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Several philosophers have attempted to identify how it is that “social structure” can explain phenomena. Some of the most prominent of these philosophers have posited that what we call “social structures” are sets of constraints acting on individuals that guide and regulate their actions, either coercing agents into making choices, raising the probability that they will make certain choices, or making those actions reasonable or rational. Others have argued that social structures are factors that “program” for social outcomes. Examining historical work in quantitative sociology, I argue that both views are too narrow. I present Peter Blau’s distinction between microstructure and macrostructure, articulate their differences, and then argue that for some social scientific questions, macrostructural explanations are better positioned to supply answers. Macrostructural explanations abstract away from the relata between individuals and so do not involve constraints. Further, macrostructural explanations draw on facts about population structure, and so do not fit the form of programming explanations. I motivate this category of explanation by considering social scientific research that comports with macrostructural explanation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article critically examines recent arguments by Andrew Abbott, Jensen Sass, and Tariq Modood proposing a normative sociology, one that not only adopts an evaluative stance towards the phenomena it investigates, but also makes explicit and seeks to justify the values on which its evaluations rely. I argue that, while these proposals are to be welcomed in some respects, they fail to address two key issues: On what reasonable basis can it be assumed that there are single correct answers to value questions?; and What distinctive intellectual authority can sociologists claim to be able to discover those answers? I also point out that these recent advocates for a normative sociology pay insufficient attention to the opposing position, a commitment to 'value-neutrality', as proposed most notably by Max Weber. I argue that, while this is frequently ignored or dismissed out of hand, it represents a much more coherent and cogent view, even if its advocates have rarely fully lived up to its demands. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The greatest conceptual challenge that moral panic studies has struggled with over the past half century is the problem of disproportion. Since the field's inception, moral panics have been conceptualized as disproportionately conservative overreactions to ostensibly insignificant problems. It did not take long for critics, many of whom were working in moral panic studies or related fields of inquiry, to point out that disproportion is construed in a normative rather than empirical manner, and to supplement the conventional focus on conservative overreactions by drawing attention to either conservatively conditioned underreactions (missing panics) or socially progressive overreactions that are cultivated on the political left rather than the right (good moral panics). This article explains how the dynamics of disproportionate social reactions are more complicated than conventional moral panic scholars and their critics alike have recognized. By theorizing the nuances involved in disproportionate social reactions, the article develops a provisional framework to encourage theoretical and conceptual investigations into different kinds of moral boundary violations. The focus of analysis is on the problem of disproportion as it appears in moral panic studies, but scholars working with a broader range of realist, materialist, and/or critical perspectives will recognize and identify with the normative challenges posed by the problem of disproportion in their respective areas of inquiry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Black Sociology has reemerged as a vital scientific endeavor to understand the social conditions of Black people. One approach to Black Sociology identifies five principles that are rooted in the Atlanta Sociological Laboratory (ASL) at Atlanta University. Another approach permits scholars to use any Black scholar from the Black intellectual tradition and apply it to sociological phenomena. While both approaches provide generative analytical lenses, they do not engage one another leaving the utility of Black sociology bifurcated, without clear theoretical and methodological boundaries. Reviewing 20 ASL publications, I articulate seven principles that define Black sociology as the scientific analysis of systems of oppression and social power developed at ASL. To do this, I add a validity principle, a Black sociological standpoint, and a practitioner principle that clearly defines Black Sociology's intellectual boundaries as a scientific/intellectual movement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Charles Thorpe argues sociology lacks a "language of society as a whole." He holds that positivist sociologists de-legitimated holistic theories or broad normatively oriented "social theories," leaving the discipline without discursive means to critically assess and deliberate its overall directions and those of society. Thorpe does not address holistic theory directly or explain how it differs analytically from standard "sociological theory." My intent is to clarify these matters by extending facets of his argument to illuminate the interdependence between holistic theorizing and empirical-historical social science, which is necessary to create the type of "reflexive sociology" that Thorpe argues would make sociology more cosmopolitan and capable of addressing the turbulent sociopolitical conditions in the interregnum after neoliberalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This book examines changes in the "content and status of sociology" in the United States in the present and recent past. The author understands the present as an era in which relatively organized capitalism has "given way to the disorganization, "de-civilizing," and "wilding" of post-modern post-normalcy. Sociology in the previous period was oriented toward reinforcing the sense of normalcy both epistemologically and substantively. A "normal science" of repetition, teleological modernization, and value-free science resonated with the experience of "social normalcy." In the more recent period, crises have proliferated throughout social space, with implications for sociology, undoing its metaphysical foundations and throwing into question all the disciplinary divisions upon which normal science had been organized. In response, sociology has seen the emergence of two new variants: a hyper-normalized sociology that doubles down on "statistical prowess" and "the application of quantitative techniques to novel domains"; and a post-normal sociology that rejects positivism and value-freedom and that is aligned with particular social movements and identities. This post-normal sociology, Thorpe argues, complements rather than contradicts corporate neoliberalism and works together with hyper-normal sociology in marginalizing critical sociology. In response, I argue that Thorpe mischaracterizes academic freedom and understates its importance, underestimates the heterogeneity within US sociology today, and overstates the historical unprecedentedness of the present condition of "postnormal" polycrisis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The multiple problems that the planet is currently experiencing—climate crisis, conventional and unconventional wars, planetary disenchantment with political systems, growth of inequality, increase in all kinds of intersectional violence, destructuring of the political economy of morality, etc.—are not a favorable scenario for thinking about hope. This paper nevertheless offers a summary presentation of the sociology of hope, presenting some of its central sources and components as well as a proposed study agenda for the future. This article seeks to foster discussion of what could be the central axes of a sociology of hope. To achieve this purpose, the following argumentative strategy was chosen: (a) the "place" of hope is explored in some classics of sociology, (b) the central components of a sociological investigation of hope are synthesized, and (c) an agenda is presented as a summary for a future development of a sociology of hope. The article seeks to draw attention to the urgency of hope as an important element for the future of sociology and social sciences in the twenty-first century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While there is ample recognition that intellectual work is - to some degree - relational and cooperative, most narratives of production focus on how intellectual supporters aid the author and the crafting of a work. In this contribution, I adopt a perspective centered on intellectual work as "dialogue and draft" among triads - the author, the work in progress, and the supporter - with a particular attention to the relationship that intellectual supporters develop with the work and the author. Through an archival analysis of personal correspondence that covers the years 2005–2021, drafts, and interventions, I tell a story of A Joyfully Serious Man as an ongoing project that shifted shape at critical junctures and in which not only the object and the author, but also the supporter were transformed. In the concluding remarks, I offer some potential questions for advancing the historical and sociological study of how intellectual self-concepts change in the context of asymmetric, yet very intimate, relations with work carried out by others. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

I argue that the COVID-19 pandemic presents an opportunity for sociologists and other social scientists to focus their scholarship on this apparently new event, while applying theoretical and methodological traditions that were established during pre-pandemic times. I substantiate this argument by critically reviewing published sociological research on COVID-19, especially as it developed early on during the pandemic, in the light of the historical development and original ambitions of sociology and other social sciences. Evaluating these contributions, I make a case for the value of a collaborative notion of interdisciplinarity to analyze the multi-dimensional dynamics of the COVID-19 pandemic from the viewpoint of various disciplines. On the basis of sociological work on celebrity culture during the pandemic, I argue that this task can be accomplished without resorting to all too readily made judgments concerning the unprecedented nature of the pandemic. Studying the multiple dimensions of the pandemic, each of the social sciences can usefully contribute to interdisciplinary research by relying on the proven perspectives of their respective disciplinary orientations and specialty areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents a review of the social science literature on the veterinary profession. It highlights the current debates on the profession. The texts discussed in this review mainly relate to the fields of history, sociology, political sciences and social geography, although multidisciplinary or management studies publications are sometimes referred to. This article analyses four major structuring dynamics: the sociodemographic evolutions that are currently taking place within the profession (1); the transformation of practices and knowledge in relation, on the one hand, to the increase in the number of pets (2) and, on the other hand, to the evolution of farming systems (3); and the ways public authorities govern veterinary public health (4). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The decline of interest among sociologists in the works of Talcott Parsons over the last several decades has been driven in substantial respects by a belief that he was personally conservative in his political views and that his theoretical formulations were rigidly tied to a conservative view of social order. The present paper reviews Parsons' major political involvements through the course of his career from his student days through the last decade of his life. The review demonstrates that Parsons was a typical academic liberal of his time and that his liberalism was expressed especially in several major applied essays. In the 1930s, he was an early and active opponent of Nazism. During World War II, he taught professionals to administer occupied territories and nations effectively. After the war, he advocated for government support of the social sciences, citing the important contributions they had made to the war effort. In the 1950s, he wrote a famous critical analysis of the Joseph McCarthy movement in American politics. In the 1960s, he contributed supportive essays to the Civil Rights movement. Later in the decade and in the 1970s, he contributed to the protection of academic freedoms while also proposing accommodations to the demands of the student movement for more "relevant" teaching and greater participation in university governance. Throughout his career, he taught and worked closely with students of various political views and sought to protect their rights of freedom of political expression. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This contribution to consideration of "Talcott Parsons and Politics" explores the kind of optimism of sociology's "incurable theorist" that is evident in his mature view of the USA as the world's "New Lead" society. Statements related to optimism can be identified in his extensive writings and this article focuses upon its expression when as an "early career academic" in the late 1920s and 1930s he laid the foundations for his life-long work in sociology. Parsons' sociology developed as the USA's twentieth century contribution unfolded. His "moderate optimism" about the viability of the American experiment shares deeply and intimately in his claim that sociology had finally emerged as an analytical social science oriented by the theory of social action. His mature work considers the "societal community" to be the peculiar focus for sociology's special scientific attention. The USA has taken on this "New Lead" role at the same time that the societal community itself has emerged from within American experience. The discussion here is as much a personal memoire of the author, revisiting efforts to understand how the earliest stages of Parsons's sociology were maintained by him over a long career. Parsons sociological scholarship exhibited American characteristics. As sociology's "incurable theorist" he sought understanding of his own (American) situation, and its context, past and present, seeking to promote a social science that contributed positively to global society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Discourse and ideology are interrelated concepts in social sciences and the humanities and are even occasionally employed interchangeably. This paper sheds light on their relationship in academic discourse and examines the role of sociology as a scientific field in its conceptualization. Using bibliometric analysis, we examined 15,716 academic publications mentioning "discourse" or "ideology" in their title and written in English by American and British scholars between 1966 and 2015. The investigation focused on the two terms' conceptual environment, areas of usage, journals, and the organizations to which the authors were affiliated. First, we conclude that although some sociology researchers have attempted to create a sociological definition for the concept of discourse, sociologists are not its most active users. The same is true for ideology. These concepts have established niches in other disciplines (political science and history for "ideology," and educational science and linguistics for "discourse"). Second, throughout the years, the field of discourse studies has become more diversified and fragmented than that of ideology. Third, the leading organizations in both fields are prestigious American and British universities, which indicates that discourse and ideology are elements of the intellectual elites' language. Fourth, the concept of discourse was more frequently applied than that of ideology in the years 2010–2015, and we expect that it will remain popular among scholars in the next decade. As for ideology, we believe that new social challenges could foster the rediscovery of this concept in the near future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Times of societal turbulence are painful for social theories tending towards optimistic accounts of the world. In the current sociological mainstream, so-called World Society Theory (WST), proposed by John W. Meyer and his colleagues, is one of the most contested examples. We discuss WST core conceptual assumptions with special emphasis on the concept of "Otherhood", which receives limited attention in literature but is central for the "promise" of World Society Theory in times of multiple crises, associated with ongoing global pandemic and its expected consequences. Analyzing recent debates, we outline directions for World Society Theory further development. We argue that important contributions to WST scholarship may come from another "grand theory", Integralism, elaborated by Pitirim Sorokin in middle twentieth century, which remains ignored in discussions about WST. Integralism, including its central concept of "Altruism", may be helpful in comprehending ontological grounds of "Otherhood", which may go beyond pure social construction. Integralism also allows expanding the analysis of causes, content, mechanisms and global macro-historical dynamics of "Otherhood", stimulating its more nuanced comprehension, including theoretical and empirical distinction between its various types. Integration of Pitirim Sorokin ideas in debates about WST is important for its further elaboration, including its optimistic and, thus, highly valuable "promise" for the global world and related implications for the practical role that social science can play in global development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article highlights the history of sociology in Belgium. Topics include the conflict between the sociologists and the Catholic theologians; the history of colonialism in the nation, the relations between these elements of sociology and various international organizations in the twentieth century; and the relationship between sociology and the nation-state and the need of the revival of the social sciences courses in the university system that would allow gradual political development in the nation.

The problem of sociology, from its origin, is to build and maintain significant correlations between sociological thinking and autonomy from other sciences. What characterized the evolution of sociology was not so much the object of study, but rather the need to make it autonomous. This debate has developed especially in Europe and the United States, while in the countries of Latin America actions have been taken to ensure that sociology develops and assumes a meaningful role in the academic context. This article aims to explain a) the phases that have characterized the development of sociology in Latin America; b) the role of Gino Germani in the renewal of sociology in Argentina. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Portugal, research productivity is nowadays essential for the positive assessment of academics, research units and study programmes. Academic inbreeding has been highlighted in the literature as one of the factors influencing research productivity. This paper tests the hypothesis that inbreeding is detrimental for research productivity, measured through the number of publications listed in Scopus. The study resorts to a database provided by the national Agency for Assessment and Accreditation of Higher Education (A3ES), which comprises all academics teaching in all Portuguese institutions in the academic year 2015/2016. The sample selected for the analysis contains all academics with a PhD in Sociology (N=289). The study uses a special regression model for the analysis: the negative binomial logit hurdle. This was necessary given the large amount of academics with no publications or citations in Scopus, which were the dependent variables to assess research performance. The analysis provides separate results for the probability of inbred academics of having no papers/citations, and for the probability of producing more papers/citations than the non-inbred. Findings suggest that academic inbreeding, defined at the institutional level, has no negative effect on research productivity, contrary to what was expected. However, when defined at the national level, academic inbreeding is detrimental for the recognition and the impact of research: academics with a foreign PhD are more likely to have citations compared to academics who obtained their PhD in Portugal. A tendency was also noted that inbreeding might be more detrimental to research productivity in faculties of Economics than in Social Sciences and Humanities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Quality & Quantity was established in 1967 and in 2017 it completed its half century. The journal is interdisciplinary in nature and it mainly discusses methodological application of mathematics and statistics in the social sciences, particularly sociology, economics, and social psychology. It was created with the idea of advancing methodology of the various social studies. This study looks back journey of the journal from 1967 to 2017 aims to develop a bibliometric analysis of all the publications of the journal. Web of Science Core Collection database is used to collect data. The present study discovered the significant contributions of the journal in terms of impact, topics, authors, universities and countries. Utrecht University of Netherlands is the most productive university. Asian Universities are emerging and growing quickly in the recent years. Although USA leads among the countries but Europe leads among the six supranational regions. Finally, the visualization of similarities viewer software is used to present network visualization of the bibliographic coupling, co-citation, citation, co-authorship and co-occurrence of keywords. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sociologists have long recognized the fragmentation our discipline's knowledge, but few explanations go beyond "new internalist" studies of practices. Abbott's scholarship in the topic areas of professions and disciplines is synthesized here to highlight a condition identified as "ajurisdiction," or, the absence of professional responsibility. Ajurisdiction explains sociological fragmentation by situating the development of sociology within broader historical contexts: first, within the history of the academic profession, in general; and, secondly, within wider systems of professions and power. Beginning with the origins of the social sciences in German legal science, this article tracks the historical interactions between professional and academic knowledge to explain sociology's ajurisdictional condition. The theoretical framework and concept positions the academic profession in a unique position in relation to abstract knowledge, a relation that affects the internal differentiation of knowledge between and within disciplines and professional faculties as demonstrated by the case of sociology and law. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the ontological contestation that is inherent to the emergence of an international anti-corruption norm. First, the article briefly analyses the compatibility of an agenda on the social construction of problems from sociology and the well-established study of norms in constructivist IR. It argues that an analytical shift from the study of norms to the social construction of problems can shed light on the power relations that underlie international norms, and corruption in particular. The article traces the emergence of a global corruption problem up to the early 2000s when scholars have traditionally placed the establishment of an international anti-corruption norm. It first shows the contestation of corruption as a global issue on the level of problem definition, and then, it shows the role of venue shopping and venue shifting in the diffusion of anti-corruption talks and the norm cascade of the 1990s. The article concludes with an analysis of how the social construction of problems challenges the conventional approach of the emergence of an international anti-corruption norm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In his book Processual Sociology (2016), Andrew Abbott proposes a radically new theoretical perspective for sociology. This review essay discusses the strengths and weaknesses of his “processual” approach, in comparison with other dynamic perspectives in sociology such as, in particular, Norbert Elias’s “process sociology.” It critically questions central ideas and arguments advanced in this book: the reduction of social processes to “events,” the focus on stability as the central explanandum of sociological theory, the implicit separation of individual and social processes, the proposition that the social world changes faster than the individual, the idea that “excess” rather than “scarcity” is the central problematic of human affairs, the strong emphasis on the inherent normativity of sociological concepts, the focus on values as the core of human social life, the neglect of human interdependence, power, coercion, and violence, and the distinction between “moral facts” and “empirical facts.” Detailed criticisms of the arguments in various chapters are given, and alternative viewpoints are proposed. The conclusion is that Processual Sociology fails to provide a fruitful approach for understanding and explaining social processes, and that it even represents, in several respects, theoretical regression rather than progress. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In economic sociology, relations and relationships have emerged as central yet poorly specified concepts. In this paper, I clarify these terms in a positive critique of the current state of the field. I then consider the ways in which the proposed framework can help analysts to bridge the divide between economics and sociology. Armed with techniques derived from formal network analysis, the new economic sociology offered the first sustained foray into economic territory, but sociological skeptics remain unsatisfied. Two broad rejoinders to this network-analytic approach emerged in the last two decades, but both correctives, nevertheless, leave the divide intact. In the last decade, however, a new paradigm is coalescing under the rubric of “relational economic sociology. While showing promise, it furthers the confusion surrounding the key concepts of “relations” and “relationships.” The proposed framework provides a foundation for constructive dialogue among the different traditions which constitute this new paradigm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Few readers notice that in a celebrated essay, Goffman, in a footnote, acknowledges the Chinese source of his concept of face. Around the time that Goffman published 'On Face-work,' Merton urged that theory development requires, among other things, clarification or refinement of concepts. If culture is taken to be effectively related to action and meaning, it is necessary to go beyond the approach in which theories, concepts, and methods developed in one socio-cultural context are simply applied to data generated in another. The present paper shows that concepts from other cultures may challenge taken-for-granted assumptions, received wisdoms, and established conventions. The paper draws on semi-structured interviews with respondents in a number of sites in mainland China. Examination of the various notions of face articulated by respondents suggests possible developments in sociological conceptualizations of face neglected in previous discussion. It is shown that an individual's face generation and outcome may arise out of another individual's status or behavior. An individual's action may give rise to a collective face outcome and a collective's circumstances may have impact on an individual's face state. Additionally, it is shown that face itself may become an object of self-conscious deliberation and construction. The paper demonstrates that conceptualizations employed by Chinese subjects can lead to the identification or illumination of properties and relations neglected in mainstream cultural sociology. New directions of research and theorization are thus encouraged by incorporation of culturally extraneous experiences and categories into mainstream sociology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Christian Smith's paper 'The Incoherence of 'Culture' in American Sociology' is a valuable provocation that can prompt us to reflect on the role of concepts and on the role of agreement on the definition of concepts in scientific research. In this comment paper, I raise questions about Smith's empirical expectation that sociologists should agree on a concept of culture based on debates in the sociology of science. I also suggest that in terms of the future agenda for the sociology of culture, we should distinguish between dialogue and clarification on the one hand, which I agree is needed, and standardization on the other hand, which seems incompatible with open-minded empirical research. Rather than work on agreement on what culture is, we might work on clarifying relevant distinctions among dimensions of culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In his contribution to this issue, Smith argues that sociology's house of culture is built on a foundation of sand. In my brief response to Smith, I dispute the claim that culture is in trouble and question the methods and motives behind Smith's critique. I then indicate the common ground characterizing the work of contemporary culture scholars. Drawing upon my fieldnotes and observations of culture in action, I define culture as a suprasubjective system of signification creating intersubjective senses or ideas that are distinct from the materiality, function, immediacy, or face value of any particular people, objects, words, thoughts, and actions. I argue that this culture concept, which I see as theoretically consistent with the work of most cultural sociologists and sociologists of culture, satisfies many of Smith's requirement that an acceptable culture concept specify culture's location, powers, limits, and relationship to subjectivity, and clearly theorize meaning and its relationship to culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents an overview of papers on epistemology and professional practice of sociology with topics such as the role of the journal "New Zealand Sociology" in creating a national sociology in the country, the concept of culture in contemporary sociology and conflict sociology.

This article examines the continuing phenomenon of trust in climate stability. Such trust is mediated by specific social contexts and evolves in response to societal events, material constraints and scientific evidence and media representations. We consider the ways in which normalized understandings of climate are influenced by experiences with extreme weather events. Paradoxically perhaps, we argue that weather extremes are occasions that actually reinforce trust in the stability of climate. The ways in which extremes are dealt with and explained by society provides an important clue for the semantics of environmental representation generally and climate specifically. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There has been a significant shift among antipoverty nonprofits toward what we call 'relational work,'which involves working with clients over time on life changes. Some scholars discuss this, often in negative terms, as part of a broader neoliberal trend. We argue that relational work is an important and unavoidable part of ongoing efforts against poverty and homelessness. We also discuss the broader theoretical context that make scholars suspicious of this kind of antipoverty work, and argue for a multifaceted approach topoverty that includes attention to relational work and the agency of clients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present essay discusses a notorious rhetoric means familiar to (probably) all scholars in the social sciences and humanities including philosophy: name-dropping. Defined as the excessive over-use of authoritative names, I argue that it is a pernicious practice leading to collective disorientation in spoken discourse. First, I discuss name-dropping in terms of informal logic as an ad verecundiam-type fallacy. Insofar this perspective proves to lack contextual sensitivity, name-dropping is portrayed in Goffman's terms as a more general social practice. By narrowing down the focus to social science and the humanities, the essay emphasizes its function of discursive legitimation. This view, I argue, is incomplete because it overlooks the basic mechanism beneath. Names not only provide legitimation of but also orientation in discourse. Consequently, two tipping points-detour and disorientation-are proposed as benchmarks for it to become problematic. The conclusion re-widens the argument's scope by suggesting questions for future inquiries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]