Sociology requires a robust theory of how local circumstances create social order. When we analyze social structures not recognizing that they depend on groups with collective pasts and futures that are spatially situated and that are based on personal relations, we avoid a core sociological dimension: the importance of local context in constituting social worlds. Too often this has been the sociological stance, both in micro-sociological studies that examine interaction as untethered from local traditions and in research (...) that treats culture as autonomous from action and choice. Building on theories of action, group dynamics, and micro-cultures, I argue that a sociology of the local solves critical theoretical problems. The local is a stage on which social order gets produced and a lens for understanding how particular forms of action are selected. Treating ethnographic studies as readings of ongoing cultures, I examine how the continuing and referential features of group life (spatial arenas, relations, shared pasts) generate action and argue that local practices provide the basis for cultural extension, influencing societal expectations through the linkages among groups. (shrink)

Since 1984, the AHV journal has provided a key forum for a community of interdisciplinary, international researchers, educators, and policy makers to analyze and debate core issues, values and hopes facing the nation and the world, and to recommend strategies and actions for addressing them. This agenda includes the more specific challenges and opportunities confronting agriculture, food systems, science, and communities, as well as broader contextual issues and grand challenges. This paper draws extensively on 40 years of AHV journal articles (...) and reviews and begins with a focus on a limited number of key grand challenges (climate change and global warming; threats to democracy and the growing neo-nationalism, populism, and authoritarianism; and increasing national and international inequality). With these challenges as the underlining context, the remainder of the paper addresses core journal themes of sustainable agriculture and local food systems, citizen and public science, and empowered communities. Highlighted are numerous important journal contributions to the analyses and recommendations to address these hopes and themes. I conclude that these themes and hopes not only deserve to live but are essential for changing and redirecting an unsustainable and destructive environmental, economic, political and social agenda to a viable, livable and just democratic society. (shrink)

Spatial localization, often demarcated by food miles, has emerged as the dominant theme in movements for more socially just and environmentally benign alternative food systems, especially in industrialized countries such as the United States. We analyze how an emphasis on spatial localization, combined with the difficulty of defining and measuring adequate indicators for alternative food systems, can challenge efforts by food system researchers, environmental writers, the engaged public, and advocacy groups wanting to contribute to alternative food systems, and facilitates (...) exploitation by the mainstream players using “localwash” to maintain the status quo. New indicators are urgently needed because research shows that spatial localization in general and minimized food miles in particular are not adequate or even required for most of the goals of alternative food systems. Creating indicators to operationalize goals for alternative, local food systems requires asking the right questions to make sure indicators are not misleading us: What are the goals of alternative food systems? What actions and policies will most effectively achieve those goals? What is the potential of reducing food miles as an action and a policy for achieving goals? What are the best indicators for measuring progress toward goals? We discuss how these questions can be answered for a wide range of alternative food system goals via four categories according to the role of food miles reduction as an action and policy in promoting them: necessary and sufficient, necessary but not sufficient, potentially important, and potentially supportive. (shrink)

Local health officials are called upon every day to implement the programs, enforce the regulations, and take the actions that protect the health of the citizens in their districts. These responsibilities and duties are created and regulated by a complex interplay of federal, state, and local law. Not only is an understanding of these laws necessary to carry out public health activities on a daily basis, but many public health scholars and practitioners also believe that the (...) law can be used as a tool to take proactive steps to improve public health. Unfortunately, many local public health officials do not have access to the legal assistance they need to address the various legal questions that confront them. This deficit makes it harder for them to meet their day-to-day responsibilities and makes it much more difficult for them to use the law proactively as a method to improve public health in their communities. In addition, many of the attorneys who provide legal support to public health departments do not have the time or resources to develop a thorough and up-to-date understanding of public health law. This paper examines the experience of a number of local health offices in obtaining legal advice and of attorneys who provide legal advice and assistance to local health departments and assesses different models for organizing and financing the provision of legal services to local public health officials. (shrink)

Over the last century, droughts have caused more deaths internationally than any other weather- or climate-related disaster. Like other natural disasters, droughts cause significant changes in the environment that can lead to negative health outcomes. As droughts are becoming more frequent and intense with climate change, public health systems need to address impacts associated with these events. Partnering with federal and local entities, we evaluated the state of knowledge of drought and health in the United States through a (...) National Drought and Public Health Summit and a series of subsequent regional workshops. The intended outcome was to develop public health strategies for implementing activities to better support and prepare public health systems for future droughts. The information gathered from this work identified multiple policy and law options to address the public health issues associated with drought. These policy recommendations include the use of public health emergency declarations for drought events, increased usage of preparedness evaluations for drought emergencies, and engagement of drought and climate experts in state and local risk assessments. As drought events are projected to increase in frequency and magnitude with climate change, taking policy action now will help decrease the health impacts of drought and save lives. (shrink)

Rural development policies are often inspired by narratives that are difficult to challenge because they are based on an apparently obvious and coherent reading of reality. Research may confront such narratives and trigger debates outside the academic community, but this can have a feedback effect and lead to a simplistic or biased posture in research. This article analyzes a research-based initiative that questioned a commonly held narrative in large-scale irrigation schemes in Morocco concerning the structural weaknesses of farmer-led collective (...) class='Hi'>action. This initiative conceived an alternative narrative of farmer-led collective action, based on research and actions undertaken in collaboration with the farmers. The article assesses to what extent it was possible to design this narrative and to draw on it to orient research activities, actions with farmers and public engagement, without impairing the quality of the research process. The alternative narrative was designed and diffused based on three intertwined activities: (1) the identification and analysis of farmer-led collective actions, (2) the diffusion of information on successful farmer-led collective actions especially through the production of videos, and (3) exchanges with and between local farmers’ organizations. The alternative narrative that resulted from these activities emphasizes the potentialities of farmer-led collective action, and more broadly, the willingness and capabilities of many family farmers to play an active role in the governance of rural areas. The message of the alternative narrative and the distinction made between the research articles and videos in both their content and role ensured that research did not fall into simplistic or biased analyses. The alternative narrative also became a key to renewed relations between farmers and researchers and helped design training for students that pay more attention to local dynamics. In a situation in which scheme-level organizations show limited interest in reflexive enquiry, this initiative proposes some stepping stones to make it possible for changing narratives to accompany changing relations between actors. (shrink)

Underdevelopment in Africa continues to be one of the most perplexing issues of this century. Conventional development policies have failed throughout the continent, and lack of scientific and technological capabilities is considered among the primary causes of the prevailing crisis. Attempts to address underdevelopment have been conducted in terms of what is scientifically and technically feasible in industrialized countries instead of what is socioeconomically and culturally desirable in Africa. Undue reliance on foreign scientific and technological expertise hinders local innovation (...) and creativity, which are crucial to self-sustained development. Redefinition of science and technology policies is urgently needed. Africa should not circumvent the use of science and technology in the quest for development, but it is crucial that African policy makers determine in whose interests science and technology will be developed. (shrink)

Economist-philosopher Amartya Sen's writings on social and political issues have attracted wide audiences. Section 2 introduces his contributions on: how people reason as agents within society; social determinants of people's (lack of) access to goods and of the effective freedoms and agency they enjoy or lack; and associated advocacy of self-specification of identity and high expectations for ‘voice’ and reasoning democracy. Section 3 considers his relation to social theory, his tools for theorizing action in society, and his limited degree (...) of attention to work by sociologists and to capitalism and power structures. Section 4 characterizes a style marked by conceptual refinement, emphases on complexity and individuality, including personal individuality, and reformist optimism. Section 5 shows the features from Sections 3 and 4 at work in his conception of personhood that advocates freedom to make a reasoned composition of personal identity. Similarly, Section 6 addresses his conception of public reasoning and neglect of the sociology of democracy. It contrasts the ideal of a reasoning polity with features in many countries. Sen's programmes for critical autonomy in personhood and for reasoned politics play, nevertheless, a normic role, while his analytical formats help investigation of obstacles to more widespread agency, voice, and democratic participation. (shrink)

From around the world, cities and regions, civil society networks and businesses, nongovernmental organizations and institutions for research and learning, and many others, are taking action on climate change. The role of these nonstate and substate actors is increasingly being recognized in the new facilitative climate regime. Political theory to date has been surprisingly silent about the scale and prospects of these actions for low-carbon, climate-resilient, and sustainable transformations. Idil Boran argues provocatively for the need for a widened scope (...) of vision, one that has a broader public life of climate action at its centre. While acknowledging the role of the state and the multilateral process, Boran maintains that social transformation is as deeply and more continuously influenced by the engagement of a wide range of actors below and above the state, whose actions are often locally anchored and inescapably interwoven across borders. Bringing concepts of the public sphere from political theory into contact with leading scholarship on transnational climate governance, Political Theory and Global Climate Action launches an exploration sensitive to changing patterns of practice, focused on diversity of actors, driven to explore historically contingent conditions of possibility, and responsive to questions of equity and justice in the context of transformations. The result is a repositioning of political thought on climate change, engaging political philosophers, scholars of politics and governance, and drivers of climate action worldwide at nonstate and substate levels interested in the social and political meaning of their engagement. (shrink)

Many festivals use animals in the name of continuing traditions and religious acts of historical and cultural relevance, as well as for tourist entertainment; however, the welfare of these animals has been overlooked in favor of maintaining cultural identity or making economic profits. The criticism of animal-based festivals has been growing along with the increased public awareness of animal rights. However, this change in public perception has not yet been translated into actual government policies in Korea. This study (...) addresses the unethical practices and challenges regarding animal welfare at festivals from the perspective of visitors to understand the public perception of the need for institutional and regulatory interventions to improve the treatment of animals at festivals. An online survey (N = 1000) is conducted to examine the public perception of animals and animal welfare at festivals and how strongly online survey participants support organizer- and state-level actions to protect the welfare of festival animals. Logistic regression analyses identify gender, pet ownership, pro-animal attitude, visiting experience, sensitivity to criticism regarding animal issues, and perception of animal welfare at festivals as significant predictors of online survey participants’ support for actions ensuring the welfare of animals used in festivals. Our findings also suggest that people sympathize with the need to enhance animal welfare but have low levels of sensitivity to the maltreatment of animals at festivals, indicating the existence of cognitive dissonance. Establishing guidelines and regulations for improving animal welfare can help festivals use animals in a more sustainable way and make visitors rethink and re-establish human–animal relationships. (shrink)

This book presents the first critical examination of the overlapping ethical, sociocultural, and policy-related issues surrounding disasters, global bioethics, and public health ethics. These issues are elucidated under the conceptual rubric: Public health disasters. The book defines PHDs as public health issues with devastating social consequences, the attendant public health impacts of natural or man-made disasters, and latent or low prevalence public health issues with the potential to rapidly acquire pandemic capacities. This notion is illustrated (...) using Ebola and pandemic influenza outbreaks, atypical drug-resistant tuberculosis, and the health emergencies of earthquakes as focal points. Drawing on an approach that reckons with microbial, existential, and anthropological realities; the book develops a relational-based global ethical framework that can help address the local, anthropological, ecological, and transnational dynamics of the ethical issues engendered by public health disasters. The book also charts some of the critical roles that relevant local and transnational stakeholders may play in translating the proposed global ethical framework from the sphere of concept to the arena of action. This title is of immense benefit to bioethics scholars, public and global health policy experts, as well as graduate students working in the area of global health, public health ethics, and disaster bioethics. (shrink)

Contemporary Americans often view politics as a necessary evil. This cogent and original work uses the ancient philosophical/political tradition of the West to rehabilitate the high vocation of the politician and the citizen in the modern world. Kane seeks to locate human beings and such philosophical notions as the public good, public virtue, public speech, and public action in the complicated middle between the bestial and the divine. To live as best we can on that (...) middle path is, he believes, our vocation as citizens. The classical tradition comes alive in fresh ways as Kane applies it to key contemporary events and figures, from Elizabeth Bouvia (who wanted medical practitioners to help her die) to Rosa Parks (who wanted equal treatment on a city bus). By paying close attention to our public transactions, Kane shows how the reality of the common good operates in our lives. Kane contends that we are more likely to rediscover our political selves not in broad national or international forums but in our local communities where character can be displayed and authentic speech and action become possible. Aimed at a broad interdisciplinary and inter-professional audience, Kane's book is accessible to the interested citizen. Weaving through the tangled web of contemporary politics, including issues of character and virtue, Kane sails against the prevailing currents of strident individualism and political cynicism. (shrink)

Taking advantage of the China’s recent anti-corruption campaign, we attempt to examine the effect of public governance on a firm’s incentive to commit fraud. Using enforcement actions data from the Chinese Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) from 2004 to 2014, we find that, due to enhanced public governance, firms are less likely to commit fraud in the post-campaign period than in the pre-campaign period. We further show that the effect of public governance is more evident in privately held (...) listed firms, in firms with weak legal environment, and in firms in areas with poor local economies. In addition, we find that older CEOs respond less actively to the public governance caused by anti-corruption regulations. This paper offers clear policy implications for business ethics by indicating that public governance provides external monitoring of corporate decisions. (shrink)

In recent years, global corporations and national governments have been enacting a growing number of codes of conduct and public regulations to combat dangerous and degrading work conditions in global supply chains. At the receiving end of this activity, local producers must contend with multiple regulatory regimes, but it is unclear how these regimes interact and what results, if any, they produce. This article examines this dynamic in the sugar sector in Brazil. It finds that although private and (...) public agents rarely communicate, let alone coordinate with one another, they nevertheless reinforce each other’s actions. Public regulators use their legal powers to outlaw extreme forms of outsourcing. Private auditors use the trust they command as company insiders to instigate a process of workplace transformation that facilitates compliance. Together, their parallel actions block the low road and guide targeted firms to a higher road in which improved labor standards are not only possible but even desirable. (shrink)

Preemption is a powerful strategy used by special interest groups to undermine strong, local public health standards. Currently, 20 states in the U.S. have preemption ordinances in place related to clean indoor air initiatives. These preemption laws are the direct result of an ongoing and aggressive campaign of tobacco companies to thwart clean indoor air initiatives, which ultimately, according to tobacco industry internal documents, cause significant reductions in their annual revenues. Clean indoor air policies have arisen from a (...) greater understanding of the documented health risks associated with exposure to secondhand smoke and action by local government to protect the public from these hazards. The efforts of the tobacco industry undermine local authority and seek to shift policy action to the state and federal levels, where the industry has greater political influence. (shrink)

Preemption is a powerful strategy used by special interest groups to undermine strong, local public health standards. Currently, 20 states in the U.S. have preemption ordinances in place related to clean indoor air initiatives. These preemption laws are the direct result of an ongoing and aggressive campaign of tobacco companies to thwart clean indoor air initiatives, which ultimately, according to tobacco industry internal documents, cause significant reductions in their annual revenues. Clean indoor air policies have arisen from a (...) greater understanding of the documented health risks associated with exposure to secondhand smoke and action by local government to protect the public from these hazards. The efforts of the tobacco industry undermine local authority and seek to shift policy action to the state and federal levels, where the industry has greater political influence. (shrink)

A large body of experience and expertise on the implementation of sustainable public school food procurement policies has developed in recent years. However, there has been little investigation of the values and motivations of the public officials implementing the policies. To address this gap, we examine how the city of Avignon took a step toward transition to local fresh food procurement for public schools, under French government calls for sustainable food products in public canteens. Our (...) analysis combines the Multi-Level Perspective on sustainable transitions with the Public Service Motivation construct. Unlike other studies addressing the MLP at a macro level, we focus on individual motivations behind public action. We demonstrate that staff motivations have a major impact on how policies supporting transition to local fresh food procurement for public schools are implemented. These public officials’ approach to food shows concern for the public interest regardless of financial return. It is not the rational choice that primarily drives the implementation of urban food policies, but normative conformity and affective bonding. Interestingly, we conclude that the success of Avignon’s politically-driven school food procurement policy is essentially due to the catering and procurement staff who overcame the barriers to its implementation. (shrink)

In response to the chronic overuse and misuse of pesticides in agriculture, governments in Southeast Asia have sought to improve food safety by introducing public standards of good agricultural practices (GAP). Using quantitative farm-level data from an intensive horticultural production system in northern Thailand, we test if fruit and vegetable producers who follow the public GAP standard use fewer and less hazardous pesticides than producers who do not adhere to the standard. The results show that this is not (...) the case. By drawing on qualitative data from expert interviews and an action research project with local litchi (“lychee”) producers we explain the underlying reasons for the absence of significant differences. The qualitative evidence points at poor implementation of farm auditing related to a program expansion that was too rapid, at a lack of understanding among farmers about the logic of the control points in the standard, and at a lack of alternatives given to farmers to manage their pest problems. We argue that by focusing on the testing of farm produce for pesticide residues, the public GAP program is paying too much attention to the consequences rather than the root cause of the pesticide problem; it needs to balance this by making a greater effort to change on-farm practices. (shrink)

. In her article the author analyzes the way in which academic scholars combine professional competence and social activity. Academic Studies of Religious is a strategic branch of the humanities, that the practical consequences of theoretical achievements contribute to the establishment of mutual understanding in the multiconfessional and polyscriptive social context. Ukrainian academic scholars jf religious are at the same time scholars as theoreticians and citizens of modern Ukraine. Therefore, they often continue their professional scientific and cognitive activities in the (...) educational and public sector. It is ascertained that, as guided by the principle of scientific prudence and at the same time civic engagement, contemporary Ukrainian academic religious scholars influence social reality as a means of public activity. While staying with theoretical scholars, but at the same time being active citizens included in the epicenter of the reality of modern Ukraine, Ukrainian academic religious scholars seek not only to reason and express themselves, but also to act responsibly both before the scientific community and before the civil community in order to achieve positive practical consequences of their professional achievements. It is proposed to classify the social activities of academic religious scholars according to the criteria a) collective-individuality - UAR and individual action; b) target orientation - different target groups and levels from local to international; c) the sphere of social existence - education and action in different directions; d) qualitative characteristics: whether the use of professional knowledge in public activities or professional activities in favor of the community. Religious professional competence contributes to responsible public activity, creates conditions for positive influence on the development of inter-confessional relations in a multiconfessional modern Ukraine, the formation of a developed civil society in which religious actors are effective and influential actors, rather than "hostages of processes" or "factors for account". Therefore, Ukrainian academic religious scholars and their professional activities in its subject and educational orientation, and their social activities, based on their professional competence, are included in the contemporary social and civil processes involved in such. (shrink)

Mobile phone-based applications (apps) can promote faster targeted actions to control COVID-19. However, digital contact tracing systems raise concerns about data security, system effectiveness, and their potential to normalise privacy-invasive surveillance technologies. In the absence of mandates, public uptake depends on the acceptability and perceived legitimacy of using technologies that log interactions between individuals to build public health capacity. We report on six online deliberative workshops convened in New South Wales to consider the appropriateness of using the COVIDSafe (...) app to enhance Australian contact tracing systems. All groups took the position (by majority) that the protections enacted in the app design and supporting legislation were appropriate. This support is contingent on several system attributes including: the voluntariness of the COVIDSafe app; that the system relies on proximity rather than location tracking; and, that data access is restricted to local public health practitioners undertaking contact tracing. Despite sustained scepticism in media coverage, there was an underlying willingness to trust Australian governing institutions such that in principle acceptance of the new contact tracing technology was easy to obtain. However, tensions between the need to prove system effectiveness through operational transparency and requirements for privacy protections could be limiting public uptake. Our study shows that informed citizens are willing to trade their privacy for common goods such as COVID-19 suppression. But low case numbers and cautionary public discourses can make trustworthiness difficult to establish because some will only do so when it can be demonstrated that the benefits justify the costs to individuals. (shrink)

Today, public health regulation at all levels faces unprecedented challenges both at home and abroad. The September 11, 2001 attacks on New York and Washington, D.C., by the Al Qaeda terrorist network and the anthrax bioterrorism that followed shortly thereafter have put public health regulation at the forefront of homeland security. The anthrax scare, in particular, has greatly tested the American public health system, calling into question whether the United States and its component states and localities are (...) prepared to handle a major outbreak of infectious disease, such as smallpox, in a future bioterrorist action. While the response of public health agencies was commendable, especially in light of the magnitude of the assaults, it is manifestly clear that the American public health system will be hard pressed to meet similar challenges that may lie ahead.The events of fall 2001 follow a period of major challenges for public health. The AIDS pandemic has killed millions of people throughout the globe, especially in Africa and other parts of the developing world. (shrink)

Today, public health regulation at all levels faces unprecedented challenges both at home and abroad. The September 11, 2001 attacks on New York and Washington, D.C., by the Al Qaeda terrorist network and the anthrax bioterrorism that followed shortly thereafter have put public health regulation at the forefront of homeland security. The anthrax scare, in particular, has greatly tested the American public health system, calling into question whether the United States and its component states and localities are (...) prepared to handle a major outbreak of infectious disease, such as smallpox, in a future bioterrorist action. While the response of public health agencies was commendable, especially in light of the magnitude of the assaults, it is manifestly clear that the American public health system will be hard pressed to meet similar challenges that may lie ahead.The events of fall 2001 follow a period of major challenges for public health. The AIDS pandemic has killed millions of people throughout the globe, especially in Africa and other parts of the developing world. (shrink)

Objective: This main aim of the study is to explore COVID-19 pandemic problems from the perspective of public health-clinical care ethics through online mediareports in Turkey. Method: This research was designed as a descriptive and qualitative study that assesses COVID-19 through online media reports on critics between the periods of March 11, 2020 and April 2 2020 as a quantitative as number of reports and qualitative study, across Turkey. Reports were from Turkish Medical Association websites which included newspaper reports. (...) Study data were presented as statistically and qualitative data case and headlines. No ethical or ofTicial permission was sought as the study was conducted through open access internet news sites. Results: This online reports analysis retrieved about 6723 articles about the COVID-19. According to study data, information about COVID-19 were themed as follows: general deTiciencies in taking action and isolation, lack of isolation, passengers and transport vehicles not quarantined ; insufTicient diagnostic tests, decision to test after healthcare professionals become infected, lack of equipment, lack of evaluation outbreak countries [Table 2]. Conclusion and Suggestions: COVID-19 is a pandemic and is a global public health problem that concerns every individual and needs to be handled carefully. This requires a multi-faceted preparation and education. In this context, healthcare professionals should be well trained in this aspect and have all the necessary equipment throughout the process. Additionally, it should work systematically with the cooperation of all health organizations, the Ministry of Health, local governments and of course the media, in order to inform society, fairly distribute the resources and to implement the safety measures effectively. BrieTly, lack of transparency, insufTicient information, limited resources, lack of public health protection measures such as partial quarantine decision, partial implementation of the scientiTic board's re c ommenda ti on s fo r e c on omi c rea s on s, and contradiction of the explanations are revealed as serious ethical problems. (shrink)

The article proposes some ideas for a sociological analysis of security policies, with specific regard to urban contexts and focusing especially on the intersection between policy and politics. The main questions concern the way in which security has been studied as a public good construed as a collective problem and an object of political action, as well as how to develop further perspectives and conceptual tools within this approach. Some other questions are also asked and provisionally answered, regarding (...) two aspects of security policies that are suitable for a research agenda: the role of knowledge and the related politics of expertise; the relationships between urban security policies and the processes of neoliberalization. (shrink)

Can civic organizations be both locally rooted and globally connected? Based on a survey of 1,002 of the largest civic organizations in Hungary, we conclude that there is not a forced choice between foreign ties and domestic integration. By studying variation in types of foreign interactions and variation in types of domestic integration, our analysis goes beyond notions of footloose experts versus rooted cosmopolitans. Organizations differ in their rootedness according to whether they have ties to their members and constituents, whether (...) they have ties to other organizations in the civic sector, and whether they associate with actors from outside the civic sector. Similarly, we specify different types of foreign ties. In both domains our emphasis is on the type of action involved in the tie–especially relations of accountability and partnership. By demonstrating a systematic relationship between the patterns of foreign ties and the patterns of domestic integration, we chart three emerging forms of transnational publics. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Rethinking Social Action through Music: The Search for Coexistence and Citizenship in Medellín’s Music Schools by Geoffrey BakerKim BoeskovGeoffrey Baker: Rethinking Social Action through Music: The Search for Coexistence and Citizenship in Medellín’s Music Schools (Cambridge, UK: Open Book Publishers, 2021)If indeed there exists, as Geir Johansen has proposed,1 a self-critical movement within the field of music education, Geoffrey Baker is undoubtedly one of its leading (...) figures. According to Johansen, the self-critical turn is characterized by an increasing number of music educators directing criticism toward music education itself by denouncing overly romantic visions of “the power of music” and scrutinizing how music educational practices are implicated in the propulsion of problematic social forces of inequality, oppression, and injustice. Baker’s widely read book from 2014, El Sistema: Orchestrating Venezuela’s Youth,2 thoroughly denounced the globally acclaimed Venezuelan ‘musical miracle’ as a myth. Based on extensive field work in Venezuela, Baker painstakingly dissected El Sistema as an archaic, morally, and pedagogically flawed model of music education veiled in the empty rhetoric of music as a tool of social redemption and documented how such models are ripe with opportunities for abuse, in every sad sense of the word.The continuation of Baker’s critical project is published in the form of a four-hundred-page book, entitled Rethinking Social Action Through Music. Baker presents the text as “a ‘post-El Sistema’ project”3 as it constitutes a departure [End Page 92] from his preoccupation with ‘The System’ toward potential alternatives to the Venezuelan model. He finds such an alternative in the Red (Red de Escuelas de Música de Medellín), a network of music schools in the Colombian city of Medellín, which figures as the center of attention in Baker’s institutional ethnography. However, even as the Colombian institution is invoked as a counterexample to its Venezuelan sibling, the Red is not held up for its ability to enact social change or display of innovative pedagogical principles. What Baker finds exemplary and worthy of investigation is the willingness he locates within the administrative layer of the Red to continuously engage in reflective work with regards to the tensions, conflicts, and pitfalls, as well as potentials of musical-social work. Particularly, Baker’s attention is directed to the decision-making processes and discussions among the leaders of the institution; how senior staff members adopt self-critical stances, how needs for institutional change are recognized, the recurring frictions between musical staff and members of the institution’s social team, and tensions between public statements expressing confidence in the program’s efficacy and internal conversations full of ambivalence and doubt.It is with reference to the reflexive processes of the Red that Baker conducts insightful and well-informed discussions of a range of themes relevant to music educators and scholars. Baker situates his analysis within the wider landscape of SATM (Social Action Through Music), which can roughly be understood as the field of musical practice emanating from the large socio-musical orchestral programs conceived in Latin America in the last decades of the 20th century and subsequently spread as ‘Sistema-inspired’ offspring throughout the globe in the beginning of the 21st century. Yet, the discussions found in this book are easily connected to pertinent themes of the philosophy and sociology of music education, such as the notion of artistic citizenship, decolonization, the political nature of music education, ‘the social’ in music education, to name a few. One of the striking qualities of this book is its ability to identify important issues in the local context of Medellín, extract the underlying mechanisms and through empirical examples unfold a much broader discussion of what social justice and social change might mean in the field of music education. Baker, originally educated as an ethnomusicologist, reflects on these topics with depth and nuance, underscoring the relevance of approaching these complex issues through ethnographic work, rather than basing such discussions solely on conceptual exploration.Appearing as a red line throughout the book is Baker’s insistence on foregrounding the ambiguity and ambivalence of musical-social work. In fact, his critical encounter with the field... (shrink)

Since its inception in 2010, the Network for Public Health Law has aligned with federal, state, tribal, and local public health practitioners to assess how law can promote and protect the public’s health. In 2013, Network authors illustrated major trends in public health laws and policies emanating from an internal assessment of thousands of requests for technical assistance nationally. More recently, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation has invited the Network and other partners to consider new (...) ideas and strategies toward building a “culture of health.” Per Figure 1, RWJF’s conception of a culture of health emphasizes key action areas essential to the promotion of health across all sectors and diverse populations. (shrink)

Fifty years after the publication of Bell's theorem, there remains some controversy regarding what the theorem is telling us about quantum mechanics, and what the experimental violations of Bell inequalities are telling us about the world. This chapter represents my best attempt to be clear about what I think the lessons are. In brief: there is some sort of nonlocality inherent in any quantum theory, and, moreover, in any theory that reproduces, even approximately, the quantum probabilities for the outcomes of (...) experiments. But not all forms of nonlocality are the same; there is a distinction to be made between action at a distance and other forms of nonlocality, and I will argue that the nonlocality required to violate the Bell inequalities need not involve action at a distance. Furthermore, the distinction between forms of nonlocality makes a difference when it comes to compatibility with relativistic causal structure. (shrink)

This article starts with a case outlining ethical challenges encountered in participatory action research (PAR) on vaccine hesitancy in rural India during Covid-19. Community researchers were recruited by a not-for-profit organisation, with the aim of both discovering the reasons for vaccine hesitancy and encouraging take-up. This raised issues about the roles and responsibilities of local researchers in their own communities, where they might be blamed for adverse reactions to vaccination. They and their mentor struggled with balancing societal protection (...) against individual rights to make choices. These themes are explored in two commentaries discussing the difficulties in balancing ethics in public health (prioritising societal benefits), social research (protecting participants from harm and respecting their rights not to be involved) and participatory research practices (maximising democratic participation and decision-making). As discussed in the first commentary, often these cohere, but tensions can arise. The second commentary also raises the issue of epistemic justice, questioning the extent to which the villagers could have a say in the design, implementation and interpretation of the research, and the dangers of not hearing the voices and arguments of people who reject vaccination. The case and commentaries highlight the complexities of PAR and additional challenges in a public health context. (shrink)

This paper makes a conceptual inquiry into the notion of ‘publics’, and forwards an understanding of this notion that allows more responsible forms of decision-making with regards to technologies that have localized impacts, such as wind parks, hydrogen stations or flood barriers. The outcome of this inquiry is that the acceptability of a decision is to be assessed by a plurality of ‘publics’, including that of a local community. Even though a plurality of ‘publics’ might create competing normative demands, (...) its acknowledgment is necessary to withstand the monopolization of the process of technology appraisal. The paper presents four ways in which such an appropriation of publicness takes place. The creation of dedicated ‘local publics’, in contrast, helps to overcome these problems and allows for more responsible forms of decision-making. We describe ‘local publics’ as those in which stakeholders from the different publics that are related to the process of technology implementation are brought together, and in which concerns and issues from these publics are deliberated upon. The paper will present eight conditions for increasing the effectiveness of such ‘local publics’. (shrink)

Microcosme de la société, espace symbolique où se nouent des rapports humains et sociaux fondamentaux, lieu de mémoire, l'hôpital public a vu ses fonctions se transformer au fil du temps. Successivement lieu d'accueil, maison d'enfermement, « machine à guérir », pivot de l'action sanitaire, il est aujourd'hui à la fois une administration et une entreprise de soins. Cependant, sous la pression de quelques évolutions sociales fondamentales, l'hôpital ne serait-il pas en train de s'ouvrir progressivement sur l'extérieur, de se (...) transformer de « citadelle » du service public de santé en « espace public » aux vertus culturelles et solidaires. Parmi ces évolutions, le développement d'initiatives solidaires en milieu hospitalier, telles que l'organisation de solidarités de proximité en partenariat avec le « dehors », paraît jouer un rôle essentiel.Hospitals are microcosms of society, symbolic places where basic human and social relationships are formed and places of memory and as such have witnessed great changes to their functions over the years. In turn they have been places of welcome, places of confinement, “healing machines”, the mainspring of health policies and nowadays seem to be both government-run institutions and healthcare businesses however contradictory that may sometimes appear. However, the pressure of a few basic social shifts seems to have led hospitals to gradually open up to the outside world, turning themselves from publich health system strongholds into “spaces open to the public” with culturally supportive values. Among these shifts in society, the development of support initiatives in the hospital environment such as local community-based solidarity projects run in partnership with “the outside world” seems to be playing an important role. (shrink)

Archival art has been discussed so far in spatial terms, as archival installation, emphasizing stability of content and narrativity. Performative archiving is introduced here as intervention practice producing empowered public spheres in the context of a generalized network archival culture. These archiving practices do not produce content, but dispositives that enable the recension of archival data in distributed processes, not unlike oral forms and rituals of transmission of knowledge. Synchronicity of performance, in distant or person-to-person encounters, creates the possibility (...) of contesting co-utterances. Such works experiment on new forms of participation and collective writing, determining the roles and responsibility of subjects during the development of archival time, regulating different levels of interaction among persons, social groups, institutions, practices, thematic areas, media, physical and virtual spaces. They are centrifugal processes that resist the thematization of the archive and its confinement within the discourse of art. Their intervention aims at a different mode of instituting in the world of art, which problematizes the local conditions of social spaces and cultural institutions. They shift our interest away from archival accumulation and preservation, away from the ‘ideology of the trace’, and towards the moment of speech and act that bears the ‘capacity to aspire’. While they are triggered by an intention to actively institute, to organize tactics of action, they insist on the political performance of ‘act and speech’ at the moment when they occur. (shrink)

This paper develops some foundations for an Aristotelian ethics of the built environment by combining the formal elements of Aristotelian justice with the design theory of Christopher Alexander. The resulting ordered set of human actions and their corresponding built environments require social deliberation about the integration of activities. This deliberation is required at all levels of human action, is characterized by local and step-wise decision making, and in important ways makes it possible for us to know if and (...) how we are harming others. On the political level this is embodied in the “public square,” whose essential purpose as integrative and moral-epistemological has deep and provocative implications for our built environment. For example, walkable human communities should be the default ethical choice for our built environment. I conclude by discussing a two-fold challenge to the New Urbanism movement for the light this sheds on the overall argument. (shrink)

In Poverty, Solidarity, and Poor-Led Social Movements, Monique Deveaux builds a political theory of poverty as relational and responsibility for injustice as solidaristic. Identifying the ways that poor-led movements have politically theorized and acted, Deveaux develops a theory of relational poverty that entails politicizing poverty which requires local-level organizing, consciousness-raising, resisting injustice and developing and demanding alternatives, and engaging in public debate and discourse. She goes on to argue that the praxis of poor-led movements reveals normative commitments to (...) mutuality, deference and deep listening, and risk taking. These enable movements of people in poverty to take on the injustice of poverty together across difference, privilege, and other obstacles to transformative (solidaristic) politics. Deveaux provides a mode for doing grounded normative theory (GNT) by relying on secondary literature. GNT is a methodology for doing political theory that destabilizes the epistemological authority of the political theory of the academy by treating lived experience – words and actions – as providing relevant text for analysis. The methodology is particularly important for theories related to justice. Deveaux demonstrates how this can be done with secondary sources thus enabling comprehensive engagement without avoiding burdening social movement actors with interviews or other modes of accommodating researchers. (shrink)

Depuis plusieurs années, le principe de précaution prend de l’ampleur et voit ses contours se modeler et se définir, aussi bien à l’échelle internationale qu’européenne ou française. Malgré tout, il n’a pas la même importance, en fonction de l’échelle à laquelle on se place, et tend à être confondu avec le principe de prévention, deux notions pourtant totalement distinctes. Plus que jamais les questions de climat, de biodiversité, de justice sociale, de gestion des deniers publics ou encore de valorisation et (...) de gestion des ressources sont au cœur des problématiques gérées par les territoires et notamment, par les communes, premier échelon territorial de décision. Le principe de précaution qui inonde l’ensemble de ces matières voit ses contours réduits en France, notamment par une jurisprudence autocentrée, préférant faire la part belle aux questions franco-française d’organisation territoriale, plutôt que d’appliquer un principe qui devient universel, favorisant ainsi l’inertie de l’État central plutôt que l’action locale. Une situation qui ne saurait perdurer davantage. (shrink)

Research represents an essential component of the response to infectious disease outbreaks and to other public health emergencies, whether they are localised, of international concern, or global. Research conducted in such contexts also comes with particular ethics challenges, the awareness of which has significantly grown following the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, the Zika outbreak in Latin America and the COVID-19 pandemic. These challenges include the need for implementing meaningful community engagement with the researched communities, not just to build (...) unidirectional trust towards the research team, but to achieve a genuine and mutually respectful partnership before, during and after the research. Here, we describe the real-life experience of 10 well-established research clinics in Nairobi, where a successful experience of community engagement linking prevention and care to research was interrupted during the COVID19 pandemic. We contrast this experience with the concept and processes of community engagement as described in selected scientific manuscripts and guidelines, to formulate some conclusions and recommendations. We contend that more action is needed, from research ethics committees and other key-research stakeholders, to align policies and practices with ethics guidance and with evidence-based recommendations from the academic literature, to achieve meaningful community engagement during emergency research, irrespective of the scale and location of an outbreak or public health crisis. Failure to do so, will aggravate the (postcolonial) asymmetries of power in global health and local systems. (shrink)

The declaration of the COVID-19 pandemic by the World Health Organization on March 11, 2020, led to unprecedented events. All regions of the world participated in implementing preventive health measures such as physical distancing, travel restrictions, self-isolation, quarantines, and facility closures. The pandemic started global disruption of socio-economic systems, covering the postponement or cancellation of public events, supply shortages, schools and universities’ closure, evacuation of foreign citizens, a rise in unemployment and inflation, misinformation, the anti-vaccine movement, and incidents of (...) discrimination toward people affected by or suspected of having coronavirus disease. Attempts have been made to protect the oldest age group at risk, but in many cases, this has led to over-restriction and age discrimination. The rationale for working on the Research Topic "Socio-economic systems in the post-pandemic world: Design thinking, strategic planning, management, and public policy" was the need to start reflecting on resilience and lessons learned from this public health event that revealed the global unpreparedness in critical areas. Also, the pandemic triggered both top-down and bottom-up responses that needed more in-depth analyzes. This Research Topic covers interdisciplinary contributions addressing new thinking, challenges, and transformations required for post-pandemic global, national, regional, and local realities. The presented Research Topic combines studies focused on recognizing the actions and interventions leading to the recovery of socio-economic systems during the tail end and after the pandemic. The studies delivered recommendations regarding, among others, the care of vulnerable, planning socio-economic restart, and imagining the "new normal.". (shrink)

Using a conviction-based measure, we find that local public corruption exerts a negative effect on the lending activity of US banks. Our baseline estimations show that the difference in public corruption between, for example, Alabama, where corruption is high, and Minnesota, where corruption is low, implies that banks headquartered in the former state grant 0.55% less credit ceteris paribus. Using proxies for relationship lending and monitoring, we also find that these bank characteristics weaken the negative effect of (...) public corruption on lending. These results are robust to tests that address endogeneity, to the use of perception-based measures of corruption, and after controlling for credit demand conditions. In further analysis, we show that these effects are more evident for smaller banks and banks operating in a single state. These findings provide evidence that public corruption could facilitate information asymmetry in the lending market and, thus, could hinder local development by reducing bank credit. (shrink)

On the basis of PM2.5 data of the national air quality monitoring sites, local population data, and baseline all-cause mortality rate, PM2.5-related health economic benefits of the Air Improvement Action Plan implemented in Wuhan in 2013–2017 were investigated using health-impact and valuation functions. Annual avoided premature deaths driven by the average concentration of PM2.5 decrease were evaluated, and the economic benefits were computed by using the value of statistical life (VSL) method. Results showed that the number of avoided (...) premature deaths in Wuhan are 21,384 (95% confidence interval (CI): 15,004 to 27,255) during 2013–2017, due to the implementation of the Air Improvement Action Plan. According to the VSL method, the obtained economic benefits of Huangpi, Wuchang, Hongshan, Xinzhou, Jiang’an, Hanyang, Jiangxia, Qiaokou, Jianghan, Qingshan, Caidian, Dongxihu, and Hannan District were 8.55, 8.19, 8.04, 7.39, 5.78, 4.84, 4.37, 4.04, 3.90, 3.30, 2.87, 2.42, and 0.66 billion RMB (1 RMB = 0.1417 USD On 14 October 2019), respectively. These economic benefits added up to 64.35 billion RMB (95% CI: 45.15 to 82.02 billion RMB), accounting for 4.80% (95% CI: 3.37% to 6.12%) of the total GDP of Wuhan in 2017. Therefore, in the process of formulating a regional air quality improvement scheme, apart from establishing hierarchical emission-reduction standards and policies, policy makers should give integrated consideration to the relationship between regional economic development, environmental protection and residents’ health benefits. Furthermore, for improving air quality, air quality compensation mechanisms can be established on the basis of the status quo and trends of air quality, population distribution, and economic development factors. (shrink)

This paper is one of the four interrelated action agenda papers resulting from the National Summit on Public Health Legal Preparedness convened in June 2007 by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and multi-disciplinary partners. Each of the action agenda papers deals with one of the four core elements of public health legal preparedness: laws and legal authorities; competency in using those laws; coordination of law-based public health actions; and information. Options presented in this (...) paper are for consideration by policy makers and practitioners — in all jurisdictions and all relevant sectors and disciplines — with responsibilities for all-hazards emergency preparedness.Advancing and protecting the public's health depends upon the coordination of actions by many, diverse partners. For effective public health preparedness, there must be effective coordination of legal tools and law-based strategies across local, state, tribal, and federal jurisdictions, and also across sectors such as public health, health care, emergency management, education, law enforcement, community design, and academia. (shrink)

Actions are uncontroversially public. However, the prevailing model of explanation in the debate about the de se seems to conflict with this fact by proposing agent-specific explanations that yield agent-specific types of action—i.e. types of action that no two agents can instantiate. Remarkably, this point affects both proponents and critics of the de se. In this paper, I present this kind of problem, characterise the proper level of analysis for action explanation compatible with the publicity of (...) action—i.e. the agent-bound level—and suggest that acknowledgement of this level highlights two important amendments of contemporary views. First, sceptics must accept that, when explanation is attitude-involving, the attitudes mentioned in the explanation of action must refer to the agent. Secondly, and perhaps more surprisingly, proponents of the de se should seek for accounts of de se attitudes that are not confined to a specific agent and are, therefore, sharable across agents. (shrink)

This paper is one of the four interrelated action agenda papers resulting from the National Summit on Public Health Legal Preparedness convened in June 2007 by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and multi-disciplinary partners. Each of the action agenda papers deals with one of the four core elements of public health legal preparedness: laws and legal authorities; competency in using those laws; coordination of law-based public health actions; and information. Options presented in this (...) paper are for consideration by policy makers and practitioners — in all jurisdictions and all relevant sectors and disciplines — with responsibilities for all-hazards emergency preparedness.Advancing and protecting the public's health depends upon the coordination of actions by many, diverse partners. For effective public health preparedness, there must be effective coordination of legal tools and law-based strategies across local, state, tribal, and federal jurisdictions, and also across sectors such as public health, health care, emergency management, education, law enforcement, community design, and academia. (shrink)

NGOs can play an important role in the development, implementation, and reform of public health laws. To be effective, NGOs must recognize the critical role law plays in protecting the health of the public and in the public health system’s emergency preparedness. They must be ready to work with federal, state, and local leaders to advance the goals that public health laws were enacted to achieve. NGOs also have technical expertise, which they can utilize to (...) help translate highly complex scientific concepts into public health action steps that regulators, legislators, and members of the public can readily understand.Those who are most often affected by pollution tend to be low income people, the working class, Native Americans, and people of color. Those most affected by pollution issues, however, usually have the least input in the creation of policy. (shrink)

This essay explores Hannah Arendt’s contribution to our understanding of the rhetorical as opposed to the aesthetic quality of public speech, with an emphasis upon her conception of opinion and glory. Arendt’s focus on the revelatory quality of public action in speech is widely understood to preclude or seriously limit its communicative aspect. I argue that this is a misunderstanding, and that accepting it would reduce speech not merely to the discussion of a sharply limited set of (...) topics, but to no topics at all. Public action is speech that reveals the speaker as “answering, talking back and measuring up to whatever happened or was done.” Such revelatory speech is most appropriately judged by the standard of the glorious and the inglorious. Because such speech must inform as well as reveals, so does glorious or great speech rise to the level of greatness in part because of what is said, to whom, where, and how. Arendt’s understanding of this is shown to have significant parallels to the ordinary language philosophy of Stanley Cavell. (shrink)

On 11 March 2020, the World Health Organization declared a pandemic of the COVID-19 coronavirus disease that was first recognized in China in late 2019. Among the primary effects caused by the pandemic, there was the dissemination of health preventive measures such as physical distancing, travel restrictions, self-isolation, quarantines, and facility closures. This includes the global disruption of socio-economic systems including the postponement or cancellation of various public events (e.g., sporting, cultural, or religious), supply shortages and fears of the (...) same, schools and universities closure, evacuation of foreign citizens, a rise of unemployment, changes in the international aid schemes, misinformation, and incidents of discrimination toward people affected by or suspected of having the COVID-19 disease. The pandemic has brought to the fore unpreparedness in critical areas that require attention, amid prospects and challenges. Moreover, considerable reorganization efforts are required with implications for assets, resources, norms, and value systems. COVID-19 is challenging the concept of globalization and stimulating responses at the levels of local and regional socio-economic systems that lead to the mobilization of assets that have been unrecognized earlier on, such as various forms of economic capital, social capital, cultural capital, human capital, and creative capital. For example, through digital channels, local groups are forming to create schemes of support for physical and mental wellbeing. These emerging exchanges lead to various social and technological innovations by building on skills and assets that are less important in the free-market economy, such as empathy, skills for crafts, making and fixing; locally grown microgreens; and micromanufacturing. Isolation and local living are also making it much harder to ignore the civic responsibilities towards communities, meant as individuals, vulnerable groups, and local businesses. Whilst the pandemic is limiting physical participation, this challenging time is uncovering alternative ways of mutual support, which may create long-term benefits for socio-economic systems, including environmental and biodiversity protection, reduction of the air pollution, and climate action. The pandemic’s threat to public health will hopefully be overcome with implications for disruption for an extended period that we are unable to forecast at this stage. It is key to focus on studies recognizing the activities and interventions leading to the recovery of socio-economic systems after the pandemic. Reflecting and planning on how societies and economies will go back to “business as usual” requires new forms of communication and cooperation, imaginative design thinking, new styles of management, as well as new tools and forms of participation in various public policies. Many questions related to the care of the vulnerable, economic restart, and the risk of future pandemics, to mention but a few, are already occupying the academic, scientific, experts, and activist communities, who have started to imagine the “new normal.”. (shrink)

How does Creating Shared Value (CSV) differ from Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)? How can universities teach CSV to students? The aim of this study is to present the case of the Shared Value Living Lab (SVLL) recently carried out at the University of Torino (UniTo), a large Italian public university. Specifically, the paper analyzes CSV related arguments such as building ecosystems and collective impact, and by questioning the role of experiential learning in adult education. The transformative learning theory of (...) Mezirow (2000) assists the discussion and interpretation of the results derived from this research from an intrinsic perspective, as the researchers “interacted” with the participants. The risks and opportunities of teaching CSV concepts are presented side by side with the strengths and weaknesses of innovative learning tools that have already been adopted by universities and business schools. The study contributes to the current literature by showing how students can reframe the problem of CSV, escaping from ordinary meaning schemes. The interaction between the researchers, the students, and the local actors is atypical of a generalist public university. It is also a good example of a triple helix collaboration that can be implemented in other areas of education research. (shrink)

Despite projected devastating impacts on human communities, the US still lacks comprehensive national policies aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions. This vacuum has provided the space for a surge of promising sustainability and climate action planning efforts at the state and local level. Meanwhile, according to the National Low Income Housing Coalition’s (2015) Out of Reach Report, ‘there is no state in the US where a minimum wage worker working full time can afford a one-bedroom apartment at the (...) fair market rent’. We are calling for a reimagining of local climate action planning that encourages policies and programs designed to reduce GHG emissions from the built environment while explicitly and comprehensively addressing the affordability component. With equitable local climate action planning, we can address both environmental and social justice issues. (shrink)

This paper addresses the question of whether and how public action via civil society and/or government can meaningfully shape industry-wide corporate responsibility behaviour. We explore how, in principle, ICR can come about and what conditions might be effective in promoting more ethical behaviour. We propose a framework to understand attempts to develop more responsible behaviour at an industry level through processes of negotiation and coalition building. We suggest that any attempt to meaningfully influence ICR would require stakeholders to (...) possess both power and legitimacy; moreover, magnitude and urgency of the issue at stake may affect the ability to influence ICR. The framework is applied to the retail banking industry, focusing on post-crisis experiences in two countries—Spain and the UK—where there has been considerable pressure on the retail banking industry by civil society and/or government to change behaviours, especially to abandon unethical practices. We illustrate in this paper how corporate responsibility at the sector level in retail banking is the product of context-specific processes of negotiation between civil society and public authorities, on behalf of customers and other stakeholders, drawing on legal and other institutions to influence industry behaviour. (shrink)

A campaign to pass city council resolutions opposing an American invasion of Iraq in the Fall of 2002 and Spring of 2003 provided an opportunity to examine contrasting styles of public argument. This paper examines an extensive set of news and editorial articles as well as the actual deliberations before city councils. An argument’s style constructs a relationship between the speaker, audience, and issue through the strategic use of language. Two conflicting styles of argument were apparent in these deliberations: (...) a protest style and a dissent style. Each style operated within a different normative frame that managed tensions between unity and division, participation and its lack, and inclusive and exclusive reasoning. While protest and dissent styles conflict, each frames important relationships for public discourse and deliberation. (shrink)

Piety is a social virtue. This study argues that piety as devoted action must include dialogue. Piety is an intersubjective act that attends to divine and human realities. This Project Demonstrating Excellence establishes piety as the virtue that requires wider dialogue not strict application of dogma. ;Each chapter is preceded by a Case Study of either a literary or a personal figure that represents characteristics of the virtue of piety. The threads that run through each case study, and the (...) two in Chapter 5, are the social and political aspects of piety. ;Chapters 1 and 2 concentrate upon the human condition as open to theological reality and inspired by philosophical insight. They retrieve systematic positions of Paul Tillich, such as the discovery of ultimacy through theonomous reason, and Hans-Georg Gadamer's hermeneutical interplay of dialectic and historically effected consciousness. ;Chapter 3 is a hermeneutical look at the relationship of tradition and newness in experience that supports social values in human action, as exemplified in the work of Wendell Berry. Chapter 4 looks into the application of open tradition in social and political action, particularly in the Communitarian movement. It depends chiefly on Gadamer's hermeneutics and the understanding of being-in-the-world as a practical activity of care and concern. Others presented are Charles Taylor, Jean Bethke Elshtain, and David Hollenbach. ;Piety as the social virtue of dialogical devoted action is contrary to a popular notion which values the narrow relationship between the devotee and the one receiving devotion. Case studies here of this publicness of piety include Plato's Euthyphro, Virgil's Aeneas, Sophocles' Antigone, the prophets Amos, Hosea, and Micah, Dorothy Day, Vaclav Havel, and Tom Pringle. This study concludes that piety becomes public action in the application of tradition that is perpetually open to new understanding. This is the public action of social justice. In dialogue the human person realizes a certain distinction in creation. This "open tradition" that characterizes dialogical devoted action establishes piety as a social virtue. (shrink)