Diss. Göteborg : Göteborgs universitet, 2005.

This is a study of how mothers of young children relate to risk in everyday life, with an emphasis on the in­visible risks associated with modernity in general, and with food in particular. It explores variations and similarities in how mothers deal with risk in two cultural contexts: Sweden and Poland. The study is based on twenty qualitative interviews with university educated mothers of small children in Stockholm and Warsaw. While risks more generally challenge how we “get on” with our lives, mothers of young children in particular have a special relationship to risk. During pregnancy and breastfeeding they are subject to all kinds of risk minimization efforts, and mothers are ultimately held "infinitely responsible" for their children's welfare by society. Women's transition to parenthood then makes for a particularly in­teresting case as to how risks manifest in everyday life. The theoretical framework draws on modernization theory, combined with insights from cultural theory. In addition, various contributions from sociological and psychological risk research, family sociology and research on parenting and motherhood are used to highlight contextual aspects and to inter­pret the empirical results. Two aspects of the mothers’ relationship to risk and food are examined in this study: firstly, their risk constructs, i.e. what they perceive as ‘risky’ with regards to food; and, secondly, their risk management strategies, i.e. how they deal with identified risks on a practical and cognitive level. The overall risk management depicted in this study is characterized by reflexivity, critical thinking, infor­mation retrieval, attention to scientific evidence, purposely transferred trust, confidence and the ability to make fairly sophisticated tradeoffs between risks and other aspects of life. Neither the Swedish nor the Polish mothers then conform to popular notions of ‘security junkies’ or ‘paranoid parenting’. Nonetheless, the comparative approach demonstrates how contextual differences, such as general trust levels and family policy, influence both the risk constructs and the employment of different risk management strategies.

L'objectif de cette recherche est d'analyser pourquoi et comment les institutions qui composent le secteur de l'industrie électronique ont structurellement intégré une politique de responsabilité sociale des entreprises (RSE). Ensuite, d'examiner le rôle et les effets de cette évolution sur la mondialisation par le biais des chaînes d'approvisionnement internationales du secteur. Dans une première étape, via la théorie culturelle, et dans le contexte de la société du risque et de la modernité récente, la RSE se révèle une réponse institutionnelle défensive face aux risques de réputation et aux atteintes probables à la légitimité. Ensuite, la théorie culturelle nous permet d'analyser la RSE dans le secteur choisi en tant que processus socio-dynamique exerçant une pression sur les entreprises pour élargir leur culture organisationnelle tout en les orientant plus vers des valeurs égalitaires. Plusieurs effets sectoriels de ce processus sont analysés : le rôle de l'activité RSE dans les pratiques concurrentielles à travers l'isomorphisme, la façon dont les systèmes de classement éthique améliorent l'homogénéité de l'activité RSE, et l'impact de la réactivité des consommateurs en matière de RSE. Après avoir exploré l'intégration de la RSE dans une organisation, puis ses effets sur l'environnement sectoriel, on se focalise sur l'impact que la RSE peut avoir sur la mondialisation et le développement. Ainsi, le troisième volet de cette étude s’intéresse à l'impact que la RSE peut avoir en pénétrant les chaînes d'approvisionnement les plus intensément liées aux abus éthiques. Cela invite à réévaluer les processus de mondialisation, et leurs effets sur le développement. Grâce aux travaux d'Amartya Sen, Jean Tirole et d'autres, l'impact de la RSE sur les chaînes d'approvisionnement en électronique est évalué de manière critique en montrant comment une intervention structurelle dans les sociétés en développement pourrait être envisagée. Le travail de terrain pour cette enquête empirique a consisté en des visites d'usines en Chine et des entretiens avec la direction et les employés ; aussi, en des entretiens avec des cadres de multinationales, des contrôleurs et consultants en RSE et des militants d'associations syndicales internationales. Ce travail est complété par la participation à plusieurs réunions des parties prenantes du secteur et par l'analyse de documents produits par ces parties ; aussi, par de rapports, et des diverses formes de couverture médiatique, y compris de documentaires. / The aim of this research is to analyze how and why corporate social responsibility (CSR) policy has become structurally integrated in the institutions which comprise the electronics manufacturing sector, and to examine its role and effects upon globalization through its international supply chains. Firstly, through the analytical tools of cultural theory and against the background of risk society in late modernity, CSR is investigated and revealed as a defensive institutional response to reputational risk and legitimacy. Secondly, cultural theory allows us to analyze CSR in the sector as a socio-dynamic process resulting in the pressure on companies to broaden their organizational culture by increasing their affinity for egalitarian values. Several sectorial effects of this are analyzed: the role that CSR activity has in competitive practices through isomorphism, how ethical ranking systems enhance the homogeneity of CSR activity, and the impact of consumers’ CSR responsiveness. After considering the integration of CSR in a corporate institution, then its effects upon the sectorial environment, I consider the impact that CSR can have on globalization and development. Thus, the third dimension of this work is CSR’s initiation of impact along supply chains where most unethical abuses occur. This invites a re-evaluation of the processes of globalization and their effects upon development. Through the work of Amartya Sen, Jean Tirole and others, the impact of CSR in electronics supply chains is critically evaluated indicating how structural intervention in developing societies could be envisaged. The fieldwork for this empirical investigation consisted of visits to industrial plants in China and interviews with management and workers; interviews with executives of multinational corporations, CSR auditors and consultants, and activists of international trade union associations; participation in several sector-wide stakeholder meetings; and the analyses of industry documents, reports, diverse forms of media coverage, and documentaries.

Comment réglementer des substances chimiques malgré des données anciennes, incomplètes, mais surtout inégalement partagées? Depuis l’adoption du Toxic Substances Control Act aux États-Unis en 1976, les asymétries d’information et la multiplication des utilisations des substances chimiques industrielles semblaient avoir rendu leur contrôle impossible. À ce problème longtemps insoluble, le règlement européen REACH, adopté en 2006, propose une réponse originale : la procédure d’autorisation. La thèse rend compte de la manière dont l’autorisation bouleverse la manière d’« interdire » malgré les asymétries d’information. Cette procédure donne désormais aux autorités publiques la possibilité d’interdire des « substances » sur la base de leur classification, tandis que certains « usages » de ces molécules peuvent ensuite être autorisés sur la base de demandes individuelles formulées par des entreprises. Pour continuer à les employer, ces entreprises mettent alors en circulation des données toxicologiques, d’exposition et surtout des évaluations socio-économiques jamais produites jusque-là. Si l’autorisation hérite d’une partie des dispositifs réglementaires précédents, où les activités réglementaires passent par la production de listes de substances chimiques, elle reconfigure surtout les rapports entre les autorités publiques et les entreprises, modifie les objets sur lesquels elles ont prise et transforme les manières d’élaborer les savoirs réglementaires qui appuient la prise de décision. / How can toxic chemicals be regulated with limited and incomplete data on their properties ? Since the Toxic Substances Control Act was adopted in the United States in 1976, information asymmetries and the multiplication of specific applications for chemicals had apparently made their control almost impossible. With the authorisation procedure, the european regulation on the registration, evaluation and authorisation of chemicals (REACH), adopted in 2006, introduces a novel way of controlling the most toxic chemicals. The dissertation shows how such a procedure sets new standards in regulatory control in spite of information asymmetries between regulators and firms. The authorisation procedure renders public authorities able to ban « substances » based on their hazards while some « uses » of these chemicals can be maintained on the market on the basis of invidual applications submitted by firms. In order have such applications accepted, firms provide public authorities with new toxicological and exposure data for very specific uses, and socio-economic analyses that had never been produced before. Although REACH is based on existing regulatory tools, the autorisation procedure profoundly modifies the relationship between regulators and firms, modifies the objects of regulation and transforms the ways in which regulatory knowledge for decision making is produced.

Made available in DSpace on 2015-05-14T13:26:56Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 arquivototal.pdf: 764332 bytes, checksum: 6591145bb16c1c4a41dc6d296d63bb57 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2011-06-08 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior - CAPES / This monograph is a overview discussion of the political situation of Paraíba s brazilian state in which the first Paraíba s State Health Surveillance Agency (in portuguese Agência Estadual de Vigilância Sanitária - AGEVISA-PB) was created in 2002, specially all the decision process involved in the implementation of it s Public Health. The main points studied were the decisions, the governors agents, politicians and others interested persons involved on this process. Were highlighted during this study the participation of all agents involved in the early negociation, their interests, as well as their conflicting and cooperanting relationship, the strategies to induce the decisions and the rules that had effect on the action to be made, including the relation among the Executive and Legislative powers, on the State and Federal scope. This study was conducted between the year 2001 e 2002 and followed the influence of the first State Conference of Health Surveilance related to the changes that turned the State Coordination Health Surveillance to Paraíba s State Health Surveillance Agency, besides all the Public Health problems in that age. In this context, we emphasize the discussion about the Health Surveillance and contemporary risk society, as well all the alternatives that could be possible to the State Coordination Health Surveillance to become a agency and meet the demands of the healthcare and economic scenario and political situation of the state. As a consequence, we report the technical and political ways that were followed in the institutional transformation, whose design will be defined by complex processes of negotiation and consensus. The research was funded in large documentary material and interviews with key actors, which allowed empirically unravel the power relations that in a short time, led to the creation of the Paraíba s State Health Surveillance Agency (AGEVISA-PB). As such, it constituted itself as a political-institutional improvement, the first steps toward the discussions and reflections on its implementation, that this work proposes to introduce. / O presente projeto enfoca o estudo sobre o panorama político estadual que permeou a criação da primeira Agência Estadual de Vigilância Sanitária do país, a AGEVISA-PB, em especial todo o processo decisório envolvido na fase de formulação de sua política pública, na Paraíba, quando de sua instituição, no ano de 2002. Priorizaram-se, como terreno de pesquisa, as arenas decisórias, os agentes públicos, os atores políticos e os interesses organizados envolvidos no processo. Foram ressaltados, na abordagem realizada, os registros descritivos quanto à participação dos atores envolvidos nas negociações, seus interesses, bem como as relações conflituosas e de cooperação, as estratégias para influenciar a tomada de decisão e as regras do jogo que influenciaram as alternativas de ação, incluindo as relações entre os Poderes Executivo e Legislativo, em âmbito estadual e federal. O estudo abrange o período entre 2001 e 2002, e destaca os principais aspectos referentes à influência estratégica da I Conferência Estadual de Vigilância Sanitária na trajetória de mudança da então Coordenadoria Estadual para o modelo de agência reguladora de Vigilância Sanitária da Paraíba, além dos graves problemas sanitários estaduais e nacionais que permearam a época. Nesse contexto, ressalta-se a discussão sobre a Vigilância Sanitária contemporânea e a sociedade do risco, bem como sobre as diversas alternativas que possibilitassem à coordenadoria assumir um novo formato institucional, face às exigências do cenário sanitário-econômico e da conjuntura política estadual. Como conseqüência, relata-se os caminhos técnicos e políticos que foram percorridos na transformação institucional, cujo desenho vai ser definido por complexos processos de negociação e consenso. A pesquisa foi subsidiada em amplo material documental e entrevistas com atores privilegiados, o que possibilitou desvendar empiricamente as relações de força que, em um curto espaço de tempo, levaram à criação da Agência Estadual de Vigilância Sanitária da Paraíba, a AGEVISA-PB. Como tal, constituiu-se em um processo político-institucional em aperfeiçoamento, cujos primeiros passos em direção às discussões e reflexões sobre sua implementação, o presente trabalho se propõe a introduzir.

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This thesis seeks to uncover women’s concerns about chemicals in the household, and, more specifically, in cleaning products. The research is based on semi-structured interviews with women who are primarily responsible for household cleaning and who consciously avoid conventional cleaning products. From a sociological standpoint, the topic remains unstudied. The women were critical of greenwashing and the institutions responsible for chemical regulation. Further, the women’s chemical-free lifestyle defied conventional definitions of activism. Sociological theories of risk are used to help understand women’s avoidance of chemicals. It was found that tenets of the precautionary principle were reflected in their reasoning for avoiding chemicals. Recent biomonitoring and body burden studies have influenced women’s knowledge of chemical risk and their decision to avoid them. The thesis demonstrates that risk-management, in this context, has become an individualized pursuit reflective of the neo-liberal ideology informing chemical regulation. / Canadian Institutes of Health Research