Sociological Theory

2010 “Statecraft in the Global Financial Crisis: An Interview with Kanishka Jayasuriya,” Journal of Critical Globalisation Studies. No. 3, P. 127-138.

by Jeb Sprague

Kanishka Jayasuriya, Professor of Political Science at the University of Adelaide, Australia and author of two... more Kanishka Jayasuriya, Professor of Political Science at the University of Adelaide, Australia and author of two monographs  – Reconstituting the Global Liberal Order: Legitimacy and Regulation (2005) and Statecraft, Welfare and the Politics of Inclusion (2006) – argues that changing forms of governance and new regulative laws are enabling the transnationalization of institutions within national states. He also interprets these
changes as giving rise to a new type of institutional struggle unique to globalisation. For social scientists in general and political economists in particular, Jayasuriya’s work
provides a useful lens through which to understand intra-state transformation in the global epoch. By rejecting Realist/Weberian conceptions of the state and drawing inspiration instead from materialist state theory, he understands state transformation as a reflection of ongoing processes linked to socio-economic forces that are novel to the historical present. And in the wake of the global financial crisis, he argues, we should not see the state as either disappearing or returning, for it is continuing to transform in ways peculiar to the age of globalism. The real question is for whom states will act in the future. In order to answer this, Jayasuriya suggests that we must look to transformations occurring within the national state, for it is these that are changing statecraft as we know it.

In this interview, Jayasuriya discusses some of his main concepts and theories, such as the regulatory state; meta-governance; the transition from ‘social constitutionalism’ to ‘economic constitutionalism’; and describes how each of these
relate to the ongoing crisis of global capitalism. He clarifies his views on the idea of a transnational capitalist class, arguing that there must be “different fractions within it”; and goes on to discuss the connection of his theories on state-transformation with the related works of William Robinson and Martin Shaw. Finally, he discusses some of the theorists that have influenced his work – such as Nicos Poulantzas, Carl Schmitt, Franz Neumann, and Amartya Sen – and briefly describes his areas of ongoing research.

A Final Look Back at Soviet Sociology

by Alexander Filippov

Comprehensive Examination In the Sociology of Culture

by Matt Patterson

Written in September 2010
Committee: Bonnie Erickson, Vanina Leschziner, Daniel Silver
Department of Sociology, University of Toronto

The Public Institution

by Matt Patterson

Presented at the American Sociological Association Annual Conference, Las Vegas, NV, August 2011.

Public institutions have played a central role in the development of many cultural fields within Western society and... more Public institutions have played a central role in the development of many cultural fields within Western society and have been frequently studied by sociologists of culture. Yet we lack an explicit model that defines exactly what public institutions are, how they work, and what makes them distinct from other organizational forms. This paper attempts to lay the groundwork for such a model by arguing that it is their access to donated resources rather than dedication toward communitarian interests that make public institutions sociologically distinct. Access to these resources depends on the ability of public institutions to build “public legitimacy”, which is defined as the belief among outsiders that the institution serves the public good. This paper argues that the strategies involved with building and maintaining public legitimacy shape the organizational logic of public institutions. Understanding these strategies helps us to better explain why certain cultural forms tend to be produced within the public sector, and how this culture differs from that created by market-based producers. In outlining this argument, the paper draws on a case study of two public museums in Toronto and existing studies of public cultural institutions.

Comprehensive Examination In Sociological Theory

by Matt Patterson

Written in September 2009
Committee: Jack Veugelers, Marion Blute, Bernd Baldus
Department of Sociology, University of Toronto

Environmental Reconstruction in Microsociological Theory for Microsociological Reconstruction in Environmental Sociology

by Brad Brewster

PhD Dissertation. Completed in 2011. University of Wisconsin-Madison. Done under the supervision of Michael Mayerfeld Bell.

I survey a collection of pedagogical resources in environmental sociology, including syllabi, textbooks, readers, and... more I survey a collection of pedagogical resources in environmental sociology, including syllabi, textbooks, readers, and handbooks, to show that what’s being taught and perpetuated as environmental sociology, via field-defining theories, is actually environmental macrosociology, leaving out the micro. I argue that pedagogical and theoretical problems follow from such one-sidedness. To correct for this imbalance, I turn to social psychological philosopher George Herbert Mead and microsociological theorist of everyday life Erving Goffman, reconstructing their theories in environmental terms. I show that, contrary to how Mead is often taught in sociology courses as well as how he is often portrayed in environmental sociology, Mead’s broad intellectual interests extended beyond social psychology to the natural world. In doing so, an “environmental Mead” is developed from his socio-environmental thought for a community psychology in environmental sociology. Then, beginning with a partly critical discussion of his view of animals, I move into discussions of how Mead's anti-dualistic philosophy creatively combined social and natural in various ways when it came to his view of objects, of mind, and of nature. Unlike Mead, Goffman was singularly and narrowly interested in everyday social interaction. The problem, then, was how to modify Goffman to environmental uses without losing the distinctive character of Goffman’s work. I address this by formulating a pragmatic construct for exporting Goffman to domains he himself had never been. Along the lines of this construct, then, an “environmental Goffman” is developed from his frame analysis for an environmental sociology of everyday life. I, then, explore applications of Mead and Goffman to fields in environmental studies or closely related to environmental sociology, namely, exploring Goffman’s dramaturgical, ritual, and interaction analysis in terms of community sociology and Mead’s holistic thought by comparison to ecosystem ecology. As a next logical step from the socially contextual, embedded approaches of the self in the community in Mead’s thought and of the self in the social situation in Goffman’s thought, I move up to the next level of analysis, the small group itself, to bring group dynamics into the environmental and conservation social sciences.

The Environmental Goffman: Toward an Environmental Sociology of Everyday Life

by Brad Brewster

Co-authored with Michael Mayerfeld Bell. Published in Society & Natural Resources 2010.

While environmental sociology has imported many macro theorists from the larger discipline, it has almost completely... more While environmental sociology has imported many macro theorists from the larger discipline, it has almost completely ignored Goffman. The primary project of this article is to fill that gap by proposing and initiating a Goffmaneque environmental sociology of everyday life, primarily through Goffman’s 1974 work, Frame Analysis. In doing so we address two issues central to environmentally relevant everyday experience: (1) the commonplace appreciation of “Nature,” such as that experienced at parks, on hikes, and being outdoors generally, and (2) the commonsensical notions of “nature” and “naturalness” as used in everyday conduct. In the first task, we make a contribution both to Goffman’s frame analytic theory and to environmental sociological theory with our notion of an out-in-nature frame. In the second task, we undertake to identify and formalize for environmental sociology instances implicit in Frame Analysis of how notions of nature mask social interests.

Rethinking Education+social cohesion

by Vasiliki Kantzara

Govantes, B y Harguindéguy (2011), Recensión del libro: Xavier Coller: El Canon sociológico (2008), en Revista Española de Ciencia Política, nº 27, Octubre.

by Bosco Govantes Romero

Towards an Archaeological-–Realist Foucauldian Analytics of Government

by Jon Frauley

British Journal of Criminology, 47(4), 2007, 617-633

Studies of government that build upon the work of French thinker Michel Foucault have become very influential for... more Studies of government that build upon the work of French thinker Michel Foucault have become very influential for criminological and sociological research and theorizing. However, because Foucault's archaeological texts—those prior to 1975—have, in large part, been neglected, many currents within his work that can be used to reformulate, strengthen and extend the analytic of government for the production of criminological knowledge have been left unexplored. This paper attends to the conception of indirect rule elaborated on in Foucault's archaeological texts and to how the ontological position elaborated there is sympathetic to realist metatheory. The paper advances a post-empiricist and realist informed analytic of government that holds government to be a stratified process concerning more than the empirically apprehendable outcomes of management techniques, forms of social action and expertise, indirect mechanisms of rule, socio-political objectives, and the proximity of authorities from regulatory objects. In retrieving the neglected archaeological Foucault and illustrating the realist currents within his work, the paper provides some ‘theoretical preconditions’ and ‘metatheoretical coherence’ for future investigations of the institutions, practices, processes and objects of social ordering and rule that criminologists and sociologists routinely engage with.

The expulsion of Foucault from governmentality studies: towards an archaeological-realist retrieval

by Jon Frauley

in Critical Realism and the Social Sciences, J. Frauley and F. Pearce (eds.), Toronto, Univ. of Toronto Press, 2007, Pp. 258-272

The Fictional Reality and Criminology: An Ontology of Theory and Exemplary Pedagogical Practice

by Jon Frauley

Current Issues in Criminal Justice, 21(3), March 2010, 437-459

A history of ideas model characterises the dominant pedagogical approach to criminological theory. This model,... more A history of ideas model characterises the dominant pedagogical approach to criminological theory. This model, however, is hampered by implicit assumptions about the ontological status of theories and concepts. These ontological assumptions operate as epistemological obstacles to both: (1) the stimulating of what is argued to be a craft-practice in theoretical analysis and; (2) the reproducing of a broadly theoretically informed and reflexive criminology. This article advances a craft-enterprise model for understanding theorising and the ontological status of sociological and criminological concepts. It exploits the space carved out by recent criminological interest in film and literature to explore how we might craft an exemplary pedagogical practice which utilises the fictional reality as a pedagogical tool. This model and practice are envisioned as contributions toward strengthening the social scientific and disciplinary status of both criminal justice studies and criminology.

Sociology and Postcolonialism: Another 'Missing' Revolution?

by Gurminder K Bhambra

Published in Sociology, October 2007 vol. 41 no. 5 871-884

Sociology is usually represented as having emerged alongside European modernity. The latter is frequently understood... more Sociology is usually represented as having emerged alongside European modernity. The latter is frequently understood as sociology's special object with sociology itself a distinctively modern form of explanation. The period of sociology's disciplinary formation was also the heyday of European colonialism, yet the colonial relationship did not figure in the development of sociological understandings. While the recent emergence of postcolonialism appears to have initiated a reconsideration of understandings of modernity, with the development of theories of multiple modernities, I suggest that this engagement is more an attempt at recuperating the transformative aspect of postcolonialism than engaging with its critiques. In setting out the challenge of postcolonialism to dominant sociological accounts, I also address `missing feminist/queer revolutions', suggesting that by engaging with postcolonialism there is the potential to transform sociological understandings by opening up a dialogue beyond the simple pluralism of identity claims.

feminism, identity, modernity, multiple modernities, postcolonialism, sociological theory

The Old Institutionalism Meets the New Institutionalism

by Seth Abrutyn

The Moodiness of Action

by Daniel Silver

published in 'Sociological Theory' 2011

This article argues that the concept of moodiness provides significant resources for developing a more robust... more This article argues that the concept of moodiness provides significant resources for developing a more robust pragmatist theory of action. Building on current conceptualizations of agency as effort by relational sociologists, it turns to the early work of Talcott Parsons to outline the theoretical presuppositions and antinomies endemic to any such conception; William James and John Dewey provide an alternative conception of effort as a contingent rather than fundamental form of agency. The article then proposes a way forward to a nonvoluntarist theory of action by introducing the notion of moodiness, highlighting how the concept permits a richer conceptualization of actors’ prereflexive involvement in and relatedness to nonneutral, demanding situations. Effort is reconceptualized as a moment in a broader process of action, where the mood is fragile and problematical. Finally, the article draws all of these elements together in an outline of a unified portrait of the pragmatist action cycle that includes both creativity and moodiness as essential moments.

Human Emotions: a Sociological Theory by Jonathan H. Turner| Radical Democracy: Politics Between Abundance and Lack by Lasse Thomassen and Lars Tønder, Eds| …

by Jonathan G. Heaney

Published in the Journal of Political Power: Vol. 1, No. 3, December 2008, 385–413.

Review of Human Emotions: A Sociological Theory by Jonathan H. Turner. London, Routledge, 2007. Review of Human Emotions: A Sociological Theory by Jonathan H. Turner. London, Routledge, 2007.

2011. ‘The Semiotics of Singapore’s Founding Myths of Multiracialism and Meritocracy.’ The American Sociologist 42:261-275.

by Kiat-Jin Lee

Conventional wisdom maintains that Singapore, a one-time marginal British commercial post of 580 km2 devoid of any... more Conventional wisdom maintains that Singapore, a one-time marginal British commercial post of 580 km2 devoid of any natural resources, and a general population of merely two million, emerged from the ruins of a bitter partition from Malaysia, and a hotbed of ethnic communalism and Communism to achieve ‘First World’ economic status in a generation. Indeed, multi-ethnic Singapore is today Southeast Asia’s high-tech hub with a burgeoning class of professionals and technicians. Accordingly, this paper seeks to elucidate the central “signs” that constitute the grand narrative of independent Singapore, identify the interpretive networks and verify its materialization. In so doing, this essay will scrutinize the place of Peircean semiotics within sociological theories and demonstrate its relevance to historical sociology.

From “Either-Or” to “When and How”: A Context-Dependent Model of Culture in Action

by Corey M. Abramson

Forthcoming

In this article I outline a framework for the sociological study of culture that connects three intertwined elements... more In this article I outline a framework for the sociological study of culture that connects three intertwined elements of human culture (cultural motivations, resources, and meanings) and demonstrates the concrete contexts under which each most critically influences actions and their subsequent outcomes. In contrast to common models that cast motivations, resources, and meanings as competing explanations of how culture affects action, I argue that these are fundamental constituent elements of culture that are inseparable, interdependent, and simultaneously operative. Which element of culture provides the strongest link to action, and how this link operates, must be understood as a function of the actor’s position within wider social contexts. I offer a reframing and synthesis that reintegrates previously “competing” theories of culture into a more holistic context-dependent model of culture in action. I then use evidence from previous research, as well as new data from a study of health behaviors, to show how various elements of culture are concretely linked to action in eight different social contexts. In doing so I provide a roadmap for the transition out of the either-or logic underlying many theories of culture, and reemphasize the importance of the classical sociological concern for when and how various aspects of culture influence action and outcomes in concrete social contexts.

Key Words
Theory; Culture; Structure; Agency; Values; Motivations; Cognition; Toolkits; Meanings; Context

Symmetrical Twins. On the Relationship Between Actor-Network-Theory and the Sociology of Critical Capacities.

by Michael Guggenheim

Racing to Theory or Retheorizing Race? Understanding the Struggle to Build a Multiracial Identity Theory

by David Brunsma