Showing papers in "British Journal of Sociology in 1976"

Social Theory as Science

Abstract: Part one Conceptions of science 1. Positivist philosophy of science 2. Realist philosophy of science 3. Forms of conventionalism Part two Conceptions of science as social theory 4. Sociology and positivism 5. Marx and realism 6. Structure and structuralism Part 3 Meaning and ideology 7. The explantion and understanding of social action 8. Reification and realism 9. Values theory and reality

Race and Slavery in the Western Hemisphere: Quantitative Studies

Abstract: The Description for this book, Race and Slavery in the Western Hemisphere: Quantitative Studies, will be forthcoming.

From Historical Sociology to Theoretical History

Abstract: During the last fifteen years, the relationship between history and sociology, at least at a formal level, has been closer than at any time in the past. Not only have there been frequent discussions about the desirability of breaking down boundaries between the two subjects, but, at a practical level, a tendency towards convergence has been encouraged by the S.S.R.C., by mixed degree courses at universities and polytechnics and by the emergence of sociology alongside history as a secondary school subject. Leaving aside pious statements of good intent and the polite diplomacy of academic conferences and scholarly footnotage, it is remarkable how little serious attention this shift has provoked. A few conservative historians, notably G. R. Elton,l have cogently defended a traditional case for the autonomy of history against the encroachments of 'social science', but the prevailing view appears to take it for granted that in principle it is desirable that history and sociology should achieve some painless form of symbiosis. The latter has generally been regarded as the progressive solution to the problem. But much of its apparent radicalism is in reality spurious. Its vision of historically-informed sociologists and sociologicallyinformed historians leaves the conventional demarcation between the subjects intact. It challenges neither the traditional conception of history nor the theoretical credentials of sociology. It fails to question the standard assumption, common both to historians and their opponents, that history is a subject devoid of theory. An accepted division of labour continues, even if the builder is advised to read up some architecture, and the architect is invited to try his hand at laying bricks. History remains the scholarly investigation of past eventswie es eigentlich gewesen (simply, how it really happened) in Ranke's words-and once this investigation is completed, the task of the historian as such is over. Theory, on the other hand, remains the property of the 'social sciences', and if the historian is to situate his work in a theoretical context, it is to these non-historical disciplines that he must resort. The usual result of this approach is once again to elide history with the empirical, and sociology with the theoretical, and then to imagine a seamless synthesis between the two. Such reasoning is based upon extremely questionable premises. The problem should be posed differently. It must first be asked why history has been regarded as theoretically empty and whether this assumption

The Wrong Way Through the Telescope: A Note on Literary Evidence in Sociology and in Historical Sociology

Abstract: When William Shakespeare looked out upon his social world in the I590S or the I600S he perceived an enormous and immensely varied social landscape. His viewing instrument, his telescope to be more exactly metaphorical, gave him great perceptive depth. But we cannot get at the eyepiece Shakespeare used; we have, so to speak, to look through the orifice instead. What we perceive is not what Shakespeare saw, but Shakespeare's eye. Or rather that which Shakespeare chose to let us see of all that entered there. This is an imperfect metaphor, but it will serve to indicate what is meant by calling the use of literary evidence by social scientists, and especially historical sociologists, looking the wrong way through the telescope. Although I shall call upon the suggestions of this image to advance the argument, the object is not to recommend such metaphors. Perhaps the reverse. Nor is the intention to make unfavourable comparison of literary evidence with evidence of other kinds, or to recommend that it be used as little as possible. Rather it is to assess such evidence exclusively as a provider of accurate information. We shall try to discover what it means to use the text of Shakespeare, or of Jane Austen or of Dickens, for the examination of the societies in which those writers lived. There are many written sources used by social scientists and historians which cannot be called literature in the sense in which the word will be employed in this note, where the expression high literature ought perhaps to be preferred. In fact all materials other than those which were deliberately created as record go under the general title of 'literary evidence' in ordinary usage. Thus letters, diaries, autobiographies, sermons, journalism of all kinds, academic and otherwise, even sometimes official documents, especially explanatory ones, are classed as literary, along with the poetry, the drama, and the novels, most of which fall below the aesthetic standard of those we deal with here. The distinction is between such 'literary' sources as a complete category and another complete category of sources which comprise financial accounts, public and private; official records like the journals

Anti-War Demonstrations and American Public Opinion on the War in Vietnam

Abstract: Evidence was brought to bear on the question of the crediting of anti-Vietnam war demonstrations with the American public's disenchantment with the war in Vietnam. Demonstrations had no measurable effect on the decline in favourable public opinion as measured by Vietnam-related poll and survey questions; such changes in opinions largely were explicable by other factors (presidential policy initiatives and war-related events in the short-run; casualties and duration of the war in the long-run). The American public's general dislike for Vietnam war protesters also makes it unlikely that demonstrations could have served as 'mediating links' between the war and the American public; it appears that the news media served this purpose. The major implication of this account is that anti-war demonstrations in the U.S.A. are not effective instruments for changing American pbulic opinion. On several occasions, the late President Ho Chi Minh of North Vietnam noted occurrences of anti-Vietnam war protest in the United States and expressed his gratitude to the Americans who demonstrated in opposition to their government's policies in Vietnam.l These remarks probably would be best interpreted as appreciation for the sentiments that the protesters expressed; President Ho does not appear ever to have stated that he thought anti-Vietnam war protests themselves would have any effect on what the American government decided to do in Vietnam. One would suppose, though, that anti-Vietnam demonstrators sought to change American policy in Vietnam in terms of one basic objective: the withdrawal of American troops from Vietnam.2 How protest would yield this result does not appear to have been explicitly spelled out. Presumably, however, anti-Vietnam war protest in large part was intended as 'educational', to convert the American people to the antiwar perspective.3 According to some accounts, these efforts were successful. One observer commented that some returned Vietnam veterans 'were expressing their disgust [with the Vietnam war] long before antiwar protests had begun to make a serious dent on public opinion'.4 Another asserted that 'the war [in Vietnam] would still be

Consciousness and contradiction: a study of student protest in zambia

Abstract: The underlying question which has guided studies of studentprotestmay be formulated as follows: why, given the ostensible purpose of the university as an institution for the pursuit of research, teaching and learning, does it so frequently become the focus of 'oppositional' political activity ?Whyare students, whose defining activity is 'studying', so easily politicized? The thesis of this paper is that the university performs not just a single function but a multiplicity of functions and it is the relationship among these functions that determines, at the structural level, the propensity to engage in political activity. Second, the political consciousness of the institution's members is determined not merely by their roles within the university but by other roles they held in the past, hold in the present or anticipate occupying in the future. Third, the outbreak of student protest must therefore be understood as the outcome of the interaction of a specific student consciousness and the structural contradictions which inhere in the functions of the

Choice and change : essays in honour of Lucy Mair

Abstract: 1. Lucy Mair 1 J. DAVIS 2. On some witches and a predicant 7 PIERRE ALEXANDRE 3. Conflict and change: establishment and opposition in Malta 17 JEREMY BOISSEVAIN 4- How they hid the red flag in Pisticci in 1923, and how it was betrayed 44 J. DAVIS 5. The politics of an old state: a view from the Chinese lineage 68 MAURICE FREEDMAN 6. The free women of Kinshasa: prostitution in a city in Zaire 89 7. The progress of Greek nationalism in Cyprus, 1878-1970 114 PETER LOIZOS 8. Aspects of underdevelopment and development in northeast Morocco 134 DAVID SEDDON 9. Land tenure and 'room for manoeuvre' 161 ANNE SHARMAN 10. Cause, knowledge and change: Turkish village revisited 191 PAUL STIRLING 11. Status and the innovator 230 SANDRA WALLMAN