When theory meets methods: the naissance of computer assisted corporate interlock research

In this article, we study the emergence of computer aided network analysis as an example of ‘Mertonian’ multiple discovery. Computer assisted quantitative network analysis emerged around 1970 and small groups of researchers in different universities, who were independent of each other and looking for the right concepts and computer programs to implement graph theory in social analysis, first applied it to corporate interlock networks. We show how mathematical graph theory provided a toolbox for systematic network analysis and that simultaneously in the Netherlands and the United States this toolbox found an application in the study of corporate power. A historical narrative covers the three main centres in which large‐scale corporate network analysis emerged – Amsterdam, California and Stony Brook. For each centre, we provide a sketch of the people involved, the tools they used, and the motivations that brought them to this topic. Our analysis makes clear that one cannot understand the emergence of computer aided network analysis without considering the personal and often political motivations of those who engaged in the first board interlock studies. Insurgent students of political science and sociology pushed for a research agenda on corporate power and found support from scholars who were keen to develop innovative network analysis methods. Hence, corporate network analysis became a legitimate field of research.     

Critical theory and electronic media

The revolution in the method of production in industry and agriculture, likewise necessitated a revolution in the general conditions of the social process of production, that is to say in the means of communication and transport. In a society whose pivots ... were, first, small-scale àgriculture, with its subsidiary home industries, and, secondly, urban handicraft, the means of communication and transport were utterly inadequate to the requirements of the manufacturing period, with its extended division of social labor, its concentration of the means of labor and of the workers, and its colonial markets; communications and transport, therefore had to be revolutionized, and were in fact revolutionized.

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Critical race theory in England: impact and opposition

ABSTRACT

This paper examines the development of Critical Race Theory (CRT) in England, in terms of impact and opposition. Since the early 2000s CRT has become a significant intellectual space for race-conscious scholars and activists in England. The current paper traces the growth of CRT in the field of education (where it has had the greatest impact since its arrival). It identifies the academic research, writing, networks and events that have established CRT in England. It discusses the substantive concerns of English CRT and how these are both similar to and distinct from CRT as developed in the USA. In England, CRT has also met with opposition. This paper examines the discourses of derision voiced by its antagonists, arguing that much of this antagonism has an atavistic quality, being rooted in long-standing antipathy towards race-conscious social analyses.     

The rise of the Latin American far-right explained: dependency theory meets uneven and combined development

ABSTRACT

Latin America is once again passing through a crisis. The so-called ‘pink tide’ of progressive governments gave place to a brown wave of peripheral-fascism. Short-range explanations for the ‘ebbing’ of the pink tide abound in the literature. They focus on the shortcomings of moderate-left administrations, failing to account for the cyclical nature of capitalist crises and for the authoritarian character of the administrations now coming to power. In search of a comprehensive, long-range explanation, this paper goes back to the core question posed by dependency theory half a century ago: is capitalist development even possible in Latin America? The key to answer this question – a concept of development that captures non-converging transformation – was not available to seminal dependency writers such as Frank, Marini, Bambirra and Dos Santos. In this paper, I suggest that the concept of uneven and combined development (UCD) allows for a renewed engagement with dependency's core problem. Conversely, the dependency literature can enrich the analysis of UCD with valuable mid-range concepts, such as ‘super-exploitation’, ‘dominated-dominant’ classes and ‘peripheral fascism’. After establishing the theoretical basis for a political economy of UCD, the paper illustrates the potentialities of this comprehensive theoretical perspective by providing and alternative narrative of the end of the pink tide and the rise of the brown wave in Latin America.     

Rethinking development theory: Insights from East Asia and Latin America

Development theory dealing with the highly industrialized countries of East Asia and Latin America has foundered in terms of its ability to generalize. The theories and concepts often are biased because they are derived from a selective and uneven reading of evidence from the two regions. This paper outlines the perceptions and misconceptions of a variety of theoretical perspectives on development, and then presents cross-regional evidence from East Asia and Latin America that suggests the need for a reformulation and synthesis of some of these earlier approaches. This theoretical synthesis focuses on three related themes: (1) the declining significance of industrialization; (2) the position of core and peripheral capital in commodity chains and export/marketing networks, which are becoming key units of analysis in the contemporary global manufacturing system; and (3) a new framework for differentiating the roles of the newly industrializing countries in the world economy.     

The fallacy of the lump of labour theory: Evidence for Latin America

In a context of population ageing, this article analyses the “lump of labour” theory using empirical evidence from Latin America. Instead of finding a crowding-out effect, estimations using a fixed effects model on a panel of annual data drawn from household surveys in 11 countries between 2002 and 2019 suggest a positive correlation between the employment rates of older adults and young people. Additionally, results show a positive association between the labour incomes of older and young workers. These findings could indicate that an expansion in the employment of older adults maintains economic growth and, therefore, a greater demand for labour, which could be supplied by young people.     

An Underestimated Alternative: America and the Limits of “Critical Theory”

The main goal of this paper is to examine the intellectual and biographical reasons why the theorists of the Frankfurt school did not embrace pragmatism. This goal is pursued in four areas: (1) the epistemological area of the debate about subjective and objective “reason”—here the misleading character of Horkheimer's and Mar-cuse's writings on pragmatism is demonstrated; (2) the area of political theory—here the tension between the American democratic tradition and a quasi-Marxist functionalism is exposed; (3) the area of social psychology—here the inability of the Frankfurt school to incorporate symbolic interactionism becomes evident; (4) the elitist relationship to American mass culture. The paper ends with brief remarks on Habermas' ambivalent position between pragmatism and “Critical Theory” and with a perspective of transcending this ambivalence.     

Critical social work and competency practice: a proposal to bridge theory and practice in the classroom

Social work education in North America is increasingly focused on competency criteria and micro skills training for future practitioners. Market forces are transforming the nature of social work practice in Canada, and social work regulators are concerned about the lack of evidence-based competencies in social work education. Since the Controlled Act of Psychotherapy was proclaimed in 2017, social work practitioners are in a position to offer psychotherapy services; as a result, universities are under greater pressure to shift to competency-based learning that meets the requirements of a regulated profession. This has raised concerns about the narrowing focus on critical social work theory in preparing students for practice. The divergence between anti-oppressive and direct practice schools is widening with the result that many students have difficulty bridging the gap between critical theory and competency-based practice. This paper attempts to integrate both traditions by offering students a course that directly links critical analysis of structural barriers and client centered interventions. The course is part of a developing critical competency curriculum that focuses on methods of facilitating empowerment and change in the helping process by articulating key relational components between service user and practitioner from a critical-competency perspective.     

How to Become a Forgotten Intellectual: Intellectual Movements and the Rise and Fall of Erich Fromm

The ideas and reputational history of German psychoanalyst and sociologist Erich Fromm are examined as a case study in the sociology of knowledge that explores how intellectual boundaries are constructed within and between disciplines in the modem academy, psychoanalytic institutes, and the journal and book reading publics and among the intellectual elite. The rise and fall of Erich Fromm is narrated using the foil of Michèle Lament's analysis of how Derrida became a dominant philosopher and influence on literary criticism. The example of how Fromm became a forgotten intellectual is used to examine various models of how reputations are constructed. My analysis highlights the importance of the sectlike culture of psychoanalysis and Marxism as well as the boundary-maintaining processes of academic disciplines, schools of thought, and intellectual traditions, and suggests a research agenda on orthodoxies and revisionism within intellectual movements more generally.     

Suicidality and Sexual Orientation in Five Continents: Asia, Australia, Europe, North America, and South America

This study examined the relation between suicidality and sexual orientation in an intercontinental sample (Asia, Australia, Europe, North America, and South America). Participants responded to a survey hosted on the Internet Website of an international news organization. Categorical analyses compared homosexual and bisexual respondents' history of suicide attempts and suicide ideations to those of heterosexual respondents, by total sample, males only, and females only. A relation between male sexual orientation and suicide attempts was found for every continent except Europe (odds ratio [OR] 1.5; 95% confidence interval [CI] = 0.3, 6.9). A relation between female sexual orientation and suicide attempts was not found in any continent except North America (OR = 2.1; 95% CI % 1.7, 2.5). These data provide preliminary evidence of intercontinental variation in the relation between suicidality and sexual orientation.     

Critical realism in empirical research: employing techniques from grounded theory methodology

Whilst critical realism (CR) is becoming recognised as a significant meta-theory for the social sciences, there is little guidance on how to produce research which is consistent with its ontological and epistemological assumptions. This article contributes to an emerging discussion about how CR can be applied, drawing on an example of a qualitative study that has sought to understand and explain the causes of unmet need amongst a group of rural labourers in Tunisia . Using this study as an illustration, I show how techniques from grounded theory methodology can be usefully harnessed in the data collection, coding and analysis stages of a research project that adopts a CR philosophical and methodological framework. I illustrate how an ‘abductive’ variant of grounded theory allowed drawing on pre-existing theoretical knowledge throughout the research stages; whilst open and axial coding techniques could be harnessed for identifying and postulating CR causal mechanisms. This article should be of interest to students and researchers involved with grounded theory and applied critical realism.     

Sunrise,America, and the Other Side

Abstract

The following essay employs the metaphor of 'the other side' in order to explore the symbolic relationship between America and Europe in F.W. Murnau's Sunrise (1927). The essay argues that the film's symbolic stress on the dichotomy of Europe/America and there/not there rearticulates the role of the US in the immigrant imagination, redefining it in terms of the supernatural, almost deathly nature of early film. The journey west has long been equated with the mythical passage toward death, and in a similar way early responses to the mechanics of cinema also stressed the idea of film as phantasmal projections of this 'other side', a spectral realm haunted by ghosts, apparitions, and shadows. The paper thus positions theoretical notions of negative space (dealing in particular with Jean-Paul Sartre's notions of presence and absence) alongside the notion of the Atlantic crossing as a synonym for emptiness and vacuity, in order to provide a provocative interpretation both of Murnau's film and of the role of America in the European mindset.     

Organization in the crowd: peer production in large-scale networked protests

How is crowd organization produced? How are crowd-enabled networks activated, structured, and maintained in the absence of recognized leaders, common goals, or conventional organization, issue framing, and action coordination? We develop an analytical framework for examining the organizational processes of crowd-enabled connective action such as was found in the Arab Spring, the 15-M in Spain, and Occupy Wall Street. The analysis points to three elemental modes of peer production that operate together to create organization in crowds: the production, curation, and dynamic integration of various types of information content and other resources that become distributed and utilized across the crowd. Whereas other peer-production communities such as open-source software developers or Wikipedia typically evolve more highly structured participation environments, crowds create organization through packaging these elemental peer-production mechanisms to achieve various kinds of work. The workings of these ‘production packages’ are illustrated with a theory-driven analysis of Twitter data from the 2011–2012 US Occupy movement, using an archive of some 60 million tweets. This analysis shows how the Occupy crowd produced various organizational routines, and how the different production mechanisms were nested in each other to create relatively complex organizational results.