The Other Divide

The key to understanding the current wave of American political division is the attention people pay to politics.

Since the sixteenth century, the Protestant tradition has been divided. The Reformed and Lutheran reformations, though both committed to the doctrine of the sinners justification by faith alone, split over Zwingli and Luther's disagreement over the nature of the Lord's Supper. Since that time, the Reformed and Lutheran traditions have developed their own theological convictions, and continue to disagree with one another. It is incumbent upon students of the reformation, in the Lutheran and Reformed traditions, to come to an understanding of what these differences are, and why they matter. In The Great Divide: A Lutheran Evaluation of Reformed Theology, Jordan Cooper examines these differences from a Lutheran perspective. While seeking to help both sides come to a more nuanced understanding of one another, and writing in an irenic tone, Cooper contends that these differences do still matter. Throughout the work, Cooper engages with Reformed writers, both contemporary and old, and demonstrates that the Lutheran tradition is more consistent with the teachings of Scripture than the Reformed.

This dissertation examines the processes by which the intragroup division of labor structurally influences the development of group attachment. It specifically addresses a classic sociological issue over whether specialization in the division of labor is beneficial or detrimental to the development of person-to-group bonds and group cohesion. I propose that that solely looking at the independent effects of task specialization in isolation is problematic. Instead, I suggest that it is more beneficial to characterize the division of labor in terms of the different relational aspects that underline micro-interactional task structure. Towards this aim, my project proposes that interdependence in the division of labor is organized around three relational dimensions (task coordination, task differentiation, and skill specialization), which in combination exert complex influences on the development of person-to-group bonds. The first part of my dissertation research proposes a new original theory that specifies how these three relation dimensions differentially impact three independent processes by which group cohesion can endogenously grow from task structure. The second part of my dissertation centers around two major empirical analyses derived from data collected from a large-scale laboratory experiment. The first empirical study asks whether group bonding is higher in specialized teams? The second empirical study asks whether the impact of specialization changes when task specialization is no longer equally differentiated among group members, but is instead unequally divided amongst group members such that only a few group members possess unique skills important for team success? This project provides three major theoretical contributions: First, it addresses a fundamental issue that lies at the heart of sociology by asking what structural aspects of social interaction encourage individuals to become more attached to a group? Second, it re-conceptualizes the division of labor on an interpersonal level by breaking the concept down into its constituent parts to analyze how the division of labor actually works in real social interaction. Third, it brings insight to a major debate over whether organizational division of labor inhibits or enhances group solidarity by suggesting that the impact of task dimensions like specialization is not straightforward, but is complex and can only be examined while in simultaneous combination with other task dimensions.

Too often struggles for jobs and economic justice have been divided from social goals such as peace or protecting the environment. How do we create an economy where both the process and product of work serve life-sustaining goals? Coalitions across the Class Divide argues that the seeds of this new society are being sown by those who learn to bridge working and middle-class movements and cultures. A new generation of activists is seizing a historic opportunity to organize coalitions across the labor, peace, environmental, and other movements that have previously worked in isolation or at odds. Fred Rose brings the challenges and potential of coalition organizing to life through an in-depth look at cases of conflict and cooperation. From the timber wars in the Pacific Northwest to military conversion coalitions emerging with the end of the Cold War, these cases teach practical lessons about the processes and pitfalls of organizing across movements and classes.