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This article examines a group of intellectual workers who occupy a peripheral but not powerless position in the global economy of knowledge. How do they handle relations with the global metropole, especially in new fields of research where established hierarchies are in question? Three new domains of knowledge - climate change, HIV/AIDS and gender studies - are studied through interviews with 70 active researchers in Southern-tier countries Brazil, South Africa and Australia. A pattern of extraversion, involving active adoption of paradigms from the metropole, is widespread and institutionally supported. Major alternative knowledge formations have not emerged in these domains. However contestations of more specific kinds are frequent. Paradigms are adapted, criticism is offered, activism is engaged, capacities are developed and allegiances sometimes changed. The valorization of local knowledge, which goes beyond the abstractions of universalized paradigms, is particularly significant. Not stark subordination, but a complex collective negotiation characterizes the response of intellectual workers in the Southern tier. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the 1980s, universities in all countries have become subject to the increasing pressures of globalisation and marketisation. Despite rising concern amongst academic workers about these new conditions, their impact on the production of scholarly knowledge has yet to be fully assessed. This study draws on an analysis of journal publications to ascertain some of the effects of this new employment context on sociological practices and production 'outputs'. The field selected for examination is the sociology of health and medicine: an arena of sociological investigation which has continued to thrive since the beginning of its institutionalisation process in the 1950s. Comparing the publications of authors from the United Kingdom, the United States, Australia and New Zealand, findings suggest relationships between a sociologist's location within the world knowledge system, their place in the university system and the knowledge they produce. Specifically, the study offers evidence for the impact of recent changes to the university system on sociological practices and the production of sociological theory. Some of the implications of these findings for the discipline are examined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Politica y Sociedad is the property of Universidad Complutense de Madrid and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Politica y Sociedad is the property of Universidad Complutense de Madrid and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper applies Max Weber's proposition regarding the differences between the 'sciences' to the 'historicist controversy': the problems emerging from opposing approaches to understanding the past. The historiography in question is the development of the 'biomedical model' of health and disease, and the rise of 'medicine' in the course of 19th century Europe and Britain. While Weber's theoretical framework does not answer the questions posed by present-day scholars about specific historical events, it enables a critique of the process through which history is 'constructed', and offers an alternative approach to the 'transformation' of 19th century medicine. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Discusses the privatisation of public enterprises in Australia. Number of key informant interviews conducted by the Australian Research Council in 1995; Ways how to measure the impact of privatisation; Benefits of privatisation for politicians and political advisers; Labor implications of privatisation.

Highlights the impact of total privatization of Australia's state-owned enterprise Telstra on service to the country's rural communities. Examination of ownership ambiguities; Details on the arithmetic of the sale of Telstra's assets; Question of the adequacy of the sale price of shares; Impact of this sale on Australia's public sector.

Financial provision for health care (and particularly hospital-based services) in Australia during the past half century have been characterised by a continuous tension between the public and private sectors. Successive governments have favoured alternate sectors, building up or dismantling one relative to the other. The latest trend has been to imitate developments overseas and introduce 'market forces' into the public sector in the form of competition, privatisation and new forms of monitoring, funding and regulation. Despite prolific discussion about these changes, there has been little recognition that the ensuing impact will also be shaped by simultaneous (and perhaps, unforeseen) developments in the health care sector--such as the entry of foreign 'hospital chain' corporations into Australia, the internationalisation of health care markets, and the globalisation of finance capital. This article seeks to clarify the nature of these developments, and addresses some of the implications of this unique coalescence of events. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sex-reassignment surgery is a technique used to alter the genital structure of an individual so that their genitals more closely resemble the genitals of persons of the opposite sex. It is a surgical operation used for individuals who are born with an ambiguous genital structure, and it is used for adult persons who wish to change their genital sex (transsexuals). This paper will focus on the latter situation. 'Operations on transsexuals have been performed in Australia since the late 1950s though, according to Giles, the earliest recorded case of surgery in the world may have been 1930 in Weimar Germany at Dresden (1989, 292). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a sociological study on privatization with reference to policies of different nations, network analysis and the effects of privatization on different classes. It analyzes the financial and social impact of privatization policies, which is a shift in the direction of economic policies with empirical evidences while exploring current theories of the privatization policy processes. The article also discusses the relationship between government policies and ideational theories on change, and functionalist and pluralist orientation of privatization.

The article discusses the sociological perspective of prevalent theories of the policy process of privatization. Governments in several countries are gradually accepting the need for privatization and other market oriented reforms due to the shortcomings of maintaining an extensive welfare state and a large public sector. According to several studies, privatization policy is selected in order to achieve key goals such as equity, efficiency, reliability, and consumer choice. Therefore, according to many social scientists, privatization is viewed as a political phenomenon rather than economic, administrative, or fiscal.