The Global Sociology Blog

L’augmentation des violences interpersonnelles est infirmée par les enquêtes de victimation – Délinquance, justice et autres questions de société via kwout Let me translate this real quick: police statistics state that interpersonal aggressions (verbal or physical) increased by 25% between 2001 and 2008 in the greater Paris region with similar proportions nationwide. However, victimization studies [...]

Tango rocks! (No, really)

Via Visual Economics: An interesting flip side of this would be to determine what people are getting for what they pay. What kind of social redistribution mechanisms are in place (if any)? For instance, the notoriously generous Scandinavian countries do not rank exceptionally high on government spending compared to the rest of Europe and other [...]

Via Yannick Claude, that is what sociologist Robert Castel states in this interview in L’Humanité. Robert Castel : « La précarité est devenue un état permanent » – l’Humanite via kwout For Castel, precarization is a systemic condition, not a nasty side effect of the current crisis. This systemic state is grounded on global competition [...]

The invaluable Center for Economic and Policy Research has issued an interesting report looking at the state of unionization in the United States over the past 25 years. The Changing Face of Labor, 1983-2009 I especially like this graph: Unsurprisingly, there are also major changes in the racial and ethnic composition of the unionized workforce: [...]

Via Paul Kedroski from Infectious Greed: The situation seems especially bad for Detroit whereas DC and Baltimore hardly seem affected (could be the political world, government, think tanks and lobbying firms have hardly been affected and the disadvantaged areas are, well, still disadvantaged). Overall not a context in which wages are likely to go up.

Via Über SocGeek (I mean that in a good way!) Chad Gesser over at The Sociology Blog, lots to play with… Interactive Map Showing Immigration Data Since 1880 – Interactive Graphic – NYTimes.com via kwout

Délinquance, justice et autres questions de société via kwout This is the very interesting blog of Laurent Mucchielli, sociologist and historian by training. His blog is mostly focused, as the title indicates, on delinquency and justice issues. You know the drill: update your RSS feeds and bookmarks.

So a right-wing French newspaper pulled a nasty little trick: it claimed to have scooped a government report that stated the effectiveness of video surveillance, something that contradicts evidence from other countries. Unfortunately, the government has now released the report and it shows the exact opposite (in line with research in other countries). So, what [...]

So says one of my favorite thinkers, Mary Kaldor: Social Democracy and Human Security | Social Europe Journal via kwout And here is a fairly long but very interesting video featuring Prof. Kaldor

Triangle Shirtwaist Fire « Iconic Photos via kwout I love the Iconic Photos site. It is a treasure trove of cultural memories captured on films. But in this case, they get it wrong in their “mise en perspective”. The comparison of the women workers who jumped out of the windows with the 9/11 victims is [...]

Another great illustration by Visual Economics. Click on the image or the link for a very large view. So, who pays what and receives what? The upper map shows the amounts of federal taxes paid per capital whereas the lower map shows the amounts of federal taxes allotted to each state. The bottom part shows [...]

Via Glenn Greenwald. For those of us who fear that leaving Afghanistan would mean turning the country back over to the Taliban, here are the words of Malalai Joya regarding the situation there. She is pretty clear: the US / Nato forces have to go. The women of Afghanistan are screwed no matter what. Opinion: [...]

Have you all noticed how patriarchal disaster movies tend to be? Think about it and consider the following recent disaster films, for example: The Day After Tomorrow 2012 The Road War of the World (the one with Tom Cruise) In all of these, the disastrous civilizational collapse permit men to be “real men”, that is [...]

Via The Guardian, Interactive: Climate map shows world after 4C rise | Environment | guardian.co.uk via kwout This is an interactive map, so, if you click on the hotspots, you can get more information on the region or the topics. Very informative.