STATES AND SOCIAL POLICY. Office Hrs: TH 3-5 (or by appointment)

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1 1 STATES AND SOCIAL POLICY Sociology 514 Professor Jeff Sallaz Fall 2006 Office: S SCI 406 Building/room: S SCI 415 jsallaz@ .arizona.edu Tues 3:30-6:00 Office Hrs: TH 3-5 (or by appointment) COURSE OVERVIEW This graduate level seminar will provide an overview of sociological theories of the state and social policy. The first half of the course will focus upon classical theories examining the emergence and development of the modern state. Classical authors were concerned with the birth of nationalism and of the nation-state as the primary locus of individual identity; with the role of the state in fomenting or quelling class conflict; with the conditions facilitating state autonomy vis-à-vis the economy and civil society; and so on. The second half of the course turns to contemporary theories of the fate of the state under globalization. Some argue that globalization presages the death of the nation-state; ravaged on one side by mobile corporate capital and on the other by a resurgence of localisms (e.g., religious and tribal identities). Others argue that new state forms are emerging to address these challenges. Such are the debates we will explore this semester. COURSE REQUIREMENTS AND GRADES Papers (60%): Students will write three short papers (6-8 pages each). Due dates are in the calendar and the assignments will be distributed in class. Presentation (20%): Each student will present once during the semester as part of a two person group. These presentations will analyze the week s readings and situate the readings in relation to larger themes in the course. In addition, the pair of presenters will be in charge of facilitating discussion during the class. Participation and attendance (20%): The hidden curriculum of a graduate seminar is that of transitioning from a passive to an active mode of learning. This entails not only doing the reading, but coming to class with prepared questions and comments on those readings; not merely showing up and listening, but taking part in class discussion. Twenty percent of the course grade will derive from such active participation. REQUIRED READINGS

2 2 The following books are required for this class and can be purchased at the book store. All other readings will be available online through the POLIS system (password: polanyi). Bourdieu, Pierre Language and Symbolic Power. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Esping-Anderson, Gosta Social Foundations of Post-Industrial Economies. New York: Oxford University Press. Haney, Lynn Inventing the Needy: Gender and the Politics of Welfare in Hungary. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Marx, Anthony. Making Race and Nation: A Comparison of South Africa, the United States, and Brazil. New York: Cambridge University Press. Polanyi, Karl The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins of Our Time. Boston: Beacon. Prasad, Monica The Politics of Free Markets. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Tarrow, Sydney Power in Movement: Social Movements and Contentious Politics. New York: Cambridge University Press. COURSE SCHEDULE Week 1, 8/22: Introduction Marx argued that the capitalist state functions as an instrument of the bourgeoisie. How have subsequent neo-marxist and sociological thinkers conceptualized the state and policy? Through what heuristics, images and metaphors? Week 2, 8/29: States and Markets: The Great Transformation Karl Polanyi attacked classic political economy s dual assumptions that: A) states hindered the rise of a self-regulating market society; and B) such a society would bring about the greatest good for all. What role did the state play in facilitating the birth of a free market society (especially regarding the three fictitious commodities )? What is the double movement? Polanyi, Karl. The Great Transformation. (All, though skip ch 15, 16, 17) Week 3, 9/5, Capitalism, Class Struggle and Democracy

3 3 Given that capitalism produces increasing polarization and immiseration, it seems that it would be incompatible with democracy. How can the two systems coexist? Why can democracy actually be a protective shell for capitalism? What are the concrete institutional connections between the business and political classes? How, if at all, does the ruling class rule? Miliband, Ralph Class Power and State Power. London: Verso. (selections) Lipset, Seymour Martin Political Man. Garden City, NY: Doubleday. (Selections) Mills, C. Wright The Power Elite. NY: Oxford University Press. (Selections) Block, Fred The Ruling Class Does Not Rule. Socialist Review. Week 4, 9/12: Hegemony, Ideology, Culture and Consent This week we delve deeper into the question of how states can organize consent. What is hegemony? What role does ideology play in class struggle? What is the function of welfare? Gramsci, Antonio Selections from the Prison Notebooks. NY: International Publishers. Intellectuals pp Political Struggle and Military War - Sociology and Poli Sci The State. pp Offe, Claus Contradictions of the Welfare State. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. (Selections) Williams, Raymond Keywords. London: Fontana. Hegemony. Hebdige, Dick Subculture: The Meaning of Style. Routledge (selections). Week 5, 9/19, States and Institutions To take the state seriously in its own right is to inquire into the social bases of its claims to legitimate power. It is also essential to examine the state as an institution i.e., as a complex of organizational structures, bureaucratic rules and procedures which can act as a prism through which larger social struggles are refracted. How do Weber, Skocpol, Evans et al. and Bourdieu describe this process of institutionalization? Max Weber, Economy and Society. ( Domination and Legitimacy ), ( and Bureaucracy )

4 4 Bringing the State Back In: Strategies of Analysis in Current Research, in Peter R. Evans, Dietrich Ruesdchemeyer, and Theda Skocpol, eds., Bringing the State Back In (Cambridge University Press, 1985). Intro: pp Skocpol, Theda States and Social Revolutions. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ch. 1 (intro) Bourdieu, Pierre From the King s House to the Reason of the State. Pp in Pierre Bourdieu and Democratic Politics. Week 6, 9/26: Culture, Framing, Social Movements We ve discussed the economy and we ve discussed the state. Now we turn to political actors emerging from civil society, what is labeled social movement theory. What, according to Tarrow, are the relative roles of framing, political opportunities, and resource mobilization? How, according to Medvetz, is solidarity maintained and strategy generated in conservative social movements? To what extent can social movements be considered part of a double movement in a Polanyian sense? PAPER 1 DUE Tarrow, Sidney. Power in Movement. Ch s 1-8 (Pp ) Thomas Medvetz The Strength of Weekly Ties: Relations of Material and Symbolic Exchange in the Conservative Movement. Politics & Society : Week 7, 10/3: Bureaucracy from Below Uncomfortable with the assumptions and predictions of grand theories of the state, ethnographers journeyed into the belly of the bureaucratic beast, to document what the state looks like from the inside. How do the findings of Blau, Lipsky and Haney problematize the theories of Marx, Weber, Mackinnon and others? Blau, Peter The Dynamics of Bureaucracy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. (selections). Lipsky, Michael Street Level Bureaucracy. Russell Sage. (selections). Haney, Lynn. Homeboys, Babies, Men in Suits: The State and the Reproduction of Male Dominance. American Sociological Review 61(1996): Week 8, 10/10. Field Theory: Background Pierre Bourdieu s field theory is an ambitious attempt to rethink the very idea of the state. For insofar as we are socialized from a young age to accept and indeed see the world through arbitrary categories of thought imposed by the state (through the education system), scholarly work will tend to reify those categories, though unintentionally. How do the concepts of bureaucratic field, political capital,

5 5 delegation and symbolic violence challenge common-sense (i.e., doxic) ideas about what a state is and how it works? Bourdieu, Pierre Rethinking the State: Genesis and Structure of the Bureaucratic Field. Sociological Theory 12(1): Bourdieu. Language and Symbolic Power: Ch 7: On Symbolic Power. Ch 8: Political Representation. Ch 9: Delegation and Political Fetishism Ch 11: Social Space and the Genesis of Classes. Bourdieu The State Nobility. Palo Alto: Stanford UP. Part V. Week 9, 10/17, Field Theory: Applications Bourdieu, Pierre Social Structures of the Economy. Malden, MA: Polity. (ch. 2) Mara Loveman- The Modern State and the Primitive Accumulation of Symbolic Power American Journal of Sociology 110 [6] (2005): Eyal, Gil, Ivan Szelenyi and Eleanor Townsend Making Capitalism Without Capitalists. New York: Verso (Selections) Week 10, 10/24: Welfare States Esping-Anderson s main contribution to the sociology of the state has been that of producing a typology of worlds of capitalism across advanced industrial societies. What are the characteristics of these different systems, and how do they relate to a larger nexus of institutions in each country? How does Esping-Anderson s theory of the genesis and functions of welfare states compare with Offe s? Esping-Andersen, Gosta. The Social Foundations of Post-Industrial Economies. (entire) Week 11, 10/31: Gender, Welfare and Neo-Liberalism What assumptions and expectations concerning gender are embodied in welfare states? How are rights and claims expressed in gendered terms and tropes? How has the larger shift to neo-liberalism transfigured these gendered welfare regimes? PAPER 2 DUE Haney, Lynn. Inventing the Needy. (entire) Week 12, 11/7: Race and State-Making

6 6 Paralleling feminist theories, race scholars have argued that nation-building projects are simultaneously racial caste-building projects. What sorts of evidence does Marx mobilize to make this claim? How did these projects differ in the US, South Africa and Brazil, and with what consequences? Marx, Anthony. Making Race and Nation. (Intro, Part I, Part II, Conclusion). Week 13, 11/14: Post-Colonial and Minority Rights Revolutions The latter half of the twentieth century witnessed a global minority rights revolution. These readings address three questions. How did the racial character of pre-existing state structures influence these movements in different countries (Marx and Skrentny)? How did the US Civil Rights movement achieve legal codification of its goals (Skrentny and Pedriana/Stryker)? What are the shortcomings of US Civil Rights law (Pedriana/Stryker and Bumiller)? Marx, Anthony. Making Race and Nation. (Part III). Skrentny, John David Color Lines: Affirmative Action, Immigration, and Civil Rights Options for America. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. (Chapter 1). Pedriana, Nicholas and Robin Stryker Political Culture Wars 1960 s Style: Equal Employment Opportunity Affirmative Action Law and the Philadelphia Plan. American Journal of Sociology 103(3): Bumiller, Kristin Victims in the Shadow of the Law: A Critique of the Model of Legal Protection. Signs 12(3): Week 14, 11/21: NO CLASS (ATTEMPT TO RESCHEDULE?) Week 15, 11/28: Neo-Liberalism Strikes Back Globalization has seen a rebirth of the neoliberal creed across countries. Compare Prasad s account with Polanyi s. Is this new wave of marketization a replication of the first great transformation? What are the roles of states, parties, and other actors in Prasad s account? Prasad, Monica The Politics of Free Markets. (selections TBA) Week 16, 12/5: Double Movements on a Global Scale

7 7 To the extent that corporate capital is increasingly mobile on a global scale, many claim national states are helpless to resist the push towards marketization. To close the course we discuss new forms of social movements which operate across national borders, a double movement on a global scale, perhaps. What are these new global connections, and how are they sustained? What new models of regulation, governance and policy do they entail? Bartley, Tim Certifying Forests and Factories: States, Social Movements, and the Rise of Private Regulation in the Apparel and Forest Products Fields. Politics & Society 31(3): Kay, Tamara "Labor Transnationalism and Global Governance: The Impact of NAFTA on Transnational Labor Relationships in North America." American Journal of Sociology. 111(3): Tarrow. Power in Movement. (Ch. 11). Lopez, Steve Contesting the Global City. In Global Ethnography: Forces, Connections and Imaginations in a Postmodern World. 12/8 (Friday at 5PM) : *PAPER 3 DUE