politics

Today we are featuring a guest post by students at Oberlin College, who submitted a #TROT post as part of an active learning exercise for their political sociology class, taught by Professor Christi Smith. If you or your students would like to submit a post, please email tsp@thesocietypages.org.    

Lobbying is defined by the United States Senate as “the practice of trying to persuade legislators to propose, pass, or defeat legislation or to change existing laws,” and lobbyists get paid to advocate on behalf of the private sector, corporations, government officials, and other interest groups. This political activity takes place at all levels of government. While lobbying as a way to engage with the government is interpreted as free speech, and is thus protected by the Constitution, the ethics of lobbying are much debated due to the unequal socioeconomic power and influence certain individuals and groups can have. Recent sociological research helps provide some perspective on the extent of lobbying in U.S. policymaking.

Corporate lobbying is one of the chief means by which businesses exercise political power in the United States. Corporate lobbying is not easily reducible to firms’ size and market interests, but rather includes their internal capacity for evaluating policy issues, participation in business policy networks, legacies of previous engagement, and economic circumstances. Firms that lobby have annual sales that are nearly four times higher on average than those who do not. More heavily regulated industries that are dependent on government contacts tend to lobby more often. And corporate influence is especially effective in influencing tax policy, financial deregulation, and anti-union activities by advocating for more political restrictions on unionization.

• Edward T. Walker and Christopher M. Rea. 2014. “The Political Mobilization of Firms and Industries.” Annual Review of Sociology 40: 281-204.
• Val Burris. 2001. “The Two Faces of Capital: Corporations and Individual Capitalists as Political Actors.” Annual Review of Sociology 66: 361–81.
• Dan Clawson and Mary Ann Clawson. 1999. “What Has Happened to the U.S. Labor Movement? Union Decline and Renewal.” Annual Review of Sociology 25: 95–119.

Lobbying can raise awareness and create urgency about certain issues. Professional lobbyists can have a greater impact than mass movements by participating at the early stages of the policy process and shaping the content of legislative content. But does it work? It is difficult to measure the actual direct impact of lobbying, as much of this activity takes place through private conversations and interpersonal encounters. In contrast, most nonprofits use indirect lobbying rather than the direct lobbying used by business and unions. For congressional voting patterns, interest groups’ lobbying influence is actually quite modest. It is actually less effective than protest is in advocating for certain policies regarding issues like civil rights and environmental sustainability, and it is less productive than whistleblowing in monitoring policy implementation. In short, the role of lobbying efforts in shifting the long-term priorities and resources of political institutions is still largely unknown.

• Kenneth T. Andrews and Bob Edwards. 2004. “Advocacy Organizations in the U.S. Political Process.” Annual Review of Sociology 30: 479-506.

With a group of coal miners standing behind him, President Donald Trump signed an executive order in his first 100 days reversing Obama-era climate change policies and claimed that he would be bringing back coal and putting miners to work. With this move, Trump has tapped into the concerns of rural communities with economies dominated by resource extraction. Yet, can or will coal mining jobs come back, and will this lead to economic and social development in places like Appalachia?

The loss of mining jobs in the U.S. is largely due to increasing mechanization and other labor-cutting management practices –not the result of environmental protections. Thus, placing the blame on climate change policies is an unfounded, but typical, argument used to scapegoat environmentalists rather than industry or changes in the global economy.

• Jo-Anne Everingham. 2016. “Transformation of Rural Society and Environments by Extraction of Mineral and Energy Resources.” Pp. 272–84 in Routledge International Handbook of Rural Studies, edited by M. Shucksmith and D. L. Brown. New York, NY: Routledge.
• Todd L. Matthews. 2010. “The Enduring Conflict of ‘Jobs Versus the Environment’: Local Pollution Havens as an Integrative Empirical Measure of Economy Versus Environment.” Sociological Spectrum 31(1):59–85.

Researchers have long argued that economies based solely around mining are prone to booms and busts, lacking resiliency and often becoming dependent on one industry. Contrary to common assumptions, research has found that mining does not always lead to economic growth and well-being. Thus, even if coal mines stay open, this does not necessarily mean wider economic prosperity and well-being. In Appalachia, for example, the counties with coal mines actually have some of the highest rates of poverty and unemployment compared to surrounding counties without active mines.

• William R. Freudenburg. 1992. “Addictive Economies: Extractive Industries and Vulnerable Localities in a Changing World Economy.” Rural Sociology 57(3):305–32.
• William R. Freudenburg and Lisa J. Wilson. 2002. “Mining the Data: Analyzing the Economic Implications of Mining for Nonmetropolitan Regions.” Sociological Inquiry 72(4):549–75.
• Robert Todd Perdue and Gregory Pavela. 2012. “Addictive Economies and Coal Dependency Methods of Extraction and Socioeconomic Outcomes in West Virginia, 1997-2009.” Organization & Environment 25(4):368–84.
• Linda Lobao, Minyu Zhou, Mark Partridge, and Michael Betz. 2016. “Poverty, Place, and Coal Employment across Appalachia and the United States in a New Economic Era.” Rural Sociology.

Nevertheless, the rhetoric of saving coal resonates with strong cultural connections to mining and people’s identities of coming from multiple generations of miners and living in a coal community. The identity of being a miner is interconnected with masculine ideals of hard work and providing for family, and mining companies have played off of these sentiments. Mining companies, particularly in Appalachia, have actively worked to create community support through public relations and other cultural and political tactics. These corporate strategies, such as sponsoring high school football tournaments and billboard ads, have helped to place the blame on outsiders and environmentalists, while providing a cover for the environmentally destructive and cost-cutting industry practices.

• Rebecca R. Scott. 2010. Removing Mountains: Extracting Nature and Identity in the Appalachian Coalfields. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.
• Jessica Smith Rolston. 2014. Mining Coal and Undermining Gender: Rhythms of Work and Family in the American West. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.
• Tamara L. Mix and Kristin G. Waldo. 2014. “Know(ing) Your Power: Risk Society, Astroturf Campaigns, and the Battle over the Red Rock Coal-Fired Plant.” The Sociological Quarterly 56(1):125–51.
• Shannon Elizabeth Bell and Richard York. 2010. “Community Economic Identity: The Coal Industry and Ideology Construction in West Virginia.” Rural Sociology 75(1):111–43.

With Arkansas’ recent attempts to execute seven inmates in the course of eleven days, and the Supreme Court’s upcoming oral arguments surrounding McWilliams v. Dunn , there has been a lot news about the death penalty this month. Although it is abolished in many other industrialized nations, 31 U.S. states still retain the death penalty, and there is extensive research on this “peculiar institution” and why it remains resilient today.

Despite a multitude of studies, current research remains inconclusive on the deterrent effects of capital punishment. These ambiguous findings are due to a lack of attention to “noncapital sanctions” for homicide like life sentences and incomplete data on potential murderers’ perceptions of capital punishment. What is clear is that there is an extreme racial divide in support for the death penalty, with Black Americans being consistently less likely to support capital punishment than whites. This divide is partly attributed to racial prejudice against Blacks, so much so that one study suggests that if you exclude whites with extreme racial attitudes, support for capital punishment between Black and white Americans is not nearly as bifurcated. Death sentences are also applied disparately across racial lines, with defendants convicted of killing white females most likely to receive a capital punishment sentence, while those convicted of killing Black males are afforded more leniency.

• Lawrence D. Bobo & Devon Johnson. 2004. “A Taste for Punishment: Black and White Americans’ Views on the Death Penalty and the War on Drugs.“ Du Bois Review 1(1): 151-180.
• Jefferson E. Holcomb, Marian R. Williams, & Stephen Demuth. 2004. “White Female Victims and Death Penalty Disparity Research.“ Justice Quarterly 21(4): 877-902.
• Marrian R. Williams, Stephen Demuth & Jefferson E.Holcomb. 2007. “Understanding the Influence of Victim Gender in Death Penalty Cases: the Importance of Victim Race, Sex‐related Victimization, and Jury Decision Making.“ Criminology 45(4): 865-891.
• James D. Unnever & Francis T. Cullen. 2007. “The Racial Divide in Support for the Death Penalty: Does White Racism Matter?” Social Forces 85(3): 1281-1301.
• National Research Council. 2012. Deterrence and the Death Penalty. National Academies Press.

Scholars argue that the death penalty is nested within an exceptionally punitive American carceral state. Capital punishment stems from an unparalleled American political culture that centralizes issues of crime and the criminal justice system. Unlike their European counterparts, American judges and prosecutors are locally elected, allowing much of the criminal justice process to be subject to electoral cycles and public outcries. This political structure, combined with a history of racial conflict and segregation, perpetuates low levels of social solidarity and an underdeveloped state, which allows retributive punishments to flourish. This is especially evident in the American South, a region that has a long history of collective, racialized violence and where death penalty support is particularly embedded.

• David Garland. 2010. Peculiar Institution: America’s Death Penalty in an Age of Abolition. Harvard University Press.
• Marie Gottschalk. 2014. Caught: The Prison State and the Lockdown of American Politics. Princeton University Press.

“I will build a great, great wall on our southern border, and I will make Mexico pay for that wall. Mark my words.” These were the words that President Donald Trump said when he first announced his candidacy. Since his inauguration, Trump has continued to talk about his intentions of building the wall, with many companies allegedly bidding for the contract, despite its many obstacles. Many leaders in Latin America have publicly stated that building the wall would not only change the relationship with Mexico, but it would change relationships with the rest of Latin America as well. Trump’s wall would create a physical barrier between the US and Mexico, but it would also intensify what social scientists call symbolic boundaries.

The border acts as the physical manifestation of and “us versus them” mentality by reinforcing differences between groups, which often limits positive contact between groups and can lead to negative stereotypes. For example, physical borders create symbolic boundaries that reinforce national identities by marking the geographic territory where one nationality resides. This often creates tensions by giving further attention to perceived group differences. In the case of Trump’s wall, part of the underlying purpose is to intensify the symbolic boundary between Anglo-Americans in the industrialized world and the Hispanic inhabitants of a developing nation.

• Donald N. Levine. 1996. “Sociology and the Nation-State in an Era of Shifting Boundaries.” Sociological Inquiry 66(3): 253-266.
• Michele Lamont and Virag Molnar. 2002. “The Study of Boundaries in the Social Sciences.” Annual Reviews of Sociology 28: 167-195.

Symbolic boundaries use specific cultural distinctions in order to distinguish one group from another, often along racial, ethnic, and religious lines. In the United States for example, Christians believe having religion creates a morality that is the basis for civic society. Atheists, who have no religion, are believed to lack that morality. This has resulted in atheists being unfairly cast as the symbolic representation of anti-American values. Like the physical wall Trump keeps threatening, these same types of symbolic boundaries work to keep many immigrants, refugees, and other religious minorities from being fully accepted in the U.S.

• Christopher A. Bail. 2008. “The Configuration of Symbolic Boundaries against Immigrants in Europe.” American Sociological Review 73(1): 37-59.
• Penny Edgell, Joseph Gerteis, and Douglas Hartmann. 2006. “Atheists As “Other”: Moral Boundaries and Cultural Membership in American Society.” American Sociological Review 71(2): 211-234.

Spring is here, and for many that means it’s time for a spring break! However, taking time off work can be a big deal, and taking a break can affect earnings and productivity. Research shows that vacation and leave time are largely shaped by a countries social and political context, but taking time off work can have serious consequences no matter where you live, especially for women.

To start, vacations take place in the context of larger structures of gender inequality and work/family policies. Mothers’ time in and out of work is shaped by institutional and cultural contexts, including paid-leave policies, state support for childcare, and cultural expectations around maternal employment. When women are supported by well-paid leave, affordable childcare, and a cultural expectation that mothers work, women with children ultimately work more weekly hours than those living in countries without these factors. Even so, time off is not without penalty. Country-specific policies also help predict the penalty women face for taking a break from employment to care for children. For instance, in a comparison between Germany, Sweden, and the U.S. — countries with distinct leave policies — researchers found that long leaves meant career penalties for all women. Unsurprisingly, in the U.S., a country known for lagging behind in parental leave, even short periods of time spent away from work can hurt womens’ careers.

• Irene Boekmann, Joya Misra, and Michelle Budig. 2015. “Cultural and Institutional Factors Shaping Mothers’ Employment and Working Hours in Postindustrial Countries.” Social Forces 93(4): 1301-1333.
• Silke Aisenbrey, Marie Evertsson, and Daniela Grunow. 2009. “Is There a Career Penalty for Mothers’ Time Out? A Comparison of Germany, Sweden and the United States.” Social Forces 88(2): 573-605.

When women take vacation days, they tend to take more than men, but this doesn’t mean that women are lounging on the beach or in the ski lodge while the men toil in the office.  Part of the reason for the gender difference is men use fewer vacation days because of anxieties about job security and supervisory responsibilities. Comparisons between nurses’ unions (mostly women) and firefighters’ unions (mostly men) shows that women prioritize negotiating scheduling, including vacation time, while men emphasize the importance of fairness in access to overtime among co-workers. Women who have unused vacation days tend to be more worried about the success of their families, but research shows that family concerns don’t necessarily lead women to take more vacation days.

• David J. Maume. 2006. “Gender Differences in Taking Vacation Time.” Work and Occupations, 33(2), 161-190.
• Jillian Crocker, & Dan Clawson. 2012. “Buying Time: Gendered Patterns in Union Contracts.” Social Problems, 59(4), 459-480.

In response to the Trump administration’s crackdown on undocumented immigrants, cities and universities all across the United States have declared themselves “sanctuaries” from the threat of deportation. One aspect of this has been a revival of the sanctuary church movement. Over 800 churches nationwide have declared themselves sanctuaries for undocumented immigrants who fear deportation since Trump took office. While it is technically illegal to harbor undocumented immigrants, immigration enforcement officials have typically avoided raiding “sensitive locations” like churches and hospitals to avoid disrupting institutions that provide social services. Social science shows that protecting sensitive locations like churches is key to providing essential social services to marginalized populations. 

This is not the first instance of religious institutions attempting to shield undocumented immigrants from deportation on moral grounds in the United States. In the 1980s, thousands of refugees fled political violence in Central America, many to the border states of Arizona and Texas. In response, hundreds of religious congregations declared themselves to be sanctuaries for Central American refugees. With the exception of a notable trial in Arizona in 1986 in which several activists were convicted for violating immigration law, most congregations suffered minimal, if any, legal reprisal for their efforts during this period.

• Christian Smith. 1996. Resisting Reagan: The U.S. Central American Peace Movement. University of Chicago Press.
• Gregory L. Wiltfang and Doug McAdam. 1991. “The Costs and Risks of Social Activism: A Study of Sanctuary Movement Activism.” Social Forces 69(4): 987-1010.

Churches are unique from other types of sensitive locations like schools and hospitals because of their long history of offering sanctuary to people in need, a history that goes back to the 1600s. It was not until the late 20th century that states began intervening and requiring churches to hand over people they were protecting. In the U.S. today, churches are a critical resource for low-income, minority, and immigrant communities, especially in small towns and rural areas. They often serve as primary distribution sites for a number of rural social services including food aid, shelter, clothing, basic healthcare, and English language and employment tutoring.

• Philip Marfleet. 2011. “Understanding ‘Sanctuary’: Faith and Traditions of Asylum.” Journal of Refugee Studies 24(3): 440-455.
• Mark Chaves and William Tsitsos. 2001. “Congregations and Social Services: What They Do, How They Do It, and With Whom.” Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly 30(4).
• Stephanie C. Boddie. 2002. “Fruitful Partnerships in a Rural African American Community: Important Lessons for Faith-Based Initiatives.” The Journal of Applied Behavioral Science 38(3).

Research studying the long-term effects of ICE raids on hospitals and clinics shows that immigrants stop seeking medical services when they no longer feel safe from law enforcement. If sanctuary churches are no longer recognized as safe from ICE raids, there is some concern that the same problem will make it difficult for churches to reach immigrants in rural places.

• Mark Berk and Claudia Schur. 2001. “The Effect of Fear on Access to Care Among Undocumented Latino Immigrants.” Journal of Immigrant and Minority Health 3(3).
• Karen Hacker et al. 2011. “The Impact of Immigration and Customs Enforcement on Immigrant Health: Perceptions of Immigrants in Everett, Massachusetts, USA.” Social Science Medicine 73(4).

It remains to be seen whether the Trump administration will stay out of churches, but social science shows that raiding these spaces could affect all immigrants, especially those in rural areas. And it may very well ignite an intense reaction from the churches and communities trying to keep people safe. 

For many Americans, anti-Semitism seems like a thing of the past, a topic for high school history classes and discussions of the Holocaust. But anti-Semitism has returned abruptly to the front page in recent weeks, with over 160 threats against Jewish community centers and synagogues since January. At times, such threats are paired with symbolic shows of force, as was seen when over 100 headstones in a Missouri Jewish cemetery were damaged or destroyed. For many this has been unexpected, but this is not necessarily true for social scientists who have been studying anti-Semitism over the last decade.

Recent survey-based studies have sought to assess anti-Semitic sentiments over time. Some scholars argue that anti-Semitism shifted into the more accepted form of anti-Israeli sentiments, with others arguing that the two issues are not necessarily related. However, most scholars seem to agree that public acceptance of anti-Semitism moved from the mainstream to smaller, more extreme groups throughout this period.

• Heiko Beyer and Ulf Liebe. 2015. “Three Experimental Approaches to Measure the Social Context Dependence of Prejudice Communication and Discriminatory Behavior” Social Science Research 49: 343-355.
• Brian Klug. 2010. “The Collective Jew: Israel and the New Antisemitism.” Patterns of Prejudice 37(2): 117-139.
• Ryan D. King and Melissa Weiner. 2007. “Group Position, Collective Threat, and American Anti-Semitism.” Social Problems 54(1): 57-77.

Social scientists have also looked at anti-Semitism using methods that look past publicly shared opinions, and these studies find slightly different results. Studies show that when questions focus on positive or “neutral” stereotypes, individuals are more likely to express them, possibly revealing that other, more negative  prejudices exist that they are less willing to share. This phenomenon helps explain why anti-Semitism seems to be increasing so quickly; as rhetoric against Jews and other minority populations becomes less stigmatized, people who quietly hold these views may feel more comfortable sharing their opinions. The  increase in hate crimes and threats within the United States and around the world may not reflect a cultural change in sentiment, but rather an increased willingness to share and act upon these previously held beliefs.

• Heiko Beyer and Ivar Krumpal. 2010. “‘But There Are No Longer Any Anti-Semites’: An Experimental Study on the Communication Latency of Anti-Semitic Attitudes.” KZfSS Kölner Zeitschrift für Soziologie und Sozialpsychologie 62(4): 681-705
• Charles Asher Small. 2013. Global Anti-Semitism: A Crisis of Modernity. Martinus Nijhoff Publishers
• Thomas C. Wilson, 1996. “Compliments Will Get You Nowhere: Benign Stereotypes, Prejudice and Anti-Semitism.” The Sociological Quarterly 37(3): 465-479.

With the recent discovery of numerous Earth-like planets orbiting the same star, Elon Musk’s promise to send citizens to the moon, and increased politicization surrounding the science of climate change, many Americans are looking to the stars for potential solutions and possible new homes. And the nascent NewSpace movement — made up of entrepreneurs and advocates looking to commercialize outer space — promises to push space exploration forward at a rapid pace. While it certainly requires rocket science to get to space, social science is beginning to weigh in on what it might mean for social life.

The privatization and commodification of public spaces is now moving beyond Earth as governments struggle over control of the atmosphere and outer space. And as new entrepreneurial space companies seek to privatize the sky and profit from new resources and new planets, some worry that existing structures of class and racial inequality will be repeated or even intensified with space colonization. Others, like anthropologist David Valentine, see potential for progressive re-imaginings.

• Ian G. R. Shaw. 2017. “The Great War of Enclosure: Securing the Skies.” Antipode. Online.
• Jason Beery. 2016. “Unearthing Global Natures: Outer Space and Scalar Politics.” Political Geography 55: 92–101.
• Daniel Sage. 2008. “Framing Space: A Popular Geopolitics of American Manifest Destiny in Outer Space.” Geopolitics 13(1): 27–53.
• David Valentine. 2012. “Exit Strategy: Profit, Cosmology, and the Future of Humans in Space.” Anthropological Quarterly 85(4): 1045–1067.

Sociologists highlight how inequalities shape the way people are experiencing this increasing “humanization of the universe.” Wealthy elites relate to the universe as an object to dominate, funding new “space tourism” programs and hoping to extend the workings of capitalism to the Moon and beyond. Less wealthy and marginalized communities, however, experience the universe as a dominating and mystifying force, and many feel that space colonization will only make them more powerless.

• Peter Dickens and James S. Ormrod. 2007. “Outer Space and Internal Nature: Towards a Sociology of the Universe.” Sociology 41(4).

Since women and people of color are still less likely to pursue careers in science or technology, they are less likely to have a voice in these new projects. But this is not the only thing keeping them from the conversation. For example, women have historically had a difficult time qualifying for space travel. Fears about menstruation, pregnancy, and hormones in outer space have significantly hindered research into how women’s bodies are affected by space travel. The result is that women’s bodies are constructed as problematic and essentialized in opposition to male bodies, keeping many women from successfully joining space missions.

• Yu Xie, Michael Fang, and Kimberlee Shauman. 2015. “STEM Education.” Annual Review of Sociology 41: 331-357.
• Monica J. Casper and Lisa Jean Moore. 1995. “Inscribing Bodies, Inscribing the Future: Gender, Sex, and Reproduction in Outer Space.” Sociological Perspectives 38(2): 311-333.

The election of Donald Trump has brought new people into politics and re-ignited activists. As people on the left aim to resist what they view as Trump’s dangerous and harmful policies, and people on the right try to sustain political engagement after the election, both sides are debating about the effectiveness of various political strategies. For example, Indivisible, a guide compiled by Congressional staffers on tactics for opposing President Trump, spread quickly across the internet as people grappled with how to effectively influence policy-making.

Contacting legislators is one of the most common forms of political engagement in the United States. Hearing from constituents, particularly in face-to-face meetings and phone calls, can influence politicians’ action on an issue. The greatest impact, however, is when the contact is outside of routine communications and part of a collective campaign. Social scientists have found that politicians are more likely to react to new information that indicates a change in the political landscape and ties their stance  to their electability. An organized effort can demonstrate that a group has powerful resources, such as volunteers and donations, which in turn can affect politicians’ ability to get re-elected.

• Daniel E. Bergan and Richard T. Cole. 2015. “Call Your Legislator: A Field Experimental Study of the Impact of a Constituency Mobilization Campaign on Legislative Voting.” Political Behavior 37(1): 27–42.
• Sidney Verba. 1995. Voice and Equality: Civic Voluntarism in American Politics. Harvard University Press.
• Paul Burstein and April Linton. 2002. “The Impact of Political Parties, Interest Groups, and Social Movement Organizations on Public Policy: Some Recent Evidence and Theoretical Concerns.” Social Forces 81(2): 380–408.

Legislators are not always just responding to public opinion either. They are also influenced by lobbyists, political donations, personal political views, and party platforms. Nevertheless, popular opinion may play a larger role in shaping elected officials’ positions when it signals a dramatic shift and the public feels strongly on one side of an issue. Thus, political organizations and concerned citizens can influence policy by raising and changing public awareness, and then explaining these popular sentiments to politicians who learn about their constituents attitudes.

• Susanne Lohmann. 1993. “A Signaling Model of Informative and Manipulative Political Action.” The American Political Science Review 87(2): 319–333.
• Daniel M. Butler and David W. Nickerson. 2011. “Can Learning Constituency Opinion Affect How Legislators Vote? Results from a Field Experiment.” Quarterly Journal of Political Science 6(1): 55–83.

The effectiveness of contacting politicians also depends partially on the party and race of the official and the constituent. People are more likely to contact a politician from their own political party, so contacting leaders outside of one’s own party disrupts political norms — which is sometimes effective and sometimes discounted. The response of elected officials to the public is also shaped by racism. For example, a real-world experiment found that white legislators discriminate against emails and calls from black constituents.

• David E. Broockman and Timothy J. Ryan. 2016. “Preaching to the Choir: Americans Prefer Communicating to Copartisan Elected Officials.” American Journal of Political Science 60(4): 1093–1107.
• Daniel M. Butler and David E. Broockman. 2011. “Do Politicians Racially Discriminate Against Constituents? A Field Experiment on State Legislators.” American Journal of Political Science 55(3):463–77.

Although calling and writing legislators has a role in democracy, historical research shows that sustained mass social movements are what drive major changes in society and politics. Large popular movements that use tactics like protests, boycotts and strikes can disrupt the status quo and garner public attention. For example, during the U.S. Civil Rights Movement, sit-in protests increased the likelihood of desegregation in a city. The effectiveness of mass mobilization depends on the political and social context, but can transform political possibilities and lead to policy change.  

• Sidney G. Tarrow. 1994. Power in Movement: Social Movements, Collective Action, and Politics. Cambridge University Press.
• Doug McAdam, Sidney G. Tarrow, and Charles Tilly, eds. 2001. Dynamics of Contention. Cambridge University Press.
• Frances Fox Piven and Richard A. Cloward. 1979. Poor People’s Movements: Why They Succeed, How They Fail. Vintage books.
• Michael Bigg and Kenneth T. Andrews. 2015. “Protest Campaigns and Movement Success: Desegregating the U.S. South in the Early 1960s.” American Sociological Review 80(2): 416.

The United States and the United Nations have had a closely intertwined relationship since the organization’s founding in 1945. The UN deals with a broad range of issues around the globe, and its widespread influence is often controversial. However, the influence of the United Nation continues to be instrumental in promoting crucial human rights causes, and the reach of its aid is arguably beyond compare. Despite its numerous shortcomings, the UN plays a crucial role in promoting human rights norms across the globe.

Throughout the 1990s in particular, the United Nations took on a central role in the global justice process. It organized and funded international courts following episodes of mass violence, such as the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, and it made indictments for egregious crimes possible for the first time (including the crime of genocide).  Sociologists find that the existence of these courts have a global impact in providing justice, and the trials seem to have a positive effect in reducing human rights violations in the long run.

• Kathryn Sikkink. 2011. The Justice Cascade: How Human Rights Prosecutions Change World Politics. New York: Norton.
• Joachim Savelsberg. 2015 Representing Mass Violence: Conflicting Responses to Human Rights Violations in Darfur. Oakland: University of California Press.

The judicial process alone cannot adequately address global human rights issues — humanitarianism and diplomacy also play key roles. The United Nation arguably plays the most dominant global role in these initiatives, with monumental campaigns addressing topics like hunger, refugee needs, and climate change. The UN has been criticized for showcasing Western ideals and not taking into account cultural contexts, such as early endeavors to reduce female genital cutting. However, the UN has made improvements and when programs are approached as an opportunity for partnership and not dominance, the outcomes can be quite positive. For example, the agency has taken great strides in promoting gender equality and access to education.

• Ann Quennerstedt and Mikael Quennerstedt. 2013. “Researching Children’s Rights in Education: Sociology of Childhood Encountering Educational Theory.” British Journal of Sociology of Education. 35(1): 115-132.
• Melanie M. Hughes, Mona Lena Krook, and Pamela Paxton. 2015. “Transnational Women’s Activism and the Global Diffusion of Gender Quotas.” International Studies Quarterly. 59(2): 357-372.
• Elizabeth Heger Boyle. 2002. Female Genital Cutting. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.