Showing papers in "American Journal of Sociology in 1998"
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TL;DR: In this paper, the authors conceptualize agency as a temporally embedded process of social engagement, informed by the past (in its "iterational" or habitual aspect) but also oriented toward the future (as a projective capacity to imagine alternative possibilities) and toward the present, as a practical-evaluative capacity to contextualize past habits and future projects within the contingencies of the moment.
Abstract: This article aims (1) to analytically disaggregate agency into its several component elements (though these are interrelated empirically), (2) to demonstrate the ways in which these agentic dimensions interpenetrate with forms of structure, and (3) to point out the implications of such a conception of agency for empirical research. The authors conceptualize agency as a temporally embedded process of social engagement, informed by the past (in its “iterational” or habitual aspect) but also oriented toward the future (as a “projective” capacity to imagine alternative possibilities) and toward the present (as a “practical‐evaluative” capacity to contextualize past habits and future projects within the contingencies of the moment).
4,062 citations
TL;DR: This article provided empirical support for the theory of trust that emhasizes the role of general trust (trust in others in general) in emancipating people from the confines of safe, but closed relationships.
Abstract: A theory of trust proposed by Yamagishi and Yamagishi provides the basis for the prediction that (1) social uncertainty promotes commitment formation between particular partners and (2) high trusters tend to form committed relations less frequently than would low trusters when facing social uncertainty. These predictions receive support in two experiments conducted in the United States and Japan. The findings provide empirical support for the theory of trust that emhasizes the role of general trust (trust in others in general) in emancipating people fromt the confines of safe, but closed relationships. The results also offer a theoretical explanation for what have been viewed in the past as cultural differences.
658 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors investigate how new organizational forms are constituted as cultural objects and how the boundaries of an organizational form and its cultural contents are shaped by politics, showing that the frame that enjoys greater political support from the state, professions, and other organizations becomes ascendant.
Abstract: This article investigates how new organizational forms are constituted as cultural objects. Since new organizational forms jeopardize existing interests, institutional entrepreneurs recombine prevalent cultural materials to frame the form as necessary, valid, and appropriate. When rival entrepreneurs promote incompatible frames, the frame that enjoys greater political support from the state, professions, and other organizations becomes ascendant. Proponents of losing frames can exit, migrate, or convert to the ascendant frame. A case study of the creation of nonprofit consumer watchdog organizations demonstrates how the boundaries of an organizational form and its cultural contents are shaped by politics.
556 citations
TL;DR: The authors investigated demographic and macroeconomic correlates of racially motivated antiminority crime in New York City and found that crime directed against Asians, Latinos, and blacks are most frequent in predominantly white areas, particularly those that had experienced an in-migration of minori−ties.
Abstract: This article investigates demographic and macroeconomic correlates of racially motivated antiminority crime in New York City (1987‐95). Event count models indicate that crimes directed against Asians, Latinos, and blacks are most frequent in predominantly white areas, particularly those that had experienced an in‐migration of minori‐ties. No relationship is found between rates of racially motivated crime and macroeconomic conditions, such as the rate of unemploy‐ment among non‐Hispanic whites; nor does there appear to be an interaction between economic conditions and in‐migration of minor‐ities. These findings seem to parallel ethnographic accounts of "de‐fended" white urban neighborhoods. The article concludes by dis‐cussing the empirical implications of this theoretical perspective as applied to prejudice‐based crime in other contexts.
423 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors analyzed data from 279 organizations and found that these legal changes stimulated organizations to create personnel, antidiscrimination, safety, and benefits departments to manage compliance, yet middle managers came to disassociate these new offices from policy and to justify them in purely economic terms, as part of the new human resources management paradigm.
Abstract: Since the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, federal policy has revolutionized employment rights. Equal employment opportunity law, occupational safety and health legislation, and fringe benefits regulation were designed to create employee rights to equal protection, to health and safety, and to the benefits employers promise. In event‐history analyses of data from 279 organizations, this research finds that these legal changes stimulated organizations to create personnel, antidiscrimination, safety, and benefits departments to manage compliance. Yet as institutionalization proceeded, middle managers came to disassociate these new offices from policy and to justify them in purely economic terms, as part of the new human resources management paradigm. This pattern is typical in the United States, where the Constitution symbolizes government rule of industry as illegitimate. It may help to explain the long absence of a theory of the state in organizational analysis and to explain a conundrum noted by ...
404 citations
TL;DR: This paper reviewed questions about different categories of criminal careers, summarizes Poisson latent class regression models, describes procedures for evaluating the optimal number of latent classes, and applies this methodology to data from male cohorts taken from the cities of London, Philadelphia, and Racine.
Abstract: This article reviews questions about different categories of criminal careers, summarizes Poisson latent class regression models, describes procedures for evaluating the optimal number of latent classes, and applies this methodology to data from male cohorts taken from the cities of London, Philadelphia, and Racine. Four latent classes of offending careers is an appropriate number for the London cohort, but five classes can be justified for the Philadelphia data. In the case of the Racine cohorts, five classes may be detected for the 1942 and 1955 cohorts but only four for the 1949 cohort. Despite the varying numbers of latent offending classes, there clearly is a small number of typical age patterns.
390 citations
TL;DR: Wang et al. as mentioned in this paper found that the presence and predominance of interlocking directorates and finance companies in business groups improved the financial performance and productivity of the groups' member firms.
Abstract: Business groups have received increasing attention from academics interested in interorganizational relations and their impact on firms. As part of industrial reform, the Chinese government began in the mid‐1980s to encourage firms to form business groups with structural characteristics that promised to enhance financial performance and productivity. Using 1988‐90 panel data on China's 40 largest business groups and their 535 member firms, the study finds that the presence and predominance of interlocking directorates and finance companies in business groups improved the financial performance and productivity of the groups' member firms. In addition, firms in groups with nonhierarchical organizational structures performed better than firms in hierarchical groups, suggesting that complete integration into a hierarchical organization is not an optimal strategy.
382 citations
TL;DR: For instance, this article found that killings committed by the police should be greatest in stratified jurisdictions with more minorities, and that the state's use of internal violence was greatest in minority communities.
Abstract: Political or threat explanations for the state's use of internal violence suggest that killings committed by the police should be greatest in stratified jurisdictions with more minorities. Addition...
378 citations
TL;DR: The gastronomic field in 19th-century France is taken as a model for the analysis of cultural fields as characteristically modern phenomena as discussed by the authors, where the antecedents of the field are located in a new economic, institutional, and ideological context.
Abstract: The gastronomic field in 19th‐century France is taken as a model for the analysis of cultural fields as characteristically modern phenomena. The antecedents of the field are located in a new economic, institutional, and ideological context. But its foundations are laid by a spectrum of gastronomic writings (journalism, cookbooks, proto‐sociological essays, political philosophy, and literary works) that proposed an expansive, nationalizing culinary discourse. It is this discourse that secured the autonomy of the field, determined its operative features, and was largely responsible for the distinctive position of this cultural field.
353 citations
TL;DR: The ongoing retreat from class analysis can be attributed to the declining appeal of aggregate representations of class coupled with the virtual absence of any disaggregate alternatives as mentioned in this paper, when local solidarities are ignored, the weakness of conventional aggregate models is easily misinterpreted as evidence of generic destructuration, and standard postmodernist formulations are accordingly difficult to resist.
Abstract: The ongoing retreat from class analysis can be attributed to the declining appeal of aggregate representations of class coupled with the virtual absence of any disaggregate alternatives. When local solidarities are ignored, the weakness of conventional aggregate models is easily misinterpreted as evidence of generic destructuration, and standard postmodernist formulations are accordingly difficult to resist. Although local structuration is often regarded as sociologically trivial, the available evidence suggests that such class analytic processes as closure, exploitation, and collective action emerge more clearly at the level of disaggregate occupations than conventional aggregate classes.
345 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors explore the use of logical formalization to clarify an area of research characterized by conflicting claims and divergent empirical findings on the relation between organization age and the hazard of mortality.
Abstract: This article explores the use of logical formalization to clarify an area of research characterized by conflicting claims and divergent empirical findings. The substantive focus concerns the relation between organization age and the hazard of mortality. The literature contains claims that the hazard (a) falls with age (a “liability of newness”), (b) rises initially and then falls with age (a “liability of adolescence”), (c) rises with age (“liabilities of senescence and obsolescense”). The formalizations reported cast the relevant theoretical arguments as propositions involving five concepts: endowment, imprinting, inertia, capability, and position. It shows that each of the theoretical stories can be derived as implications of particular assumptions within two broad formalizations. This analysis clarifies the mechanizms at work in each theoretical account and provides guidance for expirical research designed to discriminate among the competing theories.
TL;DR: In this article, a comparative analysis of the emergence of human rights organizations under military dictatorships in Chile, Uruguay, and Argentina is presented, revealing that repression may directly stimulate collective action.
Abstract: Under what conditions will individuals risk their lives to resist repressive states? This question is addressed through comparative analysis of the emergence of human rights organizations under military dictatorships in Chile, Uruguay, and Argentina. While severe state repression is expected to lead to generalized demobilization, these cases reveal that repression may directly stimulate collective action. The potential for sustained collective action in high‐risk contexts depends upon the relationship between strategies of repression and the particular configuration of embedded social networks; it is more likely where dense yet diverse interpersonal networks are embedded within broader national and transnational institutional and issue networks.
TL;DR: This article studied the affects of tertiary, or small, residential-type streets, despite the intuition that they are where “neighborly” relations were formed, and proposed a model of urban residential segregation.
Abstract: Previous models of urban residential segregation have virtually ignored the affects of tertiary, or small, residential–type streets, despite the intuition that they are where “neighborly” relations...
TL;DR: The authors pointed out that much of the training of the modern economist tends to weaken the trainee's natural, intuitive understanding of historical causation, so that some remedial work is required in addressing an audience, some of whose members' advanced education will have left them incapacitated in this particular way.
Abstract: Much of the training of the modern economist tends to weaken the trainee's natural, intuitive understanding of historical causation, so that some remedial work is required in addressing an audience, some of whose members' advanced education will have left them incapacitated in this particular way. (Paul A. David)
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors examine methodological issues that arise when using information from one historical period to illuminate another, and propose to re-think sequences of events across periods as reiterated problem solving.
Abstract: This article examines methodological issues that arise when using information from one historical period to illuminate another. It begins by showing how the strengths and weaknesses of methods commonly used to compare institutions or regions reappear in comparisons between times. The discussion then turns to alternative approaches. The use of narrative and of path dependency to construct explanatory sequences are strategies that strike a welcome balance between causal generalization and historical detail. But these approaches typically fail to identify either the causal mechanisms or the trajectories that link events in different eras. These gaps can be filled by rethinking sequences of events across periods as reiterated problem solving. Successive U.S. industrial relations regimes since 1900 are used to illustrate this methodological strategy.
TL;DR: This article assessed sixteen predictions from market transition theory using survey data on employment, earnings, and income in Russia, during the first five years of market reform and found that the Russian market transition offers more opportunity in trade, consumer services, and speculation than do other emerging makets.
Abstract: Sixteen predictions from market transition theory are assessed using survey data on employment, earnings, and income in Russia, during the first five years of market reform. Although the private sector has grown, self‐employment is still rare. Incomes are down, and unemployment is up. A distended income distribution reflects unprecedented income inequality. Distinctive features of late Soviet‐era stratification persist: low returns to education, a gender gap in earnings, and low earnings among professionals. The Russian market transition offers more opportunity in trade, consumer services, and speculation and less in manufacturing than do other emerging makets. This corresponds to “merchat capitalism” and contradicts the predictions of market transition theory. Everything the Communists told us about communism was a lie. Everything they told us about capitalism turns out to be true. (Popular Russian joke, circa 1996)
TL;DR: This paper studied the causes of local and non-local interlocking among the largest US industrial corporations in 1964 and found that interlocks are spatial phenomena with spatial attributes and spatial determinants.
Abstract: The article studies the causes of local and nonlocal interlocking directorates among the largest US industrial corporations in 1964 The authors hypothesize that interlocks are spatial phenomena‐ with spatial attributes and spatial determinants Consistent with this hypothesis, they find that local and nonlocal interlocks have different correlates Further, three spatial structures influence interlocking: the location of a corporation's headquarters vis‐a`‐vis other corporate headquarters and upper‐class clubs, the territorial distribution of a firm's production facilities, and the spatial configuration of a corporation's ownership relations This suggests that previous interlock research, which ignores spatial considerations, has been seriously misspecified
TL;DR: The authors found that firm-level cooperation is a key contributor to economic growth and a major source of distributive/redistributive policies and outcomes and several sources of collective gain.
Abstract: Research on comparative political economic performance has traditionally followed two separate tracks, one concerned with collective economic gain (growth and efficiency) and the other focused on distribution and redistribution. Cooperative institutions offer a key to understanding cross–national variation among the affluent capitalist democracies in both facets of political economic performance. These institutions cluster along two dimensions: neocorporatism and firm–level cooperation. Pooled time–series analysis for 18 nations over 1960––89 suggests that (1) neocorporatism is a major source of distributive/redistributive policies and outcomes and of several sources of collective gain; (2) firm–level cooperation is a key contributor to economic growth.
TL;DR: Based on 70 interviews with informants who were mostly students during the 1989 Beijing student movement, the author found that the ecology of university campuses in Beijing enclosed a huge number of students in a small area with a unique spatial distribution and regulated their spatial activities.
Abstract: Based on 70 interviews with informants who were mostly students during the 1989 Beijing student movement, the author found that the ecology of university campuses in Beijing enclosed a huge number of students in a small area with a unique spatial distribution and regulated their spatial activities. This ecology nurtured many close–knit student networks, as well as directly exposed all Beijing students to a collective action environment when the movement started. These ecological conditions not only sustained a high rate of movement participation but also facilitated the formation of many ecology–dependent strategies of student mobilization, which in turn patterned the dynamics of the movement.
TL;DR: In this paper, the role of perceived physical attractiveness in everyday exchange is addressed using a laboratory paradigm that examines both play versus not play and cooperate versus defect choices in an ecology of available prisoner's dilemma games.
Abstract: The role of perceived physical attractiveness in everyday exchange is addressed using a laboratory paradigm that examines both play–versus–not–play and cooperate–versus–defect choices in an ecology of available prisoner's dilemma games. The analysis considers the actions of both subject and other in encounters where exchange relationships are possible and include perceptions of others' and own physical attractiveness. Results indicate that subjects are more likely to enter play and to cooperate with others they find attractive. Men who see themselves as more attractive more often cooperate than other men, while women who see themselves as more attractive less often cooperate than other women. In addition, subjects who rate themselves as highly attractive are more likely to cooperate with others they see as also highly attractive. Subjects expect others whom they see as attractive to cooperate more often. At the same time, the effect of perceived attractiveness on choice is independent of these expectation...
TL;DR: In this paper, the French financial elite were identified based on the pattern of friendships and graphical representations established the descriptive link between social structure and action, and estimates from multilevel models quantify the extent to which actors abstain from hostile action against subgroup members but tend to support others not in their subgroup.
Abstract: Differences in transactions within and outside of cohesive subgroups are hypothesized to be a function of actors' pursuit of different forms of social capital. In an example of the French financial elite, subgroups are identified based on the pattern of friendships, and graphical representations establish the descriptive link between social structure and action. Estimates from multilevel models quantify the extent to which actors abstain from hostile action against subgroup members but tend to support others not in their subgroup. These complementary findings establish the subgroup as a critical mesolevel entity, defined by the social structure while affecting action.
TL;DR: The authors construct a repeated game model in which the players are not individuals but roles (a profit-maximizing "businessperson" and a non-strategic "friend", and the businessperson role acts strategically in light of a metatule that governs intrapersonal role switching.
Abstract: Attempting to formalize Granovetter's embeddedness argument, rational choice theorists have viewed social relationships as repeated games. This article argues that role theory would provide a better metatheoretical perspective on embeddedness. A preliminary sketch of role theory suggests a promising theoretical methodology. To illustrate, I construct a repeated‐game model in which the players are not individuals but roles (a profit‐maximizing “businessperson” and nonstrategic “friend”); the businessperson role acts strategically in light of a metatule that governs intrapersonal role switching.
TL;DR: For example, the authors found evidence that women's changing rates of labor force participation explain the origins of the gender gap in U.S. presidential elections and that attitudes toward social service spending mediate the interrelationship of women's participation and vote choice.
Abstract: Social scientists and political commentators have frequently pointed to differences between men and women in voting and policy attitudes as evidence of an emerging "gender gap" in U.S. politics. Using survey data for 11 elections since 1952, this study develops a systematic analysis of the gender gap in presidential elections. The authors find evidence that women's changing rates of labor force participation explain the origins of the gender gap. Additional analyses show that attitudes toward social service spending mediate the interrelationship of women's labor force participation and vote choice. In the 1992 election, feminist consciousness also emerged as a significant factor shaping women's voting behavior.
TL;DR: In this paper, the long-term effects of foreign capital penetration on economic growth and under-development were analyzed using models similar to those tested in previous research but with data from earlier time points.
Abstract: Does dependence of a national economy on foreign investment promote economic growth or underdevelopment? The recent exchanges between Glenn Firebaugh and William J. Dixon and Terry Boswell suggest the contentious nature of this debate. This study analyzes models similar to those tested in previous research but with data from earlier time points to examine the long‐term effects of foreign capital penetration. Accumulated stocks of foreign capital/GDP in 1938 have a short‐term (five‐year) positive effect on economic growth followed by a 20‐year lagged negative effect on economic growth beginning in 1960 and lasting at least 30 years. Similar effects are found using a second indicator of foreign investment dependence, debits on investment income, for the 1950–90 period. The international migration of capital has facilitated development of the world's natural resources and has been instrumental in transmitting the direct effects of the industrial revolution from area to area. Thereby it has helped to increase...
TL;DR: Relational realism as mentioned in this paper places greater emphasis on the pragmatic elements of explanation, supporting a more relational, causal-historical, and problem-driven view of theory, and a renewed appreciation of what is defined as Kuhn's historical episte-mology provides the foundation for evaluating these competing research programs.
Abstract: An alarm has been sounded that historical sociology is subverting the theoretical aims of social science. Criticizing an array of widely influential scholars, Kiser and Hechter propose that rational choice theory can avoid the trend toward "empiricism" that results from the import of history into sociology. Their position is based on theoretical realism–a radically antipositivist thesis that uses ontological and theoretical postulates to theorize about reality beyond positive appearance. A close examination of theoretical realism casts doubts on the epistemological foundations of rational choice theory. Relational realism, the alternative introduced here, places greater emphasis on the pragmatic elements of explanation, supporting a more relational, causal‐historical, and problem‐driven view of theory. A renewed appreciation of what is defined as Kuhn's historical episte‐mology provides the foundation for evaluating these competing research programs.
TL;DR: The notion de rationalite cognitive and rationalite axiologique de Weber et Tocqueville as discussed by the authors have been examined in l'Ancien Regime francais.
Abstract: L'A. se demande si la theorie du choix rationnel possede une validite generale. Il rappelle que pour Weber et Tocqueville les raisons qui poussent un individu a agir d'une certaine maniere sont bien les causes de cette action. Il precise, dans le meme temps, que pour ces deux auteurs, ces raisons dependent de la situation de l'acteur. Il montre comment Alexis de Tocqueville, dans ses analyses de l'Ancien Regime francais, a utilise un modele qui met en exergue la rationalite des acteurs. Il examine la notion de rationalite cognitive et la notion weberienne de rationalite axiologique.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors predict that status processes, including status differences and the differences in rewards and costs that result, will produce differences in ability test scores between high-status and low-status individuals.
Abstract: The expected consequences of a Score on an Ability test can constrain individual performance. The authors predict that status processes, including status differences and the differences in rewards and costs that result, will produce differences in ability test scores between high‐status and low‐status individuals. In three controlled experiments, participants randomly assigned low status scored lower on a standard test of mental ability (the Raven Progressive Matrices) than did participants assigned high status. For both men and women, the difference in ability test score between low‐status and high‐status participants was about half a standard deviation. The results suggest the need to account for status differences in any attempt ot measure mental ability accurately.
TL;DR: The authors argue that general theory guides the selection of facts, provides a source of generalizable causal mechanisms, facilitates the cumulation of knowledge across substantive domains, reveals anom-alies that lead to new questions, and creates the conditions under which existing theories can be supplanted by superior ones.
Abstract: In the past two decades, many sociologists have denied the use‐fulness of general theories in favor of more particularistic ap‐proaches to historical explanation, which makes it difficult to specify both the causal relations and the causal mechanisms that account for social outcomes. This article offers some philosophical and theo‐retical justifications for the use of general theory in historical analy‐sis and contends that general theory guides the selection of facts, provides a source of generalizable causal mechanisms, facilitates the cumulation of knowledge across substantive domains, reveals anom‐alies that lead to new questions, and creates the conditions under which existing theories can be supplanted by superior ones. The au‐thors further outline the concrete research practices that flow from their approach and discuss several empirical studies that exemplify these five advantages.
TL;DR: The authors examines the use of these frames in Renaissance patronage-seeking letters, both quantitatively and qualitatively, to present an interactionist approach to the presentation of self and, in turn, to political culture.
Abstract: Actors invoke and manupulate diverse frames of meaning by assembling cues, taken from linguistic forms laid down in the cultural background, to build their relations with others. This article examines the use of these frames in Renaissance patronage‐seeking letters, both quantitatively (through multidimensional scaling) and qualitatively (using discourse analytical concepts), to present an interactionist approach to the presentation of self and, in turn, to political culture. Writing strategies are only modestly, as actors write from achieved network positions and constantly aim to improve their position, maximize leverage, and build careers through letter writing. I shall tell you, therefore, first, of what means I made use in order to become an intimate and follower of Gian Galeozzo, the duke of Milan; then I shall tell you how I went about winning the good will of Ladislas, king of Naples; finally I shall recount to you what sort of conduct enabled me to preserve the favor and good will of Pope Giovann...
TL;DR: In this case–the detection of gravitational radiation–evidential cultures are found to be homologous with institutional settings, and the interesting technique of "involuntary blinding" has been used to enforce a uniform approach.
Abstract: The meaning of scientific "data" depends on the "evidential culture" of laboratories. Using transcripts of interviews and conversations with scientists, open and closed evidential cultures are analyzed under three dimensions. For example, an Italian laboratory's evidential collectivism and an American laboratory's evidential individualism are contrasted. In this case–the detection of gravitational radiation–evidential cultures are found to be homologous with institutional settings. The data interpretation of the long‐standing small science is being influenced by the growing global dominance of a new big science. The interesting technique of "involuntary blinding" has been used to enforce a uniform approach.