Synopses & Reviews
Celebrating its 25th anniversary, Elite Deviance is the only text in this area that takes a holistic view as it traces the causes of elite deviance to the structure of power and wealth in the United States. Every edition is thoroughly updated to reflect current research. Some exciting new changes to this edition include the following:
- Latest price-fixing scandals by Bayer and others help students understand the global nature of contemporary price-fixing (Chapter 3).
- The outcomes of recent corporate scandals regarding punishment of corporate executives show students the nature of punishment meted out to corporate elites in an era of declining investor confidence (Chapter 3).
- The most recent information regarding scandals in the War on Terrorism in Afghanistan and Iraq acquaint students with the deviance within the military-industrial complex warned against by President Eisenhower (Chapter 5).
- History of sexual political scandals will give students an historical overview of sexual scandals involving both Republicans and Democrats that led up to the Clinton sex scandal (Chapter 6).
- Coverage of deviance by America’s Founding Fathers at the Constitutional Convention will make students aware of the long history of corruption at the federal level that began with the very founding of the nation (Chapter 6).
Table of Contents
Most chapters conclude with “Conclusion,” “Critical Thinking Exercise,” and “Endnotes.”
1. The Nature of Elite Deviance.
Scandal-Plagued America: The Bush Years as Metaphor
A Theory of Elite Deviance.
The Classification of Elite Deviance.
The Conditions Leading to Elite Deviance.
The Consequences of Elite Deviance.
2. Elite Deviance and the Higher Immorality.
The Nature of the Higher Immorality.
Case Study: The Savings and Loan Scandal.
The Higher Immorality and the Political Economy.
The Higher Immorality and Corporate Crime.
Organized Crime and the Business Elite.
3. Corporate Deviance: Monopoly, Manipulation, and Fraud.
The Costs of Monopolies.
Price Fixing.
Price Gouging.
Deceptive Advertising.
Fraud.
4. Corporate Deviance: Human Jeopardy.
Individual Jeopardy.
Collective Jeopardy.
5. National Defense, Multinational Corporations, and Human Rights.
The Military-Industrial Complex.
Deviance and Multinational Corporations.
Human Rights, Multinationals, and U.S. Foreign Policy.
6. Political Corruption: Continuity and Change.
Money and Politics.
Corruption and Power.
7. Political Deviance.
Domestic Political Deviance.
International Crimes.
8. Understanding Elite Deviance.
Why Elite Deviance?
Elite Deviance and the Sociological Imagination: A Paradigm for Analysis
Characteristics of Bureaucratic Structures.
Image Construction and Inauthenticity.
Organizational Conditions and the Production of Deviant Personalities.
Links between Elite Deviance and Nonelite Deviance.
Elite Deviance and Victimization.
Constructionist and Objectivist Positions on Elite Deviance.
9. The Scandalization of America: The Higher Immorality in an Era of Greed.
Watergate.
Iran-Contra.
Contragate and the Changing Nature of American Power and Corruption.
The Characteristics of Contemporary Scandal.
The Study of Elite Deviance.
Epilogue: Economic Democracy: A Proposal to Transform Society.
The Real Secret Government.
America’s Main Drift.
The Local Community and Social Change.
Foreign Policy and Population Crisis.
Why Change Must Come.
Coda.
Sources.
Endnotes.
Name Index.
Subject Index.