I was born and raised in Yreka, California, a small logging and ranching community near the Oregon border. After serving in the Army, I entered the the University of Oregon in 1966. I completed my B.A. in 1969 and entered the graduate program in sociology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. In 1972, I accepted a faculty position at Washington State University and completed my doctorate the following year. In 1978, I was selected by N.S.F. and C.N.R.S. to be an exchange scientist at the Centre de Sociologie de l'Innovation at the Grande Ecole des Mines in Paris. I am married to Judith Ann Allen, who recently retired as the Director of the Community Action Center of Whitman County in order to pursue a career in personal coaching. We have two children: Emily, who is a Nurse Investigator with the Department of Social and Health Services in Tacoma, and Patrick, who is the Assistant Manager at the Riverside Golf and Country Club in Portland. In addition to reading all kinds of books and seeing all kinds of films, my pastimes include hiking, photography and, of course, writing. My wife and I live outside Joseph, Oregon. I entered phased retirement in 2004 and now teach one on-line course through Washington State University each year. I am also a Conjoint Professor of Sociology at the University of Newcastle in New South Wales, Australia and taught there during first semester in 2008 and 2009.
Aerial photograph of Wallowa Lake and Mountains, Joseph, Oregon.
Aerial photograph of Newcastle Beach and Ocean Baths, Newcastle, New South Wales.
At the beginning of my career, I conducted research in the field of organizational sociology and published articles on interlocking directorates (Amer. Sociol. Rev., 1974), corporate control (Amer.Jour. Sociol., 1976), economic interest groups (Soc. Sci. Quar., 1978), corporate elites (Sociol. Quar., 1978), managerial succession (Soc. Forces, 1981; Admin. Sci. Quar., 1982), and managerial compensation (Amer. Jour. Sociol., 1981). I later conducted research in the field of political sociology and published articles on political finance (Amer. Sociol. Rev., 1989; Amer. Sociol. Rev., 1991), campaign finance reform (Soc. Sci. Quar., 1991), and the political economy of taxation (Amer. Sociol. Rev., 1994; Soc. Forces, 1994; Soc. Sci Hist., 2001) During this period, I also published a trade book that examined the historical evolution of wealthy capitalist families (The Founding Fortunes: A New Anatomy of the Super-Rich Families in America., 1987). More recently, I published a textbook on regression analysis (Understanding Regression Analysis, 1997).
In the past few years, I have begun to conduct research in the field of cultural sociology, particularly cultural production and valorization. With Anne Lincoln, I studied the cultural consecration of American films and the careers of male and female film stars. With Nicholas Parsons, I studied the effects of achievement and social recognition on consecration in the Baseball Hall of Fame. I am currently involved in several research projects. I am writing a book, Good Movies: Talent and Art in Hollywood, which examines collaborations among creative artists in the film industry and the critical and professional reception of their films. I am also continuing to study the cultural valorization of Australian wines.
You may download PDF copies of most of my articles from JSTOR. I am prohibited by copyright laws from posting copies of my most recent articles on the internet. However, I can send you a PDF copy of any of the following recently published and forthcoming articles upon request.
Michael P. Allen and Anne E. Lincoln. 2004. "Critical Discourse and the Cultural Consecration of American Films." Social Forces.
Anne E. Lincoln and Michael P. Allen. 2004. "Double Jeopardy in Hollywood: Age and Gender in the Careers of Film Actors, 1926-1999." Sociological Forum.
Michael P. Allen. 2004. "Lombardi Meets Balanchine: The Sociologies of Culture and Sport." Culture: The Newsletter of the Sociology of Culture Section.
Michael P. Allen and Nicholas L. Parsons. 2006. "The Institutionalization of Fame: Achievement, Recognition, and Consecration in Baseball." American Sociological Review.
Michael P. Allen and John Germov. 2010. "Judging Taste and Creating Value: The Cultural Consecration of Australian Wine." Journal of Sociology .
"The Structure of Interorganizational Elite Cooptation: Interlocking Corporate Directorates." American Sociological Review (1974).
"Construction of Composite Measures by the Canonical Factor Regression Method." In Herbert L. Costner (ed.), Sociological Methodology 1973-1974 (San Francisco, Jossey-Bass, 1974).
"Management Control in the Large Corporation: Comment on Zeitlin." American Journal of Sociology (1976).
"Conventional and Optimal Interval Scores for Ordinal Variables." Sociological Methods and Research (1976).
"Partisan Differences on Environmental Issues: A Congressional Roll-Call Analysis." Western Political Quarterly (1976). With Riley E. Dunlap.
"Economic Interest Groups and Corporate Elite Structure." Social Science Quarterly (1978).
"Continuity and Change within the Core Corporate Elite." Sociological Quarterly (1978).
"Managerial Succession and Organizational Performance: A Recalcitrant Problem Revisited." Administrative Science Quarterly (1979). With Sharon K. Panian and Roy E. Lotz.
"The Perpetuation of Wealth: A Simulation Model." In James D. Smith (ed.), Modeling the Distribution and Intergenerational Transmission of Wealth (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980).
"Power and Privilege in the Large Corporation: Corporate Control and Managerial Compensation." American Journal of Sociology (1981).
"Managerial Power and Tenure in the Large Corporation." Social Forces (1981).
"Power, Performance, and Succession in the Large Corporation." Administrative Science Quarterly (1982). With Sharon K. Panian.
"The Identification of Interlock Groups in Large Corporate Networks." Social Networks (1982).
The Founding Fortunes: A New Anatomy of the Super-Rich Families in America (New York: E.P. Dutton, 1987).
"Class Hegemony and Political Finance: The Presidential Campaign Contributions of Wealthy Capitalist Families." American Sociological Review (1989). With Philip E. Broyles.
"The 'Quality' of Journals in Sociology Revisited: Objective Measures of Journal Influence." Footnotes (1990).
"Capitalist Response to State Intervention: Theories of the State and Political Finance in the New Deal." American Sociological Review (1991).
"Campaign Finance Reforms and the Presidential Campaign Contributions of Wealthy Capitalist Families." Social Science Quarterly (1991). With Philip E. Broyles.
"Government Sanctions and Collective Political Protest in Periphery and Semi-Periphery States: A Time-Series Analysis." Journal of Political and Military Sociology (1991). With Arfa Aflatooni.
"Elite Social Movement Organizations and the State: The Rise of the Conservative Policy-Research Network." In Gwen Moore and J. Allen Whitt (eds.), Research in Politics and Society (New York: JAI Press, 1993).
"The Political Economy of Revenue Extraction in the Modern State: A Time-Series Analysis of U.S. Income Taxes, 1916-1986." Social Forces (1994). With John L. Campbell.
"State Revenue Extraction from Different Income Groups: Variations in Tax Progressivity in the United States, 1916-1986." American Sociological Review (1994). With John L. Campbell.
Understanding Regression Analysis (New York: Plenum Publishing, 1997).
"Social Class, Cultural Capital, and Popular Culture: The Case of Film." Sociological Forum (2000). With Lisa A. Barnett.
"Identifying Shifts in Policy Regimes: Cluster and Interrupted Time-Series Analyses of U.S. Income Taxes." Social Science History (2001). With John L. Campbell.
"The 'Core Influence' of Journals in Sociology Revisited." Footnotes (2003)
"Critical Discourse and the Cultural Consecration of American Films." Social Forces (2004). With Anne E. Lincoln.
"Double Jeopardy in Hollywood: Age and Gender in the Careers of Film Actors: 1926-1999." Sociological Forum (2004). With Anne E. Lincoln.
"Lombardi Meets Balanchine: The Sociologies of Culture and Sport." Culture: The Newsletter of the Sociology of Culture Section (2004).
"The Institutionalization of Fame: Achievement, Recognition, and Consecration in Baseball." American Sociological Review (2006). With Nicholas L. Parsons.
"Judging Taste and Creating Value: The Cultural Consecration of Australian Wine." Journal of Sociology (2010). With John Germov.
"Oscar et César: A ComparativeAnalysis of Gender in French and American Film Acting." In Christopher Mathieu (ed.), Careers in Creative Industries. (New York: Routledge, 2012). With Anne E. Lincoln.
A copy of my vita is available in PDF format: Allen Vita.pdf
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