Well, the comp is done and submitted. All in all, it was a good experience. I actually had fun, though I don’t know what that says about my chances of passing. And it didn’t start off fun at all. I thought I had done a good job of anticipating what the questions would cover. So I had prepared a number of proto-responses and effectively memorized their basic structure. But most of the questions turned out to be considerably different than I had anticipated. I had a real moment of panic when I first looked at the questions around 8:15. That panic stayed with me for about an hour and a half. By then I had settled myself into writing and somehow I just found a rhythm. By noon, I was rolling along and even smiling. By 3:30 I was a bit delirious, which may have been apparent in my last answer. Now I get a night of relaxation.

But I have to start studying for the culture comp tomorrow. I take it next Friday.

Today’s the day. I feel pretty confident. I hardly slept at all last night. Excited more than nervous. The comp questions will arrive in my inbox in just a little while. I’ll post again at the end of the day when it’s over.

Clearly, one of the best things ever.

World Society or world polity theory, introduced by John Meyer and colleagues, is an attempt to explain the formation and function of the nation-state in terms of worldwide cultural and associational processes. This perspective is a strong departure from much of the work in political sociology which has taken a far more materialist perspective on explaining national and international political change. Below I review the main concepts in World Society theory and show how they compare to other key works in political sociology. In particular, I will focus on Meyer and colleagues findings regarding educational systems around the world. In the end, I believe it will be clear that this perspective has a great deal to offer to our general understanding of sociopolitical phenomena, but as an augmentation of current theories rather than a replacement.

Meyer, Boli, Thomas, and Ramirez (1997) set out to account for the nation-state as a worldwide institution formed by world cultural and associational processes. In service of this account, they address three important aspects: 1) characteristics of nation-states resulting from exogenously-driven processes, 2) characteristics of World Society that enhance the impact of world culture and 3) the dynamics of the World Society. Before delving into these three aspects, I think it is important to discuss some of the basic premises of the World Society theory.

Meyer et al’s theory is basically an extension of the new institutionalist approach to organizational analysis (DiMaggio; Meyer). Thus, they see institutional forms and culture as the primary factor in determining organizational outcomes. Meyer et al provide a useful framework for understanding the relationship between their theory and others in the field. The discuss four perspectives on sociopolitical phenomena: 1) microrealist, 2) macrorealist, 3) microphenomenological, and 4) macrophenomenological. Microrealist theories focus on material circumstances of power and interest at the local or national level. Traditional Marxist analysis is good example of this kind of work, though this is also the perspective of much of the political economic analysis in political sociology. Macrorealist theories focus on material circumstances of power and interest at the international level. World-system theory is perhaps the best-known example. Microphenomenological theories focus on culture and interpretive processes at the local or national level. Almond and Verba’s political culture approach is a prime example of this work. Meyer et al place themselves in the fourth category of macrophenomenological theories focusing on the cultural and interpretive processes at the international level. The first three perspectives suggest differentiation between nation-states for material or cultural reasons and thus would predict a significant amount of variation between nation-states in terms of sociopolitical structures. Meyer et al’s theory, similar to many globalization theories, posits an increasingly stateless world and thus would predict far less variation than the other theories.

These four theoretical perspectives tend to predict very different outcomes. For example, consider female enrollment in higher education. Microrealist theories would predict variation based on national material circumstances and so would expect that female enrollment would be higher in countries with higher levels of development. Macrorealist theories would predict higher enrollment in countries at the core, rather than periphery. Microphenomenological accounts would predict differences based on national or local culture and so would expect higher enrollment in Western countries than in Islamic countries. Macrophenomenological accounts, like the World Society, would predict some measure of consistency in female enrollment across all countries. Indeed, Ramirez found this consistency in enrollment to be the case.

Now that the basic comparisons have been covered, let us consider the three aspects of Meyer et al’s theory. First, they posit three important characteristics of nation-states resulting from exogenously-driven processes. The primary characteristic, and the one that seems to have prompted much their work, is structural isomorphism. Put simply, Meyer and colleagues have found a great deal of isomorphism amongst nation-states around the world and have found that their institutionalist/cultural theory provides an explanation. These isomorphisms exist in constitutional structure (Boli), welfare regimes (Thomas and Lauderdale), and educational systems (Meyer, Ramirez, and Soysal), to name only a few.

The second and third characteristics attributed to the World Society are closely linked. They are expansive structuration and a decoupling of these institutional structures from local political and cultural circumstances. For example, Meyer and his colleagues have find that developed and developing nations institute national systems of education at roughly the same time; long before the developing nations have the resources or need for implementing them. Benevot and Riddle find a surprising similarity amongst mass education curriculums regardless of the socioeconomic or political circumstances of the countries investigated. Taken together, this means that countries are formally expanding educational structures, often in spite of the fact that they cannot support them, so that school-age children in the U.S., China, Chile, and South Africa are learning roughly the same things at the same times despite the fact that the future prospects and skills needed by these children are vastly different.

It is very difficult to explain these similarities using the other kinds of theories outlined above. In particular, World Society theory provides an account of motivation that seems superior to realist theories focusing on power and interest which tend to conceptualize states, citizens, and groups as rational actors responding to material circumstances. Though microphenomenological accounts of political culture are better at addressing nonmaterial motivation, they too fail to account for the isomorphism found by so many of the world polity researchers. This is clearly a circumstance where political sociology has something to gain form World Society theory.

Meyer et al also address several characteristics of the World Society that they believe enhance the impact of world cultural forces. They point to the increasing connectedness of nations through organizations like the U.N., the proliferation of international non-governmental organizations (INGOs), and the ascendancy of rationalized scientific and professional authority. They believe these increased associations as well as the presence of a common rationalized understanding of the world greatly favors diffusion of world cultural models. Thomas and Boli’s (1997) book exploring the influence of INGOs on all manner of sociopolitical phenomena is a prime example of the growing body of evidence in favor of this view. These characteristics lend further support to many theories of globalization and the decline in importance of the nation-state.

Though Meyer and colleagues often talk about the World Society or world culture as if they were monolithic entities, they specifically acknowledge that world culture is dynamic and varied. Unlike Parson’s view of culture as “the ultimate independent variable”, Meyer et al draw attention to characteristics of the World Society that increase its cultural dynamism such as multiple levels of legitimate actors (i.e. supra-, inter-, and intra-national organizations) and the inconsistencies and contradictions inherent in world culture. To understand how world cultural models carry inherent contradictions, consider that most nations are dedicated to ideals that often come into conflict (e.g. equality vs. freedom, standardization vs. diversity, progress vs. justice).

From the evidence and analysis presented above, I believe it is clear that World Society theory has much to offer to political sociology. Though as I noted above, it should be considered an augmentation rather than a substitution. Previous research from Lipset (1959) to Huber and Stephens (2001) has firmly established the importance of materialist and political economic factors at both the national and international level. Microphenomenological accounts have also shown their usefulness in a explaining a wide range of phenomena (e.g. Almond and Verba; Snow et al). World Society theory is simply another tool in our scholarly toolbox, and an especially useful one at that.

Early work on gender and the welfare state generally took one of two approaches: 1) the state reproduces gender inequality or 2) the state reduces gender inequality. Typical definitions of the welfare state have focused on unemployment, pensions, and caring for the ill. Feminist researchers have pushed to broaden that definition to include services such as daycare, housing, education, and medical services aimed at citizens with dependents. Recent work (Orloff “Gender in the Welfare State”) has called for a move beyond these somewhat simplified accounts to focus on explaining variation amongst different regimes and programs.

As noted above, early research on gender and the welfare state has taken two distinct positions. A number of researchers have focused on the ways that the welfare state reproduces gender inequality (e.g. Jensen, Holter). In most cases, these researchers focus on the ways that the state establishes gender through male-oriented or female-oriented services. Some of the key mechanisms for this are the sexual division of labor, gender inequity in payment—men are seen as needing more money to support a family, traditional marriage, and the “double standard” of sexual morality. Other researchers have looked at ways that welfare states amelriorate gender inequity. By and large, these amelioration theories rest on the premise that “a rising tide lifts all boats.” In essence, more social spending generally leads to less inequality generally and therefore less gender inequality specifically. However, these “rising tide” analyses have tended to focus exclusively on poverty which ignores many of the structural and institutional inequalities faced by women such as unpaid care work, the male breadwinner model, and the symbolic inequality of “citizen” vs. “worker” (especially in the U.S.).

Both of the approaches outlined above assume a certain amount of uniformity either in mechanisms of reproduction or in the ameliorating effects of social programs. Recent work has challenged this assumption by focusing on variation. Different states promote qualitatively different types of gender relations. This is affected by 1) relations between labor, employers, and the state, 2) discourses and ideologies around motherhood, especially whether motherhood was compatible with paid work, and 3) population concerns, especially in the context of military competition. For example, Koven and Michel found that the U.S. and Britain are both “weak” welfare states with strong women’s movements but weak protections for women and children. But there is even variation between these two. Skocpol as well as Sklar found that gender was a more central issue in the U.S. than in Britain which could explain why the U.S. was more open to a “maternalist” welfare state. In Scandanavian countries where gender is less of a central issue, women must be incorporated into labor and labor must be incorporated into the governing coalition (Ruggie). Thus, in the Scandanavian countries, the strength and organization of working-class groups seems to be a major factor in explaining gender differences in the welfare policies.

I agree with Orloff (“Gender in the Welfare State”) on a number of issues that need to be addressed to further this variation-oriented research. For one, researchers need to clarify the nature of gender interests but this is difficult given the way that the interests of women and men are influenced by class, race, etc. Researchers need to pay more attention to state commitments to various models of eligibility for benefits in order to address women’s exclusion from paid work. These models include the male-breadwinner versus the dual-breadwinner as well as the individual versus the family model (Sainsbury, Shaver). Scholars should address the gender basis of legal personhood, especially related to “body rights”. Orloff suggests that researchers should pay more attention to the stratification dimension of the welfare state including gender differentiation and gender inequality. She also calls for work to augment Esping-Andersen’s decommodification dimension (Orloff, O’Connor).

Within political sociology, the welfare state has received a good deal of attention. This research is influenced by many traditions and, thus, comes in a number of different flavors. There are three main theories of welfare state expansion: 1) the “logic of industrialism”, 2) state-centric theories, and 3) theories of political class struggle. Each of these schools has much to offer to our understanding by addressing factors and processes that the other two ignore. Historically, welfare state research has focused primarily on the effects of national characteristics and domestic circumstances on transfer expenditure in the advanced industrial countries, primarily members of the OECD. Recently, researchers have begun to expand beyond this limited scope to address a more broadly defined welfare state in an internationally connected system of developed and developing countries. This expansion of welfare state research has also opened the door to feminist critiques and analyses of the welfare state. In addition, welfare state researchers, especially more recently, have been attempting to explain both the expansion of welfare states from WWII to the 1970’s and 1980’s as well as its retrenchment following that period.

As noted above, there are three main schools of thought in the welfare state literature. The “logic of industrialism” school focuses on the relationship between social programs and industrial development (Pampel and Williamson; Wilensky). This approach is primarily demand-driven, concentrating on the ways that demographic and socioeconomic expansion creates both the need and capacity for social programs. Work from this school has historically been closely aligned with the broader category of modernization theory and thus has been susceptible to many of the same criticisms. For example, logic of industrialism theories tend often treat welfare state development as an almost inevitable evolutionary process. The explanations offered are almost exclusively structural with little attention payed to the roles of specific actors. Logic of industrialism theories are also predominantly synchronic, paying little attention to the historically situated process of social policy development. Researchers from the other two schools address many of these shortcomings.

As the name implies, the state-centric school focuses on the role of the state and governmental actors in welfare development (Weir, Orloff, and Skocpol 1988). State-centric theorists address both agency and structure. On the one hand, this research tradition gives prominence to state bureaucrats acting somewhat autonomously from societal pressures to enact social policy. On the other hand, the school also acknowledges that this agency is restricted by the structural constraints imposed by past state structures and policies. Bringing the State Back In by Evans, Ruschemeyer, and Skocpol provides numerous examples of these two processes. The focus on past structures and policy has lead state-centric researchers to take a diachronic approach, giving real weight to historical process. The vast majority of work in this vein uses comparative historical method. This focus on historical progression also means that state-centric analysis tends toward path dependence. This path dependence, especially in its strong form, tends to deemphasize the causal role of development or the actions of those outside the governmental bureaucracy.

The political class struggle school focuses on the interplay between various class-based groups competing to realize their interests in the political realm (Korpi; Hicks and Swank; Esping-Andersen 1991). This conflict is often between labor and the Left on one side and business and the right on the other. This school is founded on the Marxist tradition focusing on the role of production regimes, capital, and the working class. More recent versions of these theories, including “power resources” and “power constellations”, break out of strict Marxism to provide a more nuanced analysis of the processes by which the working class mobilizes and affects policy change.

Much previous work, especially quantitative analyses, maintained a relatively one-dimensional view of the welfare state, focusing almost exclusively on transfer payments. This focus was partially theoretical and partially practical. Theoretically, a number of researchers, most notably Wilensky, have made the case that social programs such as education are not the same as social insurance either because they address different goals or follow different dynamics. Practically, obtaining accurate nation-level data is often problematic. The ILO provided a social security benefits measure that was seen as perhaps the most reliable of the available measures. This measure was primarily a measure of transfers.

This one-dimensional approach has changed significantly following the work of Esping-Andersen (1991). Esping-Anderson provides an analysis of welfare regimes that cluster into three types, or “worlds”: liberal democracies, conservative-corporatist democracies, and social democracies based on their approaches to social policy. Conservative-coroporatist regimes take a strong male-breadwinner/family approach to social policy and therefore favor direct transfers to families. Social democracies take a more individualist perspective and therefore offer extensive systems of publicly provided services. Social democracies also tend to use citizenship as a basis for elligibility, whereas liberal and conservative regimes are more worker oriented. Liberal democracies, the least generous of the three, lean toward means-tested systems when they provide them at all. Esping-Andersen’s work provides a more holistic understanding of welfare state development that has had a profound effect on the way welfare state research has been conducted since its introduction.

Feminist research on the welfare state has also added a good deal to our understanding of development and change in social policy (Orloff, “Gender in the Welfare State”). In particular, this work has focused attention on the role of women’s mobilization. For example, Skocpol (“Protecting Soldiers and Mothers”) provides an analysis of the development of the U.S. New Deal that helps to explain the at least one aspect of U.S. exceptionalism. She describes early U.S. social policy as creating a “maternalist” welfare state focused on the needs of mothers and children rather than the more “paternalist” regimes of Europe that provide for families through a male breadwinner. Skocpol and Koven & Michel note the important role that women play not only in pushing for social policy but in designing and administering those social programs.

Recent welfare state work has also moved beyond national characteristics and domestic politics to address the increasing international connectedness of nations in the world. The “globalization hypothesis” generally argues for the decreasing signicance of the nation-state and is the major focus of much of research on welfare state retrenchment. Globalization researchers have argued that this interconnectedness has forced nations to abandon Keynsian policies and retrench their social programs. There is little controversy concerning the effect the global financial crisis of the late 1970’s and early 1980’s had on the economic circumstances of nations around the world. The pervasiveness of this crisis is proof enough of its ties to the interconectedness of nations. Beyond that, there are a number of theories for why international economic relations and trade openness in particular might have positive effects on welfare programs. Work in this vein has been wide-ranging looking at influences of foreign direct investment, trade-openness (Cameron; Katzenstein), and even world culture (Thomas and Lauderdale 1988).

The results of this globalization and retrenchment work have been somewhat inconclusive. Neoliberals charge that trade openness decreases the power of the state to set wages because unregulated capital will seek out countries with the lowest labor costs. But this explanation turns out to be implausible because it predicts that the most open countries, those of northern Europe, would also be the most retrenched, which is not the case. Other researchers exploring international connectedness have found positive effects for the welfare state. Cameron (1979) and Katzenstein (1984, 1985) both look at the effects of trade openness on welfare state development and find that openness increases welfare state spending. Increased economic openness leads to increased vulnerability to external fluctuations which provides an incentive for an expansion of the social safety net.

Given these many disparate threads of research, I believe the most pressing issue in sociological studies of the welfare state is the need for synthesis. Several researchers are already moving in this direction (Swank; Huber and Stephens 2001). Huber and Stephens (2001) provides a good example of this new synthetic approach. Their work synthesizes theory from all three schools as well as feminist theory, trade openness and the multidimensional approach of Esping-Andersen. They a mixed methodology including longitudinal regression analysis and comparative historical case studies to explain both the expansion and retrenchment of the welfare state. Their work finds support for an interplay between aspects of all three theoretical schools. For example, their research shows that a “policy ratchet” effect does play a role in welfare state development but that this effect can be mitigated by long-term political incumbency. In fact, in the final analysis, Huber and Stephens find that political incumbency is the primary determinant of welfare state development and change.

In political sociology, studies of democratization have historically split down methodological lines. The split between qualitative and quantitative research does not just refer to a difference in approaches to research. These two traditions have also generally found different, even contradictory results. Aside from the methodological split, there are also some distinct substantive categories in democracy research. Democratization researchers do not look at democracy alone. Rather, they have typically looked at the relationship between democracy and some other social process or phenomenon. Three key foci of this research have been democracy and development, democracy and inequality, and democracy and dependence. I touch on all three of these substantive areas below. As with any field of disparate approaches to the same object of study, regular attempts at synthesis are key to making progress. To this end, I will review some recent work by Ruschemeyer, Stephens, and Stephens (1992) and Kurzman and Leahey (2004) that has attempted to bridge the qualitative/quantitative divide.

Though there have been many quantitative analyses, I will discuss four which I believe clearly represent the nature of this branch of democracy research. This research has generally supported a theory of modernization, seeing economic development and democracy as positively correlated across time and space. These theories often predict that most developing countries should eventually reach democracy.

Seymour Martin Lipset (1959) provides one of the first quantitative analyses of democratization that linked democracy to development. Lipset’s theory was derived from Durkheim and Weber and was similar to modernization theory in its focus on societal evolution and its systemic conception of society. Lipset’s basic argument was that industrial development/modernization led to increased wealth, education, communication, and equality. These, in turn, led to moderate lower and upper classes and large middle class, all of which led to a more stable democracy. Lipset is an example of the tendency toward grand theory in early democratization research.

Bollen (1979), Bollen and Jackman (1983), and Hannan and Carroll (1981) are part of a later trend in quantitative work that focused less on grand theory and more on careful testing of hypotheses. Their work provides mixed support for the findings of Lipset and other modernization theorists. Bollen finds no clear relationship between democratization and development either in terms of timing of development or level of development. Bollen and Jackman also find no clear relationship between democracy and inequality. But other work still finds some support for Lipset’s theory. Hannan and Carroll (1981) set out to explore the transitions from one political regime to another. They find that high economic production has the negative effect on regime change that modernization theory would predict.

All in all, the main finding from these kinds of quantitative analyses is that there is some positive connection between development and democracy, though its mechanisms are unclear. In fact, detailed explanation for mechanisms or causal dynamics (or lack thereof) is the major shortcoming of the majority of the quantitative studies. This is also the area where qualitative researchers have the most to contribute.

Unlike the quantitative work discussed above, the main finding of qualitative research on democratization has has been that the social, political, and economic circumstances surrounding the development of democracy in the West were historically unique and unlikely to occur again. This insight was first offered by Karl de Schweinitz but has been taken up by the majority of qualitative studies of democratization since.

Barrington Moore’s 1966 work on the origins of dictatorship and democracy is one of the influential of these later works. Moore offers a sweeping theory that traces three pathways to modernization: communist/revolutionary dictatorship, fascism, or bourgeois democracy. The path taken depends on the commercialization of agriculture and the interplay between four classes: peasants, land-owning elites, urban elites and middle class, and the ruler/political apparatus of the premodern system. Moore’s work furthered the idea of the historical contingency of modernization and provided a strong comparative historical analysis to support it.

While the import of this work is clear and it was well received in general, Moore also has his detractors. Ruschemeyer, Stephens and Stephens take issue with his neglect of the working class. Skocpol’s Social Origins takes Moore to task for his neglect of the role of the state or of international relations. Skocpol hoped to combine Moore’s domestic class-based analysis with dependency and world-system theory.

World-system and dependency theory is not entirely at odds with Moore’s work. Most work in this vein tends to support the idea that modernization could lead to authoritarian rule, especially in dependent countries on the periphery or semiperiphery. Indeed, O’Donnell’s (1979) work on democratization in Latin America found just such an “elective affinity” between capitalist development and authoritarian rule.

I propose that the the most pressing need in the sociological study of democratization is for synthesis. It is imperative that we bridge the gap between the quantitative and qualitative literatures so that we can take advantage of the strengths of both approaches. On the one side, case-oriented qualitative research takes account of past conflicts and historical structures. This qualitative research seeks out critical collective actors and accounts for their interplay with specific historical environments. On the other, quantitative research attempts to reduce selection bias through large sample sizes. These researchers have made some good headway in providing generalizable structural explanations of democratization processes. Thus, it’s clear that these two traditions have a lot to offer to a general understanding of democratization.

Building on this insight, a number of researchers have adopted a decidedly synthetic approach. Perhaps the most successful is Ruschemeyer, Stephens, and Stephens’ (1992) Capitalist Development and Democracy. Coming primarily from a comparative historical perspective, they acknowledge the strength of the theoretical complexity of qualitative research but they feel that the bulk of quantitative evidence calls for any theory of democratization to account for the positive relationship between development and democracy.

Kurzman and Leahey (2004) provide another good example of this bridging work with their analysis of the role of intellectuals in democratization. They call further attention to the distinction between qualitative and quantitiative work, noting that qualitative researchers focus mostly on formation and political position of social groups while quantitative researchers focus on national characterisics. They address the divide by taking a mixed methods approach, providing a comparative historical analysis of early democratization and a large N statistical analysis of more recent political events.

In conclusion, it is clear that sociological studies of democratization cover a wide range of issues from a number of different perspectives. Given the progress made in these various endeavors, now is a good time to work diligently to synthesize the disparate lines of research. The work of Ruschemeyer, Stephens, and Stephens as well as that of Kurzman and Leahey provides good models for this future synthetic research.

As with any complex social or political concept, “democracy” is not an easy thing to pin down. Within the literature focused on the study of democracy, a number of different definitions have been offered. Bollen (1979) notes that previous research on political democracy involves two different dimensions: 1) popular sovereignty and 2) political liberties.

Popular sovereignty addresses the structure of the political apparatus. In political democracy, elites must be accountable to non-elites, most commonly through elections, and the system must have wide franchise, equal weighting of votes, and fair electoral processes. Hewitt (1977) offers a definition of democracy focused entirely on popular sovereignty. He notes three aspects of democracy: 1) elected chief executive, 2) universal manhood sufferage, and 3) “fair” elections as represented by a secret ballot. Note that these three do not include any mention of political liberties, only the structural and institutional aspects of the poltical apparatus. Ruschemeyer, Stephens, and Stephens (1992) also note the importance of state responsibility to an elected legislature, in the form of a parliament with a prime minister or a congress with directly elected executive.

Political liberties refers to the specific rights of individual citizens within a political system. For political democracies this usually means rights to free speech, a free press, and the right to organize against any officeholder or policies. Gerhardt Lenski (1966) offers a definition that addresses both popular sovereignty and political liberties, also with three main aspects: 1) universal adult sufferage, 2) the right of political opposition, and 3) the right of disadvantaged groups to organize on their own behalf.

“It is completely ridiculous to attribute to today’s advanced capitalism an elective affinity with ‘democracy’ not to mention ‘freedom’ (in any meaning of the word).” – Max Weber, 1906

I successfully defended my MA thesis yesterday! Four years of grad school in two different departments and I finally have a degree to show for it.

By the way, the title of the thesis is “Sorting out the relationship between education and the welfare state: 16 OECD countries, 1960-1995”. It’ll need some reframing and a bit more analysis to get ready for publication but my committee seems very positive about my chances.