About

Policy Trajectories is the blog of the American Sociological Association’s Section on Comparative and Historical Sociology.

We believe that comparative and historical scholarship has much to offer to public debate on a wide range of issues. Some examples of relevant topics include, but are not limited to: income and wealth inequality, gender, sexuality, race, immigration, social movements, religious and ethnic conflicts, taxation, social welfare, public spending, market regulation, and human rights.

The purpose of this blog is to serve as a platform for sociologists and scholars from other disciplines to explicitly engage with and explain the critical questions and events of our time. Our goal is to be part of a larger conversation and offer ideas and policy proposals.

We look forward to receiving submissions from members of the Section and the larger social scientific community on an ongoing basis. If you have an idea and would like to write for us, please do not hesitate to contact us.

Editor: Fiona Rose-Greenland

Editorial Committee:  Zophia Edwards, Malcolm Fairbrother, Josh McCabe

Webmaster: Sahan S. Karatasli

Regular Contributors (2016-2017):

Dana R. Fisher is Professor of Sociology at the University of Maryland. Her research focuses on understanding the relationship between environmentalism and democracy—most recently studying environmental stewardship and American climate politics.

Malcolm Fairbrother is Reader in Global Policy and Politics at University of Bristol. His research interests span a diversity of topics within the fields of political economy, nature-society relationships, and social science research methods.

Gregory Jackson is a Professor at the Free University of Berlin, and the chief editor of the Socio-Economic Review. His research examines how corporate governance is influenced by diverse organizational and institutional contexts.

Lane Kenworthy is Yankelovich Endowed Chair Professor of Sociology at UCSD. He studies the causes and consequences of living standards, poverty, inequality, mobility, employment, economic growth, social policy, taxes, public opinion, and politics in the United States and other affluent countries.

Basak Kus is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at Wesleyan University. Her research areas include comparative capitalisms, inequality and redistributive politics, neoliberal reforms, the politics of economic crises, legal change, finance and society, debt, and Turkish politics.

Richard Lachmann is Professor of Sociology at SUNY-Albany. His research and writing are focused on political sociology and comparative historical sociology, especially on the origins of capitalism, and the decline of dominant powers.

Daniel Laurison is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at Swarthmore College. He is interested in politics, inequality, and the way social position (the amount of economic, cultural, and social resources/capitals someone has, relative to others in their society) shapes how people understand and relate to the world around them (especially with regard to politics & inequality).

Isaac Martin is Professor of Sociology at UCSD. His research areas include public policy, taxation, urban studies, and social protest.

Frédéric Mérand is Professor of Political Science at the University of Montréal, and the director of CÉRIUM, the Montréal Centre for International Studies. His research focuses on the European Union, and EU-Canada relations.

Josh McCabe is a Postdoctoral Fellow at The Freedom Project at Wellesley College. His current research project looks at the politics of child-related tax credits in the United States, Canada, and United Kingdom.

Josh Pacewicz is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at Brown University. He is interested in contemporary American statecraft, particularly the interplay between federal policy and party politics, municipal finance, political advocacy and expertise, and more generally the democratic process.

Monica Prasad is Professor of Sociology at Northwestern University. Her areas of interest are comparative historical sociology, economic sociology, and political sociology. She has studied the rise of neoliberalism, the development of tax systems, the effects of carbon taxes, and the persistence of poverty in America.