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SOCIAL SCIENCES

EXCLUSION-SUICIDE-HATE-DIVERSITY-EXTREMISM-SOCIOLOGY-PSYCHOLOGY-INCLUSION-EQUITY-CULTURE

Online Misogyny as Hate Crime

By Kim Barker and Olga Jurasz.

A Challenge for Legal Regulation? The ideal of an inclusive and participatory Internet has been undermined by the rise of misogynistic abuse on social media platforms. However, limited progress has been made at national – and to an extent European – levels in addressing this issue. In England and Wales, the tackling of underlying causes of online abuse has been overlooked because the law focuses on punishment rather than measures to prevent such abuses. Furthermore, online abuse has a significant impact on its victims that is underestimated by policymakers. This volume critically analyses the legal provisions that are currently deployed to tackle forms of online misogyny, and focuses on three aspects; firstly, the phenomenon of social media abuse; secondly, the poor and disparate legal responses to social media abuses; and thirdly, the similar failings of hate crime to tackle problems of online gender-based abuses. This book advances a compelling argument for legal changes to the existing hate crime, and communications legislation.

London: New York: Routledge, 2019. 146p.

Just a Dog

By Arnold Arluke.

Understanding Animal Cruelty and Ourselves. Psychiatrists define cruelty to animals as a psychological problem or personality disorder. Legally, animal cruelty is described by a list of behaviors. In Just a Dog, Arnold Arluke argues that our current constructs of animal cruelty are decontextualized—imposed without regard to the experience of the groups committing the act. Yet those who engage in animal cruelty have their own understandings of their actions and of themselves as actors. In this fascinating book, Arluke probes those understandings and reveals the surprising complexities of our relationships with animals. Just a Dog draws from interviews with more than 250 people, including humane agents who enforce cruelty laws, college students who tell stories of childhood abuse of animals, hoarders who chronically neglect the welfare of many animals, shelter workers who cope with the ethics of euthanizing animals, and public relations experts who use incidents of animal cruelty for fundraising purposes.

Philadelphia: Temple university Press, 2006. 232p.

Militant Jihadism:Today and Tomorrow

Edited by Serafettin Pektas, and Johan Leman.

Jihadist militants keep being a global threat. Many observers suggest that a transformation is likely to happen in their organisation, operation, mobilisation, and recruitment strategies, particularly after the territorial decline of the “Caliphate” of the “Islamic State.” This volume explores different aspects of the future trajectories of militant jihadism and the prospective transformation of this movement in and around Europe. The authors analyse the changing jihadist landscape and networks, and the societal challenges posed by both returned foreign terrorist fighters and those who have not returned to their countries of origin. Other topics of discussion are cyber jihadism, jihadist financing, women's position in and relevance for contemporary jihadism, the role of prisons in relation to radicalisation and militancy, and the changing theological dynamics. Based on recent empirical research, Militant Jihadism offers a solid scholarly contribution to various disciplines that study violence, terrorism, security, and extremism.

Leuven: Leuven University Press, 2019. 233p.

Engendering Violence in Papua New Guinea

Edited by Margaret Jolly and Christine Stewart with Carolyn Brewer.

This collection builds on previous works on gender violence in the Pacific, but goes beyond some previous approaches to ‘domestic violence’ or ‘violence against women’ in analysing the dynamic processes of ‘engendering’ violence in PNG. ‘Engendering’ refers not just to the sex of individual actors, but to gender as a crucial relation in collective life and the massive social transformations ongoing in PNG: conversion to Christianity, the development of extractive industries, the implanting of introduced models of justice and the law and the spread of HIV. Hence the collection examines issues of ‘troubled masculinities’ as much as ‘battered women’ and tries to move beyond the black and white binaries of blaming either tradition or modernity as the primary cause of gender violence. It relates original scholarly research in the villages and towns of PNG to questions of policy and practice and reveals the complexities and contestations in the local translation of concepts of human rights. It will interest undergraduate and graduate students in gender studies and Pacific studies and those working on the policy and practice of combating gender violence in PNG and elsewhere. Canberra:

Australian National University Press, 2012. 308p.

Tolerated Evil

By Jolanta Sikorska-Kulesza.

Prostitution in the Kingdom of Poland in the Nineteenth Century. Translated by Julita Mastalerz. “Relevant literature portrays the 19th century as a period of an unprecedented development of prostitution. Brothel houses and streetwalkers were an integral part of capitalist urban landscape. According to contemporaneous observers of social life, women rendering paid sexual services in European metropolises such as London, Paris, Berlin and St. Petersburg were counted by the thousand, or even hundreds of thousand, and were regularly availed of by married and single men.”

Peter Lang (2020) 358p.

Business and the Risk of Crime in China

BY Roderic Broadhurst, John Bacon-Shone, Brigitte Bouhours, Thierry Bouhours.

The book analyses the results of a large scale victimisation survey that was conducted in 2005–06 with businesses in Hong Kong, Shanghai, Shenzhen and Xi’an. It also provides comprehensive background materials on crime and the criminal justice system in China. The survey, which measured common and non-conventional crime such as fraud, IP theft and corruption, is important because few crime victim surveys have been conducted with Chinese populations and it provides an understanding of some dimensions of crime in non-western societies. In addition, China is one of the fastest-growing economies in the world and it attracts a great amount of foreign investment; however, corruption and economic crimes are perceived by some investors as significant obstacles to good business practices. Key policy implications of the survey are discussed.

Canberra: Australian National University Press, 2011. 314p.

Decriminalising Abortion In The Uk: What Would It Mean?

Edited by Sally Sheldon And Kaye Wellings

In a debate where seemingly even the most basic empirical claims are disputed, this book offers a clear and succinct account of the relevant evidence. Where does public opinion stand with regard to the permissibility of abortion? What would be the likely impact of decriminalisation on women’s health? Would it remove unnecessary restrictions on best clinical practice resulting in the improvement of services, or would it rather amount to dangerous deregulation, removing essential safeguards against harmful practice? And what lessons can we learn from the experience of other countries regarding the role played by criminal prohibitions on abortion and the likely impact of their removal?

University of Bristol Press. (2020) 112 pages.

Crime and Social Deviation

By S. Giora Shoham.

Criminologists, it has been said, are "kings without countries,- for their territories have never been deline-ated..Because the clashes between human behavior and criminal law norms do not constitute a clearly defined behavioral entity, criminology must draw its basic concepts and methodology from the behavi-oral sciences, biology, and, to some extent, the history and sociology of criminal law. A bold synthesis of the various related disciplines is, therefore, essential. Professor Shlomo Shoham has, in Crime and Social Deviation, undertaken such a synthesis, utilizing a unique theoretical approach to the causes and treatment of crime, delinquency, and deviation. Says Professor Hermann Mannheim in the preface to this work: "Shoham combines his unmistakable gift for constructive theorizing and classifying, for thinking in terms of abstract models and types, with painstaking and realistic empirical research for which his native country of Israel, small as it is, offers an apparently inexhaustible wealth of problems and material."

NY. Harrow and Heston Publishers. 2012. 267 pages.

Anomie and Violence: Non-truth and reconciliation in Indonesian peacebuilding

By John Braithwaite, Valerie Braithwaite, Michael Cookson and Leah Dunn.

Indonesia suffered an explosion of religious violence, ethnic violence, separatist violence, terrorism, and violence by criminal gangs, the security forces and militias in the late 1990s and early 2000s. By 2002 Indonesia had the worst terrorism problem of any nation. All these forms of violence have now fallen dramatically. How was this accomplished? What drove the rise and the fall of violence? Anomie theory is deployed to explain these developments. Sudden institutional change at the time of the Asian financial crisis and the fall of President Suharto meant the rules of the game were up for grabs. Valerie Braithwaite’s motivational postures theory is used to explain the gaming of the rules and the disengagement from authority that occurred in that era. Ultimately resistance to Suharto laid a foundation for commitment to a revised, more democratic, institutional order. The peacebuilding that occurred was not based on the high-integrity truth-seeking and reconciliation that was the normative preference of these authors. Rather it was based on non-truth, sometimes lies, and yet substantial reconciliation. This poses a challenge to restorative justice theories of peacebuilding.

Canberra: Australian National University Press, 2010. 518p.

Blamestorming, Blamemongers And Scapegoats

By Gavin Dingwall and Tim Hillier

Allocating blame in the criminal justice process. “Like many commentators, we are perturbed by a trend to criminalise in the absence of compelling justification…this development is explained in part by a greater willingness to attribute blame for events, to demand that blame is imputed onto an individual or other legal actor, and that severe consequences should then follow. We employ the modern term blamestorming to describe the deliberate process of attribution. That ‘blamestorming’ is followed in the book’s title by blamemongers and scapegoats emphasises the fact that blamestorming is not a value-neutral exercise and that significant disparities in power are often involved.

University of Bristol. Policy Press. 2015. 203p.

Encountering Pain: Hearing, seeing, speaking.

Edited by Deborah Padfield and Joanna M. Zakrzewska.

What is persistent pain? How do we communicate pain, not only in words but in visual images and gesture? How do we respond to the pain of another, and can we do it better? Can explaining how pain works help us handle it? This unique compilation of voices addresses these and bigger questions. Defined as having lasted over three months, persistent pain changes the brain and nervous system so pain no longer warns of danger: it seems to be a fault in the system. It is a major cause of disability globally, but it remains difficult to communicate, a problem both to those with pain and those who try to help. Language struggles to bridge the gap, and it raises ethical challenges in its management unlike those of other common conditions.

UCL Press. 2021. 405p.

Bullying and delinquency in a dutch school population

By Josine Junger-Tas and J.N. van Kesteren.

The Dutch Organization for Scientific Research (NWO). as well as the ministry of Justice have placed Social Cohesion, as an important subject of research, high on their agenda. In doing so the organization wants to respond to. major concerns in. Dutch society about the growing lack of social and economic integration of various groups. In this respect one might think in the first place of refugees and ethnic minorities, but of course the lack of social cohesion is not restricted to these groups. In fact, it has many faces. It may relate to certain specific population groups, which are relegated to the margins of Dutch society, but. it may also apply to some sub-sectors of the population, which find themselves in particularly unfavorable situations that impede their normal functioning and integration in society. In this respect one might think of the long-term unemployed, the disabled, the mentally disturbed, the alcohol and drug addicted, and the homeless who art roaming around in our big cities.

More in general our society has some difficulties in paying attention to those who are unable to cope with the requirements of our social system, including the criminal justice system. For example, with respect to the latter, it has taken a long time to assign a rightful place to victims of criminal offenses in criminal justice proceedings. Victims hardly had any rights and they were mainly seen and used as witnesses with the purpose of clearing up criminal cases.

One may wonder: is it not a characteristic of western culture to relegate all kinds of victims to the margins of society? Not only because they are frequently weak and cannot defend themselves, but also because they tend to reflect most clearly the shortcomings of our social system. Illustrative in this respect are the victims of domestic violence who simply have been ignored for centuries to be discovered as victims only since about the 1960's. Another example are the victims of school bullying. The problem of bullying has for a long time been considered as not serious and as something children have to sort out among themselves. Victims were considered as sissies who would benefit from being bullied? Even today some teachers claim that being bullied hardens children and teaches them useful lessons about human society. However, from the moment that victims of criminal offenses in general and victims of domestic and school violence in particular were 'discovered', and their situation was recognized as a social and legal problem, the scientific community has investigated the problem. Legal research has looked seriously to their position in the legal system and recommendations were made to improve that position in legal proceedings. In conjunction with this type of studies, criminological research concentrated on the victims as well as on their attackers. Numerous studies have been conducted on physical and sexual child abuse, wife battering and sexual abuse of women. The field of school bullying has been less explored although, since Dan Olweus' breakthrough studies in Norway in the 1970s, the subject: has been placed on the research agenda. One of the triggering elements in this respect was the finding that in a number of countries as diverse as Norway, Japan and England bullying had led to the suicide of several victims. The Meijers Institute has devoted a series of articles to the subject of social cohesion from a legal standpoint; they are published in this series as No. 6. In respect of the special position of the Meijers Institute as the research institute of the Faculty of Law of Leiden University, the institute is also interested in publishing criminological studies on social cohesion. The Meijers Institute considers the subject of school bullying relevant to the larger topic of social cohesion. Consequently we decided publish this study in our series and hope it will find a large and interested audience.

Deventer: Kluger Publications, 1999. 116p.

Propaganda 2.0 - Psychological Effects of Right-Wing and Islamistic Extremist Internet Videos

By Diana Rieger; Lena Frischlin; Gary Bente; Deutschland. Bundeskriminalamt.

This book deals with the psychological effects of extremist propaganda videos. Itparticularly asks the question how young adults in Germany respond to right-wing as well as Islamic extremist videos which can be found on the Internet today.This is not a book about terrorism, but about the potential conditions which mightfacilitate a climate of receptivity for radical messages in a young mass audiencewith diverging cultural and educational background and different attitudes and values.

The so-called web 2.0, with its mostly unfiltered, user-created content provides unprecedented opportunities for extremists to present themselves and uncensored ideas to a mass audience. This internet propaganda is created in order to increase attention and interest for extremist ideas and group memberships. It also aims to indoctrinate the recipients and, as a last consequence, to foster radicalization.The radicalizing potential has been feared by international security agencies and mass media. Nevertheless, not even the early stage effects of extremist propaganda in terms of raising attention and interest have yet been analyzed empirically.They are however necessary preconditions in order for propaganda to envelope a radicalizing effect.

The current studies close this gap by focusing on this early stage effects. We ana-lyzed how a non-radicalized audience responds to extremist internet videos. For the first time, based on a content analysis of actual right-wing and Islamic extremistInternet videos, our study used state-of-the-art methods from experimental media psychology for tracking the emotional and cognitive responses of a broad sample of 450 young male adults. As expected, we mostly found rejection and never strong acceptance for the extremist videos. Still, specific production styles and audience characteristics were able to cause at least neutral attitudes underpinning the strategic potential of internet propaganda. In the end, our studies might result in more questions than answers. However, we are confident that the conceptual as well as the methodological way chosen is most promising as to approach a deeper understanding of the first effects of extremist Internet propaganda.

Köln : Luchterhand, 2013. 165p,

Cyberbullying Among Young People

By European Parliament. Policy Department C - Citizens' Rights and Constitutional Affairs.

This study provides an overview of the extent, scope and forms of cyberbullying in the EU taking into account the age and gender of victims and perpetrators as well as the medium used. Commissioned by the Policy Department for Citizens' Rights and Constitutional Affairs at the request of the LIBE Committee, the study illustrates the legal and policy measures on cyberbullying adopted at EU and international levels and delineates the EU role in this area. An analysis of legislation and policies aimed at preventing and fighting this phenomenon across the 28 EU Member States is also presented. The study outlines the variety of definitions of cyberbullying across EU Member States and the similarities and differences between cyberbullying, traditional bullying and cyber aggression. Moreover, it presents successful practices on how to prevent and combat cyberbullying in nine selected EU Member States and puts forward recommendations for improving the response at EU and Member State levels.

Brussels: European Parliament, 2016. 196p.

Inside the Antisemitic Mind: The Language of Jew-Hatred in Contemporary Germany

By Monika Schwarz-Friesel and Jehuda Reinharz.

Antisemitism is on the rise in Europe, sometimes manifest in violent acts against Jews, but more commonly noticeable in everyday discourse. This innovative empirical study examines written examples of antisemitism in contemporary Germany. Drawing on 14,000 letters and e-mails sent between 2002 and 2012 to the Central Council of Jews in Germany and the Israeli embassy in Berlin, as well communications sent between 2010 and 2011 to Israeli embassies across Europe, the authors show how language plays a crucial role in activating antisemitism across a broad spectrum of social classes, investigate the role of emotions in antisemitic argumentation patterns, and analyze “anti-Israelism” as the dominant form of contemporary hatred of Jews.

Waltham, MA: Brandeis University Press, 2017. 458p.

The ideology of the extreme right

By Cas Mudde.

Though the extreme right was not particularly successful in the 1999 European elections, it continues to be a major factor in the politics of Western Europe. This book, newly available in paperback, provides a comprehensive and detailed analysis of the extreme right in the Netherlands (Centrumdemocraten, Centrumpartij'86), Belgium (Vlaams Blok) and Germany (Die Republikaner, Deutsche Volksunion). On the basis of original research - using party literature - the author concludes that though individual parties might stress different issues, the extreme right party family does share a core ideology of nationalism, xenophobia, welfare chauvinism, and law and order. The author's research and conclusions clearly have broader implications for the study of the extreme right phenomenon and party ideology in general, and the book should be of interest to anyone studying or researching in the areas of European politics, political ideologies, political parties, extremism, racism or nationalism.

Manchester, UK; New York: Manchester University Press, 2020. 225p.

Public support for Vigilantism

By N.E. Haas.

Why can vigilantes count on public support? Why do citizens in certain cases oppose the formal prosecution and punishment of vigilantes? Are such reactions an indication of lacking confidence in the criminal justice system? Or do situational aspects perhaps also play a role? The goal of this dissertation is to explain public support for vigilantism. In two studies, respondents were presented with a fictional case about vigilantism and answered related questions. The findings of both studies show that support for vigilantism cannot be interpreted automatically as a sign that confidence in the criminal justice system is lacking: situational characteristics have an independent influence on support. The results also reveal that support for vigilantism is a complex concept. People are not simply for or against vigilantism; responses to vigilantism are more nuanced. People can for instance feel little empathy for the victim of vigilantism, but at the same time express a desire for punishment of the vigilante. Additionally, a higher level of confidence in the courts and criminal justice system led to less support for vigilantism, while confidence in police did not play a role. Lastly, general support for vigilantism was an important predictor of support for a specific case.

Leiden: Netherlands Institute for the Study of Crime and Law Enforcement (NSCR), 2010. 197p.

Trust and Transparency in an Age of Surveillance

Edited by Lora Anne Viola and Pawel Laidler.

Investigating the theoretical and empirical relationships between transparency and trust in the context of surveillance, this volume argues that neither transparency nor trust provides a simple and self-evident path for mitigating the negative political and social consequences of state surveillance practices. Dominant in both the scholarly literature and public debate is the conviction that transparency can promote better-informed decisions, provide greater oversight, and restore trust damaged by the secrecy of surveillance. The contributions to this volume challenge this conventional wisdom by considering how relations of trust and policies of transparency are modulated by underlying power asymmetries, sociohistorical legacies, economic structures, and institutional constraints. They study trust and transparency as embedded in specific sociopolitical contexts to show how, under certain conditions, transparency can become a tool of social control that erodes trust, while mistrust—rather than trust—can sometimes offer the most promising approach to safeguarding rights and freedom in an age of surveillance. The first book addressing the interrelationship of trust, transparency, and surveillance practices, this volume will be of interest to scholars and students of surveillance studies as well as appeal to an interdisciplinary audience given the contributions from political science, sociology, philosophy, law, and civil society.

London; New York: Routledge, 2022. 282p.

Politics of the Sword: Dueling, honor, and masculinity in modern Italy

By Steven C. Hughes.

Following its creation as a country in 1861, Italy experienced a wave of dueling that led commentators to bemoan a national “duellomania” evidenced by the sad spectacle of a duel a day. Pamphlets with titles like “Down with the Duel” and “The Shame of the Duel” all communicated the passion of those who could not believe that a people supposedly just returned to the path of progress and civilization had wholeheartedly embraced such a “barbaric” custom. Yet these critics were consistently countered by sober-minded men of rank and influence who felt that the duel was necessary for the very health of the new nation. Steven C. Hughes argues that this extraordinary increase in chivalric combat occurred because the duel played an important role in the formation, consolidation, and functioning of united Italy. The code of honor that lay at the heart of the dueling ethic offered a common model and bond of masculine identity for those patriotic elites who, having created a country of great variety and contrast for often contradictory motives, had to then deal with the consequences. Thus dueling became an iconic weapon of struggle during the Risorgimento, and, as Italy performed poorly on the stage of great power politics, it continued to offer images of martial valor and manly discipline. It also enhanced the social and political power of the new national elites, whose monopoly over chivalric honor helped reinforce the disenfranchisement of the masses. Eventually, the duel fed into the hypermasculinity and cult of violence that marked the early fascist movement, but in the end it would prove too individualistic in its definition of honor to stand up to the emerging totalitarian state. Although Mussolini would himself fight five duels at the start of his career, the duel would disappear along with the liberal regime that had embraced it.

Columbus, OH: Ohio State University Press, 2007. 360p.

Men and Violence: gender, honor, and rituals in modern Europe and America

Edited by Petrus Cornelis Spierenburg.

There is growing interest in the history of masculinity and male culture, including violence, as an integral part of a proper understanding of gender. In almost every historical setting, masculinity and violence are closely linked; certainly violent crime has been overwhelmingly a male enterprise. But violence is not always criminal: in many cultural contexts violence is linked instead to honor and encoded in rituals. We possess only an imperfect understanding of the ways in which aggressive behavior, or the abstention from aggressive behavior, contributes to the construction of masculinity and male honor. Pieter Spierenburg brings together eight scholars to explore the fascinating interrelationship of masculinity, honor, and the body. The essays focus on the United States and western Europe from the seventeenth to the twentieth centuries.

Columbus, OH: Ohio State University Press, 1998. 279p.