Contemporary articles citing Tilly C (1998) Durable Inequality

inequality, networks, processes, action, used, relations, democratization, institutions, citizenship, essay

Kuorikoski, Jaakko & Samuli Poyhonen. 2012. "Looping Kinds and Social Mechanisms." Sociological Theory. 30:3 187-205. Link

Human behavior is not always independent of the ways in which humans are scientifically classified. That there are looping effects of human kinds has been used as an argument for the methodological separation of the natural and the human sciences and to justify social constructionist claims. We suggest that these arguments rely on false presuppositions and present a mechanisms-based account of looping that provides a better way to understand the phenomenon and its theoretical and philosophical implications.

Wimmer, Andreas. 2009. "Herder's Heritage and the Boundary-making Approach: Studying Ethnicity in Immigrant Societies." Sociological Theory. 27:3 244-270.

Major paradigms in immigration research, including assimilation theory, multi-culturalism, and ethnic studies, take it for granted that dividing society into ethnic groups is analytically and empirically meaningful because each of these groups is characterized by a specific culture, dense networks of solidarity, and shared identity. Three major revisions of this perspective have been proposed in the comparative ethnicity literature over the past decades, leading to a renewed concern with the emergence and transformation of ethnic boundaries. In immigration research, ``assimilation'' and ``integration'' have been reconceived as potentially reversible, power-driven processes of boundary shifting. After a synthetic summary of the major theoretical propositions of this emerging paradigm, I offer suggestions on how to bring it to fruition in future empirical research. First, major mechanisms and factors influencing the dynamics of ethnic boundary-making are specified, emphasizing the need to disentangle them from other dynamics unrelated to ethnicity. I then discuss a series of promising research designs, most based on nonethnic units of observation and analysis, that allow for a better understanding of these mechanisms and factors.

Fuhse, Jan. 2009. "The Meaning Structure of Social Networks." Sociological Theory. 27:1 51-73. Link

This essay proposes to view networks as sociocultural structures. Following authors from Leopold von Wiese and Norbert Elias to Gary Alan Fine and Harrison White, networks are configurations of social relationships interwoven with meaning. Social relationships as the basic building blocks of networks are conceived of as dynamic structures of reciprocal (but not necessarily symmetric) expectations between alter and ego. Through their transactions, alter and ego construct an idiosyncratic ``relationship culture'' comprising symbols, narratives, and relational identities. The coupling of social relationships to networks, too, is heavily laden with meaning. The symbolic construction of persons is one instance of this coupling. Another instance is the application of social categories (like race or gender), which both map and structure social networks. The conclusion offers an agenda for research on this ``meaning structure of social networks.''.

Tilly, C. 2003. "Changing Forms of Inequality." Sociological Theory. 21:1 31-36. Link

Individual sorting models prevail in current explanations of inequality, but individual sorting systems form rarely and depend on extensive institutional infrastructure. Inequality results more generally from the conjunction of socially organized categories with (a) clique control of value-producing resources, (b) clique deployment of those resources in relations of exploitation and/or opportunity with members of subordinated or excluded categories, backed up by (c) emulation and adaptation. Historically, major value-producing resources in the production of inequality have included coercive means, labor, animals, land, commitment-maintaining institutions, machines, financial capital, information, media, and scientific-technical knowledge. In the future, financial capital, information, media, and scientific-technical knowledge will play increasing parts in the generation of social inequality.

Tilly, C. 2003. "Inequality, Democratization, and De-democratization." Sociological Theory. 21:1 37-43. Link

Reversions from democratic to undemocratic regimes have often occurred historically and continue to occur frequently. Both increases in categorical inequality across a regime's subject population and declines in the insulation of public politics from categorical inequality tend to de-democratize regimes. A general account of democratization and de-democratization yields a series of conjectures concerning the processes by which changes in categorical inequality threaten democracy.

Tilly, C. 2000. "Processes and Mechanisms of Democratization." Sociological Theory. 18:1 1-16. Link

Unlike Artistotle's analysis, recent treatments of democratization identify pathways and propose necessary conditions but fall short of specifying cause-effect relations. Democratization does not follow a single path, and is unlikely to have universally applicable necessary or sufficient conditions. A political process analysis of democratization defines it as movement toward broad citizenship, equal citizenship, binding consultation of citizens, and protection of citizens from arbitrary state action. High levels of all four elements depend on a significant degree of state capacity. Democratization emerges from interacting changes in public politics, categorical inequality, and networks of trust, which in turn depend on specifiable mechanisms of change in social relations. When the shocks of conquest, confrontation, colonization, and revolution promote democratization, they do so by accelerating the same causal mechanisms. The next round of research and theory on democratization requires identification, verification, and connection of the relevant causal mechanisms.

Levy, Y. 1998. "Militarizing Inequality: a Conceptual Framework." Theory and Society. 27:6 873-904. Link

Roy, WG & R Parker-Gwin. 1999. "How Many Logics of Collective Action?." Theory and Society. 28:2 203-237. Link

Brubaker, R & F Cooper. 2000. "Beyond ``identity''." Theory and Society. 29:1 1-47. Link

Rutten, R. 2000. "High-cost Activism and the Worker Household: Interests, Commitment, and the Costs of Revolutionary Activism in a Philippine Plantation Region." Theory and Society. 29:2 215-252. Link

Brubaker, R, M Loveman & P Stamatov. 2004. "Ethnicity as Cognition." Theory and Society. 33:1 31-64. Link

This article identifies an incipient and largely implicit cognitive turn in the study of ethnicity, and argues that it can be consolidated and extended by drawing on cognitive research in social psychology and anthropology. Cognitive perspectives provide resources for conceptualizing ethnicity, race, and nation as perspectives on the world rather than entities in the world, for treating ethnicity, race, and nationalism together rather than as separate subfields, and for re-specifying the old debate between primordialist and circumstantialist approaches.

De, F. 2005. "The Dilemma of Recognition: Administrative Categories and Cultural Diversity." Theory and Society. 34:2 137-169. Link

Governments around the world combat inequality by means of group-specific redistribution. Some pursue redistribution that benefits groups, but also wish to avoid accentuating or even recognizing group distinctions. This poses a dilemma that they try to resolve by adjusting the category system used to target redistribution. There are three types of adjustment: accommodation (the multicultural approach), denial (the ideal-typical liberal solution), and replacement (a compromise). In replacement the targets of redistributive policies are constructed to avoid accentuation or recognition of inconvenient group distinctions, but still allow redistribution that benefits these groups. Replacement is increasingly in demand around the world because the disadvantages of multiculturalism are becoming apparent while denial is hard to sustain in the face of group inequality. The actual effect of replacement is little researched and less understood, however. Does it resolve the dilemma of recognition? Two examples-India and Nigeria-where replacement has been tried ever since the 1950s cast doubt on its viability.

Korzeniewicz, RP & TP Moran. 2005. "Theorizing the Relationship Between Inequality and Economic Growth." Theory and Society. 34:3 277-316. Link

This article explores a promising theoretical approach for reassessing the relationship between inequality and economic growth. The article draws some insights from the influential inverted U-curve hypothesis originally advanced by Simon Kuznets, but drastically recasts the original arguments by shifting two fundamental premises. First, retaining Kuznets's emphasis on the importance of economic growth in generating demographic transitions between existing and new distributional arrays, we argue that a ``constant drive toward inequality'' results after replacing a Schumpeterian notion of ``creative destruction'' for the dualistic assumptions in Kuznets's model. Second, while Kuznets devoted considerable attention to the impact of institutions on distributional outcomes, we argue that institutions should be understood as relational and global mechanisms of regulation, operating within countries while simultaneously shaping interactions and flows between nations. The article argues that economic growth, unfolding through institutions embedded in time and space, produces a constant drive towards inequality that results in a multiple and overlapping matrix of distributional arrays, an overall income distribution (e.g., within and between countries) that is both systemic and historical.

Emirbayer, M & CA Goldberg. 2005. "Pragmatism, Bourdieu, and Collective Emotions in Contentious Politics." Theory and Society. 34:5-6 469-518. Link

We aim to show how collective emotions can be incorporated into the study of episodes of political contention. In a critical vein, we systematically explore the weaknesses in extant models of collective action, showing what has been lost through a neglect or faulty conceptualization of collective emotional configurations. We structure this discussion in terms of a review of several ``pernicious postulates'' in the literature, assumptions that have been held, we argue, by classical social-movement theorists and by social-structural and cultural critics alike. In a reconstructive vein, however, we also lay out the foundations of a more satisfactory theoretical framework. We take each succeeding critique of a pernicious postulate as the occasion for more positive theory-building. Drawing upon the work of the classical American pragmatists-especially Peirce, Dewey, and Mead-as well as aspects of Bourdieu's sociology, we construct, step by step, the foundations of a more adequate theorization of social movements and collective action. Accordingly, the negative and positive threads of our discussion are woven closely together: the dismantling of pernicious postulates and the development of a more useful analytical strategy.

Daly, Mary & Hilary Silver. 2008. "Social Exclusion and Social Capital: a Comparison and Critique." Theory and Society. 37:6 537-566. Link

Social exclusion and social capital are widely used concepts with multiple and ambiguous definitions. Their meanings and indicators partially overlap, and thus they are sometimes used interchangeably to refer to the inter-relations of economy and society. Both ideas could benefit from further specification and differentiation. The causes of social exclusion and the consequences of social capital have received the fullest elaboration, to the relative neglect of the outcomes of social exclusion and the genesis of social capital. This article identifies the similarities and differences between social exclusion and social capital. We compare the intellectual histories and theoretical orientations of each term, their empirical manifestations and their place in public policy. The article then moves on to elucidate further each set of ideas. A central argument is that the conflation of these notions partly emerges from a shared theoretical tradition, but also from insufficient theorizing of the processes in which each phenomenon is implicated. A number of suggestions are made for sharpening their explanatory focus, in particular better differentiating between cause and consequence, contextualizing social relations and social networks, and subjecting the policy `solutions' that follow from each perspective to critical scrutiny. Placing the two in dialogue is beneficial for the further development of each.

Hanagan, Michael & Chris Tilly. 2010. "Cities, States, Trust, and Rule: New Departures From the Work of Charles Tilly." Theory and Society. 39:3-4, SI 245-263. Link

In the light of his essay ``Cities, States and Trust Networks,'' contributors to this collection were asked to consider ways of building on or departing from the late Charles Tilly's work. The authors in this collection addressed four major themes: (1) historicism and historical legacies, (2) trust networks and commitment, (3) city-state relations, and (4) democracy and inequality. Authors concentrating on historicism examined how, despite unanticipated consequences, social action nonetheless produced systematic, durable, social structures; they particularly focused on processes of identity formation and cultural reproduction. In regard to trust networks, contributors discovered a striking variety of forms and relationships and they investigated their origins and their relationship to institutions and culture. Looking at city-state relations, authors uncovered the richness and intricacy of the ties linking cities and states and showed that city-state relations were important not simply in terms of the autonomy or dependence of mutual ties, but also in the quality of these relationships. Besides the ties between cities and states other authors sought to focus on empires and wondered about the degree to which empire formation involved similar processes as state formation. Several authors developed this theme. Authors pursuing themes of democracy and inequality stressed how changes in citizenship and the expansion of parliamentary democratic forms might have complicated effects. The relationship between democracy and inequality was mediated by elites and institutions. Democracy constrained inequality but inequality also constrained democracy. Increased state capacity might enable states to remedy old inequities but it might also allow them to perpetrate new ones. The authors' varied responses suggest promising directions for research on cities, states, and trust networks.

Shin, Hwaji. 2010. "Colonial Legacy of Ethno-racial Inequality in Japan." Theory and Society. 39:3-4, SI 327-342. Link

This essay challenges anti-historicist accounts that sever the link between the colonial past and present, replacing them with a more historically nuanced understanding of Japan's immigration policies and their relation to ethno-racial inequality. Contrary to the dominant view that transnational immigration is new to Japan, this article shows that Japan already had a history of immigration in the early twentieth century, and this history generated a lasting impact on postwar immigration policies and their integration. While recognizing the impact of structural and individual factors, this essay underscores a path-dependent approach that demonstrates how colonial exclusion led to the formation of a durable structure of inequality against low skilled labor immigrants, and thus how such a colonial legacy has continued to limit the life chances and integration of subsequent immigrants in Japan since the 1980s.

Clemens, Elisabeth. 2010. "From City Club to Nation State: Business Networks in American Political Development." Theory and Society. 39:3-4, SI 377-396. Link

Although cities were given no role in the constitutional order of the United States, the new nation posed the same potential threats to the accumulation of capital and wealth as European monarchs posed to long-powerful urban centers. In mobilizing for self-protection and advancement, American business developed new practices and discourses of citizenship that sustained a central role for the community as the locus of social provision. The strategy combined opportunity-hoarding through restricted membership in civic groups and obligation-hoarding through the alignment of diverse networks of voluntarism with this civic core. The linkage of business interests to this hybrid charitable-civic configuration constituted a source of resistance to nationalizing tendencies driven by demands for social protection. This alternative model of social provision and civic organization sustained a distinctive pattern of political membership and state development. By fiercely defending the capacity of privately governed civic networks to provide substantial social support, this history of business influence through community organizations lives on in the partial and fragmented character of the American welfare state.

Heller, Patrick & Peter Evans. 2010. "Taking Tilly South: Durable Inequalities, Democratic Contestation, and Citizenship in the Southern Metropolis." Theory and Society. 39:3-4, SI 433-450. Link

Drawing on Charles Tilly's work on inequality, democracy and cities, we explore the local level dynamics of democratization across urban settings in India, South Africa, and Brazil. In all three cases, democratic institutions are consolidated, but there is tremendous variation in the quality of the democratic relationship between cities and their citizens. We follow Tilly's focus on citizenship as the key element in democratization and argue that explaining variance across our three cases calls for analyzing patterns of inequality through the kind of relational lens used by Tilly and recognizing that patterns of contestation are shaped by shifting political relationships between the nation and the city. We conclude that Tilly's theoretical frame is nicely sustained by the comparative analysis of cases very different from those that stimulated his original formulations.

Polillo, Simone. 2011. "Wildcats in Banking Fields: the Politics of Financial Inclusion." Theory and Society. 40:4 347-383. Link

Rightwing theorists argue that we owe the current financial crisis to the democratization of credit, or financial inclusion: politics interfered with the market to benefit marginalized actors, only to cause instability and risk. Leftwing theorists focus instead on financialization: namely, the shift of profit-making activities from industry to finance. These views implicitly draw on Schumpeter and Marx. Much like their intellectual progenitors, they emphasize exogenous processes to explain financial change. Here I claim that the connection between financial innovation and financial inclusion is endogenous. I suggest two main typologies of financial innovators: Market Utopians (MUs) and Populist Innovators (PIs). Financial inclusion, I submit, is the byproduct of the quest for power of the latter.