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Viviana A. Zelizer, sociologist and pioneer of the economic sociology field, has made significant contributions to economics and arguably should be more thoroughly recognized by the discipline. (1) Her work [...]

Friedrich A. Hayek argues that "equality of the general rules of law and conduct" is the only kind of equality compatible with liberty and, moreover, that attempting to pursue equality along any other dimension is likely to destroy liberty. For Hayek, then, as a social philosopher and political economist who was principally concerned with understanding and promoting liberal order, the question "What kind of equality?" has a straightforward answer. Equality before the law, perhaps equality of opportunity in a procedural sense, is the equality that we should pursue, not material equality and certainly not equality of outcomes. One wonders, though, whether Hayek dismisses too quickly the more substantive forms of equality and, more importantly, whether we can achieve the liberal society that Hayek envisions without concerning ourselves with more than just the presence or absence of equality of the general rules of law and conduct. This essay will explore, criticize, and expand upon the way that Hayek makes use of equality in his conception of a free society. Specifically, we argue that Hayek may need a more substantive conception of equality than he is willing to deploy in order to arrive at the liberal society he hopes to bring about. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Democracy in America, Tocqueville famously discussed the propensity of Americans to form voluntary associations and engage in self-governance to overcome collective challenges. The "science of association" has proven to be important, especially when communities are confronted with crises like natural disasters. Not surprisingly, the scholarship on community responses to crises has tended to emphasize how community members deploy their social capital to respond effectively to crises. This literature, however, has not yet emphasized the potential of crises to be a "source" of social capital. After a crisis, community members do not only tap their existing networks for aid but also deepen existing relationships and develop new connections. Moreover, they adapt existing associations to serve new functions and form new associations to meet collective needs. They also reinforce or reinterpret collective narratives that help overcome collective action problems. Using data from the COVID-19 crisis, this paper explores how a crisis can be a "source" of social capital. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In response to the COVID‐19 pandemic, governments around the world issued stay‐at‐home orders, which required that individuals stay at home unless they were engaging in certain activities. Often these orders would designate certain goods and services as "essential" and would permit individuals engaged in the production, delivery, and purchase of those goods and services to leave their homes to do so. Implicit in these policies, of course, is the assumption that policymakers can know ex ante which goods and services are essential. As proved true while these stay‐at‐home orders were in effect, essentialness is necessarily subjective and depends on knowledge that is often dispersed, inarticulate, and changes over time. Policymakers, however, do not and often cannot have access to the local knowledge needed to determine ex ante which goods and services are essential, and they lack the feedback mechanisms they would need to adroitly adapt when circumstances change. This paper examines these knowledge problems associated with designating certain goods and services as "essential" when crafting and implementing stay‐at‐home orders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Understanding how political actors not only set the terms of policy debates but limit the range of acceptable policy positions is critical to understanding the political process. Beyond their most preferred policies, politicians and special interests have sets of policies that they would find acceptable, though not ideal. In addition to advocating for their policy ideals, political actors attempt to limit debate to those policies that are within their preferred set. This rhetorical strategy has implications for how to identify, assess, and discuss policy debates and likely outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hierarchical management structures perform quite differently in the public and private sectors. In the public sector, these structures encounter knowledge problems that impair their ability to learn about the effectiveness of their programs and the need to adjust their efforts. In the private sector, however, because they must attract customers or donors in order to remain in existence, these structures are epistemically well positioned to receive feedback on their operations. This analysis examines the ability of private versus public bureaucracies to provide housing for the poor by examining the hierarchical structure and feedback mechanisms of Habitat for Humanity in comparison to federal efforts. Past government efforts have generally failed to improve housing, resulting in slums and urban blight. Conversely, nonprofit organizations such as Habitat for Humanity, which rely on hierarchical management structures but have access to more robust feedback mechanisms, have proven to be effective at housing the poor. We focus on the Habitat for Humanity International affiliate in Birmingham, Alabama, and show that it has produced lasting improvements in housing conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]