open to negotiation, manage to disrupt pre-existing social boundaries, and epitomise processes of belonging in the city. The article draws from ethnographic fieldwork and qualitative semi-structured interviews carried out from 2013 to 2014 and from 2018 to 2019