Showing papers in "Theory and Society in 2011"
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors examine the relationship between the neoliberal variant of globalization and science and develop a framework for sociology of science that emphasizes closer ties among political sociology, the sociology of social movements, and economic and organizational sociology and draws attention to patterns of increasing and uneven industrial influence.
Abstract: The political ideology of neoliberalism is widely recognized as having influenced the organization of national and global economies and public policies since the 1970s. In this article, we examine the relationship between the neoliberal variant of globalization and science. To do so, we develop a framework for sociology of science that emphasizes closer ties among political sociology, the sociology of social movements, and economic and organizational sociology and that draws attention to patterns of increasing and uneven industrial influence amid several countervailing processes. Specifically, we explore three fundamental changes since the 1970s: the advent of the knowledge economy and the increasing interchange between academic and industrial research and development signified by academic capitalism and asymmetric convergence; the increasing prominence of science-based regulation of technology in global trade liberalization, marked by the heightened role of international organizations and the convergence of scientism and neoliberalism; and the epistemic modernization of the relationship between scientists and publics, represented by the proliferation of new institutions of deliberation, participation, activism, enterprise, and social movement mobilization.
183 citations
TL;DR: The concept of clientelism has lost descriptive power as it has become indistinguishable from neighboring concepts and is applied across analytical levels as discussed by the authors, which is why it has lost its power.
Abstract: The concept of clientelism has lost descriptive power. It has become indistinguishable from neighboring concepts and is applied across analytical levels. Using Gerring’s (Polity 31:357–393, 1999) characterization of a “good” concept, I establish the core attributes of clientelism, which, in addition to being an interest-maximizing exchange, involves longevity, diffuseness, face-to-face contact, and inequality. Using secondary sources and fieldwork data, I differentiate clientelism from concepts such as vote-buying and corruption and determine its analytical position at the microsociological level. I argue that labeling sociopolitical systems as clientelistic is awkward since, operating at a higher analytical level, they have characteristics beyond microsociological clientelism and they affect the political nature of the clientelism they contain. I conclude that differentiating clientelism by confining it to the microsociological level will aid theory-building.
96 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the extent to which participation in associations (or associationalism) increases "active citizenship" was investigated in two large cities in Third Wave democracies (Sao Paulo and Mexico City).
Abstract: In many Third Wave democracies large classes of people experience diminished forms of citizenship. The systematic exclusion from mandated public goods and services significantly injures the citizenship and life chances of entire social groups. In democratic theory civil associations have a fundamental role to play in reversing this reality. One strand of theory, known as civic engagement, suggests that associations empower their members to engage in public politics, hold state officials to account, claim public services, and thereby improve the quality of democracy. Empirical demonstration of the argument is surprisingly rare, however, and limited to affluent democracies. In this article, we use original survey data for two large cities in Third Wave democracies—Sao Paulo and Mexico City—to explore this argument in a novel way. We focus on the extent to which participation in associations (or associationalism) increases “active citizenship”—the effort to negotiate directly with state agents access to goods and services legally mandated for public provision, such as healthcare, sanitation, and security—rather than civic engagement, which encompasses any voluntary and public spirited activity. We examine separately associationalism’s impact on the quality of citizenship, a dimension that varies independently from the level of active citizenship, by assessing differences in the types of citizenship practices individuals use to obtain access to vital goods and services. To interpret the findings, and identify possible causal pathways, the paper moves back-and-forth between two major research traditions that are rarely brought into dialogue: civic engagement and comparative historical studies of democratization.
83 citations
TL;DR: In the post-industrial era, sense of place reflects geographical mobility, the social construction of landscape, and marketing strategies as discussed by the authors, and rural regions like Vermont are reborn through the social, cultural, and economic efforts of local entrepreneurs.
Abstract: Sociologists tend to over-conceptualize the divergent cultures of adjacent places, both neglecting necessary structural and institutional factors and focusing on symbols more than interests. In the post-industrial era, sense of place reflects geographical mobility, the social construction of landscape, and marketing strategies. Like gentrified neighborhoods and hipster districts in cities, rural regions like Vermont are reborn through the social, cultural, and economic efforts of local entrepreneurs to create a distinctive and authentic sense of place.
79 citations
TL;DR: The DSM-III as mentioned in this paper was necessary for reasons other than the function it filled as a classification, and it was used in a series of conflicts among psychiatrists, psychoanalysts and clinical psychologists within the field of mental health, which followed the collapse of psychoanalysis as the dominant treatment type for mental illness.
Abstract: When something serves a function, it is easy to overlook its origins. The tendency is to proceed directly to function and retroactively construct a story about origin based on the function it fills. In this article, I address this problem of origins as it appears in the sociology of knowledge, using a case study of the publication of the 3rd edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-III) in 1980. The manual revolutionized American psychiatry and the treatment of mental illness, because it served the function of classification that had become critical to the field of mental health by this time. But this function must be bracketed in order to reveal the “extra-functional” origins of the DSM-III. Using field theory, I argue that the manual was necessary for reasons other than the function it filled as a classification. Specifically, its origin lies in a series of conflicts among psychiatrists, psychoanalysts, and clinical psychologists within the field of mental health, which followed in the wake of the collapse of psychoanalysis as the dominant treatment type for mental illness. I reveal the generative formula behind the production of the DSM-III, capturing a variety of social processes that influenced the format of the manual and made it a useful classification, but which are not reducible to function. In this way, I reproduce its raison d’etre in a manner similar to how the DSM-III appeared for the people who produced it. This focus on generative formulas offers the sociology of knowledge a way to capture the epistemic importance of a range of different social processes. Most importantly, it avoids the functional fallacy of reducing origin to function, and ignoring the idea that innovations might appear necessary even without clear recognition of their functional consequences.
62 citations
TL;DR: The authors examine divergence in two "places" that were once quite similar but are now quite far apart, culturally and politically speaking, and hypothesize that emerging stereotypes about a "place" serve to draw sympathetic residents and visitors to that place, thus reinforcing the salience of those stereotypes and contributing to their reality over time.
Abstract: Much recent literature plumbs the question of the origins and trajectories of "place," or the cultural development of space-specific repertoires of action and meaning. This article examines divergence in two "places" that were once quite similar but are now quite far apart, culturally and politically speaking. Vermont, once considered the "most Republican" state in the United States, is now generally considered one of its most politically and culturally liberal. New Hampshire, by contrast, has remained politically and socially quite conservative. Contrasting legacies of tourist promotion, political mobilization, and public policy help explain the divergence between states. We hypothesize that emerging stereotypes about a "place" serve to draw sympathetic residents and visitors to that place, thus reinforcing the salience of those stereotypes and contributing to their reality over time. We term this latter process idio-cultural migration and argue its centrality to ongoing debates about the accomplishment of place. We also elaborate on several means by which such place "reputations" are created, transmitted, and maintained.
48 citations
TL;DR: The authors examined the early years of Hull-House in its early years, focusing on the practices of Addams and other Hull-house residents and what they were doing to help people and why.
Abstract: The theoretical tools bequeathed to us by classical and revival pragmatism offer the potential for informing robust empirical work in sociology. But this potential has yet to be adequately demonstrated. There are a number of strands of pragmatism; this article draws primarily upon Dewey’s theory of action to examine Hull-House in its early years. Of particular interest are the practices of Jane Addams and other Hull-House residents. What were they doing to help people and why? An attempt to answer these questions in non-teleological terms forms the empirical basis of the article. This article should provide some support to those historical sociologists who might consider (or already are) taking a pragmatist turn in their work. And, it should strengthen the empirical foundations of pragmatism as an alternative (non-teleological) way to understand social action.
46 citations
TL;DR: The authors examined the influence of a pragmatist viewpoint on two broad modern theoretical approaches that have implications for the sociology of markets, one focused on stabilization processes, the other on institutional designs for promoting change.
Abstract: A satisfactory sociology of markets requires that both order and disorder in markets be addressed, yet sociologists have seemed more concerned with theorizing market stability and order. Change, however, is too fundamental a part of markets to receive so little sociological attention. One perspective that provides a fertile ground for moving ahead with developing an agenda for studying both stability and change in markets is American pragmatist social theory. This article therefore examines the influence of a pragmatist viewpoint on two broad modern theoretical approaches that have implications for the sociology of markets, one focused on stabilization processes, the other on institutional designs for promoting change. Most particularly, it draws on work carried out from a pragmatist viewpoint and illustrates a pragmatic approach to change in markets using the case of the EU’s Forest, Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade (FLEGT) action plan and initiative.
43 citations
TL;DR: The authors proposed a relational framework for a comparative analysis of radicalization at three levels, domestic, ethno-national, and international, employing the case of the Weather Underground, Fatah-Tanzim, and al-Qaeda respectively.
Abstract: Scholars of political terrorism generally agree that the radical group is usually a splinter faction of an opposition movement. Seldom, however, is an attempt made to incorporate insights and tools from the literature on social movements and contentious politics into the study of the process by which a faction splinters from the larger opposition movement and adopts terrorist tactics—a process commonly known as radicalization. Drawing upon the relational approach from the literature on contentious politics, this article seeks to further understanding of radicalization by examining how and when relational mechanisms, operating in their respective relational arenas, interact and combine to drive it. Proposed is a relational framework for a comparative analysis of radicalization at three levels—domestic, ethno-national, and international—employing the case of the Weather Underground, Fatah-Tanzim, and al-Qaeda respectively.
38 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors examine discursive and programmatic frameworks, which together redefine the role of both the consumer and the citizen to arrive at an individual who can be interested and mobilized in favor of new recommendations.
Abstract: With the rise of environmental themes and the increasing support of the “sustainable development” objective, public institutions have shown a renewed interest in the sphere of consumption. During the 1990s, a new dimension in public regulation was developed for the more downstream part of economic circuits, precisely to eliminate the negative effects of consumption and to be able to subject it to criteria of “sustainability.” The initiatives taken thus far have in fact mainly targeted the general population, primarily considered as a set of individual consumers. The latter are expected to become aware of their share of responsibility in the pressures exerted on natural resources and environments, and thus of the need to adapt their consumption habits in order to improve the situation. This article proposes to seize this dynamic, which seems to be expanding. It examines the discursive and programmatic frameworks, which together redefine the role of both the consumer and the citizen to arrive at an individual who can be interested and mobilized in favor of new recommendations. It analyzes the logic from which an effort attempting to make acts of consumption conform to renewed requirements has been established in its wake. This allows for a better understanding of the institutional devices that have been favored, in particular insofar as they appear to be the result of a constrained space of possibilities. In brief, it is a governmentality that tends to be deployed, although it is also likely to give rise to tensions.
37 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors evaluate the political effectiveness of the Gramscian-style counter-hegemonic strategy employed by the leading Islamist movement in Egypt and analyze the unfolding of this strategy during the period from 1982 to 2007, emphasizing how its success triggered heightened state repression, which ultimately prevented Islamists from capitalizing politically on their growing cultural power.
Abstract: This article evaluates the political effectiveness of the Gramscian-style counterhegemonic strategy employed by the leading Islamist movement in Egypt. The article analyzes, historically and comparatively, the unfolding of this strategy during the period from 1982 to 2007, emphasizing how its success triggered heightened state repression, which ultimately prevented Islamists from capitalizing politically on their growing cultural power. The coercive capacity of modern states, as this article demonstrates, can preserve a regime’s political domination long after it has lost its cultural hegemony. The empirical evidence derived from the Islamist experience in Egypt supports theoretical claims that go beyond the Egyptian case: namely, it exposes the limits of the narrow cultural reading of Gramsci that has become commonplace over the years.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors present and analyze cases where solutions to complicated quandaries become abstract bits of professional knowledge and demonstrate that in some circumstances institutionalized practices can contribute to the flexibility of expert reasoning and decision-making.
Abstract: This article draws on ethnographic data from a field leading university licensing office to document and explain a key step in the process of institutionalization, the abstraction of standardized rules and procedures from idiosyncratic efforts to collectively resolve pressing problems. I present and analyze cases where solutions to complicated quandaries become abstract bits of professional knowledge and demonstrate that in some circumstances institutionalized practices can contribute to the flexibility of expert reasoning and decision-making. In this setting, expertise is rationalized in response to institutional tensions between academic and business approaches to deal making and professional tensions between relational and legal approaches to negotiation. Abstraction and formalization contribute both to the convergence and stability of routines and to their improvisational use in professional work. Close attention to these processes in a strategic research setting sheds new light on an interesting tension in sociological theories of the professions while contributing to the development of a micro-level, social constructivist institutional theory.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors examine individuals' lay understandings of moral responsibilities between adult kin members and argue that moral responsibilities are contextual and relational, and also analyze how class, gender, and capabilities affect how individuals imagine, expect and discuss care responsibilities.
Abstract: This article examines individuals’ lay understandings of moral responsibilities between adult kin members. Moral sentiments and practical judgments are important in shaping kinship responsibilities. The article discusses how judgments on requests of support can be reflexive and critical, taking into account many factors, including merit, social proximity, a history of personal encounters, overlapping commitments, and moral identity in the family. In so doing, we argue that moral responsibilities are contextual and relational. We also analyze how class, gender, and capabilities affect how individuals imagine, expect and discuss care responsibilities. We also offer a critique of social capital theory of families, suggesting that their versions of morality are instrumental, alienated, and restrictive. Although Bourdieu’s concept of habitus overlaps with our proposed moral sentiments approach, the former does not adequately address moral concerns, commitments, and evaluations. The article aims to contribute to a better understanding of everyday morality by drawing upon different literatures in sociology, moral philosophy, postcommunism, and development studies.
TL;DR: The authors examined the structural hermeneutics of the O'Reilly Factor and found that the show produces a radically simple and partisan schema for interpreting the news, but to do so it relies on the constructed persona of the host, a complex underlying meaning structure formulated around binary oppositions, and a number of rhetorical techniques.
Abstract: There has been a significant rise in opinion and talk-based programming on American cable news channels since the mid-1990s. These news analysis programs are often politically partisan in their interpretive approach. This article examines one of the most prominent and popular of these shows, The O’Reilly Factor using the theoretical tools of structural hermeneutics. The program produces a radically simple and partisan schema for interpreting the news, but to do so it relies on the constructed persona of the host, a complex underlying meaning structure formulated around binary oppositions, and a number of rhetorical techniques. The show simplifies, but is not itself simple. To simplify the news in a way that suggests partisan conclusions that still seem relevant rather than cartoonish, individual episodes and segments of the show frame issues in terms of a meaning structure that leads strongly to partisan conclusions, but affords an appearance of the reasonable consideration of diverse views. It is suggested that this kind of deep analysis of meaning structures is important for making sense of how news analysis programs and mediated partisanship function as a cultural system.
TL;DR: The authors argue that the connection between financial innovation and financial inclusion is endogenous and suggest two main typologies of financial innovators: Market Utopians (MUs) and Populist Innovators (PIs).
Abstract: Rightwing theorists argue that we owe the current financial crisis to the democratization of credit, or financial inclusion: politics interfered with the market to benefit marginalized actors, only to cause instability and risk. Leftwing theorists focus instead on financialization: namely, the shift of profit-making activities from industry to finance. These views implicitly draw on Schumpeter and Marx. Much like their intellectual progenitors, they emphasize exogenous processes to explain financial change. Here I claim that the connection between financial innovation and financial inclusion is endogenous. I suggest two main typologies of financial innovators: Market Utopians (MUs) and Populist Innovators (PIs). Financial inclusion, I submit, is the byproduct of the quest for power of the latter.
TL;DR: In the seventeenth-century France, Colbert built a more effective state administration not by rationalizing state offices but by using public documents to increase the government's intellectual capacity to exercise logistical power and engage in territorial governance.
Abstract: In seventeenth-century France, Colbert built a more effective state administration not by rationalizing state offices but by using public documents to increase the government’s intellectual capacity to exercise logistical power and engage in territorial governance. This pattern calls into question Weber’s model of the genesis of “modern officialdom,” suggesting that its source was not social rationalization, but rather the identification and management of expertise. Colbert recruited into government nascent technocrats with knowledge useful to territorial politics, using contracts and other documents to limit their independence and subordinate them to patrimonial authorities. They exercised specific duties and impersonal powers in jurisdictional areas—much like modern technocrats. Their expertise enhanced the intellectual capacity of the administration to exercise territorial power and made the state less dependent on patrimonial clienteles without challenging the patrimonial culture of power/knowledge.
TL;DR: The authors examines the formative influence of the organizational field of religion on emerging modern forms of popular political mobilization in Britain and the United States in the early nineteenth century when a transition towards enduring campaigns of extended geographical scale occurred.
Abstract: This article examines the formative influence of the organizational field of religion on emerging modern forms of popular political mobilization in Britain and the United States in the early nineteenth century when a transition towards enduring campaigns of extended geographical scale occurred. The temporal ordering of mobilization activities reveals the strong presence of religious constituencies and religious organizational models in the mobilizatory sequences that first instituted a mass-produced popular politics. Two related yet analytically distinct generative effects of the religious field can be discerned. First, in both cases the transition toward modern forms of popular mobilization was driven by the religious institutionalization of organizational forms of centralized voluntarism that facilitated extensive collective action. Second, the adoption of different varieties of the same organizational forms led to important divergences. The spread in the United States of societies for moral reformation—in contrast to their non-survival in Britain—steered popular politics there towards a more moralistic framing of public issues. These findings indicate the importance of the organizational field of religion for the configuration of modern forms of popular collective action and confirm the analytical importance of religion’s organizational aspects for the study of collective action.
TL;DR: In this article, a new explanation for the sudden rise in popularity of French existentialism, in particular of Sartre's version, in the mid-1940s, was proposed.
Abstract: This article offers a new explanation for the sudden rise in popularity of French existentialism, in particular of Sartre’s version, in the mid-1940s It develops a multidimensional account that recognizes both structural and cultural factors The explanation differs from, and more fully addresses the complexity of the situation than, the two most prominent existing explanations: namely Anna Boschetti’s Bourdieu-inspired account and Randall Collins’s network-based approach It is argued that, because of specific socio-political circumstances, the intellectual establishment became tainted and lost legitimacy, with its aesthetic and philosophical views now regarded as outdated if not politically dangerous This hiatus brought unprecedented publishing opportunities for a new philosophical current, and skilful public performances by the main protagonists helped its ascendancy Most importantly, existentialist writers colluded with de Gaulle in portraying a cohesive and defiant French nation; and their philosophy, especially in its notion of responsibility, enabled sections of French society to assimilate and make sense of the recent past, whilst drawing a line underneath it so as to move forward
TL;DR: This paper explored the relation between the expulsion of Jews from medieval England and France and state building, geo-politics, regime styles, and taxation in these countries, concluding that Jews became financially less important but more visible as outsiders, becoming a liability for the crown.
Abstract: This article explores the relation between the expulsion of Jews from medieval England and France and state building, geo-politics, regime styles, and taxation in these countries. Jews were evicted as a result of attempts by kings to manage royal insecurity, refashion relations between state and society, and build more durable systems of taxation within the territories they claimed as theirs. As they engaged in state building and extended their ties, often conflictual, to key societal and political actors, Jews became financially less important but more visible as outsiders, becoming a liability for the crown. Similar mechanisms were at work despite important differences distinguishing England's growing regime of rights and representation and France's emergent absolutist patrimonialism.
TL;DR: The authors constructs seven distinct models for how structures of signification and social meaning participated in the transitions to modernity in the West and, in some of the models, across the globe.
Abstract: How did cultural dynamics help bring about the societies we now recognize as modern? This article constructs seven distinct models for how structures of signification and social meaning participated in the transitions to modernity in the West and, in some of the models, across the globe. Our models address: (1) the spread, via imitation, of modern institutions around the world (memetic replication); (2) the construal, by socio-cultural forces and by state organizations, of the modern citizen-subject (social subjectification); (3) the continual search for new meanings to replace traditional religious meaning-systems (compensatory reenchantment); (4) repeated attempts, in modern revolutions, to remake society completely, according to a utopian vision (ideological totalization); (5) the cultural origins and social consequences of scientific and humanistic worldviews (epistemic rift); (6) the gendered politics of state formation (patriarchal supercession); (7) the invention and production of race in the colonial encounter (racial recognition). We explicate the models in reverse chronological order, because in our synthesis, we argue that the original modern break results from a dynamic combination of racial recognition, patriarchal supercession, and epistemic rift; these changes set the stage for the four other processes we theorize. In addition to our synthesis, we also consider, from a more neutral perspective, the kinds of causal arguments upon which these models tend to rely, and thus explicate the analytical undergirding for the application of any of these models to empirical research on transitions to modernity. Throughout the article, we consider how these models might, and might not, mesh with other families of explanation, such as the politico-economic.
TL;DR: In the face of the new world risks will not the reflexivity of a modernity vehemently calling itself into question necessarily also become aware of its own limits? At issue is the problem of a self-limitation of modernity as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: This is not an introductory text in cosmopolitan sociology, but a next step into a cosmopolitan sociology, which preserves modernity, trying to construct taboos. It is a matter, therefore, of taboos and of which taboos can and should be justified, when it’s a question of not abandoning the basic principles of modernity to erosion. An almost ebullient cultural criticism, which declares the concepts human being, humanity, freedom, individuality to be Western mechanisms of repression, argues and criticizes within the horizon of a stable economic-technical civilization and society whose existence was never called into question. But is that still the case? In the face of the new world risks will not the reflexivity of a modernity vehemently calling itself into question necessarily also become aware of its own limits? At issue is the problem of a self-limitation of modernity: How are post-traditional, reflexive taboos made possible? Modernity must become aware of its own threatened modernity, of its own sacredness, which also involves the question of a transcendental horizon.
TL;DR: A study of French presidential tours in France from 1888 to 2007 as discussed by the authors showed that the enthusiasm of the crowds interacting with the successive French presidents is not civic because an inquiry may find "patriotism" into participants' minds.
Abstract: This article discusses the integrative function frequently assigned to festive events by scholars. This function can be summed up in a proposition: experiencing similar emotions during collective gatherings is a powerful element of socialization. The article rejects this oft-developed idea according to which popular fervor could be an efficient tool to measure civic engagement. It raises the following question: what makes enthusiasm “civic”, “patriotic”, “republican” or simply “political”? Based on a study of French presidential tours in France from 1888 to 2007, this article casts a different light on the topic. The enthusiasm of the crowds interacting with the successive French presidents is not civic because an inquiry may find “patriotism” into participants’ minds. It can be called civic simply because the forms and meaning of the festive jubilation, which may be summarized into the formula: “if spectators applaud, it means they support,” necessarily preexist its multiple manifestations.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors show that the contradiction between dialogue and antagonism can be overcome with the help of the idea of dialogue as developed by the Russian thinker Mikhail Bakhtin.
Abstract: The aim of the article is to show that the contradiction between dialogue and antagonism can be overcome with the help of the idea of dialogue as developed by the Russian thinker Mikhail Bakhtin. The lack of such theory led to the rejection of liberalism or to the introduction of dialogical principle into the body of liberal politics. It was Jurgen Habermas who first understood the necessity of dialogical consensus as the basis of liberal democracy. On the other hand, Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe developed the concept of agonistic democracy, claiming that conflict is inevitable in liberal democracy because consensual relations cannot harmonize contradictory political identities. The second part of the article is the elaboration of Bakhtin’s theory of dialogue and its relevance for political theory. The main point is that dialogue leads to better understanding but not necessarily to consensus. If this is so, then both conceptions of the political are moments in never-ending dialogical relations. The significance of Bakhtin’s idea of dialogue for political theory consists thus in the recognition of the inevitable dialogical nature of society. However, this dialogical concept also has a normative character. Society has to find a balance between two extremes: excessive dialogue, which leads to anarchy, and the lack of dialogue, which leads to totalitarianism.
TL;DR: This article investigated how institutional heterogeneity emerges, develops, and survives in the Metropolitan Opera archives and found that what enables heterogeneity to survive and to withstand the pressure for homogenization is its inherent potential for "multivocality".
Abstract: If institutional heterogeneity tends overall to reduce survival chances, it may also persist and be harnessed to good use. This article investigates this ambivalence by looking at how institutional heterogeneity emerges, develops, and survives. An inductive study of the “Metropolitan Opera” archives suggests that what enables heterogeneity to survive and to withstand the pressure for homogenization is its inherent potential for “multivocality.” The analysis shows how institutional discrepancies were bridged over through an opportunistic, “multivocal” action pattern, whereby the organization maneuvered between conflicting institutional demands, seeking to minimize dependence on any single constituency or evaluation principle. Maintaining discretionary options is essential in multi-dimensional space, where ambiguity makes optimization impractical. The trade-off in this action pattern includes remarkable adaptability and operational inefficiencies.
TL;DR: In the aftermath of the economic crisis of the late 1990s, the Korean government reformed health insurance system to enhance social equity and solidarity as mentioned in this paper, and the institutional features and political dynamics involved in completing the reform.
Abstract: In the aftermath of the economic crisis of the late 1990s, the Korean government reformed health insurance system to enhance social equity and solidarity. This article identifies the institutional features and political dynamics involved in completing the reform. The Korean case suggests a model of counter-movement that differs from the historical experiences of both democratic corporatist and liberal welfare states. Two institutional conditions within the politics of crisis contributed to the reform. A legacy of limited state welfare was critical in providing the impetus for reforming health insurance system. More importantly, the crisis maximized the state’s coordination capacity by mobilizing a coherent bureaucracy under the presidential authority, and by limiting interest politics. The Korean experience has important implications for the study of economic crisis and social policy response. The way in which a crisis provides new contexts for welfare and policy making institutions, rather than the institutions themselves, should be the main focus in analyzing policy responses. The focus on the political dynamics of an economic crisis helps us acknowledge the limit of ideological forces of a crisis in facilitating a particular policy response.
TL;DR: Kaufman and Kaliner as discussed by the authors point out the utility of matched comparisons of historical interaction, both symbolic and material, as a tool for understanding trajectories of stability and change.
Abstract: Through their dense range of empirical sortings, Kaufman and Kaliner, in this issue of Theory and Society, are effective in showing mechanisms through which places replicate themselves over time, but also in how their cultural and economic profiles can shift. Their work points to the utility of matched comparisons of historical interaction, both symbolic and material, as tool for understanding trajectories of stability and change.