Social Research articles from March 2002

Social Research archives from March 2002

Editor's introduction.(Brief Article)(Editorial)
March 22, 2002... This issue of Social Research is the ninth in our conference series, the mission of which is to foster discussion of matters of grave public interest in light of their often neglected and generally illuminating historical and cultural contexts....

A note from the Conference Convenor.(Social Research Privacy conference)(Andras Sajo)(Brief Article)
March 22, 2002... Eastern Europe emerges from a Communist past where everything was officially "public," privacy was unprotected, and the public sphere was etatized. The highly problematic public/private dichotomy of postmodernity is particularly complicated...

The exposure of privacy in today's culture. (Part I: Public/Private The Distinction).
March 22, 2002... TODAY it seems to be a universally accepted thesis that people have less and less privacy and that new technologies allow new invasions into people's private lives. However, when we complain about our endangered privacy, we often forget that...

Privacy and shame: a response to Renata Salecl. (Part I: Public/Private The Distinction).
March 22, 2002... IN her discussion of the exposures of privacy in contemporary culture, Renata Salecl presents a broad vista that comprises legal and commercial as well as psychoanalytic and aesthetic perspectives on privacy. In pointing out the historical...

From public to private: the development of the concept of the "private". (Part I: Public/Private The Distinction).
March 22, 2002... THE distinction between the "private" and the "public" is one of the most fundamental and constitutive ordering principles in social life, and one of the most unstable. In everyday life it operates as a common sense and basic reference point....

Publicity and media under communism and after: the destruction of privacy. (Part II: Post-Communist Understanding of the Public and Private).
March 22, 2002... AT first glance, it may seem oddly inappropriate that someone from today's Ukraine would discuss its media in terms of the post-communist destruction of privacy rather than by examining violations of freedom of speech. The "destruction of...

The informal public in Soviet society: double morality at work. (Part II: Post-Communist Understanding of the Public and Private).
March 22, 2002... THE concept of informal public is used here to designate the diversity of state-independent activities and interactions in late Soviet society. Segments of this informal sphere--which is different from the official public sphere--had begun to...

From opposition in private to engagement in public: motives for citizen participation in the post-1989 new democracies of Central Europe. (Part II: Post-Communist Understanding of the Public and Private).
March 22, 2002... Introductory Remarks IN these brief comments, I would like to take off from where Elena Zdravomyslova landed in her very challenging and informative paper in this volume. I will explore the most important motives that are behind the...

Privacy, secrecy, idiocy *. (Part III: States and Boundaries).
March 22, 2002... ONE of the supposed virtues of liberal democracy is its protection of privacy. From its roots in the late-eighteenth-century "democratic revolutions" to its institutionalization in the various declarations on human rights now in existence,...

Privacy, secrecy, idiocy: a response to Mark Neocleous. (Part III: States and Boundaries).(Column)
March 22, 2002... MARK Neocleous's very challenging paper questions traditional assumptions and the strategies based on them concerning the nature of state secrecy and its relation to privacy. According to the author, "secrecy is integral to the nature of state...

Reproduction, self, and state. (Part III: States and Boundaries).
March 22, 2002... Introduction REPRODUCTION is one of the most intimate spheres of individual life. It encompasses almost all the elements of the legal concept of privacy: the control of specific personal information, individual choice in personal matters,...

Public-private opposition and biopolitics: a response to Judit Sandor *. (Part III: States and Boundaries).(Column)
March 22, 2002... PIERRE Bourdieu has constantly taught us something like this: "If you meet a dichotomy when thinking, be brave: try to escape!" I will do so. I cannot see any clear intellectual distinction between public and private, just as I cannot see...

Ensuring data protection in East-Central Europe. (Part IV: Keynote Address).
March 22, 2002... FOR a constitutional lawyer who lives in Western Europe or across the Atlantic, it may be surprising that while data protection is rarely mentioned explicitly in Western constitutions, the right to the protection of one's personal data is...

Public identity in defining the boundaries of public and private: the example of latent anti-Semitism. (Part V: Democratic Process and Nonpublic Politics).
March 22, 2002... THOSE who study everyday communication know that people evaluate the situation in which they will communicate with their partners before communication actually begins. In this evaluation they primarily determine whether they should follow the...

Private and public prejudice: a response to Andras Kovacs. (Part V: Democratic Process and Nonpublic Politics).
March 22, 2002... IN his analysis of latent prejudice, Andras Kovacs demonstrates the methodological sophistication that can now be harnessed to penetrate the often thin veneer of political correctness to illuminate closet anti-Semites, homophobes, or racists....

From subjectivity to privacy and back again. (Part V: Democratic Process and Nonpublic Politics).
March 22, 2002... THE "public"/"private" dichotomy is one of those "conceptual personae" described by Deleuze and Guattari with reference to Descartes, thus: Is there something else, in Descartes's case, other than the created cogito and the...

Anonymity, democracy, and cyberspace. (Part V: Democratic Process and Nonpublic Politics).
March 22, 2002... Introduction THE Internet is a social, cultural, commercial, educational, and entertainment global communications system whose legitimate purpose is to benefit and empower online users by lowering the barriers to the creation and...

The tale of cookies (Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde). (Part V: Democratic Process and Nonpublic Politics).(online privacy and identity)
March 22, 2002... QUESTIONS of anonymity, pseudonymity, the various degrees of privacy are connected with the technological fact that no generic system for identification in cyberspace currently exists. It is not possible to absolutely identify an entity or to...

Privacy as property *. (Part V: Democratic Process and Nonpublic Politics).
March 22, 2002... A SOCIETY protects its values in different and overlapping ways. The values of free speech in America are protected by a constitution that guards against speech abridging regulation (U.S. Constitution, First Amendment). They are supported by...