Abortion Policies in a Polarizing World Society, 1970 to 2020

American Sociological Review · 2025-06-09 · 3 citations

This article examines how global contention over reproductive rights influenced national abortion polices over the past half-century. I glean four models of normative contestation in world society and its consequences for diffusion and institutionalization, arguing that a theory of polarization best accounts for developments in norms and policies on abortion. Fixed-effects regression analyses of up to 160 countries between 1970 and 2020 test the empirical implications of this argument. Several noteworthy findings emerge. First, country linkages to international nongovernmental organization (INGOs) predict abortion liberalization, but memberships in “illiberal” international organizations and alliances are associated with more restrictive abortion policies. Second, these relationships are conditioned by a shifting global context: in recent years, the association between illiberal affiliations and policy restrictions strengthened, while the liberalizing effect of INGOs weakened. And third, illiberal affiliations disrupt or “spoil” the effect of INGO linkages on policy expansions, illustrating the consequences of mutual engagement between rival transnational networks. Similar patterns characterize the effects of women’s and pro-family INGOs on abortion policies in the post–Cold War period. These findings point to growing polarization between liberal and illiberal forces in world society and suggest the incipient institutionalization of rival norms on abortion.

Global liberalism, emerging illiberalism, and human rights, 1980 to 2018

Social Science Research · 2024-03-19 · 13 citations

Political Ideology and Childhood Vaccination in Cross-National Perspective, 1995 to 2018

International Journal of Sociology · 2023-06-27 · 4 citations

Although the Covid-19 pandemic has renewed attention to the problem of vaccine hesitancy, vaccination rates for common childhood vaccines such as measles and pertussis have declined in many countries around the world for over a decade. To investigate the potential role of politicization in this decline, I analyze the relationship between the ideological composition of societies and childhood vaccination rates for measles, diphtheria, pertussis, and tetanus in 88 countries between 1995 and 2018, using pooled cross-national data from the World Values Survey, World Bank, and other sources. Controlling for other key determinants of vaccine uptake, coverage is highest in ideologically moderate societies and lowest in countries that skew to the Right of the political spectrum, while vaccination rates increase when countervailing ideological views are sufficiently well represented in a society. I relate these findings to theories of identity construction and maintenance, focusing especially on the “plausibility structures” approach in the phenomenological tradition and the “subcultural identity” perspective developed in religious contexts.

Don’t <i>You</i> Be My Neighbor! Perceptions of Homosexuality in Global Cross-Cultural Perspective, 1990 to 2019

Socius Sociological Research for a Dynamic World · 2023-01-01 · 5 citations

The Authors draw on cognitive sociology and attribution theory to infer whether people classify homosexuality as an identity or a behavior. Using six waves of World Values Survey data covering 85 countries, the authors conduct factor and multilevel regression analyses to examine patterns of intolerance toward gay people alongside racialized groups, immigrants, and users of alcohol or illicit substances, in the context of who constitutes an undesirable neighbor. The authors examine changes in these patterns over time and variation across broad cultural zones. Evaluations of homosexuality tend to cluster with alcohol and substance use in non-Western societies, albeit less strongly over time, but with race and nativity among Western and Latin American publics. The authors suggest that homosexuality is widely perceived as an identity in Western and “West-adjacent” countries, whereas elsewhere it is more often understood in behavioral terms. Over time, homosexuality is increasingly interpreted as an identity trait rather than a deviant behavior.

Individual Empowerment, Institutional Confidence, and Vaccination Rates in Cross-National Perspective, 1995 to 2018

American Sociological Review · 2023 · 32 citations

• Political Science
• Sociology
• Political Science

In the past decade, before the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, rates of childhood vaccination against diseases such as measles, diphtheria, pertussis, and tetanus declined worldwide. An extensive literature examines the correlates and motives of vaccine hesitancy—the reluctance or refusal to vaccinate despite the availability of vaccines—among individuals, but little macrosociological theory or research seeks to explain changes in country-level vaccine uptake in global and comparative perspective. Drawing on existing research on vaccine hesitancy and recent developments in world society theory, we link cross-national variation in vaccination rates to two global cultural processes: the dramatic empowerment of individuals and declining confidence in liberal institutions. Both processes, we argue, emerged endogenously in liberal world culture, instigated by the neoliberal turn of the 1980s and 1990s. Fixed- and random-effects panel regression analyses of data for 80 countries between 1995 and 2018 support our claim that individualism and lack of institutional confidence contributed to the global decline in vaccination rates. We also find that individualism is itself partly responsible for declining institutional confidence. Our framework of world-cultural change might be extended to help make sense of recent post-liberal challenges in other domains.

The Islamic Human Rights Deficit: Region, Not Religion, Is the Driver

Nordic Journal of Human Rights · 2023-04-03

Scholarly research, journalistic accounts, and popular discourses often portray Islam as detrimental to human rights. Governments in Muslim-majority countries are considered especially prone to violating bodily integrity protections, curtailing civil and political liberties, repressing women and LGBT people, and restricting religious freedoms. Using cross-national time-series data for a majority of the world’s countries, this article demonstrates that Islam per se is not responsible for human rights deficits in any of these domains. Simply being a Muslim-majority country is not associated with increased rights violations. Rather, human rights gaps are confined to Muslim-majority countries in the Middle East and North Africa region and, in some cases, to Arab countries. Additional research to explain these patterns is warranted.

Destroying Democracy for the People: The Economic, Social, and Political Consequences of Populist Rule, 1990 to 2017

Social Problems · 2023-01-23 · 22 citations

ABSTRACT The recent populist wave has raised questions about the implications of populism for democracy. Some scholars express optimism that populism may be a source of democratic revitalization, bringing about sweeping changes in accordance with the majority will. More often, populism is viewed as a threat to liberal democracy, combining calls for radical change with disdain for core democratic institutions and norms. We consider the possibility that these outcomes may not be mutually exclusive and develop a conceptual typology for understanding the consequences of populist rule. We then use cross-national panel fixed-effects models to analyze the effects of populist leadership between 1990 and 2017. We first examine whether populists have economic and social effects in line with their core aspirations. Left-wing populists are quite effective at implementing their agenda: they reduce income inequality, regulate markets, and incorporate marginalized groups. Right-wing populists are also fairly impactful: for instance, they raise tariffs, cut taxes, and restrict the rights of women and gay people. However, populists of all stripes are associated with the rapid and severe erosion of liberal democratic institutions. Populists, we conclude, often destroy democracy in the name of the people.

Aiding Human Rights? The Effect of U.S., European, and Chinese Development Assistance on Rights Practices in Recipient Countries, 2001 to 2017

International Journal of Sociology · 2022-05-11 · 10 citations

Official development assistance (ODA) refers to aid intended to promote economic development and wellbeing in developing countries. The effect of ODA from Western donors continues to be debated, but the impact of aid from non-Western countries such as China is a relatively new field of inquiry and analysis. Using data on Western ODA and a new dataset of “ODA-like” disbursements from China, this article analyzes the relationship between bilateral aid receipts from three sources—the United States, major European donors, and China—and two sets of human rights practices: physical integrity and “empowerment” (i.e., civil and political) rights. Analyses are conducted using panel fixed-effects regression models with and without instrumental variables. U.S. ODA, in particular, improves human rights in recipient countries. Estimated effects of bilateral ODA from European donors and China are far less robust. These results suggest that U.S. aid is not as ineffective nor Chinese aid as pernicious as is commonly assumed.

The dialectics of universalism and particularism: World society, religious traditions, and women’s political representation, 1960–2013

International Sociology · 2021-11-19 · 8 citations

This study develops a model of macro-cultural identity inspired by the work of George Herbert Mead. The model puts world society theory, which emphasizes the homogenizing effects of ‘world culture,’ into conversation with civilization-analytic perspectives, which contend that religious and civilizational differences grow increasingly salient over time. The author regards these approaches as dialectically co-implicated. To test the model, the article analyzes cross-cultural heterogeneity in the effects of world society linkages on women’s share of parliamentary seats between 1960 and 2013. Countries are grouped into cultural zones based primarily on religious composition and secondarily on geographical region. The results generally support world society theory. Contrary to civilization-analytic perspectives, cultural resistance to women’s representation is most pronounced early but fades over time. Despite overall increases in women’s representation, there is little cross-cultural convergence, giving rise to improvement without isomorphism. The study concludes with a refined model of world society effects.

2 Indigenous Education in Global and Historical Perspective

Stanford University Press eBooks · 2020-11-10