Ernesto Castañeda

Charles Tilly is a towering figure in the social sciences. His work has influenced generations of scholars across disciplines but younger generations may be less familiar with his work; this is a lost opportunity given the usefulness of his work. Much of Tilly’s work on areas outside of state formation and social movements remains underutilized. Many research agendas can be strengthened by building on his work and testing his many fascinating theories and hypotheses. This paper discusses examples of the application of some of Tilly’s works to contexts in Asia and the Middle East and North Africa, theory building, and contemporary issues by some scholars who were part of Tilly’s last generation of students.

The events of January 6th were a clear example of threats to American democracy. De-democratization is a process that preceded Trump’s election and that can still be seen in the United States and around the world. Social theorist Charles Tilly wrote about how becoming a democracy is not a unidirectional, one-time event or goal, but a non-linear process. This paper analyzes developments in the United States that signal rises and falls in the level of democracy over the last several decades. It discusses Donald Trump’s rise to power, the insurrection on January 6th, 2021, and the state of inclusion of ethnoracial minorities in the United States. It uses Tilly’s proposed processes of democratization and de-democratization. This more nuanced understanding of democracy and state–society relations helps avoid celebratory stances about the promise of electoral politics as well as pessimistic assessments about the imminent arrival of fascism and authoritarianism.

Marginalized populations, such as people experiencing homelessness and immigrants, are seen as among the most challenging populations to study, both methodologically and ethically. Although there are basic guidelines on how to conduct research with majority populations, the relative lack of published guidelines on how to conduct ethical and scientifically rigorous research with marginalized populations can make researchers apprehensive about seemingly unending questions from grant reviewers and institutional review boards (IRBs) concerning research ethics and the safety of human subjects. As a result, there is a persisting gap in research conducting large-scale studies on these populations outside of community organizations and clinical and institutional settings. We emphasize the calls of prior research to streamline IRB processes further to study vulnerable groups. In this paper, we focus on the study of people experiencing homelessness, yet we have used related methods to study immigrants, including those who may be undocumented. We provide guidelines derived from successful social scientific studies on homelessness and immigrants, which can be used to help ease IRB approval for other researchers to gather important data. The benefits of social science research on hard-to-reach populations often outweigh possible risk. By helping to increase research on hidden populations, we can improve the scientific rigor of all research and make important contributions to knowledge.