This article seeks to expand the sociology of religion’s conceptual toolkit beyond the focus on religious belief and on organizational structures inherited from Western Christianity. After criticizing these origins, I use Ibn Khaldûn’s notion of al ‘assabiyyah or “group-feeling” to analyze the events surrounding the Marian apparitions at Medjugorje, Bosnia, in the 1980s and the later events in the same region during the 1990s Bosnian wars. This concept’s strength is its ability to treat religious and ethnic solidarity as part of (...) the same phenomenon—something that previous literature on Medjugorje and the Bosnian war failed to do. Its weakness is its focus on centripetal solidarity rather than solidarity created by heightened social boundaries. The solidarities at Medjugorje were more often of the latter kind. (shrink)

Sociologists of religion have recently focused on the growth of religious individualism in Western societies. Whether seen as a new religious trend or as a cultural correlate to the general weakening of civic organizations in the contemporary era, it is often presented as the growing tendency in religious life. It is also frequently presented in a positive light. This article explores a different alternative. Based on the work of Herbert Marcuse, it asks whether religious individualism heightens or undercuts the possibility (...) of opposition to the status quo. Marcuse’s underlying argument implies that when religion becomes a lifestyle choice, it becomes just another consumer good—one that encourages a one-dimensional “happy consciousness” that lacks the depth to support true social critique. In this view, religious individualism undercuts human emancipation. (shrink)

This article applies Susan Blackmore's model of brain self-modeling to explain how people experience altered states of consciousness in meditative religions. Against the experience vs. over-belief model put forth by William James and Wayne Proudfoot, Blackmore's model provides a theoretical base for a social role in the formation of meditative experience itself, not just in its interpretation. Learning to meditate involves learning to attend to certain bodily and feeling states, which involves learning to construct a brain model that produces a (...) different experience of the self. This is not just a matter of socially learned labeling, but of learning to generate authentic psycho-physical experience. Examples are drawn from the author's study of Quakers and practitioners of the Gurdjieff Work. (shrink)

L'A. part d'une double question sur l'unicité de la figure de Socrate et sur le caractère utopique ou non de la cité idéale présentée par Platon dans «La République». Il étudie en particulier le livre V, qu'il analyse à travers les commentaires de Bruell et Dobbs . L'A. montre finalement l'influence du platonisme sur certaines conceptions chrétiennes, celle du corps chez Saint Augustin en particulier.

La nature du régime idéal de société est la question la plus profonde que pose la philosophie politique. Beaucoup de théories modernes s'y méprennent car elle cherchent à placer le régime idéal dans le monde à la manière d'une utopie. Même la notion de démocratie est devenue un substitut pour le régime idéal. Traditionnellement, l'Eglise s'est tenue indifférente aux modalités constitutionnelles des divers Etats car cela ne concerne pas l'Eglise. La Révélation a servi à maintenir le politique dans sa sphère (...) propre, loin des choses qui n'appartiennent pas à César. La nature du régime idéal sert donc aussi à préciser ce qu'on est en droit d'attendre du politique et ce qui le dépasse. (shrink)

The question whether memory aberrations in posttraumatic stress disorder also manifest as an increased production of false memories is important for both theoretical and practical reasons, but is yet unsolved. Therefore, for the present study we investigated veridical and false recognition in PTSD with a new scenic variant of the Deese–Roediger–McDermott paradigm, which was administered to traumatized individuals with PTSD , traumatized individuals without PTSD , and non-traumatized controls . The PTSD group neither produced higher rates of false memories nor (...) expressed more confidence in errors, but did show inferior memory sensitivity. Whereas depressive symptoms did not correlate with veridical nor false recognition, state dissociation was positively associated with false memories. (shrink)

Sexual boundary violations can negatively impact the culture of safety within a medical practice or healthcare institution and severely compromise the covenant of care and physician objectivity. Lack of education and training is one factor associated with physician misconduct that leads to high financial and personal cost. This paper presents a follow-up study of physicians referred to a professional development course in 2001 and presents demographic data from 2001 to present. The paper focuses on the education and remediation progress regarding (...) sexual misconduct by physicians. (shrink)

Traditionally, recovered memories of childhood sexual abuse have been classified as those emerging spontaneously versus those surfacing during the course of suggestive therapy. There are indications that reinterpretation of memories might be a third route to recovered memories. Thus, recovered memories do not form a homogeneous category. Nevertheless, the conceptual distinctions between the various types of recovered memories remain difficult for researchers and clinicians. With this in mind, the current study explored whether recovered memories can be reliably classified. We found (...) that classification is rather problematic in a subset of cases. To reduce potential bias, we urge for the development and subsequent use of a more reliable classification system and multiple expert raters in research on recovered memories. (shrink)

Corporate anti-corruption initiatives can make a substantial contribution towards curtailing corruption and advancing efforts to achieve the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals. However, researchers have observed that underdeveloped assumptions with respect to the conceptualization of corruption and how firms respond to corruption risk impeding the efficacy of anti-corruption programs. We investigate the relationship between the perceived level of corruption in foreign host countries and the organizational structure of subsidiary operations established by multinational corporations. Foreign host market corruption is disaggregated into (...) two components—private and public corruption. We employ an uncertainty-based perspective grounded in transaction cost theory to focus upon the distinct mechanisms through which private and public corruption can each be expected to impact a foreign subsidiary’s organizational structure [wholly-owned subsidiary or a joint venture with a local partner]. We expect that each type of corruption fosters a different type of uncertainty which predominates in shaping the MNC’s choice of foreign subsidiary investment structure. Hypotheses are developed and tested with a sample of 187 entries into 19 foreign host markets. Each type of corruption was found to exert a distinct effect upon the organizational structure of foreign subsidiaries. More precisely, while heightened perceived levels of public corruption were found to motivate MNCs to invest through a JV with a local partner rather than a WOS, more pronounced private corruption precipitated the opposite outcome. (shrink)

The Deck Romania case is intended for MBA and Executive Education programs and focuses on the ‘gritty’ aspects of business in emerging market countries. It is particularly powerful in combining traditional managerial concerns like emerging market strategy and global supplier relationships with the larger challenges of cross-cultural and country differences in the conduct of business. Deck is a U.S.-based automotive supplier and part of a joint venture in Romania. In October 2006 the JV needed to expand to meet the needs (...) of one of its major global customers, Renault. The investment would be to support Renault-Dacia’s highly successful new world car, the Logan. But the question of expansion reveals that the JV does not meet many of Deck’s global manufacturing and business practice criteria. Deck’s dilemma is how to respond to the pressure from its global customer to make a substantial investment in a small market that may not meet financial or business practice expectations. (shrink)

The Deck Romania case is intended for MBA and Executive Education programs and focuses on the ‘gritty’ aspects of business in emerging market countries. It is particularly powerful in combining traditional managerial concerns like emerging market strategy and global supplier relationships with the larger challenges of cross-cultural and country differences in the conduct of business. Deck is a U.S.-based automotive supplier and part of a joint venture in Romania. In October 2006 the JV needed to expand to meet the needs (...) of one of its major global customers, Renault. The investment would be to support Renault-Dacia’s highly successful new world car, the Logan. But the question of expansion reveals that the JV does not meet many of Deck’s global manufacturing and business practice criteria. Deck’s dilemma is how to respond to the pressure from its global customer to make a substantial investment in a small market that may not meet financial or business practice expectations. (shrink)

Transliteration and translation of a Javanese text on Javanese ethics written by Raden Atmawirapa in 1796, includes additional text of Serat pancaniti, a manuscript on the history of kingdoms in Java Island, Indonesia and their kings and rulers written by anonymous author.