Abstract
This edited volume is a collection of 12 contributions presented at the First ISA Forum of Sociology (Barcelona, 2008) in sessions organized by Research Committee 09 on Social Transformations and Sociology of Development. The aim of the book, as noted by the editor, Ulrike Schuerkens, in the preface, is ‘to provide a comprehensive overview of transformations of social inequality in a global world’. This is a very ambitious undertaking and there are, of course, many gaps. But despite several shortcomings, the volume contributes to our understanding of current transformations of social inequalities in different parts of the world. More precisely, the volume has two important strengths: it reveals, first, the regional, national and local differences in inequality patterns and globalization impacts and, second, it demonstrates the importance of political choices for higher and lower levels of social inequalities.
The editor has arranged the chapters into four sections dealing with transformations and changing dimensions of inequality, social policy measures and their influence on social inequalities, and on the relationships between globalization and social inequalities in different world regions.
In the introduction (Part I), the editor presents some empirical findings on the evolution of global inequalities, before discussing the concepts and theories of globalization and inequality and developing the key topics addressed by the book, namely, societal transformations and their impacts on social inequalities. The editor advocates, on the one hand, a broad and critical perspective on globalization and inequality, and active engagement in policy debates on these topics. On the other hand, she emphasizes the multidimensional and relational character, as well as the complexity and the substantial regional, national and local variations in changing inequalities and their relationships with globalization processes.
In Part II of the book, four specific, ‘under-researched’ transformations of social inequalities related to globalization and transnational processes are addressed. The first chapter examines spatial positions and mobilities as increasingly important aspects of social inequalities. Based on British and Swiss household panel data, Manderscheid’s chapter demonstrates that social positions (measured with the CAMSIS [Cambridge Social Interaction and Stratification] scale) are spatially anchored: in both countries, Switzerland and Britain, access to (work-related) spatial and virtual mobility are highly correlated with social position, particularly in Britain. The second chapter addresses the question of how migration and remittances impact on income inequalities. Based on data from a national representative survey of 2007, Zamfir et al. found inequality-reducing effects of migrants’ remittances in Romania, both at the national and regional level (i.e. reduction of income inequality between urban and rural areas). In the third chapter, Susanna Melo examines the recent EU reform and modernization strategy in education and training. In order to identify best practices and best performers, EU educational governance increasingly uses monitoring and benchmarking mechanisms. The consequent struggle of educational institutions for high prestige (with corresponding higher funding) and the increasing stratification among educational institutions may result, according to the author, in an increase in social inequalities within the EU area. In the fourth chapter, Lenz analyses the transformations in gender relations in East Asia, a region where globalization and market-based economic transformations and modernization have been particularly strong over the past decades. These transformations contributed to comparatively high female labour market participation, declining educational inequalities and the increasing political participation of women. Employing a gender-welfare-regimes concept, the author also demonstrates the considerable national variations in the emerging gender regimes.
Part III of the volume includes three chapters on social policy initiatives in Latin America aiming at counterbalancing social inequalities in the respective countries. In the first chapter Muhr describes the ALBA initiative in Nicaragua, a regional counter-hegemonic project launched by several Latin American and Caribbean countries in the early 2000s. The author analyses the combined top-down and bottom-up construction of ALBA and, relying on an examination of three programmes in the transportation, education and health sectors, he demonstrates its considerable social impact. The second chapter in this part, by Ivo and Laniado, describes the main features of social policy programmes in Brazil in the context of the neoliberal policy approaches that dominated in the 1990s and early 2000s. The authors document the specific pattern of Brazilian social policies, characterized by a combination of corporatist social security schemes (for those integrated into the formal economy) and minimal targeted social welfare programmes (for those integrated into the informal sector of the economy) and demonstrate their poor redistributive effects. In the third chapter of the third part, Ayse Serdar examines Argentine new social movement unionism mobilization against unemployment, poverty and the increasing social inequalities. The author demonstrates both the successful mobilization during the 1990s and the movement’s capability of establishing broad political alliances, as well as its demobilization as a result of President Kirchner’s (successful) redistributive programme and the structural and organizational weakness of the movement.
Part IV of the volume presents five regional case studies on globalization and inequality evolution over the past 30 years. The first chapter of this part examines the evolution of social inequalities in China during the era of economic reform. Amandine Monteil demonstrates the increase in urban inequality as a result of urbanization and industrialization. Examining the new phenomenon of urban poverty, which affects various vulnerable social groups, such as laid-off workers, rural migrants and landless peasants, the author analyses the successful community politics of the Chinese government, largely based on interventions by local grassroots organizations. The second chapter of the fourth part analyses the rising income inequality in Eastern Europe. In it, Nina Bandelj and Matthew Mahutga examine the impact of economic globalization and market transition on the increase in income inequality in post-socialist societies. They find that several factors are responsible for the increase in income inequality, namely, foreign capital penetration (i.e. privatization policies), sector dualism, de-unionization, demographic trends and the discrimination of ethnic minorities (particularly the Roma). The third chapter of Part IV analyses social inequality in India. Gérard Djallal Heuzé demonstrates the rising social polarization of Indian society that has accompanied the liberalization and modernization processes over the past 20 years. The author shows the complex and multifaceted pattern of these processes, with newly emerging inequalities (as a result of liberalization and privatization policies) and the persistence and/or reproduction of existing inequalities (e.g. gender inequalities or inequalities between the informal and the formal economy), but also with decreasing inequalities, as for instance the caste-based inequalities. The two final chapters discuss the evolution of social inequality in Sub-Saharan Africa. Adeyinka Oladayo Bankole examines economic globalization and local entrepreneurship in Nigeria. The interviews with 58 young entrepreneurs in the manufacturing and service sectors in Ibadan reveal that the most important problems articulated by the entrepreneurs were the weakness of the Nigerian state with its inefficient infrastructure and the lack of support from the banking sector, i.e. the lack of access to and/or the high cost of capital. Finally, de Laillevault and Schuerkens discuss poverty and inequality in Senegal and the strategies developed by state policies and poor households. The authors show that only from the 1990s onwards was the multidimensional nature of poverty officially acknowledged. This chapter also demonstrates the importance of social networks which are mobilized by the poor to cope with their difficult situation.
This overview demonstrates the variety of themes, world regions and theoretical and methodological approaches treated by the different chapters of this volume. Not surprisingly, the rather heterogeneous contributions remain relatively weakly integrated. In my opinion, the two most important shortcomings of the book concern the issue of inequality dynamics and the theoretical and empirical links between globalization and the changing social inequalities. First, given the book’s core issue of economic and social transformations, the importance of a dynamic perspective on social inequalities is self-evident. On the empirical level, however, only a few chapters make an effort to develop a genuinely dynamic and longitudinal perspective. This can be illustrated by Manderscheid’s otherwise convincing chapter on spatially inscribed inequalities, which bases its analysis on multi-year panel data sets but presents data for only a single year and does this without discussing panel attrition. Second, the question of how exactly globalization impacts on social inequality is explicitly addressed only in a few chapters (notably that by Bandelj and Mahutga). Most of the contributions treat this question in a rather general and unspecific way.
Nevertheless, despite these shortcomings, the book is to be recommended. The contributions brought together in this volume testify to the fact that the global perspective is important for understanding what is actually happening with regard to inequality in different zones and regions of the world. They demonstrate how heterogeneous the linkages between economic, social and political transformations and changing social inequalities are, depending on the structural contexts and institutional arrangements, as well as on the social forces that are at play.