Journal•ISSN: 0003-9756
Archives Europeennes De Sociologie
Cambridge University Press
About: Archives Europeennes De Sociologie is an academic journal published by Cambridge University Press. The journal publishes majorly in the area(s): Politics & Democracy. It has an ISSN identifier of 0003-9756. Over the lifetime, 1105 publications have been published receiving 21807 citations. The journal is also known as: Europäisches Archiv für Soziologie & European journal of sociology =.
Topics: Politics, Democracy, Capitalism, Rationality, Polity
Papers published on a yearly basis
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TL;DR: In this article, the authors specify the origins, mechanisms and results of the autonomous power which the state possesses in relation to the major power groups of "civil society" and argue that state autonomy, of both despotic and infrastructural forms, flows principally from the state's unique ability to provide a territorially centralised form of organization.
Abstract: This essay tries to specify the origins, mechanisms and results of the autonomous power which the state possesses in relation to the major power groupings of ‘civil society’. The argument is couched generally, but it derives from a large, ongoing empirical research project into the development of power in human societies. At the moment, my generalisations are bolder about agrarian societies; concerning industrial societies I will be more tentative. I define the state and then pursue the implications of that definition. I discuss two essential parts of the definition, centrality and territoriality, in relation to two types of state power, termed here despotic and infrastructural power. I argue that state autonomy, of both despotic and infrastructural forms, flows principally from the state's unique ability to provide a territorially-centralised form of organization.
1,691 citations
TL;DR: The authors analyzed quantification as a general sociological phenomenon and called for an ethics of numbers, drawing on scholarship across the social sciences in Europe and North America as well as humanistic inquiry.
Abstract: One of the most notable political developments of the last thirty years has been increasing public and governmental demand for the quantification of social phenomena, yet sociologists generally have paid little attention to the spread of quantification or the significance of new regimes of measurement. Our article addresses this oversight by analyzing quantification – the production and communication of numbers – as a general sociological phenomenon. Drawing on scholarship across the social sciences in Europe and North America as well as humanistic inquiry, we articulate five sociological dimensions of quantification and call for an ethics of numbers.
696 citations
TL;DR: The phrase "welfare state" is of recent origin this paper and was first used to describe Labour Britain after 1945 and it was freely employed, usually but not exclusively by politicians and journalists, in relation to diverse societies at diverse stages of development.
Abstract: The phrase “welfare state” is of recent origin. It was first used to describe Labour Britain after 1945. From Britain the phrase made its way round the world. It was freely employed, usually but not exclusively by politicians and journalists, in relation to diverse societies at diverse stages of development. Historians also took over the phrase. Attempts were made to re-write nineteenth and twentieth century history, particularly British history, in terms of the “origins” and “development” of a “welfare state”.
470 citations
TL;DR: The authors argue that symbols in ritual cannot be understood without a prior study of the communication medium in which they are embedded, in particular singing and dancing, and that symbols cannot any more be understood as units of meaning simply on the Saussurian signifier/signified model, however subtly this model is handled.
Abstract: Recent studies of symbols in ritual share two features. First, they isolate symbols from the ritualprocess; second, they interpret symbols as units containing meaning. In this paper I want to argue thatsymbols in ritual cannot be understood without a prior study of the nature of the communication medium of ritual in which they are embedded, in particular singing and dancing, and that once this has been done we find that symbols cannot any more be understood as units of meaning simply on the Saussurian signifier/signified model, however subtly this model is handled. Such varied writers as Bettelheim (1954) and Turner (1959) are to my mind examples of writers ultimately using this model for the study of meaning in ritual.
327 citations
TL;DR: In the first millennium before the Christian era, a revolution took place in the realm of ideas and their institutional base which had irreversible effects on several major civilizations and on human history in general as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: In the first millennium before the Christian era a revolution took place in the realm of ideas and their institutional base which had irreversible effects on several major civilizations and on human history in general. The revolution or series of revolutions, which are related to Karl Jaspers' ‘Axial Age’, have to do with the emergence, conceptualization and institutionalization of a basic tension between the transcendental and mundane orders. This revolutionary process took place in several major civilizations including Ancient Israel, Ancient Greece, early Christianity, Zoroastrian Iran, early Imperial China and in the Hindu and Buddhist civilizations. Although beyond the axial age proper, it also took place in Islam.
285 citations