article review

Urban Politics: POLS 4460
1) Select an article from a scholarly journal on a topic related to some aspect of the textbook or the course. Be sure that it is a scholarly journal article (i.e., 15-20 pages in length, published quarterly and not monthly, contains footnotes, etc.).

2) Read the article twice: the first time for content, and a second time to write the assignment. As you read, keep in mind questions such as: What is this trying to say? How clearly is the message getting through? How readable (word choice, language etc) is it? How accurate is the information? How useful did you find this information?

3) The review should consist of roughly four paragraphs:
a) description of the purpose or objective of the article.
b) identification of the method or approached used by the author, and the data or evidence used. identification of major terms, concepts or theories used by the author,
c) outline of the 3-4 major points of the research, and
d) your assessment/critique of the article, including, how it helps us understand, and is relevant to issues and concerns of the course and the textbook, and what you see as some of its weaknesses or limitations. The complete review should be no more than 500 words.
The format of your finished assignment should be EXACTLY like the sample assignment below.
Scholarly article review sample

Daniel Scroop, ?The Anti-Chain Store Movement and the Politics of Consumption,? American Quarterly, 60, no. 4, (Dec 2008) 925-949.

This article examines the anti-chain store movement of the first half of the 20th century. Scroop contends that review of the movement challenges depictions of it as a nostalgic effort to retain dying local business forms.

Scroop examines how historians from the 1930s through the present have studied the anti-chain store movement. Also, he examines state laws and opinions in court cases that were heavily influence by movement activities. Scroop explores the language and imagery used by movement proponents to confront the expansion of corporations across the production and retail landscape in the 1930s. Among the major concepts used by Scroop are populism and anti-monopolism, which he views the movement as part of. Furthermore, he argues that the movement represented an important dimension of the politics of consumption.

The four major points in this article can be identified as: 1) The New Deal, which to many historians represents the triumph of a liberal capitalist framework, did not signal an end to the anti-chain store movement, as battles continued on a number of frontiers to define the direction of the American political economy. 2) Scroop cites Justice Louis Brandeis?s opposition to chains in his dissent in Liggett Co. v. Lee, a 1933 Florida case brought to the Supreme Court. In that year alone, 225 anti-chain bills were introduced in 42 states. 3) The politics of consumption revolved, not just about what Americans would consume, but deeper questions on what is the relationship between the citizen, the state, and the economic system. 4) Lastly, Scroop contends that the research challenges the notion of anti-chain store activists as being self-motivated or detached from the concerns of most consumers. Opposition to chain stores reflected widespread concerns on how local businesses and social customs would resist these encroachments.

Scroop illuminates, not only some of the objectives of the anti-chain store movement, but also identifies its grounding, and some of its key allies in the federal government, as well as in the states. Yet, there is little discussion of movement organization, and how it was able to contest big capital at a time in which advances in fields such as advertising rationalized chains in the minds of consumers. Though not guided by a social movements model, Scoop?s research offers insights into the multiple spaces where activism takes root and expands. Furthermore, his analysis sheds light on the current anti-big box and anti-globalization movements.

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Anne McEldowney

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