Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: Where do innovations in the social service and social welfare sectors come from? Once defined, what are some of the determinants of the supply of social services? This paper explores the role of social movements, segments of professions and policy entrepreneurs in the definition of social service products. The basic proposition is that social movements make a major contribution to the definition of needs and to the definition of categories of persons deserving services. They do so through several inter-related processes, direct and indirect. Directly, they define problems demanding organizational solutions. Indirectly, they contribute to the growth of new professional segments and the reorientation of professions already responsible or connected to specific social service delivery industries. They also influence the orientation of policy entrepreneur's who help shape the governmental and non-profit agenda.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: This paper reviews and discusses recent theorizations and research findings about the supply and consumption of foreign television contents in Mexico, and compares them to findings in other parts of the world and of Latin America. Research on the supply of television contents in Mexico shows that although local supply is large (even larger than foreign supply), American imports account for significant percentages of total programming, especially in fiction. Regarding consumption of foreign messages, Mexican research shows a clear dominance of local productions in the preference of audience members in general, with the exception of upper class male youngsters who tend to like U.S. contents more than Mexican contents. The evidence suggests that in the context of globalization and liberalization experienced by Mexico in the last few years, proliferation of foreign television contents and their consumption by different segments of the audience co-exist with a strong volume of national productions with equal or greater popularity than imported messages.

Publication Type: Abstract
Abstract: Callon and others have argued that the economy is something that is performed and that economists spend their time proposing ways in which the economy can be performed. Similarly, Hilgartner argues that science is performed, using the creation of reports by the National Academy of Sciences as an example. In this paper, I argue that the ongoing transformations collectively known as globalization signal neither the rise of a new neoliberal global economy, nor the beginning of a race to the bottom, but a new way of practicing both economics and regulatory science: Supply Chain Management. SCM appears to be subsuming neoclassical models and in so doing creating a new way simultaneously to think about and to perform both the economy and science. I use recent developments in the agrifood sector to illustrate my arguments.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Recent work on social influence has highlighted the importance of socially-supplied political expertise, crediting it with strengthening attitudes, resolving ambivalence, and encouraging political participation. However, in focusing on the consequences of socially-supplied political expertise, scholars have made the implicit assumption that citizens have equal access to this resource and have largely ignored its mal-distribution. Given that individuals are constrained by their social contexts, we are particularly troubled by this oversight, and thus use multiple national data sources – including the American component of the 1992 CNES and the 2000 ANES – to explore the distribution of expertise among and throughout the social networks of citizens. We find a skewed distribution with particular implications for women.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Why do third parties mediate interstate conflict? Briefly, third parties mediate interstate conflict either because they are interested in the conflict or they wish to enhance their international reputation. Although there is a great deal of literature on