“HERE A GHETTO, THERE A GHETTO”: THE VALUE AND PERIL OF COMPARATIVE STUDY1

Abstract: This commentary questions whether ethno-racial identities play no role in recent developments in France’s banlieues, as Wacquant argues. Wacquant’s point that the French ban-lieues should not be simple-mindedly equated with American “ghettos ” is well taken. However, there is no doubt that ethno-racial identities are growing in political and social salience in France. There should be a way to conceptually take these developments into account, without interpreting them as mere replications of American racial politics. I argue that Wacquant overlooks the roles that partisan politics and public opinion will likely play in either assisting or hindering his pro-posed public policy changes. Change, whether incremental or revolutionary, will depend on the ideas and actions of party politicians and citizens. I also ask whether recent assertions of banlieue identity might be interpreted as somehow violating French core values. [Key words: comparative racial politics, political parties, American public opinion, French public opinion.] Loïc Wacquant’s (2008) Urban Outcasts: A Comparative Sociology of Advanced Marginality forcefully argues that simplistic comparisons and equations of America’s ghettos with France’s banlieues are simply wrong, although widely touted. The two should not be equated because these urban conditions have developed out of distinct historica