Val Burris

Interlocking Directorates and Political Cohesion among Corporate Elites1

This study uses data on campaign contributions and methods of network analysis to investigate the significance of interlocking directorates for political cohesion among corporate elites. Using quadratic assignment procedure (QAP) regression, the author shows that social ties formed through common membership on corporate boards contribute more to similarity of political behavior than commonalities of economic interests, such as those associated with operating in the same industry or the same geographic region. Moreover, the politically cohesive effects of directorship ties remain robust even as one moves several links down the chain of indirect ties that connect top corporate officers to one another. The study thus provides empirical support for the thesis that social networks among corporate elites facilitate political cohesion within the business community.

The Academic Caste System: Prestige Hierarchies in PhD Exchange Networks

The prestige of academic departments is commonly understood as rooted in the scholarly productivity of their faculty and graduates. I use the theories of Weber and Bourdieu to advance an alternative view of departmental prestige, which I show is an effect a departments position within networks of association and social exchange—that is, it is a form of social capital. The social network created by the exchange of PhDs among departments is the most important network of this kind. Using data on the exchange of PhDs among sociology departments, I apply network analysis to investigate this alternative conception of departmental prestige and to demonstrate its superiority over the conventional view. Within sociology, centrality within interdepartmental hiring networks explains 84 percent of the variance in departmental prestige. Similar findings are reported for history and political science. This alternative understanding of academic prestige helps clarify anomalies—e.g., the variance in prestige unconnected to scholarly productivity, the strong association between department size and prestige, and the long-term stability of prestige rankings—encountered in research that is based on the more conventional view.

White Supremacist Networks on the Internet

Abstract In this paper we use methods of social network analysis to examine the interorganizational structure of the white supremacist movement. Treating links between Internet websites as ties of affinity, communication, or potential coordination, we investigate the structural properties of connections among white supremacist groups. White supremacism appears to be a relatively decentralized movement with multiple centers of influence, but without sharp cleavages between factions. Interorganizational links are stronger among groups with a special interest in mutual affirmation of their intellectual legitimacy (Holocaust revisionists) or cultural identity (racist skinheads) and weaker among groups that compete for members (political parties) or customers (commercial enterprises). The network is relatively isolated from both mainstream conservatives and other extremist groups. Christian Identity theology appears ineffective as a unifying creed of the movement, while Nazi sympathies are pervasive. Recruitment is facilitated by links between youth and adult organizations and by the propaganda efforts of more covertly racist groups. Links connect groups in many countries, suggesting the potential of the Internet to facilitate a whitesupremacist “cyber-community” that transcends regional and national boundaries.

The Social and Political Consequences of Overeducation.

This study employs national survey data to estimate the extent of overeducation in the U.S. labor force and its impact on a variety of worker attitudes. Estimates are made of the extent of overeducation and its distribution among different categories of workers, according to sex, race, age, and class background. The effects of overeducation are examined in four areas of worker attitudes: job satisfaction, political leftism, political alienation, and stratification ideology. Evidence is found of significant effects of overeducation on job satisfaction and several aspects of stratification ideology. The magnitude of these effects is small, however, and they are concentrated almost exclusively among very highly overeducated workers. No evidence is found of generalized political effects of overeducation, either in the form of increased political leftism or in the form of increased political alienation. These findings fail to support the common prediction of major political repercussions of overeducation and suggest the likelihood of alternative forms of adaptation among overeducated workers.

The Discovery of the New Middle Classes

Few topics in political sociology have received as much attention as the nature and politics of the new middle class. Among Marxists the class position of salaried mental workers has been an issue of controversy for nearly a century. Concern with this question can be traced back at least as far as the revisionism debate of the 1890s. It was a major focus in Marxist analyses of fascism in the 1930s and today remains one of the most hotly debated issues within the Western socialist and communist parties. In non-Marxist circles the rise of the new middle class has inspired no less fascination. From the technocratic prophesies of Thorstein Veblen and James Burnham to the “new little man” of C. Wright Mills’s White Collar to the post-industrial theories of Daniel Bell and Alvin Gouldner, each generation of social theorists has based its vision of the emerging social order on the rediscovery or reinterpretation of this class. In the words of one recent commentator, “an entire history of political sociology could be written on the theme of the new middle classes. Whether in the guise of the ‘managerial revolution,’ ‘white collar,’ the ‘new working class,’ or the ‘new petite bourgeoisie,’ the emergence of intermediate strata in advanced industrial societies has been rediscovered more often than the wheel.”1

Stages in the Development of Economic Concepts

This paper examines the development of economic concepts from a Piagetian cognitive-developmental perspective. Clinical interviews are used to investigate the economic concepts of children between the ages of 4 and 12. The main objective of the research is to determine the extent to which conceptual development in this area is compatible with the Piagetian hypothesis of discrete stages in the formation of social consciousness. The findings of the study are generally consistent with the Piagetian view that knowledge develops through a sequence of qualitative cognitive stages. The existence of these stages suggests that the development of social knowledge must be viewed as a process in which the child is actively engaged in the construction of social meanings, rather than being the passive recipient of meanings presented through immediate experience or the instruction of adults.

Sex Segregation in the U.S. Labor Force

This paper examines the structure and development of sex segregation in the U.S. labor force between 1950 and 1979. The findings show that there has been a considerable degree of stability in the overall extent of sex segregation during the postwar period. There has been some tendency for employment in exclusively male occupations to decline as a percentage of the total male labor force, but this has been counterbalanced by a tendency for women workers to become more concentrated in exclusively female occupations. Beneath this overall stability in the extent of sex segregation there are important differences in the patterns of sex segregation in different occupational sectors. In general, there has been a significant decline in the degree of sex segregation in middle-class (i.e., professional, technical and managerial) occupations during the postwar period, while segregation in working-class (i.e., blue-collar and lower whitecollar) occupations has remained stable or increased in some cases. These results are interpreted within the framework of segmented labor market theory and in terms of the differential interests of employers and male employees in the preservation of occupational sex segregation. The paper concludes by considering the implications of these findings for the development of strategies to reduce sex segregation in occupations.

The Myth of Old Money Liberalism: The Politics of the Forbes 400 Richest Americans

According to the conventional view, old money is more liberal than new money. Although widely shared, this thesis of old money liberalism has never been demonstrated empirically. In this paper, I discuss the origins and elaboration of this thesis within the social science literature. I then present evidence to refute the thesis from a study of the politics of the Forbes 400 richest Americans and several similar samples of wealthy persons drawn from earlier decades. The results of this study show that old money is, if anything, more uniformly conservative than new money. The paper also reviews the explanations commonly given for the reputed liberalism of old money and argues that the acceptance of the thesis is based less on the persuasiveness of these arguments than upon longstanding beliefs about old and new wealth that are invoked by the theory. In the conclusion, I sketch an alternative theory of the political differences between old and new money that is more consistent with the empirical evidence.

In search of a transnational capitalist class: Alternative methods for comparing director interlocks within and between nations and regions

Theorists of globalization have hypothesized the emergence of a transnational capitalist class that is becoming increasingly integrated across national borders. One method of evaluating this hypothesis has been to apply network analysis to study the frequency and pattern of transnational ties within global interlocking directorates. The results of such studies are mixed, both as regards the extent of transnational interlocking and its regional distribution. In an effort to resolve this ambiguity and advance the state of research in this area we undertake two main tasks. First, we submit the prevailing methodology used in such studies to a critical evaluation in which we identify and address some of its theoretical and methodological limitations. Second, we introduce and illustrate three alternative methods for assessing the extent and pattern of global interlocking directorates. Each method conceptualizes transnational interlocking in a slightly different manner and brings different aspects of the process into focus. Despite these differences, all four methods point to the conclusion that a transnational capitalist class is very far from being realized on a global scale. On the other hand, the combined evidence is much stronger and relatively consistent for the emergence of a more circumscribed transnational capitalist class, centered in the North Atlantic region, which has made significant strides in transcending national divisions within and between Europe and North America.

Capital Accumulation and the Rise of the New Middle Class

The aim of this paper is to present an historical analysis of the ex pansion of the new middle class in the United States since the beginning of the 20th century. In opposition to conventional accounts which interpret the growth of professional and managerial occupations primarily as a consequence of technological changes associated with the process of industrialization, I argue that changes in the class structure must be viewed as a structurally determined consequence of the inherent contradictions of capitalist society, of the process of class conflict itself, and the adaptive mechanisms which have emerged in response to these. The expansion of the new middle class is analyzed in relation to the his torical development of the capital accumulation process and each of its three principal contradictions: (1) the tendency toward a decline in the rate of profit, (2) the intensification of class antagonism, and (3) problems in the realization of surplus-value. The application of this model to the present period suggests that we are entering into a period of diminishing growth and may even be approach ing the upper limits to the size of the new middle class. The paper concludes with a discussion of the possible political consequences of this relative stabilization of class boundaries.