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Showing papers in "American Sociological Review in 2003"


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Biomedicalization describes the increasingly complex, multisited, multidirectional processes of medicalization, both extended and reconstituted through the new social forms of highly technoscientific biomedicine.
Abstract: The first social transformation of American medicine institutionally established medicine by the end of World War II. In the next decades, medicalization-the expansion of medical jurisdiction, authority, and practices into new realms-became widespread. Since about 1985, dramatic changes in both the organization and practices of contemporary biomedicine, implemented largely through the integration of technoscientific innovations, have been coalescing into what the authors call biomedicalization, a second transformation of American medicine. Biomedicalization describes the increasingly complex, multisited, multidirectional processes of medicalization, both extended and reconstituted through the new social forms of highly technoscientific biomedicine. The historical shift from medicalization to biomedicalization is one from control over biomedical phenomena to transformations of them. Five key interactive processes both engender biomedicalization and are produced through it: (1) the political economic reconstitution of the vast sector of biomedicine; (2) the focus on health itself and the elaboration of risk and surveillance biomedicines; (3) the increasingly technological and scientific nature of biomedicine; (4) transformations in how biomedical knowledges are produced, distributed, and consumed, and in medical information management; and (5) transformations of bodies to include new properties and the production of new individual and collective technoscientific identities.

1,437 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The authors used international survey data on religiosity for a broad panel of countries to investigate the effects of church attendance and religious beliefs on economic growth and found that economic growth responds positively to religious beliefs, notably beliefs in hell and heaven, but negatively to church attendance.
Abstract: Empirical research on the determinants of economic growth typically neglects the influence of religion. To fill this gap, this study uses international survey data on religiosity for a broad panel of countries to investigate the effects of church attendance and religious beliefs on economic growth. To isolate the direction of causation from religiosity to economic performance, the estimation relies on instrumental variables suggested by an analysis in which church attendance and religious beliefs are the dependent variables. The instruments are variables for the presence of state religion and for regulation of the religion market, the composition of religious adherence, and an indicator of religious pluralism. Results show that economic growth responds positively to religious beliefs, notably beliefs in hell and heaven, but negatively to church attendance. That is, growth depends on the extent of believing relative to belonging. These results accord with a model in which religious beliefs influence individual traits that enhance economic performance. The beliefs are an output of the religion sector, and church attendance is an input to this sector. Hence, for given beliefs, higher church attendance signifies more resources used up by the religion sector

1,285 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, structural cohesion is defined as the minimum number of actors who, if removed from a group, would disconnect the group, and a structural dimension of embeddedness can then be defined through the hierarchical nesting of these cohesive structures.
Abstract: Although questions about social cohesion lie at the core of our discipline, definitions are often vague and difficult to operationalize. Here, research on social cohesion and social embeddedness is linked by developing a concept of structural cohesion based on network node connectivity. Structural cohesion is defined as the minimum number of actors who, if removed from a group, would disconnect the group. A structural dimension of embeddedness can then be defined through the hierarchical nesting of these cohesive structures. The empirical applicability of nestedness is demonstrated in two dramatically different substantive settings, and additional theoretical implications with reference to a wide array of substantive fields are discussed.

1,095 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors analyzed a unique, representative data set of organizational founding teams sampled from the U.S. population and found that homophily and network constraints based on strong ties have the most pronounced effect on group composition.
Abstract: The mechanisms governing the composition of formal social groups (e.g., task groups, organizational founding teams) remain poorly understood, owing to (1) a lack of representative sampling from groups found in the general population, (2) a "success" bias among researchers that leads them to consider only those groups that actually emerge and survive, and (3) a restrictive focus on some theorized mechanisms of group composition (e.g., homophily) to the exclusion of others. These shortcomings are addressed by analyzing a unique, representative data set of organizational founding teams sampled from the U.S. population. Rather than simply considering the properties of those founding teams that are empirically observed, a novel quantitative methodology generates the distribution of all possible teams, based on combinations of individual and relational characteristics. This methodology permits the exploration of five mechanisms of group composition-those based on homophily, functionality, status expectations, network constraint, and ecological constraint. Findings suggest that homophily and network constraints based on strong ties have the most pronounced effect on group composition. Social isolation (i.e., exclusion from a group) is more likely to occur as a result of ecological constraints on the availability of similar alters in a locality than as a result of status varying membership choices.

955 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: This article examined the connections between grammar and social organization via one of the most pervasive practices of speaking used in talk-in-interaction: yes/no type interrogatives and the turns speakers build in response to them.
Abstract: Connections between grammar and social organization are examined via one of the most pervasive practices of speaking used in talk-in-interaction: yes/no type interrogatives and the turns speakers build in response to them. This investigation is composed of two parts. The first analyzes a basic organization set in motion by yes/ no type interrogatives, describing a preference for type-conforming responses and its consequences. The second considers how this basic organization is shaped and simplified to accomplish institutionally specific goals in survey research, medical encounters, and courtroom cross-examinations, and what such manipulations reveal about these institutions. Together these findings deepen our understanding of how language is adapted to-and for-interaction, while providing analytic resources for a broad range of sociologists, whether they are engaged in the direct observation of human behavior, developing sociological theories of language, analyzing institutions and social organizations, or interested in the practical consequences of questioning in the myriad institutions that make use of this form.

901 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, a framework that relies on ecological principles is adopted and modified using a revised stochastic formulation of that framework and the most comprehensive measure of environmental impact to date-the ecological footprint-the factors driving the environmental impacts of societies are assessed.
Abstract: Growing evidence demonstrating clear threats to the sustainability of the ecosystems supporting human societies has given rise to a variety of sociological theories of human-environment interactions. These environmental impact theories fall into three general perspectives: human ecology modernization and political economy. These theories however have not been empirically tested in a common analytic framework. Here a framework that relies on ecological principles is adopted and modified. Using a revised stochastic formulation of that framework and the most comprehensive measure of environmental impact to date-the ecological footprint-the factors driving the environmental impacts of societies are assessed. The overall findings support the claims of human ecologists partially support the claims of political economists and contradict the claims of modernization theorists. Basic material conditions such as population economic production urbanization and geographical factors all affect the environment and explain the vast majority of cross-national variation in environmental impact. Factors derived from neo-liberal modernization theory such as political freedom civil liberties and state environmentalism have no effect on impacts. Taken together these findings suggest societies cannot be sanguine about achieving sustainability via a continuation of current trends in economic growth and institutional change. (authors)

716 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, a test of causality is proposed based on the argument that if social capital variables do have a causal effect on job outcomes, then workers with high levels of social capital should be more likely to use contacts to find work, all else being equal.
Abstract: Does social capital affect labor market outcomes? The prevalent use of job contacts to find work suggests that who you know is an important means of getting a good job. Network theories of social capital argue that well-connected workers benefit because of the job information and influence they receive through their social ties. Although a number of studies have found a positive relationship between measures of social capital and wages and/or occupational prestige, little is known about the causal effect of social networks on labor market outcomes. Four data sets are used to reassess findings on the role of social capital in the labor market. A test of causality is proposed based on the argument that if social capital variables do have a causal effect on job outcomes, then workers with high levels of social capital should be more likely to use contacts to find work, all else being equal. Results suggest that much of the effect of social capital in the existing literature reflects the tendency for similar people to become friends rather than a causal effect of friends' characteristics on labor market outcomes.

627 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the focus revisits are extended to rolling, punctuated, heuristic, archeological, and valedictory revisits, with a view to developing a reflexive ethnography that combines all four approaches.
Abstract: This paper explores the ethnographic technique of the focused revisit-rare in sociology but common in anthropology-when an ethnographer returns to the site of a previous study. Discrepancies between earlier and later accounts can be attributed to differences in: (1) the relation of observer to participant, (2) theory brought to the field by the ethnographer, (3) internal processes within the field site itself or (4) forces external to the field site. Focused revisits tend to settle on one or another of these four explanations, giving rise to four types of focused revisits. Using examples, the limits of each type of focused revisit are explored with a view to developing a reflexive ethnography that combines all four approaches. The principles of the focused revisit are then extended to rolling, punctuated, heuristic, archeological, and valedictory revisits. In centering attention on ethnography-as-revisit sociologists directly confront the dilemmas of participating in the world they study-a world that undergoes (real) historical change that can only be grasped using a (constructed) theoretical lens

465 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: This paper found that cross-race friendships including Asian and Hispanic students are more common than those between white and black students, but race and Hispanic background have significant influences on student friendships that persist over immigrant generations.
Abstract: How will racial divisions in student friendship networks change as U.S. schools incorporate a growing Asian and Hispanic population? Drawing on theories of race in assimilation processes and the effects of relative group size on intergroup relations, several hypotheses are developed to address this question. These hypotheses are tested using data on friendships among students in grades 7 to 12 from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health. Key findings are that (1) cross-race friendships including Asian and Hispanic students are more common than those between white and black students, but race and Hispanic background have significant influences on student friendships that persist over immigrant generations; (2) black or white racial identifications are strongly associated with the friendship choices of Hispanic students; (3) cross-race friendships increase with school racial diversity; and (4) own-group friend selection intensifies for students in small racial minorities in a school. The results support theories of racially segmented patterns of assimilation in primary group relations and suggest that students in small racial minorities seek to maintain a friendship network including several own-race friends. Implications are discussed.

397 citations



Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the integration of temporal life course perspectives and current social context perspectives is considered as a framework for the understanding of mental health differences in early adulthood, a formative stage in the development of long-term mental health difference.
Abstract: The integration of temporal life course perspectives and current social context perspectives is considered as a framework for the understanding of mental health differences in early adulthood, a formative stage in the development of long-term mental health differences. Using data from the National Survey of Children and a cross-nested random effects model to simultaneously assess the effects of current and past neighborhood, the authors find a lagged effect of childhood neighborhood socioeco-nomic disadvantage on early adult mental health, while accounting for initial mental health status. This lagged effect also explains the apparent (bivariate) effect of current neighborhood. Four hypotheses are assessed to explain the lagged effect of neighborhood: contextual continuity, mental health continuity, life course stress accumulation, and ambient chronic stress in the neighborhood. Support is found for a cumulative mediating effect of both life course stress and ambient neighborhood stress as children grow up; together, these variables entirely explain the lagged effect of early neighborhood. Findings suggest the need for a more temporal life course approach to the specification of social context effects in general, focusing on the history of social contexts that individuals live in and move through. Temporal-contextual perspectives also encourage a focus on theoretical models that can differentially locate formative contextual influences at different stages in the life course

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Results from tobit models indicate that obesity, especially when experienced early in life, is consistently related to lower-body disability and that more attention should be given to compensatory mechanisms in the development of cumulative disadvantage theory.
Abstract: Drawing from cumulative disadvantage theory, the health consequences of obesity are considered in light of the accumulation of risk factors over the life course. Two forms of compensation are also examined to determine if the risk due to obesity is persistent or modifiable. Analyses make use of data from a national survey to examine the consequences of obesity on disability among respondents 45 years of age or older, tracked across 20 years (N = 4,106). Results from tobit models indicate that obesity, especially when experienced early in life, is consistently related to lower-body disability. The results also show that obesity has long-term health consequences during adulthood, altering the life course in an enduring way. Compensation was not manifest from risk-factor elimination (weight loss), but rather through regular exercise. Although there is evidence for long-term consequences of risk factors on health, the findings suggest that more attention should be given to compensatory mechanisms in the development of cumulative disadvantage theory.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, relative poverty measures based on micro-level data from the Luxembourg Income Study, in conjunction with pooled time-series data for 14 advanced capitalist democracies between 1970 and 1997 were analyzed separately the rate of pretax/transfer poverty and the reduction in poverty achieved by systems of taxes and transfers.
Abstract: Using relative poverty measures based on micro-level data from the Luxembourg Income Study, in conjunction with pooled time-series data for 14 advanced capitalist democracies between 1970 and 1997, the authors analyze separately the rate of pretax/transfer poverty and the reduction in poverty achieved by systems of taxes and transfers. Socioeconomic factors, including de-industrialization and unemployment, largely explain pre-tax/transfer poverty rates of the working-age population in these advanced capitalist democracies. The extent of redistribution (measured as poverty reduction via taxes and transfers) is explained directly by welfare state generosity and constitutional structure (number of veto points) and the strength of the political left, both in unions and in government.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, a conflict-centered model of the world polity is developed, which explains world political participation as a function of material and symbolic conflict in intergovernmental and international non-governmental organizations (IGOs and INGOs).
Abstract: Recent research reveals strong effects of involvement in international organizations on state policies, but much of this research downplays inequality in world political participation, and there is only a limited understanding of what explains world-polity ties. Using data on memberships in intergovernmental and international non-governmental organizations (IGOs and INGOs) for 1960 through 2000, this study analyzes inequality in the world polity. IGO ties are fairly evenly distributed, but the level of inequality in INGO ties is as high as the level of world income inequality. Since 1960, inequality in ties to IGOs decreased sharply, but inequality in ties to INGOs remained more stable. A conflict-centered model of the world polity is developed here that explains world political participation as a function of material and symbolic conflict. Rich, core, Western states and societies have significantly more ties to the world polity than do others. Powerful states dominate IGOs less now than they did in 1960, but rich, core, Western societies have grown more dominant in the INGO field.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors compared the dominant explanations of protest policing and methods that move beyond the tradition of examining repression through police presence or absence, and found that the best predictor of police presence at a protest event was how threatening the event was.
Abstract: Hypotheses about police presence and police action at social movement protest events in New York State between 1968 and 1973 are tested with the aim of understanding the broad mechanisms of social control used by authorities during this cycle of mass protest. Contrary to the popular perception of overzealous police repression of protest in this period, results show that police did not attend the majority of protest events. Tests of dominant explanations of police presence using logistic regression analysis indicate that the best predictor of police presence at a protest event was how threatening the event was-police attended larger protest events and those that used confrontational tactics. Tests (using multinomial logistic regression) of explanations of police action, given police presence at an event, indicate that extreme forms of police action were also triggered by threatening characteristics of events. Events in which subordinate groups and social movement organizations participated were also more likely to draw police action. Novel contributions include the comparison of dominant explanations of protest policing and methods that move beyond the tradition of examining repression through police presence or absence.

ReportDOI
TL;DR: This article used international survey data on religiosity for a broad panel of countries to investigate the effects of church attendance and religious beliefs on economic growth, finding that economic growth responds positively to the extent of religious beliefs, notably those in hell and heaven, but negatively to church attendance.
Abstract: Empirical research on the determinants of economic growth has typically neglected the influence of religion. To fill this gap, we use international survey data on religiosity for a broad panel of countries to investigate the effects of church attendance and religious beliefs on economic growth. To isolate the direction of causation from religiosity to economic performance, we use instrumental variables suggested by our analysis of systems in which church attendance and beliefs are the dependent variables. The instruments are dummy variables for the presence of state religion and for regulation of the religion market, an indicator of religious pluralism, and the composition of religions. We find that economic growth responds positively to the extent of religious beliefs, notably those in hell and heaven, but negatively to church attendance. That is, growth depends on the extent of believing relative to belonging. These results accord with a perspective in which religious beliefs influence individual traits that enhance economic performance. The beliefs are, in turn, the principal output of the religion sector, and church attendance measures the inputs to this sector. Hence, for given beliefs, more church attendance signifies more resources used up by the religion sector.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: This article explored whether occupational gender segregation at the labor market level exacerbates the wage penalty associated with female-dominated jobs, and investigated the association between gender composition and the size of within-job gender gaps.
Abstract: Although abundant evidence documents pay penalties for female-dominated jobs, there is also substantial variation in gender inequality across U.S. metropolitan areas. These lines of research are united by exploring whether occupational gender segregation at the labor market level exacerbates the wage penalty associated with female-dominated jobs, and investigating the association between gender composition and the size of within-job gender gaps. Results show that the penalty accruing to female-dominated jobs is weaker in more integrated labor markets, but only among men, and that labor market integration does not significantly influence the association between the gender composition of jobs and within-job inequality. Further, even women in completely segregated jobs benefit from a context of occupational integration. It is concluded that, although gender devaluation is widespread and systematic, variation in gender composition effects across local contexts is an important dimension of gender inequality.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, two alternative explanations for the finding that different cultural tastes and practices are concentrated within different sociodemographic segments of society are analyzed and empirically tested: the homophily model and the distancing model.
Abstract: Why do different kinds of people like different kinds of culture ? Two answers to this question are formally analyzed and empirically tested: the homophily model and the distancing model. Computer simulation demonstrates that these models are alternative explanations for the finding that different cultural tastes and practices are concentrated within different sociodemographic segments of society. Conflicting implications of the two models are identified. Although both models predict that cultural forms compete for people (i.e., people are a scarce resource on which cultural forms depend), the distancing model differs from the homophily model in that the distancing model predicts a dual ecology: Not only do cultural forms compete for people, but people compete for cultural forms. According to the distancing model, the larger the segment of society in which a cultural form is liked, the smaller is the proportion of people in that segment of society who like that cultural form. The homophily model predicts that people do not compete for cultural forms. Instead, it predicts a local bandwagon effect: The larger the segment of society in which a cultural form is liked, the larger is the proportion of people in that segment of society who like that cultural form. An empirical test using 1993 General Social Survey data supports the prediction of both models that cultural forms compete for people. The analysis also reveals a local bandwagon effect, yielding further empirical support for the homophily model and disconfirming the distancing model's prediction of a dual ecology.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors identify some of the social and organizational conditions that limited the impact of workplace transformation at four manufacturing plants during the 1990s, and suggest that successful implementation of workplace change may depend on the ability of corporate executives to demonstrate the very capacity for flexibility that they often demand of their hourly employees.
Abstract: Using data from a comparative, multisite ethnography, this paper identifies some of the social and organizational conditions that limited the impact of workplace transformation at four manufacturing plants during the 1990s. Although these plants adopted an array of new work practices, most achieved only limited gains and were generally unable to transcend the traditional boundary between salaried and hourly employees. A key reason lay in the managerial orientation toward production that was brought to bear on the process of workplace change. This orientation, which placed substantial emphasis on scientific and technical rationality, limited the firm's ability to provide an overarching normative or moral framework within which workplace change might unfold, leaving team systems vulnerable to anomic tendencies, to status distinctions among hourly employees, and to other sources of instability. The predominance of a technical, expert-centered orientation toward production also introduced salient contradictions into the new work regimes, pitting a logic of standardization against managerial efforts to cultivate a logic of participation. These findings suggest that successful implementation of workplace change may depend on the ability of corporate executives to demonstrate the very capacity for flexibility that they often demand of their hourly employees.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The authors explored the role that orientalism has played in shaping ethnic inequality among Jews in Israel, and argued that the imperatives of this westernization project were the initial impetus to exclude Middle Eastern Jews, as well as non-Jewish Arabs, from emerging Israeli society.
Abstract: This paper explores the role that orientalism has played in shaping ethnic inequality among Jews in Israel. Earlier works usually explain ethnic exclusion as a function of Jewish life on Israeli territory. Here, however, exclusion is located within an earlier history of a Jewish encounter with orientalism and Western European colonialism. It is argued that prior to their immigration to Israel, Jews the world-over had been stigmatized as Oriental. Through a complex process, they accepted this stigma, and they arrived in Israel deeply invested in developing the new country as “western” and uncomfortable with anything identified as “eastern .” It is the imperatives of this westernization “identity project” that account for the initial impetus to exclude Middle Eastern Jews, as well as non-Jewish Arabs, from emerging Israeli society. Viewing history from this perspective, ethnic cleavages in the Jewish world appear to have a historical stability and consistency that is at odds with the current focus on contingency and historical indeterminacy.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the extent to which prior elites obtain ownership or control of privatized assets, use political office to extract larger incomes, move into salaried elite occupations, or fall out of the elite altogether is analyzed.
Abstract: Command economies gave Communist-era elites administrative control and material privilege but severely restricted money income and private wealth. Markets and privatization have injected new value into public assets and create unprecedented opportunities for elite insiders. These opportunities depend on the extent of regime change and barriers to asset appropriation. Regime change varies from the survival of the entire party hierarchy to its rapid collapse and defeat in competitive elections. Barriers to asset appropriation vary with the extent, pace, and form of privatization, and the concentration and liquidity of assets. Different combinations of such circumstances jointly affect the extent to which prior elites obtain ownership or control of privatized assets, use political office to extract larger incomes, move into salaried elite occupations, or fall out of the elite altogether. Regime change and barriers to asset appropriation affect change at the national level, but outcomes vary across economic sectors because of characteristics of organizations, elite positions, and assets. This elementary theory serves to integrate varied findings from recent research on Central Europe, China, and Russia, and yields predictions for other regions.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors develop a framework for conceptualizing preferences for different job properties in terms of a tradeoff between risk and return in the pursuit of economic welfare, finding that actors who are "advantaged" with respect to family background, schooling, cognitive ability, and gender express a preference for "entrepreneurial" as opposed to "bureaucratic" job properties.
Abstract: This paper develops a framework for conceptualizing preferences for different job properties in terms of a tradeoff between risk and return in the pursuit of economic welfare. Following portfolio theory, job properties are viewed as having mean-variance properties with respect to the distribution of rates of growth in economic welfare. Actors may pursue a high-return, high-risk "entrepreneurial" strategy, or a low-return, low-risk "bureaucratic" strategy. An actor's choice is determined by "entrepreneurial ability" and risk preferences, which in turn are rooted in the major dimensions of family and schooling background, cognitive ability, and gender. This theory is tested by anchoring it in the Wisconsin status attainment model and then fitting rank-ordered logit models to data from the 1957 and 1992 Wisconsin Longitudinal Survey. The findings support the theory: Actors who are "advantaged" with respect to family background, schooling, cognitive ability, and gender express a preference for "entrepreneurial" as opposed to "bureaucratic" job properties. Findings also highlight the strong parallels between the process generating adult job values and the process of socioeconomic achievement itself.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In the city of Porto Alegre, Brazil, this article found that participants in assemblies of the "participatory budget" created open-ended and public-minded discussion in two of the city's poor districts.
Abstract: This article addresses the question of whether and how participation in government promotes the conditions for participants to engage in the open-ended and publicminded discussion heralded by democratic theorists. Ethnographic evidence shows how participants in assemblies of the “participatory budget” in the city of Porto Alegre, Brazil, created open-ended and public-minded discussion in two of the city’s poor districts. The urban poor of Latin American have often been treated as unlikely candidates for democratic engagement, but in these meetings participants regularly carved out spaces for civic discourse and deliberation, deploying a language of the commonality of needs as a vocabulary of public interest. In a district with organized networks of civil society, experienced community activists played an important role in curtailing conflict, while in a district without such networks, the assemblies were severely disrupted at times by virtue of being the “only place in the community” that could serve as a staging ground for some participants to manage their reputations. A comparison with a prior period in both districts shows that before the budgeting assemblies were created it was difficult to sustain any kind of regular meeting place beyond individual neighborhoods to carry out these discussions. The notion of the “public sphere” is broadened, calling for a revision of the stark separation of state and civil society in democratic theory.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, a typology of workers is developed based on individuals' labour market histories, and a model of selective mobility of workers from the state sector to the market sector is offered as an explanation for higher earnings returns to education.
Abstract: Previous work on the market transition in reform-era China has missed the direct link between individuals' labour market history and individuals' labour market outcome. A typology of workers is developed based on individuals' labour market histories, and a model of selective mobility of workers from the state sector to the market sector is offered as an explanation for higher earnings returns to education in the market sector. Analysis of data from an urban survey in China reveals that commonly observed higher earnings returns to education in the market sector are limited only to recent market entrants, and that early market entrants resemble state workers in both their level of earnings and returns to education. These results challenge the prevailing wisdom that education is necessarily more highly rewarded in the market sector. Thus it is concluded that higher returns to education in the market sector should not be construed as being caused by marketization per se, and instead that the sorting process of workers in labour markets helps explain the sectoral differentials.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors examined how three mechanisms-economizing transaction costs, network-based social relations, and institutional links-- affect interfirm contractual relationships in (1) the choice of search channels for contractual partners, (2) the formality and provisions in a contract, and (3) the intensity of social interaction in contract implementation.
Abstract: Interfirm contracts represent common economic relations in the marketplace; they are also deeply embedded in social relations and social institutions. In the context of China's transitional economy, this study examines how three mechanisms-economizing transaction costs, network-based social relations, and institutional links-- affect interfirm contractual relationships in (1) the choice of search channels for contractual partners, (2) the formality and provisions in a contract, and (3) the intensity of social interaction in contract implementation. Empirical evidence is drawn from information collected on 877 contracts from 620 firms in two Chinese cities, Beijing and Guangzhou. The authors find distinct roles of social relations, institutional links, and regulatory environments in the initiation of contractual partners and the forms of contracts adopted, whereas transaction-specific factors play a significant role in the intensity of social interaction in contract implementation. These findings suggest the interplay among economic calculativeness, social networks and institutional links, and the complementarity in the underlying theoretical ideas.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, a new conceptualization of foreign capital dependence, foreign investment concentration, which is the proportion of a host country's foreign direct investment stocks owned by the single largest investing country, is proposed.
Abstract: Scholars have long debated the impact of foreign investment on the economies of less developed countries. Many argue that foreign investment is beneficial for the host economy; others argue, just as forcefully, that dependence on foreign capital is detrimental. This study offers a new conceptualization of foreign capital dependence that may resolve this debate: foreign investment concentration, which is the proportion of a host country's foreign direct investment stocks owned by the single largest investing country. The theory is that high investment concentration limits the autonomy of state and business elites to act in the long-term interests of domestic growth. In a series of cross-national panel regression models of 39 less developed countries estimated at five-year intervals from 1970 to 1995, the often cited negative effects of foreign capital penetration on growth in GNP per capita are dramatically reduced or entirely replaced when investment concentration, and the related concepts of export commodity and trade partner concentrations, are included in the analyses. Foreign investment concentration has a significant, long-term negative effect on growth that is strongest over the initial five-year period and decreases over the next 15 years. A similar effect is also found for the 1990-1997 period. This structural aspect of capital dependence has a greater impact on development than does the overall level of foreign capital penetration.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors explore the underlying structural conditions that facilitate the expansion of ethnic boundaries or the construction of a pan-national identity, and explore how organizing along an ethnic boundary affects collective efforts at the panethnic level.
Abstract: This analysis extends theoretical models of ethnic boundary formation to account for the shifting and layered nature of ethnic boundaries. It focuses on the underlying structural conditions that facilitate the expansion of ethnic boundaries or the construction of a pan-national identity, and explores how organizing along an ethnic boundary affects collective efforts at the panethnic level. Two processes could be occurring: (1) Competition with other ethnic or racial groups could lead groups with different national origins to engage in collective action based on a pan-national boundary, or (2) occupational segregation could foster pan-national interests and networks that lead groups to participate in pan-national collective action. Using a new longitudinal data set of collective action events involving Asian Americans, the analyses indicate that the segregation of Asians as a group raises the frequency of pan-national collective action, while the segregation among Asian subgroups depresses the rate of pan-Asian collective action. The results also show that intragroup competition discourages pan-Asian collective action, and organizing along ethnic lines generally facilitates it. Overall, these findings are consistent with the cultural division of labor theory, which suggests that segregation processes influence panethnic collective action due to intragroup interaction, common economic interests, and membership in a community of fate.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, it is predicted that institutionalization of female leadership can reduce the influence gap between women and men by legitimating structures of female leaders. But, the results of an experiment conducted to test this idea show that, as predicted, male leaders attained higher influence than did female leaders, and leaders appointed on ability attained higher importance than did randomly assigned leaders.
Abstract: Socially disadvantaged individuals often encounter resistance when they rise to high-status positions. For example, women, according to status characteristics theory, will be disadvantaged relative to men in social interactions, other things being equal. Institutionalizing women as leaders may overcome such disadvantages. Drawing from status characteristics theory and institutional theory, it is predicted that institutionalization of female leadership can reduce the influence gap between women and men by legitimating structures of female leadership. Results of an experiment conducted to test this idea show that, as predicted, male leaders attained higher influence than did female leaders, and leaders appointed on ability attained higher influence than did randomly assigned leaders. Institutionalization, however, reduced the advantage of men such that female leaders appointed on ability when female leadership was institutionalized attained influence as high as male leaders appointed on ability when female leadership was not institutionalized.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors developed and tested alternative predictions about how the form of social exchange, negotiated or reciprocal, affects perceptions offairness, independent of the structure and outcomes of exchange.
Abstract: This article develops and tests alternative predictions about how the form of social exchange, negotiated or reciprocal, affects perceptions offairness, independent of the structure and outcomes of exchange. Theories of procedural justice predict that fair exchange procedures should enhance perceptions of the exchange partner's fairness. Negotiated exchange-which incorporates collective decision-making, advance knowledge of terms, mutual assent, and binding agreements-clearly appears more fair than does reciprocal exchange on most procedural dimensions. Thus, these theories imply that perceptions of the other's fairness should be greater in negotiated than in reciprocal exchange. Results from three experiments, however, show the opposite: Actors perceive negotiated exchange partners as less fair, and they are less willing to engage in unequal exchanges with them; these effects are robust across multiple levels of inequality and variations within the two forms of exchange. These findings support the authors' alternative argument: Rather than increasing perceptions offairness, features of negotiated exchange instead serve to heighten the salience of conflict between actors, trigger self-serving attributions that lead actors to perceive others' motives and traits unfavorably, and increase perceptions that the other is unfair The authors discuss implications for theory and for negotiation and reciprocity in social life.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the role of civil rights organizations in promoting compliance with public policies across local settings is examined through an analysis of the number of reported hate crime incidents in United States counties.
Abstract: Variation in compliance with public policies across local settings is examined through an analysis of the number of reported hate crime incidents in United States counties. Particular attention is given to the role that activist organizations play in promoting, or impeding, compliance with public policies. Each hate crime reported to the federal government is conceptualized as a successful outcome of social movement mobilization. Drawing upon political mediation theory and Fine's model of discursive rivalry, the analysis shows how social movement resources, framing processes, political incentives, and features of local contexts combine to promote successful social movement outcomes. The presence of resourceful civil rights organizations in a county can lead to higher numbers of reported hate crimes, but the influence of civil rights organizations is contingent upon the political context and upon objective conditions that lend credibility to civil rights framing.