The past two decades have seen a global convergence from gambling prohibition to legalization, but also a divergence regarding how new gambling industries are structured and regulated. This article compares two cases of casino legalization exhibiting different and, given conventional understandings of the two countries, unexpected outcomes. In the United States, ethnic entrepreneurs (Indian tribes) were granted a monopoly on casinos in California; in South Africa, the new ANC government legalized a competitive, corporate casino industry. Through explaining these disparate industry structurings, two arguments are advanced. First, Bourdieu's field theory best describes the interests and strategies of industry “players” as they attempted to shape policy. Second, Bourdieu neglects the independent role of institutions in mediating between field-level dynamics and concrete regulatory outcomes. In California, Tribes converted economic into political capital through a public election. In South Africa, the ANC used a centralized commission to implement corporate gambling over public opposition, in essence converting political into economic capital. By viewing policy domains as “dramaturgical prisms” whose sign–production tools and audiences facilitate certain but not other capital conversion projects, I both explain unexpected regulatory outcomes and synthesize field and political process theories. Jeffrey J. Sallaz received his Ph.D. from the University of California-Berkeley and is currently Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Arizona. In addition to examining the struggles surrounding gambling legalization, he has studied ethnographically the experience of service work in the global casino industry and the politics of deindustrialization in the US rust belt. He is currently conducting research for a project analyzing the uneven diffusion of Pierre Bourdieu’s ideas into the field of American sociology over the past three decades.
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机译：在过去的二十年中，从禁止赌博到合法化在全球范围内趋同，但在新的赌博业的结构和监管方式上也存在分歧。本文比较了两个赌场合法化案例，它们显示出不同的结果，并且考虑到两国的传统理解，结果出乎意料。在美国，种族企业家（印第安部落）被授予加利福尼亚州赌场的垄断权；在南非，新的ANC政府将竞争性的公司赌场业合法化。通过解释这些不同的行业结构，提出了两个论点。首先，布迪厄的领域理论最能描述行业“参与者”在制定政策时的利益和策略。其次，布迪厄忽略了机构在调解现场动态与具体监管结果之间的独立作用。在加利福尼亚，部落通过公开选举将经济转化为政治资本。在南非，非国大（ANC）使用一个中央委员会来进行公司对公众反对的赌博，从本质上将政治资本转化为经济资本。通过将政策领域视为“戏剧性的棱镜”，其标志生产工具和受众促进了某些而非其他资本转换项目，我既解释了意想不到的监管结果，又综合了实地和政治过程理论。 Jeffrey J. Sallaz获得了博士学位。来自加利福尼亚大学伯克利分校，现为亚利桑那大学社会学助理教授。除了研究与赌博合法化有关的斗争之外，他还从人种学方面研究了全球赌场业服务工作的经验以及美国铁锈带的去工业化政治。他目前正在为一个项目进行研究，以分析皮埃尔·布迪厄（Pierre Bourdieu）的思想在过去三十年中向美国社会学领域的不均匀传播。
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