21 - 30 of 210 results for: SOC

Social, cultural, political, economic, and international factors affecting the development and consolidation of democracy in historical and comparative perspective. Individual country experiences with democracy, democratization, and regime performance. Emphasis is on global third wave of democratization beginning in the mid-1970s, the recent global recession of democracy (including the rise of illiberal populist parties and movements), and the contemporary challenges and prospects for democratic change.

This seminar asks students to adopt a sociological understanding of Asian Americans by exploring the "edge cases" of this vast population. Students will engage with academic works to inform and fuel reflection and dialogue about the experiences of Asian undocumented immigrants, adoptees, refugees, and more. We will build on this academic understanding through our engagement with films, journalistic pieces, and guest speakers to contextualize these experiences. We will not only learn who they are, but where they are situated in the social fabric of the U.S. Assignments will include short reflection memos and a small research project. This course will require students to simultaneously focus on both individual biographies and macro processes. Students will be prompted to connect the lived experiences of their friends, family, and peers with a body of works that tell the multi-faceted story of the Asian American community. By the end of the quarter, students will be able to situate the unique nature of Asian American experiences at the margins within broader social processes, complicating their understandings of race and immigration.

The sociological approach to production, distribution, consumption, and markets. The impact of norms, power, social structure, and institutions on the economy. Comparison of classic and contemporary approaches to the economy among social science disciplines. Topics: consumption, labor markets, organization of professions such as law and medicine, the economic role of informal networks, industrial organization -- including the structure and history of the computer and popular music industries, business alliances, the platform economy and capitalism in non-Western societies.

The course examines how the international community has fared in promoting and protecting human rights in the world, with an emphasis on the role of the United Nations. The course will begin with an overview of debates about the state of the international human rights system in the contemporary world, and then examine how international society has addressed the challenges of implementing universal human rights principles in different local contexts across different issues. The specific rights issues examined include genocide, children's rights, labor rights, transitional justice, women's rights, indigenous rights, NGOs, and the complicated relationship between the US and global human rights. The course will feature video conference/guest lecture sessions with leading human rights scholars and practitioners, providing students with unique opportunities to hear their expert opinions based on research and experience.

This course examines a series of topics on the logic of governance in contemporary China. The main theme is on the role of the party state in China and its bureaucracies in organizing China, focusing on a set of institutions and mechanisms, such as variable coupling between the central and local governments, different modes of governance in the government bureaucracy, collusion among local governments, and campaign-style mobilization. Historical and comparative perspectives and empirical studies are used to illustrate the actual practice of governance in China.

(Graduate students register for 217A.) The transformation of Chinese society from the 1949 revolution to the eve of China's reforms in 1978: creation of a socialist economy, reorganization of rural society and urban workplaces, emergence of new inequalities of power and opportunity, and new forms of social conflict during Mao's Cultural Revolution of 1966-69 and its aftermath.

Why social movements arise, who participates in them, the obstacles they face, the tactics they choose, and how to gauge movement success or failure. Theory and empirical research. Application of concepts and methods to social movements such as civil rights, environmental justice, antiglobalization, and anti-war.

(Graduate students register for 220.) Forming ties, developing norms, status, conformity, deviance, social exchange, power, and coalition formation; important traditions of research have developed from the basic theories of these processes. Emphasis is on understanding basic theories and drawing out their implications for change in a broad range of situations, families, work groups, and friendship groups.

What does mass incarceration have in common with ICE detention? What role do little-known legal doctrines from the previous century play in making courts inaccessible to survivors of sexual assault and trans people fighting discrimination? In this class we will answer those questions by examining how the seemingly objective nature of the law makes it a potent social tool to promote the interests of the powerful at the expense of the powerless while appearing neutral. This obfuscating power of the law has long been used to reinforce and perpetuate forms of social inequality. In this class we will analyze a few notable examples of such usage of the law and their role as pillars of current social inequality: We will examine how the high burden of proof courts have placed on complainants claiming gender discrimination has blocked most targets of such discrimination from seeking legal remedy; We will examine how redlining and mass incarceration have resulted in the current rates of racial inequality; and how immigration law has resulted in a seemingly objective yet deeply racist system of detention by ICE.