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Trajectories

Spring 2010 Newsletter of the ASA Comparative and Historical Sociology Section Volume 21, No. 2 ______

SECTION OFFICERS CONTENTS 2009-2010

Corruption and Regulation in the Economic Sphere, New Research (Jeffrey Kentor and Mat- Chair thew Sanderson)…..…………………………….1 Elisabeth S. Clemens University of Chicago Corruption and Regulation in the Economic Sphere, New Research (Lori Qingyuan Yue, Jiao Luo , and Paul Ingram)…………..…..………….5 Chair-Elect James Mahoney Author (Mabel Berezin) Meets Critics (George Brown University Ross, John Agnew, Andreas Wimmer, Dario Gaggio)……………………………..………….7 Past Chair Author (Jeffrey Haydu) Meets Critics (Larry Rebecca Emigh Isaac, Pamela Walker Laird, Ajay K. Mehotra, UCLA William Roy)………………………………….22

Identities (King-To Yeung) ………………...... 44 Secretary-Treasurer Identities (Joya Misra)………………………...45 Victoria Johnson University of Michigan Member Publications………………………….47 Awards………………………………………..50 Council Members Isaac Martin, UC San Diego (2012) Announcements & Workshops…....…………..50 Ivan Ermakoff, U Wisconsin (2012) In the next issue………………………….……52 Ming-Cheng Lo, UC Davis (2011) Jeff Haydu , UC San Diego (2011)

Marc Steinberg, Smith College (2010) Julian Go, Boston University (2010) Cory O’Malley (Student, 2010) Amy Kate Bailey (Student, 2009)

Newsletter Editors Emily Erikson, University of Massachusetts Isaac Reed, University of Colorado

Webmaster Robert Jansen, University of Michigan Trajectories Vol. 21, No.1 Fall 2009

Corruption and Regulation in the Economic Sphere, New Research Globalization, Corruption and Internal number of subsidiaries and foreign subsidiary Violence concentration , defined as the proportion of a host country’s foreign subsidiaries owned by the sin- gle largest investing country. In a forthcoming Jeffrey Kentor article (Kentor and Jorgenson 2010) we report University of Utah two key findings 1) the overall growth of foreign

subsidiaries accelerates economic development in Matthew Sander son LDCs and 2) relatively high levels of foreign sub- Lehigh University sidiary concentration inhibit the overall growth of

foreign subsidiaries, thus slowing economic Matt Sanderson and I are working on a cross- growth. national research project that explores the impact With this background now in place, we can of global processes of the world-economy on cor- proceed with an overview of our current work. ruption and violence in less developed countries (LDCs). Before giving a synopsis of this work in Globalization, Corruption and Internal Violence progress, however, a brief history of the research Globalization has been associated with the that set the stage for our current study may be rising importance of transnational corporations helpful. (TNCs) as significant actors in the global econo- my (Kentor 2005). The global expansion of TNC Background operations that began in earnest in the 1970s was, Our work is an extension of earlier research in part, facilitated by international financial insti- on the impact of foreign direct investment on tutions, which promoted widespread market libe- economic development in LDCs. This line of re- ralization and integration efforts under the rubric search began with Chase-Dunn’s (1975) empiri- of what is now commonly referred to as the cal work on the impact of foreign investment on “Washington Consensus.” Yet, as the first decade development. Chase-Dunn found that stocks of of the 21 st century comes to a close, the results of foreign investment inhibited economic growth in liberalization and integration are quite uneven. In less developed countries. Subsequent research by many LDCs, these efforts have failed to generate Firebaugh (1992, 1996), Dixon and Boswell significant improvements in living standards and (1996), de Soysa and Oneal (1999), among oth- in some, the results have been calamitous. Indeed, ers, was inconclusive, with findings on both sides many LDCs continue to confront significant im- of this argument. Terry Boswell and I took a dif- pediments to development, among the most im- ferent direction in 2003, arguing that the question portant of which are persistently high levels of of the impact of total foreign investment on de- government corruption and sustained internal vi- velopment was not a useful one; one more likely olence (Gleditsch et al. 2002). These outcomes to obscure rather than clarify the complexities of raise the question of whether there is a relation- foreign investment. We chose instead to decon- ship between economic integration, corruption, struct foreign investment, focusing on a new di- and internal violence in LDCs. mension that we referred to as foreign investment Our current project explores the extent to concentration ; the proportion of a host country’s which these phenomena are related. We focus foreign investment stocks owned by the single explicitly on the role of transnational corporate largest investing country. We found that, over expansion as a mechanism of global economic time, foreign investment concentration slows integration. These international headquarter- economic growth in LDCs. In more recent work, subsidiary linkages enable transnational corpora- our attention turned to foreign investment in tions to incorporate host countries into global cir- terms of organizations rather than capital, focus- cuits of accumulation. ing on the physical location of foreign subsidiar- Previous research has produced only mixed ies of transnational corporations. We considered results on the question of whether economic inte- two aspects of these subsidiaries; the overall gration is on balance beneficial or detrimental to 2 Trajectories Vol. 21, No.1 Fall 2009 internal political outcomes in less-developed country and “ foreign subsidiary concentration ”, countries. Proponents contend that integration the proportion of a host country’s foreign subsidi- reduces corruption and internal conflict primarily aries owned by the single largest investing coun- by stimulating economic growth. From this pers- try. pective, foreign investment is an indicator of Because TNCs exert control over the invest- “openness” (Hegre, Gleditsch, and Gissinger ment function, foreign investment connotes a 2003; Bussmann and Schneider 2007), which form of structural power. The ability to provide lowers the cost of capital, increases investment, investment capital and generate employment en- and provides technical knowledge and access to dows TNCs with significant influence in LDCs, modern technologies that are crucial for devel- where resources are relatively scarce. The sheer opment. Critics contend that integration increases scale of resources controlled by TNCs makes it internal conflict in LDCs. From this perspective, possible for these organizations to influence polit- foreign investment is an indicator of ical outcomes in host countries without explicit or “penetration,” or “de- concerted action. More- pendency” and it fur- over, the structural pow- ther extends developed er of TNCs is enhanced countries’ dominance Foreign investment and in contexts in which for- over LDCs. As foreign foreign subsidiary concen- eign investment is more investment assumes a concentrated, in terms of larger proportion of the trations exacerbate corrup- both capital and loca- domestic economy, it tion. In such contexts, inhibits economic tion by reducing state au- domestic economic and growth and promotes political elites confront uneven development tonomy both from without more integrated and uni- within the country (Di- and from within. From fied corporate interests. xon and Boswell 1996; The cohesiveness of Nielsen and Alderson without, it strengthens the these interests is further 1995, Kentor 1998, increased by the propen- 2000; Kentor and Bos- position of foreign actors sity of TNCs based in well 2003), raising in- the same country to have ternal political conflict vis-à-vis the state. From denser ties among (Dixon and Boswell boards of directors 1990). within, it strengthens the (Kentor and Jang 2004, The mixed results position of domestic elites Carroll and Fennema of previous studies may 2002, Useem 1984). reflect a failure to con- with ties to foreign capital. Thus, higher levels of sider the structural di- foreign capital and sub- mensions of integra- sidiary concentrations tion. Previous studies frame the question in terms provide a platform for foreign corporations to ex- of the level, or degree, of integration. However, ert greater influence over internal political- the theorized relationships between foreign in- economic dynamics in host countries. vestment and internal outcomes may be more ac- In these contexts, the state is weakened vis-à- curately assessed in terms of the structure of for- vis foreign interests, as state autonomy is reduced eign investment in a host country. Following pre- and the state’s capacity to implement policies that vious works in this area (Kentor and Boswell reflect citizens’ collective objectives is con- 2003; Kentor and Mielants 2007; Kentor and Jor- strained (Evans 1979, 1995). Foreign investment genson 2010) we focus on the two recently identi- and foreign subsidiary concentrations exacerbate fied aspects of foreign investment discussed corruption by reducing state autonomy both from above: “ foreign investment concentration”, the without and from within. From without, it streng- proportion of a host country’s foreign investment thens the position of foreign actors vis-à-vis the stocks owned by the single largest investing state. From within, it strengthens the position of 3 Trajectories Vol. 21, No.1 Fall 2009 domestic elites with ties to foreign capital. By Carroll, William K. and Meindert Fennema. reducing state capacity and undermining state le- 2002. "Is There a Transnational Business Com- gitimacy, corruption promotes political instability munity?" International Sociology 17:393-419. and ultimately higher levels of internal conflict. Chase-Dunn, Christopher. 1975. “The Effects of Our preliminary results from structural equa- International Economic Dependence on Devel- tion models using panel data from 1970 to 1995 opment and Inequality: A Cross-National Study.” support these hypotheses. Both concentration American Sociological Review 40, 720-38. measures seem to exacerbate internal violence Dixon, William J. and Terry Boswell. 1996. "De- through direct and indirect causal pathways. For- pendency, Disarticulation, and Denominator Ef- eign investment and foreign subsidiary concentra- fects: Another Look at Foreign Capital Penetra- tions in 1970 directly increase levels of internal tion." American Journal of Sociology 102:543- violence in 1995. Both measures also raise cor- 562. ruption levels in 1985, which in turn increases Evans, Peter. 1979. Dependent Development: The levels of internal violence in 1995. There is also Alliance of Multinational, State, and Local Capi- an interaction effect between the two concentra- tal in Brazil . Princeton: Princeton University tion measures. Countries with higher levels of Press. both foreign investment concentration and foreign —. 1995. Embedded Autonomy: States and Indus- subsidiary concentration have higher levels of trial Transformation , Edited by Anonymous. internal violence. Princeton: Princeton University Press. We would like to close by highlighting the Firebaugh, Glenn. 1992. “Growth Effects of For- following conclusions. Internal conflicts plaguing eign and Domestic Investment.” many less-developed countries are not solely, or American Journal of Sociology: 98 (1) 105-30. even primarily, explained by domestic factors, but __. 1996. "Does Foreign Capital Harm Poor Na- are instead associated with a particular form of tions? New Estimates Based on Dixon and Bos- global economic integration. Specifically, it is not well's Measures of Capital Penetration." Ameri- economic integration per se but the structure of can Journal of Sociology 102:563-575. economic integration that seems to affect the pre- Gleditsch, Nils Petter, Peter Wallensteen, Mikael valence of internal conflicts. Further, corruption Eriksson, Margareta Sollenberg, and Havard is a significant mediator of this relationship. More Strand. 2002. "Armed Conflict 1946-2001: A broadly, our work encourages a re-framing of the New Dataset." Journal of Peace Research conventional question of whether global econom- 39:615-637. ic integration is, on balance, positive or detrimen- Hegre, Havard, Ranveig Gissinger, and Nils Pet- tal for development, towards more nuanced and ter Gleditsch. 2003. "Globalization and Internal potentially more fruitful questions that explore Conflict." Pp. 251-276 in Globalization and how the organizational composition and structure Armed Conflict , edited by G. Schneider, K. Bar- of globalization affect factors that impede or bieri, and N. P. Gleditsch. New York, NY: Row- promote development outcomes. man and Littlefield. Kentor, Jeffrey. 1998. "The Long Term Effects of References: Foreign Investment Dependence on Economic Alderson, Arthur S. and Francois Nielsen. 1999. Growth, 1940-1990." American Journal of Soci- "Income Inequality, Development, and Depen- ology 103:1024-1048. dence: A Reconsideration." American Sociologi- —. 2000. Capital and Coercion: The Economic cal Review 64:606-631. and Military Processes That Have Shaped the Boswell, Terry and William J. Dixon. 1990. "De- World-Economy, 1800-1990 . New York, NY: pendency and Rebellion: A Cross-National Anal- Garland Press. ysis." American Sociological Review 55:540-559. —. 2005. "The Growth of Transnational Corpo- Bussmann, Margit and Gerald Schneider. 2007. rate Networks: 1962–1998." Journal of World- "When Globalization Discontent Turns Violent: Systems Research 11:263-286. Foreign Economic Liberalization and Internal Kentor, Jeffrey and Terry Boswell. 2003. "For- War." International Studies Quarterly 51:79-97. eign Capital Dependence and Development: A

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New Direction." American Sociological Review Reserve, that was created to stabilize the banking 68:301-313. industry (Friedman and Schwartz, 1963) or, at Kentor, Jeffrey and Yong Suk Jang. 2004. "Yes, least, by the elimination of preexisting institu- There Is a (Growing) Transnational Business tions that would have limited the persistence or Community: A Study of Global Interlocking Di- severity of the banking crisis (Gorton 1988). Af- rectorates 1983-98." International Sociology ter the Great Depression, stricter government reg- 19:355-368. ulation and deposit insurance institutions were Kentor, Jeffrey and Andrew Jorgenson. 2010. enacted, but they also have not been successful in “Foreign Investment and Development: An Orga- preventing banking crises. Instead, on the basis of nizational Perspective.” International Sociology banking crises since the Great Depression, many 25 (3): 1-23. scholars argue that government regulations that Kentor, Jeffrey and Eric Mielants. 2007. “Con- were designed to maintain depositors’ confidence necting the Global and the Local: The Impact of and prevent bank runs have served as the very Globalization on Civil Society,” in Mark Herke- culprit that creates the banking instability, falling nrath (ed.), Civil Society: Local and Regional under the curse of a classic moral hazard prob- Responses to Global Challenges. Muenster Ger- lem—insured actors tend to take more risks (Ely, many: LIT Verlag. 1999; Ahrens, 2008). Soysa, Indra de and John R. Oneal. 1999. "Boon Given the obvious inadequacy of government or Bane? Reassessing the Productivity of Foreign regulations in preventing and eliminating bank Direct Investment." American Sociological Re- panics, could private arrangements? Before the view 64:766-782. advancement of government regulations, the Useem, Michael. 1984. The Inner Circle: Large commercial banks in the U.S. had a private regu- Corporations and the Rise of Business Political lation system called the clearing house, a city- Activity in the U.S. And U.K. Oxford: Oxford based self-governance among commercial banks. University Press. The historical background of this private regula- tion system is the ideology of community inde- pendence and the anti-branching legislations, which resulted in thousands of small, single-unit, The Clearing House: A Private Solution and undiversified banks throughout this country. to Bank Panics Local banks, sharing a commons of market confi- dence, were motivated to collectively avoid and Lori Qingyuan Yue lessen bank panics. Columbia Business School We investigated the efficacy of the New York Clearing House Association (NYCHA), the oldest Jiao Luo and also the largest clearing house of the country, Columbia Business School in affecting the survival and operational risk of the commercial banks in Manhattan from 1840 to Paul Ingram 1980. Besides serving as an intermediate for Columbia Business School check clearing among banks, the NYCHA offered emergency loans and provided deposit coinsur- The history of the U.S. banking industry is regu- ance during bank panics. Once a panic struck, the larly dotted with short panics. During the one NYCHA organized an emergent loan committee hundred years between 1814 and 1914, before the that facilitated mutual lending and issued loan Federal Reserve was created, there were at least certificates to stressed members so that they could thirteen major panics (Calomiris and Gorton, survive bank panics. The NYCHA also issued 1991). The founding of the Federal Reserve did loan certificates directly to bank depositors in ex- not stop bank panics. Just fifteen years after the change for demand deposits. These small deno- Federal Reserve was founded, the Great Depres- mination loan certificates could be redeemed for sion occurred. Many scholars argue that the pan- cash in any NYCHA member banks after a panic. ics during the 1930s were explicable by the per- In this way, NYCHA provided deposit insurance nicious role of the very institution, the Federal for its member banks. We found that these coop- 5 Trajectories Vol. 21, No.1 Fall 2009 erative efforts significantly reduced the failure eral Reserve is governed by and implements regu- rates of the NYCHA member banks, even after lation through public administration agencies, controlling for the selection bias of the NYCHA which may not only have an agency problem but membership. also lack direct knowledge of the industry. More- To prevent individual member banks from over, the operation of public institutions may lack engaging in risky operations and taking advantage flexibility. The enlarged scale of regulation of the goodwill of others, the NYCHA adopted a makes it difficult for members to monitor each set of monitoring strategies. Moreover, we found other. These conditions create opportunities for that social structures played an important role in some member banks to free-ride on others by en- ensuring these strategies were effective. Since the gaging into risky operations. Since the survival NYCHA was composed of a relatively small benefits derived from curbing bank runs may not number of local banks, close monitoring was overweigh the negative effects produced by risky feasible. Moreover, the geographical proximity operation, we found that banks affiliated with the increased frequency of exposure and facilitated Federal Reserve and the FDIC did not have sig- the formation of a high level of closure (Cole- nificant survival advantages, but they were more man, 1988; Uzzi, 1996). Generally, closure deters likely to engage into risky operation. defection, because defectors are not only easily Our investigation of the clearing house sug- identified but also risk the loss of various types of gests that private institutions are not only viable community connections. Frequency of social inte- but also may outperform public institutions under raction facilitates the formation of friendship, certain circumstances. The idea of organizing pri- kinship, and status, which may motivate altruistic vate cooperation is not an artifact of the nine- behaviors. Closure among elite bankers was espe- teenth century political economy, but has cially important as they controlled the liquidity emerged as a potential solution in the recent fi- underlying the use of the clearing house loan cer- nancial crisis. On the day Lehman Brothers an- tificates. Club affiliations had played an impor- nounced bankruptcy, 10 major U.S. banks imme- tant role in consolidating the banking elites diately organized an emergency loan fund to (Beckert, 2001), because New York City has tra- which each contributes $7 billion and from which ditionally been an immigrant city and the capital- they can tap if they experienced a Lehman Broth- ist class has diverse origins (Kessner, 2003). We ers-type crisis of liquidity (Andrews, 2008). This found that the NYCHA functioned better in re- case exemplifies that even today private coopera- ducing its members’ failure rates and in reducing tion may still serve as a substitute for government their operational risks when the elite bankers’ action. Our research may inform debates as to just club-affiliation network was denser. when such substitution may be effective or desir- At the end of the nineteenth century, as the able. national economy flourished, it became increa- singly difficult for the city-based clearing houses References: to maintain market order. The Federal Reserve Ahrens, Frank. 2008. "Moral Hazard: Why Risk was established in 1914 to replace the city clear- Is Good." in The Washington Post . ing house as the lender of last resort. The Federal Andrews, Edmund L. 2008. "Fed Loosens Stan- Reserve institutionalized loan certificates and dards on Emergency Loans." in New York Times . built a “discount window,” through which the Re- Beckert, Sven. 2001. The monied metropolis: serve Bank extends liquidity to member banks. New York City and the consolidation of the Amer- The NYCHA reverted to its initial function, clear- ican bourgeoisie, 1850-1896 . Cambridge, UK: ing checks between member banks. The Federal Cambridge University Press. Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) was Calomiris, Charles W., and Gary Gorton. 1991. created in 1934 and provides deposit insurance "Origins of Banking Panics: Models, Facts, and and guarantees the safety of deposits in member Bank Regulation." Pp. 93-163 in Financial Mar- banks. kets and Financial Crises , edited by Glenn Hub- Although these public institutions have func- bard. tions similar to those of the clearing house, they are also different in important aspects. The Fed- 6 Trajectories Vol. 21, No.1 Fall 2009

Coleman, James S. 1988. "Social Capital in the political parties in Europe more generally, mak- Creation of Human Capital." American Journal of ing her move into such occupied territories a cou- Sociology 94:95-120. rageous act. And despite the library of research Ely, Bert. 1999. "Regulatory moral hazard: The that she had to deal with—very well, in fact— real moral hazard in Federal Deposit Insurance." mainly from electoralist political scientists and The Independent Review IV:241-254. social movement specialists, Berezin makes a Friedman, Milton, and Anna Jacobson Schwartz. contribution that is novel and useful. “Populism,” 1963. A Monetary History of the United States, a term constantly used to discredit loud protest 1867-1960 : Princeton University Press. groups that elites do not like, has always been Gorton, Gary. 1988. "Banking panics and busi- best studied by those with a historical bent. Bere- ness cycles." Oxford Economic Papers 40:751- zin is a sociologically well trained social histo- 781. rian, and like the best of these, brings a unique Kessner, Thomas. 2003. Capital city: New York sensitivity to aspects of history that political City and the men behind America's rise to eco- scientists have often overlooked. nomic dominance, 1860-1900 . New York, NY: The backbone of the book is a very special Simon & Schuster. historical narrative of the FN in recent years. Uzzi, B. 1996. "The sources and consequences of What makes it stand out is Berezin’s sharp ethno- embededdness for the economic performance of graphic eye for the cultural and sub-cultural sides organizations: The network effect." American So- of things. Groups like the FN feel very strongly ciological Review 1996:674-698. about their issues. They are not the simple politi- cal utility maximizers that political science as- sumes parties to be these days. They trade in Book Symposia emotions as well as ideas and they are unusually sensitive to the performative side of politics. Jean-Marie le Pen, the leader of the FN who is Illiberal Politics in Neoliberal Times: now in his eighties, may come as close to a cha- Culture, Security and Populism in the rismatic leader (and a crypto-fascist one at that) New Europe by Mabel Berezin (Cambridge as one finds in French politics these days. He University Press, 2009) honed his skills in the French far-right of the 1950s whose base was social groups (often lower Mabel Berezin’s new book was the subject of an middle class and rural) who felt constantly be- Author Meets Critics panel organized by Marga- trayed by elites, sold out in the Indochinese and ret Somers at the 2009 SSHA annual meeting in Algerian wars, ignored by Charles de Gaulle, Long Beach, CA. What follows are the comments deeply hurt by the wrenching effects of rapid of the four critics (George Ross, John Agnew, economic modernization, and scorned by liberal Andreas Wimmer, and Dario Gaggio) and a re- priests and uppity young people, to list only a few sponse by the author. of the more sensitive points. Le Pen, a former pa- ratrooper in Algeria who supported Algérie Française and mingled enthusiastically with dan- gerous anti-democratic (and often anti-semitic) Comments by George Ross figures, has always been blessed with a great ora- University of Montreal torical eloquence infused with harsh ironic mock- Brandeis University ery that can ably portray elite figures as arrogant Harvard University manipulators constantly turning their backs on ordinary virtuous citizens. Even people who des- Mabel Berezin’s Illiberal Politics in Neoliberal pise Le Pen know how good a rhetorical show he Times: Culture, Security and Populism in the can put on. He is also an extraordinarily talented New Europe (2009) casts a fresh new light on the organizer who has been capable of integrating a French Front National . The book is both very legion of tireless true believing activists, seducing brave and very good. It is brave because there is a skilled apparatchiks, and finding lots of money to vast literature on the FN and ‘Right extremist’ build, staff, and finance the Front. Moreover, he 7 Trajectories Vol. 21, No.1 Fall 2009 has had a nose for issues to peddle. After appeals France has been chronically multi-partisan, about colonial betrayals wore out and France undoubtedly since political parties were first in- turned the corner to its modern prosperity, it was vented. This means that there have been hard Le Pen who successfully tapped Europe’s anti- right, loud-mouthed, and anti-democratic political immigrant hatred, the FN’s stock in trade to to- formations around for a very long time, often as day. serious players. The FN is only the most recent Berezin conveys all of this with great skill, iteration, therefore, and differs mainly from earli- speech-by-speech, campaign after campaign, dif- er contenders because it is now no longer polite ferent Fêtes Bleu-Blanc-Rouges , and other signif- to be openly against democratic institutions. The icant movement events. Her special sociological French Fifth Republic was carefully designed to gifts are finding and describing the performative constrain small parties like the FN away from de- ways and tools which this kind of leader used to structive cacophony into simpler Left and Right touch people through highly-charged spectacles coalitions, in part by creating a regime in which he was able to generate. Reading the text one can election to the very powerful presidency was the feel almost viscerally the spontaneous and con- real key to power. This means that for a long time trived expressions that initially electrified the raw prior to all-important presidential elections the nerves of the estranged and betrayed of the older most plausible – usually centrist – parties whose French far right and, more recently, the estranged candidates have the best chance of winning must and betrayed former far left, orphans of the col- try to build coalitions from their divided Left or lapse of French Communism and the centrist Right families. These arrangements have consis- politics of French socialists in power. Berezin tently given more extreme parties, who often places this dense story into a deeper comparative have had veto power over electoral success, a historical analysis, using the Italian case. The great deal of power over election prospects. central concept here is the ‘consolidation regime,’ Groups like the National Front (or the French which refers to different European paths to na- Communist Party, to choose a historic example tional integration with their varying consequences from the left) thus can influence programs and for individual identities and their relationships outcomes. These groups are significant not only with nations (see Table 2.2). Unusually strong for what they are , but also for what their exis- states building on strong nations like France (in tence implies for other key players and to the sys- contrast to Italy) create powerful national collec- tem. tive identities. These identities, in turn, become This is not a trivial point and Berezin does not fields for unending political disagreement around emphasize it enough. Let me give a few exam- what the strong nation should be and what consti- ples. The FN made its initial breakthrough in lo- tutes the most important threats to it. Identities cal elections in 1983, just after the Left in power are both ‘scripts’ and emotions, Berezin argues had renounced its key campaign promises, turned effectively. to severe austerity, and was threatened with elec- Berezin does well at uncovering the strate- toral collapse, in consequence. President Mitter- gies and shifts in the FN’s development since it rand, hoping to limit the inevitable success of the came first to prominence in 1983, when it won Right in the 1986 legislative elections so that he the Mayoral election in Dreux on a harsh anti- would stand a chance of re-election in 1988, immigrant program. She traces the FN’s events changed the electoral law to introduce a form of extremely well through to the traumatic moment proportional representation. His goal was to give when Le Pen came in second to Jaques Chirac in the FN the possibility of winning a large number the 2002 presidential election and then played an of seats away from the opposition center-right, important role in the victory of ‘no’ votes in the which it did. This cut the center-right’s majority 2005 referendum to ratify the European Constitu- down considerably, giving Mitterrand new space tional Treaty. There are a few oversights worth to rebuild his own position, and helped him win noting, however. In particular, she downplays the in 1988. It also gave the National Front a huge partisan and institutional contexts within which political success that it would not have had oth- the FN has lived and which have helped shape its erwise. Later, in the 2002 presidential elections, destinies. Lionel Jospin, the Prime Minister and Socialist 8 Trajectories Vol. 21, No.1 Fall 2009 candidate, ran a very bad campaign, neglecting their strength, their fit in national politics, what the fundamental task of building a left coalition their national institutions look like, and the other around his candidacy for the initial primary and issues they may espouse beyond nationalist xeno- instead running as if he were already in the final phobia. Indeed most are also anti-EU, like the runoff against Jacques Chirac. This, plus the un- FN. But the overwhelming weight of their appeal popularity of Chirac, again handed the FN a large is against immigrants. electoral gift which it might otherwise not have If a deep cause is needed for all this beyond had when Le Pen – barely – received more prima- widespread European xenophobia, it might be ry votes than Jospin. Similar things might be said wiser to seek it in the profound economic changes about the 2005 referendum and the intelligent an- that have occurred since the crisis of the 1970s, ti-FN strategy of Nicolas Sarkozy, who shrewdly which ended what the French called the ‘thirty co-opted the immigration issue from the FN in his glorious years’ of growth and reform after World 2007 campaign. The general point here is that the War II. Mass unemployment and low economic successes and failures of the National Front have growth have been preoccupying issues since then, often been determined well beyond its own intel- feeding widespread insecurity in France. Globali- ligent choice of mobilizing issue – anti- zation, including the out-migration of manufac- immigration – and its own often brilliant leader- turing to emerging markets, a newly tentacular ship and mobilizing strategies. To use an analyti- financial system, and mass economic migration cal term central to scholars of social movements, towards wealthier countries, has probably been the FN has also been a creature, sometimes fortu- the most important underlying process at work. In nate, other times less so, of the “political oppor- France, elites of left and right have been power- tunity structures” created by French institutions less to ward off the chronic threats of globaliza- and the strategies and tactics of key players with- tion to labor markets and social programs. More- in them. over, they, like everyone else, came to be infected Berezin, looking for a deeper historical cause by neo-liberalism, even if French statism some- for the National Front’s saga, seizes upon the times masked this. The EU has been part of these growing significance of the EU and Europeaniza- globalizing processes, albeit usually following tion in French national life. Here is where I disag- rather than leading. But the deep cause of the FN, ree with her most. No one would deny the cen- if this is what we want to speculate about, lies trality of Europeanization for the French, from somewhere else. Jean Monnet and General de Gaulle through Ni- colas Sarkozy. It is also obvious that a hard na- tionalist political formation like the FN will op- pose the EU as a matter of course and use it as a Comments by John Agnew central issue in campaigning whenever useful – as University of California, Los Angeles it did, for example, in the 2005 French referen- dum on the European Consitutitonal Treaty. Still, Based largely on the growth of right-wing po- the primary stock in trade of the FN remains as it pulism in France since the 1980s but with an in- has always been, anti-immigration, as its long- triguing supplement on the rise of a new right in time slogan ‘French first’ indicates. The FN was a Italy in a slightly later period, Mabel Berezin ar- pioneer in this ignominious struggle, targeting gues that rather than being primarily about xeno- France’s large North African Islamic diaspora. phobic anti-immigrant politics, as in most pre- But it has not been alone, however. There are vious accounts, the new European illiberalism is similar anti-immigrant nationalist parties all over much more a direct result of “Europeanization.” Europe – Haider and the Austrian Freedom Party, It is, therefore, a historical “surprise” springing List Pim Fortuyn in the Netherlands, the Swiss from the perceived erosion of the postwar “world People’s Party, Umberto Bossi and the Lega of security” provided by nation-states in the face Nord, Pia Kjaersgaard and the Danish People’s of a growing and increasingly neoliberal Euro- Party, the Vlaams Belang, the Norwegian pean Union (EU) and not simply the recapitula- Progress Party, the British National Party, and a tion of older fascist, nationalist, and anti-foreign number of others. These groups are different in impulses. The argument relies on a series of fas- 9 Trajectories Vol. 21, No.1 Fall 2009 cinating and oft overlooked points I haven’t seen laborator Maurice Papon, also brought back connected previously. After noting these as best I memories of French collaboration with the Nazis can, I want to raise some questions that reading and, in some cases, defensive reactions to them. the book raised for me that could serve as ele- In this context, the claim of the French rightwing ments in future debate over the origins and course party, The National Front , to represent neither of right-wing/nationalistic politics in contempo- left not right but all of “the French” took on a par- rary Europe. ticular significance. So, just as borders across Eu- One of the book’s central claims is that Euro- rope were “thinning,” so some national identities peanization has “compromised the bonds of dem- were undergoing a degree of “thickening” (p. ocratic empathy and provided an opportunity for 216). But this was much more the case in a coun- rightwing populists to articulate a discourse of try such as France with its “hegemonic consolida- fear and insecurity” (p. 8). This has happened not tion regime” (a long history of a strong state and simply because ordinary, largely working-class, associated national identity) than, for example, in people have seen themselves increasingly disad- Italy with its “flexible consolidation regime” (in- vantaged materially relative to a new class of competent state and weak national identity) or “Euro-stars” who can cash in on the new oppor- many Eastern European states with “brittle con- tunities provided for those with the education and solidation regimes” (bureaucratic states with skills to profit from the new “borderless” Europe weak national identities). It is not that these oth- but also because a whole series of “events” have ers have been without populist movements. But drawn symbolic attention to their plight. As in these cases, as illustrated by Italy, there has against a theoretical logic been a need to stir up a that emphasizes political national or regional parties and social move- The typical narrative about identity upon which to ments, therefore, Mabel base a new insecurity Berezin sees key symbol- rightwing European popul- rather than simply pre- ic events with emotional ism as an unsurprising and sume a settled national resonance as crucial to the one, as in the case of rise of the new rightwing straightforward reaction to France. politics. Events set in The typical narrative train a whole series of foreign immigration is simp- about rightwing Euro- path dependencies that a ly upended by this analysis. pean populism as an focus on parties or unsurprising and movements would possi- There should be no going straightforward reaction bly miss. Unlikely elec- back to that as a singular to foreign immigration tion successes, surprising- is simply upended by ly resonant populist explanation. this analysis. There speeches and gatherings, should be no going back and the advent of EU di- to that as a singular ex- rectives subject to harsh public lampooning are planation. Questions do remain. I can suggest a examples of such generative events. At the same number. For one thing, I have some trouble labe- time, the political left entered into a well-noted ling all European rightwing parties and move- era of disorientation and decline by lurching in- ments as “populist.” The usage strikes me as too coherently between “third ways” and older ideo- American in provenance. Some of the European logical commitments that, after the miners’ strike movements are more conservative/national in in Britain in 1984, no longer appealed so much to orientation (e.g. the French National Front and either the old industrial working class or the new the Italian National Alliance) whereas others middle classes of metropolitan Europe. Historic come closer to the populist label (e.g. the Italian events hitherto without much political reverbera- Northern League and the British UKIP) in their tion in postwar Europe, such as the trial of the emphasis on government “corruption” and “elit- World War II Nazi administrator Klaus Barbie in ism.” I also think that foreign immigration is still 1987 and ten years later the trial of the Nazi col- of tremendous significance, particularly for the 10 Trajectories Vol. 21, No.1 Fall 2009 more populist and racist movements, not just as a has largely replaced the older anti-Jewish senti- trigger but as an issue around which to organize ments. all their other positions on the economy and poli- There is undoubtedly a New Right abroad in tics. The frequently expressed fear of “swamp- Europe. Europeanization as described by Mabel ing” by immigrants emphasized by leaders such Berezin provides an innovative theoretical re- as Le Pen from the French National Front is in- framing for understanding how this has devel- structive. So, even if the EU is implicated as oped since the 1980s. What remains in question is enabling and encouraging population mobility more its relative sufficiency than its overall ne- across national borders, it is the immigrants cessity. That constitutes both a significant refram- themselves who are viewed as undermining the ing and an important accomplishment. existing cultural order and threatening the eco- nomic interests of the locals. Certainly, the ex- ample of Switzerland lends pause to whole- hearted adoption of the Europeanization thesis as Comments by Andreas Wimmer adequate in and of itself in explaining what is University of California, Los Angeles clearly in the Swiss case (recall, not a member state of the EU) much more a sense of the distur- Events or occurrences? bance of everyday life introduced particularly by There is much to be liked about Mabel Bere- immigrants who have substantial cultural differ- zin’s new book. It is accessibly written, and has ences from the locals. an eventful pace that not only matches well with Beyond these questions about the overall ade- its theoretical program, about which I will say quacy of the “Europeanization thesis,” I would more further below, but also keeps the reader en- also raise a few questions about the nature of the tertained. Before our eyes, a breathless sequence new illiberalism when compared to historic varie- of dramas unfolds, a series of million-men protest ties of rightwing political movements, such as marches in Paris and elsewhere in France, fired those widespread in interwar Europe. One is the up by passionate speeches; surprising election extent to which the new ones draw on working- results that shake the political establishment in class support. Famously, interwar fascism was France and Europe, the even more surprising out- middle class in terms of its social base. The fear comes of a soccer match feeding into the political of socio-economic eclipse by a disreputable dynamics, grand European institution building working class led to support for fascist and Nazi combined with petty electoral calculus and fac- parties. This difference draws attention to the tional fights. All of this blends together into a dramatic decline in the fortunes of leftwing poli- fascinating narrative of the rise, the fall, a re- tics in contemporary Europe since the 1970s. newed rise, and the final fall of the electoral for- Mabel Berezin draws attention to this at the out- tunes of Jean-Marie Le Pen’s Front National in set of her book but it seems to get lost in the sub- France. sequent analysis. The end of the Cold War and The book is also to be commended for the the decline of many of the industries in which high standards of craftwomenship; it is carefully leftwing parties were embedded probably explain written, with much attention paid to the details of some of the decline in support for the left. An how these various event chains link with each important feature of old school European other, and a quite unusual restraint in dealing rightwing nationalism was its anti-Semitism. By with potentially divisive issues. Most remarkably, and large the new movements are also not only the author never lets her disdain for Le Pen’s Na- significantly less anti-Semitic than their historic tional Front cloud her analytical vision and preci- precursors, a number of them, like the radical sion. right in the US, are philo-Semitic and pro-Israel. The mélange of historical narratives that form There is undoubtedly an interesting story here the core of the book is held together by a twofold having to do with the model Israel provides as a analytical movement. The first is of a decidedly militant “nation-state” in a hostile region but also structuralist or perhaps rather institutionalist na- with the fact that hostility to Muslim immigrants ture. The other analytical movement is narrativist and historist (not historicist), advocating for the 11 Trajectories Vol. 21, No.1 Fall 2009 causal importance of events that steer societies cal evidence to support this hypothesis is pretty onto unforeseeable paths of political develop- solid. ment. Let me briefly address the institutionalist But let me turn to the second and more impor- argument first. tant analytical movement that holds this book to- Berezin argues that to understand xenophobic gether. It consists in an attempt to re-cast our un- populism, we need to first understand the institu- derstanding of Le Pen’s rise and fall as an event- tionalized compact between states and societies in ful history in the Sewellian sense. This means Europe. These compacts rely on the idea and that Mabel embarks upon a search for events that practice of national solidarity. The nation is thus were recognized by participants as meaningful far more than a mere imagined community, as the and dramatic, and that changed the structural proverbial formulation of Benedict Anderson has conditions that gave rise to the event in the first it. It is also an institutional reality: National citi- place. Building on Sewell, Mabel frames events zenship binds the population together and into a as “templates of possibilities” that open up vari- contract of solidarity with a state. These corporat- ous paths of possible futures that may or may not ist, welfarist arrangements have emerged from the be taken by powerful social actors, a clear rebut- ashes of the European wars of the 19 th and 20 th tal of path dependency theory. I had difficulties century and have given Europeans, Berezin ar- with this argument and its execution in the analy- gues, a high degree of comfort, predictability and sis of Le Pen for three reasons: security in the post-war era. Right-wing populism First, this understanding of history as event- emerges when this security becomes endangered ful, unpredictable, contingency-driven is the op- because the national compact is eroding. Accord- posite of the institutionalist argument that I sum- ing to Berezin, globalization and Europeaniza- marized above. You cannot say history is driven tion, that is, the transfer of sovereignty from na- by large-scale, slow moving forces such as the tion-states to the European Union, are the two emergence of certain institutional-ideological re- forces that are responsible for this development. gimes and say that history is unforeseeably devel- Conformingly, the rise of Le Pen’s movement is oping à l’impromptu , whimsically pushed into the set against the backdrop of the process of Euro- future by autonomous agents. pean integration and the globalization that came Secondly and perhaps more importantly, I was with the fall of the Berlin Wall. never quite clear what the events were that had an It is easy to convince me of this line of argu- eventful character. In the main body of the text, it ment, not the least because it parallels my own seemed to me that the French victory in the soc- writings on populist and xenophobic movements cer world cup, the fall of the Berlin Wall, and that were published from the mid-nineties on- 9/11 were treated as the contingent events that wards (cf. Wimmer 1997). I would only raise a shaped the trajectory of Le Pen’s party. In the fi- question mark regarding the exact mechanisms nal chapters, however, the party congress in that trigger populist nationalism. I think Europea- Strasbourg and the anti-Le Pen mobilization that nization and globalization are too specific. There it produced, the decline of the party’s fortune af- are right-wing populist movements in societies ter it split into two rival factions, and the subse- outside the European Union, such as the US, quent surprise success in the Presidential elec- Norway or Switzerland, and there were right- tions of 2002 are the eventful events. Determin- wing populist movements before the recent ad- ing which events count as eventful is far from vent of globalization or the empowerment of the trivial, of course, since the idea of eventfulness is EU, such as in Britain under Enoch Powell, in only meaningful if you can distinguish events Switzerland under James Schwarzenbach and in from simple occurrences, the things that happen Germany with the rise the National-Partei Deut- but are neither considered consequential by actors schlands. The mechanisms that lead to the emer- nor change the structural forces that operate in a gence of right-wing populism therefore have to be society, but rather tend to reproduce them in new cast in more general terms. I have suggested look- forms. So which of the candidate events meet this ing at downward social mobility as the main driv- criterion of eventfulness? er of right-wing populism, and I think the empiri- Let me assume for now that the dramatic cli- maxes in the party’s history represent the crucial 12 Trajectories Vol. 21, No.1 Fall 2009 events. But how far is this story eventful in the found a new political home in Sarkozy’s center- sense of the author? It seems to me that a much right party. That’s a story full of events and con- simpler reading of these developments, one that tingency, because Le Pen’s youngest daughter does not embrace the Sewellian notion of event- might have been a more gifted populist than she fulness, is at least as convincing. It’s the story of is or Sarkozy might never have been born. It’s the steady rise of a populist movement, driven by very unsurprising, however, because we know downward social mobility that the post-Fordist that populism without charismatic leadership age ushered in France as elsewhere, and its fall as does not go very far. soon as its charismatic leadership is weakened. While there are thus, as always in politics, All weakly institutionalized, populist movements plenty of contingent events that shape the course depend on leadership. They will not take off of history, I remain unconvinced that any of these without leadership, and they will decline when events are indeed eventful enough to qualify as leadership is split, or when leaders disappear. So “templates of possibility” in Berezin’s terms, let’s review the history of the Front’s rise and fall moments of historical opening that changed the from this point of view and compare it to the Se- very forces that gave rise to the populist move- wellian reading that Berezin is offering. Le Pen is ment in France. The story is full of occurrences, the charistmatic leader that allows the movement to put my criticism in shortest possible terms, but to take off. This is undoubtedly connected to seems to be quite uneventful. events, because Le Pen might as well not have been born or killed when fighting for the Foreign Wimmer, Andreas. 1997. "Explaining racism and Legion against Vietnamese independence, but I xenophobia. A critical review of current research doubt it is an eventful event by Berezin’s own approaches", in Ethnic and Racial Studies 20 standards. (1):17-41. The counter-rallies by anti-Le Pen forces, such as in Strasbourg, strike me as quite unevent- ful too, since the rise of populist parties is ac- companied by left-leaning counter-mobilizations Comments by Dario Gaggio wherever you go. When the party splits, the University of Michigan movement does badly in elections. That is an event indeed, since Le Pen and his second in First off, let me preface these comments by say- command, Bruno Mégret, might as well have got- ing that I won’t have much to contribute to Mabel ten along just fine and prevented a fratricidial Berezin’s penetrating analysis of the rise and fall electoral war. It is not eventful, however, because of Le Pen and the French National Front. Since a split movement is always weaker than a unified I’m a historian of modern Italy, I will focus my one and nothing about the outcome of the subse- comments on the shadow case of Italy and its quent elections is surprising. treatment in Berezin’s book, but I will also try The movement regains strength at the polls, in and keep the European context in the foreground. the presidential elections of 2002, mostly because I found Berezin’s focus on events a brilliant the left was hopelessly split between various pres- methodological move, which truly serves her well idential candidates after the Plural Left alliance of in pushing forward the debate on right-wing po- Jospin had fallen apart. That’s an event, because pulism in Europe and beyond. By focusing on the left might as well have rallied around Jospin, events as analytical sites, she manages to defami- but it did not. But it’s a quite uneventful event liarize a well-trodden territory and bring in that since, again, it is unsurprising for a Presidential element of contingency and, as she calls it, sur- election that a candidate is weaker if many simi- prise, that can open up new vistas. Berezin use- lar candidates are vying for electoral support. fully defines events as “templates of possibility,” The movement is in decline recently, because building on Bill Sewell’s insights, and in so doing Le Pen is an old man now and the movement she draws attention to connections and imagin- lacks a powerful, charismatic leadership figure ings capable of linking different social fields, ra- and much of the political energy that the Front ther than to causal chains of variables layered by harnessed over the past two decades has now type (the social, the economic, the cultural, etc.). 13 Trajectories Vol. 21, No.1 Fall 2009

One of the major payoffs of this strategy is centers? the reconceptualization of the ways in which I would argue, for example, that the founda- right-wing populism has been “mainstreamed,” a tional event of Berlusconi III—the government term which is not even deployed in the text. By coalition that was brought to power in the focusing on events, Berezin is able to weave a landslide election of April 2008—was one of narrative much more sensitive to the complex these seemingly peripheral events. It seems to me ways in which agency is distributed than most that the baptism by fire of Berlusconi’s new gov- political analyses allow for. Thus, we move ernment took place in the country’s underbelly, beyond economically or politically reductionist where the refuse—literal and metaphorical—of explanations that rely on visions of populism as the social body came in full display. The dust had an insular reaction to economic insecurity, as is barely settled on the ballots when, on May 11, the case in the otherwise excellent ethnographi- 2008, Minister of Interior Roberto Maroni, of the cally oriented book by Doug Holmes, Integral Northern League, stated publicly that “All Roma- Europe , as well as somewhat conspiratorial sto- ni camps will have to be dismantled right away, ries in which right-wing populists are “used” by and the inhabitants will either be expelled or in- more experienced politicians for devious electoral carcerated.” Two days later on 13 May, in the goals. By the same token, cultural change is not same areas that had seen riots on account of an understood in isolation. And it is in the realm of embarrassing garbage crisis, a mob used Molotov political culture that the double methodological cocktails to raze a Romani camp in Ponticelli, a innovation of focusing on events and thinking suburb of Naples. So here you have a government comparatively really pays off. By drawing atten- claiming to solve two problems, of providing two tion to the path dependent character of political services at once, which are intimately connected culture, appreciated in its eventful interactions in the imagination of the Italians—garbage col- and feedbacks, Berezin for example is able to lection and security from crime—and responding make admirable sense of the different degrees to to a surge of concerns for “cleaning up” for puli- which Le Pen and Gianfranco Fini have been ab- zia rising from below. sorbed into the French and Italian political sys- In the wake of these and several similar inci- tems. And again, she shows that there was noth- dents of mob violence, Umberto Bossi, the na- ing preordained or inevitable about any of these tional leader of the Northern League and someone developments. not famous for his compassion towards the plight Having said all that, there are unanswered of the southerners, stated that “People do what questions about event-focused methodologies. the state can’t manage,” while Minister of Interior There is already a small library about the issue of Roberto Maroni also stated, “that is what happens event selection, about the relationships between when gypsies steal babies, or when Romanians events and the processes in which they are in- commit sexual violence,” referring to a gruesome scribed, about the criteria an occurrence must case that had occurred in Rome the previous No- meet to become an event, and so on. Here Berezin vember. In a sense, this was indeed democracy at leads by example, more than by explicit theoriza- work. According to the results of a reputable poll tion, which I believe is a good choice. But I will conducted in May 2008, 68% of Italians want to raise a point or two about such methodological deal with the “Gypsy problem” by expelling the problems. For example, an event in the Sewellian lot of them. And indeed the riots were followed sense (and Berezin seems to agree with this) must by a series of emergency measures targeting the be recognized, emotionally charged, and narrated nomadic population, as the Italian authorities and by the social actors involved. This often comes to media routinely refer to the Roma and Sinti (even mean a focus on events of national or internation- though they probably travel less than the average al relevance, sometimes even capable of redefin- middle-class Italian). In particular, the “nomads” ing what nationhood is all about (as is the case began to be fingerprinted by the thousands. No with ur-event of the storming of the Bastille). But one knows how many people have been subjected what about events that reveal the contours of the to this (we do know that children have been espe- nation only indirectly, through the ways they cially targeted, both to “protect” them and make weave silences and define margins, rather than sure they get reached by largely imaginary social 14 Trajectories Vol. 21, No.1 Fall 2009 programs). We also have no idea where this in- I am one of those Italian expatriates Berezin formation is stored and what its legal status is. mentions in her book, who are dismayed at, and These Roma-specific measures were accom- ashamed of, what is going on in Italy right now, panied by a series of decrees, nicely wrapped into and it’s all too easy to get all indignant about a “security package” and dealing with immigrants these stories. I’m not focusing on this series of in general. Among the measures is the possibility events to take issue with one of the book’s central of expulsion of all foreigners (including EU na- arguments, the necessity to look beyond immigra- tionals) who have received a two-year prison sen- tion to account for the appeal of right-wing po- tence. Also, the status of illegal immigrant was pulism. And I also understand that there are im- criminalized and designated as an aggravating portant differences between France and Italy in circumstance in the case of other crimes (illegal this regard. I think that the book’s intervention is immigrants are to be punished more severely than indeed a very welcome corrective to the facile legal residents for the same crime). Finally, now emphasis on the forever escalating racism and illegal immigrants can be detained for up to 18 xenophobia of Europeans to explain pretty much months in another network of camps, called by anything these days, especially on this side of the the center-Left Centers of Temporary Permanence Atlantic. I also think that the book’s counter- and Assistance, but now renamed Centers of emphasis on political economy is extremely ur- Identification and Expulsion. gent and compelling. It goes without saying that many of these However, this story allows me to raise a measures could be argued to violate national and couple of questions which I believe are pertinent international laws, and many NGOs as well as the and not completely clear to me from my reading demoralized opposition parties have cried bloody of the book. These questions are connected but murder. On July 7, for example, the European also distinct. The first deals with the meanings of Parliament passed a resolution against the finger- security and insecurity, which, we all agree, lie at printing of specific minorities. But more recently the very core of the populist right’s appeal. What the European Commission has argued that this are we to do of the relationship between percep- measure does not in fact violate human rights as tion (or even imagination) and reality, and by that defined by the EU, accepting the justifications of I mean above all security as defined by fear of the Italian government. The Italian government, crime, which calls for the state’s repressive pow- on its part, has reassured the international com- er, and security in the more concrete, real sense of munity and Italian residents that all Italians will access to jobs, public services, educational oppor- be fingerprinted by 2010, so that the state of ex- tunities, etc., security in the political-economic ception may become part of a newly defined state sense, which used to be (and maybe still is) the of normality. territory of the political left? In the political de- All of this eventful activity was preceded by a bate, the Italian left sees itself as dealing with the barrage of televised coverage on the rise of crime, bedrock of real values and concerns, while view- which is by the way belied by official statistics. ing the right as conjuring up irrational fears and And sure enough, on the eve of the elections, a unrealistic expectations. Indeed, it seems that the plurality of Italian voters (21%) pointed to the left has lost the war of imagination. The imagin- fight against crime as the most important issue ings spawned by most events seem to carry a dis- guiding their decisions. As a widely circulated tinctively authoritarian accent these days, at least newspaper article by journalist and political in Italy. Berezin’s book points to a possible an- scientist Ilvo Diamanti has pointed out (and the swer to this question. Part of the problem lies in data is by a reputable academic source), crime the fact that the hands (and tongues) of the politi- reports on the Canale 5 news, the most widely cal left are tied by the barrage of neoliberal con- watched channel and Berlusconi’s property, have straints posed by globalization and European in- declined by a full half since the electoral victory tegration, and therefore individual security from of the Cavaliere. Not sure what’s happened of late crime becomes the only “service” whose provi- to Romanian rapists and victimized Romani sion the state can claim to expand with credibili- children, but they surely no longer populate the ty. But is that all there is to it? Couldn’t this also screens. Problems solved, perhaps? Who knows. become something of an alibi? Anyone who has 15 Trajectories Vol. 21, No.1 Fall 2009 an even remote knowledge of the Neapolitan left entire library devoted to making sense of the ex- can easily imagine how comforting this answer treme messiness of European integration and su- may sound to the Bassolinos of the world, when pranational governance, but overall I would warn they are confronted with the kinds of issues that against viewing this process as only, or even pri- are raised by the events I’ve recounted… In fact, marily, the European face of globalization, car- it’s at the very concrete, local level of day-to-day ried out in function and at the service of interna- experience that the Italian left seems to have ab- tional financial capitalism. dicated and vanished. A stroll in any of Rome’s I would suggest that European integration is a borgate will show what I mean by that. highly contingent process itself, which responds And this leads me to my second question. to both pressures from below (or within) and to What is European integration really about? As the outside shocks. It may well be that the current example I’ve just recounted shows, the EU does financial crisis will significantly change things, not always speak with one voice, and it certainly much the way the crisis of the 1970s and early doesn’t always undermine national sovereignty. 1980s paved the way for the Single European Act Indeed, one of Berezin’s most interesting findings and the creation of a single market. But this time is that in the Italian context, in at least partial the move might be towards more regulation, at contrast with France, European integration may least of capital flows and financial markets, rather well be regarded as functional to the buttressing than less. By the same token, what was unaccept- of national cohesion. Also, it’s at least interesting able in 2000 for an Austrian government to even to point out that the EU sanctioned the Austrian envisage has become OK for an Italian govern- coalition government which included Joerg Haid- ment to actually do. In sum, I would warn against er in 2000 for the suspicion that it may have en- the search for the iron logic of European integra- gaged in acts contrary to European values, but tion, for I’m afraid there might not be any such less than ten years later the Italian government thing. gets away with an actual series of measures To sum up, mine is a first of all a deep ap- which even the most cautious observer would preciation of Berezin’s work. There is no ques- qualify as overtly discriminatory and racist. What tion that the contours of the relationship between does that say about the evolving relationship be- the market, state power, and civil society are be- tween the EU and right-wing populism and be- ing drastically redefined, and that right-wing po- tween national and supranational governance pulism offers a uniquely valuable prism to appre- more generally? ciate and assess these changes. In this sense, and Indeed, there is a tendency in the literature to in many others as well, we should be grateful for look for the essence of European integration, for Berezin’s painstaking work of mapping this com- its ultimate meaning and function. And I’m not plex and rapidly shifting landscape. But I suppose sure that’s a productive search. Is the European that mine is also a plea for an even more generous Union about the promotion of neoliberalism? In dose of contingency and unpredictability. Histo- some ways, of course, it is, and Berezin’s book rians, we know, never get enough of those. does an excellent job of highlighting some of the venues in which this takes place, from increasing labor flexibilization to tendentially deflationary economic policies. But clearly the EU is also Response by Mabel Berezin about a massive project of re-regulation, especial- Cornell University ly in fields like agriculture, environmental policy, and even social policy (although to be sure the To begin, I want to thank Margaret Somers for EU has pretty blunt teeth in that regard). Indeed, organizing the SSHA “Author Meets Critics” people in Italy are more prone to complain about panel and for assembling a distinguished group of the EU standards for motorcycle emissions, tough critics! I want to thank the critics for taking which have forced millions to get rid of their old the time to thoughtfully engage my work. Res- mopeds, than about the consequences of the ponding to their cogent and probing comments Growth and Stabilization Pact, of which they may honors and challenges me. I am deeply apprecia- well know nothing at all. There is of course an tive that the critics found much to praise in Illi- 16 Trajectories Vol. 21, No.1 Fall 2009 beral Politics in Neoliberal Times: Culture, Secu- the recalibration of the standard categories that rity and Populism in the New Europe . I will focus analysts typically deploy to discuss the right. 1 my response on their questions and criticisms. Illiberal Politics in Neoliberal Times argues The critics did an excellent job of summariz- that the accelerated process of Europeanization ing several of the major themes and arguments of that includes political, economic and cultural in- the book. For readers of Trajectories who have tegration is the core trans-European context with- not read the book (although I hope that you will!), in which the right populist moment emerged. It it is useful to briefly recapitulate its central tenets. shows why and how market fundamentalism—the George Ross astutely observed that it was “brave” Archimedean principle of the neo-liberal project of me to enter the world of contemporary Euro- of the New Europe—creates social insecurities pean right politics. Historians welcomed me that right wing political parties exploit to their when I wrote my first book on Italian fascism, advantage. By analyzing the right wing populist Making the Fascist Self: The Political Culture of moment in relation to the broader context of Eu- Inter-war Italy (1997). Yet, I approached political ropeanization and globalization, Illiberal Politics scientists who protect their turf, whether it be Eu- aims to unpack the political and cultural ropean integration or political parties, with wea- processes that evoked the thin commitments that pons drawn with some trepidation. Nonetheless, I characterize expanded support. forged ahead—convinced that the rightward turn I designed Illiberal Politics as a “comparative in contemporary European politics could benefit historical sociology of the present.” The book from interdisciplinary eyes. weaves together three stories: first, the story of Right populist parties have been gaining elec- the trajectory of the French National Front; toral clout in Europe since the mid-1990s. Right second the story of European integration in wing parties are not new to European politics. France and in Europe writ large; and lastly, the What is new is that parties that analysts had contrasting story of the right in other European viewed as extremist and fringe have attracted suf- countries. Italy in the years between 1994 and ficient numbers of votes to become part of legally 2007 serves as a shadow case that re-enforces constituted governing coalitions. This is a surpris- some of the points made with respect to France ing development. Post-war Europe prided itself and Europe more broadly. The book has three on having learned the lessons of fascism and Naz- time frames that intersect with the analysis. The ism. The last threat to European democracy, first time frame focuses upon France and the Na- Communism, collapsed when the Berlin Wall fell tional Front in the years between 1997 and in 1989. What happened that allowed right wing 2005—the year that French citizens rejected the parties to once more lurk on the European politi- European constitution. The second time frame cal landscape? that serves as a context for the right populist mo- Noisy cadres of militants expressing extremist ment begins in 1994, the year of the first Berlus- positions of various sorts distract from nuanced coni government in Italy. The broader time frame analysis of right populist parties. The electoral that serves as a reference point for the European ups and downs of the genre of parties that consti- context begins in 1980 when the post-war social tute the right populist moment suggest that they contract began to unravel. are expressions of deeper social phenomena that My remarks now focus upon the three broad explanations based on narrowly constituted ana- categories that the critics addressed: first, Euro- lyses of party strategy and electoral behavior only peanization as my central explanatory proposi- partially capture. Political extremism of all stripes tion; second, a methodological challenge to my may generate violence and hatred—but it tends use of events; and third, coalition and strategy not to make electoral inroads. Electoral salience versus the politics of perception. suggests thin , rather than thick , commitments. In contrast to the thick commitments that character- ize xenophobic militants and ethnic nationalists, the ever variable thin commitments of disgruntled citizens are sociologically, culturally and politi- 1 cally important. Thin commitments make urgent Table 2.1 ( Illiberal Politics , p. 41) systematically outlines the analytic strengths and weaknesses of typical approaches. 17 Trajectories Vol. 21, No.1 Fall 2009

Consolidation Regimes and Europeanization: A Social scientists who study right populism in Comparative Historical Approach contemporary Europe frequently explain it as a Ross challenges my emphasis upon Europea- xenophobic response to the increased presence of nization as a “cause” of the emergence of right non-Western immigrants in diverse nation states. populism and argues that he would attribute the In these formulations, right populism is morally success of the right, at least in France, to the eco- unfortunate but politically unsurprising. Illiberal nomic distress that globalization creates. Agnew Politics starts from the position that contempo- argues that I need to nuance my argument about rary right populism represents a historical sur- Europeanization. Both Ross and Agnew claim prise not a political and social certainty. I argue that I need to pay more attention to immigration that the emergence of the right populist moment as a triggering variable. in the 1990s and its in- Wimmer agrees with tensification in various what he labels as my “in- I argue that the emergence of European venues must be stitutional approach” but analyzed as an unex- argues that he does not the right populist moment in pected rather than an ex- see a mechanism that pected or natural event. links Europeanization to the 1990s and its intensifica- The presence of right po- the right. Agnew points tion in various European ve- pulism poses a challenge to the failure of the left to social science and in Europe which has nues must be analyzed as an commonsense assump- provided an opening to tions about trans- the right. Gaggio de- unexpected rather than an nationalism and cosmo- scribes the Italian left as expected or natural event. politanism. In a multicul- having “lost the war of tural Europe of acknowl- imagination.” Agnew The presence of right popul- edged social and political points out that I raise the expansion and increased issue of the left but he ism poses a challenge to so- cultural contact, right would have preferred cial science and common- populism represents a that I focus more upon it. recidivist contraction and Illiberal Politics sense assumptions about turning inward that is does not ignore immigra- puzzling. tion in its analysis. It trans-nationalism and cos- Populism and Euro- simply weighs it diffe- mopolitanism. pean integration gained rently. Migration, momentum during the whether for employment, nineties. As historical family reunification or political asylum, is an un- sociologists, we know that timing matters. If, as deniable fact of past as well as present European Ross argues, right populism was simply a re- experience. Immigration may be a necessary but sponse to increasing unemployment, then Euro- it is not a sufficient condition to account for the peanization should have provided an opening to contemporary right. As the book clearly shows the left. As we know, just the opposite occurred. (pp. 208ff.) in the case of France in the early The traditional European left has increasingly lost 1980s, while groups such as SOS-Rascisme were its voice in the years since 1992. European social- busy organizing demonstrations against the Na- ist parties are often technocratic and euro- tional Front and the French media establishment friendly, and more importantly, they are losing was bemoaning Le Pen, the French state was busy elections. France and Germany, two major Euro- designing laws that would seriously restrict im- pean players, have firmly established center-right migration. While the right may have publicized governments. Anti-globalization groups such as the issue of immigration early on, the policy prac- ATTAC that began in France have provided a tices in European states around immigration in major critique of Europeanization. Although they the last thirty years do not map exactly on wheth- represent a progressive vision, ATTAC is not af- er a government is left or right. 18 Trajectories Vol. 21, No.1 Fall 2009 filiated with a political party, and as I show, often CR s create national legacies—the dynamic end up on the same sides of issues as the right. experience of the relation between a people and a Ross asks why we need to look for deeper polity. Experience, individual and collective , is a reasons to account for the rise of the right. In pos- temporal and cognitive phenomenon that con- ing this question, he overlooks the argument sciously or unconsciously draws upon the past to about the relation between nation and state that is assess the future. Experience creates a tension a core theoretical contribution that Illiberal Poli- between imagined possibilities and perceptions of tics offers. European integration is an instance of constraint. Social, cultural and monetary capital enforced social, political, economic and cultural draws the boundaries of experience that permit trans-nationalism that challenges the standard individuals and groups to negotiate between insti- prerogatives of the territorially defined nation- tutions and culture. In the case of post-war Eu- state. The accelerated pace of European integra- rope, the tension between culture and institutions tion dis-equilibrates the existing mix of national was minimal. The post war European nation state cultures and legal norms that governs those na- was an arena that adjudicated risk for its mem- tion states. An unintended consequence of dis- bers. Capital in all its dimensions was primarily equilibration is the weakening of the European national. “Social Europe” and the need to pre- social contract that threatens to make the national serve it, a pro-forma comment built into integra- space “unfamiliar” to many of its citizens. “Un- tion discourse, is an acknowledgement of post- familiarity” has practical consequences and is war social solidarity. more than simply a feeling of disorientation. The mechanism that links the right and Euro- The modern nation-state is the institutional peanization that Wimmer requires is clearly location of a relation between a polity and a stated in the book. In sum, the collective and in- people that provides security for its members. dividual experience of old Europe was solidaris- The institutions of the modern nation state legally tic; the evolving experience of “new” Europe is inscribe individuals in the polity and society. Cul- individualistic albeit with a dose of ambivalence tural practices from common language to shared and nostalgia. In terms of my argument, “New” norms cognitively and emotionally inscribe indi- Europe, writ large, is an opportunity space for viduals in the polity and society. Consolidation individuals and groups who are able to compete Regime [CR ] (Table 2.2, p. 50) is the heuristic in trans-European economic, social and cultural that I develop in Chapter Two to capture the rela- markets. Yet, the experience of ordinary Euro- tion between national and state institutions. peans is still national—that is, their cultural and CR is a relational concept that allows for vari- social capital, as well as their economic possibili- ation. It is not a predictive model but rather a ties, are still firmly tied to the national state. 2 The model of potential vulnerabilities that may be- disconnection between past experience and a Eu- come liabilities in specific historical circums- ropean future that is oriented to the market rather tances. I argue that nations and states may be than the collectivity is fueling a re-assertion of joined with varying degrees of institutional nation-ness that characterizes the right populist strength. I identify three types of CR s—the hege- moment. monic , the flexible and the brittle . Each regime tends towards certain types of collective identities Methodological Queries: Events and Occur- and is more or less vulnerable to certain types of rences? threats. For example, France with a strong linking Wimmer engaged my methodology at length. of state and national (think language policy and Before engaging his discussion of events, I want laïcité ) institutions represents a hegemonic CR . to answer his question about whether one can With a strong national identity and corresponding combine an institutional and narrative analysis. institutions, France is vulnerable to external My answer is a firm—yes! I do this in Illiberal threats from McDonalds to Europe. France’s he- Politics . Both methods inform and enrich each gemonic CR has left it in the paradoxical position other and provide more robust answers to the of being both a founding member of EU and an ambivalent supporter. 2 See for example, Juan Diez-Medrano, Framing Europe (2003). 19 Trajectories Vol. 21, No.1 Fall 2009 questions that I pose. In short, the institutional prior to or after the “big” events that I focus upon. analysis, the CR provides an opportunity to de- But this is precisely my methodological point. velop hypotheses for future research—which I Rather than making a path dependent argument discuss at the end of the book but of course do something that the book firmly rejects, I argue not carry out. The narrative or event-ful analysis that eventful events derive their political meaning sheds a new angle of vision on the French case when we analyze them in the context of a wide and contributes to the development of the CR . range of events that are happening within a rela- I argue in the book that unraveling the puzzle tively similar time period. that right populism presents requires historical, Beginning in the 1980s, I map the trajectory that is contextual, exegesis that shifts the location of the National Front against the trajectory of of analysis from individual or collective actors, French civil society, and the French state. Against whether voters or party operatives, to events . these endogenous trajectories, I map the exogen- Contingent events, events that were unexpected ous trajectory of the European Union. This me- and that emotionally engaged the national collec- thod of comparing separate trajectories that are tivity at all levels from the average citizen to po- occurring during the same time period but are not litical elites, form the basis of my analysis. I ana- path dependent embeds my three eventful events lyze populism through the lens of events that in a sea of other events. I then analyze the con- mark turning points in collective national percep- nections among all of the various events occur- tions. ring in the same time period (Table 8.1, p. 210). William Sewell’s work influences my ap- For example, while standard analyses places the proach, but I also depart from him in important National Front on a downward trajectory from ways. 3 First, the events that I chose to analyze do 1999, my method revealed that the moment of the not change the course of history, such as the Front’s decline was actually the moment in which storming of the Bastille, rather they act as “tem- its ideas were gaining wide acceptance. In fact, plates of possibility”—that is, they enable indi- the National Front, French civil society and the viduals and collectivities to imagine a range of French state had remarkably similar ideas and possibilities that they had not previously im- practices with respect to EU and globalization. In agined. Only four events fall into this category in the end, or at least the end in this book, the Na- Illiberal Politics . The first is the 1994 election in tional Front’s ideological success led to its politi- Italy that brought the then post-fascist Gianfranco cal failure. Nicolas Sarkozy detached Le Pen’s Fini into the government. That event signaled to message from the messenger and ably defeated Italians and Europeans that for the first time since his Socialist rival, Ségelène Royal to win the World War II the right could be part of a legally presidency in 2007. constituted government. Although that election figures in the book in the shadow case of Italy, it Collective Perception and the Politics of Emotion does not merit an entire chapter—in part, because Ross and Wimmer argue that there are simple the event, important in the broader European con- explanations for instances where the right is polit- text, loses salience in the Italian context—a long- ically successful. Success here is a relative term er story than can be captured here. The other three because, as I often point out, the European right is events are French: the 1998 regional elections; technically not in power, i.e., they are not yet the 2002 Presidential election; and the 2005 re- running governments. Their political significance jection of the European constitution. I devote an lies elsewhere. Ross notes that I do not take into entire chapter to each of these events. account the French right’s ability to influence Wimmer argues that I only consider occur- coalitions—here, I beg to differ as I spend much rences because I seem to analyze so many events. time on that point in discussing the 1998 regional I grant Wimmer his larger point but not his ter- elections. The dire public effects of the 1998 re- minology. I clearly should have made a distinc- gional elections were offset a few months later tion between nodal events—eventful events—and when France won the World Cup. The French the array of smaller events that occurred either state appropriated the public euphoria that the soccer victory generated. Politicians pointed to

Zinedine Zidane, the star soccer player who was 3 William Sewell, Jr. Logics of History (2005). 20 Trajectories Vol. 21, No.1 Fall 2009 the child of immigrants, as a sign that despite the could ever win. What was at stake was the blow National Front, France was an integrated and to national self esteem and the threat to France as multicultural society. protector of the “rights of man” and repository of Ross and Wimmer analyze the first round of Republican virtue. Demonstrations blanketed the the French Presidential election of 2002 where country for the two weeks between the two Jean Marie Le Pen came in second place to the rounds. The demonstrations in Paris against Le sitting president, Jacques Chirac. Both offer what Pen on May 1 were larger than the demonstra- I would describe as the standard political science tions that had occurred when the Allies liberated story of Le Pen’s “success” I also tell this story in France from the Nazis in 1944. Chapter 6 with some important differences. I But that was not the end of it. April 21, the view the 2002 presidential election as one of date of the first round, became a metaphor for those eventful events where collective percep- political fear and collective emotion in France. In tions and emotions, not leaders, changed in im- the years, between the 2002 and the 2007 Presi- portant ways. Jacques Chirac, the center right dential elections both left, right and center in- President of the French Republic, and Lionel Jos- voked the date to argue for their political posi- pin, the Socialist Prime Minister conducted a tions. A Lexis-Nexis search of French newspapers lackluster campaign primarily against each other. for that period revealed that “April 21” appeared There were, however, candidates representing as a metaphor in 908 headlines. For example, par- fourteen other political parties on the ballot. tisans of the European constitution urged French Just about everyone who took note of such citizens to vote “yes” to avoid of repeat of the things in France, the media, the political science “shame of April 21.” Politicians and pundits community, and the candidates themselves, failed warned citizens not to repeat “April 21” when to observe that Le Pen’s ideas if not his person they voted in the first round of the 2007 presiden- had been gaining strength—particularly his at- tial elections. tacks on Europe, globalization and his defense of My response has become overly long which is social solidarity. France’s two round electoral a tribute to the cogency of my critics! I have tried system combined with two establishment candi- to answer the broader questions that they raised, dates who were not all that far apart on many is- as well as the questions that grouped together. For sues proved fortunate for Le Pen. Record num- this reason, I have not given as much attention as bers of citizens stayed home. The abstention rate I would have liked to Gaggio’s remarks on Italy. was 28.4%. Citizens who bothered to vote regis- He does however end his comments with a ques- tered protest votes and spread their votes among tion about the meaning of Europe as an entity. It the other fourteen parties. Voila! Le Pen came in is a good place to end my remarks also. The prob- second place with 16.86% of the vote compared lem with working in the present is that events to Jospin’s 16.18%. Le Pen went on to the second keep flowing. Illiberal Politics suggests that the round. His presence on the ballot returned Chirac significance of the right in some nation-states is to the presidency with 82% of the vote. that they serve to re-assert national identities and Illiberal Politics documents this story in promote center-right political coalitions. The minute detail. The 2002 election is important for 2009 European Parliament elections were an im- what it reveals rather than for its outcome. For portant harbinger of political direction. In short, those who do not follow French politics and only the center-right dominated; the left did extremely learned of this election from Wimmer and Ross’s poorly; and in those nation-states with brittle critique, one would think that French citizens CR s, far right politicians won seats. The eventful yawned and went quietly on to the second round event confronting Europe at the moment is the where they voted Le Pen into political oblivion. global financial crisis. By all accounts, it is not But that was not what happened. All of France only the extreme right that is questioning a com- erupted into a spasm of political fear and collec- mitment to a neo-liberal Europe—but that is sure- tive shame. Le Pen’s second place was a “tem- ly the subject of another book! plate of possibility” because it suggested that he could be President of France, not that he would be President of France. No one thought that he 21 Trajectories Vol. 21, No.1 Fall 2009

union line in Cincinnati; and a divided capitalist Citizen Employers: Business Communi- class following a “practical corporatism” and a ties and Labor in Cincinnati and San tolerant approach to unions in San Francisco? Haydu employs a methodological strategy that Francisco, 1870-1816 by Jeffrey Haydu consists of: (a) going to the sub-national level; (b) (Cornell University Press, 2008) selecting two municipalities that differed substan-

tially on the outcome variable–bourgeois class Jeffrey Haydu’s new book was also the subject of formation in the tradition of Mill’s indirect me- an Author Meets Critics panel, organized by Isaac thod of difference; (c) close sequential analysis of Martin at the 2009 SSHA. What follows are the within-case path dependencies and contingent comments of the four critics (Larry Isaac, Pamela events where the processes are played out through Walker Laird, Ajay K. Mehrotra, and William narratives attentive to iterative problem-solving Roy) and a response by the author. (Haydu 1998) done by business classes in those

two cities; but (d) ultimately there are three cases,

where cases consist in relatively homogeneous

place (city)-time configurations: Cincinnati, post- Comments by Larry Isaac bellum years to WWI; San Francisco, postbellum Vanderbilt University years to around 1911; San Francisco, 1911 to

WWI. Rather than following the conventional Citizen Employers is a lovely book, one rich in approach to U.S. exceptionalism which operates sociological theory and historical evidence woven at the national-level, usually without any direct together in a tight package. Haydu follows an im- comparison with other putatively non-exceptional portant lineage of fine class formation studies in cases of working-class formation, Haydu locates contemporary historical sociology (e.g., Katznel- his puzzle within the U.S. exceptionalism puzzle son and Zolberg 1986; Kimeldorf 1988; 1999; by focusing on sub-national processes of business Voss 1993; Stepan-Norris and Zeitlin 2003). The class formation. By descending to the lo- book’s framing draws a deft link between the cal/municipal level—the level at which key orga- power of citizenship as an ideology and practice th nizational and political actions formed during this during the late 19 century, one reminiscent of historical period—he is able to demonstrate di- Karl Marx’s addresses to workers as “Dear Citi- vergent bourgeois class formation processes; one zens” and David Montgomery’s (1993) Citizen that looks presumably like most of the U.S. (by Workers . At least for that historical era, the term way of Cincinnati) with its denial of the reality of ‘citizen’ elevated solidarity with the common class as it formed into one as “business citizen- good above seemingly narrow class interests, thus ship,” and on the other hand, one that is the ex- serving a key operation in forming a hegemonic ception within the U.S. exception (San Francis- position that appears to advance universal inter- co), a grudging pragmatic corporatism that recog- ests of all citizens while obscuring particularistic nized unions as a fact of life and a force to be interests. Importantly, Citizen Employers diffe- dealt with in local politics and industry. rentiates itself from these prior studies by virtue The working-class is the central focus in ana- of focusing on capitalist class formation instead lyses of class formation and in the American ex- of working-class formation. ceptionalism literature where one key puzzle is

the absence of a strong organized working-class. The Puzzle and Core Solution Within the exceptionalism discourse—where the The historical-sociological puzzle which Jeff dominant strand finds the answer to American sets out for himself is this: Why did two capitalist exceptionalism in its exceptional workers—there classes, located in two comparable cities in the are some analysts who have concluded that what same country at the same time, differ so dramati- was truly exceptional about American political cally in: (a) their displays of unity; (b) civic ide- economy and class relations was not its workers, ologies; and (c) their dominant views and practic- but rather its employers (e.g., Jacoby 1991; Voss, es regarding labor unions. More concretely, why: 1993; Lipold and Isaac 2009). Yet we have pre- a unified capitalist class following a “business cious little attention paid to the formation of citizenship” ideology and taking a strong anti- 22 Trajectories Vol. 21, No.1 Fall 2009 business classes. This is Haydu’s central focus which was first forged in the political arena and wherein he establishes an important and clear then transposed into practice in the workplace. conceptual understanding of first what he means The business citizenship identity and practice was by employer class formation as the simultaneous one which organized employers as a class while it double movement of (a) increasing separation simultaneously denied the existence of class. As between employers and workers, and (b) extended such, Haydu sees the Cincinnati formation and and intensified ties within various kinds of em- ideology as largely representative of the U.S. as a ployer organizations. He finds that business class whole: “In the absence of serious working-class formation, largely among proprietary capitalists, political challenges or sustained, city-wide union took place through very different processes, con- threats, employers mobilized broadly around is- ditions, and events in Cincinnati in contrast to sues of civic order, not industrial conflict.” (p. San Francisco producing very different business 37) class formations. By the middle of the second San Francisco followed a very different class decade of the twentieth century, the differences in formation trajectory among its businessmen. business class forms, ideologies, and practices There a combination of small proprietary capital- began to dissipate as San Francisco came to look ists and a few over-bearing corporations kept more like Cincinnati, and by extension the rest of alive a shared opposition to “monopoly” in San the United States. Francisco politics that formed a coalition of pro- Drawing from an impressive variety of socio- prietary capital and skilled white labor. That logical literatures (e.g., class formation, social cross-coalition was fueled by both an anti- movements, neo-institutionalism, historiography monopoly stance and anti-Chinese sentiment. Be- on Gilded Age and Progressive Era, and historical cause large corporations hired cheap Chinese la- sociological methods), Jeff weaves together a bor, and low costs of entry led to Chinese-owned comparative tapestry that shows the dynamics of sweatshops, the Chinese were a common enemy divergent bourgeois class formation in those two of both white labor and business proprietors. This cities by employing three big concepts to organize particular configuration gave rise to a dominant this analysis: solidarities, identities, and transpo- employer identity and practice that Jeff terms sition. Similar to working-class formation, em- “practical corporatism ,” one that was rooted in a ployer class formation is about forming solidari- strong union position that proprietary capitalists ties, overcoming divisions and narrow self- could not and did not ignore. By 1911-1916, San interests to align on the general interests of busi- Francisco’s path dependent “practical corporat- ness as a class. Just as the forming of such soli- ism” was derailed and a business citizen identity darities is always an intra-class struggle for work- and practice similar to that of Cincinnati, and pre- ers, so too for capitalists. Haydu insists that the sumably much of the rest of the U.S., began to latter is not automatic, nor can it be written off as prevail there too. But for a number of decades, never occurring, but is rather filled with serious the exceptional U.S. case of class formation con- challenges and is an outcome that is multiple, and tained at least one local bourgeois class formation shaped by complex contingent causal events and that looked similar to some Western European processes. countries that admitted labor unions to the table In Cincinnati intensified social unrest in the of political power. 1870s and 1880s served the republican alliance of wage earners and small capital, favoring a rea- Critical Comments & Analytical Questions lignment of middle and upper classes under a Jeff has written a fine book, one which I have “law and order” banner. Moreover, Cinnci’s or- used and will continue to use and learn from. But ganizational class associations also reflected con- the book also raises a variety of thorny issues, cerns like municipal corruption and economic four of which I will address here. My first and competition from rival cities in addition to and second points are linked and focus on organiza- perhaps more prominently than the “labor prob- tional paths to business class unification. Organi- lem.” Cincinnati employers formed a collective zations are central to fostering class formation in identity which Haydu calls “ business citizenship ,” Haydu’s account and so too the sequence or path a cultural, civic leadership identity and position that Gilded Age/Progressive Era businessmen 23 Trajectories Vol. 21, No.1 Fall 2009 followed in their organizational activities. In oth- I recognize much of Jeff’s Cinnci story in the er words, what kinds of organizations are hig- historical terrain of Gilded Age Cleveland. For hlighted and what sort of historical trajectory do example, the collective identity of “leading citi- they display in this study? How city-specific or zens” and “business leaders” and “civic duty” general are these organizational forms and paths? with equations being drawn among these terms is By bringing in just one additional city-case, I all quite familiar, as is the important role of or- suggest that important organizational forms of ganizations–economic, cultural, civic–in unifying business class formation do not appear in Hay- Cleveland’s business class. So on the one hand, I du’s cases and that the sequence of organizational was struck by similarities, on the other hand, development in route to class formation is even there were significant differences between the more variegated and divergent than suggested by “Queen City of the West” and the “Forest City of Haydu’s comparison of Cincinnati and San Fran- the Western Reserve,” differences that add to and cisco. A third concern was the tendency to focus raise questions about just how representative the so deeply on San Francisco and Cincinnati almost Cinnci path (not so much the business class out- to the exclusion of important national-level come) really was. Two examples will illustrate events that must have played in class formation, what I believe to be a different path to “business however contingently, in each of these cities. Fi- citizenship” across two cities in the same state. nally, the exceptional case of San Francisco’s rel- atively tolerant approach to unions (at least until 1. The developmental sequence of key organiza- about 1911-16) made me wonder if it was in fact tions that served to unify the business class. exceptional in other ways too. I wondered, in par- Jeff writes (p. 49): “The causal path from chal- ticular, if business interests in that city shunned lenge to response runs through organization. Em- the use of physical violence against workers dur- ployers met new problems by organizing.” For ing strikes or if they followed the all-too-frequent historical sociologists, sequence often matters, pattern across much of the country at this point in and it certainly does in Haydu’s argument. The history. organizational sequence that Jeff identifies in Comparative case selection via the indirect Cinnci was largely one that started narrow in eco- method of difference is put to good use by Haydu nomic trade associations : During the late 1860s as he features these two divergent local business to 1870s, Cincinnati manufacturers formed trade class formations. The theory and empirical subs- associations (tobacco, leather, boots/shoes, horse- tantiations based on these locales is quite con- shoes, iron, beer, furniture) at a rapid pace (p. vincing. But the argument could have been even 49). Built to deal with market crises and the labor more convincing if we knew more about the dis- problem, these trade associations were aligned by tribution of “business citizenship”—its making industrial function, which narrowed their consti- and possibly different organizational materials tuencies to members within specific industries or and paths in various economic, cultural, and civic trades. The more inclusive and important organi- organizations—across other cities in addition to zations from a class formative perspective came San Francisco and Cincinnati. Here’s where I was later, ostensibly organizations of “cultural looking for the added leverage that might have enrichment” and “civic improvement.” So, ac- been provided by augmenting the method of dif- cording to Haydu’s account the sequence of orga- ference with the method of agreement, where the nizational initiatives that mattered for business latter would be deployed to target another city’s class formation in Cincinnati followed the nar- class formation process within the presumed vast row-to-broad pattern: trade associations → cultur- sea of non-exceptional cities that comprised the al associations → civic associations → employers’ macro-existence of “business citizenship” Jeff association. Not only was sequence important finds in Cinnci. This might be too much to ask of here, but these were very distinct types of organi- an already excellent and detailed study of two ci- zations, and only the last phase “employers’ asso- ties–you should have just had one more city. I ciation” was both unifying of the business class realize how trite that might sound. But let me and pointedly anti-labor. play this out just a bit with an additional case. There were two notable differences in Cleve- land’s business organizational trajectory. First, 24 Trajectories Vol. 21, No.1 Fall 2009 the organization that played the final general un- standard cultural and civic organizational infra- ifying role in Cinnci–the Employers’ Associa- structure that was apparently required in Cincin- tion–came first in Cleveland in the form of the nati. But how did any of this matter? Were the Cleveland Board of Trade (CBOT) which was fortunes of labor, for instance, altered by the dif- founded in 1848 by 36 local businessmen to help ferential timing of business class formation in their members operate their businesses more effi- these two Ohio cities? ciently. The CBOT was largely a mercantile or- ganization in the antebellum years, but had diver- 2. Synthesis of economic, cultural, civic organiza- sified to cover all major economic sectors of tional thrust inside a military shell. Cleveland industry by the 1870s. In 1880 there But there was also a special kind of organiza- were 249 members covering industrial enterprises tion that blended all the elements of the organiza- from banking to manu- tional form that Jeff iden- facturing to commerce tifies in Cincinnati–but to law to shipping and Following in direct response accomplished through mining (CBOT, 1880). to the national labor revolt functionally specific or- During the next three ganizations, economic years it expanded to 274 of summer 1877, two inde- interest, cultural, civic, members, and by 1893 anti-union—into one or- when the association pendent militias formed in ganizational form in changed its name to the the fall of 1877 and the Cleveland. The years be- Cleveland Chamber of tween approximately Commerce, it registered spring of 1878 in 1877 and WWI saw a 1100 members. At least Cleveland—the First City generalized militarization from the 1870s forward, of U.S. industrial cities. the Cleveland BOT Troop (FCT) and the Gatling By militarization I mean represented and unified the growth of military capital from: merchants, Gun Battery (GGB). These units in cities, parades of railroad, manufacturers two organizations were military formations in (esp. iron, oil), bankers, shows of strength, and a mining, lake shipping, founded by upper-crust growing militaristic built construction, insurance, environment evident in wholesale agents, self- “leading citizens” of the the increasingly common designated “capitalists,” city’s business elite … castellated military archi- and professionals (espe- tecture in the form of ar- cially lawyers and politi- mories to house units and cians). As in Cincinnati, cultural and civic organ- their weaponry (see Fogelson 1987). This milita- izations came later, emerging between the 1870s- rization process was not federal, but consisted 1890s. The difference is that these cultural and instead of local militia organizations, of which civic formations—mostly exclusive clubs— there were two basic types: (a) On the one hand, followed the formation of an extensively orga- there were the state-organized militias , regulated, nized business association, rather than leading financed and commanded by local-state officials them as in Cincinnati. and typically part of the nascent fledgling Nation- What does this difference in business organi- al Guard (e.g., Ohio National Guard, or National zational trajectory mean? If Jeff is correct about Guard of California), which in 1877 was still the wide class formative influence of employers’ about a full quarter century away from being a associations, and I think he is, reasonably strong truly integrated National Guard; and (b) On the business class formation was achieved more ra- other hand, there were the independent militias , pidly and earlier in Cleveland than in Cincinnati. which were organized, financed and commanded Cleveland business elites were using the language by private citizens. Following in direct response and collective identity of “leading citizens” be- to the national labor revolt of summer 1877, two fore they had established much in the way of independent militias formed in the fall of 1877 25 Trajectories Vol. 21, No.1 Fall 2009 and the spring of 1878 in Cleveland—the First quence to business citizenship style class forma- City Troop (FCT) and the Gatling Gun Battery tion in Gilded Age cities; and (b) private elite mi- (GGB). These two organizations were founded by litias were multidimensional, serving the econom- upper-crust “leading citizens” of the city’s busi- ic, cultural, and civic functions of other specia- ness elite (about 110 men), and like the Board of lized organizations while projecting outward a Trade, these two organizations represented all military solution to the “labor problem” that major industrial sectors of the Cleveland business could be addressed by leading citizens as a matter community and were comprised of the city’s most of civic duty and projecting inward a culture of wealthy businessmen—all living in the exclusive manliness. Euclid Avenue corridor known as “Millionaire’s There is more to the militia development tra- Row” (Isaac 2002). jectory that parallels the broader class formation The most salient point for present purposes is process that Jeff elaborates so well. Not only did that the FCT and GGB did all the work of the some private elite capitalist militias form anew various kinds of economic, cultural, and civic or- but others were made more class homogeneous as ganizations identified by Jeff in Cincinnati, and they recomposed their personnel sloughing off more: they mobilized “leading citizens” for eco- untrustworthy lower class members; still other nomic interests (e.g., intimidating and suppress- organizations considered too untrustworthy, were ing labor mobilizations) expressed as “civic du- dissolved altogether (Isaac 2010). The founding ty,” protecting community and city against what of new private elite units like those in Cleveland were characterized as terrorist uprisings threaten- not only deepened business ties while separating ing not only their business enterprises but ostens- them from wage earners, but also collectively ibly their neighborhoods as well. Under the guise armed the private citizens of one class while col- of municipal civic duty, FCT and GGB members lectively disarming those of the other class. mobilized the most deadly armed force available, The militarization of “leading citizens” was an signaling the ability to suppress protestors while integral part of business class formation in some they practiced a manly duty that was lacking in cities. In such municipalities, citizen employers their other affairs, and expressed a cultured good were quite literally “ citizen employer soldiers.” taste and refinement in the vast majority of the organizations’ high society social functions. 3. The role of national-level processes in city- These Cleveland citizen employers did all this level class formation. organized as an armed bulwark of the business While cities are good units, perhaps the best, class while they repudiated the existence of social for analyzing class formation during this histori- classes. They trained, purchased, and brandished cal period, I wondered how national-level military uniforms and arms to ostensibly do their processes and events may have reverberated in manly civic duty as leading citizens of Cleveland. similar or perhaps different ways in Cincinnati The elite Cleveland militias formed an important versus San Francisco. Did the national-level labor organizational step that was present there, but ap- uprising that began with a railroad strike in sum- parently missing in Cincinnati and San Francisco. mer of 1877 have the same consequences for These militias combined both: (a) the attributes of business class formation in these two cities? civic virtue (business citizenship) with (b) a very What about the Haymarket riot of 1886 and other direct concern with the “labor problem,” which major flashpoints of class struggle between 1870 motivated their initial formation. Moreover, the and World War I? very same families and individuals that formed After all, it was during this historical period the FCT and GGB also populated the Board of that regional markets were being linked to togeth- Trade and the elite civic and cultural clubs of the er into national market networks. So if the sphere city. of circulation figures at all in capitalist class for- The FCT and GGB illustrate a distinctive or- mation, and there is reason to believe it does ganizational link in bourgeois class formation that (Marx, Capital , Volume II; Van der Pijl 1984), occurred in some industrial cities during the we might expect national level events to play an Gilded Age. Thus, the Cleveland case tells us that increasingly important role at least for those seg- (a) there was more than one organizational se- ments of capital that were most expansive in their 26 Trajectories Vol. 21, No.1 Fall 2009 production and circulation spheres (e.g., rails). was still a strong willingness to use lethal vi- This also raises serious questions about how we olence against workers’ collective action there, conceptualize capital and how capitalist class just as there was in other localities across the na- formation might be qualitatively different from tion. that of working-class formation. A recognition of such a distinction is not immediately apparent in Significance Citizen Employers . For to draw parallels in the I will end by sounding several notes of signi- difficulty of class formation for both capital and ficance. First, Jeff’s analysis illustrates the weak- labor but not identify what is truly different, is a ness of exclusive reliance on broad country-wide missed opportunity. explanations for class formation and arguments about American exceptionalism. There was a 4. Virulent Anti-Laborism: The Exceptional Cha- time when multiple and quite divergent paths to racter of the Business Class in the U.S. business class formation took place across Amer- San Francisco is Jeff’s exceptional island ica. Second, the Citizen Employers nicely demon- within the vast American exceptionalism sea— strates the fluidity and permeability between in- i.e., the city that followed a corporatist path for dustrial, civic, and cultural spheres and how ide- most of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era not ology and practice in one arena was effectively greatly different from some Western European transposed to another. Third, although not auto- nations that are often held up as the baseline from matic or easy, Haydu shows how class was effec- which the U.S. is decidedly the exception. One of tively organized by business interests while the the key features of U.S. exceptionalism compared existence of class was simultaneously denied. Fi- to most Western European nations is that what nally, Citizen Employers serves as an exemplar of was really exceptional here historically was busi- fine-grained, locally-grounded, sequentially- ness (business-state relations), and not so much a sensitive, comparative-historical analysis and will peculiar working class. U.S. business demonstrat- most certainly stand as a touchstone for future ed a virulent anti-unionism that is typically pre- studies of American business class formation. sumed to be much more severe than that encoun- tered in Europe. Some version of this claim has References been made by Jacoby (1991), Voss (1993), Lipold Fogelson, Robert M. 1987. America’s Armories . and Isaac (2009), and others. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. So according to this position and Jeff’s find- Haydu, Jeffrey. 1998. “Making Use of the Past: ing that San Francisco was a corporatist haven, a Time Periods as Cases to Compare and as Se- relatively labor-tolerant exception, one might ex- quences of Problem Solving.” American Journal pect to find less anti-labor violence in San Fran- of Sociology 104 (2): 339-71. cisco than in Cincinnati. Why? Because Cincin- Isaac, Larry. 2002. “To Counter ‘The Very Devil’ nati had much earlier consolidated into business and More: the Making of Independent Capitalist citizenship and an anti-labor cultural stronghold Militia in the Gilded Age.” American Journal of relative to corporatist San Francisco. Sociology 108 (2): 353-405. One way to gauge relative anti-labor violence Isaac, Larry. 2010. “Policing Capital: Armed across cities is to compare the number of workers Countermovement Coalitions Against Labor in killed in strike activities in each city. Between the Late 19 th -Century Industrial Cities.” Forthcoming end of the Civil War and 1920, the frequency of in Strategic Alliances: New Studies of Social strike deaths was greater in San Francisco (n=20) Movement Coalitions , edited by Nella Van Dyke than Cincinnati (n=3), by almost a factor of seven and Holly McCammon. University of Minnesota (data from Lipold and Isaac 2009). This is not the Press. record one would expect based on the image of a Jacoby, Stanford M. 1991. “American Exceptio- corporatist, relatively labor-friendly San Francis- nalism Revisited: The Importance of Manage- co. So I am inclined to think, at least preliminari- ment.” in Masters to Managers: Historical and ly, that while Jeff has found something different Comparative Perspectives on American Employ- and important in San Francisco’s class relations th th ers , edited by S.M. Jacoby. Columbia University during the late 19 and early 20 centuries, there Press. 27 Trajectories Vol. 21, No.1 Fall 2009

Katznelson, Ira and Aristide R. Zolberg (eds.). hives or other primary sources that solid historical 1986. Working-Class Formation: Nineteenth- work requires. That sort of digging is one of his- Century Patterns in Western Europe and the tory’s lures. Of course, it takes a lot of research to United States. Princeton University Press. transform hypotheses into viable arguments; and Kimeldorf, Howard. 1988. Reds or Rackets? The evidence always requires revising even the best of Making of Radical and Conservative Unions on hypotheses. Conversely, no amount of piling on the Waterfront. University of California Press. of data will generate an argument. Social scien- Kimeldorf, Howard. 1999. Battling for American tists’ comfortableness with abstraction—with Labor. University of California Press. theory—can help historians strike a productive Lipold, Paul F. and Larry Isaac. 2009. “Striking balance. Deaths: Lethal Contestation and the ‘Exceptional’ Novice and antiquarian historians often find Character of the American Labor Movement, historical treasures as they eagerly sift through 1870-1970.” International Review of Social His- their sources. Yet they, and even professional his- tory 54 (August): 167-205. torians, are often somewhat at sea about the signi- Marx, Karl. 1967. Capital. Volume 2. Interna- ficance of their discoveries. Haydu’s sense of tional Publishers. what matters within his evidence and why it mat- Montgomery, David. 1993. Citizen Workers. ters is exquisite. A small example among many Cambridge University Press. such treasures in Citizen Employers comes from Ross, Steven J. 1985. Workers on the Edge: comparing the 1890 San Francisco and Cincinnati Work, Leisure, and Politics in Industrializing city directories. This seemingly dreary task re- Cincinnati, 1788-1890. Columbia University vealed that the former placed employers’ associa- Press. tions and labor unions within a single category, Stepan-Norris, Judith and Maurice Zeitlin. 2003. namely “Protective Associations,” while the latter Left Out: Reds and America’s Industrial Unions. separated them, placing trade unions under one Cambridge University Press. heading and employers’ associations under Van der Pijl, Kees. 1984. The Making of an At- another labeled “public bodies,” along with bene- lantic Ruling Class. Verso Press. volent societies and social clubs (175). By align- Voss, Kim. 1993. The Making of American Ex- ing this distinction with other patterns in his evi- ceptionalism. Cornell University Press. dence, Haydu recognized that it reflected a very real difference in how the cities’ businessmen believed which organizations represented respon- sible members of the polity. What might have Comments by Pamela Walker Laird been a mere “factoid” in another’s hands makes University of Colorado, Denver an important point about whose citizenship mat- tered within the mainstream. Haydu’s search for When I reread Jeff Haydu’s superb Citizen Em- the dynamics of bourgeois class formation, and ployers for this discussion, I was teaching not just for stories about it, gave meaning to the “Theory & Practice of History,” my department’s directories’ categorizations. required introduction for undergraduate majors. Deliberate thinking in terms of social dynam- This bit of serendipity highlighted the benefits of ics, such as path-dependency, class formation, or thinking about a sociologist’s successful methods social capital, as well as of structures, such as or- for historical analysis. It also underscored differ- ganizations and hierarchies, can guide and inspire ences between historians’ and social scientists’ historians. I can imagine social scientists asking goals and practices, reinforcing the importance of at this point, how can one not think in these maintaining both disciplinary differences and terms? The key here is the qualifier deliberate . conversations across them. Even in the most naïve storytelling, assumptions In every history class, I struggle to convince about how change or continuity happen can hold students that, while simple narratives can be fun sway unnoticed by their authors. Asking my stu- to write and to read, good historical scholarship dents to read social scientists—who wear their must do more. It must analyze. In contrast, stu- methods, hypotheses, and theories on their dents rarely resist the need for research in arc- sleeves—helps them to generate and shape ques- 28 Trajectories Vol. 21, No.1 Fall 2009 tions and directions for their own thoughts and pectable” Americans, figured greatly in how research. In any case, I have been a fan for dec- businessmen and their peers worried about securi- ades of what the social sciences offer historians. ty and labor relations within their firms, indus- Thus, although Pull: Networking and Success tries, and cities, even their neighborhoods. The Since Benjamin Franklin bore some historians’ frightful events could not have been far from the rebuke for “too much” social science, I eagerly mind of any businessman east of the Mississippi, noted the social science references in Citizen Em- although perhaps San Francisco’s distance pro- ployers for future projects. 4 vided some insulation. Fears of class war rose to Given all of this, what more is there for me to the surface with the unrest that began with the say about Citizen Employers ? The rest of this es- Panic of 1873 and continued during years of de- say will address a few areas that highlight how vastating violence that peaked in 1877 but did not the same book that shows the advantages of doing end then. This national background must have history through a sociologist’s lens also points to heightened the local fears from Cincinnati’s 1884 why it can matter that sociologists and historians Court House riot that Haydu credits as a pivotal work differently. My first topic will look at histo- point there. In San Francisco, on the other hand, rians as spoilers, and the second at what is miss- the rioters of 1877 attacked Chinese residents, not ing from Citizen Employers from this historian’s railroad properties, reinforcing Haydu’s conclu- perspective. The third looks at how the goals and sions about racism as a dominating force there. methods of producing history often differ for his- (On the violence of 1877, see Bruce 1959; Painter torians and social scientists, with some resulting 1987). frustrations. Looking even farther back, I could not help Historians can get asked to parties to tell sto- but wonder about the possible relevance of earlier ries. We carry lots of them around with us and are patterns of American class formation. For exam- always glad to share. But sometimes historians ple, two classic studies of antebellum polarization can dampen others’ storytelling if they show off between employers and employees could be espe- their hard-won factoids. No matter what story cially pertinent. Paul Johnson (1978) demonstrat- someone else tells, the historian in the crowd will ed how employers in the early nineteenth century know of something that happened earlier or else- abandoned centuries of tradition and no longer where that can take the steam out of amateurs’ shared their homes, meals, and liquor with work- stories. Even worse, historians often know when ers as they began to form what we now recognize an entertaining story contains misinformation. as a middle class. Affluent families left grimy Most of us avoid turning social gatherings into business districts for tree-lined neighborhoods trivial pursuit contests, but sometimes avoiding where temperance and religious revivals could temptation is hard. Of course, rarely in a social domesticate mainstream culture. Similarly, Mary setting do those earlier or elsewhere events mat- Ryan (1981) showed the effects of religious fer- ter. In scholarship, on the other hand, they often vor and rising affluence on families’ worldly ac- do. tivities and ambitions before the Civil War. For instance, Haydu certainly knows about Among those who could, families sought to diffe- the violence of the nation’s railroad strikes of rentiate themselves according to respectability. 1877, the 1886 Haymarket Riot, the 1892 Homes- Cultural transposition, which Haydu defines as tead Strike, and the 1894 Pullman Strike. Some “the application of a common cultural script of these catastrophic events make cameo appear- across social settings” (17), did powerful work in ances in Citizen Employers , yet they hold no ex- antebellum America, setting new patterns across planatory standing. Haydu makes a strong case public and private spheres. for the power of local circumstances over the As rich in local history and interactions as are events and processes he investigates. Yet, nation- Haydu’s analyses of Cincinnati and San Francis- al experiences, prefaced by the 1871 Paris Com- co, because of the lack of contextualization, the mune that struck terror into the hearts of “res- cities, their people, and the events seem to float, unanchored. This is not a criticism of doing local

4 studies, and Haydu is quite right that “the local Not all historians resist social science. Pull received the community remained the primary stage for class 2006 Hagley Prize for the best book in business history. 29 Trajectories Vol. 21, No.1 Fall 2009 formation among proprietary capitalists” in that men attended—precisely for establishing class era (23). Even nationally-prominent figures who hierarchies. Addressing these intersections and had achieved wealth in the hinterlands tended to interactions for Haydu’s subjects would take the gather in the major metropolises to build their work of at least one other book, and I do not in- new class identities. Nonetheless, grounding Cin- troduce these points as expectations. Nonetheless, cinnati and San Francisco within the nation’s cul- a caveat about the relevance of domesticity, per- tural and political trends and contexts could have haps with some references to Thorstein Veblen deepened Citizen Employers ’ achievements even (1899), Stuart Blumin (1989), Johnson, or Ryan, more. would have avoided giving the impression that My second topic—what I see as missing class is a masculine domain. Many of bourgeois here—points to four items: narrative, women and men’s goals in those transition decades entailed families, national influences other than labor raising or maintaining their families’ property, strife, and individual agency. Suggesting a propriety, and status, and their incomes set the stronger narrative does not contradict my earlier limits of their families’ social ambitions. Family comments about history students (and antiqua- ambitions were very much part of what drove rians) who just want to tell stories. There are real many of the economic and political ambitions benefits to helping readers follow the flow of held by Haydu’s Citizen Employers . events. For instance, adding dates for both quota- Other complications that could have influ- tions and events throughout would help connect enced the processes that Haydu studied include lines of causality. As it is, events and quotations additional national factors and processes. For in- move in an out according to logic, not timing. stance, what were the effects of the 1895 found- Such insensitivity to sequence can be misleading ing of the National Association of Manufacturers or confusing. For instance, on a single page, quo- in Cincinnati? Ohio governor and future president tations about unions as a target against which William McKinley addressed the convention’s Cincinnati businessmen coalesced follow in this 583 manufacturing executives and trade associa- order: 1882, 1886, 1914, 1878, and 1894. Two of tion representatives. The NAM quickly became them are not identified in the text even by decade, the leading organizer of the proprietary capitalists which is especially misleading for the lengthy who are Haydu’s subjects, and one of its goals 1914 quotation (173). Dating would help, but was to draw the nation’s businessmen together to neglecting the likelihood that conditions and atti- define and pursue their common goals. It began tudes changed between the occasions for these publishing American Industries in 1902, just two statements puts our sense of historical contingen- years before San Francisco’s “historical reversal.” cy and causation at risk. Citizen Employers is rich Could the outreach of this increasingly influential in historical development, including Haydu’s ar- organization have influenced the changes in San gument for “historical reversal” in San Francisco Francisco? Other connections that may be perti- between 1904 and 1919. Still, hanging evidence nent include that William Taft, U.S. president and arguments on time’s passage could have from 1909 to 1913, was born in Cincinnati and avoided implying that events and time’s passage was one of the important supporters of the U.S. do not affect people’s attitudes. Chamber of Commerce, founded in 1912. The Leaving out women and families from an Chamber’s goals very much paralleled the analysis of transposition across work and politics NAM’s. Perhaps these national developments fits Patricia Nelson Limerick’s description of a helped to connect San Francisco with the majority “constricting coherence and clarity” that comes of industrial cities that more resembled Cincin- “at the price of an accurate reckoning with the nati. Perhaps the dramatic reversal that Haydu complexity of history” (1997). In reality, much of convincingly depicts for San Francisco was not the work of class formation is family-based, and an entirely endogenous phenomenon. therefore women’s work. Men’s families and Balancing structure and individual agency is neighborhoods intersected with their economic not always easy. One of the many ways in which and political lives. Women’s domestic and social Citizen Employers provides a model for histo- lives included charities, church, temperance or- rians is its careful demonstration of the impor- ganizations, plus events that women created—and tance of organizations to historical processes. In- 30 Trajectories Vol. 21, No.1 Fall 2009 dividuals, even leaders, more often than not act tion left little room for some of the factors I have on the polity, on history, through organizations introduced here. and institutions, formal or informal. I continuous- All that said, I reiterate that Citizen Employ- ly remind students that the most interesting his- ers is a splendid work of history to which I will torical questions ask less about why individual continue turning. It absolutely does not succumb leaders do what they do and more about why oth- to the most frequent failing for which historians er people follow them. Nonetheless, although critique social science work, namely the blithe Haydu brings us many voices, there are few ac- use of a few secondary sources in service of subs- tors, and I often wondered who was doing what. tantiating some hypothesis. Quite the contrary. Apropos of this, in a concluding paragraph Haydu Haydu has earned his stripes many times over as mentions Frederick Koster, whom I had noted an honorary historian. We historians should do so earlier and wondered about. Did Koster have any well at sociological analysis. links to national organizations? What was his connection with William Crocker, son of Charles References: Crocker of the Central Pacific? William co- Blumin, Stuart M. 1989. The Emergence of th founded the San Francisco Opera and chaired the Middle Class: Social Experience in the American Panama-Pacific Exposition. Advocates for Tho- City, 1760-1900 . New York: Cambridge Univer- mas Mooney, who was convicted for a key 1916 sity Press. bombing but who appears in the index only with Bruce, Robert V. 1959. 1877: Year of Violence . a reference to “San Francisco Preparedness day New York: Bobbs-Merrill Company. bombing,” (265) attacked both Crocker and Kos- Johnson, Paul E. 1978. A Shopkeeper’s Millen- ter as “pirates.” Certainly Mooney saw a connec- nium: Society and Revivals in Rochester, New tion between the two businessmen, but all three York, 1815-1837 . New York: Hill & Wang. men remain shadowy. Haydu briefly mentions the Laird, Pamela Walker. 2006. Pull: Networking role of individual agency at the end (214; 237, n. and Success Since Benjamin Franklin . Cam- 12), but it seems an afterthought. Unless we know bridge, MA: Harvard University Press. something about actors, events seem to be auto- Limerick, Patricia Nelson. 1997. “Has ‘Minority’ nomous; organizations, institutions, relationships, History Transformed the Historical Discourse?” and mechanisms seem determinant. Do individu- Perspectives 35, no. 8: 1, 32-36. als participate in history as agents as well as rep- Painter, Nell Irvin. 1987. Standing at Armaged- resentatives of various cohorts? Historians tend don: The United States, 1877-1919 . New York: toward giving individuals too much agency. So- W. W. Norton & Company. cial scientists and historians can guide each other Ryan, Mary P. 1981. Cradle of the Middle Class: toward more robust balances. The Family in Oneida County, New York, 1790- Many of the differences between historians 1865 . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. and social scientists, and the resulting frustra- Veblen, Thorstein. 1899. The Theory of the Lei- tions, follow from their differing goals for sure Class: An Economic Study of Institutions . “doing” history that, in turn, lead to differences in New York: Macmillan Company. methods. Historians, even analytical ones, want to produce a story, grounded in time and demon- strating change or continuity over time, with ac- tors making—even agonizing—over decisions. Comments by Ajay K. Mehrotra Analysis does not usually trump telling the tale. Indiana University, Bloomington Amongst social scientists, on the other hand, we find tales told in service of theoretical goals. The Scholars have long been preoccupied with chro- outcomes are powerful and compelling, in part nicling the rise of class consciousness. But, for because pursuing theoretical goals can narrow the most post, the traditional focus has been on perspectives. In the case of Citizen Employers , the working-class. From Karl Marx to E.P the focus on attitudes and actions toward labor as Thompson, scholars have explored the structural the defining “relational” dynamic for class forma- and cultural factors that have shaped the political consciousness of industrial workers. Jeffrey Hay- 31 Trajectories Vol. 21, No.1 Fall 2009 du’s outstanding new book, Citizen Employers: ic cycle of boom and bust had a determinative Business Communities and Labor in Cincinnati influence on the civic ideology of Cincinnati and San Francisco, 1870-1916 , joins a growing businessmen. Whereas in the antebellum period recent literature that moves the analytical lens the Queen City could boast of being the region’s away from workers and toward business owners. leading transportation hub and manufacturing Like Martin Sklar and Sven Beckert before him, center, the relative economic decline of Cincin- Haydu has given us a detailed and compelling nati compared to Chicago and Pittsburgh was social history of economic elites—a social history evident by the 1890s. This comparative economic that is firmly grounded in the everyday expe- downturn had a profound impact on the city’s la- riences and ideologies of late nineteenth and early bor militancy and the reaction of business leaders. twentieth century leading capitalists in two major The de-skilling of labor had an equally significant U.S. cities. affect on bourgeois ideology. As Haydu explains, Haydu’s central concern is to investigate why material changes on the shop floor “could also “employers in specific times and places adopt reshape capitalist alliances and identities, both by such different tools for denigrating—or, much cutting vertical ties across class lines and by forc- more rarely, legitimizing—unions” (p. ix). More ing employers to confront new problems of labor specifically, he seeks to explain the variation in management—and, perhaps, to develop new col- industrial-relations that existed between two lective solutions for those problems” (p. 47). comparable modern American cities: Cincinnati Yet, at the same time, economic forces by and San Francisco. Evoking the Tocquevillian themselves do not tell the entire story for Haydu. message about the importance of American vo- Thus, he also explores how cultural institutions luntary associations, Haydu focuses on how di- such as art museums and music festivals were verse civic associations in these two communities pivotal both in helping business leaders with the shaped business ideology towards organized la- boundary work of separating themselves from the bor. Cincinnati’s capitalists, agitated by political working classes and in bringing like-minded eco- corruption and high taxes, gathered in civic or- nomic elites closer together. Similarly, civic as- ganizations, Haydu argues, that solidified class sociations like the Cincinnati Commercial Club solidarities around a particular notion of “busi- and the Business Men’s Club not only reconfi- ness citizenship.” This civic-minded class cohe- gured class alignments, they also helped facilitate siveness fostered a virulent anti-unionism. By a collective identity among business citizens, and contrast, San Francisco’s economic elites were framed how capitalists perceived the turn of the much more divided. Small and mid-sized proprie- century “labor problem.” tors eschewed unity with other capitalists and in- The interdisciplinary strengths of Citizen Em- stead fostered cross-class alliances with white ployers can also be seen in the literatures with workers in the process of disparaging large facto- which the book is engaged. Haydu explicitly re- ries and Chinese labor. As a result, San Francis- fers to the vast and growing sociological literature co’s business community, at least initially, devel- on social movement theory, class formation, and oped a far more accommodating “practical corpo- neo-institutionalism as he develops his argument ratism,” whereby certain business leaders were about the variation in labor-capitalist relations. more willing to work with unions. Highlighting the importance of social networks In narrating the historical variation in Ameri- and group ties, Haydu shows how in San Francis- can industrial relations, Haydu has written a truly co race played a major role in shaping conflicts interdisciplinary monograph. It is interdiscipli- arising from de-skilling and material transforma- nary in its content, in its engagement with scho- tions in the workplace. The prevalence of Chinese larly literatures, and perhaps most importantly in labor led white craftsmen and small proprietors to its methods of analysis. Although many histories forge common ground and maintain cross-class of American industrial relations frequently privi- ties that were not evident in Cincinnati, which lege either material forces or cultural factors in had much starker class divisions. San Francisco’s explaining the rise of class consciousness, Haydu “practical corporatism” shows once again how adroitly attends to both. He acknowledges, for race frequently trumps class in the history of example, that the late nineteenth-century econom- American labor relations. Moreover, the focus on 32 Trajectories Vol. 21, No.1 Fall 2009 organizational contexts clearly shows the book’s verses course over time and comes to resemble in strong neo-institutionalist strand. Haydu takes the early twentieth-century Cincinnati’s anti- seriously how all kinds of institutions, but espe- union “business citizenship.” In this way, the San cially voluntary civic associations, were critical to Francisco example is really two case studies in building common interests among public-minded one; a pre-World War I San Francisco when a businessmen, and how these interests in Cincin- unique and more accommodating “practical cor- nati were transposed into a workplace ideology poratism” held sway as business leaders recog- that resisted the demands of organized labor. nized unions through collective bargaining and In the process of engaging with these varied consulted with them in municipal politics, and a types of scholarship, Haydu also employs an in- post-WWI San Francisco when a stark reversal terdisciplinary set of analytical methods. The seemed to take place, as businessmen organized book, in other words, is not just an outstanding to characterize labor interests as antithetical to work of historical sociology; it is also an excel- civic values, and as labor unions demobilized po- lent example of comparative social history. The litically. comparison, of course, is subnational, rather than Citizen Employers makes a persuasive case transnational, but the former is a method of inves- for dispelling the conventional wisdom that turn- tigation that has a rich tradition in American so- of-the-century American capitalists were every- cial history. Unlike some types of historical soci- where and always anti-union. Still, there are por- ology, which merely use old data to test current tions of Haydu’s account that could be clarified to sociological theories, Haydu respects the foreign- support his arguments. One is in his use of politi- ness of the past, as he attempts to transport his cal theory. The political ideology of republican- readers into a different historical context. In this ism, for instance, is an important theme through- sense, professional historians will be elated to out the book, but particularly in Part II (Identities) discover that Haydu has carefully mined not only when Haydu examines the content of business the secondary literature in American labor and discourse in his two case studies. Haydu convin- business history, but also primary sources, includ- cingly demonstrates that republicanism was a ing archival materials, surrounding his historical multivalent ideology that permitted business subjects. Although some critics may argue that leaders in Cincinnati and San Francisco to adapt Haydu could have done more with archival portions of classical republican thinking to their sources to uncover what rank-and-file employers particular social contexts. But at times it seems as in these voluntary associations believed and did, if republicanism is doing too much analytical his interpretations of the ideas of business leaders work; its malleability seems overstated. Why is well supported by his careful work with prima- were businessmen in Cincinnati and San Francis- ry sources. co able to adapt elements of republicanism selec- It is not only in his blending of sources that tively? How were they able to extol the impor- Haydu pays careful attention to the past. He also tance of civic virtue while at the same time dimi- attends to the messy mix of continuity and change nishing the ideal of the mechanic as a respected that accompanies any reconstruction of past member of the republic? These are critical ques- events and processes. Whereas some historical tions that are identified in Haydu’s study, but not monographs focus on the past either as a snap- fully explicated. Likewise, in contrasting republi- shot, as a particular moment in time, or as a pe- canism with the resurgent classical liberalism of riod of transformative change, an era of great rup- the Gilded Age and the corporate liberalism of ture; Citizen Employers takes account of both the the Progressive Era, Haydu appears to leave out a forces of continuity and change. His case study of third form of American liberalism: the new libe- Cincinnati demonstrates the stubborn persistence ralism of Walter Lippmann, Herbert Croly, and of a “business citizenship” ideology that took John Dewey. Portions of this strand of liberalism shape over time, but remained resolutely anti- can be seen in San Francisco’s “practical corpo- union. At the same time, the “practical corporat- ratism,” but the Metaphysical Club was not the ism” of San Francisco’s economic elite appears as same as the National Civic Federation or San a more contingent and historically-specific ideol- Francisco’s Merchant’s Association. ogy, one that according to Haydu’s narrative re- 33 Trajectories Vol. 21, No.1 Fall 2009

Another historical factor that also seems House riot and its reaction as an overly- somewhat neglected in Citizens Employers is the deterministic critical juncture, Haydu places the legal structure. Haydu’s exhaustive research ac- melee into a broader context, showing how it had knowledges the role that the courts played in deeper historical roots in the social dislocations blunting labor militancy in Cincinnati, and how of modern urban industrialism, as well as far San Francisco’s “Law and Order Committee” in- reaching consequences in shaping the civic- strumentally turned to injunctions to combat the minded identities of Cincinnati’s business elites. 1916 waterfront strike. Yet, Haydu depicts law Thus, the riot, in Haydu’s hands, becomes part of and legal institutions as minor variables. He pre- a broader historical context whereby long-term sumes that the legal framework was relatively structural forces help explain how possible op- constant across his case studies. That may be true tions in dealing with industrial-relations are win- if one focuses on how the courts were used to nowed down and particular social alignments and prevent and break strikes. But a more capacious identities are reinforced overtime. view of law, legal institutions, and legal Citizen Employers is certain to garner great processes would suggest that voluntary civic as- scholarly attention and stimulate further investi- sociations and the varied character and strength of gations into the comparative-historical diversity unions themselves may be a product of differenc- of American industrial relations. Although the es in legal structures. book’s prose is at times dense, it should be a use- Despite these minor omissions, Citizen Em- ful text for graduate classes in a number of fields, ployers is an outstanding work of historical social including sociology, history, and labor studies. science mainly because it takes temporality se- Haydu has provided a concise and careful histori- riously; the formation of bourgeois class con- cal study of comparative class-formation that sciousness, for Haydu, is first and foremost an pulls back the analytical lens to show just how artifact of history, a result of complex develop- important life outside of the economic realm was ments over time. Social scientists frequently refer to both employers and workers. to such historical explanations by employing the theory of path dependency, which contends that during “critical junctures” or contingent moments particular decisions tend to have long-term con- Comments by William Roy sequences because subsequent events reinforce or University of California, Los Angeles “lock-in” the earlier contingent choices. Though Haydu evokes the path dependent metaphor, he First, I would like to congratulate Jeff for writing does so with a healthy skepticism about the po- such a terrific book. The theoretical sophistica- tential historical determinism implicit in any fo- tion, methodological care, historical sensitivity, cus on particular “critical junctures.” For Haydu, and rhetorical grace are truly outstanding. the historical development of capitalist class- The role of businessmen in civil society has a conscious is defined less by pivotal moments of long and honorable tradition, having drawn the plasticity than it is by the incremental reinforce- attention of Marx, Weber, Durkheim, and Toc- ment of class ties, identities, and frames of analy- queville, just to name a few. In mid-twentieth sis. As he explains, “initial forays into movement century American sociology, the issue was ap- activities and organizations can lock in early proached from the perspective of businessmen, choices by forging bonds and constructing identi- asking whether the capitalist class was unified ties that participants become reluctant to give up enough to hegemonically rule over central institu- (p. 209).” tions, including the state. Scholars vigorously de- This is not to say that Haydu has ignored crit- bated whether the American capitalist class could ical events. To the contrary, his focus on Cincin- be considered a “class for itself” or merely a nati’s March 1884 Court House riot, a widespread “class in itself,” whether America and its cities and violent reaction to the lenient sentencing of a were ruled by a power elite or a plurality of coun- murderer, shows how his study brilliantly braids tervailing forces, and whether the fundamental single, salient events with longer-term historical structure of capitalism made direct rule by capi- processes. Rather than describing the Court talists unnecessary or not to ensure the system’s 34 Trajectories Vol. 21, No.1 Fall 2009 reproduction. In the late century, the perspective think of them as a single arena is an empirical shifted to civil society as a whole, asking the cir- question, one that he sets out to answer. cumstances under which civil society coalesced This is a superbly crafted book with sophisti- to the point that it could check concentrated pow- cated theory and strong method, but I want to er and provide a framework for a democratic so- raise three analytical issues. These are not so ciety. The conspicuous ascendency of conserva- much criticisms as issues that the book raises and tive capital in this country, the demise of com- that I think a discussion can help illuminate more munism abroad, and the flowering of cultural generally. The first issue concerns units of analy- analysis in sociology shifted attention to the ques- sis and comparison. One of the book’s strongest tion of how civil society can develop and thrive. points is its exemplary use of the Millian compar- Jeff Haydu’s book is bringing these agendas to- ative method to find generalizable explanations gether by asking what determines variation in the for what happened in Cincinnati and San Francis- role that businessmen play in civic life. He does it co. To what extent would those generalizations by preserving the Marxist and Weberian orienta- apply to larger units of analysis? Second, and this tion of mid-century interest in capitalists as capi- is the closest I have to a real criticism: How can talists and the more recent sensitivity to cultural our invocation of the concept of path dependency nuance and contingency. Thus the title Citizen help explain both continuity and change? When Employers , which links into one phrase the civic we see continuity, it is easy to invoke the concept and economic sphere. But this phrase—citizen of path dependency. When we see change should employer—is treated as a variable not a constant. we also ask, why path dependence doesn’t apply? The extent to which the The third is a classic term has historically made question of class analy- sense to people or might How can our invocation of sis: to what extent and have been considered an in what ways should the oxymoron differed in the the concept of path depen- analysis of class forma- two settings he investi- dency help explain both con- tion for the capitalist gated. Thus, unlike many class and working class of the neologisms that tinuity and change? parallel each other or populate academic dis- differ from each other? course, this phrase sug- Or to put it another way, gests an agenda more than an explanation. The what is specifically capitalist about class forma- extent to which businessmen considered their tion in capitalist societies? roles as employers and their roles as citizens as part of the same cloth becomes an object of study. Units of Analysis: From the local to the interna- What are the structural features and cultural fram- tional ings that make the role of citizen employer com- Haydu returns to a familiar terrain for Ameri- pelling or meaningless? It’s an important and can sociology, the city, the terrain that captured challenging question. the imagination of such luminaries as Robert One of the most important issues addressed in Park, Ernest Burgess, Robert and Helen Lynd, this book is the relationship between the culture William H. White, and Floyd Hunter. Although I and identities that businessmen have toward the have not seen any figures to verify it, I would workplace and toward the public arena. Rejecting guess that before 1960, major social science jour- economic or political determinism, the book nals included more articles with cities than na- probes how ideals and the sense of self in work tions as the unit of analysis. and in the public arena penetrate each other, For the time and place Haydu is studying, the though not in any fixed way. Even the strength of U.S. in the late 19 th and early 20 th century, the the boundary between work and the public varies individual city was the appropriate unit of analy- and is something itself to be explained. Why sis to study class formation of capitalists. Though businessmen might think of work and the public the national consolidation of business and the as two unrelated spheres or conversely might corporate revolution was both a structural factor and a result of class formation at the national lev- 35 Trajectories Vol. 21, No.1 Fall 2009 el, national class formation was still nascent at against workers. Their more complete unity made best (Roy 1984). Businessmen organized at the it possible for them to speak on behalf of the local level much more actively than at the nation- whole, rejecting working class politics as divi- al level. Except for issues that were explicitly na- sive. The analysis is as nice an example of the tional, such as tariffs, the relevant civic sphere for intersection of race and class as you’ll see. most businessmen, both structurally and cultural- But the issue of race raises the question of ge- ly, was the city. neralizability to larger units of analysis, especially In addition to the historical suitability of using nation-states. The role of race clearly distinguish- the city as the unit of analysis, there is a methodo- es the dynamics of class formation in Cincinnati logical advantage, especially for Haydu’s well- from San Francisco. But it has been invoked to executed use of Millian comparison. The strategy have the opposite effect in explaining the differ- of Millian comparison that Haydu uses is the me- ence between the United States in Europe. Haydu thod of difference. In the method of difference, emphasizes that class formation in San Francisco the analyst selects cases that are similar in most was an exception from the rest of the U.S. Class respects, but differ in terms of the dependent va- formation in San Francisco, he argues, was more riable (Przeworski 1970; Ragin and Zaret 1983; like a European pattern. San Francisco’s greater Skocpol and Somers 1980). By analytically hold- openness to unions, its willingness to recognize ing constant many of the factors that might be them and negotiate with them departed from the invoked to explain what is different between the more general stance of total intransigence by cases, we can isolate the factors that vary and most American capitalists. But one of the main might explain the difference. By comparing cities factors makes San Francisco different from other within a nation, one holds constant all qualities American cities is a characteristic that makes the that are uniform to that country such as the basic U.S. as a whole distinctly different from Eu- culture, level of development, national political rope—race. There is a certain unexplained irony system, etc. Haydu goes further, selecting cases in the fact that San Francisco’s exceptionalism that as cities share such factors as a similar manu- from the American pattern of class formation is facturing base. Haydu uses the comparative me- based on a factor often invoked to explain Ameri- thod skillfully. On one hand, he constantly com- ca’s exceptionalism from Europe. In some com- pares back and forth, invoking the comparative parative analyses, race is invoked as a reason why logic to fortify his major thesis. This is used most the American capitalist was more effective in effectively with his argument that the different preventing working class power (Bonacich 1976). racial structures and different responses to race in While it would be unreasonable to demand that Cincinnati and San Francisco go a long way to Haydu explain why European capitalists were explaining differences in class formation. One of more accommodating than their American coun- the most interesting aspects of Haydu’s analysis terparts, his explanation for San Francisco’s ex- is the role that race plays. In San Francisco, the ceptionalism should be consistent with what hap- Chinese presence threatened both workers and pened in Europe. I can see several ways to ad- businessmen, who formed a united front, thus al- dress such an inconsistency: 1. The parallel be- leviating the intensity of conflict between classes. tween San Francisco and Europe was offered as The presence of Chinese workers and entrepre- an interesting coincidence more than an analytical neurs in San Francisco split capitalists between generalization, an aside more than a part of the modest sized firms and monopolies. Workers central argument. 2. We should not expect similar were also divided in their relationship to the Chi- class configurations to always have the same nese. The result was a more or less united middle cause. There are so many differences between class against the Chinese from below and the mo- American cities and European societies that any nopolies from above. Racial conflict thus similarities will be due to many factors. 3. There trumped class conflict. Counter-intuitively, class are some interesting parallels to be found between conflict became more visible, as capitalists af- the role of race in San Francisco and features of firmed the legitimacy of workers to participate in European society that can be gleaned from further governance. While no less racist, Cincinnati busi- analysis. The role of racial organization is much nessmen could join together in a united front more complex than a simple variable that should 36 Trajectories Vol. 21, No.1 Fall 2009 have universal consequence. If this is true then sion of the citizen employer. Thus the San Fran- Haydu’s findings create an invitation for a richer cisco businessmen were more comfortable with analysis. the notion of overtly class-based politics, whereas those in Cincinnati took on the role of guardians Path Dependency, Continuity and Change of the entire community. He labels the San Fran- One of the unresolved tensions is the invoca- cisco frame “practical corporatism” focusing on tion of path dependency. Our understanding of the pragmatic attitude of accommodation with the path-dependency in historical social sciences has unusually strong unions in that city. The Cincin- become more sophisticated through the pioneer- nati frame he calls “business citizenship” a form ing work of James Mahoney (2000; 2006) and of class consciousness that includes a strong Paul Pierson (2003; 2004) the concept of path sense of implicit group identity and a rejection of dependency has evolved from an effective meta- overt class politics. Thus Cincinnati was able to phor of continuity to a more fully understood me- develop a far richer civil society with business- chanism. That is, we better understand the cir- men leading the arts, charities, and eventually cumstances under which social relations are re- progressive government. But the difference in the produced and those in which they change. Pier- two cities belies an important continuity. Both son’s work is most explicit here, requiring that drew on the same ideological foundations of path dependent processes must involve identifia- American republicanism. Haydu emphasizes the ble positive feedback loops. Just to label patterns continuities just as much as the divergences. The or relationships as path dependent does not con- San Francisco businessmen embraced the concep- stitute an explanation, but more of an agenda, re- tion of the honorable producer against the non- quiring us to identify the mechanisms by which productive, including what they considered the the patterns or relations are reproduced. When slothful Chinese and the venal monopolist. The Haydu introduces his discussion of path depen- Cincinnati businessmen abandoned the emphasis dence in relation to cultural frames, he wisely sets on productive worth, while sustaining the virtue the criteria for when path dependence applies. “A of public responsibility. In contrast to many histo- path-dependent account of frame selection might rians who have argued that republicanism had begin by asking which inherited cultural tools been abandoned by the late 19 th century, Haydu from the past are effective in coping with current convincingly shows that it was alive and well. problems. Individuals, after all, do not so much Even if embraced selectively, American business have identities and frames as use them to situate thinking in that period cannot be understood themselves in their social worlds and to make without it. Thus the consciousness and frames in sense of those worlds” (14). Haydu effectively the two cities came from the same path of Repub- shows the path dependent nature of republican licanism. I find the explanation original and con- thinking in Cincinnati and San Francisco, how vincing. But there is a glitch. One of the actors businessmen in those two cities selectively drew steps off the path. San Francisco businessmen upon the republican tradition to adapt to changed after 1911 abandon their accommodation toward circumstances in very different ways. unions, push for the open shop, fight labor’s re- The first section draws on social movement presentation in local government, organize vio- theory which treats all contenders as analytically lent vigilantes to maintain law and order, and dis- equal. He shows that San Francisco businessmen cover a new degree of unity. Haydu repeats that were more accommodating to unions and more this was not just a belated adoption of the Cincin- inclusive of the working class in politics. As nati model, but a pattern different from either mentioned above, the most important factor in Cincinnati or the earlier San Francisco. He calls it this was the role of the Chinese in San Francisco. a third case, that he hopes will strengthen his The second part focuses on the specific ideologi- analysis rather than weaken it. But I think this is cal content of class formation, drawing on theo- an analytical cop-out, especially given the earlier ries of collective identity and framing to show attention to path dependency. His justification for how San Francisco businessmen thought of them- making it a third case is that he tries to show that selves more as pure businessmen in contrast to the same factors that explain San Francisco’s ear- the Cincinnati business community’s broader vi- lier accommodation and attachment to the ideolo- 37 Trajectories Vol. 21, No.1 Fall 2009 gy of practical corporatism changed. The indus- would emphasize how such capitalist powers as tries that relied most heavily on the Chinese de- the ability to withhold investment, the dilemma of clined, the trade unions were no longer threatened competition vs. cooperation, the effects of proper- by Chinese workers, the workers’ political party ty law, etc., give the capitalist class specific chal- was weakened by corruption, and the business lenges and advantages in contrast to others. community faced new competition from other Haydu skirts these basic theoretical questions west coast cities. But what happened to the path by wisely investigating what capitalists were ac- dependent processes that had sustained continuity tually doing. He finds that capitalists were prob- earlier? If we take path dependency seriously, we lematizing class formation and worked very hard must justify when it applies and when it does not. to achieve it (see also Roy and Parker-Gwin We cannot declare that one case has been magi- 1999). But I’m curious to know if he thinks there cally metamorphosed into another case and point is a fundamental difference between class forma- to independent variables as though they are ex- tion in the working class and class formation in ogenous. Historical entities do not operate ac- the capitalist class, and if so what it might be. For cording to what Sewell has called experimental example, could the role that Cincinnati business- time (1996). This is not to say that path depen- men took in assuming the mantle of benevolent dence should be a mindless explanation for conti- guardians of the whole community ever be taken nuity or that any change rebuts the existence of by workers or unions? Could the corporatism in path dependent processes. Instead, we need con- San Francisco that Haydu calls practical corpo- cepts and models that explain both change and ratism when adopted by businessmen, ever be continuity. anything but overtly ideological if adopted by workers or unions? If capitalist class formation What is Capitalist about Capitalist Class Forma- can benefit from pragmatism more than militan- tion? cy, can working class formation? I’m not sure My third issue is more of a genuine question Haydu’s analysis can answer these questions, but than a criticism. What difference does it make perhaps they offer clues. that the people being studied were capitalists? The extent to which businessmen participate There is one strain of thought that treats class in public life and the shape that business partici- formation in terms of the generic issue of group pation takes is one of the most consequential fac- formation of any sort. What are the factors that tors in shaping how public problems are ad- make it possible for any group to recognize its dressed. For those that care about public issues to interests, create cohesion and trust, and attain the casually assume that business interests are easily ability for collective action. The social movement identified, that elite actions are easily anticipated, theory that Haydu draws on would explain the or that business politics are just too boring to capacity for collective action similarly for any study is folly. Haydu’s book shows how broad the group, capitalist, working class, or for some prac- range of business politics can be and how easily titioners PETA and Mothers Against Drunk Driv- periods of openness can be closed. There are les- ing. There is another strain of analysis that insists sons well worth learning. that the processes of class formation for the capi- talist class are inherently different for capitalists References : than other groups. One variation on the theme of Block, Fred. 1977. "The Ruling Class Does Not inherent difference would see a structural bias in Rule: Notes on the Marxist Theory of the State." the system on behalf of capital that would imply Socialist Revolution 7:6-28. that capitalists don’t really need to organize to Bonacich, Edna. 1976. "Advanced Capitalism and have their interests served (Block 1977). Another Black/White Relations in the United States: A variation posits that the logic of collective action Split Labor." American Sociological Review is inherently different in that capitalist interests 41:34-51. are so much more obvious than working class in- Mahoney, James. 2000. "Path Dependence in terests, making capitalist class organization much Historical Sociology." Theory and Society less problematic (Offe and Wiesenthal 1980). A 29:507-48. third variation on the theme of inherent difference 38 Trajectories Vol. 21, No.1 Fall 2009

—. 2006. "Analyzing Path Dependence: Lessons cisco, particularly the ways my approach balances from the Social Sciences." Pp. 129-39 in Under- narrative and analysis and makes qualified use of standing Change: Models, Methodologies, and path dependency. The second category includes Metaphors , edited by A. Wimmer and R. Kössler. potentially important influences my book slights. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. The final category encompasses questions about Offe, Claus and Helmut Wiesenthal. 1980. "Two the extent to which the patterns of business for- Logics of Collective Action: Theoretical Notes on mation I identify in my two cities may be genera- Social Class and Organizational Form." Political lized to other cases and other types of group for- Power and Social Theory I:67-116. mation. Pierson, Paul. 2003. "Big, Slow-Moving, and… Invisible: Macro-Social Processes in the Study of I. Constructing Historical Arguments Comparative Politics." Pp. 177–207 in Compara- This exchange began at an author-meets- tive Historical Analysis in the Social Sciences , critics panel at the 2009 Social Science History edited by J. Mahoney and D. Reuschemeyer. Association, an organization through which scho- —. 2004. Politics in Time: History, Institutions, lars can, at least briefly, bridge disciplinary dif- and Social Analysis . Princeton, N.J. : Princeton ferences. One of these differences, Pam reminds University Press. us, is the way we present our arguments. Histo- Przeworski, Adam Teune Henry. 1970. The Logic rians usually weave analysis into narrative and of Comparative Social Inquiry . New York: Wi- make liberal use of illustrative stories. Sociolo- ley. gists are more likely to foreground their analyses. Ragin, Charles C. and David Zaret. 1983. Some do so by resorting to "experimental" time "Theory and Method in Comparative Research: (Sewell 1996), highlighting relationships among Two Strategies." Social Forces 61:731-54. variables more or less detached from historical Roy, William G. 1984. "Institutional Governance context. Others do so by telling "analytical narra- and Social Cohesion: The Internal Organization tives" in which causal relationships are embedded of the American Capitalist Class, 1886-1905 " Pp. in events and unfold over time. But those analyti- 147-71 in Research in Social Stratification and cal narratives still differ from the richer stories Social Mobility , vol. 3, edited by R. V. Robinson told by many historians in the way that raw mate- and D. J. Treiman. Greenwich, CT: JAI Press. rials (such as the things that real people do and Roy, William G. and Rachel R. Parker-Gwin. say) are evaluated and grouped for presentation to 1999. "How Many Logics of Collective Action?" readers. Pam offers a good example. I argue that Theory and Society . Cincinnati employers in the period from the Skocpol, Theda and Margaret Somers. 1980. 1880s to WWI constructed a common public "The Uses of Comparative History in Macrosoci- identity for themselves as "business citizens," and ological Inquiry." Comparative Studies in Society that this civic ideology was applied to demonize and History 22:174-219. unions in certain ways. I came to that conclusion based on the preponderance of the evidence. But what bits of this evidence should I offer the read- er, and how should I arrange the pieces? For my Reply by Jeffrey Haydu analytical narrative, the examples should illu- University of California, San Diego strate the argument and line up with the temporal period identified in that argument. (I distinguish It's an honor to have my book evaluated with the 1878 quote from the others as representing, in the care shown by Larry Isaac, Pam Laird, Ajay some respects, earlier discourse.) To tie each Mehrotra, and Bill Roy. They represent my pur- quote to particular moments of time within that poses and arguments well, and the issues they period might serve other worthy narrative purpos- raise are worth extended discussion. In organizing es, but it would muddy the argument. my response, I have corralled their main com- Pam makes a related point, that my account ments into three broad categories. The first cate- turns on structural conditions at the expense of gory covers how I construct my account of busi- actors' agency. Here I plead guilty, but only after ness class formation in Cincinnati and San Fran- distinguishing "agency" as part of a causal expla- 39 Trajectories Vol. 21, No.1 Fall 2009 nation from "agency" as an appealing narrative I want to soften up that determinism to allow device. To follow Pam's example, Frederick Kos- for reversals, and I think it is a mistake to argue ter was a key leader of San Francisco's Chamber that if there is a reversal then it could not have of Commerce as it made a decisive turn, in 1916, been a real path to begin with. If we find the sorts against the city's unions. Koster is an interesting of cumulative lockin mechanisms that path de- character. There are stories that could be told of pendency suggests we look for, then the metaphor his background in San Francisco's business com- has served us well. And I think that is what hap- munity and social circles. Telling those stories pened in the "second" case of San Francisco. would have entertained many readers (and, alas, There we see a weakening of factors that had irritated some others: "why do I need to know locked in earlier patterns -- racial cleavages be- this ?"). But for my purposes, the key question is coming disentangled from relations among capi- like that asked about Lenin: what if Koster had talists and labor's political power weakening, for missed the train? I think that counterfactual has a example. But we also see a new series of devel- clear answer. Koster's background was typical of opments, like the revamping of business organi- one faction of San Francisco's business communi- zation and political realignment, locking in a dif- ty that had long favored the open shop (the one ferent path. More subversively for path depen- bit of background I supply for Koster). Others dency, we find actors retrospectively configuring from this faction held leadership positions in the new paths out of inherited historical resources Chamber of Commerce. And that organization, (Haydu 2010). greatly expanded and revamped over the previous Among those resources are ideological ones. five years, gave San Francisco businessmen a so- San Francisco's "second case" underscores that lidarity and collective clout that they had not en- malleability in the republic tradition which Ajay joyed before. If Koster had missed the train, oth- finds exaggerated in my comparison of Cincinnati ers like him would have used these new resources and San Francisco. Juxtaposing these cities in much the same way he did, exploiting new op- showcases the selective uses to which business- portunities (above all, the Preparedness Day men in different settings put the ideological tool- bombing of 1916) to attack unions. kits they inherited. The shift in employer rhetoric My account, then, is a deterministic one more in San Francisco between the 1900s and the WWI typical of sociologists than of historians. But the era provides further illustration of this selective very fact that San Francisco class formation and use of the republican tradition. (And so, I would industrial relations change course in 1916 points add, do studies of workers' adaptations of repub- to the limits of my determinism. Here, Bill sug- licanism [Gerteis 2007].) Of course, there are gests, I seem to be forsaking path dependency as constraints on the opportunistic use of ideology. an explanatory model. In comparing Cincinnati Highlighting the evils of parasitical monopolies and San Francisco, I make use of this model to (one republican theme voiced in San Francisco) show how the cumulative effects of economic had to be both plausible and in the interests of a conditions, race relations, union organization, and substantial fraction of San Francisco business- -- yes -- critical events, "locked in" different class men. Thanks to the Southern Pacific Railroad, alignments and class ideologies. Bill rightly in- both conditions were met. sists that we be clear about where path dependen- cy applies. My response is that it best applies to II. Omissions comparative questions like this one: why do simi- Readers often wish books had included topics lar cases, facing similar challenges, diverge over of particular interest to them. Authors, for their time? But when we look, instead, at successive part, may err in their decisions about what to paths in a single case, path dependency can ham- leave out. For any particular omission, there are per historical explanation because of the way in two important tests: were there legitimate ratio- which it combines serendipitous switch points, nale for excluding the topic? Would its inclusion where prior history exerts no causal influence, have made a substantive difference to the conclu- with a deterministic lockin over time, with no ob- sions reached? vious way off the path, short of exogenous shock. Ajay notes that I pay little attention to the law as a possible influence, beyond mentions of em- 40 Trajectories Vol. 21, No.1 Fall 2009 ployers' strategic use of legal weapons against language of cultural transposition, the institution- unions. And he is right about my rationale. The al boundaries between family life, on one side, legal weapons available to employers in the two and civic identities and workplace ideology, on cases were similar, whereas there was a striking the other, were still quite high in the late 19th difference in how these employers put the law to century. Or to put it another way, men's roles as use. To explain that difference, presumably we business citizens blurred the boundaries separat- must look elsewhere. Ajay suggests that "a more ing civic leadership, cultural patronage, and capacious view of law, legal institutions, and le- workplace management. Women's roles drew a gal processes" might reveal systematic contrasts sharper line between the family and the realms of between the cases. He may be right. If and when politics and work. that more capacious view becomes more fully Larry and Pam also ask if the book is too nar- specified, we would be in a position to apply the rowly focused on the local level, to the exclusion second test. of national influences. They point to major Pam makes the important point that business events, like the violent industrial conflicts of class formation (and working class formation, 1877 and 1886, which are mentioned but play no Hanagan (1980) and others add) may be fostered real causal role. Pam adds that some national or- by relations among families and through the ac- ganizations, like the National Association of tivities and networks of women. The same point Manufacturers (NAM), may have contributed to could be made about residence patterns, suburban San Francisco's reversal. Larry notes that devel- country clubs, and etiquette rules. All have been oping national market ties may also have had a shown to serve as vehicles for social closure differential impact on each city's bourgeoisie. Al- against the working class (e.g Blumin 1989). All though I don't use the same terms as Larry does, make only token appearances in Citizen Employ- such networks do play a role in my account. One ers (although I do note women's prominent roles theme in the Cincinnati case is the bypassing of in the cultural institutions that helped differen- the city by developing transportation networks tiate Cincinnati's business class from the lower that were centered in Chicago. And part of the classes). How do my tests apply to the omission story of San Francisco's reversal involves both the of a substantive focus on women and families? In end of its relative isolation from national compe- terms of rationale, among the many organizations tition and the rise of competing west coast ship- and networks that might have contributed to class ping centers. On the other hand, some of the na- formation, I gave priority to those that (1) also tional organizations that might have influenced shaped businessmen's public persona and ideolo- San Francisco labor relations, notably the Citi- gies and (2) also fostered mobilization (whether zen's Alliance (a union-fighting body that worked for collaboration or for warfare) vis-a-vis labor. closely with the NAM) were decisively repu- Those criteria directed attention to the civic or- diated by most local businessmen when they tried ganizations that loom so large in the book. Would to rally San Franciscans to the open shop in the inclusion of women and families have made a early 1900s. They got a better reception later -- difference to my conclusions -- the second test? I after local conditions had changed. don't think so, for both empirical and theoretical Overall, however, Larry and Pam are right reasons. In terms of the archival evidence, there is about the relative neglect of national influences. material about family ties and women's roles in My main warrant for this neglect is methodologi- cultural associations, but it tends to be compart- cal. I don't see these important national strikes as mentalized -- particularly in the "society" pages having been more or less influential in one city as of local newspapers -- and to have been little re- compared to the other, and so they can't explain marked upon by businessmen active in local civic differences in business class formation. Pam and affairs and labor relations. By contrast, the net- Larry's comments on this point did, however, works and organizations that demonstrably did alert me to a different sort of missed opportunity. influence employers' collective identities and Even if these national strikes did not have a diffe- views of work were overwhelmingly male. Fall- rential causal impact, I could have used them to ing back from archives to theory, this pattern is further illustrate the distinct business cultures of also what one would expect. To use my book's the two cities. My impression is that San Francis- 41 Trajectories Vol. 21, No.1 Fall 2009 co businessmen interpreted the 1877 railway By these indicators, San Francisco looks more strikes and the 1894 Pullman dispute, in particu- like European cases such as England than it does lar, according to their familiar template of evil like most other U.S. cities. Bill points to a puzzle monopolies (especially the Southern Pacific) and in this comparison. One factor in San Francisco's dangerous Chinese workers. Their Cincinnati exceptionalism, I argue, was racial cleavages that counterparts, consistent with business citizenship, aligned small business and skilled white labor interpreted the same events more as serious civil against the Chinese. Yet a common view among disturbances rather than as battles between capital comparativists is that unions were more success- and labor. ful in Europe than in the U.S. because racial clea- vages were more pronounced in the latter. So III. Generalizing about Class Formation even if the outcomes in San Francisco and (for Finally, there are a number of important ques- example) England were similar, must not the ex- tions raised about the broader applicability of my planations for this differ? The answer is twofold. arguments. The "exceptional" case of San Fran- First, racial cleavages worked differently in San cisco's practical corporatism, I suggest, resembled Francisco than in other U.S. manufacturing cities; emerging patterns of labor relations in some Eu- second, there was more to San Francisco excep- ropean countries. Bill wonders if these similar tionalism than racial cleavages. It was the partic- patterns also had similar roots, and Larry asks if ular way in which the Chinese were incorporated this picture of San Francisco is compatible with into key San Francisco industries like shoemak- that city's high levels of industrial violence. As ing and clothing -- as both employees of technol- for Cincinnati's business class formation, to what ogically advanced firms and as owners of small extent does it look like other cases of bourgeois sweatshops -- that made them a threat to skilled class formation? And is it as similar to working white labor and proprietors alike. The more usual class formation -- or indeed to the sorts of group pattern was Cincinnati's, where African Ameri- formation one finds in other social movements -- cans in this period much less frequently appear in as my more theoretical discussion implies? manufacturing either as workers or as employers. Citizen Employers does present San Francisco At least in northern states, the challenges of tech- as exceptional in its class alignments and its in- nological change typically pitted labor against dustrial relations. In contrast to the country's open capital, not whites against blacks. The path to San shop norms, in the early 1900s, a majority of em- Francisco's exceptionalism also included other ployers recognized that labor and capital alike tributaries. One was that by the early 1900s, the had distinct interests and that the public good was local labor movement was powerfully organized served if both sides were compactly organized at work and a potent independent force in munic- and responsibly led. I hope I did not lead readers ipal politics. This was crucial for beating back the to conclude, however, that industrial peace fol- open shop tactics of some employers and educat- lowed. As I explain in the book, there was always ing others as to the wisdom of settling disputes an open shop minority. Member of this group through negotiation. And this cause of San Fran- sometimes took on workers who -- this being San cisco's un-American industrial relations can in- Francisco -- usually were well organized. Hard- deed also be found in quasi-corporatist European fought and protracted battles ensued. Even the regimes (Robertson 2000). practical corporatists got into scraps with unions, Cincinnati, by contrast, has a more typical scraps which sometimes turned ugly. That high pattern of industrial relations, and Citizen Em- levels of industrial violence existed in San Fran- ployers suggests that the character of business cisco is not surprising. The important departure class formation found there is echoed in case stu- from national norms lies in employers' typical dies of some other cities. How far would I push goal in fighting unions, which was not to smash Cincinnati as "typical"? One point I make early in them but to improve the terms of settlement. The the book is how far we have come from Marx in unusual character of the city's industrial relations studying class formation. Cultural practices and is better captured by other indicators, such as the collective action have at times aligned with eco- extent of collective bargaining or the trades cov- nomic hierarchies. Sometimes we see a related, ered by industry-wide agreements. two-fold movement in which ties between mem- 42 Trajectories Vol. 21, No.1 Fall 2009 bers of different economic classes diminish and look for in any given case and how to put the ties among those sharing similar class positions causal story together. Somewhat closer to earth, extend. But most scholars have cast off orthodox there are more substantial similarities between assumptions about how this happens, where , in- working class and bourgeois class formation. stitutionally, it happens, or whether it will happen Case studies tell common stories of new chal- at all. By the same token, if class formation does lenges and threats, new opportunities, and new happen, it will not always happen in the same associational activities that break vertical ties and way. In earlier U.S. cases cited by Pam, evangeli- expand horizontal ones. The details of these chal- cal religion was a particularly important arena for lenges, opportunities, and associations, however, bourgeois class formation. By the late 19th cen- vary both between workers and capitalists and tury, new divisions had emerged among capital- among cases of each. There is, however, one key ists. In Cincinnati, those divisions were bridged difference between bourgeois and working class not through churches but through secular civic formation, at least in the era I studied. By and associations. Similarly, in the fascinating case large, for workers, status closure (e.g., male discussed by Larry, Cleveland capitalists faced workers denying job opportunities to women or somewhat different challenges. Unlike Cincin- keeping blacks out of unions) undermines class nati, which was in decline, Cleveland was still in formation. In Cincinnati and many other industri- its boom years. Its more recent development may al cities of the time, a smaller and more homoge- have minimized the frictions that occurred else- neous bourgeoisie meant that status closure and where between an urban gentry and the nouveau class formation went hand in hand. Even that dis- riche. And Larry is persuasive that in Cleveland, tinction, however, is a historically contingent one. the extension of solidarity among businessmen We still need to look at more cases of business happened through private militia. What these ex- class formation -- something that I believe all par- amples show are some generic dilemmas of class ticipants in this exchange would recommend. formation and the importance of non-economic relations as the arena in which capitalists drew A final word of thanks to my critics and, from all together and cut their ties to workers. Cincinnati's five of us, to Isaac Martin for all his work orga- business clubs and Cleveland's militia also dis- nizing the original SHAW panel and facilitating play common organizational features which made this Trajectories exchange. them particularly effective vehicles for class for- mation. Both had a multivalent character: Cincin- nati's business associations served the functions References: of genteel relaxation, cultural philanthropy, and Blumin, Stuart M. 1989. The Emergence civic reform; Cleveland's militia fused the roles of the Middle Class: Social Experience in of neighborhood association, defender of the pub- the American City, 1760–1900 . Cam- lic peace, social club, and union-fighting force. bridge: Cambridge University Press. But beyond such general parallels, Larry is surely Gerteis, Joseph. 2007. Class and the Col- right that there are "multiple and quite divergent or Line: Interracial Class Coalition in the paths to business class formation." Knights of Labor and the Populist Move- To what degree, finally, is my account of ment . Durham: Duke University Press. business class formation generalizable beyond the Hanagan, Michael P. 1980. The Logic of bourgeoisie, to other groups or movements? Or to Solidarity: Artisans and Industrial Work- turn this around, as Bill does, is there anything ers in Three French Towns, 1871–1914 . distinctive about capitalist class formation? The Urbana: University of Illinois Press. answer seems as unavoidable as it is unsatisfying: Haydu, Jeffrey. 2010. "Reversals of For- it depends on what level of abstraction you hap- tune: Path Dependency, Problem Solving, pen to like. The model I use of the path dependent and Temporal Cases." Theory and Socie- construction of collective identities is a very gen- ty 39(1), January: 25–48. eral one, potentially applicable to social move- Robertson, David Brian. 2000. Capital, ments as well as class formation. By the same Labor, and State: The Battle for American token, it does little more than suggest what to 43 Trajectories Vol. 21, No.1 Fall 2009

Labor Markets from the Civil War . Lan- I wish to think these pure—even sterilized— ham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield. moments in the archival room are central to my Sewell, William H., Jr. 1996. "Three joy and identity as a sociologist who does histori- Temporalities: Toward an Eventful Soci- cal research. But quickly, even without any Bour- ology." Pp. 245–80 in The Historic Turn dieusian cynicism, I realize that notion of scholar- in the Human Sciences , edited by Ter- ly purity is bound to be self-delusional. One only rence J. McDonald. Ann Arbor: Universi- needs to look beyond one’s research cubicle to ty of Michigan Press. see that what’s really interesting, and sometimes more meaningful, lies somewhere else—in the many happenstances infiltrating the sacredness of research, in the idiosyncratic way each archive is organized, in the gulf between what one does or Identities doesn’t know and the insights of an experienced archivist, and, not least, in the unplanned, expo- nential growth of new research questions con- Editors’ Note: In this section, comparative- stantly prompted by emerging discoveries in the historical scholars reflect on why they entered the archives. Here is one such unremarkable—even subfield. irrelevant and impure—experience that nonethe- less leads me to understand my work a bit better. For the past two years, I have managed to lo- King-To Yeung cate certain late nineteenth-century American Princeton University prison records in the official archives of a couple of western states. My research was exploratory, For eight hours a day you sit in the archival room, broadly focusing on inmates’ infractions and diligently unwrapping fragile documents and prisons’ internal disciplines. I am clearly a novice scanning them as quickly as possible. You wear a when it comes to American history, since my oth- pair of white gloves, like a surgeon ready to scru- er long-term research had dealt with nineteenth tinize a hidden problem under the patient’s skin. century Chinese imperial bureaucracy and its You copy verbatim the words of the dead and lis- reactions to social revolts (I still need to learn ten to their arcane lingo, trying to uncover the more about Lewis and Clark...). At any rate, one unmapped entrance into a world in which some tangential connection between the Chinese case strange social players once lived. This is how and and that of the Old West seems to be their shared where I enter the field—through doing things in institutional obsession with punishment. The the archival room. American prison documents I have located con- In this peculiar place—a highly controlled and sist of wardens’ daily entries about inmate infrac- sanitized habitat—you and your research exist in tions and the respective punishments, all recorded pure harmony. The outside world cannot distract in big, heavy ledgers that apparently were kept to you; your pen, paper, camera, backpack, and all determine whether particular prisoners might re- other vestiges of private property are confiscated ceive early release or pardon. My sheer curiosity before your entry into the sacred zone. Wi-Fi is about the punishment system of the Old West banned as well. Alone with your own body, you sent me first to the Wyoming State Archives. come into direct contact with precious historical Unlike university collections, the Wyoming records that just a few days ago were mysterious- State Archives serves other, nonacademic func- ly kept in storage, only seeing the light of day tions, including, most importantly, the issuing of upon your special request. These rituals of the high school transcripts for state residents who archival room make possible an utterly intimate have attended any Wyoming school. At first relationship between you and the recorded past. glance, this transcript service is clearly irrelevant No wonder that I feel such a sense of ownership to my own research. In fact, the other functiona- of those documents which I merely hazily scan or ries of the archival room did not initially affect roughly reproduce by hand. my “pure” research rituals: I ordered the old pris- on ledgers, got my gloves, spread the heavy log 44 Trajectories Vol. 21, No.1 Fall 2009 books over a research desk, paged through the my research agenda. A patient and experienced documents, took great pains to decipher old archivist once told me plainly, “When the old pe- handwritings, and so on. nitentiary closed down, they moved some of the But gradually, the constant phone calls to the records to us but threw away most of others.” Or, archivists made by people demanding their tran- at another site, I was told that “Documents disap- scripts compelled me to see the archival room peared when they traveled between the archival (and my own research) in a different light. Increa- storage and the museum where they were dis- singly I became aware that the archivists sitting played.” These are neither reasons nor justifica- not far away from my research desk have spent tions for why things got lost; these are facts that much of their office hours responding, in person describe the living and breathing archival organi- or over the phone, to citizens who utilize archival zation. documents in very personal and private manners. Of course, this realization does not excuse us People search for their genealogical roots in from making sense of the raw materials on which Wyoming, looking for their great-grandparents’ our craft depends, namely, the archival docu- names in old directories; they ask to reproduce ments brought out from storage for our scrutiny. photos of houses that once stood on their current We cannot stop asking how, in what procedures properties; they spread out old maps to find out and under what organizational constraints, these what has been changed in the ecology surround- materials can possibly end up before us. Insofar ing their own houses, perhaps wanting to reno- as the archival room is a collection of activities— vate or sell them; and, not least, they pay a few including all the private projects fellow citizens dollars to get their high school transcripts for col- pursue with diverse interests—we need to reckon lege applications. The personal utility served by how the plethora of archival actions could have these archival materials constitutes much of the shaped our own research and altered the very ex- archive’s normal organizational activities. These planations we seek to generate (especially when historical projects seem to be vastly different what is missing from the archives have something (dare we say) from our impersonal and purported- to do with the archival organization itself). As ly intellectual investigations of overarching his- Michael Burawoy has said, organizational facts torical changes, transformative events, the logics such as these are not pollutants to research, but of nineteenth century punishment, and so forth. form the substratum on which we should begin As I became more attuned to the streams of our research. phone calls that (quietly) found their way into the So the next time I enter the archival room, I archival room, I also see that the boundary of my will let the impurity of doing research reshape my research is far less exclusive. In fact, I have been thinking. Hopefully, in midst of many “irrele- a part of the multiple problems the archival or- vant” activities, I may discover a more colorful ganization must solve daily. In a shared space, my identity in doing historical sociology. project is connected to many others, including the endless high school transcript requests and The author would like to acknowledge the copy people’s genealogical search for their ancestors. editing assistance from Andrew Grossman. These personal projects of private citizens proba- bly have already shaped my research. How so? I imagine that the ways the prison records are organized, kept, lost, or destroyed Joya Misra have something to do with the various functiona- University of Massachusetts, Amherst ries and orientations of the Wyoming office, most of which might have little to do with the particu- I became a comparativist in my early childhood. lar subject in which I am interested. When Growing up the daughter of immigrants, my records get lost, for example, it is probably not whole life was oriented toward comparisons, par- because staff members are careless, but because ticularly across societies. My Bengali (Indian) there are more important things to which the staff father started almost every sentence with “In our must attend. It would be wrong for me to demand part…;” my Swiss mother, always contrasted his the archival room to organize itself according to experience with hers; and both (good Leftists) 45 Trajectories Vol. 21, No.1 Fall 2009 always made it eminently clear that the American him, I interlibrary loaned the original Baltic way was not only not the only way, but a specta- sound toll data, translated the columns from the cularly poor way of organizing society. My own Danish, and gave him what I thought were much comparative experiences of growing up first in better, albeit still flawed data. My next move was Shaker Heights, Ohio, then Shreveport, Louisi- to study the historical record, to get to know the ana, spending many summers with my mother’s period qualitatively, so that I could feel more con- very large family in Switzerland, and being deep- fidence in the quantitative measures. I read, and I ly engaged in Indian-American communities dur- read, and I read. And I became more and more ing the school year (Bengali lessons, Bengali certain that I was gaining some insight into the dance, Bollywood films, or better yet screenings development of the capitalist work-economy and of Satyajit Ray movies), made me a comparativist the role of shipping in that world-economy. And long before sociology was a meaningful word for somewhere in that reading, and that going back me. and forth between quantitative measures and qua- High school was a high point. I was exposed litative historical records, I became who I remain to excellent courses in World and American His- today, a comparative historical researcher who tory, as well as a truly fascinating class in law, constantly moves from qualitative to quantitative politics, and society—I have the spiral-bound data, always trying to develop better understand- notebook for that course to this day. I found my ings of historical processes. niche. Just to lose it again in college, where I Of course, I couldn’t stay in the 17 th century wandered. I majored in religion (comparative), forever, and working with Alex Hicks, I became minored in sociology, took lots of political deeply engaged in the 20 th century. While he is an science courses, and spent the vast majority of my excellent, sophisticated statistician, Alex’s re- time running the alternative college radio station. markable grasp of European history was stunning College held no allure, as my mostly working and gave me something to aspire to. Welfare state class friends were not in college, and the punk scholars are often focused on studying eighteen or scene spoke far more directly to me and my con- twenty cases, so we learn everything we can cerns. But we were Marxists, and the alternative about them. A researcher who studied the same music of the 1980s analyzed society in ways that eighteen people for a lifetime would likely know fit our experiences and spoke to our engagement a remarkable amount about their cases too. So, in the anti-Apartheid movement and activism once again, I read, and I read, and I read, and I’ve around ending American military involvement in quite honestly, yet to come out of that phase. Un- Central America. derstanding the emergence of the welfare state, My parents tricked me into graduate school, and its development over the 20 th century drew of course, first wheedling me into taking the me in, especially since I’d grown up with parents GREs (which I did after a long night listening to so critical of the paltry American welfare state. bands), next encouraging me to apply to graduate As a feminist I was especially gleeful to be able programs (why not?), and then telling me that I’d to use these methods to trace the important con- never have another chance to go to school for free tributions of women’s movements to the welfare (wrong!). But I figured that sociology would al- state – using both the power of QCA and the legi- low me to study whatever I wanted to, and I timacy of quantitative historical methods to argue somehow found myself in a program filled with that feminist historians were right—women’s Marxist political economists, who took me se- movements mattered, and in important ways. riously, despite my wild child ways. I couldn’t Over the years, I’ve used these methods to under- have asked for better mentors. stand how class, race/ethnicity, nationality, citi- Within the first week or two of graduate zenship, and gender intersect in modern welfare school, Terry Boswell asked me (his RA) to put states. I’ve become less obsessed with origins, but together quantitative data on shipping during the remain deeply committed to understanding histor- 17 th century from some secondary sources. Hav- ical processes and weaving back and forth, be- ing come from a family of scientists, I almost tween quantitative and qualitative methods, in immediately fell into despair, concerned about the order to make stronger, more convincing, more poor quality of the data. Most likely annoying nuanced arguments. 46 Trajectories Vol. 21, No.1 Fall 2009

When I look back, and forward, I am most grateful for the ability comparative-historical me- Mahoney, James and Kathleen Thelen, eds. 2010. thods have given me, to not only theorize struc- Explaining Institutional Change: Ambiguity, ture, but also culture; to not only think about the Agency, and Power; Cambridge University Press. world in terms of equations, but also discourses. In my career, I’ve used almost every type of re- Maynes, Mary Jo, Jennifer L. Pierce, and Barbara search tool sociologists claim—archival work, Laslett. 2008. Telling Stories: The Use of Person- secondary analyses, interviews, ethnography, sur- al Narratives in the Social Sciences and History. veys, content analysis—feeling sure that by doing Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. so, I can get closer and closer to making sense of Rueschemeyer, Deitrich. Usable Theory: Analytic the elusive and dynamic world around me. The Tools for Social and Political Research. Princeton explicit mentoring of comparative historical re- University Press 2009 searchers, like Terry and Alex, who encouraged me to choose my method based on my research Savelsberg, Joachim J. 2010. Crime and Human question, rather than vice versa, is what brings me Rights: Criminology of Genocide and Atrocities. to where I am today. London: Sage.

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Chase-Dunn, Christopher and Thomas D. Hall. Vol XXXII, edited by Eric Mielants and Terry- 2009. “Changement social et intégration des Ann Jones. Boulder, CO: Paradigm Press. réseaux d’échange dans la longue durée” [Global Social Change and Integration of Exchange Net- Hall, Thomas D., Christopher Chase-Dunn and works in the Long Run]. Pp. 159 – 188 in His- Richard Niemeyer. 2009. “The Roles of Central toire Globale, Mondialisation et Capitalismes Asian Middlemen and Marcher States in Afro- [Global History, Globalization and Capitalisms], Eurasian World-System Synchrony.” Pp. 69-82 in Edited By Philippe Beaujard, Laurent Berger & The Rise of Asia and the Transformation of the Philippe Norel. Paris: Éditions La Découverte. World-System, Political Economy of the World- System Annuals . Vol XXX, edited by Ganesh K. De Leon, Cedric. “Vicarious Revolutionaries: Trinchur. Boulder, CO: Paradigm Press. Martial Discourse and the Origins of Mass Party Competition in the United States, 1789-1848.” Kumar, Krishan, "Nation-states as empires, em- Studies in American Political Development 24 pires as nation-states: two (1): 121-141 principles,one practice?", Theory and Society 39 (2), 2010: 119-43. Eidlin, Barry. “‘Upon This (Foundering) Rock’: Minneapolis Teamsters and the Transformation Naeshagen, Ferdinand Linthoe. 2009.“Folkets of U.S. Business Unionism, 1934-1941.” Labor rettferdighet: Strafferett I senmiddlelalder og tid- History , Vol. 50, No. 3, August 2009, 249-267. lig nytid” Collegium Medievale vol. 22, 2009, pp. 128-186. Elias, Sean. 2009. (with Joe Feagin and Jennifer Mueller) “Social Justice and Critical Public Soci- Reifer, Tom, "Capital's Cartographer: Giovanni ology.” Handbook of Public Sociology . Vincent Arrighi: 1937-2009," New Left Review 60, No- Jeffries, editor. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Lit- vember-December 2009, pp. 119-130 tlefield Sewell, William H. Jr., "The Empire of Fashion Elias, Sean. 2009. “Comment to Michael Omi and the Rise of Capitalism in Eighteenth-Century and Howard Winant.” Contemporary Sociology France," Past and Present 206 (February 2010): 38(5) 81-120. Elias, Sean. 2009. “Racial Discrimination, Ori- Steinmetz, George, “Colonial Melancholy and gins and Patterns.” Oxford Encyclopedia of Hu- Fordist Nostalgia: The Ruinscapes of Namibia man Rights . Dave Forsythe, editor. New York: and Detroit.” Pp. 294-320 in Julia Hell and An- Oxford University Press dreas Schoenle, eds., Ruins of Modernity . Dur- ham, NC: Duke University Press, 2009. Elias, Sean. 2009. “W.E.B. Du Bois, Race, and Human Rights.” Societies Without Borders , Spe- Steinmetz, George, “Neo-Bourdieusian Theory cial Issue on Race and Human Rights: Critical and the Question of Scientific Autonomy: Ger- Histories, Inquiries, and Futures 4(3) man Sociologists and Empire, 1890s-1940s.” Po- litical Power and Social The ory, vol. 20 (2009), Hall, Thomas D. 2009. “Puzzles in the Compara- pp. 71-131. tive Study of Frontiers: Problems, Some Solu- tions, and Methodological Implications.” Journal Steinmetz, George, “The Imperial Entanglements of World-Systems Research 15:1:25-47 [Special of Sociology in the United States, Britain, and Issue: Methodological Issues in Macro Compara- France since the 19th Century." Ab Imperio , issue tive Research, Edited by: Jeffrey Kentor & Timo- 4 (2009): pp. 1-56. thy Patrick Moran. Steinmetz, George, “Thirty Years of Thesis Ele- Hall, Thomas D. and P. Nick Kardulias. 2010. ven: A Survey of the Record and Questions for “Migration and Globalization: Long-term the Future.” Thesis Eleven , number 100 (2010): Processes in World-Systems.” Pp. 22-37 Mass 67-80. Migration in the World System: Past, Present and Future, Political Economy of the World-System 48 Trajectories Vol. 21, No.1 Fall 2009

Tiryakian, Edward A. 2009. "Global Altruism: Moraes Dias da Silva PhD 2010 Harvard Some Considerations," pp. 409-27 in Vincent Jef- Sociology DepartmentAdvisor: Michele Lamont fries, ed. Handbook of Public Sociology. Row- man & Littlefield. Abstract Tiryakian, Edward A. 2009. "Durkheim's Reflec- Through the perceptions of black profession- tion on the Crisis But Which One?" Durkheimian als in Brazil and South Africa, this dissertation Studies Etudes Durkheimiennes, 15: 26-38. explores the distinct and dynamic ways race and class interact across different national contexts. Tiryakian, Edward A. 2009. "Modernity and the By contrasting the experiences of the invisible Second Return of Mechanical Solidarity," pp. 1- Brazilian black middle class and the evident 22 in Mohamed Cherkaoui and Peter Hamilton, South African black middle class, it contributes eds. Raymond Boudon: A Life in Sociology. Ox- to the study of a significant and understudied ford: the Bardwell Press. group in two societies undergoing important Walker, Katherine. 2008. “United, Regardless, changes. Two sets of questions guide this disser- and a Bit Regretful: Confederate History Month, tation: First, how do upwardly mobile blacks in the Slavery Apology, and the Failure of Comme- Brazil and South Africa perceive racism and dis- moration.” American Nineteenth Century History crimination in their countries? Second, how do 9:3, pp. 315-338. the experiences of black professionals challenge the historical interface of race and nation in these Walker, Katherine. 2009. “Buried in the Unre- two contexts? In order to address these ques- missive Ground: Reading Richmond’s Subterra- tions, I rely on a census data, national survey stu- nean Signs.” Social Semiotics 19:4, pp. 427-438. dies, and 112 in-depth interviews with black pro- fessionals in Brazil and South Africa. Socioeconomic and survey results show that, despite important improvements in racial inequa- Dissertations : lities, racism is continuously identified as a prob- Elias, Sean. 2009. “Black and White Sociology: lem by large majorities in Brazil and South Afri- Segregation of the Discipline.” PhD dissertation, ca—but particularly by the black middle class. Department of Sociology, Texas A&M Universi- Through the comparison of discrimination expe- ty, College Station, TX riences, of folk conceptualizations of racism, and of the interface of racial and national identifica- tions among black professionals in Brazil and In order to present a more complete and accurate South Africa, this dissertation identifies two con- picture of the historical development of sociology trasting antiracism narratives among black pro- and key themes in sociological theory, this disser- fessionals in these two countries: homogenizing tation addresses several fundamental omissions in universalism in Brazil and universalized diversi- sociology’s history and thought. I explore 1) ties in South Africa. omission of an understanding of the centrality of racial meanings, race relations, and racism (race) in sociology; 2) omission of explaining ways race Zhang, Lu. “From Detroit to Shanghai? Globali- frames sociological viewpoints of influential, zation, Market Reform, and Dynamics of Labor mainstream white sociologists; and 3) omission Unrest in the Chinese Automobile Industry, 1980 of the knowledge of marginalized black sociolo- to the Present.” The Johns Hopkins University, gists who form a counter-tradition with a counter- Baltimore, MD. February 2010. framework challenging key sociological beliefs of mainstream white sociologists. Abstract.

The rapid rise of China to become the world’s “Re-Making Race, Class, and Nation: Black Pro- largest auto vehicle producer and market made fessionals in Brazil and South Africa” Graziella newspaper headlines at the end of 2009. Despite

49 Trajectories Vol. 21, No.1 Fall 2009 the extensive interest in the booming Chinese au- Congratulations to Enrique S. Pumar, who was to industry, little attention has been paid to the elected Fellow at the Institute for Policy Research 1.7 million Chinese autoworkers who are “mak- and Catholic Studies. ing” those headlines. This dissertation explores the current conditions, subjectivity and collective actions of the Chinese autoworkers, and how shop-floor, national and global processes have Announcements and Workshops interacted in complex ways to produce the specif- ic labor relations in the Chinese automobile in- dustry. Specifically, I describe (1) the dramatic Announcement : restructuring and re-composition of the auto- Edward A. Tiryakian has donated his professional worker labor force that has taken place since the correspondence of over fifty years to the Sociolo- mid-1990s; (2) the everyday experience of work gy Archives at Penn State University, a project on the shopfloor (the social life of the factory in- under the guidance of Professor Alan Sica. His cluding the labor process, workplace hierarchy papers include extensive correspondence with and relations with management, and the determi- Pitirim Sorokin, Talcott Parsons, S.N. Eisenstadt, nation of wages); (3) the extent and type of griev- and Robert Merton, among others. ances expressed by autoworkers; and (4) the ex- tent and type of collective actions (resistance) that they engage in, and the sources of bargaining Workshop : power on which they draw in these collective ac- Small-N Compass: Systematic Cross-Case Anal- tions. ysis at the ASA in Atlanta Charles Ragin The dissertation is based on sixteen months of fieldwork from 2004 to 2007 at seven major au- Description : tomobile factories in six Chinese cities (Chang- The analytic challenge of case-oriented research chun, Shanghai, Qingdao, Yantai, Guangzhou, is not simply that the number of cases is small, Wuhu), where I conducted in-depth interviews but that researchers gain useful in-depth know- with 150 autoworkers, 30 managers, 20 factory ledge of cases that is difficult to represent using party and union leaders, and 38 local government conventional forms (e.g., representations that em- officials, labor dispute arbitrators, and Chinese phasize the “net effects” of “independent va- labor scholars. riables”). The researcher is left wondering how to represent knowledge of cases in a way that is meaningful and compact, but which also does not

deny case complexity. Set-theoretic methods such as Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA), the Awards central focus of this workshop, offer a solution. QCA is fundamentally a case-oriented method that can be applied to small-to-moderate size Ns. It is most useful when researchers have know- Congratulations to Julian Go. His book American ledge of each case included in an investigation, Empire and the Politics of Meaning: Elite Politi- there is a relatively small number of such cases cal Cultures in the Philippines and Puerto Rico (e.g., 10-50), and the investigator seeks to com- (Duke U. Press, 2008) was the co-winner of the pare cases as configurations. With these methods Mary Douglas Prize for Best Book, given by the it is possible to construct representations of cross- Culture Section of the ASA. case patterns that allow for substantial hetero- geneity and diversity. This workshop offers an Congratulations to Ho-fung Hung, who has won advanced introduction to the approach and to the the 2010 Outstanding Junior Faculty Award at use of the software package fsQCA. Both the Indiana University. crisp (i.e., Boolean) and fuzzy-set versions of the method will be presented. 50 Trajectories Vol. 21, No.1 Fall 2009

bia), Michèle Lamont (Harvard), and Andreas Fuzzy set analysis is gaining popularity in the so- Wimmer (UCLA) will serve as discussants. cial sciences today because of the close connec- tions it enables between verbal theory, substan- The registration deadline is July 12. For a regis- tive knowledge (especially in the assessment of tration form, please email Robert Jansen at rsjan- set membership), and data analysis. Fuzzy sets [email protected] . are especially useful in case-oriented research, where the investigator has a degree of familiarity with the cases included in the investigation and seeks to understand cases configurationally--as specific combinations of aspects or elements. Us- ing fuzzy-set methods, case outcomes can be ex- amined in ways that allow for causal complexity, where different combinations of causally relevant conditions combine to generate the outcome in question. Also, with fuzzy-set methods it is a possible to evaluate arguments that causal condi- tions are necessary or sufficient. Examinations of this type are outside the scope of conventional analytical methods.

Symposium : Junior Theorists Symposium. August 13, 2010, Emory University.

The Theory Section of the ASA invites you to attend its annual Junior Theorists Symposium, co-organized by Claire Laurier Decoteau (Univer- sity of Illinois, Chicago) and Robert Jansen (Uni- versity of Michigan). The conference brings to- gether scholars at a relatively early stage in their careers who are engaged in original theoretical work as part of their ongoing research. This year’s themes will be The Practice of Theory , Culture and Action , and State, Politics, and So- ciety . Neil Gross (University of British Colum-

51 Trajectories Vol. 19, No.1 Fall 2007

In the next issue of Trajectories :

Methodological Pluralism in Comparative Historical Research .

Contributions welcome: please contact the Editors at [email protected] and [email protected]