The Bradlow Report — August 27, 2021
27 August 2021
Volume 2, Issue 3
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I’m gearing up for a busy semester, teaching two undergraduate courses. They are covering big topics — “Sociology of Development” and “Sociology of Poverty” — so it’s basically impossible to do anything that could reasonably considered exhaustive. As always with syllabus construction, there is lot of idiosyncratic picking and choosing of things that interest me (or, in a few cases, interest my teaching assistants) with a bias towards relatively new publications, especially in my course on Poverty. I’d love to hear what you think and your suggestions of other readings you think are interesting for either/both topics. And maybe there’s something on these lists that will interest you too!
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SOCIOLOGY OF DEVELOPMENT
Course description
“Development” is not only a socioeconomic trajectory but also a category of conflicts. Many groupings and actors try to access the returns to “growth,” often by struggling to determine the basic logic by which growth occurs. So what are the terms of struggle over this logic? Why do some groups flourish while others suffer? We begin by understanding why some countries are poor and others are rich, with a particularly focus on the political and economic processes of industrialization. We then focus on the different institutional scales that matter for these processes, with emphasis on national states, global institutions, and transnational supply chains. Finally, we consider the actors on historical shifts in the past few decades that have changed the sociology of development: new types of social movements, the nature of globalization — often described as “neoliberalism — and the role individuals like bureaucrats, planners, and other forms of development practitioners.
Key themes
This course will cover the following themes: early and late industrialization; imperialism and “underdevelopment”; labor and movements “from below”; democracy and the “human capabilities” approach to development; urbanization; social movements; the state; globalization and neoliberalism.
While these themes roughly correspond to specific weeks of reading in the course, there is a larger set of narratives that we develop throughout the semester. The course is organized around three primary modes of thinking about development:
— industrialization / finance
— the state / empire
— the anthropocene
These are three narratives that can and have been used to define “development,” both as a normatively desirable trajectory as well as a more critical category. Our task in this course is to see how each of these narratives enables different theoretical and policy-oriented approaches to understanding development today.
Week 1: Introduction
September 1
Cole, Teju. 2012. “The White Savior Industrial Complex.” The Atlantic. March 21. https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/03/the-white-savior-industrial-complex/254843/
Wainaina, Binyavanga. 2005. “How To Write About Africa.” Granta 92. https://granta.com/how-to-write-about-africa/
Week 2: Development theories, I
September 8
Lewis, Simon L. and Mark A. Maslin. The Human Planet: How We Created The Anthropocene. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. (selections)
Marx, Karl. Capital vol. 1; sections on Primitive Accumulation and Alienated Labor.
Week 3: Development theories, II
September 13
Chang, Ha-Joon. 2002. Kicking away the ladder: development strategy in historical perspective. London: Anthem. (selections)
Cardoso, Fernando Henrique. 1972. “Dependency and Development in Latin America,” New Left Review 74: 83-95.
Frank, Andre Gunder. 1972. “The Development of Underdevelopment.” Pp. 3-18 in Dependence and Underdevelopment, ed. By James Crockroft, A. Frank, and Dale Johnson. Garden City, NY: Anchor Books.
September 15
Sen, Amartya. 1999. Development as Freedom. New York, NY: Anthem. (selections)
Week 4: Industrialization
September 20
Gerschenkron, Alexander. 1962. “Economic Backwardness in Historical Perspective” in Economic Backwardness in Historical Perspective. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Lewis, Arthur. 1959. “Economic Development with Unlimited Supplies of Labor,” Manchester School. 22 (2): 139-91.
September 22
Amsden, Alice. 1989. Asia’s Next Giant and Late Industrialization. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. (selections)
Chorev, Nitsan. 2020. “Introduction.” in Give and Take: Developmental Foreign Aid and the Pharmaceutical Industry in East Africa. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Week 5: Urbanization
September 27
Davis, Mike. 2004. “Planet of Slums,” New Left Review 26:5-34.
Sassen, Saskia. 1991. “The Producer Services” in The Global City: New York, London, Tokyo. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
September 29
Roberts, Bryan, and Alejandro Portes. 2005. “The Free Market City: Latin American Urbanization in the Years of the Neoliberal Experiment,” Studies in Comparative National Development. 40(1):43-82.
Brenner, Neil, and Nik Theodore. 2002. “Cities and the Geographies of ‘Actually Existing Neoliberalism’” Antipode 34: 349-379.
Week 6: Imperialism and Inequality
October 4
Fanon, Frantz. 1961. The Wretched of the Earth. (selections)
Wallerstein, Immanuel. 1974. “The Rise and Future Demise of the World Capitalist System: Concepts for Comparative Analysis.” Comparative Studies in Society and History 16(4): 387-415
October 6
Arrighi, G., Silver, B. J., & Brewer, B. D. 2003. Industrial convergence, globalization, and the persistence of the North-South divide. Studies in Comparative International Development, 38(1), 3-31.
Hung, Ho-fung. 2021. “Recent trends in global economic inequality.” Annual Review of Sociology. 47:349-367.
Week 7: The State, I
October 13
Evans, Peter. 1995. Embedded Autonomy: States and Industrial Transformation. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. (selections)
Chibber, Vivek. 2002. “Bureaucratic Rationality and the Developmental State.” American Journal of Sociology. 107(4):951-989.
Week 8: The State, II
October 18
McDonnell, Erin Metz. 2020. Patchwork Leviathan: Pockets of Bureaucratic Effectiveness in Developing States. Princeton University Press. (selections)
October 20
Whyte, Martin K. 2009. “Paradoxes of China’s Economic Boom,” Annual Review of Sociology, 35: 371-92.
Week 9: Globalization, I
October 25
Rodrik, Dani. 2011. The Globalization Paradox: Democracy and the Future of the World Economy. New York, NY: W.W. Norton (selections)
Klein, Matthew C. and Michael Pettis. 2020. Trade Wars are Class Wars: How Rising Inequality Distorts the Global Economy and Threatens International Peace. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. (selections)
October 27
Fourcade-Gourinchas, Marion, and Sarah Babb. 2002. “The Rebirth of the Liberal Creed: Paths to Neoliberalism in Four Countries.” American Journal of Sociology. 108(3):533-579.
Week 10: Globalization, II
November 1
Wilks, Mary-Collier. 2018. “Activist, Entrepreneur, or Caretaker? Negotiating Varieties of Women in Development.” Gender & Society. 33(2):224-250.
Kentikelenis, Alexander E. and Sarah Babb. 2019. “The Making of Neoliberal Globalization: Norm Substitution and the Politics of Clandestine Institutional Change.” American Journal of Sociology. 124(6):1720-1766.
November 3
Milanovic, Branko. 2019. “Introduction” in Capitalism, Alone: The Future of the System That Rules the World. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Week 11: Finance
November 8
Tooze, Adam. 2018. Crashed: How a Decade of Financial Crises Changed The World. Penguin random House. (selections)
November 10
Gabor, Daniela. 2021. “The Wall Street Consensus.” Development and Change. 52(3): 429-459.
Week 12: Democracy
November 15
Heller, Patrick. 2019. “Divergent trajectories of democratic deepening: comparing Brazil, India, and South Africa.” Theory and Society 48:351-382.
Kadivar, Ali, Adaner Usmani, and Benjamin H. Bradlow. 2020. “The Long March: Deep Democracy in Cross-National Perspective.” Social Forces. 98(3): 1311-1338.
November 17
Avritzer, Leonardo. 2002. Democracy and the Public Space in Latin America. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. (selections)
Week 13: Movements
November 22
Bayat, Asef. 2000. “From ‘Dangerous Classes’ to Quiet Rebels’: Politics of the Urban Subaltern in the Global South.” International Sociology. 15(3): 533-557.
Rosaldo, Manuel. 2016. “Revolution in the Garbage Dump: The Political and Economic Foundations of the Colombian Recycler Movement, 1986-2011.” Social Problems. 63(3):351-372.
Appadurai, Arjun. 2001. “Deep democracy: urban governmentality and the horizon of politics.” Environment and Urbanization. 13(2): 23-43.
Optional:
Bradlow, Benjamin H. 2021. “Embeddedness and cohesion: regimes of urban public goods distribution.” Theory and Society. OnlineFirst. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11186-021-09456-y
Week 14: Climate change
November 29
Riofrancos, Thea. 2020. Resource Radicals: From Petro-Nationalism to Post-Extractivism in Ecuador. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. (selections)
Driscoll, Daniel. 2021. “Populism and Carbon Tax Justice: The Yellow Vest Movement in France.” Social Problems. OnlineFirst. https://doi.org/10.1093/socpro/spab036
December 1
Aranoff, Kate, Alyssa Battistoni, Daniel Aldana Cohen, and Thea Riofrancos. 2019. A Planet to Win: Why We Need A Green New Deal. London, UK: Verso Books. (selections)
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SOCIOLOGY OF POVERTY
Course Description
Both the reproduction and reduction of poverty are the focus of this course. We ask questions like: Why does poverty exist? Who makes it? Which people are most affected? Which institutions govern it? How does it change? The course begins with readings that help us to understand why poverty is so important and how it is measured. It then proceeds to consider class, race, and gender, as key social, economic, and cultural dimensions in which to understand the production and reproduction of inequality. We ask which organizations and institutions are most relevant to each of these dimensions of poverty. Beyond the United States, we examine case studies across the globe, to gain comparative perspective on how poverty is produced in different parts of the world. Finally, we consider why space and scale matters for understanding the sociology of poverty, with a focus on how cities, national economies, and global forces interact.
Week 1
September 1
Introduction
Rank, Mark. R. 2021. “Five myths about poverty.” The Washington Post. March 26. https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/five-myths/5-myths-about-poverty/2021/03/25/bf75d5f4-8cfe-11eb-a6bd-0eb91c03305a_story.html
Week 2: The changing face of poverty in the US
September 8
Macgillis, Alec. 2021. Fulfillment: Winning and losing in One-Click America. New York, NY: Farrar, Strauss & Giroux. (selections)
Week 3: Urban poverty
September 13
Davis, Mike. 2004. “Planet of Slums.” New Left Review. 26(March/April):5-34.
Appadurai, Arjun. 2001. “Deep democracy: urban governmentality and the horizon of politics.” Environment and Urbanization. 13(2): 23-43.
September 15
Wilson, William Julius. 2008. “The Political and Economic Forces Shaping Concentrated Poverty.” Political Science Quarterly. 123(4):555-571.
Desmond, Matthew. 2016. Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City. New York, NY: Crown Books. (selections)
Week 4: Labor
September 20
Vanheuvelen, Tom, and David Brady. 2021. “Labor Unions and American Poverty. ILR Review. OnlineFirst. 1-27.
September 22
Agarwala, Rina. 2008. “Reshaping the Social Contract: Emerging Relations Between the State and Informal Labor in India.” Theory and Society. 37(4):375-408.
Rosaldo, Manuel. 2016. “Revolution in the Garbage Dump: The Political and Economic Foundations of the Colombian Recycler Movement, 1986-2011.” Social Problems. 63(3):351-372.
Week 5: Housing
September 27
Robinson III, John. 2021. “Making Markets on the Margins: Housing Finance Agencies and the Racial Politics of Credit Expansion.” American Journal of Sociology. 125(4):974-1029.
Taylor, Keeanga-Yamahtta. 2019. Race For Profit: How Banks and the Real Estate Industry Undermined Black Homeownership. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press. (selections)
September 29
Auerbach, Adam. Demanding Development: The politics of public goods provision in India’s urban slums.Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. (selections)
Week 6: Crime
October 4
Bell, Monica. 2021. “Located Institutions: Neighborhood Frames, Residential Preferences, and the Case of Policing.” American Journal of Sociology. 125(4): 917-973.
Macgillis, Alec. 2021. “What Philadelphia Reveals About America’s Homicide Surge.” ProPublica.https://www.propublica.org/article/philadelphia-homicide-surge
October 6
Davis, Diane. 2020. “City, Nation, Network: Shifting Territorialities of Sovereignty and Urban Violence in Latin America.” Urban Planning. 5(3):206-216.
Moncada, Eduardo. 2016. Cities, Business and the Politics of Urban Violence in Latin America. Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press. (selections)
Week 7: Gender
October 13
Gornick, Janet C., and Natascia Boeri. 2016. “Gender and Poverty” in David Brady and Linda M Burton, eds. The Oxford Handbook of the Social Science of Poverty. 1-26.
Week 8: Welfare and the State
October 18
Michener, Jamila. 2018. Fragmented Democracy: Medicaid, Federalism, and Unequal Politics. New York: Cambridge University Press. (selections)
October 20
Auyero, Javier. 2012. Patients of the State: The Politics of Waiting in Argentina. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. (selections)
Week 9: Poverty in Historical Perspective
October 25
Fox, Cybelle. 2012. Three Worlds of Relief: Race, Immigration, and the American Welfare State from the Progressive Era to the New Deal. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. (selections)
October 27
Savage, Mike. 2021. The Return of Inequality: Social Change and the Weight of History. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. (selections)
Week 10: Inequality
November 1
Piketty, Thomas. 2014. Capital in the Twenty-First Century. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. (selections)
Hung, Ho-fung. 2021. “Recent Trends in Global Economic Inequality.” Annual Review of Sociology. 47:349-367.
November 3
Pfeffer, Fabian, and Nora Watkus. 2021. “The Wealth Inequality of Nations.” American Sociological Review. 86(4):567-602.
Manduca, Robert. 2019. “The Contribution of National Income Inequality to Regional Economic Divergence.” Social Forces. 98(2): 622-648.
Week 11: Technology and education
November 8
Benanav, Aaron. 2020. Automation and the Future of Work. London, UK: Verso Books. (selections)
November 10
Jack, Anthony Abraham. 2019. The Privileged Poor: How Elite Colleges Are Failing Disadvantaged Students. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. (selections)
Week 12: Case study — American economic development
November 15
Prasad, Monica. 2012. The Land of Too Much: American Abundance and the Paradox of Poverty. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. (selections).
November 17
Quinn, Sarah. 2019. American Bonds: How Credit Markets Shaped a Nation. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. (selections)
Week 13: Climate change, I
November 22
Jerolmack, Colin. 2021. Up to Heaven and Down to Hell:Fracking, Freedom, and Community in an American Town. Princeton, NJ:Princeton University Press. (selections)
Week 14: Climate change, II
November 29
Millington, Nate, and Suraya Scheba. 2020. “Day Zero and The Infrastructures of Climate Change: Water Governance, Inequality, and Infrastructural Politics in Cape Town’s Water Crisis.” International Journal of Urban & Regional Research. 45(1): 116-132.
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