453 - Thematic Session. Hard Times in the Public Sector: Rethinking Inequality, State and Neoliberal Reforms

Session Submission Type: Invited Session

Abstract

Sociology has long treated the public sector as a somehow distinct domain relative to the private sector, affording, for instance, workplace protections and benefits that help to mitigate inequalities associated with race/ethnicity, gender and class. Neo-liberal reforms and transformations of the state sector, both in the US and globally, however, have fundamentally reshaped the inequality equation in ways that our field generally, and its sub areas of social stratification, political sociology, collective behavior and social movements, work, and organizations, have yet to adequately grasp. This panel brings together five prominent sociologists who will draw on their own empirical and theoretical insights in providing guideposts relative to questions such as: What structural and cultural processes have been involved with moves toward privatization and how have the public sector, states and institutions been transformed? What have been the inequality consequences, at least thus far, and what seem to be the dominant trends? And, no less important, in what ways do we as sociologists need to reconsider our own theoretical formulations, emphases and empirical foci?

Sub Unit

• Thematic Sessions

Session Organizer

• Vincent J. Roscigno, The Ohio State University

Presider

• George Wilson, University of Miami

Panelists

• Cheol-Sung Lee, University of Chicago

• William Darity, Duke University

• Fred Block, University of California-Davis

• Sylvia A. Fuller, University of British Columbia