Berkeley Journal of Sociology

To close out 2014, we’d like to highlight the ten most-read Berkeley Journal of Sociology articles of the year.

Radical “social movement unionism” has become a trendy concept among graduate student unions. But the goals of union activists must be evaluated not just in terms of desirability or rhetorical militancy, but also in light of the concrete outcomes of their work.

As China’s health sector has become increasingly commercialized, conflicts between patients and doctors have been escalating, sometimes even erupting in violence against health professionals.

Since 2009, students in Puerto Rico have mounted a series of campaigns against budget cuts and the corporatization of higher education. Their struggle reflects the particular challenges of organizing against American hegemony in the colonial context.

We live in an era in which it is increasingly normal for individuals not only to reject the power of corporations over their lives, but for some to even occupy public space and defy police and established authorities. Ben Manski discusses how this era was inaugurated on November 30th, 1999 in the streets of Seattle.

Police violence has never been about the guilt or innocence of just one officer. Now, the spotlight on Ferguson has revealed with a renewed, sharper focus a deep divide in our society and highlighted persistent systemic inequalities.

The gentrifying force of San Francisco’s tech industry is inextricably linked to the global financial economy. Injections of venture capital are reshaping local legacies of discrimination.

Rethinking the 2008 Financial Crisis and the Rise of Right-Wing Populism with C. Wright Mills.

On November 13, 2013, a public housing apartment complex on Detroit’s East Side was raided by 150 officers from the Detroit Police Department and several other state and federal agencies. A resident tells his side of the story.

Two years after the Big Data hype of 2012, the midterm elections are exposing the flaws of Nate Silver’s statistical approach to politics: Journalism should work to make the world more comprehensible, not more predictable.

In the digital era of so-called Facebook revolutions or hashtag activism, many claim that participation in social movements is individualized and personalized, but building and sustaining a political movement, even an online movement, still requires organization.

Current discussions about prefigurative politics bring back warm and reflective memories for former SNCC organizer Mike Miller. He discusses SNCC’s beloved community and its strategic dilemmas.