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Jason Kaufman

Research Fellow
Berkman Center, Harvard Law School

Biographical Note

JASON KAUFMAN, Research Fellow at the Berkman Center of Harvard Law School, received his A.B. in Social Studies from Harvard College (1993). He holds an MA (1996) and PhD from Princeton University (1999). His dissertation examined patterns of local political development in the United States through the Progressive Era, focusing on the impact of new information networks on early American political behavior. He has also published papers on civic associationalism in the 19th century United States; AIDS preventive policy and anti-discrimination law; and the cultural worlds of American high school students.

Prior to entering Harvard, Kaufman studied classical trumpet at the Curtis Institute of Music (Philadelphia, PA), where he was one of four scholarship students of Frank Kaderabek, principal trumpet of the Philadelphia Orchestra. While at Harvard, Kaufman's interest in music continued: He served as music director of the Harvard-Radcliffe Gilbert and Sullivan Players his freshman year, and as a senior, he wrote his senior honors essay on the political potential of rap music. More recently, he has joined Gamelan Galak Tika, a Balinese percussion ensemble directed by clarinetist/composer Evan Ziporyn (of Bang On A Can festival fame). Though Kaufman considers himself a political sociologist first and foremost, he still retains an abiding intellectual interest in music, the arts, and the sociological study thereof.

There was an author-meets-critics session at the 2005 ASS meeting on Kaufman's first book: For The Common Good? American Civic Life and the Golden Age of Fraternity, Oxford University Press. Kaufman is the author of a review article in the 2004 Annual Review of Sociology on "Endogenous Explanation in the Sociology of Culture." Kaufman and colleague Orlando Patterson received a 2006 ASA Culture Section Best Article Prize for their 2005 American Sociological Review article, "Cross-national Cultural Diffusion and the Global Spread of Cricket."

Kaufman is currently working on six projects:

1. A major comparative history of the United States and Canada (1578-present), forthcoming from Harvard University Press under the title, American Gemini: The Historical Origins of Modern Political Differences in the US and Canada. This project continues a long tradition of sociological research into "American Exceptionalism" and the "Continental Divide." The book aims to contribute to this debate in two ways: First, by charting the political development of both countries from the period of their earliest European settlement, as opposed to starting with the American Revolution and the 'Tory exodus' thereafter; second, by focusing on the ways in which English common law was adopted and disseminated in both countries, particularly with respect to doctrine about the relationship between central and sub-national government, civilians and the state, and states and intermediary associations. Combined, this work offers examines the particularities of North American political culture and institutional development.
2. A study of the path to political polarization in modern-day Vermont and New Hampshire, both of which were once considered the "most Republican" states in the Union. Since the 1950s, Vermont has emerged as a national leader in progressive politics, whereas New Hampshire has been deemed the most "libertarian-friendly" state in the country. This paper aims to tease out the process whereby the political culture of two neighboring polities diverged over time. Matt Kaliner, a graduate student in Sociology at Harvard, is co-author on this project. The research is supported with a grant from Harvard’s Center for American Political Studies.
3. A study forthcoming in the American Sociological Review of the historical origins of the American business corporation as seen through the lens of legal restrictions on the right of incorporation. This is part of the larger US/Canada project mentioned above. Arguably, one of the underlying causes of "American Exceptionalism" is the relative ease with which private endeavors are granted legal status as private corporations -- even Tocqueville's myriad 'associations' were often corporate concerns. This paper connects the early history of the American corporation to colonial struggles for political autonomy in 17th and 18th century New England.
4. A project with graduate students Jay Gabler and Nathan Fosse on the relationship between high schools arts/music training and post-secondary educational attainment. This project relies primarily on data from the National Education Longitudinal Survey. A preliminary paper on gender and cultural capital was published in a special issue of the journal Poetics. A new, comprehensive paper is in the works, as is a related story for the journal Contexts.
5. "Are American Evangelicals More Politically Conservative than Canadian Evangelicals, or Are There Simply More of Them in the US?: An Empirical Investigation Using Multiple Data Sources," with Lydia Bean and Marco Gonzalez. This is a multi-methodological study of the contrasting connections between politics and religion in the United States and Canada. This project uses both contemporary survey data on American and Canadian views of God, politics, and community, as well as qualitative historical material on the social organization of Protestant sects in 19th century North America. In the midst of recurring debates about the separation of church and state in the United States (but not Canada), the question we seek to answer here is whether Canadian evangelicals are less politically conservative than their American counterparts or if there are simply many more evangelicals in the US (per capita) than in Canada.
6. A quantitative study of social networks and cultural preferences using data collected from college students' Facebook.com profiles. The data include detailed information on both students' friendship networks and 'favorite' books, movies, and music, thus affording a unique look into the relationship between patterns of social affiliation and aesthetic proclivities. The data comprise Facebook profiles posted by an entire class of college freshman at a private, East Coast university. This project is being done with Harvard graduate students Kevin Lewis and Marco Gonzalez, in coordination with related work by Professors Nicholas Christakis and Andreas Wimmer. Collectively, we aim to build a longitudinal data set comprising a complete cohort of college students' social network and cultural preference data from their freshman through senior years.

In the not-too-distant future, Kaufman anticipates working on a historical study of the social transformation of the American saloon, focusing on the saloon's once prevalent role as charitable institution, employment agency, social meeting place, sexual conduit, and "youth culture" motif (party-central), before, during, and after Prohibition. Prohibition created a massive disjuncture in the saloon-industrial complex, thus fomenting radical reconstruction of "fun" during the Great Depression. The object here is to examine historical changes in the organization of social control as it relates to substance abuse, sex culture, youth culture, and mental and public health.

Kaufman was recipient of the 2001 George Kahrl Award in Sociology "in recognition of outstanding commitment to undergraduate education, enthusiasm for students, and scholarly guidance" and advised a 2004 Hoopes Award-winning senior thesis by sociology concentrator Carrol Chang on the experiences of North Korean defectors living in Seoul, South Korea.

07/16/2008

Curriculum Vitae

A Sampling of Courses Offered in Other Years

Papers available in Portable Document Format (PDF)

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Photo in Bali by J Lieberman.

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