Central Objective (central + objective)

Distribution by Scientific Domains
Humanities and Social Sciences60%

Selected Abstracts

Neo-Liberalism as Creative Destruction

GEOGRAFISKA ANNALER SERIES B: HUMAN GEOGRAPHY, Issue 2 2006
David Harvey
Abstract Neoliberalization has swept across the world like a vast tidal wave of institutional reform and discursive adjustment, entailing much destruction, not only of prior institutional frameworks and powers, but also of divisions of labor, social relations, welfare provisions, technological mixes, ways of life, attachments to the land, habits of the heart, ways of thought, and the like. To turn the neoliberal rhetoric against itself, we may reasonably ask: in whose particular interests is it that the state take a neoliberal stance and in what ways have these particular interests used neoliberalism to benefit themselves rather than, as is claimed, everyone, everywhere? Neoliberalism has spawned a swath of oppositional movements. The more clearly oppositional movements recognize that their central objective must be to confront the class power that has been so effectively restored under neoliberalization, the more they will likely themselves cohere. [source]

Paradoxes of Public Sector Customer Service

GOVERNANCE, Issue 1 2001
Jane E. Fountain
The use of customer service ideas in government continues to be widespread, although the concept and its implications for public sector service production and delivery remain poorly developed. This paper presents a series of paradoxes related to customer service and its use in government. The central and most troubling paradox is that customer service techniques and tools applied to government may lead to increased political inequality even as some aspects of service are improved. The argument is structured by examination of the following: the predominant structural features of service management in theprivate sector, the assumption that customer satisfaction is a central objective of service firms, the understanding of customer service that informs current federal reform efforts, and the operational and political challenges of customer service as a public management objective. [source]

Governance of Higher Education in Britain: The Significance of the Research Assessment Exercises for the Funding Council Model

HIGHER EDUCATION QUARTERLY, Issue 1 2004
Ted Tapper
This article uses the political struggles that have enveloped the research assessment exercises (RAEs) to interpret the UK's current funding council model of governance. Ironically, the apparently widespread improvement in the research performance of British universities, as demonstrated by RAE 2001, has made it more difficult to distribute research income selectively, which was supposedly the central objective of the whole evaluative process. Whilst enhanced research ratings may be seen as a cause for celebration in the universities, the failure to anticipate this outcome and, more significantly, to plan for its financial implications is seen in political circles as a failure of higher education management. The article explores the alternative models of governance that are likely to emerge as a consequence of this crisis and, in particular, whether the funding councils can have much freedom of action, given the tighter political control of policy goals and their critical dependence upon the academic profession for the conduct of the evaluative process. [source]

Does less autonomy erode women's health?

AMERICAN JOURNAL OF HUMAN BIOLOGY, Issue 1 2010

Understanding the determinants of health is a central objective of human biology and related fields. Female autonomy is hypothesized to be an important determinant of women's health as well as demographic outcomes. The literature relating women's health to their everyday autonomy has produced conflicting results, and this may be due in part to the application of different measures of autonomy and different measures of health. Using secondary data from a large nationally representative study, this study examines the relationship between multiple measures of female autonomy and three measures of wellbeing among women living in Uzbekistan (n = 5,396). The multivariate results show that women's autonomy related to freedom of movement is associated with lower levels of depression symptomatology and lower systolic blood pressure. Respondents who assert that women should have control over their bodies also had lower odds of high depression symptoms and lower diastolic blood pressure. In contrast, women with greater decision-making autonomy were more likely to be classified as having high depressive symptomatology and higher diastolic blood pressure. Building on recent work, we suggest that these associations might reflect varying levels of agreement between men and women, and we provide some limited evidence to support this. This study stands as a theoretical and methodological cautionary note by suggesting that the relationship between autonomy and health is complex. Further, if differences in gender agreement underlie differences in the predictive accuracy of autonomy scales, then human biology researchers will need to begin collecting identical data from men and women. Am. J. Hum. Biol. 2010. © 2009 Wiley-Liss, Inc. [source]

Neoliberalism and the Aestheticization of New Middle-Class Landscapes

ANTIPODE, Issue 2 2009
Choon-Piew Pow
Abstract:, If according to Terry Eagleton (The Ideology of the Aesthetic 1990:28), the aesthetic is from the start "a contradictory, double-edged concept", how are seemingly innocent acts of viewing and consuming aesthetically pleasing landscapes implicated in the neoliberal politics of urban restructuring? Using contemporary Shanghai as a case study, this paper critically examines the role of the aesthetic in the politics of exclusion and urban segregation in post-Socialist Shanghai where the restructuring and commodification of erstwhile public welfare housing have led to the rapid development of private "middle-class" gated enclaves. A central objective of this paper is to excavate the underlying cultural politics of neoliberalism and demonstrate how the aestheticization of urban spaces in Shanghai has become increasingly intertwined with and accentuated by neoliberal ideologies and exclusionary practices in the city. Imbricated in the pristine neighborhoods of Shanghai's gated communities are the fault lines of social division and class distinction that are rapidly transforming urban China. [source]