Research Ethics Committees (RECs) and the Creaking Piers of Peer Review

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Reflexivity as situated problem-solving: a pragmatist alternative to general theory

Recent developments in sociological theory have addressed the linkage between structure and agency via a conception of reflexivity and the agent’s internal conversation as a means of understanding the (variable) contribution that the self and its powers contribute to social outcomes. In this paper, I present a sociological realism utilising the approach of American pragmatism (Dewey and Mead) to argue for a different way of conceptualising reflexivity, namely as an occasioned feature of interaction. On this view, reflexivity arises in relation to problems in interaction and is oriented to their resolution. It is argued that the self has a social structure and that reflexivity inheres in interactions and not in different types of individual self-identity. The paper discusses general issues of reflexivity in terms of conceptions of sociology’s “dialogic.” Archer’s relation to actors whose behaviours are under scrutiny, before going on to discuss Margaret Archer’s typology of the “inner dialogues” of actors and its use to understand social mobility

The expansion of open access is being driven by commercialisation, where private benefit is adopting the mantle of public value

Plan S is the latest initiative to propose that all publicly funded science should be available in open access formats from the day of first publication. However, John Holmwood argues it is important to recognise that open access is itself being promoted in the name of commercial interests, including new, for-profit disrupters but also the large publishing conglomerates capturing the production and distribution of open access platforms. Open access mandates risk excluding authors unable to pay article processing charges, and also pose a threat to the learned societies and not-forprofit publishers which have done much to support their epistemological communities, particularly in the humanities and social sciences

The university, democracy and the public sphere

This article takes an historical approach to the rise and fall of the public university, relating its fate to specific developments in public policy. Particular attention will be paid to the United States and the United Kingdom since they are leading the drive the marketization of public higher education in the name of a neo-liberal global knowledge economy. It addresses how the functions of the university and its corporate form are being transformed and relates this to wider developments in the nature of the corporation and the relation between business and citizenship (or, market and democracy)

Five minutes with John Holmwood and Martin Eve – discussing the future of academic publishing

Today marks the beginning of Academic Book Week (#AcBookWeek), “the week-long celebration of the diversity, innovation and influence of academic books throughout history”. First established in 2015, #AcBookWeek returns for its second year and will run until 28 January. As part of a varied programme of events, later today John Holmwood and Martin Eve will speak about the future of academic publishing. Ahead of that event, we were able to hear their thoughts on how academic publishing is changing, open access, what ‘impact’ means to them, and what advice they might offer to early career researchers

Creating the future of academic publishing

In advance of Emerald’s Academic Book Week event on January 23rd, two of our key speakers – John Holmwood and Martin Paul Eve – discuss some of the key questions around academic publishing and the research ecosystem

From social rights to the market: neo-liberalism and the knowledge economy

Public higher education has a long history, with its growth associated with mass higher education and the extension of a social right to education from secondary schooling to university education. Following the rise in student numbers since the 1970s, the aspiration to higher education has been universalized, although opportunities remain structured by social background. This paper looks at changing policies for higher education in the UK and the emergence of a neoliberal knowledge regime. This subordinates higher education to the market and shifts the burden of paying for degree courses onto students. It seeks to stratify institutions and extend the role of for-profit providers. From a role in the amelioration of social inequality, universities are now asked to participate actively in the widening inequalities associated with a neoliberal global market order

Residuality and inconsistency in the interpretation of socio-theoretical systems

This article addresses the interpretation and criticism of theoretical systems. Its particular focus is on how to assess the success of theories in dealing with some specific phenomenon. We are interested in how to differentiate between cases where a theory offers an unsatisfactory acknowledgement of a specified phenomenon and those where a theory offers a deeper, more systematic understanding. We address these meta-theoretical issues by developing Parsons’s analysis of positive and residual categories in various respects including a focus on mutual support as the basis of positivity, differentiating synectic (reconcilable) and antinomic (irreconcilable) residual categories, and distinguishing divisions that are central to systems from those between centre and periphery. We also consider how this conceptual toolkit can be put into practice

Colonialism, postcolonialism and the liberal welfare state

This article addresses the colonial and racial origins of the welfare state with a particular emphasis on the liberal welfare state of the USA and UK. Both are understood in terms of the centrality of the commodified status of labour power expressing a logic of market relations. In contrast, we argue that with a proper understanding of the relations of capitalism and colonialism, the sale of labour power as a commodity already represents a movement away from the commodified form of labour represented by enslavement. European colonialism is integral to the development of welfare states and their forms of inclusion and exclusion which remain racialised through into the twenty-first century