A JOURNAL OF REVIEWS American Sociological Association January 2009 Volume 38 Number 1 January 2009 Volume

CONTEMPORARY SOCIOLOGY • A JOURNAL OF REVIEWS January 2009, Volume 38, Number 1 IPS 3507 Contemp cover 12/23/08 2:49 PM Page 2

A JOURNAL OF REVIEWS January 2009 Volume 38 Number 1

ASSISTANT EDITORS EDITOR MANAGING EDITOR Kathryn Densberger Alan Sica Anne Sica Richard M. Simon

Pennsylvania State University

EDITORIAL BOARD Paul Amato Francis Dodoo Harland Prechel Pennsylvania State University Pennsylvania State University Texas A&M University Robert Antonio Elaine Draper Robert Sampson University of Kansas California State University– Harvard University Los Angeles Victoria Bonnell Michael Schudson University of California– Joe Gerteis University of California– Berkeley University of Minnesota San Diego Alan Booth Charles Lemert Wendy Simonds Wesleyan University Georgia State University Pennsylvania State University Nicole Marwell Neil Smelser Dana Britton Columbia University University of California– Kansas State University Berkeley John McCarthy Craig Calhoun Pennsylvania State University Christian Smith New York University University of Notre Dame Valentine Moghadam Bruce Carruthers Purdue University Judith Treas Northwestern University University of California–Irvine Mignon Moore Georgi Derluguian University of California– Stephen Turner Northwestern University Los Angeles University of South Florida Paul DiMaggio Ann Morning Jeffery Ulmer Princeton University New York University Pennsylvania State University CONTENTS vii Editor’s Note

REVIEW ESSAYS 1 Elliot Currie Consuming Youth Violent Night: Urban Leisure and Contemporary Culture, by Simon Winlow and Steve Hall Out of Sight: Crime, Youth and Exclusion in Modern Britain, by Robert McAuley Youth, Globalization, and the Law, edited by Sudhir Alladi Venkatesh and Ronald Kassimir 5 Amitai Etzioni Adaptation or Paradigm Shift? Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions, by Dan Ariely Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness, by Richard H. Thaler and Cass R. Sunstein Falling Behind: How Rising Inequality Harms the Middle Class, by Robert H. Frank 8 Sarah Fenstermaker Beyond the Everyday Institutional Ethnography as Practice, edited by Dorothy Smith 11 Lisa Hajjar The World and the Academy: New Directions in Human Rights Scholarship Crime, Social Control and Human Rights: From Moral Panics to States of Denial: Essays in Honour of Stanley Cohen, edited by David Downes, Paul Rock, Christine Chinkin, and Conor Gearty The Practice of Human Rights: Tracking Law between the Global and the Local, edited by Mark Goodale and Sally Engle Merry 14 Heather Hartley Medical Practices The Medicalization of Society: On the Transformation of Human Conditions into Treatable Disorders, by Peter Conrad Inclusion: The Politics of Difference in Medical Research, by Steven Epstein 17 Toby L. Parcel Working In and Out of Poverty: Trends, Challenges and Strategies Higher Ground: New Hope for the Working Poor and Their Children, by Greg J. Duncan, Aletha C. Huston, and Thomas S. Weisner Working and Poor: How Economic and Policy Changes are Affecting Low-Wage Workers, edited by Rebecca M. Blank, Sheldon H. Danziger, and Robert F. Schoeni

REVIEWS Author and Title Reviewer

Culture 21 William V. D’Antonio, James D. Davidson, Dean R. Hoge, and Mary L. Gautier American Catholics Today: New Realities of Their Faith and Their Church Duane F. Alwin Author and Title Reviewer

22 Richard Flory and Donald E. Miller Finding Faith: The Spiritual Quest of the Post-Boomer Generation Gail Murphy-Geiss 24 Todd Gitlin Media Unlimited: How the Torrent of Images and Sounds Overwhelms Our Lives Andrew M. Lindner 25 Kevin Fox Gotham Authentic New Orleans: Tourism, Culture and Race in the Big Easy Norman Fainstein 27 Eva Illouz Saving the Modern Soul: Therapy, Emotions, and the Culture of Self-Help Wendy Simonds 28 Richard Madsen Democracy’s Dharma: Religious Renaissance and Political Development in Taiwan Fenggang Yang 30 Detlef Pollack and Daniel V. A. Olson, eds. The Role of Religion in Modern Societies Jon Miller 31 Mark D. Regnerus Forbidden Fruit: Sex & Religion in the Lives of American Teenagers Mark Cohan 32 Steven M. Tipton Public Pulpits: Methodists and Mainline Churches in the Moral Argument of Public Life John H. Evans

Demography 33 Kathryn Edin and Maria Kefalas Promises I Can Keep: Why Poor Women Put Motherhood Before Marriage Julie Brines 35 Paula England and Kathryn Edin, eds. Unmarried Couples with Children Kevin M. Roy

Deviance and Control 36 John Dombrink and Daniel Hillyard Sin No More: From Abortion to Stem Cells, Understanding Crime, Law, and Morality in America Gary Jensen 38 Vikas K. Gumbhir But Is It Racial Profiling? Policing, Pretext Stops, and the Color of Suspicion Kevin M. Drakulich 39 Neil J. Smelser The Faces of Terrorism: Social and Psychological Dimensions Jeff Goodwin 41 Peter K. B. St. Jean Pockets of Crime: Broken Windows, Collective Efficacy, and the Criminal Point of View Joshua Page 42 Jacob I. Stowell Immigration and Crime: The Effects of Immigration on Criminal Behavior Karen Joe Laidler 44 Franklin E. Zimring The Great American Crime Decline Richard McCleary Author and Title Reviewer

Ethnicity 45 Ginetta E. B. Candelario Black Behind the Ears: Dominican Racial Identity from Museums to Beauty Shops Sherri Grasmuck 47 Jonathan Y. Okamura Ethnicity and Inequality in Hawai’i Rory McVeigh 49 Bibin Qin Earnings Attainment of Chinese Americans: A Multilevel Analysis Arthur Sakamoto 50 Paul M. Sniderman and Louk Hagendoorn When Ways of Life Collide: Multiculturalism and Its Discontents in the Netherlands Lincoln Quillian

Politics 51 Robert D. Bullard, ed. Growing Smarter: Achieving Livable Communities, Environmental Justice, and Regional Equity Angela G. Mertig 53 Craig Calhoun Nations Matter: Culture, History and the Cosmopolitan Dream Mabel Berezin 54 Paul Frymer Black and Blue: African Americans, the Labor Movement, and the Decline of the Democratic Party Eduardo Bonilla-Silva 55 Jürgen Gerhards Cultural Overstretch? Differences Between Old and New Member States of the EU and Turkey Stephanie Lee Mudge 57 Zsuzsa Gille From the Cult of Waste to the Trash Heap of History: The Politics of Waste in Socialist and Postsocialist Hungary David L. Brown 58 Victoria Johnson How Many Machine Guns Does It Take to Cook One Meal: The Seattle and San Francisco General Strikes Rob Rosenthal 60 Peter Kivisto and Thomas Faist Citizenship: Discourse, Theory, and Transnational Prospects Louis Edgar Esparza 61 Felix Kolb The Political Outcomes of Social Movements Holly McCammon 63 Marnia Lazreg Torture and the Twilight of Empire: From Algiers to Baghdad Mansoor Moaddel 64 Namhee Lee The Making of Minjung: Democracy and the Politics of Representation in South Korea Hyung Ok Park 66 Alasdair J. Marshall Vilfredo Pareto’s Sociology: A Framework for Political Psychology John Higley Author and Title Reviewer

67 Jackie Smith Social Movements for Global Democracy Lynn R. Horton 68 Angela P. Taylor How Drug Dealers Settle Disputes: Violent and Nonviolent Outcomes Scott Grills 70 Wynne Wright and Gerad Middendorf, eds. The Fight Over Food: Producers, Consumers, and Activists Challenge the Global Food System Philip McMichael

Stratification 71 Sandra Susan Smith Lone Pursuit: Distrust and Defensive Individualism Among the Black Poor Bruce Western 72 David Wagner Ordinary People: In and Out of Poverty in the Gilded Age Douglas L. Anderton

Theory 74 Zygmunt Bauman Consuming Life Laura J. Miller 75 Pierre Birnbaum Geography of Hope: Exile, the Enlightenment, Disassimilation Cynthia Fuchs Epstein 77 Peter Dickens and James S. Ormrod Cosmic Society: Towards a Sociology of the Universe Steven P. Dandaneau and Debra K. Dandaneau 78 Robert Fine Cosmopolitanism Alex Platt 79 Neil Gross Richard Rorty: The Making of an American Philosopher Christopher Prendergast 81 Bruno Latour Reassembling the Social: An Introduction to Actor Network Theory Stephen J. Collier 83 Moya Lloyd Judith Butler: From Norms to Politics Raewyn Connell

Work and Organizations 84 Stanley Aronowitz Just Around the Corner: The Paradox of the Jobless Recovery Bruce Nissen 85 Chris Benner, Laura Leete, and Manuel Pastor Staircases or Treadmills? Labor Market Intermediaries and Economic Opportunity in a Changing Economy George Gonos Author and Title Reviewer

87 Elizabeth Bernstein Temporarily Yours: Intimacy, Authenticity, and the Commerce of Sex Emily van der Meulen 88 Edna Bonacich and Jake B. Wilson Getting the Goods: Ports, Labor, and the Logistics Revolution William Finlay 89 Matthew Desmond On the Fireline: Living and Dying with Wildland Firefighters Diane Vaughan 90 Johannes M. Pennings and Filippo Carlo Wezel Human Capital, Inter-firm Mobility, and Organizational Evolution Martin Ruef 92 Keming Yang Entrepreneurship in China Doug Guthrie

BRIEFLY NOTED 94

COMMENT AND REPLY 101

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With this issue of CS a new editorial group rotate off every year, there will be plenty of takes over from its able predecessors at opportunities for others to serve during my UC/Irvine, who were most thoughtful in tenure as editor. providing us with enough material to fill sev- Many past editors of CS have publicly eral upcoming issues. Not until mid-year will observed how hard it can be to persuade most of the published reviews be those initi- suitable scholars to write reviews regularly, ated by the Penn State office. We intend to even when the book in question falls repeat this favor for our successors several squarely within their zone of expertise. My years hence. Beginning an editorial tour of Irvine predecessors explained that they duty with little or no banked material is very sometimes approached a dozen or more difficult, as I know from experience, so the potential reviewers for a single volume’s zealous regard for the journal’s immediate treatment, all of whom refused. This speaks future exhibited by the Irvine team is deeply poorly for the discipline, for the sense of appreciated. responsibility that scholars must bear toward A few small changes in the journal’s con- one another, and I hope my editorial team tent and look will be evident. The cover art does not face similar odds against finding was especially commissioned for CS, and able reviewers. I fear this is becoming truer each January issue will feature new, original even for junior researchers, since so much art on the cover. The back cover will adver- scholarship and proto-scholarship has tise a sample of works inside, but will not become web-based, thereby converting provide an exhaustive ToC. The subject cat- books into an antique form of intellectual egories under which books are reviewed communication. And yet for all the hype have been simplified. They mimic in part associated with web-based learning, pub- typical chapter titles in introductory text- lishing books still seems to matter to many books, and also follow broad labels that have scholars and their sponsoring institutions, been in use, formally and otherwise, for and they will go to extraordinary lengths to decades. The first issues of CS in 1972 also publish a monograph or a good collection of featured about a dozen subject categories essays. In my first several months as “transi- simply expressed. I prefer this uncluttered tion editor,” I have already noticed that nomenclature since it promotes clarity when more sociologically attuned books originate arranging books for review, even if certain in the U.K. than in the U.S., since publishers subtle distinctions might be lost or abro- there seem more eager to publish books by gated. sociologists. The editorial board consists of well- My principal goal as editor will be to regarded senior scholars as well as energetic review as many books by and for sociologists younger ones, who are perhaps more as we can fit into the pages allocated to CS attuned to the latest subdisciplinary trends. I each year, while also including as many tried hard to diversify the board even more review-essays and symposia as feasible. My than it appears, inviting dozens of desirable three predecessors at Irvine vigorously pur- scholars to serve. Not surprisingly perhaps, it sued symposia despite the logistical difficul- turned out to be much easier to recruit white ties associated with them, and I will try to fol- males than to win over women or minorities low their example, though perhaps with less to the notion of working for CS. Not every- regularity. Because CS is the most important one wishes to receive every two months a outlet in English for reviews of sociological long list of books which need reviewers, and material, and plays a key role in shaping both many notable women and minorities are discourse and careers, I invite interested already overburdened with such duties, as parties to contact me with ideas or sugges- they explained. It is indeed not a task to be tions for reviews, essays, or symposia. By taken lightly. Still, our board is filled with ASA rules, CS cannot accept self-nominated excellent scholars, and because one third will reviewers, nor books for review sent by

vii Contemporary Sociology 38, 1 viii–Editors’ Note authors rather than by publishers. But I will ing from those who believe CS has over- gladly consider any reasonable suggestion looked a meritorious book. that will help us cover deserving scholarly Alan Sica works, and am especially interested in hear- [email protected]

Contemporary Sociology 38, 1 REVIEW ESSAYS

Consuming Youth ELLIOTT CURRIE University of California–Irvine [email protected]

All of these books focus on the destructive impact of broad global economic and cultural Violent Night: Urban Leisure and changes on young people in both postindus- Contemporary Culture, by Simon Winlow trial and developing societies. And the pic- and Steve Hall. Oxford, UK: Berg, 2006. ture they paint of that impact is, on the 224pp. $34.95 paper. ISBN: 1845201647. whole, a troubling one. There are glimmers of hope for the future of the young, but not Out of Sight: Crime, Youth and Exclusion in many. Taken together, these books force us Modern Britain, by Robert McAuley. to think about the long-term effects of a ram- Portland, OR: Willan Publishing, 2007. pant global consumer society more deeply 196pp. $69.95 cloth. ISBN: 1843921960. than we have before, and to face up to the possibility that for many of the less privi- Youth, Globalization, and the Law, edited by leged young, the world may have irrevoca- Sudhir Alladi Venkatesh and Ronald bly changed for the worse. Kassimir. Palo Alto, CA: Stanford It was not, of course, supposed to be this University Press, 2007. 384pp. $65.00 way. The freeing of markets and the shift cloth. ISBN: 0804754748. away from the constraints of the traditional industrial economy promised, in theory, to young people in both the developed and open vast new possibilities for the young— developing worlds. At the same time, con- opportunities for high-skilled, well-paid sumer capitalism has eroded the normative work and a greatly expanded range of edu- and institutional structures that, in the past, cational and consumer choices. But whatever bred significant movements for social may be true for the most privileged among change. That is not the whole story—there the global young, the reality for many—and are some countertrends, notably the spread not only the most excluded—is very differ- of formal legal rights for youth to places ent: a compound of unstable, poorly-paid, where they had not penetrated before. But it and alienating work, joyless leisure, stunted is the main story. social and personal relationships, and a The portrait is drawn most sharply, and future, at best, of more of the same. most bleakly, in Simon Winlow and Steve Two of the books—Violent Night and Out Hall’s impressive Violent Night, set in a large of Sight—explore the state of youth in the city in northern England that has been north of England. The third—Youth, Global- rapidly transformed from a center of blue- ization, and the Law—is a collection of articles collar industrial production to one shaped by ranging widely across a variety of countries, an expanding service economy and an from France to El Salvador and Brazil. But increasingly individualistic and consump- there are striking similarities among them, tion-driven culture. Winlow and Hall spent a both with respect to the nature of the forces year interviewing and observing youth who affecting youth today and the possibilities— are at least one step up from the truly or lack thereof—of mounting a significant excluded—young people who, as they put it, challenge to them. There is an extraordinary still have “a stake in civil society,” who convergence in all three books on the view inhabit the “lower echelons of the main- that the global spread of consumer capital- stream economy” (p. 6). They work in the ism with accompanying neo-liberal ideology “insecure and non-tenured sector” of the and social policy have undercut the social labor market (p. 4)—in call centers, super- and economic prospects for a large swath of markets, and malls, in jobs they almost uni-

1 Contemporary Sociology 38, 1 2–Review Essays versally describe as “shit work” and in which The young people in Robert McCauley’s they find neither pleasure nor meaning nor a Out of Sight come from farther down the sense of identity. The dead-end quality of social scale, but in many ways his portrait this life is masked by the relatively low offi- echoes the themes set out by Winlow and cial unemployment figures for the U.K., and Hall. McCauley’s book is based on field by the expansion of formal educational research, done mostly in the 1990s, among opportunity, which has drawn large num- low-income white and Afro-Caribbean youth bers of the youth of the former industrial in “Ford,” another city in northern England, working class into institutions of higher edu- mostly in a deprived neighborhood he calls cation—but which does not reliably translate “Nova.” They too are casualties of the bru- into real opportunities to move upward into tally rapid transformation of the regional the promised new world of highly skilled economy from one in which “cities were post-industrial work. places of production and work” (p. 18) to a The erosion of work—and of the commu- landscape of consumption which McCauley, nities and cultural values that once accom- like Winlow and Hall, finds singularly bar- panied blue-collar jobs—as a source of mean- ren and bereft of opportunities for meaning- ing, engagement, and identity means that ful or productive work. Most of them had youth are now driven to find those things in disastrous encounters with school, a place the world of consumption and leisure, and where they were stereotyped as inherently especially in the “night time economy”: the delinquent products of a highly suspect frenetic, alcohol soaked world of downtown neighborhood, and from which they often music clubs, pubs, and youth-oriented left or were thrown out. They then become restaurants. But the search, according to trapped in what McCauley calls the “work- Winlow and Hall, is mostly fruitless. The fare merry-go-round”—moving back and young people described in Violent Night are forth from unstable, poorly paying, and far from the cheerful consumers who smile alienating work, mandated by the rules of from the covers of youth magazine. They are the “workfare state,” to scratching out a liv- anxious, competitive, and mostly bored out ing on social benefits and what they can of their wits. Winlow and Hall are hardly the scrounge or “mooch” through a variety of first to emphasize the degrading and alien- individual enterprises, both legal and illegal. ating aspects of contemporary consumer capitalism, but they do a particularly fine job McCauley argues that the workfare of showing the human face of these develop- “merry-go-round” is a powerful trap from ments through poignant and often riveting which it is difficult for these poorly educated interviews. young people to escape. The long hours and The boredom and lack of other sources of unpredictability of work in “Ford’s” expand- meaning, coupled with the astonishing level ing retail and service sector—many of them of alcohol consumption—which is itself a get temporary jobs in a large shopping com- reflection of the pressure in contemporary plex just outside the neighborhood—make it capitalism to sell whatever can be sold to the difficult to take on the serious training that young—combines to produce a pattern of could help them move up to jobs that could endemic violence which, the authors argue, provide meaning, opportunity, and stability. has become a pervasive feature of “night Despite much rhetoric about the virtues of time” urban life. They argue persuasively, work, there is little money for serious train- that this essentially mindless violence— ing in any case. So Nova’s youth are rou- rarely reported by its victims—is far more tinely stuck in poverty-level and often tem- routine than official statistics would suggest. porary jobs, whose alienating character is And they see nothing progressive about this compounded by the routine disrespect and kind of “transgression.” They are especially arbitrariness of employers. The stigma of hard on other writers who romanticize, as a school failure and the relentless stereotyping challenge to the norms of capitalist culture, of youth from their community as inherently what is actually a mindless and joyless ritual criminal make it that much harder to break that bored and demoralized youth inflict the workfare cycle. And so they are laid off upon each other. and/or fired with great regularity, bouncing

Contemporary Sociology 38, 1 Review Essays–3 back onto inevitably inadequate public assis- And like Nova’s youth, they are essentially tance. prisoners in their own neighborhoods: their Faced with that depressing cycle of exclu- lives are mainly bounded by their own block sion, Nova’s youth are drawn to try to make or even their own stairwell. a living on their own—“workin’ for your- Like the British writers, Bonelli sees little self.” In the conditions that prevail in Nova, movement on the horizon to challenge these that usually means combining small-scale conditions. In an age of triumphant neolib- efforts at legitimate entrepreneurship with a eralism, governments—even those on the variety of illegitimate ones that range from left—have largely abandoned efforts to con- the merely shady to the illegal—what some front the social roots of youth marginaliza- of McCauley’s informants call being in “the tion. Youth crime is increasingly approached Business,” dealing in drugs or unlicensed (as it is in the United States and the United alcohol and cigarettes. In a telling phrase, Kingdom) as an individual problem, best they speak of going “out on the shift”—a addressed by strategies of zero tolerance and throwback to a vanished time when Nova’s a rhetoric of individual responsibility. young people really did work steady shifts in Meanwhile, the authors’ outlook for stable industrial workplaces. McAuley sees movements from below to challenge the these efforts to concoct an independent liveli- essential expendability of the young is not hood as reflecting a lingering work ethic—as encouraging. The same processes that have genuine strategies, within very limited cir- undermined the possibility of meaningful cumstances, to earn enough to live decently work and economic security for youth have and to sustain a sense of autonomy and inde- also eroded the traditional institutions that pendence. But the problem is that the strate- were the breeding ground for movements to gies serve to confirm their image as criminal challenge these developments through polit- and unreliable, which further diminishes ical and social action. In the past, relatively their chances of moving up and out of “the stable working-class communities and the life” in Nova. industrial organization of blue-collar work The themes of shrinking opportunities for provided the ground from which both the good work and the resulting frustration, aim- traditional labor movement and left-wing lessness, and demoralization reappear, in political parties grew. With the fragmenta- strikingly similar form, in Laurent Bonelli’s tion of the communities and the workplaces chapter on French youth in Youth, Globaliza- that once sustained those movements, there tion, and the Law. As in the north of England, is little structural support for the growth of deindustrialization has radically trans- alternatives to the cultural and economic jug- formed the prospects for French youth: three gernaut of global consumer capitalism. quarters of jobs for unskilled labor in textile, In the absence of those alternatives, the clothing, woodworking and leatherworking youth whose lives have been diminished by industries disappeared in the course of 20 the double blow of drastically restricted years after the 1970s. The decline in tradi- opportunities and the decline of traditional tional blue-collar unskilled work was most sources of cultural meaning and political par- heavily concentrated among immigrants, ticipation tend, in these accounts, to respond especially from North Africa, and it was in ways that are mainly passive, or at best accompanied, as in England, by the spread of represent brave but largely futile efforts to short-term, part-time, and unstable work. maintain some degree of dignity and auton- Like their counterparts in Nova, young peo- omy in the face of forces much larger than ple from the fragmented former working themselves. Winlow and Hall’s bored and class of the Parisian banlieues are forced to anxious call center workers go “down the shift back and forth between temporary town” on Saturday night, drink themselves work, shady enterprise, and idleness (inter- into a stupor, and face the very real risk of estingly, Bonelli’s youth speak of being in “le meaningless violence, at best salvaging some business,” exactly as McCauley’s do). They sense of competence by refusing to be are confined in schools which promise access pushed around and giving a good account of to a better future but, given these overriding themselves if they are attacked. McAuley’s economic circumstances, cannot deliver it. trapped denizens of the “workfare state” can

Contemporary Sociology 38, 1 4–Review Essays derive some inner satisfaction from trying to stemming from the appalling conditions of scrape by on their own, thus salvaging a young people in Brazilian cities during the measure of dignity and independence, but 1980s, which culminated in a new nation- that doesn’t take them very far—and can wide statute establishing, for the first time, a even help to keep them trapped on the mar- set of formal rights for youth in education, gins of the new economy. McAuley appears the juvenile justice system, and elsewhere— to find some signs of collective movement in an encouraging step forward. But he also the indigenous cultural expressions of these acknowledges that “entrenched social marginalized youth, including hip-hop inequalities and cultural practices .|.|. and music. But there is little sense in these the fiscal restraints on the neoliberal state” descriptions of anything approaching either have limited the law’s real-world impact: the an organized movement among youth them- new language of youth rights offers “a selves to challenge the insecurity and bleak- glimpse of hope that is daily challenged, if ness of their lives, or of any new institutions not outright denied, by the violence and in the larger society that could replace the poverty of everyday life (p. 314).” The para- traditional labor and political organizations dox of growing formal rights for youth cou- that sustained and mobilized earlier genera- pled with economic and cultural trends that tions. systematically undermine their chances for a Some of the articles in Youth, Globalization, decent future, of course, already character- and the Law argue that there is another, more izes more advanced democracies, where, at positive, side to the picture. John Muncie, for least on paper, the rights of young people example, in “Youth Justice and the Gover- have long been established. nance of Young People,” makes a strong case These books are, perhaps necessarily, that globalization has also meant the world- stronger on description than on solutions. wide spread of more progressive legal frame- Their unflinching explorations of the state of works supporting the rights of youth. But the young, even in countries—like Eng- most agree that this parallel movement to land—that are often celebrated as examples enhance the rights of young people is swim- of the success of neoliberal social and eco- ming upstream against the negative eco- nomic policies, help to explode the myth that nomic and social impacts of globalization the global unleashing of the private market carried out under neo-liberal auspices. The re has been beneficial for the young people of is a particularly interesting discussion of the postindustrial societies. They leave us these contradictory trends in an article by with the urgent questions of what can be John Guidry on law and the struggle for done to create durable opportunities for social change in Brazil. Guidry describes the both security and meaning for the young— emergence of a movement for youth rights, and who will do it.

Contemporary Sociology 38, 1 Review Essays–5

Adaptation or Paradigm Shift? AMITAI ETZIONI The George Washington University [email protected]

Even scholars who have no interest in eco- nomics may find the debate about behavioral Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces economics (beh.ec.) of great interest because That Shape Our Decisions, by Dan Ariely. it points to a major meta-theoretical, empiri- New York, NY: Harper Collins, 2008. cal, and normative divide in the social sci- 208pp. $25.95 cloth. ISBN: 9780061353239. ences. While social science textbooks, profes- sional associations, and the academic job Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, market are still largely organized by the old- Wealth, and Happiness, by Richard H. fashioned division among disciplines, social Thaler, and Cass R. Sunstein. New sciences are often conducted in terms of one Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2008. of two paradigms that cut across these disci- 293pp. $26.00 cloth. ISBN: 9780300122237. plines. On one side are those who hold that all behavior can be studied in neoclassical Falling Behind: How Rising Inequality terms, as mainstream economics does—on Harms the Middle Class, by Robert H. the other, those who hold that behavior Frank. Berkely, CA: The University of should be studied as if the actors were homo California Press, 2007. 160pp. $50.00 cloth. sapiens, not homo economicus. One paradigm ISBN: 9780520251885. assumes that actors are rational individuals, seeking to maximize their self interests works, the key question is whether the neo- whether they buy, sell, vote, pray or love. classical paradigm can be corrected, and The other paradigm, adopted by other mem- whether the mixed bag of conceptions asso- bers of the same disciplines, draws on a variety ciated with the homo sapien model can be con- of conceptions that focus on cultural, histor- solidated to provide a better paradigm. To ical, and structural forces, and assumes that put it starkly, if the first approach is wrong (or people often act non-rationally and heed at least deeply flawed), and the second pro- complex motives. Behavioral economics is an vides none but myriad answers—where do excellent place to compare these two para- we go from here? digms and to explore where the social sci- Dan Ariely’s Predictably Irrational employs ences are headed. original studies and anecdotes to show that Beh.ec. took off in the late 1970s. Its first people are congenitally unable to process major stars are widely recognized as the psy- information and make the calculations that chologists, Daniel Kahneman (winner of the utility maximization and otherwise rational 2002 Nobel Prize in Economics) and the late conduct requires. His results are very much Amos Tversky. Previous work along similar in line with previous findings of beh.ec., and lines had been carried out by Herbert Simon thus add to their robustness. Many of and long before that, by Adam Smith (Theory Ariely’s findings, and those of beh.ec. in gen- of Moral Sentiments), among others, but Kah- eral, are centered around three axes: neman and Tversky were the first to provide beh.ec. with a strong empirical backing. a) People’s choices are influenced more Scores of other scholars have since con- by anecdotes or personal experiences tributed to beh.ec., including some whose than by statistical evidence. Thus work has captured the public imagination, many people (wrongly) believe that topping best-seller lists (e.g., Freakonomics by more murders occur than suicides, Steven Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner, and because murders are regularly on the Irrational Exuberance by Robert Shiller). evening news and suicides are not.1 Three recent contributions to this field fur- ther strengthen the case that people do not and cannot behave the way the neoclassical 1 Sarah Lichtenstein, Paul Slovic, Baruch Fis- paradigm assumes. In reviewing these chhoff, Mark Layman, and Barbara Combs,

Contemporary Sociology 38, 1 6–Review Essays

Ariely focuses on a related but differ- findings hold only in artificial lab conditions. ent systematic bias: what people Better yet, the book provides a treatment for expect is what they see or—taste. the profound cognitive defects beh.ec. has Ariely offered two groups beer “A” revealed. They call for a “libertarian pater- and beer “B.” One group was nalism” that entails structuring choices in informed prior to the taste-test that ways that make it easier for people to make beer “B” was plain while beer “A” had sound choices. For instance, Thaler and Sun- some balsamic vinegar added. The stein urge that employee contributions to other group was led to believe that 401(k) plans be arranged on an opt-out beer “A” was a special, new “MIT instead of an opt-in basis. One study found Brew.” Those who knew about the that participation rates, which under the opt- vinegar prior to the taste-test tended in model were around 65 percent, skyrock- to prefer the plain beer, while those eted to 98 percent under an opt-out model. who didn’t, tended to prefer the vine- Nudge shows that this and other such gar-laced version. improved “choice architectures” would b) Individual choices are influenced by serve both people and society well in a vari- “anchoring” (or “framing”) which ety of areas in both the private and public makes items seem different according sectors: from increasing the number of organ to what they are compared. Ariely donations, to encouraging better invest- asked students to write down the last ments, to protecting the environment. two digits of their Social Security However, not all nudges are equal. As number next to a list of items up for Thaler and Sunstein note with regret, “choice bid. Those with lower anchors—in architects in all walks of life have incentives this case, lower Social Security num- to nudge people in directions that benefit the bers—systematically made lower bids architects (or their employers) rather than the than those with higher anchors. users” (p. 239). The authors emphasize that they only support nudges designed to serve c) People develop irrational attachments the best interests of the users, not the archi- to objects they own—known as the tects. endowment effect. Thus, students Robert Frank’s Falling Behind draws on the who had been given much-coveted concept of relative deprivation to highlight a tickets to a basketball game were will- profound defect of the neoclassical paradigm ing to part with them for prices that and, more broadly, of American capitalism. were much higher than other stu- Frank points out that when all people work dents, who were not given any tickets, longer to consume more, the pursuit of mate- were willing to pay for them. rial goods becomes Sisyphean: all sacrifice These are but a few of the many examples leisure time to work more in order to pur- Ariely presents—highlighting the systematic chase more goods, but the material gains and hence predictably irrational ways people each earns relative to one another remain deliberate and make choices—which differ fixed, resulting in an overall loss of satisfac- sharply from those assumed by the neoclas- tion. Thus Frank writes, data show people sical paradigm. would be better off spending more time Nudge, by Richard Thaler and Cass Sun- socializing and relaxing. stein, each a very highly regarded academic Moreover, Frank highlights a trend in the in their respective disciplines of economics United States of growing disparity between and law, adds much to beh.ec.. By drawing the incomes of the top earners and those of on scores of studies of behavior in “field” set- the rest, moving people towards more work tings, they refute suggestions that beh.ec.’s and more relative deprivation. Between 1949 and 1979, most people’s incomes rose more or less equally. Since then, the top income “Judged Frequency of Lethal Events,” Journal group’s after-tax incomes have risen much of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Mem- more than those of the rest, leaving those in ory, & Cognition. 4(6): (November 1978), the middle class feeling more deprived, even 551–578. though their incomes have grown. In addi-

Contemporary Sociology 38, 1 Review Essays–7 tion, the increased spending at the top “has how systematic certain mistakes are—how raised the cost of achieving goals that most we repeat them again and again—I think you middle-class families regard as basic,” will begin to learn how to avoid some of adding stress (p. 43). Frank hence calls for a them” (p.xii). Evidence actually shows that progressive consumption tax, which would this is hardly the case; that irrational biases make the rich spend less, increase incentives are congenital and not easily curable. For for savings, improve public services—and instance, studies show that even physi- combat relative deprivation. cians—in their area of specialized training— Tim Harford reports in the Financial Times are “still largely dominated by logical incon- that most economists continue to work sistency and failure to apply basic concepts within the neoclassical paradigm, and that of probability.”2 Indeed, if Ariely’s impres- beh.ec. “merely illuminates some fascinating sion was a valid one, the core thesis of beh.ec. but relatively minor foibles.” He adds that he would be invalidated, namely that cognitive has “long been persuaded that the evidence defects are profoundly ingrained, even wired shows that we are fundamentally rational in. creatures when it comes to most decisions Still, most social scientists who draw on that really matter.” This position is much the neoclassical paradigm continue to work harder to maintain after the publication of as if beh.ec.’s findings never existed. Nor can these books. they readily correct or adapt their paradigm, Actually, as I see it, beh.ec. underestimates as it seems next to impossible to integrate the difficulties the neoclassical paradigm most of these findings into a single model. faces because most of its studies deal with How is an economist to study what drives poor choices due to cognitive flaws, a few prices up and down, if levels depend on with those caused by emotions, and practi- what consumers compare them to: lower cally none with those based on values. (To than last year? Or—higher than five years their credit, Ariely does explore the effects of ago? Or—to those overseas, or .|.|.? Will norms and Frank deals with non-self-inter- consumers find the same costs painful if they ested motives.) This ignores the fact that peo- learn that others paid less, but a source of sat- ple vote largely because they consider it their isfaction if it turns out that others pay even civic duty; or the fact that most married part- more? And how are economists to study ners of Alzheimer’s patients opt to stay with trade if goods are more valuable to those them, even though they cannot expect any who buy them than to those who sell them? reasonable return for their services. True, some valiant attempts have been By studying atomized individuals, beh.ec. made in this direction by diluting the defini- neglects emergent group attributes such as tions of key concepts. The concept of power structures, communal bonds, informal “bounded rationality,” for instance, allows social controls, and cultures—attributes that for the construction of models that anticipate often account for a good part of behavioral some amount of irrationality by individual variance. These attributes shape individual decision-makers. However, the main chal- preferences and guide their choices in ways lenge of beh.ec., especially once emergent the actors are unaware of and, hence, cannot group attributes are added, stands and—as I take into account in their calculations. (It is see it—points to the need for a paradigm particularly regrettable that many behavioral shift. economists seem to be unfamiliar with the This point is best illustrated by the con- works of Weber, Parsons, Smelser, and other cept of choice architecture outlined in Nudge. sociologists.) Choices are not structured primarily by well intentioned or self serving managers, but by Where do we go from here? macroscopic historical and cultural forces. None of these books explicitly addresses This is a main reason corporations are bailed the implications of all these robust findings for neoclassical social sciences. Rather than hoping to establish a new paradigm, Ariely 2 Jonathan Borak and Suzanne Veilleux. “Errors states that his goal is to use beh.ec. to help his of Intuitive Logic Among Physicians.” Social reader to become less like a homo sapien, and Science and Medicine. Vol. 16. (1982). Pp 1939–47: more like a homo economicus: “Once you see 1939.

Contemporary Sociology 38, 1 8–Review Essays out, but not most home owners; gun control that they tend to make non-rational choices. fails in the U.S. but works in the U.K.; the I spelled out such a paradigm in The Moral work week is shorter in France than in the Dimension (1988), and founded the Society U.S., and so on. It follows that the study of for Advancement of Socio Economics behavior requires a paradigm that treats (SASE), dedicated to developing such a par- non-aggregated macro-variables (those not adigm. This is far from a boast because reducible to groupings of individual choices) twenty years later SASE, though it continues as independent variables, for instance, the to thrive, has not made significant progress kind of study that compared Protestantism to in this direction. Indeed, the neoclassical par- other religions to determine which preceded adigm continues to dominate. You cannot and helped the rise of capitalism. beat a theory, however flawed, with nothing Such a paradigm can be constructed (or a hundred fragments that do not make around the assumption that most variance of one whole). behavior is determined by the historical, soci- I find this particularly regrettable because etal and cultural forces that change the attrib- the neoclassical paradigm’s predictions—to utes of the multiple groups of which people the extent they are derived from the relevant are members—not by intra-individual delib- theories!—are often off the mark; the para- erations and choices; that people have multi- digm’s assumptions about human nature are ple, conflicting and irreducible utilities, espe- profoundly erroneous; and, studies show, cially moral and self-interested ones, are part people who study neoclassical economics homo economicus and part homo sapien; and end up being more selfish than those spared.3 Beyond the Everyday SARAH FENSTERMAKER University of California–Santa Barbara [email protected] Scott Fitzgerald is said to have defined the novel as “how it was with a group of peo- Institutional Ethnography as Practice, edited ple.” A long tradition suggests just such a by Dorothy Smith. Toronto, CN: definition suits ethnographic research as a Rowman & Littlefield, 2006. 263pp. $27.95 rich description of individual lives as they paper. ISBN: 0742546772. unfold in a particular setting and historical period. In this collection of articles on the nearly 40 years Dorothy Smith has been practice of institutional ethnography, edited plumbing each to invigorate a sociology that by Dorothy Smith, a different definition pre- maps how concrete experiences are con- vails. To compliment the earlier companion nected to and shaped by the larger, extra- volume, Institutional Ethnography: A Sociology local relations that exercise power. Smith for People (2005), Smith assembles a number calls these “relations of ruling.” Such rela- of young scholars who have emerged from tions are present and ultimately discernible, her tutelage to discover “how things are she explains, even in those ethnographic actually put together” (p. 1), and “looking observations and accounts of what real peo- out beyond the everyday to discover how it ple are doing and saying—together. For of came to happen as it does” (p. 3). The result course it is in everyday concert that such is an accessible, pedagogically grounded set work gets done, reflected in a variety of texts of explorations into what it means to under- that act upon and organize a world mean- take institutional ethnography, and why its ingful to its inhabitants. In this volume Smith intentions and methods differ from more illustrates how it is that the mapping of the conventional ethnographic practice. social world via institutional ethnography One would not imagine that the marriage of Karl Marx, French phenomenologist Mau- rice Merleau-Ponty, Harold Garfinkel, and 3 Gerald Marwell and Ruth E. Ames. “Econo- 20th Century feminism would produce any- mists Free Ride, Does Anyone Else?” Journal of thing more useful than a dense fog. Yet, for Public Economics 15 (1981), pp 295–310.

Contemporary Sociology 38, 1 Review Essays–9 can reveal the often elusive connection to institutional “informants,” as well as how between individual and social structure, the discourse of interviews can reveal partic- where individual lives are deeply affected by ular “corners” of an institution’s ruling rela- the larger social relations that act upon them, tions. To shore up such insights they cite even as they go about the business of creat- interviews with institutional ethnographers ing that same social world. themselves, providing a great source to For those who have in the past miscon- understand the challenges of interviewing. strued Smith’s insistence that we begin from Tim Diamond follows with a chapter the everyday “lived” experience of women devoted to the ways in which participant as being simply about restoring women’s observation can enhance the purposes of voices to the mix (Smith 1987), this volume institutional ethnography. This chapter too will clarify the complicated call that Smith comes at its subject in a novel way: Diamond has been making to sociologists: instead of is interviewed by Dorothy Smith about how beginning from so-called grounded theory or he undertakes ethnographic work, problems the abstracted institution, institutional he encountered, and ways he manages data ethnography takes as a starting point peo- of this kind. In the last section, Diamond ple’s experiences, but it”.|.|. is committed to illustrates how participant observation can discovering beyond any one individual’s experi- proceed to “locate the institutional in the ence .|.|.” (p. 1). Thus, starting points cer- local” (p. 61). The final chapter in this section tainly matter but sociological destination mat- is by Smith, who discusses the incorporation ters, too. In large measure, this collection of texts into institutional ethnography. Smith shows us the way to get to the sociological is on familiar ground here, to be sure, as she world both of—and beyond—the individual. reminds us that institutional texts constitute The chapters within the collection range the connective scaffolding between local and widely in their empirical sites, as well as the translocal practices. Her discussion of how to lessons they explicate, but two central orien- examine sequences in which texts are given a tations come clear throughout. First, it proves central role will be very useful to those who conceptually useful to apply the concept of have only such institutional remnants to ana- “work” to include virtually all organized lyze. She also introduces the useful concept behaviors accomplished in concert or con- of “intertexual hierarchy” (p. 87) to describe nection with others in particular places and when texts act on and regulate other texts. If times. Contributions to the volume attest to texts seem to be animated in this formula- the libratory aspect of this conceptual shift to tion, that is no accident; texts do act, they do life as practical work. Second, “texts” are regulate, and they are one part of ongoing defined broadly as the use of language in vir- institutional work. tually any form, and serve as the conceptual Section II concerns itself with the man- and practical bridge beyond the individual to agement of data and contains some useful where the sites for social relations are con- admonitions for the ethnographer. For exam- trolled. Text is not everything however, for in ple, Marie Campbell’s chapter on using expe- constant counterpoint to it is embodied work rience as data in her study of a nursing home and the physical aspect of the social. makes good use of the concept of social rela- The volume is arranged in three thought- tions as “coordinating” action and meaning. ful, even innovatively arranged sections, in Liza McCoy’s chapter on the analysis of rough progression from data-gathering to interview data offers up the concept of “ana- data analysis, to practical examples of how lytic drift.” It speaks to how easily drawn research in progress might appear—as pro- into the drama and depth of individual lives posals, design development, and political we ethnographers become, seduced away analysis. The three chapters in Section I from the institutional processes we intended speak of specific methods in the context of to capture. She concludes her incisive chap- institutional ethnography: Marjorie Devault ter with a clear statement of the mission of and Liza McCoy discuss the use of interview institutional ethnography: “The goal is to techniques in the context of institutional develop a detailed, description analysis of ethnography. They offer some insights into a some portion of the institutional relations reconceptualization of interview “subjects” that have been identified as consequential, in

Contemporary Sociology 38, 1 10–Review Essays order to show how these institutional work point can be translated into a description of processes are organized and how they shape methodology, design, and techniques in the the ground of people’s everyday experi- context of a substantive problem. In her ences” (p. 123). The remaining chapters ongoing study of UN policy making, Lauren return readers to how data work can actually Eastwood’s chapter interrogates the concept proceed: in Allison Griffith’s research on the of “accessibility,” a term not only about “get- creation of the construct “single parent,” and ting in,” but also one that describes the limi- in Susan Marie Turner’s chapter on how to nal moments or “spaces” in which lived analyze institutional texts. Both are exem- experience and the control of those experi- plars of how the methods and point of view ences are made manifest to the researcher. of institutional ethnography can reveal both Finally, we read of Alex Wilson and Ellen the foreground of experience and the back- Pence’s work on an analysis of legal inter- drop of power. This chapter raised a misgiv- ventions into the lives of native women who ing that emerges, not so much with the for- have experienced domestic violence. Here mulation and intent of institutional again, students will be able to see how it is ethnography, but with its translation. The that collaborations between researchers and notion is that the ethnographer “takes the informants can reveal the ways institutions side” of, as Turner says, “those being ruled” silence, revictimize, and reorder reality, but (p. 95). Yet narrowly construed, this may also how such revelations can lead to new deflect attention away from the useful view knowledge of how change can be made. that ruling practices may be found at many This volume is perfectly suited for gradu- levels, and as the institutional scene changes, ate seminars, as either a practical companion so too do the objects of ruling practices. Thus, volume to Smith’s earlier work on institu- ethnographic interest may begin from the tional ethnography (Smith 2005), or as a story of a single “ruled” individual, but stand alone text. Smith and her colleagues should range widely enough to encompass a will call a new generation of students to insti- less partial view. The final section of the volume contains tutional ethnography, as well as to a larger three chapters, each representative of a stage sociological vision. of research, and does more than just end the References volume with an applied turn. The first is a Smith, Dorothy. 1987. The Everyday World as Prob- research proposal submitted to the Canadian lematic: A Feminist Sociology. Boston, MA: government by George Smith, Eric Northeastern University Press. Mykhalovskiy and Douglass Weatherbee. Smith, Dorothy. 2005. Institutional Ethnography: A Students especially will be able to see from it Sociology for People. Lanham, MD: AltaMira how an underlying epistemological view- Press.

Contemporary Sociology 38, 1 Review Essays–11

The World and the Academy: New Directions in Human Rights Scholarship LISA HAJJAR University of California-Santa Barbara [email protected]

Stanley Cohen’s and Sally Engle Merry’s influence on human rights scholarship in Crime, Social Control and Human Rights: sociology and anthropology, respectively, is From Moral Panics to States of Denial: reflected in these two volumes. In the early Essays in Honour of Stanley Cohen, edited 1990s, Cohen, along with Bryan Turner by David Downes, Paul Rock, Christine (1993), helped to forge a “sociology of human Chinkin, and Conor Gearty. Devon, UK: rights.” Anthropology, in contrast, had taken Willan Publishing, 2008. 472pp. $44.95 an early stance on universal rights, exempli- paper. ISBN: 9781843924043. fied by the American Anthropological Asso- ciation’s 1947 “Statement on Human Rights,” The Practice of Human Rights: Tracking Law which criticized the Universal Declaration of between the Global and the Local, edited by Human Rights as ethnocentric and inimical Mark Goodale and Sally Engle Merry. to cultural differences. Merry’s 1992 essay in Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University the American Review of Anthropology persua- Press, 2007. 396pp. $39.99 paper. ISBN: sively explained why the anti-universalist 9780521683784. defense of cultural relativism had lost its rel- evance in light of the impact of transnational In the 1950s and 1960s, struggles for rights processes in local settings across the globe. In and justice there and across much of the 1999, the AAA issued a “Declaration on globe were influenced less by international Anthropology and Human Rights” that law than by anti-colonial and anti-racist aspi- acknowledges the importance of the UDHR, rations for self-determination. In the late and encourages anthropologists “to be 1980s, Cohen emigrated from the UK to involved in the debate on enlarging our Israel several months after the start of the understanding of human rights on the basis first Palestinian intifada (uprising) in the of anthropological knowledge and research.” Israeli-occupied West Bank and Gaza. His Cohen’s political-intellectual legacy is elo- earlier work on moral panics and social con- quently and accurately summarized in Ruth trol provided a critical intellectual grounding Jamieson and Kieran McEvoy’s chapter in for understanding Israeli responses to Pales- the volume dedicated to his honor: tinian anti-occupation activism; in that “Throughout his career, [Cohen] has demon- period, Israel/Palestine had the highest per strated a remarkable capacity to visualize capita incarceration rate in the world. In and theorise with precision about what is 1987, Israel had become the first state to offi- actually occurring in a range of different cially “legalize” torture, euphemized as types of conflict. Whether he is unpicking the “moderate physical pressure” and rational- violent societal reaction to mods and rockers, ized as “necessary” to combat “hostile ter- or internecine disputes within the disciplines rorist activity” (a term used to characterize of criminology and sociology to the human all Palestinian resistance to foreign occupa- and social destruction of political violence, tion, including non-violent civil disobedi- Cohen’s particular knack has been to see ence). clearly through the smoke of conflict and to In 1991, Cohen and Daphna Golan pub- speak authoritatively above the din. A key lished a report on Israeli interrogation of feature of conflict is confusion. Cohen’s Palestinians for the new Israeli human rights unique gift is intellectual, political and moral organization B’Tselem, which challenged the clarity in the midst of that confusion” (pp. official Israeli account that “moderate phys- 422–23). ical pressure” did not constitute “torture,” Cohen’s interest in human rights traces and that this “pressure” was used sparingly back to his youth in apartheid South Africa. to avert “ticking bombs.” Cohen had

Contemporary Sociology 38, 1 12–Review Essays expected harsh reactions from Israeli offi- chapter on the fight against apartheid cials, the right, and even liberal Zionists includes a statement of unbridled optimism whose views of Palestinians as existentially rarely found in a scholarly edition: “Because threatening disinclined them to acknowledge we rejected terrorism, we got a country, we the illegitimacy of violent interrogation prac- got a constitution, we got our dignity. It tices. However, he had not anticipated the worked! Idealism works! Principle works!” “post-modern” critique by some leftist Israeli (p. 362). That both Golan and Sachs might be intellectuals, who criticized the report’s con- correct—human rights “fails” and ventional methods and modernist presump- “works”—is an appropriate homage to tions that “truth” could be known. Cohen, Cohen’s enduring commitment to a Fou- who had a poster of Michel Foucault by his cauldian pessimistic activism that “the pre- desk, was initially stunned by the accusation sent,” however promising or dispiriting, is that this report might betray the kind of crit- never “the end.” ical analysis with which he personally iden- While some contributors to Crime, Social tified. Laurie Taylor’s chapter in the honor- Control and Human Rights make little or no ing volume, an interview with Cohen, explicit reference to Cohen’s writings, others provides his account of how this episode of offer compelling and competing views of the Israeli reactions and non-reactions to evi- impact of his work. Malcolm Feely and dence of pervasive torture of Palestinians Jonathan Simon’s chapter, subtitled “an motivated a turn in his research toward the appreciation from North America,” opines politics of denial. that his first book, Folk Devils and Moral Pan- Cohen’s States of Denial: Knowing about ics (1972), is arguably his most important and Suffering and Atrocities (2001), which won influential for its introduction of the concept the British Academy Book Prize in 2002, is of “moral panic .|.|. into the lexicon of social a socio-political meditation about how and sciences” (p. 40). Thomas Blomberg and why people, organizations, states and Carter Hay’s chapter assesses how his pre- whole societies can ignore and deny the dictions in Visions of Social Control (1985) hold realities of human suffering and atrocities. up after two decades. They (like many con- The word “knowing” in the subtitle could tributors) commend Cohen’s prescience in be interpreted as Cohen’s pointed anticipating—and providing frames of response to denials, premised on the idea analysis to understand—technologies of con- that truth is inherently subjective and thus trol and surveillance, and the social context “unknowable.” Truth is subjective and for accepting or embracing them that would socially constructed, but violence and suf- intensify in the post-9/11 era. fering have causes and consequences that Claire Moon’s chapter traces Cohen’s soci- beg the concern of scholars. The insight ology of human rights to a 1995 article in Law that there is no inherent incompatibility and Social Inquiry in which he first proposed between critical theory and politically the taxonomy of “literal,” “interpretative” engaged research on suffering and atroci- and “justificatory” denial. That article, she ties is one of Cohen’s contributions to soci- notes, “played a pivotal role in initiating ology of human rights. early debates on issues around how states The thirty-essay collection, Crime, Social might deal with a violent past, a practice and Control and Human Rights, is uneven and per- field of enquiry that came to be known as haps unavoidably unwieldy, given the rich- ‘transitional justice’” (p. 316). Ron Dudai’s ness of the career being honored. The best chapter takes Cohen’s views on transitional chapters describe how Cohen’s life as a justice as a point of departure to advance an scholar-activist influenced theirs and/or ana- original and forward-looking argument lyze how his intellectual contributions about how these lessons might be applied to shaped their fields. Daphna Golan concludes the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. her reflection on her collaboration with The Practice of Human Rights, a more ana- Cohen by stating that the essay was painful lytically cohesive collection, is composed of to write because human rights activism in ten chapters and four section introductions Israel/Palestine failed to prevent the conflict by leading figures in the field (Laura Nader, from continuing to worsen. Albie Sachs’ Balakrishnan Rajagopal, and two by co-edi-

Contemporary Sociology 38, 1 Review Essays–13 tor Merry). Contemporary anthropological people, in the face of these conditions, regard work on human rights reflects the field’s cri- lynching (of criminals and delinquents) as a sis of identity in the 1980s when “the local” form of “community justice,” construable as could no longer be sustained analytically as a human right to local customs. The example environments of discrete cultures. Anthro- vividly illuminates the larger point of the pologists who took up the ethnographic book that the very meaning of human rights study of international and transnational is being debated and reworked around the processes, discourses and networks as they world, including in Bolivian barrios. intersected with and influenced localities Kay Warren’s chapter on the 2000 UN around the world transformed the field itself, Human Trafficking Protocol, and John Dale’s as this collection reflects. on the civil suit against Unocal operations in Co-editor Mark Goodale’s introductory Burma, are models of transnational human chapter assesses how the ethnographic atten- rights research. The protocol, developed tion to practices drew anthropologists to under the auspices of the UN Convention human rights because of the ways in which against Transnational Crime, criminalizes “locals” have adopted, embraced, or in some human trafficking for prostitution and sexual cases, repudiated “the idea of human rights,” exploitation, forced labor, slavery-like work- and how ethnography can contribute to an ing conditions, servitude, and commodifica- “anthropological philosophy of human tion of organs. As this list suggests, “piling rights” that avoids the problems of a reified on” and “protocolization” of a diffuse set of universalism (p. 4). The word “between” in issues into a “universalizing” framework is the volume’s subtitle, as Goodale explains, is characteristic of the consensus-building an “analytical device” to understand the approaches favored in the UN system. War- nonuniversality of human rights practices, ren’s research on the drafting process traces and to “create an intentionally open concep- the disparate stances of several NGOs. Sex tual space which can account for the ways industry abolitionists emphasize the eradi- actors encounter the ideas of human rights cation of prostitution and the vulnerability of through the projection of the legal and moral women and children, seeking enforcement imagination” (p. 22). that targets men; for them, decriminalizing Many of the chapters substantiate the prostitution (whether it involves trafficking above-mentioned point that human rights or not) is out of the question. Advocates for both “works” and “fails,” even simultane- workers’ rights oppose the special emphasis ously in the same places. Daniel Goldstein’s on prostitution and on women and children; chapter on Bolivia is a particularly strong they insist that the protocol be interpreted to example; he begins with an observation that target exploitations that constitute trafficking the recent election of Evo Morales, the first while recognizing that some people may indigenous person to head a Latin American choose to cross borders to engage in sex or state, “can be attributed to his command of other kinds of work. Representatives of sex the transnational discourse of human rights” worker networks are ambivalent about the (p. 49). Morales and the Bolivian majority entire liberal rights-based language which that put him in power concur that neoliber- contrasts a worker rights-versus-victim res- alism and human rights are incompatible. cue polarity. However, Bolivia’s deep structural poverty, Dale uses the Doe v. Unocal Corp. case as rampant crime (Latin America has the high- an example of “transnational legal space.” est regional homicide rates in the world), and In the early 1990s, when the Burmese junta the infinitely fungible discourse of “security” opened the country to foreign investment, have forged an interesting twist on rights, the transnational “Free Burma” movement specifically the development of localized expanded its agenda to target transnational notions of a “right to security.” Why, resi- corporations that abet the regime’s authori- dents of poor barrios ask, should criminals’ tarianism and human rights violations. rights be defended by human rights activists Unocal was a particularly egregious when the state fails to prevent crime, and offender, having relied on slave labor to when many victims are revictimized by cor- build a new pipeline. In 1996, a dozen peas- rupt police? Goldstein documents how some ants brought suit in a US court against

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Unocal under the Alien Torts Claim Act References (ACTA). Dale includes an excellent sum- Cohen, Stanley. 1972. Folk Devils and Moral Panics. mary of ACTA-related litigation and legis- Oxford: Basil Blackwell. lation in the US. Doe v. Unocal, the first ———. 1985. Visions of Social Control. Cam- attempt to use ACTA against a private cor- bridge: Polity. poration, ended when the corporation ———. 1995. “State Crimes of Previous Re- reached a settlement with plaintiffs rather gimes: Knowledge, Accountability, and the than counting on a winning ruling. Policing of the Past.” Law and Social Inquiry 20: Many chapters in these two volumes 7–50. reveal that activism and scholarship are ———. 2001. States of Denial: Knowing about often inseparable, sometimes compatible, Atrocities ad Suffering. Cambridge: Polity. but never indistinguishable. To study Cohen, Stanley and Daphna Golan. 1991. The Inter- human rights requires the ability to utilize rogation of Palestinians during the Intifada: Ill- the research process to apprehend the mul- treatment, “Moderate Physical Pressure” or Tor- tiple and contested meanings that attach to ture. Jerusalem: B’Tselem—The Israeli “humans” and “rights,” not to mention Information Center for Human Rights in the “justice,” “freedom,” “violence” and Occupied Territories. “power.” Stanley Cohen’s ability to draw Merry, Sally Engle. 1992. “Anthropology, Law and intellectual inspiration from suffering and Transnational Processes.” Annual Review of atrocity is a model for understanding how Anthropology 21: 357–379. human rights works and fails, and the Turner, Bryan. 1993. “Outline of a Theory of importance of both. Human Rights.” Sociology 27: 489–512.

Medical Practices HEATHER HARTLEY Portland State University [email protected]

Versions of the “sameness versus differ- ence” question have long engaged sociolo- The Medicalization of Society: On the gists from a variety of subfields, and these Transformation of Human Conditions into two books both take on the question within Treatable Disorders, by Peter Conrad. the realm of health. Both books consider the Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins social consequences associated with defining University Press, 2007. 224pp. $40.00 social problems and inequalities through a cloth. ISBN: 9780801885846. biological difference lens. Taken together, the books deliver an especially powerful mes- Inclusion: The Politics of Difference in sage about the implications of increased Medical Research, by Steven Epstein. medical surveillance of our bodies. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Peter Conrad’s book is largely comprised Press, 2007. 424pp. $29.00 cloth. ISBN: of a series of case studies used to illustrate 9780226213095. the changing nature of medicalization. The book is not intended to be a comprehensive sion, expansion, enhancement, and continu- review of medicalization scholarship but ity. To illustrate the process of extension, Con- instead utilizes these case studies to illustrate rad considers the ways in which men’s bod- how medicalization has evolved and where it ies and problems are increasingly subject to is headed. With his 30-year history of study- medical surveillance and control as women’s ing this topic, Conrad is just the right person bodies long have been; in essence, the med- to take on the task, and this book represents icalization project has been extended to a significant contribution to the area. include conditions such as andropause, bald- The first half of The Medicalization of Soci- ness, and erectile dysfunction. The expansion ety consists of case studies that explore four of medical categories over time is demon- different features of medicalization: exten- strated through an examination of the incor-

Contemporary Sociology 38, 1 Review Essays–15 poration of adults into the ADHD diagnostic all this work synthesized and integrated into system, and the mechanisms of enhancement one volume. Indeed, one of the accomplish- are shown through a consideration of how ments of the book is its uniting of what had drugs that are approved to treat one condi- been separate pieces of research into an tion may come to be used as enhancements overarching consideration of the forces of for others. Whereas the first three cases illus- medicalization. The book is also written in a trate the forward march of medicalization, very accessible style and promises to be Conrad’s discussion of continuity is situated indispensable for any undergraduate or within a consideration of the opposite graduate course on the topic of medicaliza- force—demedicalization. The case of homo- tion. sexuality represents one of only a few exam- Steven Epstein’s Inclusion, an insightful ples of true demedicalization, but Conrad examination of how medical research came argues that changes over the last several to be seen as an area in which political prob- decades may facilitate the remedicalization lems can be worked out, focuses on the ironic of homosexuality. He contends, for example, turn to biomedical conceptualizations of that the emergence of a “born gay” philoso- racial/ethnic and sex/gender differences by phy in the gay community shows the grow- those seeking justice in the realm of medical ing acceptance of a biological model of research and treatment. This work, which homosexuality. won a well-deserved American Sociological The second half of Conrad’s book focuses Association award for the best recent book on the constraints and consequences associ- published in science and technology studies, ated with medicalization, including the chal- is an in-depth case study of the adoption and lenges associated with measuring medical- consequences of what Epstein calls the ization, the emergence of new engines of “inclusion-and-difference paradigm,” which medicalization, the expansion of medical he defines as “the research and policy focus social control, and the emergence of new on including diverse groups as participants medical markets. He sounds an important in medical studies and in measuring differ- call of concern about the widespread med- ences across those groups” (p. 17). A main icalization of society, arguing that it trans- goal of the book is to understand how a par- forms “human differences into pathologies” ticular way of thinking about medical differ- (p. 148). What might be considered simple ence led to a strategy to make medical human variation or socially-related problems research more inclusive. Ultimately, Epstein become defined instead as biologically- succeeds in telling a highly complex story in related medical problems in need of medical a clear manner, and his situation of his main treatment. questions within various academic litera- One of the most pathbreaking contribu- tures—including science studies, political tions of the book is Conrad’s identification of sociology and gender/race studies—ensures the new engines driving medicalization (i.e., that the book will be of interest to people consumers and commercial interests such as from a variety of specializations within soci- the pharmaceutical industry). I am con- ology. vinced that this insight positions medicaliza- In the first half of Inclusion, Epstein uses tion studies to attend to important new polit- an array of interview data—collected from ical and economic realities. Conrad’s Department of Health and Human Services identification of the new engines of medical- (DHHS) officials, clinical researchers, drug ization has been published elsewhere. In fact, company scientists, health activists, members as Conrad acknowledges, at least part of each of Congress, and others—and analyses of of the book’s chapters has already been pub- government documents and reports to lished. Some chapters depart in significant explain how the inclusion-and-difference ways from the published articles, though strategy gained support and became institu- some stick quite closely to those pieces. For tionalized in the National Institutes of Health that reason, followers of Conrad’s work will (NIH), the Food and Drug Administration not find much that is entirely new here. Yet, (FDA), and other agencies and organizations. even keeping this in mind, I believe that A primary inclusion-and-difference reform scholars in the area will find value in having was the passage of the NIH Revitalization

Contemporary Sociology 38, 1 16–Review Essays

Act in 1993, which required that women serving commercial ends. Epstein argues and those from racial/ethnic minority that one of the consequences of the inclu- groups be included as subjects in NIH- sion-and-difference paradigm is that med- funded research. Epstein expertly maps out ical treatment becomes standardized at the the strategies used by a coalition of reform- group level (what he calls “niche stan- ers to get this policy and other related poli- dardization”), leading to the rise of “niche cies enacted. As Epstein tells it, the reform marketing” by drug companies seeking to coalition argued that it is unsound and capitalize on growing interest in women’s unfair to extrapolate medical conclusions health or minority health. In discussing from “standard” (white male) research examples of new “ethnic drugs” such as subjects to women or racial/ethnic minori- BiDil and “gendered” drugs such as Zel- ties, and a core strategy of this coalition norm, Epstein raises an important warning: was to bring together “political” and “sci- “[T]hese and the other examples of the entific” categories as if they were one and affinity between niche standardization and the same. niche marketing demonstrate how reforms The second half of the book explores the advanced under the banner of identity consequences of these reforms for govern- politics can end up promoting the com- ment agencies, biomedical researchers, mercialization of those identities in the ser- drug companies, impacted social groups vice of profit-making” (p. 180). In a like (in particular, racial/ethnic minorities and manner, Conrad argues that drug compa- women), and society at large. In his evalu- nies are constantly creating new medical ation, Epstein maintains that even though categories and markets and are increas- the reformers’ characterizations of bio- ingly attuned to the profitability of prod- medical research were not completely ucts aimed at alleviating gender-related accurate (e.g., throughout history, there are and other insecurities. Within this context, various examples of women and ethnic then, gender/ sex and racial/ethnic “dif- minorities being included, albeit problem- ferences” become “medical categories” to atically, as subjects of medical research), exploit for commercial intent. they brought attention to an important In reading the two books together, it is problem. Yet, he also argues quite con- interesting to consider the ways that sex vincingly that the reforms have had prob- and race differences are “different differ- lematic unintended consequences, includ- ences” (Epstein, p. 255, emphasis in origi- ing raising the risk of improper racial or nal). Whereas women’s bodies have long sex “profiling” in medicine and fostering a been heavily medicalized, and the idea of belief that race/ethnicity and sex/gender sex differences is now “thoroughly reified are biological in nature. and naturalized in biomedical research” Epstein’s book is timely, as there is (Epstein, p. 256), racial/ethnic differences growing attention to the problem of health have not yet been highly medicalized disparities in the United States, and he con- (though this may change with the develop- siders whether a focus on difference can ment of drugs like BiDil). Although “dif- eliminate these disparities. Arguing that ference findings” pertaining to sex/gender the inclusion-and-difference paradigm tend to be praised, those pertaining to reinforces the mistaken conclusion that race/ethnicity are more often subject to on- social inequalities can be remedied with a going controversy. Epstein links this “non- focus on biological difference, Epstein ulti- debate over sex profiling” (p. 248) to an mately concludes that these reforms are emerging trend in women’s health research unlikely to eliminate health disparities: “I advocacy groups to embrace notions of consider it highly debatable whether an biological differences by sex, which stands opportunistic use of medical essentialism, in stark contrast to the politics of earlier rooted in the biological-differences frame, women’s health organizations: “[W]here truly can be employed to serve the cause of the earlier groups often sought to ‘demed- justice in the domain of health” (p. 296). icalize’ women’s experiences, the new Both books in different ways caution advocacy, often led by women inside med- that a focus on “difference” can end up icine and science, seeks to extend scientific

Contemporary Sociology 38, 1 Review Essays–17 scrutiny of their bodies” (Epstein, p. 247). explain, then, why there’s been little focus Conrad’s book reminds us how ironic this on men’s bodies—as gendered bodies—in stance really is. As Conrad tells us, scholars biomedical research. However, referring of medicalization have long contended that back to Conrad, we see that men’s bodies the institution of medicine can function as are increasingly being medicalized even a force of social control and that women without a social justice foundation; in this have faced a disproportionate burden asso- case, the process is fueled by the economic ciated with medical surveillance. Women’s motives of the medical and pharmaceutical embrace of such a biomedical paradigm industries as well as men’s own concerns might be considered, then, in Conrad’s par- about masculinity. lance, a form of “self-medicalization.” Ultimately, both books warn us to con- The expansion of “self-medicalization” sider the implications of the expansion of is not limited to race or sex categories. As medical authority and surveillance espe- both books show, LGBT health advocates, cially in relation to categories of difference. too, have lobbied for sexual orientation and In so doing, the books make valuable con- gender identity to be included as categories tributions to both sociology and society at of difference in biomedical research, a clear large. Conrad deftly outlines the ways that example of attempted domain expansion to the agents of medicalization exploit differ- the inclusion-and-difference paradigm. ence, seeking to define it as pathology, Epstein argues that this paradigm is most increasingly for commercial gain. Epstein disposed to recognize those categorical persuasively demonstrates the ironies that identities that in some way can be linked to arise when socially marginalized groups claims of injustice, such as those presented advance social justice claims by turning to by LGBT activists. The implausibility of the type of biomedical models of difference presenting the lack of focus on “men’s that have long been used to justify their health” as a case of injustice can help marginalization.

Working In and Out of Poverty: Trends, Challenges and Strategies TOBY L. PARCEL North Carolina State University [email protected]

These two books pursue a common theme, yet are a study in contrasts. Duncan, Huston Higher Ground: New Hope for the Working and Weisner’s Higher Ground uses both Poor and Their Children, by Greg J. ethnographic and quantitative data to tell Duncan, Aletha C. Huston, and Thomas the story of a Wisconsin experiment called S. Weisner. New York, NY: Russell Sage New Hope, which was designed to deter- Foundation, 2007. 176 pp. $24.95 cloth. mine whether a specific set of supports for ISBN: 9780871543257. low-wage workers would help them to escape poverty. Blank, Danziger and Working and Poor: How Economic and Policy Schoeni’s edited volume, Working and Poor, Changes are Affecting Low-Wage Workers, provides a detailed statistical picture of low- edited by Rebecca M. Blank, Sheldon H. wage workers that is both descriptive as Danziger, and Robert F. Schoeni. New well as analytical. It addresses how the York, NY: Russell Sage Foundation, 2006. demographic composition of this group has 416 pp. $49.95 cloth. ISBN: 9780871540751. changed over time, how economic trends have affected this group, both in terms of come insights as they pose one of the most earnings as well as other measures of eco- important questions we address as sociolo- nomic and social well being, and how state gists: what works, and what doesn’t work, and federal policies have impacted this as we provide evidence useful in construct- group. The two books were prepared as ing programs and policies to promote companion volumes. They provide wel- upward mobility of the working poor?

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Higher Ground tells the story of a program are particularly sensitive to fluctuations of designed to address a paradox: if one is the business cycle. Part 2 addresses how working, how can one be poor? It is the economic trends affect less-skilled workers. story of an experiment designed to deter- French, Mazumder and Taber study mine whether a system that required thirty changes in wage growth for low-skilled or more hours of work per week (if needed workers, and conclude that workers who at a temporary community-service job), cou- enter the workforce during a recession are pled with an earnings supplement to lift not seriously disadvantaged in wage income above the poverty level, subsidized growth over time relative to comparable child care, subsidized health insurance, and workers who entered during more robust both help and respect from project staff, markets. They argue that workers’ growth could help a randomly assigned group of in experience may be an important mecha- adults escape poverty over the long term, nism for escaping poverty. Part 3 studies i.e., after the experiment ended. While how macroeconomic change affects ele- quantitative data are provided in appen- ments of personal well-being other than dices, the meat of the book is conveyed household income. For example, Haider through the stories of three participants ran- and McGarry argue that resource sharing, domly assigned to the experimental group: particularly co-residency, is prevalent Inez, Lakeisha and Elena. We get to know among the poor and such resource sharing them and their family members, and follow has considerable potential to improve finan- their stories as they enter the program while cial status. They urge that private transfers it is ongoing, and after it ended. The find- be studied in analyses of the effects of wel- ings suggest that New Hope worked: it fare reform which have, too often, neglected reduced poverty substantially during the the study of private transfers in assessing program and modestly afterward. It the effects of welfare policy changes on improved children’s school performance, households over time. A substantial Part 4 especially in reading and it promoted investigates the joint effects of policy and stronger social behavior among boys. economic changes on low-wage workers. Among girls, there were positive effects on Autor and Houseman study whether the social behavior at home while worsening temporary work agencies help to alleviate social behavior at school. There was some poverty. Their findings suggest that positive improvement in adult mental and physical effects of temporary work placements are health and increases in child participation in short term, while placements in direct-hire center-based child care and after-school jobs modestly increase the chances of work- programs. ers leaving poverty. Similar chapters in this Working and Poor pursues some of the section explore the role of child support and same themes, but uses very different strate- tax policies on the long-term prospects of gies. Authors in this volume are primarily low-income workers. economists and policy analysts who use Taken together the two volumes provide data derived from sources such as the U. S. considerable insight into what works to Census, the Survey of Economic Opportu- help low-wage workers escape poverty. The nity, and the Current Populations Surveys. books are also explicitly intergenerational Data are frequently derived from multiple and longitudinal. In Higher Ground, we learn waves of these data sets, and analytic tech- how children of program participants are niques emphasize econometric modeling. affected both academically and socially, as The book contains four sections. In Part 1, well as how their mothers fared in labor the authors explore the changing labor mar- market participation. In addition, analyses ket landscape for low-skilled workers, and of these same families after the experiment suggest causes for these changes. For exam- ends tell us whether the program produced ple, George Borjas argues that downward lasting benefits, or only a temporary boost. wage trends among disadvantaged His- The longitudinal data sets used in many of panic low-wage workers are largely due to the Working and Poor chapters allow those the increase in low-wage immigrants into researchers to evaluate the long term effects this population, immigrants whose wages of specific governmental policies. The two

Contemporary Sociology 38, 1 Review Essays–19 volumes are also useful both to researchers influence of sociologists in these volumes is and in the classroom. Working and Poor modest, it remains true that the scholarship would be a valuable reference for they report is significantly a product of researchers, knowledgeable about econo- interdisciplinary collaboration that is valu- metrics, who also had an interest in low- able in the study of low-wage workers. wage workers and public policy. Higher Third, the volumes dramatize what we Ground would also interest these gain when we focus analysis on one portion researchers, but in addition could be useful of the economic spectrum. To be sure, eco- in both graduate and undergraduate class- nomic sociology has advanced greatly rooms studying poverty, inequality and owing to analysis of social mobility of entire applied public policy. populations, or studies of wealth accumula- These two volumes provide useful per- tion that compare such processes among spectives to both sociologists concerned class/wealth groups. Indeed, for many with economic inequality as well as to those years this was the dominant strategy for with interests in other fields. First, the vol- studying economic inequality. At the same umes clearly signal that both quantitative time, however, many sociologists outside of and qualitative methods are needed to economic sociology and social stratification understand the most challenging problems have long focused on specific populations. in social science. From the quantitative Students of occupational sociology have studies we learn whether program features performed many analyses of occupations have discernable effects on workers’ (e.g., physicians and lawyers) and thus have incomes, and how important respective long embraced studies of specific groups. supports might be. From the qualitative That is the strategy these two volumes studies we develop more insight into how adopt, and the results are encouraging. In and why given program elements may be this case, the singular focus on low-wage working; we also become more attuned to workers allows for greater depth of study. the nuances of effects across households, The questions posed are essentially interac- because even if a program has an overall tive ones: among the working poor, what salutary impact, this is an average com- are the effects of child care subsidies or posed of different experiences across par- changes in tax policy? More generally ticipants. framed studies of the effects of family sup- Second, the volumes also reflect the fact port on workers across the economic spec- that scholarship in the social sciences is trum would not likely produce insights increasingly interdisciplinary. Gone are the regarding strategies to promote upward days when we could ignore the theories and mobility of a single subgroup. What we gain methods used in related disciplines such as with breadth of coverage in the studies of anthropology and economics. It is all too more general populations often reduces the easy to become caught up in debates inter- depth with which we can analyze any one nal to our own field, or to frame research sub-group. And given the importance of questions narrowly as a career strategy. understanding the situation of the working And, of course, not every theory or method poor group, such neglect would be regret- derived from other disciplines will fit our table. problems. But these volumes demonstrate Finally, the volumes also connect us to that colleagues from other disciplines may the world of social policy. A traditional have much to offer us as we pursue the argument from sociology is that we do not study of longstanding questions, ones that yet know enough to make sound inferences have resisted facile explanations and easy regarding specific policies. While some col- resolution. This trend is analogous to the leagues fear the potential for harm that longer-term trends in the biological, physi- under-informed policy statements may cal and engineering sciences to build inter- inflict, others eschew these debates by pre- disciplinary teams to address the most chal- ferring scientific discovery that leaves pos- lenging questions such as those involving sible policy derivation to others. These two energy or the human genome. While it is volumes take a very different approach. therefore disappointing that the obvious Their policy statements are both detailed

Contemporary Sociology 38, 1 20–Review Essays and nuanced. Higher Ground explores such just in a cursory way. Both of these works questions as whether the New Hope exper- hit head on the very challenging issue of iment is scalable to populations within or how knowledge can and should be used to across states, rather than being confined to construct social policy. It is worthwhile for one community. Each chapter in Working us to consider what advantages, and risks, and Poor seriously addresses possible policy such scholarship entails. implications of respective findings, and not

Contemporary Sociology 38, 1