Agency,reflexivity and risk: cosmopolitan,neurotic or prudential citizen?

The purpose of this paper is to critically examine the turn to risk within sociology and to survey the relationship between structure and agency as conceived by popular strands of risk theorizing. To this end, we appraise the risk society, culture of fear and governmentality perspectives and we consider the different imaginings of the citizen constructed by each of these approaches. The paper goes on to explore what each of these visions of citizenship implies for understandings of the structure/agency dynamic as it pertains to the question of reflexivity. In order to transcend uni‐dimensional notions of citizenship and to reinvigorate sociological debates about risk, we call for conceptual analyses that are contextually rooted. Exampling the importance of knowledge contests around contemporary security threats and warnings of the deleterious effects of pre‐emptive modes of regulation that derive from the ‘risk turn’ within social science, we argue for a more nuanced embrace of reflexivity within risk theorising in order to facilitate a more dynamic critique of the images of citizenship that such theorizing promotes.     

A view from above: The evolving sociological landscape

How has sociology evolved over the last 40 years? In this paper, we examine networks built on thousands of sociology-relevant papers to map sociology’s position in the wider social sciences and identify changes in the most prominent research fronts in the discipline. We find first that sociology seems to have traded centrality in the field of social sciences for internal cohesion: sociology is central, but not nearly as well bounded as neighboring disciplines such as economics or law. Internally, sociology appears to have moved away from research topics associated with fundamental social processes and toward social-problems research. We end by discussing strategies for extending this work to wider science production networks.     

The question of mathematical social theory revisited: Some methodological considerations

Methodologically, the most advanced social science discipline is considered economics, especially its neoclassical version. A number of practitioners in the other social sciences, especially sociology and political science, perceive economics as a scientific exemplar in methodological (and theoretical) terms. This methodological exemplar has been, particularly in the last decades, attempted to emulate by some of these social scientists. The outcome of this emulation, by adopting and extending its methods, of neoclassical economics in parts (but not all) of sociology, political science, and elsewhere has been rational choice theory as a general social paradigm. This paper tries to show that many misapplications of the methodology of neoclassical economics in rational choice theory have ensued from such methodological emulation. That neoclassical economics does not necessarily contain or lead to a mathematical rational choice model is the core argument of this paper. The paper fills in a gap created by the current literature’s focus on the methodological bases of mathematical rational choice theory in neoclassical economics.     

Sociology's misfortune: disciplines, interdisciplinarity and the impact of audit culture

This paper is about tendencies to the subversion of sociology as a discipline. It connects external factors of the wider socio-political environment of higher education in the UK, especially those associated with the audit culture and new systems of governance, with the internal organization of the discipline. While the environment is similar for all social science subjects, the paper argues that there are specific consequences for sociology because of characteristics peculiar to the discipline. The paper discusses these consequences in terms of the changing relationship between sociology and the growing interdisciplinary area of applied social studies as a form of 'mode 2 knowledge'. It argues that while sociology 'exports' concepts, methodologies and personnel it lacks the internal disciplinary integrity of other 'exporter' disciplines, such as economics, political science and anthropology. The consequence is an increasingly blurred distinction between sociology as a discipline and the interdisciplinary area of applied social studies with a potential loss of disciplinary identity. The paper concludes with a discussion of how this loss of identity is associated with a reduced ability to reproduce a critical sensibility within sociology and absorption to the constraints of audit culture with its preferred form of mode 2 knowledge.     

Theorizing in sociology and social science: turning to the context of discovery

Since World War II methods have advanced very quickly in sociology and social science, while this has not been the case with theory. In this article I suggest that one way of beginning to close the gap between the two is to focus on theorizing rather than on theory. The place where theorizing can be used in the most effective way, I suggest, is in the context of discovery. What needs to be discussed are especially ways for how to develop theory before hypotheses are formulated and tested. To be successful in this, we need to assign an independent place to theorizing and also to develop some basic rules for how to theorize. An attempt is made to formulate such rules; it is also argued that theorizing can only be successful if it is done in close unison with observation in what is called a prestudy. Theorizing has turned into a skill when it is iterative, draws on intuitive ways of thinking, and goes beyond the basic rules for theorizing.     

Paradigms for analysis of social institutions: A case for sociological institutionalism

This paper makes a case for sociological institutionalism, particularly its Veblenian variant or connection. This is attempted against a background of the surge of renewed interest in analyzing institutions within modern social science, especially economics and sociology. This is indicated by the emergence of the new institutional economics as the (modified) neoclassical approach to institutions and the revival of economic sociology with its conception of the institutional embeddedness of the economy, respectively. Still, many pertinent differences between economic and sociological institutionalism are overlooked or minimized in the current literature. By exploring such differences, the paper helps span a gap in the literature in which comparative analyses of economic and sociological approaches to institutions are rare.     

Before theory comes theorizing or how to make social science more interesting

The basic argument in this article is that sociology and social science more generally are today severely hampered by the lack of attention being paid to theory. Methods – qualitative as well as quantitative methods – have proven to be very useful in practical research (as opposed to theory); and as a result they dominate modern social science. They do not, however, do the job that belongs to theory. One way to redress the current imbalance between methods and theory, it is suggested, would be to pay more attention to theorizing, that is, to the actual process that precedes the final formulation of a theory; and in this way improve theory. Students of social science are today primarily exposed to finished theories and are not aware of the process that goes into the production and design of a theory. Students need to be taught how to construct a theory in practical terms (‘theorizing’); and one good way to do so is through exercises. This is the way that methods are being taught by tradition; and it helps the students to get a hands‐on knowledge, as opposed to just a reading knowledge of what a theory is all about. Students more generally need to learn how to construct a theory while drawing on empirical material. The article contains a suggestion for the steps that need to be taken when you theorize. Being trained in what sociology and social science are all about – an important precondition! – students may proceed as follows. You start out by observing, in an attempt to get a good empirical grip on the topic before any theory is introduced. Once this has been done, it may be time to name the phenomenon; and either turn the name into a concept as the next step or bring in some existing concepts in an attempt to get a handle on the topic. At this stage one can also try to make use of analogies, metaphors and perhaps a typology, in an attempt to both give body to the theory and to invest it with some process. The last element in theorizing is to come up with an explanation; and at this point it may be helpful to draw on some ideas by Charles Peirce, especially his notion of abduction. Before having been properly tested against empirical material, according to the rules of the scientific community, the theory should be considered unproven. Students who are interested in learning more about theorizing may want to consult the works of such people as Everett C. Hughes, C. Wright Mills, Ludwig Wittgenstein and James G. March. Many of the issues that are central to theorizing are today also being studied in cognitive science; and for those who are interested in pursuing this type of literature, handbooks represent a good starting point. The article ends by arguing that more theorizing will not only redress the balance between theory and methods; it will also make sociology and social science more interesting.     

Theoretical stances and environmental debates: Reconciling the physical and the symbolic

Several sociologists arc currently debating the relationship of sociology to the physical environment. Their debates beg a question of more general importance to sociology: How do we organize our thinking about phenomena that are at once physical or material and symbolic or ideal? Our intention is not to add another voice in favor of or opposed to theorizing material, physical, or organic characteristics, but to examine the process of thinking about environments and more generally the realist-idealist divide. Environment (like the body) is unlike typical social science concepts in so far as it is both physical and social. If, for example, status and role are purely social concepts, environment is always more than social. I low do sociologists approach what is always more than social in the study of physical environments? Theorizing environments, we propose, is fashioned by the analytic stance of the investigator as legislative, interpretive, or symbolic realist. The strengths and weaknesses of these stances are discussed, and throughout our discussion empirical work representing each ol them is introduced. A final inquiry examines how sociologists can approach these three stances. Two strategies are identified: to assume each stance mirrors the environment as it actually exists or assume the stances are terminologies for exploring various combinations of the physical-symbolic properties ol environments. A brief plea is made for the second strategy.     

The body in sociology: tensions inside and outside sociological thought

The human body has in recent years become a ‘hot’ topic in sociology, not just in empirical research but also in sociological theorizing. In the latter context, the body has been variously a resource for broadening the parameters of traditional sociological thought deriving from the nineteenth century, and for overturning that paradigm and fundamentally reorienting the assumptions and concepts of sociological thinking. Attempts to abandon the old paradigm and foster a new one through the means of thinking about bodies are many and manifold, and in this paper we trace out the intricate history of moves towards a ‘corporeal sociology’. We identify the dilemmas that have attended these developments, especially as concerns the ways in which new modes of thinking sociologically have tended to founder over the classical sociological dichotomy between social structure and social action. Through tracing out the various moves and counter‐moves within this field, we identify a central contradiction that affects all contemporary sociological practice, not just that dealing with the body: an oscillation between judging the utility of conceptual tools in terms of criteria derived from the discipline of Cultural Studies, and evaluating the arguments created by those tools on the basis of the incompatible criteria of classical sociology. The paper challenges sociologists to choose one set of criteria or the other, for sociological practice cannot be based on both such antagonistic paradigms.     

Max weber's vision of economic sociology

Max Weber's economic sociology is usually associated with The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (1904–1905), but in this paper I show that what Weber himself called his “Wirtschaftssoziologie”, or economic sociology, looked quite different and was something that he developed during the last year of his life, 1919–1920. I present and outline Weber's (later) economic sociology and pay particular attention to his ideas of “economic (social) action” and of the three different forms of capitalism (rational capitalism, political capitalism and traditional capitalism). I also show that to Weber, economic sociology was part of a more general science of economics that he often referred to as “social economics” (“Sozialökonomik”). The paper ends with a comparison between the paradigm of economic sociology, which can be found in the work of Max Weber, and the paradigm of what is known as New Economic Sociology.     

Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Corruption

Corruption has become one of the most popular topics in the social scientific disciplines. However, there is a lack of interdisciplinary communication about corruption. Models developed by different academic disciplines are often isolated from each other. The purpose of this paper is to review several major approaches to corruption and draw them closer to each other. Most studies of corruption fall into three major categories: (i) rational‐actor models where corruption is viewed as resulting from cost/benefit analysis of individual actors; (ii) structural models that focus on external forces that determine corruption; and (iii) relational models that emphasize social interactions and networks among corrupt actors. Focusing on actors' behavior and the social context, this article explains corruption concepts taken from sociology, economics, organization studies, political science, social anthropology, and social psychology.     

Pierre Bourdieu: theorizing the digital

ABSTRACT

Pierre Bourdieu is known for his research in the areas of education and cultural stratification that led to a number of theoretical contributions informing the social sciences. Bourdieu’s interrelated concepts of field, capital, and habitus have become central in many approaches to inequality and stratification across the social sciences. In addition, we argue that Bourdieu’s ideas also feature in what is increasingly known as ‘digital sociology.’ To underscore this claim, we explore the ways in which Bourdieu’s ideas continue to have a major impact on social science research both on and with digital and Internet-based technologies. To do so, we offer a review of both Bourdieusian theorizing of the digital vis-à-vis both research on the social impacts of digital communication technologies and the application of digital technologies to social science research methods. We contend that three interconnected features of Bourdieu’s sociology have allowed his approach to flourish in the digital age: (1) his theories’ inseparability from the practice of empirical research; (2) his ontological stance combining realism and social constructionism; and (3) his familiarity with concepts developed in other disciplines and participation in interdisciplinary collaborative projects. We not only reason that these three factors go some way in accounting for Bourdieu’s influence in many sociological subfields, but we also suggest that they have been especially successful in positioning Bourdieusian sociology to take advantage of opportunities associated with digital communication technologies.     

What is sociological about economic sociology? Uncertainty and the embeddedness of economic action

Conclusion This article argues that the problem of uncertainty represents the central limitation of efficiency-based approaches to the explanation and prediction of economic outcomes. The problem of uncertainty reintroduces the Hobbesian problem of order into economics and makes it possible to connect questions of economic decision-making with social theory. The emphasis lies not, as in the behavioral theories of the Carnegie School, in the influence of uncertainty on the actual decision process, but in those social devices that actors rely on in decision-making, i.e., that structure the situation for the agents. If agents cannot anticipate the benefits of an investment, optimizing decisions become impossible, and the question opens up how intentionally rational actors reach decisions under this condition of uncertainty. This provides a systematic starting point for economic sociology. Studies in economic sociology that argue from different theoretical perspectives point to the significance of uncertainty and goal ambiguity. This contribution reflects theoretically why economic sociology can develop a promising approach by building upon these insights. It becomes understandable why culture, power, institutions, social structures, and cognitive processes are important in modern market economies. But it should be equally emphasized that the maximizing paradigm in economics will not be dethroned without a causal theory of the relationship of intentional rationality and social rigidities.     

Feeling the Hands of Time: Intersections of Time and Emotion

While the fields of the sociology of time and the sociology of emotion have grown exponentially, missing from the literature is explicit theorizing on the intersections of emotion and time. In this review article, we begin by examining literature that explores both how time (e.g. temporal control, perceived amount) influences emotional responses and how emotions (e.g. emotional intensity, valence) impact perceptions of time. Although such research occurs in a variety of disciplines, much of it fails to look at individuals' active manipulation of time and emotion to produce desired experiences. After discussing the established concepts of emotion work (Hochschild 1979) and time work (Flaherty 2003), we illustrate how two newer concepts – “temporal emotion work” (Lois 2010, 2012) and “emoting time” (Mullaney and Shope 2012) – serve as starting points for thinking about how individuals actively use time in emotion work and emotions in time work. Although much of the thinking to date occurs within the scholarly literature on work and family, we call for more intentional and systematic theorizing about the relationship between time and emotion.     

Economics as a Multi-Paradigmatic Science: the ‘Best Kept Secret’ of Irrational Choice

The article reexamines the prevailing perception of traditional economics as the science of rational choice among contemporary economists and sociologists, especially rational choice theorists. It proposes that conventional economics is not exclusively the theory of rational choice but also one of irrational choices in the economy. The article aims to contribute toward a fuller understanding and appreciation of classical and neoclassical economics, especially among sociologists, as composite rational choice-irrational choice theory and in that sense a multi- rather than single-paradigm science, thus no different from sociology and other social (and physical) sciences. This may be relevant or interesting to sociologists given that their rational choice colleagues, like economists, extol the “virtues" of conventional and modern economics as a single-paradigm, theoretically unified science around “rational choice” and criticize the “vices” of sociology as plagued by competing paradigms and theoretical disunity. The article supports many economic sociologists’ view or intuition of conventional economics as complex rational-irrational choice theory and multi-paradigm science, and disconfirms rational choice theorists’ interpretation and generalization of it as “rational choice theory” only and single-paradigm unified science.     

The discovery of participatory research as a new scientific paradigm: Personal and intellectual accounts

The article presents considerations for the placing of participatory research in the practice of sociology. The changing conditions in contemporary society have compelled social scientists to rethink the way social theory has been conceptualized and has been practiced in relation to social change. Modernist social theory, of which sociology is a prime example, has been imbued with the biases of the Enlightenment that privilege the essentialized male rational actor set above the ordinary people. As a consequence it has produced narratives and practices that are not in the interest of the people, especially those who have been dominated and oppressed. In order to live up to the potential of sociology as a vehicle for the improvement of social conditions, it must include the interest and the wisdom of the people in its researching and theorizing activities. It is argued that participatory research provides an opportunity to follow this course in sociology. Participatory research, it is contended, will lead to a paradigm shift in the social sciences because it is based on an expanded conception of knowledge and because it changes the relationship between the researcher and the researched and between theory and practice. Arguments are drawn from the history of science, critical theory, and postmodernist and feminist critiques. Peter Park is currently on the faculty of the Fielding Institute.     

Locating Gender in Environmental Sociology

Environmental sociology is premised on the inseparability of humans and nature and involves an analytical focus on the place of power and social inequality in shaping human/nonhuman interactions. Our purpose here is to conduct a broad overview of the place of gender in environmental sociology. We review gender‐relevant scholarship within environmental sociology and argue that to date, critical gender theorizing in the sub‐discipline is relatively undeveloped, as evidenced by theory that examines gender without considering power relations. We argue that this represents a shortcoming that should be addressed by future scholarship. In order to inform future critical gender–environment theorizing, we provide a brief review of ecofeminism and note promising examples of scholarship that takes power and inequality seriously when accounting for phenomena of relevance to women and the environment. It is likely that theorizing at the intersection of gender and the environment will become more prevalent given a growing consensus that social justice and equity are precursors to ecological sustainability; environmental sociologists could be the vanguard of critical gender–environment theory.     

Sports Sociology’s Still Untapped Potential

Following up on Zirin’s (2008) challenge that sports sociologists “get off the bench,” and Karen and Washington’s (2001) plea to make sports sociology more central to analyses of social power, this article empirically reviews and assesses the sociology of sports from 1977–2008. Using a sample of 441 articles selected from the three major sports sociology journals during that period, we conclude that sports sociology exhibits a strong and increasing bias toward micro‐level analyses of (for example) how the content of sports frames and constructs the social world. A smaller and shrinking body of work examines more macro‐oriented issues such as the economics and politics of sports, and there seem to be few attempts to meaningfully synthesize these micro and macro orientations. We think this partiality toward micro‐oriented frameworks is rooted in factors unique to sports sociology while also reflecting larger trends within sociology as a whole. As advocates of popularly accessible public sociology, we respectfully suggest that sports sociologists try harder to weave macro analyses into their work, not necessarily replacing micro‐level approaches, but complementing them. We believe that sports sociology is well‐positioned to become a standard bearer for public sociology, but only if it pays more attention to the way organized sports intertwines with the organizational, political, and economic forces that perpetuate and exacerbate social inequality.     

Comparing Varieties of Agency Theory in Economics, Political Science, and Sociology: An Illustration from State Policy Implementation

As rational choice theory has moved from economics into political science and sociology, it has been dramatically transformed. The intellectual diffusion of agency theory illustrates this process. Agency theory is a general model of social relations involving the delegation of authority, and generally resulting in problems of control, which has been applied to a broad range of substantive contexts. This paper analyzes applications of agency theory to state policy implementation in economics, political science, and sociology. After documenting variations in the theory across disciplinary contexts, the strengths and weaknesses of these different varieties of agency theory are assessed. Sociological versions of agency theory, incorporating both broader microfoundations and richer models of social structure, are in many respects the most promising. This type of agency theory illustrates the potential of an emerging sociological version of rational choice theory.