A Multiple Perspective Approach to Using Micro Theory

This paper examines attempts to synthesize three micro-level sociological theories, namely symbolic interaction, exchange theory, and the construction of social reality. The author argues that although these perspectives are not based on totally incompatable assumptions, previous attempts to synthesize have not been useful in directing the course of research. An alternative to theoretical synthesis, using multiple perspectives, is suggested, and examples of multiple paradigm use are presented.     

Shaping the zeitgeist: Influencing social processes as the center of gravity for strategic communications in the twenty-first century

We face new dynamics in the world, new problems. Dynamics of social change and the social construction of reality lie at the root of both contemporary security problems and of a clear understanding of the role of strategic communications in resolving them. Success in the current environment is not defined by military victory but by building peaceful social orders, and defeating opponents in the psychological and sociological domain. To understand the role of strategic communications in this new security environment requires an alternative paradigm of sufficient coherence to replace, or supplement, the traditional state-centered security paradigm. We argue that using social change as an alternative paradigm, framed around the theoretical vocabulary of the social construction of reality, generates insights into the role of strategic communications in supporting foreign policy and national security objectives. These are explored in eight lessons learned from our experience of implementing communications for social change in conflict environments.     

WORKING WITH PIERRE BOURDIEU IN THE TOURISM FIELD MAKING A CASE FOR ‘THIRD WORLD’ TOURISM

Tourism in the ‘third world’ is seen as a consumption of culture, and attempts at investigating it within a cultural studies framework have not adequately addressed key social and cultural aspects. Bourdieu's analytical legacy which is significant as a cultural legacy is largely misappropriated. This article, reviewing recent research in cultural studies in tourism, highlights and critically interrogates the treatment Bourdieu's theory has received in tourism studies. Arguing that Bourdieu's sociological framework is often misinterpreted, this article sketches out the key components of a Bourdieusian approach to a cultural analysis of tourism. Reflexive return in tourism research remains largely unexplored. This conceptual paper emphasizes the significance of working with Bourdieusian methodological approach and explores the possibilities of employing a reflexive sociology in tourism studies. The paper further highlights the difficulties of pursuing such a theoretical approach and proposes the need to accommodate recent theoretical and empirical challenges to Bourdieu's paradigm.     

What is the Main Significance of Economic for Sociological Theory?

This paper reconsiders classical and neoclassical economics’ significance for or affinity and convergence with sociological theory. The paper identifies certain types or elements of classical and neoclassical economics that are potentially significant or convergent with sociological theory: pure market economics, the economics of society cum the “rational choice model”, and social or sociological economics. First, it argues that as pure economics economic theory’s significance for or affinity and convergence with sociological theory is low because the first is inconsistent with or divergent from the latter, notably theoretical economic sociology. Second, the paper suggests that as the economics of society economic theory’s significance for or affinity and convergence with sociological theory is non-existent or minimal, because the “rational choice model” is missing or an exception within conventional economics. Third, the paper proposes and demonstrates that classical and neoclassical economics’ main significance for or affinity and convergence with sociological theory lies in social economics as its second ingredient, alongside market economics. The paper aims to contribute to a better understanding of the relationship between economic and sociological theory and economics and sociology overall.     

THE SOCIAL LIFE OF PURE SOCIOLOGY

Marshall's (2008 ) critique of Black's (1995, 2000a, 2000b ) pure sociology paradigm reveals his preference for studying the psychological properties of individuals, rather than developing a genuinely sociological framework for studying "social life." The current rejoinder concentrates on four main issues, starting with a discussion of the ontological status of social life as a reality sui generis. The second section deals with the scientific status of pure sociology and clarifies the underlying logic of the explanatory approach. The third part considers the scientific adequacy or validity of pure sociology. Where the intellectual stakes are highest—the theoretical validity of "pure sociology"—Marshall's critique falls flattest: the available evidence overwhelmingly supports the theoretical claims of pure sociologists. By the same token, Marshall fails to demonstrate the utility of psychologizing social life, or how the imputation of psychological variables enhances the explanatory power of purely sociological models. The paper then reveals the hypocrisy of particular aspects of Marshall's critique, as the evidence indicates that he has used some similar elements of theory construction for which he has criticized Black and the pure sociology framework. The conclusion reminds readers of the excitement of pure sociology's mission beyond the futility of irresolvable philosophical quibbles.     

The Family Movement,Bowen Theory,and Theoretical Medicine: A View from the 21st Century

Important changes have occurred in the family movement in the United States since it emerged in the mid‐1950s. Psychiatry supported the movement in its early years, but that changed as psychiatry abandoned the biopsychosocial model and adopted the biological paradigm through the 1970s. This development pushed family and other therapies to the periphery of the discipline. Medicine is dominated by the biological paradigm and cause‐and‐effect thinking. The roots of the medical model go back to Pasteur. In contrast, psychiatry in the United States had been dominated through the 20^th century by psychoanalytic thinking, which rendered the discipline a step‐child to medicine. This and other factors pushed psychiatry to get biological. The change generated a ‘failure of nerve’ in the family movement, abandoning the role of the family in schizophrenia in the face of psychiatry's assertion that all serious mental illnesses had nothing to do with the family. Other important changes separating the family movement from psychiatry occurred as well. Bowen theory is anchored in biology and evolution, but it is not a biological paradigm. Maintaining solid connections to the scientific disciplines are important for keeping the theory an open system. The recent emergence of systems biology and systems medicine could challenge psychiatry's allegiance to the biological paradigm and bring family systems theory centre stage in the discipline. These new disciplines may also arrive at a systems theory of the individual that can be integrated with family theory, powering a paradigm shift in medicine as a whole.     

From Road Rage to Everyday Automotive Incivility: A Routine Activities Approach to Low‐Level Deviance

Classic sociological theory emphasizing human ecology and the convergence of persons in time and space motivated the “routine activities” approach in criminological research. Empirical work in this tradition focuses on predatory offending, and it has rarely been considered as a theoretical basis for the study of more common, low‐level (mostly nonviolent) deviance. Using commonplace “automotive incivility” as a test case, the present work draws on the routine activities approach in precisely this manner to answer recent theoretical calls for an empirical sociology of familiar encounters and situations. Using data from a nationally representative sample of Australians, this article looks at the time/space distribution, situational commonalities, and emotional consequences of vehicular incivilities. Risk factors consistent with the routine activities paradigm include everyday driving activity and microsituations involving mixed speeds, crowded conditions, and blocked flows. Results also suggest that automotive incivility is more likely than other types of incivility to incite feelings of fear and anger.     

Cultural Consumption in the Fine and Popular Arts Realms

In this paper, we review recent sociological research dealing with the consumption of culture produced in the fine and popular arts realms. Most of the initial theoretical developments in the study of culture consumption were intended to explain audience segmentation in the fine arts realm under the 'cultural capital' paradigm developed by Pierre Bourdieu. This paradigm shift has led to the current dominance of the 'omnivore thesis' in the sociology of taste. The consumption of popular culture, however, remained for a long time dominated by the Birmingham 'resistance' and 'subculture' paradigms developed in the 1970s. Recent popular arts consumption research has moved beyond the limitations of the subculture paradigm by incorporating the theoretical legacy of the cultural capital paradigm in order to account for patterns in audience and producer differentiation in popular arts 'scenes'. This has brought the study of popular and fine arts culture consumption under a single conceptual framework after a long period of theoretical disengagement.     

The Shareholder Value Principle: The Governance and Control of Corporations in the United States

In recent decades, maximization of shareholder value has been a dominant business principle in the United States. This article reviews sociological accounts about the emergence, diffusion, and reality of the shareholder value principle. Although mainstream research in law and economics on corporate governance embraces the shareholder value principle and provides theoretical justifications for it, sociologists consider the shareholder value principle to be a product of specific economic, political, and ideological environments. Based on sociological research that reveals normative and political foundations of the shareholder value principle, I argue that the shareholder value principle is far from hegemonic in the contemporary United States. Indeed, faced with shareholder primacy, corporations and top executives have adopted various strategies, such as perfunctory conformity and symbolic acquiescence. The result is a highly volatile and contested system of corporate governance today.     

Critical realism and the dialectic

A prominent strand within both sociological and social theory has been concerned to develop a 'systems approach' with which to explore social life. One of the most original contributions to a systems approach has arisen within critical realism. In particular critical realism demonstrates that it is possible to abstract the causal powers of different objects of analysis to examine their interaction within concrete and contingent 'open systems'. The recent dialectical turn of critical realism develops this systems approach in a much more rigorous manner. However, in this paper I argue that the (dialectical) critical realist mode of abstraction ultimately fails to embed concepts and categories internally within the specific ideological and historical forms of social relations. Or rather, critical realists do not seek to develop concepts that reflect the self-movement of a historical and contradictory essence. This self-movement is what I prefer to call a 'system'. Consequently critical realists are led to separate method from system in theory construction and such a separation leads to a problematic dualist mode of theorizing. I make these observations from a Hegelian-Marxist position.     

End of an orthodoxy? The critique of sociology's view of Marx on class *

In this paper I comment critically on the dominant form of appropriation of Marx's theory of class and the state within what one might call the‘conventional’sociology of class in the post-war period. I argue that the typical mode of interpretation and assimilation has been highly selective and has taken a form that has rendered the proposed theory particularly vulnerable to sociological criticism especially in the light of changes in the structure of capitalist social formations in the twentieth century, although there is no suggestion here that the selectivity has been intentional. I contrast the dominant sociological construction and critique of Marx's theory of classes and the state with an interpretation drawn from recent scholarship, arguing that it is possible to document the contention that most theorems hitherto regarded both as central to Marx's analysis and as particularly susceptible to criticism were actually revised by Marx himself in his maturity as part of a more general process of intellectual formation and theoretical development. Many of these revisions have been widely discussed in debates within the world of Marx scholarship and some have undoubtedly been noticed in sociological interpretations of Marx. However, they have not led to the major overall reinterpretation of Marx's theory of class that is now long overdue.     

Max Weber's Science of Composition

Starting from the recently translated biography of Max Weber by Joachim Radkau, this essay re‐evaluates Weber's “science of reality” in relation to his personality, the cultural context of the early twentieth century, and the position of Weber's thought in the sociological canon. The argument progresses through sequentially enlarged analyses, which propose that Weber's general style of thinking is a type of dissonant composition that places emphasis on the many relationships between cultural reality and the concepts derived from it, and not as much on its content. The logic of such a compositional approach to reality is based on similar principles found in sound and music, which Weber in fact uses in a more latent as well as more active form, to pursue his aim of a style of thinking as “aesthetics of dissonance”. The latter is a sort of “methodological wedge” that pries open the many layers of reality. As such, Weber's “science of reality” is an early “classical” example of a recent and much needed call for a social science as the “art of listening”.     

Consuming the car: anticipation, use and meaning in contemporary youth culture

Drawing on evidence from a recently conducted study of the everyday lives of young people in Manchester, UK, this article considers the place of cars in contemporary youth culture. The article acknowledges the recent beginnings of sociological and social science discussion of cars but concurs with the view that this topic has been much neglected. More specifically the study of young people and personal mobility has been constrained by approaches that emphasise the problematic nature of this phenomena or locate it within a theory of subculture. Taking its cue from recent studies of consumption, this paper offers an alternative theorisation. Refinement of the work on television consumption by Roger Silverstone leads to a discussion of more affluent young people's relationships to cars under three heads: anticipation, use and meaning. It is suggested that car use must be seen in the framework of sociability and networks and that it also critically and suggestively mediates ordinary consumption with imaginative possibilities.     

Yoshida Theory: Its Structure,Criticism and Advancement

Tamito Yoshida, a giant of theoretical sociology, passed away in 2009. Here, I give a concise review of his theoretical achievements, called “Yoshida Theory”, and foresee the future. The main features of Yoshida Theory are the following: information controls resources; there was evolution from the stage of only materials to that of materials controlled by generic information and also to that of materials controlled by symbolic information; the process of information procedures is divided into “to cognize,”“to evaluate” and “to order,” which are distinguished from one another, and from the theoretical standpoint called the “Information Processing Resources Paradigm”; i nformation is maintained as long as it is useful, and when it becomes useless it is selected or expected to be changed. There was much criticism against the theory. The most unrelenting opposition was that it was not a system of explanation in the conventional sense of scientific methodology. It was claimed not to be positive scientific theory because of the logical inconsistency. Yoshida's counter‐criticism was, contrary to his opposites' expectations, that sociological theory ought not to fulfill the criteria to be science. It seemed to support his evolutionalist assertion that the synchronically inconsistent theory will be corrected diachronically and achieve some consistency. The criteria of science themselves should be re‐constructed to thematize the fact that information or program‐controlling society has evolution, he thought. He called it “New Science”; however, the attempt was never completed. It is still our task to clarify whether sociological theory can remain in science or not.     

Public Relations and Symbolic Politics

In German-speaking countries public relations scholars emphasize the role of public relations (PR) in society in their theorizing. These scholars seek to understand PR as a macro-level, or sociological, phenomenon in contrast to the micro-level, or management, emphasis of scholars in the United States. This article builds a sociological theory of PR by comparing it with the practice of symbolic politics as conceptualized in political science. The theory states that both PR and symbolic politics develop and use symbols—signs that influence and guide conceptions—to achieve their purposes. They also rely heavily on journalistic media. Media reality, however, frequently departs from extramedia reality. The difference between these two types of reality makes it possible for symbolic politics and PR to influence the gap and perhaps to separate the symbolic world from the external world. On the other hand, attention is a scarce resource, and increased activity in PR and symbolic politics eventually will have a declining marginal social utility.     

North Central Sociological Association 2012 Ruth and John Useem Plenary Address. Political Renewal: Occupations,Springs, and Tea Parties

Novelty is paramount in the development of sociological theory—so much so that sometimes novelty is attributed even when it does not really exist. The study of social movements is hardly exempt from this problem and at times the craving for newness can become palpable. Despite that desire, however, some have concluded that things really have not changed much over a score of years—at least in terms of the implications for theory—but now, we think the time has finally come. Three recent mobilizations have provided us with something new into which we can sink our collective teeth. The Tea Party, the Arab Spring, and Occupy Wall Street represent changes in the motivations and tactics driving social and political change that can renew the study of protest and collective political influence. These three bursts of political behavior reveal important edges of social movement study even as they exhibit roots in the now classic ideas in the field.     

Charisma: Its Varieties,Preconditions, and Consequences*

This paper explores the preconditions for, the nature of, and the consequences of charisma—actors that must be understood for charisma to he a useful empirical and theoretical concept. Unfortunately, as the first section of this essay demonstrates, due primarily to the influence of certain of Max Weber's discussions of charisma, sociological progress in these areas has been limited. However, drawing on two neglected hints by Weber–that the preconditions for the phenomenon of charisma are extraordinary human needs and that Freud's work can illuminate this field of inquiry–the second section of this essay attempts to correct this state of affairs through an application of the results of much psychoanalytic investigation. It argues that, because extraordinary needs (the preconditions for charisma) are of various types, charisma must be differentiated into four phenomena–omnipotence, excellence, sacredness, and the uncanny–and it then tentatively specifies both their variable immediate and long-range consequences. In so doing, it incorporates systematically many of the widely divergent findings reported in sociological research.     

Alternative Perspectives on Community Impacting: Toward Complementary Theory and Application

Community impact analysis has been limited in applied effectiveness and sociological contribution because of its primary reliance on an ecological system paradigm and the conservative ideology imbedded therein. It is argued that the quality of community impact analysis and similar social change work would be improved by increased concern with matters of theory. Specifically, improvements can come from: (1) use and further development of alternate sociological perspectives appropriate to the impacting topic, especially those perspectives that deal with community and adaptive processes; and (2) empirical determination of the extent to which various theoretical perspectives fit conditions of specific community cases. The concerns of critical and interactionist theory are discussed as alternatives to the dominant structural-functional perspective, and a case is made for blending perspectives consistent with themes of "general systems" theory. This blending incorporates structural concerns, but offers more complete guidance by emphasizing relevant process considerations. Aspects of the "dramaturgical" analogy, applied more broadly than usual, illustrate abstract points in the complementarity of the several theories.     

"Body-As-World": Kenneth Burke's Answer to the Postmodernist Charges Against Sociology

Postmodernism charges that sociological methods project ways of thinking and being from the past onto the future, and that sociological forms of presentation are rhetorical defenses of ideologies. Postmodernism contends that sociological theory presents reified constructs no more based in reality than are fictional accounts. Kenneth Burke's logology predates and adequately addresses postmodernism's valid charges against sociology. At the same time, logology avoids the idealistic tendencies and ethical pitfalls of radical forms of postmodernist deconstruction, which acknowledge neither pretextual and extratextual worlds nor the ways in which experience is embodied. While not fully articulated, Burke's logology gives primacy to an embodied, social world prior to text (Body-as-World). Sociology can strengthen both its theoretical arsenal and its response to postmodernism by reacknowledging and reclaiming Burke's logology.