Presents the results of the first national field survey of how lawyers use pretrial discovery in practice. Pretrial discovery is a complex set of rules and practices through which the adversaries in a civil dispute are literally allowed to "discover" the facts and legal arguments their opponents plan to use in the trial, with the purpose of improving the speed and quality of justice by reducing the element of trickery and surprise. Dr. Glaser examines the uses, problems, and advantages of discovery. He concludes that it is in wide use in federal civil cases, but that while the procedure has produced more information in some areas, it has failed to bring other improvements favored by its original authors.

WILLIAM A. GLASER is at the Bureau of Applied Social Research and The Project for Effective Social Research at Columbia University.

Winner of the 2004 Best Book Award from the Race, Ethnicity, and Politics Section of the American Political Science Association

"This is a bold and immensely important book that focuses attention on one of the most critical issues of our time. Namely, can facing the truth about a nation's brutal, violent, and oppressive history lead to reconciliation among that nation's former and bitter enemies? In what is perhaps the most sophisticated and subtle analysis of the South African reconciliation process to be found anywhere in the literature, James Gibson explores a number of unanticipated complexities generated by this seemingly simple question, and, in the process, provides us with encouraging, if somewhat disheartening, insights. This book is simply a must read for anyone interested in understanding the reconciliation process in South Africa and its possible implications for the resolution of intergroup conflict in other parts of the world."
-JAMES SIDANIUS, professor of psychology, University of California, Los Angeles

"Overcoming Apartheid is a singular work, a test of the proposition that acknowledgement of evil on both sides of a conflict can bring warring parties together. It is absorbing in a way few works in social science are, in parts optimistic, in others ominous, but in all a model of pursuit of truth."
-PAUL M. SNIDERMAN, Fairleigh S. Dickinson Jr. Professor in Public Policy, Stanford University

Perhaps no country in history has so directly and thoroughly confronted its past in an effort to shape its future as has South Africa. Working from the belief that understanding the past will help build a more peaceful and democratic future, South Africa has made a concerted, institutionalized effort to come to grips with its history of apartheid through its Truth and Reconciliation Commission. In Overcoming Apartheid, James L. Gibson provides the first systematic assessment of whether South Africa's truth and reconciliation process has been successful. Has the process allowed South Africa to let go of its painful past and move on? Or has it exacerbated racial tensions by revisiting painful human rights violations and granting amnesty to their perpetrators?

Overcoming Apartheid reports on the largest and most comprehensive study of post-apartheid attitudes in South Africa to date, involving a representative sample of all major racial, ethnic, and linguistic groups. Grounding his analysis of truth in theories of collective memory, Gibson discovers that the process has been most successful in creating a common understanding of the nature of apartheid. His analysis then demonstrates how this common understanding is helping to foster reconciliation, as defined by the acceptance of basic principles of human rights and political tolerance, rejection of racial prejudice, and acceptance of the institutions of a new political order. Gibson identifies key elements in the process—such as acknowledging shared responsibility for atrocities of the past—that are essential if reconciliation is to move forward. He concludes that without the truth and reconciliation process, the prospects for a reconciled, democratic South Africa would diminish considerably. Gibson also speculates about whether the South African experience provides any lessons for other countries around the globe trying to overcome their repressive pasts.

A groundbreaking work of social science research, Overcoming Apartheid is also a primer for utilizing innovative conceptual and methodological tools in analyzing truth processes throughout the world. It is sure to be a valuable resource for political scientists, social scientists, group relations theorists, and students of transitional justice and human rights.

JAMES L. GIBSON is Sidney W. Souers Professor of Government at Washington University, St. Louis.

Provides the first major effort to test the rules and regulations that underlie current practices in union elections and, at the same time, explores the role played by the National Labor Relations Board in regulating these elections. The book reports the findings of an empirical field study of thirty-one union representation elections involving over 1,000 employees to determine their pre-campaign attitudes, voting intent, actual vote, and the effect of the campaign on voting. It focuses on campaign issues, unlawful campaigning, working conditions, demographic factors, job-related variables, and other topics.

JULIUS G. GETMAN is professor of law at Stanford and Indiana Universities.

STEPHEN B. GOLDBERG is professor of law at Northwestern University.

JEANNE B. HERMAN is associate professor of organizational behavior at the Graduate School of Management, Northwestern University.

"Analysts intersted in what the future holds for political representation of new immigrant groups and their children, as well as for the normative goal of political equality more generally, will find this anthology both informative and stimulating."
-Journal of American Ethnic History

"E Pluribus Unum? is a pathbreaking volume that brings together historians and social scientists to explore the dynamics of political incorporation in the twentieth century's two great immigration waves. From political machines and naturalization to education, transnational loyalties, and racial exclusion, the many excellent essays provide insights into the way immigration has changed-and continues to change-American civic culture and political life."
-NANCY FONER, State University of New York, Purchase

"Crafty Irish ward heelers strolling city sidewalks, while a colorful and engaging image, explains little of the complexities of how waves of newcomers have found their way to voting booths, city councils, and state legislatures in the United States. Gary Gerstle and John Mollenkopf's band of historians and social scientists bring state-of-the-art insight and methodologies to comprehending the political incorporation of immigrants as it happened and is still happening. Changes in America's civic culture, schools, and immigration patterns as well as a transnationalism that allows migrants to simultaneously participate in the politics of homeland and host country require the kind of interdisciplinary scholarly analysis that this volume offers. Just as the best anthologies have always done, this one is likely to inspire dissertations and monographs aplenty."
-ALAN KRAUT, American University, the Immigration and Ethnic History Society

"International migration is always a 'matter of state,' and no more so then when it confronts the national political community with the issue of where the boundaries of membership shall be drawn. Through politics, immigrant outsiders have repeatedly remade the American nation-just as those lucky enough to take membership for granted have circumscribed the options for the would-be Americans from abroad. For insights into this process, and historical comparisons that confound the usual distinctions between U.S. immigrations old and new, Gary Gerstle and John Mollenkopf's volume of original essays is the place to go."
-ROGER WALDINGER, professor and chair, department of sociology, UCLA

The political involvement of earlier waves of immigrants and their children was essential in shaping the American political climate in the first half of the twentieth century. Immigrant votes built industrial trade unions, fought for social protections and religious tolerance, and helped bring the Democratic Party to dominance in large cities throughout the country. In contrast, many scholars find that today's immigrants, whose numbers are fast approaching those of the last great wave, are politically apathetic and unlikely to assume a similar voice in their chosen country. E Pluribus Unum? delves into the wealth of research by historians of the Ellis Island era and by social scientists studying today's immigrants and poses a crucial question: What can the nation's past experience teach us about the political path modern immigrants and their children will take as Americans?

E Pluribus Unum? explores key issues about the incorporation of immigrants into American public life, examining the ways that institutional processes, civic ideals, and cultural identities have shaped the political aspirations of immigrants. The volume presents some surprising re-assessments of the past as it assesses what may happen in the near future. An examination of party bosses and the party machine concludes that they were less influential political mobilizers than is commonly believed. Thus their absence from today's political scene may not be decisive. Some contributors argue that the contemporary political system tends to exclude immigrants, while others remind us that past immigrants suffered similar exclusions, achieving political power only after long and difficult struggles. Will the strong home country ties of today's immigrants inhibit their political interest here? Chapters on this topic reveal that transnationalism has always been prominent in the immigrant experience, and that today's immigrants may be even freer to act as dual citizens. E Pluribus Unum? theorizes about the fate of America's civic ethos—has it devolved from an ideal of liberal individualism to a fractured multiculturalism, or have we always had a culture of racial and ethnic fragmentation? Research in this volume shows that today's immigrant schoolchildren are often less concerned with ideals of civic responsibility than with forging their own identity and finding their own niche within the American system of racial and ethnic distinction.

Incorporating the significant influx immigrants into American society is a central challenge for our civic and political institutions—one that cuts to the core of who we are as a people and as a nation. E Pluribus Unum? shows that while today's immigrants and their children are in some ways particularly vulnerable to political alienation, the process of assimilation was equally complex for earlier waves of immigrants. This past has much to teach us about the way immigration is again reshaping the nation.

GARY GERSTLE is professor of history at the University of Maryland.

JOHN MOLLENKOPF is professor of political science at the Graduate Center, City University of New York.

CONTRIBUTORS: Gary Gerstle, John Mollenkopf, T. Alexander Aleinikoff, Louis DeSipio, Philip Gleason, Luis Eduardo Guarnizo, Desmond King, Ewa Morawska, Laurie Olsen, Evelyn Savidge Sterne, David Tyack, and Reed Ueda.

“Low-Wage Work in the Wealthy World is an exceptionally valuable book for scholars, policy makers, and general readers. An outstanding cross-country group of scholars use a powerful comparative methodology to examine the size, causes, and consequences of low-wage labor markets in the United States and five European countries. These analyses reveal the complexity of the subject, but make it very clear that the fact that the United States has a larger low-wage labor market than any of these countries is the result of policies and institutions, not, as many economists assume, an inevitable tradeoff between job quality and the number of jobs. After all, these analysts show, global competition affects all economies, but low-wage workers vary from 25 percent of the U.S. work force to 8.5 percent of Denmark’s.”
—Ray Marshall, former U.S. Secretary of Labor and Audre and Bernard Rapoport Centennial Chair in Economics and Public Affairs, University of Texas at Austin 

“Low-Wage Work in the Wealthy World is poised to become the definitive study of low-paid employment in rich countries. This first-rate team of researchers, assembled by the Russell Sage Foundation, pairs an innovative research design—the systematic comparison of five low-paying industries across six high-income countries—with meticulous empirical work. The study incorporates multiple dimensions of low-paid work, blending qualitative and quantitative indicators, to produce an often-surprising portrait of variation across six democracies. yet these researchers’ larger contribution is their assessment of the institutional underpinnings of the prevalence, nature, and effects of low-paying work. They persuasively establish that several institutions ‘matter,’ including industrial relations systems, minimum wages, employment and product market regulations, and diverse social policies targeted on workers. Labor market scholars and policymakers everywhere will be challenged to consider the ways in which country-specific institutional reforms could reduce the incidence of low-paid work, raise its quality, and lessen its problematic consequences.”
—Janet Gornick, director, Luxembourg Income Study, and professor of political science and sociology, Graduate Center, CUNY

As global flows of goods, capital, information, and people accelerate competitive pressure on businesses throughout the industrialized world, firms have responded by reorganizing work in a variety of efforts to improve efficiency and cut costs. In the United States, where minimum wages are low, unions are weak, and immigrants are numerous, this has often lead to declining wages, increased job insecurity, and deteriorating working conditions for workers with little bargaining power in the lower tiers of the labor market. Low-Wage Work in the Wealthy World builds on an earlier Russell Sage Foundation study (Low-Wage America) to compare the plight of low-wage workers in the United States to five European countries—Denmark, France, Germany, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom—where wage supports, worker protections, and social benefits have generally been stronger. By examining low-wage jobs in systematic case studies across five industries, this groundbreaking international study goes well beyond standard statistics to reveal national differences in the quality of low-wage work and the well being of low-wage workers.

The United States has a high percentage of low-wage workers—nearly three times more than Denmark and twice more than France. Since the early 1990s, however, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and Germany have all seen substantial increases in low-wage jobs. While these jobs often entail much the same drudgery in Europe and the United States, quality of life for low-wage workers varies substantially across countries. The authors focus their analysis on the “inclusiveness” of each country’s industrial relations system, including national collective bargaining agreements and minimum-wage laws, and the generosity of social benefits such as health insurance, pensions, family leave, and paid vacation time—which together sustain a significantly higher quality of life for low-wage workers in some countries.

Investigating conditions in retail sales, hospitals, food processing, hotels, and call centers, the book’s industry case studies shed new light on how national institutions influence the way employers organize work and shape the quality of low-wage jobs. A telling example: in the United States and several European nations, wages and working conditions of front-line workers in meat processing plants are deteriorating as large retailers put severe pressure on prices, and firms respond by employing low-wage immigrant labor. But in Denmark, where unions are strong, and, to a lesser extent, in France, where the statutory minimum wage is high, the low-wage path is blocked, and firms have opted instead to invest more heavily in automation to raise productivity, improve product quality, and sustain higher wages. However, as Low-Wage Work in the Wealthy World also shows, the European nations’ higher level of inclusiveness is increasingly at risk. “Exit options,” both formal and informal, have emerged to give employers ways around national wage supports and collectively bargained agreements. For some jobs, such as room cleaners in hotels, stronger labor relations systems in Europe have not had much impact on the quality of work.

Low-Wage Work in the Wealthy World offers an analysis of low-wage work in Europe and the United States based on concrete, detailed, and systematic contrasts. Its revealing case studies not only provide a human context but also vividly remind us that the quality and incidence of low-wage work is more a matter of national choice than economic necessity and that government policies and business practices have inevitable consequences for the quality of workers’ lives.

JÉRÔME GAUTIÉ is professor of economics at the University of Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne.

JOHN SCHMITT is senior economist with the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington, D.C.

CONTRIBUTORS: Eileen Appelbaum, Rosemary Batt, Peter Berg, Annette Bernhardt, Gerhard Bosch, Francoise Carre, Laura Dresser, Jacob Eskildsen, Damian Grimshaw, Klaus G. Grunert, Karen Jaehrling, Susan James, Caroline Lloyd, Geoff Mason, Ken Mayhew, Philippe Mehaut, Philip Moss,  Wiemer Salverda, Chris Tillly, Marc Van Der Meer, Maarten Van Klaveren, Achim Vanselow, Dorothea Voss-Dahm, Chris Warhurst, Claudia Weinkopf, Niels Westergaard-Nielsen.

A Volume in the RSF Case Studies of Job Quality in Advanced Economies

In the United States, rates of divorce and out-of-wedlock childbirth are climbing so dramatically that over half of the next generation is likely to spend part of its childhood in single-mother families. As many as half of these families will live in poverty, caused in large measure by the failure of current government regulations to secure adequate child support from absent parents and to assure minimum support when parents cannot provide it. Assuring Child Support introduces the Child Support Assurance System, a remedy to this problem that is both feasible and affordable, a practical reform that is within the nation's grasp.

"An extremely well-written and provocative book." —Eastern Economic Journal

IRWIN GARFINKEL is Mitchell I. Ginsberg Professor of Contemporary Urban Problems at Columbia University School of Social Work.

"This important and highly informative collection of studies on nonresidentfathers and child support should be of great value to scholars and policymakers alike." —American Journal of Sociology

Over half of America's children will live apart from their fathers at some point as they grow up, many in the single-mother households that increasingly make up the nation's poor. Federal efforts to improve the collection of child support from fathers appear to have little effect on payments, and many critics have argued that forcing fathers to pay does more harm than good. Much of the uncertainty surrounding child support policies has stemmed from a lack of hard data on nonresident fathers. Fathers Under Fire presents the best available information on the financial and social circumstances of the men who are at the center of the debate. In this volume, social scientists and legal scholars explore the issues underlying the child support debate, chief among them on the potential repercussions of stronger enforcement.

Who are nonresident fathers? This volume calls upon both empirical and theoretical data to describe them across a broad economic and social spectrum. Absentee fathers who do not pay child support are much more likely to be school dropouts and low earners than fathers who pay, and nonresident fathers altogether earn less than resident fathers. Fathers who start new families are not significantly less likely to support previous children. But can we predict what would happen if the government were to impose more rigorous child support laws? The data in this volume offer a clearer understanding of the potential benefits and risks of such policies. In contrast to some fears, stronger enforcement is unlikely to push fathers toward. But it does seem to have more of an effect on whether some fathers remarry and become responsible for new families. In these cases, how are subsequent children affected by a father's pre-existing obligations? Should such fathers be allowed to reduce their child support orders in order to provide for their current families? Should child support guidelines permit modifications in the event of a father's changed financial circumstances? Should government enforce a father's right to see his children as well as his obligation to pay support? What can be done to help under- or unemployed fathers meet their payments? This volume provides the information and insight to answer these questions.

The need to help children and reduce the public costs of welfare programs is clear, but the process of achieving these goals is more complex. Fathers Under Fire offers an indispensable resource to those searching for effective and equitable solutions to the problems of child support.

IRWIN GARFINKEL is M. I. Ginsberg Professor of Continuing Urban Problems in the School of Social Work at Columbia University.

SARA S. MCLANAHAN is professor of sociology and public affairs at Princeton University.

DANIEL R. MEYER is associate professor in the School of Social Work at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and an affiliate of the Institute for Research on Poverty.

JUDITH A. SELTZER is professor of sociology at the University of  California, Los Angeles.

CONTRIBUTORS: Irwin Garfinkel, Sara S. McLanahan, Daniel R. Meyer, Judith A. Seltzer, David E. Bloom, Anne Case, Cecilia Conrad, Fred Doolittle, Richard B. Freeman, Thomas L. Hanson, Martha Minow, Jessica Pearson, Nancy Thoennes, and Jane Waldfogel

Discusses actual corrupt practices in one small city, showing both the mechanisms of corruption and the fundamental questions they raise, the answers to which will apply in many cities. He describes the background and conditions that made it possible for a local syndicate to take over an Eastern industrial center, "Wincanton." He discusses the many factors which permitted the take-over, stressing the citizens' lack of concern about links between petty gambling and the undermining of their local government.

JOHN A. GARDINER is chief of the Research Planning and Coordination Staff of the National Institute of Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice.

A taxi driver’s life is dangerous work. Picking up a bad customer can leave the driver in a vulnerable position, and erring even once can prove fatal. To protect themselves, taxi drivers must quickly and accurately assess the trustworthiness of complete strangers. In Streetwise, Diego Gambetta and Heather Hamill take this predicament as a prototypical example of many trust decisions, where people must act on limited information and judge another person’s trustworthiness based on signs that may or may not be honest indicators of that person’s character or intent. Gambetta and Hamill analyze the behavior of cabbies in two cities where driving a taxi is especially perilous: New York City, where drivers have been the targets of frequent and violent robberies, and Belfast, Northern Ireland, a divided metropolis where drivers have been swept up in the region’s sectarian violence.

Based on in-depth ethnographic research, Streetwise lets drivers describe in their own words how they seek to determine the threat posed by each potential passenger. The drivers’ decisions about whom to trust are treated in conjunction with the “sign-management” strategies of their prospective passengers—both genuine passengers who try to persuade drivers of their trustworthiness and the villains who mimic them. As the theory that guides this research suggests, drivers look for signs that correlate closely with trustworthiness but are difficult for an impostor to mimic. A smile, a business suit, or a skullcap alone do not reassure drivers, as any criminal could easily wear them. Only if attached to other signs—a middle-aged woman, a business address, or a synagogue—are they persuasive. Drivers are adept at deciphering deceitful signals, but trickery is occasionally undetectable, so they must adopt defensive strategies to minimize their exposure to harm. In Belfast, where drivers are locals and often have histories of paramilitary involvement, “macho” posturing often serves to deter would-be criminals, while New York cabbies, mostly immigrants who view themselves as outsiders, try simply to minimize the damage from attacks by appeasing robbers and carrying only small amounts of cash.

For most people, erring in a trust decision leads to a broken heart or a few dollars lost. For cab drivers, such an error could mean losing their lives. The way drivers negotiate these high stakes offers us vivid insight into how to determine another person’s trustworthiness. Written with clarity and color, Streetwise invites the reader to ride shotgun with cabbies as they grapple with a question of relevance to us all: which signs of trustworthiness can we really trust?

DIEGO GAMBETTA is Official Fellow of Nuffield College and professor of sociology at the University of Oxford.

HEATHER HAMILL is lecturer in sociology at the University of Oxford, and a Fellow of St. Cross College.

A Volume in the Russell Sage Foundation Series on Trust

Winner of the Society for Research on Adolesence Social Policy Award for Best Authored Book, 2006-2008

"In his latest book, Furstenberg offers a valuable geneaology of American teen pregnancy, public policy, and America's unique moral politics that shaped the public debate. His book should be read in poverty and policy courses ... [and] by every scholar who aspires to conduct useful research, not only to reinforce the reasons for doing policy-relevant research but also to learn how to present it with honesty and humility."
-CONTEMPORARY SOCIOLOGY

"With this important and timely book a preeminent scholar of urban families seriously chal lenges conventional wisdom on the problems and consequences of teenage childbearing. Frank Furstenberg's empirically based and innovative arguments are provocative and compelling. Destinies of the Disadvantaged will be discussed and debated by researchers, policymakers, and practitioners for many years."
-WILLIAM JULIUS WILSON, Lewis P. and Linda L. Geyser University Professor, Harvard University

"This masterful book on a remarkable thirty-year study will change the way people think about teenage pregnancy and childbearing."
-ANDREW CHERLIN, Griswold Professor of Sociology and Public Policy and director, Hopkins Population Center, Johns Hopkins University

"In his new book, Frank Furstenberg provides us with a masterful account of the causes, conse quences, and politics of teenage childbearing. Destinies of the Disadvantaged is essential reading for anyone who cares about the role of family formation in the reproduction of poverty."
-SARA S. MCLANAHAN, professor of sociology and public affairs, Princeton University

Teen childbearing has risen to frighteningly high levels over the last four decades, jeopardizing the life chances of young parents and their offspring alike, particularly among minority communities. Or at least, that’s what politicians on the right and left often tell us, and what the American public largely believes. But sociologist Frank Furstenberg argues that the conventional wisdom distorts reality. In Destinies of the Disadvantaged, Furstenberg traces the history of public concern over teen pregnancy, exploring why this topic has become so politically powerful, and so misunderstood.

Based on over forty years of Furstenberg’s research on teen childbearing, Destinies of the Disadvantaged relates how the issue emerged from obscurity to become one of the most heated social controversies in America. Both slipshod research by social scientists and opportunistic grandstanding by politicians have contributed to public misunderstanding of the issue. Although out-of-wedlock teen pregnancy rose notably between 1960 and 1990—a cause for concern given the burdens of single motherhood at a young age—this trend did not reflect a rise in the rate of overall teen pregnancies. In fact, teen pregnancy actually declined dramatically in the 1960s and 1970s. The number of unmarried teenage mothers rose after 1960, not because more young women became pregnant, but because those who did increasingly chose not to rush into marriage. Furstenberg shows how early social science research on this topic exaggerated the adverse consequences of early parenthood both for young parents and for their children. Researchers also inaccurately portrayed single teenage motherhood as a phenomenon concentrated among minorities. Both of these misapprehensions skewed subsequent political debates. The issue became a public obsession and remained so during the 1990s, even as rates of out-of-wedlock teen childbearing plummeted. Addressing teen pregnancy was originally a liberal cause, led by advocates of family planning services, legalized abortion, and social welfare programs for single mothers. The issue was later adopted by conservatives, who argued that those liberal remedies were encouraging teen parenthood. According to Furstenberg, the flexible political usefulness of the issue explains its hold on political discourse.

The politics of teen parenthood is a fascinating case study in the abuse of social science for political ends. In Destinies of the Disadvantaged, Furstenberg brings that tale to life with the perspective of a historian and the insight of an insider, and provides the straight facts needed to craft effective policies to address teen pregnancy.

FRANK F. FURSTENBERG is the Zellerbach Family Professor of Sociology and a research associate in the Population Studies Center at the University of Pennsylvania, and chair of the MacArthur Foundation Research Network on Transitions to Adulthood.