Social Entities Research Articles

Legislating Morality in the Gilded Age and Progressive Era: Moral Panic and the “White Slave” Case That Changed America

AbstractThis article is based on the presidential address presented to the Society for Historians of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era at the meeting of the Organization of American Historians in Los Angeles in 2023. Its focus is Maury Diggs and Drew Caminetti, two white men from Sacramento, California, charged with violating the Mann Act (known as the White Slave Trafficking Act) in 1913. The Gilded Age and Progressive Era obsession with white slavery, a phenomenon that has particular resonance in today’s climate, reveals the power of moral panics. Examining the steps, and missteps, that various legal, social, and political entities, including all three branches of government, took in response to Diggs and Caminetti’s actions highlights some of the major social changes gripping the nation. Moral panics can be investigated as crucial historical sites of contestation, revealing efforts to neutralize or turn back the societal changes perceived to be the greatest threat to the prevailing social power structure—in this case foreigners, the new leisure culture, the liberalization of sexual attitudes, and the threat of female independence. Understanding the origins and repercussions of past moral panics can help identify, understand, and possibly defuse future panics.

Liquid lines: Exploring the Moselle River between France, Luxembourg and Germany

AbstractRivers are hydrological and social entities, which complicates their use as borders but offers new conceptual possibilities for understanding border spaces. Rivers as borders challenge common understandings of seemingly static political borderlines. Moving away from simple cartographic abstractions, river borders are more than lines for territorial separation. Rivers have a material agency; they are constantly in motion and shift shape according to seasonal changes and hydromorphology. In this paper, I show how rivers through their specific characteristics, namely their materiality, movement and directionality, can challenge but also enable attempts to fix territories. Drawing on doctoral fieldwork between 2019 and 2022 along the Moselle River that crosses and builds the borders between France, Luxembourg and Germany, I argue for a dynamic and ample perspective on river borders that conceptualises them as simultaneously bounded and in motion. Using examples of contingent forms of riverine bordering this paper adds a riverine perspective to current understandings of border geographies. Seeing like a river border makes it possible to examine the relationships between territory, society and environment, and to consider material flows as fundamental to the constitution of rivers and borders.

Государственное регулирование развития малого бизнеса в социальной сфере

Social entrepreneurship as a special type of business is aimed at reducing social tension in society, ensuring employment, accessibility and variety of social services. Most social entrepreneurs in Russia belong to the category of small businesses. Improving state regulation of the development of small social entrepreneurship helps to reduce the severity of social problems and strengthen interaction between the state and business on this issue. The purpose of the article is to assess trends in the development of small social entrepreneurship in the country, current measures of state regulation and develop proposals for their improvement. The study revealed trends in the development of small businesses in the social sphere in Russia, reflecting high growth rates in the number of small social entrepreneurship entities, its spread to various areas of activity with a predominance in the areas of education, social services and sports and leisure. The growth in the number of social entrepreneurs is mostly observed in large conglomerations. However, the continuing low share of social enterprises in the total number of small businesses in the country, the analysis of the implemented measures of state support for them, does not allow us to draw a conclusion about the sufficiency of the conditions created in the country for the support and promotion of social entrepreneurship. State regulation of the development of small social entrepreneurship is proposed to be carried out in the direction of improving the institutional environment, expanding the range of entities that ensure the development and promotion of small businesses in the social sphere.

SIoV Mobility Management using SDVN-enabled Traffic Light Cooperative Framework

Social Internet of Vehicles (SIoV) is an emerging connected vehicular networking framework among specialized social vehicles to share and disseminate important information like traffic updates, weather conditions, parking slots, etc. This study aims to form an SIoV network among emergency vehicles for their frequent communication to improve the throughput, average waiting time, queue length, and speed during vehicular movement while crossing the intersection in the city. To address this, we propose a novel smart traffic light controller-assisted software-defined vehicular networking-enabled SIoV framework for emergency vehicles. Emergency vehicles form an SIoV network by utilizing Software-Defined Vehicular Networking (SDVN) architecture in Vehicle to Vehicle and Vehicle to Infrastructure communication. The SDVN module is used to offer two essential services: 1) SIoV-based road-lane prioritization, and 2) congestion prevention signal generation for the smart traffic light controller. An SDVN-MP algorithm is proposed to generate an effective traffic light control signal with an SDVN controller feedback signal. Furthermore, to improve the SIoV movement in the city, two levels of prioritization: 1) SIoV, and 2) the road lane with SIoV, are done. The first level of prioritization is to assign higher weightage to the social vehicular entities, and the second level is to prioritize the respective road lane based on SIoV quantity. The proposed framework is validated through a realistic simulation study on the Indian city OpenStreetMap utilizing the Simulation of Urban MObility simulator. The experimental findings demonstrate that the SDVN-MP model enhances (state-of-the-art) comparative performance by 22.5% to 55.2%, 1.2% to 82.7%, 1.6% to 38.4%, and 1.8% to 12.4% for average waiting time, average speed, average queue length, and average throughput metrics, respectively.

Combating gender stereotypes in schools: Gender, education level, and teaching experience of heads of schools as moderating factors

Gender stereotypes are common in societies. Since schools are social entities, they are susceptible to gender stereotypes. Promoting gender equity can combat gender stereotypes. Gender equity is significant for a patriarchal society such as Tanzania. Gender, education level, and teaching experience of heads of schools can influence how they combat gender stereotypes. However, little is known about the extent to which gender, education level, and teaching experience of heads of schools can influence their behaviour in combating gender stereotypes in schools. Based on this background, this study examined the extent to which gender, education level, and teaching experience of heads of schools can influence their behaviour in combating gender stereotypes in their schools. Using a quantitative research approach, data were collected through a survey and analysed using SPSS. Findings suggest that gender, education level, and teaching experience matter in combating gender stereotypes. It is recommended that the recruitment of heads of schools should consider these factors. Further research may involve longitudinal studies that gauge how perceptions of heads of schools on gender stereotypes change over time.

Civil-military cooperation and public control over the activities of local self-government bodies

The purpose of the article is to determine the specific features of civil-military cooperation and public control over the activities of local self­government bodies.
 The article shows that in the context of a high- intensity armed conflict, the impact of corruption and other risks that have a destructive impact on the local self-government system is growing. Arguments are presented about the existence of risks of violation of human and civil rights as a result of unlawful actions of civilian and military officials. Attention is focused on the decline in economic activity of enterprises and the population living near the contact line as a result of ill-considered provision of humanitarian aid. The article establishes the absence or imperfection of legal mechanisms to influence persons who refuse to evacuate from the areas of hostilities, if such "refuseniks" take care of children, the elderly or persons with disabilities.
 Public control is a complex social entity whose mission is to create preconditions for continuous improvement of the controlled entities' activities by searching for and analyzing errors in their activities and identifying ways to eliminate them. The concept of public control over the activities of local self­government bodies and civil-military cooperation structures is formulated as an analytical and search work of civil society institutions aimed at determining whether the activities of the controlled entities comply with their functions, powers, restrictions and prohibitions established by law.
 The legal framework for civic control over the activities of local self-government bodies and civil- military cooperation structures is currently being developed. Legislation governing the activities of local self-government bodies is largely outdated and does not take into account the realities of the martial law regime. Instead, the legislative basis for civil-military cooperation has not yet been created, which leads to an arbitrary interpretation of the essence of civil-military cooperation by different actors.

Tax measures to reduce food losses and waste in the United States and the European Union: a comparative analysis

Target 12.3 of the United Nations (UN) 2030 Agenda is as follows: “By 2030, halve per capita global food waste at the retail and consumer levels and reduce food losses along production and supply chains, including post-harvest losses.” The implementation of the specific targets of the UN 2030 Agenda, such as this one, presents a significant challenge, as they require immediate action, proper public policies, and unprecedented collaboration between private and public entities and countries. Target 12.3 is intrinsically related to many other targets, so its achievement has a direct impact on several of them. Therefore, it is vital to successfully achieve it, not only to reduce hunger but also to achieve many other Agenda targets and, in particular, to be able to reduce our environmental footprint. Preventing Food Losses and Waste (FLW) is a target within Circular Economy that can be considered to be most instrumental as Target 12.3 tries to prevent food overproduction with better redistribution that not only reduces inputs but also attempts to minimize waste by the donation of food products to Social Economy (SE) entities that help those in need. Circular Economy contributes to the resolution of the three most pressing environmental problems: overuse of resources or overexploitation, global warming, and biodiversity loss, in addition to all the negative impacts derived from these (UN Environment, 2019), preventing food losses and waste is also key to ensure the solution of both a deep social problem a public health one and the most important environmental ones. Even though the urgency of immediate action is clear, various academics, such as Martin Rio, Rogenhofer, and Sandoval Alvarado (2022), highlight that the attention this target receives from professionals remains scarce. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to compare these policies on both sides of the Atlantic, to propose recommendations, and to help raise awareness of the problem of FLW, following a holistic approach for all possible actors involved, as communication is critical to achieve this target. Special attention is paid regarding tax policies in cases where food is donated to Social Economy Entities such as food banks, non-profit foundations, or soup kitchens as taxes can both act as barriers or facilitators to this aim; therefore, it is crucial to implement them correctly to ensure they act as true enablers to achieve the target. Thus, we will be able to assess the tax changes that can help do so by means of a comparison between the existing ones in the United States and the European Union.

COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF THEORETICAL VIEWS ON THE ROLE OF NATIONALISM IN SOCIO-POLITICAL PROCESSES

The article presents an analysis of various concepts of nationalism as a socio-political phenomenon. The variety of approaches to understanding the phenomenon of nationalism indicates the absence of a single universal theory. An attempt has been made to consider the rather complex problems of the nation and nationalism, based on the most influential concepts. The main attention is paid to the key theories of the nation and nationalism that developed in the 20th century. According to the main methods of research and analysis of the problems of nationalism, the following areas of research can be distinguished. First of all, primordialism, which substantiates the uniqueness of the phenomenon of nationalism. The communicative direction considers nationalism as the main tool for the modernization of traditional society. Constructivist theories view nations and nationalism as the result of purposeful activity. The nation, according to constructivism, is an artificial social entity. From the point of view of functionalists, the origin and development of nationalism is associated with the implementation of a certain social function. Representatives of functionalism see the main task of nationalism in ensuring the stability of social processes. The formation of nationalism is associated with the modernization of society, the emergence of compulsory education and common cultural values. The analysis carried out allowed the authors to conclude that these approaches can be the basis for researching the phenomenon of nationalism and developing practical methods for solving problems in the field of national policy in a multi-ethnic state.

Intellectual capital in Galician common forests

Forest communities around the world are becoming increasingly involved in sustainable forest management and intellectual capital view can orient the outcome. This paper aims to identify the principal components of intellectual capital, in its three dimensions; human, structural and relational (internal and external) capital, and their relationships in the governance of communal forests. Focusing on Galician communal forests, in north-west Spain, a survey was conducted among community representatives, analysing using principal components how they structure their intellectual capital, and based on these, through an oblimin (0.5) rotation. Linear correlations among these components were assessed to determine the relationship of the components with each other. Galician communal forests present a composition of intellectual capital components which differ from those of for-profit firms and are closer to those of other social entities. The complex interrelations between the different elements of intellectual capital suggest different typologies of forest communities.

The power of networked knowledge: Transforming public health in Colombia's fight against malaria

Objective - This study presents an overview of the development of the network for knowledge management, research, and innovation in malaria (malaria network). With a focus on the organizational factors that influenced its formation, the study aims to shed light on the broader factors that contribute to effective disease prevention and control efforts by examining the contextual elements that shaped the network. Materials and methods - The study employed a mixed-inductive approach, with a qualitative core and a quantitative complement. Intentional sampling was used in semistructured group interviews and focal discussion groups during cocreation workshops. Data were collected through surveys and literature review. Results - The study found that knowledge of and experience in organizational strategy for knowledge networks is limited, highlighting significant academic gaps in this area. The malaria network addresses this challenge by prioritizing innovation and quality control as key variables in its processes, enabling the network to store, disseminate, share and convert data into useful knowledge for its members and decision-makers. Conclusions - To ensure the sustainability of the Malaria Network, this study identifies the need to generate evidence on organizational strategies for knowledge networks. Furthermore, it discusses the importance of maintaining support for the process through various government, academic, and social entities.

Unveiling Community Resilience: The Integral Role of Public Libraries

This research scrutinizes the instrumental contributions of public libraries in augmenting community resilience. The study deploys a methodological framework predicated on comprehensive literature examination and empirical investigation by focusing on the National Taiwan Library and the New Taipei City Library as paradigmatic instances. Employing a multi-layered approach of case studies and in-depth interviews with various library staff, the study aims to (1) formulate a nascent conceptual architecture of community resilience, (2) identify the multifaceted strategies public libraries employ to bolster resilience, and (3) articulate specific functional roles libraries execute in this resilience ecosystem. Empirical data coalesce into six salient categories: (1) Knowledge Curation, Skill Development, and Lifelong Learning; (2) Community Network Dynamics; (3) Human-Place Connections; (4) Infrastructure and Foundational Resources; (5) Innovation and Diversification; and (6) Public-Governmental Interface. Libraries surface as agile orchestrators in intricate socio-environmental nexuses, utilizing adaptive service models that leverage emergent community networks, enhancing intrinsic and extrinsic resilience. The roles libraries fulfill in community systems are manifold: they act as (1) Adaptive Sustainers in volatile conditions, (2) Socio-Organizational Mediators in community networking, (3) Stewards of Cultural Integrity, (4) Facilitators of Inclusive Information Access, and (5) Navigators in Collaboration with governmental and social entities. The findings contribute rich scholarly and practical perspectives on how public institutions fortify socio-ecological resilience.

The Coproduction of Health Framework: Seeking Instructive Management Models and Theories.

At the beginning of the 21st century, multiple and diverse social entities, including the public (consumers), private and nonprofit healthcare institutions, government (public health) and other industry sectors, began to recognize the limitations of the current fragmented healthcare system paradigm. Primary stakeholders, including employers, insurance companies, and healthcare professional organizations, also voiced dissatisfaction with unacceptable health outcomes and rising costs. Grand challenges and wicked problems threatened the viability of the health sector. American health systems responded with innovations and advances in healthcare delivery frameworks that encouraged shifts from intra- and inter-sector arrangements to multi-sector, lasting relationships that emphasized patient centrality along with long-term commitments to sustainability and accountability. This pathway, leading to a population health approach, also generated the need for transformative business models. The coproduction of health framework, with its emphasis on cross-sector alignments, nontraditional partner relationships, sustainable missions, and accountability capable of yielding return on investments, has emerged as a unique strategy for facing disruptive threats and challenges from nonhealth sector corporations. This chapter presents a coproduction of health framework, goals and criteria, examples of boundary spanning network alliance models, and operational (integrator, convener, aggregator) strategies. A comparison of important organizational science theories, including institutional theory, network/network analysis theory, and resource dependency theory, provides suggestions for future research directions necessary to validate the utility of the coproduction of health framework as a precursor for paradigm change.

Rethinking Ontological Individualism

The paper offers a critique of ontological individualism as a framework for social ontology. The phrase gives unjustified priority to facts about individuals over facts about higher-level social features. The paper reviews several important contributions to more nuanced views, including Giddens, Archer, Granovetter, Mahoney, and Thelen. It is argued that our guiding “map” of the social world needs to reflect the unavoidable reciprocal dependency over time between individual actors and social entities. The ideas of methodological localism (Little) and the diachronic character of the actor-social nexus explore the inherent interdependency between actor and structure.

Attitude-Based Intuitionistic Fuzzy Graph Model for Conflict Resolution With Soft Consensus: Application to Dam Construction Projects

Construction of dam projects built on international rivers usually faces many conflicts due to different interests, values, and preferences of social entities. The graph model for conflict resolution (GMCR) is a powerful and flexible tool to model and analyze strategic conflicts. In this study, we introduce a GMCR model to address construction conflicts among different social entities. To process uncertain and vague information in preferences, this study allows decision-makers to use intuitionistic fuzzy information to express their preference information. First, we define necessary definitions, including the intuitionistic relative certainty of preference (IRCP), intuitionistic satisficing threshold (IST), and intuitionistic unilateral improvement (IUI). When using a graph model to represent real-world disputes, a decision-maker (DM) may have different attitudes toward other DMs. To analyze the influence of attitudes, we originally introduced the concept of soft consensus in GMCR. Then, three kinds of attitudes, i.e., positive attitude, neutral attitude, and negative attitude, are identified. Next, we propose four intuitionistic stability definitions considering the attitudes of DMs. Finally, an illustrative example regarding the Xayaburi Dam dispute that occurred in Indochina Peninsula is provided to demonstrate the applicability of the proposed model.

Whose city is it: The impact of an intentional community on the city—A case study from Israel

AbstractUrban geography suffers a considerable disciplinary deficiency in studying urban intentional communities (ICs). Particularly lacking, also in general social sciences, are studies on ICs’ comprehensive impact on cities. The major reason for this might be a failure to realise that there are sub‐city geographical entities which contribute to shaping cityscape, and that an intentional community is not only a social entity but also a geographical entity. Viewing them from this perspective provides a vehicle for understanding the impact of ICs, thereby enriching the field of urban geography. Following an explanation of the concept of geographical entities and ICs as geographical entities, we present a case study from Israel with a comprehensive analysis of the impact of an IC on a city from various demographic, social, spatial, economic, political, and cultural perspectives as viewed by the residents. By studying the geographies of ICs in this approach and raising questions for further geographical research, we highlight the important role geography can play in this emerging field of urban studies.

Indian cricket, popular culture and “national Thing”: Reflections from sport‐induced nationalism

AbstractCricket in India has evolved much beyond its fundamental definition as a game or form of entertainment in the present century. The liberalization process in the 1990s, followed by the drastic social changes in the country, impacted the game, leading it to acquire new meanings as cultural text. Currently, Indian cricket forms part of collective enjoyment, forming people's habitus and playing a central ideological role in the politics of ethnonationalism. This article attempts to analyze Indian Cricket using Slavoj Zizek's concept of “national Thing,” to critically understand its potential to evoke hyper‐nationalism in the Indian polity. The concept of “national Thing,” proposed by Zizek, postulates that the recourse to nationalism can cause a pleasure‐in‐pain situation and evoke extreme “enjoyment” (jouissance), which functions on the idea of sudden sense of loss. Drawing insights from this, this paper theoretically investigates sport‐induced nationalism in cricket in the backdrop of escalating neo‐nationalist sentiments in India. Additionally, the article expounds on how cricket becomes a “lost Thing” in Indian popular culture by critically analyzing the Indian film Kai Po Che (2013), in which cricket emerges as a social and political entity, intervening with the lives of ordinary youths in India.

Local communities as the basis for preserving the cultural diversity of modern Russia: methodological approaches

The article discusses approaches to the study of local communities associated with sociocultural transformations of modern Russian society. In Western and Russian scientific schools, the study of local communities differs. Since the first half of the 19th century, Western science has observed the development of communities and their transformations in the process of urbanization, which broke communal tradition. Today in Western sociology, the study of communities is carried out primarily in the everyday, everyday field. The Russian practice of studying local communities was formed later, towards the end of the 20th century, during the formation of the system of local government bodies, therefore the local community is considered by Russian researchers as a phenomenon of local government. In modern urban-oriented culture, it is important to form and develop the local community not only as the basis for preserving the population and territories in the region. Mechanisms for consolidating people into a community through social activity not only solve the practical problem of preserving territories and their resources, but can be considered as a model for assembling such a complex social entity as Russia. Socio-cultural technologies of working with communities occupy a special place. Participatory budgeting and asset-based community development (ABCD), among others, play an important role. The latter formed the basis of the “cultural mosaic” program, initiated by the Timchenko Foundation.

Breaking Down Data Sharing Barrier of Smart City: A Digital Twin Approach

The smart city aims to enhance the efficacy of urban management and improve the quality of citizen life. This however faces a fundamental difficulty due to the inadequate data sharing among social entities, which has become one of the key barriers to the in-depth development of smart city, making wasted information resources and application silos ubiquitous. As an emerging communication paradigm, the digital twin network (DTN) has the potential to eliminate the data-sharing barrier in smart cities. By mapping the social physical entities (PEs) in the smart city to digital virtual agents, namely data twins (DTs), valuable data can be directly shared among the DTs over DTN without physical constraints, and form decisions that feedback and guide the operations of PEs. In this article, we explore the role of DTN in supporting the smart city and promoting data-sharing construction. We first introduce the basic concepts related to DTN and propose the architecture of DTN-enabled smart city. The key features of the DTN-enabled smart city are then discussed with an emphasis on the security and privacy issues with fundamental solutions around data sharing in the DTN-enabled smart city. As a case study, we investigate data sharing in the DTN-enabled smart city and design a secure and fair data-sharing mechanism. Finally, we propose open challenges for achieving a more reliable DTN-enabled smart city.

The impact of motivation to decision on digital transformation of social entrepreneurship

Background: Today, the digital transformation of business is one of the conditions for survival on the market. The development of digital technology is progressing rapidly, and only the business entities that keep pace with this development can expect good business results. Social entrepreneurship is an excellent way to solve the problems of social inequality and poverty and thus leads to economic growth and development. Purpose: The main goal of this research is to create a theoretical model of digital transformation of social entrepreneurship. This model can be a useful tool for deciding on the digital transformation of business. We investigated motivation of managers and employees as an influencing factor for the digital transformation of business. We declared other influencing factors as constants. Study design: We measured motivation by personal and professional use of the Internet, the acquisition of digital skills, the cost of labour of those who are involved in the digitisation process, and the application of data protection software. Ninety-seven social entrepreneurship entities from Bosnia and Herzegovina (B&H) participated in the research. The research was carried out using questionnaires, and we analysed the obtained data using correlation and regression methods. Findings: The results showed that motivation is a significant factor in the digital transformation of social entrepreneurship. Based on the results of the research, we have created a model of digital transformation of social entrepreneurship entities that can lead to economic and social development through steps applicable in practice. Limitations/future research: The most significant limitation of the research is the lack of an official register of social entrepreneurship entities from which we can collect data about the number of these entities. To future researchers, we leave open questions of other influencing factors for the development of social entrepreneurship, such as knowledge, sources of funding for initial business activities, etc.

Dual normative and prerogative state: human rights after 1989 in Poland

The changes that have taken place in Poland since 1989 reveal real problems whose solution depends on civic awareness, i.e. on understanding what a democratic legal state is and what role human rights play in it. Given the threats posed by various populisms, also the manipulation of the concepts of: nation, homeland, citizen, patriot, common good, etc., society may not notice how the normative state is turning into a prerogative state. An important role is played by knowledge and understanding of the provisions of the Constitution of the Republic of Poland of 2 April 1997, not only by lawyers, but by the whole of society and, perhaps above all, by the various levels of power, both legislative, executive and judicial. This also applies to local authorities, economic and social entities. Universal civic education and the everyday practice of democracy and human rights are essential. Over the past thirty-five years, there has been a slow change in the mentality of Poles, especially among the younger generation. People born in European Poland support a civil state in which human rights are respected. Paradoxically, the last eight years of PiS rule have contributed to an awareness of the role of law, including human rights, and a willingness to learn about the Constitution of the Republic of Poland. It is also important that the language of a democratic rule of law is back on track.