Institutional Cohesion Research Articles

‘Back in order’: the role of gatekeepers in erecting internal borders in Barcelona

ABSTRACT Designed and implemented by public servants and NGO workers, local inclusion programmes in Barcelona result in the exclusion of illegalized migrants. Access to city provisions is gained by means of a ‘work plan’ applied by the local authorities. Bureaucratic processes divide potential clients between those who ‘deserve’ to access rights and those who do not. Much of the legal framework provides leeway to practitioners to decide the fate of those left ‘here, but nowhere’ (Fieldwork 2019). Bureaucrats, acting as ‘gatekeepers’, often become ‘annoyed’ with their ‘users’. This annoyance has the potential to illustrate how banal but resourceful emotions end up playing a key part in the exclusion of migrants from the city, strengthening institutional cohesion and a moral order. Focusing on bureaucratic processes and street-level interventions, this article tries to shed light on how borders inside the city are created not only by municipal regulations, but also by bureaucrats´ emotions.

Sovereignty, Sedition, and Sacrament in the Affair of the Placards (1534–1535)

In October 1534 and January 1535, placards were posted in French cities attacking the Mass, prompting official backlash and altering the course of the Christian Reformations in France. This paper argues that the re­sponse to the posting of the placards expressed a specifically Gallic anxiety about the popularization of sacramentarian critiques of the Mass and the Eucharist. France's history of sacral kingship and Gallican independence from the papacy were the key contexts and causes of the official response to the posting of the placards, which affirmed the importance of Eucharistic devotion in the political theology of early modern France and transferred heresy prosecutions to secular courts. Focusing on three key responses – the royal processional in January 1535, the empowering of secular courts to prosecute "seditious" heresy, and the defense of the Mass by the Sorbonne theologian Jérôme de Hangest, I argue that the responses to the posting of the placards reflected an understanding and fear of popular receptions of sacramentarian arguments and the threat they posed to the political, social, and institutional cohesion of the early modern French nation-state. The placards both reflected and mobilized a nationalist identification of a sacred and secular nation with the state headed by the monarch charged with protecting the nation.

Sascha Auerbach. Armed with Sword and Scales: Law, Culture, and Local Courtrooms in London, 1860–1913.

The police courts in England were the most commonly used legal institution for the working class for over a century, yet historians have neglected analyzing them in detail for decades. Sascha Auerbach corrects this oversight in his recent study, Armed with Sword and Scales: Law, Culture, and Local Courtrooms in London, 1860–1913. He peruses the usual sources—newspapers, government reports, magistrates’ memoirs—but also the few surviving minutes and clerks’ books of police court hearings, with particular emphasis on the Clerkenwell Police Court in Islington. Overall, he concludes that the longevity and popularity of these courts resulted from “their ability to achieve this balance of centralized, institutional cohesion on the one hand and responsiveness to local concerns on the other” (343). The first three chapters chronicle the history of the courts from 1758 to 1902. After an uneven start, the system gained standard procedures, a well-paid magistracy, and plentiful business. Auerbach...

Embedding Conquest: Naturalizing Muslim Rule in the Early Islamic Empire (Project Report)

The ERC-funded research project »Embedding Conquest«, based at Leiden University, studies the mechanics by which early Islamic rule took root in a tapestry of diverse territories and different social contexts. Based on a large corpus of documentary and literary texts, especially letters, the research team has identified elements of political, territorial, and institutional cohesion stemming from interpersonal ties of loyalty and dependency binding individuals to each other and to the state. This contribution presents the project’s main scope and achievements. Additionally, it focuses on multilingualism, highlighting the participation of people from different religious groups in shaping early Islamic rule, in line with this special issue’s focus on collaboration among Muslims, Jews, and Christians as colleagues in the early Islamic period.

The Quakers: LGBTIQ+ Activism and Institutional Cohesion

Liberal Quakerism’s engagement with the public sphere acts as a mechanism for producing social solidarity within the movement. This argument is demonstrated through an examination of Quaker engagement with Queer social issues in the UK, US and Australia. The social activism of Quakers sustains their identity as a liberal religious organisation sympathetic to progressive causes and nurtures a sense of common purpose within the movement that subsumes internal differences. It is argued that, while Quaker orthopraxis within the Society binds internal diversity together, this can also include Friends’ activist engagement with the secular world. This focus on the dialectical relationship between Quakerism’s internal culture and external social processes suggest that a dynamic relationship exists between contemporary secularism and liberal religious groups.

Measurements for the institutional cohesion dimension of the standard model of military group cohesion

ABSTRACT Notwithstanding the prominence of the so-called Standard Model of Military Group Cohesion (SMMGC), important parts of the model are understudied: both conceptually and empirically. In this article we, first, synthesize previous research to conceptualize and measure the overlooked institutional cohesion dimension. Second, we test the validity of the proposed full four-dimensional SMMGC model using a survey of an Italian Alpini battalion, and more rigorous methods than in previous research. Results are supportive of our proposed measurements and the validity of the four-dimensional model. We thus make a methodological and an empirical contribution to further the ongoing debate on military cohesion.

Peru

Peru entered the pandemic with a sustained track record of implementing very strong policies amid very strong economic fundamentals and institutional policy frameworks, but was hit hard by the pandemic, which took a heavy toll in terms of human lives and economic output. Tensions between executive and legislative powers continue to affect institutional cohesion, but new general elections will be held in April-June 2021. The IMF Executive Board approved a two-year FCL arrangement in the amount of US$11 billion (600 percent of quota) on May 28, 2020.

A political anthropology of finance: Studying the distribution of money in the financial industry as a political process

This article proposes an analytics to study the financial industry as a global political institution, based on its role in the production of global hierarchies, by the way it collects, produces and distributes money worldwide. I propose to do this by combining three analytic angles. First, I propose to situate the financial industry in a global space, where it contributes to produce multiple social hierarchies, which connect to the history of colonialism, the World Wars, the Cold War and its aftermath. These hierarchies cannot be subsumed under a single logic, but must be studied as intersecting and mutually constitutive. The second angle concerns the rules of monetary distribution applied by financial professionals, mobilizing, among others, the concepts of investor, market efficiency, risk and value, with their partly contradictory character and their technical, moral and political meanings. These rules are institutionalized in state regulation, labour and commercial contracts, giving the financial industry a certain institutional cohesion worldwide. The last analytic angle then concerns the way in which financial professionals make sense of their place in the global hierarchies they contribute to produce. They tend to use repertoires of meritocracy to connect their role in global monetary distribution to the social elites they tend to belong to, with conflicts that vary across the multiple forms of social identification present in the financial industry worldwide. Combining these three analytic angles allows for mobilizing fieldwork done in the offices of the financial industry to develop a critical account of its global political role.

Quels enjeux pour l’inclusion des étudiants à besoins éducatifs particuliers dans l’enseignement supérieur français ?

In spite of the French public policies implemented to meet the needs of students with disability and the promulgation of laws promoting inclusion in higher education, many barriers leading to social exclusion remain. The present paper analyzes the impact of health issues on young people educational path using com semi-structured interviews with high school and university students affected by serious and chronic diseases (n=19) from a sociological survey. The objective was to identify the needs and aspirations of these young people with disability to propose a suitable response to those needs, while also taking into account existing resources using a co-constructive approach. The analysis highlights the disconnect between the different domains of social interaction in which disabled students are included. Parental support and the transition between upper secondary and higher education are hindered by a lack of institutional cohesion. We investigate how stakeholders in the three institutional domains concerned with the disabled students (educational, medical and family) interact with each other using a systemic and polycentric approach. Our study shows that that a mediator is required to help solve the problems encountered by students with serious and chronic diseases as one possible approach to address their needs.

Continuous professional learning in private higher education: Making a case for distributed leadership

Literature on management of professional learning in South African private higher education (PHE) institutions is limited. This may be due to incentives for professional learning in private higher education not being highly revered. Our paper reports on the findings of research conducted on four campuses of a South African private higher education provider, inquiring into broadening organisational leadership roles towards distributed leadership. Findings show that academic managers in PHE see the proper educational induction of academics as a contributing factor to professional and institutional cohesion. However, the role of academic managers in designing custom made professional learning initiatives is pivotal. Our findings confirm that academic managers in PHE contexts need to spend considerable effort on strategising their campus programmes to empower academic leaders through distributed leadership and with agency to lead their teams. We suggest a course of action for enhancing continuous professional learning (CPL) for academic staff in PHE: Firstly, academic management positions should be filled with the most competent people; secondly, academic managers should be directly accountable for the quality of professional learning on their campuses; and thirdly, academic managers need increased agency to use resources such as monetary and other incentives to support their academic teams.

Tools to stimulate the creation of amalgamated territorial communities based on the cities of oblast significance

Existing instruments to stimulate the creation of urban ATCs on the basis of the cities of oblast significance are examined, including financial subventions for infrastructure development, intermunicipal cooperation, voluntary consolidation of territorial communities with the cities of oblast significance, public-private partnership. Major incentives to use intermunicipal cooperation and advantages of consolidation of territorial communities with the cities of oblast significance are defined based on the list of cooperation agreements concluded between the cities of oblast significance. The fact that financial and staff resources are the major additional resources obtained from consolidation with COS for a rural community and spatial and infrastructural – for a city is verified. Substantial increase of the area for an urban ATC contributes to activation of entrepreneurship and investment capacity of cities and improvement of spatial planning in the perspective, leading to post-industrial agglomeration, strengthening of spatial and institutional cohesion of population, etc. Despite the positive aspects of forming of ATCs on the basis of the cities of oblast significance, some problems faced in rushed consolidation are outlined, namely the non-compliance with the criteria of the methodics of ATCs forming, shown in deformation of location of the community center and incompact configuration, which should be considered and compensated at this stage of decentralization. Small towns with adjoined communities of suburban area prevail among the cities of oblast significance due to the fact that they prevail among other urban settlements (82 small towns of oblast significance) and due to substantial growth of financial resource, which requires new areas for investment and infrastructural projects and creation of new jobs. Main incentives and obstacles for further successful consolidation of rural and town territorial communities with the cities of oblast significance are defined. Recommendations for further development of cities of oblast significance in the context of three groups of the cities of oblast significance existing at current decentralization stage are suggested and perspectives of organization of the communities’ economic activity in order to strengthen their financial capacity are outlined.

Cities of regional significance in the formation of amalgamated territorial communities: particularities of accession and prospects for development

Legal preconditions and current condition of forming of amalgamated territorial communities (ATCs) on the basis of the cities of oblast significance (COSs) are examined. Advantages of consolidation of adjoining rural (town) communities with the COSs in financial, spatial and institutional fields are assessed. The dynamics of demographic and territorial parameters of COSs before and after consolidation with rural and town communities is analyzed. The analysis verifies the fact that with consolidation of more territorial communities the area grows significantly and the number of population grows slightly due to concentration of population on the limited area of a city and substantial spatial resource of rural communities. Budget parameters of newly created ATCs on the basis of the cities of oblast significance by the criteria of financial capacity of amalgamated territorial communities is estimated. The higher level of development and tax capacity of territorial communities with the center in the city of oblast significance and some diversification of financial parameter among them are emphasized. The following financial results received for urban ATCs are characterized by high diversification: cost of managerial bodies’ maintenance, general fund income per capita, level of budgets’ subsidiarity. Additional parameters to adjust financial estimated data of the efficiency of urban ATCs’ activity are suggested. Special attention is paid to the fact that financial resource is the major additional resource obtained from consolidation with COS for a rural community and spatial – for a city. However, the importance of staff resources for both consolidation participants is somewhat undervalued. Substantial increase of the area contributes to activation of entrepreneurship and investment capacity of cities and improvement of spatial planning in the perspective, leading to post-industrial agglomeration, strengthening of spatial and institutional cohesion of population.

Soldiers Without an Army? Patronage Networks and Cohesion in the Armed Forces of the DR Congo

This article analyzes the effects of patronage networks on cohesion in the Armed Forces of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. It shows that while patronage networks provide support to individual military personnel, they undermine both peer and commander–subordinate bonding. They promote unequal service conditions and statuses and link these to extra-unit and extra-military forms of social identification, which are further reinforced by soldiers’ living and generating revenue among civilians. Furthermore, they impair meritocracy and frustrate the extent to which commanders live up to their subordinates’ expectations. As they fuel internal conflicts, often around revenue generation, and foster bad service conditions and distrust toward the political and military leadership, patronage networks also undermine institutional cohesion. The article concludes that cohesion formation in the FARDC follows different patterns than in well-institutionalized and well-resourced militaries. Given that cohesion impacts combat performance and norm enforcement, these findings are relevant for defense reform efforts and military cooperation.

Research on the Connection of Social Security System under the Development of Cross-Strait Marriage and Family: Current Situation, Obstacles and Paths

With the increasing number of marriages between Taiwan and mainland China in recent years, the size of the group that flows and settles across the two sides has been constantly expanding, which requires the cross-Strait social security system to cooperate and set up institutional co-operation and cohesion mechanisms to help more families response to life risks effectively and promote the development of cross-Strait marriage. Taking the development of marriages on both sides of the Taiwan Strait as a background, this paper uses the practical experience of international communities and the developed countries in Europe and the United States to sort out and analyze the current cooperation status of the social security system across both sides. Also, this paper analyzes the existing obstacles in the cross-Strait social security system cohesion and explores paths to resolve them.

The Dynamics of Shared Leadership in Institutional Management: The Case of Public Universities in Uganda

This study investigated the dynamics of shared leadership in university management in Uganda. Using data from two public universities and a sample of 100 participants, the results from a univariate analysis show that, the practice of shared leadership in university has since improved but much felt at the lower and middle-line management levels. Employing a Factor Analysis, a host of factors influencing shared leadership in a university management context have been reduced whereby institutional cohesion, expert contacts and shared responsibility are highly valued factors; mutual support, communicating institutional expectations, and autonomy and self-management are moderately valued factors; while networking for a common institutional vision is least valued as motivators of shared leadership in university management in Uganda. The researchers concluded that shared leadership can be optimally practiced where a participative management model prevails to allow room for the vertical distribution of authority throughout all the institutional structures.

Research and innovation in Africa’s rural transport sector

The African Community Access Programme is a research initiative for the rural transport sector in Africa. The programme is funded by the UK Department for International Development and by partner governments in Africa. The programme in turn has funded a wide range of research projects in the rural transport sector. It provides support to users of the research outputs at all stages of the uptake process. Users of these new ideas include national transport sector institutions, local government organisations, practitioners and community groups. Under the programme the uptake of new ideas and innovations has been most effective in the road engineering aspects of rural transport. This includes the adoption of new standards and specifications for low traffic roads. The rate of uptake is affected by the level of institutional maturity and cohesion in the participating countries, and how closely the innovation is aligned to sector policies and strategic plans. Particular success has been achieved when there is a champion for the idea in the user organisation. The programme has focused on effective communication of research findings to user groups and building a strong community of practice for the rural transport sector. Long-term support from the principal funder has been a key factor.

Accommodating and Confronting the Portuguese Dictatorship within NATO, 1970–4

ABSTRACTDuring the early 1970s, NATO member-states such as Norway, Denmark, and the Netherlands repeatedly sought to use the Atlantic Alliance as a forum to confront Portuguese domestic and colonial policies. However, the larger members of the organisation - including the United States, the UK, France, and West Germany - successfully blocked their efforts. While the former expressed concern over the challenges posed by the Lisbon regime to NATO's credibility at home and abroad, the latter sought to preserve their interests and institutional cohesion in view of the challenges posed by détente. This fault line reflected core differences in the allies' perspectives about both Portugal and NATO itself. Drawing on extensive multi-archival research, this article examines the motivations and actions of various member-states on the North Atlantic Assembly and the NATO Council ministerial meetings. It reconsiders the international dimension of the Marcelo Caetano dictatorship and the connection between the cold war framework and the process of Portuguese resistance to decolonisation in Africa.

Computerization of a ‘Controlled Language’ to Write Medical Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs)

Abstract Accreditation of hospitals includes items regarding the existence of Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs); but these documents can be sources of misunderstanding and patient's safety may be jeopardized. We proposed a solution based on the Controlled Language (CL) concept and developed software services to make CL user-friendly to writers. We carried out: 1) deep linguistic analysis of SOP corpora in two medical domains; 2) language modelling to establish two adapted CLs, 3) improvement of home-made CL Authoring Software by developing software modules and a collaborative corpus-based web-accessible platform for the building of terminological and non-terminological resources, 4) evaluation through focus groups and computer-aided CL-writing test sessions. Health professionals and linguists cooperated closely in a field that is quite new to the health domain. The optimized Prolipsia CL Authoring Software appeared to be a good compromise between users’ needs and CL requirements. All actors agreed that benefits would be gained by using the proposed tools, in terms of patient safety and of work organization, institutional cohesion, and decreased liabilities. They also suggested that software solutions able to analyse the quality of existing texts and help correct them would better fit the situation of institutions which have already got a large corpus of (unsatisfactory) texts at their disposal. Such software is currently at an advanced stage of development, with a first version available.

THE IRAN-IRAQ WAR AND THE ROLE OF AYATOLLAH KHOMEINI

A year after the Iranian Revolution, the Iran-Iraq War started on September 1980. At first, most countries treated this war as nothing more than border skirmishes between two neighbouring countries but surprisingly it became a major challenge and lasted for eight years. The war finally ended when both Iraq and Iran accepted UN Resolution 598 in August 1988. This ended the eight-year of Persian Gulf War, the longest and bloodiest conflict between two Third World states after the Second World War. On the afternoon of September 23, 1980, following a series of air strikes on Iranian airfields, the Iraqi army crossed the border into neighboring Iran, igniting a war that lasted for eight years. The main thrust of the invasion aimed at capturing Iraqi-claimed land on Iran’s side of the Shatt al-Arab waterway and parts of Iran’s oil-rich southwest province of Khuzestan. Iraq’s superior military technology and coordination proved disastrous to Iranian defences, which were already in the midst of the Ayatollah Khomeiniled purges that had decimated the regular military’s officer corps and destroyed its institutional cohesion in the aftermath of the revolution. In the last years of the war, there were indicators that Iran’s soldiers were unwilling and unable to continue the fight because the war aims were not achieved and had lost a string of military battles in some warfront zones. Therefore, Ayatollah Hashemi Rafsanjani they took a risk in persuading the Ayatollah Khomeini to accept the ceasefire. This article examines the role of Ayatollah Khomeini, during the Iran-Iraq War.

Delegation without borders: On individual rights, constitutions and the global order

AbstractPolitical and economic rights are envisaged as the outcome of an ongoing bargain between citizens and their rulers. Over the long run, this constitutive process shapes the development of both the economy and the state. Globalization, however, corresponds to a period where both the market and civil society extend far beyond the borders of the initial political compact. Hence, citizens may not only ask that cross-border transactions be made easier; they may also challenge the institutional cohesion and integrity of the classical, Westphalian state, i.e., its legal and judicial order, and its bureaucratic capabilities. We are proposing a schematic description of how this political process may gradually exit the national perimeter and deliver four possible models of international or global governance, depending upon the potential structuring of coalitions between the potential winners of the globalization both in the elite and in society, and the losers; national games being ultimately arbitrated by the international competition among elites, but also by the possible formation of global coalitions of citizens and merchants.