JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.. American Sociological Association is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to American Sociological Review. 1 Tocqueville discusses social-structural factors in addition to state structure. I do not address this aspect of Tocqueville's analysis here. American Sociological Review, 1996, Vol. 61 (February: 153-170) 153 154 AMERICAN SOCIOLOGICAL REVIEW point," he states, is that the political system can be more open or less open to challenge at different times (p. 41). But structural conditions, McAdam argues, do not automatically translate into protest: They are mediated by "cognitive liberation," an oppressed people's ability to break out of pessimistic and quiescent patterns of thought and begin to do something about their situation (pp. 48-51). McAdam's (1982) analysis shows the tight fit between subjective perceptions and the structure of opportunities. The optimism of African Americans in the 1930s (pp. 108-10) and early 1960s (pp. 161-63) reflected structural shifts in Federal policies (pp. 83-86, 156-60). Conversely, in the late 1960s, perceptions of diminishing opportunities reflected the actual diminishing of opportunities (p. 202). State structure and subjective perceptions are treated as closely correlated.Structural opportunities generally coincide with perceived opportunities in other recent studies in the Tocquevillean tradition. Tarrow (1994), for instance, recognizes the interplay between the macro-and micro-levels of analysis. He notes that "early risers"-protest groups at the beginning stages of a cycle of widespread protest activity-may make opportunities visible that had not been evident, and their actions may change the structure of opportunities (pp. 96-97). However, over most of the protest cycle, perceptions closely follow the opening and closing of objective opportunities (pp. 85-96, 99). "The main argument of this study," Tarrow emphasizes, "is that people join in social movements in response to political opportunities" (p. 17).Goldstone (1991a, 1991b) also combines aspects of the state's structure (state breakdown) and subjective factors (ideology and cultural frameworks) in his analysis of the early modern revolutions of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. State breakdown, the result of nonsubjective causes like "material and social change" (Goldstone 1991a: 408), is accompanied during revolutions by subjective perceptions of breakdown, namely "widespread loss of confidence in, or allegiance to, the state" (Goldstone 1991b:10). Subjective perceptions do not play an independent role until after the state has broken down.These Tocquevillean analyses recognize that structural opportunities and perceived
Max Weber's fragmentary writings on social status suggest that differentiation on this basis should disappear as capitalism develops. However, many of Weber's examples of status refer to the United States, which Weber held to be the epitome of capitalist development. Weber hints at a second form of status, one generated by capitalism, which might reconcile this contradiction, and later theorists emphasize the continuing importance of status hierarchies. This article argues that such theories have missed one of the most important forms of contemporary status: celebrity. Celebrity is an omnipresent feature of contemporary society, blazing lasting impressions in the memories of all who cross its path. In keeping with Weber's conception of status, celebrity has come to dominate status "honor," generate enormous economic benefits, and lay claim to certain legal privileges. Compared with other types of status, however, celebrity is status on speed. It confers honor in days, not generations; it decays over time, rather than accumulating; and it demands a constant supply of new recruits, rather than erecting barriers to entry.
6364 KURZMAN OWENS class-less approach, and Brym (2001) adopting a class-bound approach. Our review of the field, focusing primarily on the English-language literature, is organized around these three approaches, discussing the updating of each approach during three waves of interest in the subject, in the 1920s, the 1950s, and the 1990s.
For many years, studies of electoral clientelism regarded clients as the captive votes of patrons. In recent years, this conventional wisdom has come under challenge, as scholars have come to recognize the widespread noncompliance of clients. This article uses the case of the 1993 Taiwan election to offer the first ever systematic data on noncompliance. Documents from the ruling Kuomintang (Nationalist Party) campaign office in one Taiwanese district, combined with district electoral results, demonstrate considerable leakage in this instance of clientelistic mobilization: at least 45 percent of voters who sold their votes to the Kuomintang did not, in fact, vote for the Kuomintang's candidate. This article argues that clientelistic mobilization faced at least four serious obstacles, including (1) broker scarcity, (2) factionalism, (3) embezzlement, and (4) financial limitations. These obstacles prevented the Kuomintang from making full use of its broker organizations, even as it devoted extensive economic and political resources and personnel to the election.
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