politics

In a confusing twist of legal back and forth, some of the strictest abortion regulations in the country have taken effect in Texas. The state’s proposed abortion restrictions, including limiting medication-induced abortions and requiring abortion doctors to have admitting privileges to a nearby surgical center, were initially struck down by a district court because the restrictions would effectively deny women the right to abortions. A full appeal will be heard in January, but these restrictions have caused a third of the clinics in Texas to stop offering the service until then.

While this is a legal battle on the surface, the debate surrounding abortion stems from longstanding and deeply conflicted cultural norms regarding sexual behavior, the care of children, family structure, and gender roles in society.

• Kristen Luker. 1985. Abortion and the Politics of Motherhood. University of California Press.

Despite variations in state restrictions on abortions, legislative restrictions have very little impact on a state’s abortion rate.

• Marshall H. Medoff 2002. “The Determinants and Impact of State Abortion Restrictions.” American Journal of Economics and Sociology  61 (2): 481-493.

Last Thursday, the Senate voted to pass the Employment Non-discrimination Act. ENDA would make it illegal for the workplace to discriminate on the basis of gender identity and sexual orientation. Workplace discrimination on the basis of race, color, sex, nationality, religion, age and disability is already illegal. If passed by the House of Representatives, this will be a major civil rights act, as twenty-nine states do not have any laws protecting LGBT individuals in the workplace.

Kathleen Hull’s chapter in the Handbook of Employment Discrimination Research addresses how gay and lesbian workers experience discrimination, and how public attitudes clash over anti-discrimination laws.

• Kathy Hull. 2005. “Employment Discrimination Based on Sexual Orientation: Dimensions of Difference.” in Handbook of Employment Discrimination Research: Rights and Realities, edited by Robert L. Nelson and Laura Beth Nielsen. Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Springer.

Organizational context such as sex composition and workplace culture affects the likelihood for sexual discrimination.

• Stainback, K., Ratliff, T. N., & Roscigno, V. J. 2011. “The Context of Workplace Sex Discrimination: Sex Composition, Workplace Culture and Relative Power.” Social Forces, 89(4), 1165-1188.

Gay employees were most likely to report discrimination in primarily heterosexual workplaces and organizations which lacked supportive policies and protective legislation.

• Ragins, Belle Rose, and John M. Cornwell. 2001. “Pink Triangles: Antecedents and Consequences of Perceived Workplace Discrimination against Gay and Lesbian Employees.” Journal of Applied Psychology 86(6), 1244-261.

A recent CNN article reports that relationships between EU officials and the US have been “severely shaken” on account of information leaked by Edward Snowden that the NSA monitored the personal cell phones of 35 world leaders, possibly including Germany’s Angela Merkel. The statement made by Obama’s homeland security and counterterrorism adviser Lisa Monaco raises the important question: Are we collecting information because we need it or just because we can?

While privacy and publicity are often portrayed as a tradeoff, the editors at Cyborgology demonstrate that in many cases, one is a necessary condition for the other.

• Jurgenson, N., and Rey, P.J.  2013. The Fan Dance: How Privacy Thrives in an Age of Hyper-Publicity.  In Unlike Us Reader: Social Media Monopolies and their Alternatives. Lovink, G. and Ratsch, M. (eds.). Amsterdam: Institute of Network Cultures. 62-75.

Although we typically think privacy is “freedom from” government intrusion, some scholars say society makes it a “freedom to” choose whether or not to disclose personal information. From this perspective,  both social and technological solutions are needed to solve privacy issues.

• Boyd, D. and Marwick, A. September 22, 2011.  Social Privacy in Networked Publics: Teens’ Attitudes, Practices, and Strategies.  A Decade in Internet Time: Symposium on the Dynamics of the Internet and Society.

Leading scholars show how many government practices are invented and learned to manage their populations.

• The Foucault Effect: Studies in Governmentality: With Two Lectures by and an Interview with Michel Foucault. 1991. Burchell, G., Gordon, C.,&  Miller, P. (Eds.) Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

The US federal minimum wage has been a hot topic in 2013, starting with President Obama’s proposal in February to increase the federal minimum wage to $9/hour. Then, over the summer, McDonald’s was the source for national ridicule after releasing a financial planning document for its workforce that suggested employees would need to work two full-time entry level jobs in order to pay for basic monthly expenses. Most recently, thousands of fast food workers from across the nation went on strike to increase the federal minimum wage to $15/hour. Is living on a minimum wage income really that tough? And if it is, why is it so difficult to simply increase it?

In most cases, living off a minimum wage income is simply not feasible, especially for single parents.

• Kathryn Edin and Laura Lein, 1997. Making ends Meet: How Single Mothers Survive Welfare and Low-Wage Work. New York:Russell Sage Foundation.

Much of the reluctance to increase the minimum wage stems from the fear that higher wages would force companies to raise prices and hire fewer employees. However, these anxieties are largely unfounded.

• Lawrence F. Katz and Alan B. Kreuger, 1992. “The effect of minimum wage on the fast food industry”

Former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick was recently sentenced to 28 years in prison after being convicted of two dozen federal charges including racketeering, extortion, and the filing of false tax returns. Judge Nancy G. Edmunds recently told CNN that although she wasn’t holding Kilpatrick responsible for Detroit’s bankruptcy, “a long prison sentence is necessary to insulate the public from his behavior.” Whether conviction alone is enough to restore public trust and put an end to white collar crime is still an open question.

Who commits white-collar crime and why? Classical criminology shows how the answers have changed over time.

• Sutherland, E.H. (1940). White Collar Criminality. American Sociological Review. 5(1):1-12.

Current work suggests that political and economic corruption often happens through collaboration, and that we shouldn’t treat the two as separate issues.

• Raymond J. Michalowski and Ronald C. Kramer , 2006. State-corporate crime: Wrongdoing at the intersection of business and government. Rutgers University Press

In a recent report from Al Jazeera America on his first major interview, Pope Francis raises concerns that the Catholic Church needs to change its political priorities if it doesn’t want to “fall like a house of cards.” He argues that the church is focusing too heavily on “narrow” issues like gay marriage and abortion when it should be fostering a more inclusive message. Is this a new and necessary direction for Catholic politics in the United States, or just a flash in the pan?

Pope Francis may be right about church collapse. Many Americans choose not to affiliate with religion for political reasons.

• Michael Hout and Claude S. Fischer, “Why More Americans Have No Religious Preference: Politics and Generations,” 2002.
  

It also isn’t just political. Narrow theological views on issues like gender and sexuality have an effect on who comes to Mass every week.

• Andrew M. Greeley and Mary G. Durkin,  Angry Catholic Women: A Sociological Investigation, a Theological Reflection, 1984.
  

This isn’t the first shift, though, new leaders and changes in society have a long history of altering the church’s politics.

• Gene Burns, The Frontiers of Catholicism: The Politics of Ideology in a Liberal World, 1994.

Plenty of organization for change can emerge from the church’s membership as well. Not all the discontented leave!

• Tricia C. Bruce, Faithful Revolution: How Voice of the Faithful is Changing the Church, 2011.
  

A recent report from the New York Times tells us that Washington may be loosening the leash on mortgage lenders, but a range of research from sociologists over the last five years suggests that there were actually multiple problems that led to the 2008 housing crash, and they weren’t all about financial regulation alone.

Modern mortgages arose when homeownership was politically popular.

• Neil Fligstein and Doug McAdam’s A Theory of Fields

Politicians often used economic policy to “punt” unpopular political conflict.

• Greta Krippner, Capitalizing on Crisis, 2011.
• Thomas Ferguson and Robert Johnson, Too Big to Bail: The “Paulson Put,” Presidential Politics, and the Global Financial Meltdown (Part 1 and Part 2) 2009.

Subprime lending didn’t just take advantage of the poor—it was also a racial problem.

• Jacob Faber, Racial Dynamics of Subprime Mortgage Lending at the Peak, 2013.