Göran Therborn’s recent book The Killing Fields of Inequality is an opportunity for political scientists to reconnect with a thematic that has for long been the pre-occupation of sociologists: inequality. The killing fields to which Therborn refers in the title of his book are inequalities of wealth, health, education, dignity, and so on. These inequalities are killing fields because they result in millions of premature deaths every year, not just in the Third World, but also in North America and Europe. And even when people survive inequality, their lives are limited by the inequalities they face. In The Killing Fields, Therborn examines the different ‘fields’ of inequality, examining the different ways in which inequality works, for instance through what he terms ‘distanciation’, and he identifies the critical battlefields on which the struggle against inequality has to take place. In their reviews of Therborn’s book, Walden Bello, Joohee Lee and Shujiro Yazawa take a critical look at the different aspects of Therborn’s argument, including the role of the middle classes, the concept of distanciation and Therborn’s use of Amartya Sen’s capability approach.

Estas notas de investigación son el resultado de un proceso etnográfico accidental e involuntario realizado a lo largo de 2023 en el estado de Durango, en el norte de México. Son un análisis preliminar de la información recolectada sobre la evidente presencia del crimen organizado y sus efectos en la vida cotidiana de los ciudadanos. La mayoría de los estudios sobre violencia en México —y América Latina— tienden a tratar situaciones de violencia extrema; o se enfocan en la población pobre y marginada, que sufre distintos tipos de opresión. Estas notas retratan una situación distinta en dos sentidos. Primero, surgen del trabajo de campo realizado en un entorno de aparente tranquilidad: Durango es actualmente uno de los estados más pacíficos del país, si se mide la paz por número de homicidios. Solo un centenar de personas son asesinadas anualmente, lo que es una anomalía en un país cruento, que reporta más de treinta mil muertes violentas cada año. Segundo, las notas emergen, principalmente, del testimonio de las clases medias y altas, segmentos de la población que también sufren las consecuencias de la violencia, pero que han sido largamente ignorados por la literatura. La investigación evidencia que el crimen organizado condiciona significativamente la vida cotidiana de los ciudadanos que viven en paz, pero con miedo. Los grupos criminales perturban el trabajo y el ocio de los ciudadanos, así como su relación con el gobierno. Este estudio también reflexiona sobre cómo el crimen organizado repercute en el funcionamiento normal del Estado y la democracia liberal.

This article explores the middle classes as cultural practice by focusing on the young professionals, or “yuppies,” of Nairobi. Young professionals are particularly interesting to study because they are the population that has reaped the benefits of a historical development of socioeconomic opportunities. They also occupy an interesting position in the context of local preoccupations with being modern or “sophisticated” in Kenya and in terms of the expectations and assumptions of previous generations. The article touches briefly on the history of class analysis in African studies and then, departing from Marx and following a Weberian analysis, shows how three factors are important in analyzing the middle classes and the forging of class identities in a globalizing world: access to education, resulting in salaried occupations; consumption patterns; and modern self-perceptions.

Positional competition for credentials and jobs has been a major focus of sociological inquiry. However, there has been little attempt to examine the impact of economic globalisation on competition for a livelihood. This is an important question for sociological analysis as centre-left Modernisers, including New Labour in Britain and the Democrats in the United States, assume that globalisation has transformed the nature of positional class conflict. They argue that it is now the absolute standards of educational achievement, rather than the relative standing of credential holders within local or national labour markets, which are of primary importance. Drawing on neo-Weberian theories of social closure, this article will argue that the Modernisers' description of the global labour market and its impact on positional class conflict is seriously flawed. It will also be argued that existing theories of social closure are inadequate and need to be developed in terms of what we call Positional Conflict Theory.