Conceptualizing new forms of volunteering in urban governance

This article argues that developments in the spheres of the state, the market, and the community have changed their boundaries, affecting volunteering in urban governance. Shifts in the division of tasks between the state and community have led to a new form of manufactured volunteering, while technological developments have made it easier to bridge trust gaps, resulting in platform volunteering. Moreover, business organizations pursuing public goals and using public resources have created a new form of economic volunteering. Thus, three illustrative cases are used to explore these new forms of volunteering and their main strengths and weaknesses. These new forms challenge traditional conceptions of volunteering work and the ideal-typical role model of “the volunteer.”</p

Principals or puppets? Analysing variation in local political parties’ social policy positions

The decentralisation of policy responsibilities from the national to the local level in the domain of social policies is meant to facilitate a better fit to local conditions, and, consequently, inspire local variation in social policy positions. This article examines two questions: (1) to what extent do Dutch local party branches’ social policy positions deviate from their national mother party and local peer parties and (2) do local conditions explain this deviation? To answer these questions, we developed a dataset including 168 local party manifestos from 27 strategically selected municipalities and 8 national party manifestos. Our analyses show limited deviation in local parties’ positions compared to their national mother party and other local branches of their national mother party. This suggests that the social policies addressed in the party manifestos of local parties seem to reflect a process of institutional isomorphism. Furthermore, the limited deviation that does exist in local parties’ social policy positions is not convincingly larger in municipalities (1) that are smaller, (2) that have higher social benefit dependency, or (3) that have high vote shares for local independent challengers. This is contrary to what can be expected based on the contingency theory

AN2/NG2 protein-expressing glial progenitor cells in the murine CNS: Isolation, differentiation, and association with radial glia

During early neural development, the lineage specification of initially pluripotent progenitor cells is associated with proliferation, differentiation, and migration. Oligodendroglial progenitor cells migrate from their sites of origin to reach the axons that they will myelinate. We have described a cell-surface protein, AN2, expressed by oligodendroglial progenitor cells in vitro and showed that antibodies against AN2 inhibited the migration of cultured primary oligodendroglial progenitor cells, suggesting that the AN2 antigen plays a role in their migration. Recently, results from MALDI mass spectroscopy showed that AN2 is the mouse homologue of the rat NG2 protein. In this study, we have analyzed cells staining with AN2 antibodies during development and in the adult murine central nervous system (CNS), carried out double stainings with antibodies against NG2, and investigated the differentiation potential of cells in vitro after isolation from early postnatal brain using AN2 antibodies. AN2 and NG2 antibodies stained totally overlapping populations of cells in the CNS. AN2/NG2 expressing cells in embryonic and postnatal brain expressed the PDGF-α-receptor and in postnatal brain exhibited electrophysiological properties typical of glial progenitor cells. Cells isolated from early postnatal brain using AN2 monoclonal antibody developed into oligodendrocytes in low serum medium or into astrocytes in the presence of fetal calf serum. In the embryonic spinal cord, cells staining with AN2 antibodies were found closely apposed to radial glial cells, suggesting that glial precursors, like neurons, may use radial glia as scaffolds for migration

O fardo holandês: escravidão, África e imigrantes nos livros de história da escola primária na Holanda

Há muito, os holandeses se orgulham de sua identidade de povo tolerante, "terra prometida" para imigrantes perseguidos e generosa com fundos de "desenvolvimento" direcionados a outras nações. Esquivam-se, contudo, do papel que desempenharam historicamente no imperialismo, na escravatura e no genocídio colonialistas e consideram os não brancos, tanto na Holanda quanto fora dela, ingratos para com a ajuda de seu país. Esse artigo sintetiza pesquisas anteriores1 sobre as representações de escravidão, imigração e da África em todos os livros didáticos de história para ensino fundamental na Holanda publicados a partir de 1980, argumentando que estes apresentam metanarrativas eurocêntricas de europeização racial no contexto único da sociedade holandesa. Esses livros perpetuam o esquecimento social, pelos holandeses, da escravidão e do colonialismo científico, justificam intervenções históricas e contemporâneas na África, essencializam e problematizam os imigrantes e suas culturas, destacam a superioridade holandesa e facilitam a ideia de um "fardo holandês", que encontra a Holanda auxiliando, com relutância, minorias dentro e fora de suas fronteiras. Essas descobertas têm implicações importantes para o país e para todas as nações com uma população crescente de imigrantes, pois os discursos e conhecimentos apresentados nos livros didáticos têm afetado gerações sucessivas de estudantes, que formulam políticas locais e nacionais a respeito das minorias, identidades e ideologias raciais