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 examines how actors secure advantage not only by drawing boundaries but also by exploiting the limits of formal closure. It highlights how advantage is produced both where closure is constrained and where actors strategically avoid it altogether.
In a paper titled “Fuzzy Boundaries,” I show how actors accumulate advantage by keeping the insider–outsider line deliberately unsettled. Rather than relying on fixed membership criteria, they use strategically ambiguous standards that allow them to adjust inclusion and exclusion as needed. This flexibility preserves privilege while avoiding the visibility and constraints of rigid boundaries, making it more effective in certain contexts than traditional models of social closure, which rely on strictly defined membership rules.
Market Strategies and Status
My current book project 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, focusing on how moral frameworks are embedded in formal rules and organizational practices.
My work on the moral character clause (GMC) in legal codes examines how institutions codify and operationalize moral values across domains. This project traces the expansion of the clause from its origins in licensing regulations to its application in areas such as naturalization, voting, jury service, adoption, and eligibility for social benefits, including assistance for individuals who are deaf or blind. By analyzing its uneven activation across time and institutional contexts, this research highlights how moral criteria are differentially deployed in processes of inclusion and exclusion. I am currently developing this work into a comparative study.
In earlier research, I examined moral evaluations within criminal courts, focusing on how the moral judgments of legal actors influence decision-making at a micro level. This work explored how legal actors’ moral identities shape their interactions with populations already constructed through racialized and gendered notions of worth. This project resulted in the paper “Moral Scripts in Prosecutorial Decision-Making: The Interplay Between Self and Others,” published in Qualitative Sociology.