Showing papers in "American Sociological Review in 2002"

Invisible Inequality: Social Class and Childrearing in Black Families and White Families

Abstract: Although family life has an important impact on children’s life chances, the mechanisms through which parents transmit advantages are imperfectly understood. An ethnographic data set of white children and black children approximately 10 years old shows the effects of social class on interactions inside the home. Middle-class parents engage in concerted cultivation by attempting to foster children’s talents through organized leisure activities and extensive reasoning. Working-class and poor parents engage in the accomplishment of natural growth, providing the conditions under which children can grow but leaving leisure activities to children themselves. These parents also use directives rather than reasoning. Middle-class children, both white and black, gain an emerging sense of entitlement from their family life. Race had much less impact than social class. Also, differences in a cultural logic of childrearing gave parents and their children differential resources to draw on in their interactions with professionals and other adults outside the home. Middle-class children gained individually insignificant but cumulatively important advantages. Working-class and poor children did not display the same sense of entitlement or advantages. Some areas of family life appeared exempt from the effects of social class, however.

Transnational entrepreneurs: An alternative form of immigrant economic adaptation

Abstract: The recent literature on immigrant transnationalism points to an alternative form of economic adaptation of foreign minorities in advanced societies that is based on the mobilization of their cross-country social networks. Case studies have noted the phenomenon's potential significance for immigrant integration into receiving countries and for the economic development in countries of origin. Despite their suggestive character, these studies consistently sample on the dependent variable (transnationalism), failing to establish the empirical existence of these activities beyond a few descriptive examples and their possible determinants. These issues are addressed using a survey designed explicitly for this purpose and conducted among selected Latin immigrant groups in the United States. Although immigrant transnationalism has received little attention in the mainstream sociological literature so far, it has the potential of altering the character of the new ethnic communities spawned by contemporary immigration. The empirical existence of transnationalism is examined on the basis of discriminant functions of migrant characteristics, and the relative probabilities of engaging in these kinds of activities is established based on hypotheses drawn from the literature. Implications for the sociology of immigration as well as for broader sociological theories of the economy are discussed. Reprinted by permission of the publisher.

Social Capital and Democracy: An Interdependent Relationship

Abstract: Current democratic theory and recent international policy initiatives reveal an intense interest in the relationship between social capital and democracy. This interest is the most recent variant of a long theoretical tradition positing that a vigorous associational life is beneficial for the creation and maintenance of democracy. Despite the popularity of this view, little quantitative empirical evidence exists to support the relationship. Here, the relationship between social capital and democracy is tested using data from a large, quantitative, cross-national study. Two additional tests are introduced. First, the plausible reciprocal effect-from democracy to social capital-is included in models. Second, the potentially negative impact of some associations on democracy is considered. Using data from the World Values Survey and the Union of International Associations in a cross-lagged panel design, results show that social capital affects democracy and that democracy affects social capital. Additional tests demonstrate that associations that are connected to the larger community have a positive effect on democracy, while isolated associations have a negative effect. Theory relating social capital to democracy is drawn from the literature on civil society, political culture, and social movements.

Immigrant Enclaves and Ethnic Communities in New York and Los Angeles

Abstract: The predominant post-1965 immigrant groups have established distinctive settlement areas in many American cities and suburbs. These areas are generally understood in terms of an immigrant enclave model in which ethnic neighborhoods in central cities serve relatively impoverished new arrivals as a potential base for eventual spatial assimilation with the white majority. This model, and the ethnic community model, are evaluated here. In the ethnic community model, segregated settlement can result from group preferences even when spatial assimilation is otherwise feasible. Analysis of the residential patterns of the largest immigrant groups in New York and Los Angeles shows that most ethnic neighborhoods can be interpreted as immigrant enclaves. In some cases, however living in ethnic neighborhoods is unrelated to economic constraints, indicating a positive preference for such areas. Suburban residence does not necessarily imply living outside of ethnic neighborhoods. Indeed, for several groups the suburban enclave provides an alternative to assimilation-it is an ethnic community in a relatively high-status setting.

The Impact of Incarceration on Wage Mobility and Inequality

Abstract: A life course perspective on crime indicates that incarceration can disrupt key life transitions. Life course analysis ofoccupations finds that earnings mobility depends on stable employment in career jobs. These two lines of research thus suggest that incarceration reduces ex-inmates' access to the steady jobs that usually produce earnings growth among young men. Consistent with this argument, evidence for slow wage growth among ex-inmates is provided by analysis of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth. Because incarceration is so prevalent-one-quarter of black non-college males in the survey were interviewed between 1979 and 1998 while in prison or jail-the effect of imprisonment on individual wages also increases aggregate race and ethnic wage inequality

Why More Americans Have No Religious Preference: Politics and Generations

Abstract: The proportion of Americans who reported no religious preference doubled from 7 percent to 14 percent in the 1990s. This dramatic change may have resulted from demographic shifts, increasing religious skepticism, or the mix of politics and religion that characterized the 1990s. One demographic factor is the succession of generations; the percentage of adults who had been raised with no religion increased from 2 percent to 6 percent. Delayed marriage and parenthood also contributed to the increase. Religious skepticism proved to be an unlikely explanation: Most people with no preference hold conventional religious beliefs, despite their alienation from organized religion. In fact, these “unchurched believers” made up most of the increase in the “no religion” preferences. Politics, too, was a significant factor. The increase in “no religion” responses was confined to political moderates and liberals; the religious preferences of political conservatives did not change. This political part of the increase in “nones” can be viewed as a symbolic statement against the Religious Right.

Who Is Multiracial? Assessing the Complexity of Lived Race

Abstract: Patterns of racial classification in the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health are examined. The survey's large sample size and multiple indicators of race permit generalizable claims about patterns and processes of social construction in the racial categorization of adolescents. About 12 percent of youth provide inconsistent responses to nearly identical questions about race, context affects one's choice of a single-race identity, and nearly all patterns and processes of racial classification depend on which racial groups are involved. The implications ofthe findings are discussed for users of data on race in general, and for the new census data in particular

Two Decades of Family Change: The Shifting Economic Foundations of Marriage

Abstract: Has the relationship between economic prospects and marriage formation in the United States changed in recent decades? To answer this question, a discrete-time event-history analysis was conducted using data from multiple cohorts of the National Longitudinal Surveys of Labor Market Experience. Among women, results indicate growth in the importance of earnings for marriage formation between the early baby-boom cohort (born between 1950 and 1954) and late baby-boom cohort (born between 1961 and 1965). Evidence of cohort change in the relationship between men s economic prospects and marriage, however, is limited. Despite important racial differences in the economic and attitudinal context of marriage, key results are generally similar for whites and for African Americans. Taken together, these findings imply that men and women are growing to resemble one another with respect to the relationship between economic prospects and marriage, although this convergence is driven primarily by changing patterns of marriage among women. These results are largely supportive of Oppenheimer's career-entry theory of marriage and suggest that Becker's specialization and trading model of marriage may be outdated.

Democratic contraction? Political consequences of felon disenfranchisement in the United States

Abstract: Universal suffrage is a cornerstone of democratic governance. As levels of criminal punishment have risen in the United States, however, an ever-larger number of citizens have lost the right to vote. The authors ask whether felon disenfranchisement constitutes a meaningful reversal of the extension of voting rights by considering its political impact. Data from legal sources, election studies, and inmate surveys are examined to consider two counterfactual conditions: (1) whether removing disenfranchisement restrictions alters the outcomes of past U.S. Senate and presidential elections, and (2) whether applying contemporary rates of disenfranchisement to prior elections affects their outcomes. Because felons are drawn disproportionately from the ranks of racial minorities and the poor, disenfranchisement laws tend to take more votes from Democratic than from Republican candidates. Analysis shows that felon disenfranchisement played a decisive role in U.S. Senate elections in recent years. Moreover, at least one Republican presidential victory would have been reversed if former felons had been allowed to vote, and at least one Democratic presidential victory would have been jeopardized had contemporary rates of disenfranchisement prevailed during that time.

Equal but Separate? A Cross-National Study of Sex Segregation in Higher Education

Abstract: The contours and correlates of sex segregation in higher education are explored using data from twelve advanced industrialized countries. Tertiary sex segregation is examined across two dimensions: field of study (horizontal segregation) and tertiary level (vertical segregation). The authors argue that the different aspects of female status in higher education (e.g., overall enrollments, representation at the postgraduate level, and representation in traditionally male-dominated fields of study) do not covary because each variable is affected in distinct ways by structural and cultural features commonly associated with modernity. In particular, (1) ideals of universalism do more to undermine vertical segregation than horizontal segregation, and (2) some modern structural features may actually exacerbate specific forms of sex segregation. Consistent with these arguments, results suggest strongly integrative effects of gender-egalitarian cultural attitudes on distributions across tertiary levels, and weaker, less uniform cultural effects on distributions across fields of study (one notable exception being a strong positive effect on women's representation in engineering programs). Two modern structural features-diversified tertiary systems and high rates of female employment-show segregative effects in some fields and institutional sectors. Overall, few across-the-board integrative or segregative effects can be discerned that would lend support to evolutionary conceptualizations of gender stratification. Modern cultural and structural pressures are manifested unevenly and in contextually contingent ways

A Brief History of Human Society: The Origin and Role of Emotion in Social Life: 2001 Presidential Address

Abstract: American Sociological Review, 2002, Vol. 67 (February:1–29) 1 guaranteeing that humanity’s future will unfold there. Shortly thereafter, surely during the second decade of the century, the last hunter-gathers will cease to exist, ending 6 million years of dedication to what Diamond (1992:191) called “the most successful and long-persistent lifestyle in the career of our species.” Sociology should be well-poised to understand the nature and meaning of these incredible transitions; but I believe it is not, owing to three interrelated conceits. The first is our elevation of the social over the biological. Somehow we have allowed the fact that we are social beings to obscure the biological foundations upon which our behavior ultimately rests. Most sociologists are woefully ignorant of even the most elementary precepts of biological science. If we think about biology at all, it is usually in terms of discredited eugenic arguments and crude evolutionary theorizing long since discarded in the natural sciences. Direct correspondence to Douglas S. Massey, Department of Sociology, University of Pennsylvania, 3718 Locust Walk, Philadelphia, PA 19104-6299 (dmassey@pop.upenn.edu). The author thanks Mary Fischer and Sid Seale for their assistance in preparing the graphics for this article. Douglas S. Massey University of Pennsylvania

The war at home: antiwar protests and congressional voting, 1965 to 1973

Abstract: Time-series analysis is used to assess the relationship between antiwar protests and congressional voting on war-related roll calls during the Vietnam era. Using protest event data coded from The New York Times and counts of roll-call votes generated from congressional voting data, we test for three specific mechanisms: disruptive protest, signaling, and public opinion shift. Extreme forms of disruptive protest are hypothesized as having a direct positive effect on congressional voting. Lohmann's signaling model posits exactly the opposite relationship between protest and policy. Especially extreme protests are expected to have a negative effect on both the pace and pro-peace direction of congressional action. Conversely, large (and more moderate) protests are expected to have a positive effect on House and Senate voting. The final mechanism, public opinion shift, depicts the relationship as indirect, with protest encouraging public opinion change, which, in turn, encourages increasingly favorable congressional voting. The results are somewhat mixed with respect to all three mechanisms, but suggest an interesting general pattern. The most extreme or threatening forms of protest (e. g., those featuring violence by demonstrators and/or property damage) simultaneously increase pro-peace voting while depressing the overall pace of congressional action. The reverse is true for more persuasive forms of protest (e.g., large demonstrations), which appear to increase the pace of voting while depressing the likelihood of pro-peace outcomes

Religious pluralism and participation: Why previous research is wrong

Abstract: Does religious pluralism undermine or promote religious involvement?. Some secularization theories contend that diversity breeds loss of belief and lower participation. The religious economies model counters that involvement is boosted by the availability of alternative religious suppliers and the competition that results, with each group working harder to gain adherents. The issue is sufficiently important that a recent review found 193 tests of this question in 26 published articles. Almost all of these findings (both positive arid negative) should be abandoned. The associations reported do not reflect the effects of pluralism but a previously overlooked mathematical relationship between measures of religious participation and the index of pluralism. Even when pluralism has no effect on participation, the correlation between these two variables is likely to be non zero. The sign and magnitude of this expected correlation depends on the nature of the size distributions of the religious groups across the areas studied. Results from several frequently cited studies closely atch what would be expected from chance alone. Various alternative methods for studying pluralism in future research are examined, but currently there is no compelling evidence that religious pluralism has any effect on religious involvement.

The political sociology of the death penalty: A pooled time-series analysis

Abstract: Despite the interest in the death penalty, no statistical studies have isolated the social and political forces that account for the legality of this punishment. Racial or ethnic threat theories suggest that the death penalty will more likely be legal in jurisdictions with relatively large black or Hispanic populations. Economic threat explanations suggest that this punishment will be present in unequal areas. Jurisdictions with a more conservative public or a stronger law-and-order Republican party should be more likely to legalize the death penalty as well. After controlling for social disorganization, region, period, and violent crime, panel analyses suggest that minority presence and economic inequality enhance the likelihood of a legal death penalty. Conservative values and Republican strength in the legislature have equivalent effects. A supplemental time-to-event analysis supports these conclusions. The results suggest that a political approach has explanatory power because threat effects expressed through politics and effects that are directly political invariably account for decisions about the legality of capital punishment

Occupational Stratification across the Life Course: Evidence from the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study

Abstract: Sociologists frequently study changes across cohorts in the consequences of family background, gender, education, and cognitive ability for occupational outcomes. This study focuses, however, on how the consequences of these variables change within the course of individuals' lives. To appropriately estimate changes across the life course in the determinants of occupational standing, corrections are made for measurement errors in variables, and data on siblings are used to account for all aspects (measured and unmeasured) of family background. The analyses use data from the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study, which provides multiple measures of siblings'occupational standing at four points in their lives. Models of sibling resemblance show that the effects of family background on occupational standing operate entirely through their effects on education and cognitive ability. The effects of education decline across the life course, while the effects of ability remain small but persistent. In comparing men and women, substantial differences are found in career trajectories and in life course changes in occupational returns to schooling.

Commemorating a Difficult past: Yitzhak Rabin's Memorials

Abstract: While the literature on collective memory suggests that a multivocal type of commemoration will be constructed in response to a difficult past, Yitzhak Rabin's commemorations provide a case study of a different type of commemoration of challenging events: a fragmented commemoration. A fragmented commemoration consists of multiple times and spaces in which different discourses of the past are aimed at disparate audiences. The author offers a theoretical model within which the emergence of both types of commemoration (multivocal and fragmented) can be understood and analyzed. The model consists of three dimensions: (1) the political culture of the commemorating society, (2) the relevance of past to present, and (3) the power of agents of memory. Explanatory models consisting of a dynamic interplay of agents, cultures, and structures prove valuable as a basis for the study of various sorts of cultural productions in general and commemorative types in particular

Markets and income inequality in rural china: political advantage in an expanding economy

Abstract: When market reform generates rapid growth in an agrarian subsistence economy, changes in inequality may be due to economic growth and structural change rather than to the intrinsic features of markets. The case of post-Mao China is examined using nationally representative survey data gathered in 1996 to address unresolved questions about findings from 1980s' surveys. Well into reform's second decade, political officeholding has a large net impact on household income-comparable to that of operating a private enterprise. Contrary to findings based on earlier surveys and expectations about the impact of growth, cadre household advantages are stable across levels and forms of economic expansion. Returns to entrepreneurship, however, decline sharply with the spread of wage employment. Future declines in relative returns to political position are therefore unlikely to occur due to the further spread of private household entrepreneurship, and theories of change based on this mechanism appear untenable.

Race of the interviewer and perception of skin color: Evidence from the multi-city study of urban inequality

Abstract: The influence of interviewers' race on skin color classification for white and African American survey respondents is explored using data from the Multi-City Study of Urban Inequality (conducted 1992 to 1994). As hypothesized, bivariate and multi-variate results reveal a compelling race-of-the-interviewer effect for both black and white respondents: White interviewers reported the skin tones of black respondents as substantially darker than did black interviewers. In turn, black interviewers categorized the skin tones of white respondents as much lighter than did white interviewers. Results also indicate that interviewers perceived greater variation in the skin tones of same-race respondents than among other-race respondents, suggesting that both black and white Americans exhibit relatively limited ability to carefully distinguish the physical characteristics of other-race persons. Finally, results show that unsuccessful attempts to match interviewers and respondents by race may have the unintended consequence of introducing important attenuating biases into analyses involving skin color. Implications for future research are discussed

Organizational size and pollution: The case of the U.S. chemical industry

Abstract: In their recent efforts to uncover the social structural causes of pollution, sociologists have explored the environmental effects of such factors as urbanization, modernization, class hierarchies, long economic cycles, and the world-system. However, they have yet to study what some consider to be the most intensive and effective environmental destroyer of all - organizations - and the effects of their structures. This paper proposes a new line of research that focuses on whether variations in pollution rates are associated with variations in organizational characteristics. As a first step toward developing this new approach, the authors investigate the effects of the organizational size of chemical plants on the rate of toxic emissions. Using data from the Environmental Protection Agency's Toxics Release Inventory, results show that large chemical plants emit toxins at a significantly higher rate than do small plants, especially if they are embedded in a wider corporate structure (i.e., they are also branch plants or owned by a major firm). Implications for future research on the structural determinants of pollution are discussed

Emerging parental gender indifference? sex composition of children and the third birth.

Abstract: Along and fruitful sociological tradition links demographic differences and changes to institutional structure and change. For example, Durkheim’s ([1897] 1951) classic study linked differential suicide rates to institutional differences between Protestants and Catholics. Likewise, differential child mortality for boys and girls and unusual sex ratios among children provide evidence of differential treatment of children, even when indigenous people claim that it does not exist (Dyson and Moore 1983; Johansson and Nygren 1991). Racial and gender inequality in the United States are tracked by demographic measures of income inequality (Bianchi and Spain 1986; Farley and Allen 1987) and by measures of segregation in housing or occupations (Jacobs 1989; Massey and Denton 1993). The unobtrusiveness and behavioral basis of demographic indicators are important strengths: Although attitudinal surveys suggest respondents’ views may be changing, behavioral data provide an assessment less influenced by normative response bias. The current study fits in this tradition. Focusing on data spanning the last 40 years, we ask whether the desire to have both a daughter and a son has disappeared, indicating the basic equivalence, or full substitutability, of sons and daughters. Such a finding would provide strong evidence of emerging gender indifference among parents and clear evidence of greater gender equality in U.S. society. The current study also contributes to a demographic literature that links preferences for sons, daughters, or particular combinations of sons and daughters to fertility levels. More specifically, strong desires for particular sex compositions of children can substantially increase fertility. In the absence of sex preselection, Bongaarts and Potter (1983) show that if couples bear children until they have at least one son, then they will have an average of 1.94 births. If couples stop having children only after having a daughter, then they will average 2.06 births. If a child of each sex is required before parents stop childbearing, then they will have an average of three births. While the effects of the sex composition of previous children have been studied in many contexts (especially in Asia and in the context of high fertility), preferences for a son, a daughter, or one child of each sex have their greatest potential effects when parents want few children. High fertility implies that simple sex preferences (e.g., at least one son and one daughter) will be satisfied in the course of having a large number of children. In contrast, desiring few children and a particular sex composition can conflict. For example, if couples want two children and a composition of one son and one daughter, then half of those couples with two children will not achieve the desired sex composition. To the extent that composition preferences increase the number of children a woman has, we say that the sex of previous children has a pronatalist effect.

Does Oppositional Culture Exist in Minority and Poverty Peer Groups

Abstract: Cette etude teste les travaux exposes en aout 1998 dans la presente revue par Ainsworth-Darnell et Downey et parvient a la conclusion opposee. Contrairement aux auteurs precites, la presente etude montre qu'il est premature de rejeter la culture d'opposition comme un mecanisme pouvant influencer des performances scolaires moins elevees chez les etudiants de minorites ethniques ou d'origine modeste

Social integration, imitation, and the geographic patterning of suicide

Abstract: One of sociology's defining debates centers on explanations of the geographic patterning of suicide. This classic debate is revisited using techniques of spatial analysis and data for two geographies: late nineteenth-century French departments, and late twentieth-century U.S. counties. Results of the French analysis contradict Durkheim's claim that "imitation" plays no role in shaping the geographic patterning of suicide. Suicide rates for northern and southern French departments cluster geographically even when the clustering of multiple dimensions of social integration is controlled. These findings are replicated in a contemporary analysis of nonwestern U.S. counties. Results for the American West, however, support the Durkheimian view that suicide clusters in geographic space only because important structural predictors of suicide, including measures of social integration, do so as well. These discrepant findings are reconciled and it is concluded that the geographic patterning of suicide is shaped by both social integration and imitation.

Assessing alternative perspectives on race and sex employment segregation

Abstract: Four major explanations for employment segregation-skill deficits, worker preferences, economic and organizational structure, and stereotyping/queuing-are assessed using a diverse and overlapping set of predictors: general skills and training, product market structure, race- and sex-typed tasks and conditions, desirable employment and growth rates, and links to other labor market actors. A two-stage measurement and analytic strategy controls for relevant worker-level factors. Data from the 1990 census PUMs are analyzed to measure the employment segregation of black women, black men, and white women in relation to white men across 1,917 labor market positions, net of human capital, family structure, geographic residence and labor supply. Archival data provide measures of variables characterizing labor market positions. Stereotyping and queuing explanations are broadly consistent with nearly all results, while a worker preference approach applies to somewhat fewer predictors and is largely but not wholly compatible with their effects. A skill deficits explanation applies to, and is supported by, a narrow set of findings, while the economic and organizational structure explanations are restricted in their relevance and receive limited support

Political competition and violence in mexico: hierarchical social control in local patronage structures

Abstract: Many countries that have recently undergone transitions to democracy have experienced increases in violent crime. Yet sociological theories have generally failed to consider the impact of political factors on crime. The author examines the relation between greater electoral competition and homicide at the subnational level in a country undergoing an uneven transition to democracy. In societies characterized by the presence of patronage networks, social and political changes that undermine the source of unequal exchange between actors at different levels in the social hierarchy result in a temporary loss of social control and an increase in crime. The relation between electoral competition and homicide is tested using electoral results from a sample of 1,800 Mexican municipalities. Greater electoral competition is associated with higher homicide rates across municipalities and over time, even after controlling for standard correlates of violent crime. Consistent with the hypothesis that the increase is due to the disruption of patronage networks, this association is present only in rural areas where patron-client relations are more common.

The Search for Oppositional Culture among Black Students

Abstract: RESULTS PUBLISHED in our 1998 ASR article (Ainsworth-Darnell and Downey 1998, henceforward A-D&D) presented a serious challenge to the oppositional culture explanation for racial/ethnic differences in school performance. It was a surprise to many to learn that black students typically report more optimistic occupational expectations, view education as more important to their future, and maintain more pro-school attitudes than do white students. In our conclusion, we stated our hope that this new evidence would lead to further debate regarding the source of racial/ethnic differences in school performance:

Confessional protest: The religious birth of U.S. national social movements

Abstract: Western forms of protest were fundamentally altered in the early nineteenth century. Scholars from a contentious politics perspective have identified this rupture in protest forms with the emergence of the national social movement and explain the rupture as the result of interactions with national states. Scholars from a life politics perspective argue that the paradigmatic movements of today have moved beyond the political struggles of the nineteenth century and toward a new form of protest that unfolds within civil society and fuses matters of personal and social change. Protests in the United States in the 1830s, however, raise serious doubts about both of these claims. The first U.S. national social movements were not a heritage of the state and they engaged in a form of life politics. The temperance and antislavery movements emerged in interaction with religious institutions-not state institutions-and pursued goals that mixed personal and social transformation. A cultural mechanism combining the evangelical schemas of public confession and the special sins of the nation launched sustained and interregional protests. The intensive and extensive power of these confessional protests called individual and nation to repent and reform, and mobilized actors and resources within a national infrastructure of religious institutions to challenge drinking and slavery

Structural change and post-socialist stratification: Labor market transitions in contemporary russia

Abstract: In Russia, market transition has led to sweeping structural changes: a long recession, growth of the private sector, expansion of certain branches of the economy and contraction of others, a decrease in average firm size, and regional differentiation in economic performance. These structural changes had important consequences for stratification through their effects on individual labor market outcomes. Analyses of nine types of individual labor market transitions in Russia using 1991-1997 work-history data show that structural location has strong effects. Human capital and membership in the Communist Party of the Soviet Union also influence labor market prospects, but not in ways consistent with general theories about how market transition affects stratification processes. Structural change plays a key role in determining the impact of market reforms on stratification. But market transition produces variable patterns of structural change in different countries and in different regions within a single country. The structural perspective demonstrates why market transition has variable consequences for stratification: Different prior conditions and reform policies produce different patterns of structural change

How the civil rights movement revitalized labor militancy

Abstract: Can newly ascendant social movements revitalize the militant culture of older, institutionalized movements? Recent studies have focused on relations between new ascendant social movements like the civil rights, women's, and peace movements that emerged during the postwar cycle of protest, and therefore have been unable to address this question. Focusing on revitalization as a qualitatively different form of intermovement relation, the authors examine the possibility that civil rights movement insurgencies and organizations revitalized workplace labor militancy during the postwar decades. Time-series models show that the civil rights movement fueled an expanded militant worker culture that challenged management and sometimes union leadership. However, this revitalization of labor militancy was contingent on institutional context (stronger in the public sector than the private sector) and form of insurgent action (protests, riots, organizations) differentially embedded in historical phases (civil rights versus Black Power) of movement development. Theoretical implications for the study of social movements, industrial relations, and class conflict are discussed

The shadow of exploitation in weber's class analysis

Abstract: This analysis has two basic objectives: First, to understand as precisely as possible the inner structure of Weber's concept of class, its similarities and differences from Marx's concept, and its relationship to the problem of exploitation; second, to use this interrogation of Weber's work to defend the importance of the concept of exploitation for sociological theory. To understand the foundations of Weber's class analysis one must look beyond his most synoptic treatments of class in Economy and Society and see how his concept of class is intimately linked to his investigations of the broad problem of rationalization in modern society. Class, in these terms, is the way economic power is distributed when economic action is organized to the greatest degree in an instrumentally-rational manner The problem of exploitation-the extraction of labor effort from workers-is treated, in this framework, primarily as a problem of technical efficiency and economic rationality in creating work incentives and effective discipline. This conceptualization leads to a relatively impoverished understanding of the nature of antagonistic interests generated by class relations. IF THEORETICAL frameworks are identified as loudly by their silences as by their proclamations, then one of the defining characteristics of class analysis in the Weberian tradition is the virtual absence of a systematic concept of exploitation. Nothing better captures the central contrast between the Marxist and Weberian traditions of class analysis than the difference between a class concept centered on the problem of life chances in Weber and a concept rooted in the problem of exploitation in Marx. This is not to say that Weber completely ignores some of the substantive issues connected to the problem of exploitation. For example, Weber, like Marx, sees an intimate connection between the nature of property relations in capitalism and the problem employers face in eliciting high levels of effort from workers. But he does not theorize this issue in

Resource distributions and market partitioning: Dutch daily newspapers, 1968 to 1994

Abstract: Resource-partitioning theory explains how, in heavily concentrated populations, specialist organizations arise and proliferate. The theory also addresses the process of market concentration itself, although far less attention has been devoted to the theoretical claims in this area. In this analysis, the theory is used to explain generalist concentration through the distribution of environmental (market) resources. It is argued that the higher the homogeneity and concentration of relevant environmental resources, the higher the concentration of large generalist organizations competing on the basis of scale. Using data on the Dutch daily newspaper industry from 1968 to 1994, statistical analyses show that concentration among generalist (national) newspapers occurs more fully in province-level markets where the readership base consists of relatively homogeneous sets of individuals in terms of age, religion, politics, and education. At the same time, these concentrated markets prove to be fertile areas for the operation of specialist papers, at least when resources are not fully homogenized. The analysis thus provides a more complete model of the resource-partitioning process among organizations in a population.