Doctoral Dissertations

Date of Award

8-1998

Degree Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy

Major

Sociology

Major Professor

Sherry Cable

Committee Members

Asafa Jalata, Robert Gorman

Abstract

This case study of Chattanooga investigates the actions taken by political and economic elites to promote local economic growth in an era of deindustrialization. I employ an analytical framework based on social constructionism. Social constructionism refers to the process by which social groups based on their interests frame situations, which in turn influence policy decisions. Social construction is most often used to describe social problems. This case study uses constructionism to investigate the social construction of a solution. I examine: pre-existing conditions including two distinct social classes, and two long standing, objective problems that had differential impacts on the social groups; claims-making, which includes the tactic of retroactive framing; counter claims; and policy outcomes.

My data sources were 50 interviews and public documents for the years 1965 to 1998. Interviews were with elites and non-elites. Documents used include local and national newspapers, journals, promotional literature, and planning and developmental reports. Several promotional videos were also viewed. Data collected were used to establish a chronology of events in Chattanooga, to describe claims-making and the existence of counterclaims, and to evaluate policy outcomes.

My major findings are threefold. First, Chattanooga elites constructed a solution for economic problems that permitted them to pursue their class-based interests in economic growth while claiming that such growth was not only environmentally benign, but also would provide the means to clean up past environmental messes.

A second major finding suggests why the elites' solution worked. Ambiguity surrounds the concept of sustainable development because of the lack of consensus among and within the scientific, social science, and business domains of discourse on sustainability. The positive connotations of the concept kept public resistance to elites' solution at a minimum. Elites promoted sustainable development by framing not only present actions and fumre plans as sustainable development, but also they retroactively framed actions as part of their current sustainable development strategy.

Third, elites could claim success for their strategy because they ambiguously defined the precise effects of their solution. Sustainable development was stated as a process that takes forever. Elites' definition of sustainable development produced ambiguity of policy outcome and presented the opportunity for them to claim success despite some empirical indicators suggesting otherwise.

The Chattanooga case study contributes to the literature in social constructionism and the perpetuation of existing social arrangements. First, my findings are relevant to social construction in emphasizing the processual nature of social construction and the social construction of a solution. Emphasis on social construction processes over time illuminates both the pre-existing structural conditions and the interactional features of claims-making. It also reveals the possibility for the use of the tactic of retroactive framing. The Chattanooga case study also demonstrates that social construction processes are used not only to define problems, but also to define solutions.

The second major contribution to the literature is to understanding the perpetuation of existing social arrangements. Local elites maintain economic growth through micropolitical processes that include framing and social constructions of a reality that reflect their interests. Through these same processes other institutions and organizations are also sustained. The dominance of elites' definitions of reality are likely manifested in symbolic politics characterized by Gramsci's notion of elite hegemony, which describes elites' production of consensus through their control of local civic institutions.

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