This week we talk with David Garland about his new book, Peculiar Institution: America’s Death Penalty in an Age of Abolition. Garland discusses why capital punishment persists in the US while it does not in other Western countries, from the structure of our political system to the role of public opinion.
Our Teaching TSP team has also written up a series of classroom questions and exercises to be used alongside this interview. You can check them out here.
This episode we talk with Suzanne Mettler about her new book, The Submerged State: How Invisible Government Policies Undermine American Democracy. Mettler explains how indirect incentives, subsidies, and tax breaks have come to dominate US social policy, but remain unseen and underappreciated by most Americans.
This episode we talk with Robert Sampson about his new book, Great American City: Chicago and the Enduring Neighborhood Effect. In the face of globalization and the widespread belief that the “world is flat,” Sampson shows how the world is actually very uneven, and that local communities make a great difference in how people live their lives across a wide range of phenomenon, from homicide and child health, to leadership networks, teenage pregnancy, altruism, and home foreclosures.
This episode we catch up with Gregory Hooks and Brian McQueen about their article, American Exceptionalism Revisited, winner of the ASA Political Sociology section Best Article award. Our conversation touches upon racial migration, defense spending, and how the post-World War II era was a critical juncture in the American social welfare state.
