Elisabeth S. Clemens
Associate Professor
B.A. Harvard University, 1980
M.A. University of Chicago, 1985
Ph.D. University of Chicago, 1990
Office: Social Sciences 319
Phone: 773-834-4746
Email: clemens@uchicago.edu
CV: Curriculum Vita
Informed by organizational analysis and political sociology, Elisabeth Clemens' theoretical interests concern processes of institutional change. Her empirical work ranges from historical transformations in the forms of political participation in the United States to the changing roles of nonprofits, firms and political agencies in systems of governance.
Many contemporary political debates center on the role of public institutions in social provision. Clemens' current research addresses the politics and processes of transforming the role of public institutions, specifically through a study of the significant privatization of public education represented by charter schools and other novel hybrid forms.
Clemens is also exploring historical cases of such reorganizations of responsibility, including the unraveling of turn-of-the-last-century arrangements in which public programs were delivered through subsidies to, or collaboration with, voluntary associations.
As the culmination of the Social Science Research Council's Program on Philanthropy and the Nonprofit Sector, Clemens is co-editing a volume that surveys the changing relationships among state agencies, nonprofits, and firms in American political development.
Research Interests
Selected Publications:
"Lineages of the Rube Goldberg State: Building and Blurring Public Programs, 1900-1940." In Rethinking Political Institutions: The Art of the State, eds. Ian Shapiro, Stephen Skowronek, and Daniel Galvin. New York: New York University Press, 2006. pp. 380-443.
Review of "Governing NOW: Grassroots Activism in the National Organization for Women," by Maryann Barakso. In Social Service Review 80(2): 360-62, 2006.
Review of Diminished Democracy: From Membership to Management in American Civic Life by Theda Skocpol. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press. In Journal of Interdisciplinary History (forthcoming).
"The Typical Tools for the Job: Research Strategies in Institutional Analysis." In Sociological Theory 24 (in press).
"The Constitution of Citizens: Political Theories of Nonprofit Organizations." In The Nonprofit Sector: A Research Handbook, 2nd edition, eds. Walter W. Powell and Richard Steinberg. Yale University Press, 2006 (in press).
"Time and Tide: Response to Critics," (with Julia P. Adams and Ann Shola Orloff). In International Journal of Comparative Sociology (in press).
Review of The Limits of Market Organization. ed. Richard R. Nelson. New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 2005. In American Journal of Sociology (in press).
Remaking Modernity: Politics and Processes in Historical Sociology, Duke University Press, 2005 (with Julia Adams and Ann Shola Orloff).
"Beyond the Iron Law: Rethinking the Place of Organizations in Social Movement Research," The Blackwell Companion to Social Movements, Blackwell, 2004.
"Invention, Innovation, Proliferation: Puzzles of Organizational Change," Research in Social Organization, 2002.
"Recovering Past Protest: Archival Research on Social Movements," Methods in Social Movement Research, University of Minnesota Press, 2002.
"Politics and Institutionalism: Explaining Durability and Change." Annual Review of Sociology 25: 441-66, 1999.
Private Action and the Public Good. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998.
The People's Lobby: Organizational Innovation and the Rise of Interest Group Politics in the United States, 1890-1925. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997.
"Organizational Form as Frame: Collective Identity and Political Strategy in the American Labor Movement." Pp. 205-26 in Comparative Perspectives on Social Movements: Opportunities, Mobilizing Structures, and Cultural Framings, New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996.
"Careers in Print: Books, Journals, and Scholarly Reputations." American Journal of Sociology, 101, (2): 433-94, 1995.
"Organizational Repertoires and Institutional Change: Women's Groups and the Transformation of American Politics, 1890-1920," in American Journal of Sociology 98 (4): 755-98, 1993.
