Peter Evans, BA, MA PhD ScD - US grants

This is an award under the Grants for Improving Doctoral Dissertation Research program. It is a study of world primary commodity markets, seeking to develop a comprehensive framework for analysis of their operation based on examination of the evolution of the world coffee market. Data will be used to evaluate and integrate three alternative modes of analysis: bargaining power theory, commodity agreement theory, and political negotiation theory. The research will not only contribute to historical sociology and economic sociology, but it will augment the knowledge base for understanding relations between advanced industrial nations and the Third World nations which are dependent upon commodity exports. In addition to the scientific gains to be achieved by the research, this award will materially assist a highly promising student in completing research for the Ph.D. dissertation. Thus it contributes to future scientific manpower and the thorough training of the next generation of sociologists.

9401114 Evans This is an award under the Grants for Improving Doctoral Dissertation Research Program. The study will examine the effect of political reform on rural social conflict in Columbia. During the past decade, Columbia has presented contradictory trends toward democratizing reform and escalating political violence, a paradox that defies the predictions of prevailing theories of democratic transition and guerrilla movements. New theories suggest that elite-sponsored violence may escalate in reaction to increased peasant control over rural institutions, or that in some cases more representative institutions can now mediate peaceful, institutional resolutions to conflicts. This research will study the effect of a specific reform, allowing the direct election of county executives, on several rural conflicts. The four stages of the investigation will focus on: 1) the national context of violent democratization, 2) the causes of rural social conflict, 3) the effect of reform on these conflicts, and 4) the mechanisms accounting for these effects. %%% This research will contribute to political sociology and to the sociology of development. The key international issues for policy makers today revolve around the success or failure of various routes to democratization, so the findings of the study should have substantive significance. In addition to the scientific gains to be achieved by the research, this award will materially assist a highly promising student in completing research for the Ph.D. dissertation. Thus it contributes to the future scientific manpower of the nation and the thorough training of the next generation of social scientists. ***

9401116 Evans This is an award under the Grants for Improving Doctoral Dissertation Research Program. It is a study of the impact of German reunification on East German women, based on in-depth interviews conducted with eastern German couples who have children. Topics covered by the interviews will include: 1) employment in the new, capitalist labor market, 2) child care arrangements before and after unification, and 3) financial and emotional dependency of partners. Current German government policies have the effect of encouraging women to leave the labor force to have families, while former East German policy did the opposite. Thus, this research will examine an area where governmental change may have a substantial impact, thus permitting the testing of sociological theories of national transition. %%% The research supported in this award will contribute to social-scientific understanding of transnational aspects of global change and democratization. Across the world, massive shifts in government policies can be expected to affect decisively the context in which individuals and families make career decisions, and through these decisions, the social and economic status of women. In addition to the scientific gains to be achieved by the research, this award will materially assist a highly promising student in completing research for the Ph.D. dissertation. Thus it contributes to the future scientific manpower of the nation and the thorough training of the next generation of social scientists. ***

In the face of the climate change treaty being negotiated under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, oil corporations have responded differently. Some have expressed support for the climate change treaty, while most have challenged climate change science and lobbied against mandated carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emission reductions. Understanding this split in business views on the climate debates offers insights into the importance of transnational organizations for international politics, and into the role of non-state actors in negotiating international treaties among governments. Using qualitative data on four oil corporations, and quantitative data on the 50 largest oil corporations, the project thus addresses four questions: 1) what climate strategies have the oil corporations pursued, 2) what factors have accounted for differences in strategies, 3) how have the oil corporations responded to advocacy efforts of environmentalists, and 4) how has the split in the oil industry affected the progress and outcomes of the climate change negotiations?

This project asks the question: how do states construct and maintain legitimacy? The legitimacy of a nation-state depends upon its efficacy in producing citizens who see their participation in the economy, politics and the community in general, as in their best interests as individuals and as a collective national body. The proposed dissertation takes up the case of Singapore to address these issues. Singapore is a nation-state that is peculiar in several ways: it is not strictly authoritarian but certainly not democratic; it has a seemingly docile citizenry that nonetheless participates actively in the state's numerous economic and social projects; and its orientation toward "modernity" does not stop the state from formulating policies encouraging college-educated women to have more babies. One is led to ask the following questions: up close, what does Singapore's rule look like? How is rule organized if it is obviously not a democracy, but also not an authoritarian regime? Under what conditions has this rule been constructed and under what conditions has it been sustained? What does the type of rule actually mean for those being ruled over, and how are they participating in it? By analyzing three sets of institutions--housing, reproduction, and marriage--this project aims to address these questions. The research will be carried out along three lines: (1) a close textual analysis of key social policies, (2) interviews with citizens who negotiate these policies, and (3) by juxtaposing the cases of Singapore and Malaysia. This dissertation aims to deepen and complicate existing understandings of how developing states come to have stable rule and produce citizen subjects who find meaning in their participation in the state's imagery of "development." The project's contribution to sociology will be to gain more holistic views of state rule, integrate understandings about what states do in the economic realm with what they do in socio-politico-cultural realms, examine principles of social division such as, gender and ethnicity and the roles they play in "producing citizens" who understand and find meaningful their participation in the state's national project of development.

Doctoral Dissertation Research: The Methods and Goals of Development Organizations
Principal Investigator: Peter Evans
Co-Principal Investigator: Darren Noy
University of California-Berkeley

The basic hypotheses of this research are that: 1) the methods and goals of development organizations on the ground are shaped by diverse ethical, spiritual, and religious visions of development; and 2) both secular and religious development projects crucially involve intentional efforts by development practitioners to catalyze internal and subjective transformations in individuals. These hypotheses challenge the "secularization hypothesis" assumptions that shaped modern development theory for the last half century. Assessing the hypotheses proposed here entails two phases of research. The first phase involves interviews with representatives of a range of development organizations across Latin America, Africa, and Asia, and content analysis of written material from those organizations. The second phase involves more focused examination of a few particular development organizations and their projects.

This research is particularly relevant to policy debates currently occurring in the United States about faith-based social service initiatives. Moreover, given the current crises facing humanity in terms of extreme global poverty, environmental degradation, and rising inequality, this research might help to identify, theorize, and publicize diverse approaches of development that may suggest compelling ways of resolving these crises. Finally, this research may also help in understanding some of the dimensions and causes of global conflicts that pivot around conflicting visions of social development.

SES-1334130
Peter Evans
Malgorzata Kurjanska
University of California-Berkeley

This project is a continuation of dissertation fieldwork on how state policies of political exclusion and cultural repression shaped civic society. The past two decades have seen a resurgence of interest in associational life. Some researchers place civil society at the heart of democratic consolidation. Others cite examples of authoritarian states supported by dense yet uncivil society. Few studies, however, analyze what forces shape the associational landscape?s character. Thus, this research asks: Why do associations arise and what leads them to become civil or uncivil in character? A survey of relevant scholarly literature reveals two types of explanations: state-centered and economic theories. This project tests and builds upon these theories through comparative analysis of associational life in pre-WWI and interwar [1918-1939] Poland. The project employs cross-regional and cross-time historical comparisons. It utilizes historical narratives and descriptive statistics to examine the development of associational life in pre-WWI and interwar Poland. In addition to theoretical contributions, this research will contribute to knowledge on civic society in Eastern Europe. Polish civic society has been researched extensively in the post-communist context. Yet there are few studies of pre-WWII associational life in the ethnically diverse societies of early twentieth century Eastern Europe. This dissertation addresses this gap in existing research.

Broader Impacts

The study incorporates research that is often overlooked as it is not readily available to non-Polish speakers. Thus, it will bring to an English-speaking audience studies that have been marginalized due to language barriers. A historical analysis of factors that shaped the associational landscape in interwar Poland will shed light on the implications of social and economic policies pursued by modern, multi-ethnic states with growing civic societies and uncertain paths to democratization. This project contributes to modern debates by helping to identify the types of policies, social or economic, which support the development of civil society.