Pub Date : 2022-05-30DOI: 10.1108/s0895-9935202229
{"title":"Systemic Inequality, Sustainability and COVID-19","authors":"","doi":"10.1108/s0895-9935202229","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1108/s0895-9935202229","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":431806,"journal":{"name":"Research in Political Sociology","volume":"7 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-05-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"131445176","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-07-19DOI: 10.1108/S0895-993520210000028001
K. Bentele
In recent years there has been a dramatic expansion in both the number and scope of policy proposals explicitly intended to reduce inequality proffered by policymakers in the Democratic Party. In the following, it is argued that this state of affairs is the result of a complex series of developments triggered by the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) protests. OWS dramatically enhanced both the salience and the politicization of economic inequality. These developments altered the strategies of elites and organizations within the institutional left and advantaged elite movement allies within the Democratic Party. In combination, these indirect and elite-mediated responses resulted in antiinequality positions becoming integrated into both the partisan identity and the platform of the Democratic Party. Despite the Occupy movement being relatively short-lived and explicitly eschewing reliance on institutional politics, it nonetheless had a significant impact on conventional politics. By significantly shifting the political discourse around the issue of inequality, the movement reshaped the political landscape in a manner that created new opportunities and openings for political actors. As organizations within the Democratic Party's coalition increasingly adopted antiinequality messaging this both pressured and incentivized establishment Democrats to fully embrace an antiinequality agenda. This account is consistent with a theory of political parties in which the key actors are activists and interest groups, not party leaders, and social movement research that suggests that movements are often more influential in the earliest stages of the policymaking process.
{"title":"How did Inequality Gain Such Prominence on the Democratic Party Agenda?","authors":"K. Bentele","doi":"10.1108/S0895-993520210000028001","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1108/S0895-993520210000028001","url":null,"abstract":"In recent years there has been a dramatic expansion in both the number and scope of policy proposals explicitly intended to reduce inequality proffered by policymakers in the Democratic Party. In the following, it is argued that this state of affairs is the result of a complex series of developments triggered by the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) protests. OWS dramatically enhanced both the salience and the politicization of economic inequality. These developments altered the strategies of elites and organizations within the institutional left and advantaged elite movement allies within the Democratic Party. In combination, these indirect and elite-mediated responses resulted in antiinequality positions becoming integrated into both the partisan identity and the platform of the Democratic Party. Despite the Occupy movement being relatively short-lived and explicitly eschewing reliance on institutional politics, it nonetheless had a significant impact on conventional politics. By significantly shifting the political discourse around the issue of inequality, the movement reshaped the political landscape in a manner that created new opportunities and openings for political actors. As organizations within the Democratic Party's coalition increasingly adopted antiinequality messaging this both pressured and incentivized establishment Democrats to fully embrace an antiinequality agenda. This account is consistent with a theory of political parties in which the key actors are activists and interest groups, not party leaders, and social movement research that suggests that movements are often more influential in the earliest stages of the policymaking process.","PeriodicalId":431806,"journal":{"name":"Research in Political Sociology","volume":"509 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-07-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"134262060","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-07-19DOI: 10.1108/S0895-993520210000028009
J. Stekelenburg, T. Gaidytė
Social inequality is a key recurring theme animating various protest movements over the past decade. Take, for example, the Occupy Wall Street movement conceived by many as a new global movement phenomenon. Others, however, maintain that these demonstrations displayed characteristics typical of “old” social movements. We argue that in order to understand differences between old and new movements, it is necessary to compare Occupy protests with other contemporaneous anti-austerity protests, as demonstrators in both protested against stark inequality following the financial meltdown. To do so, we rely on the Caught in the Act of Protest data where data were collected at actual demonstrations at Occupy protests and anti-austerity protests between 2009 and 2012. We examine sociodemographics (the who of protest), motivational dynamics (the why of protest), and mobilization dynamics (the how of protest). We find that the two types of demonstrations brought different crowds into the streets. Occupy protesters were younger, higher educated, and much less involved in formal organizations compared to anti-austerity demonstrators. Moreover, Occupiers were more dissatisfied with democracy. Finally, we discuss these findings against contemporary anti-inequality mobilization. We argue that political entrepreneurs on the (populist) left and/or the right will politicize current inequality-related grievances and mobilize people in the streets and/or at the voting booth.
{"title":"Occupying Against Inequality","authors":"J. Stekelenburg, T. Gaidytė","doi":"10.1108/S0895-993520210000028009","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1108/S0895-993520210000028009","url":null,"abstract":"Social inequality is a key recurring theme animating various protest movements over the past decade. Take, for example, the Occupy Wall Street movement conceived by many as a new global movement phenomenon. Others, however, maintain that these demonstrations displayed characteristics typical of “old” social movements. We argue that in order to understand differences between old and new movements, it is necessary to compare Occupy protests with other contemporaneous anti-austerity protests, as demonstrators in both protested against stark inequality following the financial meltdown. To do so, we rely on the Caught in the Act of Protest data where data were collected at actual demonstrations at Occupy protests and anti-austerity protests between 2009 and 2012. We examine sociodemographics (the who of protest), motivational dynamics (the why of protest), and mobilization dynamics (the how of protest). We find that the two types of demonstrations brought different crowds into the streets. Occupy protesters were younger, higher educated, and much less involved in formal organizations compared to anti-austerity demonstrators. Moreover, Occupiers were more dissatisfied with democracy. Finally, we discuss these findings against contemporary anti-inequality mobilization. We argue that political entrepreneurs on the (populist) left and/or the right will politicize current inequality-related grievances and mobilize people in the streets and/or at the voting booth.","PeriodicalId":431806,"journal":{"name":"Research in Political Sociology","volume":"4 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-07-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"134432092","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-07-19DOI: 10.1108/S0895-993520210000028003
Agnes Blome
What role do people's attitudes toward social policies play for the politics of welfare state reform? This chapter contributes to a growing scholarship on policy responsiveness in welfare state research with a longitudinal comparative case study of the Bismarckian welfare states of France and Germany. Quantitative analyses of changes in mean attitudes as well as polarization and inequalities of attitudes based on the 1996, 2006, and 2016 waves of the International Social Survey Program (ISSP) Role of Government module are triangulated with a thick description of social policy changes. While recommodifying and defamilializing reforms in Germany transformed the welfare state fundamentally, there was more continuity in the French welfare state, in spite of a stronger focus on labor market activation policies. The quantitative results suggest that lower attitudinal stability toward the welfare state in Germany and lower polarization evoked a higher willingness for reform than in France, where more polarized attitudes and overall marginal changes in attitudes gave French governments less maneuverability in adopting reforms. In both countries, I find no evidence for an upper-class bias in policy responsiveness. In sum, my research supports the claim that change in public opinion toward the welfare state and diverging attitudes within societies play a role for the timing and direction of reforms.
{"title":"Welfare State Recalibration in France and Germany: What Role Do Polarization and Inequalities in People's Attitudes Toward Social Policies Play?","authors":"Agnes Blome","doi":"10.1108/S0895-993520210000028003","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1108/S0895-993520210000028003","url":null,"abstract":"What role do people's attitudes toward social policies play for the politics of welfare state reform? This chapter contributes to a growing scholarship on policy responsiveness in welfare state research with a longitudinal comparative case study of the Bismarckian welfare states of France and Germany. Quantitative analyses of changes in mean attitudes as well as polarization and inequalities of attitudes based on the 1996, 2006, and 2016 waves of the International Social Survey Program (ISSP) Role of Government module are triangulated with a thick description of social policy changes. While recommodifying and defamilializing reforms in Germany transformed the welfare state fundamentally, there was more continuity in the French welfare state, in spite of a stronger focus on labor market activation policies. The quantitative results suggest that lower attitudinal stability toward the welfare state in Germany and lower polarization evoked a higher willingness for reform than in France, where more polarized attitudes and overall marginal changes in attitudes gave French governments less maneuverability in adopting reforms. In both countries, I find no evidence for an upper-class bias in policy responsiveness. In sum, my research supports the claim that change in public opinion toward the welfare state and diverging attitudes within societies play a role for the timing and direction of reforms.","PeriodicalId":431806,"journal":{"name":"Research in Political Sociology","volume":"37 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-07-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"130211601","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-07-19DOI: 10.1108/S0895-993520210000028010
Eric Blanc, Barry Eidlin
Labor unions play a key role in combating inequality. Recent research focuses on unions' ability to shape “moral economies” that make greater inequality socially inappropriate. But this research largely hypothesizes moral economy pathways for combating inequality, rather than showing them in action. Through a case study of the 2018 teachers' strike wave, we identify mechanisms that allow unions to shape moral economies. Based on analysis of in-depth interviews with key strike leaders, social media discussion groups, and contemporaneous media coverage, we find that the interaction of sustained mass disruption and worker–organizer intervention were the key mechanisms that allowed the teachers and their unions to reshape moral economies. Externally, the strikes created a social and political crisis to which political elites had to respond, while tying the teachers' struggles to broader community issues, galvanizing public support for the strikes. As disruptions escalated, the teachers' experience of collective action created a positive feedback effect, reshaping workers' understanding of what they wanted, what they deserved, and what they could win. The 2018 teachers' strike is analytically useful because it managed to reshape norms and expectations around educational and economic inequality rapidly, on a large scale.
{"title":"Moral Economies, Mobilization, and Inequality: The Case of the 2018 US Teachers' Strikes","authors":"Eric Blanc, Barry Eidlin","doi":"10.1108/S0895-993520210000028010","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1108/S0895-993520210000028010","url":null,"abstract":"Labor unions play a key role in combating inequality. Recent research focuses on unions' ability to shape “moral economies” that make greater inequality socially inappropriate. But this research largely hypothesizes moral economy pathways for combating inequality, rather than showing them in action. Through a case study of the 2018 teachers' strike wave, we identify mechanisms that allow unions to shape moral economies. Based on analysis of in-depth interviews with key strike leaders, social media discussion groups, and contemporaneous media coverage, we find that the interaction of sustained mass disruption and worker–organizer intervention were the key mechanisms that allowed the teachers and their unions to reshape moral economies. Externally, the strikes created a social and political crisis to which political elites had to respond, while tying the teachers' struggles to broader community issues, galvanizing public support for the strikes. As disruptions escalated, the teachers' experience of collective action created a positive feedback effect, reshaping workers' understanding of what they wanted, what they deserved, and what they could win. The 2018 teachers' strike is analytically useful because it managed to reshape norms and expectations around educational and economic inequality rapidly, on a large scale.","PeriodicalId":431806,"journal":{"name":"Research in Political Sociology","volume":"46 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-07-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"129406641","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-07-19DOI: 10.1108/S0895-993520210000028011
Thomas V. Maher, J. Earl
Prior social movement research has focused on the role that axes of inequality – particularly race, class, gender, and lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) status – play for who participates and how they do so. Age is another important axis of inequality. The pervasiveness of a youth deficit model, which casts young people as deficient and requiring benevolent adult tutelage, is of particular concern for youth. This chapter assesses whether the internalization of the deficit model influences young people's activism and how they perceive their engagement. Drawing on interviews with 40 high school and college students from a southwestern US city, we find that many young people have internalized deficit-model assumptions, affecting when and how they participated. This was most evident among high school students, who limited their participation because they were “not old enough” or gravitated toward more “age-appropriate” forms of activism. Interestingly, we found college students were more willing to engage in online activism but also felt compelled to do significant research on issues before participating, thereby distancing themselves from the deficit model's assumptions of their political naivety. Finally, some participants felt discouraged by the perceived ineffectiveness of protest, which resonated with deficit model narratives of the futility of youth engagement. These findings highlight the importance of understanding the impacts of an internalized deficit model as well as considering age as an axis of inequality in activism. Youth engagement is best supported by seeing young people as capable actors with unique interests, capacities, and points of view.
{"title":"Living Down to Expectations: Age Inequality and Youth Activism","authors":"Thomas V. Maher, J. Earl","doi":"10.1108/S0895-993520210000028011","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1108/S0895-993520210000028011","url":null,"abstract":"Prior social movement research has focused on the role that axes of inequality – particularly race, class, gender, and lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) status – play for who participates and how they do so. Age is another important axis of inequality. The pervasiveness of a youth deficit model, which casts young people as deficient and requiring benevolent adult tutelage, is of particular concern for youth. This chapter assesses whether the internalization of the deficit model influences young people's activism and how they perceive their engagement. Drawing on interviews with 40 high school and college students from a southwestern US city, we find that many young people have internalized deficit-model assumptions, affecting when and how they participated. This was most evident among high school students, who limited their participation because they were “not old enough” or gravitated toward more “age-appropriate” forms of activism. Interestingly, we found college students were more willing to engage in online activism but also felt compelled to do significant research on issues before participating, thereby distancing themselves from the deficit model's assumptions of their political naivety. Finally, some participants felt discouraged by the perceived ineffectiveness of protest, which resonated with deficit model narratives of the futility of youth engagement. These findings highlight the importance of understanding the impacts of an internalized deficit model as well as considering age as an axis of inequality in activism. Youth engagement is best supported by seeing young people as capable actors with unique interests, capacities, and points of view.","PeriodicalId":431806,"journal":{"name":"Research in Political Sociology","volume":"73 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-07-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"126161358","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-07-19DOI: 10.1108/S0895-993520210000028005
Marco Brydolf-Horwitz, K. Beckett
A growing body of work suggests that welfare and punishment should be understood as alternative, yet interconnected ways of governing poor and marginalized populations. While there is considerable evidence of a punitive turn in welfare and penal institutions over the past half century, recent studies show that welfare and carceral institutions increasingly comanage millions of people caught at the intersection of the welfare and penal sectors. The growth of “mass supervision” and the expansion of the social services sector help explain the blurring of welfare and punishment in the United States in daily practice. We suggest that these developments complicate the idea of an institutional trade-off and contend that welfare and punishment are best understood along a continuum of state management in which poor and socially marginalized populations are subjected to varying degrees of support, surveillance, and sanction. In presenting the punishment–welfare continuum, we pay particular attention to the “murky middle” between the two spheres: an interinstitutional space that has emerged in the context of mass supervision and a social services–centric safety net. We show that people caught in the “murky middle” receive some social supports and services, but also face pervasive surveillance and control and must adapt to the tangle of obligations and requirements in ways that both extend punishment and limit their ability to successfully participate in mainstream institutions.
{"title":"Welfare, Punishment, and Social Marginality: Understanding the Connections","authors":"Marco Brydolf-Horwitz, K. Beckett","doi":"10.1108/S0895-993520210000028005","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1108/S0895-993520210000028005","url":null,"abstract":"A growing body of work suggests that welfare and punishment should be understood as alternative, yet interconnected ways of governing poor and marginalized populations. While there is considerable evidence of a punitive turn in welfare and penal institutions over the past half century, recent studies show that welfare and carceral institutions increasingly comanage millions of people caught at the intersection of the welfare and penal sectors. The growth of “mass supervision” and the expansion of the social services sector help explain the blurring of welfare and punishment in the United States in daily practice. We suggest that these developments complicate the idea of an institutional trade-off and contend that welfare and punishment are best understood along a continuum of state management in which poor and socially marginalized populations are subjected to varying degrees of support, surveillance, and sanction. In presenting the punishment–welfare continuum, we pay particular attention to the “murky middle” between the two spheres: an interinstitutional space that has emerged in the context of mass supervision and a social services–centric safety net. We show that people caught in the “murky middle” receive some social supports and services, but also face pervasive surveillance and control and must adapt to the tangle of obligations and requirements in ways that both extend punishment and limit their ability to successfully participate in mainstream institutions.","PeriodicalId":431806,"journal":{"name":"Research in Political Sociology","volume":"20 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-07-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"125969848","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-07-19DOI: 10.1108/s0895-993520210000028013
{"title":"Prelims","authors":"","doi":"10.1108/s0895-993520210000028013","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1108/s0895-993520210000028013","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":431806,"journal":{"name":"Research in Political Sociology","volume":"73 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-07-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"123055834","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-07-19DOI: 10.1108/S0895-993520210000028012
J. Markoff, Hillary Lazar, Jackie Smith
Scholars have shown many ways that social movements and democracy are deeply connected. Here, we demonstrate a previously unexplored process by which social movements alter democratic practice. Democratic movements are often experienced as insufficiently democratic by the very activists who participate in them, impelling new practices. We present examples from recent research on democratic movements and then contend that this is a common occurrence. Building on Hirschman's analysis of organizational change, we develop a theoretical account of why activists find movements for democracy disappointing and try to correct this, either by transforming the organizations they are in or creating new ones. Hirschman categorized responses to organizational challenges as Voice and Exit; we define a combination of these we call Semi-Exit as a useful extension. We then show in some detail how both disappointment and creativity have been generated in two major movement arenas: transnational activism that links social justice with environmental concerns and the Occupy Movement.
{"title":"Creative Disappointment: How Movements for Democracy: Spawn Movements for Even More Democracy\u0000*","authors":"J. Markoff, Hillary Lazar, Jackie Smith","doi":"10.1108/S0895-993520210000028012","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1108/S0895-993520210000028012","url":null,"abstract":"Scholars have shown many ways that social movements and democracy are deeply connected. Here, we demonstrate a previously unexplored process by which social movements alter democratic practice. Democratic movements are often experienced as insufficiently democratic by the very activists who participate in them, impelling new practices. We present examples from recent research on democratic movements and then contend that this is a common occurrence. Building on Hirschman's analysis of organizational change, we develop a theoretical account of why activists find movements for democracy disappointing and try to correct this, either by transforming the organizations they are in or creating new ones. Hirschman categorized responses to organizational challenges as Voice and Exit; we define a combination of these we call Semi-Exit as a useful extension. We then show in some detail how both disappointment and creativity have been generated in two major movement arenas: transnational activism that links social justice with environmental concerns and the Occupy Movement.","PeriodicalId":431806,"journal":{"name":"Research in Political Sociology","volume":"47 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-07-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"116891024","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}