1.) Not-So-Safe-Sex: Alexandre Padilla explains why proposed “safety” regulations mandating condom use in the California adult film industry might make things worse.
2.) Redefining Acceptance at Harvard: Nice article on the guy who helps regular folks get into fancy pants school. Some call it altruism. I call it alertness to entrepreneurial opportunities in a non-priced environment.
3.) Young People and Obama: A majority of young people disapprove of Obama’s handling of Afghanistan, the economy, and healthcare… but they think he’s doing a good job overall! (To avoid accusation of partisanship, watch this video on Sarah Palin too.) This could be an example of 1) Weber’s charismatic authority; 2) Durkheim’s secular religion; or 3) Caplan’s myth of the rational voter.
4.) Blogger Disclosure: The Federal Trade Commission is worried that the bloggers at TSI are nothing but sycophants for the bourgeoisie or maybe even shrills for big corporate interests. We’re now supposed to disclose it to the reader when we get free stuff. Riiiiiiight.
The mathematically-gifted sociologists over at Permutations are discussing what sorts of math a prospective graduate sociology student should enroll herself in? The author and commenters agree that a working knowledge of at least one programming language, mathematical statistics, (Basic) differentiability and integration (I said this by the way), and Linear Algebra are important.
But, even with the emergence of advanced statistics, network analysis, and agent-based modeling in sociology, I doubt that mathematical sociology and mathematical statistics will become required courses for graduate students. I doubt, moreover, that a math “pre-fresher” course, as offered in many political science and economics departments, will be offered to graduate sociology students in the weeks prior to the commencement of the fall semester. A pre-fresher course, at least, will highlight to a student, interested in formal modeling, where s/he can ameliorate their mathematical deficiencies.
But without these, how will sociology retain students interested in formal modeling and social mechanisms?
I think ideology is a phenomenon that doesn’t get enough attention in the study of social, economic, and political change. I don’t think anyone believes that it isn’t important, but no one really puts a focus on it either. They much rather spend their time looking at Interests (Quadagno/Tullock) or Institutions (Skocpol/Buchanan).
Douglass North, for example, argues that “ideas and ideologies matter” but immediately follows up with “and institutions play a major role in determining just how they matter.” In The Politics of Free Markets, Monica Prasad argues that while the ideological change that occurred with the rise of neoliberalism was important, it was institutions that determined how these ideas were transformed into public policy. In my head, it looks something like this:
People have their individual interests which are shaped by ideology which in turn is shaped by state structure. It’s quite a convincing argument both theoretical and empirically. The only question left is: Where do the institutions of the state come from and how do they change? I could be wrong, but it seems like most people just fall back on a path dependency argument. I don’t think this is an adequate explanation. For example, how do we explain the differences between the state powers enumerated in the original constitution and what we have today? If state structure played the dominant role then we’d have a lot more amendments than we do.
Instead, it’s been changing ideology which better explains the outcome. Bob Higgs got it right in Crisis and Leviathan. He argues that “ideologies constrain as well as propel political action… Many potentially gratifying ends and many powerful means are patently inconsistent with a particular ideology, and therefore infeasible if not unthinkable. While ideologies serve as levers, they also function as straightjackets.” No doubt interests and institutions are still important, though if I had to reformulate those circles, I think I would switch ideology and state structure.
Anyone want to point me to some more relevant literature on the subject?
I assume posting is going to be light around here for the next couple of weeks since we’re nearing the end of the semester. (Fun fact: I’m in the process of turning one of my very first blog posts into a paper this semester.) In lieu of something substantive, I thought I’d start a new tradition on this blog.
Tyler Cowen periodically posts “What I’ve Been Reading” which sums up all the books he’s read recently. My productivity is nowhere near his, so I’m not going to do that. Instead, I’m making something called “Amazon Arrivals.” Every so often I get the Amazon itch and order a few of the books that have been on my wish list for months. I’ll probably read them over the coming vacation. The last batch included:
The Great Transformation: I’m a little bit embarrassed that I haven’t read this yet. Polanyi explains why I’m a big dope for advocating for more free market institutions. Also, he explains why labor cannot be treated like other commodities in economic analysis. Without having read it yet, I’m probably in agreement there. It’s a subject I don’t think the Austrians have explored adequately yet.
Government and the American Economy: This book is what happens when you take the best economic historians of our time and put them together. Seriously. It’s got Fishback, Higgs, Engerman, Hummel, Margo, and a foreword by North (among others!). I want to be to economic sociology what these guys are to economic history.
Work Under Capitalism: If one Tilly is good then two of them are even better. I got to know Chris when he was teaching at UMass (now he’s out directing the UCLA Labor Center). He was one of the only professors who could ask me simple questions which I couldn’t even attempt to answer without at least a week’s worth of thought. He’s also the reason I got into sociology in the first place. I’m slowly trying to read everything written by anyone named Tilly.
Critical Theories of the State: The book surveys all the major Marxist theories of the state. I’ve got my knowledge of Public Choice theory down, so now I’m working on really understanding all the fine differences in the varieties of Marxist theory. Barrow breaks it down into Marxist, Neo-Marxist, and Post-Marxist. See, I didn’t even know there was a Post-Marxism!
The Handbook of Economic Sociology: 2nd edition. I’ve been reading all the articles over the semester from a borrowed copy, but I figured I had to give it back sooner or later. Besides, this is one of the books that you should own if you want to call yourself an economic sociologist.
I’m working on a paper on Marx’s labor theory of value. I was reading Paul Sweezy’s excellent introduction to Böhm-Bawerk’s Karl Marx and the Close of his System when I came across this little ditty:
It has been necessary to stress the historical importance of Böhm-Bawerk’s criticism of Marx, but this should not lead us into the error of falsely evaluating the work itself. The truth is that in its essentials Karl Marx and the Close of His System is not a particularly remarkable performance. It is obviously the work of a skilled debater, but its intellectual content is largely confined to applications of the elementary principles of the marginal utility theory. Böhm-Bawerk’s line of reasoning was thoroughly familiar in academic economic circles, and any number of his contemporaries could have produced a critique of Marx which would have differed from Böhm-Bawerk’s only in matters of emphasis and detail. The examples of Wicksteed in England and Pareto in the Latin countries prove this, if indeed proof is required. We do not need to assume, therefore, that things would have been much different if Karl Marx and the Close of His System had never been written. Some other economist would have come forward to do the job which Böhm-Bawerk did; or perhaps Pareto’s critique, since it bore the authoritative stamp of the Lausanne school, might have assumed the pre-eminent position that Böhm-Bawerk’s actually occupied. Marx had to be refuted, and history, in casting her eyes over the possible candidates, selected Böhm-Bawerk as best fitted for the assignment. But if he had refused or fallen down on the job, some one else would have been ready to take his place. Here is a case, I think, where we can clearly accept Engels’ dictum: “That such and such a man and precisely that man arises at that particular time in that given country is of course pure accident. But cut him out and there will be a demand for a substitute, and this substitute will be found, good or bad, but in the long run he will be found.”
That paragraph was just soooo Marxist that I had to post it. I enjoy these things. Is that sick or what?
A little known fact about Dr. Storr is that he is the original Piratologist. His work is stretching the boundary of spontaneous order thinking and research with the inclusion of Habermasian communicative action and perverse emergent orders. Also, I have read nearly all of his work, and I do not recall Dr. Storr using the same literature review more than once!
Given his broad ranging scholarship, his post-Katrina research, and the gargantuan amount of reading he does (and has done), I am proud to state that V. Storr is not only my intellectual role model, but a friend.
Fabio Rojas gives excellent advice on publishing in graduate school. But that first rejection, quite frankly, hurts! By the time one submits, by and large, the paper has been presented, likely with pretty good feedback, received constructive criticism from students and professors, and the student probably feels pretty good about the paper. Hence, s/he presses the submit button with the journal of her/his choice.
However, six weeks or so later, there is something in your inbox that reads:
Decision Regarding Your Paper with … And the decision from the editor, who claims that due to the (not-so-positive) feedback from the reviewers, reads “Rejected!” Believe me, Dr. Rojas and others, I have pretty tough skin. But I still wonder how graduate and former graduate students dealt with that first rejection.
I was “gunshy” for awhile. That is, I sat on working papers until I believed that I had included everything there was to say about the topic in my paper. I have gotten over this. I, now, submit, and complete R&R’s with alacrity. What about you?
I’m going to break my own rule here to talk about some really good news I got today. I have been following the case of Cory Maye ever since Radley Balko started blogging about it. You can find a summary of the case in Balko’s 2006 article here or watch this short reason.tv video. From wikipedia:
He was convicted of murder in the death of Prentiss police officer Ron W. Jones, during a drug raid in 2001. Maye pleaded not guilty at his trial, citing self-defense as his justification. His case attracted no attention until late 2005, when bloggers started drawing attention to it.
Bloggers supporting Maye say his conviction and sentence raise issues about the right to self defense, police conduct in the War on Drugs, and racial and social inequities in the region. They also raise questions about whether he has received competent legal representation.
Cory Maye is not a Mumia Abu-Jamal. He is not a Leonard Peltier. Cory Maye is a man who was in the wrong place at the wrong time.
The police mistakenly raided his home in search of drugs (on a tip from an unabashed racist). Maye was woken up in the middle of the night by what he thought was someone breaking into his house. Given that he lived in a bad neighborhood and he had his baby daughter to protect, Maye grabbed his gun and fired at the intruder in self-defense.
Unfortunately, the man who was shot was actually police officer Ron Jones. Maye did not know this at the time. When made clear after the shooting that the person he thought was trying to break into the house were actually the police, Maye immediately dropped his gun and surrendered.
While the prosecuters should have seen that this was simply a case of mistaken identity and a man defending his family and home from unknown intruders, Maye was subsequently charged with murder, convicted, and sentenced to death. He was eventually taken off of death row, but was to serve life without parole instead.
I have been among the many people who believe that Cory was wrongly convicted. A legal team has been doing pro bono work trying to gain Cory’s freedom, but I had not heard any updates in a long time and I was not holding my breath.
I learned this afternoon that Cory has been granted a new trial by the Mississippi Court of Appeals! You can read the opinion here. This is great news. I hope Cory Maye can now get the fair trial that he deserves.
The New England Patriot’s coach Bill Belichick has been taking a lot of flack from Monday morning quarterbacks around the country for his decision to go for it while up by 6 on 4th and 2 from the Pat’s 28-yard line with two minutes left on the clock. Why didn’t they punt? That’s the question everyone is asking because it seemed like the answer was obvious. They should have punted!
Not necessarily. Why? The guys over at Permutations will probably enjoy this: According to computer simulation models, Belichick made the right decision.
Burke is a football-crazed, math-inclined single father who works for a military contractor. Three years ago, he found himself with nothing to do once he put his children to bed. “I was pretty bored,’’ Burke said. He used software leftover from grad school to create a simulation tool that could solve football arguments for his friends at work.
…
Late Sunday night, Burke compiled the data and ran the numbers. When Burke began, even though he believes coaches are too conservative, his gut told him Belichick had made the incorrect decision. His outcome proved him wrong.
According to Burke’s tabulation, going for the first down gave the Patriots a 79 percent chance of winning. Punting gave them a 70-percent chance to win. Even after Burke made tweaks, the win probability never dipped in favor of the punt. If anything, factoring in how explosive the Colts’ offense is, the team-specific adjustments only made going for it more favorable.
You can still argue that Belichick made the wrong decision, but at least he had the numbers on his side. More importantly, this shows that mathematical models do in fact have a place in the social sciences. If there are any macro economists reading this, remember that you could always quit and focus your talents on something more productive with far fewer negative externalities for society!
"The sociological imagination enables us to grasp history and biography and the relations between the two within society. That is its task and its promise. To recognize this task and this promise is the mark of the classic social analyst." - C. Wright Mills
