Chad Alan Goldberg

Classes:

Soc 210 Survey of Sociology
Soc 258 The Jews, States, and Citizenship: A Sociological Perspective
Soc 327 Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy in America since 1890
Soc 475 Classical Sociological Theory
Soc 626 Social Movements
Soc 924 Political Sociology Seminar: Citizenship and the Welfare State in the United States

Associate Professor of Sociology
Director of Graduate Studies
8116B Sewell Social Sciences
(608) 262-2108
cgoldber@ssc.wisc.edu
Alternate Webpage
Office Hours: by appt. (Fall'09)

Curriculum Vitae

Selected Publications:
See personal web page for current publications.

Education:
Ph.D., Sociology, New School for Social Research, 2001

Areas of Interest:
Comparative/Historical Sociology
General Social Theory
Political Sociology
Social Movements and Collective Action
Sociology of Culture

Affiliations:
Center for Jewish Studies
Sociology

Research Interest Statement:
My research primarily aims to contribute to the political, cultural, and historical sociology of citizenship, which I envision as a field of study that investigates the development of citizenship rights over time, changing levels and forms of civic engagement and political participation, and shifting patterns of civic inclusion and exclusion. Building on the insights of British sociologist T. H. Marshall, my current work seeks to place the development of the U.S. welfare state in this context. Marshall pointed out that nineteenth-century paupers forfeited their civil and political rights in exchange for relief. Traditional poor relief thus “treated the claims of the poor, not as an integral part of the rights of the citizen, but as an alternative to them – as claims which could be met only if the claimants ceased to be citizens in any true sense of the word.” Unlike Marshall, I do not assume that the twentieth-century welfare state broke definitively with traditional poor relief. Instead, my research suggests that policy innovations often generated struggles over whether to model the new policy on or sharply distinguish it from traditional poor relief. At stake in these struggles were the citizenship status and rights of the policy’s clients. In the United States, struggles of this sort continued to emerge well into the twentieth century.

My studies in the sociology of citizenship presume that institutions make citizens as much as citizens make institutions. I hope that my work will contribute to the reconstruction of institutions along more democratic lines and thus help to nuture a shared democratic culture, mores, and habits.