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Dossiers

Cities, Centers of our Time

A Selection of Essays and Reviews

by Cristelle Terroni, 21 December 2012

During the Christmas season, Books and Ideas offers a selection of reviews and essays that tackle the subject of cities and the issues they raise as complex centers of urban life: how could we (...)

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Essays

The Day Income Gaps Were Finally Capped

by Jean Gadrey & translated by Michael C. Behrent, 15 October 2012

As we enter the twenty-second century, the need for capping income gaps to guarantee social cohesion and preserve the environment is no longer challenged. Yet only a century ago, this idea seemed (...)

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Dossiers

To Have or Not to Have

Poverty and Wealth in National Contexts

by Emilie Frenkiel, 15 July 2012

How to combat growing inequalities and injustice in a given country? Recent research suggests that solutions lie in better understanding and controlling access to education and working conditions (...)

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Essays

Is the Middle Class a Victim of Taxation?

by Antoine Bozio & translated by Michael C. Behrent, 28 May 2012

What do we really know about the costs and benefits of redistribution for the middle class? Two recent studies demonstrate that while it is certainly heavily taxed, so is the vast majority of the (...)

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Campaigning for Ideas

Islam and the Republic: Towards a Reasonable Accommodation

An Interview with John Bowen

by David Bornstein & Pauline Peretz & translated by Michael C. Behrent, 2 March 2012

In France, Islamic institutions follow the Republic’s rules, respect the legal and political system, but suffer from the fact that the principle of religious equality is contradicted by popular (...)

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Campaigning for Ideas

Housing: Helping Those Who Really Need It

An Interview with Fanny Bugeja

by David Bornstein & Pauline Peretz & translated by Michael C. Behrent, 24 February 2012

It is neither simple nor cheap for French people to find housing, especially if they are young. This fuels social inequalities and recent programs, with their emphasis on homeownership, have made (...)

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Campaigning for Ideas

Getting Employment Going Again

An Interview with Philippe Askenazy

by Ivan Jablonka & translated by Michael C. Behrent, 10 February 2012

If we want to adjust to the world the crisis has thrust us in, we will have to stop blaming unemployment on the “French Model.” For economist Philippe Askenazy, we need to shift from a vision of (...)

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Reviews

The Mayawati Factor

About: A. Bose, Behenji, A political biography of Mayawati, Penguin India.

by Nicolas Jaoul, 1 November 2011

The first biography of Mayawati, the contemporary dalit leader, breaks the silence of the Indian elites on a political phenomenon of unusual magnitude. Unfortunately this book’s account of the (...)

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Reviews

The Reality of Social Demotion

About: C. Peugny, Le Déclassement, Grasset.

by Vincent Chabault, 23 May 2011

Social demotion is a concept which pervades public debate: it evokes the feeling of anxiety expressed by individuals, but it also represents a social and statistical reality which is experienced (...)

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Essays

The Making of an American Aristocracy

An Interview with Shamus Khan

by Pauline Peretz, 4 May 2011

How can the United States sustain the paradox of being a nation founded on freedom and equality while tolerating such levels of inequalities that many diagnose a return to the Gilded Age? For (...)

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Essays

Finance, an Inequality Factor

by Olivier Godechot, 15 April 2011

This study shows that, contrary to preconceptions, CEOs and stars of the sport and entertainment industry are not the first ones to blame for rising inequalities. The evolution of the wages of (...)

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Essays

Lula: Father of the Poor?

by Frédéric Louault & translated by John Zvesper, 4 April 2011

Lula had promised to be the president of the poor, and with the help of favourable economic conditions, he was able to reduce poverty by raising and broadening social minima. However, unable to (...)

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Reviews

French Society: Words and Numbers

About: L. Maurin, Déchiffrer la société française, La Découverte.

by Lise Bernard & translated by Arthur Goldhammer, 23 February 2011

Using data from the Observatoire des Inégalités, Louis Maurin contrasts numbers with words to paint a portrait of the many kinds of inequality—economic, cultural, and sexual—which continue to divide (...)

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Essays

Ambedkar and the Critique of Caste Society

by Jules Naudet, 5 November 2010

Although less well known than Gandhi and Nehru, Ambedkar occupies a unique position in India’s collective imagination. Father of the Constitution and virulent critic of the caste system, he (...)

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Essays

A redrawing of the Red/Blue map in November 2010?

Five questions to Andrew Gelman about the coming midterm elections

by Pauline Peretz, 22 October 2010

In the United States, the November midterm elections will most likely be a success for Republicans in Congress. Does it mean that the 2008 electoral map is already outdated? Does it definitely (...)

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Reviews

The Culture of Poverty Reconsidered

About: D. J. Harding, M. Lamont, M. L. Small, dir., Reconsidering Culture and Poverty, The Annals.

by Nicolas Duvoux, 6 October 2010

A special issue of the journal Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science edited by the American sociologists David J. Harding, Michèle Lamont, and Mario L. Small examines the (...)

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Essays

Castes, untouchability and social success in India

by Jules Naudet, 18 March 2010

Even if India is a caste society, social mobility is not impossible. Many years of positive discrimination policies and struggle have enabled some Dalits—the caste name of the so-called (...)

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Essays

Which direction for the welfare state?

Legacies of welfare reform in the United States

by Isaac William Martin, 6 March 2009

Isaac Martin gives us an account of the American welfare state, at a time when the current economic crisis seems to pave the way for a new New Deal. According to him, however, it is unlikely that (...)

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Reviews

Is America Sick with Inequality?

About : D. S. Massey, Categorically Unequal, Russel Sage Foundation.

by Mirna Safi, 19 February 2009

Douglas Massey’s book, Categorically Unequal, draws up an instructive inventory of inequality in the United States. A classic study of social stratification, it is complemented by a discussion of (...)

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Essays

The World Social Forum Challenge

by Geoffrey Pleyers, 28 January 2009

The 8th World Social Forum opened on January 27th in Belem, Brazil. Geoffrey Pleyers explains the situation of the alter-globalisation movement: in spite of the success of its ideas in the wake (...)

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Reviews

The Politics of Inequality

About: Larry M. Bartels, Unequal Democracy, Princeton University Press.

by Stephen W. Sawyer, 12 January 2009

Forty years of Republican dominance of American presidential politics have led to an unprecedented rise in economic inequality. In his latest book, Larry Bartels argues that this politics of (...)

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Reviews

The New Class Struggle?

Economic Inequality and Political Polarization in the United States

by Michael C. Behrent, 14 October 2006

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