Alessandro Bonanno

Sam Houston State University | SHSU · Department of Sociology

Right‐wing populists have had some success, however, in reducing the flow of immigrants and refugees, drawing out and manipulating their avid followers' authoritarian‐dominance orientation toward targeted minorities, and generating doubt and dismay about democratic institutions. In addition to Donald Trump and Brexit, the electoral victories of rig...

This edited volume covers the topic of Geographical Indication (GI) from a global perspective, using case studies from agri-food. The main theme is the re-evaluation of GI policies around the world: their resilience against capitalism and their role as facilitator or stumbling block for neoliberalism.

Based on, but also adding to, the arguments presented in the volume, this concluding chapter provides an answer to the book’s research question about the emancipatory power of Geographical Indication (GI) under Globalization and Neoliberalism. It opens by arguing that emancipatory solutions based on initiatives confined to the agri-food sector (sec...

This volume is about the emancipatory power and democratizing role of Geographical Indication (GI). Specifically, and through the presentation of original international research, it probes whether the implementation of GI represents a progressive alternative to the socio-economic trends and outcomes that characterize the contemporary global neolibe...

This chapter proposes a theory of the neoliberal state under global neoliberalism. It opens with an analysis of the theories of the state proposed by Hayek, Friedman, and Becker. This analysis is followed by an illustration of the limits of the neoliberal theory of the state that stresses its realist component, its inability to account for the cont...

This chapter concludes the analysis of the crisis of Fordism by reviewing the structural contradictions that destabilized it. It reviews the conditions and requirements for the application of Keynesian economic policies and briefly illustrates their implementation in advanced and developing countries. It continues by elucidating the mechanisms thro...

This chapter analyzes the conditions that created the early legitimation of global neoliberalism and later engendered its legitimation crisis. While the claim of impartiality of market relations legitimized neoliberalism, subsequent events engendered not only a crisis of system integration but also a crisis of social integration. The crisis of soci...

This Chapter reviews the conditions that determine the legitimation crisis of global neoliberalism. It argues that the achievement of legitimation has always been linked to the management of the contradiction between the bourgeois claims of democracy and equality and the concentration of capital and power engendered by the development of capitalism...

This chapter continues the review of the basic tenets of neoliberalism through an analysis of salient ideas of two key members of the Chicago School of Economics: Milton Friedman and Gary Becker. It is stressed that Friedman provided a rationale for the desirability of supply-side economics and a justification of the notion of socio-economic inequa...

This chapter illustrates salient socio-economic conditions that allowed the implementation of neoliberalism and reviews basic aspects of early theories of neoliberalism. It opens with an illustration of the transition from Fordism to neoliberalism and the development of neoliberal globalization. It underscores the creation of global networks of pro...

Chapter 8 reviews the issue of resistance to neoliberalism by stressing its importance in the context of the creation of alternatives to the current status quo. The chapter further illustrates the corporate colonization of contemporary resistance for activist organizations associate with corporations and/or act like corporations. The concomitant co...

This chapter probes salient ideological and cultural aspects of regulated capitalism. Presented through reviews of the ideas of Antonio Gramsci, Talcott Parsons, and Daniel Bell, these characteristics mandated the creation of a new will-formation that allowed the submission of the working class to the requirements of Fordist production. Additionall...

This chapter stresses the point that contrary to arguments proposed by neoliberals, the state has consistently been a relevant actor in the organization of the economy and society. It indicates that the role played by the state was fundamental in the expansion and stability of capitalism in its early stages, during the laissez-faire era of the nine...

This book proposes a theory of the legitimation crisis of neoliberalism. Through analyses of the legitimation crisis of regulated capitalism and the characteristics and theories of neoliberalism, the author contends that neoliberalism is affected by crises of system and social integration. The crisis of system integration refers to the inability of...

This article first reviews debates that stress the contrasting interpretations of globalization existing at the social, political, and economic levels. Globalization is defined in terms of the combined processes of acceleration of time and compression of social space. The development of transnational corporations (TNCs) since the 1960s reveals that...

I am a long-standing member of the Rural Sociological Society. In my work, I specialize in the sociology of agriculture and food with a focus on globalization. I began research in the sociology of agri-food in the mid-1970s, and I have been working on globalization since the 1980s. My observation is that most of the international research in rural...

Employing the case study of the cultivation of African Palms for the production of palm oil in Chiapas, Mexico, this paper probes the theme of alternative patterns of development to Neoliberal Globalization. In particular, it discusses the issue of the return to State intervention (Neo-Fordism) as an instrument to promote socio-economic development...

This study examined students’ evaluations of faculty performance in traditional and online classes. The study design builds upon prior research that addressed socially relevant factors such as classroom environments, students’ learning goals, expected, and received grades, and more importantly, students’ ratings of instructors’ performance. The sam...

This fourth Rural Sociological Society decennial volume provides advanced policy scholarship on rural North America during the 2010’s, closely reflecting upon the increasingly global nature of social, cultural, and economic forces and the impact of neoliberal ideology upon policy, politics, and power in rural areas. The chapters in this volume rep...

This paper probes the issue of changes in the agri-food labor structure under neoliberal globalization. Employing two cases from Japan, the paper documents the continuous crisis of independent farmers and their replacement by hired labor. This process, it is argued, was accelerated by the implementation of neoliberal policies and by the effects of...

This chapter employs a commodity systems analysis combined with a sociology of agrifood studies conceptual framework to investigate ethical issues in the poultry industry. The poultry industry was the first livestock sector to industrialize. While it emerged in the Northeast in the 1930s, by the 1950s the locus of activity had shifted to the South,...

Patients with orbital and periorbital cancer expect to be cured or survive for several years after their malignancy is detected and surgically removed. However, despite advancements in reconstructive surgery, survivors often remain facially disfigured and spend significant portions of their lives dealing with stigma, a mark of social disgrace. Alth...

This article probes the issue of stigma generated by the interaction of facially disfigured cancer patients with strangers and acquaintances (secondary groups). Now, patients with cancer of the face survive. As they survive, they spend significant portions of their lives dealing with stigma. Limited knowledge is available on the interaction process...

This article investigates the consequences of the production of table grapes for export to corporate supermarkets in the global North on labor in a re-gion of the Brazilian North-east. This production is destined to meet the growing demand for year-round food marketed as quality food. Quality food is required by supermarket chains to increase compe...

This case study explores how neoliberal policies shape the impacts of a natural disaster. We investigate the reactions to major damages to the electric power system and the restoration of power in the wake of Hurricane Ike, which devastated the Houston, Texas, metropolitan area in September 2008. We argue that the neoliberal policy agenda insured a...

The studies presented in this volume are examples of the manner in which globalization reshaped social relations in the agrifood sector. In this concluding chapter, two fundamental points are presented. They are offered as a synthesis of the empirical evidence characterizing the contributions contained in this book and wish to add to the on-going d...

The idea of an attractive face is socially constructed through interaction. The face is a fundamental element in the definition of identity and behavior, and individuals endowed with an attractive face are treated better than others. Accordingly, orbitofacial cancer survivors who are disfigured because of their cancer or cancer treatment suffer fro...

The relationship between transnational corporations (TNCs) in the agro-food sector and the nation-state in the context of global post-Fordism is examined through a case study of recent events involving the Ferruzzi transnational corporation. TNCs have a complex and contradictory set of relations with the state that are affected by competition among...

Abstract The agriculture of the European Community (EC) has experienced significant changes in the last decade. From a situation of deficiency in agricultural and food production, the twelve-nation community has shifted to a situation of food overproduction. This change has also been characterized by a rapid decrease in the agricultural labor force...

Abstract Employing primary data collected in the summer of 1991 in a representative survey of two farming areas in the territory of the republics of Russia and Ukraine, this study addresses the issue of the future involvement of collective and state-farm workers in private farming. Through the use of a LISREL model, it is argued that those who have...

This article contributes to the limited literature on the social consequences of cancer generated facial disfigurement by reporting the result of an exploratory analysis of interaction between facially disfigured cancer patients and strangers and acquaintances (secondary groups). Secondary groups are those in which membership occurs due to performa...

The face is one of the most important elements defining social interaction. Once the normal appearance of the face is altered, individuals encounter significant social problems. This is a situation that involves the facially disfigured but also those who interact with them. Due to medical advancements, patients who are facially disfigured because o...

Patients who undergo orbital exenteration often experience social problems because of their facial disfigurement. The authors studied the interaction of cancer patients who had undergone orbital exenteration with family members and friends (primary groups) and with acquaintances and strangers (secondary groups) in small and large groups. In-depth t...

Abstract This analysis employs the case of lysine price fixing involving the food-processing transnational corporation (TNC) Archer Daniels Midland (ADM) and Asian-based firms. In an “economy and society” conceptual framework grounded in the sociology of agriculture and food, we investigate the powers and limits of TNCs in the global era. We argue...

Abstract This work analyzes the reactions of rural residents to the introduction of market-oriented economic reforms in the Russian agricultural sector. Employing primary data collected in a 1995 survey of three villages in the Russian Republic, we argue that strong resistance to the introduction of Neo-liberal market-oriented reforms exists, often...

ABSTRACT The globalization of socio-economic relations is a central topic of discussion in both the general literature on economy and society and in the area of food and agriculture. Many maintain that we are in a transition from one era, termed Fordism, to another, called Global Post-Fordism. We use the case of two fisheries eco-labeling programs...

e20659 Background: Advances in cancer treatment extend the survival of orbitofacial cancer patients who undergo orbital exenteration. Survivorship creates social problems as facial deformities potentially engender social stigma (a mark of social disgrace). Stigmatization is created through social interaction and depends on reactions of “others” to...

We address here how the U.S. neoliberal policy regime developed and how its reconstructed vision of modernization, which culminated, under the rubric of globalization, was neutralized by 9/11 and neoconservative geopolitics. We analyze the phases in the rise of neoliberalism, and provide a detailed map of its vision of global modernization at its h...

Abstract  Employing the case of the expansion and regulation of hog confined animal feeding operations (CAFO) in Texas combined with the actions of the transnational agri-food corporation Seaboard Farms, Inc., this paper probes the relationship between the state and corporations in the global era. It specifically investigates the ability of the sta...

This article examines the case of land reform in Italy from 1944 to 1961 in relation to the role of the State in capitalism. Through an analysis of recent debate on the capitalist State, it offers an investigation of the generation and outcomes of the process of land reform. It is important to note that the social pressure exerted by landless peasa...

This article examines the reasons working-class retirees give for their continued labor activity and discusses these in relation to the present socioeconomic situation. Through the use of primary qualitative data supplemented by others’ empirical work, it is argued that working-class retirees engage in labor because they lack the economic resources...

T INT ransnational corporations (TNCs) are the most powerful actors in the socio-economic scenario (e.g., Boggs 2000; Gilpin 2000; Harvey 1990; Sassen 1998). My past empirical research (see for example Bonanno and Antonio 2003; Bonanno and Constance 1966; Bonanno and Blume 2001) has underscored that under globalization, TNCs enjoy enormous powers w...

Arguably democracy and globalization are among the most debated topics in contemporary scientific, political and cultural circles. Indeed, for some optimistic observers, these two phenomena are end points. Globalization is a process that generates economic prosperity and provides fresh opportunities for the emancipation of selves. Democracy is a pr...

This article is aimed at examining the main characteristics of the process of globalization of the agri-food system regarding Latin America's socioeconomic development. The vast literature on globalization is summarized in three distinct groups. Radical neoliberals argue that globalization represents the necessary prescription for advancing the wor...

El objetivo de este artículo es de examinar las características principales del proceso de globalización del sistema agro-alimentario en relación al desarrollo socio-económico de América Latina. La vasta literatura sobre la globalización está resumida en tres grupos distintos. Los neo-liberales radicales argumentan que la globalización representa l...

This paper illustrates the resistance of environmentally concerned groups and citizens against the establishment and growth of corporate-operated confined animal feeding operations (CAFOs) in the Panhandle region of Texas. We contend that local resistance was partially successful as locally based groups were able to create a contested terrain of po...

Employing the case of theredwood Headwaters forest in rural NorthernCalifornia, this paper investigates the extentto which an anti-corporate progressive alliancebetween labor and the environmental movement ispossible in contemporary global capitalism.Progressive alliances between labor and theenvironmental movement have been historicallydifficult....

In liberal thought, democracy is guaranteed by the unity of community and government. The community of citizens elects its government according to political preferences. The government rules over the community with powers which are limited by unalienable human, civil, and political rights. These assumptions have characterized Classical Liberalism,...

This analysis uses an analytical frameworkgrounded in political economy perspectives of theglobalization of the agro-food sector combined with acase study approach focusing on the Marine StewardshipCouncil (MSC) to inform discussions regarding thecharacteristics of societal regulation in thepost-Fordist era. More specifically, this analysisuses the...

This paper illustrates the resistance of environmentally concerned groups and citizens against the establishment and growth of corporate-operated confined animal feeding operations (CAFOs) in the Panhandle region of Texas. We contend that local resistance was partially successful as locally based groups were able to create a contested terrain of po...

This book examines rural households' use of and views toward different types of services during the collapse of the Soviet Union and the beginning of the market economy. Using data from 1991 and 1993 household surveys in two rural villages, one in southern Russia and the other in eastern Ukraine, the researchers describe how rural residents viewed...

Hog odor is the most divisive issue ever in agriculture, damaging the fabric of rural society and disenfranchising pork producers from their communities. [R. Douglas Hurt, Director of the Center for Agriculture History and Rural Studies, Iowa State University quoted in Smith 1998:1]

In liberal thought, democracy is guaranteed by the unity of community and government. The community of citizens elects its government according to political preferences. The government rules over the community with powers that are limited by unalienable human, civil, and political rights. These assumptions have characterized Classical Liberalism, R...

Employing the case of the global tuna fish industry the paper investigates the effect of globalization on political institutions and social agents. Three interrelated points are argued. First, it is maintained that while the process of globalization is pervasive, it is also flexible, i.e., the outcomes of globalization are contested and no particul...

This paper uses a case study methodology and a Critical Theory framework to interpret corporate crimes committed by the transnational corporation Ferruzzi. Building upon the literature on the crisis of Fordism, the globalization of the economy and society, and corporate crime, it is argued that Ferruzzi was involved in a systematic violation of law...