will $500 billion make america feel secure?

I am reposting an important analysis by my colleague, Charlie Kurzman. Original here.

On the subject of national security, two unexpected calms lie hidden amid the headlines of conflict. One calm is in Washington, where Republicans and Democrats pretend to debate the national security budget.

Republicans in Congress released a plan last month that insists “we are safe only when we are strong” and accuses the Democrats of sacrificing national security in the name of budget cuts. The Democrats in Congress countered last week with a plan accusing Republicans of wasteful defense spending and promising to achieve savings through “careful analysis of our security strategy.”

Yet the two plans offer identical figures for defense: $560.2 billion in the coming year and $6 trillion over the next decade.

too much sociology…?

The magazine n+1 recently published an article about the rise and inefficacy of critical sociology. It’s a strange piece which, i think, accords sociology way too much influence. but it does have some salient points, particularly relating to the balance between structure and agency in sociological writing. The editors write:  ”In spite of the strenuous attempts by sociologists to preserve some autonomy for the acting subject — Bourdieu’s “habitus,” Latour’s “actor-network” theory — popularization has inevitably resulted in more weight being thrown on the structuring side of things, the network over the actor.” I teach at Lehman College in the Bronx where the majority of students are working class. To put it simply, they are fed up with the overemphasis on structure, they find it deeply tiresome and profoundly disempowering.

on procrastination

I was talking with my emeritus colleague, Alan Silver, this weekend in the office, lamenting the fact that I was so behind on so many things and yet managed to nonetheless still procrastinate. He shared this Samuel Johnson essay with me, from the Rambler. I thought others might enjoy it. 

the poetry in sociology

We argue for a
sociology of health,
illness, and disease.

Few empirical
tests exist to address this
important issue.

Procedures used in
studies may blur or ignore
status distinctions.

biernacki, “reinventing evidence”

OrgTheory’s current book forum is on Richard Biernacki‘s Reinventing Evidence in Social Inquiry. I provide my views here to contribute to the discussion.

Biernacki attempts a wholesale indictment of the practice of “coding” texts as a social scientific technique. Through careful attempts to replicate three studies, Biernacki seeks to show that the attempt to bridge interpretive and analytical sociology by sampling and categorizing bits of text is “unfeasible.” Essentially, I believe he hopes to demonstrate a kind of methodological “non-overlapping magisteria” claim: that interpretive approaches are sui generis and uniquely capable of successfully comprehending textual and cultural evidence, and analytical techniques are epistemologically bankrupt. He does so by a cherished if underused scientific technique: replication, in this case of three important works in cultural sociology. The works are Bearman and Stovel’s “Becoming a Nazi: A Model for Narrative Networks” (Poetics, March 2000); John Evans’s 2001 book, Playing God? , on which Biernacki has already commented extensively and very similarly; and Wendy Griswold’s 1987 “The Fabrication of Meaning”.

I say “I believe” that is the point of the book, because unlike his prior book (The Fabrication of Labor, a magnificent historical study demonstrating the independent effect of national culture on early modern economic organization in England and Germany) the argument in Reinventing is hidden behind a smokescreen of arrogant posturing, making it difficult to evaluate the underlying idea and its defense.

In short, while there are some apt points in the book, in general it is pompous in style, muddled in evidence, vastly overstated in scope, mean-spirited in approach, and epistemologically indefensible.

just as well

orgtheory has a recent thread on the Regnerus episode.  Sally Hillsman, ASA president, has a letter to the editor in the Washington Post that includes (HT: Phil Cohen):

…How well do children turn out when they are raised by gay parents?  The answer is: They turn out just as well as children raised by heterosexual parents

and

Social science research consistently and incontrovertibly has shown that parents’ sexual orientation has no bearing on children’s well-being.

To me, the language here is clear and forthright.  It’s also consistent with my understanding of the DOMA brief that ASA filed, which says:

when the social science evidence is exhaustively examined—which the ASA has done—the facts demonstrate that children fare just as well when raised by same-sex parents

Again, completely clear, and fine to me.  The part I feel like I have never understood: what is the relationship between statements like the above, and the criticism of Regnerus and/or Marks that he was dishonest in characterizing social scientists as saying there are “no differences” between children raised by same-sex parents and children raised by opposite-sex parents (the “Background” section of this post by Andy is an example)?

As happy as I am about the accelerating advancement of marriage equality, and as troubled as I am about the problems with the Regnerus study itself, this part has always put me a bit off.  It feels like we are both asserting something and then also sometimes denying that we assert it.

However, I suspect it’s more that there is a subtlety I’m missing.  Does it turn on the semantic difference between “just as well” and “no difference”?  Is the argument about “no differences” about something different than what these statements are about?  Is it a frequentist vs. Bayesian thing?  A public audience vs. academic audience thing?  Has there been a shift or dissensus in views on this?  About a bivariate vs. multivariate comparison?  I don’t get it, and would like to.

turnaround

I knew that AER compensated their editors, but I didn’t realize they also paid their reviewers.  From the American Economic Review webpage:

The AER pays $100.00 for timely reports. Payment is by check only. Checks are issued four times a year, approximately six weeks after the end of each calendar quarter.

Of course, I don’t know if they actually do anything about the “timely” part.  Maybe it’s calculated vagueness.  Last thing an editor would want to do is tell reviewers they get $100 if they get their reviews back in 30 days, and then deal with people agreeing to review and then declining on Day 31.

fairness and high-risk, high-reward

I have heard recently two concerns about training for job markets that might be called high-risk, high-reward jobs. The implication is that such training programs are unfair because they aim too high for students’ likely job prospects.

academic caste system 2013

Recent discussions about department rankings and picking a department for grad school had me wondering how my own department is doing in placing our graduate students in top departments (Spoiler: Pretty good.) I had my undergraduate RA look at the faculty listing web pages for all the sociology departments with a rank of 20 or better in the current US News & World Report rankings. For each of the assistant professors, we noted where they went to graduate school and what year they earned their PhD.

I’ll say up front that this measure is not perfect for determining placement in top departments over the last six or so years (the period I consider). For example, if you earned tenure early, you aren’t in the dataset. I’m also not 100% sure all the people received their PhDs from a sociology department. Because of the small number of graduates from each department, these errors can have a substantive impact on the placement rank of individual departments, so I’m not going to assign ranks to all the departments. Regardless of these caveats, I’m pretty sure that the data capture the big picture of placement in top 20 departments, but feel free to argue that point.

Anyway, here’s what I found:

The 2013/14 US News Rankings

This morning, US News and World Reports published their graduate school rankings. However, rather than report rankings based on the data they collected last fall, they decided (for the first time in history) to average data collected in 2008 and 2012 to generate many of the lists, including sociology.

scatterplot competition: guess the nra’s membership

You know what sounds fun? A Scatterplot competition! I know it’s not exactly a sequel to the epic Mario Kart races of 2009, but it might still be fun. This time it is a guessing game. How many members will the NRA have in June of 2013?

pressing asa question

Dearest Scatterbrains – I’ve been asked to help construct the ASA restaurant guide this year. I’m rather excited about the chance to write a snarky guide (“Are you sitting at the bar? No? Get up and move to the bar…”*). But in all seriousness, are there any elements you’d like to see in the dining guide? To a degree I think this is less than useful in these days of the interwebs. But I’m still happy to write in a dying medium (hell, I write books too!). I’m thinking of adding a “so you want…” section. As in “so you want a hamburger…” Shake Shack is nearby. It’s like fast food only a little better and much more expensive! “so you want to feel hip…” Go to Brooklyn. Say hi to your grad students at the next table. “so you want to go somewhere without sociologists…” I have four words for you (three places): Queens, Staten Island, Bronx. I will, of course, have vegetarian/vegan options. High end to budget (more of the latter). But any other requests ideas? And I may keep a secret place or two off the guide, for my own enjoyment. I love you all… but… well… sometimes you can overwhelm me.

* paraphrased/stolen from Frank Bruni’s review of Keen’s. Which will be on the guide. Especially if you want scotch. Or have a lot of money to pay for a steak. Don’t get the fish. Or the desserts.

snarky: what is it about a new century?

When I was book review editor at Social Forces, I developed a pet peeve: book titles that used phrases like “for a new century,” “for the 21st century,” and so on. If the only reason your book is of interest is because of the changing digits at the end of the year, you should probably find a new topic! Alternatively, how about:

Democratic Innovations for This Afternoon

Challenges for Inequality After Sunday

I just got word–about which I’m very excited–that Nikolas Rose will be visiting UNC in April:

I don’t particularly see why a new century requires a new sociology. But it’s not even a new century anymore! We’re over 12% done with the century. At least there’s a question mark at the end, which implies that the answer could be “no”.

session organizer bleg

I’m late doing my ASA session organizing work this year. Ugh. I still the hate the interface. It’s a Saturday, I can’t ask ASA. So questions for experienced Scatterplotters.

(1) Before sending a paper off to another session, I’d like to know whether that session organizer is already done. If they are, there is no way the paper is going to be accepted in that session. But there does not seem to be any way for me to get the list of other session organizers to communicate with them. Is that true?

(2) Apart from the submitter’s 1st and 2nd choices, I notice that when I’m the second choice organizer, down at the bottom  of the screen there seems to be an option for me to transfer the paper to another session. Is that right? Can I do that? Can I do it technically and should I do it? (It seems like that is really a bad idea unless I’ve consulted with the session organizer first to see if they want it. See problem #1.)

(3) Do I really have to choose what roundtable to send a rejected paper to? Does not the submitter get to choose? So far I have not rejected anybody, so I actually have not seen that menu yet.

Notes to all you folks out their anxiously awaiting results of ASA submissions: please remember that this is by no means a simple process of ranking all submitted papers by quality because the ratio of submissions to slots varies a lot across areas and part of forming a session is trying to put related papers together. And another part involves dealing with a klunky and unfriendly interface.

And another reminder to those who have submitted. Because the interface is so klunky and unfriendly, a session organizer may mis-handle your paper in some way through inadvertence. As I’ve mentioned often before, the most common problem is that an organizer, once she has done her work of processing papers and creating sessions, typically does not return to the interface to look for papers later “released” to her session and thus fails to forward them to roundtables. You have to keep your own eye on this ball if you want to make sure you end up somewhere on the program. And try not to curse the organizers too much for the mistakes they make.

it gets better, but only if you stay away from people like these

Happy Superbowl Sunday! My hometown team, the San Francisco 49ers, is in it this year, and they are my 3rd favorite hometown sports team (after the Giants, and the Sharks. In that order, if you must know). So, I’m hosting a gathering, and I’m cheering for my team, and then WTF–the 49ers go all homophobic on me:

Culliver was asked if there were any gay players on the 49ers.”We don’t have any gay guys on the team,” Culliver said. “They gotta get up outta here if they do. Can’t be with that sweet stuff.”

Well, apparently the 49ers do, or at least did, have gay men on the team.