Latino Faces,Corporate Ties: Latino Advocacy Organizations and Their Board Membership

Although they have increased exponentially since the 1960s, social scientists know little about ethnic advocacy organizations. These nonprofits are important bridges between underresourced communities and mainstream funding organizations and their directors are established ethnic leaders. Sociologists study interlocking directorates—or shared board membership—to understand how organizations fit together within broader social networks. Network concepts, particularly the theory of institutional isomorphism, suggest that organizations are likely to be similar to the extent they are connected and operate within a common organizational field. We apply this logic to Latino advocacy organizations to examine the underlying source of cohesion across this ethnic field. We ask whether the organizations are tied by interlocking directorates of ethnic elites who sit on their boards of directors or if board members' common affiliation with other elite institutions creates the structural conditions that facilitate potential ideological or behavioral similarity. A social network analysis of five prominent Latino advocacy organizations reveals support for both hypotheses: Latino board members are both embedded in ethnic‐based networks and entrenched within elite organizational webs. This suggests that ethnic elites who sit on the boards of Latino advocacy organizations are also corporate elites, selected for the social capital they bring to these nonprofits.     

Is there a global super-bourgeoisie?

In recent decades, accelerating processes of globalization and an increase in economic inequality in most of the world's countries have raised the question of the emergence of a new bourgeoisie integrated at the global level, sometimes described as a global super-bourgeoisie. This group would be distinguished by its unequaled level of wealth and global interconnectedness, its transnational ubiquity and concentration in the planet's major global cities, its specific culture, consumption habits, sites of sociability and shared references, and even by class consciousness and capacity to act collectively. This article successively discusses how the social sciences have examined these various dimensions of the question and begun to provide systematic empirical answers.     

和谐语境下知识精英的角色重构

知识精英在人类社会发展中起着不可替代的重要作用,但它又不是万能的.长期以来,由于过分迷恋于政治情结、启蒙心态和终极关怀,使知识精英出现了严重的角色扭曲.新时期,知识精英应摆正自己的位置,主要应在创建多元文化、维系和谐关系、促进机制创新等方面有所建树,力争在和谐社会的构建中实现自身价值.     

The sociolinguistics of late modern publics

This issue examines struggles over public discursive power in late modern society, understanding that late modern publics are characterized by a destabilization of formerly unmarked public authorities, in other words, an unsettling of standardized “voices from nowhere” (Gal & Woolard, 2001). The contributions to the issue illustrate traditional social and academic elites’ discursive reactions to such developments. In the introduction, we outline different theoretical frameworks of modern and late‐modern publics, identify factors that contribute to a destabilization of modern certainties of social public order, and argue that a weakening of traditional public norms not only implies emancipation but also, as the contributions to the issue demonstrate, may bring along new forms of public dominance. For the positioning of contemporary sociolinguistic theory and practice, we conclude that it is the crucial task of the current public moment to critically self‐engage with our own relations with, and ideologies of, the public. Dieses Themenheft befragt Strukturen öffentlicher Diskursmacht in spätmoderner Gesellschaft und zeigt auf, dass spätmoderne Öffentlichkeit durch eine Destabilisierung von vormals unmarkierten Autoritäten ist, in anderen Worten, von standardisierten “voices from nowhere” (Gal & Woolard, 2001). Die Beiträge illustrieren Reaktionen traditioneller sozialer und akademischer Eliten hierauf. In dieser Einleitung skizzieren wir verschiedene theoretische Zugänge zu moderner und spätmoderner Öffentlichkeit, identifizieren Faktoren, die zu einer Destabilisierung von sozialen Gewissheiten der Moderne beitragen und legen dar, dass eine Schwächung traditioneller öffentlichen Normen nicht nur soziale Emanzipation impliziert sondern, wie die Beiträge zu diesem Heft zeigen, auch neue Formen öffentlicher Dominanz hervorbringt. In Bezug auf zeitgenössische soziolinguistische Theorie und Praxis schlussfolgern wir daraus, dass es im aktuellen öffentlichen Kontext eine zentrale Aufgabe der Soziolinguistik ist, sich kritisch mit den eigenen Beziehungen zu und Ideologien von Öffentlichkeit befassen. Das Themenheft soll zu dieser Auseinandersetzung beitragen.     

Resistance as Sacrifice: Toward an Ascetic Antiracism

Often described as an outcome, inequality is better understood as a social process—a function of how institutions are structured and reproduced, and the ways people act and interact within them across time. Racialized inequality persists because it is enacted moment to moment, context to context—and it can be ended should those who currently perpetuate it commit themselves to playing a different role instead. This essay makes three core contributions. First, it highlights a disturbing parity between the people who are most rhetorically committed to ending racialized inequality and those who are most responsible for its persistence. Next, it explores the origin of this paradox—how it is that ostensibly antiracist intentions are transmuted into “benevolently racist” actions. Finally, it presents an alternative approach to mitigating racialized inequality, one that more effectively challenges the self‐oriented and extractive logics undergirding systemic racism, rather than expropriating blame to others, or else adopting introspective and psychologized approaches to fundamentally social problems, those sincerely committed to antiracism can take concrete steps in the real world—actions that require no legislation or coercion of naysayers, just a willingness to personally make sacrifices for the sake of racial justice.     

Trust and Estate Planning: The Emergence of a Profession and Its Contribution to Socioeconomic Inequality1

This article offers a new perspective on the connection between socioeconomic inequality and occupations by examining the impact of trust and estate planners on global wealth stratification. While many studies treat the professions as mirrors of inequalities in their environments, this article looks at the ways professionals participate in the creation of stratification regimes. Trust and estate planners do this by sheltering their clients' assets from taxation, thereby preserving private wealth for future generations. Using tools such as trusts, offshore banks, and shell corporations, these professionals keep a significant portion of the world’s private wealth beyond the reach of the state. Trust and estate planning thus contributes to creating and maintaining socioeconomic inequality on a global scale. The significance of the profession has grown as wealth itself has become more fungible, spurring innovation in legal, organizational, and financial strategies, and thwarting a myriad of laws and policies designed to limit enduring inequality in modern, democratic societies.     

地方精英与族群认同——一个村庄族群记忆的研究

本文通过对一个地方族群的案例分析,试图从地方精荚的话语表述和行为分析来探讨地方精英是如何影响地方族群记忆和地方族群认同的,并进一步强调族群的一些符号特征对于维持和凝聚族群的重要意义.     

特殊的视角与独特的历史——西方和谐社会理论的冲突论基础

从西方政治思想史的角度研究冲突理论的发展脉络及其模式是一种新的尝试,虽然社会学理论也曾试图对冲突理论进行历史性考察,但其理论根源通常是止于马克思,尽管存在对柏拉图等人的研究,但对他们的冲突理论的研究缺乏系统的归纳和整理,使他们的冲突理论依然没能独立出来,而且对他们之间的历史联系也未曾给予必要的关注。这里,我们从政治学的角度比较系统地探讨了冲突理论的发展阶段,其代表性的冲突理论包括托马斯.阿奎那冲突模式理论;马基亚维利的冲突模式理论;圭恰迪尼的冲突模式理论;霍布斯冲突模式理论;卢梭的民主冲突观;博林布鲁克冲突模式理论;自由主义多元论;马克思主义两极冲突模式理论;和谐主义冲突模式。     

Elites and popular nationalism

Much current theory concerning nationalism holds that elites commonly create or cause popular nationalism. In part, that thesis may be due to an overwhelming emphasis in research on nationalism on positive cases: cases where nationalism has appeared, ignoring cases where it has not. In this article, I challenge the thesis by showing numerous historical cases in which elites have promoted nationalisms that ordinary people have not adopted, or in which ordinary people have adopted a nationalism before it was taken up by elites. Even if elites do not create popular nationalism, however, they can and do shape its expression in a variety of ways, such as organizing it, providing relevant information, or providing opportunity or incentive for it. I show this through historical examples.     

不对等的博弈:土改中的基层政治精英

本文以山东、河北等省的土改运动为例,探讨了群众运动中基层政治精英的独特处境和行为特征.土改期间,基层政治精英并未完全成为国家的忠实代理人,而是在社会人、理性人的角色指引下与国家权力进行博弈,以维护村社利益或追逐个人私利.另一方面,乡村民众的介入改变了国家与基层精英的力量对比和博弈格局,致使基层精英既内在于又外在于国家权力体系,处于明显的权责分离状态,这又进一步强化了他们谋求私利和"去政治化"的离心倾向.