An article co-written by Boston College Professor of Sociology Sarah Babb has received dual honors from the American Sociological Association.

The article, ā€œā€ was named winner of the 2020 Charles Tilly Article Award from the Comparative-Historical Sociology Section of the ASA and winner of the Best Scholarly Article award from the ASAā€™s Section on Global and Transnational Sociology. Babb co-authored the article with Alexander E. Kentikelenis of Bocconi University.

Sarah Babb

Professor Sarah Babb

ā€œItā€™s really gratifying to get so much recognition for this paper,ā€ said Babb, who noted it is part of a larger project about how the United States re-engineered multilateral institutions to spread market reforms around the world at the end of the 20th century. ā€œWe have thousands of declassified documents to work through, and these awards inspire us to move forward.ā€

The article, which was published last year in the American Journal of Sociology, examines the repurposing of the International Monetary Fund to become the worldā€™s leading promoter of free markets. Relying on archival material and interviews, Babb and Kentikelenis show that fundamental-yet-informal change of the IMF was effected through a process of norm substitutionā€”the alteration of everyday assumptions about the appropriateness of a set of activities, a transformation led by the United States.

ā€œProfessor Babb is one of the worldā€™s leading global and transnational sociologists, and we are so fortunate to have her as a member of our department,ā€ said Professor of Sociology and Environmental Studies Andrew Jorgenson, chair of the Sociology Department. ā€œThis award-winning article is essential reading for anyone interested in the contours of globalization and the inner workings of global governance institutions.ā€

Babb, who directs graduate studies in the Sociology Department, focuses her teaching and research on subjects such as economic sociology, globalization, and organizations. She is the author of the award-winning book Behind the Development Banks: Washington Politics, World Poverty, and Wealth of Nations, and, most recently, .


Kathleen Sullivan | University Communications | July 2020