Chad Broughton
University of Chicago · Behavioral Science in Public Policy
Active 1999–2024
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About
Chad Broughton is an Instructional Professor in the Social Sciences Collegiate Division at the University of Chicago. He is a sociologist with interests in qualitative approaches to the study of policy and society. His substantive research focuses on two main domains: the intersection of labor studies with trade and immigration policy, and the study of crime, justice, and policing, with a particular emphasis on desistance from crime in Chicago. Broughton authored the 2015 book, Boom, Bust, Exodus: The Rust Belt, the Maquilas, and a Tale of Two Cities, which is a 12-year ethnographic study that traces the ripple effects of a single factory closing in Galesburg, Illinois, and its reopening in Reynosa, Tamaulipas, at the U.S.-Mexico border. This work has received several recognitions, including the 2016 WOLA-Duke Human Rights Book Award and the 2016 Labor and Labor Movements Section Book Award of the American Sociological Association.
Research topics
- Political Science
- Sociology
- Computer Science
- Criminology
- Psychology
- Archaeology
- Media studies
- Law
- Library science
- Geography
Selected publications
Contemporary Sociology A Journal of Reviews · 2020 · 112 citations
1st authorCorrespondingIt’s Not Like I’m Poor: How Working Families Make Ends Meet in a Post-Welfare World
Contemporary Sociology A Journal of Reviews · 2016-04-13 · 65 citations
article1st authorCorrespondingOxford University Press eBooks · 2015-01-15 · 22 citations
book1st authorCorrespondingDonald Trump and Bernie Sanders owed much of their unexpected popularity in the 2016 primaries to their respective stances on trade and immigration policy. Political elites and policy experts were bewildered by combative talk of building a wall and the ubiquity of anti-TPP (Trans-Pacific Partnership) sloganeering in what many saw as a bizarre election cycle. They have scrambled to explain both Trump's victory and the new political fault lines that have emerged in both major political parties, la…
When the State Meets the Street: Public Service and Moral Agency
Contemporary Sociology A Journal of Reviews · 2019-03-01 · 6 citations
article1st authorCorrespondingBoom, Bust, Exodus: The Rust Belt, the Maquilas, and a Tale of Two Cities
RePEc: Research Papers in Economics · 2015-01-02 · 2 citations
bookOpen access1st authorCorrespondingIn 2002, the town of Galesburg, a slowly declining Rustbelt city of 33, 000 in western Illinois, learned that it would soon lose its largest factory, a Maytag refrigerator plant that had anchored Galesburg's social and economic life for decades. Workers at the plant earned $15.14 an hour, had good insurance, and were assured a solid retirement. In 2004, the plant was relocated to Reynosa, Mexico, where workers sometimes spent 13-hour days assembling refrigerators for $1.10 an hour. In Boom, Bust…
Frequent coauthors
- 2 shared
Tom Walton
Colchester Hospital
- 1 shared
Sue Penna
- 1 shared
Martin O’Brien
Mentor
Awards & honors
- 2016 WOLA-Duke Human Rights Book Award
- 2016 Labor and Labor Movements Section Book Award of the Ame…
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