Stanford University Press Blog

With the decrease in American casualties in Iraq, the attention of the American public has shifted elsewhere. There are many signs, however, that the situation is likely to explode again soon: the ceasefire called by Moqtada al-Sadr on August 29, 2007, is due to expire later this month, and tensions among Sunnis in Anbar Province have become worrisome.

The first book in Stanford’s new Security Studies imprint addresses this situation.  Counterinsurgency and the Global War on Terror by Robert Cassidy, a U.S. Army officer and fellow with the Center for Advanced Defense Studies, argues that the Global War on Terror (GWOT) is best understood not as a conventional war, but as a global insurgency and counterinsurgency. Cassidy analyzes al Qaeda in this light and looks at the military cultures of the U.S., Britain, and Russia to see how they have adapted to fight a global counterinsurgency and how they will still need to change in order to be successful. He examines past successes in counterinsurgency and argues that armies should adapt a “less is more” philosophy as the GWOT moves ahead.

Stanford Security Studies aims to inform the thoughts and actions of policy makers, policy analysts, military officers, and those in government agencies and think tanks. Stanford Security Studies books are rooted in evolving theory and sound empirical research, bridging the divide between scholarship and practice to stimulate and deepen the debate on conflict and the application of force. Look for upcoming books on the Arab-Israeli conflict, the US military’s misconstrued high-tech revolution, and needed reforms to our disaster response.

The Social Ramifications of Retail

With the 2008 Beijing Olympics fast approaching, international eyes will be on China and its burgeoning economy more than ever. Some estimate the number of foreign visitors to China at over a million this July, which will most likely generate handsome tourism dollars from lodging, food, and retail shopping. According to an article by Josh Adams in Asia Times, Olympic preparation has seen "Chinese consumers acquiring a taste for Western-style superstores and exclusive, big-name brands" as developers construct more large malls to accommodate the influx of foreign shoppers expected this summer. But China’s economic boom is intensifying more than just retail space. Class differences and income disparities could also be on the rise.

Adams says, "While Prada boutiques and Tissot displays are seemingly de rigueur for many Chinese malls looking to display their stylish credentials, focusing on the wealthy elite may have effectively alienated them from the country's massed ranks of aspiring middle-income families."
   
Social difference in the retail world is an issue that Amy Hanser tackles in her book Service Encounters: Class, Gender, and the Market for Social Distinction in Urban China (2008). Hanser, an Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of British Columbia, utilizes her personal experience working as a salesclerk in various retail stores in the city of Harbin to support this unique exploration of inequality in China.
   
With the goal of understanding how economic and social transformations reshape social relations in urban China, Hanser studies how different retail sites (among them a state-owned department store with working-class clientele, a high-end private department store, and a low-end clothing bazaar) represent various social strands within Harbin society. Hanser details how interactions between salesclerks and shoppers in these retail environments play out ideas of social difference, inequality, and entitlement.
   
Will Beijing's growth in luxury stores (and there are more on the way) exacerbate unequal relations between salesclerks and customers? According to Adams' article, these new mega malls may not survive long enough to make that impact. "10% or 20% of China's malls will realize their true profit potential…these places are just too big and too pricey…As the market becomes increasingly saturated the underperformers will naturally find themselves squeezed out."

The Stake of a Reputation

We all have secrets, but the ease with which information is transmitted via YouTube, MySpace, and Google has made keep them much more difficult. Lawrence Friedman’s Guarding Life’s Dark Secrets, discussed in a recent Wilson Quarterly review by Gary Alan Fine, looks at our cultures attitudes about reputation by examining when the courts have protected our secrets and when they have not.

We tend to think of those our ancestors as being better behaved than we are today, but Friedman argues that their comportment did not always match the reputation that they carefully maintained. “Friedman emphasizes that life in ­19th-­century America was rough. Heavy drinking, fighting, and con games were com­mon in public spaces.” Society, and the laws that supported it, recognized that this behavior could never be completely suppressed.

“What resulted, [Friedman] says, was the ‘Victorian compromise,’ the practice by which (most) respectable citizens were protected from being discredited by their moral lapses, except when public notice demanded otherwise. It was a culture of ‘don’t ask, don’t tell.’ For the middle class and the elite, it was a world of second chances. The working class served as society’s scapegoats. Thus, even though gambling was common at all levels of society, it was the gambling dens of the poor that were raided, not the salons of the wealthy. These miscreants, not so different from their fellow citizens, were discredited, isolated, and ­stigmatized.”

Today’s compromise has changed, as it is much more difficult to hide transgressions—instead, our public figures have perfected the art of the apology.

You can read the entire review here.