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As a site of contestation among job seekers, workers, and managers, the bureaucratic workplace both reproduces and erodes occupational race segregation and racial status hierarchies. Much sociological research has examined the reproduction of racial inequality at work; however, little research has examined how desegregationist forces, including civil rights movement values, enter and permeate bureaucratic workplaces into the broader polity. Our purpose in this chapter is to introduce and typologize what we refer to as “occupational activism,” defined as socially transformative individual and collective action that is conducted and realized through an occupational role or occupational community. We empirically induce and present a typology from our study of the half-century-long, post-mobilization occupational careers of over 60 veterans of the nonviolent Nashville civil rights movement of the early 1960s. The fourfold typology of occupational activism is framed in the “new” sociology of work, which emphasizes the role of worker agency and activism in determining worker life chances, and in the “varieties of activism” perspective, which treats the typology as a coherent regime of activist roles in the dialogical diffusion of civil rights movement values into, within, and out of workplaces. We conclude with a research agenda on how bureaucratic workplaces nurture and stymie occupational activism as a racially desegregationist force at work and in the broader polity.

This chapter provides an overview of the findings and chapters of a thematic volume in the International Perspectives on Education and Society (IPES) series. It describes the common dataset and methods used by an international research team.

The chapter synthesizes the results of a series of country-level case studies and cross-national and regional comparisons on the growth of scientific research from 1900 until 2011. Additionally, the chapter provides a quantitative analysis of global trends in scientific, peer-reviewed publishing over the same period.

The introduction identifies common themes that emerged across the case studies examined in-depth during the multi-year research project Science Productivity, Higher Education, Research and Development and the Knowledge Society (SPHERE). First, universities have long been and are increasingly the primary organizations in science production around the globe. Second, the chapters describe in-country and cross-country patterns of competition and collaboration in scientific publications. Third, the chapters describe the national policy environments and institutionalized organizational forms that foster scientific research.

The introduction reviews selected findings and limitations of previous bibliometric studies and explains that the chapters in the volume address these limitations by applying neo-institutional theoretical frameworks to analyze bibliometric data over an extensive period.

Purpose – To examine how Black mayors in majority-White cities successfully incorporate the interests of African-Americans into their overall agenda for the city and the said effectiveness of this strategy electorally.Design/methodology/approach – Utilizing data from elite interviews and local newspaper articles, we apply the theory of targeted universalism to the governing approach of Jack Ford.Findings – Mayors of color often come into office with the dual responsibility of being an advocate for their respective racial group and a leader for the city as a whole. Jack Ford, the first African-American to be elected as mayor in Toledo, Ohio, took this challenge on gladly, but with mixed success. We find that Jack Ford used his powers as mayor to improve social conditions for Blacks in Toledo, yet also faced challenges in trying to better their economic opportunities. Moreover, he failed to parlay these particularistic efforts into a second electoral victory. In this case, a targeted universalistic policy approach to advancing Black interests had limited effectiveness. The single mayoral term of Jack Ford suggests that Black executives must walk a fine line between their (assumed or expected) racial empowerment role and their duty to advance the various interests that exist among residents of their city. Hence, we find that in order to have lasting electoral success Black mayors must be acutely aware of what is expected of them by the various constituencies they serve and govern accordingly.Research limitations/implications – Because of the chosen research approach, the research results may lack generalizability. Therefore, researchers are encouraged to test the proposed propositions further.Practical implications – The chapter includes implications for the development of an effecting Black mayoral governing strategy wherein the mayor can successfully advocate for the advancement of black interests in majority-White cities with specific policy proposals and programmatic developments.Originality/value – This chapter fulfills an identified need to study the governance of Black mayors in medium-sized cities and their representation of Black interests in the majority White municipal context.

This study examines the underlying factors which influence and cross-sectionally explain differences in the degree of dividend smoothing of firms. Differences in corporate dividend smoothing are documented by estimating the sensitivity of corporations' dividend payout ratios to changes in earnings. Theoretical determinants of dividend smoothing are investigated by cross-sectionally regressing the degree of dividend smoothing of firms against firm characteristics. The results show that riskier firms and smaller firms are more likely to smooth dividends. The empirical relationship between dividend smoothing and firm characteristics is much more significant for high growth firms, and varies considerably amongst sub-groups of the data that differ with respect to firm risk.

The United States today boasts of a complex and extensive set of public and private institutions and arrangements for managing its water resources. Today's system of watershed management is neither entirely top-down nor bottom-up. It is not entirely planned, nor is it entirely laissez-faire. Rather it is a hybrid. This chapter analyzes through a historical lens how American watershed management evolved to this state. It looks at two driving factors: technological change and trends in American political culture. Technology provided the reason for water resource and watershed management to evolve because of the conflicts provoked by its unintended and negative side effects, such as pollution. American political culture mediated the way that individuals and government reacted to these conflicts and spurred the evolution of new institutions.

This essay tackles the Obama “phenomenon,” from his candidacy to his election, as a manifestation of the new “color-blind racism” that has characterized U.S. racial politics in the post-civil rights era. Rather than symbolizing the “end of race,” or indeed a “miracle,” Obama's election is a predictable result of contemporary U.S. electoral politics. In fact, Obama is a middle-of-the-road Democrat whose policies since taking office have been almost perfectly in line with his predecessors, especially in terms of his failure to improve the lot of blacks and other minorities. In this essay, I review the concept of color-blind racism and its application to the Obama phenomenon. I also revisit some of my past predictions for Obama's presidency and evaluate their accuracy halfway through his term. Finally, I offer suggestions for constructing a genuine social movement to push Obama and future politicians to provide real, progressive “change we can believe in.”

This chapter is based on a chapter I added for the third edition of my book, Racism without Racists. Louise Seamster, a wonderful graduate student at Duke, helped me update some material, locate new sources, and rework some sections, as well as abridge some of the many footnotes (interested readers can consult the chapter). I kept the first person to maintain the more direct and engaged tone of the original piece and because the ideas (the good, the bad, and the ugly ones) in the chapter are mine, and thus, I wish to remain entirely responsible for them.

A strong indication of the reasons behind minority mayors' shift from deracialization can be found in the changes in the U.S. population over the last two decades. The changes in population has eroded – or potentially is in the process of eroding – a key variable in the election of minority mayors: the presence of a majority Black population. For example, with cities losing Black population while gaining Whites and Latinos, the conditions under which Black candidates run for mayor in many U.S. cities are quite different from the experience of the first elected Black mayors. Washington, DC has lost 16% of its Black population since 1990. Between 2000 and 2010, the Black population decreased by 6%. Yet, during the same time period, the district has experienced increases in White population, with a 14% increase since 2000. With a Black population of less than 50% as compared to a Black population over 70% in 1980, the district has enjoyed the distinction of no longer being a majority-Black city (Washington Post, 2007). Atlanta, Georgia also has experienced a loss of Black population (Cox News Service, 2007). These data are suggestive of trends where, if they continue, ambitious Black candidates for mayor will find their electoral coalitions composed of increased numbers of Whites and Latinos in areas where Blacks have dominated for decades.