Showing papers in "American Journal of Sociology in 2005"

Network dynamics and field evolution : The growth of interorganizational collaboration in the life sciences

Abstract: A recursive analysis of network and institutional evolution is offered to account for the decentralized structure of the commercial field of the life sciences Four alternative logics of attachment—accumulative advantage, homophily, follow‐the‐trend, and multiconnectivity—are tested to explain the structure and dynamics of interorganizational collaboration in biotechnology Using multiple novel methods, the authors demonstrate how different rules for affiliation shape network evolution Commercialization strategies pursued by early corporate entrants are supplanted by universities, research institutes, venture capital, and small firms As organizations increase their collaborative activities and diversify their ties to others, cohesive subnetworks form, characterized by multiple, independent pathways These structural components, in turn, condition the choices and opportunities available to members of a field, thereby reinforcing an attachment logic based on differential connections to diverse partners

Collaboration and Creativity: The Small World Problem 1

Abstract: Small world networks have received disproportionate notice in diverse fields because of their suspected effect on system dynamics. The authors analyzed the small world network of the creative artists who made Broadway musicals from 1945 to 1989. Using original arguments, new statistical methods, and tests of construct validity, they found that the varying “small world” properties of the systemic‐level network of these artists affected their creativity in terms of the financial and artistic performance of the musicals they produced. The small world network effect was parabolic; performance increased up to a threshold, after which point the positive effects reversed.

Human rights in a globalizing world : The paradox of empty promises

Abstract: The authors examine the impact of the international human rights regime on governments' human rights practices. They propose an explanation that highlights a “paradox of empty promises.” Their core arguments are that the global institutionalization of human rights has created an international context in which (1) governments often ratify human rights treaties as a matter of window dressing, radically decoupling policy from practice and at times exacerbating negative human rights practices, but (2) the emergent global legitimacy of human rights exerts independent global civil society effects that improve states’ actual human rights practices. The authors’ statistical analyses on a comprehensive sample of government repression from 1976 to 1999 find support for their argument.

First Grade and Educational Attainment by Age 22: A New Story.

Abstract: Studies of the persistence of social stratification rely heavily on students’ experience in secondary schools. In this study, outcomes for a randomly selected panel of Baltimore children, followed from age 6 to age 22, demonstrate that first graders’ social contexts and personal resources explain educational attainment levels in early adulthood about as well as do similar resources measured in adolescence. Years of schooling and the highest level of school attempted respond most strongly to family SES, but parental psychological support and the child’s own temperament/disposition had substantial effects on first‐grade academic outcomes. The predictive power of race, gender, SES, and neighborhood quality measured in first grade on educational status at age 22 supports Lucas’s “effectively maintained inequality.”

Dynamic Network Visualization.

Abstract: Increased interest in longitudinal social networks and the recognition that visualization fosters theoretical insight create a need for dynamic network visualizations, or network “movies.” This article confronts theoretical questions surrounding the temporal representations of social networks and technical questions about how best to link network change to changes in the graphical representation. The authors divide network movies into (1) static flip books, where node position remains constant but edges cumulate over time, and (2) dynamic movies, where nodes move as a function of changes in relations. Flip books are particularly useful in contexts where relations are sparse. For more connected networks, movies are often more appropriate. Three empirical examples demonstrate the advantages of different movie styles. A new software program for creating network movies is discussed in the appendix.

"Don't put my name on it": Social capital activation and job-finding assistance among the black urban poor

Abstract: From a social capital theoretical perspective, deficiencies in access to mainstream ties and institutions explain persistent joblessness among the black urban poor. Little problematized, however, is the extent to which access leads to mobilization and the social context within which social capital activation occurs. Employing in-depth interviews of 105 low-income African-Americans, this work advances the literature in two ways. First, it suggests that what we have come to view as deficiencies in access among the black urban poor may have more to do with functional deficiencies of their job referral networks. Second, the findings from this study lay the groundwork for a single, multilevel conceptual framework within which to understand social capital activation, a framework that takes into consideration properties of the individuals, dyads, and communities of residence.

The Case for a New Class Map

Abstract: It is increasingly fashionable to claim that social classes are purely academic constructs that no longer provide much information about lifestyles, attitudes, and other individual‐level outcomes. The few available tests of this claim rely on stylized measures of social class that either group detailed occupations into a small number of “big classes” or reduce them to scores on vertical scales of prestige, socioeconomic status, or cultural or economic capital. We show that these conventional approaches understate the total effects of the site of production by failing to capitalize on the institutionalized social categories that develop at the detailed occupational level.

Globalization pressures and the state: the worldwide spread of central bank independence

Abstract: The authors examine the impact of globalization on state structures in the specific instance of the central bank. Following the world‐system, world‐society, and neoinstitutional perspectives in sociology, they assume that states are in cultural, political, and economic competition with each other, thereby seeking to maintain their position and status, frequently by adopting organizational forms or practices that make them isomorphic with their environment. The authors predict that countries boost the independence of their central bank from the political power as their exposure to foreign trade, investment, and multilateral lending increases. They also model the cross‐national dynamic process of diffusion of central bank independence by examining the impact of cohesive and role‐equivalent trade relationships between countries. They find support for their hypotheses with information on 71 countries between 1990 and 2000.

Civil Society Reconsidered: The Durable Nature and Community Structure of Collective Civic Action

Abstract: This article develops a conceptual framework on civil society that shifts the dominant focus on individuals to collective action events—civic and protest alike—that bring people together in public to realize a common purpose. Analyzing over 4,000 events in the Chicago area from 1970 to 2000, the authors find that while civic engagement is durable overall, “sixties‐style” protest declines, and hybrid events that combine public claims making with civic forms of behavior—what they call “blended social action”—increase. Furthermore, dense social ties, group memberships, and neighborly exchange do not predict community variations in collective action. The density of nonprofit organizations matters instead, suggesting that declines in traditional social capital may not be as consequential for civic capacity as commonly thought.

Toward some fundamentals of fundamental causality: Socioeconomic status and health in the routine clinic visit for diabetes

Abstract: The concept of “fundamental causality” has gained increasing attention as a way of understanding the relationship between socioeconomic status (SES) and health outcomes. Using enthnographic data from a comparative study of two diabetes clinics, the authors further develop the fundamental cause concept in three ways. First, they provide an exposition of the constituent claims implied by an assertion of fundamental causality. Second, they show how ethnographic data can be used to explicate such claims by showing some of the mechanisms that might operate to preserve the fundamental relationship in diabetes treatment regimens. Finally, they offer elaborations and refinements of the fundamental cause concept.

The Emperor's dilemma : A computational model of self-enforcing norms

Abstract: The authors demonstrate the uses of agent‐based computational models in an application to a social enigma they call the “emperor’s dilemma,” based on the Hans Christian Andersen fable. In this model, agents must decide whether to comply with and enforce a norm that is supported by a few fanatics and opposed by the vast majority. They find that cascades of self‐reinforcing support for a highly unpopular norm cannot occur in a fully connected social network. However, if agents’ horizons are limited to immediate neighbors, highly unpopular norms can emerge locally and then spread. One might expect these cascades to be more likely as the number of “true believers” increases, and bridge ties are created between otherwise distant actors. Surprisingly, the authors observed quite the opposite effects.

Black-white wage inequality, employment rates, and incarceration

Abstract: The observed gap in average wages between black men and white men inadequately reflects the relative economic standing of blacks, who suffer from a high rate of joblessness. The authors estimate the black‐white gap in hourly wages from 1980 to 1999 adjusting for the sample selection effect of labor inactivity. Among working‐age men in 1999, accounting for labor inactivity—including prison and jail incarceration—leads to an increase of 7%–20% in the black‐white wage gap. Adjusting for sample selectivity among men ages 22–30 in 1999 increases the wage gap by as much as 58%. Increasing selection bias, which can be attributed to incarceration and conventional joblessness, explains about two‐thirds of the rise in black relative wages among young men between 1985 and 1998. Apparent improvement in the economic position of young black men is thus largely an artifact of rising joblessness fueled by the growth in incarceration during the 1990s.

Gendering the job: networks and recruitment at a call center

Abstract: Understanding the mechanisms driving gender segregation has become a key focus in research on gender and labor markets. While the literature often invokes gender‐sorting mechanisms that operate prehire, the data used to study these processes are usually collected on posthire populations. This article examines the workings of prehire mechanisms determining job sex segregation. Analyzing unique data on the recruitment and hiring process for customer service representatives at a telephone service center, all of the factors examined—preapplication choices, gender homophilous networks, and screeners’ choices—play significant roles in the gender segregation of this job. The analyses also show that making inferences about prehire processes on the basis of posthire data can be misleading. The authors conclude by discussing the theoretical and methodological implications of these findings.

Interlocking Directorates and Political Cohesion among Corporate Elites1

Abstract: This study uses data on campaign contributions and methods of network analysis to investigate the significance of interlocking directorates for political cohesion among corporate elites. Using quadratic assignment procedure (QAP) regression, the author shows that social ties formed through common membership on corporate boards contribute more to similarity of political behavior than commonalities of economic interests, such as those associated with operating in the same industry or the same geographic region. Moreover, the politically cohesive effects of directorship ties remain robust even as one moves several links down the chain of indirect ties that connect top corporate officers to one another. The study thus provides empirical support for the thesis that social networks among corporate elites facilitate political cohesion within the business community.

Race and the accumulation of human capital across the career : A theoretical model and fixed-effects application

Abstract: The authors develop an explicitly sociological variant on human capital theory, emphasizing that most human capital acquisition is a social product, not an individual investment decision. The authors apply this model to racial earnings inequality, focusing on how exposure to discrimination influences both human capital acquisition and earnings inequalities as they develop across the career. The authors estimate models of career earnings trajectories, which show flatter trajectories for black and Hispanic men relative to white men, partial mediation by human capital acquired inside the labor market, and much larger race/ethnic career inequalities among the highly educated.

Cooperation and the Emergence of Role Differentiation in the Dynamics of Social Networks

Abstract: By means of extensive computer simulations, the authors consider the entangled coevolution of actions and social structure in a new version of a spatial Prisoner’s Dilemma model that naturally gives way to a process of social differentiation. Diverse social roles emerge from the dynamics of the system: leaders are individuals getting a large payoff who are imitated by a considerable fraction of the population, conformists are unsatisfied cooperative agents that keep cooperating, and exploiters are defectors with a payoff larger than the average one obtained by cooperators. The dynamics generate a social network that can have the topology of a small world network. The network has a strong hierarchical structure in which the leaders play an essential role in sustaining a highly cooperative stable regime. But disruptions affecting leaders produce social crises described as dynamical cascades that propagate through the network.

The Modern State and the Primitive Accumulation of Symbolic Power1

Abstract: The exercise of symbolic power has become a privileged focus of scholarship on the state, but without much attention to how states acquired this power in the first place. This article lays a foundation for systematic historical inquiry into the primitive accumulation of symbolic power by modernizing states. It introduces an analytical framework for research on how new domains of administrative activity become recognized as legitimate state practices. This framework is deployed to analyze how a popular revolt in northeastern Brazil managed to frustrate the Brazilian state’s attempt to implement civil registration in the mid‐19th century. The conclusion considers broad implications of this analysis for students of modern state formation and suggests the need for comparative historical analyses that historicize the naturalization of state power.

Small and other worlds : Global network structures from local processes

Abstract: Using simulation, we contrast global network structures—in particular, small world properties—with the local patterning that generates the network. We show how to simulate Markov graph distributions based on assumptions about simple local social processes. We examine the resulting global structures against appropriate Bernoulli graph distributions and provide examples of stochastic global “worlds,” including small worlds, long path worlds, and nonclustered worlds with many four‐cycles. In light of these results we suggest a locally specified social process that produces small world properties. In examining movement from structure to randomness, parameter scaling produces a phase transition at a “temperature” where regular structures “melt” into stochastically based counterparts. We provide examples of “frozen” structures, including “caveman” graphs, bipartite structures, and cyclic structures.

The Intergovernmental Network of World Trade: IGO Connectedness, Governance and Embeddedness

Abstract: Membership in certain intergovernmental organizations (IGOs), such as the World Trade Organization, has long been argued to stimulate trade. Yet, evidence linking IGOs to trade is mixed. The authors argue that identifying the influence of IGOs requires attention not only to the institutions IGOs enact, but also to the network through which they enact them. This approach allows them to demonstrate that trade between two countries increases by an average of 58% with every doubling of the strength of IGO connection between the countries. They also contribute to debates regarding the mechanisms through which structural relationships influence economic behavior by showing that substantial trade benefits occur not only through economic IGOs, but also through IGOs that were formed for social and cultural purposes, and that connections through IGOs that are organizationally strong have more impact than those through minimalist IGOs.

An Individual‐Based Model of Innovation Diffusion Mixing Social Value and Individual Benefit1

Abstract: The authors propose an individual‐based model of innovation diffusion and explore its main dynamical properties. In the model, individuals assign an a priori social value to an innovation which evolves during their interactions with the “relative agreement” influence model. This model offers the possibility of including a minority of “extremists” with extreme and very definite opinions. Individuals who give a high social value to the innovation tend to look for information that allows them to evaluate more precisely the individual benefit of adoption. If the social value they assign is low, they neither consider the information nor transmit it. The main finding is that innovations with high social value and low individual benefit have a greater chance of succeeding than innovations with low social value and high individual benefit. Moreover, in some cases, a minority of extremists can have a very important impact on the propagation by polarizing the social value.

A Critique of Exchange Theory in Mate Selection1

Abstract: Status‐caste exchange theory predicts that in interracial marriages one partner’s socioeconomic status is exchanged for the other’s racial caste status. The author examines the contradictory literature on the theory specifically in relation to black‐white intermarriage and offers three explanations for the divergent findings. First, black‐white inequality has obscured the actual status homogamy typifying intermarriage. Second, gender differences among young couples have been mistaken for racially specific patterns of exchange. Third, the empirical findings that appear to support status‐caste exchange are not robust. The author’s conclusions favor the simplest tabular analyses, which cast doubt on status‐caste exchange theory.

Pathways to Power: The Role of Political Parties in Women’s National Political Representation

Abstract: The authors extend previous research on women’s participation in politics by examining the role of female elites in political parties in selecting and supporting women as political candidates. They hypothesize that political parties, in their role as gatekeepers, mediate the relationship between country‐level factors, such as women’s participation in the labor force, and political outcomes for women. The article focuses on three outcomes for women: the percentage of female political party leaders, the percentage of female candidates in a country, and the percentage of women elected. New cross‐national measures of women’s inclusion in political parties are developed and analyzed in a cross‐national, path‐analytic model of women in politics to find that (1) women’s position in party elites translates into gains for women as candidates only under proportional representation systems, (2) women’s position in party elites increases the likelihood that female candidates will be elected only in nonproportional re...

Sociology and simulation : Statistical and qualitative cross-validation

Abstract: Agent‐based simulation modeling enables the construction of formal models that simultaneously can be microvalidated against accounts of individual behavior and macrovalidated against aggregate data that show the characteristics of many socially derived time series These characteristics (leptokurtosis and clustered volatility) have two important consequences: first, they also appear in suitably structured agent‐based models where, like real social actors, agents are socially embedded and metastable; second, their presence precludes the use of many standard statistical techniques like the chi‐square test These characteristics in time‐series data indicate that a suitable agent‐based model rather than a standard statistical model will be appropriate This is illustrated with an agent‐based model of mutual social influence on domestic water demand The consequences for many frequently used statistical techniques are discussed

Destination-Language Proficiency in Cross-National Perspective: A Study of Immigrant Groups in Nine Western Countries

Abstract: Immigrants’ destination-language proficiency has been typically studied from a microperspective in a single country. In this article, the authors examine the role of macrofactors in a cross-national perspective. They argue that three groups of macrolevel factors are important: the country immigrants settle in (“destination” effect), the sending nation (“origin” effect), and the combination between origin and destination (“setting” or “community” effect). The authors propose a design that simultaneously observes multiple origin groups in multiple destinations. They present substantive hypotheses about language proficiency and use them to develop a series of macrolevel indicators. The authors collected and standardized 19 existing immigrant surveys for nine Western countries. Using multilevel techniques, their analyses show that origins, destinations, and settings play a significant role in immigrants’ language proficiency.

The institutional logic of occupational prestige ranking : Reconceptualization and reanalyses

Abstract: Departing from the earlier literature that emphasizes power and resources as sources of occupational prestige, the author proposes to explain the phenomenon of occupational prestige ranking from an institutional logic of social recognition that is centered on the principle of legitimacy and appropriateness. The author develops theoretical arguments to explicate the mechanisms that generate the intersubjective evaluation of the “social standings” of occupations and that give deference to occupations that can make legitimate claims on the bases of nature and reason. The proposed theoretical ideas are tested by examining patterns of occupational prestige ranking reported in 1989 GSS data. The findings are consistent with the hypotheses derived from the institutional logic that motivates this study.

Taking Turns and Talking Ties: Networks and Conversational Interaction1

Abstract: Conversational encounters are permeable to network effects but not entirely so, for conversation is internally structured by sequential constraints and dependencies that limit the latitude people have to act on their relational commitments. The author analyzes the effects of hierarchical (superior‐subordinate) and horizontal (friendship and co‐working) networks on “participation shifts”—transitions in the identities of speakers and targets (addressees) that occur from one speaking turn to the next—in meetings of 10 groups of managers. The results point to a range of relational obligations and entitlements, such as the obligation subordinates have to bolster superiors’ control of the floor, and the way in which friendship and co‐working ties get expressed through remarks made to third parties. The article is perhaps the first to link statistically network‐analytic and conversation‐analytic levels of analysis.

A theory of scandal: Victorians, homosexuality, and the fall of Oscar Wilde.

Abstract: Oscar Wilde is considered to be the iconic victim of 19th‐century English puritanism. Yet the Victorian authorities rarely and only reluctantly enforced homosexuality laws. Moreover, Wilde’s sexual predilections had long been common knowledge in London before his trials without affecting the dramatist's wide popularity. Focusing on the seemingly inconsistent Victorian attitudes toward homosexuality and the dynamics of the Oscar Wilde affair, this article develops a general theory of scandal as the disruptive publicity of transgression. The study of scandal reveals the effects of publicity on norm enforcement and throws into full relief the dramaturgical nature of the public sphere and norm work in society.

Labor Transnationalism and Global Governance: The Impact of NAFTA on Transnational Labor Relationships in North America1

Abstract: This article examines how the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) catalyzed cross‐border labor cooperation and collaboration (i.e., labor transnationalism), by creating a new political opportunity structure at the transnational level. Because there are differences in the way power is constituted at the transnational and national levels, theories of national political opportunity structures cannot be directly mapped onto the transnational level. The author describes three primary dimensions of political opportunity structure at the transnational level that explain how power is established: (1) the constitution of transnational actors and interests, (2) the definition and recognition of transnational rights, and (3) adjudication at the transnational level. The case of NAFTA suggests that while the emergence of national social movements requires nation‐states, global governance institutions can play a pivotal role in the development of transnational social movements.

Computational Models of Social Forms: Advancing Generative Process Theory1

Abstract: Building on Simmel’s theoretical foundations, sociological process theorists continue to challenge mainstream social theory. So far, however, they have rarely relied on formal modeling. The author argues that recent advances in computational modeling offer tools to explore the emergence of social forms in the Simmelian tradition. Thanks to common foundations in both epistemology and ontology, these two fields can benefit from drawing more explicitly on each other. The process‐theoretic tradition in social theory and contemporary agent‐based models shift theorizing from nomothetic to generative explanations of social forms, and from variable‐based to configurative ontologies. In order to formalize sociational theory, the author focuses on how to model dynamic social networks and emergent actor configurations.

Race, Class, and Changing Patterns of Migration between Poor and Nonpoor Neighborhoods1

Abstract: This study merges data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics and four decennial censuses to analyze historical changes in the determinants of residential mobility between poor and nonpoor neighborhoods. Between 1970 and 1997, blacks and whites became increasingly similar in the rate at which they move between poor and nonpoor neighborhoods, but much of this racial convergence was driven by changes in the relative sociodemographic characteristics of white and black households and shifting ecological conditions of metropolitan areas. Furthermore, race remains a salient factor in determining the likelihood of exiting or entering poor neighborhoods, and there is little evidence of increasing class selectivity in this movement.