Sociology 1 Final Notes (Post Midterm 1)

(Monday, December 15 8-11 am., 2050 VLSB;  WORTH 30%)

Week 9 (October 20-22)   SOCIAL INEQUALITY: INDIVIDUAL LIFE CHANCES

Annette Lareau, Unequal Childhoods:  Class, Race, and Family LifeChs. 1-4, 8-10, 12, and 13 (pp. 1-81, 165-220, 233-257, and 261-311).

Concerted Cultivation (middle class)

Accomplishment of Natural Growth (working class)

Key Elements (Parenting Philosophy)

Foster cognitive and social skillsActively develop children’s talentsSkills must be actively cultivatedLots of time commitment from parents

Cares for childAllows child to grow naturallyUnfolding spontaneously Small accomplishments matterkinshipresponsibility autonomy- self-determinationParents busy with work

Organization of Daily Life

Activities planned by adultsCommunicated interests and talents (of the child)Highly scheduledLess time together but more time discussing

Fewer organized activitiesLess time in formal activities, more time with familyMore time together but less time discussing

Language Use Elicit children’s feelings and opinionsReasoning, negotiations

Directives, little questioning of adults

Interventions in Institutions

Active interventions on behalf of childrenTraining of child to take on this role

Dependence on institutionsSense of powerlessness and frustration

Consequences Sense of entitlement in children

Sense of constraint in childrenMore autonomy regarding leisure time

Authority Children learn to question adults and address them as relative equals

Children have clear boundaries between adults and children

Social structure - groups/social organization based on patterns of interaction Groups are divided by norms Institutions create social structures

Social class - different social worlds contradicts the idea of pure meritocracy individuals do not determine their own life chances factors: pace of family life, economic strain, autonomy of children from adults Social class is the socioeconomic standing separations. (prestige of occupation, education

required, ) Social class provides advantage for future institutions, whereas american individualism

emphasizes the success from talent and skills.

Logic of concerted cultivation sense of entitlement in child rearing Sense of entitlement: kids see themselves as adults, work the system, and compromise the

right to pursue their own interests. o They are assertive, more willing to challenge institutions. o If expect individual attention you are more likely to get it.o They are more likely to productively criticize institutions.

children assert themselves in institutional settings, get individual attention when they expect it

more compatible with the way institutions work

Accomplishment of natural growth develop more authentically in accomplishments indirectly encourage autonomy (independence/freedom) Sense of constraint: parents trust authorities to do their work, so kids do not challenge

them. Makes them feeling inferior.  

Richmond: urban, after school program, little intervention by parents, physical fights, limited supplies, come on buses, unstable teaching staff, 50/50 racially integrated. - Accomplishment of natural growth

Swan: suburban, private lessons, parental intervention, drive to school, raise more money and better programs and facilities, almost completely white, de facto segregation. - Concerted cultivation

Institutional social structures → different cultural logics → transmission of differential advantages → reproduction of social inequality

The book argues that regardless of race, socioeconomic class will determine how children cultivate skills they will use in the future.The majority of the poorer, working class participants had either dropped out of high school or not attended post-secondary institutions, or if they had, had not completed their courses. Many

were working in jobs that did not require a college degree and had already been working full-time for several years, some had children and car payments to support.Lareau found her earlier conclusions remained true: social class and parenting approaches significantly impacted educational and work outcomes

Argument p 8“I suggest that social class does have a powerful impact in shaping the daily rhythms of family life.”

→Can connect this reading to Inequality by Design by Fischer et al who believed that socioeconomic deprivation, segregation, and the stigma of inferiority lead to minority students having lower test scores. Because lower-income parents have less money and time for their children, the children in turn have less opportunities to grow and cultivate their skills so they tend to not perform as well as kids who come from middle-class families with more opportunities to learn.

LECTURE NOTESLECTURE 14: Measuring Opportunity: Widening Inequality and Declining Social

Mobility

Weber: How did being an individual in a certain class affect whether you would succeed or not?

Conceptualizing Social Mobility:A.   Intergenerational Mobility: Background factors

1. Demography: Births and deaths                           too many deaths at top = upward mobility too many births at top = downward mobility

2. Economic Change: growing/contracting economy could expect to earn more than your parents

B. Measuring Exchange Mobility (“fairness”): Blau + Duncan – what was your father’s occupation when you were 16? What advantage / disadvantage they gave you

1. Mobility table (distribution of sons’ occupation by fathers’ occupations)2. Correlation of fathers’ and sons’ occupations = .43. Correlation Matrix4. Path Diagram

Direct Occupational Inheritance:- advantages / disadvatagea of future occupation based on parents occupation.- correlation between fathers occupations + sons’ occupation in 1962 was .4

Correlation between fathers and sons = lack of social mobility

LECTURE 15: Widening Inequality Divided Cultures?

Emerging patterns in our era:

- widening inequality The more unequal a society is, the more a parent’s income shapes children’s

income- declining mobility (.4 correlation between fathers and sons occupations)-education becoming the great divide

Education credentials determine your way of life more schooling = more likely to stay married

How to think about Culture: resources for coping, dealing with challenges (often set by institutions)

o Cognitiveo Emotional (kind of self)o Social

both shared and differentiated by individual, both consistent and inconsistentCognitive resources:

what we believe to be true and assume our knowledge/assumptions of how the world works depend on collective wisdom assume medicine is trustworthy

Emotional resources: shape interior self ability of your interior self to read, understand, recognize the self of other people. need to absorb cultural resources to understand what it takes to find someone to

marry.Social Resources:

the cultural resources that allow you to interact with others, whether through cooperation, subordination, etc.

Class differences in culture: Relationship to Institutions

o Working class value obedience more because their job requires obedience.o Middle class value independence more.

- Cognitive (scripts, shemas, knowledge) - skills, habits, styles - Identity & Sense of self - Norms and Moral ideasWhy is it difficult to talk about culture?

o Dominant thoughts and many available cultural resources are inconsistent with each other.

o Involves resources that come from a wider communityAmerican individuality is so dominant that ethic ties erode ( 2nd generation immigrant children like to chose partners in a way that doesn’t match up to family ideals.)

Week 10 (October 27-29)  NEIGHBORHOOD, CULTURE, AND INEQUALITY

David J. Harding, Living the Drama, Chs. 1-3, 5, and part of Ch. 6  (pp. 1-107, 132-161, and 188-203).

Connect the toolkit theory where culture is a toolkit of symbols, stories, world news, a cache of ideas, that people draw on to solve problems

Toolkit - frame then strategies of action Example is GSI using music toolkit to make impression on famous person "type of power" - cultural capital, poor people don't know/ have resources so no toolkit Frame: bC Culture guides action

→Can connect this reading to Inequality by Design (vice versa) : Result of being the “involuntary minority” (Fischer et al., 175) is that they are looked down upon as a lower caste because the history of blacks being slaves is part of US history. Because they are considered inferior to whites, blacks are subject to invisible policy practices such as housing discrimination and less educational opportunities that impact inequality. Because of de facto segregation, as mentioned in Inequality on pg. 183, blacks are introduced to “black” residential areas that are generally more high in crime and poverty.

Book: Living the Drama by David Harding (found online)

Harding, David. 2010. Living the Drama: Community, Conflict and Culture Among Inner-City Boys. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.The book describes the results of David's ethnographic work in three Boston neighborhoods, two of them poor and one of them working class. His focus is on teenage boys, in particular how they think about choices regarding sexual activity and relationships and regarding schooling. Also quite interesting, in this case, is the interpretive framework. David relies on something called the cognitive view of culture. Essentially, basic bits of cognitive science are applied to thinking about culture. Thus, David contrasts the working class neighborhood, where there are standard "frames" or "scripts" for thinking about particular issues related to sex and to schooling, with poor neighborhoods, where multiple ways of thinking about these questions essentially compete, but also coexist, as the subjects sometimes jump from one view to another depending on the details of the issue. While the cognitive view of culture is not original to David's book, this was my first encounter with it and I found it interesting and compelling. The book contrasts, usefully I think, the cognitive view of culture with views in which culture plays little role relative to, essentially, the budget set, and to older views of the "culture of poverty" that posit different, but equally monolithic, cultures in poor and non-poor neighborhoods.Another bit that I found interesting is David's summary of the literature on how people conceptualize their neighborhood, and its application to his own choice of neighborhoods to study. It turns out that people differ in systematic ways in their definitions of the neighborhood, in particular in how large the area is that they include. Again, this idea is not original to this book, but I had not encountered the related literature before, and enjoyed learning about it.The part of the book most related to my own work had to do with how the subjects think about higher education. David gets much deeper than the commonplace finding that you can get poor kids to mouth normative platitudes about wanting to go to college in surveys. That is familiar and, I think, pretty much meaningless. Instead, he reveals a great deal of ignorance and confusion about both the higher education process and about the meaning of higher education in the labor market and in life more broadly. Though this is mostly implicit, the subjects do not

have a strong sense of quality differences among post-secondary institutions, nor is there often much of a sense that learning more in high school beyond the bare minimum required to get admitted to some college or another might have payoffs of its own both directly and in terms of making success in college more likely. I do not know quite how one conveys these bits of information to kids living in neighborhoods with very few college graduates but it is surely worth thinking about (and will surely take more than a couple of dry presentations in 10th grade).

Discussion about Living the Drama 1. What was surprising about Chris and his friends almost engaging in a fight with another

group of boys? What is the downside of their loyalty? a. conflict from individual to groupb. eager to fight, in constant fearc. frames protection, but more likely to fightd. not about interpersonal or materiale. accountable for others besides yourself

2. Differences in parenting:a. poor: surviving fights is little victories, parents to focus on safetyb. working class: focus on education, time with kids, don’t get STI’s.

3. Friendships among inner city boys differ across poor and working class neighborhoods:a. poor: cross-cohort age socialization

i. look up to neighborhood “brothers” rather than parentsii. older, same-sex

iii. to navigate streetsb. working class: not older people.

4. Institutional distrust, views on teachers, policea. police failed to keep them safe → grow distrust in institutionsb. belief that teachers are just there for the money →  disobediencec. Cynicism: from not trusting the police, not trusting institutions.

5. frames, scripts?a. cultural templates for sequencing of behaviorsb. understanding how the world worksc. frame ex: boy who grows up without a father might see relationships differently

“women just use men”d. script = “strategies of action” e. script ex: inner city boys would use violence whereas someone from a higher

class might talk it out instead (when theres a problem)f. both relate to Professor Swidlers conception of the “cultural tool kit” in which

people pull out a set of actions to use6. Cultural heterogeneity? prevalence of cultural heterogeneity explain neighborhood

effects?a. presence of diverse array of competing or conflicting cultural models.

7. Model shifting, dilution, simultaneitya. model shifting: problems of weak commitment to cultural models due to cultural

heterogeneity

b. dilution: problems relating to knowledge of cultural models when there are many heterogenous models

c. simultaneity: problems caused by holding multiple cultural models at the same time ( slows you down because you’re not sure what to do)

Lecture Oct 27

LECTURE 16: How Culture Matters

Cultural Differences across Class, Race, and Ethnic groups:o Lareau on Middle-class vx. Working class child rearingo Harding in Culture in Poor vs. Very Poor Black neighborhoods

Culture as resources for coping:o dealing with challenges (challenges often set by institutions)

Cognitive Emotional Social

Class differences in Culture as: - cognitive (scripts, schemas, knowledge)- skills, habits, styles- Identity & Sense of Self- Norms & Moral ideas

-people’s culture differ because they interact with different worlds-institutions set challenges people face-resources to cope with these challenges depend on information and images of the world,

ideas, emotional capacities that they absorb from outside.

While institutions set challenges the resources that people use to cope with this is from outside sources.

What is acceptable and what is unacceptable?

Culture as Dominant Standards, Frames, and Categories: Culture is an external set of constraints and standards that influence you whether you like

it or not. Culture influences how late one has children

It sets standards and creates categories that define groups

shift to education, marriage dropped away. cultural meanings important and come from world around us

Harding: cognitive resources: what are the young men’s perception?script, knowledge, expectations.emotional : kind of self, know feelings, to mute or expand

social: to know who to trust, norms.

Culture as dominant standards, frames, categories:

Kathryn Edin and Maria Kefalas o “Promises I can keep”o why poor women choose motherhood over marriage?

purpose, women who did not have any expectations, reason to act responsibly, sense of obligation

strength of dominant norms, to empower with baby. Less educated women have children early → gives them source of dignity,

reason to pull life together + behave more responsibly o why don’t they marry?

believe in marriage so much, they want a white dress wedding. bf’s in their world them to live up to those standards NOT WEAKNESS, but THEIR POWER of dominance that leads them to

have baby young and unmarried. coping with marriage institution

Ofer Sharoneo “Flawed System/flawed self”o culture that alters the meaning of unemploymento in US: long-term unemployment is our fault

psychologically discouraged Devah Pager

o study: whites and blacks to get called back for job with criminal record: 5% black, 17% white got called back without record: 14% black, 34% white

connect to Durkheim: regulation well educated, less children less educated, early children marriage substantially likely to be unstable

Fischer, et al., Inequality by Design, Chs. 6 and 8 (pp. 129-157 and 171-203).(did we not have a discussion worksheet for this? I can’t find mine) Casey had a sub this day, there’s discussion questions posted in bspace if you want to look

Gist: Those fortunate enough to earn one, a four year college degree levels out family advantages and disadvantages in a way that increases equal access to good jobs. Among college graduates, there is no connection between occupational status of their parents and their own.

There are signs, however, that with increasing tuition and stagnating investments in higher education, the pattern of expanding opportunity is beginning to reverse

Expansion of higher education increased equality of opportunity by weakening the connection between parental and child status

Inequality is inherent not due to race, but the people’s perception of race. By being in an “outcast” group, the people considered to be “inferior” looks at themselves as such,

resulting in actions that make them so. Examples include Blacks and Latinos, Koreans in Japan, Jewish immigrants in the 1920s.

Caste system: A system that ranks groups economically, politically, and socially. Additionally these ranks are usually enforced by law

“Ethnic groups in lower caste or status positions tend to score poorly because their position leads to socioeconomic deprivation, group segregation, and a stigmatized identity, each of which undermines performance on psychometric measures of intelligence” pp189-190

→Can connect to Living the Drama and Unequal Childhoods. See above.is this the reading that emphasized subsidies? which reading was that again?

Lecture: Oct 29LECTURE 17: Education and Advantage Do schools increase opportunity?

I. Education ( years of schooling) decreases inequalityII. difference among schools have little effect

1) Finding: Education Matters a lot. School quality matters very little. WHY?2) Within-school variance is greater than between-school variance.3) Schools don’t vary very much.4) Social background matters much more than school quality.⋆ Largest determinant of school performance is family background.

III. parents’ occupational status accounts for 40%

schools are institutionalized social background matters more than school quality. Can relate this to Unequal Childhoods because culture and upbringing play an important

role in the inequality within schools.

School vs no school? gaps between rich and poor is proportional in school time in summer: rich increase, poor decrease

Invisible Policy Choices:o How are policy choices related to rise and decline of school performances with

kids in the U.S.? Europe: 220 school days vs. U.S.: 180 school days / year

1) Short school year, Short School day2) Role of Public Investment

o stagnant expansion of higher education after 19733) rising inequality increases consequences of mobility → lack of mobility

Education transmits advantage across generationso material advantages (inheritance, influence)o cultural advantages: Weber: status group competition

Week 11 (November 3-5) POWER AND POLITICS: ACTORS, DECISIONS AND OUTCOMES

J. Allen Whitt, Urban Elites and Mass Transportation: The Dialectics of Power, Ch. 1 (pp. 8-39)The power elite is composed of men whose positions enable them to transcend the ordinary environments of ordinary people.3 mindsets (models) to explain who has power

1. Elitist Model - believe that the richest have all the power at the top and control everything.  They work together to increase their money. Low social mobility.

o unit of analysis: institutional eliteso can be related to extractive political and economic institutions (ex: North Korea)o Difference between Dialectical Model is that it is believed to continuously

increase inequality2. Pluralist Model - believes that power is in the hands of interest groups (ex: dem and rep)

o split between democrats and republicans. competition, corrupt, us voter controlo interest groups with competing powero Compare to Robinson (why nations fail) North Korean extractive econ institutions

(extract income of other groups to benefit a different group)o unit of analysis: interest groupso can be related into inclusive political and economic institutions (ex: South Korea,

the United States)3. *Dialectical Model - believe the oppressed classes can take back power if they become

aware of how they are being manipulated to have certain behaviors.  Main focus is social classes raising consciousness.

*I thought that it was an approach that gives a sense of power to everyone, but ultimately the upper class benefits disproportionately as opposed to the other people.

held by dominant class. unit of analysis: social classes different from Elist theory because it believes that the inequality will be so great that

there will be a sort of “explosion” revolution

Lecture Nov. 3LECTURE 18 – Theories and Methods in the Study of Power

Why power is hard to study? does power require resistance (A’s power over B)?

marx: power use ones will resistance against another what about willing consent?

you believe it’s right so you follow it. what are other people’s “real” interests? democratic values hinder our understanding of power

one person one vote, but what if we don’t want a democratic system?Power Elite Theory:

A) Theory : power held by unified eliteB) Focus: PersonalC) Method: Reputational, Guilt by AssociationD) Critique

connected to business community, inherited wealth know each other, marry each other, protect each other’s interests

They look for powerful people and generate a list…Pluralist:

Find where power is exercisedTheory:

power held by multiple groups who has power varies issue to issue

different kinds of people are influential in different kinds of issues disproportionate influence because some people care more, some don’t

- Ex: Pro-life ppl care more so they fight more than Pro-choice ppl fragmentation of authority

when interests conflict turn to public, pick sides to mobilize

resistance to stop something is easier than making the problem is not that the government has power, but that it has VETO power

Focus: DecisionsMethod: Find who influenced decisions.

Marx/class theory:Theory: Power serves Capitalist classFocus: OutcomesMethod: Comparative – HistoricalCritique: 1) Non-falsifiability

2) Political fatalism (events are fixed in advance so that human beings are powerless to change them)

interest on outcomes really doesn’t care about who’s in power. who wins?

Weber’s theory of power: Making people do what they otherwise wouldn’t want to do.

Winner-Take-All-Politics: How Washington Made the Rich Richer—and Turned Its Back on the Middle Class (chapter 4-5 & Conclusion)By: Jacob S. Hacker and Paul Pierson

Overview: Hacker and Pierson are criticizing American politics in the 70s and present day by focusing on different types of class. In this winner-take-all economy, individuals at the top of the pyramid (very rich) keep getting richer and richer while the middle class or the poor shifting downwards.

Factors that lead to winner-take-all economy:o   Hyperconcentration of income: The highest incomes have been concentrated in the richest individuals at top one percent has gone from holding 8 to 18% of wealtho   Sustained Hyperconcentration: Poor not getting poorer, but rich are getting richero   Limited benefits for non-rich: “Trickle down” economics has gotten even weakerIn the past, no matter what is the election outcome, government will keep running the same way.

1.     Nixon: displayed loyalties to working class (did not work with Watergate Scandal)2.     Carter: fail (healthcare, tax reform, protection agency, managing wealth)3.     They both turned it upside down

Electoral votes from middle class and poor are not important1.     If 90% of poor Americans were to support a policy, less influential than 10% of the

rich.2.     When poorest people support a policy, senators are less likely to vote for it.

According to Hacker and Pierson1.     Government should distribute incomes, gives life chances, and make difference for

the quality of lives.2.     Government targeting large companies because of their deep pockets3.     Spend most of their money on lobbyists (to gain political support) not on citizens4.     Higher class of people are defined by educational achievements and economic

backgrounds.5.     Favors only business coalitions, Wall Street lobbyists, and powerful individuals

Problems and Solutions of winner-take-all:Problems:

1.     Inequality (votes, opportunities, resources)2.     Support only individuals that are well trained and work full time.3.     Blame the lower class not knowing anything during the election4.     Prioritize policy for their own benefits not for the whole5.     More competition leads to declining jobs for poor6.     “golden ticket” not everyone is lucky enough to climb up the pyramid7.     People with greatest connections win in this economy8.     Middle class democracy have declined

Solutions:1.     Provide finance insurance2.     Change tax policy3.     Reserve and responsive middle class4.     Distribute income evenly5.     Voting powers6.     Security for middle class

Week 12 (November 10-12) CONSTRUCTED BY POLITICS: INSTITUTIONS AND IDENTITIES

Robb Willer, et al. “Overdoing Gender: A Test of the Masculine Overcompensation Thesis,” American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 118, No. 4 (2013), pp. 980-1022.

Masculine Overcompensation Thesis - when men react to masculinity threats with extreme demonstration. -- try to be manlier.Masculinity Theory - masculinity is more narrowly defined and socially valued than femininity

Study 1: Would they adopt more masculine traits if threatened? YES. Study shows greater support for war, no homo, want SUV, more conservativeWomen: No change.Study 2: What aspect of masculinity do men increase? dominance, power, aggression. We find that it’s not about being more conservative, it’s about showing your dominance as a man.Study 3: In a diverse samplesame results as 1 and 2Study 4: Testosterone and OvercompensationModeration hypothesis holds true: The higher the testosterone levels are in certain men, the more masculinity overcompensation behaviors they will exhibit if threatened.

Can be related to Not Under My Roof because one of the three frames that are exaggerated by American conservative parents is the Battle of the Sexes, in which both genders have antagonistic interests (boys only want sex, girls only want love). These stereotypes can then be adopted by boys who seek to overcompensate (ex: stereotypical frat boys who act douchey/only want sex because they feel that is what they need to do in order to fit in).

Can also be related to Living in Drama by Harding because men who are overcompensating may follow “scripts,” which are strategies of action, that are stereotypically defined as masculine. Boys in the hood may feel the need to act a certain way (overly masculine) in order to enact “cross-cohort socialization,” which is when older peers offer size & knowledge (such as act tough so the other gang won’t beat you up).

Clem Brooks and Jeff Manza, “A Broken Public? Americans' Responses to the Great Recession,” American Sociological Review, Vol. 78, No. 5 (2013), pp. 727-748.

 Rather than the recession increasing public demand for government, Americans actually reduced support of government programs

Macro Polity Theory:o   Public opinion is formed by rational reactions (any rational actor would reason this way)o   Aggregate policy preferences (not individual opinions)o   Rational votes drive changes, so apathetic people do not affect the system

States that the periods of economic growth drive people on the opposite directionPartisanship – policy beliefs, racial bias

o   People are less likely to support objectively beneficial policies/decisions that are ascribed to/originate from contrary political identities and ideologies ·      Political partisanship is the largest contributing factor to the public’s change in policy attitude·      Evidence: partisan divergence is the most extreme during 2006-2010, when Democrats supported government responsibility, Independents less, and Republicans even less·      This is satisfying considering people stick with beliefs that reaffirm their identity·      Supporters of a policy will support it even if economic performance is poor·      Political identity can be stronger than political views·      News may change, but party membership will stay

Week 13 (November 17-19) WHY POLITICS MATTER: INSTITUTIONS AND OUTCOMES

Paul Star, Remedy and Reaction: The Peculiar American Struggle Over Health Care Reform (Yale University Press, 2011), Introduction, pp. 1-24.Problems in health care system

Not everyone has health insurance Healthcare costs Republicans having control of the House of Representative

Why is it hard to Change?Its fails to change the system because of these three things.

1. Special Interests insurance and pharmaceutical etc. companies benefit from health care; lobbyists2. National Values Americans value individualism compared to other countries universal values3. Complexity within the system Americans do not understand the difference in private insurance plans distrust in private insurers distrust in government

Richard Kirsch, Fighting for Our Health: The Epic Battle to Make Health Care a Right in the United States (Rockefeller Institute Press, 2011), Introduction and Chs. 5-7, 16, 20-22, and Epilogue (pp. 1-6, 83-141, 267-283, and 319-371).

Strategies that healthcare activists use:·    Grassroots lobbying for “Obama for America” campaign ·    Marching and rallying to call for public support·    Bringing in congressional leaders (House reps, Senators) to help lobby in Congress·    Health Care for America Now (HCAN) used a variety of strategies to achieve policy goals in American politics:o   Letterso   Phone bankingo   Support from elected officials à “which side are you on” tactic·    Interest/private groups must put a lot of time/resources in order to achieve policy goals

-reaching out to existing, left-wing organizations→ Resource Mobilization: their success was due to their availability of resources and ability to mobilize those people and their money.·    The Main Street Alliance (MSA) was a small business organizing project backed by HCAN

many MSA leaders became effective spokespeople and grassroots lobbyists of the reform campaign: 1) they were approached and organized 2) small businesses don’t benefit much from the current health insurance plan

·    Big insurance companies oppose health care reform because they want to hike up prices·    Small businesses support health care reform à usually are “bullied” by insurance companies (connect to Hacker & Pierson)·    Relating to Max Weber: Multiple interests vying to get what they want, competition-based·    The public option (gov’t insurance to compete with private insurance companies) WAS NOT INCLUDED in final health care reform billo   The public option only needed fifty votes in the Senateo   Nancy Pelosi & White House were “twisting every arm in House” à feared that adding public option would make her negotiations too complicated Sou

Pro/Con Arguments for Public Option

PRO CON

·    Guarantee affordable care and healthcare, especially for poorer individuals·    Would regulate large, private insurance companies·    Supporters: Obama, White House (Obamacare is about healthcare reform)

·    Huge gov’t bureaucracy·    Huge cost for taxpayers·    Rationing healthcare with long wait times for care·    Supporters: Big insurance companies

·    Healthcare reform failed because Nancy Pelosi feared that having the public option in the bill would make things complicated for Republicanso   Pelosi is democratic minority leader in the Houseo   Shows bargaining and negotiation between parties in order to pass policy·    Pro-life interest groups were against abortion if abortion costs appeared on the Affordable Health Care for Americans Act (AHCAA)·    There was a compromise:o   Funds were extended to women, but federal funding for abortion was taken outo   Abortion no longer considered a primary care serviceo   Satisfies pro-life groups so that they will help pass the bill through their support·    Special interest groups are important in driving policieso   One person can belong to many interest groups, but at the end = must decide on which one to commit yourself too   Interest groups can affect which bills pass/don’t pass·    Solution to passing the bill in Senate was to split it between a Senate-friendly bill and a correctional bill à could pass with less bills overall·    This overcomes the filibuster =f 60 votes to have a filibuster but overcame it with this “legislative trick”

How this can be seen through different views:

Pluralist (NB: Hacker & Pierson)

·    Special interest groups will clash with each other·    The coalitional structure of HCAN shows various interest groups coming together for a common goal à have various resources that are powerful together

Marxist: ·    Social institutions and social classes ensure the reproduction of a capitalist class·    Elites don’t have to be class conscious in order to rule effectively

Power-Elite: ·    There is a hierarchy involved with how these issues are dealt with·    Some outcomes are against the public option

·      Crisis in health care is part of the larger crisis of income inequality in America

Week 14 (November 24) POLITICAL TRANSFORMATION: WHO CAN GOVERN?

Andrés Villarreal, “Political Competition and Violence in Mexico: Hierarchical Social Control in Local Patronage Structures,” American Sociological Review, Vol. 67, No. 4 (2002), pp. 477-498.Transitions to democracy-->increase in violent crime

Loss of social control (disruption of patronage networks)and increase in crimeGreater electoral competition is associated with higher homicide ratesPRI-hierarchical monopoly of violence through democracy (government controls the means of violence

Caciques loss of power led to increased violence in three ways:1. Didn’t have enough resources to stop crime2. Lost control of clients because they couldn’t provide the resources to keep them under

their belt.3. The new democratic authority had less power to deter crime

It is interesting to note that many other nations also have political competition but there is little violence caused by that because most are already established and have a stable government whereas Mexico was in a transition period.

Week 15 (December 1-3) THINKING ABOUT OUR COMMON FUTURE(no actual readings)

Themes from lecture:

1. Importance of Institutions2. Social forces shape people deeply3. Some patterns that vary are “cultural” 4. There are connections between cultural interpretations and other patterns 5. American culture has a particular kind of individualism6. Inequality shapes people’s lives

7. Inequality tends to persist8. Inequality isn’t naturally determined- depends on policies and institutions9. How do policies get made? Who has power? What is power?10. Under what conditions do people attempt to change society?/ succeed?