Pat Lauderdale

Situated Identities and Social Influence

Situated identity theory postulates a process for establishing the definition of a situation and its normative structure. The normative structure is hypothesized to predict precisely the distribution of anticipated responses. A simulation study of a well-known social influence experiment illustrates the paradigm for investigating these ideas, and the results are supportive. The generality and power of situated identity theory encourage an interface between the sociological ideas of symbolic interactionists and the psychological tradition of experimentation in the

External threat and the definition of deviance

Research ( Lauderdale , 1976; Schachter , 1951) suggests that an external threat to a group can lead to the rejection of deviant members of the group and alteration of group communication patterns and solidarity. This study sought to extend those findings, integrate them with concepts from Simmel s (1917/1955) work on group conflict, and link them to key issues in the societal reaction approach to deviant behavior. We examined the effect of variation in level of threat, the relationship between deviant status and nonconformity to the central task norm, the role of high-status actors in deviance designation, the relationship between rejection and negative definition of the deviant, and the effects of rejection and negative definition on group solidarity. Hypotheses were tested in an experimental design involving three conditions (strong threat, weak threat, and no threat). The results suggest that (a) the level of threat is directly related to the extent of rejection and negative definition, (b) nonconformity to the central task norm is not systematically related to deviant status, (c) high-status actors are more involved in the rejection of the deviant, (d) sociometric rejection of the deviant is accompanied by negative definition in the strong-threat condition, and (e) the level of group solidarity is related to the extent of rejection and negative definition. Implications of these findings are discussed relative to the societal reaction approach to deviant behavior and analogous processes in other social groups.

Indigenous Peoples in the Face of Globalization

Indigenous peoples throughout the world are experiencing the full presence of injustice in the form of duplicitous development schemes, poverty, landlessness, dispossession, political and religious oppression, and genocide. They resist the injustices, yet resistance is only part of the struggle. Protests, social movements, and organizations such as the Indigenous Environmental Network engage in similar struggles against injustice and for nature. A crucial feature of indigenous peoples is their substantive reliance on the interrelatedness of nature. Todays call for, and acceptance of, global diversity is limited when it is built within the constraints of modern nation—states, which often view diversity as deviance if it does not conform to modern norms and definitions. Traditional indigenous knowledge can provide some inclusive approaches to current environment problems and critical ideas on how to improve our questions to create more equitable, less oppressive structures from which to approach the numerous crises.

Terrorism as Deviance or Social Control Suggestions for Future Research

The political character of terrorism is most clearly manifested when new categories of terrorism are being created or old categories are being transformed. Historical and comparative analyses of terrorism demonstrate its diverse, complex nature. This complexity creates numerous problems for researchers who attempt to examine terrorism as an analytical construct rather than a polemical construct. We suggest that because the state exists in a symbiotic relationship to terrorism, responses to terrorism by any state, particularly at the definitional stage, appear to maintain a fairly consistent pattern. It is important to utilize a political process approach to the definition of terrorism to produce systematic and precise explanations. For future research, we suggest the importance of examining the term’s latent structure of politicality, the role of hegemony, the low participation of one of the largest oppressed groups in the world and the art of statecraft.

A Plea for World System History

I plead for writing a world history that is as comprehensive and systematic as possible. It should offer a more humanocentric alternative to Western Eurocentrism. This history should seek maximum “unity in the diversity” of human experience and development. Therefore, we should not only make comparisons over time and space, we should also seek more connections among distant and seemingly disparate events at each historical point in time. Moreover, we should systematically seek to systematize both the comparisons and the connections. Thus, our historical inquiry may well find more than comparative commonalities among parts of the whole. We may also discover common features and relations among historical events, which are derived from their common participation in a whole. For the long period before 1492, this “whole” world history should concentrate on the unity and historical interrelations within the Asio-Afro-European “old” “eastern” hemispheric ecumene, stretching from the Pacific to the Atlantic—before Columbus (again) crossed the latter.

An Indigenous View of the New World Order: Somalia and the Ostensible Rule of Law

In the New World Order, Somalia is characterized as a deviant society, especially by Western countries. This characterization is magnified by focusing upon armed conflicts among different groups in Somalia and is marked by a neglect of global forces and history, including indigenous perspectives. The benchmark for judging the nature and scale of such crises is the condition of statelessness, measured by the absence of a central political authority and the modern claim of an ostensible universal rule of law. However, the attempted replacement of sacred places and kinship identities of indigenous peoples with the identity of the New World Order that emphasizes self-interested and self-maximizing individuals, i.e., Western individualism, has led not to a melting pot, but a boiling pot. The Somalis, as with many other ethnic and indigenous groups throughout the world, do not find a meaningful sense of life by being defined as modern individuals via the state. Any viable alternative to disentangling Somalia and similar indigenous peoples from current and future crises might benefit from recognition and accomodation to their traditional ways of life and systems of governance. Moreover, future work should include explications of the impact of global hegemony, the increasing role of the United Nations in advancing foreign policy, military interventions under the facade of peacekeeping, and the acceleration of a market economy ostensibly directed by global forces such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.

State authority and national welfare programs in the world system context

Recent research on national welfare programs focuses upon the organizational capacity of nation-states, but it does not directly address the issue of why state bureaucracies institute such programs. We develop an institutionalist theory that views the rationalization of authority and concomitant national welfare programs as products of a world culture. By examining the interplay between national characteristics and world-system context, we are able to interpret worldwide adoption of welfare programs as well as the difference between formal programs and their implementation. We provide preliminary tests of hypotheses predicting worldwide patterns of welfare expenditures. We find that a states incorporation in intergovernmental organizations and its level of investment dependence positively affect social security expenditures in 1965 and 1970. We conclude by briefly discussing implications of our research for further work on the relationship between state structures and national programs.

The Great Circle of Justice: North American Indigenous Justice and Contemporary Restoration Programs

Based upon many North American traditional indigenous ideas, we suggest that restoring justice requires a more communal approach. Preventative, as well as restorative, mechanisms and practices need to be restored throughout a community for there to be healing and justice. We focus upon an approach that can provide communities with social structures based on traditional teachings rather than imposed colonial ideas and structures. We hope that some of the indigenous ideas in this paper will inspire people to take a critical look at their communities, the absence or misuse of traditional teachings, and the disharmony that imposed structures create.

Collective Indigenous Rights and Global Social Movements in the Face of Global Development

Most traditional indigenous peoples continue to value collective rights and mutual obligations in contrast to the growing efforts of various global and national organizations to promote individual human rights and ostensible economic development projects. Under the guise of ‘progress’ and ‘development’, global corporations impose economic profit over sacred places, precious time and human dignity. Evidence from traditional indigenous people suggests that acceptance of human rights and global diversity is indeed limited when it is built within the constraints of current law and narrow meanings of diversity, which often view development as deviance if it does not conform to modern ideas and definitions via neoliberalism. Neoliberalism is examined as extending far beyond the West, as a major force in the world system, which contains an ongoing, extensive, relatively complex social division of labor with an integrated set of production processes that are intimately related to the resources and lives of indigenous peoples throughout the world.

Levels of Analysis, Theoretical Orientations and Degrees of Abstraction

This article suggests that what often appear to be fundamental conflicts of opinion among sociologists regarding appropriate levels of analysis and theoretical orientations are much less problematic when considered in terms of differences in degrees of abstraction. The critical factor in the compatibility of various levels of analysis and theoretical orientation is the use of degrees of abstraction by the researcher. The impact of this issue on sociological knowledge and some of its applications are examined.