Theoretical Criminology 19(3)

Theoretical Criminology, August 2015: Volume 19, Issue 3

Debating Theoretical Criminology

The slow violence of state organized race crime
Geoff Ward

The politicization of crime challenges theoretical and empirical criminology, while drawing the discipline into politics of criminal social control. This complication and complicity is considered in the case of state organized race crime, and especially its “slow violence”, where victimization is attritional, dispersed, and hidden. Criminology is not merely compromised here—or limited in theoretical and empirical reach—but complicit, contributing to under-regulated racial violence rationalized in large part by the criminalization of race. The discipline might contribute to increased understanding of state organized race crime, and lessen its role therein, with greater commitments to critical race research and teaching.

Articles

The long struggle: An agonistic perspective on penal development
Philip Goodman, Joshua Page, and Michelle Phelps

Bringing together insights from macro-level theory about “mass imprisonment” and micro-level case studies of contemporary punishment, this article presents a mid-level agonistic perspective on penal change in the USA. Using the case of the “rise and fall” of the rehabilitative ideal in California, we spotlight struggle as a central mechanism that intensifies the variegated (and sometimes contradictory) nature of punishment and drives penal development. The agonistic perspective posits that penal development is fueled by ongoing, low-level struggle among actors with varying amounts and types of resources. Like plate tectonics, friction among those with a stake in punishment periodically escalates to seismic events and long-term shifts in penal orientations, pushing one perspective or another to the fore over time. These conflicts do not occur in a vacuum; rather, large-scale trends in the economy, politics, social sentiments, inter-group relations, demographics, and crime affect—but do not fully determine—struggles over punishment and penal outcomes.

Bad jobs and good workers: The hiring of ex-prisoners in a segmented economy
Kristin Bumiller

Scholarship focusing on barriers to the employment of ex-prisoners has paid little attention to the linkages between mass incarceration and the structural conditions of low wage labor. In contrast, this article considers how decisions to hire ex-prisoners occur in the context of a highly segregated labor market. The research is based upon interviews with employers who are willing to hire persons exiting prisons. These employers were queried about their motivations for hiring, perceptions of their employees with criminal records, and their beliefs about fairness and justice. The interviews show that a strong motivating factor for hiring was finding a “good worker to do a bad job”, but also that decisions were influenced by employers’ common sense norms derived from surviving at the bottom of the economy. Despite the willingness of employers to offer “second chances” and make small allowances, these factors were insufficient to counteract the obstacles to sustainable employment.

Between vigilantism and bureaucracy: Improving our understanding of police work in Nigeria and South Africa
Sarah Jane Cooper-Knock and Olly Owen

To date, much of the analytical scholarship on policing in Africa has centred on non-state actors. In doing so, it risks neglecting state actors and statehood, which must be understood on their own terms as well as through the eyes of the people they supposedly serve. This article seeks to develop our theoretical and empirical understanding in this respect by exploring the contexts in which citizens seek to engage state police in Nigeria and South Africa. In doing so it highlights three particularly important uses that police contact may serve, that are currently being overlooked. State police can permit, authorize or limit crime control performed by others through informal regulatory intervention. They can exercise a unique bureaucratic power by opening a case which is valued as a record of right and wrongs to be used in the negotiation of everyday life, not simply as a means to legal prosecution. And finally, taking action ‘off the books’, the police can exercise a coercive power that can be termed ‘police vigilantism’, which citizens may try to harness for their own ends. We therefore argue that we should recognize the continued high public demand for the services of state police forces even in contexts where they fall short of expectations, and more closely analyse the ways in which people utilize and help to reproduce the police forces they condemn.

“Obviously, we’re all oil industry”: The criminogenic structure of the offshore oil industry
Elizabeth A Bradshaw

The 2010 BP Gulf of Mexico oil spill was one of the worst environmental disasters in the United States. The deviant actions of state and corporate actors involved in the Gulf of Mexico spill are not unique, but instead are symptomatic of a problem rooted much deeper in the US oil and gas industry. Building on Michalowski and Kramer’s Integrated Theoretical Model of State–Corporate Crime, this article explores the industry as a level of analysis. Early studies of white-collar crime that examined criminality within industries tended to approach the problem from the individual level and failed to consider the role of government in shaping the structural conditions of an industry. This article introduces the concept of “criminogenic industry structures” and examines the historical role of the federal government in shaping the criminogenic conditions of the offshore oil drilling industry that resulted in the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill.

Ontology, epistemology, and irony: Richard Rorty and re-imagining pragmatic criminology
Johannes Wheeldon

In this article I apply Richard Rorty’s view of pragmatism to contemporary criminology through the lens of ontology and criminological theory, epistemology and methodological decision making, and irony in the neo-liberal academy. Although pragmatism in criminology is often used to refer to practical criminal justice suggestions drawn from conservative theories of criminology, in this article I argue that this singular use is an affront to pragmatism’s philosophical pedigree. Consonant with pragmatism, this article includes practical suggestions about how Rorty’s approach can be adapted to teach criminological theory, advance mixed methods research, and acknowledge the dangers inherent in careerist criminology.

Towards a Bourdieusian frame of moral panic analysis: The history of a moral panic inside the field of humanitarian aid
Arnaud Dandoy

For the concept of moral panic to avoid approaching its expiration date, it is essential to include novel approaches and perspectives. This article aims to augment the under-developed theoretical grounding of the sociology of moral panic by expanding on Pierre Bourdieu’s social theory. It begins by offering a critical appraisal of recent developments in moral panic studies and explains how Bourdieu’s concepts of field, habitus and hysteresis might help overcome the inherent weaknesses of moral panic research. This novel approach is put into empirical work to exploring the rise of a moral panic about the dangers humanitarian aid workers face in the post-Cold War era. It shows that, while today’s threats do not radically differ from those of the past, the widespread sense of concern and anxiety about humanitarian insecurity is a response to effects of hysteresis inside the field of humanitarian aid.

Crime & Delinquency 61(6)

Crime & Delinquency, August 2015: Volume 61, Issue 6

Race, Gender, Crime Severity, and Decision Making in the Juvenile Justice System
Michael J. Leiber and Jennifer H. Peck

Based on interpretations of an integrated focal concerns and loosely coupling framework, individual and joint relationships involving race and gender with case outcomes were examined as well as possible tempering effects by crime severity and the stage in the proceedings. The results from multiple logistic regression indicate mixed support for the theoretical framework in terms of the ability to determine at what stages race and gender effects would be most evident. Crime severity was predictive of decision making and in some cases had a conditioning effect on the discovered race/gender relationships with case outcomes. The implications of the findings and directions for future research are discussed.

Measuring the Reading Complexity and Oral Comprehension of Canadian Youth Waiver Forms
Joseph Eastwood, Brent Snook, and Kirk Luther

The reading complexity of a sample of Canadian police youth waiver forms was assessed, and the oral comprehension of a waiver form was examined. In Study 1, the complexity of 31 unique waiver forms was assessed using five readability measures (i.e., waiver length, Flesch–Kincaid grade level, Grammatik sentence complexity, word difficulty, and word frequency). Results showed that the waivers are lengthy, are written at a relatively high grade level, contain complex sentences, and contain difficult and infrequent words. In Study 2, high school students (N = 32) were presented orally with one youth waiver form and asked to explain its meaning. Results showed that participants understood approximately 40% of the information contained in the waiver form. The likelihood of the rights of Canadian youths being protected and the need to create a standardized and comprehensible waiver form are discussed.

Lifetime Benefits and Costs of Diverting Substance-Abusing Offenders From State Prison
Gary A. Zarkin, Alexander J. Cowell, Katherine A. Hicks, Michael J. Mills, Steven Belenko, Laura J. Dunlap, and Vincent Keyes

Prisons hold a disproportionate number of society’s drug abusers. Approximately 50% of state prisoners meet the criteria for a diagnosis of drug abuse or dependence; however, only 10% of prisoners receive drug treatment. Diverting offenders to community-based treatment has been shown to generate positive net social benefits. We build on a lifetime simulation model of a nationally representative state prison cohort to examine diversion from reincarceration to community-based substance abuse treatment. We find that diversion provides positive net societal benefits to the United States and cost savings to the national criminal justice system. Our study demonstrates the societal gains from improving access to the community drug treatment system as an alternative to prison.

Alcohol Outlets and Neighborhood Crime: A Longitudinal Analysis
Garland F. White, Randy R. Gainey, and Ruth A. Triplett

This article examines the relationship between the number of alcohol outlets in block groups and the number of incidents of street crimes in Norfolk, Virginia. Cross-sectional and longitudinal panel designs are used to explore the relationship. Results were corrected for spatial autocorrelation and controlled for variation in size of population, socioeconomic disadvantage, and a dummy variable for being the downtown area. The cross-sectional analysis revealed a strong relationship between the number of alcohol outlets and the number of street crimes for on-premises and off-premises outlets. A panel design was then used to examine the effects of newly established outlets on the change in the number of street crime events over three periods. All three panels showed significant relationships between the number of alcohol outlets and the number of street crime events controlling for prior levels of crime, socioeconomic disadvantage, population size, and a spatial lag.

Assessing the Cost of Electronically Monitoring High-Risk Sex Offenders
Marisa K. Omori and Susan F. Turner

In addition to housing, employment, and registration restrictions, sex offenders have been subjected to electronic monitoring with the idea that they may be either surveilled or deterred from committing additional crime. This study evaluated the supervision costs of placing high-risk sex offender parolees on Global Positioning Satellite (GPS) monitoring as part of a pilot program by the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. Using a quasiexperimental design, the study tracked parolees’ costs of supervision and their parole violations for 1 year. GPS was not cost-effective; the overall cost of parolees on GPS was greater than parolees not on the monitoring, the two groups committed similar parole violations, and parolees on GPS were retained on parole longer.

Social Science Research 53

Social Science Research, September 2015: Volume 53

Immigrant use of public assistance and mode of entry: Demographics versus dependence
Chris Girard

Hurdles or walls? Nativity, citizenship, legal status and Latino homeownership in Los Angeles

Eileen Díaz McConnell

Behind the ethnic–civic distinction: Public attitudes towards immigrants’ political rights in the Netherlands 

Maykel Verkuyten, Borja Martinovic

Unequal on top: Gender profiling and the income gap among high earner male and female professionals 

Jennifer Merluzzi, Stanislav D. Dobrev

Intimate partner violence in neighborhood context: The roles of structural disadvantage, subjective disorder, and emotional distress 

Jennifer E. Copp, Danielle C. Kuhl, Peggy C. Giordano, Monica A. Longmore, Wendy D. Manning

Heritability, family, school and academic achievement in adolescence 

Artur Pokropek, Joanna Sikora

Does Islam play a role in anti-immigrant sentiment? An experimental approach
Mathew J. Creighton, Amaney Jamal

Adolescent interpersonal relationships, social support and loneliness in high schools: Mediation effect and gender differences
Baoshan Zhang, Qianyun Gao, Marjolein Fokkema, Valeria Alterman, Qian Liu

Multicollinearity in hierarchical linear models
Han Yu, Shanhe Jiang, Kenneth C. Land

Diversity begets diversity? The effects of board composition on the appointment and success of women CEOs
Alison Cook, Christy Glass

Coalitional affiliation as a missing link between ethnic polarization and well-being: An empirical test from the European Social Survey
Rengin B. Firat, Pascal Boyer

Relational diversity and neighbourhood cohesion. Unpacking variety, balance and in-group size

Ruud Koopmans, Merlin Schaeffer

Population migration and children’s school enrollments in China, 1990–2005
Xiaogang Wu, Zhuoni Zhang

Single-parent households and children’s educational achievement: A state-level analysis
Paul R. Amato, Sarah Patterson, Brett Beattie

Feeling good about the iron rice bowl: Economic sector and happiness in post-reform urban China   

Jia Wang, Yu Xie

Residential mobility during adolescence: Do even “upward” moves predict dropout risk?
Molly W. Metzger, Patrick J. Fowler, Courtney Lauren Anderson, Constance A. Lindsay

Revisiting convergence: A research note
Rob Clark

Age at immigration and crime in Stockholm using sibling comparisons
Amber L. Beckley

Morality and politics: Comparing alternate theories
Andrew Miles, Stephen Vaisey

Military westernization and state repression in the post-Cold War era
Ori Swed, Alexander Weinreb

Seclusion, decision-making power, and gender disparities in adult health: Examining hypertension in India
Samuel Stroope

Scientific consensus, the law, and same sex parenting outcomes
jimi adams, Ryan Light

Social control, social learning, and cheating: Evidence from lab and online experiments on dishonesty
Martina Kroher, Tobias Wolbring 

Mass imprisonment and the life course revisited: Cumulative years spent imprisoned and marked for working-age black and white men
Evelyn J. Patterson, Christopher Wildeman

Ebony and Ivory? Interracial dating intentions and behaviors of disadvantaged African American women in Kentucky
David J. Luke, Carrie B. Oser

Social trust and grassroots governance in rural China
Narisong Huhe, Jie Chen, Min Tang

Family and housing instability: Longitudinal impact on adolescent emotional and behavioral well-being
Patrick J. Fowler, David B. Henry, Katherine E. Marcal

Trends in exposure to industrial air toxins for different racial and socioeconomic groups: A spatial and temporal examination of environmental inequality in the U.S. from 1995 to 2004
Kerry Ard

In-services and empty threats: The roles of organizational practices and workplace experiences in shaping U.S. educators’ understandings of students’ rights
Jason Thompson, Richard Arum, Lauren B. Edelman, Calvin Morrill, Karolyn Tyson

Incarceration and Black–White inequality in Homeownership: A state-level analysis
Daniel Schneider, Kristin Turney

Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency 52(5)

Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency, August 2015: Volume 52, Issue 5

Can We Predict Long-term Community Crime Problems? The Estimation of Ecological Continuity to Model Risk Heterogeneity
Ralph B. Taylor, Jerry H. Ratcliffe, and Amber Perenzin

Objectives: In small-scale, intra-urban communities, do fundamental demographic correlates of crime, proven important in community criminology, link to next year’s crime levels, even after controlling for this year’s crime levels? If they do, it would imply that shifting ecologies of crime apparent after a year are driven in part by dynamics emerging from structural differentials. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this question has not yet been addressed. Methods: For Philadelphia (PA) census block groups, 2005 to 2009 data from the American Community Survey and 2009 crime counts were used to predict spatially smoothed 2010 crime counts in three different models: crime only, demographics only, and crime plus demographics. Models are tested for major personal (murder, rape-aggravated assault, and robbery) and property (burglary and motor vehicle theft) crimes. Results: For all crime types investigated except rape and homicide, crime plus demographics resulted in the best combination of prediction/simplicity based on the Bayesian Information Criterion. Socioeconomic status (SES) and racial composition linked as expected theoretically to crime changes. Conclusions: Intercommunity structural differences in power relationships, as reflected in SES and racial composition, link to later crime shifts at the same time that ongoing crime continuities link current and future crime levels. The main practical implication is that crime analysts tasked with long-term, one-year-look-ahead forecasting may benefit by considering demographic structure as well as current crime.

Co-Offender Ties and the Criminal Career: The Relationship between Co-Offender Group Structure and the Individual Offender
Brendan Lantz and Robert Hutchison

Objectives: This study aims to assess three related aspects of co-offending networks: (1) the characteristics of co-offending groups and the duration of group offending careers, (2) the impact of membership in co-offending groups on total offending and the length of individual offending careers, and (3) the impact of offender arrest (or changes in co-offending group structure) on the offending patterns of connected co-offenders. Methods: Data on sentenced burglary offenders (N = 270) in one county in Pennsylvania from 2001 to 2010 are used to examine the impact of co-offending group membership, as well as the relationship between the changing network structure and the offending patterns of connected co-offenders, within a two-level modeling framework. Results: Larger groups with more dispersed offending structures offend over the longest span. Additionally, membership in co-offending groups is associated with more total offending and a longer individual offending career. Finally, the arrest of structurally important offenders, compared to more peripheral offenders, is significantly associated with the decreased offending of connected co-offenders. Conclusions: The removal of a highly central “instigator” or “recruiter” is associated with desistance among connected co-offenders. Future research should examine the mechanisms behind these effects, and why the arrest of co-offending partners is associated with desistance.

Credit and Trust: Management of Network Ties in Illicit Drug Distribution
Kim Moeller and Sveinung Sandberg

Objectives: This study examines the use of credit, or “fronting,” in the illegal drug economy. We study how fronting affects transaction costs and insulates against law enforcement in drug distribution networks and what role fronting plays in the management of interpersonal network ties. The emphasis is on the cooperative dimension of credits. Methods: Qualitative interviews were conducted with 68 incarcerated drug dealers in Norwegian prisons. Most were mid-level dealers (66 percent), dealing with many different drugs, but amphetamines were the main drugs distributed (38 percent). Using qualitative content analysis, we explore their perspective on the fronting of illegal drugs and associated practices in the illegal drug economy. Results: We find that dealers are generally skeptical toward fronting drugs, and accepting fronted drugs, but that this practice still is common. The main reason is that the practice secures a faster turnaround. Credits are embedded in social relationships both economically and socially. Previous social relationships are often a prerequisite, but fronting is also used to build trust. Conclusion: Although transaction cost economics captures the economic dimension of credit, insights from economic sociology and in particular the social embeddedness approach are necessary to understand the interplay between economic and social factors when drugs are fronted in the illegal economy.

Mortgage Foreclosures and the Changing Mix of Crime in Micro-neighborhoods
Johanna Lacoe and Ingrid Gould Ellen

Objectives: The main objectives of the study are to estimate the impact of mortgage foreclosures on the location of criminal activity within a blockface. Drawing on routine activity theory, disorder theory, and social disorganization theory, the study explores potential mechanisms that link foreclosures to crime. Methods: To estimate the relationship between foreclosures and localized crime, we use detailed foreclosure and crime data at the blockface level in Chicago and a difference-in-difference estimation strategy. Results: Overall, mortgage foreclosures increase crime on blockfaces. Foreclosures have a larger impact on crime that occurs inside residences than on crime in the street. The impact of foreclosures on crime location varies by crime type (violent, property, and public order crime). Conclusions: The evidence supports the three main theoretical mechanisms that link foreclosure activity to local crime. The investigation of the relationship by crime location suggests that foreclosures change the relative attractiveness of indoor and outdoor locations for crime commission on the blockface.

Explaining Adolescents’ Delinquency and Substance Use: A Test of the Maturity Gap: The SNARE study
Jan Kornelis Dijkstra, Tina Kretschmer, Kim Pattiselanno, Aart Franken, Zeena Harakeh, Wilma Vollebergh, and René Veenstra

Objectives: One explanation for the increase in delinquency in adolescence is that young people are trapped in the so-called maturity gap: the discrepancy between biological and social maturation, which motivates them to engage in delinquency as a temporary means to bridge this gap by emphasizing their maturity. In the current study, we investigated to what extent the discrepancy between pubertal status (i.e., biological maturation) and autonomy in decision making (i.e., social maturation) is related to conflict with parents, which in turn predicts increasing levels of delinquency as well as substance use. Methods: Hypotheses were tested by means of path models in a longitudinal sample of adolescent boys and girls (N = 1,844; M age 13.02) from the Social Network Analyses of Risk behaviors in Early adolescence (SNARE) study using a one-year time interval. Results: Results indicate that biological maturation in interaction with social maturation predict conflict with parents, which in turn was related to higher levels of delinquency and substance use over time. No gender differences were found. Conclusions: These findings reveal that conflict with parents is an important mechanism, linking the interplay of biological and social maturation with delinquency and substance use in early adolescence for boys and girls.

Theory and Society 44(4)

Theory and Society, July 2015: Volume 44, Issue 4

Revolutions and the international
George Lawson

Although contemporary theorists of revolution usually claim to be incorporating international dynamics in their analysis, “the international” remains a residual feature of revolutionary theory. For the most part, international processes are seen either as the facilitating context for revolutions or as the dependent outcome of revolutions. The result is an analytical bifurcation between international and domestic in which the former serves as the backdrop to the latter’s causal agency. This article demonstrates the benefits of a fuller engagement between revolutionary theory and “the international.” It does so in three steps: first, the article examines the ways in which contemporary revolutionary theory apprehends “the international”; second, it lays out the descriptive and analytical advantages of an “intersocietal” approach; and third, it traces the ways in which international dynamics help to constitute revolutionary situations, trajectories, and outcomes. In this way, revolutions are understood as “intersocietal” all the way down.

Cycles of polarization and settlement: diffusion and transformation in the macroeconomic policy field
Tod S. Van Gunten

Innovative theories and policy proposals originating in the economics profession have diffused globally over the past several decades, but these models and policy programs transform as they spread. Existing models of change based on the concept of “paradigm shifts” capture the transformation of the economics profession at a high level of abstraction, but analysis of more concrete policy changes and associated ideas requires developing theory at a lower level of abstraction. I propose a field theoretic model of change based on the concept of cycles of polarization and settlement. According to this model, settlements are characterized by multiple cross-cutting axes of competition and debate in a professional field. Moments of contention emerge when field entrepreneurs successfully build professional movements, resulting in polarization. However, contention is episodic and followed by the emergence of “centripetal forces” which lead a gradual return to the center. I develop this model by examining the case of monetary economics and policy in Latin America, a critical case for studies of the policy influence of economic ideas and experts.

Global borderlands: a case study of the Subic Bay Freeport Zone, Philippines
Victoria Reyes

By developing the concept of “global borderlands”—semi-autonomous, foreign-controlled geographic locations geared toward international exchange—this article shifts the focus of globalization literature from elite global cities and cities on national borders to within-country sites owned or operated by foreigners and defined by significant social, cultural, and economic exchange. I analyze three shared features of these sites: semi-autonomy, symbolic and geographic boundaries, and unequal relations. The multi-method analyses reveal how the concept of global borderlands can help us better understand the interactions that occur among people of different nationalities, classes, and races/ethnicities and the complex dynamics that occur within foreign-controlled spaces. I first situate global borderlands within the literatures of global cities and geopolitical borderlands. Next, I use the case study of Subic Bay Freeport Zone (SBFZ), Philippines to show (1) how the semi-autonomy of global borderlands produces different regulations depending on nationality, (2) how its geographic and symbolic borders differentiate this space from the surrounding community, and (3) how the semi-autonomy of these locations and their geographic and symbolic borders reproduce unequal relations. As home of the former US Subic Bay Naval Base and current site of a Freeport Zone, the SBFZ serves as a particularly strategic research location to examine the different forms of interactions that occur between groups within spaces of unequal power.

Review essay: The promise of Bourdieusian political sociology
Bart Bonikowski

This essay provides an analytical review of David Swartz’s book on Bourdieu’s political sociology. I argue that among its many virtues, the book presents Bourdieu’s ideas in an accessible and synthetic manner, adding clarity to what is a complex and often contradictory theoretical system. In addition to assessing the book’s contributions, I draw inspiration from Swartz’s work to point out some of the limitations of the Bourdieusian perspective and identify promising avenues for the further elaboration of this approach through empirical research.

American Journal of Sociology 120(6)

American Journal of Sociology, May 2015: Volume 120, Issue 6

Explaining the Persistence of Health Disparities: Social Stratification and the Efficiency-Equity Trade-off in the Kidney Transplantation System
Jonathan Daw

Why do health disparities persist when their previous mechanisms are eliminated? Fundamental-cause theorists argue that social position primarily improves health through two metamechanisms: better access to health information and technology. I argue that the general, cumulative, and embodied consequences of social stratification can produce another metamechanism: an efficiency-equity trade-off. A case in point is kidney transplantation, where the mechanisms previously thought to link race to outcomes—ability to pay and certain factors in the kidney allocation system—have been greatly reduced, yet large disparities persist. I show that these current disparities are rooted in factors that directly influence posttransplant success, placing efficiency and racial/ethnic equity at cross-purposes.

From Masterly Brokers to Compliant Protégées: The Frontier Governance System and the Rise of Ethnic Confrontation in China–Inner Mongolia, 1900–1930
Liping Wang

Center-periphery explanations focus on political centralization, state collapse, and nationalization to explain the genesis of separatist movements that form new national states. This study shows that three periods of Chinese-Mongolian relations—land reform (1900–1911), revolution and interregnum (1912–16) and warlordism (1917–30)—contained events that center-periphery perspectives associate with the rise of autonomous movements, yet Mongolian separatism did not occur until the last period. To explain this puzzle, the author characterizes the formation, integration, and dismemberment of the frontier governance system as an intermediate body between the center and the periphery. She demonstrates that the effects pointed to by center-periphery explanations were mediated, at least in the case of Inner Mongolia, by the structural transformations of the frontier governance system. Not assuming a natural opposition between the center and the periphery, this study elucidates the polarization of the center-periphery relationship and its impact on minority separatism.

Community Constraints on the Efficacy of Elite Mobilization: The Issuance of Currency Substitutes during the Panic of 1907
Lori Qingyuan Yue

Organizing collective action to secure support from local communities provides a source of power for elites to protect their interests, but community structures constrain the ability of elites to use this power. Elites’ power is not static or self-perpetuating but changing and dynamic. There are situations in which elites are forced into movement-like struggles to mobilize support from their community. The success of elites’ mobilization is affected by cultural and structural factors that shape the collective meaning of supporting elites’ actions and the identities that are formed in doing so. I find broad support for these propositions in a study of the issuances of small-denomination currency substitutes in 145 U.S. cities during the Panic of 1907. I discuss the contributions of this article to elite studies, the social movement literature, and the sociology of money.

Urbanization as Socioenvironmental Succession: The Case of Hazardous Industrial Site Accumulation
James R. Elliott and Scott Frickel

This study rehabilitates concepts from classical human ecology and synthesizes them with contemporary urban and environmental sociology to advance a theory of urbanization as socioenvironmental succession. The theory illuminates how social and biophysical phenomena interact endogenously at the local level to situate urban land use patterns recursively and reciprocally in place. To demonstrate this theory we conduct a historical-comparative analysis of hazardous industrial site accumulation in four U.S. cities, using a relational database that was assembled for more than 11,000 facilities that operated during the past half century—most of which remain unacknowledged in government reports. Results show how three iterative processes—hazardous industrial churning, residential churning, and risk containment—intersect to produce successive socioenvironmental changes that are highly relevant to but often missed by research on urban growth machines, environmental inequality, and systemic risk.

Agents of Change or Cogs in the Machine? Reexamining the Influence of Female Managers on the Gender Wage Gap
Sameer B. Srivastava and Eliot L. Sherman

Do female managers act in ways that narrow or instead act in ways that preserve or even widen the gender wage gap? Although conceptual arguments exist on both sides of this debate, the empirical evidence to date has favored the former view. Yet this evidence comes primarily from cross-establishment surveys, which do not provide visibility into individual managers’ choices. Using longitudinal personnel records from an information services firm in which managers had considerable discretion over employee salaries, we estimate multilevel models that indicate no support for the proposition that female managers reduce the gender wage gap among their subordinates. Consistent with the theory of value threat, we instead find conditional support for the cogs-in-the-machine perspective: in the subsample of high-performing supervisors and low-performing employees, women who switched from a male to a female supervisor had a lower salary in the following year than men who made the same switch.

Do Different Methods for Modeling Age-Graded Trajectories Yield Consistent and Valid Results?
John Robert Warren, Liying Luo, Andrew Halpern-Manners, James M. Raymo, and Alberto Palloni

Data on age-sequenced trajectories of individuals’ attributes are used for a growing number of research purposes. However, there is no consensus about which method to use to identify the number of discrete trajectories in a population or to assign individuals to a specific trajectory group. The authors modeled real and simulated trajectory data using “naïve” methods, optimal matching, grade of membership models, and three types of finite-mixture models. They found that these methods produced inferences about the number of trajectories that frequently differ (1) from one another and (2) from the truth as represented by simulation parameters. They also found that they differed in the assignment of individuals to trajectory groups. In light of these findings, the authors argue that researchers should interpret results based on these methods cautiously, neither reifying point estimates about the number of trajectories nor treating individuals’ trajectory group assignments as certain.

Journal of Marriage and Family 77(4)

Journal of Marriage and Family, August 2015: Volume 77, Issue 4

Brief Reports

Convergence or Continuity? The Gender Gap in Household Labor After Retirement
Thomas Leopold and Jan Skopek

Toward a Standard Approach to Operationalizing Coercive Control and Classifying Violence Types
Jennifer L. Hardesty, Kimberly A. Crossman, Megan L. Haselschwerdt, Marcela Raffaelli, Brian G. Ogolsky and Michael P. Johnson

Intergenerational Relationships

“I'll Give You the World”: Socioeconomic Differences in Parental Support of Adult Children
Karen L. Fingerman, Kyungmin Kim, Eden M. Davis, Frank F. Furstenberg Jr., Kira S. Birditt and Steven H. Zarit

Gay and Lesbian Adults' Relationship With Parents in Germany
Karsten Hank and Veronika Salzburger

Extending the Intergenerational Stake Hypothesis: Evidence of an Intra-individual Stake and Implications for Well-being
Kira S. Birditt, Caroline Sten Hartnett, Karen L. Fingerman, Steven H. Zarit and Toni C. Antonucci

Impact of Genetic Relatedness and Emotional Closeness on Intergenerational Relations
Mirkka Danielsbacka, Antti O. Tanskanen and Anna Rotkirch

Estrangement Between Mothers and Adult Children: The Role of Norms and Values
Megan Gilligan, J. Jill Suitor and Karl Pillemer

How Childhood Circumstances Moderate the Long-Term Impact of Divorce on Father–Child Relationships
Matthijs Kalmijn

Of General Interest

Multigenerational Punishment: Shared Experiences of Undocumented Immigration Status Within Mixed-Status Families
Laura E. Enriquez

Are “Equals” Happier Than “Less Equals”? A Couple Analysis of Similarity and Well-being
Renske Keizer and Aafke Komter

Temporal Ordering of Intimate Relationship Efficacy and Conflict
Matthew D. Johnson and Jared R. Anderson

Health Insurance and Risk of Divorce: Does Having Your Own Insurance Matter?
Heeju Sohn

Income, Relationship Quality, and Parenting: Associations With Child Development in Two-Parent Families
Lawrence M. Berger and Sara S. McLanahan

Longitudinal Mediators of Relations Between Family Violence and Adolescent Dating Aggression Perpetration
H. Luz McNaughton Reyes, Vangie A. Foshee, Beverly L. Fortson, Linda A. Valle, Matthew J.

Sociological Theory 33(2)

Sociological Theory, June 2015: Volume 33, Issue 2

The Public Life of Secrets: Deception, Disclosure, and Discursive Framing in the Policy Process
Christopher A. Bail

While secrecy enables policy makers to escape public scrutiny, leaks of classified information reveal the social construction of reality by the state. I develop a theory that explains how leaks shape the discursive frames states create to communicate the causes of social problems to the public and corresponding solutions to redress them. Synthesizing cultural sociology, symbolic interactionism, and ethnomethodology, I argue that leaks enable non–state actors to amplify contradictions between the public and secret behavior of the state. States respond by “ad hoc–ing” new frames that normalize their secret transgressions as logical extensions of other policy agendas. While these syncretic responses resolve contradictions exposed by leaks, they gradually detach discursive frames from reality and therefore increase states’ need for secrecy—as well as the probability of future leaks—in turn. I illustrate this downward spiral of deception and disclosure via a case study of the British government’s discourse about terrorism between 2000 and 2008.

The Neoclassical Origins of Polanyi’s Self-Regulating Market
Kurtuluş Gemici

This article shows, through a detailed examination of Karl Polanyi’s published works and unpublished writings, that Polanyi relies heavily on the neoclassical economics of his time in his conceptualization of the market in capitalist societies. This approach is instrumental to the thesis of The Great Transformation concerning the destructive impact of the market on society. However, such an analytical perspective neglects the social character of the market economy. This perspective is also deficient in capturing why the market is destructive to the social fabric. By identifying the origins and limitations of Polanyi’s self-regulating market, this article contributes to critical reevaluations of his work that aim to expand the scope of Polanyian analysis. In particular, this article outlines how the analysis of the market’s contradictory place is not predicated on the notion of self-regulation. Polanyi’s own historical work, as opposed to his theoretical articulations, illustrates such an analysis.

Toward a Dynamic Theory of Action at the Micro Level of Genocide: Killing, Desistance, and Saving in 1994 Rwanda
Aliza Luft

This article is about behavioral variation in genocide. Research frequently suggests that violent behaviors can be explained by or treated as synonymous with ethnic categories. This literature also tends to pre-group actors as perpetrators, victims, or bystanders for research purposes. However, evidence that individuals cross boundaries from killing to desistance and saving throughout genocide indicates that the relationship between behaviors and categories is often in flux. I thus introduce the concept of behavioral boundary crossing to examine when and how Hutu in 1994 Rwanda aligned with the killing behaviors expected of them and when and how they did not. I analyze interviews with 31 Hutu, revealing that transactional, relational, social-psychological, and cognitive mechanisms informed individuals’ behaviors during the genocide. The result is a dynamic theory of action that explains participation without homogenizing individual experience due to presumptions about behavioral and categorical alignment.

Individualism as a Discursive Strategy of Action: Autonomy, Agency, and Reflexivity among Religious Americans
John O’Brien

This paper reconceptualizes “individualism” as a discursive strategy of action through which everyday Americans attempt to manage the cultural dilemma of engaging in externally imposed social obligations within a broader individualistic culture. While classic formulations have treated individualism as a strong cultural force directing actors toward voluntaristic and privatized lives, my analysis—grounded in an inductive analysis of 17 qualitative studies of religious Americans—finds individualism working primarily as a discursive strategy, through which actors frame their participation in activities influenced by external authority and communal obligation in ways that emphasize their own agency and autonomy. This revised conceptualization suggests that American individualism may not be as “deep” or powerful as is often assumed. More generally, it offers a novel approach for conceptualizing and further studying the dynamic relationship between broadly “national” and more local and communal cultures.