Between “Here” and “There”: Immigrant Cross‐Border Activities and Loyalties

This paper provides an empirical assessment of the prevalence and determinants of cross‐state social exchanges and attachments among Latin American immigrants living in the United States. As we shall show, using data from a recent survey of Latin American migrants living in the United States, migrant cross‐state social action comes in a variety of types, with the direction of conditioning factors differing from one type to another. Moreover, social and political incorporation in the United States reduces affective ties and provision of material support, all the while facilitating other forms of cross‐state social action. Consequently, while international migrants regularly engage in trans‐state social action, the paper shows that neither transnationalism as condition of being, nor transmigrants, as distinctive class of people, is commonly found.     

“People Will Bury Their Guns before They Surrender Them”: Implementing Domestic Violence Gun Control in Rural,Appalachian versus Urban Communities

Though gun violence is a global issue, the risk of firearm death is substantially higher in the United States than in other high‐income nations. Guns are deeply rooted within American culture; however, different subcultures exist along the urban‐rural divide. Such differences between urban and rural communities related to gun culture have been dubbed “firearm localism.” We investigated firearm localism in a state that has the highest proportion of firearm‐related domestic violence homicide and a large rural area representing a subgroup of rural culture: Appalachia. Specifically, key professionals reported issues related to domestic violence gun control in their communities. We conducted phone and in‐person surveys with a sample of community professionals (N = 133) working in victim services and the justice system in urban and Appalachian communities. Despite evidence of a strong gun culture in the rural communities, both urban and rural professionals estimated that about two‐thirds of their community would support restricting abusers' firearm access. Additionally, rural professionals were more likely to show concern for abusers' Second Amendment rights when discussing unintended negative consequences of gun confiscation; urban professionals were more likely to point out that gun confiscation can provide a false sense of security for victims. Policy implications are discussed.     

YOUNG “STARS” IN ECONOMICS: WHAT THEY DO AND WHERE THEY GO

We construct a data set of job flyouts for junior economists between 2013 and 2018 to investigate three aspects of the market for “stars.” First, what is the background of students who become stars? Second, what type of research does the top of the market demand? Third, where do these students take jobs? Among other results, we show that stars are more likely to be international and male than PhDs overall, that theoretical and semi‐theoretical approaches remain dominant, that American programs both produce the most stars and hire even more, that almost none are hired by the private sector, and that there is a strong shift toward having pre‐PhD full‐time academic research jobs. (JEL A11, A12, A23, J24)     

The Legacy of Lynching? An Empirical Replication and Conceptual Extension

Research shows enduring impacts of lynching on a variety of modern outcomes. For instance, Messner, Baller, and Zevenbergen found that lynching is associated with contemporary white-on-black homicide. We propose a model describing how events from the past can have effects on events in the present. Essential to our framework is the notion of social forces of “resistance” that can impede or facilitate the temporal transmission of collective memories. We test “indicators of resistance” that influence the transmission of a collective memory supportive of a “legacy of lynching.” Analyses reveal that the positive and significant association between lynching and white-on-black homicide observed by Messner et al. is attenuated and becomes statistically nonsignificant with the inclusion of these indicators. Our results suggest that the temporal transmission of a racist cultural schema manifested through lynching is more likely where resistance is low. These findings have implications for how researchers can study historical legacies.     

The “Hamburger Connection” as Ecologically Unequal Exchange: A Cross‐National Investigation of Beef Exports and Deforestation in Less‐Developed Countries

This study explores Norman Myers's concept of the “hamburger connection” as a form of ecologically unequal exchange, where more‐developed nations are able to transfer the environmental costs of beef consumption to less‐developed nations. I used ordinary least squares (OLS) regression to test whether deforestation in less‐developed nations is associated with the vertical flow of beef exports to more‐developed nations. An interaction term also examines whether this relationship is more pronounced in Latin American nations, as posited by Myers. The sample includes all nondesert, less‐developed nations for which there are available data across all indicators (N= 48). Overall, the results confirm the tested hypotheses. The findings also provide unique contextual support for ecologically unequal exchange theory by demonstrating that unequal trade relationships can operate at the level of a single commodity type.     

Crime, shame, reintegration, and cross-national homicide: a partial test of reintegrative shaming theory

Reintegrative shaming theory (RST) argues that social aggregates characterized by high levels of communitarianism and nonstigmatizing shaming practices benefit from relatively low levels of crime. We combine aggregate measures from the World Values Survey with available macro-level data to test this hypothesis. Additionally, we examine the extent to which communitarianism and shaming mediate the effects of cultural and structural factors featured prominently in other macro-level theoretical frameworks (e.g., inequality, modernity, sex ratio, etc.). Findings provide some support for RST, showing homicide to vary with societal levels of communitarianism and informal stigmatization. However, while the effects of modernity and sex ratio were mediated by RST processes, suppression was indicated for economic inequality. Implications for theory and research are discussed.     

Sex Ratio Effects on Marital Formation and Dissolution, 1980–2000

Although marriage market characteristics are often used to explain in–out marriage transitions, Guttentag and Secord's sex ratio thesis provides a unique theoretical framework by which to elucidate marriage and divorce. The theory emphasizes the availability of “opposite” sex partners as an important factor, but hypothesized outcomes assume a gendered marriage market whereby males are more socioeconomically powerful than females. Using geographically standardized census tract data (N = 65,443), I examine the theory empirically across three decennial time points. After establishing that males, on average, hold a disproportionate amount of socioeconomic power, I conduct cross‐sectional regression analyses of marriage and divorce from 1980 to 2000. Results partially support the theory. While female marriage is consistently related to sex ratios as expected, sex ratios influence male marriage as expected only in some time periods and female and male divorce do not operate as expected in any time point. The findings imply that marriage entry and dissolution have distinctive causal mechanisms, suggesting the need for further theorization and research.     

‘Intercourse in every direction’: America as global phenomenon

In news magazines and scholarly journals a wide‐ranging ‘globe‐talk’ has arisen since the 1970s in response to recent transformations in the world. Much of the discourse reflects a growing international concern about U.S. dominance of the world’s economy and cultural production. Understandably, the discourse is about agency. The United States has dominated global affairs since the Second World War and especially since the end of the Cold War ‐ militarily, economically, and culturally. It is sometimes forgotten, however, how much America is a product of the internationalizing processes it has come to symbolize. This essay argues that the United States is as much a product as an agent of globalization and that, if we accept the logic of globalization, the United States as a national culture is being undermined in much the same ways as other countries. The title of the paper is borrowed from the Communist Manifesto, an ironically prescient document that 150 years ago outlined the processes of globalization that characterize America’s global history and forecast the transformations we experience worldwide today.     

Reflections on Race,Diversity, and the Crossroads of Multiculturalism

This article draws upon recent research on race and diversity, much of it conducted by the author and his collaborators on the American Mosaic Project at the University of Minnesota, to provide a critical‐theoretical perspective on multiculturalism in contemporary American culture. It is based upon three main empirical findings. The first is that Americans are, on initial inspection, generally quite open to and optimistic about diversity. Further analysis and deeper probing, however, reveals a second, cross‐cutting discovery: that thought and talk about diversity is marked by a series of underlying tensions and misgivings. The third and perhaps most important finding is that the discourse about diversity is deeply informed and determined—over‐determined perhaps—by race in the United States. Taken together, it is argued that the contradictory, race‐based attitudes Americans exhibit toward diversity reflect and reproduce many of the key, animating ambivalences of multiculturalism in both theory and practice: for example, the tensions between individuals and groups and between abstract ideals and empirical realities. The article concludes by suggesting that multiculturalism is not only at a crossroads in the United States but is a crossroads where many conflicting impulses and ideals about solidarity, belonging, and equality come together in the same cultural space.     

National Culture on the Cross-National Variation of Homicide: An Empirical Application of the Inglehart–Welzel Cultural Map

Although there has been a growing literature on the effects of culture on the cross-national variation of homicide, this literature remains limited in the operationalization of national culture as well as in the modeling of the cultural effects. Adopting a multidimensional measure of national culture developed in the World Values Survey, this study examines the effects of various aspects of national culture, as well as their interaction, on the cross-national variation of homicide. The findings of this study provide evidence for the effect of national culture on homicide variation across countries while painting a more complex picture about the potential mechanisms of these effects.     

The Political Economy of “Food Security” and Trade: Uneven and Combined Dependency

This article critiques the notion of food security through trade promoted by suprastate organizations like the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, the World Bank, and the World Trade Organization. We use and refine the food‐regime perspective to contest this unwritten rule of the neoliberal food regime. Rather than “mutual dependency” in food between “North” and “South,” as argued by Philip McMichael, however, we show that food dependency has been stronger on basic foods in developing countries, while advanced capitalist countries' dependency has been mostly on luxury foods. Also, the more that developing countries become dependent on food imports and exports, the more they will be importing the “world food price” for the relevant commodities. Food‐price inflation will more adversely affect their working classes, which spend larger shares of their household budgets on food. Our empirical focus is on food dependency in emerging nations—Brazil, China, India, Mexico, and Turkey—in comparison with long‐standing agricultural exporting powerhouses, the United States and Canada. Using longitudinal data from FAOSTAT, we show that food security in the neoliberal food regime can best be characterized as “uneven and combined dependency.”     

The Sociology of Unequal Exchange in Ecological Context: A Panel Study of Lower‐Income Countries, 1975–20001

The structural theory of ecologically unequal exchange posits that through the vertical flow of exports from lower‐income countries, the stratified world economy enables higher‐income countries to misappropriate global environmental space. Tied to their unsustainable consumption levels, this misappropriation by higher‐income countries leads to the suppression of resource consumption in lower‐income countries, well below globally sustainable thresholds, which negatively impacts the well‐being of domestic populations. To evaluate key aspects of the theory, I test the hypothesis that lower‐income countries with elevated levels of exports sent to higher‐income countries exhibit lower consumption‐based environmental demand, measured as per‐capita ecological footprints. Findings for generalized least squares panel regression analyses of 66 lower‐income countries from 1975 to 2000 confirm the hypothesis, providing support for the theory. Additional results indicate that the strength of the hypothesized relationship increased in magnitude during the 25‐year period. These findings hold, net of the effects of economic development, ecological conditions, and other structural factors.     

“Back There We Had Nothing to Eat”: The Case of Transnational Food Insecurity

This article discusses migrant food insecurity in the United States from the perspective of Mexican and Central American migrant women. Many describe migrating because they had nothing to eat in their countries of origin. Migration is thus framed as a necessary strategy for overcoming food insecurity. I argue that these women's perspectives are unique in the migration literature because food security comprises a gendered labour from which men are frequently spared. Unfortunately, food insecurity still prevails in these women's households in the US. Assuming a “double‐duty” workday of earning wages and overseeing care within households, these women experience the added burden of ensuring food security of households “back there.” Thus, I argue that the food practices of Mexican and Central American migrant women provide a unique lens through which to understand the increased feminization of transnational migration from Latin America to other regions of the world.     

Does “Smarter” Lead to Safer? An Assessment of the US Border Accords with Canada and Mexico

The terrorist attacks of September 11 and their immediate aftermath along the US‐Canadian and US‐Mexican borders focused attention on border management strategies in ways previously unimaginable. Suddenly confronted by the fact that existing systems and processes were not particularly effective either at protecting security or facilitating legitimate traffic, the United States, in conjunction with the Canadian and Mexican Governments, demonstrated an uncharacteristic willingness to reconceptualize its approach to physical borders. While initiating a series of internal policy adjustments to secure themselves against terrorist threats, the US, Canadian, and Mexican Governments also signed two bilateral agreements — the 12 December 2001 United States‐Canada Smart Border Declaration and the 22 March 2002 United States‐Mexico Border Partnership Agreement. These agreements represent an important development in the US's relationship with each of its North American neighbours, acknowledging not only the deep economic, social, and cultural ties, but also the new reality that the United States cannot attain the additional security it desires through unilateral actions alone. Thus, while September 11 forced a reassessment of vulnerabilities, it simultaneously provided the United States an opportunity to work more systematically with its contiguous neighbours for security benefits, a realization likely to flow into other areas where the benefits of cooperation eclipse those of unilateralism. This paper analyses the first year of the two border accords, tracking their implementation and evaluating their successes and failures. Most importantly, the paper outlines outstanding challenges, highlights steps that the governments should take to achieve additional border security and efficiency, and draws conclusions regarding factors likely to make their efforts more, or less, successful.     

“That's not Grassfed!” Identity Formation,Maintenance, and Co‐Optation in Oklahoma's Grassfed Livestock Movement

Using interview data from thirty‐one grassfed ranchers across Oklahoma, we adapt a culturally focused social movement framework to explore a regional grassfed livestock movement. Drawing on social movement and agrifood literature, we examine how grassfed actors forge a cohesive grassfed collective identity and how collective identity processes inspire engagement in forms of individualized, cultural protest. We address how collective identity politicizes movement actors, moving them to prioritize cultural issues of the grassfed movement and development of a grassfed activist identity, sometimes above other tangible, economic rewards. We also consider how grassfed ranchers are restricting the boundaries of movement membership in response to increased interest in alternative agricultural practices by new producers and by agrifood elites, and how they use market‐oriented tactics to enforce those boundaries. In doing so we draw parallels to conventionalization processes in the organic sector. By emphasizing the identity work of grassfed producer‐activists, we provide new perspectives on an emerging agricultural movement gaining traction in the US and abroad.     

REVISITING THE SOUTHERN CULTURE OF VIOLENCE

This analysis revisits the Southern culture of violence thesis. Several limitations of prior research are addressed by probing for a cultural influence on situation- and race-specific rates of homicide in both rural and urban communities. Negative binomial regression analyses of county-level homicide and census data indicate that the density of Southern-born whites is positively associated with white argument-based homicide rates in rural areas. When this relationship is examined outside of the spatial boundaries of the South—a critical test for a regionally based cultural influence on violence—the results are identical. We interpret these findings as suggestive of a cultural influence and situate them in a discussion of the broader theoretical state of research on regional variations in violence.     

“Picking Winners”: The Recent Transformation of Australia's Skilled Migration Policy

From 1980 to 1996, Australian researchers identified consistently inferior labor market outcomes for professionals from non‐English‐speaking background source countries. In 1997, the incominy conservative government initiated a major review of Australia's skilled migration program, based on a determination to ‘select for success’among applicants. Subsequent initiatives included mandatory English language testing, rigorous qualifications screening, incentives for international students to migrate, and abolition of income support in the first two years postarrival. This article provides a detailed analysis of factors leading to this policy transformation. Labor market outcomes for 2001 are defined, including a halving of unemployment among recently arrived migrants.     

Migration to European Countries: A Structural Explanation of Patterns, 1980–20041

Various theoretical approaches have provided us with insights to explain the pattern of migration flows. Economic theory considers migration to be a reaction to labor market and economic incentives. Cultural theories predict that migration flows will occur according to a center‐periphery pattern, while social network analysis assumes that migrants follow already established migration networks. We test these three approaches simultaneously, using OECD and Eurostat data on the migrant inflow into the European countries between 1980 and 2004. The analysis demonstrates that migration flows react to economic incentives, mainly with regard to the labor market, but also to cultural and colonial linkages. There is no indication that the importance of the colonial past is declining over time. The response of migration patterns to shortages in the labor market is shown to be highly efficient, while the analysis shows that immigrants are not attracted by high levels of social expenditure.     

The political economy of urban homicide: assessing the relative impact of gender inequality on sex-specific victimization

This research examines the ways in which the changing political economy of urban areas has contributed differently to the homicide victimization rates of females and males across US cities. Recent research, while relatively limited, has presented disparate results regarding the effect of gender inequality on urban sex-specific victimization. Our work further explores this relationship by taking into account relative gender disparities in income, education, labor market opportunities, and politics in an examination of sex-specific homicide victimization in 1990. Key to this current investigation is the evaluation of feminist and lifestyle arguments that suggest that structural gender inequality has a unique effect on female victimization. Overall, our findings reveal gender inequality to be a significant predictor of both male and female urban homicide. While these findings suggest mixed support for theoretical arguments regarding gender inequality, further analyses reveal significant differences in specific types of gender inequality on victimization patterns across genders. These additional results highlight the need for greater attention toward both methodological and theoretical issues when examining the interconnections between gender, political economy, and violence in research.