Dan Clawson

Interlocks, PACs, and Corporate Conservatism

Two alternative corporate political strategies are identified for Political Action Committee (PAC) contributions to candidates in the 1980 congressional elections: (1) a pragmatic effort to promote a particular companys best interests and (2) an ideological effort to promote conservatism. With the use of multiple regression, this article examines three theoretical explanations of corporate political strategies. The expectations of corporate liberal theory are not confirmed. Rather, there is support for both state structure and interlock theories. It is argued that, at least in 1980, business political behavior was ideologically conservative, which business understood to represent classwide rational interests.

The Logic of Business Unity: Corporate Contributions to the 1980 Congressional Elections

Pluralists contend that the actual political power of business is much less than its potential power, because business is internally divided. An examination of the campaign contributions of corporate PACs in the 1980 Congressional elections shows that: (1) businesses didfollow differing political strategies, with marked differences in their relative commitments to pragmatism and ideology, (2) At the level of particular races, however, business was usually highly unified, (3) The degree of unity actually found is greater than that which would be expected given the differing corporate strategies, implying the possibility that inter-corporate communication is used to reduce direct and open political conflict.

Corporate Political Groupings: Does Ideology Unify Business Political Behavior?

Pluralists argue that corporations with different economic interests and market orientations are incapable of collective political strategy and actions, while class theorists argue that corporations have sufficient class interests to evolve a collective political class strategy. We examined this controversy using a variant of clique detection methods for business Political Action Committee (PAC) contributions to Congressional candidates in the 1980 election. One large group of corporations emerged based on shared conservative beliefs. No other groups nearly as large were detected. The findings were strong and robust for different levels of political similarity. The identified groups differed from each other economically in various ways, but these differences were not nearly as marked as the political differences. Overall, the evidence lends stronger support to the class rather than the pluralist perspective.

Class Advantage and the Gender Divide: Flexibility on the Job and at Home1

Using a survey, interviews, and observations, the authors examine inequality in temporal flexibility at home and at work. They focus on four occupations to show that class advantage is deployed in the service of gendered notions of temporal flexibility while class disadvantage makes it difficult to obtain such flexibility. The class advantage of female nurses and male doctors enables them to obtain flexibility in their work hours; they use that flexibility in gendered ways: nurses to prioritize family and physicians to prioritize careers. Female nursing assistants and male emergency medical technicians can obtain little employee-based flexibility and, as a result, have more difficulty meeting conventional gendered expectations. Advantaged occupations “do gender” in conventional ways while disadvantaged occupations “undo gender.” These processes operate through organizational rules and cultural schemas that sustain one another but may undermine the gender and class neutrality of family-friendly policies.

Class Struggle in Higher Education.

Public higher education has undergone a process similar to that in the national polity: a one-sided struggle by those with power to shape the institution to be more market driven, more focused on what will generate (non-state) revenues, more dominated by top administrators, and less concerned about the working class and people of color. This article examines these trends nationally with a focus on one case study, the University of Massachusetts Amherst, the states public higher education flagship university. First the article examines the concentration of power in fewer hands. Second it looks at the squeeze in the middle, the way cuts in state appropriations coincide with increases in tuition and fees. Third, it examines attacks on the working class and people of color through changing the rules on affirmative action, reducing support services for students of color and others, and shifting away from needs-based financial aid toward an increased reliance on so-called merit-based financial aid. Fourth, the article describes a vigorous attempt to contest these changes, which has won some victories and has certainly helped to raise awareness of the class issues involved in the transformation of public universities. Finally, the article assesses both the main trends and the efforts to contest those changes.

Required reading : sociology's most influential books

This text selects 17 of the most influential books in the area of sociology, written in the late 20th-century. It analyzes the character of the books and the extent of their influence, and includes essays on the most influential controversy itself.

Explaining Job Hours of Physicians, Nurses, EMTs, and Nursing Assistants: Gender, Class, Jobs, and Families

To explain job hours in four health-care occupations – physicians, nurses, emergency medical technicians (EMTs), and nursing assistants, this paper focuses on three sets of factors: class and gender, job conditions and commitment, and family situation. We find that class counts, whether understood in terms of occupation or earnings. Gender shapes hours, but more as a characteristic of occupations than of individuals. Job conditions that explain hours vary, depending on occupational grouping. Families also matter – children, but not spouses, shape the work hours of nurses; spouses, but not children, shape work hours for the other three occupations.

Caring for Our Young: Child Care in Europe and the United States

Parents in the United States struggle to find and afford even mediocre private child care. Most European countries provide quality publicly-funded programs. Should child care emphasize education or play? Parents or peers? Organized care or parental involvement?

Corporate Pacs for a New Pax Americana

While there is a finite number of labor unions, most of them already organized, the universe of possible business PACs is huge and relatively undeveloped. The 1,251 corporate units in existence in July 1981 represented only 26 percent of the 4,788 U.S. companies with reported assets of

It's an Academic Question: Why Progressive Intellectuals Should Not Stay Out of Internal Union Battles

100 million or more and a paltry 4 percent of the 29,383 companies with reported assets of