Showing papers in "Theory and Society in 1998"

Social capital and economic development: Toward a theoretical synthesis and policy framework

Abstract: L'A. etudie le lien entre capital social et developpement economique. Il analyse la notion de capital social et souligne que cette notion caracterise un reseau de relations sociales jouissant d'une certaine autonomie et d'un relatif enracinement dans la vie sociale. Il examine la place du capital social dans le cadre des politiques de developpement economique et met en lumiere un certain nombre de contraintes et de possibilites inherentes aux dilemmes propres aux strategies de developpement «bas-haut» et «haut-bas». Il envisage de facon critique les theories et les politiques concues en matiere de developpement

Institutional analysis and the role of ideas in political economy

Abstract: L'A. montre de quelle maniere l'analyse institutionnelle permet de mettre en lumiere le role des idees au sein de l'economie politique. Il compare l'institutionnalisme historique developpe par K. Marx et celui developpe par Max Weber. Il s'interesse a l'institutionnalisme organisationnel de Frank Dobbin et de Mary Douglas. Il etudie l'influence des «idees» lors de l'elaboration des politiques de stimulation de l'economie aux Etats-Unis. Il estime que les idees peuvent etre envisagees comme des programmes, comme des paradigmes, comme des sentiments publics ou comme des cadres.

Tilting the frame: Considerations on collective action framing from a discursive turn

Abstract: L'A. etudie l'influence du discours dans le domaine de l'action collective et plus particulierement des processus de mobilisation. Il examine de quelle maniere les cadres de l'action collective se construisent. Il analyse l'impact des ideologies en ce domaine. Il montre que le discours intervient dan les phenomenes de mobilisation aussi bien au niveau micro-sociologique que macro-sociologique. Il estime qu'un cadre d'action collective constitue une ressource culturelle a part entiere. Il decrit dans quelles conditions les cadres discursifs de l'action collective tendent a etre remplaces.

Publics in history

Abstract: Les AA. portent leur attention sur les notions de secteur public et de societe civile. Ils soulignent que, dans la perspective marxiste, la notion de societe civile est une categorie residuelle. Ils decrivent de quelle maniere Talcott Parsons et Jurgen Habermas envisagent le role et le statut de la societe civile dans le contexte democratique. Ils presentent la theorie du secteur public developpee par Habermas. Ils montrent que la notion de secteur public joue un role considerable dans la sociologie politique actuelle. Ils considerent que l'action sociale doit etre envisagee dans son contexte socio-structurel, culturel, psycho-sociologique et organisationnel.

Theorizing men and men's theorizing: Varieties of discursive practices in men's theorizing of men

Abstract: L'A. decrit de quelle maniere les sociologues de sexe masculin envisagent la masculinite. Il se demande si ceux-ci adoptent, en ce domaine, des points de vue specifiques induits par leur identite sexuelle. Il examine l'influence de ce point de vue «sexue» au sein des constructions theoriques censees rendre compte de l'identite masculine et de la masculinite. Il identifie un certain nombre de pratiques rhetoriques specifiques aux sociologues de sexe masculin en cette affaire.

The effect of the Cold War on African-American civil rights: America and the world audience, 1945–1968

Abstract: The social movement for African-American civil rights is one of the most studied and celebrated social phenomena of the twentieth century. One factor in explaining the movement's successes, however, is usually given little if any explicit attention by civil rights scholars, and has not been explained adequately. This is the impact of the Cold War on domestic United States race politics, and the process through which the Cold War lessened resistance to civil rights movement demands. While past studies of the civil rights movement have properly emphasized such variables as democraphic shifts, changes in the economy, and social-movement organizational dynamics, the purpose of this article is (1) to stress the contributing importance of America's Cold War struggle with the Soviet Union in the development of black civil rights; and (2) to demonstrate with this important case how the politicalprocess model for the study of social movements can be clarified and made more precise through insights from neoinstitutional theory, now mostly identified with the cultural analysis of organizations. Combining the political-process model's emphasis on agency and opportunity with neoinstitutional theory's stress on legitimacy can help develop the language to explain the Cold War/civil rights connection.

Political consequences of private authority : Promise Keepers and the transformation of hegemonic masculinity

Abstract: L'A. porte son attention sur les «Promise Keepers» un mouvement americain a la fois social et religieux qui regroupent des hommes soucieux de reaffirmer leur masculinite, leur identite sexuelle. Il etudie le role de la masculinite dans les conceptions de l'ordre sexuel et au sein des mouvements moraux. Il analyse la dimension politique du mouvement des Promise Keepers. Il estime que l'on doit envisager la vision essentialiste de la masculinite defendue par les Promise Keepers comme liee a une strategie sexuelle. Il decrit de quelle maniere les Promise Keepers concoivent la sociabilite masculine, les roles domestiques et notamment le role educatif du pere.

Militarizing inequality: A conceptual framework

Abstract: L'A. etudie le role des organisations militaires en matiere de reproduction des inegalites sociales et ethniques. Il presente un modele conceptuel qui permet d'analyser ce type de phenomene. Il etudie le statut des soldats afro-americains dans l'armee americaine. Il compare le statut des soldats appartenant aux communautes juives originaires d'Europe et celui des soldats issus des communautes juives originaires des pays arabes au sein de l'armee israelienne.

Contested remembrance: The Hiroshima exhibit controversy

Abstract: The past, as historians constitute it, is the result of negotiation and debate. Final as it may seem once written down, however, the past frequently turns out not to be settled. In fact, some pasts never achieve a final historical form, but may be subjects for constantly renewed arguments. Why do some pasts have a persistent capacity for creating contention? Questions raised about the past impel inquiry by historians, social scientists, as well as the non-specialists, who try to know and understand it. When some of them, professionals or not, have been witnesses to its events, and when their memories collide in public, the constitution of that past as history is likely to become a source of still greater dispute.

A fleshpeddler at work: Power, pain, and profit in the prizefighting economy

Abstract: L'A. etudie le lien entre pouvoir, souffrance et profit dans le cadre de l'economie de la boxe. Il montre de quelle maniere les organisateurs de combats de boxe vendent leur «spectacle». Il enumere les contraintes dont les combats de boxe doivent tenir compte. Il examine de quelle maniere sont «marchandes» les contrats signes par les boxeurs professionnels. Il decrit l'organisation de l'economie de la boxe professionnelle. Il estime que celle-ci est regulee par la fidelite. Il etudie le role de l'argent et s'efforce de comprendre la nature des relations qui se nouent entre les boxeurs professionnels et leur manager

Sex, social hygiene, and the state: The double-edged sword of social reform

Abstract: L'A. analyse l'influence de l'hygienisme social sur les politiques de prevention des maladies sexuellement transmissibles et sur les politiques de lutte contre la prostitution aux Etats-Unis au debut du siecle. Elle etudie l'evolution de la situation de la prostitution en France, en Grande-Bretagne et aux Etats-Unis entre le 18 e et le 20 e siecle. Elle retrace l'avenement de l'hygienisme social dans ce dernier pays et examine son impact en matiere de changement social. Elle estime que la Premiere Guerre mondiale a marque la fin des politiques maternalistes dans le domaine de la sante sexuelle.

Is a military coup possible in Israel? Israel and French-Algeria in comparative historical-sociological perspective

Abstract: L'A se demande si un coup d'Etat militaire peut survenir en Israel Il compare la situation de ce pays avec celle qu'a connue la France a la fin du conflit algerien et plus particulierement a l'occasion du «putsch des generaux» en 1961 Il montre de quelle maniere le paradigme elabore afin de mieux comprendre les relations entre domaine civil et domaine militaire envisage les coups d'Etat militaires L'A analyse la notion de «nation en arme» chere a la France du 19 e siecle Il identifie cette conception de l'organisation de la defense nationale a un «militarisme non pretorien» Il enumere les facteurs qui permettent d'etablir une demarcation entre armee et societe Il souligne que le militarisme peut encourager le «pretorianisme», qu'une certaine connivence entre colon et soldat peut se creer Il compare, a ce propos, la situation des militaires francais durant le putsch d'Alger et celle des militaires israeliens lors des negociations de paix avec les representants palestiniens entreprises par Yizhak Rabin

A politics that is shared, bounded, and rooted? Rediscovering civic political culture in Western Europe

Abstract: The often asked question of what Europe might learn from North America - and vice versa - has long propelled comparative scholars across a variety of disciplines to use the other continent as a looking glass for their own social and political concerns. While this is a motive that has sent many a European off to the New World, it is interesting to note that the recent flood of work by North American scholars about citizenship, nationhood, immigration, and minorities in Europe, looks curiously like a de Tocquevillian enterprise in reverse. Specific European political culture and democratic institutions have been turned to as sources of enlightenment for concerns felt much closer to home: current North American preoccupations with ethnic and racial conflict, immigration and the idea of citizenship, or the "individualist" destruction of political community and civic commitment. European studies appear to be providing the substantive theoretical and empirical illustrations for dominant domestic themes that have been treated in a more polemical way in many recent American political best-sellers.

Religion that strengthens democracy : An analysis of religious political strategies in Israel

Abstract: Les AA. se demandent dans quelle mesure la religion peut renforcer la democratie. Ils estiment que les sociologues ont ete incapables de rendre compte de ce phenomene. Ils etudient les strategies politiques religieuses en Israel. Ils examinent la culture politique de la democratie liberale israelienne. Ils comparent les strategies des differents partis religieux orthodoxes juifs concernant la question des territoires occupes.

Orientalism and world history: Representing Middle Eastern nationalism and Islamism in the twentieth century

Abstract: This is a essay about framing, about contextualization. It seeks to situate the political and cultural transitions the modern Middle East has undergone in this century in their world historical contexts, the better to help us understand the meanings of the present shift to Islamist forms of politics in the region. It is my contention that scholars have misunderstood the world historical significance of the emergence of nationalism in the area, that they have misconstrued its relationship to orientalism and to the European enlightenment more generally, and (as a result) largely misunderstood the nature of the Islamist challenge. In many ways my reflections here spring from a dissatisfaction with the inadequacies (both epistemological and world historical) of the ways in which some critics of orientalism have located modernity.

Intellectuals and the crisis of democratization in Nigeria : Towards a theory of postcolonial anomie

Abstract: L'A. etudie l'attitude des intellectuels face a la crise de la democratisation au Nigeria. Il presente dans le meme temps une theorie de l'anomie post-coloniale. Il analyse le lien entre formation du groupe des intellectuels en Afrique et naissance de l'Etat post-colonial. Il examine l'attitude politique des intellectuels face a la Troisieme Republique nigeriane avortee puis face a la crise de l'Etat. Il propose une theorie du dysfonctionnement du role des intellectuels

Weberian patrimonialism and imperial Chinese history

Abstract: L'A. examine la notion de «patrimonialisme» elaboree par Weber. Il se demande si ce concept peut veritablement eclairer l'histoire de l'organisation sociale et politique de l'Empire chinois. Il envisage la signification de cette notion dans l'oeuvre de Weber et adresse un certain nombre de critiques a l'encontre des theses defendues par G. G. Hamilton qui rejette l'utilite de la notion de patrimonialisme particulierement dans le cas de l'Empire chinois. L'A. considere pour sa part que cette notion de patrimonialisme permet de mieux comprendre l'organisation politique et sociale de la Chine imperiale. Il estime en effet qu'elle permet notamment de mieux comprendre le fonctionnement de l'action politique et de l'activite de l'Etat dans ce cadre

Historiography as exorcism: Conjuring up “foreign” worlds and historicizing subjects in the context of the multiculturalism debate

Abstract: The title for my reconsideration of some current modes of historicizing cultures and subjectivities was inspired by a recent rereading of Toni Morrison’s Beloved (1987). In this historical and historicizing ¢ction the possibility of reconstituting individual and collective identities is premised on recognizing and confronting the haunting presence of the dead among the living, the misremembered and unreconciled past in the present. The writing of history can function as a healing exorcism for Morrison because of the connection between historical knowledge as articulated in the narrative scripts (or metanarratives) into which individuals must insert their personal stories and cultural, public ‘‘memory.’’ History becomes ‘‘collective memory’’ in the sense that narrative accounts of publicly con¢rmed knowledge of the past constitute the framing script through which we tie our individual lives to the fate of the cultural or political group. Individuals assume such narratives as their own memory not just through the conscious assimilation of written accounts by historians, but in a more implicit fashion in the practices and processes of enculturation. 1 Histories that ignore or exclude available evidence of alternative or variant stories can thus be seen as disavowing, repressing, or forgetting the past. The past world conjured up in the novel and in us through the novel emerges as the forgotten ‘‘other’’ within the self that has prevented an honest confrontation with the present and thus engagement with the future. 2 Historiographical exorcism conceived from within the perspective of Morrison’s novel entails two procedures. First, it summons or conjures up the world of the departed spirits so that they may speak to the inhabitants of the present with their own voices. Its aim is to make the past, or a speci¢c past, visible and audible in ways that allow us to imagine it as if we were there. Second, it engages in experimental attempts to appropriate or integrate the voices of the dead into a more

The mystery of the missing middle-tenants: The “negative” case of fixed-term leasing and agricultural investment in fifteenth-century Tuscany

Abstract: L'A. analyse les conditions du developpement economique de la Toscane au 15 e siecle. Il qualifie le processus de transition du feodalisme au capitalisme, dans cette region, d'«anomalie». Il souligne que toutes les conditions etaient reunies a cette periode en Toscane pour favoriser un developpement economique rapide. Il examine la situation de l'investissement agricole et l'influence du type de tenure fonciere dans l'organisation de l'economie toscane. Il estime que le developpement du metayage a stimule la constitution d'un capitalisme urbain. Il compare les types de contrat de location des terres agricoles en Toscane a cette epoque.

Hearing voices of the past: Comments on Toews and Zolberg

Abstract: We heard two ghost stories at the Davis conference As John Toews and Vera Zolberg have eloquently demonstrated, the ghosts of the past are restless wraiths that we conjure at our peril, and yet they are essential to the creation of our individual and collective identities For Toews, the recent ` historic turn'' in the human sciences provides the possibility for a mutually harmonious, and indeed therapeutic, relationship with these ghosts, in which initial resistance and transference might be overcome, resulting in edifying dialogues between the living and the dead Zolberg, on the other hand, shows how memorials and commemorations intended for public uni¢cation can inadvertently invoke unappeased spirits of the past, who refuse to rest until their claims have been recognized Both speakers emphasize the di¤culties in reconciling the heterogeneities of the past with the heterogeneities of the present Toews's article, however, presents the ideal possibility of historical inclusiveness, whereas Zolberg's article documents the very real di¤culties in attaining this ideal, particularly when it comes to the creation of ``public memory'' as embodied in museums and monuments Yet I think the two articles are complementary rather than contradictory Toews relates the possibilities inherent within provisional, historicized narratives, whereas Zolberg reminds us of the complex politics of these narratives Neither the theoretical possibilities nor the social politics can be overlooked in the construction of memory ^ or, in terms of this conference's theme, Theory and Society are inextricable

Policy shifts and state agencies: Britain and Germany, 1918–1933

Abstract: A major challenge in the.research on political power is to account for policy changes over time. The hallmark of the state in capitalist societies is its ability to veer back and forth among different forces: it sides with employers and keeps workers in line in some instances, promotes the causes of organized labor in other reversals, makes compromises to solve conflicts at other times, or, even more dramatically, subordinates private interests to the pursuit of national objectives in the name of the common good. Policies are, at best, inconsistent in formulation, volatile in implementation, and contradictory in outcomes. Public officials and societal actors benefit unevenly from these apparently chaotic fluctuations and about-faces. This complex seesawing behavior of the state raises an important question: Under what conditions do state policies simultaneously or alternately favor important groups such as capitalists, organized labor, and state managers?

Commentary on Charles Tilly's “Social movements”

Abstract: In his article in this issue, Chuck Tilly has analyzed the public campaign for Catholic Emancipation in early nineteenth-century Great Britain and Ireland from two perspectives: as an early example of a modern social movement; and as a political process that illustrates similarities between social movements within states and nationalist movements within an international system of states. In both respects, he has emphasized cultural dimensions of collective action that have recently attracted considerable attention from social theorists. Leaders of social movements, like nationalist leaders, try to mobilize popular support through discursive practives and symbolic displays that foster group identities. According to Tilly, these identities necessarily involve some degree of "mystification" because they express contingent rather than essential relationships among movement participants, adversaries, spectators, and power-holders. Social movements are interactive processes of collective action, not solidary groups based on stable identities.

A view of a death: On communism, ancient and modern

Abstract: It seems to me both astonishing and awful that little sustained attention is being given to the meaning and character of that amazing disestablishment, for our leading theorists told us quite bluntly that socialist regimes were secure. By this I do not mean to draw attention to the enthusiasm of the adherents of the project ^ neither to Trotsky's lyrical belief that we would be better proportioned, sleep less, and make love with more style nor to Khrushchev's ever-so-recent boast that socialism would bury capitalism. My focus is rather on Western academics. Thus Raymond Aron, the supreme analyst of the diierent polities of the industrial era, argued ever more ¢rmly in his last years that no change was possible inside the communist world. It is important to note that this view was not con¢ned to a particular generation wedded to anti-communism. Interestingly, the greatest sociologist of the current generation conceptualized matters in much the same way as late as the mid-1980s ^ and this despite clear leftist political persuasion: the Soviet Union was seen as joining to its despotic power the infrastructural capacities that came with modern means of communication so as to ensure its stability.

Between fact and interpretation: On the social misconstruction of reality

Abstract: It is no secret that in the academy today knowledge is under attack. It has become, so to speak, an untrustworthy commodity. This crisis is most evident in the so-called culture wars, pitting the critics of objective scholarship against its traditionalist defenders. The critics of knowledge practice what might be called a hermeneutics of suspicion. No manifestations of knowledge, they claim, are innocent, value-free, or untainted. Instead, all claims to knowledge are implicated in the maintenance of power-relations or domination. This standpoint presents us with a stark reversal of the traditional Enlightenment correlations among knowledge, progress, and human happiness. Whereas the philosophes were convinced that truth would ultimately set humanity free, the contemporary critics of knowledge set forth a diametrically opposite claim: that the intellectual methods that we assumed were the key to our emancipation science, rationality, and social engineering are what in fact have kept us in chains. Needless to say, these critics of knowledge, often associated with a nebulous postmodernism, are very quick to exempt their own discourse from the nihilistic implications of such arguments: it is the traditional pretensions to knowledge that one should watch out for; their own pretensions, conversely, are unproblematic and unassailable. Perhaps Michel Foucault best expressed the new mood of hyperskepticism when, referring to modern society, he avowed: the "point is not that everything is bad, but that everything is dangerous."

Competing conceptions of individualism in contemporary American AIDS policy: A re-examination of neo-institutionalist analysis

Abstract: L'A. examine les differentes conceptions de l'individualisme qui sous-tendent les divers types de politiques de prevention du SIDA elaborees aux Etats-Unis. Il propose une lecture critique de l'analyse neo-institutionnaliste de ce type de phenomene. Il se demande s'il existe veritablement une vision proprement americaine de l'individu. Il considere en detail les politiques mises en place aux Etats-Unis de prevention, de depistage, de traitement du SIDA et de lutte contre les discriminations a l'encontre des malades infectes par ce virus.