F.G. Bailey - Böcker

Professor Kriesberg explores in this book the many myths about the poor, the welfare dependents, and the husbandless mothers. The evidence marshalled does not support the idea that people continue on welfare generation after generation, that the children of broken families have disrupted marriages themselves, that the poor seek out public housing and public assistance because they prefer such dependency, or that husbandless mothers all have lower educational goals for their children than do married mothers. Beginning with major theoretical issues, Professor Kriesberg developed specific hypotheses about the life of the poor and the culture of poverty; the hypotheses were tested with data from a study of families in and around four public housing projects in Syracuse.Issues discussed in the book include the social worlds of the housing projects and the relations between the tenants and the residents of surrounding neighborhoods; the recruitment and selection of families into public housing; and the alternatives the female heads of families face in obtaining money for their families. Two chapters are devoted to an analysis of childrearing patterns that affect the child's later independence and educational achievements, focusing upon intergenerational processes and contemporary conditions such as housing, income, and family structure. Here the complex interplay of parental values, beliefs, and actual conduct is studied. Finally the sociological and policy implications of the findings are set forth with specific proposals concerning the reduction of poverty.This in-depth analysis of poverty with its emphasis on fatherless families will be of interest to sociologists and social workers and those concerned with poverty, employment, women's rights, civil rights, education, and urban development.

This book is about micro-politics: that kind of manoevre to control or avoid being controlled, to claim friendship or proclaim enmity, which takes place between people who know one another, and who must temper and adjust their actions towards one another because they share other activities. They are members of the one community and of the same organization, and this not only moderates their actions but also provides them with themes for use in the political arena.These justificatory themes and the irresolvable contradictions between them, and what is to be done when decisions cannot be made through rational procedures, is one subject of the book. The setting is the university world of committees and dons and administrators, but the inquiry is into general questions about organizational life. How are value contradictions resolved? Why are some matters discussed openly and others only before restricted audiences? Could we dispense with confidentiality and secrecy? What masks are used to make a person or a point of view persuasive?It is impossible and therefore wholly unwise to try to attempt to run such organizations in a wholly open and wholly rational fashion: without an appropriate measure of pretence and secrecy, even of hypocrisy, they cannot be made to work. At a basic level organizations require secrecy and confidentiality to run effectively.

F.G. Bailey's classic political-anthropology text is reissued here with a Postscript that comments critically on the book's scope, its reception, and its uses. First published in 1969, Stratagems and Spoils captured the imagination of scholars and students with a revealing examination of principles of political competition that operate alike in ?exotic? and ?developed? societies. In Bailey's analysis, Swat Pathan chiefs, cosa nostra gangsters, General de Gaulle, and the Untouchables in a rural Indian village (for example) are shown employing similar strategies, both effective and ineffective, to win and hold followers while eroding the support of their opponents. Provocative and insightful, Stratagems and Spoils provides a conceptual toolkit for analyzing, in any culture, the rules that regulate political contests and determine who will win and who will lose.

F.G. Bailey's classic political-anthropology text is reissued here with a Postscript that comments critically on the book's scope, its reception, and its uses. First published in 1969, Stratagems and Spoils captured the imagination of scholars and students with a revealing examination of principles of political competition that operate alike in ?exotic? and ?developed? societies. In Bailey's analysis, Swat Pathan chiefs, cosa nostra gangsters, General de Gaulle, and the Untouchables in a rural Indian village (for example) are shown employing similar strategies, both effective and ineffective, to win and hold followers while eroding the support of their opponents. Provocative and insightful, Stratagems and Spoils provides a conceptual toolkit for analyzing, in any culture, the rules that regulate political contests and determine who will win and who will lose.

This book is about micro-politics: that kind of manoevre to control or avoid being controlled, to claim friendship or proclaim enmity, which takes place between people who know one another, and who must temper and adjust their actions towards one another because they share other activities. They are members of the one community and of the same organization, and this not only moderates their actions but also provides them with themes for use in the political arena.These justificatory themes and the irresolvable contradictions between them, and what is to be done when decisions cannot be made through rational procedures, is one subject of the book. The setting is the university world of committees and dons and administrators, but the inquiry is into general questions about organizational life. How are value contradictions resolved? Why are some matters discussed openly and others only before restricted audiences? Could we dispense with confidentiality and secrecy? What masks are used to make a person or a point of view persuasive?It is impossible and therefore wholly unwise to try to attempt to run such organizations in a wholly open and wholly rational fashion: without an appropriate measure of pretence and secrecy, even of hypocrisy, they cannot be made to work. At a basic level organizations require secrecy and confidentiality to run effectively.