Caught in a Winding,Snarling Vine: The Structural Bias of Political Process Theory

The study of social movements has recently been energized by an explosion of work that emphasizes political opportunities—a concept meant to come to grips with the complex environments that movements face. In the excitement over this new metaphor, there has been a tendency to stretch it to cover a wide variety of empirical phenomena and causal mechanisms. A strong structural bias is also apparent in the way that political opportunities are understood and in the selection of cases for study. Even those factors adduced to correct some of the problems of the political opportunity approach—such as mobilizing structures and cultural framing—are subject to the same structural distortions. We recommend social movement analysis that rejects invariant modeling, is wary of conceptual stretching, and recognizes the diverse ways that culture and agency, including emotions and strategizing, shape collective action.     

Aging as intracohort differentiation: Accentuation,the Matthew effect,and the life course

Recent contributions of sociologists and others have brought a new awareness and new theoretical understanding of the extent to which human aging and life-course patterns are shaped by social conditions and influenced by social change. Yet the potential of many social processes to account for individual aging patterns remains untapped, because research and theory have focused heavily upon comparisons between cohorts rather than the internal differentiation of cohorts. This paper shows that focusing upon intracohort differentiation over the life course leads to a mobilization of sociological findings whose age-related implications have not been exploited. Using the phenomenon of aged heterogeneity as an illustrative case, it is suggested that intracohort differentiation—operating through macro-level, organizational, and micro-level processes—can explain significant phenomena of aging previously neglected by theory, or else assumed to be psychological in origin. These processes specify Merton's Matthew effect. Implications for biological aging and for research are briefly discussed.     

Predatory,developmental, and other apparatuses: A comparative political economy perspective on the Third World state

Disappointment over the contributions of Third World state apparatuses to industrial transformation and the increasing intellectual dominance of neoutiliarian paradigms in the social science has made if fashionable to castigate the Third World state as predatory and rent seeking. This paper argues for a more differentiated view, one that connects differences in performance to differences in state structure. The incoherent absolutist domination of the klepto-patrimonial Zairian state are contrasted to the embedded autonomy of the East Asian developmental state. Then the internal structure and external ties of an intermediate state — Brazil — are analyzed in relation to both polar types. The comparative evidence suggests that the efficacy of the developmental state depends on a meritocratic bureaucracy with a strong sense of corporate identity and a dense set of institutionalized links to private elites.     

Social Origins of Civil Society: Explaining the Nonprofit Sector Cross-Nationally

Recent research has usefully documented the contribution that nonprofit organizations make to social capital and to the economic and political development it seems to foster. Because of a gross lack of basic comparative data, however, the question of what it is that allows such organizations to develop remains far from settled. This article seeks to remedy this by testing five existing theories of the nonprofit sector against data assembled on eight countries as part of the Johns Hopkins Comparative Nonprofit Sector Project. The five theories are: (a) government failure/market failure theory; (b) supply-side theory; (c) trust theories; (d) welfare state theory; and (e) interdependence theory. The article finds none of these theories adequate to explain the variations among countries in either the size, the composition, or the financing of the nonprofit sector. On this basis it suggests a new theoretical approach to explaining patterns of nonprofit development among countries—the social origins approach—which focuses on broader social, political, and economic relationships. Using this theory, the article identifies four routes of third-sector development (the liberal, the social democratic, the corporatist, and the statist), each associated with a particular constellation of class relationships and pattern of state-society relations. The article then tests this theory against the eight-country data and finds that it helps make sense of anomalies left unexplained by the prevailing theories.     

Gambling in the Netherlands: Developments,participation, and compulsive gambling

An inventory was made of the developments in what the gambling market had to offer and the extent of public participation in games of chance in The Netherlands for the period 1945–1988. Both these aspects show a sharp rise in the post-war years, but the more negative effects of gambling are also becoming clearer. Since the beginning of the 1980's, assistance organizations have received increasing requests for help and advice on gambling problems. Roughly half of those seeking help are younger than 25 years, presenting the compulsive use of slot-machines as their main problem.Acknowledgments: This article is a revision of an article that has been published before in the Dutch journal Tijdschrift voor Alcohol en Drugs en andere psychotrope stoffen. Vol. 14, no 5–6. pp 162–173. The article has been reproduced in English by courtesy of the publisher.     

Ordinal Bayesian incentive compatible representations of committees

We consider the problem of strategic manipulation for decision schemes that provide an adequate representation (in some sense) of the distribution of power within a committee. Strategy-proof representation is very restrictive: it implies that the committee contains exactly one minimal winning coalition. So we introduce the weaker concept of Ordinally Bayesian Incentive Compatible representation and prove the existence of such representations for weak games under some conditions. Finally, constructing examples, we show first how necessary these conditions are—including the use of chance in the voting procedure — and second that we cannot avoid Condorcet's paradox.     

The imperfect empiricism of the social sciences

The social sciences suffer from a methodological false consciousness that calls into question their progressive nature as cumulative, knowledge-building enterprises. While the practioners of social science believe that they accumulate knowledge through a classical scientific dialectic of hypothesis and evidence (scientific empiricism), they in fact assume their hypotheses to be true images of the nature of the social world, and they resist evidence that gainsays these images (imperfect empiricism). The idea that the social sciences progress, in a linear or dialectical fashion, is itself derived from the perspective of scientific empiricism. In reality the progress of the social sciences is problematic, if the movement of these sciences is viewed in terms of their actual practice of imperfect empiricism. Seen from the latter perspective, the social sciences are—at any particular moment in time—an aggregate of conceptual communities that communicate only imperfectly with each other and that assert the correctness of their point of view while disdaining that of the others. Since the progressive advance of knowledge is uncertain in these circumstances, the question is raised as to why the natural sciences that—according to Kuhn—are also practioners of imperfect empiricism work, while the social sciences apparently do not.     

Beyond the nature/society divide: Learning to think about a mountain

Sociological efforts to understand environment-society relationships fall primarily into four conceptual categories. The first three, involving analytical separation, analytical primacy, and balanced dualism, all draw distinctions between biophysical and social aspects of human experience, with subsequent analyses being based on thesea priori distinctions. The fourth or constructivist approach questions this naturalized dichotomy, calling attention instead to mutual contingency or conjoint constitution: What we take to be physical facts are likely to be strongly shaped by social construction processes, and at the same time, what we take to be strictly social will often have been shaped in part by taken-for-granted realities of the physical world. Technology offers important opportunities for tracing these interconnections, being an embodiment of both the physical and the social. The point is illustrated with a long-term historical analysis of a specific physiographic feature—a mountain—that has undergone little overtphysical change over the centuries, but has undergone repeated changes in its social meanings and uses. Few of the changes would have been possible in the absence of the mountain's physiographic characteristics; similarly, few would have occurred in the absence of changing sociocultural definitions and possibilities. The challenge for sociology is not just to recognize the importance of both the physical and the social factors, and certainly not to argue over the relative importance of the two, but to recognize the extent to which what we take to be physical and social factors can be conjointly constituted.The paper's subtitle is intended as a tribute to Aldo Leopold and to one of his most famous essays (1949).     

Altruism and the Endurance of the Good

Egoism is a pervasive trait in modern market societies that encourages people to focus upon their own self-interest above all else. Third-sector organizations, by contrast, are frequently termed altruistic. This essay elucidates the meaning of altruism as it applies to these organizations. Moral altruism means direct concern for another's well being—whoever that person might be. This study rejects psychological egoism as a meaningful psychological theory, and ethical egoism as a coherent moral position; it discusses empirical studies of altruism in rescuers of Jews in Nazi-occupied Europe as proof against the former form of egoism and Kant's moral theory against the latter. The essay then argues that altruism is a form of public action in Hannah Arendt's sense of this term. The essay concludes that third-sector organizations are altruistic insofar as they engage in public action, thereby, treating beneficiaries with respect for their individuality.     

Effects of gaze on hiring,credibility, attraction and relational message interpretation

Two competing models of the social meaning and effects of eye gaze exist. One holds that different levels of eye gaze have clearly identifiable meanings that will yield main effects on such communication outcomes as hiring and interpersonal evaluations. The other holds that deviant levels of eye gaze are ambiguous in meaning and that interpretation depends on contextual cues such as the reward value of the violator. An experiment required 140 Ss to serve as interviewers during a structured interview in which six confederate interviewees sytematically varied three levels of eye gaze (high, normal, low) and two levels of reward (highly qualified, highly unqualified for the advertised position). Results favored a social meaning model over a violations of expectations model: Subjects were more likely to hire and rate as credible and attractive interviewees who maintained a normal or high degree of gaze than those who averted gaze. Interpretations given to higher amounts of gaze were more intimacy and similarity, more immediacy and involvement, and more composure, informality and nonarousal.

—Ralph Waldo Emerson

—Guillaume de Salluste

—T.S. Eliot

     

What's Playing in the Organizational Theater? Collusive Relationships in Management

This article takes as its point of departureconcepts derived from couple therapy to betterunderstand collusive relationships in organizations. Aswe examine these dysfunctional workplace relationships— these interpersonal gridlocks —four main types of collusive superior subordinateinteraction patterns are identified — thenarcissistic, the controlling, the paranoid, and thesadomasochistic — and the consequences of each such dyad in organizationsare explored. In conclusion, the paper presents a numberof recommendations on how to recognize the presence ofsuch collusive arrangements (taking leadership behavior as a point of departure) and suggestspreventive steps that can be taken.     

GLB + T?: Gender/Sexuality Movements and Transgender Collective Identity (De)Constructions

In the United States during the 1990s, there emerged a new form of collective political organizing and action around transgender identity. In this essay, the author depicts the dynamics of transgender activism during the mid-1990s based on original research in the form of a postmodern ethnography of transgender activism. Using data from field research, interviews, and observation, the author illustrates the way that transgender activism was characterized by simultaneous claims to a shared transgender quasi-ethnic identity and the complications thereof. In particular, the author details transgender social movement processes of identity—both processes of collective identity construction and deconstruction—demonstrating that transgender politics are not simply identity politics nor deconstructive (queer) politics. Using constructionist social movement literature, the author argues that in sexuality/gender studies we must expand our understanding of identity politics in order to understand the simultaneity of constructions and deconstructions of identity and gender/sexuality movements today.     

Social affinity among top managerial executives of large corporations in Korea

Korea is a society subject to quite diverse social forces. Modernization should encourage reform, but the yoke of tradition restrains this tendency. This paper examines the patterns of preferential treatment of executives, based on family, school, and regional ties, by the owners of large Jaebol corporations in Korea. We found that about 21% of the total number of executive positions in the large corporations were occupied by individuals who had some type of family tie with the owners of the corporations. Also, there is a strong tendency of corporation owners to employ the executives of the same regional origin of birth as their own, but the affinity based on school ties was not as strong as that of regional origin. The findings of this study seem to support the arguments of previous studies that claimed a trust factor as a main cause of social similarity and affinity between the owners and executives in corporations.An earlier version of this paper was presented at the annual meetings of the American Sociological Association, August 17–22, 1987, Chicago, Illinois.     

Decentering America's Nonprofit Sector: Reflections on Salamon's Crises Analysis

Salamon argues that the nonprofit sector is the core or center of civil society. He correctly diagnoses the nonprofit sector's problems but his proposal to hold the center through sectoral renewal and a partnership model of state–nonprofit relations is problematic. This is the case in part because the effects of economic globalization are reducing nation-state autonomy. In addition, fragmentation of social identity in a postmodern era challenges sectoral legitimacy, while devolution and localization of social welfare responsibilities reduce nonprofit effectiveness. On the basis of U.S. evidence, I argue that, rather than trying to hold the center, we should decenter the nonprofit sector—away from dominant institutions, powerful groups, and privileged places—and join the margins in an effort to weave a new, more humane and inclusive social contract.     

“Racing for Innocence”: Whiteness,Corporate Culture,and the Backlash Against Affirmative Action

This paper argues that racing for innocence is a discursive practice which functions simultaneously to disavow accountability for racist practices at the same time that everyday racism is practiced. Drawing from both fieldwork and interviews in a corporate legal department over two different time periods (in 1988–89 and in 1999), I explore the meaning and consequence of this race in my interviews with white and African-American lawyers. Further, I follow the trajectory of one African-American lawyer, Randall Kingsley, and tell his story along with the stories constructed by the white men who still work there about Randall's departure from the company. I do so to make an argument about why these white men, by virtue of their social location, cannot see how they contributed to the unfriendly climate that forced Randall out of the department. Further, I argue it is through such everyday practices that whiteness is reproduced as a structural relationship of inequality in workplaces.     

Fairness,the veil of ignorance and social choice

A point of departure for this study is the recognition that various individuals may have different opinions about the exact form a social welfare function should have. To obtain some kind of amalgamation of differing individual social preferences, a modified version of the Rawlsian veil of ignorance is used and a definition of social efficiency suggested and analysed. A socially efficient state is defined by means of endogenous and individual veils of ignorance and, in addition, the Pareto principle. Efficiency may be described as a situation where individuals with similar social preferences constitute subsocieties in an optimal manner. Furthermore, a state is fair if it is (socially) efficient and equitable. An extension of the concept of fairness, called weak fairness, is also suggested. The analysis in this study does not presuppose any objective interpersonally comparable measure of utility.I would like to thank Professor Gevers, editor of this journal, and two anonymous referees for valuable comments on this paper. Support from the Swedish Council for Research in the Humanities and Tore Browaldh's foundation for Research and Education is gratefully acknowledged.     

Making Minorities: Cultural Space,Stigma Transformation Frames,and the Categorical Status Claims of Deaf,Gay, and White Supremacist Activists in Late Twentieth Century America

This article compares the efforts of movement activists in three dissimilar groups to replace a stigmatized status with a valued one by portraying their groups as resembling established minorities (claims of contiguity in cultural space) and as differing from groups stigmatized as deviant (claims of distance). The most common claims assert similarity to African Americans, and frequently incorporate civil rights themes (exemplifying frame diffusion). Tactically, these minority status claims exploit both the resonance of cultural pluralism and state recognition of minorities. Strategically, minority status framing enables stigmatized groups to claim legitimacy without changing — simultaneously asserting both normality and difference.     

Old Structures,New Relations: How Community Development Credit Unions Define Organizational Boundaries

Studies of organizational dynamics examine the manner in which an organization's immediate environment defines the rules and requirements to which individual organizations must conform in order to receive legitimacy and support (Scott, 1992:132). In this paper we consider the question of how an organization can achieve legitimacy and support without necessarily compromising its organizational forms or practices to isomorphic pressures. We frame the question in terms of the boundaries between organizations and their environments. Where the population ecology studies show the survival value of adopting known organizational forms and practices, and neoinstitutionalism addresses the need to display compliance with accepted forms, our case study demonstrates the possibility of removing an organization or set of organizations from the familiar interaction by naming it as a subfield of the organizational field, sharing the environment, but out of the way of predefined norms and practices.     

Deep Roles: Twelve Primordial Roles of Mind and Organization

The thesis in this paper is that there are 12archetypal roles in groups and organizations. Thesedeep roles have their origin in the rolesof the essential family — father, mother, son, anddaughter. In groups and organizations, each of theseimages of family roles will — through the basicdefense mechanisms of splitting and projection —be polarized into a good and bad part: The father as Godor devil, the mother as queen or witch, the son as crownprince or black sheep, and the daughter as princess orwhore. In addition to these eight primary deep roles,there come two secondary ones: the helpers Shaman and Slave whose function are to help the familysurvive spiritually and materially, respectively. Thetwo last deep roles are of a transcendental nature: thehero (winner) and the clown (loser), i.e., the one who has won a good family role, and the onewho has lost it — or never gained it. These 12deep roles are well known from such cultural artifactsas fairy tales and mythology. In groups andorganizations, deep roles are attended with power andinterest. Those who are attributed a deep role in theirorganization will have a similar symbolic power ascharacters in fairy tales and mythology.     

The Unmaking of Management? Change and Continuity in British Management in the 1990s

In the late 1980s, a series of reports —notably, The Making of Managers by CharlesHandy-outlined a development path for management in theU.K. This was to be based on the development of aneducation and training base and the model set by leadingcorporations. A decade later, this paper reviews currenttrends in managerial work and employment against theexpectations of the late 1980s. In doing so, it distinguishes between the objectivecondition of British management and itsinstitutionalized meaning within wider British society.It argues that recent accounts of changes in managerialwork and employment have focused solely on incremental changes inthe empirical domain and have neglected importantdiscursive shifts in the way management is understoodand enacted within organizations. These shifts have been catalyzed by the emergence of a series oforganizational initiatives-first, Total QualityManagement (TQM) and, latterly, lean production andBusiness Process Reengineering (BPR)-which aim tosystematically deconstruct management by emphasizing workerempowerment, delayering, downsizing, and theredistribution of managerial functions. In short,initiatives such as these are contributing to theunmaking of management. Managerial groups aresubject to intensification and polarization, whilemanagerial practices are diffused throughout the workprocess.