Identities, Boundaries and Social Ties

by Tilly,Charles

• ISBN13: 9781594511318
• ISBN10: 1594511314
• Format: Nonspecific Binding
• Copyright: 2005-08-01
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

The newest book by award-winning social scientist Charles Tilly offers a distinctive, coherent account of social processes and individuals' connections to their larger social and political worlds. It is novel in demonstrating the connections between inequality and de-democratization, between identities and social inequality, and between citizenship and identities. The book treats interpersonal transactions as the basic elements of larger social processes. Tilly shows how personal interactions compound into identities, create and transform social boundaries, and accumulate into durable social ties. He also shows how individual and group dispositions result from interpersonal transactions. Resisting the focus on deliberated individual action, the book repeatedly gives attention to incremental effects, indirect effects, environmental effects, feedback, mistakes, repairs, and unanticipated consequences. Social life is complicated. But, the book shows, social life becomes comprehensible once you know how to look at it.

Author Biography

Bruce E. Altschuler is Professor and Chair of the Political Science Department at the State University of New York at Oswego Celia A. Sgroi is Associate Professor in the Public Justice Department at the State University of New York at Oswego Margaret R. Ryniker is Assistant Professor in the Public Justice Department at the State University of New York at Oswego

Table of Contents

Illustrations	ix
Preface	xi
Part I: Introduction
Ties That Bind...and Bound	3	(10)
Part II: Relational Mechanisms
Violent Conflict, Social Ties, and Explanations of Social Processes	13	(10)
Mechanisms in Political Processes	23	(22)
Do Unto Others	45	(26)
Part III: Inequality
Durable Inequality	71	(20)
Relational Origins of Inequality	91	(18)
Changing Forms of Inequality	109	(8)
Unequal Knowledge	117	(14)
Part IV: Boundaries
Social Boundary Mechanisms	131	(22)
Chain Migration and Opportunity Hoarding	153	(18)
Boundaries, Citizenship, and Exclusion	171	(16)
Part V: Political Boundaries
Why Worry About Citizenship?	187	(12)
Inequality, Democratization, and De-Democratization	199	(8)
Political Identities in Changing Polities	207	(8)
Invention, Diffusion, and Transformation of the Social Movement Repertoire	215	(12)
References	227	(30)
Index	257	(10)
Credits	267	(2)
About the Author	269