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Purposive social action has provided the bedrock for theoretical developments and model building in several social sciences. Since its beginnings, however, sociology has harbored, a "contrarian" vocation based on examining the unrecognized, unintended, and emergent consequences of goal-oriented activity. I present several examples of the sociological practice of bashing myths based on the logic of purposive action and offer a typology of alternative goals, means, and outcomes illustrated by both classic sociological writings and contemporary research. The multiple contingencies documented by sociologists in the past cautions against attempts to build institutions or implement programs grounded on grand blueprints. The cautionary tale supported by sociological analysis of concealed goals, shifts in midcourse, and unexpected effects does not lead, however, to the conclusion that scientific prediction and practical intervention are futile endeavors. It leads instead to an emphasis on the dialectics of social life, and on the need to take into account the definitions of the situation of relevant actors. I offer some illustrations of successful mid-range theories that are based on the analysis of dilemmas in social processes and the importance of sensitivity to the unexpected in the implementation of programmatic interventions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, I introduce a new measure of power in exchange networks under substitutable/complementary exchange relations. Although it is derived from a model based on a modification and extension of Coleman's model of collective action, the new measure reflects major characteristics of Emerson and Cook's power-dependence theory, in which power emerges as a result of exchange based on actors' benefit-maximizing actions under network constraints on exchange. In the new measure, an actor's power depends on the number of exchange partners interested in the actor's resource, the extent to which the actor's partners are not interested or are less interested in others' resources than in the actor's, the power of the actor's partners as interdependent correlates, and the consequences of shifts in demand made by the actor's partners under the substitutability/complementarity of exchange relations among their multiple partners. I also show high consistency between power distributions predicted by the new measure and corresponding experimental results by Cook et al. (1983), Yamagishi, Gilmore, and Cook (1988), and Skvoretz and Wilier (1993). Finally, using simulated exchange network data, I derive an enriched set of hypotheses about the structural and relational determinants of power centralization under closely substitutable exchange relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous research contends that when Talcott Parsons developed the substantive argument of The Structure of Social Action, he turned away from the theoretical emptiness of American social science and drew on the ideas of four European social thinkers -- Weber, Durkheim, Pareto, and Marshall. Such research exemplifies the "content-fit model" of predecessor selection, which assumes that intellectual predecessors are chosen on the basis of a fit between their ideas and the project of the thinker who engages them. This model fails to explain Parsons's exclusion of the American institutionalists, most notably his Amherst teachers Walton Hamilton and Clarence Ayres, whose work fit directly with the argument of The Structure of Social Action. Institutionalist work was also characterized, however, by its negative reputation, particularly at Harvard University in the 1920s and 1930s, where Marshall, Pareto, Durkheim, and Weber were thinkers of growing reputational standing. Examination of Parsons's involvement in the local Harvard network indicates that contemporary reputational judgments decisively affected his choice of intellectual predecessors. This analysis also brings to light the organizational and institutional conditions under which a "reputational model" is required to understand the process of predecessor selection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Oliver-Marwell theory of "critical mass" is a prominent solution to the "free-rider" problem that plagues collective action in large groups. I reformulate the theory as a stochastic learning model in which cooperative responses are shaped by the social sanctions and cues generated by the responses of others. This relaxes four assumptions in the original formulation: that the actors are rational, decisions are isolated events, outcomes are deterministic, and public goods have pure jointness of supply and "collective profit." Computer simulations then show how adaptive actors become trapped in a suboptimal equilibrium and how they escape through attainment of critical mass. "Start-up" problems arise from accommodation to social costs and not from low returns to early contributors as previously believed. Simulations also identify a new dilemma of group size and show why solidarity tends to emerge in response to crisis. Finally, normative solidarity appears to be a consequence rather than cause of critical mass but may promote recovery from random deviance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]