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This paper proposes that as the nation move toward the 2020 election, civil harmony might be possible with an ideological shift. Using the words of writer Sylvia Wynter in her work, " 1492: New World View" who suggest that although this country was structured with domination and subjugation from its inception, this nation could be reimagined to embrace diverse people co‐existing. Understanding too that reconciliation must be defined by those who are marginalized, the author using an Afro‐futuristic ideology for a 2020 New World Order suggest that the Black Lives Matter movement could carry the torch. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper offers a political economy interpretation of the 'parliamentary coup' that took place in Paraguay in June 2012. It situates this analysis in the wider historical context of the protracted transition to democracy between 1989 and 2008, the rural class structure of the country, the changing character of contemporary agro-extractive capitalism, and the long-standing class struggle for redistributive land reform. By examining the Paraguayan agrarian reform impasse under the short-lived government of Fernando Lugo (2008-2012) through an 'interactive state/society' framework, this paper attempts to locate the sources of current social and political conflict in the country, and the demands of rival social groups. In doing so, the paper argues that the rise and fall of Lugo occurred in the context of structural legacies from the Stroessner era (1954-1989) that have remained largely unchanged and that coexist today with an expanding agro-extractivist development model. They lead to the conceptualization of the continued 'predatory' or 'oligarchic' state in the country. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper offers elaborations on current knowledge about social-movement framing processes and cognitive liberation, especially regarding technical controversies and not-in-my-backyard (NIMBY) protest. The social-constructionist lens of the framing perspective also allows refinements in conventional explanations of NIMBY conflicts. Attention is given to the dynamics of emergence, continuity, and change in framing strategies over time in controversy regarding the U.S. Army's chemical-weapons disposal program. I focus specifically on dynamics involved in the development of cognitive liberation, particularly the framing difficulties that occur in the context of cognitive ambiguities produced by an "information haze." These ambiguities create problems for developing and linking the diagnostic, prognostic, and motivational elements of collective-action frames. I also attend to frame transformation, explaining how transformation may be both animated and constrained by a movement's opponent. I conclude that NIMBY is only one possible framing and can be transformed as the context of the dispute shifts. Moreover, framing activities in technical disputes may be particularly difficult due to the role of scientific rhetoric and experts in interpreting risks and shaping understandings of the situation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The era of US capitalist development between 1865 and 1920 offers a good opportunity to analyze the relational nature of social change at multiple scales precisely because it was a time of transition, for US and world capitalism alike. Existing accounts of the transition to monopoly capitalism in the US have focused on one or two geographical scales, such as the national economy or the shop floor. In this literature, scales are essentially treated as “containers” within which social change occurs. The possibility that the containers themselves may be fundamentally altered is not addressed. In contrast, this paper views labor process transformations, and transformations of the social division of labor, as dialectically bound. In particular, I seek to explain how the American transition to monopoly capitalism shaped, and was shaped by, class conflict and competitive pressures at multiple scales—the shop floor, the region, and the national and global divisions of labor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Centralia, Pennsylvania, a twenty-four-year-old underground coal mine fire has slowly destroyed the physical community, leaving in its wake much community conflict and suffering. And yet, unlike in most cases of natural disasters, local religious institutions and community residents failed to assign religious meaning to the problems associated with the fire.
The paper argues that the failure of local religion to respond effectively is related to the chronic technical nature of the disaster agent. Unlike a tornado or hurricane, the mine fire struck slowly, lasted a long time, was caused by human beings, and required sophisticated technical apparatus to detect and abate In addition, the patterns of victimization associated with the chronic technical disaster are different from those resulting from immediate impact natural disasters. These differences resulted in the acceptance of a technical not moral or religious, definition of the problem Implications of this for religion's response to other chronic technical disaster situations are discussed
As Centralians board up their homes and prepare to move, few would deny that something terrible has happened to their town. Their way of life is gone, their homes are being destroyed. And, yet, only a handful of residents interpreted this crisis within the local context of religious meaning. It is not that attributing a religious meaning to the mine fire would have insulated residents from the ecological effects of the blaze so much as it would have encouraged a common understanding of and promoted a collective response to, their predicament. For a majority of residents, however, the environmental disaster that plagued Centralia was interpreted and acted towards in a manner that excluded the relevance of religion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In his 1944 article, Prospect of a World Without Racial Conflict, W.E.B. DuBois hypothesized that we would never live in a world without racial division. With this in mind, we highlight how neoliberal ideologies promote policy, actions, and an idea of peace that upholds racial inequality in the United States. We consider how neoliberal tenets, such as free market trust and individual responsibility, reflect and promote misperceptions of racial conflict and impact colorblind perceptions of peace and justice. These perceptions promote definitions of conflict as physical violence versus systemic violence, ignore racial equality as a path to peace in favor of harmonious interaction, and highlight individuals as responsible for racial conflict as opposed to the system. In response, we argue for counter‐definitions of peace that explicitly acknowledge systemic violence and prioritize justice within the racial conflict context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Conventional wisdom holds that Democrats have abandoned the language of class populism. Using a quantitative and qualitative content analysis of hundreds of Democratic presidential campaign speeches over the 1932-2012 period, we revisit the received view. We provide evidence that Democratic presidential candidates have made increasingly frequent references to the wealthy; have employed a consistently adversarial tone in statements referring to the affluent; have made increasingly frequent criticisms of Republicans' alleged favoritism toward the rich; and have increasingly linked references to the wealthy to promises to assist less fortunate Americans through programmatic reforms. Our findings indicate that class populism is alive and well in Democratic presidential campaign rhetoric. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Legislators are thought to delegate policymaking authority to administrative actors either to avoid blame for controversial policy or to secure policy outcomes. This study tests these competing perspectives and establishes that public attention to policymaking is a powerful predictor of the extent to which significant United States statutes delegate authority to the executive branch. Consistent with the policy-concerns perspective, by one calculation statutes dealing with high-attention issues entail 48 percent fewer delegating provisions than statutes dealing with low-attention issues - a far stronger relationship than is typically found in the delegation literature. As per the blame-avoidance perspective, a number of additional analyses yield results consistent with the notion that fears about future public attention motivate statutory delegation if legislative conflict is sufficiently great. Overall, however, the results suggest that conflict typically is not sufficiently great and that legislators are generally more inclined to limit statutory delegation when the public is paying attention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective Aggregate crime rates continue to decline in the United States despite the depth and breadth of the current foreclosure crisis. This trend calls into question conventional wisdom and prior research that suggest a causal, positive relationship between foreclosures and crime. The objective of this article is to consider an alternative argument, that foreclosures and crime are part-and-parcel of the same community-level dynamics, and thus are not causally related. Methods We use random effects models to analyze community crime and foreclosure data from Chicago between 2004 and 2009. Results Findings reveal that crime and foreclosures are spuriously related; controlling for confounding factors such as concentrated disadvantage and the political hierarchy of communities renders the foreclosure-crime association nonsignificant. Conclusion Foreclosures and crime are each explained by antecedent community characteristics. To understand why social problems are unevenly distributed across geographic space, it is necessary to investigate why power and political influence are unevenly distributed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses depictions of student athletes in U.S. motion pictures, focusing on movies about college football. The author discusses the effects of U.S. involvement in World War I on U.S. sporting culture, along with campus life at U.S. colleges and universities during the 1920s and 1930s. Emphasis is given to the class conflict present in films about college sports, the decline in the popularity of college football cinema, and portrayals of the American Dream. Films discussed include "The Freshman," "Win that Girl," and "Two Minutes to Play."

This essay looks at the role that Anglo-American women played in governing their Irish immigrant domestic servants and at the racial and gendered meanings that were attached to servitude. In the second half of the nineteenth century, female Irish Catholic immigrants predominated in domestic service employment in the north-eastern United States. Newspaper and magazine articles portrayed the home as a site of conflict where Protestant, middle-class families clashed with Irish Catholic ‘peasant’ girls newly arrived in the US. Employers depicted ‘Bridget’ or ‘Biddy’, the collective nickname given to Irish domestic servants, as insubordinate, unrefined and prone to violent outbursts. While reliant on domestic service for wages, female Irish immigrants understood that service represented racialised labour in the United States and was viewed as an occupation befitting non-white populations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing inspiration from the work of Robin M. Williams Jr., I map out the complexities of ethnic and racial relations in the contemporary United States by focusing on the impacts of 9/11—particularly in relation to immigration policy. Because the attackers entered the country through regular immigration channels (i.e., as foreign students) the U.S. government has introduced policies to enhance border security, restrict immigration, increase the surveillance of immigrant populations, and more actively enforce immigration policy. These national-security-related immigration policies, however, are exacerbating existing tensions and producing new sets of ethnic and racialized conflicts in the United States. In this article, I first provide an overview of the key national-security-related immigration policies that were passed in the wake of September 11, 2001. Then, I review some of the recent sociological literature, as well as draw from my own preliminary research in the State of New Jersey, to illustrate the social impacts of these policies on ethnic and racial relations. I conclude with an outline of the ways the sociology of ethnic and racial relations specifically, as well as other subfields of the discipline, might approach analyses of social conflict in the contemporary United States, post–September 11. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Neighborhood organizations have become more important players in urban areas in recent years due to a renewed interest in social capital and an emphasis on the continuing development of community. With this elevated status comes more responsibility for the delivery of services to citizens and scrutiny by these very citizens, the press, and government officials. Much of what we know about neighborhood organizations comes from our observations of board deliberations. Through these deliberations board members make decisions that affect neighborhood constituents. In this study we examine the context in which neighborhood boards in the city of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, make decisions. Using theory borrowed from the literature on local government boards, we develop a series of testable hypotheses relating to the level of conflict on these boards. Our findings indicate that conflict is relatively low across boards in Milwaukee; however, the number of board member and certain behavioral variables explain a significant amount of the variance in the level of conflict. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While many studies of collaboration have relied on processual factors to explain outcomes of conflicts among the stakeholders, the failure of collaboration can also be explained by the divergence of stakeholders' frames about the issues. Research on environmental conflicts has shown that the ways in which the stakeholders frame the issues and the conflict itself explain collaborative success or failure. When stakeholders' frames about the issues, the process of their interaction, and about each other are vastly different, collaboration to find an agreeable solution becomes exceedingly difficult. In this article I present a case study of a protracted conflict over Voyageurs National Park in northern Minnesota (USA) to show how frames impeded the stakeholders from finding a collaborative solution to the conflict despite an 18-month mediation effort. How the stakeholders construed their own identities in the conflict, how they constructed the problems or opportunities that linked them, as well as the frames they held about how the conflict should be resolved, all worked to prevent collaboration. Consequently, stakeholders' frames and processes for promoting reframing are critical to understanding how collaborative partnerships evolve and whether they will eventually succeed or fail. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present article analyzes the September 11 terrorist attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon in terms of current theories of normative influence in intergroup conflict. The (conflicting) implications of various social psychological models of decision making for Western and American attempts to reduce the likelihood of further attacks are delineated. We examine the implications of social identity models and models of outgroup normative influence, as well as dynamic models of intergroup behavior that focus on the polarizing effects of outgroup hostility. The influence of Western responses is distinguished for various target audiences, including not only the terrorists, but also pro-Western Muslims in North America and Europe, unaligned Muslims, and Muslims with anti-American feelings who do not endorse terrorism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article describes the moral conflict involved when two incompatible social worlds collided on America's Frontier in Minnesota in 1862. The result was the bloodiest and costliest Indian war and the largest mass execution in our history. The residue of hatred and misunderstanding persist to this day but is being ameliorated by long-term efforts toward reconciliation. These relationship building efforts are illustrated by a model and with examples of dialogue, collaboration, and communally shared experiences between the dominant culture and the Dakota people. It is believed that these efforts are gradually having an impact in healing the deep wounds between these estranged cultures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An increasing number of U.S.-based conflict resolution providers and educators are now also working outside the country, carrying with them, in some sense, the mantle of "conflict resolution expert." But it is possible that some well-meaning people—though genuine experts in a given area—may inadvertently cause harm to persons and parties for whose culture, language, or circumstances these professionals' U.S. experience has left them inadequately prepared. This article describes how a group of professionals with substantial experience working outside the United States analyzed the dangers; it also makes suggestions for the "innocent abroad. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlighting resource inequality, social processes, and spatial interdependence, this study combines structural characteristics from the 1990 census with a survey of 8,872 Chicago residents in 1995 to predict homicide variations in 1996-1998 across 343 neighborhoods. Spatial proximity to homicide is strongly related to increased homicide rates, adjusting for internal neighborhood characteristics and prior homicide. Concentrated disadvantage and low collective efficacy--defined as the linkage of social control and cohesion--also independently predict increased homicide. Local organizations, voluntary associations, and friend/kinship networks appear to be important only insofar as they promote the collective efficacy of residents in achieving social control and cohesion. Spatial dynamics coupled with neighborhood inequalities in social and economic capacity are therefore consequential for explaining urban violence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article connects William Julius Wilson's conceptualization of the economic and social consequences of economic restructuring with a macrolevel social control framework to help explain the increase in juvenile homicide rates observed between 1970 and 1990. Recent research in urban sociology posits that the proliferation of female-headed families in American cities is a result of declining economic prospects due to profound changes in the structure of the urban economy. Meanwhile, macro-level theory and research in criminology suggest that an association exists between family structure and rates of lethal violence among juveniles. Among these problems are increasing rates of female-headed families and juvenile homicide. One prominent theoretical account for the rise of female-headed families posits that a general increase in public assistance benefits created an enticement for out-of-wedlock childbearing and a disincentive for marriage. Alternatively, Wilson suggests that declining economic prospects caused by the transformation from a goods-based to a service-based economy rather than liberal welfare policies are responsible for the proliferation of female-headed families. In particular, Wilson posits that declining economic prospects have depressed local marriage markets and increased the reluctance of Black males to take on family responsibilities, which has resulted in increased rates of children born out of wedlock.

Five hundred and seventy-eight African American, Asian American, Latino/a, and White undergraduates responded to a questionnaire assessing perceptions and experiences of the campus cultural climate. Results revealed significant differences between racial and ethnic groups on multiple dimensions of the campus cultural climate. African American students consistently reported significantly more racial--ethnic conflict on campus; pressure to conform to stereotypes; and less equitable treatment by faculty, staff, and teaching assistants. White students' responses reflected limited perceptions of racial-ethnic tensions and a university climate characterized by respect for diversity. Counseling implications are presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article uses the myth of the many-headed Hydra, commonly employed by members of various ruling classes around the Atlantic to describe the class struggles that surrounded them, to illuminate the history of the working class in the eighteenth century. It concentrates on two groups of workers, wage laborers (especially sailors) and slaves, two zones of the Atlantic, Europe and North America, and four moments in the history of the Atlantic working class: 1747, when, in the Knowles Riot in Boston, sailors and slaves fought the King's press gangs and In so doing created one of the central ideas of the "Age of Revolution'; 1768, when, in the London port strike, sailors, Irish coalheavers, and others pioneered one of the central ideas and activities of the modem working-class movement, the strike; 1776, when, in the American Revolution, sailors and slaves helped to Instigate and win the world's first colonial war for liberation. By looking at the revolts of the many-headed Hydra - laborers black and white, Irish and English, free and enslaved, waged and unwaged one can begin to see how the events of 1747, 1768, 1776, and 1780 were part of a broad cycle of rebellion in the eighteenth-century Atlantic world, in which continuities and connections informed huge number and variety of popular struggles. A central theme in this cycle was the many-sided struggle against confinement - on ships, in workshops, in prisons, or even in empires - and the simultaneous search for autonomy.

The article examines the community and class struggles in Los Angeles, California against corporate development forces. The political isolation of Los Angeles communities also occurs within the setting of a city tremendously segregated by race and class, intentionally designed is such by private developers in the early 1900s. Pico Union, Skid Row, and Route 2 are only three of the communities in Los Angeles that have organized to gain political autonomy. The lack of political accountability to working-class communities in Los Angeles had bred the need for creating mass based solidarity within communities.

We analyzed the content of newspaper reports on 38 environmental conflicts that occurred on the Texas Gulf Coast between 1977 and 1983 to examine factors that influenced group participation in those conflicts. We addressed two main questions: First, to what extent did nonenvironmental groups actively support environmental interests? And second, were nonenvironmental groups more likely to express support when they perceived threats to their health or monetary interests than when they perceived threats to the nonhuman environment (e.g., destruction of habitat)? Findings indicate that a wide variety of nonenvironmental groups were actively involved in these conflicts, but the reason they most typically expressed for their involvement was perceived threat to their health and safety. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Uses Christian Scientists' refusal of medical care for their children as an example of conflict of groups over authority within a pluralistic society, and proposes a compromise that is respectful to both the medical and Christian Science communities. The cases of Robyn Twitchell and Colin Newmark; Christian Science tradition; Medical authority; Seeking a compromise.

A brief paradigmatic history of American sociology is presented. Conflict methodology is defined and exemplified. It is held to be an essential adjunct to a complete conflict paradigm. A conflict paradigm is relevant to sociological analyses in Eastern and Western Countries in view of the proliferation and power and of the large scale organization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Perhaps due to their ubiquitous and seemingly nonsensical nature, workplace nicknames have received little analytic attention to date. This exploratory study based on six case scenarios from the United States reveals nicknames often convey potent meanings. These monikers are found to have a wide variety of purposes: including among others, furthering social control, contributing to socialization, marking group boundaries, building camaraderie, catalysing joking, conveying discontent, cathartically venting frustrations, equalizing social exchanges and adjusting to labelling. Although the nicknaming and collateral social processes we encountered were not the product of formal planning, they are a complex and highly organized set of micropolitical activities. In the future, nicknames should be thought of as key symbols that can unlock many meanings when they are properly interpreted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Judicial attitudes towards aesthetics have shifted rather dramatically during this century from one of outright hostility to general recognition of aesthetics as a sole justification for use of the police power. The acceptable limits of these regulations are still being explored, the issue of possible conflicts with the right of commercial free speech being the most recent legal battleground. The recent decision of the Supreme Court of the United States in the case of Metromedia, Inc. v. City of San Diego, striking down the local ordinance as restrictive of non-commercial speech, confused the picture presented by the latest holdings. However, legislative developments have largely negated judicial gains for scenic beauty proponents. The outlook is for more and larger billboards spread along more and more of both our urban and rural roadsides. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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This article focuses on racial crisis in the United States. The U.S. has had an almost perpetual racial crisis for a generation. But the last third of the twentieth century has begun on a new note, a change of rhetoric and a confusion over goals. Widespread rioting is just one expression of this note. The nation hesitates; it seems to have lost its confidence that the problem can be solved; it seems unsure as to even the direction in which a solution lies. This new mood is best understood when viewed within the eventful sweep of recent years. Ever since World War I, when war orders combined with the curtailment of immigration to encourage massive migration to industrial centers, Negro Americans have been undergoing rapid change as a people. The latest product of this dramatic transformation from southern peasant to northern urbanite is a second- and third-generation northern-born youth. Indeed, over half of Negro Americans alive today are below twenty-two years of age. The most significant fact about this newest new Negro is that he is relatively released from the principal social controls recognized by his parents and grandparents, from the restraints of an extended kinship system, a conservative religion and an acceptance of the inevitability of white supremacy.

The purpose of this article is to deal with four main topics pertaining to the past two decades of the history of intergroup relations in the United States. First, changes in group structures and social identities, social structure and prejudice, thirdly, the base of organized protest and finally, processes of conflict and conflict resolution. great changes have occurred in the internal structures of and the relations among racial, ethnic and religious collection. As cultural differences associated with national origins and language have been reduced as a consequence both of greatly reduced immigration and of extensive acculturation, racial distinctions have moved into a more central position in the total societal structure. Racial prejudice, both as a sense of group position and as a belief in the "difference" and inferiority of subordinates is a major norm in American society today. In the case of Negro-white relations in recent times, the conflict has been centered upon pressure for change from Negroes, versus the resistance to change from white partisans of the status quo ante.