This article analyzes the creation of value in (semi-)peripheral fields, using interview (N=94) and ethnographic data of creatives, models and cultural intermediaries in Polish and Dutch fashion. Drawing on field theory and center-periphery theories we show that these peripheral fields have a distinct structure—peripheral worlds—marked by the dependence on foreign centers for goods, standards and consecration, in which actors employ field-specific peripheral strategies for pursuing value and success. Workers in the (semi-)periphery develop peripheral selves, marked by a “double consciousness”, simultaneously seeing themselves from a local perspective and through the eyes of “central” others. We theorize “peripheralness” as a dimension of social inequality, a continuum ranging from “most central” to “most peripheral”, that spring from transnational interdependencies; and offer building blocks for a theory of the periphery that connects structural conditions and personal experiences. This theory explains, among others, why peripheries are not the reverse of centers, why centers also need peripheries (though not as much as peripheries need centers), and why peripheral and semi-peripheral actors don’t leave for cultural hubs to “make it there”.

Soviet anthropology differs from its Western counterpart, for better or for worse, by a certain kind of density. It is the social world which is generated by the scholarly activities of the Soviet učenyj, and which he also inhabits, which has this dense quality. Any social structure or institution which he investigates is held firmly in its place by a wider framework, within which it can be shifted and budged only with difficulty. This framework is of course constituted by a set of ideas and questions and concepts which, in a loose way, one can lump together as ‘Marxism’.

Le livre que j'ai intitulé République impériale, les États-Unis dans le monde 1945–1972 appartient au genre de l'histoire diplomatique. Pour la première fois, au lieu de spéculer sur la connaissance historique, j'en affrontais, à titre personnel, les difficultés. Inévitablement, je me suis, à chaque instant, interrogé sur la nature des démarches auxquelles m'incitait ou m'obligeait mon projet: rendre intelligible la conduite, durant un quart de siècle, de l'État dominant du système interétatique.

The focus of this paper is adoption, specifically adoption as an issue of local justice. Local justice, as conceived by Jon Elster, is a way of thinking about how scarce goods and burdens are allocated by local, low-level institutions; and encompasses such issues as military service, college admission, organs for transplantation, donation of sperm, child custody, and adoption. There are three principle elements to local justice: scarce goods, institutions that allocate them, and the individuals who step forward as allocative candidates. Over time, the individual will bring his or her needs before a succession of institutional providers, while the institutions will find before them a succession of individuals who need, want, or merit the scarce good being allocated. In many instances, such as the allocation of organs for transplantation, allocation may be a matter of life or death; while in other instances, the consequences of not receiving the good may not be life threatening, but nonetheless affect an individual's future life plans (e.g. admittance into Harvard). Thus allocative decisions can be evaluated according to their importance along two different axes. The first contains decisions which are ‘important’ because they involve life and death outcomes, such as the allocation of kidneys, while other decisions are ‘important’ not because they carry with them life-and-death outcomes, but because they influence the lives of a vast number of individuals. Selection choices for college admission are among this latter type of important decision.

A basic task of the state is to ensure the continuation and security of the community within which it is found. In an attempt to achieve this, state elites pursue long-term strategies. Such strategies involve not just questions of external security, but also the structuring of domestic society with an eye to faciliting the extraction and mobilisation of resources. The tsarist state sought to achieve this through a cooptive strategy which left some room for independent economic initiative. The soviet elite sought to encapsulate all actors into a single command stucture, thereby removing all scope for independent activity. Ultimately both strategies failed, and the post-Soviet leaders are faced with the problem of devising a more successful alternative.

The purpose of this paper is to explain the causes of the contrast between the evolution of the French and British press presse franaise et britannique pendant l'entre-deux-guerres. during the inter-war period. The most visible sign of this difference was the commercial success of the British press and the stagnation of the French press. From a historical perspective, the most general factor was that market mechanism has a much more determining influence on the British rather than on the French press. While these decades were marked in Great Britain by a circulation war, competition was neutralised in France by the anti-competitive agreement reached among the leading Parisian newspapers. Market mechanisms also influenced the development of different patterns of newspaper ownership in the two nations. Stiff competition and a rational mode of newspaper ownership forced British journalists to develop journalistic practices and discursive strategies more commercially oriented than those of their French counterparts. These strategies, which constitute the primary cause of the commercial success of the British press, are illustrated by the phenomenon of depoliticisation.

Die Möglichkeit, soziale Universalien zu finden, übt seit langem schon einen merkwürdigen Reiz auf Soziologen aus. Man hat diesen Universalien viele Namen gegeben. Heute heißen sie in der Regel »funktionale Vorbedingungen von Gesellschaft« (1); im Anschluß an die ältere Tradition und in stärker philosophisch gefärbter, damit auch absichtlich reifizierender Weise könnte man von »Grundbedingungen der Vergesellschaftung« sprechen (2); vielleicht bezeichnet auch das, was Max Weber ohne voile Klarheit »Soziologische Grundbegriffe« nannte, solche Universalien (3) — denn immer geht es dabei um den Versuch, Phänomene zu finden, die zumindest als solche von allem historischen Wandel unberührt bleiben. Der Versuch ist so sinnlos nicht. Er soil ja nicht die Historizität von Gesellschaft leugnen, sondern deren Analyse die richtige Richtung weisen, indem er gewissermaßen das Substrat des Wandels bezeichnet: Die Familie, die soziale Schichtung, die Religion sind (vielleicht) universell; gewandelt haben sich jedoch deren jeweilige Formen, und die Probleme der Forschung liegen in der Untersuchung dieser historischen Formen. Wenn es gelänge, soziale Universalien zu finden, so wären diese gewissermaßen die Pflöcke, an die sich alle historisch variablen Elemente sozialer Strukturen anbinden ließen. Eine der wichtigsten Thesen dieser Art ist nun die, daß alle menschlichen Gesellschaften Strukturen von Macht und Herrschaft kennen. Die Konsequenzen dieser These sind soziologisch wie politisch erheblich. Politisch würden sie die Sinnlosigkeit utopischer Bemühungen begründen; denn es scheint, daß zumindest alle klassischen Utopien Herrschaftslosigkeit als eines ihrer zentralen Konstruktionselemente kennen (4). Die verheerenden Folgen der These für marxistische Gesellschaftstraume liegen ja auf der Hand. Soziologisch ließe sich aus der Universalität von Herrschaft die Notwendigkeit einer ganzen Reihe weiterer Phänomene ableiten. Insbesondere lassen sich — wie mir scheint — sowohl Ungleichheiten sozialer Schichtung als auch soziale Konflikte auf Herrschaft zurückführen (5). Dies sind überdies nur die dramatischsten Folgen der Universalitäts-These.

Nourri de Mead et de Sartre, Erving Goffman affina la théorie de la « dramatisation ». Moins enclin que Sartre à l'indignation morale, il était plus précis que Mead qui s'arrêta au stade de la déduction abstraite. Poussant la logique de Mead, il proposa d'observer la vie sociale comme s'il s'agissait d'une scène de théâtre. À l'acteur et aux rôles définis par ses aînés, il ajouta la scène et la coulisse comme les régions où s'exercent les relations (interactions), la troupe et les spectateurs comme les personnages principaux dans les relations, le décor, les costumes et l'appareillage comme leurs symboles. Devant le public, on ne peut jamais être soi-même, on joue au contraire certains rôles conditionnés dans telles situations par telles équipes désignées ou celles, virtuelles, dont on est membre (c'est-à-dire des équipes qui n'existent qu'à travers l'anticipation que font les acteurs des comportements qu'auraient tous leurs membres s'ils étaient présents ou à la place de l'acteur considéré).

Loïc Wacquant’s essay, “The Trap of ‘Racial Capitalism’”, asks whether the term is “a conceptual solution or a conceptual problem”. His answer is forthright. He argues that racial capitalism has no place in a properly defined and understood social science. In this contribution, we set out the limitations, as we perceive them, of Wacquant’s own analysis and, at the same time, discuss other difficulties of the idea of racial capitalism. These, we suggest, are associated with an absence common to Wacquant and the major proponents of racial capitalism alike; namely, a failure to reckon systematically with the ways in which modern capitalism arises and develops within the global structures of European colonialism.

If proverbs are sociologically significant the one quoted encapsulates the theme of this paper: the extreme fluidity and uncertainty of post-Independence Greek Cypriot politics; the tension between individual strategies and collective action in Greek culture; secrecy, and the use of violence for political purposes (what Aristotle had called stasis). In this paper I want to examine the patterns of covert politics in Cyprus by tracing the evolution of the cultural phenomenon of omadhes (small secret groups of armed men activated for political purposes), and examining their relationship to political parties. Although there has been some literature on omadhes (Loizos, 1975; Markides 1977) I shall offer a different interpretation to Loizos who sees them merely as ‘action sets’ by showing that they became something more substantial and were strongly influenced by the overall political framework within which they operated; I shall also take a different line to Markides who treats them as an expression of discontent.