Similarity breeds connection. This principle—the homophily principle—structures network ties of every type, including marriage, friendship, work, advice, support, information transfer, exchange, comembership, and other types of relationship. The result is that people's personal networks are homogeneous with regard to many sociodemographic, behavioral, and intrapersonal characteristics. Homophily limits people's social worlds in a way that has powerful implications for the information they receive, the attitudes they form, and the interactions they experience. Homophily in race and ethnicity creates the strongest divides in our personal environments, with age, religion, education, occupation, and gender following in roughly that order. Geographic propinquity, families, organizations, and isomorphic positions in social systems all create contexts in which homophilous relations form. Ties between nonsimilar individuals also dissolve at a higher rate, which sets the stage for the formation of niches (localize...

/pdf/birds-of-a-feather-homophily-in-social-networks-3kjmeyr23w.pdf

Birds of a Feather: Homophily in Social Networks

This paper reviews the origins and definitions of social capital in the writings of Bourdieu, Loury, and Coleman, among other authors. It distinguishes four sources of social capital and examines their dynamics. Applications of the concept in the sociological literature emphasize its role in social control, in family support, and in benefits mediated by extrafamilial networks. I provide examples of each of these positive functions. Negative consequences of the same processes also deserve attention for a balanced picture of the forces at play. I review four such consequences and illustrate them with relevant examples. Recent writings on social capital have extended the concept from an individual asset to a feature of communities and even nations. The final sections describe this conceptual stretch and examine its limitations. I argue that, as shorthand for the positive consequences of sociability, social capital has a definite place in sociological theory. However, excessive extensions of the concept may j...

/pdf/social-capital-its-origins-and-applications-in-modern-1u65djoshv.pdf

Social Capital: Its Origins and Applications in Modern Sociology

This chapter aims to develop one of perhaps multiple specifications of embeddedness, a concept that has been used to refer broadly to the contingent nature of economic action with respect to cognition, social structure, institutions, and culture. Research on embeddedness is an exciting area in sociology and economics because it advances understanding of how social structure affects economic life. The chapter addresses propositions about the operation and outcomes of interfirm networks that are guided implicitly by ceteris paribus assumptions. While economies of time due to embeddedness have obvious benefits for the individual firm, they also have important implications for allocative efficiency and the determination of prices. Under the conditions, social processes that increase integration combine with resource dependency problems to increase the vulnerability of networked organizations. The level of investment in an economy promotes positive changes in productivity, standards of living, mobility, and wealth generation.

Social Structure and Competition in Interfirm Networks: The Paradox of Embeddedness

A growing number of sociologists, political scientists, economists, and organizational theorists have invoked the concept of social capital in the search for answers to a broadening range of questions being confronted in their own fields. Seeking to clarify the concept and help assess its utility for organizational theory, we synthesize the theoretical research undertaken in these various disciplines and develop a common conceptual framework that identifies the sources, benefits, risks, and contingencies of social capital.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/4134367.pdf

Social Capital: Prospects for a New Concept

The Behavioral Model of Health Services Use was initially developed over 25 years ago. In the interim it has been subject to considerable application, reprobation, and alteration. I review its development and assess its continued relevance.

Revisiting the behavioral model and access to medical care: does it matter?

espanolPortes argumenta que la importancia que ha llegado a tener la comunidad de exiliados cubanos en Miami fue resultado de la manera como esta transformo la ciudad y fue ganando poder politico, en el ambito local, primero, y en el nacional, despues. Los exiliados, al darse cuenta de que no recuperarian la posicion economica que habian tenido en Cuba, ni el poder, quisieron conquistar una situacion de privilegio en Miami. Portes identifica tres paradojas que distinguen esta maquina de Miami. La primera senala la falta de asimilacion de los cubanos; es decir, que no se hayan integrado a la sociedad de Miami, a pesar de su exito, sino que se hayan mantenido apartados y hayan creado su propia economia politica. La segunda paradoja se refiere a la actitud politica de la clase dirigente cubana, que es considerada como extremista e incongruente con las realidades de la posguerra fria; es decir, la intransigencia. En tercer lugar, tenemos la paradoja de la legitimidad, que explica como la agenda militante de los lideres cubano-estadounidenses brinda al gobierno de Cuba un recurso simbolico invaluable, pues le permite personificar la oposicion nacionalista a la agresion estadounidense. Portes describe tambien el intercambio que se ha dado entre los cubanos y politicos estadounidenses, mismo que permitio a los primeros obtener poder politico. La permanencia de la comunidad cubana debe entenderse por la solidaridad entre sus miembros, asi como por la celebracion regular de una serie de rituales, a pesar de que la experiencia de haber sido victimas del regimen cubano es cada vez mas lejana. En efecto, concluye Portes, la maquina de Miami enfrenta el problema del cambio generacional, pues los cubano-estadounidenses jovenes estan menos ideologizados y son menos combativos. Sin embargo, para que comunidad de Miami se transforme decisivamente se necesitara, ironicamente, el cambio en Cuba. EnglishPortes argues that the Cuban exile community in Miami became very influential as a result of the way in which it reshaped the city and gained political power both at the local and national levels. As the exiles realized they would not regain the economic status they had enjoyed back in Cuba or the power, they decided to secure a privileged position in Miami. However, Portes identifies three paradoxes that characterize Miamis machine. Firstly, despite their success Cubans have not been assimilated into Miamis society, but have remained apart and have produced a political economy of their own. The second paradox refers to the Cuban establishments image as a radical group, out of tune with the post-Cold War realities. This is the paradox of intransigence. Third, the legitimacy paradox explains how the militant agenda of Cuban-American leaders offers the Cuban government an invaluable symbolic resource since it allows the latter to embody the nationalistic resistance to U.S. aggression. Additionally, Portes describes the various exchanges that took place between Cuban exiles and U.S. politicians, which allowed the former to obtain political leverage. Solidarity among members of the Cuban community and the regular performance of rituals may explain the endurance of the community, despite the fact that the feeling of being a victim of the Cuban regime becomes increasingly distant. Indeed, as Portes reckons, Miamis machine is confronting a generational problem, since young Cuban Americans are less ideological and belligerent. Ironically, however, a crucial change within the Miami community must be preceded by change in Cuba.

/pdf/la-maquina-politica-cubano-estadounidense-reflexiones-sobre-2e61r8u7t5.pdf

La máquina política cubano-estadounidense : reflexiones sobre su origen y permanencia

Victor E. Tokman and Emilio Klein (eds.), Regulation and the Informal Economy: Microenterprises in Chile, Ecuador, and Jamaica (Boulder and London: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1995), PP. vi + 211, $49.95.

This article proposes a framework for the analysis of social classes in Latin America and presents evidence on the composition of the class structure in the region and its evolution during the last two decades, corresponding to the years of implementation of a new economic model in most countries. The paper is an update of an earlier article on the same topic published in this journal at the end of the period of import substitution industrialization. Relative to that earlier period, the present era registers a visible increase in income inequality, a persis- tent concentration of wealth in the top decile of the population, a rapid expansion of the class of micro-entrepreneurs, and a stagnation or increase of the informal proletariat. The contraction of public sector employment and the stagnation of formal sector labor demand in most countries have led to a series of adaptive solutions by the middle and lower classes. The rise of informal self-employment and micro-entrepreneurialism throughout the region can be interpreted as a di- rect result of the new adjustment policies. We explore other, less orthodox adap- tive strategies, including the rise of violent crime in the cities and migration abroad by an increasingly diversified cross-section of the population. The impact that changes in the class structure have had on party politics and other forms of popular political mobilization in Latin American countries is discussed.

LA T IN AMERICAN CLASS STRUCTURES: Their Composition and Change during the Neoliberal Era 1

The literature on “global cities”, following a publication by Saskia Sassen of a book under the same title, has focused on those prime centers of the capitalist economy that concentrate on command-and-control functions in finance and trade worldwide. New York, London, Tokyo, and sometimes, Frankfurt and Paris are commonly cited as such centers. In recent years, however, another set of mercantile and financial centers have arisen. They reproduce, on a regional basis, the features and functions of the prime global cities. Dubai, Miami, and Singapore have emerged during the first quarter of the XXI century as such new regional centers. This paper explores the history of the three; the mechanisms that guided their ascent to their present position; and the pitfalls—political and ecological—that may compromise their present success. The rise of these new global cities from a position of insignificance is primarily a political story, but the stages that the story followed and the key participants in it are quite different. A systematic comparison of the three cities offer a number of lessons for urban scholarship and development policies. Such lessons are supplemented by the experiences of other cities that attempted to achieve or sustain a similar global status but failed, for various reasons, to do so. Such experiences are also discussed in the conclusion.

https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/20/8566/pdf

Alejandro Portes

Papers

La máquina política cubano-estadounidense : reflexiones sobre su origen y permanencia

Victor E. Tokman and Emilio Klein (eds.), Regulation and the Informal Economy: Microenterprises in Chile, Ecuador, and Jamaica (Boulder and London: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1995), PP. vi + 211, $49.95.

LA T IN AMERICAN CLASS STRUCTURES: Their Composition and Change during the Neoliberal Era 1

A Tale of Three Cities: The Rise of Dubai, Singapore, and Miami Compared

Teoría de inmigración para un nuevo siglo: problemas y oportunidades