Showing papers in "Theory and Society in 2005"
TL;DR: In this article, the metabolic rift between nature and society has been studied in the context of an expanding, global capitalist system that largely influences the organization of human interactions with the environment.
Abstract: There is widespread agreement in the natural sciences that observed increases in average global temperatures over the past century are due in large part to the anthropogenic (human generated) emission of greenhouse gases, primarily stemming from fossil fuel combustion and land use changes (e.g., deforestation). Many social processes have been identified for their contribution to climate change. However, few theoretical approaches have been used to study systematically the relations of the social with the biosphere. Our goal is to illustrate how the theory of metabolic rift provides a powerful approach for understanding human influence on the carbon cycle and global climate change. We extend the discussions of metabolism (the relationship of exchange between nature and humans) and metabolic rift to the biosphere in general and to the carbon cycle in particular. We situate our discussion of the metabolic rift in the historical context of an expanding, global capitalist system that largely influences the organization of human interactions with the environment. The general properties of a metabolic rift between nature and society include the disruption or interruption of natural processes and cycles, the accumulation of waste, and environmental degradation. Due to capitalism's inherent expansionary tendencies, technological development serves to escalate commodity production, which necessitates the burning of fossil fuels to power the machinery of production. As this process unfolded historically, it served to flood carbon sinks and generate an accumulation of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Technological “improvements” have actually increased the amount of resources used, since expansion in production typically outstrips gains in efficiency – a situation known as the Jevons paradox. The theory of the metabolic rift reveals how capital contributes to the systematic degradation of the biosphere.
320 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors show how collective emotions can be incorporated into the study of episodes of political contention and systematically explore the weaknesses in extant models of collective action, showing what has been lost through a neglect or faulty conceptualization of collective emotional configurations.
Abstract: We aim to show how collective emotions can be incorporated into the study of episodes of political contention. In a critical vein, we systematically explore the weaknesses in extant models of collective action, showing what has been lost through a neglect or faulty conceptualization of collective emotional configurations. We structure this discussion in terms of a review of several “pernicious postulates” in the literature, assumptions that have been held, we argue, by classical social-movement theorists and by social-structural and cultural critics alike. In a reconstructive vein, however, we also lay out the foundations of a more satisfactory theoretical framework. We take each succeeding critique of a pernicious postulate as the occasion for more positive theory-building. Drawing upon the work of the classical American pragmatists–especially Peirce, Dewey, and Mead–as well as aspects of Bourdieu's sociology, we construct, step by step, the foundations of a more adequate theorization of social movements and collective action. Accordingly, the negative and positive threads of our discussion are woven closely together: the dismantling of pernicious postulates and the development of a more useful analytical strategy.
187 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors show that the Habermasian public sphere can be read as maximizing the inclusion of difference in deliberative exchange, and demonstrate how the public sphere conception extensively accommodates aesthetic-affective modes of discourse, how it accounts for both negative and positive forms of power in discourse, and how it promotes the process over the end-point of rational discourse in public opinion formation.
Abstract: The public sphere conception continues to hold center stage in debates and visions of radical democratic society, and Jurgen Habermas’ work continues to be the most popular starting point for developing this conception. However, the Habermasian public sphere has also come under powerful and sustained criticism from many quarters. Here I concentrate upon the critiques of a group of theorists to whom I refer as difference democrats. I examine the three key arguments of these critics:that the public sphere conception involves the exclusion of aesthetic-affective modes of communication and hence the voices of certain groups; that it assumes that power can be separated from public discourse, which masks exclusion and domination; and that it promotes consensus as the purpose of deliberation, which marginalizes voices that do not readily agree. Against these claims I show that the Habermasian public sphere can be read as maximizing the inclusion of difference in deliberative exchange. I demonstrate how the conception extensively accommodates aesthetic-affective modes of discourse, how it accounts for both negative and positive forms of power in discourse, and how it promotes the process over the end-point of rational discourse in public opinion formation.
172 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, a typology of responses at the level of identity to socio-political change is proposed to explain patterns of identity change in terms of wider social processes and resource distribution, while remaining open to the sense and complexity of the individual's experience and moments of intentionality that arise when individuals face choices as to the direction of change.
Abstract: Changes in collective categories of identity are at the core of social transformation. The causal linkages among identity change, institutional change, and change in modes of practice are, however, complex. Developing and adapting ideas from Pierre Bourdieu's work, this article shows the coexistence in tension of a plurality of elements within each collective identity category. On this basis, it proposes a typology of responses at the level of identity to socio-political change. This allows an explanation of patterns of identity change in terms of wider social processes and resource distribution, while remaining open to the sense and complexity of the individual's experience and the moments of intentionality that arise when individuals face choices as to the direction of change. The worth of the model is shown by analysis of modes of identity change in a society now experiencing radical change in socio-political structures, namely post-1998 Northern Ireland.
101 citations
TL;DR: This article examined technological, economic, institu- tional, and political factors that shaped the earliest pricing systems for electricity used in the United States, between 1882 and 1910, and investigated why the "Wright system," arguably inferior in productive efficiency to other alternatives, was widely adopted by 1900.
Abstract: Price is a central analytic concept in both neoclassical and old institutional economics. Combining the social network perspective with old and new institutionalist approaches to price formation, this article examines technological, economic, institu- tional, and political factors that shaped the earliest pricing systems for electricity used in the United States, between 1882 and 1910. We show that certain characteristics of electricity supply led to ambiguities in how the product should be priced, which created a politics of pricing among electricity producers. In particular, we investigate why the "Wright system," arguably inferior in productive efficiency to other alternatives, was widely adopted by 1900. We argue that this outcome resulted in part from the political and organizational clout of its supporters, as well as from their particular conceptions of the boundaries and future of the industry itself. The Wright system best suited the "growth dynamic" strategy promoted by the managers of large central stations in their fierce competition with smaller and more decentralized installations. Thus, even in this apparently highly technical and mainly economic issue of how to price the product, there was ample room for social construction and political manipulation. The outcome reached was by no means inevitable and had a highly significant impact on the shape of the American industrial infrastructure.
84 citations
TL;DR: Wolin this paper reviewed The Seduction of Unreason, The Intellectual Romance with Fascism: From Nietzsche to Postmodernism by Richard Wolin (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2004).
Abstract: This essay reviews in detail The Seduction of Unreason, The Intellectual Romance with Fascism: From Nietzsche to Postmodernism by Richard Wolin (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2004).
70 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the impact of the World Trade Organization (WTO) on domestic trade policies and practices is examined, and it is shown that protectionist measures, including those practiced by the United States, have been effectively challenged, and consequently restricted, due to the WTO strengthened dispute settlement procedures.
Abstract: This article examines the impact of the World Trade Organization (WTO) on domestic trade policies and practices. It shows that protectionist measures, including those practiced by the United States, have been effectively challenged, and consequently restricted, due to the WTO strengthened dispute settlement procedures. I show that the new procedures affected the substantive policy outcomes by changing the political influence of competing actors. Specifically, I identify four transformations affecting the political influence of participants: the re-scaling of political authority, the judicialization of inter-state relations, the institutionalization of the international organization, and the structural internationalization of the state. Based on this case, the article offers a view of globalization as an institutional project. This view emphasizes the political dimension of the process of globalization; it suggests that this project was facilitated by transforming the institutional arrangements in place; and it identifies the contradictions inherent in it both to U.S. hegemony and to the globalization project itself.
69 citations
TL;DR: In this article, three types of adjustment: accommodation (the multicultural approach), denial (the ideal-typical liberal solution), and replacement (a compromise) are proposed to adjust the category system used to target redistribution.
Abstract: Governments around the world combat inequality by means of group-specific redistribution. Some pursue redistribution that benefits groups, but also wish to avoid accentuating or even recognizing group distinctions. This poses a dilemma that they try to resolve by adjusting the category system used to target redistribution. There are three types of adjustment: accommodation (the multicultural approach), denial (the ideal-typical liberal solution), and replacement (a compromise). In replacement the targets of redistributive policies are constructed to avoid accentuation or recognition of inconvenient group distinctions, but still allow redistribution that benefits these groups. Replacement is increasingly in demand around the world because the disadvantages of multiculturalism are becoming apparent while denial is hard to sustain in the face of group inequality. The actual effect of replacement is little researched and less understood, however. Does it resolve the dilemma of recognition? Two examples–India and Nigeria–where replacement has been tried ever since the 1950s cast doubt on its viability.
63 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors scrutinize the widely held belief that British and French colonial models have influenced each country's immigrant integration structures and show that the two countries are not as different as often portrayed.
Abstract: This article scrutinizes the widely held belief that British and French colonial models have influenced each country’s immigrant integration structures. It assesses the core assumptions underlying the argument: that British colonial and integration policies have relied on indirect rule of groups defined by race or ethnicity; and that corresponding French policies have emphasized direct rule and have been highly assimilationist. It demonstrates that the two countries are not as different as often portrayed. It also pinpoints the specific paths through which colonial legacies influenced integration policies, while rejecting the thesis that colonial institutions have broadly informed integration policies in Britain or France. The article thus challenges a series of received ideas, replacing them with a more precise assessment of the relations between the colonial past and the integration present.
59 citations
TL;DR: This article argued that economic growth, unfolding through institutions embedded in time and space, produces a constant drive towards inequality that results in a multiple and overlapping matrix of distributional arrays, an overall income distribution that is both systemic and historical.
Abstract: This article explores a promising theoretical approach for reassessing the relationship between inequality and economic growth. The article draws some insights from the influential inverted U-curve hypothesis originally advanced by Simon Kuznets, but drastically recasts the original arguments by shifting two fundamental premises. First, retaining Kuznets’s emphasis on the importance of economic growth in generating demographic transitions between existing and new distributional arrays, we argue that a “constant drive toward inequality” results after replacing a Schumpeterian notion of “creative destruction” for the dualistic assumptions in Kuznets’s model. Second, while Kuznets devoted considerable attention to the impact of institutions on distributional outcomes, we argue that institutions should be understood as relational and global mechanisms of regulation, operating within countries while simultaneously shaping interactions and flows between nations. The article argues that economic growth, unfolding through institutions embedded in time and space, produces a constant drive towards inequality that results in a multiple and overlapping matrix of distributional arrays, an overall income distribution (e.g., within and between countries) that is both systemic and historical.
55 citations
TL;DR: The history of sociologists' attempts to use the concept of interest in their analyses is traced, starting with Gustav Ratzenhofer in the 1890s and ending with Pierre Bourdieu and John Meyer today as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: This article raises the question of whether it is possible to have not only an economic concept of interest but also a sociological one, and, if so, what such a concept would be like. By way of an answer, the history of how sociologists have tried to use the concept of interest in their analyses is traced, starting with Gustav Ratzenhofer in the 1890s and ending with Pierre Bourdieu and John Meyer today. This focus on what sociologists have to say about interest represents a novelty as the conventional histories of this concept pass over the contribution by sociologists in total silence. The various attempts by sociologists to use the concept of interest are divided into two main categories: when interest is seen as the driving force in social life, and when interest is seen as a major force in social life, together with other factors. I also discuss the argument by some sociologists that interest is of little or no importance in social life. The different strategies for how to handle the concept of interest in a sociological analysis are discussed in the concluding remarks, where it is argued (following Weber and Bourdieu) that interests can usefully be understood to play an important role in social life, but together with other factors.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors combine an ethnographic description of the process of transnational standards-coordination with an analysis of the political contexts in which such commensuration practices unfold.
Abstract: The increasing global circulation of information, capital, and human bodies operates in relation to regulatory techniques – at local, national, and transnational levels – that both encourage and constrain these flows. Studies of the creation and enactment of standards regimes provide helpful tools for the analysis of the practices involved in creating zones of potential circulation. This article combines an ethnographic description of the process of transnational standards-coordination with an analysis of the political contexts in which such commensuration practices unfold. It follows a particular set of transnational flows, involving human DNA, biomedical knowledge, and capital, whose direction is intimately related to the relative presence of regulatory and technical regimes within different national spaces.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors analyze narratives of identity using three very different examples, namely colonial-settler Australia, lesbian romance genres, and the role of class in contemporary American and British politics.
Abstract: Issues of identity are crucial in current political debate. This article analyses narratives of identity using three very different examples, namely colonial-settler Australia, lesbian romance genres, and the role of class in contemporary American and British politics. It explores both privileged and marginalized identity narratives and the tensions between them. For example, lesbian romance narratives are contrasted with religious right arguments against same-sex marriage. Some argue that the complex intersections, compatibilities, and differences between conflicting narratives of identity reveal a great deal about how specific concepts of identity are formed. The narratives examined do not produce explicit binary constructions of dominant and subordinate identity categories. Rather, being able to imagine (or not imagine) other narratives plays an important part in the process of constructing identities within these discourses. Narratives that foreclose empathy facilitate the denial that discrimination or subordination is taking place. Similarly, privileged narratives of identity facilitate subjects’ ability to think well of themselves and their treatment of others.
TL;DR: This article used data from the Southern Populist movement of the late nineteenth century to provide both relational and cultural analyses of the use of the term “American.“ Although its use was primarily “civic,“ it had important but complex racial implications.
Abstract: As a marker of national identity, the term “American“ is culturally meaningful but also difficult and contradictory. In the first part of this article, we develop the claim that analyzing nationalism as discourse provides a meaningful lens for the study of this boundary-making process. In particular, the distinctions between civic/ethnic and inclusive/exclusive forms of nationalism have proved nettlesome for a consideration of American nationalism. In the second half of the article, we use data from the Southern Populist movement of the late nineteenth century to provide both relational and cultural analyses of the use of the term “American.“ Although its use was primarily “civic,“ it had important but complex racial implications.
TL;DR: The authors examined interactions among Protestants as they discuss homosexuality in two sites, an ex-gay movement seminar and a pro-gay liberal congregation, and found that the genre of testimony produced an authentic-seeming truth, working performatively to produce group boundaries, to legitimate authority and hierarchies in the group, and to tacitly define certain categories as abject, unlivable.
Abstract: Ethnography helps to elaborate Foucault's conception of power at work to produce subjects through micro-level interactions. I examine interactions among Protestants as they discuss homosexuality in two sites, an ex-gay movement seminar and a pro-gay liberal congregation. In two opposed groups, the genre of testimony produced an authentic-seeming truth, working performatively to produce group boundaries, to legitimate authority and hierarchies in the group, and to tacitly define certain categories as abject, unlivable. That groups can produce this effect in spite of their intentions illustrates how certain forms of social power inhere in language and work through everyday talk.
TL;DR: The early modern period was more like other rapid expansions of armies based on recruitment of commoners, and had little to do with the distinctive characteristics of the emerging nation-states.
Abstract: Perhaps the most engaging theories in historical sociology have been those pertaining to the rationalization of Western society. In particular, both Max Weber and Michelle Foucault point to the unique nature of societal rationalization in the early modern period, a thorough-going upheaval both in forms of social organization and in individual subjectivity. These correlative changes led to the nature of the modern state and its citizens. One example used by both is the rationalization of warfare. Close attention to the question of rationalization and the history of infantry warfare, however, suggests that far from representing a watershed change from non-rationalized to rationalized war, the early-modern period was more like other rapid expansions of armies based on recruitment of commoners, and had little to do with the distinctive characteristics of the emerging nation-states.
TL;DR: These essays were originally presented at a symposium of the same title that took place at the annual meeting of the American Association of the Advancement of Slavic Studies in Toronto on November 20, 2003.
Abstract: These essays were originally presented at a symposium of the same title that took place at the annual meeting of the American Association of the Advancement of Slavic Studies in Toronto on November 20, 2003. The charge to the participants wa st o"to reread the book and make short presentations on it, its significance, the validity of its analysis in hindsight, its historical contribution to our understanding of late communism, its influence on others." The symposium was timed to commemorate the thirtieth anniversary of writing of the book in 1973-1974 as well as the twenty-fifth anniversary of its publication in English in 1979.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors argue that minority nationalism can help foster regional economic success by providing increased cohesion and cross-class collaboration, and that such success promises to strengthen the nation by providing resources to smooth over class divisions.
Abstract: Times have arguably never been better for minority nationalism. The hollowing out of the nation-state has provided spaces for minority nations to assert their identities and seek wider forms of self-rule. Their position is strengthened by the increased salience of development strategies at the regional scale that draw on the cooperation and coordination of economic actors. In this context, minority nationalism can help foster regional economic success by providing increased cohesion and cross-class collaboration. In return, regional economic success promises to strengthen the nation by providing resources to smooth over class divisions. This article lays out this argument, but raises a number of political and economic contradictions that threaten to interfere both with the construction of regional strategies, and with their ability to paper over class divisions within the nation. It concludes with a brief discussion of the Quebec case to show how the promise of a mutually reinforcing relationship between minority nationalism and regional strategies runs up against a series of contradictions in practice.
TL;DR: The authors discusses and compares three books that cover aspects of political contention and social movements: Freedom is an Endless Meeting: Democracy in American Social Movements by Francesca Polletta (Chicago: The University of Chicago, 2002); making sense of social movements by Nick Crossley (Buckingham: Open University Press, 2002).
Abstract: This review essay discusses and compares three books that cover aspects of political contention and social movements. The books are Freedom is an Endless Meeting: Democracy in American Social Movements by Francesca Polletta (Chicago: The University of Chicago, 2002); Making Sense of Social Movements by Nick Crossley (Buckingham: Open University Press, 2002); and Methods of Social Movement Research, edited by Bert Klandermans and Suzanne Staggenborg (Minneapolis: The University of Minnesota Press, 2002).
TL;DR: In this article, a review essay addresses Richard Swedberg's recent attempt to redefine the field of economic sociology, arguing that it is interests that drive action but that they are shaped by culture and enacted through social relations.
Abstract: This review essay addresses Richard Swedberg’s recent attempt to redefine the field of economic sociology. Grounding his position in Max Weber’s work, Swedberg advocates a type of economic sociology that not only focuses on social relations but also considers culture and interests, arguing that it is interests that drive action but that they are shaped by culture and enacted through social relations. We conclude our analysis with a consideration of the practical and empirical implications of this new approach for the study of economic life.