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Copyright of Janus is the property of Sosiaalipoliittinen yhdistys and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Janus is the property of Sosiaalipoliittinen yhdistys and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The controversy over the proper treatment of animals and their social status has rumbled on in Finland since the late 1990s. Democratic approaches seem to produce results that have not been accepted by all parties. This article explicates the animal issue from the perspective of political theory. It distinguishes between three approaches to the social and political status of animals. First, animals can be regarded merely as items on the political agenda and the political community decides what its stance to animals will be. The second approach claims that animals are members of the political community and thus entitled to participate in political processes. Because this alternative is inapplicable, those who aim to improve the treatment of animals propose ombudsman models, that is, the interests of animals are defended by their human representatives. In democratic societies, however, it is a matter of the democratic contest who may represent animals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Janus is the property of Sosiaalipoliittinen yhdistys and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The article presents the authors' response to comments on their article on the issue of social diagnosis and research of cultural traumas by Pertti Suhonen previously published in the periodical "Sosiologia." According to the authors, Suhonen is on the right track when he is characterizing their research approach as a synthetic one. The authors hold that cultural traumas can hardly be researched by analytically dissolving phenomena into parts, without diagnostics and conclusion.