Reinforcing the Racial Structure: Observed Race and Multiracial Internet Daters’ Racial Preferences

Social Forces ◽  
2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cynthia Feliciano ◽  
Jessica M Kizer

Abstract Is the growing multiracial population changing the US racial structure? This study examines how self-identifying with more than one racial group relates to racial dating choices—an outcome that reveals multiracial individuals’ agency in the process of racial boundary-making and reduction. Quantitative analyses of profiles drawn from the largest online dating website, combined with observer racial classifications of profile photos, reveal divergent patterns in racial preferences among multiracials who self-identify as part-Black compared with those who do not. Non-Black multiracials express racial preferences that are more similar to Whites than to minorities, consistent with Whitening theories suggesting that these groups situate themselves closer to Whites and reinforce the existing racial hierarchy. In contrast, part-Black multiracials’ preferences are more similar to Blacks. However, regardless of racial self-identity, multiracial online daters’ exclusion of Whites as possible dates depends upon how they are racially perceived by others—their observed race. In particular, among self-identified part-Black multiracials, those whom others view as non-Black are much more accepting of Whites as dates than are those whom others classify as Black. Since preferences for dating Whites vary substantially among individuals who self-identify as part-Black depending upon their observed race, this suggests a decline in the salience of the one-drop rule, even while some aspects of Black exceptionalism persist among multiracials whom others classify solely as Black.

Author(s):  
Timur Ergen

This chapter brings together arguments from economics, sociology, and political economy to show that innovation processes are characterized by a dilemma between the advantages of aligned expectations—including greater coordination and investment—and those of diversity, including superior openness to new technological possibilities. To illustrate the argument, the chapter discusses a historical case involving one of the largest coordinated peace-time attempts to hasten technological innovation in the history of capitalism, namely the US energy technology policies of the 1970s and 1980s. Close examination of the commercialization of photovoltaics and synthetic fuel initiatives illustrates both sides of the dilemma between shared versus diverse expectations in innovation: coordination but possible premature lock-in on the one hand, and openness but possible stagnation on the other. The chapter shows that even the exploration and interpretation of new technologies may be as much a product of focused investment as of trial-and-error search.


2021 ◽  
pp. 205789112110211
Author(s):  
Zafar Khan

This article primarily focuses on how the increasing US–China competing strategies in Asia-Pacific affect the policies of South Asian rivals India and Pakistan when, on the one hand, the US as part of its offshore balancing grand strategy has been increasing its strategic partnership with India through the transfer of emerging technologies in terms of military modernization process, and on the other hand, China and Pakistan have improved their geo-economic and geostrategic partnership as part of the Chinese grand strategy via the Belt and Road Initiative while enabling Pakistan to produce effective countermeasures against its potential adversary. The article presumes that, in doing so, such competing strategies frame a quadrangle setting comprising of US and India to deter and contain China on the one hand and China and Pakistan to produce countermeasures and try to create a balance to potentially prevent the risk of conflict in South Asia out of such competing strategies at the quadrangle order conceived here. However, in fact, neither the US nor rising China would desire such a possibility of conflict otherwise unintendedly occurring from the intense US–China competing strategies while affecting the policies of the South Asian rivals. The article concludes that the shaping of this quadrangle framework may bring both opportunities and challenges for the South Asian rivals. It also concludes that the more intense the competition between the US and China becomes, the more intense its implications could be on the South Asian rivals, while the reduced tension between China and the US, although unlikely, would have reduced pressure on India and Pakistan relations as well.


2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Zahid Irshad Younas ◽  
Mahvesh Khan ◽  
Mamdouh Abdulaziz Saleh Al-Faryan

Purpose The purpose of the study is to explore the misconception that in developed countries, macroeconomic performance lead to sustainable firms or improves stakeholder well-being. The results may be the opposite or even worse. Design/methodology/approach This study examined this misconception using balanced panel data from 1,122 firms from different sectors of the US economy and data on macroeconomic performance from the World Bank. Findings The results of the one-step generalised method of moments indicate that most macroeconomic performance indicators had significant and negative impacts on firm sustainability and stakeholder well-being. Practical implications From a societal perspective, the results illustrate that the fruits of macroeconomic performance of the US economy do not reach stakeholders through firms’ sustainability. Thus, linking the economy’s macroeconomic performance with firm sustainability is vital for sustainably uplifting society and for stakeholder well-being. Originality/value From a policy perspective, this study reveals that the greater focus on macroeconomic performance in the USA over the past decades has resulted in lower firm sustainability because of the malfunctioning of social, economic, environmental and governance factors. This has negatively influenced stakeholder well-being in the country.


SAGE Open ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 215824402110439
Author(s):  
Byung-Ho Lee

This study analyzes, from a comparative and historical perspective, the clash between state statutory law and native customary law and the consequential effects of that rivalry on ethno-legal categories. It adopts a long-term perspective on Chinese society, with a particular focus on its history over the last three centuries. Although the imperial Chinese state had a centralized legal code, many non-Han subjects followed different legal standards and systems. Such conditions became the basis of legal pluralism and the structural constraint for full-fledged legal uniformity. It is argued that state-imposed ethnic categories in China have been institutionalized to determine those who should be protected, or even privileged, by their own native law. This is especially true during the alien dynasties of conquest, which purposely emphasized the principle of personal law to preserve legal prerogatives of ruling ethnicity. Similarly, indigenes on the frontier carried a variety of legal exemptions on grounds of the principle of territorial law. Such conditions could leave room for individual agency and provide incentives for both acculturated Han settlers and sinicized indigenes to claim native status. Several examples, including an 18th-century homicide case in China’s southwestern frontier, substantiate how individuals manipulated their ethnicity for their self-advantage and how these behaviors complicated the personality and territoriality principles of imperial law. In this sense, ethnic law served as an institutionalized distillation of ethnic group boundaries, which were realigned by shifts in self-identity. The legacy of China’s imperial practices of particularistic jural relations continues today.


Author(s):  
David J. Chalcraft

The story of Ehud, and his assassination of the Moabite King Eglon (Judges 3: 12–30), continues to entertain readers and hearers alike. The story also perplexes, largely on moral grounds. This paper utilises the sociology of Erving Goffman and insights from disability studies to re-tell the story of Ehud as someone who is doubly stigmatised. That is, Ehud not only carriers the stigma of left-handedness but is also disabled; moreover, the Moabite King is also disabled/immobile because of his obesity. I take the biblical text as conveying that Ehud is left-handed by necessity given the impairment in his right hand/arm. Adopting a social model of disability, I apply Goffman’s account of the management of spoiled identity developed in his book Stigma (1963) to explore how the narrative depicts various dimensions of social stigma and Ehud’s moral career as he attempts to manage his spoiled identity and the degrees of societal acceptance and rejection he experiences in different contexts. The key arguments of Goffman are summarised before I apply central concepts from Goffman to the biblical story. Concepts include “moral career,” the distinction between social, personal and ego (self-) identity, and the key distinction between a person with a stigma being discredited (because the impairment is obvious and seen by all), on the one hand, or bearing a stigma that is discreditable (that is, it would discredit them if found out), on the other.


The Forum ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
R. Shep Melnick

AbstractOver the past half century no judicial politics scholar has been more respected or influential than Martin Shapiro. Yet it is hard to identify a school of thought one could call “Shapiroism.” Rather than offer convenient methodologies or grand theories, Shapiro provides rich empirical studies that show us how to think about the relationship between law and courts on the one hand and politics and governing on the other. Three key themes run through Shapiro’s impressive oevre. First, rather than study courts in isolation, political scientists should view them as “one government agency among many,” and seek to “integrate the judicial system in the matrix of government and politics in which it actually operates.” Law professors may understand legal doctrines better than political scientists, but we know (or should know) the rest of the political system better than they do. Second, although judges inevitably make political decisions, their institutional environment leads them to act differently from other public officials. Most importantly, their legitimacy rests on their perceived impartiality within the plaintiff-defendant-judge triad. The conflict between judges’ role as impartial arbiter and enforcer of the laws of the regime can never be completely resolved and places powerful constraints on their actions. Third, the best way to understand the complex relationship between courts and other elements of the regime is comparative analysis. Shapiro played a major role in resuscitating comparative law, especially in his work comparing the US and the EU. All this he did with a rare combination of thick description and crisp, jargon-free analysis, certainly a rarity the political science of our time.


2016 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
pp. 37-53
Author(s):  
Yves Rocha De Salles Lima ◽  
Tatiane Stellet Machado ◽  
Joao Jose de Assis Rangel

The objetive of this work is to analyze the variation of CO2 emissions and GDP per capita throughout the years and identify the possible interaction between them. For this purpose, data from the International Energy Agency was collected on two countries, Brazil and the one with the highest GDP worldwide, the United States. Thus, the results showed that CO2 emissions have been following the country’s economic growth for many years. However, these two indicators have started to decouple in the US in 2007 while in Brazil the same happened in 2011. Furthermore, projections for CO2 emissions are made until 2040, considering 6 probable scenarios. These projections showed that even if the oil price decreases, the emissions will not be significantly affected as long as the economic growth does not decelerate.


2018 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 140-148
Author(s):  
D. G. Dragan

In this article, the author attempts to determine the strategic directions of Romania’s foreign policy. Significant geopolitical events in Europe expose the need to clarify the priorities of the policy pursued by the country. Historically in foreign relations Romania has employed diplomatic strategies that allowed it, according to historians, to «anoeuvre» between the centres of power on the international arena. However, in the early 2000’s a departure from this tradition has become apparent, especially during the administration of Traian Basescu (2004–2014), which also coincided with the country’s joining NATO in 2004 and EU in 2007. After the collapse of the socialist bloc Romania set its priorities, firstly, in the direction of joining both NATO and EU and later bringing the country in accordance with their norms and standards was put high on the agenda. Having become a member of the Alliance and an EU-state, Romania has been determining its foreign policy from the point of view of synchronizing its strategic goals with those of NATO and EU. Along with this, the strategic partnership with the US and the attached to it significant importance for Romania dictate the one-sided political approach deprived of the traditional manoeuvre capability in foreign affairs. This is also proven by the fact that despite the declared and established privileged relations with a number of countries, the level of their “strategic” execution is very low in reality. That being said, the direction of the relations between Romania and the Russian Federation, whose views on many regional and international issues differ, are likely to be greatly influenced by the state of the Russia-West affairs. Having analyzed the historic and current aspects of Romania’s foreign policy, the author determines the preservation of the euroatlanticism course as the main direction of the development of the foreign policy of Romania.


2016 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Rainer Baule ◽  
Hannes Wilke

This paper bridges two recent studies on the role of analysts to provide new and relevant information to investors. On the one hand, the contribution of analysts to long-term price discovery on the US market is rather low. Considering earnings per share forecasts as the main output of analysts’ reports, their information share amounts to only 4.6% on average. On the other hand, trading strategies set up on these EPS forecasts are quite profitable. Self-financing portfolios yield excess returns of more than 5% over the S&P 100 index for a time period of 36 years, which is persistent after controlling for the well-known risk factors. In this paper, we discuss the link between the low information shares and the high abnormal returns. We argue that information shares of analysts cannot be higher, because otherwise their forecasts would lead to excessively profitable trading strategies which are very unlikely to persist over such a long period of time.


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