James C. Cobb

Bio: James C. Cobb is an academic researcher from University of Tennessee. The author has contributed to research in topics: CobB & White (horse). The author has an hindex of 15, co-authored 30 publications receiving 1150 citations. Previous affiliations of James C. Cobb include University of Mississippi.

Away Down South: A History of Southern Identity

Abstract: From the seventeenth century Cavaliers and Uncle Tom's Cabin to Civil Rights museums and today's conflicts over the Confederate flag, here is a brilliant portrait of southern identity, served in an engaging blend of history, literature, and popular culture. In this insightful book, written with dry wit and sharp insight, James C. Cobb explains how the South first came to be seen-and then came to see itself-as a region apart from the rest of America. As Cobb demonstrates, the legend of the aristocratic Cavalier origins of southern planter society was nurtured by both northern and southern writers, only to be challenged by abolitionist critics, black and white. After the Civil War, defeated and embittered southern whites incorporated the Cavalier myth into the cult of the "Lost Cause," which supplied the emotional energy for their determined crusade to rejoin the Union on their own terms. After World War I, white writers like Ellen Glasgow, William Faulkner and other key figures of "Southern Renaissance" as well as their African American counterparts in the "Harlem Renaissance"-Cobb is the first to show the strong links between the two movements-challenged the New South creed by asking how the grandiose vision of the South's past could be reconciled with the dismal reality of its present. The Southern self-image underwent another sea change in the wake of the Civil Rights movement, when the end of white supremacy shook the old definition of the "Southern way of life"-but at the same time, African Americans began to examine their southern roots more openly and embrace their regional, as well as racial, identity. As the millennium turned, the South confronted a new identity crisis brought on by global homogenization: if Southern culture is everywhere, has the New South become the No South? Here then is a major work by one of America's finest Southern historians, a magisterial synthesis that combines rich scholarship with provocative new insights into what the South means to southerners and to America as well.

The Most Southern Place on Earth: The Mississippi Delta and the Roots of Regional Identity

Abstract: Introduction: "Pure Soil, Endlessly Deep, Dark, and Sweet" 1. Plantation Frontier 2. "The Stern Realities of War 3. A "Harnessed Revolution" 4. Conquering the Plantation Frontier 5. New South Plantation Kingdom 6. A World Apart 7. "The Deepest South" 8. "We Are at the Crossroads" 9. "A Man's Life Isn't Worth a Penny with a Hole in It" 10. "A Testing Ground for Democracy" 11. "Somebody Done Nailed Us on the Cross" 12. "The Blues Is a Lowdown Shakin' Chill" 13. "More Writers per Square Foot ..." Epilogue: An American Region Notes Index

Decolonization is not a metaphor

Abstract: Our goal in this article is to remind readers what is unsettling about decolonization. Decolonization brings about the repatriation of Indigenous land and life; it is not a metaphor for other things we want to do to improve our societies and schools. The easy adoption of decolonizing discourse by educational advocacy and scholarship, evidenced by the increasing number of calls to “decolonize our schools,” or use “decolonizing methods,” or, “decolonize student thinking”, turns decolonization into a metaphor. As important as their goals may be, social justice, critical methodologies, or approaches that decenter settler perspectives have objectives that may be incommensurable with decolonization. Because settler colonialism is built upon an entangled triad structure of settler-native-slave, the decolonial desires of white, non-white, immigrant, postcolonial, and oppressed people, can similarly be entangled in resettlement, reoccupation, and reinhabitation that actually further settler colonialism. The metaphorization of decolonization makes possible a set of evasions, or “settler moves to innocence”, that problematically attempt to reconcile settler guilt and complicity, and rescue settler futurity. In this article, we analyze multiple settler moves towards innocence in order to forward “an ethic of incommensurability” that recognizes what is distinct and what is sovereign for project(s) of decolonization in relation to human and civil rights based social justice projects. We also point to unsettling themes within transnational/Third World decolonizations, abolition, and critical space-place pedagogies, which challenge the coalescence of social justice endeavors, making room for more meaningful potential alliances.

Persistence of Power, Elites and Institutions

Abstract: We construct a model of simultaneous change and persistence in institutions. The model consists of landowning elites and workers, and the key economic decision concerns the form of economic institutions regulating the transaction of labor (e.g., competitive markets versus labor repression). The main idea is that equilibrium economic institutions are a result of the exercise of de jure and de facto political power. A change in political institutions, for example a move from nondemocracy to democracy, alters the distribution of de jure political power, but the elite can intensify their investments in de facto political power, such as lobbying or the use of paramilitary forces, to partially or fully offset their loss of de jure power. In the baseline model, equilibrium changes in political institutions have no effect on the (stochastic) equilibrium distribution of economic institutions, leading to a particular form of persistence in equilibrium institutions, which we refer to as invariance. When the model is enriched to allow for limits on the exercise of de facto power by the elite in democracy or for costs of changing economic institutions, the equilibrium takes the form of a Markov regime-switching process with state dependence. Finally, when we allow for the possibility that changing political institutions is more difficult than altering economic institutions, the model leads to a pattern of captured democracy, whereby a democratic regime may survive, but choose economic institutions favoring the elite. The main ideas featuring in the model are illustrated using historical examples from the U.S. South, Latin America and Liberia.

The Wealth of Cities: Agglomeration Economies and Spatial Equilibrium in the United States

Abstract: *Empirical research on cities starts with a spatial equilibrium condition: workers and fi rms are assumed to be indifferent across space. This condition implies that research on cities is different from research on countries, and that work on places within countries needs to consider population, income, and housing prices simultaneously. Housing supply elasticity will determine whether urban success reveals itself in the form of more people or higher incomes. Urban economists generally accept the existence of agglomeration economies, which exist when productivity rises with density, but estimating the magnitude of those economies is diffi cult. Some manufacturing fi rms cluster to reduce the costs of moving goods, but this force no longer appears to be important in driving urban success. Instead, modern cities are far more dependent on the role that density can play in speeding the fl ow of ideas. Finally, urban economics has some insights to offer related topics such as growth theory, national income accounts, public economics, and housing prices. (JEL R11, R23, R31, R32)

Persistence of Power, Elites and Institutions

Abstract: We construct a model to study the implications of changes in political insti? tutions for economic institutions. A change in political institutions alters the distribution of de jure political power, but creates incentives for investments in de facto political power to partially or even fully offset change in de jure power. The model can imply a pattern of captured democracy, whereby a democratic regime may survive but choose economic institutions favoring an elite. The model provides conditions under which economic or policy outcomes will be invariant to changes in political institutions, and economic institutions them? selves will persist over time. (JEL D02, D72) The domination of an organized minority ... over the unor? ganized majority is inevitable. The power of any minority is irresistible as against each single individual in the majority, who stands alone before the totality of the organized minor? ity. At the same time, the minority is organized for the very reason that it is a minority.

Governance and Development

Abstract: In this chapter, we discuss whether or not “governance” is an important source of variation in development experiences We draw four main conclusions First, governance is best thought of a subset of “institutions” and as such emphasis on governance is consistent with much recent academic work Nevertheless, governance is a quite vague rubric which is difficult to unbundle Second, the governance of a society is the outcome of a political process and as such is closely related to the literature on the political economy of development Third, improving governance necessitates understanding the nature of the entire political equilibrium Finally, an important research frontier is understanding the forces that create or impeded endogenous changes in governance