Much scholarship on boundary-making focuses on dyadic relationships between “us” and “them.” Yet the presence of multiple categories within societies allows for complex interactions among more than two potentially relevant groups. To capture this phenomenon and its dynamics better, we develop the concept of leveraging: the strategic manipulation of social distance among three or more constructed groups for political gain. The use of one group as a lever against another may involve stigmatizing or elevating categories of people along boundaries of (...) race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, gender, class, sexual orientation, or other salient social markers. We theorize these processes and identify the motivations of the initiators of leveraging as well as the range of possible responses to it. We use a pair of empirical case studies drawn from contemporary Europe and additional examples from other settings to demonstrate the relevance of the concept. Conceptualizing leveraging both improves our scholarly understanding of group-making processes and offers political actors tools for interpreting and responding to a common set of strategic practices. (shrink)

What explains Germany’s exceptional labor market performance during the Great Recession of 2008-09? Contrary to accounts that emphasize employment protection legislation or government policy, this article argues that actions by firms—embedded in ever-changing coordinative institutional structures—were crucial. Firms chose to keep rather than shed labor, a strategy induced by a “toolkit” of flexible labor market instruments that had evolved incrementally over the past thirty years; wage restraint and successful internal restructuring of firms during the past decade, which fueled an export (...) boom before the crisis. Firms thus had some margin for maneuver, using internal flexibility to protect their investment in skilled workers. These and other institutional changes driven by firms reflect a process of successful adaptation to external economic challenges, but did not fundamentally undermine Germany’s coordinated form of capitalism. The result is not a new German model that was purposefully designed; instead German firms slowly discovered new ways to cope with economic challenges. (shrink)

European states differ tremendously in the extent to which their national education systems administer preschool programs, and whether or not these services can serve as day care for working parents. This article traces contemporary policy differences in three countries—France, Sweden, and Germany—to the effects of nineteenth-century conflicts between religious and secular forces over education. Intense, clerical-anticlerical conflict in France led to the incorporation of preschools into the national education system. In Sweden and Germany, the more accommodating relationship between church and (...) state assured that no such incorporation took place. These decisions had lasting consequences for the nature and extensiveness of child care services for preschool-aged children. (shrink)

The state is central to social scientific and historical inquiry today, reflecting its importance in domestic and international affairs. States kill, coerce, fight, torture, and incarcerate, yet they also nurture, protect, educate, redistribute, and invest. It is precisely because of the complexity and wide-ranging impacts of states that research on them has proliferated and diversified. Yet, too many scholars inhabit separate academic silos, and theorizing of states has become dispersed and disjointed. This book aims to bridge some of the many (...) gaps between scholarly endeavors, bringing together scholars from a diverse array of disciplines and perspectives who study states and empires. The book offers not only a sample of cutting-edge research that can serve as models and directions for future work, but an original conceptualization and theorization of states, their origins and evolution, and their effects. (shrink)

What are the political pathways to the dual earner/dual caregiver model? Are most countries likely to attain only a partial transformation of policies and societies, rather than a full embrace of this model? This article examines the development of work-family policies in Western Europe to probe the politics and consequences of these programs. In many countries, the political context frustrates efforts to enact a unified, comprehensive vision like the dual earner/dual caregiver model. Rather than achieving gender-egalitarian arrangements for work and (...) care, countries may stall halfway there. Advocates should be careful in what they ask for and be aware of the challenge of keeping gender-egalitarian goals at the center of a policy-making process over which they will not have full control. (shrink)