Mixing Past and Future

Ó American Sociological Association 2013 DOI: 10.1177/0094306113499137 http://cs.sagepub.com

EDITOR’S REMARKS MIXING PAST AND FUTURE

The Past regularly invokes social science research in his essays, and because of the internet, his Scholarly reputations that for a time seem version of what ‘‘we’’ are saying is very unimpeachable now shrink or evaporate so widely discussed. Widely, yes; how deeply speedily that ‘‘intergenerational’’ percep- remains the unanswerable question. Yet tions of whom to read will soon be measured long before the ascension of globalized dis- in months rather than decades. As some the- course, before the tyrannical computeriza- orists have begun to explain (e.g., Hassan tion of consciousness had reached deep 2012; Rosa 2013), to remain hip in any single into our minds, prior to the nattering of intellectual or artistic field becomes ever tiny screens demanding perpetual attention, more taxing, more and more breathless, there was a journalist whose presence was so with returns that seem weaker and less pre- overwhelming for so long that he became dictable than one might wish. Where to indistinguishable from ‘‘what right-thinking invest one’s time and energy for the purpose people ought to think about important mat- of edification becomes as tricky and unset- ters.’’ His name, of course, was Walter tling as trusting hedge fund managers to Lippmann. grow one’s retirement savings. Who are the In 1943 James Thurber created a cartoon for blue chip writers and thinkers with whom The New Yorker showing a couple reading one can confidently spend those few hours their morning newspaper, the woman per day, week, or month that can be wrested saying to the man ‘‘Lippmann scares me from the everyday duties of emailing, meet- this morning’’ (Steel 1981: 432ff). She was ings, and online surfing? Whose stock holds ‘‘scared’’ because Lippmann was famously its value? trusted to tell the unpleasant truth, as a soci- An expert in marriage and the family ologist without portfolio, political scientist, recently said to me, ‘‘Ernest Burgess wrote moral philosopher, and presidential advisor. an early book about the family, and it’s hum- For decades he was the voice of apparent bling to examine it now, because he was reason in the popular press—his audience doing all the stuff we continue to do, the cor- numbered ten million of the savviest relations and so on, even if his methods were citizens—and his books were taken as seri- less fancy’’ (see Burgess and Locke 1945; 4th ously as any scholar’s, and far more widely edition, 1971). So, does one burrow into read: ‘‘Walter Lippmann had left his finger- what’s left of the library stacks to find Bur- prints on, and even helped mold, almost gess’s 800-page textbook, or even Willard every major issue in American life over six Waller’s related monographs from the decades’’ (Steele 1980: xvii, xii). Yet he, too, 1930s, in order to limn the ground floor of has now become for most readers merely family-oriented sociology? Or does one allow a somewhat notable name without content or oneself to believe that the latest monograph any compulsion to consult. The fact that his subsumes these antique works, consigning books—most notably Public Opinion (1922), them permanently to the airless forgetfulness The Phantom Public (1925), A Preface to Morals of closed stacks? No-one can say with any (1929), and The Good Society (1937)—were authority; things are moving too fast to judge. universally read and respected, going Today the most visible ‘‘sociological imagi- through many printings and editions long nation’’ in journalistic form seems to revolve after their first appearance, no longer seems around columnists of The New York Times, to carry much weight. Even The Essential sometimes Paul Krugman, other times Lippmann (1963; 1982) is out of print. Were Maureen Dowd or their colleagues, but it not for Transaction Publishers reprinting mostly David Brooks. His right-center cul- his works ‘‘on demand,’’ Lippmann’s books tural conservatism notwithstanding, Brooks would be hard to find except in vanishing

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Downloaded from csx.sagepub.com at ASA - American Sociological Association on September 12, 2013 654 Editor’s Remarks used-book stores. At his death in 1974, this addresses (see a sample in The New York situation would have seemed as unlikely as Times:Pe´rez-Pen˜a, 2013), remains a classic if the names of all The New York Times’ cur- document of its genre. rent columnists were to disappear overnight. Lippmann begins by noting ‘‘a special Every U.S. president from Teddy Roosevelt uneasiness which perturbs the scholar. He (Lippmann’s hero when young) through feels that he ought to be doing something Nixon knew and listened to the scholar- about the world’s troubles, or at least to be journalist. In December 1917, at 28, he drafted saying something which will help others to The Fourteen Points which Woodrow Wilson do something about them. The world needs delivered to Congress on January 8, 1918, ideas: how can he sit in his study. . . . And thereby establishing a new world order. yet, at the same time he hears the voice of From then on, he was never far from the another conscience, the conscience of the political center of the United States, and scholar...hemustpreserveaquietindiffer- also abroad. Fifty years later, the relationship ence to the immediate and a serene attach- Lyndon Baines Johnson and him went from ment to the processs of inquiry and under- being confederates to enemies when Lipp- standing’’ (Lippmann 1932: 148). He then mann realized that LBJ had lied to him quotes from one of Robert Browning’s least regarding his intentions in Vietnam. He melodious poems, ‘‘A Grammarian’s Funer- instantly began to attack LBJ frontally and al’’ (Men and Women, 1855). Doing so nowa- continuously: ‘‘There is a growing feeling days would seem not only pretentious, that Johnson’s America is no longer the his- Eurocentric, patriarchal, and condescend- toric America . . . it is a bastard empire which ing, but would also mystify its listeners relies on superior force to achieve its purpo- due to its syntax and vocabulary. ses, and is no longer an example of the wis- Lippmann reminds his listeners, most of dom and humanity of a free society. . . . It is whom had surely read Browning at some a feeling that the American promise has been point, that ‘‘as a man of his time he [the schol- betrayed and abandoned’’ (Newsweek, Octo- ar] is impelled against his instincts to enter ber 9, 1967; Steele 1980: 577). LBJ allegedly thearena...heisafraidtosaywiththe told his intimates that he knew the war in high assurance of the Grammarian: ‘Leave Vietnam was lost when Walter Cronkite Now for dogs and apes! Man has Forever.’ withdrew his support on his television He drops his studies, he entangles himself news program; he could as easily have said in affairs, murmuring to himself: ‘But time the same thing about Lippmann, and proba- escapes: Live now or never!’’’ Naturally, there bly did. In fact, Cronkite was a journalist is nothing original here, as Lippmann knew, with a mellifluous voice whereas Lippmann since Plato’s Socrates spent lots of his time was a thinking person’s public intellectual talking about the thought/action dichotomy whose opinion counted a great deal more, that afflicts all responsible people. Yet given and had for 40 years. what the world was preparing to do to itself In 1932 when Lippmann was 42, he was in 1932, and being a man of uncanny political invited to deliver the commencement sense, Lippmann felt the need to speak address at Columbia University, which was against the grain—Max Weber’s speech to soon thereafter printed in The Atlantic a displeased audience in November, 1917, Monthly with this note from its editor: ‘‘Science as a Vocation,’’ comes to mind, also ‘‘This paper is here published because its disappointing its listeners’ expectations—by excellence demands for it a wider audience insisting that scholars should stick to their and the permanence of the printed word’’ business and let the politicians fend for them- (Lippmann 1932). Lippmann was personally selves. In saying this, he seemed to be contra- unhappy at that time, only in part because dicting the arc of his entire life to that point. the country had rapidly sunk from the hys- Lippmann decided to use Browning’s terical boom of the late 1920s into the nadir imagination to aid him, which was a good of the Depression in just a few years. But choice indeed. Browning’s meditation on that notwithstanding, he had advice for the the burying of an imaginary Renaissance Columbia graduates which, when compared scholar is partly heartfelt, partly mocking. with what now passes for commencement His students must find a suitable burial site:

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‘‘Leave we the unlettered plain its herd and or does s/he wait for a thorough viewing crop; / Seek we sepulture / On a tall moun- of the data, meanwhile fearful that a compet- tain, citied to the top, / Crowded with cul- itor will ‘‘scoop’’ the story? Remembering, as ture! / All the peaks soar, but one the rest we all do, that Darwin waited 20 years excels; / Clouds over come it.’’ The poet before announcing his discoveries in Origin acknowledges the scholar’s superiority to of Species, and then only reluctantly, we see those who people the ‘‘unlettered plain’’ the distance we have come since his time while at the same time noting his anxiety— and Browning’s in terms of the hastening which Lippmann adopted as his own— race between speed and cogitation. Darwin’s regarding his proper role when amidst ordi- feeble body made a virtue of necessity: ‘‘[H]e nary humans in action, those outside the had neither the strength nor the tempera- walls of his monastery or library. The scholar, ment for an active and public life; he ‘‘When he had gathered all books had to remained secluded at his country house at give!’’ stood perplexed before life’s call for Down, shunning the furious post-Origin activity: ‘‘. . . this in him was the peculiar controversies and leaving the defense of grace. . . . That before living he’d learn how ‘Darwinism’ to his more pugnacious friends. to live— / No end to learning.’’ But always he worked. Good Victorian that Petrarch might well be the model here, the he was, he worked as much every day as man who ‘‘invented’’ the Renaissance by his strength permitted, and his industrious sleeping no more than four hours a night life was studded with solid contributions to and working constantly on ancient texts. He science in articles, reviews, and books’’ was not unlike Erasmus, Leon Battista (Appleman 1970: xiii-xiv). It is noteworthy Alberti, or many other maniacally dedicated that Browning’s poem and Darwin’s book rediscoverers of lost texts whose principal appeared within a few years of each other. goal in life was the codification of this buried ‘‘This man decided not to Live but Know’’ is learning. Petrarch himself discovered Cice- the poet’s verdict on the renaissance scholar’s ro’s forgotten Letters to Atticus, and wrote life, and one which much troubled Lippmann. many letters to ‘‘Tully,’’ though his hero After all, everyone in Mass Society is pushed had died 1200 years before. The ‘‘scholar- to want their Fifteen Minutes, and if one can hero’’ seems a much sillier notion now than win Fifteen Years, all the better. Where does it did in the mid-nineteenth century (when this leave the undeniable tedium out of which Mark Twain observed Theodor Mommsen, the best scholarship springs? Roman historian, being treated like royalty by the admiring throng). Yet the problems which confronted scholars then, at least in The Future Browning’s imaginings, were not so different from those facing Lippmann’s Columbia The ASA will be selecting several new jour- young audience 80 years ago, nor ours today. nal editors in December 2013 and January As the poet put it: ‘‘Others mistrust and say, 2014, including my successor at CS. Nomina- ‘But time escapes: / Live now or never!’ / tions will be solicited, as always; proposals He said, ‘What’s time? Leave Now for dogs will be submitted by November 1; the Publi- and apes! / Man has Forever.’ / Back to his cations Committee will deliberate in Decem- book then: deeper drooped his head.’’ ber and make its recommendations to the The pull of Now has never been so strong, ASA Council, which will decide in February the Call of the Tweet in combat with the sol- 2014 who will take over in January 2015. The itary mindset necessary to the studiolo— minimum term of service is three years, or 18 those fortunate enough to inhabit one. issues of the journal, which can be extended ‘‘Back to his studies, fresher than at first, / to a maximum of six years at the invitation of Fierce as a dragon /. . . Oh, if we draw a circle the ASA. To help potential candidates for the premature, / Heedless of far gain, / Greedy CS editorship consider what is in store for for quick returns of profit, sure / Bad is our them if they decide to apply, let me quickly bargain!’’ Does the scholar give an interview run through the operations of the journal, to NPR before all the data are analyzed, in stipulating what is required in order to eager anticipation of notoriety and esteem, produce a new issue every two months.

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Herearethegrossfacts:Eachyear1300to important process. Every two months the 1400 new books arrive in the CS mailbox CS staff sends to each E.B. member a list of for review consideration, which comes to books along with summaries of each taken about 25 per week, or five new books each from publishers’ websites, and asks them working day. Of those, perhaps 500 will be to nominate as many likely reviewers as pos- reviewed based on the editor’s selection cri- sible for each title. After their responses have teria and, to a much lesser extent, to sugges- been received and tabulated, the editor rank- tions from the Editorial Board and the opin- orders the nominated reviewers, sometimes ions of the CS staff. Each book will be treated adding names, and the staff begins issuing either by means of a symposium, a titled invitations to potential reviewers. It is review-essay, a regular review, or a ‘‘review- unusual to receive a ‘‘yes’’ from the first, sec- let’’ of 250-600 words for the ‘‘Briefly Noted’’ ond, or third nominee, though we have section. Each issue of CS generally contains found during our editorship that scholars a half-dozen essays of one kind or another, have become more willing to review than plus 40-60 regular reviews, and 20 review- was earlier the case. We have cases on record lets, in addition to ‘‘Publications Received’’ of having asked 15 scholars to review a given by category, and an index. This setup varies book, after which we gave up, or finally if longer ‘‘critical-retrospective’’ or other were able to find someone through our ‘‘special essays’’ are published. Standard own devices. reviews are 900-1100 words; review-essays Every editor develops their own criteria for are 1500-3000 words; critical-retrospective deciding which books to review and at what essays can run anywhere from 4000 to 7000 length, culled from all those which are sent words or more. I have also introduced ‘‘Edi- for consideration. Whenever an assistant pro- tor’s Remarks’’ for each issue in which I fessor publishes a monograph on a sociologi- write about a topic of interest, the smallest cally significant topic with a reputable press, being about 1000 words, the largest going their book is reviewed in CS, and if a review to around 7000. CS is allowed 916 total pages does not appear, it is because a string of of printed material per annum, which comes potential reviewers failed to submit a usable to about 150 pages per issue. analysis. Senior sociologists’ books are also All this material must be managed correct- routinely reviewed, particularly when a pub- ly or chaos takes over. To this end the ASA lisher known for their sociology list sends hired a programmer to customize Microsoft’s the book. Edited volumes are harder to Access program, which was done while the judge and harder to place with reviewers, journal was at UC/Irvine just prior to my edi- but many are published nowadays, especial- torship. Not having been updated since, it is ly in the United Kingdom, and each must be slower than is desirable, and despite recent evaluated carefully to see how many contrib- professional tweaking, does not offer the utors are sociologists and the extent to which amenities or speed one would expect from the chapters add to sociological knowledge. modern manuscript control software. Unlike When books written or edited by political sci- the other ASA journals, we do not use the entists, anthropologists, urbanists, geogra- Sage platform because CS is not a convention- phers, cultural studies specialists, historians, al journal. Regular journals might publish or experts on education are sent to the jour- the work of a half-dozen authors per issue, nal’s office, they are carefully evaluated along whereas we must deal with at least 80, some- similar criteria. Textbooks and second or times more. No journal is easy to run proper- third editions of a monograph are not gener- ly, but CS poses special conditions that its ally reviewed unless they offer material not software needs to accommodate. otherwise available. The Editorial Board is made up of about I have assembled a file of about 80 publish- 36-40 scholars, carefully chosen by virtue of ers’ publicity department contact persons their scholarly reputation and understanding (who change with alarming frequency), and of books, their gender, race, geographical I write to them often, asking for books I think location, academic rank, and willingness to we should consider reviewing. Twice a year work hard. One third of their number rotate I go through about 50 publishers’ catalogues, off each December and must be replaced, an printed and online, selecting books for

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Downloaded from csx.sagepub.com at ASA - American Sociological Association on September 12, 2013 Editor’s Remarks 657 review. (Recently some publishers have stop- ahead of his or her own because the journal’s ped printing catalogues and rely on their bimonthly schedule does not allow for much electronic advertisements to inform journal downtime. editors of forthcoming works, but most con- Perhaps needless to say, there are always tinue to issue semi-annual printed cata- vexing questions of ethics and aesthetics in logues, which is highly preferable.) Most deciding which books to review and which publishers are easy to deal with and pleased reviewers to secure, many of them far more to work with CS. Some require more nudg- time-consuming to resolve than one would ing. We have had less luck securing review imagine a priori. Naturally, great satisfaction copies from Europe. lies in publishing well-constructed and Every two months the complete manu- entertaining reviews or essays about valu- script is sent electronically to Sage Publica- able books. Considerable energy goes into tions in California where some fine people making this happen routinely, and the begin its production. Typesetters in India results are worth every bit of it. then go to work, a proof is generated within In appreciation: David O. Friedrichs at the a few weeks, the CS staff must proofread University of Scranton was kind enough to the issue carefully, corrections are returned suggest that CS publish the Barak/Hagan to India via Sage, a second proof set is gener- symposium, for which we thank him. ated and proofread, and after final approval, the journal is printed in North Carolina. References The point here is that the staff is constantly Appleman, Philip. (ed) 1970. Darwin. New York, working on at least two issues simulta- NY: W.W. Norton and Co. Inc. neously, and often more, due to overlap- Burgess, Ernest Watson, and Harvey J. Locke. ping deadlines. 1945. The Family, From Institution to Companion- The CS editorial operation requires space ship. New York: American Book Company. (4th (we have two small, adjacent rooms in the edition, Burgess, Locke, and Mary Margaret sociology building), two computers, two Thomes; New York: Van Nostrand and Rein- hold Co., 1971.) printer/copiers, bookshelves; a large Hassan, Robert. 2012. The Age of Distraction: enough graduate program to facilitate the Reading, Writing, and Politics in a High-speed writing of 120 unsigned ‘‘reviewlets’’ each Networked Economy. New Brunswick, NJ: year; nearby faculty who are more or less Transaction Publishers. willing to help out on occasion; two smart, Lippmann, Walter. 1932. ‘‘The Scholar in a Trou- literate, and energetically conscientious bled World.’’ The Atlantic Monthly, 150:2 (August), 148-152. Reprinted in The Essential senior graduate students who work as ‘‘Edi- Lippmann, pp. 509-515. torial Associates,’’ and two sociology honors Pe´ra-Pen˜a, Richard. 2013. ‘‘In Looser Tone, Speak- undergraduates who are ‘‘Editorial Assis- ers Urge Graduates to Take Risks and Be tants.’’ A Managing Editor who copyedits Engaged.’’ New York Times, June 15. everything that goes into the journal is Rosa, Helmut. 2013. Social Acceleration: A New The- essential, preferably one whose English lan- ory of Modernity. New York, NY: Columbia Uni- versity Press. guage ability is top-flight, and who also is Rossiter, Clinton, and James Lare (eds). 1982 familiar with social science jargon. Relying [1963]. The Essential Lippmann: A Political Phi- on mechanical, amateur, or geographically losophy for Liberal Democracy. Cambridge, MA: distant copyediting invites endless troubles. Harvard University Press. Finding an affordable artist to provide orig- Steele, Ronald. 1980. Walter Lippmann and the inal works for the cover will benefit the jour- American Century. New York, NY: Random nal’s public face. CS also requires an editor House. (Reissued with new introduction by the author, Transaction Publishers, 1999.) who is willing to put other scholars’ work

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Downloaded from csx.sagepub.com at ASA - American Sociological Association on September 12, 2013 Ó American Sociological Association 2013 DOI: 10.1177/0094306113499533 http://cs.sagepub.com SPECIAL ESSAY

‘‘What is Critical Realism? And Why Should You Care?’’

PHILIP S. GORSKI Yale University [email protected]

A Realist Theory of Science,byRoy Reflections on meta-Reality: Transcendence, Bhaskar. London, UK; Verso, 1975. 258pp. Emancipation and Everyday Life,byRoy Bhaskar. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage The Possibility of Naturalism: A Publications, 2002. 274pp. ISBN: 0761 Philosophical Critique of the Contemporary 996923. Human Science,byRoy Bhaskar. Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities From Science to Emancipation: Alienation Press, 1979. 228pp. ISBN: 0391008439. and the Actuality of Enlightenment,by Roy Bhaskar. New York, NY: Scientific Realism and Human Emanci- Routledge, 2011. 424pp. $135.00 cloth. pation,byRoy Bhaskar. London, UK: ISBN: 9780415696593. Verso, 1986. 308pp. ISBN: 0860911438. The Philosophy of MetaReality: Creativity, Reclaiming Reality: A Critical Introduction Love and Freedom,byRoy Bhaskar. New to Contemporary Philosophy, by Roy York, NY: Routledge, 2012. 370pp. Bhaskar. London, UK: Verso, 1989. $45.95 paper. ISBN: 9780415507660. 218pp. ISBN:086091951X. The Formation of Critical Realism,byRoy Philosophy and the Idea of Freedom,byRoy Bhaskar and Mervyn Hartwig. New Bhaskar. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell, York, NY: Routledge, 2010. 237pp. 1991. 202pp. ISBN: 0631170820. $45.95 paper. ISBN: 9780415455039.

Dialectic: The Pulse of Freedom,byRoy Dictionary of Critical Realism, edited by Bhaskar. London, UK: Verso, 1993. Mervyn Hartwig. New York, NY: 419pp. ISBN: 0860913686. Routledge, 2007. 534pp. $195.00 cloth. ISBN: 9780415260992. Plato etc.: The Problems of Philosophy and Their Resolution,byRoy Bhaskar. London, UK: Verso, 1994. 267pp. ISBN: Critical realism (CR) is a philosophical sys- 086016499. tem developed by the Indo-British philosopher, Roy Bhaskar, in collaboration with From East to West: Odyssey of a Soul,by a number of British social theorists, includ- Roy Bhaskar. New York, NY: ing Margaret Archer, Mervyn Hartwig, Tony Lawson, Alan Norrie, and Andrew Routledge, 2000. 176pp. $55.95 paper. 1 ISBN: 9780415233255. Sayer. It has a journal, a book series, an association, an annual meeting and, in short, all meta-Reality: The Philosophy of meta- the usual trappings of an intellectual move- Reality,byRoy Bhaskar. Thousand ment. The movement is centered in the UK Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 2002. ISBN: 9780761997153. 1 Bhaskar’s is not the only ‘‘critical realism.’’ For the genealogy of the term and broader history of CR, see the cognate entry in Hartwig.

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Downloaded from csx.sagepub.com at ASA - American Sociological Association on September 16, 2013 Special Essay 659 but has followers throughout Europe, Asia, conventions of the social sciences. But this the Americas, and the Antipodes. convention has never obtained in sociology If CR is less known in the United States, and no longer holds in economics either, then Contemporary Sociology bears at least where psychological and neurological a little of the blame. While it has reviewed reduction is the new order of the day. works by other critical realists, it has not By contrast, CR is realist ‘‘all the way reviewed any of Bhaskar’s books for over down’’—and all the way up as well. Instead thirty years. Why Bhaskar’s writings have of a purely conventional distinction between received so little attention from this journal, ‘‘micro’’ and ‘‘macro’’ it appeals to the real and from American sociologists more gener- ontological distinctions between the various ally, is an interesting question in and of itself, layers or ‘‘strata’’ in the natural and social though not one that I can pursue at length worlds. It does not deny that reduction can here. Suffice it to say that style and relevance sometimes be illuminating, but it insists are not generally at issue. Most of Bhaskar’s that the social is an emergent reality with writings are clear and lucid—far more so its own specific powers and properties than, say, most of Habermas’. Also, like Hab- (Powell and Padgett 2012; Sawyer 2005). ermas, and unlike most philosophers of sci- For Bhaskar, then, ontological stratification ence, Bhaskar takes sociology seriously. In and emergent properties provide the episte- short, Bhaskar’s work is both readable and mological warrant and the disciplinary rai- relevant. son d’eˆtre, not only for the social sciences, At the present juncture, Bhaskar’s work but for the various biological and physical also seems enormously prescient. Realism sciences as well. is making a major comeback in philosophy This is not to say that CR presumes that and sociology these days. Everywhere, one the structures of reality are somehow self- hears realist phrases like ‘‘causal mecha- evident or even directly observable. Critical nisms’’ and ‘‘social ontology.’’ Why? The realism is not naı¨ve or commonsense real- shortcomings of positivism and empiricism ism. Even intentionally constructed social are old news by now. Strong forms of inter- structures such as formal organizations or pretivism and constructivism seem equally legal codes often have unintended effects problematic. Realism seems like the only that may not be evident to the social actors way forward if one wishes to call off the themselves. Moreover, non-intentional social search for ‘‘general laws’’ without simply structures such as fields and networks and abandoning the goal of causal explanation. culture can usually be observed only indirect- The dominant form of sociological realism ly via their causal effects with the help of at the moment is ‘‘analytical sociology’’ social scientific instruments (e.g., block mod- (Hedstro¨m 2005; Hedstro¨m and Bearman eling and correspondence analysis). Thus, 2009). It is best understood as a type of con- a genuinely scientific realism is necessarily ventional realism. ‘‘Conventional’’ in what a critical one, which continually reflects on sense? Analytical sociologists argue that and revises its own categories and instru- ‘‘individual actors’’ are the elementary par- ments. Its ontology is provisional and fallible. ticles of social science, the inner workings As should be clear, CR is a much more inter- of the ‘‘black box.’’ There is just one problem: nally consistent and philosophically devel- their black box has a false bottom. After all, oped framework for those who have decided why should reduction stop with ‘‘rational to follow the ‘‘realist turn’’ away from positiv- actors’’? Why not reduce actors to ‘‘brains’’? ism and constructivism. Or brains to ‘‘neural pathways’’? Reduction- In the remainder of this essay, I will pro- ism is a never-ending regress.2 The only vide a brief introduction to CR by way of possible reason for stopping at the level of an omnibus review of Bhaskar’s work since the actor—the one that analytical sociolo- 1980. The essay is in three parts. The first gists themselves give—is the (putative) situates Bhaskar’s approach within the modern philosophy of science and within mod- 2 For philosophical critiques of materialist re- ern philosophy more generally, with special ductions of agency and mind, see Kim 2010 attention to positivism, interpretivism, and and Nagel 2012. constructivism, the three traditions that

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(still) frame the debate about method. The two-dimensional medium which creates no second part discusses the three main phases resistance, while a third school contended of Bhaskar’s intellectual development: (1) that water resistance is a mere projection of ‘‘basic’’ or ‘‘original critical realism’’ (BCR, the human mind. A few naturally talented a.k.a, ‘‘transcendental realism’’ or ‘‘critical people might still become good swimmers naturalism’’); (2) ‘‘dialectical critical realism’’ by dint of good instincts and much practice. (DCR); and (3) ‘‘transcendental dialectical They might even pass this practical knowl- critical realism’’ (TDCR or ‘‘metaReality’’) edge on to younger swimmers, bypassing with particular attention to BCR and DCR. the official instructors. But they would do The conclusion notes several areas where so in spite of the instructors, not because of Bhaskar’s system requires further develop- them. On a practical level, they would have ment and highlights several contrasts a lot to unlearn. between CR and the conventional wisdom On Bhaskar’s account, the relationship in contemporary sociology. between the properties of social reality, the dominant philosophy of science, its two Why Should You Care about major rivals, and the practice of social research is analogously (dis)ordered at pres- the Philosophy of Science? ent. The dominant philosophy is positivism. It is important to stress from the outset that Its oldest rival is interpretivism. The young CR is not itself a theory of society. It is a phi- upstart is social constructivism.3 The three losophy of science, a theory of what (good) approaches are premised on very different science is and does. So, why should an social ontologies (i.e., theories of social real- empirically-oriented social researcher even ity). Positivists draw no ontological distinc- care about it? Does the philosophy of science tion between natural and social entities; really have any impact on our research prac- both are just ‘‘phenomena’’ or ‘‘objects of tice? Like Bhaskar, I believe that it does, or at experience’’ (Hempel 1965; Popper 1959). least that it has, and that the impact has so Interpretivists draw a sharp line between far been mostly negative. the two domains; they argue that social real- Let me open my case by means of an anal- ity is linguistically constructed (Geertz 1973; ogy. In my view, the relationship between Winch 1958). The constructivists go further the objects of science, the philosophy of sci- still. They see the natural sciences as linguis- ence, and the practice of science is a bit like tically constituted as well (Feyerabend 1975; the relationship between the properties of Rorty 1979). For them, the natural sciences water, theories of hydrodynamics, and the are just another realm of social life. practice of swimming. Good swimming nec- The ongoing quarrel between positivists, essarily involves good hydrodynamics: interpretivists, and constructivists did not water is a fairly resistant medium, and prevent social scientists from producing a ‘‘good swimmer’’ has learned to glide valuable research. Our knowledge of social through it. However, there is no necessary life is broader and deeper than it used to relationship between being a good swimmer be. More places, periods, peoples, and cul- and having a good knowledge of hydrody- tures have been studied. New forms and lev- namics. One can have good practical knowl- els of social structure have been discovered. edge of swimming without having a good We have learned to glide through social real- theoretical knowledge of hydrodynamics, ity with some skill. But this progress has and vice versa. Still, an accurate knowledge of hydrodynamics might be a useful propae- 3 This is not to say that these are the only schools deutic for the would-be swimmer. More of thought today; nor is it to claim that all or importantly, an erroneous theory of hydrody- even most social scientists would affirm the namics could make it harder to learn swim- central tenets of positivism and interpretivism. ming. Imagine if the most influential school Rather, it is to say that positivism is the domi- of swimming instructors was continually nant form of orthodoxy and interpretivism the dominant form of heterodoxy, and that most advising their charges to ‘‘get as big as social scientists position themselves methodo- possible’’ in the water. Imagine that a rival logically in relationship to them, even if only school argued that water is actually a tacitly.

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Downloaded from csx.sagepub.com at ASA - American Sociological Association on September 16, 2013 Special Essay 661 occurred partly because social researchers between quantum physics and Azande mag- have unlearned things they were taught in ic. In other words, social constructionists graduate school and passed this tacit knowl- embrace a very strong form of epistemic rela- edge of good research practice on to others. tivism. They say we are all so enmeshed in Still, these teachings are hardly irrelevant. our own particular set of ‘‘stories’’ and ‘‘lan- First, they make it that much harder for guage games,’’ that there is just no ‘‘real’’ or young sociologists to learn how to do good ‘‘neutral’’ basis for adjudication between work. Second, they make it that much harder them. The most we can ever hope for is to dis- to understand what makes the good work entangle ourselves from the web of textuality good in the first place. Finally, they create and weave one of our own in solidarity with unnecessary animosities and misunder- our friends. Thus the goal of ‘‘theory’’ (social, standings between different methodologies literary, etc.) is simply to ‘‘destabilize’’ or and subfields. And when push comes to ‘‘subvert’’ ‘‘discourse’’ and ‘‘power’’ and so shove—when editorial boards and tenure to create space for individual ‘‘autonomy’’ committees weigh in, and final decisions and collective ‘‘performance.’’ are made about publications and posi- The problem with all three of these positions—it is to the positivist standards that tions is that few social researchers would we must all still appeal. be seriously willing to defend any of them To see why this should worry us, let us nowadays.4 Consider the positivist ideal of now drill down a little bit deeper into under- covering laws. How many sociologists still lying assumptions of positivism and inter- think this is an attainable goal? Not many pretivism to see just how mistaken they quantitative researchers do, at least not in are. Positivism presupposes and indeed their actual research practice. A near-perfect requires that scientific knowledge take the correlation between two variables is not form of ‘‘general’’ or ‘‘covering laws’’—uni- a discovery; it is a mistake. A few holdouts versal and exception-less statements that in the quantitative camp once tried to defend enable us to predict and control events. If a ‘‘probabilistic’’ version of the covering law and only if there are such laws will a ‘‘falsifi- model, based on quantum mechanics, which cationist’’ method apply (Gorski 2004). Oth- would ultimately aim at specifying the exact, erwise, a single counter-instance will not be numerical likelihood of certain events (Lie- logically sufficient to refute a theory. berson 1991).Will they eventually work out Strong versions of interpretivism have the relationship between fathers’ and sons’ (wrongly) accepted the positivistic account social status to two decimal places? Don’t of natural science but (rightly) insisted that hold your breath. it does not obtain for the social sciences. Nat- Now consider the interpretivist ideal of ural life may be governed by laws, they hermeneutic recovery. Again, how many counter, but social life is governed by mean- cultural sociologists or sociological ethnog- ings. Thus, they conclude, the aims and raphers honestly think that this exhausts methods of the social sciences are radically the possibilities of social science—that the different from those of the natural sciences. The social sciences pursue idiographic knowledge by hermeneutic means. They do 4 Interestingly, until recently, the loudest defen- not attempt to explain what happens in the ders of logical positivism were neoclassical social world, only to render it comprehensi- economists along with some of their rational choice followers. The more strident among ble by reconstructing meaning and intention. them claimed that human rationality was a sort Strong versions of constructivism pushed of law. And perhaps it is. But in what sense? this argument even further; they agree that Not the positivist one surely. The ‘‘rationality social life is linguistically constituted. But assumption’’ is not a covering law. It does they believe that natural science is just not yield precise predictions of the sort that another part of social life—that it, too, is gov- the law of gravity yields for celestial mechanics. It is really just a stylized description of erned by (impersonal) ‘‘discourses’’ and a behavioral propensity one finds among nor- ‘‘powers.’’ On this view, there is no real mal, healthy human beings—and one whose difference between, say, sociological and liter- generality has been rightly called into question ary theory, or in some extreme formulations, by behavioral economics.

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Downloaded from csx.sagepub.com at ASA - American Sociological Association on September 16, 2013 662 Special Essay people down the hall who study stratifica- As different as the positivist and interpre- tion and networks and so on are just wasting tivist visions of social science may be, Bhas- their time? Indeed, how many of them really kar notes, both actually share a common believe that it exhaustively describes what understanding of natural science. Unfortu- they themselves do? Everyone knows that nately, Bhaskar adds, this understanding is good interpretive work always involves quite mistaken. In reality, even the physical various forms of ‘‘contextualization.’’ And sciences do not actually generate ‘‘covering rightly so, because the reasons for what peo- laws’’ of the positivist sort (Cartwright 1983). ple do can be different not just from the rea- Nor is scientific knowledge based on a passive sons they do give but even from the reasons observation of empirical events. What the nat- they could give. We are not fully transparent ural sciences mostly do is isolate causal mech- to ourselves, nor is the social world fully anisms by means of active interventions into transparent to us. Otherwise, what would the world (a.k.a. ‘‘experiments’’) that produce be the point of sociology? indirect observations of the world (via ‘‘instru- To their credit, social constructionists have ments’’) (Hacking 1983). Note that the one recognized these complex intertwinings of major exception, astronomy, merely proves power, language, and reality. They know the rule: it seems to involve a closed system, that researchers do not just give up on their namely, the universe. theories because of a single anomaly. They One reason why social scientists have know that our observations of the world been unable to discover any ‘‘covering are linguistically mediated. They know that laws’’ is that they cannot achieve experimen- social structures partake of linguistic ones. tal closure. There are others as well. Because Alas, they often turn these complex inter- social structures are dependent upon human twinings into a simple chain of causality, activity and culture, they vary over space such that reality is (solely) constituted by and time to a far greater degree than physi- language and language is (merely) a medium cal structures. Human nature might seem of (an impersonal) power. Taken to its logical an exception, whence the perennial appeal consequence, a strong version of social con- of methodological individualism in the structivism ultimately leads to conclusions social sciences. But evolutionary biology like the following: (1) human agents are ven- teaches us that a high degree of behavioral triloquist’s dummies for discursive powers; plasticity is a distinguishing characteristic (2) social and natural reality are mere epi- of the human species. Furthermore, social phenomena of human language; (3) human structures are more than a simple aggrega- language is governed by an ethereal, omni- tion of individual persons, whence the present and impersonal medium of ‘‘dis- perennial failures of methodological indi- course’’ or ‘‘power.’’ vidualism in the social sciences. Social struc- But these positions generate grave ‘‘per- tures also have inter-subjective (e.g., formative contradictions’’: the very fact that cultural) and material (e.g., artifactual) com- people can propose them at all immediately ponents. Further, they generally have emer- undermines them. Because if they were true, gent properties not possessed by individual then it is not clear how anyone could freely actors. The genesis of the social sciences choose to become a social scientist, how hinged on the discovery of emergence, and social science could generate knowledge, major advances in them have typically or to what use this knowledge could ever involved the discovery of emergent proper- be put. And that is perhaps why strong ver- ties (e.g., of economic markets, social classes, sions of social constructivism have really collective conscience, value spheres, social only achieved a marginal presence within fields, and so on). A fourth and final reason the social sciences (e.g., in some corners of why human societies defy efforts at experi- cultural anthropology and cultural sociolo- mental closure is that human beings are gy) and have mainly taken root in inter- themselves open systems capable of com- disciplinary programs and humanities munication and creativity and resistance. disciplines (e.g., cultural studies and sci- This may be one reason why even the most ence studies, and in language and literature ruthless efforts to control behavior by creat- departments). ing closed systems (e.g., totalitarian regimes

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Downloaded from csx.sagepub.com at ASA - American Sociological Association on September 16, 2013 Special Essay 663 and concentration camps) have ultimately Explanation in the Social Sciences.’’ His foundered. And this is why experimentation examiners rejected it. The official reason will (hopefully) never play the sort of role in was excessive length. The real reason may social science that it does in physical science. have been excessive heterodoxy. Bhaskar’s At present, there is a yawning gap realist views were very much outside the between the philosophy of social science analytic mainstream at the time. (They still and the practice of social science. The ghost are.) Undeterred, he continued working on of logical positivism still haunts contempo- the dissertation project for several more rary discussions of methodology. The search years. It was eventually accepted in 1974, for a body of ‘‘covering laws’’ has been aban- despite the fact that it had grown to some doned but the spirit of ‘‘falsificationism’’ six volumes by this time. Those six volumes lives on in ‘‘logic of inquiry’’ seminars and were subsequently reworked into his first undergraduate methodology texts. Interpre- three books: A Realist Theory of Science tivists and constructionists have tried to (1975), The Possibility of Naturalism (1979), exorcise it. In the process, however, they and Scientific Realism and Human Emancipa- have pulled the rug out from under them- tion (1986). Together with Reclaiming Reality selves, by denying the very raison d’eˆtre of (1989), a collection of early essays, and Phi- the social sciences, namely, the possibility losophy and the Idea of Freedom (1991), a book of causal explanations via social structures. length critique of Richard Rorty’s work, Amidst all this confusion and tumult in the they comprise the first phase of Bhaskar’s haunted house of philosophy, workaday development, the ‘‘basic’’ or ‘‘original criti- researchers carry on calmly with their rou- cal realism’’ which established his reputa- tines. Models are run, ethnographies are tion. The publication of Dialectic: The Pulse written, interviews are conducted, and of Freedom (1993), certainly Bhaskar’s most archives are scanned. Some of the work is difficult work, inaugurates a second and very good. Knowledge seems to grow. But shorter phase in his intellectual develop- no one really knows how or why. Except per- ment, known as ‘‘dialectical critical realism.’’ haps Roy Bhaskar. Most of the central ideas of DCR are presented in a shorter and more readable form Who is Roy Bhaskar and What is Critical in Plato etc. (1994), a collection of essays from the second period. The difficulty of Realism? Dialectic put off some readers. But DCR pro- Roy Bhaskar was born in London on May 15, vides important tools for describing struc- 1944. His father was a medical doctor of tural change, tools that are lacking in BCR Indian background, his mother an English- and in other contemporary realisms as well. woman and a nurse. Both were practicing An intensive engagement with the South Theosophists. In private, they lived an Indi- Asian tradition of non-dualist metaphysics an lifestyle. For all these reasons, Bhaskar then led to the third and final phase of Bhas- was something of an outsider in post-war kar’s work, ‘‘transcendental’’ DCR. Bhaskar England and was often persecuted at school, has published four books on TDCR so perhaps because he was also something of far: From East to West (2000), The Philosophy a prodigy. He attended St. Paul’s public of Meta-Reality (2012), Reflections on Meta- school, then Balliol College at Oxford, where Reality (2002), and From Science to Emancipa- he obtained first class honors in ‘‘PPE’’ (Poli- tion (2011). The third-period works will not tics, Philosophy and Economics’’) in 1966. be of great interest to most social scientists, Immediately thereafter, he began studying at least not qua social scientists, though for a PhD in economics, with a focus on ‘‘Third they do provide some context for thinking World development.’’ He became increasingly about contemporary debates about religion disillusioned with orthodox economic theory and science, and spirituality and environ- and gradually turned his attention to the phi- mentalism. Bhaskar recounts his personal losophy of science, working closely with the and intellectual development in The Forma- neo-realist philosopher, Rom Harre´. tion of Critical Realism (2010), a series of inter- In late 1971, Bhaskar submitted a dis- views with Mervyn Hartwig. Hartwig has sertation entitled ‘‘Some Problems about also edited the Dictionary of Critical Realism

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(2007). While FCR provides an entre´e for of the world itself. In other words, if reality general reader, the Dictionary is meant for can be successfully studied at a variety of those with a strong knowledge Bhaskar’s different spatio-temporal scales, and if the system. physical and biological sciences are relative- The best introduction to BCR is Andrew ly autonomous from one another, then this is Collier’s Critical Realism (1994), while Alan at least partly because nature is actually Norrie’s Dialectic and Difference (2010) pro- organized that way, into different strata vides a helpful introduction to DCR. It and domains. should be noted that Bhaskar’s writings Another persistent feature of the history of have an iterative character. Accordingly, science is campaigns of reduction. These the clearest and most compact discussions campaigns can and do bring epistemic gains, of BCR are found in the prefatory discus- especially when they discover new substra- sions introducing DCR, and those of DCR ta. But they invariably fall short of their epi- in TDCR. Thus, those interested in BCR stemic goals: to explain one strata of reality will want to read some parts of Plato etc., in terms of a lower-order one. Why? Because while someone interested in DCR will want of ‘‘emergence.’’ The combination and inter- to look at the early chapters of From Science action of entities and properties at one level to Emancipation. of reality generates ‘‘emergent’’ entities and Bhaskar’s work is still best read in properties at others (Miller and Page 2007). sequence. His first book, A Realist Theory of The textbook example is water. It has causal Science, mostly concerning natural science, powers (e.g., to extinguish fires) that are is where he describes his approach as ‘‘tran- quite different from those of its constituent scendental realism.’’ He means ‘‘transcen- parts (i.e., hydrogen and oxygen). Water dental’’ in the loosely Kantian sense that tends to extinguish fires. Hydrogen and oxy- asks: ‘‘What would the natural world have gen tend to accelerate them. The social world to be like for natural science to be the way is rife with emergent structures of this sort. that it is?’’ It is ‘‘realist’’ in the generic sense One task of the social sciences—their princi- that it takes a ‘‘mind-independent’’ nature as pal task really—is to describe their a fundamental ‘‘condition of possibility’’ for workings. natural science.5 But it is also realist in the A third important feature of modern sci- ‘‘critical’’ sense that it sees science as ence—so obvious we might overlook it—is a human activity that is inevitably mediated the growth of knowledge over time. How (if not determined) by human language and does this occur? Through the simple accu- social power. mulation of facts? The relentless falsification Now, as Weber noted a century ago, one of of theories? Transcendental realism suggests the basic characteristics of modern science is different metrics. If nature is stratified and specialization and ever-increasing speciali- strata are emergent, then scientific knowl- zation. Why is this? No doubt, rival episte- edge will grow via the discovery of previ- mologies and jurisdictional battles have ously unknown strata (e.g., the quantum played a role in the historical formation of level), entities (the Higgs-Boson), and inter- the various disciplines. But is this the whole actions between them (e.g., molecular genet- story, or even the main story? Bhaskar thinks ics). But this cannot be the whole story. If it not. If there is a hierarchy of disciplines, each were, says Bhaskar, then the growth of charged with a certain scale or level of reali- knowledge would be ‘‘monistic’’ in form, ty, then this partly reflects the real structure that is, purely cumulative and continuous. Instead, as we now know, the history of sci- 5 As such, it is opposed to: 1) skeptical methods ence is full of leaps and breaks from Ptolemy involving radical doubt about external reality to Copernicus, Newton to Einstein, Linnaeus (e.g., Descartes’ Meditations); 2) empiricist to Darwin and so on—‘‘paradigm shifts’’ in epistemologies which see scientific knowledge Thomas Kuhn’s well-worn phrase. Bhaskar as built up out of sense impressions either via association (Locke) or induction (Hume); 3) therefore draws a distinction between the transcendental idealisms which make causali- ‘‘intransitive’’ and ‘‘transitive’’ dimensions ty into a feature of human understanding rath- of science, between a natural world as it real- er than of the world itself (i.e., Kant). ly is and our changing concepts of it. This is

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Downloaded from csx.sagepub.com at ASA - American Sociological Association on September 16, 2013 Special Essay 665 the difference between naı¨ve and critical and jointly determined by all of them. It is realism. CR understands that ontologies are a ‘‘laminated’’ process. Good causal inferen- fallible. ces will therefore depend less on the rules of A fourth feature of modern science is that logic than on our knowledge of structure. the causal laws it discovers do not seem to In his second book, The Possibility of Natu- obtain in the sensible world as we experi- ralism (1979), Bhaskar introduces a helpful ence it, even if we mostly experience this distinction between three ‘‘ontological world as relatively orderly and intelligible. domains’’: the ‘‘real,’’ the ‘‘actual,’’ and the ‘‘Reflect for a moment on the world as we ‘‘empirical.’’ He further clarifies the relation- know it,’’ Bhaskar urges: ‘‘It seems to be ship between causal laws and observable a world in which all manner of things hap- events. The domain of the real consists of pen and are done, which we are capable of all the ‘‘mechanisms’’ that exist in the world, explaining in various ways, and yet for which is to say, of all the various levels and which a deductively-justified prediction is types of entities with their various powers seldom, if ever, possible. It seems, on the and tendencies. The domain of the actual face of it at least, to be an incompletely consists of all mechanisms that have been described world of agents. A world of winds activated, even if they have not been and seas, in which ink bottles get knocked observed. The domain of the empirical, over and doors pushed open, in which finally, consists of all mechanisms that have dogs bark and children play; a criss-cross been activated and observed. Note that the world of zebras and zebra-crossings, cricket three domains are generally ‘‘out of phase’’ matches and games of chess, meteorites and in everyday experience. The real purpose logic classes, assembly lines and deep sea of a scientific experiment is to bring them turtles, soil erosion and river banks bursting. ‘‘into phase,’’ and so to activate, isolate, Now none of this is described by any laws of and observe the powers and tendencies of nature. More shockingly perhaps none of it a particular entity or strata. Thus, experi- seems even governed by them. It is true ments really do reveal laws. But these laws that the path of my pen does not violate govern entities, not events, they describe any laws of physics. But it is not determined tendencies, not regularities. by any either’’ (95). The main focus of The Possibility of Natural- Should we therefore give up on the notion ism, however, is the social sciences and their of causal laws altogether? Certainly, we relationship to the natural sciences. Bhaskar should give up on the positivist definition of characterizes his own view as ‘‘critical natu- causal laws qua ‘‘constant conjunctions’’ ralism.’’ It is ‘‘naturalistic’’ insofar as it between ‘‘observable events.’’ Bhaskar pro- rejects any sharp divide between the natural poses that we define causal laws as ‘‘normic and social sciences. It is ‘‘critical’’ insofar as statements’’ concerning the ‘‘powers’’ and it rejects any reduction of the social to the ‘‘tendencies’’ of particular ‘‘agents’’ or ‘‘enti- natural. As such, it avoids the pitfalls of ties.’’ It is these agents and powers—and not interpretivism and constructivism. What pit- logical ‘‘propositions’’ about them—which falls? Bhaskar argues that interpretivism and are the principal objects of science (Groff constructivism either explicitly presuppose 2008). Because there are multiple layers of or tacitly secrete strong forms of dualism. agents and powers, moreover, observable In the case of interpretivism, this dualism events will have a ‘‘laminated’’ character; is typically epistemological. Interpretivism they are simultaneously governed by normic presupposes that we can know things about laws at various levels. This has important persons that we cannot know about non-per- consequences for causal inference. The sons. For example, we can know a person’s mere fact that a particular action does not thoughts or intentions, but not a quark’s. violate a particular law does not mean that Bhaskar contends that this is really just a it is fully determined by it either. For exam- category mistake. The difference between ple, the movement of my fingers across this quarks and persons is ontological, not epis- keyboard does not violate any laws of phys- temological. It concerns the specific proper- ics or neurochemistry or English grammar or ties and powers of quarks and persons, not academic life. Rather, it is simultaneously the sort of knowledge we can have about

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Downloaded from csx.sagepub.com at ASA - American Sociological Association on September 16, 2013 666 Special Essay them. Quarks may not have thoughts and include dead persons, whose agency and intentions; but neither do persons have intentions ‘‘live on’’ in social structures ‘‘spin’’ or ‘‘flavor.’’ Is it easier to discern through their mental and physical labor a person’s thoughts than a quark’s spin? and creations. To say that social structure is Not necessarily! not independent of human minds and activ- What about constructivism? Typically, it ities is not to say ‘‘this mind’’ or ‘‘that activ- secretes a dualistic view of human persons. ity’’ ‘‘right here’’ or ‘‘right now’’ (Archer On the one hand, it treats human persons 1995). as physical objects, sometimes tacitly, via Critical naturalism also has important metaphors of ‘‘writing,’’ ‘‘inscribing,’’ and implications for the relationship between ‘‘constructing’’ the body, sometimes explicit- science and ethics (Gorski 2013). Since ly as in the ‘‘eliminative materialism’’ of the Weber, it has been customary to insist that early Richard Rorty (Rorty 1970). On the oth- ‘‘facts’’ and ‘‘values’’ can and must be kept er hand, it imagines them as disembodied apart. But Weber’s claim that they must be powers capable of ‘‘self-fashioning,’’ ‘‘auton- kept apart derives from a highly relativistic omy,’’ ‘‘performance,’’ and so on. How can and subjectivistic understanding of ethics. these two views be squared with one anoth- Values, he implies, derive solely from the er? In truth, they cannot, and have not been, choices of individuals and the contingencies since Kant. Critical naturalism does not gen- of history. There is no other basis for them. erate this sort of antinomy. That quarks and Social scientists can therefore describe the persons should have quite distinctive prop- values that people hold and explain how erties and powers is no surprise for CR; they are conditioned by history. And as citi- they occupy altogether different strata of zens, they have a right to defend their own reality. Nor does the relationship between values, even an obligation to do so. But sci- body and self or brain and mind create any ence qua science can say nothing about fundamental or intractable problem for CR; how we should live. one simply emerges out of the other. Was Weber right? Bhaskar does not think The ontological difference between nature so. If we conceive of human beings as an and society leads to an epistemological dif- evolved species with certain inbuilt needs ference between natural and social science: and capacities, argues Bhaskar, then the bio- we can only ever observe social structures logical and social sciences will indeed have via the activities and concepts of human something to say about how we should beings or the material traces and artifacts live, perhaps not in the imperative sense of they generate. (About this much, the inter- a table of laws filled with ‘‘thou shalt pretivists are right: the dream of social phys- nots,’’ but certainly in the hortatory or pru- ics is an idle one.) Unlike natural reality, dential sense of ‘‘it would be wise to.’’ While social reality is not independent of human social science cannot tell us how to resolve minds. Note that the phrasing is precise. the sorts of highly improbable moral dilem- Social reality is independent of any particular mas that academic ethicists like to fret about human mind. The social map in an individ- (e.g., the infamous ‘‘trolley car problem’’), ual’s mind will be partial at best and often surely they can tell us something about mistaken, sometimes systematically so, what individual and social well-being look because some social structures must be mis- like, and how we might improve them. Spe- understood to be reproduced. The accurate cifically, they can contribute to our under- conceptualization of a social structure must standing of the social determinants of well- be pieced together from the multiple per- being or flourishing. CR thus leads to spectives out of which it emerges in the first a weak form of moral realism. Let us call it place. Further, ‘‘independent of’’ does not ‘‘ethical naturalism.’’ imply ‘‘exhausted by.’’ The elements of But how can social science cross over the social structures also include material enti- is/ought divide? One possible bridge, says ties and artifacts, such as ‘‘arable land’’ and Bhaskar, is ‘‘explanatory critique.’’ As noted ‘‘administrative buildings’’; they are not earlier, the reproduction of certain kinds of comprised solely of human persons. Con- social structures may depend upon the pro- versely, and paradoxically, they may also duction of distorted or inaccurate social

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Downloaded from csx.sagepub.com at ASA - American Sociological Association on September 16, 2013 Special Essay 667 beliefs. If one can demonstrate a systematic on the temporal and spatial and cultural connection between inaccurate beliefs and scope of these interactions as part of a sys- oppressive social structures, then one has tem. Finally, we grasp our own thoughts not only explained the beliefs but also sup- and actions as part of that system and we plied a motivation for changing the struc- see ourselves as agents who have some pow- tures. One has made the leap from facts to er to change the system. In Bhaskar’s view, values. Just what sorts of value judgments all learning has this basic form. are warranted by social research is the sub- Perhaps this all seems like common sense. ject of Bhaskar’s third book, Scientific Realism But it is not how social scientists are and Human Emancipation (1986). Bhaskar taught to conceive of change. The standard does not pretend that social science alone imagery is an empiricist one of two ‘‘obser- ‘‘can determine or uniquely ground values’’ vations’’ taken at two successive moments or that explanatory critique is sufficient in in time. Change between ‘‘T1’’ and ‘‘T2’’ is itself to motivate action, since ‘‘this is always then conceptualized as ‘‘variation’’ along a matter of will, desire, sentiment, capacities, a ‘‘dimension’’ that is ‘‘abstracted’’ from facilities, and opportunities as well as the observations. This way of thinking about beliefs.’’ He is not claiming that the realms change is highly inadequate for two reasons. of fact and value are coterminous; merely First, because it focuses on the empirical lev- that they overlap and interact. el, it obscures structural change and emer- We now come to the second phase of Bhas- gence at the level of the real, and conflates kar’s system. Bhaskar’s Dialectic is not exact- causality with generality. Second, by empha- ly light reading; the prose is dense, the sizing the operation of ‘‘abstraction,’’ it fails neologisms abundant, the diagrams perplex- to specify its own context, namely of a partic- ing. Interested readers may find it easier ular system with internal relations and spa- to begin with the essays in Plato etc. or tio-temporal boundaries.6 with Alan Norrie’s book. Either way, This is one reason why increasing num- a good knowledge of basic CR is a definite bers of social scientists now argue that prerequisite. But why the shift to dialectics? explanations should invoke ‘‘causal mecha- Like Hegel, Bhaskar believes that the move- nisms.’’ As we have seen, Bhaskar was ment of our thoughts should follow the already making this case by the early movements of reality itself. He contrasts 1970s, well ahead of Boudon, Elster, or Hed- his dialectic to Hegel’s. Hegel had three stro¨m. Since then, however, he has come to ‘‘moments’’: ‘‘identity,’’ ‘‘negation,’’ and see the mechanisms concept as somewhat ‘‘sublation’’ or ‘‘synthesis’’ (Aufhebung). misleading and inadequate. It is potentially Bhaskar has four dialectics: ‘‘non-identity,’’ misleading, insofar as it suggests that the ‘‘negation,’’ ‘‘totality,’’ and ‘‘praxis.’’ In the macro is driven by the micro, just as a clock’s first moment, we grasp the distinctness of hands are moved by its mechanism (Gorski structures qua individuals, suspended in 2007). The reverse is also possible: a higher time. In the second moment, we grasp order mechanism can also drive a lower them as agents in interaction across time. order one (as when a clock’s hands are In the third, we comprehend the relations adjusted by a human hand). And it is within and between these agents in systemic terms. In the fourth and final moment, we 6 reflect on what we have learned and decide The interpretivist and constructionist alternatives are no better. Because they tend to reduce how to act on it. social structure to individual interactions, in- Bhaskar’s dialectic supplies a general terpretivists often reduce structural change to schema for thinking about change in the cultural change. Further, because they dis- world. We begin by analyzing the world avow explanation in terms of causality, inter- into discrete structures, such as ‘‘human per- pretivists can only account for change in sons’’ or ‘‘social networks.’’ We proceed by terms of intentionality (which they wrongly regard as distinct from causality). For its part, thinking through how interactions between constructivism treats structural change as cul- these structures lead to changes in their tural ‘‘rupture.’’ And it accounts for such properties or relationships or even to the ruptures either in terms of an impersonal emergence of new structures. We then reflect ‘‘power’’ and/or a mysterious ‘‘contingency.’’

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Downloaded from csx.sagepub.com at ASA - American Sociological Association on September 16, 2013 668 Special Essay certainly inadequate, insofar as it implies certain aspects of CR are not adequately structural stasis and repetitive motion. elaborated in Bhaskar’s own writings. Thus, dialectical CR is not just a better Some of these issues have been taken up ‘‘heuristic’’ for thinking about change. It is by other critical realists. For example, key also a more adequate ontology of change, theoretical questions concerning agency, a better account of the real forms and pro- structure, culture, and reflexivity are dealt cesses of change, and one that is more ade- with at great length in Margaret Archer’s quate to the radical implications of work (Archer 1988; Archer 2000; Archer emergence than basic CR was. Basic CR has 2003; Archer 2010). Key methodological considerable difficulty moving beyond the questions concerning concept building, first moment of change: the non-identity of causal inference, research design, data gath- extant structures. In part, this is because its ering, and statistical modeling have been theoretical imaginary is still too mired in addressed at both introductory (Danermark Newtonian physics, with its causal imagery 2002) and advanced levels (Olsen 2010), of small, hard, and indestructible spheres though much work remains to be done on smashing into one another. Now, change to this front. The relationship between the nor- the properties of a structure (e.g., the motion mative and explanatory facets of social sci- of a particle) is certainly one form of change, ence has also been addressed more but not the only one. Interactions can also extensively in several recent works (Ellis lead to the dissolution of a structure (e.g., 2012; Sayer 2011). More philosophically ori- in a particle accelerator) or to the emergence ented readers will find careful discussions of a new structure (e.g., in a chemical reac- of emergence, causality, laws, and powers tion). And this is just as true in the social in recent work by the ‘‘new essentialist’’ world as in the natural world. This is the school of analytical metaphysicians (Groff moment of ‘‘negation’’ in Bhaskar’s dialec- 2008; Molnar and Mumford 2003; Mumford tic. What is more, the emergence of new and Anjum 2011). Those curious about structures reminds us that structures exist what an ethical naturalist approach to social in systems (e.g., a material substance or a cul- and economic policy might look like will tural practice); conversely, the dissolution of find some initial answers in the ‘‘capacities old structures reminds us that structures are approach’’ advocated by Martha Nussbaum themselves systems (e.g., an atom is a system (Nussbaum 2006) and Amartya Sen (Sen of elementary particles, just as a formal orga- 1999). Finally, questions about social ontolo- nization is a system of agents, rules, and arti- gy have also been addressed in several facts). This is the moment of ‘‘totality’’ in important works by social scientists and phi- Bhaskar’s dialectic. Now, while these three losophers (Lawson, Latsis, and Martins moments may occur independently of any 2007; Searle 1995; Searle 2010). external observation, at least where natural Taken together, these writings provide the processes are concerned, they can be inter- philosophical warrant for a new self-under- nalized in the minds of human agents where standing for the social sciences. In closing, they generate reflection and action—indeed, let me highlight several areas where the crit- they must be so internalized (e.g., in scripts ical realist vision transcends and clarifies the or habits) where social processes are received wisdom. (1) Causality: In open sys- involved. This is the fourth moment of the tems, causality never manifests itself as dialectic: ‘‘praxis.’’ In this way, observation a ‘‘constant conjunction’’ between events. is itself incorporated into the dialectic of Nor is causality in the social world change. exhausted by the intentions of social actors. Rather, causation derives from the powers of structures, whether natural or social. (2) Conclusion Agency: There is no ‘‘structure/agency prob- Bhaskar’s system currently provides the best lem.’’ Human agents are bio-psycho-social available starting point for anyone interested structures with emergent powers of inten- in a post-positivist and post-poststructural- tionality. Conversely, social structures have ist vision of social science. I say starting agency, an agency that transcends and influ- point, but not stopping point, because ences the intentions of the individual agents

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Downloaded from csx.sagepub.com at ASA - American Sociological Association on September 16, 2013 Special Essay 669 that co-constitute them. The important prob- Sociological Explanation.’’ Sociological Method- lems are ‘‘structure/structure’’ or ‘‘agent/ ology 34:1-33. agent’’ ones. (3) Explanation: To explain ———. 2007. ‘‘The ECPRES Model: A Critical Realist Approach to Causal Mechanisms.’’ something is to identify the structures and New Haven, CT: Yale University. powers that produced it. ‘‘Laws’’ are state- ———. 2013. ‘‘Beyond the Fact/Value Distinction: ments about powers, not events. The fact Ethical Naturalism and the Social Sciences.’’ that human persons have powers of rational- Society forthcoming. ity and intentionality does not logically Groff, Ruth. 2008. Revitalizing Causality: Realism ‘‘entail’’ much, if anything, all by itself. about Causality in Philosophy and Social Science. Explanations need not be general in form New York, NY: Routledge. Hacking, Ian. 1983. Representing and Intervening: or ambition. (4) Knowledge: Scientific knowl- Introductory Topics in the Philosophy of Natural Sci- edge does not consist of ‘‘propositions’’ or ence. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press. ‘‘statements’’ about events or phenomena; Hedstro¨m, Peter. 2005. Dissecting the Social: On the rather, it is comprised of (provisional and Principles of Analytical Sociology. Cambridge, fallible) descriptions of structures and UK: Cambridge University Press. powers. Ontology and taxonomy are more Hedstro¨m, Peter and Peter Bearman. 2009. The Oxford Handbook of Analytical Sociology. Oxford, central to scientific progress than epistemol- UK: Oxford University Press. ogy or generality. (5) Values: The social Hempel, Carl Gustav. 1965. Aspects of Scientific sciences are not ‘‘value-neutral.’’ They pre- Explanation and Other Essays in the Philosophy suppose an axiological commitment to of Science. New York, NY: Free Press. human well-being. Social science cannot Kim, Jaegwon. 2010. Philisophy of Mind. Second generate specific directives about how we revised edition. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Lawson, Clive, John Latsis, and Nuno Martins. should order our lives or societies. But it 2007. Contributions to Social Ontology. New does produce prudential principles. York, NY: Routledge. Lieberson, Stanley. 1991. ‘‘Small N’s and Big Con- clusions: An Examination of the Reasoning in References Comparative Studies Based on a Small Num- Archer, Margaret Scotford. 1988. Culture and ber of Cases.’’ Social Forces 70:307-320. Agency: The Place of Culture in Social Theory. Miller, John H. and Scott E. Page. 2007. Complex New York, NY: Cambridge University Press. Adaptive Systems: An Introduction to Computa- ———. 1995. Realist Social Theory: The Morphoge- tional Models of Social Life. Princeton, NJ: netic Approach. New York, NY: Cambridge Uni- Princeton University Press. versity Press. Molnar, George and Stephen Mumford. 2003. ———. 2000. Being Human: The Problem of Powers: A Study in Metaphysics. New York, Agency. New York, NY: Cambridge University NY: Oxford University Press. Press. Mumford, Stephen and Rani Lill Anjum. 2011. ———. 2003. Structure, Agency and the Internal Getting Causes from Powers. New York, NY: Conversation. New York, NY: Cambridge Uni- Oxford University Press. versity Press. Nagel, Thomas. 2012. Mind and Cosmos. New ———. 2010. Conversations about Reflexivity. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. York, NY: Routledge. Norrie, Alan W. 2010. Dialectic and Difference: Dia- Cartwright, Nancy. 1983. How the Laws of Physics lectical Critical Realism and the Grounds of Justice. Lie. New York, NY: Clarendon Press. New York, NY: Routledge. Collier, Andrew. 1994. Critical Realism: An Intro- Nussbaum, Martha Craven. 2006. Frontiers of Jus- duction to Roy Bhaskar’s Philosophy. New York, tice: Disability, Nationality, Species Membership. NY: Verso. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Danermark, Berth. 2002. Explaining Society: Criti- Olsen, Wendy, ed. 2010. Realist Methods, Volume cal Realism in the Social Sciences. New York, II. London, UK: Sage. NY: Routledge. Popper, Karl Raimund. 1959. The Logic of Scientific Ellis, Brian. 2012. Social Humanism. A New Meta- Discovery. New York, NY: Basic Books. physics. London, UK: Routledge. Powell, Walter W. and John F. Padgett. 2012. ‘‘The Feyerabend, Paul. 1975. Against Method: Outline of Emergence of Organizations and Markets.’’ an Anarchistic Theory of Knowledge. Atlantic Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press. Rorty, Richard. 1970. ‘‘In Defense of Eliminative Geertz, Clifford. 1973. Interpretation of Cultures: Materialism.’’ The Review of Metaphysics: Selected Essays. New York, NY: Basic Books. 112-121. Gorski, Philip S. 2004. ‘‘The Poverty of Deducti- ———. 1979. Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature. vism: A Constructive Realist Model of Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

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Sawyer, R. Keith. 2005. Social Emergence: Societies Searle, John R. 2010. Making the Social World: The as Complex Systems. New York, NY: Cambridge Structure of Human Civilization. Oxford, UK: University Press. Oxford University Press. Sayer, R. Andrew. 2011. Why Things Matter to Peo- Sen, Amartya Kumar. 1999. Development as Free- ple: Social Science, Values and Ethical Life. Cam- dom. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. bridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Winch, Peter. 1958. The Idea of Social Science and Searle, John R. 1995. The Construction of Social Real- its Relation to Philosophy. New York, NY: ity. New York, NY: Free Press. Routledge.

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Commentary

HENRY N. PONTELL University of California, Irvine [email protected]

The global meltdown of 2008 was influenced by flawed financial policies, law-breaking, Theft of a Nation: Wall Street Looting and greed, irresponsibility, and not an inconsid- Federal Regulatory Colluding,byGregg erable amount of concerted ignorance and Barak. Lanham, MD: Rowman and outright stupidity. To date, the greatest Littlefield Publishers, 2012. 211pp. attention regarding that criminality has $29.95 paper. ISBN: 9781442207790. focused on the $65 billion Ponzi scheme operated by Bernard Madoff, a scam that resembled the tactics of con men, not big- The question is important—not simply to time corporate financiers (Sander 2009; lay blame or to punish wrongdoing, but to Strober and Strober 2009). Prototypical cor- provide theoretical models and social poli- porate frauds such as those perpetrated by cies that will prevent effectively future Wall Street behemoths American Interna- debacles. If fraud is a central component, tional Group (AIG), Countrywide, Lehman then regulations and enforcement should Brothers, and Bear Sterns have received directly take this into account. Not doing much less attention (Bamber and Spencer so would provide a virtual blueprint for 2009; Kelly 2009; McDonald and Robinson future financial crises. 2009; Michaelson 2009). These companies, Economists, who have a much greater role whose balance sheets were saturated with in policy formation than other social scien- securities containing subprime mortgages, tists, minimize the issue of fraud entirely, collapsed, were bought by competitors, or and assume that it is of little or no conse- were bailed out by the federal government quence in financial markets. Neo-classical with huge infusions of taxpayer money. For economic theory has dominated American most onlookers, including criminologists policies for the last 30 years, a period that and the public in general, the actions of the has seen three major financial crises. This offending companies represented intricate perspective has resulted in an international and arcane business practices that were dif- intellectual stream that has increasingly led ficult to fully understand and to portray in to the trivialization of elite white-collar sound bytes—and therefore they tended to crime, since one of the United States’ most become trivialized in regard to their criminal prolific exports is neo-classical economics. components. ‘‘Law and economics’’ corporate law schol- The Great Economic Meltdown follows in ars assert that ‘‘a rule against fraud is not the wake of the 1980s savings and loan crisis, an essential or even necessarily an important and the corporate and accounting scandals ingredient of securities markets’’ (Easter- in the early 2000s, each of which were the brook and Fischel 1991:283). biggest financial crises in history at the Beginning with studies of the savings and time. One important question related to loan crisis, criminologists identified a form these debacles is whether or not fraud of fraud that challenges such conventional played a significant role in creating them. understandings, and which was found to

CS would like to thank David O. Friedrichs for his help with the symposia on the two books, by Gregg Barak and by John Hagan.

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Downloaded from csx.sagepub.com at ASA - American Sociological Association on September 16, 2013 672 Symposia be a significant factor in the largest financial the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act, the most impor- institution failures. Best understood as crime tant and comprehensive legislation resulting by the organization against the organization from the crisis. He convincingly argues that itself, Calavita and Pontell (1990) labeled while the law provides for many worthwhile this looting of assets by controlling insiders reforms, it does not go far enough in terms as ‘‘collective embezzlement.’’ Later, the of fundamental structural changes, leaving term ‘‘control fraud’’ (Black 2005) was intro- many loopholes for business, and shallow duced to denote fraudulent acts by top exec- and toothless provisions regarding executive utives who used the organizations they led compensation and corporate governance. for personal gain. Control fraud has played Using Bernard Madoff’s crime—the larg- an integral part in recurring, widespread, est Ponzi scheme in history—as a highly and increasingly costly financial debacles. effective contrast to what the banksters did It results from errant policies that give rise on a much larger scale, Barak clearly demon- to what have been termed ‘‘criminogenic’’ strates how Madoff’s scam pales by compar- or ‘‘crime-facilitative’’ environments (Nee- ison. While he was harshly (and justly) dleman and Needleman 1979). Endemic punished, there has not been a single major waves of control fraud act to hyper-inflate prosecution resulting from the most recent financial bubbles that inevitably result in financial meltdown as of this writing. Barak major financial crashes (Pontell 2005). argues that this result is ‘‘neither by accident In Theft of a Nation, Gregg Barak effectively nor conspiracy but mostly by consensus or argues that fraud was central to the current collusion’’ (p. 96). Throughout various meltdown and carefully documents the phe- points in the book Barak makes references nomena described above. The book takes on to ‘‘unenlightened self-interest’’ and ‘‘unfet- the ‘‘fraud minimalists’’ and presents a for- tered victimization’’ which accurately note midable challenge to those economists and characteristics of offenders and their activi- legislators who continue to believe that mar- ties. These observations may be part of kets are self-regulating and that fraud plays a broader cultural phenomenon that Rosoff no significant role in financial debacles. (2007:517), in examining the earlier Enron Using detailed historical analysis and major meltdown, labeled ‘‘psychopathic wealth.’’ case studies he exposes how and why the Unlike the corporate America of the past American public was victimized by deregu- which was characterized more by a ‘‘patient latory policies designed to benefit large wealth,’’ the new corporate culture aspires to private firms and which simultaneously cre- a different wealth. Borrowing a term from ated a criminogenic environment in the the psychiatric lexicon that is used to housing and financial industries. Barak describe persons intensely selfish, conspicu- develops theoretical models of both organi- ously lacking in human empathy, and dispo- zational and institutional control fraud that sitionally unable to delay gratification, ‘‘We integrate notions of system capacity and cor- entered an ‘Age of psychopathic wealth’ – ruption. The institutional model includes and the press hardly seemed to notice.’’ As ‘‘crimes of capitalist control’’ which are others have also noted, criminologists ‘‘beyond incrimination.’’ This is an impor- remain rather indifferent as well (Shichor, tant contribution to the literature as it not Pontell and Geis 2010). only shows how major white-collar crimes The book also spends much time discus- are relegated to ‘‘non-issue’’ status (Goetz sing the lobbying efforts of the financial 1997), but also shows how the state selective- industry, their connections with govern- ly adopts the tactic of ‘‘damage control’’ over ment, and how this has confounded ‘‘crime control’’ in response to massive law- attempts to apply strict regulation. While breaking by elites. Barak’s discussion is on the mark, a minor The book, although plodding at times giv- criticism might be that he fails to capture en the amount of data, moves easily from the true ferocity of their efforts, the largest theoretical explanations to corresponding assault upon Congress by any lobbying policy implications and necessary financial body in history. regulatory reforms. Barak also includes Overall, the most important contribution a separate chapter with a critical analysis of of this book is that it provides a significant

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Downloaded from csx.sagepub.com at ASA - American Sociological Association on September 16, 2013 Symposia 673 blow against the ‘‘trivialization of fraud’’ in Easterbrook, Frank H. and Daniel R. Fischel. 1991. both academic and policy circles. Main- The Economic Structure of Corporate Law. Cam- stream criminology’s penchant for statistical bridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Goetz, Barry. 1997. ‘‘Organization as Class Bias studies virtually guarantees that major cor- in Local Law Enforcement: Arson-For-Profit porate fraud, which rarely finds its way as a ‘‘Nonissue.’’’ Law & Society Review into government databases (and when it 31(3):557–588. does, is underrepresented in terms of its Kelly, Kitty. 2009. Street Fighters: The Last 72 Hours scale and cost) will remain understudied, of Bear Stearns, the Toughest Firm on Wall Street. underemphasized, or completely ignored New York, NY: Portfolio Trade. in policy discussions and recommendations. McDonald, Larry G. and Patrick Robinson. 2009. A Colossal Failure of Common Sense: The Insider As it is currently impossible to conduct stud- Story of the Collapse of Lehman Brothers. New ies of such phenomena that would satisfy York, NY: Crown Business. the scientific criteria of The Campbell Col- Michaelson, Adam. 2009. The Foreclosure of Amer- laboration, the importance of qualitative ica: The Inside Story of the Rise and Fall of Coun- and historical analyses such as Barak’s can- trywide Home Loans, the Mortgage Crisis, and the not be overstated. It provides a detailed Default of the American Dream. New York, NY: Berkley Publishing Group. and thorough (scientific?) assessment of Needleman, Martin L. and Carolyn Needleman. a phenomenon that would otherwise remain 1979. ‘‘Organizational Crime: Two Models of completely unstudied ‘‘scientifically.’’ In the Criminogenesis.’’ The Sociological Quarterly present case at least, a ‘‘scientific study of 20:4 (Autumn):517–528. fraud’’ that by design ignores the highest lev- Pontell, Henry N. 2005b. ‘‘White-Collar Crime or els of lawbreaking would be ‘‘unscientific.’’ Just Risky Business? The Role of Fraud in Major Financial Debacles.’’ Crime, Law & Social And a more robust interdisciplinary Change 42 (January):309–324. approach in future research on the subject Rosoff, Stephen M. 2007. ‘‘The Role of the Mass will allow for the greatest potential impact Media in the Enron Fraud: Cause or Cure?’’ on policy. Theft of a Nation provides an excel- Pp. 513–522 in Henry N. Pontell and Gilbert lent foundation. Geis (eds.), International Handbook of White- Collar and Corporate Crime. New York, NY: Springer Science and Business. Sander, Peter. 2009. Madoff: Corruption, Deceit, and References the Making of the World’s Most Notorious Ponzi Bamber, Bill A. and Andrew Spencer. 2009. Bear Scheme. Guilford, CT: Lyons Press. Trap: The Fall of Bear Stearns and the Panic of Shichor, David, Henry N. Pontell, and 2008. New York, NY: Black Tower Press. Gilbert Geis. 2010. ‘‘On Criminological Indif- Black, William K. 2005. The Best Way to Rob a Bank ference to the Global Economic Crisis.’’ The Is to Own One: How Corporate Executives and Criminologist 35:2 (March/April):24–25. Politicians Looted the S&L Industry. Austin, TX: Strober, Deborah Hart and Gerald Strober. 2009. University of Texas Press. Catastrophe: The Story of Bernard L. Madoff, the Calavita, Kitty and Henry N. Pontell. 1990. Man Who Swindled the World. Beverly Hills, ‘‘‘Heads I Win, Tails You Lose’: Deregulation, CA: Phoenix Books. Crime, and Crisis in the Savings and Loan Industry.’’ Crime and Delinquency 36 (July):309–341.

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Commentary

SALLY S. SIMPSON University of Maryland, College Park [email protected]

The hallmark of excellence in a book is that it raises questions as much as it answers them. Theft of a Nation: Wall Street Looting and By this measure, this is an excellent book. In Federal Regulatory Colluding,byGregg Theft of a Nation, Gregg Barak sets his sights Barak. Lanham, MD: Rowman and on finance capital and institutionalized Littlefield Publishing, 2012. 211pp. crime, seeking to shed light on the financial $29.95 paper. ISBN: 9781442207790. meltdown in the United States and abroad. As a realist criminologist, he adopts an empirically-based and theoretically-driven interest in the problem of white-collar crime. explication of how Wall Street (the dominant Although critical criminology encompasses economic player in finance capitalism) used many diverse approaches, Barak’s realist its wealth, privilege, and access to govern- approach is consistent with the state/corpo- ment to make, break, and undermine regula- rate crime perspective which considers how tory law. As Congress ‘‘enabled the financial social harm is produced through the inter- environment that would become one mas- section of private capital and governmental sive system of abuse and fraud’’ (p. 10), interests (Kramer and Michalowski 1990; and the Walls came tumbling down (forgive Friedrichs 1998). Harms can be created the metaphor), the banks were deemed too through initiation or facilitation. The former big to fail. Consequently, many of the worst is where corporations employed by the gov- offenders were bailed out by taxpayers. In ernment engage in deviance with the implic- the worst recession since the Great Depres- it approval of the state. The subprime sion, the government response to the frauds mortgage meltdown, with its complex and continues to be anemic and ineffective. often illicit relationships among govern- Theft of a Nation is an impressive achievement-sponsored enterprises and mortgage ment. Barak pulls together extensive docu- lenders and sellers is an example of initia- mentation for his arguments and offers tion. Facilitation of social harms occurs a multi-level, multi-disciplinary theoretical when the state fails to regulate corporate framework to tie it all together—an ambi- activity, such as the recent Bernard Madoff tious task. For white-collar crime scholars, case where the Securities and Exchange the relationship between fraud and financial Commission’s failure to monitor or investi- crises is somewhat akin to the classic obser- gate suspicious activity by Madoff’s invest- vation about pornography. We know it ment company resulted in billions of lost when we see it. But showing it is a much dollars for investors, in spite of the likeli- more elusive task. He has taken an integrat- hood that assorted banks and hedge funds ed approach and given extensive attention to ‘‘had to know’’ about the illegal activity detail. (Henriques 2011). Consistent with this As a white-collar crime scholar who takes approach, Barak’s analysis of the financial a different theoretical and empirical crisis emphasizes the symbiosis between approach to the problem of financial fraud, the state and private capital. ‘‘... [T]he con- one of the things that I appreciate and value cern here is not those fraudulent businesses about critical criminology is its laser-like within an industry masquerading as legiti- focus on institutional sources of power and mate, but rather with an entire financial privilege tied to the accumulation of capital. industry transforming its fraudulent activi- Unlike mainstream criminology that is over- ties into non-criminal and legitimate busi- whelmingly preoccupied with street crime, ness practices as usual’’ (p. 78). Thus, in critical criminology has had a longstanding modern societies, Prechel and Morris (2010) remind us that ‘‘state policy gives form to

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Downloaded from csx.sagepub.com at ASA - American Sociological Association on September 16, 2013 Symposia 675 corporate structures and creates opportuni- white-collar crime .... extends Wang’s linear ties for managers to engage in financial mal- model of securities fraud by bringing togeth- feasance’’ (p. 332). er explanations of control frauds, of market The arguments developed in Theft of corruption, and of system capacity in an a Nation are compelling, producing impor- interactive model of organizational control tant ideas and challenges for mainstream fraud’’ (p. 71). The integrated approach is criminology. On the other hand, they lack impressive, but exceptionally difficult to systematic evidence to test hypotheses and pull off. Typically, one level is under- refute alternative arguments. Granted, criti- theorized relative to the others and this cal perspectives often reject such ‘‘positivis- book is no exception because the micro/ tic’’ epistemologies. But, a challenge for the individual level is given substantially less field more generally rests with a paucity of consideration than the other two levels. useful data along with methodological This deficiency is symptomatic of critical weaknesses associated with extant research approaches more generally, but detrimental (Simpson, forthcoming 2013). The salience to a comprehensive picture. As Palmer and of the problem is particularly well put by Maher remind us, individual agency affects Palmer and Maher (2010) who assert that how systems operate, their complexity and the mortgage meltdown likely emerged as coupling, and how slowly or quickly the sys- a consequence of the tightly coupled and tem reacts to meltdowns or debacles. complex financial system. They also admit A main theme of the book documents how that their ‘‘normal accident’’ methodology Wall Street has managed to avoid any signif- lacks scientific rigor (e.g., a controlled pre- icant punishment for their misdeeds. test-posttest design) and that they are unable Although some evidence of civil and regula- to ‘‘determine whether the financial system tory actions against offenders is cited, the was sufficiently complex and tightly cou- emphasis is on criminal justice sanctioning. pled so as to produce an analysis ... because Ergo, the fact that the banks and other finan- it is extremely difficult to measure complex- cial firms avoided criminal sanctions implies ity and coupling in a way that allows that the state response was paltry and inad- comparisons of the levels of complexity equate. Absent criminal justice prosecution, and coupling within systems over time penal sanctions will have ‘‘little if any deter- and between systems at the same time rent or enforcement value’’ (p. 156). Yet, if (p. 234).’’ These deficiencies affect theory we investigate what we know about deter- development as well as concrete knowledge rence generally and corporate deterrence about the incidence of fraud, its prevalence more specifically, we need to be careful and patterns over time. While Barak about worshiping at the altar of criminal approaches the problem in a creative fash- penalties. Some research challenges the sub- ion, integrating qualitative/quantitative evi- jective utility model, referring to it as a ‘‘stark dence from various sources to draw logical failure’’ in the case of corporate crime arguments about the structural and institu- (Braithwaite and Makkai 1991). Other stud- tional sources of fraud, unfortunately the ies are more favorable—but the evidence is lack of reliable systematic statistics on far from conclusive. Further, it is unclear white-collar crime makes it difficult to assess whether criminal sanctions are more costly carefully the veracity or relative strength of (and therefore a better deterrent) than civil his arguments. This criticism is not directed sanctions—which can carry punitive dam- at the work per se but is more an observation ages, result in higher fines, are easier for on the state of white-collar crime research 70 the state to successfully pursue, and there- years after Edwin Sutherland called atten- fore brought more often. White-collar crime tion to it. scholars presume that punishment works, The book is a dense read. And sometimes that criminal punishment works best, and the logic is elliptical. If the gold standard that corporate criminals are particularly sen- of theory is parsimony, this book is the sitive to criminal legal sanctions. This is an opposite. For instance, Barak’s theory empirical question that has not been ade- ‘‘assimilates the rich theoretical tradition of quately answered.

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References Palmer, Donald and Michael Maher. 2010. ‘‘A Braithwaite, John and Toni Makkai. 1991. ‘‘Testing Normal Accident Analysis of the Mortgage an Expected Utility Model of Corporate Deter- Meltdown.’’ Pp. 219–256 in Markets on Trial: rence.’’ Law & Society Review 25: 7–39. The Economic Sociology of the U.S. Financial Friedrichs, David O. 1998. State Crime, Volumes I Crisis. Part A: Research in the Sociology of Organ- and II. Surrey, UK: Ashgate Publishing. izations, Volume 30A. Bingley, UK: Emerald Henriques, Diana B. 2011. http://www.nytimes. Group Publishing Limited. com/2011/02/16/business/madoff-prison- Prechel, Harland and Theresa Morris. 2010. ‘‘The interview.html?ref=bernardlmadoff From Effects of Organizational and Political Prison, Madoff says banks ‘‘had to know’’ Embeddedness on Financial Malfeasance in of fraud. The New York Times, Business Day the Largest U.S. Corporations: Dependence, (February 15). Incentives, and Opportunities.’’ American Kramer, Ronald C. and Raymond J. Michaelowski. Sociological Review 75: 331-352. 1990. ‘‘State-Corporate Crime,’’ prepared for Simpson, Sally S. (forthcoming, 2013). ‘‘White the American Society of Criminology Meeting, Collar Crime.’’ In Karen S. Cook and Douglas Baltimore, MD, 7–12 November. S. Massey (Eds.), Annual Review of Sociology. Palo Alto, CA.

Response

GREGG BARAK Eastern Michigan University [email protected]

Back in February 2010 at the annual meet- So let me underscore from the beginning ings of the Academy of Criminal Justice Sci- why I thought it was important for the study ences in San Diego I presented the paper, of white collar crime that I apply my partic- ‘‘Victimization and the Biggest Ponzi Scam ular ‘‘bag of integrated criminological tools’’ in U.S. History: A Preliminary Discussion.’’ to an examination of the world of big time That paper sparked a comparative discus- financial fraud and state-regulatory collusion of and subsequent analysis of Madoff sion. First, when it comes to investigations and Wall Street, which eventually became of crime and justice by criminologists and Chapter Two in Theft of a Nation, entitled others, there is a gargantuan dearth of ‘‘Bernie Madoff’s Ponzi Scheme and Wall research and scholarship, scientific or other- Street’s Financial Meltdown: A Primer on wise, on white-collar, corporate, and finan- Investment Fraud and Victimization.’’ cial crime. This is especially the case when Before the meetings in San Diego, I had no it comes to those crimes that are committed intention of writing a book on Wall Street by the most powerful financial violators looting and federal regulatory colluding. and their organizational networks as well After all, while I have written on many crime as to the state and federal apparatuses of reg- and justice subjects over the past forty years, ulatory control, both at home and abroad. I had never written anything original on Furthermore, the omissions or the lack of white-collar or corporate crime, let alone institutional studies by criminologists or on financial securities fraud. Besides, what other social scientists that cut across the did I really know about regulation, deregu- financial services industry and the political, lation, and re-regulation? So when Theft of economic, and social spheres of both indi- a Nation received the 2012 Outstanding Pub- vidual and collective interaction, are even lication Award given by the White Collar more glaring. Crime Research Consortium of the National Second, what the public at large and the White Collar Crime Center at the annual academic community in particular have meetings of the American Society of Crimi- been subjected to, and thereby constricted nology in Chicago on November 16th, by, are non-criminological interpretations 2012, I was very pleased, to say the least. or analyses of the Wall Street meltdown

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Downloaded from csx.sagepub.com at ASA - American Sociological Association on September 16, 2013 Symposia 677 and its victimization of the American peo- a full chapter on Dodd-Frank versus a full ple. Written exclusively by investigative chapter on lobbying. At the end of the day, journalists, economists, Wall Street traders, I figured that most folks were/are well consumer advocates, and most recently, by aware of the growing number of lobbyists former high-profile government regulators, on K Street and the growing number of dol- these traditional accounts needed and still lars spent by lobbyists, Superpacks, and need to be augmented by criminologically- individual donors to influence, if not, pur- informed accounts. Accordingly, I believed chase or defeat specific bills of legislation, that the time was past due for criminologists and so on. In contrast, learning about the to step up to the fraudulent plates of Wall strengths and weaknesses of Dodd-Frank Street, to fill the voids of criminological seemed much more useful to or valuable neglect and ignorance, and to explain just for the average policy wonk, college student, how and why the vast majority of the mem- or movement activist. bers of the U.S. Congress, the White House, Compared to Pontell’s overview, Simp- the Federal Reserve, and the Department of son’s favorable one, at the same time, also Justice had all agreed to treat the biggest raises some issues that have much more to financial crime in U.S. history as a non- do with the field of white collar crime study crime. in general than they do with Theft of a Nation. Let me now turn to the two commentaries More critically, Simpson’s review actually on Theft of a Nation included in this sympo- misrepresents some of the key arguments sium, written by Henry Pontell and Sally of the book. Accordingly, in the rest of this Simpson. In terms of ‘‘full disclosure,’’ per- essay I focus primarily on her critique. But mit me to share with the readers that both suffice it to say in the affirmative that Simp- Pontell and Simpson have their blurbs son gets it correct when she writes: ‘‘Barak endorsing this book on its back cover. Not pulls together extensive documentation for only that, Simpson was also a member of his arguments and offers a multi-level, the selection committee for the WCCRC out- multi-disciplinary theoretical framework to standing publication award. In light of their tie it all together .... I applaud the integrated respective remarks, I will respond briefly approach taken and I applaud the extensive here to Pontell and mostly to Simpson. attention to detail.’’ As Pontell really has only one minor sub- Turning to Simpson’s criticisms, the pri- stantive criticism of Theft of a Nation, which I mary issue raised has to do with her claim have no argument or disagreement with, my that my arguments lack systemic evidence remarks are fairly limited. First, I think Pon- to test hypotheses and to refute alternative tell has contextualized quite nicely both the arguments. I would like to know to what recent history of financial crises and crime competing arguments is Simpson referring? in the United States as well as the state of I am unaware of other systemic evidence in criminological knowledge about these types the field of white collar crime studies or of of organizational behavior. Second, Pontell any alternative arguments that could be test- provides a nice overview of my work, espe- ed to explain Wall Street looting and federal cially capturing the general argument that regulatory colluding. However, I do agree securities fraud on Wall Street drove the with Simpson (and I am sure that Pontell financial meltdown and that the collusion does as well) when she quotes from Palmer from all the necessary power players in and Maher’s critique of positivistic method- Washington, DC facilitated the denial or dis- ologies and their lack of scientific vigor or missal of the criminal realities. Third, Pontell their inability to capture the complexities of gets it correct when he writes that my dis- systems or institutions and the connections cussion on financial lobbying was on the between these and the crime they produce, mark, but less developed than it could especially over time. have been. I would further add that ‘‘the lack of reli- Originally, I was going to devote more able systematic statistics on white-collar attention to the lobbying efforts by Wall crimes’’ in general does not necessarily Street, but in terms of issues having to do impede assessing ‘‘the veracity or relative with book length, I had to choose between strength of [my] arguments’’ in particular.

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Not only do I provide all kinds of integrated fraud.’’ Hopefully, these models will generate evidence—qualitative, quantitative, system- further research on corporate-state crime and atic, and otherwise—that confirms my the collection of the type of data that is capa- general arguments, but new evidence sup- ble of establishing the scientific criteria called porting my arguments appears daily in the for by The Campbell Collaboration. I would financial news. What is more, without reject- further hope that these new models will be ing positivistic epistemologies, allow me to used by white collar criminologists not only paraphrase Karl Popper who argued even to operationalize the complex behavioral though something is not falsifiable, and interactions of securities frauds and their reg- therefore not scientific, that does not do any- ulation, but also to provide the types of sys- thing to negate its truth, soundness, or tematic data that Simpson envisions. validity. On the issue of whether or not the ‘‘gold Simpson is correct that my approach to standard of theory is parsimony’’ as Simp- Wall Street securities fraud is consistent son suggests, since I proffered no formal the- with the perspectives of state-corporate or ory of securities fraud, such criteria whether corporate-state crimes. However, this does appropriate or not, should not be used as not capture the core of my approach to the a measure of my book. Without digressing ‘‘crimes of capitalist control.’’ In a few too far, let me stress that I believe that most words, Simpson does not do justice to either of the best criminological theories of organi- my reciprocal model or to my analysis of zational crime do not lend themselves to high-stakes financial fraud, whose argu- parsimony nor to pre- and post-experimen- ments are ultimately held together by both tal testing. This is especially true of those an integration and a proof of both William comprehensive theories that attempt to inte- Chambliss’ structural contradictions theory of grate micro, meso, and macro levels of anal- crime and Donald Black’s theory of law. ysis, such as a multi-level integrated theory Therein lies the ‘‘decriminalization’’ of of violations of international criminal law what otherwise was an epidemic of institu- developed by Christopher Mullins and tionalized securities fraud across the finan- Dawn Rothe in Blood, Power, and Bedlam: Vio- cial services industry as a whole, which lations of International Criminal Law in Post- was driven first and foremost by the Colonial Africa (2008). demands and corresponding incentives of As to Simpson’s closing thoughts on the Wall Street. punishment of white-collar crime and my In terms of clarity of what my book does position on the same in Theft of a Nation, and does not do, allow me to set the theoret- there is surprisingly some confusion here. ical record straight. Nowhere throughout the Yes, throughout most of the book I highlight text did I propose, for example, something the absence or omission of any criminal like a ‘‘reciprocal theory’’ of high-stakes sanctions for the Wall Street securities fraud financial crime, equipped with formal prop- that caused the financial meltdown. And ositions and/or hypotheses that were ready yes, I do understand and I do try as best as to be tested by the data or to predict other I can through the running multiple narra- outbreaks of Wall Street securities fraud. I tives to explain why the ‘‘lack of criminality’’ would argue that to do so would have exemplifies the contradictions of bourgeois been premature and subject to some of the legality. However, such evidence should criticisms leveled by both Pontell and Simp- not be misconstrued or conflated with my son at the underdeveloped study of white- believing or arguing that if there were suc- collar crime. cessful criminal prosecutions or penal sanc- What I have provided is a reciprocal tions, that that would make any real model/approach/analysis of the political criminal difference in the scheme of high- economy of Wall Street looting and federal stakes financial transactions. regulatory colluding. In doing so, I build In addition, I also emphasize that when upon existing integrated theories of white- Wall Street did, in fact, experience punitive collar criminality and introduce new interac- action, on the civil and regulatory fronts, tive models of ‘‘organizational control that these too were not significant fines fraud’’ and of ‘‘institutional financial control (penalties). Comparatively speaking, these

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Downloaded from csx.sagepub.com at ASA - American Sociological Association on September 16, 2013 Symposia 679 regulatory fines were so small that they did Fraud Committed against the American Peo- not amount to even ‘‘slaps on the wrist.’’ ple,’’ those types of criminal punishments Notably, of the three possible sanction types, are not even on the negotiating table. the civil fines—the only ones subject to little Lastly, in the postscript, I emphasize as I or no governmental control—were the most did in the body of the text that reasonable significant in punitive dollars. alternatives to preventing future financial Most importantly, as the last two chapters collapses call for structural changes of the and postscript underscore, I am not calling securities markets, including the breakup for criminal sanctions as some kind of pana- of the too-big-to-fail institutions and/or the cea for I do not think that these would have public ownership of these same institutions. much, if any, deterrent effect on those future Bottom line: so long as the book ratio of securities frauds capable of bringing about non-criminological to criminological treat- the next financial bubble or meltdown on ments of Wall Street illegalities and federal Wall Street. regulatory inefficacies remains, on the order For example, in the very last section of the of something like two hundred to one, then conclusion entitled, ‘‘A Fantasy Bailout for fraud minimalism with its limited under- the American People,’’ it is noted that none standing of criminalization and the adminis- of the fraudsters are being imprisoned for tration of legal justice will continue as the their crimes that caused the financial col- governing ideological means used to deny lapse nor are any of their corporate charters both domestically and internationally the to expire. Moreover, as the imaginary bail- elite-dominated financial-state crimes of outs unfold during the ‘‘National Tribunal a global political economy. for Reparations for the Crimes of Securities

Commentary

WILLIAM S. LAUFER University of Pennsylvania [email protected]

In Who are the Criminals? John Hagan paints an historically detailed, incisive, and Who Are the Criminals?: The Politics of remarkably personal retrospective account Crime Policy from the Age of Roosevelt to of the development and framing of crime the Age of Reagan,byJohn Hagan. policy. The connections made between crime Princeton, NJ: Princeton University policy and the field of criminology are sim- Press, 2010. 301pp. $45.00 cloth. ISBN: ply fascinating. It is no small feat to blend 9780691148380. a rich historical account of progressive and conservative politics with criminological theory in the broader context of a novel suites,’’ it would likely prompt some obvious framing perspective. It is also nothing short if not trite questions about how our framing of inspiring to think about the prospects of of ‘‘who are the criminals?’’ affects the alloca- rebalancing the way in which street and tion of criminal justice resources. I pose some suite crime are prioritized. Thus, I will limit of these questions below, and wonder in my critical comments below to what is miss- a brief conclusion as to how Hagan’s work ing from a narrow part of Hagan’s account, might have accommodated the same. Asking that of corporate crime policy. This book these questions may be valuable if we are stands very strong even with my concerns to accept the proposed interdependence over its completeness. between street and suite crime policy. If there was a clearly bounded subspecial- First, do rates of white collar and corpo- ty of ‘‘corporate criminology,’’ connecting the rate crime vary with the amount or align- politics of crime policy to ‘‘crime in the ment of state regulation? Hagan’s ‘‘critical

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Figure One1 collective framing perspective’’ supports a perennial tension between the regulatory conventional intuitions about such a regula- power of government and corporate power tory correspondence, but it is not so clear that may be far more nuanced than Hagan’s that this is the case. Data on white collar framing account. It is captured, in large part, prosecution are not dispositive (see Figure by the need for the formal social control of One), and federal sentencing data on organ- business while at the same time deferring izations offer few discernible trends. In the to the business community and our markets. absence of good data on corporate crime It is all about balancing the power to regulate commission, we are left to speculate. Else- corporations and the specter of regulatory where I have argued that every generation overreaching. And, finally, it is all about con- discovers corporate and white collar crime, trolling business deviance through a combi- with some naı¨ve surprise (Laufer, 2008). nation of regulation and resort to the most The scandals of one generation may look dif- formal of social controls, the criminal law. ferent from the next—from corrupt pay- Throughout our history, an argument may ments to foreign government officials and be made that maintaining the appearance massive procurement fraud to cleverly pack- of legitimacy for the government’s response aged derivatives and notorious mortgage to corporate deviance has mediated most if fraud. All along, though, white collar and not all of these tensions. corporate deviance seems to persist and, Maintaining this appearance requires quite unremarkably, cases are brought a carefully choreographed regulatory against both individuals and firms through approach where, at times, the limited use all of the eras’ lax and heightened regulation of state power through symbolic prosecu- discussed in Who Are the Criminals? In short, tions will suffice. These prosecutions may there appears to be a relatively robust base make a media frenzy, but are often far from rate for this deviance that must be consid- representative of a regulatory trend or ered when highlighting only the most nota- underlying rates of deviance. In Who Are ble cases. the Criminals? the twenty or so corporations What can be said with some confidence is mentioned are iconic, but perhaps nothing that the history of white collar crime prose- more. Survey research on employee devi- cution and corporate criminal liability reflect ance reveals relatively stable base rates of white collar deviance over time, rates sug- 1 Twenty year Report on White Collar Prosecu- gesting that our media-driven appreciation tions, TRAC (2013), available at: http://trac of corporate deviance may be just that, .syr.edu/tracreports/. media driven. Survey data also highlight

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Downloaded from csx.sagepub.com at ASA - American Sociological Association on September 16, 2013 Symposia 681 just how little white collar and corporate the attribution of criminal responsibility? deviance is formally processed. Of course, Our history is rife with examples of these we do not have to reach back to Clinard influences, from the evisceration of legisla- and Yeager (1980) to mourn all of the undis- tion designed to reform corporate misbehav- tributed justice coming from the way in ior (e.g., Sarbanes Oxley, and Dodd Frank), which we fail to prioritize the investigation and the undermining of efforts to limit self- and prosecution of this kind of offending. regulation and self-governance by firms, to But, at the same time, it may be imprudent the shifting of risks for criminal liability to think of scandals, crises, and notable cases away from the corporate form. Corporate of corporate wrongdoing as representing crime policy, it is fair to say, has as much to discernible and meaningful periods of regu- do with the sustained and instrumental use latory scrutiny or ‘‘eras’’ of crime. of corporate power as it has with the ebbs There are deeper meanings to shifts and and flows of corporate regulation or trends in the regulation of Wall Street or deregulation. the ‘‘suites of America.’’ Perhaps most nota- Third, how is regulatory power exercised, ble is our remarkable ambivalence with the more generally, in relation to the application idea of a criminal corporation, found in the of the corporate criminal law? The history of apparent illogic of attributing criminal corporate crime regulation is also far more wrongdoing to the engines of our economic complex than a simple function of broad growth. This ambivalence, reflected in the political phases or eras, no matter how defin- tilted allocation of criminal justice expendi- ing political leadership might be over the tures, is captured by the fact that: (1) corpo- regulation of the suites. A broad range of rations are aggregates of innocent regulatory milestones adapting to a stagnant stakeholders who unfairly suffer from body of substantive law cannot be disre- a criminal investigation, indictment, and garded. This includes government issued conviction, but serious consequences must guidelines, memoranda, and principles— result from corporate deviance; (2) markets from the United States Sentencing Guide- encourage corporate risk taking and innova- lines for Organizations to a series of iterative tion, but corporations particularly in certain memoranda from the Department of Justice sectors and industries require vigilant regu- that provides guidance on how prosecutors lation and faithful compliance; (3) civil and should proceed in bringing cases against administrative law remedies for organiza- corporations (Laufer, 1999a). tional deviance already exact a huge toll on Tired and muddled conceptions of corpo- corporations, but few doubt the unique role rate criminal liability and corporate blame of the criminal law to encourage law abid- must make regulation quite difficult if not ance or voluntary disclosure of wrongdoing; truly frustrating. At times, existing liability and (4) the government must support and rules, over a century old, are disregarded maintain close ties to the business communi- by prosecutors and regulators. They are ty, but such ties may inhibit regulation or replaced by a brand of cooperative regula- make resort to the criminal law problematic. tion that allows firms of means and scale to A second obvious question follows: If opt out of the criminal justice system there is such significant ambivalence, why through elaborate plea agreements, strategi- is there so much corporate crime legislation cally recast blame, and cleverly manage an in certain historically notable periods? otherwise pristine reputation. Other times, Khanna (1994, 2004) provides a range of liability rules are employed by large corpo- possible explanations from public choice rate fraud task forces to make a regulatory to institutional politics. These and other point. The causalities are supposed to reas- explanations require sensitivity to the subtle sure us that markets are safe and fair. Mak- interactions between regulators and the reg- ing sense of all of this at the level of broad ulated. Focusing somewhat narrowly on the regulatory trends or eras, however, may be apparent effects of regulation and deregula- difficult if not impossible. Trying to make tion, as Hagan does, might make one less sense of it, though, may be necessary for likely to ask: How do private sector actors a framing account to fairly reflect the corre- powerfully influence both regulation and spondence of crime policy.

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Fourth, it is worth asking: How is our are, in fact, the criminals. As we move into sense of the exercise of state power over cor- a new phase of thinking about corporate porations affected by the images that we personhood, post-Citizens United, corporate construct of corporations? There are many criminologists might start asking these different kinds of corporations, many differ- questions. ent kinds of corporate cultures, some that are Hagan covers much ground in Who Are the self-regulating with principle, others that Criminals? He makes a series of connections cannot and never will. We are at some risk that are creative and quite novel, with a con- when in an effort to present an account of clusion that calls for a long overdue recon- corporate crime policy, we craft archetypal sideration of our priorities in policing, images of crime in the suites as a function prosecuting, and punishing. In this brief of large, diversified financial institutions review, I raise some simple-minded ques- who, without reflection, seek to exploit lax tions and concerns narrowly concerned regulation and enforcement. There is no evi- with corporate crime policy. I conclude dence that corporate and white collar crimes where I began, by bemoaning the fact that are so limited in distribution by firm size, there is no bounded subspecialty of ‘‘corpo- industry, or market. Deviance considered rate criminology’’ to do more than frame ‘‘white collar’’ or ‘‘corporate’’ is no longer good, if not trite questions. thought of as necessarily ‘‘elite’’ and, not It is far from clear that the descriptive and surprisingly, shares many characteristics analytic work necessary to speculate broadly with street offenses (Weisburd et. al., 1994). about reapportioning risks and rights is At the same time, it is also fair to say that done—at least with respect to corporate there is an uncomfortable naivete´ on the part crime policy. The foundational work neces- of all stakeholders that accept, without sus- sary to support Hagan’s thesis must reflect picion, the glossy moral images of corpora- a good mix of normative and empirical tions. Corporations are deft in convincing inquiry. This includes addressing the peren- all that their commitment to accountability nial ambivalence over attributing criminal and responsibility is strong and in place. wrongdoing to corporations, attending to The apparent inauthenticity of some corpo- the possibility that the base rate of this rate communications, combined with the kind of deviance may be stable over time, very closed nature of the corporate form, resisting the temptation to think of cases frustrate any good assessment of white col- highlighted by the media or picked by pros- lar and corporate deviance from the outside. ecutors for symbolic enforcement as repre- In short, criminologists still know relatively sentative or otherwise important, wrestling little about white collar and corporate with how corporations successfully under- offending—relative, that is, to street crime. mine legislative and regulatory reforms, Fifth, when we think of who are the crim- appreciating the general failure of corporate inals in the suites, must we also consider if criminal liability as a regulatory device, confirms act criminally? What we mean when sidering the complexity of the corporate we say that firms versus agents act, reflects form and how strategic moral imagery frus- broad normative values that powerfully trate and limit attributions of liability, and influence corporate crime policy. When the finally, asking who are the criminals when Department of Justice, for example, creates agents act on behalf of principals in complex a Corporate Fraud Task Force, does it matter organizations. that indictments are brought only against As I finished Hagan’s book I could not individual offenders and not firms? If articu- help but wonder whether a comparable or lated crime policy, found in prosecutorial or analogous framing challenge follows the dis- sentencing guidelines, prompt indictments cipline of criminology in ways that reflect of agents rather than principals, or princi- the broader framing question posed by pals rather than agents, does that matter? Who Are the Criminals? Hagan does a won- These questions, rarely posed, are more derful job connecting the history of crime than wasted metaphysical musings. It is dif- policy with corresponding developments in ficult, if not impossible, to ask who are the criminological theory. But what about the criminals without a good sense as to who bounded subject matter of criminology?

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Some years ago I argued that the field of Khanna, V. S. 1994. ‘‘Corporate Crime Legislation: criminology was in denial for its failure to A Political Economy Analysis.’’ Washington wrestle with the crime of genocide (Laufer, University Law Quarterly 82:95–141. Khanna, V. S. 2004. ‘‘Politics and Corporate Crime 1999b). Hagan, author of the most definitive Legislation.’’ Regulation:30–35. work on genocide in criminology, literally Laufer, W. S. 2008. Corporate Bodies and Guilty reframed the field with his work on Darfur Minds: The Failure of Corporate Criminal Liabili- and war crimes. That criminologists focus ty. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. so exclusively on street crime and explana- Laufer, W. S. 1999a. ‘‘Corporate Liability, Risk tions of the same, to the near exclusion of Shifting, and the Paradox of Compliance.’’ crimes of the state or the suite, must also Vanderbilt Law Review 52:1343–1420. Laufer, W. S. 1999b. ‘‘The Forgotten Criminology say something important. of Genocide.’’ in W. S. Laufer and F. Adler, The Criminology of Criminal Law. New Bruns- wick, NJ: Transaction. References Weisburd, D., Wheeler, S., Waring, E. and Crimes of the Middle Classes: Clinard, M. B. and P. C. Yeager. 1980. Corporate Bode, N. 1994. Crime. New York, NY: Free Press. White Collar Crime in Federal Courts. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

Commentary

MICHAEL LEVI Cardiff University, United Kingdom [email protected]

The leitmotif of E.M. Forster’s novel Howard’s End is ‘‘Only connect,’’ which is also the cen- Who Are the Criminals?: The Politics of tral theme of this absorbing book, one of the Crime Policy from the Age of Roosevelt to rare books—a combination of textbook and the Age of Reagan,byJohn Hagan. research monograph—to seek to juxtapose Princeton, NJ: Princeton University and connect crimes in the suites with crimes Press, 2012. 301pp. $22.95 paper. ISBN: in the streets. The penultimate chapter is an 9780691156156. absorbing deconstruction of state crime and crimes against humanity, an area he has made his own. He concludes with a thought- the value of indeterminate sentences in reduc- ful epilogue on what we might now call ing criminal behavior’’ (p. 13). Obama 1. The book is broader than Jonathon One commentator (Kramer 2011) asserted Simon’s Governing Through Crime in another that ‘‘Hagan’s three key arguments are (1) important way. Hagan says of the Reagan conceptual frameworks regarding crime shift: ‘‘The result was a major redistribution shifted considerably from the Roosevelt of risk and regulation in American life. and Reagan eras and changed crime policies, American minorities and the poor lost in (2) race and social class permeate crime pol- several ways: they were prosecuted and icies, and (3) U.S. prison populations have incarcerated for street crimes at massively grown, as a result, to unsustainable levels.’’ increased rates, and they were victimized Through the lens of a white-collar and orga- by evolving forms of financial manipulation, nized crime researcher, I see it somewhat dif- including subprime mortgage lending and ferently. Hagan notes the importance to similar kinds of lending arrangements for Reagan crime policies not just of sloganistic credit cards, cars, and the like. The unsus- thinking about outgroups but also of ‘‘(1) tainable subprime mortgage lending and data revealing that the majority of crimes resulting defaults and foreclosures dispro- were committed by a small minority of highly portionately affected minority neighbor- active offenders, and (2) studies challenging hood homeowners and counteracted efforts

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Downloaded from csx.sagepub.com at ASA - American Sociological Association on September 16, 2013 684 Symposia to reduce street crime by stabilizing minority a way of saying I am looking forward to the neighborhoods’’ (p. 31). next volume! Hagan is right to note the importance of Hagan discusses the Milken/Boesky cases chronic offenders as a term, but it is not clear of the 1980s and notes that ‘‘Despite the pub- what he is alleging about the relationship licity surrounding these crimes, this meant between Reagan’s politics and the involve- that the framing of the actual insider trading ment of Blumstein et al. in this research. (It practices as criminal remained vague and is interesting to speculate what would have obscure .... Thus, no adversarial frame happened to the United Kingdom’s involve- could effectively challenge and contain the ment in this criminal careers research if Don- deregulation frame of the age of Reagan. ald West, a sophisticated critic of repressive Yet there is historical precedent for such policies on sexuality, and who started the a challenge in the now nearly forgotten hear- Cambridge study of delinquent develop- ings of the Senate Banking and Currency ment with David Farrington as his research Committee, held during the waning months assistant, had not retired. Farrington took of the Hoover presidency and the early days over the study from him and joined the of Roosevelt’s New Deal. These hearings are Blumstein set, becoming the only Brit to instructive in suggesting how an adversarial ascend to the Presidency of the American framing can occur and even succeed in Society of Criminology.) Hagan expresses a time of crisis.’’ Later he adds: ‘‘The financial the transformation very acutely: ‘‘the poli- sector grew from about 16 percent of U.S. cy-driven concerns about chronic offending domestic corporate profits between 1973 shifted the emphasis in criminology from and 1985 to double this figure in the 1990s, the causes of someone ever committing peaking at more than 40 percent of these prof- a crime—a prominent concern in the age of its in the current decade’’ (pp. 175–182). Roosevelt—to the causes of someone chron- As Hagan puts it, after discussing Akerlof ically continuing to commit crimes, which and Romer’s corporate looting thesis: ‘‘The became the prominent concern in the age of innocence-of-optimism framing may be a lat- Reagan’’ (p. 121). So while black street crim- ter-day version of Sutherland and Cressey’s inals went to jails like lambdas to the slaugh- explanation of white-collar crime, which ter, the career criminality of executives was dates to the age of Roosevelt and their differ- totally neglected except by some senior fig- ential association theory, discussed in chap- ures at Yale such as Albert Reiss, Stan ter 3. Cressey’s more specific version of this Wheeler, and their set of academic collabora- theory was that embezzlers take other peo- tors, including David Weisburd—and at ple’s money only after they first rationalize Wisconsin by Marshall Clinard and his their guilt. The institutional belief in spread- collaborators. ing risk through securitizing mortgages may He concludes the chapter on the age of have been a similar kind of framing that Reagan by noting: ‘‘while power politics could neutralize guilt and in this way excuse during the age of Reagan enabled the crisis the claim of fraudulence against the bank framing and the ensuing fear of street crime managers. The ‘‘too big to fail’’ rationaliza- that led to mass imprisonment, a correspond- tion for the bailouts may be a similar kind ing normalized framing encouraging a of rationalization from the government’s misguided absence of fear resulted in side. The question is whether these are a retreat from the regulation of suite crimes causes or justifications of the practices and thereby contributed to the economic involved. Part of the answer involves the collapse’’ (p. 149). He envisages a ‘‘critical subprime mortgages that were securitized’’ collective framing theory,’’ applying Goff- (p. 209). manesque frame analysis to street crime con- Importantly, he connects the sub-prime trol and suite crime non-control: there is issues to both crime reduction (homeowners some particularly acute discussion of the are less criminal, at least when able to pre- shaping of racialized street crime and drugs pay loans), and to white-collar (and, under- sanctioning. That he does not wholly explain stressed in the book, lower level white/ why and how these framings occurred is just blue collar) victimization of poor and blacks:

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‘‘Mortgage lenders recognized that blacks catastrophe, recklessness by some lenders who were historically redlined from receiv- can enable them to corner so much of the ing home loans might now be susceptible, market that if others do not join in, they ready-made customers for the new manipu- will disappear. But there is room for multiple lative mortgages’’ (p. 195). interpretations here! Hagan sidesteps the familiar white-collar Hagan summarizes the theme beautifully crime definitional problem by noting that as follows: ‘‘The age of Reagan featured ‘‘as Sutherland emphasized, social science a frame realignment process that simulta- is based on behavioral probabilities and neously advocated more severe punishment does not demand legal certainty. Sutherland of U.S. street crimes and the deregulation of helped us understand that criminology is American financial practices. The result was concerned with establishing and explaining an institutional redistribution of risk and systematic patterns of criminal behavior regulation. American minorities and the rather than with convicting individuals of poor lost out in two ways: they were prose- crimes’’ (p. 199). But where should we cuted and incarcerated for street crimes at draw the line? Discussing Angelo Mozilo, massively increased rates, and they were CEO of Countrywide Financial, (if only he victimized by evolving forms of financial had been a Mafioso with a name like that!), manipulation, including subprime mort- Hagan notes ‘‘Although the concept of crim- gages and similar kinds of lending arrange- inal fraud is uncertain in definition and ments for credit cards, cars, and related proof, Black’s Law Dictionary places its loans .... Now as then, it is possible to emphasis on gaining advantage by false sug- reframe our understanding of the feared gestions or suppression of the truth. Mozi- and the fearless, and I have argued that lo’s e-mails offer unusually explicit and a key step in doing so is to emphasize the compelling evidence that he knowingly link between the two. A new cycle of reform manipulated the truth in just this way. Yet can rebalance the ledgers of the twenty-first Mozilo’s public image was framed quite dif- century by reconsidering our conceptions of ferently by himself and others’’ (p. 201). the feared and the fearless. A critical collec- Indeed, and subsequent to this book, the tive framing perspective is an explanatory Department of Justice decided there was pathway toward this goal’’ (p. 232). insufficient evidence to prosecute him. This is a fine book, like his previous work. Admitting no wrongdoing, Mozilo paid Here are a few small reservations. Kramer $22.5 million of the SEC settlement himself comments that Hagan’s analysis would (showing how much money he had made, have been strengthened by including the saved, and could spare) with corporate institutionalization of vested interests in insurance policies covering most of the bal- mass incarceration, and by consideration of ance of $67.5 million: the largest fine ever how the national politics affected local crim- imposed by SEC (http://www.sec.gov/ inal justice systems. This is true. Woodiwiss news/press/2010/2010-197.htm). He was (2011) notes that he might usefully have also permanently barred from serving as an included the Reagan Commission on Orga- officer or director of a public company.1 nized Crime. This held televised hearings to Mozilo gets a much kinder ride from dramatize its findings, and successfully McLean and Nocera’s All the Devils are Here reframed American and even international (2010) than he does from Hagan. In my thinking on the structure and threat of orga- own view, as in the Irish property boom nized crime. One might argue further that though it would have detracted from the clarity and neatness of his juxtaposition, 1 We might wonder what happens to those the middle classes (unmentioned here, but fines: they certainly do not go into white-collar repeatedly stressed by Democrats and crime research, or Hagan might find that Republicans)—whose boundaries are really career criminality researchers in North Ameri- a floating signifier, in Levi-Strauss’ terms— ca and the United Kingdom would take a greater interest in this area. The National suffer also from the tax costs of bailouts White-Collar Crime Research Consortium and tax offsets by corporations, though not could use the money! to the extent of impoverishment. This is not

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Downloaded from csx.sagepub.com at ASA - American Sociological Association on September 16, 2013 686 Symposia just victimization of the poor, making the book offers little about what should be lack of elite prosecutions compared with done about crimes on the streets. It may be the S&L crisis of the late 1980s even more that to have tried to deal with those themes intriguing. (For some early illumination, would have detracted from the analytical see Gretchenson and Story 2011; Levi 2009). force of this already substantial book. The chapters that reflect on criminological One of the fascinating things about Who theories in the age of Roosevelt and the age are the Criminals? is its frame. In one sense, of Reagan are well accomplished, but it is it is an erudite and many-layered compan- not obvious that they account for anything ion volume to Reiman and Leighton’s radi- to do with the politics of that time, or if cal populist The Rich Get Richer and the Poor they do, that this is integrated with the poli- Get Prison (2013). But whereas the latter is cy histories and analyses. The causal direc- primarily a juxtaposition and contrast, Who tion (from policies to theories or vice versa) are the Criminals? is both a juxtaposition is unclear, though there is a sense in which and a connector. How many of the thou- theories get picked up if they match the zeit- sands of students whizzing through our geist and/or bureaucratic interests (like criminal justice degrees will get to read and Cressey’s work on organized crime and the reflect upon it? Not enough, I fear. But they FBI). However as a sociology of ideas and should. criminological culture, it is intriguing and unlike any existing texts of which I am aware. (David Garland’s The Culture of Con- References trol does a more satisfying job, but his is Kramer, John H. 2011. Review of Who Are the Crim- not an American history in the way that inals?. American Journal of Sociology 117(1): 301– this is.) 303. Moreover, if the book is clear enough Levi, Michael. 2009. ‘‘Suite Revenge? The Shaping about what went wrong and about the poli- of Folk Devils and Moral Panics about White- Collar Crimes.’’ British Journal of Criminology tics of deregulation, it is a little hazy about 49(1): 48–67. what we should do reactively to crimes in McLean, Bethany and Joe Nocera. 2010. All The the suites. The Deferred Prosecution Agree- Devils Are Here: The Hidden History of the Finan- ments (not mentioned in the book) might cial Crisis. New York, NY: Portfolio/Penguin. be termed ‘‘Too Big To Be Prosecuted,’’ and Morgenson, Gretchen and Louise Story. 2011. ‘‘In though politics (and campaign funding) Financial Crisis No Prosecutions of Top Fig- ures.’’ New York Times (2011/04/14). enters into what is done and not done about Reiman, Jeffrey and Paul Leighton. 2013. The Rich cases that some might describe as unprose- Get Richer and the Poor Get Prison: Ideology, cuted white-collar crime, the objective risks Class, and Criminal Justice (10th edition). New of collateral damage are substantive enough York, NY: Pearson. to generate genuine anxiety from the Lords Woodiwiss, Michael. 2011. ‘‘Who Are the Crimi- of Misrule, as well as from the rest of us nals? The Politics of Crime Policy from the who might have to transfer our banking to Age of Roosevelt to the Age of Reagan,’’ by John Hagan. Global Crime 12(4): 330–332. somewhere more ethical—and on what data might we judge that? Likewise the

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Response

JOHN HAGAN Northwestern University [email protected]

What does it mean that criminologists over- field of criminology have occurred in whelmingly ignore the salient criminological response to the political preferences of the questions of our time? Why is there so little age of Roosevelt (from roughly the 1930s attention given to the financial frauds that through the 1970s) and the Age of Reagan led to massive overbuilding of prisons and (circa the 1980s to the present; I argue the houses in America? Why is there no investi- jury is still out about the possibility that gation of executive branch authorizations of there will be a new Age of Obama.) secret renditions, brutal torture, and extra- To be more explicit, I argue that an Age of judicial killings? Why is there minimal Reagan framing of voters’ ‘‘fears of the explanation of the American government’s street’’ had much to do with building the failure to assist in arresting and placing on criminological audience for James Q. Wil- trial the President of Sudan for charges of son’s resurrection of the deterrence doctrine, genocide in Darfur? Why do criminologists Alfred Blumstein’s promotion of the concept largely overlook these pressing questions of ‘‘Lambda’’ to study chronic offenders and and topics? career criminals, and Travis Hirschi and Michael Levi and William Laufer recog- Michael Gottfredson’s social-psychological nize that the central concern of my book is arguments for a self-control theory of the to explain how and why the United States causes of criminal behavior. It is important as a nation over-controls street crime and to recognize that these scholars competed under-controls suite and state crimes. strenuously—sometimes in collaboration Beyond this, Laufer wants to know what it with one another, and sometimes in opposi- means that the field of criminology itself tion to one another—for research funding, largely ignores state and suite crimes: publication outlets, and leadership positions ‘‘That criminologists focus so exclusively in the field. They did so while nonetheless on street crime and explanations of the joining in dismissing the rehabilitative ideals same, to the near exclusion of crimes of the of Age of Roosevelt criminologists and that state or the suite, must also say something era’s discovery of white-collar crime. Their important.’’ Levi raises a similar issue with conceptualizations of individualistic rational regard to street crime, saying that ‘‘Hagan actor frameworks fit well with Age of is right to note the importance of chronic Reagan concerns about the calculated preda- offenders as a term, but it is not clear what tions of recidivist offenders. It was impor- he is alleging about the relationship between tant to their success that they not stray too Reagan’s politics and the involvement of far from the middle majority of public opin- Blumstein et al in this research.’’ Levi and ion that apprehensively embraced fearful Laufer want to know exactly what I am say- framings of street crime, especially involving about the field of criminology as well as ing young minority drug crime activists in national crime policy. America. My thesis is that the political winds of The Age of Reagan framing of chronic American public opinion sway the field of offenders and career criminals spawned criminology as well as criminologists. My a developmental criminology that reigned book explicitly draws on Bourdieu’s theory supreme in criminology into the 1990s, and of academic fields and his thesis that schol- remains prominent to this day. This school ars compete, using concepts and logics, to of criminology is still strongly represented leverage their status positions and paradig- in the American Society of Criminology, matic dominance within their disciplines. I and indeed advocates of this perspective argue that theory and policy shifts in the recently created a large new section within

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Downloaded from csx.sagepub.com at ASA - American Sociological Association on September 16, 2013 688 Symposia this professional organization. Liberalizing Law and Society Association, an organization elaborations of past premises of develop- which traces its roots to the legal realist mental criminology include the contextual- movement, the Society for the Study of Social ized community-level focus of Robert Problems, and Age of Roosevelt scholars. Sampson’s theory of collective efficacy and It is also noteworthy that the academic the punishment-based emphasis of Bruce competition among crime scholars has Western’s theory about the life-course effects created spheres of influence that parallel on individuals of mass incarceration poli- the evolving political pathways that divide cies. The policy implications of these per- print media and cable television networks. spectives on the effects of concentrated This professional divergence adds a welcome disadvantage and disproportionate punish- clarity and engaging edginess that can make ment challenge Age of Reagan criminology’s the field of criminology more exciting. But signature policy ideas and may represent the there are costs as well. best prospects for moving the field of crimi- The polarization of the field is leading nology and the country from a center right to criminologists—I’ll call them American Soci- a center left policy framework during a new ety criminologists, and Law and Society Age of Obama. It has not happened yet, but criminologists—to talk past one another. the possibility remains. Imagine a ‘‘conversation’’ between The New Meanwhile, the 1990s and 2000s also York Times’ David Brooks and The Nation’s brought new academic competitors into the Katrina vanden Heuvel, talking over and field. Figures like David Garland, Loiı¨c Wac- around one another. Similarly, the flagship quant, Jonathan Simon, and Katherine Beck- journal of the American Society criminolo- ett gained new and important footholds, in gists, Criminology, stresses the role of quanti- significant part by highlighting the contrasts tative falsification, while the flagship journal between the Age of Reagan preoccupation of Law and Society criminologists, Law and with chronic offending and more classical Society Review, highlights the legally Age of Roosevelt concerns addressed by ear- grounded and hyper-politicized role of the lier criminologists like William Chambliss, state. It is tempting for new cohorts of crim- Stuart Scheingold, and Austin Turk. These inologists entering the field to pursue one or concerns focus on the extent to which highly the other of these diverging ways of study- politicized state and federal laws have ing crime without really engaging the other. entrenched punishment regimes and now Criminological thinking is narrowed rather block mass incarceration reforms and reme- than broadened in this way. dies for hardened police practices and pipe- Laufer especially laments criminology’s lines that send youth from locked-down overwhelming neglect of corporate crime. public schools and communities to prison He is surely correct that the absence of atten- warehouses across America. These scholars tion given to corporate and white collar often place at the center of their work inter- crime has limited our understanding of woven comparative and historical accounts how the under-control of this behavior of the role of the politicized state in criminal relates to its frequency, prevalence, and per- law-making and enforcement. sistence. Yet incomplete knowledge is not There is irony in the emphasis of Age of the same as inaccurate knowledge, and we Reagan criminology on careers in crime. A surely now know that something different Bourdieuian perspective notes that alterna- in scale and intensity has unfolded in the tive career trajectories are also apparent in Age of Reagan world of financial criminality. the divergent professional paths of rising Nothing like the leveraged level of fraud criminologists. The intellectual careers of involved in the 2008 financial crisis occurred criminologists are increasingly polarized previously in America. The concepts of ‘‘too along political fault lines that divide Ameri- big to fail’’ and therefore ‘‘too big for trial’’ can voters as well. Thus a growing and more have no comparable precedents in the progressive collection of criminologists are annals of upper-world crime. traveling an alternative path than that charac- I have suggested a critical collective fram- terizing Age of Reagan criminology. Many ing perspective to organize thinking about have found a newly congenial home in the the criminality involved in the financial

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Downloaded from csx.sagepub.com at ASA - American Sociological Association on September 16, 2013 Symposia 689 crisis. This perspective highlights an Age of answers the question of whether the still Reagan framing of the ‘‘freeing of the suites’’ large and extensively interconnected banks as a source of this crisis. The most obvious remain too big to fail as a result of being current example of this still ongoing Age of placed on trial. The Justice Department and Reagan regulatory weakness and its rele- HSB instead chose the path of settlement, vance to fears of the streets post-dates the which set the precedent for pursuing in par- publication of my book. It involves the deci- allel ways other large banks engaged in sim- sion of the U.S. Department of Justice to ilar practices. As noted, the concern of the bring no criminal charges against some the Department of Justice was that the success- world’s largest banks, including the British ful prosecution of a money-laundering based HSB and its American subsidiaries, indictment would cause the failure of HSB for massive and persistent money launder- and again destabilize the global financial ing for the Mexican drug cartels—the same system. cartels that illegally export drugs into our Laufer is right that we have much to learn street economy. State and federal authorities about the relationship between financial decided against criminal indictments of HSB crimes and their deterrence through criminal for money laundering because of concerns law enforcement. I argue in Who Are the that criminal charges could jeopardize one Criminals? that it is nonetheless even more of the world’s largest banks and ultimately important that we acknowledge and begin destabilize the global financial system. to study how suite and street crimes are Instead of criminal charges against HSB interconnected. Drug cartels cannot prosper executives, the U.S. Department of Justice without state protection from legal prosecu- agreed to a nearly two billion dollar settle- tion. Criminologists like Jerome Skolnick in ment. Authorities allege HSB transferred as Justice Without Trial long ago revealed and much as seven billion dollars for Mexican drug explained how this protection occurs on cartels, taking advantage of the lax monitoring the streets of our largest cities. The HSB of its American subsidiaries. HSB is similarly case dramatically illustrates the volume alleged to have laundered money for Iran. and heights to which these relationships The scale of these transactions makes the reach across the national boundaries of our amounts of money and drugs at issue in globalized economy, and how powerless the Reagan Administration’s Iran-Contra we may currently be to intervene through scandal seem quaint. Many believe that criminal law enforcement. In Who Are the Ronald Reagan would have been impeached Criminals? I argue that a field of criminology and removed from office if the Iran-Contra that ignores and thereby fails to study these scandal had not occurred so soon after Nix- growing interconnections of street and suite on’s Watergate and during Reagan’s lame crime is naı¨ve in the sociological extreme. duck second term. Mike Levi’s dark humor about criminolo- The HSB case, only four years after the gists ‘‘leading Lambdas to slaughter’’ is financial crisis and its bank bailouts, broadly and deeply ironic.

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Inheritance of Poverty or Inheritance of Place? The Emerging Consensus on Neighborhoods and Stratification

DOUGLAS S. MASSEY Princeton University [email protected]

Sociologists have long sought to understand the mechanisms by which socioeconomic Great American City: Chicago and the disadvantage persists over time and across Enduring Neighborhood Effect,byRobert generations. They have paid particular J. Sampson. Chicago, IL: University of attention to understanding why poverty Chicago Press, 2012. 534pp. $27.50 appears to be so deep, obdurate, and lasting cloth. ISBN: 9780226734569. for certain social groups, such as African Americans. Whereas economists theorize Stuck in Place: Urban Neighborhoods and human welfare as the end product of ratio- the End of Progress Toward Racial nal choices made by individuals and house- Equality,byPatrick Sharkey. Chicago, holds within free markets subject to resource IL: University of Chicago Press, 2013. and informational constraints, sociologists 304pp. $30.00 paper. ISBN: emphasize the stratifying effects of social 9780226924250. structures that embed institutionalized practices of exclusion and exploitation within and outside of markets. (1987), that galvanized the field. He was The early theorists of the Chicago School the first to note that black poverty was grounded their structural analysis of social becoming more spatially concentrated, and stratification firmly in space, emphasizing went on to hypothesize that rising rates of how people and households are embedded poverty within black neighborhoods under- within neighborhoods which are themselves mined the welfare of African Americans in embedded within cities and metropolitan new ways, deepening their social, economic, areas. Space largely disappeared from struc- and cultural isolation from U.S. society. tural-functionalist accounts of inequality Wilson saw economic isolation as result- during the 1950s and 1960s, however. ing from the structural transformation of Although functionalist theories did embed the urban economy, which eliminated individuals and families within larger social steady, high-paying jobs in manufacturing institutions, they did not situate them in and replaced them with a two-tiered service space. Likewise, in the status attainment economy that contained stable, high paying model that dominated the 1960s and 1970s, jobs for well-educated workers but poorly- family background was explicitly recog- paid, unstable jobs for those lacking educa- nized to shape individual social mobility tion. The resulting rise of joblessness and whereas little or no attention was paid to the loss of earnings among black males, he the spatial context within which mobility argued, undermined black family stability, occurred. weakened connections to the labor market, The neglect of space in the sociological rendered productive role models scarce, study of stratification came to an end in the and ultimately changed cultural practices 1980s. Nancy Denton and I, for example, and normative structures in ways that fueled incorporated spatial assimilation into the a rising cycle of disorder and deprivation. status attainment model explicitly to capture Massey and Denton (1993) built on Wil- the stratifying potential of neighborhoods son’s theory by arguing that black segrega- with respect to social mobility (Massey and tion was not a natural part of the urban Denton 1985). Nonetheless, it was not our environment, but a discriminatory configu- article but the publication of William Julius ration that was deliberately created by Wilson’s book The Truly Disadvantaged whites in order to isolate African Americans

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Downloaded from csx.sagepub.com at ASA - American Sociological Association on September 16, 2013 Symposia 691 socially and spatially. They saw racial segre- had relocated to white suburbs (Rubinowitz gation not as a neutral social fact, but a pow- and Rosenbaum 2000). erful contributor to the concentration of In general, he found that suburban resi- black poverty observed by Wilson, pointing dents displayed higher rates of employment, out that poverty inevitably became more earnings, school completion, and lower rates concentrated whenever poverty rates of welfare dependency compared to those increased for a segregated group. Lincoln who remained in the city. These findings Quillian (2012) later broadened this insight were hailed as evidence for the existence of by showing that concentrated poverty actu- neighborhood effects and seen by some as ally resulted from the interplay of three a blueprint for promoting the desegregation kinds of segregation: racial segregation, pov- and socioeconomic advancement of poor erty-status segregation within race, and seg- minority families (Polikoff 2006). Critics, regation between blacks and high- and however, quickly pointed out that Gau- middle-income members of other racial treaux program participants had not been groups. Nonetheless the fact remains that randomly allocated to city and suburban persisting segregation interacts with rising locations, subjecting Rosenbaum’s findings income inequality to produce spatially con- to the charge of selection bias. In response, centrated poverty. a team of economists with support from Publication of The Truly Disadvantaged set the U.S. Department of Urban Development off a wide-ranging search across the social designed and implemented the Moving to sciences for evidence of ‘‘neighborhood Opportunity Demonstration Project (Briggs, effects.’’ Researchers sought data to assess Popkin, and Goering 2010). the degree to which living in a disadvan- Unlike Gautreaux, MTO randomly taged neighborhood contributed to the per- assigned residents of public housing projects petuation of poverty above and beyond in five metropolitan areas to one of three individual and family characteristics. Unfor- treatment groups. One group was offered tunately, in the late 1980s, multi-level data a voucher to use in moving to a low-poverty sets linking individuals and families to neighborhood and received counseling to neighborhood data were few and far help them do so; another group was offered between, and statistical methods for multi- a voucher that could be used anywhere but level analysis had not yet been developed got no counseling; and a third group (Jencks and Mayer 1990). Rising interest in received no voucher or counseling at all. neighborhood poverty coincided, however, When the interim evaluation appeared in with the implementation of the Gautreaux 2003, however, the findings were less Assisted Housing Program in Chicago, impressive than those emanating from the a coincidence that seemed to offer good evi- Gautreaux Program. Although families dence in support of Wilson’s hypotheses. who moved to low-poverty neighborhoods The Gautreaux Program allocated housing did experience lower crime rates, improved vouchers to residents of Chicago public housing, and better mental health, there housing as part of a court-ordered remedy were no significant differences between for past racial discrimination by the Chicago treatment groups with respect to employ- Housing Authority. Viewing residential segment, earnings, or educational achievement, regation as a metropolitan-wide problem leading some observers to conclude that ear- achieved by racial exclusion in suburbs as lier estimates from the Gautreaux Program well as the city, the court required half the were indeed biased by selectivity and that voucher recipients to move to white subur- ‘‘neighborhoods don’t really matter.’’ ban neighborhoods whereas the other half A turning point in the debate on neigh- were free to use their vouchers to move to borhood effects came in 2008, when the neighborhoods within the city. In a series American Journal of Sociology sponsored of studies based on the Gatreaux Project, a symposium on MTO in which Susan Clam- James Rosenbaum and colleagues compared pet-Lundquist and I (2008) documented the socioeconomic status of city versus sub- features of MTO’s design and implemen- urban movers and found significant tation that mitigated against finding strong improvements in the lives of those who neighborhood effects. Families in the

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Downloaded from csx.sagepub.com at ASA - American Sociological Association on September 16, 2013 692 Symposia experimental group, for example, were only divergent social worlds inhabited by black required to move into low-poverty neigh- and white Americans. borhoods, not low-poverty white neighbor- Since 2008 a consensus seems to have hoods as in the Gautreaux Program. emerged among social scientists that neigh- Whereas the Gautreaux settlement was borhoods do indeed matter in determining explicitly about race, in MTO race was human welfare across a variety of salient pushed aside in favor of class. As a result, dimensions. In 2010, Ruth Peterson and Lau- most voucher recipients simply moved with- ren Krivo published Divergent Social Worlds, in the confines of the black ghetto, usually which painstakingly documented the vast relocating to segregated black neighbor- gap in neighborhood quality experienced hoods adjacent to or near high poverty areas, by white families, on the one hand, and often with the same school catchment area. black and Latino families, on the other. The In his contribution to the AJS symposium, racial differential in neighborhood circum- Robert Sampson (2008) indeed showed that stances was particularly stark in terms of experimental and control families in Chi- exposure to crime, disorder, and violence. cago moved to the same disadvantaged At the same time, a growing number of stud- minority neighborhoods. ies have used a range of methodologies to Other problems in MTO stemmed from demonstrate the negative effects of concen- the inevitable gap between the project’s trated neighborhood disadvantage on design and its implementation in practice. human well-being, especially over the long Only around half of those offered mobility term (Wodtke, Harding, and Elwert 2011). vouchers accepted them and moved into Reviewing the evidence from MTO in the a low-poverty neighborhood, and the pro- 10 to 15 years after the study’s initiation, cess of voucher uptake was itself highly Jens Ludwig, one of the project’s lead inves- selective (Clampet-Lundquist and Massey tigators, noted that ‘‘what is particularly 2008). Moreover, those who accepted the remarkable about the MTO health impacts vouchers and moved exhibited a high and is how massive they are’’ (2012:18) and that again selective propensity to return migra- ‘‘data about neighborhood safety from tion to high-poverty ghetto neighborhoods MTO participants show similarly large after the first year. Sampson (2008) convinc- effects’’ (2012:14). In the end he rejected ingly argued that the geographic mobility only the extreme hypothesis that ‘‘neighbor- of voucher recipients, as among Chicagoans hoods always matter’’ and in the article even generally, was highly structured along the discussed the possibility that MTO may lines of race and class and that instead of have offered a ‘‘weak treatment’’ to detect moving to opportunity, most program par- neighborhood effects on outcomes such as ticipants ended up ‘‘moving to inequality.’’ employment and education. A recent qua- In the United States, this kind of segment- si-experimental study I directed, however, ed mobility produces distributions of neigh- offered a ‘‘strong treatment,’’ contrasting borhood disadvantage for white and black residents of high poverty minority neighbor- households that barely overlap. White fami- hoods with a matched sample of people who lies, even very poor white families, rarely moved into an affordable housing complex experience concentrations of poverty that built within an affluent white suburb. The are routinely experienced by poor and even study replicated the MTO finding of a signif- middle-class black families. Given this struc- icant connection between neighborhood dis- tural reality, rather than seeking to random- advantage and mental health (Casciano and ize selective geographic mobility away as an Massey 2012a), but also found a strong caus- experimental nuisance, Sampson (2008) and al effect of neighborhood disadvantage on others have argued that a better approach rates of employment, earnings, and house- would be to recognize selective mobility hold income (Casciano and Massey 2012b), into high- and low-poverty neighborhoods not to mention education (Casciano and as a fundamental component of the stratifi- Massey 2012c). cation process itself, and to model it theoret- In the end, I conclude that MTO reveals ically and measure it empirically in order to both the power of neighborhoods to influ- reveal how selective mobility generates the ence key human outcomes (such as health)

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Downloaded from csx.sagepub.com at ASA - American Sociological Association on September 16, 2013 Symposia 693 but also the limitations of what can be Thus, attempting to disentangle whether accomplished using voucher programs to low socioeconomic status causes a lack of send poor minorities families into a social collective efficacy or vice versa is beside system and urban landscape that is highly the point. Owing to Chicago’s highly stable segmented on the basis of race and class, configuration of interlocking social and spa- especially if the vouchers offer only modest tial structures, these two conditions almost subsidies (DeLuca, Garboden, and Rosenblatt always go together. Along with poor health, 2012) and landlords are not required to accept high neighborhood disadvantage simulta- them (Edin, DeLuca, and Owens 2012). The neously predicts high crime, weak civic social structure of urban America is such organization, isolated social networks, and that absent a forceful intervention, powerful, cynical social attitudes, exposing residents institutionalized, socially-embedded process- to the combined influence of these maladies es will operate to replicate the existing ecolog- so that their independent effects cannot real- ical landscape, despite the noble intentions of ly be disentangled theoretically or empirical- voucher program designers. ly. According to Sampson, the interlocking This urban reality is magnificently exem- of social and spatial structures begins in plified by Robert Sampson in his outstand- human social cognition. He shows that the ing book Great American City: Chicago and perceived level of crime and disorder within the Enduring Neighborhood Effect, which rep- neighborhoods increases systematically as resents the capstone publication of his justly the black percentage and poverty rate rise, celebrated Project on Human Development irrespective of actual rates of crime and in Chicago Neighborhoods. In the tradition delinquency. Although observed disorder of the Chicago School, Sampson seeks may predict perceived disorder, racial and explicitly to analyze the connections economic composition matter far more in between social and residential mobility and determining the perceived safety and desir- to study it as a central feature of the stratifi- ability of neighborhoods and strongly shape cation system. He does so by concept- residential decisions. ualizing and measuring relevant social Not only do race and class segment structures and processes operating at the human social cognition, they also shape the micro-, meso-, and macro-levels, grounding structure of interpersonal networks and them firmly in space, and then showing social organizations, which in turn map how they operate selectively to channel peo- onto ecological structure and operate in ple and resources to different positions in interlocking ways to constrain choices and the geospatial order, and in so doing to rep- constrict the range of possible outcomes for licate and reinforce existing structures of individuals depending on race, ethnicity, social and spatial inequality. and socioeconomic status. As a result, the Sampson begins by showing that despite vast majority of residential moves within extensive residential mobility over time urban systems such as Chicago, however and constantly churning neighborhood pop- frequent they may be, tend to produce mar- ulation, the socioeconomic and racial-ethnic ginal changes in the social world experi- composition of Chicago’s neighborhoods is enced by movers. Absent some kind of extremely stable over time and that across intervention, poor black families who move neighborhoods ‘‘things go together’’ in simply go from one poor black neighbor- very consistent and highly predictable hood to another, whether or not they have ways. The same neighborhoods that were a voucher. It is for this reason that MTO in disadvantaged in 2000 were disadvantaged Chicago and other cities failed to produce in 1990, not to mention 1980, 1970, and significant movement outside the ghetto 1960. In addition, irrespective of year, neigh- and had disappointing effects on employ- borhoods that were disadvantaged with ment, earnings, and education. respect to socioeconomic status were also The consequences of such structural selec- disadvantaged with respect to health, crime, tion are amply detailed in Patrick Sharkey’s collective efficacy, civic organization, altru- excellent and provocative new book Stuck ism, and other factors relevant to human in Place. Not only are African Americans welfare. far more likely than whites to experience

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Downloaded from csx.sagepub.com at ASA - American Sociological Association on September 16, 2013 694 Symposia concentrated poverty at any point in time, downward mobility. Although the likeli- but exposure to its pernicious effects has hood of upward mobility is not strongly actually increased over time, despite the pas- affected by neighborhood circumstances, sage of landmark civil rights legislation. the prospects for downward mobility are Among African Americans born prior to much greater for blacks than whites. the end of the civil rights era (1955–1970), Whereasalmosthalfofallblackchildren for example, 62 percent grew up in neighbor- with middle-class parents fall into the bot- hoods that were more than 20 percent poor tom of the income distribution as adults, whereas among those born afterward only 16 percent of white children do so. (1985–2000) the figure had risen to 66 per- Put succinctly, ‘‘the social environments cent. In contrast, the respective figures for surrounding African Americans . . . make whites in the same birth cohorts were just 4 it difficult for families to preserve their percent and 5 percent. advantaged position in the income distribu- As a result, for African Americans in the tion and to transmit these advantages to post-civil rights era exposure to high levels their children’’ (p. 115). of neighborhood disadvantage are more The pernicious effects of multigenera- than just common; it is persistent and multi- tional exposure to concentrated poverty are generational. According to Sharkey, roughly particularly evident with respect to the half of the African Americans he studied had inculcation of cognitive skills. To demon- lived in the poorest quarter of urban neigh- strate this effect, Sharkey divided African borhoods for at least two consecutive gener- American children into four groups: one in ations, compared with just 7 percent of which neither parent nor child ever lived whites; and this inability to escape ghetto in a poor neighborhood; one in which the poverty cannot be attributed to individual parent but not the child grew up in a poor or family characteristics. In Sharkey’s words, neighborhood; one in which the child but ‘‘the reason children end up in neighbor- not the parent grew up in a poor neighborhood environments similar to those of their hood, and one in which both parent and parents is not that their parents have passed child grew up in a poor neighborhood. For on a set of skills, resources, or abilities to those that did not experience high neighbor- their children . . . . Instead, parents pass on hood poverty in either generation the aver- the place itself to their children’’ (p. 21). age score on a standardized test of reading African Americans’ unique multigenera- skills was 110, whereas the score was 94 for tional exposure to concentrated poverty those who experienced high neighborhood goes a long way toward explaining the per- poverty in both generations—a shift of sistence of black/white gaps in socioeco- more than one standard deviation. Those in nomic status. Racial gaps in variables such the two middle groups experienced a score as education and occupational status are of around 102. Controlling for individual determined by a combination of disadvan- and family characteristics slightly dimin- taged family background and exposure to ished but did not eliminate the differential. concentrated neighborhood poverty. How- In my view, Great American City and Stuck ever, racial gaps in income and wealth are in Place are critical to understanding the per- determined far more by neighborhood con- sistence of poverty and deprivation among ditions than family background, ‘‘For these African Americans today and are also fun- outcomes, aspects of the family environment damental to explaining the relative lack of play little role in explaining black/white progress in closing salient racial gaps in gaps, while neighborhood conditions explain achievement. Sampson in his book expertly a substantial portion of the racial gap in describes the social and spatial structure by each outcome’’ (p. 114, emphasis in original). which segregation and concentrated poverty Although differential exposure to neigh- are generated and reproduced. Sharkey ably borhood poverty is important in explaining documents the multigenerational exposure racial gaps in attainment, when it comes to of African Americans to concentrated pover- patterns of inter-generational mobility the ty that inevitably follows from these struc- effect of poverty concentration depends on tural conditions and how it systematically whether one considers upward or undercuts black prospects for education,

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Downloaded from csx.sagepub.com at ASA - American Sociological Association on September 16, 2013 Symposia 695 employment, occupational status, earnings, Results from a Quasi-Experimental Study.’’ and wealth while simultaneously making Urban Affairs Review 48:180–204. it difficult for affluent African American DeLuca, Stefanie, Philip Garboden, and Peter Rosenblatt. 2012. ‘‘Why Don’t Vouchers parents to pass on class advantages to their Do a Better Job of Deconcentrating Poverty? children. Taken together, these two books Insights from Fieldwork with Poor Families.’’ convincingly demonstrate that neighbor- Poverty and Race 21:1–2, 9. hood effects are very real indeed, and that Duncan, Otis D. 1968. ‘‘Inheritance of Poverty or selection into advantaged and disadvan- Interitance of Race?’’ Pp. 85–110 in Daniel P. taged segments of the urban landscape is Moynihan, ed., Understanding Poverty. New not a confounding nuisance to be eliminated York, NY: Basic Books. Edin, Kathryn, Stefanie DeLuca, and Ann Owens. through randomization in a field experiment 2012. ‘‘Constrained Compliance: Solving the but is a core mechanism of stratification to be Puzzle of MTO’s Lease-Up Rates and Why modeled and understood in and of itself. Mobility Matters.’’ Cityscape: A Journal of Policy In 1968 Otis Dudley Duncan, writing from Development and Research 14(2):163–178. the perspective of the newly developed sta- Jencks, Cristopher, and Susan B. Mayer. 1990. tus attainment model, argued that ‘‘if we ‘‘The Social Consequences of Growing up in a Poor Neighborhood. Pp. 111–185 in Laurence could eliminate the inheritance of race, in E. Lynn and Michael G.H. McGeary, eds., Inner the sense of the exposure to the discrimina- City Poverty in the United States. Washington, tion experienced by Negroes, the inheritance DC: National Academies Press. of poverty in this group would take care of Ludwig, Jens. 2012. ‘‘Guest Editor’s Introduction: itself’’ (1968:103). His article, written in the Symposium on Moving to Opportunity.’’ City- same year the Fair Housing Act passed Con- scape: A Journal of Policy Development and Research 14(2):1–10. gress, was entitled ‘‘Inheritance of Poverty Massey, Douglas S., and Nancy A. Denton. 1985. or Inheritance of Race?’’ If he were writing ‘‘Spatial Assimilation as a Socioeconomic Out- today, a more appropriate title would be come.’’ American Sociological Review 50:94–105. ‘‘Inheritance of Poverty or Inheritance of ———. 1993. American Apartheid: Segregation and Place?’’ The more things change, the more the Making of the Underclass. Cambridge, MA: they stay the same. Harvard University Press. Polikoff, Alexander. 2006. Waiting for Gautreaux: A Story of Segregation, Housing, and the Black Ghet- to. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University References Press. Briggs, Xavier de Souza, Susan J. Popkin, and Quillian, Lincoln. 2012. ‘‘Segregation and Poverty John Goering. 2010. Moving to Opportunity: Concentration: The Role of Three Segrega- The Story of an American Experiment to Fight tions.’’ American Sociological Review 77(3): Ghetto Poverty. New York, NY: Oxford Univer- 354–379. sity Press. Rubinowitz, Leonard S., and James E. Rosenbaum. Clampet Lundquist, Susan, and Douglas 2000. Crossing the Class and Color Lines: From S. Massey. 2008. ‘‘Neighborhood Effects on Public Housing to White Suburbia. Chicago, IL: Economic Self-Sufficiency: A Reconsideration University of Chicago Press. of the Moving to Opportunity Experiment.’’ Sampson, Robert J. 2008. ‘‘Moving to Inequality: American Journal of Sociology 114(1):107–43. Neighborhood Effects and Experiments Meet Casciano, Rebecca, and Douglas S. Massey. 2012a. Social Structure.’’ American Journal of Sociology ‘‘Neighborhood Disorder and Anxiety Symp- 114:189–231. toms: New Evidence from a Quasi-Experimen- Wilson, William J. 1987. The Truly Disadvantaged: tal Study.’’ Health and Place 18(2):180–190. The Inner City, the Underclass, and Public Policy. Casciano, Rebecca and Douglas S. Massey. 2012b. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. ‘‘Neighborhood Disorder and Individual Eco- Wodtke, Geoffrey, David J. Harding, and nomic Self-sufficiency: New Evidence from Felix Elwert. 2011. ‘‘Neighborhood Effects in a Quasi-Experimental Study.’’ Social Science Temporal Perspective.’’ American Sociological Research 41(4):801–819. Review 76(5):713–736. Casciano, Rebecca and Douglas S. Massey. 2012c. ‘‘School Context and Educational Outcomes:

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Chicago as Seen by the Chicago School’s Greatest Practitioner

LINCOLN QUILLIAN Northwestern University [email protected]

Great American City: Chicago and the Enduring Neighborhood Effect is the rare example of Great American City: Chicago and the a highly anticipated book by a leading schol- Enduring Neighborhood Effect,byRobert ar that exceeds expectations. Combining J. Sampson. Chicago, IL: University of Robert Sampson’s observations with major Chicago Press, 2012. 534pp. $27.50 data collection on neighborhoods in Chicago cloth. ISBN: 9780226734569. and original analytic methods, the result is a compelling argument for the importance of place. Neither a purely theoretical nor massive, well-designed data collection and empirical study, Great American City is an state-of-the-art analyses that allow him to impressive model of how theory, data collec- test and refine these ideas. The amount of tion, and analytic methods can be combined data collected by Sampson’s research teams to the benefit of all three endeavors. is astonishing. The original data include The main agenda of Great American City is a longitudinal survey study that followed to demonstrate the importance of place of 3,800 families for seven years, a separate sur- residence on individual and collective life vey of more than 8,000 adults, a survey of in light of intellectual trends that have called 2,800 community leaders, data coded from the importance of place into question. street videotaping of thousands of blocks, ‘‘Place’’ in Great American City is location of an analysis of 30 years of newspaper residence within Chicago, meaning the accounts of collective action events, and neighborhood where an individual lives, results from a field experiment that dropped but also the supra-neighborhood context of more than 3,000 ‘‘lost’’ letters across neigh- location within the city’s larger geography. borhoods. Sampson also makes heavy use On the one hand, the role of place has been of data from the U.S. Censuses and from questioned by social scientists who take governmental sources. It seems likely this individual characteristics as key determi- is the most comprehensive set of data ever nants of lives and social position. On the oth- collected about a city over a brief span of er hand, the role of place has increasingly years. been questioned by theorists who posit that One of the book’s most distinctive pro- new technologies of communication and posals is that intersubjectively shared per- travel are making place increasingly irrele- ceptions of neighborhoods—perceptions vant to daily life. In response to these views, shared by residents about their own neigh- the book analyzes Chicago neighborhoods borhood—are important social facts that as a system of persistently unequal social strongly influence neighborhood life. Three contexts with powerful effects above and of these shared perceptions are developed beyond individual characteristics. Sampson in some detail: perceived neighborhood dis- argues that this system of unequal neighbor- order, collective efficacy, and moral and legal hood contexts has been very stable over cynicism. These perceptions are subjective, recent decades and strongly influences indi- but by combining survey responses from vidual lives. neighborhood residents, Sampson shows What makes Great American City so nota- them to be as measurable as basic demo- ble is not its claim that places matter— graphics like the neighborhood poverty many books and articles, of course, say as rate or age composition. Further, these col- much. Instead, Sampson’s innovative theo- lectively shaped perceptions are enacted in ries about why places matter are the book’s neighborhood life, and Sampson argues notable contributions, combined with that they form ‘‘cultural structures’’ with

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Downloaded from csx.sagepub.com at ASA - American Sociological Association on September 16, 2013 Symposia 697 a permanence and stability that influences in several Chicago neighborhoods, and neighborhood character in the long term. data on the rate of citizen CPR performed After an overview of the theoretical frame- by neighborhood residents. Altruism by work and data, the book develops a series of these measures is lower in more disadvan- chapters that mix theoretical ideas and taged communities. Finally, Sampson shows empirical analysis. Concluding chapters that altruism is inversely related to the rate synthesize and discuss the results. of homicides and the teen birth rate, and The analytical chapters begin with an his- positively related to moral and legal cyni- torical analysis of neighborhood inequality cism among residents. in Chicago from 1960 to the present. Samp- A later chapter extends place effects son shows there is remarkable stability in beyond the immediate neighborhood, show- the income levels of Chicago neighborhoods ing that characteristics of surrounding across this span of time: poor areas in 1960 neighborhoods often predict outcomes in are poor now, and affluent areas in 1960 the focal neighborhood (controlling also for are affluent now. Racial composition shows other focal neighborhood characteristics). more change, but only in one direction: Sampson then addresses the results of the some neighborhoods became blacker, but well-known Moving to Opportunity (MTO) not a single neighborhood transitions from experiment, arguing that the fact that many black to white. Majority black Chicago experimental group families stayed in or neighborhoods are much poorer on average near poor zones of the city accounts for than majority white neighborhoods. Eco- null effects of relocation on some outcomes, nomic position in the neighborhood eco- and this tendency itself reflects neighbor- nomic hierarchy can be said to be nearly hood effects on mobility. inherited and is deeply racialized. The final analytic chapters examine neigh- The book then turns to an analysis of borhood migration and connections among neighborhood influences on perceptions of neighborhood elites. Most interesting from disorder and crime. On perceived disorder, these is a migration analysis employing which is the perception of physical decay data on migration flows between all pairs and social rowdiness, Sampson shows that of neighborhoods, which allows an analysis more disorder is ‘‘seen’’ in more heavily of how similarities between neighborhoods black and Latino neighborhoods, even are related to the density of migration. The when actual measures of visible disorder most important characteristic guiding migra- are controlled. On crime, Sampson continues tion is distance, but Sampson also finds dis- his argument from past articles on the tinct clusters of movement between importance of collective efficacy: the combina- contiguous groups of neighborhoods defined tion of social cohesion among residents and by levels of disorder. shared expectations that residents will take If this sounds like a lot to pack into a single action in the face of threats to neighborhood manuscript, it is. The reader may need order. Sampson reports that collective efficacy a scorecard to keep track of all the empirical is a key characteristic explaining variations in results. Yet the book also does more: it pro- neighborhood crime. Neighborhood collective vides a history of the data-collection project efficacy explains both why poorer neighbor- that forms the basis of much of the book’s hoods have more crime and accounts for var- empirical analyses, the Project in Human iability in neighborhood crime independent of Development in Chicago Neighborhoods neighborhood poverty. (PHDCN); it provides a methodological Two less-studied outcomes the book con- treatise on the measurement of collective siders are neighborhood rates of collective phenomenon and their irreducibility to indi- action and social altruism. Collective civic vidual phenomenon; and it is punctuated by action events are much less strongly linked Sampson’s personal observations of Chi- to neighborhood race or poverty than the cago. Remarkably, Sampson mostly suc- other outcomes examined in the book. The ceeds at making these many analyses and chapter on altruism relies on novel data: discussions cohere into a single narrative, the rate of return of ‘‘lost letters’’ that Samp- always connecting findings and theories to son’s research team dropped on the ground key themes and arguments.

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What emerges from these analyses is the Strangely, in a work of such great scope, idea that Chicago neighborhoods can be the most notable limitations of Great Ameri- assessed along several key dimensions of can City are the elements of urban life that neighborhood social space that can explain receive little mention. The book has a strong their variations in levels of crime, perceived focus on informal neighborhood life and disorder, altruism, and several other out- mechanisms of neighborhood social control, comes. These major dimensions include the consistent with approaches of the ‘‘Chicago ‘‘usual suspects’’ of neighborhood socioeco- School.’’ With the exception of neighbor- nomic status (measured by income level or, hood organizations, formal institutions are inversely, by the poverty rate) and racial generally left out: there is little discussion composition. These two traditional dimen- of neighborhood businesses or metropolitan sions emerge as the most important overall. economic conditions, little discussion of But he shows that several other dimensions Chicago’s troubled public schools or their are also very important, including the per- private counterparts, and little discussion ceived level of disorder, collective efficacy, of city government or politics. moral/legal cynicism, and position in the In fairness, no study can cover everything, supra-neighborhood geography of Chicago. and it would not have been feasible to add Readers who are familiar with Sampson’s detailed consideration of these topics in articles published over the last 15 years will a volume that already covers a tremendous recognize many of the analyses and argu- amount. Surely, Sampson would agree these ments in Great American City. Many of the are important topics; instead, practical limits chapters repeat these arguments, but with lead to their omission or de-emphasis. Yet significant modifications. Put together, the when we think about the major neighbor- empirical chapters cumulatively build a per- hood outcomes which the book considers, suasive case for the importance of place and such as crime and migration, it is worth for the importance of the key dimensions of remembering that businesses, schools, and place which Sampson develops. One of the government are also important for these book’s most important themes, that the tem- neighborhood outcomes, although their poral stability of neighborhood socioeco- role is not explored in Great American City. nomic status is accounted for by the Likewise, the suburbs of Chicago receive stability of cultural structures and the geog- only a few brief mentions. Since the 1960s, raphy of supra-neighborhood spillover Chicago’s suburbs have expanded dramati- effects, is an argument only really developed cally, and two-thirds of the metropolitan in the book. population now lives in suburbs, many in Sampson’s empirical analyses are careful far outlying areas more than an hour’s drive and rigorous. Yet as well-done as they are, from the central city. Suburban expansion is they will likely not fully satisfy the high one of the most notable changes in the great- standards for causal proof held by our er Chicago landscape since 1960. The book most careful methodologists. Often it is diffi- rightly emphasizes the highly interdepen- cult to be sure that the intersubjective per- dent nature of urban life across distinct ceptions viewed as causes might not partly neighborhoods, but the interdependence of be the result of the outcomes a few years pri- the city and its suburbs, and the way in or. For instance, it seems plausible that vio- which these two parts form a system, each lent events in a neighborhood might make with a distinct role, is not considered. It respondents answer some collective efficacy seems likely that the heavily central-city res- survey questions in ways that indicate idence of the PHDCN sample in part dictat- reduced collective efficacy. Stability in ed the exclusive focus on the city proper. neighborhood violence levels over time, The lack of discussion of businesses, combined with this effect on the survey schools, government, and suburbs does not responses, might account for some of the undercut the key processes and arguments association Sampson finds. To his credit, he of the book, in my opinion, but they do illus- acknowledges these sorts of limitations. trate that the explanations of the book are But it remains possible to argue with the not fully complete. It is a testament to the causal story he presents. extent to which Great American City adopts

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Downloaded from csx.sagepub.com at ASA - American Sociological Association on September 16, 2013 Symposia 699 a modernized Chicago School of Sociology neighborhood hierarchy over time. Method- framework that one can reasonably apply ologically, the book also demonstrates the some of the longstanding criticisms of the considerable benefits of combining theoriz- Chicago School—in particular lack of atten- ing with detailed empirical evidence and tion to business interests and political pow- treating phenomena like the altruistic char- er—to the volume’s analysis, even if this acter at the neighborhood level. omission is driven more by practical than Great American City has an analytical principled concerns. depth and importance that place it among All future studies, however, will have the the most important works of sociology in considerable benefit of Great American City’s recent decades. It deserves a place alongside findings and example. The book will encour- two great modern classics in urban sociolo- age future authors to take seriously the gy: Massey and Denton’s American Apartheid collective mental life of neighborhoods, and W.J. Wilson’s The Truly Disadvantaged. showing that these can be measured rather Fittingly in a study of Chicago, the book con- than merely be the subject of speculative the- sistently employs a modernized Chicago orizing. The book argues persuasively for School of Sociology framework. Through intersubjective perceptions as important its publication, Sampson establishes himself dimensions of neighborhood context that as our modern Robert Park, and Great Amer- are distinct from the beliefs of individuals, ican City can be justly regarded as the most and that these perceptions and reputations sophisticated Chicago School study ever have become stable cultural structures produced. that contribute to the stability of the

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Downloaded from csx.sagepub.com at ASA - American Sociological Association on September 16, 2013