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In this article, we take a look at the influence of 20th-century provenance of caste as a category of academic importance meriting a debate in American sociology and beyond. Two actors participated in the animating discourse of caste and race in the annals of American sociology. Oliver Cromwell Cox took a class position to define caste, unmaking the hierarchies set in social structures. Instead, he advocated for a racialized system to understand the post-slavery capitalist America. Gerald Berreman represented a different camp that found social hierarchies to be co-determinant of relations and division arranged into a caste society. The debate over caste, nevertheless, admitted to the plausibility of castes contrasted with India's caste system. However, caste categorization was found to be an appropriate application to the conditions of social inequalities. Gunnar Myrdal and other scholars of repute contributed to the debate. What remained limited in their theoretical contributions to the discussion was an inadequate focus on the lived reality and politics of the caste formulations in the postcolonial, socialist mode of production. A serious examination of untouchability, sub-castes and sub-sub-castes that regulate the kernel of the caste system as well as the racialized castes in India were not studied or referenced in detail. This article adds to that void a theoretical understanding of the discussion on caste, race and colour in sociological and anthropological disciplines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the concept of social hierarchy and its significance in contemporary society. It argues that while there is existing literature on social hierarchies, there is a lack of general theories on their nature and moral significance. The author introduces Niko Kolodny's work, which provides a comprehensive theory of social hierarchy and argues that it is fundamentally objectionable. The article examines Kolodny's analysis of social hierarchy, his arguments regarding its normative implications, and his proposed "tempering factors" that can make a hierarchy less objectionable. The author also critiques Kolodny's theory and suggests that the objection to hierarchy should be based on its lack of appropriate justification. They propose that only hierarchies of consideration are presumptively objectionable, while hierarchies of esteem and authority may not be intrinsically objectionable. The text also questions the interpretation of moral anxieties about subjection to the state as a claim against hierarchy. Overall, the article provides a critical analysis of social hierarchy and its moral implications. [Extracted from the article]

Socio-ecological models combine ecological systems with human social dynamics in order to better understand human interactions with the environment. To model human behavior, replicator dynamics can be used to model how societal influence and financial costs can change opinions about resource extraction. Previous research on replicator dynamics has shown how evolving opinions on conservation can change how humans interact with their environment and therefore change population dynamics of the harvested species. However, social-ecological models often assume that human societies are homogeneous with no social structure. Building on previous work on social-ecological models, we develop a two-patch socio-ecological model with social hierarchy in order to study the interactions between spatial dynamics and social inequity. We found that fish movement between patches is a major driver of model dynamics, especially when the two patches exhibit different social equality and fishing practices. Further, we found that the societal influence between groups of harvesters was essential to ensuring stable fishery dynamics. Next, we developed a case study of two independently managed fisheries that were connected by fish movement where one human group fishes sustainably while another was over-harvests, resulting in a fishery collapse of both patches. We also found that because in this model, the influence of one human patch on another only communicates the amount of each catch and no fishing strategies were employed, increased social influence decreased the sustainability of the fishery. The findings of this study indicate the importance of including spatial components to socio-ecological models and highlights the importance of understanding species' movements when making conservation decisions. Further, we demonstrate how incorporating fishing methods from outside sources can result in higher stability of the harvested population, demonstrating the need for effective communication across management regimes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

"The Dawn of Everything" by David Graeber and David Wengrow challenges the conventional belief that the rise of bureaucratic states was directly linked to the agricultural revolution. The authors argue for a more nuanced understanding of political structures, suggesting that human societies had more agency in shaping their governance systems. While the book promotes alternative forms of political organization like anarchism, it does not fully address modern developments such as the industrial revolution and technological advancements. The text emphasizes the importance of enhancing democratic self-government within existing political structures and advocates for interdisciplinary dialogue to explore the implications of their findings. [Extracted from the article]

Social egalitarianism holds that justice requires that people relate to one another as equals. To explain the content of this requirement, social egalitarians often appeal to the moral equality of persons. This leads to two very different interpretations of social egalitarianism. The first involves the specification of a conception of the moral equality of persons that is distinctive of the social egalitarian view. Social (or relational) egalitarianism can then claim that for people to relate as equals is for the relations between them to conform to this conception of their moral equality. I will argue against this type of view. Instead, I will argue that social egalitarianism should propose a distinctive conception of social equality as a purely sociological phenomenon. I will show how this conception allows us to formulate the types of normative claims social egalitarianism should make. On this picture, social egalitarianism, instead of identifying social hierarchy as a distinctive kind of wrong, makes standard normative claims about a distinctive kind of social phenomenon. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social or relational egalitarians try to defend democracy non-instrumentally as a constitutive element of a society where no one stands as inferior or superior to anyone else. However, they face an instrumentalist challenge from within: Why not uphold a non-democratic regime if it outperforms democracy in protecting or promoting egalitarian social relations, for example, by stably producing substantive political decisions that guard against social hierarchies? This article explores the best response to this challenge from the social egalitarian non-instrumentalist standpoint. It argues that the instrumentalist challenge can be accommodated without abandoning the essential non-instrumentalist commitment to democracy; while a nondemocratic regime may be justified under less-than-ideal circumstances as a contingently effective means to realize more social equality, democracy can nevertheless be viewed as a necessary condition for the realization of full social equality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The given text is a list of references and citations from various sources related to the topics of individual autonomy, social equality, and relational autonomy. The sources cover a range of perspectives and theories, including feminist critiques, philosophical analyses, and discussions on oppression and paternalism. [Extracted from the article]

Increased inequalities around the globe have led social researchers to invent innovative methodologies to study how people subjectively perceive inequality and imagine society. This article presents the development of an arts-informed method, 'drawing of society', applied to a multi-sited ethnography of everyday inequalities in two major post-industrial cities of Russia. It contributes to the debate on lay perceptions of social structure by looking at moral and symbolic signifiers of inequality. Building on multi-sensory data, I argue that workers and professionals tend to imagine Russian society as divided between a small group of the rich and a large group of the poor and as consisting of social classes. Ordinary people self-identify with the poor and perceive their position as being at the bottom of the social hierarchy. Depending on their lived experiences, research participants express their sense of inequality through the narrative strategies of compliance, inversion and subversion of power hierarchies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Political polarization is a systemic-level and multifaceted process that severs cross-cutting ties and shifts perceptions of politics to a zero-sum game. When it turns pernicious, political actors and supporters view opponents as an existential threat and the capacity of democratic institutions to process political conflict breaks down. The article identifies four common fault lines of polarization globally – who belongs, democracy, inequality and social contract. It argues that while Latin American countries experience, to varying degrees, all four of the fault lines, it is the deep-seated, persistent social hierarchies oriented around class, race, and place that stand out relative to other countries. Reaching consensus on reforms that may renew or reformulate agreements on the terms of the social contract, boundaries of community membership, and redressing social inequality is a tall task. Yet the region's sustained consensus on the democratic rules of the game can provide the mechanisms for addressing this task if new majority coalitions can be formed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

International and national human rights legal and policy frameworks have traditionally relied on addressing discrimination through a single-axis angle, identifying and addressing single grounds in cases of discrimination. By focusing predominantly on individual dimensions of discrimination, they often neglected to acknowledge the systemic and historical dimensions of discrimination which continue to shape contemporary social inequalities and hierarchies. A concept of intersectional discrimination, although now widely accepted, has not yet been consistently reflected in the legal and policy documents of international human rights organizations. This article examines the extent to which the monitoring mechanisms of international human rights instruments take an intersectional approach to improve policy outcomes and tackle the structural roots of inequality that pervade societies around the world and prevent the achievement of substantive equality for all. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In three studies, we tested whether hierarchical preferences could explain differences in punishment recommendations for sexual harassment. Building on research that suggests punishment is used to regulate social hierarchies, we argue that individuals who are motivated to maintain existing hierarchies will treat male perpetrators of sexual harassment with greater leniency, especially when judging perpetrators of high social status. Conversely, we predict that egalitarians—who are motivated to reduce group-based hierarchies—will judge male perpetrators more harshly, especially those of high social status. Given competing theories in the existing literature, we make no predictions about how perpetrator status will affect punishment recommendations overall. Supporting our hypotheses, we found that individuals high on gender system justification and social dominance orientation recommended more lenient punishments to perpetrators. Moreover, an integrative data analysis uncovered an interaction between social dominance orientation and perpetrator status. This interaction was primarily driven by egalitarians, who provided more lenient punishment recommendations to low status perpetrators when compared to high status perpetrators. Contrary to our predictions, we did not find strong evidence that individuals high on social dominance orientation provided harsher judgements to low status perpetrators. Nor did we find strong evidence for a main effect of perpetrator status on punishment recommendations. Taken together, these findings suggest that people punish sexual harassment to bolster or attenuate power structures. This is particularly true of egalitarians, whose emphasis on social equality leads them to judge high status perpetrators of sexual harassment with particular severity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Racialized social inequality is considered a structural problem in Brazil and has been a political priority of recent progressist governments. This understanding is not backed up by the so-called New Right, who understands inequality as an inherent principle of a God-given "order" and question of personal capability and merit. In this study, I explore the ideological roots of this powerful Rightist narrative by looking at the Brazilian canon of traditional conservative thought and its influence on New Right discourse. The results show that the core ideas stem from neo-Thomist interpretations of late-scholastic scholarship, which were promoted in Brazil through the Vatican's integrist reaction to modernization during the First Republic. Since then, Brazilian conservatives have successfully used these religious legitimizations of naturalized inequality to constrain State-driven social reformism and join forces with neoliberalism through the invention of the supposed late scholastic roots of the Austrian School of Economics. After redemocratization, a recycled version of this liberal-conservative claim for less "State" and more "Brazil" (as guided by theocratic traditional order), promoted mainly by the philosopher and online influencer Olavo de Carvalho, has fueled the desecularizing discourse of the New Right and their attempt to conserve the colonial social hierarchy in Brazil. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article deals with the question of why 'negative liberty' has become so dominant in contemporary western societies. The thesis is that its popularity is related to a misunderstood conception of equality. In order to back-up this statement, two related twin-concepts of'respect' and 'esteem' are examined. While 'respect' can be enforced, as all people should be protected by the same liberty rights and all citizens should have the same power over and under the same laws, 'esteem' is a form of recognition that cannot simply be claimed. Not all people can be esteemed in the same way and a lack thereof should therefore be accepted. A society needs to check whether an inequality of esteem leads to an itlequality of respect, but it also needs to account for the possibility that inequality of esteem is being made difficult because of a confusion with the need for equal respect. After all, if people believe that equal respect also entails equality in terms of esteem, and hence that all people are the same, in all aspects, the upshot is a 'horizontalisation' of social relations where people do not accept being confronted with restrictions that flow from rules, laws, norms, and social hierarchies. These restrictions cause unease and, subsequently, these unpleasant feelings are interpreted as violations of rights which are often framed as illegitimate infringements of one's liberty. Relying upon the work of jose Ortega Y Gasset, it is argued that the origins of this dynamic can be found in the nineteenth century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The importance of land restoration has garnered increasing attention on the global stage through large‐scale initiatives such as the Bonn Challenge. However, policies and strategies are often gender‐blind and designed in compliance with entrenched social hierarchies, exacerbating pre‐existing social inequalities that affect restoration initiatives. The challenge of developing gender‐responsive policies and initiatives is accentuated by a persistent lack of sex‐disaggregated data concerning men's and women's differing perceptions and experiences. This study aims to help fill this gap by capturing the differences in men and women's perceptions of ecosystem services before and after restoration interventions in Ethiopia. Towards that end, in October 2021, we collected data from fifty‐nine (59) paired husband‐wife households and six gender‐segregated focus group discussions in two regions of Ethiopia: Amhara and Southern Nations, and Nationalities and Peoples (SNNP). Kendall's concordance analysis established a strong degree of disagreement between men's and women's ratings of restoration outcomes for most indicators. Men attributed degradation to landscape conditions and natural forces, while women considered the lack of appropriate restoration strategies as a precursor for accelerated degradation. The study also reveals that men tended to benefit more than women from enhanced ecosystem services post‐restoration, with increased labour and land management burdens often falling on the shoulders of women. Based on these findings, we argue that including men's and women's perspectives from the earliest planning phases of restoration initiatives is essential to ensure greater equity in benefit‐sharing, mitigate trade‐offs for women, and build more nuanced, just and successful approaches to restoration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Samuel Bowles of Santa Fe Institute and CORE Econ reviews "The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity" by David Graeber and David Wengrow. The Econlit abstract of this book begins: "Presents an interpretation of human history that revises long-held assumptions about the emergence of social inequality and hierarchy, considering the implications of this counternarrative for accounts of the origins of farming, property, cities, democracy, slavery, and civilization itself." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Following the 2022 CDE conference's concern regarding "how theatre and the city are productively embroiled and [...] how contemporary Anglophone theatre has redefined [...] [and blurred the] borders between centre and periphery, street and stage, performer and spectator" (Garson et al.), I will focus on Tim Price's Protest Song, which was commissioned by the National Theatre and was staged there in December 2013. Setting the play in the streets of London in front of the iconic urban space of St Paul's Cathedral, starring a homeless main character, and transgressing the boundaries between theatrical and actual spaces, Price arguably questions conventional urban and social binaries as well as economic and social hierarchies. With the help of experimental and critical strategies, he examines the city street movement Occupy Wall Street and its repercussions. The present article analyses these strategies and asks how they represent, perform, question, and assess urban hierarchies, city street activism, and the financial sector, as they are symbolised by the (urban and mental) spaces of London as capital and London as city of capital. I will furthermore look into how Price's strategies reframe social inequality and turbo-capitalism as well as to what extent they redefine the borders between centre and periphery, street and stage, performer and spectator. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The rapid growth of Chinese migrants in Africa since the 1990s has sparked much academic research and debate. Drawing on qualitative data gathered between 2016-2019, this article aims to examine the relationships between the experiences of Chinese new migrants in Ghana and social changes in reform-era China. China's state-led institutional reforms and market transition have significantly altered the social stratification order, opportunity structure, and individuals' life chances. The macro-level drivers for new Chinese emigration to Africa can be attributed to two simultaneous processes: the political-economic expansion of China in the global economy versus uneven development and rising inequalities within China. Beyond the economic rewards, Africa offers a space for the new migrants to achieve upward mobility in the class hierarchy and flexibly shift their identity, which can be likened to an easier "ladder' to climb up. This article contributes to the literature on migration drivers, diaspora-homeland relations, and contemporary migration in the Global South. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The book Just Hierarchies: Why Social Hierarchies Matter in China and the Rest of the World by Daniel A. Bell and Pei Wang aims to answer the following question: 'Should morally justifiable social hierarchies structure our social lives on an everyday basis, including our relations with loved ones?' Bell and Wang respond positively. In this article, I mainly focus on the relations between intimates, examining the arguments from the perspective of social egalitarianism and feminism. Bell and Wang argue that hierarchies involving shifting roles are justified, but I shall argue that the defence of hierarchy in intimate relations is not completely convincing. First, the authors mistake hierarchical societies for hierarchical organisations. I will explain why this conflation is detrimental to the defence of hierarchies. Second, the authors neglect to mention some of the significant moral wrongs perpetuated by hierarchical systems. A hierarchy such as a caste system not only fixes inferior and superior positions but also conveys demeaning messages to those who are lower in rank. In addition, we also need to consider the macro-background of specific interpersonal hierarchies to be able to make sense of the wrongs of intimate hierarchies. Third, the practical implications of the defence of intimate hierarchies are ambiguous. I argue that, ultimately, the authors are not able to defend what they set out to defend at the very beginning of the book. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the proposed relationships between humans and animals in Just Hierarchy: Why Social Hierarchies Matter in China and the Rest of the World, by Daniel A. Bell and Wang Pei. Bell and Wang locate animals within structures of 'just hierarchies' in the human world, arguing for 'subordination without cruelty', and ranking animals according to the different relationships they have with the human community. This article examines the historical legacy of such claims of 'just hierarchy', discusses the problem of defining a just relationship between humans and animals, and questions the timing and effectiveness of reasserting our dominion over the animal kingdom in the present age. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the drivers and impacts of degradation of agricultural land in a village in a South Indian coastal delta. Drawing on insights from political economy and political ecology scholarship, it argues that there is a dialectical relation between land degradation and social inequalities, i.e. the biophysical degeneration of land is not only caused by human and environmental factors but it also generates social contradictions which further intensify both land degradation and social inequalities. The paper demonstrates, firstly, that coastal land degradation has been generated in the form of soil salinity through a confluence of the inherent environmental vulnerabilities of the region, forces of commoditization (especially those associated with shrimp aquaculture), existing social hierarchies and state policy. Secondly, it shows that social groups differentiated by caste, class and gender have experienced these changes differently. A small, relatively well-off section of the locally dominant caste landowners has benefitted from shifting from paddy to shrimp aquaculture, which is leading to a further increase in salinisation. Others have to bear the brunt of decreasing productivity of land for crop cultivation, leading them to abandon or reduce cultivation and increase dependence on non-agricultural sources of income, especially through male outmigration. Women's burden of work has increased while their capacity to earn wage-income has declined. Without any concerted state effort to either restore the land or to alleviate the widespread agrarian distress, land degradation has developed into a continuously evolving downward spiral, but one where there will still be some winners and many losers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The metaphysics of sex and gender is of significant philosophical, social, and cultural interest at present. Terms like transgender and cisgender have come into wider circulation in the fight for gender justice. While many are familiar with 'transgender', fewer know 'cisgender', the term that captures AFAB‐women (assigned 'female' at birth‐women) and AMAB‐men. But 'cisgender' is controversial to some, which I find surprising. In this article, I reflect on my process of recognising my self as cisgender. During, I highlight the ethico‐political consequences of refusing the onto‐epistemic category 'cisgender'. I shall argue that uptake of 'cisgender' and apprenticeship to trans texts uncovers how we maintain, and might purposefully disturb, queer/cis‐hetero, man/woman/other hierarchies of social identity power. I argue this self‐recognition is a crucial tool for challenging 'cisgender commonsense' and may be a means toward dislodging ciscentrism in my (western, Anglophone) milieu. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Migration is considered a meaningful strategy whereby both migrants and nonmigrants can improve their well‐being and their livelihoods. The paper emphasizes the migrants' own perspective and sheds light on movers' noneconomic drivers. The concept of aspirations is treated as a 'missing link' that allows research into migration at its intersection with social inequalities, hierarchies and diversity. The paper's main aim is therefore to elucidate Romanian migrants' aspirations and to illustrate how these aspirations are informed by their agency and reflect their well‐being both during and after the economic recession in Greece. Romanian migration provides sufficient grounds to invoke a more nuanced approach to migrants' well‐being, which takes their 'dreams of fantasy' into account, along with their subjective experiences of inequalities and multiple belonging. This paper frames migrants' well‐being theoretically as a relational process, but also in terms of the socio‐spatial arrangements of migrant mobility/immobility acts. Romanians' narratives are analysed in relation to their social trajectories, spatial movement(s) and settlement patterns during their international and internal journey(s). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Miami, the US racial category of "white" is being re‐defined to include light skinned Latinx immigrants. In the process, US‐born white Miamians find themselves displaced from the top of Miami's social hierarchy as light skinned Latinx immigrants take over these social positions. This racialized Latinx social re‐positioning is particularly visible in Miami's restaurant industry where the developing social hierarchy leaves white women restaurant workers juggling their white privilege and their traditional gendered roles, with this playing out most profoundly amongst those who occupy "back of house," or kitchen jobs, where they become both racial and gender minorities. Through the case study of Geena, a white female cook, I will explore the extent to which the precarity of privilege motivates white women to be audacious actors of resistance in a racialized, hetero‐patriarchal restaurant industry. Using an intersectional framework to analyze Geena's lived experiences, this paper focuses specifically on the degree to which her ideas of hope are shaped by class, language, ableism, and sexual orientation. As I will demonstrate through Geena's case study, ideas of hope allow white women to reposition themselves as white saviors, effectively reasserting and reifying whiteness as a superior social category. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Miami, the US racial category of "white" is being re‐defined to include light skinned Latinx immigrants. In the process, US‐born white Miamians find themselves displaced from the top of Miami's social hierarchy as light skinned Latinx immigrants take over these social positions. This racialized Latinx social re‐positioning is particularly visible in Miami's restaurant industry where the developing social hierarchy leaves white women restaurant workers juggling their white privilege and their traditional gendered roles, with this playing out most profoundly amongst those who occupy "back of house," or kitchen jobs, where they become both racial and gender minorities. Through the case study of Geena, a white female cook, I will explore the extent to which the precarity of privilege motivates white women to be audacious actors of resistance in a racialized, hetero‐patriarchal restaurant industry. Using an intersectional framework to analyze Geena's lived experiences, this paper focuses specifically on the degree to which her ideas of hope are shaped by class, language, ableism, and sexual orientation. As I will demonstrate through Geena's case study, ideas of hope allow white women to reposition themselves as white saviors, effectively reasserting and reifying whiteness as a superior social category. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Kurdish movement has often been touted as an egalitarian struggle, and, in many ways, rightly so. However, the movement's relation to its undisputed leader, Abdullah Öcalan, has remained relatively unexamined. This article seeks to rectify this oversight by investigating how Abdullah Öcalan informs the movement's egalitarian life. To do so, the article employs a frame of analysis that utilizes anthropological theory on kingship. Drawing on secondary sources and fieldwork in Turkish and Iraqi Kurdistan, the article argues that Öcalan works as and resembles a king for the movement in several key respects, greatly influencing the movement's structure. The article contends that applying this frame of analysis may bolster theoretical apparatuses for studying revolutionary movements and nuance polar understandings of hierarchy and egalitarianism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this introduction we approach egalitarianism as an upsetting force that in various ways has shaped much of modern, especially Western, human history. We outline philosophical trajectories from the Enlightenment onward; consider the historical realization of an agency of 'the people' for the articulation of state, society, and politics; and highlight some issues that arise when the claims to freedom and equality clash against established institutions and values. Stressing the dynamic intertwining of the egalitarian with the hierarchical, we portray egalitarian life forms as modes of relationality that negate, subvert, or take advantage of open potentials in existing systems. Egalitarian life strives toward reconfiguring social orders through rupturing moments of effervescence and liminality while attempting to redefine central categories of life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Lua Nova is the property of CEDEC 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.)

Across five studies, we find that high-power distance belief (PDB) consumers (i.e., consumers who value social hierarchy) tend to show lower loyalty after being demoted in loyalty programs than low-PDB consumers (i.e., consumers who value equality). This occurs because while low-PDB consumers are only sensitive to the monetary losses associated with the demotion, high-PDB consumers are sensitive to both the monetary and psychological losses. More importantly, we find that when consumers receive the appropriate monetary (for low-PDB) or status-symbolic (for high-PDB) compensation, the negative effect of demotion is attenuated. Additionally, we find that proactive approaches are more effective in mitigating negative responses to demotion; accordingly, marketers should warn consumers of a prospective demotion and offer consumers help in maintaining their existing membership tier. Doing so results in a win-win situation where consumers avoid demotion and marketers achieve higher profits. The theoretical and practical implications of the research are also discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After learning of the rape allegation against the Attorney-General, Australians were divided in their support for an inquiry. We hypothesised that motivated reasoning on this issue would be associated with ideological preferences. We therefore examined whether perceptions of arguments about the inquiry could be explained by participants' political orientation, preference for hierarchy (SDO), and motivation to justify the gender status quo (GSJ). Three months after the allegation was made public, we recruited a gender-balanced sample of 554 Australians to complete an online survey. Participants believed that an article arguing for an inquiry was stronger than an article arguing against an inquiry. However, this effect was weaker among those on the right of the political spectrum and those high on SDO. Political orientation was also associated with differing evaluations of the article's authors: left-leaning participants found the pro-inquiry author more credible, but right-leaning participants did not. GSJ was not associated with differing evaluations of the articles or their authors. These findings suggest that ideological preferences are associated with motivated reasoning when evaluating partisan allegations of sexual misconduct. Evaluations of such allegations appear to vary according to people's political attitudes and preferences for social equality or hierarchy. KEY POINTS What is already known about this topic: (1) In early 2021, Australians were deeply divided in their support for an inquiry into the rape allegation against Christian Porter. (2) Individuals tend to respond to political sexual misconduct allegations with a partisan bias. (3) Gender system justification (GSJ) and social dominance orientation (SDO) are associated with the denial of injustice towards women, and the maintenance of social hierarchies, respectively. What this topic adds: (1) Ideological preferences can help to explain how people evaluate arguments about the inquiry. (2) Participants on the political left and those low on SDO evaluated a pro-inquiry article as significantly stronger than the anti-inquiry article, but this effect was reduced amongst those on the right and those high on SDO. (3) These findings provide evidence that political orientation and SDO are associated with motivated reasoning when evaluating partisan allegations of sexual misconduct. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article addresses how societal inequalities shape market arrangements. While business scholars developed important work about the interplay of organizations and societal economic inequalities, less has been said about the embeddedness of markets in unequal social structures. We argue that this issue may be addressed by cross-fertilizing the sociological approach of Bourdieu and the Strategic Action Fields perspective. To demonstrate our view, we assessed the extreme case of polyethylene terephthalate (PET) recycling markets in Brazil, conducting a qualitative study based on the precepts of abductive analysis and using data from different secondary sources, interviews, and participant observation. We verified the existence of correspondences between the power of strategic action fields and the positions the individuals controlling them occupy in what Bourdieu calls the social space and show how these differences enable inter field connections that tend to reproduce social hierarchies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since 2010, the language of social mobility has been increasingly utilised by UK politicians from across the political spectrum to denote a commitment to 'fair access' to opportunity in both education and the professions. Within this policy discourse, the default understanding of inequality is premised on a narrow notion of access to elite education and employment positions, where a deeper understanding of the politics of social reproduction and inequality, or any meaningful emphasis on redistribution, is absent. The social mobility agenda is axiomatically an equality of opportunity agenda where the focus is on 'levelling up' those who are considered to be falling behind. Its focus on opportunity to the detriment of outcome thus rules out considerations of structural solutions to inequalities. In this article, we unpack the discourses of social mobility that are prevalent in recent UK government papers and political talk, with a specific focus on the Social Mobility Commission (SMC) in order to consider how these shape policy approaches to education and labour market participation. We argue that the presiding 'race to the top' mentality undermines the very equality that the social mobility agenda claims to be seeking to achieve, and in doing so we implicate the SMC in purveying contradictory understandings of mobility that compound and conceal existing inequalities. Through a focus on graduate employment, we problematise the role of higher education in the promotion of social mobility. We consider the role of employers participating in the Social Mobility Employer Index and expose the contradictions between the performance of social mobility and the reality of corporate practices that entrench social inequalities. Our work underscores the need for a new political conversation about social mobility and a redirection of attendant education and employment policy to focus on dismantling rather than reinforcing social hierarchies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Cadernos de Pesquisa is the property of Fundacao Carlos Chagas 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.)

Demographically diverse leader-member relationships are predominantly studied based on similarity-attraction theory. However, empirical research examining the effect of similarity and dissimilarity on leader-member exchange (LMX) quality has resulted in inconsistent findings. I propose a new theoretical model which suggests that the LMX quality of demographically diverse leader-member dyads is affected by informal and formal status and power inequalities. My propositions, which lead to different outcomes than those of similarity-attraction theory, draw primarily upon social dominance theory and show how inequalities in demographic status and power and in positional status and power intertwine to affect LMX quality. Theoretical contributions and future research opportunities are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the article, the author discusses why the U.S. Supreme Court is a supplier of antidemocracy in the country as it controls how democracy is practiced. Topics include how the court allegedly given property owners a tool to suppress democracy as seen in the case Cedar Point Nursery v. Hassid, and how antidemocracy sustained social hierarchies from the spread of political equality.

Evolutionary perspectives suggest that participation in collective rituals may serve important communicative functions by signaling practitioners' commitment to the community and its values. While previous research has examined the effects of ritual signals at the individual and collective level, there has been limited attention directed to the impact of socio-environmental factors on the quality of ritual signaling. We examined this impact in the context of the Thaipusam Kavadi , a collective ritual performed by Tamil Hindus worldwide that involves body piercings and other costly activities. We show that participants' relative position in the social hierarchy systematically affects the form of ritual signaling. Specifically, we found that low-status participants are more likely to engage in signaling modalities that require somatic and opportunity costs in the form of body piercings and cumulative effort, while high-status individuals are more likely to use financial capital, in the form of more elaborate material offerings to the deity. Moreover, signaling in each particular modality is stronger among individuals who participate in more public (but not private) rituals, corresponding to their long-term commitment to the community. In sum, our results demonstrate that social hierarchies exact unequal requirements on ritual participants, who in turn modify their signaling strategies accordingly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Our species has deep prehistoric roots in egalitarian and antiauthoritarian bands of nomadic hunter-gatherers. As large agricultural societies develop after the Neolithic revolution 10,000 years ago, despotic rulers, social hierarchies and brutal social inequalities begin to emerge. Through the immensely long arc of the history of our species the pendulum has swung between authoritarianism and antiauthoritarianism, egalitarianism and hierarchy, cooperation and competition, collective solidarity and individual selfishness. Recognizing these oscillations is a key to understanding the political and social nature of our species. As I show, our capacity to control bullies and tyrants and our longing for autonomy and freedom have deep roots in the egalitarian ways of life of nomadic foragers that prevailed during 100,000 years of the prehistory of our species or perhaps much longer. A better understanding about what is known about this prehistory gives us reasons to believe that "the better angels of our nature" are not just historical products, but are indeed rooted in human nature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on social hierarchy as Divine Order in the "egalitarian" society of revolutionary France and poor falls research on this for the time of the French Revolution. It mentions revolutionary self-image of a society based on equality has remained influential to this day for the image that research has of the revolutionaries. It also mentions appearance of parades and festivals concede and the guiding principle of equality was of course not without influence.

The growing economic inequality in Kerala remains the black spot within the silver lining of its achieved heights in the domain of development. The growing inequality in both consumption expenditure and wealth questions the process of sustainable development of the state since both these inequalities having negative leverage effects on social as well as human development. The present study estimated inequality in the distribution of both consumption and wealth among social groups in Kerala and compared it with the All India pattern using 50th, 61st& 68th Rounds of National Sample Survey Office (NSSO) unit level data on household consumption expenditure and All India Debt and Investment Survey (AIDIS)unit level data on asset holdings provided by NSSO, 70th Round Jan-Dec, 2013. The study found that marginalised groups in the social hierarchy remain the worst suffering one due to the upsurge in inequality in the state and there is little inclusiveness found in the distribution of consumption expenditure and wealth. Compared to inequality in consumption expenditure, inequality in wealth was found higher among all social groups which become a challenge to the future development especially for the deprived groups. The decomposition analysis shows that compared to 'between the group' inequality, the 'within the group' inequality contributed the highest proportion to total inequality in both the cases of consumption expenditure and wealth. This warrants the need for considering the heterogeneous character of each social group in policy formulations rather than taking each social group as a solid homogeneous one. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

No matter how one weighs the church's actions in a moral balance, we should at least be aware of the good the church can do in promoting the revolution of the poor. The closer the church comes to implementing a preferential option for the poor, the stronger the forces of reaction will be both inside and outside the church. Church leaders have promoted the concept of a preferential option for the poor, thereby making poverty alleviation the core of the church's identity on issues related to the economy. [Extracted from the article]

This paper contributes to a growing scholarship examining the ways in which dispossession in neoliberal India is reinforcing and reconfiguring agrarian social hierarchies. Existing studies have focussed on the differential successes of villagers in Special Economic Zone (SEZ)‐generated real estate markets, incorporation of land losers into stratified labour markets and the caste‐based politics of dispossession. Few studies, however, have systematically explored the long‐term implications of state‐orchestrated dispossession on agrarian credit and debt relations. Based on long‐term fieldwork on a village partially expropriated for a SEZ in the South Indian state of Telangana, this study shows how dispossession has led to a sharp rise of over‐indebtedness within the land losing population. Dispossession deprived villagers of land and livestock; low compensation was inadequate to obtain replacement assets; and labour inside the SEZ was insufficient to ensure the reproduction of most households. The result was a cascading process of indebtedness for consumption smoothing that was generalized but the greatest among former untouchables (Scheduled Castes, SCs) and Lambadas (Scheduled Tribes, STs). Since dispossession precluded these historically marginalized groups from access to institutional credit, their reliance on largely upper caste moneylenders—whose land was spared expropriation—was deepened. Thus, I show how dispossession for neoliberal projects has reinforced this traditional caste‐based form of exploitation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers the position of the Chinese elite in both national and international contexts. I show that the Chinese elite has converged with the global elite in terms of their incomes, and that many senior Chinese executives are at least as well paid as their counterparts in rich countries. Their insertion into the global elite is further demonstrated by their increasing participation in the World Economic Forum. But this international convergence has been mirrored by national divergence: economic inequality has risen within China, extending the distance between elites and the rest of the population. I show that for top income groups, the relative cost of employing a median wage worker for their personal service has plummeted, increasing their entitlements over labor and thus their capacity to dominate their compatriots. This has been accompanied by a dramatic rise in the reliance of the elite on domestic workers, a traditional symbol of social inequality. Thus the convergence of Chinese elites with their international counterparts has gone hand in hand with both rising economic inequality and rising social inequality within China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A major obstacle to the political revival of Confucianism has been its tension with the rule of law. Systemic features of Confucianism such as social hierarchy (and the corresponding social inequality), reliance on discretion, distrust of practitioners of laws are at odds with rule of law's basic tenets such as equality before the law, rule of legal rules rather than man, and faith in due process of law. In this article, I argue that through differentiating 'rule of law' in the 'thick' sense from the 'thin' sense, it is possible to reconcile Confucianism with rule of law. The first, but undesirable, approach is what I call the 'Confucianisation of rule of law' which is essentially legal-moralist in character. Instead, I contend that the second approach, 'Confucian self-restraint', is the better option not only for avoiding creating an oppressive society, but also for advancing the Confucian ideal of general moral cultivation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent scholarship shows war can catalyze reforms related to gender power imbalances, but what about reforms related to ethnic inequalities? While war can disrupt the political, social and economic institutions at the root of ethnic hierarchy—just as it can shake up the institutions at the root of gender hierarchy—war is also prone to have either a reinforcing effect or a pendulum effect. Our project uses data from the Varieties of Democracy project to examine specific manifestations of changes in gender and ethnic civil-liberty equality (1900–2015). Interstate war, but not intrastate war, tends to be followed by gains in ethnic civil-liberty equality, and intrastate war tends to be followed by long-term gains in gender civil-liberty equality. Wars with government losses are prone to lead to improvements in civil-liberty equality along both dimensions. In considering overlapping gender and ethnic hierarchies, we find that when wars open up space for gains in gender equality, they also facilitate gains in equality for excluded ethnic groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Childhood and social inequality are inextricably linked in contemporary social imagination. Helping disadvantaged children is seen as the most efficient way to curb social inequality. However, this approach has its own history. This essay argues that it was not until around 1970 that changing notions of childhood centered around the idea of equality of opportunity (Chancengleichheit) opened up a vast field of economic, social and cultural interventions that fundamentally transformed both the debates on social inequality and the social organization of childhood. These changes were, however, contradictory. While ever-expanding initiatives attempted to erase differences in childhood, at the same time they created new social hierarchies and distinctions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This contribution to the special issue explores how institutional reforms are shaped by and feed back into the politics of inequality reproduction. IR has recently begun to more closely study how hierarchies intersect. This article uses the analytical concept of "interlinkages" to grasp how international organisations couple intra-organisational patterns of unequal representation to extra-organisational social hierarchies. It empirically investigates the forms and effects of such interlinkages through a case study of the League of Nations' Council crisis and reform in 1926. The reform reaffirmed the most prominent interlinkage: the restriction of permanent membership to states recognised as "great powers". In addition, the reform created two new types of non-permanent seats which changed the pattern of representation of small states. Overall, the case study shows that the interlinkages and their effects were generated by an interplay of formal design and informal understandings both at the level of permanent and non-permanent seats. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this new contribution, John Baugh provides an analytical overview of how the field has addressed issues of power and inequality. Baugh addresses how both social hierarchies and the legal system affect the standing of different languages and their users. He then especially focuses on language use in relation to racial and gender dynamics, highlighting influential work that revealed and analyzed how language is used to make and deepen inequality. He concludes with a call for the promotion of "linguistic human rights" that would protect minority language speakers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Understanding how socioeconomic inequalities perpetuate is a central concern among social and organizational psychologists. Drawing on a collection of findings suggesting that different social class contexts have powerful effects on people's sense of self, we propose that social class shapes the beliefs that people hold about their abilities, and that this, in turn, has important implications for how status hierarchies perpetuate. We first hypothesize that compared with individuals with relatively low social class, individuals with relatively high social class are more overconfident. Then, drawing on research suggesting that overconfidence can confer social advantages, we further hypothesize that the overconfidence of higher class individuals can help perpetuate the existing class hierarchy: It can provide them a path to social advantage by making them appear more competent in the eyes of others. We test these ideas in four large studies with a combined sample of 152,661 individuals. Study 1, a large field study featuring small-business owners from Mexico, found evidence that individuals with relatively high social class are more overconfident compared with their lower-class counterparts. Study 2, a multiwave study in the United States, replicated this result and further shed light on the underlying mechanism: Individuals with relatively high (vs. low) social class tend to be more overconfident because they have a stronger desire to achieve high social rank. Study 3 replicated these findings in a high-powered, preregistered study and found that individuals with relatively high social class were more overconfident, even in a task in which they had no performance advantages. Study 4, a multiphase study that featured a mock job interview in the laboratory, found that compared with their lower-class counterparts, higher-class individuals were more overconfident; overconfidence, in turn, made them appear more competent and more likely to attain social rank. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]