Drawing upon philosophy and social theory, Social Theory of International Politics develops a theory of the international system as a social construction. Alexander Wendt clarifies the central claims of the constructivist approach, presenting a structural and idealist worldview which contrasts with the individualism and materialism which underpins much mainstream international relations theory. He builds a cultural theory of international politics, which takes whether states view each other as enemies, rivals or friends as a fundamental determinant. Wendt characterises these roles as 'cultures of anarchy', described as Hobbesian, Lockean and Kantian respectively. These cultures are shared ideas which help shape state interests and capabilities, and generate tendencies in the international system. The book describes four factors which can drive structural change from one culture to another - interdependence, common fate, homogenization, and self-restraint - and examines the effects of capitalism and democracy in the emergence of a Kantian culture in the West.

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Social Theory of International Politics

This book demonstrates that people's basic values and beliefs are changing, in ways that affect their political, sexual, economic, and religious behaviour. These changes are roughly predictable: to a large extent, they can be interpreted on the basis of a revised version of modernisation theory presented here. Drawing on a massive body of evidence from societies containing 85 percent of the world's population, the authors demonstrate that modernisation is a process of human development, in which economic development gives rise to cultural changes that make individual autonomy, gender equality, and democracy increasingly likely. The authors present a model of social change that predicts how the value systems play a crucial role in the emergence and flourishing of democratic institutions - and that modernisation brings coherent cultural changes that are conducive to democratisation.

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Modernization, Cultural Change, and Democracy: The Human Development Sequence

The organizational problem firms face is the utilization of knowledge which is not, and cannot be, known by a single agent. Even more importantly, no single agent can fully specify in advance what kind of practical knowledge is going to be relevant, when and where. Firms, therefore, are distributed knowledge systems in a strong sense: they are decentered systems, iacking an overseeing 'mind'. The knowledge they need to draw upon is inherently indeterminate and continually emerging; it is not self-contained. Individuals' stock of knowledge consists of (a) role-related normative expectations; (b) dispositions, which have been formed in the course of past socializations; and (c) local knowledge of particular circumstances of time and place. A firm has greater-or-lesser control over normative expectations, but very limited control over the other two. At any point in time, a firm's knowledge is the indeterminate outcome of individuals attempting to manage the inevitable tensions between normative expectations, dispositions, and local contexts.

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The firm as a distributed knowledge system : A constructionist approach

Ontologies, socio-technical transitions (to sustainability), and the multi-level perspective

While most studies of low-carbon transitions focus on green niche-innovations, this paper shifts attention to the resistance by incumbent regime actors to fundamental change. Drawing on insights from political economy, the paper introduces politics and power into the multi-level perspective. Instrumental, discursive, material and institutional forms of power and resistance are distinguished and illustrated with examples from the UK electricity system. The paper concludes that the resistance and resilience of coal, gas and nuclear production regimes currently negates the benefits from increasing renewables deployment. It further suggests that policymakers and many transition-scholars have too high hopes that ‘green’ innovation will be sufficient to bring about low-carbon transitions. Future agendas in research and policy should therefore pay much more attention to the destabilization and decline of existing fossil fuel regimes.

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0263276414531627

Regime Resistance against Low-Carbon Transitions: Introducing Politics and Power into the Multi-Level Perspective

Sociological Theory: What Went Wrong?

Social theory is open to many passing currents. Claims to originality tend to thrive and past achievements are often ignored. In Sociologiocal Theory: What Went Wrong? Mouzelis claims that "problems" currently being isolated are not really problems, and that "achievements" claimed are little more than pretensions. He argues that we have been premature to dismiss thinkers from the late 1950s and early 1960s and that we can build on their ideas to produce a more effective, more relevant social theory. Written with precision and with clarity, Sociological Theory: What Went Wrong? is a compelling analysis of the central problems of sociological theory today and of the means to resolve them.

Sociological Theory: What went Wrong?: Diagnosis and Remedies

The article looks critically at Giddens's duality of structure notion which is at the centre of his structuration theory. It argues that the concept of subject/object dualism, which is not seriously considered by structuration theory, is as essential as the concept of duality for an understanding of how actors orient themselves to rules and resources as a virtual order, as well as to sets of interactions in time and space.

Restructuring structuration theory

Philosophy or sociological theory? restructuring structuration theory - duality and dualism in sociological theory social and system integration - back to Lockwood social hierarchies and some sociological theories or micro/macro integration hierarchies, social and system integration, duality and dualism reification - ignoring the balance between social and system integration reductionism - neglecting hierarchical levels.

Back to Sociological Theory: The Construction of Social Orders

Contrary to Bourdieu's thesis, it is not only when a subject's habitus does not fit a field's positions that s/he becomes more reflexive. Reflexivity is also enhanced by intra-habitus tensions, by more general incongruences between dispositions, positions, and interactive/figurational structures, as well as by situations unrelated to them. Because of his ambitious but unsuccessful attempt to transcend the objectivist-subjectivist divide in the social sciences, Bourdieu underemphasizes the interactive dimension of social games, and this creates serious problems for his conceptualization of the linkages between habitus, reflexivity, and practices. The way to make Bourdieu's theory of practice less functionalist and/or deterministic is to restructure it so that it seriously takes into account not only the dispositional and positional but also the interactive dimension of social games. It then becomes obvious that reflexive accounting, conscious strategizing, and rational calculation are not exceptional but routine, constitutive elements of human action.

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Nicos P. Mouzelis

Papers

Sociological Theory: What Went Wrong?

Sociological Theory: What went Wrong?: Diagnosis and Remedies

Restructuring structuration theory

Back to Sociological Theory: The Construction of Social Orders

Habitus and Reflexivity: Restructuring Bourdieu's Theory of Practice