Talk:Eli Berman

Bellum as a source?

I think we should have reservations about using Bellum as a source. It's a student-run website with a specific political bias (it's part of the free conservative student newspaper The Stanford Review). It seems pretty clearly not RS (student newspapers generally aren't, let alone the politicised ones which will be under even less scrutiny). I'm not questioning the material it provides on this subject, just saying that we really shouldn't be using it.VsevolodKrolikov (talk) 06:25, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

Do you really think they'd misquote him in an interview? You could probably find other sources that cite him, or even use his own works. Tijfo098 (talk) 08:54, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

Student journalism even in the best institutions can be horrendous, and this one isn't anything like the official student rag. You might take a look at what a couple of Stanford Review editors did later. Interview data is easily misrepresented without technically misquoting. We don't know, for example, what he said but wasn't reported, or what paraphrases there have been. It may be a perfectly good interview, but RS rules suggest it does not count. We should just use it as a guide for getting to know the subject, but not source the article to it. VsevolodKrolikov (talk) 09:31, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

Article needs structure

We need to sort out the structure. I suggest work on terrorist groups in particular and radical religious groups in general can be separated. Also the theory of defection might merit a separate section. And we need some secondary sources commenting on Berman. Any thoughts? (it's all interesting stuff in there - good job, people).VsevolodKrolikov (talk) 07:26, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

Well, I thought about that myself, but he didn't do much research on non-religious terrorists. He speaks a bit of that distinction on the podcast (when asked), but he hasn't published papers on non-religious ones as far as I can tell. Tijfo098 (talk) 08:52, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

The review cited in this article (see snippet below) says "many social scientists are familiar with the club model of religion but are less aware of the types of evidence in support of the theory produced by economists." So, since you're the social scientist: club model of religion? Tijfo098 (talk) 09:26, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

It's an odd comment, as far as I can see. I'm not so familiar with this area, but as you know there's the concept of the club good which is very much informed by the work of economist Laurence Iannaccone (an article crying out for expansion). I am really not sure what is meant by familiarity with the club model coexisting with lack of awareness of the contribution of economists. The club model is clearly a rational choice model, and as such is highly associated with economic analyses of social behaviour, so the model and economics go hand in hand. This book makes it clear it's an economistic viewpoint. What McBride may be referring to is a general deep streak of antipathy to rational choice modeling amongst many social scientists, for two good reasons and one slightly silly one. Some economists have insisted on a thoroughgoing human-beings-as-self-aware-selfish-material-focussed-individuals version of rational choice (as caricatured in Adam Curtis's The Trap), which is simply ideology dressed up as rationality, while others have indulged in fatally simplistic modelling of social behaviour in order to shoe-horn it into a manageable model (the "sociology is easy" school of thought one also finds in memetics). And then there's a whole "economists are typically right-wing and numbery and social scientists are typically left-wing and problematising" silly tribalism about it. So when economists come knocking on the door of the sociology of religion, I can imagine they might be given a frosty welcome, what with their formulae and arriviste expensive suits. It's not supposed to be their turf. That said, Berman is a labour economist, and they (speaking as a social scientist) are far more likely to be trusted as not being raving Friedman-ites. I'm not sure this helps, other than to explain that I genuinely have no idea what McBride means in that review.VsevolodKrolikov (talk) 12:40, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

Well, based on the Blackwell Companion you linked (pp. 190-191), I'm guessing all McBride is saying is that sociologists are aware of the club[-good] model, but that they are less aware of its supporting evidence. For now, I think the stubby club good article is sufficient to explain this model. Tijfo098 (talk) 13:00, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

Off-topic: LOL, that book cites Rodney Stark's Wikipedia article on p. 183. Tijfo098 (talk) 13:19, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

(ffs, I have barely literate students who know not to cite Wikipedia directly but look at the footnotes.) After listening to the podcast (not a lecture - my apologies: I put up the link before listening), I think the best organisation for his research would be separating out the main ideas (which seem to be solving the free-rider issue/club goods, and defection constraints) from the applications and particular studies (religious terror groups in the middle east; Ultra-orthodox Jews; Southern Philippines). For me this kind of general principle - examples presentation is the best for understanding a topic. It would take a little bit of work, but it would be clearer. What do you think? VsevolodKrolikov (talk) 10:29, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

Book reviews

Some are listed and quoted here, on the book's site. Tijfo098 (talk) 09:17, 10 November 2010 (UTC)