Routledge Library Editions: Social Theory – serie

'One may state Dilthey's significance in most general fashion by characterizing his work as the first thorough-going and sophisticated confrontation of history with positivism and natural science. Dilthey's sweep was universal: he strove to reduce to order the multifarious realms of knowledge, the conflicting traditions of cultural study, that he had embraced. Thus Dilthey laid out a program that no mortal – and certainly no one whose mind had been formed in the third quarter of the nineteenth century – could hope to bring to completion. Yet despite its inconclusiveness, Dilthey's work exerted enormous influence. The distinction he had drawn between natural and cultural science became standard for historians and, to a lesser extent, for social scientists also. After Dilthey historians no longer needed to apologize for the "unscientific" character of their discipline: they understood why its methods could never be quite the same as those of natural science. And the contemporary tradition of intellectual history grew naturally out of Dilthey's teaching.' – H. Stuart Hughes

After a period in which sociology was torn apart by the polarized claims of micro- and macro-methodology, an increasing number of sociologists are now attempting a fusion of the two approaches. In this volume, some of the most distinguished sociologists set out possible resolutions of the debate. Each of the chapters, placed in perspective by the editors’ prologue, approaches the problem from a unique angle. Aaron Cicourel argues for a macro-basis of social interaction; Randall Collins shows how the macro consists of an aggregate of micro-episodes; Troy Duster presents a methodological model for generating a systematic data base across different contexts of social action through his examination of the procedures governing screening for inherited disorders. Rom Harré launches a philosophical attack on what he sees as a spurious bifurcation of micro- and macro-levels. Anthony Giddens explores the problem of unintended consequences, and Gilles Fauconnier, through a depiction of Jesuitical casuistry, shows how vital clues to macro-structure can be elicited from the micro-phenomenon of language. Victor Lidz continues the language theme in his chapter on the implications of advances in linguistic theory for macro-systems theory. Niklas Luhmann illustrates the micro-macro problem by the communication about law in interaction systems. The theory of historical materialism is reassessed by Jürgen Habermas. Taking the example of Renault and electric vehicles, Michel Callon and Bruno Latour investigate how micro-actor status is attained and the sociologist’s involvement in this transformation. Finally, Pierre Bourdieu, writing on men and machines, analyses the historical imperatives that create the complex relation between man and his environment.

A striking feature of the human condition is its dual, contradictory, inherently split character; on the one hand, autonomy and freedom; on the other, constraint and dependence on social structure. This volume addresses this central problem of the linkage between human action and social structure in sociological and social science theory. Contributions cover several different approaches to the agency-structure problematic, and represent the work of a number of leading international sociologists. Their efforts point to a reorientation of social theory, both on philosophical and methodological levels.

Animals and Society uses a variety of historical sources and a coherent social theory to tell the story of the invention of animal rights. It moves from incidents like the medieval execution of pigs to a discussion of the politics and strategies of modern rights organisations. The book also presents radical interpretations of nineteenth-century animal welfare laws, and the accounts of the Noble Savage. The insights generated by social science are always at the core of the discussion and the author daws on the work of Michel Foucault, Norbert Elias, Claude Levi-Strauss and Mary Douglas. This wide-ranging and accessible book provides a fascinating account of the relations between humans and animals. It raises far-reaching questions about the philosophy, history and politics of animal rights.

Is modernity being replaced by an opposite culture of postmodernity, or is postmodernism simply an internal critique of modernist culture? This key question is central to this stimulating book which explores the transformations taking place in social life, cultural preferences, economic organization and political attitudes, particularly in the context of the contemporary city as a lived or written experience. This book contains accounts of the development of modern ways of life and their erosion in the 20th century. The author argues that a whole set of modern institutions, from the corporation to the novel, are being exposed to internal critique and external competition. As a result, new ways of seeing and thinking are moving us into what some observers see as postmodern culture. However, these tendencies may in fact be the continuation of modernity by other means.

Baudrillard is widely recognised as a powerful new force in cultural and social criticism, and is often referred to as the ‘High Priest of Postmodernism’. This study presents a detached assessment of his social thought and his reputation, challenging the way his work has been received in postmodernism and proposing a new reading of his contribution to social theory. Using many sources currently available only in French, Mike Gane provides the keys to understanding Baudrillard’s project and reveals the extent and scope of Baudrillard’s challenge to modern social theory and cultural criticism. He looks at the sources of Baudrillard’s ideas, analysing how Baudrillard has turned these sources against themselves. He describes Baudrillard’s dramatic encounter with critical Marxist theory and psychoanalysis, showing how Baudrillard’s post-Marxist writings define, through the exploration of fatal theory, a new episode in cultural history: a period of cultural implosion. This balanced account of Baudrillard’s social theory emphasises the originality of his work and argues that his significance can only be understood by grasping the paradoxes of his project – Baudrillard’s work is poetic, yet, at the same time, critical and fatal.

Most recent sociological work on the theory of class is based on a distinction between Weberian and Marxist approaches. For the first part of this volume, the authors use this distinction to review the literature on the middle class, concentrating particularly on the traditions of Marxist theory and of the more empirical work inspired by Max Weber. They show, however, that this distinction is of limited utility in reconstructing a theory of the middle class.

Non-manual workers are fast becoming the largest occupational category in Western capitalist countries. This is the first book to present a detailed socialist analysis of this much discussed change in the class structure of contemporary capitalism.Focusing on the class position of managerial and supervisory workers, Robert Carter takes as his starting-point the inadequacy of both orthodox Marxist and Weberian models of class relations. Rather, he concurs with recent structuralist theorists of class who maintain that there exists between capital and labour in the process of producing a new middle class. He parts company from the work of these theorists, however, in his insistence that the organisation and consciousness of the new middle class have also to be examined because of the practical consequences these have on class relations.The book therefore examines the historical rise of the middle class, both in the private and the state sector, together with the tendency of the class to respond to its changing relations with capital and labour by unionising. It is sharply critical of the dominant models of the causes and nature of white-collar unionism – both industrial relations and Weberian ones – and indeed rejects these models in favour of a perspective which views the extent and nature of middle-class unionism within the dynamics of class relations.

Choice, Rationality and Social Theory is a powerful rebuttal of the remarkably influential theories underlying 'rational choice analysis'. Rational choice analysis maintains that social life is principally to be explained as the outcome of rational choices on the part of individual actors. Adherents of this view include not only philosophers, political scientists and sociologists, but also prominent politicians in Western governments – notably of the United Kingdom and the United States. Rational choice analysis is said to be rigorous, capable of great technical sophistication, and able to generate powerful explanations on the basis of a few, relatively simple theoretical assumptions.Barry Hindess argues that the theory is seriously deficient, first, because there are important actors in the modern world other than human individuals, and second, because it says nothing about those processes of deliberation that play an important part in actors' decisions. The use of highly questionable assumptions about actors and their rationality has the effect of closing off important areas of intellectual inquiry and ignoring the reality of certain forms of thought and the social conditions on which they depend. These points are established through detailed examination of the concepts of the actor and of rationality – providing an overall argument that constitutes a serious challenge to any adherent of rational choice analysis.

This major study discusses some of the meanings and preconditions of freedom, responsibility and social order. The author argues that these are problems of modernity. The imagination of civil society created a milieu which was at once the location and defence of social self-sufficiency in the world. The book identifies the origins of civil society in the work of Locke, Hobbes, Rousseau and the often forgotten philosophers of the Scottish Enlightnement. It shows how the assumptions of civil society, and the state of nature, fed into the sociological and philosophical discourses which emerged in the nineteenth century. The book does not ask ‘What is civil society?’; instead it asks ‘Why is civil society?’ The author concludes that through civil society, the protagonists and heirs of European modernity struggled to make their world meaningful and safe. Civil society involved the establishment of boundaries between the community of the social and the terrifying milieu of Nature.

Timely and original, this collection of essays from the leading figures in their fields throws new and valuable light on the significance and future of flânerie. The flâneur is usually identified as the ‘man of the crowd’ of Edgar Allen Poe and Charles Baudelaire, and as one of the heroes of Walter Benjamin’s Arcades Project. The flâneur’s activities of strolling and loitering are mentioned increasingly frequently in sociology, cultural studies and art history, but rarely is the debate developed further. The Flâneur is the first book to develop the debate beyond Baudelaire and Benjamin, and to push it in unexpected and exciting directions.

This book is abut the place of space in the study of class formation. It consists of a set of papers that fix on different aspects of the human geography of class formation at different points in the history of Britain and the United States over the course of the last 200 years. The book shows that the geography of class formation is a valuable and cross-disciplinary tool in the study of modern societies, integrating the work of human geographers with that of social historians, sociologists, social anthropologists and other social scientists in an enterprise which emphasises the essential unity of social science.

The main concern of Dr Jarvie’s book is the relation of belief to action. He argues that people act in society because of beliefs, because of ‘the way they see things’. There is the world of physical and social conditioning – where fixed roles, tropisms, adaptations seem to operate; there is the world of mind – where action, alternatively, seems to originate; but then there is Karl Popper’s ‘third world’ – where dwell the objects of thought (ideals, theories, beliefs, values) which ‘directly affect how people act, and thus affect the way the world is’. Reform, change, improvement, modification, all proceed from the competitive interaction between our private beliefs about the world, and their ‘third world’ brothers. Jarvie contends that the struggle of privately held beliefs to realize themselves in the world through the actions of their believers is a fundamental force behind social change.

This book explores and clarifies all the major issues and developments within ‘family theorising’. It covers the extraordinary growth and variety of approaches to the family over the last decade, the most significant being the impact of feminism and the professional and state intervention into the family through marital and family therapy. The author focuses on the growth of family counselling, giving a detailed analysis of the Home Office publication, Marriage Matters. He looks at the rapid growth of historical studies of the family, European theoretical developments, the work of the Rapoports, the role of systems theorising, and phenomenological and critical approaches to the family. He shows the relevance of family theorising for contemporary debates about the state of marriage and the family, and argues for the centrality of ‘family themes’ within wider sociological debates.

An experienced teacher of courses on the sociology of the family, D.H.J. Morgan frequently encounters a gulf between ‘the family’ as it is often treated in sociological texts and ‘the family’ as it is usually experienced. In this book he provides an extremely valuable bridge between the two by presenting an encounter between some of the mainstream theoretical approaches and concerns in the sociology of the family and what he terms as ‘critical’ perspectives on the family.This is the first British book on a basic social institution that takes into account the literature outside the mainstream of sociological analysis that deals with the subject. The first half examines the varieties of functional theorizing embedded in many texts, the over-concern with the question of kinship in modern society and the treatment of the family as a ‘success story’. In the second half Dr Morgan presents a critical account of some of the counter-theories: those derived from the radical feminist movement, the existential psycho-analytical approach associated with Laing, and the critical analyses of sex in an advanced capitalist society. A final chapter suggests some themes and orientations, derived from this encounter of theoretical approaches and modern perspectives, which can be usefully developed.

M.J. Mulkay traces the development of certain recent versions of functionalism and exchange theory in sociology, with special attention to 'theoretical strategy'. He uses this term to refer to the policies which theorists adopt to ensure that their work contributes to their long range theoretical objectives. Such strategies are important, he believes, because they place limits on the theories with which they are associated. He shows how each of the theorists he studies devised a new strategy to replace the unsuccessful policies of a prior theory in a process of 'strategical dialectic'. This often has unforeseen consequences for the direction of theoretical growth, and the author interprets changes in theoretical perspective largely as products of these strategical innovations.

How far is scientific knowledge a product of social life? In addressing this question, the major contributors to the sociology of knowledge have agreed that the conclusions of science are dependent on social action only in a very special and limited sense. In Science and the Sociology of Knowledge Michael Mulkay's first aim is to identify the philosophical assumptions which have led to this view of science as special; and to present a systematic critique of the standard philosophical account of science, showing that there are no valid epistemological grounds for excluding scientific knowledge from the scope of sociological analysis.The rest of the book is devoted to developing a preliminary interpretation of the social creation of scientific knowledge. The processes of knowledge-creation are delineated through a close examination of recent case studies of scientific developments. Dr Mulkay argues that knowledge is produced by means of negotiation, the outcome of which depends on the participants' use of social as well as technical resources. The analysis also shows how cultural resources are taken over from the broader social milieu and incorporated into the body of certified knowledge; and how, in the political context of society at large, scientists' technical as well as social claims are conditioned and affected by their social position.

The programmes of political parties and movements are attempts to formulate policies or guidelines in relation to social change. Social philosophy concerns the fundamental issues on which those programmes divide. This introductory work gives an account of several highly influential systems of social philosophy – systems which serve as the landmarks by reference to which modern discussions still orientate themselves. The description of various stages in the history of social philosophy is set within an account of its changing social environment – from feudalism and the philosophy of Aquinas to the rise of the working class and socialism. The book confines itself to the Western tradition and one could say that it charts the rise and fall of the free market as the central institution and the key to the understanding of society.

This book examines the question of how our knowledge of social life affects, and ought to affect, our way of living it. In so doing, it critically discusses two epistemological models of social science – the positivist and the interpretive – from the viewpoint of the political theories which, it is argued, are implicit in these models; moreover, it proposes a third model – the critical – which is organised around an explicit account of the relation between social theory and practical life. The book has the special merit of being a good overview of the principal current ideas about the relation between social theory and political practice, as well as an attempt at providing a new and more satisfactory account of this relationship. To accomplish this task, it synthesises work from the analytic philosophy of social science with that of the neo-Marxism of the Frankfurt school.

Current sociological theories appear to have lost their general persuasiveness in part because, unlike the theories of the ‘classical era’, they fail to maintain an integrated stance toward society, and the practical role that sociology plays in society. The authors explore various facets of this failure and possibilities for reconstructing sociological theories as integrated wholes capable of conveying a moral and political immediacy. They discuss the evolution of several concepts (for example, the social, structure, and self) and address the significant disputes (for example, structuralism versus humanism, and individual versus society) that have dominated twentieth-century sociological thought. Their ideas and analyses are directed towards an audience of students and theorists who are coming to terms with the project of sociological theory, and its relationship with moral discourses and political practice. The authors of these essays are sociological theorists from the United States, the United Kingdom and Canada. They are all established, but not ‘establishment’ authors. The book contains no orthodoxies, and no answers. However, the essays do contribute to identifying the range of issues that will constitute the agenda for the next generation of sociological theorists.

Central to most sociologists’ self-image is the claim that their theories are based on research. However, using a random sample of 680 articles appearing in major American, British and Canadian journals, Dr Menzies shows that in some areas of sociology the wide gap between theory and research means that much of sociological theory is virtually untested. He explains how theory is embodied in eight particular types of research, critically examines these research theories, and contrasts them with the positions of modern theorists. The sample of journal articles also permits a comparison of British, American and Canadian sociology. By contrasting on how researchers us theories, Dr Menzies is able to reassess several theories. For instance, symbolic interactionist research uses embedded causal claims and stands in a dialectical relationship to other sociological research, while the research version of conflict theory depends on external causes to explain social change. The implications of using statistical techniques like factor analysis and regression are also considered in relation to the form of explanation.

This account of Talcott Parsons’s work clarifies his basic concepts and sets out their correlation. Dr Menzies believes that the philosophy of science working within the confines of the analytic-synthetic distinction tends to provide a rigid, static and sterile account of theories. He presents a more dynamic account of the scientific enterprise in order to come to grips with the amorphous nature of theory, and to provide the basic framework for his analysis of Parsons. Menzies argues that Parsons’s central problematic in The Structure of Social Action is utilitarianism in general and the classical economists’ account of the rise of capitalism in particular, and as such the book is not a reconciliation of positivistic and idealistic elements and these run throughout his subsequent work. Two major strands in Parsons’s work – the social action theory and the systems theory (structural-functionalism) – are separated and examined individually.

The primary concern of this book is to investigate whether or not structuralism constitutes a distinctive framework in the social sciences. The author focuses on two major structuralist thinkers, Louis Althusser and Claude Lévi-Strauss. She analyses and compares the structure of their theory, and places them within the context of their respective disciplines. Dr Glucksmann began working on this book at a time when structuralism was at the height of its popularity in France, and was thought to be a homogenous alternative to bourgeois sociology. The progress of her study implicitly reflects the developments and divergences within structuralist thought that have emerged since then. In particular, she examines the differences between the political and philosophical thought of Althusser and Lévi-Strauss, which have become increasingly manifest.

A central problem in contemporary social theory is that of providing an account of social interaction that does justice both to the self-monitoring capacities of the individuals involved and to the society that ‘frames’ the interaction. This book attempts to resolve this problem, arguing for an objectivist or ‘structuralist’ account which does not undervalue the importance of the indexical and negotiated aspects of interaction, and which takes seriously the Marxist-rationalist critique of empiricism and humanism and the associated idea that society should be treated as a supra-individual, preconstituted and constraining object of scientific analysis.First, Dr Layder pinpoints certain of the strengths and weaknesses of various schools of thought: social psychology (scrutinized in both its sociological and psychological forms), sociology, the Marxist-rationalist approach. Whilst rejecting the mechanistic or naively deterministic theories which are often associated with an objectivist stance, he argues that the productive activities of situated actors must be understood as existing in an articulated relationship with, and within, sets of preconstituted contextual constraints. This thesis is illustrated conceptually by the development of a framework which distinguishes two types and levels of social structure, with different modes of production and reproduction, and empirically by an analysis of aspects of interaction in the occupation of acting.

This systematic analysis of the nature and development of Talcott Parson’s theory of action offers first an introduction to the conceptual paradigm upon which this theory is based – an introduction, that is, which will make Parson’s writing more easily accessible. Second, the book gives an explanation of the development which the action theory has undergone during the half-century of Parson’s career. Using a scheme of four theory-levels, the author indicates the crucial premises that can be distilled from Parson’s early works. He argues that Parsons, from the very start of his career, was trying to translate abstract premises into a systematically constructed conceptual scheme. The first conceptual translation, however, turned out to be vague and inconsistent in many respects, and this study offers a very specific explanation of the inadequacy of this first (structural-functional) version of the theory of action. Dr Adriaansens argues that it was not until Parsons had found his way out of this ‘conceptual dilemma’ that the premises of the action theory could be adequately translated into a conceptual paradigm.

The concept of industrial society plays a dominant role in the social sciences. The ‘Great Divide’ between pre-industrial and industrial societies is commonly assumed to be the main bridge separating modern societies from the past, and distinguishing ‘developed’ from ‘undeveloped’ states in the present era. In history, economics, politics and sociology the concept of industrial society underlies a wide variety of discussions, particularly those relating to economic development and social progress. Outside academic writing, too, the concept exerts a great deal of influence. In the developing world, there is a widespread concern to ‘industrialise’, whilst in the developed world there is growing uneasiness as to whether ‘industrialisation’ is beneficial or not, but still the concept is central. This book examines critically the concept of industrial society, its pervasiveness and influence. It reviews all the major theories of industrial society and the research into the changing character of post-industrial societies. It argues that the decision to use the concept severely restricts the social imagination, and that the concept becomes increasingly less useful as criticism of the equating of industrialisation with social progress grows.

Professor Wesolowski presents a detailed study of Marx's theory of class structure and compares it with non-Marxist theories of social stratification, in particular the functionalist theory of stratification and the theory of power elite. He is also concerned to develop and extend the Marxist approach to the study of class structure and social stratification in a socialist society. The book begins with a thorough and original reconstruction of Marx's theory of class domination in a capitalist society, and goes on to show that contemporary non-Marxist theories of power elites complement rather than contradict Marx's concept of class domination. The author examines in detail the functionalist theory of stratification, but rejects it, preferring the Marxist approach. Finally, though, he demonstrates the complementary nature of the two approaches to the study of class structure by expounding a comprehensive paradigm for empirical research based on Marxist theory but including some elements of contemporary stratification theories as well.

The shock waves of conservative advances have reached into every corner of American and British politics. Parties of the right have prospered, while parties of the left have stumbled, retreated, and are now regrouping. The agenda for both right and left is set by the terms of the free-market doctrines that have displaced the post-war consensus politics of liberal capitalism.This volume describes and challenges the ideological basis of the free-market right. Though critiques of the policies of the Reagan and Thatcher governments are hardly in short supply, this major new study offers the most thorough and up-to-date analysis available. No other book considers in such depth conservative ideas and policies on both sides of the Atlantic. It provides the first clear account of the distinction between conservative and other forms of capitalism. It also examines the fault lines dividing opposing camps within conservative capitalism and their consequences for domestic policy in Britain and the US. Linking political theory and public policy, it is one of the few critical appraisals of the New Right based on a clear understanding of what the arguments for the free market really are. Finally, the authors demonstrate what the left needs to learn from its failures, how to remould its understanding of the relationship between politics and the market, and how to recapture the lost initiative.

This is an important account of the development of the ‘field-theory’ approach in the social sciences. Harald Mey concentrates on the writers from the 1930s to the present day who have used this approach to the study of the individual and of society, and gives a clear exposition of such ‘field-theory’ application in its many differing forms. In addition, the author shows how a concept which was initially useful in the physical sciences came to be used first by psychologists, and subsequently by sociologists and others in related disciplines, in their search for answers to the problems presented by the study of society. Mey describes how the use of the ‘field-theory’ perspective has fared when applied to specific areas of social research – education, personal relationships, group behaviour. He also compares the ‘field-theory’ approach to the study of societies with the structural/functional approach, and explains why he believes ‘field-theory’ has a number of advantages over the structural/functional approach, especially when it comes to the dynamic problem of social change.