I work at the intersection of political, organizational, economic, and legal sociology, with theoretical interests in the contests and negotiations that unfold within groups, and questions about how struggles for differentiation shape the dialectical interplay of inclusion and exclusion.
Struggles Beyond the Formal Monopoly Models
My research program highlights the advantages that actors can accumulate by keeping the line of insider-outsider unsettled. To safeguard their privileges, these actors opt for fluid venues over more rigid structures. In a paper titled “Fuzzy Boundaries,” I show why and when this type of membership boundary proves more effective and desirable than the traditional model of social closure, which relies on strict definitions of group membership criteria.
Market Strategies and Status
My current book project builds upon my dissertation, which explores “moralized” licensing laws in nineteenth-century America through a historical analysis of various archival sources, including occupational journals, newspapers, legislative records, and state and federal court cases. These laws stipulated that applicants for certain occupations must be of “good moral character” (GMC), among other qualifications.
The book brings together two models of “moralized” licensing laws: self-imposed and top-down. I illustrate how self-initiated “moralized” licensing laws were championed by members of exclusive voluntary occupational associations, which were not accessible to all practitioners. These organizations, which intrigued Tocqueville, served as sites of differentiation and exclusion; through the control of the moral clause, they aimed to affirm their status within their respective fields. Conversely, in the case of top-down regulations, moral clauses were imposed on trades perceived as suspicious to enforce or monitor a cultural agenda. By tracing the efforts of actors who advocated for these moralized laws, despite the presence of alternative licensing models, I demonstrate how these groups employed a market strategy—that is, licensure—as a means to negotiate their status.
Morality and Institutions
I also study the interplay between morality and institutional domains. I have a work in progress that explores moral evaluations within criminal courts, focusing on how the moral judgments of legal actors influence decision-making at a micro level. In this project, I explore how legal actors’ moral identities map onto their interactions with populations that court officials have already processed through racialized and gendered notions of worth.
My work on the moral character clause (GMC) in legal codes provides another avenue to explore questions about the institutional embodiment of moral values and vice versa. I am in the early stages of designing a comparative study of the application of the moral clause across various legal domains. Initially, the moral clause appeared in licensing regulations, but it has since been extended to other legal areas such as naturalization, voting, jury rights, adoption, and eligibility for social benefits, including assistance for individuals who are deaf or blind. However, the activation of the moral clause has varied temporally and cross-sectionally among these rights, raising questions about how institutional dynamics influence the use of these moral tools for exclusion.