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Accounts Volume 11, Issue 1 PAGE 1 ACCOUNTS VOLUME 11, ISSUE 1 ASA ECONOMIC SOCIOLOGY NEWSLETTER ACCOUNTS VOLUME 11, ISSUE 1 VOLUME 11,ISSUE 1 MARCH 2012 Greetings from The editorial INSIDE THIS ISSUE: the Section Chair team of Accounts and I have been collecting syllabi Book Review of Natasha 1 Dear Colleagues: from faculty Iskander’s Creative State: Forty teaching Years of Migration and Development In August of this year, I took over graduate and Policy in Morocco and Mexico Section Chair from Alex Portes,under by Dan Wang, Stanford undergraduate whose leadership the section grew and University courses in sponsored an excellent program of economic sessions and roundtables at the meetings Discussion with Elizabeth Popp 2 sociology. So Berman about her Creating the in Las Vegas. Economic Sociology has far, we have Market University become one of the largest sections of more than 50 syllabi from the U.S., U.K., by Dan Hirschman, University of the ASA, a pattern that reflects the France, Germany and Russia. We Michigan increasing importance of the field for welcome more submissions. In the spring the discipline as a whole. The number of issue we will have an analysis of this Hungary’s Democratic Crisis: A 4 submissions to the Section’s two awards collection, discerning patterns of recent essay by János Kornai, – the Viviana Zelizer and Ronald Burt consensus and points of departure. introduced By David Stark, prizes – has also burgeoned. In Columbia University response, the Section’s Council created In this issue we feature interviews with a new award for articles only, reserving recent section prize winners, reviews of 5 the Zelizer prize for books starting in Winner of the Ronald S. Burt important recent books, and an Outstanding Paper Award: An 2011-12. The new award is named in introduction by David Stark to an essay by Interview with Christopher honor of Mark Granovetter and will be János Kornai on the decline of democracy Yenkey announced, for the first time, at the in Hungary. By Greg Liegel, University of 2012 ASA meetings. - Woody Powell Chicago Book Review of David Graeber’s 8 Debt: The First 5,000 Years BOOK REVIEW: NATASHA ISKANDER’S CREATIVE By Alex Roehrkasse, UC- Berkeley STATE: FORTY YEARS OF MIGRATION AND DEVELOPMENT POLICY IN MOROCCO AND MEXICO Interview wih Balázs Vedres, co- 11 By Dan Wang, Stanford University winner of Zelizer Award about Structural Folds In research on the role of relied on funding from that made such remittance By Russell J. Funk, University of out-migration in the migrants sent back arrangements possible and Michigan economic growth of through informal and the socio-political Interview with Sean Reardon 12 developing countries, the formal channels to finance consequences of linking the conversation typically about doing policy-relevant various development economic fates of migrants work in the ivory tower shifts to the importance of projects. In many cases, and their countries-of-origin. By Molly King, Stanford remittances. Countries however, poorly Natasha Iskander's Creative University like Mexico and the understood are the State: Forty Years of Migration Philippines have long historical engagements and (Continued on p. 10) PAGE 2 ACCOUNTS VOLUME 11, ISSUE 1 INTRODUCING THE 2011-2012 ACCOUNTS EDITORIAL COLLECTIVE EDITORIAL COLLECTIVE AT STANFORD UNIVERSITY: Daisy Chung Work, Technology and Organization Andrew Isaacson Sociology Molly King Sociology Joachim Lyon Work, Technology and Organization Dan Wang Sociology With help from: - Noah Askin and Greg Liegel at University of Chicago - Russell Funk and Dan Hirschman at University of Michigan - Jim McQuaid at Boston University - Adam Goldstein and Alex Roehrkasse at UC-Berkeley - Kaisa Snellman at Harvard University - Thanks to Tanya Chamberlain for help too. DISCUSSION WITH ELIZABETH POPP BERMAN ABOUT CREATING THE MARKET UNIVERSITY (PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS, 2012) by Dan Hirschman, University of Michigan Thanks for agreeing to speak industry and academia. These one about both the commercialization with Accounts about your hot policy decisions, in turn, had and lionization of academic science. off the press book, Creating the their origins in a new economics How did you end up choosing this Market University: How Academic of innovation that promoted image? Science Became an Economic academic research as a possible EPB: There’s actually a story behind Engine (Princeton University engine of economic growth. this. The original cover was totally Press). Your book (CMU) Though the logic of science different—it had a digitally argues that in the 1970s and remains vibrant in academia, the manipulated photograph of Princeton 1980s, an older “science logic” logic of the market has on it and a sidewalk that looked like was partially supplanted by a proliferated and increasingly our newspaper stock listings. Although it “market logic” as the debates around basic research looked good, at the last minute the justification for promoting are cast in terms of their legal department got concerned academic knowledge. Through contribution to the economy, not about using Princeton. The cover the cases of biotech, university to a broader commitment to designer quickly put together a new patenting, and university- knowledge or solving social version that had the lion and the industry research centers, CMU problems. shield, but the lion was pointing at a shows how policy decisions DH: Let’s start off with something contraption that looked like it (along with other forces) light: cover art. The book’s cover is a involved alchemy, which didn’t seem promoted practices that delightful heraldic image of two lions to convey the right message. My emphasized and capitalized on holding test tubes and microscopes husband, who used to work in the economic value of under a university seal emblazoned advertising, spent five minutes university research, breaking with the symbols of major world down old barriers between currencies. It nicely sets up the book as (continued on next page) PAGE 3 ACCOUNTS VOLUME 11, ISSUE 1 DISCUSSION WITH ELIZABETH POPP BERMAN (CONT’D) cutting and pasting the different politics, looking for what they shared, that turned the tide for them after ten components into this configuration, the which turned out to be that they were all years of effort. They didn’t care about designer polished it up, and that’s the framed as improving technological stimulating the economy; they just version that ended up on the cover. innovation in order to help the thought you needed patent rights to economy. And that was new—not to get inventions into use. But it was the DH: How did you get interested in economists, but it wasn’t a widely economic argument that made the studying the commercialization of influential argument among political difference. academic science? policymakers before then. And that On its own, none of these pieces of argument, of course, came pretty EPB: I was at Berkeley, and the evidence would be that compelling. directly from the economics of Berkeley-Novartis deal was very But you see this in case after case, and innovation. controversial at the time. Novartis had a it’s the sheer accumulation of evidence five-year partnership with the DH: A nuts and bolts question. You that I think is convincing. Also, I Department of Plant and Microbial argue that many of the important policy didn’t set out to argue that ideas Biology in which the department would decisions that facilitated the rise of the matter. I just wanted to know why get $25 million in research funds, and market logic were driven by innovation these policy decisions were made, and Novartis would get first rights to any economics arguments and rhetoric. this framing turned out to be the thing departmental inventions. The money What do you feel is the strongest they had in common. was to be distributed by a committee of evidence for the influence of these ideas I’m a big believer in process-tracing. It three faculty members and two Novartis on policymaking? More generally, how seems like a fancy word for a really representatives. In the uproar that would you advise a student interested in mundane process, but I do think if you resulted, both sides so clearly thought identifying the real policy influence of a go in trying to think about mechanisms they were in the right that they were just particular idea? What makes for a and looking for turning points it’s talking past one another. I was fascinated compelling argument? by the fact that they seemed to be possible to identify the moments when working with completely different EPB: I looked at ten policy decisions. ideas have effects, at least at a local models of what the university should be Nine of them were framed in terms of level. That’s not to suggest at all that doing and how it serves the public good. innovation and the economy, and the interests don’t matter (if we have to The “economic engine” model was only one that wasn’t predated the others separate the two)—I think interests clearly the ascendant one, and I wanted by several years. In six decisions, you matter more than ideas most of the to understand why it had won. could make a pretty convincing case that time. But the way interests matter is innovation arguments were decisive. For shaped by ideas. DH: What first convinced you that the example, Congress came very close to DH: “The performativity of key to understanding the rise of market restricting recombinant DNA research in economics” is one of the big new logic in academia had its roots in the 1977. Everyone was completely freaked trends in economic sociology. arguments of innovation economics? out that scientists were going to let loose Influenced by science studies some kind of deadly chimera.
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