Editors’ introduction to the special issue on the sociology of digital technology

Theory and Society - An increasing number of sociologists today are examining the social production of digital technology. Although younger researchers may be digital natives and write from...     

Coming and Going: On the State Monopolization of the Legitimate "Means of Movement"

Following the imagery of "expropriation" used by Marx to describe the process of capitalist development and by Weber to characterize states' monopolization of the legitimate use of violence, I argue that modern states have also "expropriated the legitimate means of movement" and monopolized the authority to determine who may circulate within and cross their borders. Against this background, we should reconsider the metaphor of "penetration" typically used to discuss the enhanced capacity of modern states relative to their predecessors, and instead think of states as "embracing" populations, identifying persons unambiguously in order to control their movements and to distinguish members from nonmembers.
The vagabond is by definition a suspect.
—Daniel Nordman (1987)     

Inventing the axial age: the origins and uses of a historical concept

The concept of the axial age, initially proposed by the philosopher Karl Jaspers to refer to a period in the first millennium BCE that saw the rise of major religious and philosophical figures and ideas throughout Eurasia, has gained an established position in a number of fields, including historical sociology, cultural sociology, and the sociology of religion. We explore whether the notion of an “axial age” has historical and intellectual cogency, or whether the authors who use the label of a more free-floating “axiality” to connote varied “breakthroughs” in human experience may have a more compelling case. Throughout, we draw attention to ways in which uses of the axial age concept in contemporary social science vary in these and other respects. In the conclusion, we reflect on the value of the concept and its current uses and their utility in making sense of human experience.     

A sociological agenda for the tech age

Theory and Society - This article outlines a sociological agenda for the era of “tech,” a period when digital technologies have come to dominate our social lives. It argues that we...     

The End of the World as We Know It?: American Exceptionalism in an Age of Disruption

This essay explores the recent election of President Donald J. Trump against the background of the idea of American exceptionalism. It posits that there have been a variety of versions of the notion of exceptionalism, one of which involves the question, “Why is there no fascism in the United States?” It argues that Trump may render invalid the assumption behind that question and that at best during his tenure we are likely to have a continuation of the “bad exceptionalism” associated with the question, “Why is there no socialism in the United States?”