Professor Goes Gaga: Teaching Lady Gaga and the Sociology of Fame

This paper presents an account of the conditions and consequences of a university-level teaching experience in the sociology of fame centered on the case of Lady Gaga. When the course “Lady Gaga and the Sociology of the Fame” at the University of South Carolina was announced in the autumn of 2010, it became the number-one Lady Gaga news story, reported and discussed in a wide variety of internet sources and media outlets across the world. The unprecedented attention devoted to the course placed its instructor in an unexpected and unique position to experience various dimensions of contemporary celebrity culture while teaching on that very subject matter. This paper offers a sociological autobiography to discuss this experience as a manifestation of the reflexivity of social knowledge and the interplay between sociology and society.     

Social control and the policing of terrorism: foundations for a sociology of counterterrorism

Sociologists have by and large neglected the study of terrorism and counterterrorism. The continued relevance that terrorism may be expected to have in our era should stimulate the development of new sociological ideas. I propose a sociological perspective of the policing of terrorism that is conceptually informed by a neo-Weberian bureaucratization theory of police. The theory holds that antiterrorist efforts at the level of police rest on a formal-rational conception of the means and objectives of counterterrorism, although ideological and political sentiments on terrorism are very intense and divisive within and across national states. Social control and counterterrorism are complex realities, comprised of a multitude of dimensions which are not necessarily in tune with one another. High-profile terrorist incidents, such as the events of 9/11, lead to attempts by national governments and international governing bodies to re-direct police efforts against terrorism in function of political objectives. Yet, because the bureaucratization of modern police institutions is at an unprecedented high level, the theory predicts, police agencies will resist these (re-)politicization attempts to continue counterterrorism activities that rest on an efficiency-driven treatment and depoliticized understanding of terrorism.     

农业跨国公司垄断对我国粮食安全的影响

分析了在华FDI的主要跨国粮商和跨国种业公司的垄断优势,借助粮食贸易依存度指标探讨了我国粮食安全的现状,并在此基础上,研究了农业跨国公司对我国粮食安全的影响。研究发现：跨国粮商通过控制世界大豆主要产区的种植、贸易,控制粮食产业链附加值较高的两端——育种和加工,对我国的粮食安全构成了威胁;跨国种业公司在研发和育种领域的高投入和高产出加深了农户对其依赖。因此,建议通过宏观调控提高大豆种植面积和产量,减少对农业跨国公司的依赖;基于种业发展机制创新,鼓励民营企业进入种业育种,培育一批具有国际竞争力的本土种子企业。     

Unemployment and Retirement in a Model with Age‐specific Heterogeneity

This paper presents a model where young and old workers compete for one type of jobs in the presence of retirement opportunity. Within this framework, we show that increased retirement opportunities (such as a decrease of the retirement age) has most of the time a depressing impact on the unemployment rate. Indeed the number of vacancies posted by firms is influenced by the probability that an old worker is going into retirement. We show that the degree to which younger workers are influenced by retirement of older workers depends on the relative productivity of young and older workers. It is only when older workers are much more productive than young workers that retirement may benefit to unemployment.     

Monopolistic Competition: Beyond the Constant Elasticity of Substitution

We propose a model of monopolistic competition with additive preferences and variable marginal costs. Using the concept of “relative love for variety,” we provide a full characterization of the free‐entry equilibrium. When the relative love for variety increases with individual consumption, the market generates pro‐competitive effects. When it decreases, the market mimics anti‐competitive behavior. The constant elasticity of substitution is the only case in which all competitive effects are washed out. We also show that our results hold true when the economy involves several sectors, firms are heterogeneous, and preferences are given by the quadratic utility and the translog.     

Comparaison des représentations des amish et des mormons fondamentalistes (FLDS) dans deux téléréalités américaines

This research explores the representations of two minority religions in United States, the Amish and the fundamentalist Mormons (FLDS), in two reality shows produced in 2013: Breaking Amish and Breaking the Faith. To which extent these reality shows contribute to reinforce stereotypes about these minority religions? The hypothesis postulates that there is a convergence in the representations of minority religions in these reality shows which contributes to the reproduction of stereotypes. Based on theories of identity construction and on the study of new religious movements, the analysis shows that the same guiding lines are recurrent in both reality shows.     

Debunking macro myths: findings from recent graduates about jobs,salaries, and skills

Research suggests that interest in macro social work practice is declining, a trend that has been well documented in the United States. Studies find that social work educators and practitioners may foster beliefs among MSW students that discredit macro practice and associated skills while asserting macro graduates are likely to face poorer employment prospects and lower salaries than micro counterparts as they start their careers. This study builds on and extends this literature by examining 27 skills in their current job using a five-point Likert-type scale among the early career trajectory of MSW alumni (N = 182) who graduated between 2008 and 2012 from a public social work institution in the southeastern United States. The skills included in the survey, as well as decisions about how to group them into scales, were made based on theoretical links between the skills by macro faculty members. Findings highlight the use of macro practice skills regardless of concentration focus, no differences in salary, or the time it takes to find employment between micro and macro alumni. Implications for social work education are discussed.     

Anomie and Strain: Context and Consequences of Merton's Two Theories

Robert Merton presented two, not always clearly differentiated theories in his seminal explorations on the social-structure-and-anomie paradigm: a strain theory and an anomie theory. A one-sided focus on Merton's strain theory in the secondary literature has unnecessarily restricted the power and effectiveness of Merton's anomie theory. For although structural strain is one way to explain why deviance occurs in the context of anomie, it is not the only way. We contend that scholars who are critical of strain theory should not automatically discard Merton's anomie theory, because the perspective of anomie is compatible with several other theories of crime and delinquency. Offering examples of previous integration efforts, we maintain that Merton's theoretical model can benefit from the input of other theories of crime and deviance as much as these other theoretical perspectives can fine-tune their models and explanations.     

Mixed-Mode Oscillations Due to a Singular Hopf Bifurcation in a Forest Pest Model

In a forest pest model, young trees are distinguished from old trees. The pest feeds on old trees. The pest grows on a fast scale, the young trees on an intermediate scale, and the old trees on a slow scale. A combination of a singular Hopf bifurcation and a “weak return” mechanism, characterized by a small change in one of the variables, determines the features of the mixed-mode oscillations. Period-doubling and saddle-node bifurcations lead to closed families (called isolas) of periodic solutions in a bifurcation corresponding to a singular Hopf bifurcation.