politics

President Trump and his administration have insisted that there was massive voter fraud in the 2016 election, although evidence has not supported this allegation. Instead, the evidence points  to significant issues surrounding voter suppression in the United States.

One contributing factor is felon disenfranchisement — when people with a felony conviction permanently lose the right to vote. Since the late 1860’s, U.S. states with the largest non-white prison populations have been more likely to implement voting restrictions for felons. Today, formerly incarcerated persons constitute the largest portion of the disenfranchised population, which also includes people with disabilities and those without valid forms of identification. Importantly, restrictive voting laws have actually altered political outcomes. For example, it is estimated that Al Gore would have won the 2000 presidential election if formerly incarcerated persons in Florida had been allowed to vote.

• Alexander Keyssar. 2009. The Right to Vote: The Contested History of Democracy in the United States. Basic Books.
• Angela Behrens, Christopher Uggen and Jeff Manza. 2003. “Ballot Manipulation and the ‘Menace of Negro Domination’: Racial Threat and Felon Disenfranchisement in the United States, 1850–2002.” American Journal of Sociology 109(3): 559-605.
• Christopher Uggen and Jeff Manza. 2002. Democratic Contraction? Political Consequences of Felon Disenfranchisement in the United States. American Sociological Review 67(6): 777-803.

After the 2010 midterm elections, there was a wave of laws that seemed to bolster voting requirements, such as new ID laws and proof of residence. And while strengthening voter requirements may seem benign at first, these rules restrict access to people who are less likely to have identification and proof of residence — people of color, the elderly, and the poor. In essence, such laws make it harder for only some people to vote. Research suggests that Republican leadership and legislatures are more likely to push for these laws, an irony when we consider that the President Trump is alleging that there were too many votes.

• Keith G. Bentele and Erin O’Brien. 2013. “Jim Crow 2.0?: Why States Consider and Adopt Restrictive Voter Access Policies.” Perspectives on Politics. 11(4): 1088-1116.
• William D. Hicks, Seth C. McKee, Mitchell D. Sellers, and Daniel A. Smith. “A Principle or a Strategy? Voter Identification Laws and Partisan Competition in the American States.” Political Research Quarterly 68(1): 18-33.

President Nicolas Maduro of Venezuela is doing what many learn at a young age not to do — being a copycat.  Since Hugo Chavez seceded power, Venezuela’s current president lacks Chavez’s beloved “Chavismo.”  Maduro’s own brand of charisma and populist reform has not connected with the people as he expected, which has led him to use more extreme political measures in the hopes of garnering respect. This has led to unrest in Venezuela, highlighting the instability of charismatic-based politics.

As Max Weber famously described in his theories of social and economic organization, charismatic leaders are often able to create a unique bond with their citizens. But if that charisma fades, it can create instability. This is also evident when there is a transfer of power from a beloved charismatic leader to a new leader. 

• Marshall Ganz. 2000. “Resources and Resourcefulness: Strategic Capacity in the Unionization of California Agriculture, 1959-1966.” American Journal of Sociology 105(4): 1003-1062.

Research finds that charismatic leaders are often good at mobilizing people to join social movements, but that the charismatic bond is often short-lived and unable to be transferred to other individuals. When charisma fails to motivate support, leaders often turn to more conventional measures to reach their political goals, which can lead to disenchantment and unrest among the citizenry.

• Dan Slater. 2009. “Revolutions, Crackdown, and Quiescence: Communal Elites and Democratic Mobilization in Southeast Asia.” American Journal of Sociology 115(1): 203-254.
• Kurt Schock. 2005. Unarmed Insurrections: People Power Movements in Nondemocracies.   Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

Donald Trump recently falsely stated that the murder rate “is the highest it’s been in 47 years.” Scholars of crime have been energetic in countering this claim with evidence that the violent crime in the U.S. peaked in the early 1990s and has steadily declined since. Although recent data suggests murder has increased in certain cities, Trump’s characterization of the murder rate is way off. But the sentiment behind his statement in some ways reflects a fearful popular discourse about crime rates and “tough on crime” public policies. 

Even after accounting for other relevant factors, people in neighborhoods with higher crime rates are slightly more fearful about crime. While crime fears also vary along demographic lines and victimization experiences, scholars have emphasized the robust effects of social environment as drivers of crime fears. Collective efficacy — the perceived social cohesion of a neighborhood and the willingness of neighbors to intervene on others’ behalf — is a strong predictor of lower crime fears, whereas the perceived level of disorder (e.g. vandalism) is associated with greater fear.

• Chris L. Gibson, Jihong Zhao, Nicholas P. Lovrich, and Michael J. Gaffney. 2002. “Social Integration, Individual Perceptions of Collective Efficacy, and Fear of Crime in Three Cities.” Justice Quarterly, 19: 537-564.
• Jihong Zhao, Brian Lawton, and Dennis Longmire. 2015.  “An Examination of the Micro-Level Crime–Fear of Crime Link.” Crime & Delinquency 61(1): 19-44.

Scholars have noted that popular discourse around crime has revolved around talk of “random violence,” which deemphasizes patterns of crime and victimization and focuses on the claim that everyone is equally at risk. This rhetoric maximizes public concern and favors policy strategies that include individual law enforcement tactics (“tough on crime”) as opposed to changes in structural conditions (e.g. neighborhood dynamics, class) that are correlated to crime and victimization.

• Joel Best. 1999. Random Violence: How We Talk about New Crimes and New Victims. University  of California Press.

Research on the relationship between fear of crime and the emergence of “get tough on crime” policies explores whether the origins of the punitive turn in crime control resulted from the general public’s fear of crime rates or political strategies that influence the public’s perceptions of crime. Some scholars have found that, in combination with increased media coverage, political initiatives surrounding crime (and not actual crime rates) fostered increasing public concern about crime and drugs during the 1960s and 80s.

• Katherine Beckett. 1999. Making Crime Pay: Law and Order in Contemporary American Politics. Oxford University Press.

Others have recently challenged this notion, arguing that punitive public sentiment is what motivated policymakers to develop tough on crime policies. Regardless of this “chicken and egg” dilemma, crime issues developed into a key political strategy. This “governing through crime” expands racial divisions rather than increasing security for American citizens. The concentration of mass incarceration in impoverished minority communities is evidence enough that crime as a political strategy has important repercussions for American notions of equality and liberty for all.

• Peter K Enns. 2016. Incarceration Nation: How the United States Became the Most Punitive Democracy in the World. Cambridge University Press.
• Jonathan Simon. 2007. Governing Through Crime: How the War on Crime Transformed American Democracy and Created a Culture of Fear. Oxford University Press.

Public housing has a long and troubled history in the United States. In recent years, the demolishing of public housing in cities like Chicago has been one of the most prominent images of decline. For sociologists, it is important to understand not just the problems with and eventual failures of post-war public housing, but also the social forces and sentiments behind their creation.

Consider why the federal government would even see a role for itself in the building of public housing structures in the first place. The origin of public housing legislation can be traced back to Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal, a series of laws and executive orders focused on providing more basic necessities for the poorest in America.

• Edward Goetz. 2013. New Deal Ruins: Race, Economic Justice, and Public Housing Policy. Cornell University Press.
• John F. Bauman, Roger Biles, and Kristin M. Szylvian. 2000. From Tenements to the Taylor Homes: In Search of an Urban Housing Policy in Twentieth-Century America. Penn State Press.
• Nicholas Dagen Bloom. 2009. Public Housing That Worked: New York in the Twentieth Century. University of Pennsylvania Press.
• Richard Allen Hays. 1995. The Federal Government and Urban Housing. SUNY Press.

However, public housing would eventually become associated with racial segregation. The design of public housing projects ultimately worked to concentrate poor non-white communities into relatively cut-off neighborhoods in the middle of cities. This segregation, combined with heavy degradation of the buildings and a lack of proper care from government officials, led to a heavily stigmatized view of public housing buildings.

• Douglas Massey and Adam Bickford. 1991. “Segregation in the Second Ghetto: Racial and Ethnic Segregation in American Public Housing, 1977.” Social Forces. 69(4): 1011-1036.
• Douglas Massey and Nancy Denton. 1993. American Apartheid: Segregation and the Making of the Underclass. Harvard University Press.
• Steven R. Holloway, Deborah Bryan, Robert Chabot, Donna M. Rogers, and James Rulli. 1998. “Exploring the Effects of Public Housing on the Concentration of Poverty in Columbus, Ohio.” Urban Affairs Review. 33(6): 767-789.

Given the sheer intensity of racial segregation and concentrated poverty in public housing, many housing advocates and public officials have declared these programs a failure, leading to the demolition of old public housing facilities. But there have also been various proposals to renew public housing initiatives that look to learn from the mistakes of the past while keeping to the goal of housing the poor. One of the largest programs, the federal HOPE VI program, is an ongoing federal project to revitalize public housing areas with architecture focused on crime prevention. This focus on crime prevention is inspired by Oscar Newman’s ‘defensible space’ concept — the idea that if people feel more ownership over a space, they’ll be more watchful over how their neighbors use it, thus curbing crime.

• Edward Goetz. 2011. “Gentrification in Black and White: The Racial Impact of Public Housing Demolition in American Cities.” Urban Studies. 48(8): 1581-1604.
• Edward G. Goetz. 2000. “The Politics of Poverty Deconcentration and Housing Demolition.” Journal of Urban Affairs. 22(2): 157-173.
• Jerry J. Salama. 1999. “The Redevelopment of Distressed Public Housing: Early Results from the HOPE VI Projects in Atlanta, Chicago, and San Antonio.” Housing Policy Debate 10(1): 95-142.
• Oscar Newman. 1972. Defensible Space. New York: Macmillan.

In the wake of the 2016 presidential election turmoil, some groups have turned to storytelling to demonstrate solidarity and to show support for what they see as important issues. In the not-so-secret Facebook group Pantsuit Nation, for instance, members share stories of themselves and others standing up against racism and sexism. Sociologists recognize the power of storytelling in many contexts, especially in building movements for social change by shifting opinions or establishing solidarity, but they also point to some important barriers that come with using stories to change social policy.

Narratives are commonly used to establish a common group identity. For example, public officials might tell stories about a certain group of “dangerous” immigrants, thus establishing solidarity between people in the categories of “citizens,” in opposition to immigrants constructed as “enemies.” Public narratives such as these often follow a recognizable formula with actors who engage in typical behaviors, and plot lines that lead to a predictable moral conclusion.

• Donileen R. Loeske. 2007. “The Study of Identity as Cultural, Institutional, Organizational, and Personal Narratives: Theoretical and Empirical Integrations.” The Sociological Quarterly 48(4): 661-688.  

Without people to listen, stories do not go very far. Thus, in order to make progress toward social change, social movement groups must find a way to speak to a broad public audience. Many groups try to gain public attention through protest, in an attempt to attract media coverage. However, news coverage of protests tends to neutralize or undermine their movement’s main issues, and sometimes ignores them altogether. Likewise, much of the news coverage tends to emphasize individual responsibility, rather than systemic explanations for the group’s grievances (i.e. racism).

• Jackie Smith et al. 2001. “From Protest to Agenda Building: Description Bias in Media Coverage of Protest Events in Washington, D.C.” Social Forces 79(4): 1397-1423.

But what makes a story effective in the public domain? Against common belief, sociologists have found that the ambiguity of personal stories makes them particularly effective for public deliberation. Stories that can be interpreted in multiple ways allow others to offer new ideas or compromises without seeming divisive. Conversely, personal stories that work well in value-oriented discussions, like remembering victims of 9/11, are not as effective in policy-oriented settings where reason-based arguments typically prove more effective. This is important because often it is the people with the most privilege (i.e., white, male, native-English speakers) who create these types of narratives, while stories told by people in less powerful social positions often have little traction in the policy realm.

• Francesca Polletta and John Lee. 2006. “Is Telling Stories Good for Democracy? Rhetoric in Public Deliberation after 9/11.” American Sociological Review 71(5): 699-723.

In short, stories are not just about the meaning people convey through or derive from them — they have a social organization of their own, and require certain conditions to be taken seriously.

As media organizations figure out how to cover the Trump Administration and the first tweeting president, there is soul searching taking place both within the media and among media consumers about media objectivity and the role of social networking sites in the news. The rise of non-traditional online media outlets, tensions between the White House and journalists, and arguments over “alternative facts” has brought new challenges to long-held assumptions about journalistic accountability and objectivity.

Sociologists have long been critics of “objectivity” in the media and have noted the erosion of assumed standards of objectivity in the news room.

• Micheal Schudson. 2011. The Sociology of News. W.W. Norton.

At the same time, survey data shows that here has been a loss of trust in the media. This year’s Reuters Institute Digital News Report finds that only 33% of Americans say that they trust the news “most of the time” compared to 65% of Finns. Though declining trust in the media is not necessarily new, the 2016 election cycle saw a sharper decline.

• Yariv Tsfati  and Gal Ariely. 2014. “Individual and Contextual Correlates of Trust in Media Across 44 Countries.“ Communication Research 41: 760–782.
• Nicholas A Valentino, Mathew N. Beckmann and Thomas A. Buhr. 2001. “A Spiral of Cynicism for Some: The Contingent Effects of Campaign News Frames on Participation and Confidence in Government.” Political Communication, 18(4): 347-367.

Elections and election coverage often leave audiences with the feeling that media organizations are more focused on partisanship rather than interrogating policy positions. This challenges audiences’ notions of media objectivity when media organizations and journalists are perceive to be picking favorites.

• David Nicolas Hopmann,  Adam Shehata and Jesper Strömbäck. 2015. “Contagious Media Effects: How Media Use and Exposure to Game-Framed News Influence Media Trust.“ Mass Communication and Society 18(6): 776-798.
• Robert Entman. 2007. “Framing Bias: Media in the Distribution of Power.” Journal of Communication 57: 163-173.

The challenge of objectivity is particularly great when journalists engage with audiences on social networking sites like Twitter, which appear to blur the lines between professional and personal opinion. When journalists tweet, the tension between norms of objectivity and accountability are heightened, but it also provides a way to direct traffic to published artciles. Sites like Twitter provide journalists a platform for engaging audiences in real time and provide a means for journalists to prime audiences for a developing story.

• Ian Sheinheit & Cynthia J. Bogard. 2016. “Authenticity and Carrier Agents: The Social Construction of Political Gaffes.” Sociological Forum 31(4): 970-993.
• Farida Vis. 2013. “Twitter as a Reporting Tool for Breaking News.“ Digital Journalism 1(1): 27-47

The Trump administration continues to ramp up policies that not only curb the flow of undocumented migrants into the United States, but also bolster an already formidable deportation system. Currently, many “Dreamers” protected by former president Obama’s executive order are worried that president Trump will overturn this crucial immigration policy, which grants residency status to undocumented individuals that came to the United States as children prior to 2012. This unprecedented move could potentially lead to the detention and deportation of nearly 800,000 people. Surprisingly, social science has found that immigration policy in the United States does not typically follow immigration patterns, but more often shaped by economic and political conditions.

Many legal avenues for migration to the United States were dismantled from the late 1950s through 1965, including the elimination of many temporary worker visas and country and hemispheric quotas. This policy shift resulted in an uptick in undocumented migrants from Latin America until the late 1970s, which subsequently tapered off with the passage of the Immigration and Reform Control Act in 1986. Due to this influx of undocumented immigrants, political rhetoric surrounding immigration took a punitive turn, fueling anti-immigrant sentiment and restrictionist policies with strict enforcement practices, especially during the mid 1990s through the 2000s.

• Douglas S. Massey and Karen A. Pren. 2012. “Unintended Consequences of US Immigration Policy: Explaining the Post‐1965 Surge from Latin America.” Population and Development Review 38(1): 1-29.

Deportations of both undocumented and documented immigrants has increased significantly in the past few decades, so much so that under the Obama administration, a record 2 million immigrants were deported by the end of 2013. These unprecedented numbers of deportations typically involved people with no criminal record or those with minor convictions, such as traffic offenses or marijuana possession, and nearly one quarter of the 400,000 deportees in 2012 were parents of U.S. citizens.

• Marie Gottschalk. 2016. Caught: The Prison State and the Lockdown of American Politics. Princeton University Press.

Scholars have demonstrated the parallels between the system of mass deportation and mass incarceration in the United States, both of which disproportionately impact men of color, are rife with punitive rhetoric, and are bolstered by massive government and private expenditures. Tanya Maria Golash-Boza contends that deportation is nested within the current state of global capitalism.  She argues that deportations serve the function of removing surplus labor while keeping undocumented labor populations in the United States compliant and vulnerable. This era of mass deportation and “crimmigration” comes at a significant cost to immigrant communities and families. Unfortunately, if the current political climate of “America First” is any indicator, these social and human costs will only exacerbate in the recent future.

• Tanya Maria Golash-Boza. 2015. Deported: Immigrant Policing, Disposable Labor and Global Capitalism. NYU Press.
• Jacqueline Maria Hagan, Nestor Rodriguez, and Brianna Castro. 2011. Social Effects of Mass Deportations by the United States Government, 2000–10. Ethnic and Racial Studies 34(8): 1374-1391.

The selling of Mexico’s nationalized oil company has caused gas shortages and rising gas prices, sparking nationwide protest. In the midst of  “El Gasonlinazo,” unlikely heroes have stepped forward to fight for affordable gasoline — Mexican drug cartels. The cartels are threatening to burn gas stations, specifically those run by foreign companies, and they have started stealing oil and selling it back to Mexican citizens for a lower cost. They claim that it is a disservice to the people of Mexico to make them pay such high prices for gas, especially when many do not even make a living wage.

It is not unusual for individuals or groups with a negative image to present themselves in the best way possible through “impression management,” and drug cartels are no exception. Past research shows that developing an image of being helpful to the community helps cartels and gangs to garner legitimacy and respect. In Mexico, there is a long tradition of rebel groups acting in the name of the community, for example, the Zapatistas portrayed themselves as liberators, rather than criminals, in their fight against globalization. 

• Erving Goffman. 1959. The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. New York: Anchor Books
• John Hagedorn. 2008. A World of Gangs: Armed Young Men and Gangsta Culture. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
• Markus S. Schulz. 1998. “Collective Action Across Borders: Opportunity Structures, Network Capacities, and Communicative Praxis in the Age of Advanced Globalization.” Sociological Perspectives 41(3): 587-616.

The Niger Delta experienced a similar situation when Chinese oil companies bought entry into the land. Citizens of Nigeria banded together to form rebel groups, using kidnappings and other violent measures as forms of resistance. Oil is a vital resource, which is why citizens of under-developed nations are willing to look to non-traditional groups for help fighting the interests of foreign companies and international elites.

• Cyril I. Obi. 2008. “Enter the Dragon? Chinese Oil Companies & Resistance in the Niger Delta.” Review of African Political Economy 117: 417-434.
• Uwafiokun Idemudia and Uwem E. Ite. 2006. “Demystifying the Niger Delta Conflict: Towards an Integrated Explanation.” Review of African Political Economy 109:391-406.

Trump’s rise to the presidency still has many people wondering why large numbers of whites with low to moderate incomes voted for a candidate who supports policies that are likely to have a negative impact on them. In other words, how is a millionaire real estate developer from New York City seen as an average Joe and a champion of white workers? Two prominent sociological explanations involve the racist attitudes of whites’ and feelings of anger and abandoment in economically struggling rural communities.

Racially coded, and racially explicit, language is particularly powerful for tapping into white Americans’ feelings of displacement, loss, and resentment. Sociological research suggests that racialized attacks on “undeserving” immigrants and people of color who benefit from government “handouts” provide a target for anger and a rationale for why white working class communities are struggling economically (while ignoring the privileges that go along with whiteness). Thus, the emotional appeals of racist and xenophobic campaign rhetoric can contribute to lower income people voting against their economic self-interest.

• Paula Ioanide. 2015. The Emotional Politics of Racism: How Feelings Trump Facts in an Era of Colorblindness. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
• Ian Haney-López. 2014. Dog Whistle Politics: How Coded Racial Appeals Have Reinvented Racism and Wrecked the Middle Class. Oxford, UK; New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
• Justin Gest. 2016. The New Minority: White Working Class Politics in an Age of Immigration and Inequality. Oxford, UK; New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

Much of the public commentary about white working class voters has focused on folks in cities and industrial sectors, but another important population to consider is rural residents. People in rural areas are disproportionately white, are struggling economically due to declines in commodity prices, and are confronting rapid demographic changes. Rural citizens, especially white men, perceive their religious and nationalist beliefs as being looked-down upon by liberals, and they draw on a strong rural identity when they describe feeling ignored and abandoned by politicians and elites who devalue their lifestyles. They see the government as creating policies that favor cities and help undeserving minorities and state bureaucrats, all while ignoring rural people. Thus, conservative politicians like Trump have tapped into people’s anger and resentment through emotional appeals to masculinity and male dignity, American nationalism, and Christian morals.

• Arlie Russell Hochschild. 2016. Strangers in Their Own Land Anger and Mourning on the American Right. New York, NY: The New Press.
• Katherine J Cramer. 2016. The Politics of Resentment: Rural Consciousness in Wisconsin and the Rise of Scott Walker. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press.
• U.S. Department of Agriculture Economic Research Service. 2016. Rural America at a Glance. Washington, DC.
• Daniel T. Lichter. 2012. “Immigration and the New Racial Diversity in Rural America.” Rural Sociology 77(1): 3–35.

For more on why working class whites voted from Trump, see here, here, and here.

Barack Obama issued 78 pardons and 153 commutations before leaving office, including commuting the sentence of Chelsea Manning. While commutations shorten the sentences of incarcerated individuals, but do not alter their criminal record, pardons remove the conviction from the individual’s record. Obama’s latest string of clemency decisions brings his administration’s total to 1,324, the majority of which were commutations.

Research on federal executive clemency shows that rates of clemency are highest when Democratic presidents are in power, when crime rates are lower, and during periods of war. Legal research also highlights variation between states, with certain governors utilizing clemency measures more than others, though not necessarily along party lines. While executive clemency was once a practice commonly employed by U.S. presidents, its use has declined in recent decades. This decreased use of executive clemency has coincided with a sharp increase in arrests, both of which have contributed to the substantial rise in incarcerated individuals across the U.S. 

• Bruce Western. 2006. “Punishment and Inequality in America.” Russell Sage Foundation.
• Margaret Colgate Love. 2010. “The Twilight of Pardon Power.” The Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology 100(3): 1169–1212.
• William M.Landes and Richard A. Posner. 2009. “The Economics of Presidential Pardons and Commutations.” The Journal of Legal Studies 38(1): 61–88.
• Rachel E. Barkow . 2009. “The Politics of Forgiveness: Reconceptualizing Clemency.” Federal Sentencing Reporter 21(3): 153–59.

Scholarship also hints at who is likely to receive a commutation or pardon. Analyses of death sentences shows that women, youth, the elderly, and those who have spent a significant amount of time on death row are more likely to have their death sentences commuted. Additionally, death penalty commutations are more common among governors who are not returning to office (lame duck) and when the death row population is particularly old. However, even though female prisoners are more likely to receive clemency, recent qualitative investigations of commutation hearings suggest that women encounter a systemic gender bias when applying for a pardon or commutation.

• Laura M. Argys and H. Naci Mocan. 2004. “Who Shall Live and Who Shall Die? An Analysis of Prisoners on Death Row in the United States.” The Journal of Legal Studies 33(2): 255–82.
• Carol Jacobsen and Lora Bex Lempert 2013. “Institutional Disparities: Considerations of Gender in the Commutation Process for Incarcerated Women.” Signs 39(1): 265–89.