Category: Announcements

New Publication: “The Loyalty Trap: Conflicting Loyalties of Civil Servants Under Increasing Autocracy” by Jaime Lee Kucinskas

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The Loyalty Trap: Conflicting Loyalties of Civil Servants Under Increasing Autocracy
by Jaime Lee Kucinskas 


Read an interview with the author about the research behind the book

Columbia University Press

Donald J. Trump took office threatening to run roughshod over democratic institutions, railing against the federal bureaucracy, and calling for dismantling the administrative state. How do civil servants respond to a presidential turn toward authoritarianism? In what ways—if any—can they restrain or counter leaders who defy the norms of liberal democratic governance?

The Loyalty Trap explores how civil servants navigated competing pressures and duties amid the chaos of the Trump administration, drawing on in-depth interviews with senior officials in the most contested agencies over the course of a tumultuous term. Jaime Lee Kucinskas argues that the professional culture and ethical obligations of the civil service stabilize the state in normal times but insufficiently prepare bureaucrats to cope with a president like Trump. Instead, federal employees became ensnared in intractable ethical traps, caught between their commitment to nonpartisan public service and the expectation of compliance with political directives. Kucinskas shares their quandaries, recounting attempts to preserve the integrity of government agencies, covert resistance, and a few bold acts of moral courage in the face of organizational decline and politicized leadership. A nuanced sociological account of the lessons of the Trump administration for democratic governance, The Loyalty Trap offers a timely and bracing portrait of the fragility of the American state.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Jaime Lee Kucinskas is an Associate Professor of Sociology at Hamilton College. She is the author of The Mindful Elite: Mobilizing from the Inside Out (2019) and a co-editor of Situating Spirituality: Context, Practice, and Power (2022).

New Publication: “Gone Too Long or Back Too Soon? Perceptions of Paid Parental Leave‐Taking and Variations by Gender and Family Structure” by Richard J. Petts, Reilly Kincaid, Trenton D. Mize & Gayle Kaufman

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Petts, Richard J., Reilly Kincaid, Trenton D. Mize, and Gayle Kaufman. 2025. “Gone Too Long or Back Too Soon? Perceptions of Paid Parental Leave‐Taking and Variations by Gender and Family Structure.” Journal of Marriage and Family.

Abstract

Background: Previous research largely focuses on the consequences associated with leave-taking, particularly highlighting workplace penalties associated with leave-taking. There has also been limited attention to workers with diverse family forms. We seek to better understand the culture surrounding paid parental leave in the U.S. by focusing on evaluations of leave-taking itself and whether such evaluations may reduce or exacerbate inequalities by gender, sexual orientation, and marital status.

Method: We use data on 2964 U.S. respondents from a survey experiment in which employer-offered paid parental leave-taking, parent gender, sexual orientation, and marital status were randomly assigned. We use OLS models to assess perceptions of paid leave-taking and the causal effects of parent gender, sexual orientation, and marital status on these perceptions.

Results: We find that respondents view 11 weeks of paid parental leave as the right amount of leave, on average. We also find variations in perceptions of leave-taking by parent gender, sexual orientation, and marital status; mothers with husbands and single parents are viewed more favorably for taking longer leaves than fathers with wives, mothers with wives, and fathers with husbands.

Conclusion: There is increasing support for paid leave within the U.S., but support for parents’ leave-taking largely reflects gendered stereotypes and may reinforce broader patterns of gender inequality.

New Publication: “From Accountability to Algorithms: Interorganizational Learning and the Transformation of Quantification in Education” by Jose Eos Trinidad

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Trinidad, Jose Eos. 2025. “From Accountability to Algorithms: Interorganizational Learning and the Transformation of Quantification in Education.” Qualitative Sociology (online first).

Abstract: While studies often explore the intended and unintended consequences of technologies, few have theorized how and why they change. One crucial transformation in quantitative technologies is the shift from evaluative accountability to predictive algorithms, such as in schools that use dropout prediction systems. Using the case of ninth-grade early warning indicators, I argue that the transformation of quantification resulted from interorganizational learning, or the acquisition of new knowledge through the interaction of different organizations. In particular, I show how technology changes gradually from organization-level evaluation to individual-based prediction to systems-focused improvement. Pivotal to such changes were new forms of knowledge that emerged (1) as “instructing” organizations directed changes and “receiving” organizations resisted them; (2) as organizations in various fields reciprocally collaborated; and (3) as similar organizations practiced networked learning. Although studies have traditionally highlighted the “discipline” of technologies, I illustrate the power of organizational agents to resist, adapt, and change them—with implications for the study of quantification, work, institutional change, and education.

New Publication: “Subtle Webs: How Local Organizations Shape US Education” by Jose Eos Trinidad

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Trinidad, Jose Eos. 2025. Subtle Webs: How Local Organizations Shape US Education. Oxford University Press.

(30% off with code: AUFLY30)

Abstract: In Subtle Webs, Jose Eos Trinidad reveals how organizations outside schools have created an invisible infrastructure not only to affect local school districts but also to shape US education. He illustrates this by providing a behind-the-scenes look at how local organizations in Chicago, Philadelphia, and New York City have transformed data and worked with high schools to address the problem of students dropping out. The book argues that changes in a decentralized system happen less through top-down policy mandates or bottom-up social movements and more through “outside-in” initiatives of networked organizations spread across various local systems. By detailing change across multiple levels and across multiple locations, Trinidad uncovers new ways to think about educational transformation, policy reform, and organizational change.

Announcement: Virtual Texas Book Salon for Kim Pernell’s “Visions of Financial Order”; Join via Zoom on April 16.

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Wednesday, April 16, 1-2pm Central

Zoom: https://utexas.zoom.us/j/96255280544

The Sociology Department at the University of Texas at Austin invites you to attend a virtual book salon to celebrate the publication of Professor Kim Pernell’s Visions of Financial Order (Princeton, 2024).  Discussants include Marion Fourcade, Greta Krippner, and Marc Schneiberg

“In Visions of Financial Order, Kim Pernell traces the emergence of important national differences in financial regulation in the decades leading up to the crisis. To do so, she examines the cases of the United States, Canada, and Spain—three countries that subscribed to the same transnational regulatory framework (the Basel Capital Accord) but developed different regulatory policies in areas that would directly affect bank performance during the financial crisis. … Pernell argues that the different worldviews of national banking regulators reflected cultural beliefs about the ideal way to organize economic life to promote order, stability, and prosperity. Visions of Financial Order offers an innovative perspective on the persistent differences between regulatory institutions and the ways they shaped the unfolding of the 2008 global financial crisis.” – Princeton University Press

New Publication: “Does Wanting Diversity Mean Racial Diversity? How Race and Gender Influence Support for Corporate DEI Policies.” by Adia Harvey Wingfield & Antonia Roach

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Wingfield, Adia Harvey and Antonia Roach. (2025.) “Does Wanting Diversity Mean Racial Diversity? How Race and Gender Influence Support for Corporate DEI Policies.”Sociology of Race and Ethnicity. Online first.

Abstract

In the wake of recent social movements, cultural changes, and emerging organizational norms, decisive majorities of White workers now agree with the premise that companies should strive for workplace diversity. That support rarely translates into an interest in race-conscious programming, yielding what sociologists describe as a “principle/policy gap.” Yet most of the research identifying principle/policy gaps relies on predominantly White samples. In this article, we draw from a sample of 85 Black, White, Asian American, and Latinx workers in the financial sector to examine whether the principle/policy gap is present among both White workers and those of color. Our interviews reveal mixed evidence of principle/policy gaps when it comes to race-based diversity programming. We also find that respondents’ preferences (or lack thereof) for race-conscious diversity are informed by intersections of race and gender, rendering race-based programming more attractive for some groups and gender-based initiatives more appealing for others.

Announcement: Socio-Economic Review Cafe  — Cryptomarkets & Cryptocurrencies: Trust, Value, and Market Coordination on April 1st, 2025

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Socio-Economic Review Cafe  — Cryptomarkets & Cryptocurrencies: Trust, Value, and Market Coordination

The event will take place on Tuesday, April 1st, 2025:
7:30 AM PST (Vancouver)
9:30 AM CST (Central Time, US & Canada)
Register at this link: https://ucsd.zoom.us/meeting/register/x03uBBsnQlWh5HmhvpXf5g 

Join us for an engaging SER Café event featuring a discussion with SER authors Ana Macanovic, Wojtek Przepiorka, Kobe De Keere, Martin Trans, and Stefania Milan.

Macanovic and Przepiorka’s paper, “The Moral Embeddedness of Cryptomarkets: Text Mining Feedback on Economic Exchanges on the Dark Web”, explores how cooperation is sustained in illegal cryptomarkets, online marketplaces where users trade illicit goods under conditions of anonymity. They show that while reputation systems structure exchange, their effectiveness depends on traders’ willingness to leave feedback, shifting moral norms from facilitating trust at the transaction stage to sustaining reputation as a collective good. De Keere, Trans, and Milan’s paper, “The Value of Crypto? Sociotechnical Imaginaries on Cryptocurrency in YouTube Content”, examines how cryptocurrencies are framed and valued in public discourse. Using a large-scale analysis of YouTube videos, they identify distinct imaginaries that shape how cryptocurrency’s value is constructed, contested, and legitimized.

Together, these papers offer insights into how decentralized markets function without traditional regulatory oversight, examining the mechanisms that sustain trust, reputation, and exchange, as well as the narratives that shape perceptions of value and legitimacy in digital economies.

As with all SER Café events, this session will prioritize dynamic conversation with the authors over lengthy presentations. Please come ready to engage, ask questions, and discuss these critical contributions to the field!

***

Articles:

“The Moral Embeddedness of Cryptomarkets: Text Mining Feedback on Economic Exchanges on the Dark Web” By Ana Macanovic and Wojtek Przepiorka. https://doi.org/10.1093/ser/mwad069

“The Value of Crypto? Sociotechnical Imaginaries on Cryptocurrency in YouTube Content” By Kobe De Keere, Martin Trans, and Stefania Milan.  https://doi.org/10.1093/ser/mwae081

Announcement: Ethnography Summer School at The University of Texas at Austin; August 18-21, 2025

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Ethnography Summer School

The University of Texas at Austin
August 18-21, 2025

The UT Austin Urban Ethnography Lab offers a four-day intensive course on ethnographic methods. The course provides an overview of ethnography as a “way of seeing” the social world and as a “way of doing” social scientific research. Participants will learn about different approaches to ethnography and the place(s) of theory in ethnographic research. They will also examine the need for warrants and puzzles in ethnography, the various ways of reconstructing subjects’ points of view, the role of reflexivity, and the ethical dilemmas present in hands-on research. Invited speakers from the Sociology Department will offer lectures on specific topics. Participants will have the opportunity to discuss their own projects with attending faculty and will be offered a workshop on qualitative data analysis software, and a presentation on human subjects protection protocols.

For more information: https://liberalarts.utexas.edu/sociology/research/urban-ethnography-lab/ethnography-summer-school.html

Call for Papers, Special Issue of ILR Review: Employee Ownership in the Contemporary Economy: Taking the High, Middle, or Low Road for Workers, Firms, and Society?

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Call for Papers, Special Issue of ILR Review: Employee Ownership in the Contemporary Economy: Taking the High, Middle, or Low Road for Workers, Firms, and Society?

Submission Deadline: September 1, 2025

Special Issue Co-editors:
Edward J. Carberry (University of Massachusetts Boston), edward.carberry@umb.edu
Douglas Kruse (Rutgers University), dkruse@rutgers.edu
Andrew Pendleton (University of New South Wales), a.pendleton@unsw.edu.au

We invite submissions that deepen our understanding of the impacts of employee ownership on workers; job quality; management–labor relations; organizational structures and cultures; firm performance; and broader economic, social, and political outcomes. We welcome papers from all disciplines that use any methodological approach, focusing on any form of employee ownership within any context.

See the full Call for Papers here: http://shorturl.at/0Zjsn

Special Issue Call for Papers OOW

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Special Issue: The Precarity of Work and Life: How Insecurity Equalizes and Stratifies People’s Experiences

Submission deadline: Tuesday, September 2, 2025

In 2023, an opinion piece in the New York Times posed a question: “why does everyone feel so insecure?” As the article delineates, “insecurity” is frequently described as the defining characteristic of our contemporary lives. However, despite the wide use of this concept in public debates as well as in the social sciences, socio-economic insecurity — and, to a lesser extent, its close cousin, “precarity” — have been subjected to very little theoretical conceptualization and/or dedicated research that seeks to systematize and concretize insecurity as a field of study. Our special issue aims to resolve this absence, with a particular focus on how socio-economic insecurity relates to the maintenance, reconfiguration, or legitimation of inequality.

Insecurity sets up an important puzzle for the social sciences: on the one hand, insecurity is felt by “everybody,” as Astra Taylor suggests in the New York Times, or at least a large and growing portion of the population. On the other, insecurity and precarity are the products of an economy that is increasingly unequal. In order to solve this puzzle, sociologists need to further investigate how experiences of insecurity vary and the ways in which economic and cultural factors shape different varieties of insecurity. We ask: Is everyone really experiencing insecurity? How is insecurity related to people’s structural conditions?

In order to address this puzzle, we welcome articles that address all aspects of socio-economic insecurity that go beyond orthodox economic framings and that can lead to empirical advancements, as well as theoretical developments, in how we understand insecurity vis-à-vis inequality. We invite submissions that use diverse methodological approaches, e.g. that explore subjective experiences of insecurity through in-depth qualitative or ethnographic research, that investigate generalizable or cross-national trends through quantitative data-based analyses, or that engage with mixed methodologies. We are particularly interested in sociological studies that address the following aspects of insecurity:

Topics for this call for papers include but are not restricted to:

·  Research on insecurity that moves beyond a limited conceptualization of insecurity and precarity as primarily related to employment to one that engages with the financial aspects of people’s instability, the relationship between employment and finances, as well as the unequal ways in how people negotiate socioeconomic uncertainty in their lives overall. What are the connections between work precarity and insecurity in livelihoods? How do the manifestations of insecurity differ nationally and globally in various spheres of individuals’ lives (e.g. housing, food consumption, debt and finance)? How is insecurity related to intersectional inequalities pertaining to class, gender, race/ethnicity and sexual identity?

·  Studies that employ an understanding of socio-economic insecurity that goes beyond a purely (macro)economic focus or the use of “objective” economic measures. We aim to deepen the focus on the subjective experiences of insecurity that are often linked to the decline in social status of previously secure social strata (e.g. the squeezed middle classes). What is the relationship between the objective and subjective insecurity experienced by individuals? What is the temporal construction of insecurity and how is present insecurity shaped by past experiences and projections/expectations of future conditions? How does insecurity contribute to redefining class positions and class boundaries? How do increases and decreases in insecurity influence social status threat or social status gains across the globe?

Guest Editors:
Dr. Lorenza Antonucci
University of Birmingham
United Kingdom

Dr. Elena Ayala-Hurtado
Princeton University
United States