Showing papers in "Contemporary Sociology in 2021"

Ambitious and Anxious: How Chinese College Students Succeed and Struggle in American Higher Education:

Abstract: among its utilities such bland ad hoc platitudes as ‘‘This helps to explain why fullblown revolutionary situations are rare!’’ (p. 123). And yet substantively, the chapter is full of insights on inter-state interaction between the Dutch and the English seventeenth-century revolutions, and on the dynamics of revolution and reaction or counterrevolution, or what Lawson calls ‘‘the avoidance of revolutions, whether through autocratic modernization, reform programs, or counter-revolution’’ (p. 7, emphasis in the original). The same is true of the analysis of the Haitian revolution under ‘‘Revolutionary Dynamics’’ (pp. 21– 36). Similarly, Chapter Five is most interesting not because of any methodically generalizable anatomical ideal type but because of the primacy of the Cold War and its termination as determinants, respectively, of the varying revolutionary trajectories in the two cases. And the three similarities and three differences between Iran and Ukraine enumerated in the concluding section of Chapter Six do not throw much light on the varying outcomes. Here Lawson missed the chance to properly historicize the Iranian revolution, whose outcome overwhelmingly depended on the dual structure of domination resulting from the survival of an independent Shi`ite hierocracy in modern Iran—a domestic factor Lawson and his fourth-generation sources have no eye for. Lawson presents his study as being ‘‘within and beyond’’ the so-called fourth generation of sociology of revolution. The reasons for his doing so are not clear, as he is aware of the weaknesses of the fourth generation and wishes to go beyond them, and furthermore, as some of the key concepts he uses, notably Charles Tilly’s ‘‘revolutionary situation,’’ belong to the third and not the fourth generation. Or perhaps he wishes to be identified with the fourth-generation sociologists because they highlighted ‘‘the international features of revolutionary change’’ (p. 53). This is unfortunate anyway; Lawson indeed undersells his approach, which is in fact much better. The international features highlighted by the fourth generation are mainly causal, as if there are four or five vague and unverifiable conditions such as ‘‘the permissiveness of the world system!’’ The international factors of revolutions highlighted by Lawson (pp. 88–93), on the other hand, are important and clear determinants of trajectories and outcomes of revolutions. To conclude, Lawson makes a significant contribution to the study of revolution that cannot be pegged down to his proposed theoretical/analytical apparatus, and he is served poorly by his allegiance to his fourth-generation colleagues. The significance of his contribution consists in the insightful, ‘‘thickly descriptive’’ accounts of the international contexts and historically contingent configurational trajectories and outcomes of contemporary revolutions with a rich backdrop of parallel and contrasting features of the old revolutionary pattern. In offering a configurational narrative of revolutions as complex events with what Aristotle would have called beginning (situation), middle (process), and end (outcome), Lawson helps us move beyond the conception of ‘‘revolution’’ as an objective reality or, in Durkheim’s word, a ‘‘thing’’ and the obsession with its invariant causes that for long vitiated our sociology of revolution.

Voluntarily Childfree: Identity and Kinship in the United States:

Abstract: with owners and managers of two firms (one a plastics manufacturer, the other a producer of plastic packaging). Among her findings are that opportunities for innovation (‘‘upgrading’’) are quite limited: ‘‘[M]ost of the time, for these two companies, what is considered innovation is nothing more than . . . finding a product mix that better suits the customer’’ (p. 106). Supplier firms compete among each other to offer their buyers maximum flexibility. These pressures mean that in modern systems of management ‘‘Tayloristic organization of work still prevails, and is even enhanced, especially in the periphery’’ (p. 150). These contributions are eminently useful but can be taken further still. Suwandi’s operationalization of Marx’s concept of capitalist exploitation via the notion of unit labor costs represents a necessary critique of approaches that use wage trends/comparisons and/or purchasing power parities to determine workers’ welfare in GVC firms. It generates an international comparator (between imperial and peripheral firms), which explains why northern lead firms source from southern suppliers, and a way of assessing comparative rates of exploitation of imperial and peripheral labor. This, in turn, enables Suwandi to rebut the concept of ‘‘post-imperialism’’ by illuminating mechanisms of surplus drain from peripheries of the world economy to imperial centers. This insight would be strengthened by linking it to a measure of workers’ social reproductive costs in peripheral countries. This could be done through formulating a notion of a genuine living wage. Such a measure is not possible with reference solely to wage rates or purchasing power parity, as neither tell us about workers’ actual needs. Follow-up research on the living conditions (combining an analysis of social reproduction costs and livelihood strategies) of the workers in the two Indonesian firms would represent a perfect opportunity to undertake such analysis. Combining an analysis of comparative unit labor costs and living wages would in turn contribute to another core concept within the monopoly capital tradition, that of super-exploitation. This refers to a situation where workers’ pay does not cover their reproductive needs. While Suwandi mentions this concept, it is not operationalized in the same way as, or linked to, her analysis of comparative unit labor costs. Perhaps work for the future? Value Chains represents a useful rebuttal of much mainstream value chain analysis, such as the World Bank’s recent World Development Report, and of left-wing theories of post-imperialism. In doing so it makes a solid contribution to critical value chain analysis, which the author of this review hopes will be sustained and expanded upon by Suwandi in years to come.

You Can’t Stop the Revolution: Community Disorder and Social Ties in Post-Ferguson America:

Abstract: work on the political and economic forces that drove California’s prison boom. And while the book’s focus is primarily on men, further work could explore how less eligibility operates for women. In this manner, its contributions can be enriched by reading it alongside work on social movements (for unions, welfare, and the fight for a $15 minimum wage), privacy, geography, homelessness, and administrative burdens, and the ways that less eligibility is experienced across race, gender, sexuality, disability, and immigration status. Perhaps acknowledging that his opposition to parts of the CARES Act was doomed, Senator Rick Scott (R-FL) instead issued a warning that its meager relief would not be permanent: ‘‘We’ve gotta help them, but the moment we go back to work, we cannot create an incentive for people to say, ‘I don’t need to come to work because I can do better someplace else.’ These employers are going to need these workers to rebuild this economy, so we cannot be paying people more money on unemployment than they would get paid in their job.’’ The fight over living standards for low-wage workers is ongoing even as the pandemic rages, but it will surely grow once it passes. Bonnet’s work illuminates the social stakes and imperatives of that fight—the chance to create a more generous and less punitive society.

Fighting for Dignity: Migrant Lives at Israel’s Margins:

Abstract: drawn from these denominations between 1926 and 1965. Her data are remarkable, and her method is among the most impressive aspects of the book. Wilde’s attention to methodological concerns is evident by the careful references to method in each step of her argument. Many methodological details that are typically relegated to an appendix are highlighted and discussed in Birth Control Battles right up front in the introduction. All of this adds up to a nuanced and persuasive argument and a remarkably cogent and approachable example of the power of comparative historical sociology to answer important—causal—questions about social institutions such as religious denominations. Consistent with Wilde’s methodological care are conclusions that don’t stray far outside her immediate case study. The last chapter of Birth Control Battles offers three main takeaways from the book: that religious debates surrounding birth control didn’t originate in issues of sex and gender, but in white supremacy and social class; that conceptions of race are historically (and geographically) specific; and that religion interacts with structures of inequality like race and class. The book persuasively supports all three conclusions. But I think it does more, too. Wilde’s meticulous research shows, in a very concrete way, the dangers of analyzing political and social history through the prism of contemporary political and ideological divisions. Scholars have read issues of sex and gender into the religious history of birth control because those are the issues we connect to birth control today, but they are not the issues that originally motivated religious leaders. The only aspect of the book that left me wanting more was the discussion of the period from World War II to 1965 and beyond. This period received far less focused attention and analysis than the previous periods. More importantly, the arguments Wilde develops for this period are less coherent and less thoroughly convincing. In fairness, however, this is clearly not the main period of interest in the study. Moreover, these criticisms are easier to make in the shadow of the depth, power, and coherence of the arguments in the earlier part of the book. Birth Control Battles documents the institutional and ideological origins of birth control liberalization in racism, nativism, and class inequality, rather than in the debates over the status of women and sexuality with which it is typically connected. The chief assumptions the book challenges come from the sociology of religion, and thus sociologists of religion will be the chief audience for the book. But as my observations above suggest, the quality of Wilde’s data and methodology and the breadth of her argument about the role of religious institutions in larger structures of inequality make the book insightful and useful to a much broader audience, including those interested in stratification, reproductive rights, racism, social movements, and anyone interested in the role of religion in the policy-making process.