Solidarity in Strategy – Making Business Meaningful in American Trade Associations

“Lyn Spillman does for trade associations what Alexis de Tocqueville did for civic ones, carefully investigating a wide range of associations in the United States–with surprising results. In describing how these associations band members together and give rise to group identities, Solidarity in Strategy breaks new ground in the discussion of the cultures of capitalism.”

–Frederick Wherry “University of Michigan”

“Lyn Spillman powerfully clarifies how ‘economic interest’ is filtered through cultural understandings of solidarity and moral obligation. Illuminating the extraordinary range and activities of business trade associations, she has created a new subject for contemporary social science. Solidarity in Strategy is a major work.”

–Jeffrey Alexander “Yale University”

“Solidarity in Strategy makes a very powerful argument that if we want to understand economic phenomena, we have to look at them from the perspective of culture. Readers from many different disciplines–sociology, political science and economics–will learn from and enjoy this important book.”–Richard Swedberg “Cornell University”

“This is a path-breaking study of American trade associations that significantly enriches our understanding of contemporary economic life. Based on a tremendous empirical undertaking, Spillman defies the assumption that self-interest and profit-seeking exhaustively define what business is all about, as she makes important strides in advancing both economic sociology and the sociology of culture.”–Nina Bandelj “University of California, Irvine”

Lyn Spillman is associate professor of sociology at the University of Notre Dame. A 2001 Guggenheim Fellowship recipient, she is also the author of Nation and Commemoration: Creating National Identities in the United States and Australia and the editor of Cultural Sociology.