The Global Sociology Blog

H/T Deanna Summer, (Click here for a big version):

Death_Penalty_World_Map.png (PNG Image, 1350×625 pixels) – Scaled (86%) via kwout

One can see that the United States is in good company.

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Via Dan Hanley,
There has been a lot of stories about airline pilots in the news lately, from Michael Moore’s film to the pilots “forgetting” to land where they were supposed to. These have contributed to attract attention to the pilots’ working conditions and wages. As a class, pilots tend to be “imagined” as well-paid prestigious [...]

As I mentioned in my previous post, there is apparently life for sociologists outside of academia! Case in point, the French consulting firm, Chronos, specialized in transportation issues (touching upon, of course, urban, infrastructure and stratification issues):

A propos de nous – Groupe Chronos via kwout

And they have a blog as well: Fluid Trajectories:

Blog – Groupe [...]

I know that some degree of condescension and amusement is a requirement when it comes to writing about France but this is just a lousy way to start an article about what is successful (albeit not without problems) public policy. After all, we know that Paris, like all (especially European) large cities is a traffic [...]

Via Lane Kenworthy, this great graph from the NYT. Stratification happens when the tax regime favors the transfer of wealth to the top:

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When one teaches introduction to sociology courses, one is always on the lookout for a good, readable book that makes a powerful case for the relevance of sociological analysis without dumbing it down or turning it into “you can have better relationships thanks to sociology” kind of drivel. After all, introduction to sociology textbooks are [...]

Over at Economic Sociology, Brooke Harrington has a great guest post by Galyn Burke–Brown on triathlon as the high power sport that promotes high-power connections in the business world. Read the whole thing, it is really great.

Guest Post: The Economic Sociology of Triathlons » Economic Sociology via kwout

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According to this time-honored theory that is often wrong and yet we still have to teach, inequalities and greater wealth at the top of the social distribution are reflection of the sacrifices some individuals make to get educated and take more functionally significant positions in society. So, Dean Baker asks the right question in the [...]

No one writes about the American culture like Barbara Ehrenreich. At the same time, Ehrenreich never lets anyone forgets that there is a socially stratified reality out there and that cultural trends are often ideological scaffolding supporting unequal and precarious systemic conditions for most of us. Her latest book, Bright-Sided: How The Relentless Promotion of [...]

This is hilarious, actually. And yes, it is satirical… or is it?

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Via Agnese Vardanega.
Women’s average earning as % of men’s for European countries with some wide variations:

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I cannot emphasize enough what an important book Loïc Wacquant’s Punishing The Poor – The Neoliberal Government of Social Insecurity is. Except, I have already done that by posting various quotes that I thought were important and made essential points as I was reading the book.
The main argument made by Wacquant is that the social [...]

Denis Colombi read my previous post on the sociology of Zombies and decided to take a crack at it using French sociological approaches. So, of course, the obligatory Bourdieusian zombie sociology:

Une heure de peine…: Il fallait bien que quelqu’un le fasse… via kwout

For those of you who are (incomprehensibly) French-illiterate, let me translate:

“Zombification is a [...]

I am sure most of you have read this already:

City boss: Bonuses are good for Britain | News via kwout

Beyond the arrogance, classism and downright douchebaggery, one should review the arguments made by Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett in The Spirit Level as they persuasively demonstrate that social inequalities are just plain bad for society [...]

Yeah, cuz that would never happen over here. Here, they simply demand the keys to the treasury and get them:

BBC NEWS | Europe | Rich Germans demand higher taxes via kwout

Investing in ecology, education and social justice? What kind of commie-pinko notion is that?

It will be interesting to see if the right-of-center German government listens [...]