International Journal of Social Quality

Current Issue

The latest issue of the International Journal of Social Quality is available from Berghahn Journals. The Journal is published in print and online. Starting with Volume 12, the Journal is an Open Access publication – all content is freely available.

Volume 9 • Issue 1 • 2019

This issue is dedicated to two general topics that play a central role in social quality thinking and its policy application. The first is how to sharpen the social quality approach (SQA) as an intellectual instrument to understand the nature and rationale of political/legal, economic, cultural, and environmental processes in societies that aim to cope with their interpretations of mainstream contemporary challenges. The second is how to use social quality indicators for conceiving of the consequences of these processes in communities and cities. The connection of these main themes of the SQA is increasingly becoming the crucial challenge for, in particular, the theoretical reflection on thinking and acting for the increase of social quality in communities, cities, and countries. A global oriented comparison of recent and past social quality indicators research—for being heuristically meaningful—cannot neglect the role of social quality profiles and criteria anymore. This will be the forthcoming huge and interesting challenge.

Contents

Editorial (free download)

The Contribution of BRICS to the Quality of Global Development
Marco Ricceri

Social Quality in a Transitive Society
Valeriy Heyets

Public Evaluation of Society in China
Ren Liying and Zou Yuchin

Social Quality Measurement and Perceived Social Quality
Muhammad Yasir Ali and Ka Lin

Volume 8 • Issue 2 • 2018 / 2019

Environmental issues and the development of the social quality approach

The first three articles of this issue are dedicated to aspects of the current debate about and the praxis of environmental questions. The fourth article concerns the application of social quality indicators in China.

In an article about greening British businesses, Curtis Ziniel and Tony Bradley focus on the distinction between a post-material and a postindustrial point of departure for paving new ways regarding this connection. Tim Cadman et al. give an insider account of the COP climate negotiations, comparing market-based and non market-based approaches. Laurent van der Maesen uses the case of the Plastic Soup Foundation to propose further development of the social quality approach to include environment related issues. And Li Wei and Cui Yan explore the social quality of China related to indicators derived from a nationwide survey.

Contents

Editorial (free download)

Volume 8 • Issue 1 • 2018

 

From the extended editorial

"This and the next issues of the International Journal of Social Quality are the outcome of the support by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) to develop this journal globally, delivering an opportunity to present a more extensive editorial in order to summarize the state of social quality work and to indicate essential challenges at this stage and in the near future.  . . . CASS’s global scientific network in connection with IASQ’s global network can be made productive for this journal and for social quality thinking in all continents."

"The evolution of emphases in the social quality approach (SQA) during the past decade was relevant in the discussion with CASS representatives. As explained in the third main book on social quality, SQA now extends beyond analyses of processes in a range of policy areas seen as aspects of societal complexities (first field) and of herewith related processes in urban contexts (second field). It has added analyses oriented on the development or destruction of sustainable daily circumstances (third field), so a more global point of view has been introduced in theorizing social quality and SQA."

Contents

Editorial (free download)

Volume 7 • Issue 2 • 2017

About this issue

Dedicated to the memory of Renée van der Maesen, whose crucial support made the continued publication of this journal possible.

With focus on the rule of law, the current issue of the International Journal of Social Quality stimulates the dialogue about this highly relevant societal aspect of the sociopolitical/legal dimension. Four articles in this issue are outcomes of social quality projects; in Ukraine, a comparison between four Scandinavian and four Eastern European countries, in the Netherlands, and in China, respectively. In the final article, the Italian approach of the “rule of law” is presented, promoted in recent years by its governmental institutions in multilateral fora on priority areas related to the struggle against global crime, drugs, money laundering, and terrorism.
Sustainability is also a theme that is present in several articles. As the editorial states: “With presenting the rule of law, we must rethink the present and the outcomes of assumptions underlining suppositions of property rights as point of departure for the strengthening of the plutonomy. Without a change of these assumptions, the development toward the overall sustainability will be impossible.”

Contents

• Editorial (free download)
• Four Dimensions of Societal Transformation: An Introduction to the Problematique of Ukraine
  Zuzana Novakova
• A Multilevel Approach to Measuring Social Capacity in a European Context
  Ferenc Bódi, Jenő Zsolt Farkas and Péter Róbert
• Toward Comprehensive Conceptualizations of Contemporary Public Health: Participation as the Cornerstone of Appropriate Methodologies
  Harry Nijhuis
• Social Quality, Community Capacity, and Capability Poverty of Urban Residents in Shenzhen, China
  Xu Yanhui and Gong Ziyu
• The Rule of Law as a Condition for Development toward Sustainability: Toward a New Legally Oriented Environment at a Global Level
  Giovanni Tartaglia Polcini

 

Volume 7 • Issue 1 • 2017

The latest issue of the International Journal of Social Quality is available from Berghahn Journals. The Journal is published in print and online.

About this issue

From the Editorial: "As Peter Herrmann reminds us in the fourth article of this issue, we currently face societal abundance versus increasing inequality of access. . . .  This trend will not only determine the chances for processes resulting in sustainable urban development all over the globe, but also the main challenge of the development toward overall sustainability of human existence on earth. . . . All topics discussed in this issue cannot be disconnected from this main trend."
This issue of the journal contains contributions from authors who inspire us to think about the important themes of our time. They do so from various backgrounds and points of view, but they always focus on development towards a just and sustainable future. You will find that the authors cover topics that range from the foundations of accounting to the poetics of development.

Contents

• Editorial(free download)
• Reconfiguring the Politics of School Anti-Bullying Policy Making in Taiwan: A Critical Realist Approach
  Ming-Lun Chung
• New Conditions of Work in Society and the Art of Precarity
  Rolf Dieter Hepp
• Poetics of Development
  Ananta Kumar Giri
• The Limits to Cheating History: Changing the Reference for Accounting
  Peter Herrmann
• Searching for a New Way of Thinking about Society: A Noospheric Social Quality Orientation for Development toward Sustainability
  Vyacheslav Nikolayevitch Bobkov and Nikolay Vyacheslavovich Bobkov

 

 Volume 6 • Issue 2 • 2016/2017

About this issue

This issue is dedicated to the outcomes of the research project “Poverty and Shame: Perspectives and Practices Concerning Anti-poverty Measures in a Global Context” and funded by the Research Council of Norway. Erika Gubrium and Sony Pellissery, partners on the project, present a series of articles with emergent findings from five cases of service provision interactions between antipoverty measure providers and recipients, namely in China, India, Norway, Uganda, and the United States. The project focused on professional practices at the level of everyday interaction and the impact of service delivery on those receiving antipoverty measures. The article authors are especially focused on two issues: First, if antipoverty measures cause deep feelings of shame or may be “shame proofed,” and second, if they mitigate or stimulate feelings of dignity.

Contents

• Editorial (free download)
• Introduction (free download)Antipoverty Measures: The Potential for Shaming and Dignity Building through Delivery InteractionsErika Gubrium and Sony Pellissery
• Poverty and Shame: Interactional Impacts on Claimants of Chinese DibaoJian Chen and Lichao Yang
• A Dignified Meal: Negotiated Spaces in India’s School Meal ProgramSony Pellissery, Sattwick Dey Biswas, and Biju Abraham
• Building Dignity? Tracing Rights, Discretion, and Negotiation within a Norwegian Labor Activation ProgramErika Gubrium, Leah Johnstone, and Ivar Lødemel
• Indignity in Cash Transfers: The Senior Citizen’s Grant in UgandaGrace Bantebya Kyomuhendo
• Sisphyean Struggles: Encounters and Interactions within Two US Public Housing ProgramsErika Gubrium, Sabina Dhakal, Laura Sylvester, and Aline Gubrium

 

Volume 6 • Issue 1 • 2016/2017

About this issue

 

In the first article of this issue, Steve Corbett examines the 2016 Referendum on the United Kingdom’s (UK) European Union (EU) membership. The author presents the outcome of the referendum, the British Exit (Brexit), as a new EU phenomenon with implications that go beyond the UK’s relationship with the EU. It is an expression of the wider rise of right- and left-wing populism across Europe, including the Freedom Party of Austria and the Netherlands, Front National, Podemos, and Syriza political parties. These parties and their outriders articulate popular anger—among right-wing populists, anger at the perceived preferences given to some minority groups (e.g., immigrants) over others. However, both right- and left-wing populists express anger about disconnected and gilded political elites, about the privatization of profit, and about the socialization of risk for financial institutions and major corporations.

Contents

• Editorial (Free download)
• The Social Consequences of Brexit for the UK and Europe: Euroscepticism, Populism, Nationalism, and Societal DivisionUpdate: The availability of this free download has been extended over the next months, from February through June 2017.Steve Corbett
• Humanosphere Potentiality Index: Appraising Existing Indicators from a Long-term PerspectiveTakahiro Sato, Mario López, Taizo Wada, Shiro Sato, Makoto Nishi and Kazuo Watanabe
• Gender Parity and Equality in the Sultanate of Oman: A Case in Education for the Gulf Cooperation Council CountriesFaryal Khan and Maricel Fernandez-Carag
• Social Quality: Regaining Political EconomyPeter Herrmann
• An Exogenous Path of Development: Explaining the Rise of Corporate Social Responsibility in ChinaKa Lin, Dan Banik and Longfei Yi
• How Our Collective Representations Affect the Future of the European UnionJan Berting

Volume 5 • Issue 2 • 2015 / 2016

About this issue

A substantial part of the content focuses on the consequences of the Paris Climate Conference of December 2015 and the essential role of the social quality view in obtaining its goals.

The publishers have provided a free download of an article that highlights this point. The article is about the Western Australian deforestation, notwithstanding the impressive defence by community groups during the past decades.

Another case highlighted by the Journal is the accent by Ecuador on human development as to be understood in an ‘ecosystematic and intergenerational’ way (and the application of ‘eco-related’ indicators to adequately conceive human development). Both cases form examples that help interpret the outcomes of the Paris conference. This issue of the Journal may be considered a follow-up to the sustainability manifesto published by IASQ and ISS on occasion of this conference.

Topics include

• A study on the nature of and connection between human development, human rights and environmental governance.
• The current failure to control the spread of HIV disease in the United States, related to ignoring “the social”.
• Deforestation and the need for independent research by universities to support environmental groups and local communities.
• Ignoring societal costs in determining prices of commodities.
• The imbalance of the wealth division as a factor that undermines sustainable development of the living conditions on earth.
• What should be the legal obligations for large business groups in regard to the dialectic between societal relationships and ecological circumstances of human life.

Read the full editorial.

Contents

• Editorial
• “Living Well Rather Than Living Better”: 7 Measuring Biocentric Human-Nature Rights and Human–Nature Development in Ecuador
JohannesM. Waldmüller
• The Decline and Disorganization of Public Health 29 in the United States: Social ImplicationsWilliam W. Darrow
• Sustainable Forest Management: The Role of 46 Government Agencies, NGOs, and Local
Communities in Western Australia
Leonie van der Maesen and Timothy Cadman
• Measuring the Sustainability Performance of 62 Our Decisions: The Best Practice Price
Sustainability MetricsH.J. (Huub) Lenders
• Social Justice through Enterprises: The End of the 81 1972/1973 Conjuncture? A Legal PerspectiveHagen Henrÿ

 Volume 5 • Issue 1 • 2015

From the editorial

“In this issue the tension between economic politics and policies and the role and meaning of other dimensions of societies is central. As Anna Coote remarks, there are no signs either of any sufficient move in this mainstream economics to decouple production from greenhouse emissions by switching to zero-carbon energy sources. Similarly, Gro Harlem Brundtland, who led the famous Report on ‘Our Common Future’ (UN-Commission, 1987), observed that “governments are currently refusing to make the transformative changes needed to resolve the global sustainability crisis” (Brundtland, 2012). Is this a question of ‘refusing’ or also of being victimized by the traditional supposed duality between ‘the economic’ and ‘the social’, which paves the way for uncontrolled financial-economic processes for the accumulation of profit?”

Read the full editorial.

Contents

• Editorial 
• People, Planet, Power: Toward a New Social SettlementAnna Coote
• The Moral Economy of Digital GiftsDave Elder-Vass
• Conditions for Social EntrepreneurshipBert Helmsing
• An Analysis of Social Capital Generation among Coalfield Residents in Harlan County, KentuckyFeng Hao
• Methodology for Setting a Mexican User Satisfaction Index for Social ProgramsOdette Lobato-Calleros, Humberto Rivera, Hugo Serrato, María Elena Gómez, Ignacio Méndez Ramírez
• Seventeen Sightings of the "Social" in Economic Development Policy WritingRaymond Apthorpe

 Volume 4 • Issue 2 • 2014

In this issue of the journal each of the articles considers one of the approaches of Social Quality, Human Security and the Human development approach addressing a societal issue: governance, coping with crises, the rejection of state-proffered entitlements or provisions, the Greek crisis, or innovation. This confrontation with a societal issue provides a better understanding of the approach in question, and contributes to its testing and enrichment.

Contents

• Editorial

• Human Security Analysis as a Framework for Value-Oriented Governance: The Example of Climate Change

Des Gasper

•  What Can the Human Development Approach Tell Us about Crisis? An Exploration

Oscar A. Gómez

•  Social Quality Indicators in Times of Crisis: The Case of Greece

Konstantinos G. Kougias

• From Entitlements to Provisions – and Back

 Ton Korver

•  Investing in Workplace Innovation Pays Off for SMEs: A Regional Innovation Initiative from the Netherlands

Peter Oeij, Ernest de Vroome, Astrid Bolland, Rob Gründemann and Lex van Teeffelen

 

 Volume 4 • Issue 1 • 2014

According to the current social quality work, the four relevant dimensions of societal circumstances, overall sustainability and sustainable urban development are socio-political, socio-cultural, socio-economic and socio-environmental. This issue of the International Journal of Social Quality especially looks at aspects of the socio-political and socio-cultural dimensions of sustainability in social quality analysis. Some articles refer to the notion of sustainability, which stimulates transformative changes in society, and the consequences for the explicit or implicit integration with the socio-political dimension and the environmental dimension, as well as for the well-being of people all over the world, thus the socio-cultural dimension. Two interesting questions are, first, how can new forms of public participation and democratic practices and policies to stimulate environmental protection be developed, transforming the socio-political and legal context in order to contribute to the development of overall sustainability? Second, how can community involvement and new communication technologies be stimulated?

Contents

A Critical Qualitative Study of the Relationship between Social Empowerment and Participatory

Democracy in the UK

Steven Corbett

Environmental Public Participation in the UK

Hinrich Voss

Environmental Sustainability as Indicator of Social Quality: The New Opportunities Offered by

Communication

Renato Fontana and Martina Ferrucci

Sustainable Development as a Goal: Social, Environmental and Economic Dimensions

Vera Mignaqui

National Environmental Policy Development for Sustainable Economic Growth in Developing Countries:

A Case Study of Pakistan

Syed Shahbaz Hussain and Pirzada Sami Ullah Sabri

Cohesion, Exclusion and Social Quality

Paul Spicker

 

Volume 3 • Issue 2 • 2013

Special issue: The future of the 'social'

This special issue assembles contributions from the global North and South to inquire into the future of the “social” from an interdisciplinary perspective, drawing on sociology, political science and law.What does “social” mean, and do social policy and the welfare state have a future in a global age? The issue is published on the occasion of the eightieth birthday of Franz-Xaver Kaufmann, who is considered the doyen of the sociology of social policy in Germany. Kaufmann’s ambitious sociological approach, which emphasizes national state traditions and notions of society and culture, contrasts with the dominating approaches to social policy, which are either normative, descriptive (much of the textbook literature), political economy or policy studies. Although there is a vast literature on social policy and the welfare state, surprisingly few scholars have investigated the societal and cultural dimensions of social policy and the welfare state in depth. Guest editor Lutz Leisering from Bielefeld University presents an issue in which this lack of attention has been addressed.

Contents

SPECIAL ISSUE: In Search of the 'social'

European and Global Perspectives on the Idea of the Welfare State

• Guest editorial The "Social": The Global Career of an Idea

Lutz Leisering

• The Idea of Social Policy in Western Societies: Origins and Diversity Franz-Xaver Kaufmann

• The Rise of the "Global Social": Origins and Transformations of Social Rights under UN Human Rights Law Ulrike Davy

• Welfare Systems in Europe and the United States: Conservative Germany Converging toward the Liberal US Model? Martin Seeleib-Kaiser

• Religious Cleavages, Divisions on the Left and the Political Economy of Southern Europe Philip Manow

• Emergence of New Welfare States in East Asia? Domestic Social Changes and the Impact of "Welfare Internationalism" in South Korea and Taiwan (1945-2012) Won Sub Kim and Shih-Jiunn Shi

• The Logic of Welfare: Religious and Sociological Foundations of Social Policy Rationality Elmar Rieger

 

Volume 3 • Issue 1 • 2013

Contents

For a decade, the issue of sustainable development has been highlighted in international social policy debates and development studies. In order to ensure and increase the level of social quality, various societies struggle to achieve sustainable growth, with different policy measures in dissimilar circumstances of policy making. For some societies including the European states, to ensure sustainability is the primary task of government (especially after the financial crisis in the late 2000s), and in other cases, for example in Russia and the Southeast Asian states, economic growth (accompanied by sustainability as is hoped), is the main concern. Several key issues are involved in this, such as sustainable economic growth, environmental policy, and overall sustainability of society. The articles included in this issue of IJSQ touch on different aspects of the 'sustainable growth' issue.

Volume 3 - Issue 1 - 2013

List of articles

• Editorial

• Welfare after Growth: Theoretical Discussion and Policy Implications

Max Koch

• Risks of Society Stability and Precarity of Employment: A Look at Russia

Vyacheslav Bobkov, Olesya Veredyuk and Ulvi Alliyev

• Social Policy and Special Economic Znoes in the Greater Mekong Subregion

John Walsh

• The Socio-political Bases of Willingness to Join Environmental NGOs in China: A Study in Social Cohesion

Neil Munro

• Analyzing Societal Circumstances, Sustainability and Sustainable Urban Development: New Theoretical and Methodological Challenges for Social Quality Indicators

Laurent van der Maesen

 

Volume 2 • Issue 2 • 2012

Contents

This special issue features empirical papers from Australia, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Thailand. The data presented in this special issue originate from a large-cross-cultural research project investigating social quality across six Asia-Pacific societies: Australia, Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and Thailand. The survey employed for the research was developed and validated by the Asian Consortium for Social Quality and in particular, academics at Seoul National University. The questionnaire was developed from the research by the European Network Indicators of Social Quality (ENIQ). Although each society used the same instrument, different methods of data collection were used based on those deemed most appropriate in each society.

Volume-2/Issue-2- List of articles

• ‘Editorial’

Samantha B. Meyer, Paul R. Ward & Raymond K.H. Chan

• Investigating Australians’ Trust: Findings from a National Survey

Samantha B. Meyer, Tini C.N. Luong, Paul. R. Ward, George Tsourtos, and Tiffany K. Grill

• ‘Social Capital and Civic Engagement in Urban China’

Kang Hu & Raymond K.H. Chan

• ‘Social Exclusion Experiences of Atypical Workers: A Case Study of Taipei’

Fen-ling Chen & Shih-Jiunn Shi

• ‘Social Inclusion in Southern Border Provinces of Thailand

Surasit Vajirakachorn

• ‘Trust and Social cohesion, the Key to Reconcile Thailand’s Future

Thawilwadee Bureekul & Stithorn Thananithichot

• ‘Can Information and Communication Technology enhance Social Quality

Claire Wallace

 

Volume 2 • Issue 1 • 2012

Contents

Editorial

• Ka Lin, Laurent J.G. van der Maesen and Dan Mao

• Evaluating the Quality and Legitimacy of Global Governance: A Theoretical and Analytical Approach

• Tim Cadman

• A Legitimate Freedom Approach to Sustainability: Sen, Scanlon and the Inadequacy of the Human Development Index

• Andrew Crabtree

• Economic Performance, Social Progress and Social Quality

• Peter Hermann

• Social Innovation, Local Governance and Social Quality: The Case of Intersectoral Collaboration in Hangzhou City

• Yong Li, Ying Sun and Ka Lin

• Models of Elderly Care in Japan and The Netherlands: Social Quality Perspectives

• Rachel Kurian and Chihiro Uchiyama

• The Social Quality Approach in a Pluralist World

• Jan Berting

 

Volume 1 • Issue 2 • 2011

Contents

Editorial

• Social Quality Research in a Globalized World: An Introduction

• Ka Lin, Des Gasper, and Laurent J.G. van der Maesen

• Critical Engagements of NGOs for Global Human Rights Protection: A New Epoch of Cosmopolitanism for Larger Freedom?

• On-Kwok Lai

• Good Governance, Social Quality, and Active Citizenship: Gawad Kalinga in the Philippines

• Alex B. Brillantes Jr. and Maricel T. Fernandez

• Workplace Innovation, Social Innovation, and Social Quality

• Peter R.A. Oeij, Steven Dhondt, and Ton Korver

• En-Gendering Insecurities: The Case of the Migration Policy Regime in Thailand

• Philippe Doneys

• The Theatre of Human Trafficking: A Global Discourse on Lao Stages

• Roy Huijsmans

• Exploring the Relevance of Fraserís Ethical-Political Framework of Justice to the Analysis of Inequalities Faced by Migrant Workers

• Bina Fernandez

 

Volume 1 • Issue 1 • Summer 2011

Contents

Editorial

• Social Quality and Welfare System Sustainability

• Alan Walker

• Visions of the Sustainable Welfare Society: Extending Social Quality into an Asian/Developmental Context

• Yoshinori Hiroi

• Globalization and Ageing in India

• Arvind K. Joshi

• The Social Quality of Citizenship: Three Remarks for Kindling a Debate

• Ton Korver

• The Prototype of Social Quality Theory and its Applicability to Asian Societies

• Ka Lin

• The Individual and the Social: A Comparative Study of Quality of Life, Social Quality and Human Development Approaches

• David Phillips

• The Human and the Social: A Comparison of the Discourses of Human Development, Human Security and Social Quality

• Des Gasper

• Rethinking the Human and the Social: Towards a Multiverse of Transformations

• Ananta Kumar Giri