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This introduction clarifies the importance of the subject: comparative sociology of examinations, on the basis that stimulating insights on examinations have been offered by prominent sociologists, and that this subject will encourage self-reflection of sociology. It also explains how this special issue arises from a joint session in ISA World Congress of Sociology Yokohama 2014, and introduces briefly the series of five papers selected from thirteen papers and their implications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Younger children in urban settings are predisposed to numerous risks, yet their 'voices' remain underrepresented in research making them unheard and invisible. The paucity of methods that encourage children's direct participation in studies from such settings, in effect, limits exploration of their ability to engage meaningfully in voicing their lived experiences and potentially informing protection interventions that target them. This paper draws from a study carried out in Kenya and South Africa, which in part sought children's perspectives on their lived experiences within their urban environment. Qualitative methods utilized in data collection included drawing, telling and conversations. The findings highlight risk exposures children contend with, which have an implication on child protection, safe spaces, mobility of children in urban areas, creating child-friendly neighbourhoods, policies and methodological approaches that intensify younger children's 'voices', in highlighting lived experiences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What can a good's durability tell us about its market organization? This paper argues that the socially expected durability of goods is one of their most important features. It illuminates temporal and material aspects of market organization and social change across different markets. While recent literature in the sociology of markets tends to emphasize financial goods, intangible assets, and the service economy, markets for material durable and nondurable consumer goods are still surprisingly pervasive in everyday life and in the household economy, as well as in modern economies' basic infrastructure. Based on a comparison of the extreme cases of durable housing and fresh fish markets, we come to the general finding that the higher a good's expected durability, the smaller the share of its new production will be and the larger its aftermarkets. Furthermore, it will be more tightly linked to credit and insurance markets, and its market will be more volatile in the short-term, but more inert in the long-term. Beyond this static distinction, we show how socio-technical mechanisms can "durabilize" or "dedurabilize" goods and hence change their market form. By comparing markets along the durability dimension, this paper contributes to a comparative sociology of market organization that goes beyond single-market studies, while at the same time opening up space for a more dynamic understanding of social change and market segmentation over time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

At times of crisis, existing institutional arrangements of societies are thrown into question. Crises that occur in multiple societies simultaneously present rare opportunities for comparative empirical analysis. Social theory can reveal the framing conditions of the responses to crises and the sources of variations between them. This paper compares the immediate responses of the Australian, UK and US governments to the global COVID-19 pandemic, particularly with regard to financing lockdowns, and points out significant differences between the three approaches. Drawing on Polanyi's method of institutional analysis, we compare the responses of these same national groups to an earlier crisis, the Japanese prisoner of war camps during the Second World War, to show similar patterns of integration recurring eight decades apart. This analysis shows that aspects of moral economies that are not usually apparent can become pronounced during crises, and points to the importance of enduring social imaginaries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper traces the history of sociology in India to colonial anthropology and Indology. I argue that the compulsions of post-colonial society have also made specific demands on the discursive terrain of sociology. Fundamental to the pursuit of sociological knowledge in India, I believe, was a core debate about its mode of discursive practice – specifically, a debate between particularistic and universalistic orientations. From this point of view, I re-read the history of sociology in India. In doing so, I argue that close attention to the history of sociology helps us see the extent to which foundational western approaches to historical and comparative sociology have affected the historical development of sociology in India. Ironically, this has meant that the degree of historical self-awareness in Indian sociology has been limited. Hence, I discuss the grounds for the weak historical self-awareness in terms of historical sociology in India. I conclude by discussing how a strengthened tradition of historical sociology can be a tool to revitalize the discipline. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What can variously be understood as "comparative sociology" take different contours and raise further issues and questions in different sociological traditions which in turn are shaped by different theoretical paradigms. The paper outlines conceptual and theoretical framework for a discussion about the current status of comparative sociology. Comparative sociology is perceived as an organization of research through constant comparisons at the different levels and stages of research. The paper presents outcomes of the field research that is developed on the basis of distinction between two modalities of comparative sociology: comparative sociology as an inquiry and comparative sociology as a teaching discipline. One basic and two subordinate alternative hypotheses are tested in the course of comparative analysis of the seven cases. Discussion of these cases results in formulation of specific questions for further research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The objective of this paper is to outline and compare frameworks for studying post- Soviet transformations developed by social scientists from various disciplines in Belarus, Russia and Ukraine. The objective is realized by means of quantitative content analysis of scholarly articles' abstracts in ninety-four journals in eight (inter)disciplinary fields that covers the period of 2001-2015. This paper seeks to answer the question whether differences in the studies of the post-Soviet transformations are defined by country discourse or by the field of study. The research results suggest that there is a two-level mechanism, by which the societal context affects academia, in this case, social sciences and humanities. While general directions of scholarly attention are determined by societal differences, representations of post-Soviet transformations are framed through specific disciplinary lenses that combine both international and post- Soviet features. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction is presented in which the editor discusses comparative sociology and social and economic developments in Soviet Union.

This paper facilitates the comparative analysis between two histories of higher education. Those interested in the 160 years-old ideas of university in Romania and Japan will find in this study details on the historical, social and political conditions from which they grew, the first locations, purposes and organizational structures, legal frameworks, commonalities and peculiarities. The nature of higher education is grasped through many contrasts: public and private, free and not, masses and elites etc. By revisiting the beginnings and major developments of higher education in these two very distinct countries, this study promises to identify points that are central to a mature understanding of its origins. It mainly addresses the question: What are the main grassroots differences and similarities between Romanian and Japanese higher education? The answer unfolds in the light of events and characteristics, intertwined with explanation and reasoning. A tangential intention is to counterbalance scholarly efforts invested in comparative higher education research, excessively fashioned on present and recent times, or on biases built on the developed/developing notion of a country. This work is marginally international in scope, as it defends in-depth study and rigorous research against algorithms used by university rankings in attempts to compare institutions of higher education around the world, taking no account of the distant but relevant past, and promoting the idea that such a comparison can be made possible with several clicks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The central concern of this paper is the linkages between contradiction and social change, as developed in the work of Nishida Kitarō, a critical social philosopher who explored the nature of social contradiction vis-à-vis local agency, global structures, and social change. Building on Nishida’s conceptual framework, I trace social change to the ontological nature of social contradiction as manifest in myriad social phenomena. This then provides a critical lens for analyzing the contemporary development of community-supported agriculture (CSA). Indeed, the growing popularity of CSAs across the USA makes visible a host of social contradictions, including those between local and global food production and between local consumption and global distribution. Invoking Nishida to peel back the layers of contradiction and assess the potential social impact of CSAs, we address two broad questions. First, what is the nature of contradiction as a fundamental aspect of social life? Second, how can the notion of contradiction help us frame the role of CSAs as a force for social change? In this manner, Nishida’s interpretation of social contradiction shapes our understanding of CSAs, while our understanding of CSAs further refines our assessment of Nishida. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Scientific Annals of the 'Al. I. Cuza' University, Iasi. Sociology & Social Work / Analele Stiintifice ale Universitatii 'Al. I. Cuza' Iasi Sociologie si Asistenta Sociala is the property of Alexandru Ioan Cuza University and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The paper argues that a materialistic understanding of history as Marx's sociological research program has effectively been implemented in the comparative analysis of bourgeois societies. Both qualitative/case-oriented and quantitative/variable-oriented strategies of comparison were employed by Marx in his scholarship. The authors see the crucial dimension of the classical status of Marx in his engagement with historical comparisons - an analytical tendency he shares with Weber and, to some extent, Durkheim. A short historical exposition tracing the early reception of Marx in sociology continues with the most important contemporary criticisms of Marx's comparative-historical analysis, focusing on the issues of Asiatic mode of production, the nature of European feudalism and the problem of capitalist rationality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The valorisation of post-consumer plastics by co-feeding them to hydrocracking units has been gaining attention due to their feasibility to produce automotive-like fuels with a composition suitable for commercial use. For this purpose, the use of noble metal-based catalysts is advised due to their high selectivity towards these fractions and high hydrocracking activity. In this context, the reuse of such catalysts should be explored to avoid expensive operating costs. This work explores different regeneration atmospheres of a PtPd/Y zeolite catalyst used in the hydrocracking of polystyrene (PS)/vacuum gasoil (VGO) blends (10 wt%) under the following conditions: 400 °C, 80 bar, 180 min, catalyst/feed ratio: 10 wt%. Regeneration has been carried out under oxidizing, reducing and gasifying conditions using oxygen, hydrogen and CO2 as regenerating agents. The results reveal that only controlled combustion provides efficient catalyst regeneration, yielding almost the same yield distribution and chemical composition of the liquids, with less than a 5 wt% difference in both cases. The activity decay is attributed to irreversible causes of deactivation that are minimal in the actual process, thus encouraging the adoption of this valorisation pathway for the exploitation of crude resources in terms of maximizing refinery conversion while promoting the Waste Refinery. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Johann Arnason's work combines the most erudite historical-comparative sociology, discussing highly knowledgeably enormous stretches of world-history, with the most subtle social and political philosophy, drawing creatively on the traditions of hermeneutics and phenomenology. Invariably, his works introduce more nuance and sophistication into the analysis of even very well studied socio-historical phenomena. At the same time, he addresses such major phenomena in terms of modernity, democracy and capitalism, agreeing that there often – maybe always – is a combination of empirical, conceptual and normative issues at work when analysing human history. Nevertheless, readers of his work may at the same time be impressed by the nuance and sophistication and at a loss with regard to what such further refinement of our socio-historical knowledge entails in terms of understanding our own time in its historical context. Searching through Johann Arnason's work, this article identifies unexplored questions in the conceptual and historical relation between civilization, modernity, and equality and tries to understand why they have been left open. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Subjective adulthood, or feeling like an adult, captures identity development relative to the local context that shapes life course processes. Most research on this topic is conducted in wealthy developed countries. Instead, we draw on household‐based survey data from the Family Migration and Early Life Outcomes project (FAMELO) to estimate ordinal logistic regression models predicting how often adolescents aged 11–17 in Jalisco, Mexico (n = 1,567); Gaza Province, Mozambique (n = 1,368); and the Chitwan Valley, Nepal (n = 1,898), identify as adults. The relationships between adult roles, family capital, youth characteristics, and youth's adult identities vary substantially across the sites. The findings highlight how the transition to adulthood reflects the cultural and structural conditions of adult identities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Družboslovne Razprave is the property of Druzboslovne Razprave and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

While there is an abundant use of macro data in the social sciences, little attention is given to the sources or the construction of these data. Owing to the restricted amount of indices or items, researchers most often apply the 'available data at hand'. Since the opportunities to analyse data are constantly increasing and the availability of macro indicators is improving as well, one may be enticed to incorporate even qualitatively inferior indicators for the sake of statistically significant results. The pitfalls of applying biased indicators or using instruments with unknown methodological characteristics are biased estimates, false statistical inferences and, as one potential consequence, the derivation of misleading policy recommendations. This Special Issue assembles contributions that attempt to stimulate the missing debate about the criteria of assessing aggregate data and their measurement properties for comparative analyses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The International Sociological Association’s Research Committee “Logic and Methodology” (RC33), under the direction of President Nina Baur, has begun to concentrate on sociological methodology developments in world regions other than Europe and North America. This is the first “Regional Report” to be jointly published by the BMS and this issue’s RC33 Newsletter. This paper attempts to briefly outline the status of historical and comparative sociology in Japan by a retrospective study focusing on methodological aspects. It reveals that methodology has been and will be the philosopher’s stone in a series of disputes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reconsiders Max Weber's method of comparison focusing on the changes between 1904 and 1920. The method employed in this study involves the comparison of two texts of his main works: the old and new manuscripts of Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft, and the old and new versions of Die Protestantische Ethik und der "Geist" des Kapitalismus. The results reveal that the "comparison" of Max Weber gradually moved from "thick comparisons" based on descriptions of causal attribution in psychological or legal sense and elective affinity in Goethe's sense to "broad comparisons" related to causal explanation through interpretive understanding and that only the latter has been adopted by various works in comparative and historical sociology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pierre Bourdieu was a prolific scholar whose multifaceted work inspired research in a wide variety of areas. Beyond sociology we find his influence in anthropology, history, cultural studies, political science, and international relations. Particularly after 1995, when he engaged in a fight against neo-liberalism, he became the pre-eminent public intellectual. Bourdieu clearly stands in the pantheon of the greatest contemporary social scientists. This article explores the social mechanisms that enabled the global circulation of Bourdieu's oeuvre. Multiple factors in multiple intellectual fields contributed to this process. There are "global Bourdieus." Throughout his career Bourdieu was a defender of the dominated, and a sharp critic of established powers; his work provides individuals in a variety of central and peripheral fields weapons against social domination whatever its form. This narrative weds together his biography and oeuvre, and forms the web that unites him with the social carriers of his work globally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A capitalist market economy is based on several institutional elements, such as private ownership and competition. Does public support for this economic model rise if the economy prospers, and fall during a downturn? Or is public support largely independent of the ups and downs of economic cycles? We hypothesize that positive economic performance increases support and that persons profiting personally are more supportive of the economic system's constitutive institutional elements. Using multilevel regression we study the determinants of individual-level support for the economic system. We also test for differences in the perception of economic performance due to political attitudes and personal properties. The findings partly support the hypotheses, indicating that macro-economic factors matter for individual-level attitudes towards the economy. Attitudes towards different institutional elements of the economic system also differ in the degree to which they are political or economic, and influenced by economic performance. Individual features – education and personal economic stakes – affect attitudes towards the economy, but a substantial share of the individual-level variation in economic attitudes remains unexplained. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

When religion and science are in conflict, who supports religion? Using data from 71 diverse societies in the World Values Survey (n = 120,728), this study assesses the relative predictive strength of science optimism, moral concerns about science, religiosity, and religious exclusivism. Perhaps counterintuitively, science beliefs (science optimism, in particular) are weak predictors of the outcome, even in wealthy societies with high levels of scientific productivity. In contrast, believing that only one's religion is acceptable is the strongest predictor of choosing religion over science; this is generally consistent across religious groups, regions, and specific countries/territories. These findings suggest that making the public more aware of major scientific advances will not, by itself, increase the cultural authority of science—especially if it is explicitly contested by another influential social institution. The implications for social scientific theories of modernization and secularization are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sociological research has overlooked the political consequences of charismatic leadership that arises in existing democratic political bureaucracies. In this article, we theorize the consequences of charismatic leadership in democratic nations by revisiting Max Weber's theory of charismatic authority. Our extension of Weber's theory of charismatic authority helps to address a gap in the political polarization literature concerning the role of charismatic leadership. This article provides a foundational link in the research on charismatic authority–bridging the literatures on charisma and cross‐national comparative sociology. This bridging is enabled by advances in data collection that include information on charismatic authority in cross‐national context. This article makes use of a Driscoll and Kraay fixed‐effects analysis across 76 democracies from 1960 to 2009 to explore the relationship between charismatic leadership and political polarization. Our findings suggest that nations with higher levels of charismatic leadership tend to have higher levels of political polarization. These results contribute to both the literature on political polarization and charisma—as well as support our extension of Weber's theory of charismatic authority. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The concept of "region" is widespread in the social sciences but rarely theorized. I argue here that region is a multivalent concept similar to ethnicity, nation, and race. Building on the work of Bourdieu, Brubaker, and Griswold, I show that all four concepts can be understood as both "categories of analysis" and "categories of practice." Moreover, all four have fundamental similarities regarding (1) ontology and relation to space; (2) historical sequences and relation to time; and (3) protean boundaries that may change with social scientists' research questions. Among the payoffs to this approach are improved precision and appropriateness of regional boundaries when social scientists use regions as independent or control variables and greater appreciation for how regions, as categories of practice, are made over time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the impact of Europeanisation dynamics on the formation and development of sociology in Slovenia and Austria. Compared are problem choice in research areas, topics, and the language of citations of sociological knowledge published in two sociology journals, Družboslovne razprave and Österreichische Zeitschrift für Soziologie over a 30-year period (1986–2015). Methodologically, the bibliometric analysis of journals was undertaken as a study entailing two distinct phases and methods of comparison. The empirical findings indicate that society’s structural change, political transformation and European integration have been subject to much more research among Slovenian sociologists than among their Austrian colleagues.

This article examines the relationship between the geopolitical rise of new powers in international relations and knowledge production in International Relations. It draws on the science studies literature on the 'co-production' of science and politics to conceptualise and analyse this relationship between the 'state of emergence' and 'state of knowledge'. I argue that the 'state of emergence' should be conceptualised not only as a real-world condition external to science that imposes itself on an otherwise pure internal 'state of knowledge', but also as a scholarly sensibility, ethos and motivation that operates 'within' it. The article illustrates the argument ethnomethodologically by interviewing International Relations scholars in China and India on how they themselves make sense of the emerging condition and justify their own positions and actions within it. Based on the interviews, I identify four co-productive registers connecting the state of emergence to the state of knowledge (the constitutive, civic, infrastructural and psychological) but also find that scholars in China and India differ in their enactment of these registers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Network approaches in archaeology offer a promising avenue for facilitating bottom-up, comparative approaches to sociopolitical organization. While recent applications have focused primarily on migration and demographic trends, identity and identity politics, and the dynamics of geopolitical and regional interaction, little in the way of comparative sociopolitical organization has been attempted. In this study, I present an alternative approach to the use of sociotypological models across southern Appalachia. In particular, I demonstrate the value in employing network analyses as a mode of formally and quantitatively comparing the relational structures and organizations of sociopolitical landscapes; in this case, those traditionally characterized as constellations of chiefdoms. By approaching southern Appalachian histories through the relationships upon which social, political, and economic institutions were actually built, I move the study of southeastern political systems beyond the use of models that emphasize the behaviors of elites and the ruling class as inspired by the ethnographic and ethnohistoric records. To these ends, using a robust regional ceramic dataset, I compare network histories and political landscapes for the southern Appalachian region between ca. AD 800 and 1650. The results of these analyses contribute insights to the study of small-scale political organizations by demonstrating that (i) as chiefdoms developed, leaders drew on preexisting social and political conditions; (ii) while networks of chiefly interaction were defined by instability, wider networks of interaction were much more durable; and (iii) quantitative network analyses and qualitative ethnohistoric accounts can articulate with one another to shed light on indigenous political organization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, I assess Commons’s warning that union suppression endangers democracy. I do so by considering evidence from four viewpoints: (i) Commons’s view, (ii) the free market view, (iii) the power resource view, and (iv) the comparative sociology view. I expand on Commons’s insights with the question: What is democracy? My conclusion points to the reasonableness of his warning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Proponents of the Axial Age contend that parallel cultural developments between 800 and 200 BCE in what is today China, Greece, India, Iran, and Israel-Palestine constitute the global historical turning point toward modernity. The Axial Age concept is well-known and influential, but deficiencies in the historical evidence and sociological analysis available have thwarted efforts to evaluate the concept's major global contentions. As a result, the Axial Age concept remains controversial. Seshat: Global History Databank provides new tools for examining this topic in social formations across Afro-Eurasia during the first two millennia BCE and first millennium CE, allowing scholars to empirically evaluate the varied and contrasting claims researchers have put forward. Results undercut the notion of a specific "age" of axiality limited to a specific geo-temporal localization. Critical traits offered as evidence of an axial transformation by proponents of the Axial Age concept appeared across Afro-Eurasia hundreds, and in some cases thousands, of years prior to the proposed Axial Age. Our analysis raises important questions for future evaluations of this period and points the way toward empirically-led, historical-sociological investigations of the ideological and institutional foundations of complex societies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the introduction to this special issue there is an exploration of how a visual sociological perspective can be used both to visually represent and to better understand some of the salient features of smaller nations in contemporary Europe. In the first section there is a focus on the increasing theoretical and empirical emphasis on the visual in everyday life and the renewed social scientific interest in the nation. Following that there is an examination of the concept of ‘smallness’ with respect to the literature on smaller states and nations, and the use of visual research methods to represent and help to explain the particular characteristics of smaller nations in Europe. In the second section there is a summary of the six comparative case-study articles that constitute this special issue: dealing with Serbia and Croatia, Belgium, Hungary, Greenland, the Basque Country in Spain, and with Ireland and the European Union. In the articles a range of visual sociological approaches, from conceptual to ethnographic, are applied, drawing on photographs, paintings and cognitive schemas to visually represent and examine specific features of smaller European nations. While political and economic characteristics of smallness are significant in the articles, most of the focus is on socio-cultural issues relating to themes like nationalism, national identity, migration and diversity, as well as emotions such as national pride and shame, and perceptions related to threats and vulnerabilities. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Copyright of Policy Studies Journal is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Although emotions have been assumed conventionally to be universal, recent studies have suggested that various aspects of emotions may be mediated by cultural background. The purpose of our research was to test these contradictory views, in the case of the subjective evaluation of visual affective stimuli. We also sought to validate the recently introduced Nencki Affective Picture System (NAPS) database on a different cultural group. Since there has been, to date, no attempt to compare the emotions of a culturally distinct sample of Iranians with those of Europeans, subjective ratings were collected from 40 Iranians and 39 Europeans. Each cultural group was asked separately to provide normative affective ratings and classify pictures according to discrete emotions. The results were analyzed to identify cultural differences in the ratings of individual images. One hundred and seventy NAPS pictures were rated with regard to the intensity of the basic emotions (happiness, sadness, fear, surprise, anger, and disgust) they elicited, as well as in terms of affective dimensions (valence and arousal). Contrary to previous studies using the International Affective Picture System, our results for Europeans and Iranians show that neither the ratings for affective dimensions nor for basic emotions differed across cultural groups. In both cultural groups, the relationship between valence and arousal ratings could be best described by a classical boomerangshaped function. However, the content of the pictures (animals, faces, landscapes, objects, or people) had a significant effect on the ratings for valence and arousal. These findings indicate that further studies in cross-cultural affective research should control for the content of stimuli. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Did the nation-state spread due to global diffusion? Wimmer and Feinstein’s 2010 ASR article concludes that there are no “world polity” influences on the rise of the nation-state; rather, the spread of the nation-state was driven by proximate and contextual political factors situated at the local and regional levels, in line with historical institutionalist arguments. Here, after arguing that Wimmer and Feinstein misspecify the historical domain of the world polity theory, we reanalyze their data and find that world polity has played a consistent role in the global rise of the nation-state since WWII. Specifically, global diffusion processes complement the more local and regional varieties of causal processes stressed by historical institutionalist theorists. We measure the institutionalization of world polity with inter-governmental organizations (IGOs), international nongovernmental organizations (INGOs), and processes through which potential nation-states mimic existing nation-states. IGO membership and existing nation-states show positive significance in the post-1945 period, and all three measures significantly facilitate nation-state creation for 1953 to 2001, the period for which INGO data are available. Results affirm the importance of state legitimacy secured by adapting the global model of the nation-state. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the postindustrial city, relegation takes the form of real or imaginary consignment to distinctive sociospatial formations variously and vaguely referred to as ‘inner cities,’ ‘ghettos,’ ‘enclaves,’ ‘no-go areas,’ ‘problem districts’ or simply ‘rough neighborhoods’. How are we to characterise and differentiate these spaces; what determines their trajectory (birth, growth, decay and death); whence comes the intense stigma attached to them; and what constellations of class, ethnicity and state do they both materialise and signify? These are the questions I pursued in my book Urban Outcasts (Wacquant, 2008a) through a methodical comparison of the trajectories of the black American ghetto and the European working-class peripheries in the era of neoliberal ascendancy. In this article, I revisit this cross-continental sociology of ‘advanced marginality’ to tease out its broader lessons for our understanding of the tangled nexus of symbolic, social and physical space in the polarising metropolis at century’s threshold in particular, and for bringing the core principles of Bourdieu’s sociology to bear on comparative urban studies in general. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article addresses three main questions through a comparative study of new Chinese immigrants in the United States and Singapore: (1) How do contexts of emigration and reception affect the ways in which new immigrants are tied to their homeland? (2) How do diasporic communities help members engage with the homeland? (3) What effects does transnationalism have on host-society integration? We develop an institutional approach to analyze how the state is involved in the transnational fields and how diasporic organizations serve as a bridge between individual migrants and state actors in transnational practices and integration processes. We find that new Chinese immigrants maintain emotional and tangible ties with China even as they are oriented toward resettlement in the hostland and that their transnational practices are similar in form but vary in magnitude, depending not only on diasporic positionality in the host society but also on bi-national relations. We also find that those who actively engage themselves in the transnational fields tend to do so through diasporic organizations. Finally, we find that homeland engagement generally benefits integration into host societies. These findings suggest that social forces at the macro-level – the nation-state – and at the meso-level – diasporic communities – are intertwined to affect processes and outcomes of immigrant transnationalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]