Three Kinds of Anti-Intellectualism: Rethinking Hofstadter*

Hofstadter's landmark analysis of anti-intellectualism in American life is interpreted within the framework of the sociology of knowledge. His analysis suggests three analytically distinct types of anti-intellectualism: religious anti-rationalism, populist anti-elitism, and unreflective instrumentalism. Each type arises from within its own distinctive institutional matrix. Although Hofstadter fails to anticipate the growing cultural impact of mass media institutions, he demonstrates convincingly that anti-intellectualism is not a unitary phenomenon.     

Women,Political Participation,and the Arab Spring: Political Awareness and Participation in Democratizing Tunisia

This research examines the constraints to female political participation in democratizing Tunisia. Analyzing data from the Voter Registration & Voter Confidence Assessment in Tunisia Survey conducted by the International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES) in March 2011 shows stark differences between men and women in their levels of political awareness, which causes a barrier to female political participation. Substantiated by a battery of tests, this gap is primarily structured by differences in university-level education and income levels. Contributing factors to explain the gap are differences in the degree of female public presence in urban settings, as opposed to rural areas, and a lack of access to information about politics. Policy recommendations to reduce this gap are creating educational funds for women and increasing the accessibility of political information outside of the capital.     

Kissing Macaca: Blogs,Narrative and Political Discourse

Blogs rest at the cross‐section of politics, media, and discourse. This relatively new medium has injected itself into the spectacle that is campaigns; competing narratives seek to define candidates, lure voters, and wage a war over the ownership of symbols and meaning‐making. Blogs influence the formation of narratives within the political spectacle of campaigns. This article seeks to describe local/regional blogs as social and discursive phenomena that participate in, and provide part of, the discourse of political spectacle. The article looks at this political subculture and attempts to express through an analysis of form, function, and meaning this new, palpable discursive force — a counter to the existing hegemony. The case studies utilized are the local/regional blogospheres that have developed in the states of Connecticut and Virginia. In Connecticut, we analyze the metonymic chains built in the Ned Lamont versus Joe Lieberman senatorial race and, in Virginia, Jim Webb against former lobbyist Harris Miller in the primary and Senator George Allen in the general election.     

Global Political Economy: Power, Labour, Politics

This discussion examines the issue of globalisation in terms of the interaction of economy, politics and power. It begins by considering the claims implied by the language of globalisation. How extensive and inclusive is the global economy? The second section goes on to outline the broad geography of globalisation in terms of a balance of power that is both highly uneven but also subject to marked changes. While the global economy as this developed since the 1970s may have reproduced established patterns of colonial and post‐war economic power, in the current century, power is shifting away from these nineteenth‐ and twentieth‐century models to a new balance of regional power in which large Asian economies may dominate. Alongside these patterns of regional and national power, third, the discussion considers the uneven geography of capital and labour captured in models of an international division of labour that is organised by flows of capital investment but also of mobile workers. The final section offers an overview of the architecture of global politics, from the level of international institutions and nation‐states, to non‐governmental bodies that operate across borders to support or resist the workings of a global economy.     

The Science of Infancy: Academic,Social, and Political Agendas

The effectiveness of researchers in infancy is conditioned by their participation in 3 agendas. The academic agenda is devoted to the question of understanding infants, the social agenda is devoted to the question of how to improve the life of infants, and the political agenda is devoted to finding the resources for both understanding and improvement. Amplification is provided for each agenda with attention to the evolution of theoretical frameworks used by infancy researchers.     

Crime,Politics, and Punishment: Criminological Research for Political Sociologists

As a sociologist studying the intersection of crime, punishment, and politics, it is often surprising to me how many aspects of political sociology and the study of crime and punishment overlap, and yet, there is often limited cross‐fertilization of the two fields. For the sake of brevity in this discussion, I refer to those who study crime, deviance, law, criminal justice, and punishment as criminologists. My goal is to provide an extremely brief “primer” on criminology for political sociologists, in the hopes that a short reading of some issues and research in criminology may stimulate additional theorizing and research, as has so often happened when I have read political sociological work. To do this, I begin with a brief discussion of overlaps in political sociological and criminological perspectives. Following this, I highlight some examples of criminological research which incorporates politics, and would likely interest political sociologists, Then, I highlight a hot button issue in criminology – sex offenses – and suggest some ways that political sociologists could examine recent legislation on sex offenders and conclude with brief discussions of a few additional areas of overlap for the two disciplines.     

Issue Conclusion: Sociology,Political Inequality,and Democracy Beyond 2020

The articles in this special issue all contribute to a broader and richer understanding of racial and gender politics. They help reveal how racialized and gendered barriers to political participation reflect and reproduce intersecting racialized and gendered systems of domination. In doing so, they provide insights that can be applied to uncover political processes, cultivate political praxis, and draw our awareness to empowering modes of social and political transformation. Given all this, I propose a renewed sociology of political inequality that focuses on advancing democracy. This agenda includes (1) emphasizing the state of democracy over the state of political party competition, (2) highlighting how democratizing social change happens at various levels, (3) developing and practicing empirically grounded public advocacy, (4) seeing social and political structures are interconnected, and (5) employing sociology in the service of democracy.     

Activism,Mobilisation and Political Engagement: Comparative Historical Perspectives

This editorial introduction discusses and explains the broader research context underpinning the essays, namely the Leverhulme Trust-funded Research Network, “The Comparative History of Political Engagement in Western and African Societies”. It provides a brief overview of the intellectual background to the network's agenda, and, in particular, argues that comparative sociological approaches to the study of political engagement have left it inadequately historicized. The introduction then discusses the general theme of “Activism, mobilization and Political Engagement”, which all contributors to the international conference were asked to consider. It argues that these essays, when taken together, offer new comparative historical perspectives for investigations into the history of political engagement, providing highly suggestive points of departures for future research.