ABSTRACT This study provides a comprehensive sociological mapping of gender equality research in Europe, examining how the field has evolved as both a policy regime and a cultural formation. Utilising a range of theoretical frameworks, including feminist, institutional and cultural theories, the study employs a comprehensive bibliometric and thematic analysis of over two decades of scholarly output (2000–2025). The findings indicate a shift from individual and labour‐oriented perspectives to multidimensional frameworks that integrate institutional, affective, and intersectional dimensions of equality. The research identifies persistent regional asymmetries in knowledge production, with Western and Northern Europe dominating academic networks, while Central and Eastern contexts remain underrepresented. The study introduces a “multi‐level equality framework” that connects structural, institutional, and cultural dimensions, illustrating how equality functions as both a sociological process and a site of political contestation. The article employs a multidisciplinary approach, situating gender equality within broader transformations in governance, emotion, and identity. This approach advances an integrative understanding of equality as a dynamic and contested social condition. The study concludes that the future of equality research lies in three key areas. Firstly, theoretical coherence must be deepened. Secondly, regional inclusivity must be expanded. Thirdly, cultural and emotional dimensions must be embedded within institutional analysis.

ABSTRACT In this paper, I discuss the main legacies of colonialism in current societies under the lens of early institutions and the role of elites. I address to what extent institutions contribute to understanding how colonialism shapes the present of modern societies. For this purpose, I heavily focus on historical conditions, to understand how natural resources, colonial inequality, and national elites set paths of global inequality and created long‐term trajectories that persist today. I introduce the institutionalist approach, in which issues such as natural endowments, property rights, the role of elites, and colonization modes are deeply analyzed. I focus on conceptual debates and methods used to explain long‐run inequality and the persistence of rent‐seeking elites in poor countries, who have either hindered or postponed redistributive policies and thrive at the expense of most of the population.

ABSTRACT Immigrants are increasingly vilified and constructed as threats to the nation‐state. Their linguistic practices too face parallel stigmatization. Within this context, Spanish is conflated with undocumented status. Against the backdrop of heightened anti‐immigrant sentiment and persistent challenges to Spanish language use, this study explores the role of language in the lives of Latina/o college students who immigrated to the United States during their K‐12 schooling and whose first language is Spanish. Drawing on focus group data from students at a Hispanic Serving Institution in California, we examine how participants make sense of and negotiate linguistic practices that serve as markers of their racialized identities. Our findings reveal that language operates as a site of constant negotiation, shaped by three dimensions of what we term raciolinguistic melancolía: sacrifice, linguistic marginalization, and linguistic negotiation. We contend that raciolinguistic melancolía positions language as an ungrievable loss that cannot be publicly mourned. Through this lens, Latina/o immigrant college students expose the melancholic structures of language enabling them to move past linguistic traumas as they learn to accept and unapologetically celebrate their linguistic identities despite painful experiences associated with racialization practices.

ABSTRACT Forced labor and precarious working conditions are increasingly visible in high‐income economies of the Global North. Mostly perpetrated by the private business sector, immigrant workers are disproportionately affected. However, most management literature has focused on labor exploitation and human rights abuses connected to global supply chains in the Global South. Yet, in industries or activities not easily offshored, low‐cost business models contribute to labor market exploitation in high‐income economies. The ability to implement such models depends on the institutional context as well as corporate capabilities. This insight does not, however, resolve the issue why also democratic welfare societies with strong legal systems see such practices. Using Sweden as a case, we ask what a sociological lens can contribute to our understanding. It suggests that forced labor is an emergent outcome of interlocking market, state, and institutional logics, reinforced by increasingly restrictive migration regimes. Conversely, an appreciation of the business side could inform sociological studies of migration and labor exploitation. Bridging management, sociology, and migration perspectives, this review contributes to the growing recognition that combating modern slavery requires not only better corporate compliance but also a rethinking of the institutional and social foundations upon which contemporary business models depend.

No abstract is available for this article.

ABSTRACT This review reconceptualizes emotional labor, moving beyond its micro‐level psychological dimensions to theorize it as a core mechanism of affective governance. Integrating theories of gender, organizational control, and political economy, the article argues that emotional labor is institutionalized through a multi‐layered system that culturally codes, structurally embeds, and politically governs affect. Drawing on the illustrative case of nursing in South Korea, the analysis shows how this system operates via four intersecting mechanisms: gendered moralization, cultural affective ideals, neo‐normative control, and quantified metrics. The result is not merely individual strain but a form of structural affective injustice. In response, this review proposes a normative framework of affective justice, built on the principles of recognition, equitable redistribution, and institutional support. This framework offers a new agenda for the sociology of emotional labor, shifting the analytical focus from individual resilience to the institutional conditions that sustain inequality in the affective workplace.

No abstract is available for this article.

ABSTRACT This article examines the production of the queer self within digital hyperconnectivity, focusing on how online platforms mediate objectification, visibility, and the production of the social self. Drawing on sociological literature, it explores how digital affordances—such as accessibility, selectivity, and abundance—reshape identifications with queerness by disembedding queer self‐understanding from traditional familial and spatial constraints while simultaneously subjecting it to new forms of algorithmic governance and social sorting. The article highlights the dual role of digital platforms in enabling queer practices, fostering novel networks, and facilitating sexual and social networking, while also reinforcing inequalities, stigmatization, and surveillance. Through a discussion of geosocial platforms, particularly Grindr, the study considers how queerness is objectified through profile curation, filtering mechanisms, and digital traces, transforming how race, HIV status, and desirability are negotiated. The institutionalization of queerness in digital spaces presents both liberatory and restrictive possibilities, shaping selfhood through new norms and constraints. Rather than a radical break from offline socialization, digital hyperconnectivity coexists with and reconfigures existing socio‐spatial dynamics.

ABSTRACT Important innovations have occurred and spread in international criminal law and justice. Arguing that they result from institutional learning, this essay focuses on universal jurisdiction, a principle of international law that invites the prosecution of perpetrators of core international crimes (war crimes, crimes against humanity, crimes of aggression, and genocide), irrespective of their nationality and the country of perpetration. It further addresses the increasing use of “crimes against humanity,” requiring proof of systematic or widespread patterns of offending against a civilian population; specialized investigatory and prosecutorial units; structural investigations; and the involvement of coordinating agencies working across national boundaries. Learning by criminal legal institutions is enhanced as civil society organizations, including ones growing out of refugee populations, discover and seize new legal opportunities to enhance accountability and a public understanding of mass atrocity crimes. Recent years have witnessed a growing body of literature on these trends, core contributions to which are reviewed in this essay.

ABSTRACT Police tactical units, commonly referred to as special weapons and tactics (SWAT) teams, are the primary focus of the literature investigating police militarization in Canada. While the contemporary debate surrounds their proliferation and expansion, investigations into tactical unit use of force are notably absent from the existing literature. This work analyzes over 1100 tactical unit use of force incidents from seven large municipal police services in Ontario, Canada, between January 1, 2020 and December 31, 2022. The findings illustrate widespread underreporting of use of force, discrepancies in force reporting, and how the proliferation of police militarization has outpaced mandated reporting frameworks. These issues in reporting suppress use of force statistics and demonstrate that tactical unit use of force and, by extension, the application of militarized technologies, cannot be accurately enumerated. These results are contextualized using critical approaches investigating the social and political construction of institutional statistics, suggesting these statistics maintain the state's existing governance strategies. This paper argues that the underreporting of use of force legitimizes police militarization, providing the state with evidence to justify its expansion and counter claims of its proliferation and potential for social harm.