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I examine the challenges of conceptualization and measurement of structural power when the differential power of industries or individual firms are in question. While ascertaining structural power's operation at this level can be very challenging, I point to some issues of conceptualization and measurement that can enhance our analytic leverage at the initial stages of the research process. Specifically I propose a more refined language of "structural prominence" to differentiate between the expected causes of structural power from its hypothesized effects. Using a variety of data I show that researchers have some simple tools at their disposal but must pay careful attention to basic logical inferential limitations when examining structural power arguments. Through an examination of firms' reactions to policy proposals in US securities regulation I find positive evidence for structural power operating in initial policy proposals. When I examine levels of preference attainment in the policymaking process itself, structural power appears to be playing a weaker and more conditional role. I also find that the preference attainment of firms is greatest when structural and instrumental forces operate in conjunction, a finding supportive of recent research in this area.

On the 50th anniversary of the ISSA and IRSS, a scholar central to the understanding of deviance and violence in sport, Kevin Young, considers the trajectory, challenges and future for research on sport violence. He notes that the sociology of sports violence has been surprisingly limited in its scope, with focus often on football hooliganism and ice hockey tactics. In considering the challenges of sport-related violence, Young notes confounding issues of access and candor in reporting, and interrogates Berger's notion of 'ways of seeing' to provoke new lenses for approaching and understanding the cultures and contexts of violence in sport. In addition, it is argued that using an approach that combines criminology, social justice and community health concerns is crucial to sociological inquiry. The essay closes with key arguments for the study of sport-related violence to 'open the lens' by looking beyond the 'predictable crucibles' of the UK and North America to examine the permutations of culturally embedded violence that link to sport across the globe.

In the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, governments turned to protectionist policies to support their financial sectors. Yet these policy choices have been highly variegated, and like many recent protectionist policies reflect a process of adaptation to changing circumstances. Using data on a variety of government interventions in the financial sector since the crisis, I show that financial protectionism comes in at leastthreetypes, only two of which have witnessed a traceable increase since the global financial crisis. These are protection through market entry restrictions (Type 1), through asymmetrically applied regulation (Type 2) and protection through subsidies (Type 3). While Type 1 has not appeared to change significantly since the crisis, Type 2 and Type 3 have. I present empirical evidence which suggests that while Type 3 financial protectionism proliferated during and shortly after the crisis, it is unlikely to continue. Type 2 financial protectionism, I conclude, is more likely to take off into the future because of the nature of interest group effects associated with asymmetric regulation as a form of government intervention.

U.S. journalists and commentators have helped popularize the image of two distinct Latin American lefts: a "bad" left that is politically authoritarian and economically erratic and a "good" left that is democratic and committed to free-market economics. This binary image oversimplifies the Latin American left in three ways: by overstating the contrast between the two alleged camps, by ignoring complex realities within each camp, and by exaggerating the failings of the so-called bad-left governments. The distinction makes sense, however, as a strategy for countering the rise of independent left-leaning governments in Latin America. Binary characterizations of subordinate peoples reflect a common discursive response to popular resistance on the part of imperial interests and one with many precedents in the history of U.S.–Latin American relations. Widespread U.S. media adherence to the good-left/bad-left thesis is explicable given this context and given the historic and continuing dependence of the press on state and corporate interests. Periodistas y comentaristas norteamericanos han contribuido a la popularización de la imagen de dos izquierdas en América Latina: una "mala" izquierda, la cual es políticamente autoritaria y económicamente errática, y una "buena" izquierda, la cual es democrática y comprometida con la economía de libre mercado. Esta imagen binaria simplifica demasiado la izquierda latinoamericana en tres formas: exagera el contraste entre lo que se alega sean dos campos; ignora realidades complejas dentro de cada campo; y exagera las fallas de los gobiernos de la llamada mala izquierda. Sin embargo, la distinción tiene sentido vista como una estrategia para contrarrestar la emergencia de gobiernos independientes de izquierda en América Latina. Las caracterizaciones binarias de los pueblos subordinados reflejan una respuesta discursiva común de parte de intereses imperiales a la resistencia popular y uno con muchos precedentes históricos en las relaciones entre los EE.UU. y Latinoamérica. La extensa adhesión de los medios norteamericanos a la tesis de buena-izquierda/mala-izquierda se puede explicar dado este contexto y dada la histórica y continua dependencia de la prensa de los intereses del Estado y las corporaciones.

AbstractThis article explores the advocacy efforts of financial industry groups since the financial crisis. I describe key changes in the post‐crisis financial regulatory environment and argue that financial industry groups have adapted their advocacy strategies to these new conditions in innovative ways. Faced with a more challenging environment, financial industry groups have shifted their emphasis along the different stages of the policy cycle. Specifically, increased issue salience and a strained policy network have weakened financial industry groups' capacity to veto regulatory proposals at the stage of actual policy formulation. Focusing on the advocacy strategies of the global banking and derivatives industries, I show evidence that the response has been to invest in more subtle advocacy strategies which focus on other stages of the policymaking cycle. Self‐regulatory moves attempt to affect the agenda setting stage of policymaking, and a strong focus on the timing, rather than the content of new regulations, has attempted to affect the implementation stage. Such a transformation of advocacy strategies differs sharply from most depictions of financial industry groups simply "blocking" regulatory change since the global financial crisis.

The Triangular Plan of the 1960s was a key moment in the rightward shift of the Bolivian Revolution (1952–1964). Billed by the United States, West Germany, and the Inter-American Development Bank as a generous loan program to "rehabilitate" the Bolivian tin mines, the plan also gave its architects a chance to discipline Bolivian workers, further privatize the Bolivian economy, and test the usefulness of conditional economic aid in containing revolutionary nationalism. From an analysis of the Triangular Plan it is possible to draw three major conclusions about postwar U.S. policy with regard to Latin America: (1) independent nationalism and popular militancy, rather than Soviet-style Communism, were the primary fears of policy makers; (2) the response to the Bolivian Revolution was not, as some have implied, indicative of benign intentions in the face of revolutionary nationalism; and (3) Bolivia often served as a "test case" or laboratory for policy measures.