The paradox of Durkheim's manifesto: Reconsidering The Rules of Sociological Method

Conclusion In summary, my three formulations of Durkheim's The Rules of Sociological Method as a manifesto have progressively found it to be epistemologically and pedagogically embedded in its object of scientific interest. In the first and most limited formulation, Durkheim's text was a violent and strategic preparation for his vision of sociology, that laid its grounds, but was ultimately inessential to sociological practice itself. It marked what he hoped was a historical rupture in western thought, after which true sociological reason could get underway. In my second formulation his text was the creation of a precise sociological object and moral reality. And while constituting sociology's first action, the manifesto could then be superseded as this morality began to sustain itself. Nevertheless, more than in the first formulation, it actively produced a new social fact in European culture. Finally, in the third formulation, Durkheim's manifesto is an ongoing moment of sociology itself (in the sense of a Hegelian moment, which is fully visible only in its first conflict-ridden appearance, but subsequently constitutes an essential part of the phenomenon's makeup). This manifesto is sociology's first clear attempt to understand representation as the fundamental element of social life. As such, sociological images and language are more than new social facts, they are also collective representations themselves, that reveal how the collective both imagines itself and interprets its own images. In this last formulation, sociology is deeply intertwined with the phenomena it seeks to explain, and becomes increasingly so as it proceeds historically.The implications of understanding sociology as a collective representation are manifold. But among the most important is that sociology develops by way of a dialectical relation to its object. Not surprisingly, a century after the appearance of Durkheim's manifesto, popular mass culture is permeated with reified sociological language, while cultural and mass-media studies have become a central interest of contemporary social theory. One could even speculate what Durkheim might say about late twentieth-century North American or European culture, and the place of sociological images therein. Would he, like one might imagine Freud, despair at the popular tropes and metaphors that he helped produce? Would he see only a monster of his own creation? Unlike Freud, who might be able to condemn popular psychoanalytic language as itself an indication of an immature culture looking for therapeutic fathers, Durkheim formulated the inevitability of the reification and deification of sociological language. For example, he explains that his own time was dominated by the language of the French Revolution: ...society also consecrates things, especially ideas. If a belief is unanimously shared by a people, then ... it is forbidden to touch it, that is to say, to deny it or to contest it. Now the prohibition of criticism is an interdiction like the others and proves the presence of something sacred. Even today, howsoever great may be the liberty which we accord to others, a man who should totally deny progress or ridicule the human ideal to which modern societies are attached, would produce the effect of a sacrilege. He gives Fatherland, Liberty, and Reason as examples of the sacred language inherited from the Revolution. And although he understands that these ideas are historically contingent, he nevertheless defends their value, especially the value of Reason. Evidently, Durkheim is not troubled by the knowledge that thoughts are shaped by the sacred ideas of their time.Noting the popularity of his own texts in the undergraduate classroom, Durkheim might ask how they function now. He might ask how The Rules of Sociological Method is an academic collective representation. He might also ask more generally how the word society has come to be used as a moral reality, or a social fact. How do speakers gain a moral stronghold on conversation by invoking society as the overarching totem (signifying everything from tradition and order to constraint and oppression)? Durkheim would probably conclude that in its current usage society means many things, and perhaps is even reducible to a dada utterance. Society is the punishing god and the forgiving god; it is used to authorize the judge and justify the deviant. It is, most generally, the way our culture signals its attempt to formulate itself by way of its sacred images.And yet, to avoid concluding that sociology, as it proceeds, ultimately becomes another instance of the object it studies, one must see Durkheim as providing the opportunity within his images and tropes to make them more than religion or ideology. In other words, although social reality has traditionally been represented as the Judaeo-Christian god in western cultures, that does not mean that Society will in turn become the new god of the organically solidary collective. As Durkheim provided sociology with a basic manifesto orientation (in all three of my formulations of sociology as strategic, moral, and interpretive), he also provided the opportunity for sociology continually to change its object by studying it. While normally for scientists their influence on their object constitutes a disastrous error, because the data have been contaminated by the act of observation, Durkheim makes clear that sociology inevitably has this effect (indeed it has this moral obligation and responsibility). Sociology encourages a culture where the openness of human identities and practices is generally known, and where this openness does not lead to anomic despair. This was Durkheim's promise to his time - i.e., that looking at ourselves as agents of our collective condition provides an opportunity to produce sacred objects that are sacred by the very fact that they are patently produced collectively. While all collectives produce representations of themselves, what is peculiar to the sociological culture is that it is supposed to be able to identify these as such - it is supposed to see its own totem building. This requires a certain ironic orientation grounded in an insight that the collective could be drastically otherwise, without provoking a crisis of meaning. In this way, sociology is a system of beliefs without being an ideology or religion.And, of course, within a sociological culture change does occur. Once these sociological tropes are established, they undergo interpretation and reinterpretation as they are disseminated, circulated, and used in popular discourse. As the dialogue between academic language and popular language continues through time, sociologists are required to imagine sociological interventions that keep these images dynamic rather than ideological. Hence, as sociology contributes to the sacred language used by opinion (or doxa), it is neither reducible to opinion, nor fully distinguishable from it. Sociology seeks to influence the way opinion recollects its basis (i.e., social life), and in so doing must change its own language to continue to induce para-doxa.It is possible therefore that the tropes and images introduced by Durkheim have served many rhetorical purposes and need to be reinterpreted by each new generation of sociologists as they consider the particular sociological rules of method of their own time. But what is inexhaustible about the Durkheimian legacy is his insight that sociology must look for its effects at a general discursive level, remaining cognizant that it is a part of modernity's particular collective representations. Thus formulated, the grounds of sociological thought are necessarily present even in the most specialized of contemporary research, as each topic covertly speaks about collective representational desire. Sociology also meets its own limits (even the possibility of its own death) at the very point where it becomes self-conscious as a cultural practice - i.e., its various inevitable crises as to its relevance point to its entanglement in the representational anxieties characteristic of modernity in general. It seems to me crucial that sociological practitioners acknowledge and orient to this condition so that sociology remains vital to itself and to the collective life it studies. Or in stronger, more polemical words: sociology is a significant cultural force to the extent that it understands itself already to be one.

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Historical legacies, nationalist mobilization, and political outcomes in Russia and Serbia: A Weberian view

Conclusion In the preceding analysis, I attempt to demonstrate the usefulness of some of Weber's key theoretical ideas on nations, nationalism, and imperialism by way of a comparative examination of contemporary Russian and Serbian nationalism. More specifically, I try to show how long-term historical and institutional legacies, shared memories, and defining political experiences, played themselves out in the contemporary period, influencing the different availability of mass constituencies in Russia and Serbia for nationalist mobilization under the auspices of new empire-saving coalitions.But political outcomes are never wholly pre-determined as historical legacies are subject to different cultural interpretations and political contest. To put it simply, nationalism is made and remade by politicians and ideologists; and there is no need to gloss over the frequently bloody and unpredictable consequences of their struggles with unduly abstract sociological generalizations. Instead, we should theorize our narratives, while giving contingency its place.I suggest that the presence of a highly symbolic issue (such as the World War Two experiences of Serbs in Croatia, the mythology of Kosovo, Sevastopol or the mythology of the Russian fleet), which touches on the core historical mythology of one nation, but is contested by another on different grounds (demographic, ethnic, or for reasons of historical justice, for example) increases the likelihood of national conflicts. Once highly symbolic issues are involved, national conflicts quickly assume the form of struggles over ultimate values not subject to compromise and conflict-regulation. However, as the Russian case demonstrates, other symbolic legacies (the experience of Stalinism) might be powerful enough to override nationalism.I also suggest in this article a few simple ways in which we can interpret, and possibly, test the likelihood of the emergency of national conflicts: the significance of prestige considerations, the absence of compensatory mechanisms such as economic prosperity, the egalitarian character of nationalist appeals, the dynamic of status-reversal, and the theory of the superimposition of conflicts. To understand the exclusivist overtones of much of contemporary nationalism in the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, however, it would also be necessary to pay more attention to the political-cultural and social-structural legacy of Communist rule. The prevalence of uncompromising stances among political leaders, the absence of mechanisms of conflict-regulation, the hostility to proceduralism and legal mechanisms as a means of resolving the emerging national questions, and the appeal of the new nationalism to state-dependent and traditionalist strata are among the most important elements of this legacy.     

Social affinity among top managerial executives of large corporations in Korea

Korea is a society subject to quite diverse social forces. Modernization should encourage reform, but the yoke of tradition restrains this tendency. This paper examines the patterns of preferential treatment of executives, based on family, school, and regional ties, by the owners of large Jaebol corporations in Korea. We found that about 21% of the total number of executive positions in the large corporations were occupied by individuals who had some type of family tie with the owners of the corporations. Also, there is a strong tendency of corporation owners to employ the executives of the same regional origin of birth as their own, but the affinity based on school ties was not as strong as that of regional origin. The findings of this study seem to support the arguments of previous studies that claimed a trust factor as a main cause of social similarity and affinity between the owners and executives in corporations.An earlier version of this paper was presented at the annual meetings of the American Sociological Association, August 17–22, 1987, Chicago, Illinois.     

What's wrong is right: A response to the state of the discipline

In the June issue ofSociological Forum, several authors addressed the question, What's Wrong with Sociology. Answers included increased fragmentation of the discipline, and the lack of an identifiable cumulative core of sociological knowledge. This paper examines many of the claims made by the contributors to the June 1994Sociological Forum, reframes their arguments, and by placing debates regarding the problems in sociology in a broader perspective, identifies many of the recent advances made by the discipline. Focusing on such notable contributions to the field as feminist and postmodern scholarship, we locate the positive side of multiple perspective research.Feminist Scholars in Sociology is a collective of researchers and teachers at the University of Colorado interested in exploring and sharing feminist theory and methodology.     

Toward an Autonomous Sociological Practice Occupation: Friendly Amendments to Turner's Social Engineering Manifesto

While endorsing Turner's view that the various wings of sociology (theorist, methodologist, researcher, and practitioner) need to be better integrated, major revisions to Turner's social engineering manifesto are suggested, including (1) dropping his negative caricatures of the various wings of sociology, (2) giving greater recognition to the uses already made of sociology, (3) moving away from the traditional positivistic models of science and practice, toward a more open, eclectic one that views theory and practice as independent activities that are both enriched through strong interaction, (4) considering the need for an autonomous sociological practice occupation, (5) inventing or selecting an alternative expression for social engineering because of the heavy, negative baggage it carries.     

Social Defenses Against Organizational Learning

It is argued that for organizational learning to occur maladaptive social defenses within the organization have to be altered. The origins of the concept of social defenses are traced through the work of Jaques and Menzies. A new concept of system domain, and related concepts of system domain fabric, and system domain defenses, are proposed in order to account for the difficulties in sustaining organizational change in organizations that share a similar primary task. Organizational learning is defined as occurring when there is co-evolution of organizational container and contained. The article distills variables from three successful consultancy/action research projects which are characteristic of organizations that are learning, and it is hypothesized that the creation of organizational awareness is necessary for organizational learning to occur.     

From migrant enclaves to mainstream: Reconceptualizing informal economic behavior

The informal economy has developed in sociological theory to refer to clusters of illegal or quasi-illegal activities, usually unreported, by which people in some immigrant or ethnic communities earn income outside regular businesses and jobs. This article first extrapolates a set of characteristics beyond the legal status of such activities that define the informal economy. These provide a richer framework for future research and the basis for identifying informal economic activity in other sectors of the legitimate mainstream economy. In fact, informalization seems to have gone from marginal activities to a mainstream movement to make large sectors more fluid, network-based, and less regulated—the informalized economy. Its characteristics are identified. They overlap with the first set but differ principally in terms of extending Merton's proposition that different social structures exert different pressures to engage in non-conforming behavior. The article concludes with policy implications for fostering greater entrepreneurship in marginal migrant communities, and it suggests new ways for economic sociologists to study network transactions in modern corporations of informal economic activity through generative sociology.     

The Practice of Multimodal Approaches, the Challenge of Cross-Cultural Communication, and the Search for Responses

The development of multimodal approachespresents an opportunity for human beings to increasetheir competence in managing complexity, while at thesame time brings a challenge of cross-culturalcommunication. Some claim that two approaches have beenproposed for tackling this challenge: an approach offrameworks and an approach ofdiscourse. Some go further to contenddropping frameworks and taking up discourse. This paper argues that, if it istrue that there exist these two approaches, neither theframeworks nor the discourseapproach alone is sufficient. It is suggested thatresearchers and practitioners may be better equipped byparticipating in discourses with and among frameworks.Employing three metaphors, this paper proposes that, inthe way force-fields andconstellations require and imply each other, both frameworks anddiscourse are necessary for human beings to act as aPeircian fiber-cable in socialproblem-solving.Requests for reprints should be addressed to Zhichang Zhu, Department of Information Systems, Lincoln School of Management, Lincoln LN6 7TS, United Kingdom.     

Aging as intracohort differentiation: Accentuation,the Matthew effect,and the life course

Recent contributions of sociologists and others have brought a new awareness and new theoretical understanding of the extent to which human aging and life-course patterns are shaped by social conditions and influenced by social change. Yet the potential of many social processes to account for individual aging patterns remains untapped, because research and theory have focused heavily upon comparisons between cohorts rather than the internal differentiation of cohorts. This paper shows that focusing upon intracohort differentiation over the life course leads to a mobilization of sociological findings whose age-related implications have not been exploited. Using the phenomenon of aged heterogeneity as an illustrative case, it is suggested that intracohort differentiation—operating through macro-level, organizational, and micro-level processes—can explain significant phenomena of aging previously neglected by theory, or else assumed to be psychological in origin. These processes specify Merton's Matthew effect. Implications for biological aging and for research are briefly discussed.     

Social differentiation and organic solidarity: Thedivision of labor revisited

This paper argues for the classicity of Durkheim's first book: the innovative way viewing the compatibility of social order and individual autonomy; his sensitive perception of uneasiness with regards to the crisis of anomie; the lucid sociological account, especially the tripartite explanation of the division of labor in terms of its functioning, emergence, and consequences; and the conceptualization of the problem of order—i.e., the relationship of differentiation and integration. In all of these respects, Durkheim's book is a classic. Yet classical neither means original nor flawless. This is shown with respect to the relationship of division of labor and organic solidarity by looking at the historical debate on the division of labor, by elucidating mechanical and organic solidarity, and by carving out some of the problems inside organic solidarity.     

Predatory,developmental, and other apparatuses: A comparative political economy perspective on the Third World state

Disappointment over the contributions of Third World state apparatuses to industrial transformation and the increasing intellectual dominance of neoutiliarian paradigms in the social science has made if fashionable to castigate the Third World state as predatory and rent seeking. This paper argues for a more differentiated view, one that connects differences in performance to differences in state structure. The incoherent absolutist domination of the klepto-patrimonial Zairian state are contrasted to the embedded autonomy of the East Asian developmental state. Then the internal structure and external ties of an intermediate state — Brazil — are analyzed in relation to both polar types. The comparative evidence suggests that the efficacy of the developmental state depends on a meritocratic bureaucracy with a strong sense of corporate identity and a dense set of institutionalized links to private elites.     

Toward a political economy of crime

Summary As Gouldner and Fredrichs have recently pointed out, social science generally, and sociology in particular is in the throes of a paradigm revolution. Predictably, criminology is both a reflection of and a force behind this revolution.The energing paradigm in criminology is one which emphasizes social conflict-particularly conflicts of social class interests and values. The paradigm which is being replaced is one where the primary emphasis was on consensus, and within which deviance or crime was viewed as an aberration shared by some minority. This group had failed to be properly socialized or adequately integrated into society or, more generally, had suffered from social disorganization.The shift in paradigm means more than simply a shift from explaining the same facts with new causal models. It means that we stretch our conceptual framework and look to different facets of social experience. Specifically, instead of resorting inevitably to the normative system, to culture or to socio-psychological experiences of individuals, we look instead to the social relations created by the political and economic structure. Rather than treating society as a full-blown reality (reifying it into an entity with its own life), we seek to understand the present as a reflection of the economic and political history that has created the social relations which dominate the moment we have selected to study.The shift means that crime becomes a rational response of some social classes to the realities of their lives. The state becomes an instrument of the ruling class enforcing laws here but not there, according to the realities of political power and economic conditions.There is much to be gained from this re-focusing of criminological and sociological inquiry. However, if the paradigmatic revolution is to be more than a mere fad, we must be able to show that the new paradigm is in fact superior to its predecessor. In this paper I have tried to develop the theoretical implications of a Marxian model of crime and criminal law, and to assess the merits of this paradigm by looking at some empirical data. The general conclusion is that the Marian paradigm provides a long neglected but fruitful approach to the study of crime and criminal law.     

Teaching Sociological Practice: Starting with Something Special

A scholar-practitioner might want to decide what concept, value, or framework in sociological practice is particularly important for students to know at the very beginning of a course. This special emphasis approach is detailed using four examples: cultural competence in a course on mediation skills; humanism in courses or presentations on social theory, ethics, social planning, or intervention; participatory action research in a social science research course; and empowerment in intervention, community, social planning, or social policy courses. Clinical and applied sociologists are invited to consider an up front and personal approach in at least some of their courses and to choose and explicitly emphasize, in their own special way, an important value, concept, or perspective at the beginning of a course.     

Beyond the nature/society divide: Learning to think about a mountain

Sociological efforts to understand environment-society relationships fall primarily into four conceptual categories. The first three, involving analytical separation, analytical primacy, and balanced dualism, all draw distinctions between biophysical and social aspects of human experience, with subsequent analyses being based on thesea priori distinctions. The fourth or constructivist approach questions this naturalized dichotomy, calling attention instead to mutual contingency or conjoint constitution: What we take to be physical facts are likely to be strongly shaped by social construction processes, and at the same time, what we take to be strictly social will often have been shaped in part by taken-for-granted realities of the physical world. Technology offers important opportunities for tracing these interconnections, being an embodiment of both the physical and the social. The point is illustrated with a long-term historical analysis of a specific physiographic feature—a mountain—that has undergone little overtphysical change over the centuries, but has undergone repeated changes in its social meanings and uses. Few of the changes would have been possible in the absence of the mountain's physiographic characteristics; similarly, few would have occurred in the absence of changing sociocultural definitions and possibilities. The challenge for sociology is not just to recognize the importance of both the physical and the social factors, and certainly not to argue over the relative importance of the two, but to recognize the extent to which what we take to be physical and social factors can be conjointly constituted.The paper's subtitle is intended as a tribute to Aldo Leopold and to one of his most famous essays (1949).     

The social composition of the Communist nomenklatura: A comparison of Russia,Poland, and Hungary

Conclusion Reflecting, in conclusion, upon the significance of our inquiry into the social origins of the nomenklatura, we suggest that the main reason the term nomenklatura remains a loaded one in East European political discourse is that it raises the question of what the Communist period in East Europe meant, and what it might mean now. Was Communism an artificial break in the organic history of these societies, a history that now resumes? Or, were Communist institutions deeply embedded in the social logic of East European development in ways that mean the Communist legacy will endure into postcommunism? Our usage of the term upper class was calculated precisely to capture this notion of embeddedness. We argue that in some East European countries, most notably Russia, and probably Hungary as well, where the Communist elite became an organic component of the emerging social order as an upper class, it is not enough to ask if the Communistelites have reproduced or circulated. Whether an upper class existed, and to what degree, forms the class context of personnel changes: a lot of circulation at the individual level, for example, may mean nothing but the reproduction of privileges and advantages institutionalized during the Communist period via the upper class. Reproduction on the individual level, on the other hand, may indicate precisely the opposite; that an upper class did not form and therefore nomenklatura members were unable to enjoy such institutionalized mechanisms during the transition to postcommunism. To put it in the language of our introduction: to answer the question of whether the Communists are still in power, one has first to determine what kind of a social order Communism was in each country. It was these different social orders, comprising concrete groups and group identities, as distinct from the mechanisms of surplus allocation or the individuals who staffed them, which may have been left intact through the post-Communist transition.     

Sociological research and social policy: The case of family violence

Articles in sociological journals on physical and sexual assault within the family show that research on family violence has grown exponentially since 1970, despite the fact that evidence indicates no increase in family violence. The paper suggests that this extraordinary growth in research is explained by changes in American society and in sociology as a discipline. The experience of the Family Research Laboratory at the University of New Hampshire is used to examine the interrelation of family violence research with social movements, and some pervasive and difficult aspects of these interrelationships, including the role of values in research, the selective use of research findings, and the involvement of the mass media in efforts to promote application of sociological research.Revised version of a presidential address presented to the Eastern Sociological Society in Providence, Rhode Island, April 13, 1991.     

The Tyranny of the Customer and the Cost of Consumerism: An Analysis Using Systems and Psychoanalytic Approaches to Groups and Society

This paper argues that an organizationaldiscourse on consumerism is replacing a prior discourseof dependency. This discourse encourages, and isencouraged by, economic rationales for behavior and ismarked by the collapse of many complex societal rolesinto the simpler category of customer.Moreover, practices emergent from consumerism andeconomic rationalism often act as organizational andsocial defences against anxieties about theuncertainties and changes occurring in a worldincreasingly dominated by global markets where thecustomer is sovereign. Six workinghypotheses are proposed to explain the operation of these new socialdefences. Evidence in support of these hypotheses comesfrom collaborative action research projects in which theauthor is involved. The argument moves toward a consideration of the new consumerprovider pair which, it is proposed, has becomea major signifier within the consumer discourse andwhich might be considered as a transitional pair indealing with widespread organizationalchange.     

Braudel's ecological perspective

Fernand Braudel, a leading figure in theAnnales school of French historiography, employed principles and practices from several social science disciplines in his historical studies. Significant among these was sociology. Although he did not formally recognize that a major element in his sociological perspective was human ecology, an analysis of his work reveals how extensively he employed an ecological paradigm. His success in using this paradigm demonstrates the utility of the principles of human ecology in historical and comparative studies and suggests strongly that fresh insights into contemporary social systems can be gained by combining Braudel's total history and ecology's holistic approaches.     

The VFW — A case study in the “iron law of oligarchy” and goal displacement

The iron law of oligarchy is applied to the VFW. Using participant observation and qualitative interviews, membership of the VFW is dichotomized into a leadership oligarchy and a drinking membership. Opinions of members of the two groups about the purposes of the organization and about each other are documented. An historical analysis traces the change in organizational goals over time from promoting nationalism, fraternalism, and special benefits for members to political advocacy of veterans' rights.     

The invisibility of qualitative sociology in Sweden

Summary The special situation of Swedish qualitative sociology may reflect the implacable and antagonistic attitude of the quantitative sociological establishment which in practice controls all research funds and all power in the universities. To try for a scientific career as a purely qualitative sociology is still very risky in Sweden. This situation, together with the alliance between positivists and Marxists, helps explain the severe obstacles facing the formation of a qualitative alternative.Interestingly, however, there has always been a segment of Swedish sociologists skeptical of quantitative sociology, a segment which may be growing. But, lacking a qualitative tradition, regarded with suspicion by Marxists, and stopped in their career by the quantitative sociologists who have academic power, most potential qualitative sociologists end up trying to combine qualitative and quantitative methods. Thus, the qualitative sociology that does emerge is an out-growth of criticism of quantitative methodology rather than a truly independent alternative.This paper has been edited extensively by Shulamit Reinharz.