Silver, Daniel Aaron & Terry Nichols Clark. 2016. Scenescapes: How Qualities of Place Shape Social Life. The University of Chicago Press.

According to co-author Dan Silver, Chapter 6 is of particular interest to section members: “There we trace a widening gap in the types of local amenities associated with Democratic and Republican voters. We also show how local scenes are key factors in explaining social movement organization activity and in generating resources that fuel local political contestation. Chapter 5 may also be of interest, as it includes a discussion of residential divisions into cultural enclaves, as well as an analysis of activities that may bridge such differences, such as martial arts.”

Lee, Cheol-Sung. 2016. When Solidarity Works: Labor-Civic Networks and Welfare States in the Market Reform Era. Cambridge University Press.

Why do some labor movements successfully defend the welfare state even under the pressures of neo-liberal market reform? Why do some unions (and their allied parties and civic associations) succeed in building more universal and comprehensive social policy regimes, while others fail to do so? In this innovative work, Cheol-Sung Lee explores these conundrums through a comparative historical analysis of four countries: Argentina, Brazil, South Korea and Taiwan. He introduces the notion of ’embedded cohesiveness’ in order to develop an explanatory model in which labor-civic solidarity and union-political party alliance jointly account for outcomes of welfare state retrenchment as well as welfare state expansion. Lee’s exploration of the critical roles of civil society and social movement processes in shaping democratic governance and public policies make this ideal for academic researchers and graduate students in comparative politics, political sociology and network analysis.