156
INTERNATIONAL REVIEW OF MODERN SOCIOLCX:;Y
BOOK REVIEWS
ommercial possibilities. This is task-oriented rather than fixed function labor.
U' ear development is replaced by a mind-set willing to jump around. (pp. 47-48)
These
3 corporations are most likely to be found, according to Sennett, on " ...
the cuttin edge of the economy: high technology, global finance, and new service
firms." (p. 2) Out on this edge we find a work world that emphasizes and
rewards mo [lity, flexibility, and superficial, short-term, interactions, and that
undermines 0 punishes experience, stability, trust and loyalty. For example,
developing trus in co-workers and loyalty to an organization both take time, but
the entire point 0 \~)ust in time" production is to minimize the time that workers
are "tasked" to one job or work group. In this environment trust and loyalty suffer.
Indeed, loyalty to o~ solidarity with one's co-workers comes to be seen as
"unproductive" and is\{isvalued and punished.
For Sennett, this shit{ from bureaucratic to post-bureaucratic capitalism has
dramatic consequences f01\ individuals at work and at home-to the extent that
this distinction, like all s~h distinctions, still means anything in our more
"flexible" world. In Chapte~2 Sennett turns his attention to the "Specter of
Uselessness," that arises from tiJ-e threats of outsourcing, automation, and aging
that together conspire to keep employees on the edge of their cubicles. But while
the threat of losing one's job are ever-present, it's also no longer as clear as perhaps
it once was that the point of doing ~$'Obis to do it well. Picking up where Harry
Braverman left off in his classic, L or and Monopoly Capital (1979), Sennett
observes that craftsmanship is newly u er threat-not by machines, as was once
the worry-but by a new capitalism fl~ds the commitment of the craftsman
counterproductive. He writes that while 1/'\. the flexible organization thrives on
smart people, it has trouble if they become c~mitted to craftsmanship." (p. 106)
Like loyalty and trust, craftsmanship takes '~'me, and the culture of the new
capitalism has no time for time. Thus, the new apitalism deprives the worried
worker of even the simple satisfaction of a job we done.
Having traced the dystopic consequences of ~e once longed-for liberation
from bureaucracy, in Chapter 3 Sennett extends his a~lysis from the workplace to
politics. Applying ideas developed earlier, he argues t~t the constant flux of the
new capitalism, when applied to politics, results in the b{oduction of superficial,
disposable policies and politicians. Analogous to the "'-,process of marketing
commodities, where quite similar products are packaged-to create superficial
differences, Sennett argues that politicians and policies are now created, and voter
appetites wetted and manipulated, in much the same way. Needless to say, the
citizen-as-consumer of politicians and policies is not the sort of kind of citizen that
Sennett believes is necessary to sustain a democracy.
There is, of course, not much new in Sennett's argument that-the political
process has been commodified and thus debased-this claim has beenaround for
forty years at least-but with his analysis Sennett points out how, if 'anything,
things have gotten even worse of late. And, by showing how contemporary
politics reflects and reinforces the culture of the new capitalism Sennett provides
the holistic and normative approach that we expect from critical social science.
In the final chapter Sennett summarizes his arguments and sketches a few
proposals intended to give people what Sennett believes they need, but aren't
getting, from work under the new capitalism. For example, Sennett found in his
At(
157
'fieldwork that public sector workers tended to derive status and pride and
usefulness from working "for the public good," and would often refuse higher
paying private sector employment. For this reason alone he feels that governments
should resist the siren song of privatization and refuse to 1/. . . hive-off public
service work to private companies." (p. 192).
Sennett's other proposals have a similar, small-bore, feel to them; an approach
that implicitly acknowledges that for all its organizational fluidity, capitalism itself
seems entrenched and more solid than it has ever been. Only at one point, and out of
what seems sheer desperation, does Sennett raise the possibility of transcending
capitalism itself. When trying to corne up with some remedy for the loss of
craftsmanship he writes "Perhaps, indeed, revolt against this enfeebled culture will
constitute our next fresh page." (p. 197) But however entrenched capitalism might
be, and however hopeless alternatives might today appear, any critical social science
of capitalism is de-fanged when it tries to move wholly within the confines of
capitalist political economy: \~ should have been clear forty years ago and it certainly
is clear today, as Sennett hasdocumented, that breaking up bureaucracy did not
necessarily mean overturning capitalism. Whether capitalism is organized into"for­
all-time" or "just-in-time" production is undoubtedly less important for work and
workers than who controls that ptQ,duction and for what purposes. And at this
fundamental level of capitalist politic~ economy not much has changed in the last
100 years. The culture of the new capitalism that Sennett describes and analyzes still
rests on a class structure consisting of a g~up of people-workers-who have no
other way to survive but to sell their labor power to another class of people-­
capitalists-who purchase it and in multivarious ways attempt to extract from it
more value than they pay those workers in wa~. In our view, Sennett's approach
would benefit from a more explicit recognition of this reality.
Reading Sennett's analysis we could not help ~t reflect on the way in which
it seems to capture life in our own workplace-the b.niversity. Not surprisingly,
\
'universities are, today, increasingly corporatized a~ run by CEO-wannabe
administrators intent on importing the latest managerial-fads and using them to
"increase faculty productivity," create "synergy," and lip rtner" with others in
various but always temporary strategic alliances and affilia ions, Whatever else
the corporatization of the university means, it seems clear that t ere is less and less
room for craftsmanship in it. In many ways, Sennett's work presents not only an
argument against the destructive consequences of the culture of the new
capitalism; as a piece of craftsmanship it stands as a refusal to submit to it. Thus,
any reservations of ours aside, anyone and everyone interested in the culture of
contemporary capitalism, and in fostering a counter-culture of craftsmanship,
should read Richard Sennett's work-and this latest book in particular.
Michael P. Braget
Clifford L. Staples
University of North Dakota
The Faces of Terrorism: Social and Psuchoiogical Dimensions, by Neil Smelser. Princeton,
NJ: Princeton University Press, 2007. 285 pp. $29.95 cloth. 1000-1500 words
In the flood of books about terrorism, a new entry requires justification. Chapter 1
of Faces of Terrorism offers two advertisements. The first is that the author has a
158
INTERNATIONAL REVIEW OF MODERN SOCIOLOGY
unique perspective on terrorism, developed first as a member of a National
Academy committee on terrorism after 9/11, and later as chair of two National
Research Council committees examining terrorism. The second is that social
scientists have not studied terrorism very much or very well, and that
understanding terrorism requires the kind of synthesis of behavioral and social
science offered in this book.
Although not a student of terrorism before 9/11, the author effectively applies
to terrorism the 'value-added' model of his 1962 Theon) ofCollective Behavior. In this
model, a classic foundation of what today is called Social Movement Theory, many
causal influences must converge to move individuals and groups to collective
action. Moving from distal to proximate causes, the author uses SMT to describe
how individual and group dissatisfaction can be crystallized in movements and
organizations, how such organizations can turn to violence, and how violence can
become terrorist violence.
Chapter 2 analyzes the causes of terrorism in broad social sources of discontent
(the "structural strain" of dispossession, frustration, and relative deprivation) and in
political opportunities that conduce to moving discontent into organized action (the
"opportunity structure" that determines the costs of organizing and expressing
grievances). Notablehere is the conceptualization of resource availability as part of
opportunity structure. Modern mass media, for instance, are conceptualized as part
of the opportunity structure for terrorist groups.
An interesting idea in this chapter is that both success and failure can move a
protest group toward the use of violence. There are many examples of turning to
violence after more moderate means fail (e.g. formation of the Weather
Underground in the U.S. after peaceful protests failed to stop the Vietnam War).
But the cited examples of increasing violence after successful violence seem mostly
to be about one group adopting a successful tactic from another group (e.g. success
of FLN terrorism in Algeria encouraging PLO terrorism in Palestine). It is not clear
that a protest group is more likely to turn to violence when its own protests are
more successful, or that a terrorist group is likely to escalate violence after
successful violence.
Chapter 3 begins with the assertion that terrorist action requires an extremist
ideology-which may be extremist religion-to justify and support violence. The
author analyzes ideology in terms usually associated in Social Movement Theory
with the concept of "frame": an extremist frame translates discontent into action
by identifying what the problem is, who is at fault, and who should do what to
make a better future. The introductory example here is a sociological classic: the
ideas represented in the Ghost Dance movement among the Sioux in 1889-1890.
An interesting observation in this chapter is that ideology takes on a life of its
own, that "ideology becomes interest." What was adopted as rationalization for
violence can become a prison for believers, as future choices are narrowed in order
to maintain consistency with previous ideological commitments. This can be a
useful insight, although it must also be acknowledged that every ideology is
subject to renegotiation over time. Perhaps the most important suggestion is that
ideology is both"an invitation to believe and an invitation to feel" (p. 89). The
relevant feelings included fear, humiliation, and outrage elicited by appraisal of
insult and hurt from an enemy. This suggestion opens the possibility that ideology
is as much rationalization of feelings as justification for action.
BOOK REVIEWS
~
'1"
159
Chapter 4 offers a mostly familiar synopsis of the social origins, motivation,
and recruitment of individual terrorists, with brief mention of the importance of
the high-cohesion dynamics of terrorist groups. Although acknowledging that
few terrorists are suffering diagnosable pathology, the author is not ready to give
up on personality as predictor of involvement in terrorism; he particularly points
to "disturbed individuals with chaotic personal pasts" (p. 95) as likely terrorist
recruits.
In Chapter 5 the author reverses his perspective to analyze the response to
terrorism by those attacked. He does not shrink from recognizing that the response
to terrorism can include an anti-terror ideology that mirrors the terrorist ideology:
black-and-white, essentializing, and dehumanizing. As with the terrorist frame, the
anti-terrorist frame is an invitation to outrage and violence against those identified
as the enemy-including ingroup members who might contest this frame.
Chapter 6 offers suggestions about discouraging terrorism. Whereas Chapter
4 recognized the many different audiences for terrorist attacks-the state attacked,
terrorist supporters and sympathizers, bystander groups and countries-Chapter
6 recognizes the same diverse audiences for state responses to terrorism. The
difficulty for both states and terrorists is that any action is likely to be interpreted
differently by different audiences; prediction and evaluation of success thus
require a difficult averaging of impact across disparate audiences. The author
sensibly cautions against responses that may increase sympathy for terrorism or
give up more in money or freedom than the terrorist threat can warrant.
Chapter 7, "The Long-Term International Context of Terrorism," is a
fascinating essay only loosely coupled to understanding terrorism, It offers a
concise review of dozens of books purporting to diagnose the shape of the world
after the end of the Cold War. Are we looking at The End of History, The Clash of
Civilizations, Imperial America, or Jihad versus McWorld? With only a few sentences
each, the author hits off these and many other books competing to frame
America's future. He categorizes the competitors (left-right, optimist-pessimist,
materialist-ideological) in a tour de force that cannot fail to impress readers who
have struggled to compare and contrast these popular books. The chapter ends
with a judgment that American hegemony is probably going to endure for a while,
leaving enduring problems: how to respond to terrorism without creating new
terrorists abroad and new polarization at home.
Finally, there is an Appendix in which the author offers his own definition of
terrorism. Given that lack of such definition is cited in Chapter 1 as a notable
problem for both academics and policy makers, the relegation of this issue to an
Appendix is somewhat surprising. Here is his definition (p 242): intended, irregular
acts of violence or disruption (or the threat of them) carried out in secret with the effect of
generating anxiety in a group, and the further aim, via that effect, of exciting political
response or political change. "Irregular" here means unpredictable. To his credit, the
author does not make any of his arguments depend explicitly on this definition
and recognizes that it leaves yet some important ambiguities (p246): "The
ambiguity is whether the term 'effect' refers primarily to the intentions of the
perpetrators or to the experience of target population." Similarly the author
recognizes that the impact of terrorist attack may be more about anger,
humiliation, and outrage than anxiety. It seems unlikely that the new definition
will sweep the field.
160
INTERNATIONAL REVIEW OF MODERN SOCIOLOGY
SMT is more a congeries of concepts (strains, resources, opportunities,
frames) than an integrated theory, but these concepts are valuable in putting
terrorism in context. Rather than focusing only on the terrorists, SMT draws
attention to the ways in which the terrorists depend on and compete for the
sympathies of those they purport to represent. Rather than focusing only on the
pattern of terrorist attacks, SMT draws attention to the interaction of terrorist
attacks with state responses-a dynamic system that evolves over time. Rather
than focusing only on the psychology and decision making of terrorists, SMT
draws attention to the psychology and decision making of those who suffer
terrorist attacks. In short, SMT reminds us that terrorism is politics.
This is an important idea but not anew idea. It is a limitation of the book that
it does not try to build on the interesting work done by others who have applied
SMT to terrorism, including Donatella della Porta, Mohammed Hafez, and
Quintan Wiktorowicz. Nor does it give much sense of the theoretical and
empirical developments that have made SMT a lively and growing part of
sociology for the past twenty years. But for those who have not yet seen the
potential of SMT for understanding terrorism, this book offers an invitation
enlivened by the personal experience of a scholar who rocked SMT in its cradle.
Clark McCauley
Bryn Mawr College