Because it consists of an entire family of specific theories derived from the same first principles, rational choice offers one approach to generate explanations that provide for micro-macro links, and to attack a wide variety of empirical problems in macrosociology. The aims of this paper are (1) to provide a bare skeleton of all rational choice arguments; (2) to demonstrate their applicability to a range of macrosociological concerns by reviewing a sample of both new and classic works; and (3) (...) to discuss the weaknesses of current rational choice theory and the possibilities for its future development. (shrink)

Animals have had a profound influence on human societies, playing a major role in the course of human history. However, their presence and theoretical significance has been overlooked in sociological theory, while being the central concern of the growing field of anthrozoology (the study of the interaction between humans and other animals). To illustrate how a focus on other animal species can improve our understanding of sociocultural evolution, we assess the influential work of Gerhard Lenski and Patrick Nolan and their (...) materialist approach to macrosociology. Animals are largely invisible in Lenski and Nolan’s Ecological-Evolutionary Theory, yet they underlie the key subsistence technologies identified by Lenski and Nolan as crucial for explaining uneven development. By considering the history of domestication, the role animals played in the development of agricultural technology, and the translocation of Eurasian livestock during the colonial era, we show how sociocultural evolution is situated within a larger nexus of socioecological and historical conditions that reciprocally determine technological development and cultural heritage. Our analysis illustrates that anthrozoology, far from being an esoteric field of study, has the potential to contribute to a refined understanding of a wide array of social phenomena. (shrink)

Emotion, Social Theory, and Social Structure takes sociology in a new direction. It examines key aspects of social structure by using a fresh understanding of emotions categories. Through that synthesis emerge new perspectives on rationality, class structure, social action, conformity, basic rights, and social change. As well as giving an innovative view of social processes, J. M. Barbalet's study also reveals unappreciated aspects of emotions by considering fear, resentment, vengefulness, shame, and confidence in the context of social structure. While much (...) has been written on the social consequences of excessive or pathological emotions, this book demonstrates the centrality of emotions to routine operations of social interaction. Dr Barbalet also re-evaluates the nature of social theory, for once the importance of emotions to social processes becomes clear, the intellectual constitution of sociology, and therefore its history, must be rethought. (shrink)

In this two-volume set, Larry D. Barnett delves into the macrosociological sources of law concerned with society-important social activities in a structurally complex, democratically governed nation. Barnett explores why, when, and where particular proscriptions and prescriptions of law on key social activities arise, persist, and change. The first volume, Societal Agents in Law: A Macrosociological Approach, puts relevant doctrines of law into a macrosociological framework, uses the findings of quantitative research to formulate theorems that identify the impact of several society-level (...) agents on doctrines of law, and takes the reader through a number of case analyses. The second volume, Societal Agents in Law: Quantitative Research, reports original multivariate statistical studies of sociological determinants of law on specific types of key social activities. Taken together, the two volumes offer an alternative to the almost-total monopoly of theory and descriptive scholarship in the macrosociology of law, comparative law, and history of law, and underscore the value of a mixed empirical/theoretical approach. (shrink)

Photomechanical reprint of papers from 1970 to 1992 mostly in English, some in German or French: Foreword 1–4; LAW AS PRACTICE ‘La formation des concepts en sciences juridiques’ 7–33, ‘Geltung des Rechts – Wirksamkeit des Rechts’ 35–42, ‘Macrosociological Theories of Law’ 43–76, ‘Law & its Inner Morality’ 77–89, ‘The Law & its Limits’ 91–96; LAW AS TECHNIQUE ‘Domaine »externe« & domaine »interne« en droit’ 99–117, ‘Die ministerielle Begründung’ 119–139, ‘The Preamble’ 141–167, ‘Presumption & Fiction’ 169–185, ‘Legal Technique’187–198; LAW AS LOGIC (...) ‘Moderne Staatlichkeit und modernes formales Recht’ 201–207, ‘Heterogeneity & Validity of Law’ 209–218, ‘Leibniz & die Frage der rechtlichen Systembildung’ 219–232, ‘Law & its Approach as a System’ 233–255, ‘Logic of Law & Judicial Activity’ 258–288, ‘Kelsen’s Pure Theory of Law’ 289–293, ‘The Nature of the Judicial Application of Norms’ 295–314; LAW AS EXPERIENCE ‘The Socially Determined Nature of Legal Reasoning’317–374, ‘The Ontological Foundation of Law’ 375–390, ‘Is Law a System of Enactments?’ 391–398, ‘The Uniqueness of National Legal Cultures’ 399–411, ‘Institutions as Systems’ 413–424; LAW AS HISTORY ‘From Legal Customs to Legal Folkways’ 427–436, ‘Anthropological Jurisprudence?’ 437–457, ‘Law as a Social Issue’ 459–475, ‘Law as History?’477–484, ‘Rechtskultur – Denkkultur’ 485–489; w/ Curriculum Vitae & Bibliography, as well as Index & Indexes of normative materials & of names. (shrink)

Based on two case studies of the design of electronic communication networks developed in the public and private sector, this article explores the barriers within current design cultures to account for the needs and diversity of users. Whereas the constraints on user-centered design are usually described in macrosociological terms, in which the user–technology relation is merely understood as a process of the inclusion or exclusion of users in design, the authors suggest that it is important to adopt a semiotic approach. (...) Moreover, they argue that we need to take into account the gender identity of designers to understand how design practices in ICT prioritize male users. The article shows how configuring the user as “everybody” and the use of the “I-methodology” are important constraints in the development of technologies that aim to reach users in all their diversity. (shrink)

A unique multilevel perspective-structural social psychology-is explicated to help build theoretical bridges between micro and macro levels of analysis in sociology. The perspective portrays actors (human or corporate) as having minimal properties of purposiveness and responsiveness, encounters as interaction episodes between multiple actors, microstructures as local patterns of interaction emerging from and subsequently influencing encounters, and macrostructures as networks of social positions. These levels of analysis are connected via mutually contingent processes. Applying these assumptions, we illustrate the ability of the (...) framework to strengthen the macrosociological import of micro theories of power, status, and justice. We argue that structural social psychology is an important metatheoretical strategy for developing testable connections between individual and collective units of sociological analysis. (shrink)

'At last, a volume on civilization that truly reflects the complexity of multiple civilizations. The wealth of contributions Arjomand and Tiryakian have assembled demonstrates the value of an old concept for understanding the awful dilemmas confronting human kind in the global age. Its thoroughgoing renewal here establishes this book as the essential benchmark for future scholars of civilization' - Martin Albrow, Founding Editor of International Sociology and author of The Global Age - winner of the European Amalfi Prize, 1997 'In (...) our tension filled world, many are heralding, and others fearing, a"clash of civilizations." The contributors to this volume provides a healthy and persuasive argument about why this clash need not, and certainly should not, take place. They do so, moreover, not by rejecting the concept of civilization, but by developing a less primordial, homogenous, and essentialist concept of it. An important collection that provides illumination in this sometimes frighteningly dark time' - Jeffrey Alexander, Professor and Chair of Sociology at Yale University 'The concept of civilization may well replace the notions of globalization and identity as the core component in the vocabulary of 21st century sociology. The authors contribute a great deal to the clarification of fashionable controversies around the "clash of civilizations" and "multiculturalism". They go a long way toward purging the concept of civilization of its ideological overtones, and they suceed admirably in turning it into powerful analytic tool of an emerging fleld of macrosociology, known already as civilizational analysis' - Piotr Sztompka, President, International Sociological Association Although the concept of 'civilization' has deep roots in the social sciences, there is an urgent need to re-think it for contemporary times. This book points to an exhaustion in using 'the nation state' and 'world system' as the basic macro-units of social analysis because they do not get to grips with the 'soft power' variable of cultural factors involved in global aspects of development. Also, globalization requires us to reconsider the link between civilization and a fixed or given territory. This book focuses upon the dynamic aspect of civilizations. Among the topics covered are: · Civilizational analysis and social theory · Global civilization and local cultures · Civilizational forms · Rationalization and Civilization · Civilizations as zones of prestige · Historical and comparative dimensions of civilization · The clash of civilizations. (shrink)

Agent-based models are increasingly important in social science research. They have two obvious apparent virtues: they can model complex macrosociological phenomena without strong assumptions about agents and without analytic solutions for models, and they seem to instantiate the methodological individualist program in a concrete way. We argue that the latter claim is false. After providing schematic accounts of ABM models and a first introduction to ways in which to characterize individualist explanations, we work through six conceptions of individualist explanations that (...) are decreasingly "less individualist" and argue that ABM-based explanations in the social sciences are not inevitably individualist in any of these senses. ABMs allow for explanatory relations among social entities and properties in the model environment and they are silent on what basic agents are, allowing social entities and properties to play basic explanatory roles. (shrink)

The paper is based on the analysis of G. Simmel's book The Philosophy of Money . It focuses on Simmel's interpretation of economical and macrosociological issues based on the philosophical conception of money, which symbolizes the whole value world of modern culture. It sheds light first of all on Simmel's aesthetical perspective and his apllying aestheitical cathegories of detachment and analogy to show the parallels between the economical and spiritual spheres, especially between the development of monetary economy and the tendency (...) to individualization, intellectualization, and to opposing the objective and the subjective in mo_dern culture. In conclusion it shows how Simmel's fundamental ideas and attitudes combine in his reconstruction of modern way of life. (shrink)

Under the influence of groundbreaking work by John Meyer and Brian Rowen, as well as Paul DiMaggio and Walter Powell, over the last 30 years research in the new sociological institutionalism has focused on processes of isomorphism. I argue that this is a one-sided focus that leaves out many insights from other institutional and macrosociological approaches and does not do justice to actual social change because it overlooks the role played by divergent institutional development. While the suggestion of divergent trends (...) is not new, there have been few attempts to integrate divergence into the theoretical premises of the new sociological institutionalism. Based on the typology proposed by DiMaggio and Powell, I show that the mechanisms identified by them as sources of isomorphic change can support processes of divergent change as well. The theoretical challenge is to identify conditions under which these mechanisms push institutional change toward homogenization or divergence. (shrink)

The history of genetics and the evolutionary theory in the USSR is multidimensional. Only in the 1920s after the October Revolution, and due in large part to that Revolution, the science of genetics arose in Soviet Russia. Genetics was limited, but not obliterated in the second half of the 1950s, and was restored in the late 1960s, after the resignation of Nikita S. Khrushchev. In the subsequent period, Soviet genetics experienced a resurgence, though one not as successful as geneticists would (...) have liked. The Communist party bodies interfered constantly, but with different consequences for the development of genetics than when the earlier periods. The main troubles for Soviet genetics occurred during the unique, well-known, most contradictory, and tragic Stalinist period. The start date for the defeat of genetics is also known—August, 1948. In the social history of science and especially in the history of evolutionary biology it is natural, necessary, and even expected to adopt an evolutionary approach. In particular, historians of science need to consider and explain the evolution and dependence of Soviet science in regards to the evolution of Soviet society, the Soviet state, and the Communist party. This evolutionary perspective reflects the standards of evolutionary biology, evolutionary macrosociology, and also the history of science. (shrink)

The analytical and self-critical bias of modern philosophy lets ideology expand to most significant world-view and value areas. Hence, philosophy of history escapes such problems as meaning of history, course of history, and self-identification in history. Ideology aggressively grasps these ideas and transforms them into its own primitive dogmas that usually serve as symbolical tools for political struggle or for legitimating ruling elites. This paper shows how it is possible for philosophy, in cooperation with the social sciences (especially historical (...) class='Hi'>macrosociology), to retrieve these problems of crucial world-view significance. A universal model of historical dynamics and the concept of values of general significance are described and integrated within a general frame for historical meanings: permanent self-test of human communities. (shrink)

In Primitive Classification, Durkheim suggests using the notion of affectivity to explain the emergence of various social structures. This bold attempt to extend the role of affectivity in sociological thinking has been rejected by most social scientists. By greatly elaborating Durkheim's outline for a sociology of emotions, however, this essay suggests that there is a fruitful way to use affectivity in macrosociological theory. This model allows us to develop in a new way Durkheim's description of structural differentiation and stratification in (...) The Division of Labor in Society. (shrink)

In the first part of this article we survey general similarities and differences between biological and social macroevolution. In the second (and main) part, we consider a concrete mathematical model capable of describing important features of both biological and social macroevolution. In mathematical models of historical macrodynamics, a hyperbolic pattern of world population growth arises from non-linear, second-order positive feedback between demographic growth and technological development. This is more or less identical with the working of the collective learning mechanism. Based (...) on diverse paleontological data and an analogy with macrosociological models, we suggest that the hyperbolic character of biodiversity growth can be similarly accounted for by non-linear, second-order positive feedback between diversity growth and the complexity of community structure, suggesting the presence within the biosphere of a certain analogue of the collective learning mechanism. We discuss how such positive feedback mechanisms can be modelled mathematically. (shrink)

In the first part of this article we survey general similarities and differences between biological and social macroevolution. In the second (and main) part, we consider a concrete mathematical model capable of describing important features of both biological and social macroevolution. In mathematical models of historical macrodynamics, a hyperbolic pattern of world population growth arises from non-linear, second-order positive feedback between demographic growth and technological development. Based on diverse paleontological data and an analogy with macrosociological models, we suggest that the (...) hyperbolic character of biodiversity growth can be similarly accounted for by non-linear, second-order positive feedback between diversity growth and the complexity of community structure. We discuss how such positive feedback mechanisms can be modelled mathematically. (shrink)

In the first part of this article we survey general similarities and differences between biological and social macroevolution. In the second (and main) part, we consider a concrete mathematical model capable of describing important features of both biological and social macroevolution. In mathematical models of historical macrodynamics, a hyperbolic pattern of world population growth arises from non-linear, second-order positive feedback between demographic growth and technological development. Based on diverse paleontological data and an analogy with macrosociological models, we suggest that the (...) hyperbolic character of biodiversity growth can be similarly accounted for by non-linear, second-order positive feedback between diversity growth and the complexity of community structure. We discuss how such positive feedback mechanisms can be modelled mathematically. (shrink)

The article argues for a synthesis between analytical philosophy and social sciences as relevant and necessary. The motivation and framework of such a synthesis is outlined on the basis of a critical social science. The authors illuminate such a perspective negatively in a critique of empirical and theoretical sociology, then positively in a clarification of the critical standpoint. Four theses, two under each-aspect, are defended: 1. Concerning empirical social sciences Neither the quantitative nor the qualitative paradigm of empirical social science (...) is able to put forward adequate methods for social research. Instead, the development of reconstructive methods is proposed to combine the advantages and eliminate the disadvantages of the quantitative and qualitative paradigms. 2. Concerning theoretical sociology Macrosociological theories tend to resist empirical corrobation. Pure theoretical and philosophical justification abounds instead. In this situation the tools of analytic theory of science are proposed in order to clarify the necessary steps towards a further development of theories, which can be empirically tested. 3. Concerning the critique of society A critical social science must incorporate a theory of a just society in order to analyse social institutions in a normative way. In this context an ethical realist approach is offered which tries to fulfill two conditions for sociologically relevant normative reasonings: satisfaction of individual interests and the rational consensus of all persons concerned. 4. Concerning critique of ideology The tools of analytic philosophy can be given new application by combining them with an analysis of interests under the title of critique of ideology. (shrink)

The debate about Habermas' use of the system and lifeworld distinction has not focused on the explanation of social pathologies that he offers, but rather only on conceptual problems with the theories that he uses. Twill argue that the explanation offered by his thesis that "systems colonize the lifeworld" fits the main criterion for adequacy for macro-micro explanation: because it establishes macro-micro linkage, it is at least potentially complete. Such an analysis fits the empirical approach to traditional debates between collectivists (...) and individualists among macrosociologists. I shall apply this approach here in three steps. First, I shall use the controversy about functionalist explanation in the social sciences to develop the criterion of completeness for macrosociological explanations (1). Second, I shall generalize the conditions of adequacy for functionalist explanations to macrosociology as a whole and show that Habermas'explanation of the colonization of the lifeworld is at least potentially complete, as an explanation sketch that lacks empirical detail (2). Third, I shall show that this approach also requires that Habermas modify his overly Weberian claims about the effects of bureaucracy, since his stronger notion of reification is based on the incompletness in his explanation of this aspect of the micromacrolinkage (3). Moreover; a more complete account has clearer practical consequences for agency in the form of collective action. (shrink)

In this two-volume set, Larry D. Barnett delves into the macrosociological sources of law concerned with society-important social activities in a structurally complex, democratically governed nation. Barnett explores why, when, and where particular proscriptions and prescriptions of law on key social activities arise, persist, and change. The first volume, Societal Agents in Law: A Macrosociological Approach, puts relevant doctrines of law into a macrosociological framework, uses the findings of quantitative research to formulate theorems that identify the impact of several society-level (...) agents on doctrines of law, and takes the reader through a number of case analyses. The second volume, Societal Agents in Law: Quantitative Research, reports original multivariate statistical studies of sociological determinants of law on specific types of key social activities. Taken together, the two volumes offer an alternative to the almost-total monopoly of theory and descriptive scholarship in the macrosociology of law, comparative law, and history of law, and underscore the value of a mixed empirical/theoretical approach. (shrink)