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In the 1960s-1970s, the battered women's movement mobilized to demand that the state intervenes to address domestic violence. While activists believed that eliminating violence required broad social change, the sanctioning of perpetrators quickly became a priority. Today, the state response to domestic violence has become a large-scale operation involving police forces, courts, probation offices as well as partner abuse intervention programs (PAIPs). In this paper, I focus on one of the state's main tools to prevent domestic violence: PAIPs. I analyze the tensions that characterize the implementation of domestic violence policy, focusing on the conflicts around the defining of domestic violence, and in particular, of perpetrators. More precisely, I analyze how PAIP facilitators re-negotiate the goals of partner abuse intervention when confronted with a clientele that doesn't fit their understanding of who domestic violence perpetrators are. I discuss the consequences on the lives of PAIP participants, and on the state's ability to effectively prevent domestic violence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Racially biased policing has been a central concern to a wide variety of social change organizations in both France and the United States. While French and American organizations have deployed a strikingly similar repertoire of strategies and tactics to combat this social problem, the kinds of organizations that implement specific tactics differs significantly in the two countries This paper argues that analyzing the vast and varied work of social change organizations in terms of organizational fields is uniquely helpful for understanding how organizations are constrained and enabled by their field positions. Organizations vary in their field position according to resources in the form of material and social capital. The comparative model illuminates the significant impact of inter-field and intra-field relations. This study draws on two and a half years of field work in Paris, France and the San Francisco Bay Area, include ethnographic observations, in-depth interviews with 76 individuals representing 52 different social change organizations, and the analysis of hundreds of pages of textual and digital data. In France, where the nonprofit sector is comparatively weak--more dependent upon the state, and less able to engage legal institutions--organizations are required to pool resources. As such, organizations engage in an exchange of resources, particularly economic and social capital, across the organizational field. Additionally, organizations of different forms and in different field clusters engage in overlapping strategies and tactics, signaling looser boundaries between organizational forms. In the United States, where there is a relatively strong nonprofit sector, collaboration and resource exchanges are less imperative. Instead, the more rigid boundaries translate to a division of organizational labor in terms of organizational activities. In addition, the organizations that are best poised to lead the fight against racially biased policing are those that possess significant amounts of both economic and social capital. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Intensive mothering is a major component of contemporary parenting. However, demographic and cultural changes are producing a new, still understudied, yet related phenomenon - intensive grandmothering. Both the amount of carework grandmothers provide and the high expectations for concerted cultivation as part of grandparental carework are major aspects of how some overwhelmed parents cope with escalating demands at home and at work. Indeed, the intensive support which grandparents increasingly routinely provide for their adult children and grandchildren constitutes an important but undertheorized form of social inequality in American family life. How does this "third shift" of carework centered on extended kin support across households reflect and perpetuate social inequality while also serving as a way in which some families manage inequality? Ideals of intensive grandmothering may shape parenting across class, this paper centers on middle and upper-middle class, mostly white parents and grandparents - those for whom intensive grandmothering is still relatively novel. Trends surrounding longevity, paid work after retirement, exorbitant childcare costs, and increasing levels of insecurity and instability in family life have led to an underexplored reliance on grandparents, especially for regular, if often informal, childcare support, with differing effects by race and class. This analysis draws on in-depth interviews (n=40) with grandparents (n=25) and adult children (n=15) as well as observations at grandparenting classes and seminars. Grandparents try to set some boundaries on the extensive support they are providing to adult children and their families, but they face pressures given that intensive grandmothering is a critical supplement to intensive mothering. Intensive grandmothering may also unwittingly solidify the cumulative advantages of more affluent parents and grandchildren. Grandparents are help adult children and their families not only because of "joy" in spending time with grandkids but because they seek to help adult children and their families succeed in anxious times. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Three main trends have suggested a changing terrain of gender, sex, and relationships in Egypt: delayed marriage and increased "waithood", decoupling of sex and marriage, and an increase in alternative forms of marriage. This changing terrain has profound implications for the arena of intimate relations. Although findings suggest there is increased pressure to revert to ideal types of gender norms and expectations in the transition from pre- to post-marital relationships, they also support a theory of transformation. This paper uses in-depth interviews and participant observation to capture young Cairenes' experiences as they navigate the gap between emerging masculinities and femininities and ideal types in pre- and post-marital relationships and the arising struggles. More specifically, findings elucidate the ways in which young men and women struggle to transform the traditional model of the Egyptian family into one based more on companionship, a degree of egalitarianism between the genders and respect for personal autonomy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Experiencing nearly forty years of transitional social change, China's labour study and its relation with social stratification and social mobility are highly related to increasing occupation differentiation and occupational skills division, that is, the way in which transitional occupational stratification has shaped the socio-economic status and subjective social status (SSS)1. This study examines the relationship by focusing on working class in transition we literally identify as "China's new working class" who are a large number of workers--employed and paid--occupy "unskilled or lower skilled work", namely CNWC2.This paper reveals a strong correlation among individual factors, original family's factors and CNWCs' SSS by using the path analysis modeling based on 2013 Chinese General Social Survey data3. The article argues that the most important influential factor is the "original family's social stratification status", however, the phenomenon of "education failure" is worth pondering. Through further investigation, CNWCs' SSS are characterized as upward and middle class identification with a rising trend during 2002-2022, however an obvious inner fragmented structure appears in CNWCs' SSS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Against the backdrop of economic exploitation, social inequalities, and discrimination against minorities, all of which have become widespread in our times, individuals and communities are seeking ways to achieve economic and social justice in the hopes of a better world for all. To this end, there had been and continue to be various attempts to resist injustices and to create alternative livelihoods and ways of thinking about and relating to other individuals and communities, as well as to the greater structures. These attempts range from outright resistance to hegemonic norms to complete disavowal of them and to half-hearted complicity in them; sometimes bringing together differing aspects of each strategy to create an eclectic, contextual, and tactical understanding of resistance and social change. Expediency as the totality of eclectic, contextual, and tactical methods of resisting the hegemonic structures and imagining new alternatives, help individuals and communities in carving out spaces of livelihood that are launched off from the existing mainstream structures, which nevertheless strive towards economic and social justice. In this paper, I take an income-sharing egalitarian community established in rural Virginia as a case study to demonstrate how this particular community, through expediently relating to the mainstream, offers its members a living arrangement where economic and social justice is perpetually sought and where racial and ethnic inclusivity, gender equality, and environmental sustainability are among the primary principles that govern the flow of daily life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

"Intergenerational relationships are sometimes treated as a barometer of social change. Events that seem to express the willingness of adults to bring up and cherish a new generation or to care for their elders are seized on as an indicator of societal well-being"(Jamieson, 2006). In this paper primary data have been analyzed using discriminant analysis to evaluate the health of the relationship between youth and parental generation among the students. We find that compared with male students, female students have better relationships with their parents. Students, living with their parents, have a better intergenerational relationship (IR) than those not living with their parents. Students who are associated with a joint family have a superior IR, compared with students associated with a nuclear family. Furthermore, households with the presence of grandparents show better IR than households not having grandparents. We also find that parents with higher education possess a better relationship with their children than parents who are illiterate or less educated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to explore the embeddedness of marriage mediation within larger economic structures by discussing Japan's increasing singlehood demographic and the restructured and deregulated labor market that it came of age in as a case study. This focus on the relationship between something as intimate as romantic partnership formation and as public as economic structures is derived from the empirical question that involves contemporary Japanese singles' most popular answer in national surveys for why they are involuntarily single: "no encounters with a suitable partner." Based upon a larger qualitative study conducted on Japanese singles' involvement in konkatsu ("marriage-hunting" activities) in Tokyo, Japan, this paper shows how "no encounters" is the subjective experience derived from the intersection of extant gender segregation at the workplace, vast and sudden emergence of non-regular ("precariat") employment due to recent deregulation in the labor market, and an increase in singlegender-dominated workplaces within non-regular employment. The larger implication, however, is that the subjective experience of having "no encounters with suitable partners" illuminates a structural shift in the locus of mediation for romantic encounters--that is, from the public (i.e. workplace and community) to the private, individual realm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper contributes to the literature on social movement emergence by transcending a longstanding and largely counterproductive debate that too often framed threat and resources as mutually exclusive explanations of movement activity. By contrast, the analysis here rests on the assumption that mobilization capacity, conceptualized as access to relevant resources, and the presence of threatening conditions are complementary, not competing, facilitators of movement mobilization. The paper extends and refines our understanding of the nuanced interplay between resources and threats through a county-level study of the Occupy movement. The findings indicate a segmented response to more chronic economic threats based on the movement's claims after controlling for state-to-state differences and less support that Occupy groups emerged in response to more acute adverse conditions linked to the recession. We also find that Occupy protest groups were more likely to emerge in localities with greater access to preexisting of human and social-organizational resources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reconstructs a neglected aspect of Pierre Bourdieu's theoretical corpus, the consistent analysis of collective actor formation and mobilization that recur throughout his career. While the paper does not claim that Bourdieu should be properly reconceived as primarily a social movement theorist, it does claim that by examining Bourdieu's theorization of collective actor formation and mobilization, we can gain a much broader and more hermeneutically accurate sense of Bourdieu's ideas concerning social change, and in particular, social change effected by social agency. Beyond interest in Bourdieu's thinking itself, this paper suggests several ways in which Bourdieu's formulations of social movement processes articulate with, and perhaps shift the ground in contemporary research on social movements. In particular, the paper unpacks the interrelated mechanisms that combine in unique ways across cases in Bourdieu's discussions of collective action. However, unlike other mechanisms based approaches, Bourdieu gives cultural meaning pride of analytical place. Finally, the paper points to the potentially productive role the concept social imaginary could play in expanding conceptions of the political underlying social movement scholarship. In addition to contests over material resources and symbolic recognition, the political can be conceived as a struggle over the effective vision of the future. Despite critics who suggest otherwise, this paper argues Bourdieu's theorizations of collective action possess vital resources for just such an expansion of our analytical vision. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores a two-year organizing effort to improve the lives of undocumented immigrants. It focuses on the case of Massachusetts where a coalition of immigrant rights organizations, interfaith groups, and public officials have been working to pass legislation that would grant undocumented immigrants the ability to apply for a driver license. The bill, named the Safe Driving Bill, has been framed as a public safety issue; mobilizing the immigrant community in support of the legislation is often easier than convincing the broader community to grant rights to non-citizens. By carefully "framing" the issue by emphasizing safety and economic benefits, the Safe Driving bill is more compelling to the broader community. The Safe Driving Coalition (SDC), which is the name for the coalition of groups advocating for the bill, also highlight the "whiteness" of the issue to show how it is not only a "Latino problem," again making the issue more relatable to the greater community. Strategic partnerships with neutral parties that have no direct investment in the undocumented community are also important. These allies include interfaith advocacy groups, law enforcement officials, Catholic bishops, city councils and insurance agencies. This paper illustrates how the SDC uses multiple frames to broaden the base of support for a movement and the resulting setbacks to passing the bill that emerge as the movement continues to be steered by grassroots immigrants rights group whose primary goal is to address the daily challenges and ongoing obstacles facing the undocumented community in Massachusetts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the potential for online conversations to change meanings surrounding female sexuality, specifically through interactions around sexual shaming. Using social listening and qualitative analysis software, I examine the ways in which internet users resist online sexual shaming on the internet sites Facebook, Reddit, and Twitter. While previous analyses have revealed that online shaming serves mostly to regulate female sexuality, a sizable portion of online interactions can be characterized as resistance to normative constructions of female sexuality. Drawing from theories of agency and the social construction of sexuality, this paper considers the internet's democratic and public platform to allow users to resist and transform norms surrounding female sexuality through hashtags, forums, blogs, and websites. I argue that the internet offers room for multiple voices and perspectives, asking whether these actions can change larger gender and sexual relations and structures. Findings reveal that the phrase "slutshaming" has entered the public vernacular, and terms such as "slut" and "whore" are being used in new ways on social media, but only some of these ways directly challenge the sexual double standard and attacks on women's sexual agency. I conclude with a discussion of the potential for online conversations to transform social relations and social structures at a time when women's basic bodily rights are being threatened politically. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

From and content and thematic analysis of 47 blogs with in the mommy blog genre over a two year period, this paper finds that the physical changes that accompany maternity lead many women to a nascent feminist politics. Through the experiences of pregnancy, labor and birth, and post-partum life, many bloggers and their readers discover how inaccurate, misleading, and absent discourse surrounding this experience has been. Digital platforms, such as blogs, allow users to create content that recovers and re-writes maternity. Mothers are of the most active social media users and their creation of content and network activities produce massive profits for digital media companies. This paper weighs the proprietary nature of digital media against its potential for radical critique and social change via the mom blog genre. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During an August evening in 1966, a group of queer youth, drag queens, and transsexual hustlers rioted after police officers tried to eject a drag queen eating at Compton's Cafeteria, an all-night diner in a poor inner-city neighborhood of San Francisco. In response, the drag queen threw coffee in the officer's face, and a riot quickly ensued. Within a few months of this riot, the first affirming support services emerged by and for gender nonconforming people as an identity group. By building on theoretical contributions from resource mobilization, collective identity, and collective empowerment, this paper seeks to understand how and why social change happens among hypermarginalized communities by focusing on a case study of the Compton's Cafeteria Riot. Through extensive archival research and theoretical analysis, this paper seeks to answer the following questions: (1) How and why did a group of hypermarginalized individuals collectively mobilize for change despite numerous systems of oppression; and (2) How did this riot prompt the first affirming support services by and for gender nonconforming people as a collective group? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Employing the example of urban agriculture in the food justice movement, this paper argues that social movement scholarship, social theorizing on agency, and theories of space can be merged in order to better understand the contemporary dynamics and possibilities of social movements. First, the paper introduces urban agriculture as a form of collective action related to the food justice movement. Then the paper explores how framing political opportunity, agency, and social change in relationship to space transforms both the current understanding of social movements and the potential possibilities for organizers and organizations seeking to create change in their neighborhoods. The paper overall suggests and orientation towards social movements and social change that includes sustained long term engagement with specific sites in order to create intertwining and enduring socio-spatial transformations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sociology programs in higher education, long concerned with social justice issues, are increasingly providing opportunities for students to focus on Social Justice Studies as a distinct program. Building a high quality social justice program requires a welldeveloped servicelearning component, in which students achieve learning objectives through an integrated process of research, community engagement, and reflection. While the benefits of servicelearning on student outcomes have been well established, there are numerous challenges to implementing an effective and high quality program. These include aligning service experiences with specific learning objectives, assessing learning outcomes, building effective community partnerships, and training faculty to ensure consistency across an interdisciplinary program. This paper reviews the Social Justice Program building efforts at West Virginia Wesleyan College (WVWC), with particular focus on servicelearning pedagogy. Beginning in the 20142015 academic year, the Sociology department at WVWC established a new Social Justice Studies (SJS) major and began the process of building a servicelearning focused curriculum. Our objective is to build a framework for social justice education that maintains a high level of intellectual rigor to prepare students to be successful in a wide range of socialchange oriented career fields, while simultaneously maintaining a flexibility of design so that these strategies can be adapted by other academic programs and adjusted to changing social contexts over time. This paper reviews these programbuilding efforts and offers a set of pedagogical, faculty training, and assessment strategies consistent with the Social Change Model for Leadership Development and High Impact Educational Practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scholars of work have begun to acknowledge a major transformation in work time in advanced capitalist societies due to the weakening of trade unions and collective bargaining, the rise of the service economy, and increased global competition. This paper analyzes the reorganization of work time during the transition from state socialism to market capitalism in Central and Eastern Europe and Russia. How are work schedules being transformed during the transition and which workers have been most affected these changes? I argue that former-state socialist societies present an ideal quasi-experiment for analyzing the consequences of capitalist development, increased competition, and the introduction of flexible production practices on work schedules. The analysis relies on data from two cross-country surveys conducted in East Central Europe and Russia. Both data sets include nationally representative samples of individuals from Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland, and Russia in 1993 and 2000. I find that between 1988 and 1993, the region witnessed a slight increase of reduced-hours jobs among women workers and a dramatic increase of extended-hours jobs among male workers. By 2000, we observe some degree of restandardization of work hours with male workers still working considerably longer hours than female workers. The paper considers the short and long-term consequences of these changes. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper takes up a path not taken in sociology, marked by John Dewey, C. Wright Mills and Jürgen Habermas: the structural transformation of the public sphere as a major dimension of social change and therefore as a core topic of sociology. Since then, neither the dominant ahistorical sociology nor the growing historical sociology have thematized the field of public communication as a social realm, object of study and reference point of social theory. This paper provides a synthetic empirical discussion of the structural transformation of this societal field in Western Europe and the U.S. Because their notion of the field of public communication was ultimately confined to deliberative communication, the classical works perceived the structural transformation of the public sphere as one single process within a framework of decline. This paper argues that the classical works on «The structural transformation of the public sphere», the influential book by Jürgen Habermas and the American thematization of this framework by John Dewey and C. Wright Mills, were largely right on the first structural transformation. However, they did not thematize the distinct second structural transformation, that is, the differentiation of the media from the polity and the de-differentiation from the economy.The paper provides a tentative periodization of the enlightenment public sphere, the first transformation, the era of the party press and particularly the second transformation and the era of the media economy. The uncovering of two historical large-scale structures of the public sphere, the era of the party press and the era of the media economy, results in the discussion of a third model of the structure of the public sphere which is characterized by the equidistance of the media field from both the political field and the economic field. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Institutions reflect the resources and power of those who made them and, in turn, affect the distribution of resources and power in society. This paper is about institutional change, how institutions evolve over time, and how to understand some of the forces that make institutional change happen or not. The main concern of this paper is the reasoning behind the government decision to end East India Company's monopoly in India trade in 1813. It seeks to examine government motives for the 1813 charter, and assess the significance of the manufacturers and private traders who challenged the monopoly. I argue that the Charter Act 1813 was the result of continuous modification of previous charters approved by government which reflect changing strategy in dealing with crisis, and eventually led to the institutions of free trade. I challenge the revolutionary concept in explaining institutional change which favor simple causal explanation. I argue that institutional change involves the recombination of old institutional elements and sometimes the introduction of new one as well. In other words, institutional change is a slow process of path-dependent evolutionary change within constraints. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

James S. Coleman was the major proponent of rational choice theory. This paper challenges the traditional reading of his work by showing that under the explicit theory of rational choice lay a latent non-rational theory of action. The paper shows that instead of rationality, Coleman's psychological starting point was existential insecurity; that instead of the alleged mechanism of the maximization of utility, actors choose to conform to peer values and norms in order to alleviate insecurity; and that the optimal setting for action is provided by intimate and dense communities, rather than unregulated free markets. The paper analyzes these three non-rational presuppositions and suggests that they are crucial for understanding Coleman's assessment of modernity, social change, and his call for the rational reconstruction of society. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Gender, Betrayal, and Public Memory:America's Lost War in Vietnam By some accounts the presidential election of 2004 hinged on the so-called Swift Boat attacks on John Kerry. On the surface, those attacks were about his character but the questions about his military service were accompanied by charges that, in joining the anti-war movement when he returned from Vietnam, he betrayed the U.S. military mission in Vietnam. The accusation of betrayal was gendered in the early months of the campaign when the Swifties associated him with Jane Fonda. This paper will examine the central role played by Fonda, aka "Hanoi Jane," in the gendering of America's memory that the war was lost on the home front and show how that betrayal narrative formed a subtext resonant with the message coming out of the Swift Boat campaign. The paper will look at the construction of that betrayal narrative throught a synthesis of material from my published work and new material developed for a study of "Hanoi Jane" that includes a debunking of commonly held beliefs about her 1972 trip to Hanoi as a peace activist, a content analysis of POW memoirs, a reinterpretation of her image in the 1968 film Barbarella, and a sketch of "Hanoi Jane's" biography-who conceived her, how she became an icon for public memory about the war, and how she functions in current American political culture. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACTOver the past 20 years, numerous New York City poor minority neighborhoods have undergone dramatic social and economic changes. Areas such as Harlem, East Harlem, Washington Heights, Fort Greene and Williamsburg have gone through significant and nearly unrecognizable transformations as a result of gentrification. This paper presents preliminary findings of an interdisciplinary study of the consequences of gentrification in the Mott Haven section of the Bronx. Our primary research question is; Does neighborhood identity change, and is that change positive or negative, as the first stages of gentrification become apparent? In this paper we apply quantitative analysis to our examination of gentrification in a small area of Mott Haven. Using 1990 to 2000 census data, we examine the demographic profile and change of the neighborhood over time. The major variables under examination are population size, race/ethnicity, income, rent, housing and business. The evidence from this preliminary study suggests that while rent and income is low, and housing available (factors which may encourage the gentrification process) in terms of demographic transition (from minority to white), gentrification is not taking place in Mott Haven. However, the study is not conclusive and continuing research needs to be conducted. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper explores the interaction of culture and political structures on social movement activities by examining the "use" of children - their images, appeals to their corporeal, spiritual and civic health, etc. - in the collective action frames devised by opposing sides of the Newfoundland "Confederation debate" of 1948. The messages concerning children appearing in the most partisan rhetoric produced by supporters and opponents of union with Canada were shaped by the cultural specificity of the political structures surrounding children in Newfoundland. In particular, the cultural link between children and the state that prevailed in Britain and Canada at the time, that which presented children as "future citizens" best nurtured by the state, was undeveloped in 1948 Newfoundland, owing in part to political structures that supported denominational schooling in the country. As a result, pro- and anti-Confederate interests were compelled to frame the Newfoundland "nation" in ways that diverged from more familiar discourses on children and nation. The paper shows how the political structures surrounding children and the corresponding cultural construction of children can shape nationalist debates, and highlights the restrictive as well as enabling aspects of culture on social movement activities. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper creates a four-category typology of U.S. responses to globalization in challenge to Samuel Huntington's "dead soul" essay. Huntington asserts that cosmopolitanism, or support of a global over a nationalist identity, is the exclusive perspective of elites and in direct opposition to the majority of U.S. citizenry. Using a sociological analysis of case studies of organizations and authors writing about globalism, important differences emerge not along an elite/citizenry dichotomy. Instead, social movements' and authors' perspectives differ based on the power analysis deployed (hierarchical/vertical vs egalitarian/horizontal) as well as attitudes towards global integration (supporter/skeptic). The paper concludes that even as U.S. public opinion has been circumscribed in a post-9/11 political climate, a variety of citizens exercise oppositional as well as hegemonic identities vis-à-vis economic globalization and imperialism. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 1975, William A. Gamson wrote his seminal work "The Strategy of Social Protest". Within this work, Gamson analyzes the use of violence and other constraints and their influence on a movement group's ability to gain benefits for the their group and acceptance as the legitimate negotiator for their movement. This qualitative paper analyzes the Northern Ireland separatist movement, with a particular analysis of the Good Friday Peace Accords and its surrounding events. I analyze documents, news stories, and several interviews in order to apply Gamson's notion of the success of the unruly to the Northern Ireland movement. I find that Gamson's notion of the success of the unruly is problematic in several respects when applied to the Northern Ireland movement. Findings indicate that the IRA and Sinn Fein are able to achieve some successes while violating several of Gamson's criterions for likely success. This paper contributes to the literature of social movement outcomes by applying Gamson's theory, developed through analysis of United States protest groups in a traditional democratic system, to other forms of government (parliamentary democracy and constitutional monarchy) and to a violent separatist movement in order to test its applicability to broader realms. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: In this paper, the particular emotive and cognitive framing techniques utilized in fourteen anti-war songs from the Vietnam era, seven of which were in the Top Ten and seven that never charted on the Billboard Hot 100, were coded to compare which framing techniques were considered more likely to build oppositional ideologies amongst two groups: activists and non-activists. Specifically, emotive framing techniques that could build oppositional ideologies such as anger, suspicion, fear as well as hopefulness and compassion were coded within the songs. In addition, four cognitive frames were looked at: (i.e., the blaming elites frame, the war is senseless frame, the Vietnam specific frame, and the interdependence frame). The findings from this coding analysis are examined and the paper ends with discussing the implications of these findings for the broader field of social movements. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper develops and test a social psychological theory of how laws aimed at reducing inequality are sometimes undermined by the effect they have on people's beliefs. Equal opportunity (EO) laws apply to behaviors that are customary and widespread, and thus send the message that "normal" people need to change. I identify three important sources of resistance that laws encounter when they work toward destabilizing "normal" patterns of social interaction. The first is the accepted status order among social groups in society and the latter two are perceived threats to existing privileges and norms of social interaction that the law provokes. While this paper poses, at a theoretical level, a larger question about the common sources of resistance to EO laws, it tests just one logical application of that argument to the case of sexual harassment law. I use experimental research methods to assess the effect of sexual harassment policies on men and women's beliefs about gender status and difference. Three conditions compare the gender beliefs of participants who are read the university's sexual harassment policy before beginning the task to 1) those who are told that men have higher average scores on the task than women and to 2) those who complete the task with no manipulation. Participants' explicit and implicit beliefs about gender difference were measured and then compared between conditions. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In sociological discourse there are two different understandings of youth, resistance, and social change. Social movement scholars have studied youth resistance by focusing on large-scale social movements like the civil rights movement. In a second discursive context, cultural studies scholars have widened the scope of analysis to include studies of youth subcultures, such as hip-hop. However, in both of these discussions, researchers have overlooked resistance strategies created by teenagers, instead invoking dominant, cultural understandings of activism, which tend to focus on former civil rights leaders. In this paper, I examine how this idealized cultural image is significant for understanding the role of popular culture in constructing youth activism and the contemporary youth movement. Using interview data collected from two years of ethnographic research with teenagers at Young People United and Project Diversity, youth empowerment organizations in Oakland, CA. Based on these interviews, I argue that popular culture plays a significant role in the resistance strategies and activism of youth of color in the twenty-first century. Two central questions that guide this paper are: How has an idealized cultural image of activism been constructed in popular culture? How has youth activism and the contemporary youth movement been conceptualized in relationship to these images? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper seeks to identify the variables and web of contingencies that construct the conditions under which movement institutionalization within democratic transitions and consolidation occurs. As a supplementation to existing approaches, I offer a more integrated perspective that embraces the multiple factors involved in movement institutionalization. Movement institutionalization is an outcome of the conjuncture of mutual choices of social movements and countermovement (i.e., the state and political society) when social movements decide to participate and when countermovements choose to incorporate them. Conditioned by past experiences and dynamics of democratization, the strength, configuration, and nature of the state and political society and the internal characteristics of social movements interact to constrain and empower each other, forming conditions under which movement institutionalization is facilitated. The conjunctural settings set by internal and external factors are scrutinized and developed into eight hypotheses in this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the recurring questions whites ask when exposed to a critical racial analysis of racism/white identity, or concepts like "white privilege" or "internalized racial superiority," is "well, what can I do about racism." This paper addresses that question by drawing upon theoretical discussions of "micromoblization" and "framing" processes in order to highlight how white "critical antiracists" (CAR) work to combat racism in their daily personal and professional lives. White CAR adherents do that in the course of; the different ways they challenge the racial understanding and awareness of other whites; by naming and interrupting racism when it occurs; and, serving as an ally to people of color and other white antiracists. Thus, the paper not only draws attention to ever present, everyday opportunities for racial defection and racial treason available to whites, it also forces us to think about political activism in new ways. The essay closes by exploring how those in other dominant social statuses (i.e. male, heterosexual, non-poor, etc.) might employ CAR strategies, work to forfeit social privilege, and strive to address everyday, ongoing oppression and marginalization of subordinated groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The desire to make a difference in the world, to receive the esteem and approval of others, and to be attractive to others for the person one is, is a basic human longing. This longing may diminish in old age but not necessarily as an intrinsic, natural part of the aging process. Sociological theorizing about aging, an intellectual activity that itself is rooted in this basic human desire for recognition and a utopian wish to reshape the social world in reflection of one s conception of how it should ideally be, has been largely silent on the social dimensions of desire. We know little of the variables that affect the workings of desire and the circumstances under which desire is more or less likely to be manifest. The argument of this paper is that sociological theorizing about age has made significant advances since the period of creative effervescence that characterized the field in the 1970s moved the field beyond the functionalist-dominated theorizing of its earlier development but remains incomplete. Due to a reluctance to bridge the disciplinary boundaries that separate structural and social psychological approaches to theorizing age, sociologists in the field have rarely considered the ways in which human desire for recognition, love, and influence affect behavior at various points in the life course. The purpose of this paper is to bring desire more directly within the scope of sociological theories of aging. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the past fifty years, the field of arts and culture in Western societies has become more differentiated, more international, more market-oriented, and less hierarchical. Concomitantly, cultural classification systems – the ways in which members of these societies classify the supply of cultural artifacts and develop corresponding rules of behavior and practices – have changed. However, significant cross-national differences can be observed as regards the strength and timing of these changes, which seem closely related to wider social and cultural conditions in the countries involved. The CCST project ('Cultural classifications Systems in Transition') aims at qualifying and clarifying the evolution of cultural classification systems since the 1950s through a large-scale, comparative study of France, Germany, the Netherlands, and the United States. A central part of this study is a comprehensive content analysis of how the supply of cultural products has been classified within the daily press since 1955. This paper focuses on cross-national differences in the internationalization of cultural classification systems. The aim of our paper is twofold: (i) to give an outline of the theoretical background and methodology of the CCST-project and (ii) to map and elucidate cross-national similarities and variations in the international orientation of newspaper arts and culture coverage during our research period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Comparative efforts commonly used in the social sciences has framed the Mediterranean as a region characterized by convergence. In Western Mediterranean societies, the existing division between North and South along with the differences in socio-economic changes of Southern Europe compared to Northern and Eastern Europe make comparative agendas problematic. The Mediterranean age continues to be a space in constant transformation, as it had already been characterized by Ferdinand Braudel (1985) many years ago. This paper presents a comparative effort that enables an analysis of the Mediterranean in the context of globalization that is further elaborated in the recently published book The Mediterranean in the Age of Globalization (Transaction Publishers). This effort is developed using the case of globalization and migration across several countries across Western Mediterranean societies. The aim of this paper is to reflect the problems around comparative work taking various settings as examples: the sociological tradition, the migration axis as an interpretative key, as finally, the Mediterranean as the background for unity and comparative studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The number of Gay-Straight Alliance clubs [GSAs] in high schools across the United States, has grown from two in 1989 to over 2,000 by the year 2004. One important factor in the spread of these clubs has been the coordinating and networking of information and local efforts by several, state, regional and national organizations. Since the early 1990s, organizations like the Gay Lesbian Straight Education Network [GLSEN], Project 10, The Safe Schools Coalition, and the GSA Network in California have established themselves as groups that both assist lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender [LGBT] students starting GSA clubs and that educate educators, parents, policy makers, and the general public about the needs and rights of these students. These efforts, combined with the work of LGBT and straight ally students, have coalesced into a social movement. This paper examines effectiveness of the newly emerging GSA movement in establishing themselves as experts on LGBT issues in education, getting their framing of the issues out through the media, and influencing public opinion. The paper also examines the effectiveness of countermovement organizations from the religious right in influencing these same things with their frames of the issues. The assessment is based on a content analysis of over three hundred new stories, editorials, and letters to the editor about GSAs that appeared in newspapers around the country from 1984 to 2004. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Along with sweeping economic and political change, the post-socialist transformation in Russia and Eastern Europe has given way to an unprecedented rise in social problems. This paper examines the association between eroding labor networks and an increasing public health crisis in Eastern Europe following 1989. While a crisis in adult male mortality and rising indices of crime in Eastern Europe have been a perplexing dilemma associated with post- socialist transformation, the process through which the institutional rearrangements that accompanied democratization have impacted health outcomes and rising criminality is comparatively little understood. This paper aims to explore the nature of this transmission process through focusing on the changing nature of post-socialist community life, specifically the erosion of networks of social proximity and kinship ties that governed work life. Thus, one central argument here is that labor collectives and the workplace served as a normative foundation of communal life and that the resultant disruptions of which that accompanied marketization constituted a primary social determinant of increased alcoholism, rising mortality and higher levels of criminality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes, in a historical light, cultural perceptions of pregnant women and childbirth, as well as changing childbirth practices. Of particular interest is the control exercised over women?s bodies through the medicalization of childbirth. This paper then examines current views of childbirth by looking at cultural messages in childbirth manuals. While childbirth manuals convey a particular impression about how the event will proceed, at the same time they give expectant mothers a subtle script, outlining what behavior is expected of them, in addition to what can be expected of others. In this way, popular childbirth manuals from different eras are a window into cultural definitions of childbirth of that time. Contemporary women?s efforts to educate themselves about childbirth and plan their childbirth experiences represent an attempt to regain control of their bodies, based on their relatively newfound social and economic power. The moment of childbirth is currently depicted as an experience for the mother to plan for and cherish. This paper shows that the messages contained in today?s childbirth manuals tell an expectant mother that she is in control of planning her childbirth experience, but she is nonetheless expected to relinquish that power in the context of labor and birth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper specifies the general process by which planned institutional innovation and change occurs. Much of the literature on institutional change pays insufficient attention to the process by which such change occurs. This paper seeks to fill this void. The issue is significant because institutions affect technological innovation and learning, and, in turn, the competitiveness of industrial sectors and national economies. Thus, if we want to facilitate innovation, learning, and competitiveness, we need to know more about how institutions can be altered toward these ends. The ability to change economic and environmental regulations, tax law, patent law, and property rights in general are just a few examples of the institutions in question. The paper presents seven propositions that establish the basis for a new theory of institutional change. In doing so, it pays close attention to the kinds of problems that trigger episodes of planned institutional change, the central role of institutional entrepreneurs in the change process, and the social, institutional, resource, political, and other constraints within which these creative entrepreneurs innovate through the processes of bricolage and translation. Although the paper is primarily conceptual and theoretical, each proposition is illustrated with empirical examples of institutional change drawn variously from countries in North America, Europe, and Asia. The paper concludes with a brief discussion of the possibilities for macro-institutional change among the advanced capitalist countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines distinct theories of the the EZLN and the transnationalization of their social movements. In this paper, I discuss the key points that distinguish this movement from revolutionary armies and social movements of the past. Then I will provide a discussion of some of the theories in postcolonial/cultural studies that contribute to a better understanding of the inter-ethnic and inter-cultural processes that aid in understanding how this new political culture developed by the EZLN and others organizations in southern Mexico. I then describe how this political culture is being ?translated? to Los Angeles. I focus primarily on Walter Mignolo?s concept of border gnosis as a pivot to discuss this process, John Brown Child?s concept of transcommunality as well as Chela Sandoval?s notion of ?radical mestisaje.? I describe how the above mentioned concepts emerged from distinct academic disciplines ranging from Sociology to Literary Criticism and Cultural Studies. I conclude this paper with a call form a transdisciplinary approach towards the study of transnational social movements. Through the use of these above mentioned concepts, activists and academics would better develop theories of transnational actors that do not rely solely on Eurocentric theories of subjectivity that discount and repress distinct ways of thinking and knowing. Truly acknowledging difference in this way could ostensibly contribute to newer and more effective ways of organizing transnationally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines seven votes from the Second Vatican Council in the Roman Catholic Church (1962-1965) which have never been examined by researchers before, with the intent of identifying which aspects of the bishops? biographies, dioceses and countries explain a tendency to vote conservatively or progressively. By combining unique data sources which have, until now, been unavailable or underutilized, this paper contributes to our understandings of the factors that influence religious leaders when they are deciding whether and how to adapt their institution to societal and cultural change. It suggests that, even when controlling for other factors such as national character, religious competition increases the likelihood that a bishop was open to progressive reform. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper attempts to articulate an integrated model of network and cultural change using network theory and cultural sociology. Building on the work of Collins and Zelizer, this paper utilizes the concept of a ?circuit? as an extension of the network metaphor; actors interact and ?connect? in a circuit of shared meanings, of culture. In essence, this is the approach taken by Zelizer in her work on currency, where there are ?a variety of currencies in practice confined to certain social and material advantages in restricted circuits of exchange.? (Collins, 2000; 3) Social network theory stresses that the ?location in an overall pattern of relationships shapes the behavior of individual units.? (Powell and Smith-Doerr, 1994) But as Podolny recently remarked, networks are the pipes of the market, the conduits for the flow of information and resources. Yet, network analysts have a drastically undertheorized notion of information flow. I turn to cultural theory to better understand what flows through those pipes, or to return to the network metaphor, the ?data? that is distributed through the network. In contrast, cultural sociology stresses that individuals are both acted on by culture and act back, and so generate new cultural forms and meanings. However, culture is a much more diffuse concept than social networks, and can include codes of manners, dress, language, rituals, norms of behavior and systems of belief. Culture is at the same time part of the social structure and above it---something Urban (2001) characterizes as ?metaculture.? Clearly, culture is transmitted and shared through social interaction and, since we tend to interact more frequently with members in our social networks it is possible to talk about a culture that is shared by the network. This effort attempts to move beyond a strictly instrumental conception of network ties, that an actor simply utilizes her network to gain or achieve something (information and/or resources). Interactions among network actors are typically on a daily basis, and network ties and the information shared does not always serve an instrumental purpose. Further, this effort attempts to move away from a determinative conception of networks, that the position in a network determines an individual?s actions. Finally, the paper argues that certain general types of circuits can be identified across social settings, and focuses on examples from economic sociology to illustrate the utility of the network circuits model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates how new meanings and values are negotiated for recently obsolete, derelict and abandoned structures. In particular, it examines the role of adaptive reuse of buildings and structures in reshaping of the built environment of today?s cities. My focus is on the United States, Europe and elsewhere where adaptation of structures to new uses now plays an increasingly important and varied role in urban change and in the social, economic and cultural revitalization of cities. The paper has two parts. The first part consists of a comprehensive discussion of adaptive reuse from an historical and theoretical perspective. I review its role in earlier historical periods and identify economic, architectural, cultural, and other factors that account for the revival of building recycling today. In particular, I seek to ground adaptive reuse in architectural fundamentals: the relationship between a building?s outer structure and its internal program of spaces; this relationship must be flexible and dynamic if reuse is to occur. The second part describes the principal forms of adaptive reuse now in evidence in the urban landscape. Selected case studies illustrate the principal types and varieties of building reuse identified earlier. Sites selected reveal the general character and patterns of adaptive reuse, demonstrate the challenges of converting specific structures to new uses, describe the range of conversions from large-scale official projects to smaller vernacular examples, or otherwise capture the imaginative, transforming character of adaptive reuse. A considerable literature has appeared in recent years on renewal and revitalization of older industrial cities. Most sociological studies downplay or neglect building conversion and adaptive reuse as significant factors in urban change. Architectural or other guides to adaptive reuse projects typically focus on spectacular and costly conversions which save architecturally significant buildings, serve particular commercial needs, or initiate downtown revivals. In contrast, this paper develops a more theoretically informed and historically grounded approach to contemporary building recycling and reuse. By linking patterns of adaptation and reuse to the dynamics of urban change, structural characteristics of buildings types, and by describing the full range of official and unofficial conversions now in evidence, I develop a suitably analytical and genuinely informative account of change in the contemporary built environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the possibilities for the critical engagement of social theory with everyday life and processes of social change. It begins by detailing the presumption that social theory is stuck in some way between two positions vis-à-vis ?the real world? ? the ?politics/science? divide posited by Weber, and the ?postmodern? position, in which social theory has effectively abandoned processes of change. Neither position, this paper will argue, is acceptable in a world characterized by the increasing power of global capitalism, the quashing of dissent in any form, and a developing anomie. Starting with Schalk?s (1991) concept of engagement, this paper will explore the ways in which current forms of critical social theory can resume this engagement. Three case studies of engagé social theorists ? Jean-Paul Sartre, Pierre Bourdieu, and Vaclav Havel ? are examined in order to find both the social-theoretical dynamic that might allow for engagement and the proper relationship between the social theorist and members of the society with whom they wish to speak and act. Finally, this paper will argue that the proper place of social theory and social theorists is bonded to those who would act for social change; in other words, we should neither speak for nor at people actively working for the improvement of society, but rather speak with and lend our theoretical analyses and tools to those on ?the front lines.? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we present a preliminary analysis of the transformation of wildlife law. Specifically, the subject of this paper is the recent enhancement of legal sanctions associated with poaching in Colorado. Although poaching of game animals, for the most part, is on the fringe of public consciousness, it continues to persist in advanced industrial society. Some observers have argued that poaching has become increasing attractive particularly in light of the increasing market for trophies. We present a brief discussion of the relationship between hunting law and social change in England and America. Transformations in social life brought on by modernization and industrialization have had profound effects on hunting regulations and law and on the criminalization of poaching. Next, we present a case study of the recent enhancement of legal sanctions for poaching of trophy class big game in Colorado. For this section of the paper we rely on data collected from a series of interviews regarding the poaching of a large male elk in Estes Park, Colorado. Although the illegal hunting of big game has been considered, in most cases, a relatively minor criminal offense, poaching of big game has recently been transformed into a serious felony carrying increased penalties. We conclude with a discussion of the symbolic significance of this law in a changing social landscape and the relevance of such an investigation to the animal and society literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper examines the relationship between religion and modernity by looking at the growing impact of the charismatic movement on social life in Nigeria. It takes up Dawson?s challenge to extend the Weberian model of the role of religion in societal change. The focus here is on married life and family relations as constructed by a new generation of churches founded after 1970, by college-educated converts. The study examines the way the global influences of Fundamentalism and Pentecostalism as well as aspects of African spirituality have been combined in the movement. The churches seek to alter family structures and gender relations. Following 9/11, the public focus on religion has generally highlighted the role of fundamentalist beliefs in fuelling anti-modernist views and practices. Using data collected from independent Charismatic churches in Southwestern Nigeria over a 10-month period, this paper argues that neither religion in general, nor ?bible-believing? ideologies necessarily reject modernity. Modern institutions are constructed under varying conditions in each cultural milieu, within specific historical periods. The movement founders see themselves as the ?moderns? in their present environment and aim to build disciplined monogamously-based communities. They are highly receptive to secular knowledge, technology and science. Nonetheless, the study highlights the pitfalls and problems associated with some of the doctrines, particularly as these impact the status of women in the home. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Postsocialism is typically framed as transition that represents an a-temporal, unilinear and teleological model of social change. This paper evaluates this logic using firm level event data of ownership changes. The first argument of this paper is that the temporal structure of transition models is insufficiently simple and has a very limited explanatory power when contrasted with event data. The second argument is that there are multiple parallel processes in postsocialist property transformation. The poor fit of transition models is due to the depiction of changes as a single process. An alternative model of change with multiple paths is proposed that utilizes sequence analysis to identify typical firm ownership careers. The third argument of this paper is that a multiple process model is not only fitting better to the data but it provides the opportunity to formulate a historical narrative of change that avoids teleology by addressing path dependence and contingency, conjunctures, and the trajectory and role of intermediary forms. A moving window scaling approach is proposed to visualize the changes in the directions of the processes identified to aid establishing a new narrative line of macro-level change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing upon the powerful role of collective protests against GMO foods and the high prices of patented drugs, this paper identifies the conditions that shape the natural and likelihood of organized voice. It identifies four kinds of ?voice? and the dimensions of ?voice?. The paper draws on the theory of A.O. Hirschman to expand his largely individual treatment of ?voice? by examining the organization of ?voice? through social movements when people perceive that markets trap or fail them. Exit, or switching, is an important form of voice at the individual level; but when people feel trapped, the ground is laid for collective behavior and the development of a social movement. Professional organizers of ?voice? have developed into a large secondary industry of its own that amplifies and orchestrates ?voice?. The paper links sociological studies of social movements to the construction, boundaries and limitation of markets. The paper enables economic sociologists and economists to study exchanges and disputes over non-monetary aspects of markets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Increasing numbers of multilateral and transnational organizations have decentralized their functions and established control centers in world cities. These centers concentrate political and cultural capital within world cities and threaten to deterritorialize these cities. However, the interaction of these different forms of capital result in nationalized and territorialized reactions to the deterritorializing field. This paper maps these new political and cultural concentrations of capital. Using the historical case of Bangkok, the paper shows how these other forms of capital concentration promote socio-cultural and political change. The focus on the economic functions of cities within the international system has left their political, cultural, and ideological functions in the shadows. For international economic integration to progress, common understandings must be forged. These understandings are the cognitive capacities that render contracts intelligible and the goals of economic action matter-of-fact. This paper is an initial step in understanding where these cognitive capacities are developed within the international system of linked cities and what practices enforce these cognitive understandings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the global justice movement becomes an increasingly powerful force against the detrimental effects of globalization, it is important to understand the opportunities and constraints of the movement and the specific organizations within it. This paper provides a brief overview of the status of the movement as a whole and locates the opportunities and constraints of selected social movement organizations (SMOs) there within. The global justice movement tends to be typified as consisting of only social movement organizations (SMOs) that are visible in the protests against global economic institutions. This paper argues that SMOs with lower profiles that have in-depth knowledge of local and/or national justice issues are an important complement to the transnational social movement organizations (TSMOs) with higher public profiles. The data is based on four interviews from a snowball sample of activists working for SMOs (one in India and three in Washington, DC), as well as participant observation of the September protests in Washington, DC against the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. Respondents said that a lack of resources is the biggest constraining factor in the full advancement of their goals. They also stressed the need for a long-term approach to social change as well as the value of fostering relationships as key to movement building and using momentum from past achievements on which to construct future endeavors. Both primary and secondary data suggest the importance of analyzing movement and organizational opportunities according to their long-term struggles rather than judging "success" or "failure" against external criteria. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Studies on advocacy organizations show that these organizations play a significant role in processes of social change. This paper addresses an understudied topic in the scholarship on advocacy organizations: the role they play in the generation and mobilization of symbolic capital. The paper explores the relationship between symbolic capital and social change and examines how advocacy organizations produce symbolic capital on behalf of marginalized populations and silenced social issues. Based on Pierre Bourdieu's theoretical conceptualization, the paper discusses a case study in which advocacy organizations, by means of a transformation of symbolic capital, brought public attention to the hidden issue of impoverished Holocaust survivors in Israel and successfully facilitated their achievement of longdenied social rights. Our findings reveal how the successful generation and management of symbolic capital may help legitimate social claims and promote social policies that favor marginalized or silenced populations. Based on this case study, we suggest a four dimensional conceptual framework for the analysis of symbolic capital development in processes of social change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Whereas America's corporations once made things to sell, today corporations are things to sell. The corporation has become a commodity. In 2006, American firms engaged in a $1.4 trillion shopping spree—buying and selling over 11,700 large corporations. The process of commoditization took approximately 25 years and required cultural, political and institutional changes. This paper argues that those changes transpired in large part due to two merger waves—one occurring in the 1960s and the other in the 1980s. The paper is set up in four parts. The first part explains why merger waves are capable of bringing about dramatic changes in the corporate world. The second provides a portrayal of the large American corporation pre-1965. The third discusses what happened in each wave so that by 1990 the corporation had become a commodity. With the 1965-1969 wave corporations changed from producers of products to coordinators of firms. The wave ushered in the financial conception of control and equally important gave birth to the M&A industry. The 1984-1989 wave cemented the process of commoditization with its hostile takeovers and leverage buyouts. Both tactics emphasized that anyone could buy and then sell a corporation. The shareholder was elevated to new highs while the concerns of the corporation's other stakeholders negated. By the end of the wave, the M&A industry had reached its maturity and the merger institutionalized as a favorite business strategy. The last section of the paper discusses the consequences for America of having an economy where its corporations are commodities. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]