Showing papers on "Social theory published in 2022"

Complexity Theory and the Social Sciences

Abstract: This expanded and updated edition of Complexity Theory and the Social Sciences: The State of the Art revisits the use of complexity theory across the social sciences and demonstrates how complexity informs approaches to various contemporary issues in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, widening social inequality, and impending social and ecological catastrophe wrought by global warming. The book reviews complexity theory in the practice of the social sciences and at their interface with ecological science. It outlines how social theory can be reconciled with complexity thinking and presents a review of the way research can be done using complexity theory. The book suggests how complexity theory can be used to understand and evaluate governance processes, particularly with regard to social inequality and the climate crisis. The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic is also examined through a complexity lens, reviewing how complexity thinking has been employed in relation to the pandemic and how implementing a complexity framework can transform health and social care. The book concludes with a call to action and the use of complexity theory to inform critical thinking in the education system. This textbook will be immensely useful to students and researchers interested in social research methods, social theory, business and organization studies, health, education, urban studies, and development studies. © 2023 David Byrne and Gillian Callaghan.

Toward a Theory of Social Influence in the New Normal

Abstract: Acknowledging that social influence is complex and multifaceted, this article introduces a new theory to account for the complex relationships among the manifestations of social influence. The new theory, which is called the theory of social influence, theorizes the relationships between social connectedness, social distancing, social norms, social identification, social interaction, social inclusion, and social isolation. The theory is also accompanied by the latest research in the journal related to social influence on aging.

Critical theory and social pathology

Abstract: Critical theory once offered a powerful, distinctive approach to social research, enabling sociologists to diagnose the irrationalities of the social world across institutions and forms of thought, even within the subject’s deepest desires. Yet, with the work of Axel Honneth, such analytical potency has been lost. The ‘domestication’ of critical theory stems from the programme’s embrace of Honneth’s ‘recognition-cognitivist’ understanding of social problems; where all social maladies are understood to lie, ultimately, within the head of social subjects and within the intersubjective relationships they enact. This book explores the manifold limitations of this dominant understanding of social pathologies and builds towards an alternate theoretical infrastructure, drawn from a marriage of insights from Erich Fromm and Herbert Marcuse. While Honneth’s critical theory leads to researchers exploring all social problems as ‘pathologies of recognition’, a return to Fromm and Marcuse reminds critical theorists that power precedes subjectivation and that a wide range of pressing social problems exists which are invisible to the recognition framework. As such, this book urges critical theorists to once again think beyond recognition.

Social positioning theory and Dewey’s ontology of persons, objects and offices

Abstract: ABSTRACT Social positioning theory, in defending a general social ontology, is a particular extension of critical realism. It is a theory of social constitution that clarifies how items including human beings and things are relationally organized as instances of community components. This extension of critical realism is directly comparable to fundamental but underexamined contributions of the classical American pragmatist John Dewey and specifically his elaboration of a social ontology incorporating an emphasis upon offices that individuals and things come to occupy. In this paper, it is argued that there are substantial correspondences between social positioning theory and Dewey’s concern with offices that come to be filled. By drawing on social positioning theory the significance of an overlooked feature of Dewey’s social ontology comes to be better appreciated. Equally by conducting this comparison Dewey’s discussion of offices is recognized as anticipating some of the insights that social positioning theory has recently systematised.

World Risk Society and Constructing Cosmopolitan Realities: A Bourdieusian Critique of Risk Society

Abstract: Current global crises and threats have revealed the growing implications of Ulrich Beck's theory of risk society. Rather than being a theory of risk, risk society theory is more a social theory of the new social world and modernity. Risk society theory encompasses a new social ontology of the social in the era of uncertainties and crises. Beck also proposes the cosmopolitan outlook and particularly methodological cosmopolitanism as the epistemology and methodology of the world risk society. Yet, a close examination of Beck's social theory reveals a contradiction between the two aspects. On the one hand, in the ontological dimension, we are faced with the primacy of the indeterminate and the empirical, but on the other hand, Beck's epistemological prescriptive eliminate the possibility of reaching them. The current article aims to address this incompatibility. In doing so, first, the main pillars of risk society theory, and then the cosmopolitan outlook and sociology are discussed. By criticizing Beck's epistemological apparatus as well as juxtaposing the theory of risk society and Pierre Bourdieu's theory of action and fields, in the final section, the article proposes a solution to complete the ontology of risk society and overcome some of its epistemological problems.

Corrigendum to “Synthesis, Dynamis, Praxis : Critical Theory’s Ongoing Struggle with the Concept of Society”

Abstract: From its beginning, critical theory aimed at the exploration of the laws governing social life as a formational totality and of the forces shaping and driving its historical evolution. Hence, the requirement to develop a comprehensive conception of ‘society’ encompassing both its structural as well as its cultural components can be considered one of the defining hallmarks of critical theory through all its theoretical and generational variations. But what, then, is critical theory’s conception of society? The authors use a three-tired heuristic model distinguishing synthesis (what is society?), dynamis (what are the driving forces of social change?) and praxis ((how) can social change be motivated or influenced by social actors?). By doing so, they can reconstruct both, the divergences and controversies between the different versions and approaches in critical theory across the four generations of authors writing in this tradition as well as four core points of convergence which can serve to differentiate between critical theory in the Frankfurt School tradition and other critical theories.

Critical Transitions in Ecosystems and Society. The Contribution of Sociological Systems Theory to the Analysis of Socio-Environmental Transformations

Abstract: The theory of critical transitions and the theory of self-referential social systems are two well-established theories in the ecosystem and sociological research respectively. A dialogue between them may offer new insights on the complex articulation of the nature and society nexus in socio-environmental transformations. By means of the conceptual reconstruction of both theories and drawing on relevant literature of social-ecological research, in this article, I argue that systems theory can contribute to the theory of critical transitions with a robust concept of communication that accounts for the relevance of semantics and social structures, the production of communicative locks, and the identification of early warning signals of social-ecological transitions in communication. On the other hand, the theory of critical transitions provides systems theory with both a refined concept of crisis as critical transition and the technical tools for empirical research. The article concludes that the dialogue between the science of ecosystems and the science of society is not an intellectual exercise but a form of increasing the correspondence between social-ecological transitions and our explanations and interventions in this domain.

Determinants of Social Commerce

Abstract: There are many determinants of social commerce that have been touched upon in the literature. Thus, this chapter aims to shed light on the determinants of social trading, such as the theory of social presence, the theory of social support, the theory of innovation barriers, and the elaboration likelihood theory and commitment trust theory. This chapter describes several theories that strengthen consumers’ intentions and confidence in online commerce channels. Finally, discussion and conclusion will be described.

Practising the Symbolic

Abstract: A powerful theory of the symbolic embedded within a remarkable and original theory of practice is a nodal aspect of the work of Pierre Bourdieu, who was a leading social thinker of our times (1930-2002). Against the backdrop of the significance of symbolic practice in social life, this book explains the intellectual warp and woof of his theory of the symbolic; presents a brief excursus that explores its potential to illuminate social contexts other than those in which it was conceived; examines its links with Bourdieu's role of social critic and public intellectual; and engages critically with scholarly assessments of his contribution. The book thus seeks to provide a comprehensive and in depth analysis and understanding of a central dimension of Bourdieu's work.

Theory in Social Research

Abstract: In this chapter, the importance and link between social research and theory are discussed. Social research is taken as the sociological understanding of connections—connections between action, experience, and change—and it is the major vehicle for realizing these connections. The debate on using theory in any scope of social research is being deliberated by various scholars with many emphasizing the merits of using theory in social research. They argue that an appropriate theory clarifies the findings a researcher has uncovered in the study. Without a theory, the researcher could face difficulties in streamlining the study or the researcher may overlook particular phenomena or events from within the study. Thus, the researcher would be unable to relate the variables in the study. A theorist always tries to view things from his/her perspective. Upon reflection, the theorist may develop a refined framework which then becomes the intensive framework, hereby, called a theory. This phenomenon may not necessarily be agreed upon by every social scientist as can be illustrated by cases where, after using a theory, researchers have modified such a theory to suit their outcomes. The theory used in social research supports and facilitates the researcher to raise fundamental questions and facts which could serve as the common core or body of knowledge. From the basis of given facts and explanations, it can be claimed that the theory used in social research has a pivotal role to align the study. In social research, a researcher should make the matter of selecting a theory seriously as a good theory produces a better piece of research work. This chapter elaborates on the various aspects of using theory in social research. Several diagrams are used to make explanations clear.

“Eliminating Social Distinctions” or “Preserving Social Relations”: Two Explanations of Datong in Modern China

Abstract: A Confucian scholar, Kang Youwei, living in the late Qing period imagined a future utopian society called datong which eliminated all social distinctions. To illustrate it, he borrowed and developed the theory of the Three Ages, which first appeared in the Confucian classic Gongyang Commentary on the Spring and Autumn Annals, as well as in the theory of human nature in the Han dynasty. However, one of his students, Chen Huanzhang, made a new explanation of the “Liyun” chapter that greatly differed from his teacher. According to him, datong was a society committed to “preserving social relations”. The different understandings of datong reveals two different patterns of social relations in Confucianism. Besides the traditional wulun pattern, Kang Youwei offered another possible pattern. Although it proved to be a failure in practice, as a theory that discovered many hidden traditions in Confucianism, Kang Youwei’s datong theory is worthy of attention.

Social Movements Prefiguring Political Theory

Abstract: Abstract Adding to the growing literature on social movements as knowledge and theory creators, this chapter wants more social movement research to focus on the content of the political theories created by social movements , as an outcome of their morality. This chapter argues that prefigurative social movements create political theory through the interplay of their internal and external communication, their organization, and in their discussions of how and why to change the world: They are prefiguring political theory through their cognitive praxis. The chapter demonstrates how the literature on prefigurative social movements and Ron Jamison and Andrew Eyerman’s concept of cognitive praxis, combined with a decolonial feminist approach to knowledge and theory, provides space for the political theory of social movements within social movement literature. This theory is inherently political as it is aimed to be a (temporary) guide toward the kind of world the movements want to see and argues why the world should look like that. The chapter briefly outlines how a Cartesian approach to science prevents us from viewing theory based on lived experience as theory, even though all theory is based on lived experience, and thereby explains why we have not taken the knowledge and theory created by social movements seriously for so long. To recognize social movements as political actors, we need to engage with the concepts, policy proposals, critiques, or new institutions that they are creating, and not only the mechanics around creating them. Consequently, we need to recognize social movements as the authors of the knowledge and theory they create and not take credit for “discovering” it. Lastly, from a decolonial approach, we should recognize that social movement research is relational and that the research process should involve the social movements themselves to make sure they also benefit from it, and view them as colleagues who are sharing their knowledge with us. Moving away from the more Cartesian view of science requires a decolonization of the entire research process, and in particular rethinking what this means in terms of authorship, ownership, and credit.

Critical theory, Peirce and the theory of society

Abstract: The second-generation critical theory of Apel and Habermas was substantially built on the semiotic pragmatism of Charles Peirce. Along with critical theory generally, this variation requires a theory of society in which to embed its wide-ranging normative commitments. The article proposes re-orienting Habermas’s decades-old theory of communicative action, which contained essential pointers to a critical theory of society that has never been adequately taken up in either the critical social sciences or critical theory proper. Revising Habermas, Peirce is drawn upon to crystallize the preferred critical semiotic realist theory of society. Asemiotic social ontology of the necessary range and scope is accordingly put forward that centres on inferential communal reasoning within the wider contexts of social perception and social actuality. The resulting approach, overcoming established dichotomies, is realist and processual as well as substantive, critical as well as hermeneutic and phenomenological, transcendent as well as immanent, realist as well as idealist, a priori as well as a posteriori, cognitive as well as normative, macro as well as micro, individual as well as collective and creative as well as habitual.

Contemporary Critical Theory in Sociology

Abstract: Contemporary critical theory in sociology is one of the newly developed theories that have a lot of importance because in a negative view it looks at the life of our society and sheds light on the points and corners of the life of the community that deserves to be criticized. This theory of the beginning of the production in a scattered way for the books of Comte, Spenser, Durkheim, and Weber will be returned, and it will be published in a way an academic that has its own framework, methodology, and the hand goes back to The Mills works which is the political, social, economic, and cultural life The United States criticizes and believes that republicans should have a social imagination to understand and read radically or to the community. Later on, this theory of sociologists such as Gouldner, Rex, and Bottomore reached its peak, so our main purpose in this research is to show the critical view of sociology, and this has been done through the method of analyzing content and Library.

Social theory and education research

Abstract: This introductory chapter sets the scene for the rest of the book, by detailing some of the key political contexts within which theory-driven education research finds itself. These include the politics of education, as well as the politics of both education research and social theory more generally – contexts which have important implications for the methodological approach of theory-driven research. The chapter includes a brief introduction to the field of social theory, while also outlining some of the challenges for educational researchers when attempting to ‘apply’ advanced theory in real-life professional settings. Some of these reflect issues of research design and implementation, including the development of tools such as data measurement and analytical criteria. Just as significant are the difficulties faced when grappling with the core concepts of social theory that already come with a range of meanings. Notions of ‘power’, ‘culture’ and ‘practise’ are challenging at the best of times, but such challenges are compounded when they are aligned with the core educational concepts of teaching, learning, assessment, curriculum and support. This chapter provides a summary of these challenges and makes some recommendations for current/future researchers attempting to bridge the social theory/education gap.

12Postcolonial Theory

Abstract: Abstract This chapter covers selected research in postcolonial theory published in 2021. It begins with a discussion of how postcolonial theory can be said to take a local turn with reference to a volume that treats the phenomenon of BrexLit, before focusing on two texts that take postcolonial theory into the arena of the social sciences. The chapter then reviews a book that parses how postcolonial theory is embroiled in matters ideological before ending with a discussion of a text that provides an alternative history of gender and sexualities. The varied work discussed in this chapter demonstrates how postcolonial theory remains a productive resource in attempts to revitalize already established fields of study and, by extension, that postcolonial theory continues to hold critical and explanatory traction. The essay is divided into five sub-sections: 1. Introduction; 2. BrexLit; 3. The Social Sciences; 4. Ideology; 5. Sexualities.

Power, Social and Political Theories

Abstract: At a general level, most social and political theorists conceive of the study of power as both the analysis of the capacity of individuals to make others do things that they would not otherwise do, and the study of the social relationships that sustain that capacity. Even within the confines of the tradition of Western social and political thought, there is no one single social and/or political theory of power that everyone accepts as the only true and valid one. In the first half of our analysis, we begin with the three-dimensional power debate, which include Robert Dahl, Bachrach and Baratz, and Steven Lukes. This is followed by an exposition of several perspectives that include, among others: Michel Foucault, Hannah Arendt, Gene Sharp, Talcott Parsons, Barry Barnes, Anthony Giddens, Pierre Bourdieu, Peter Morriss, Michael Mann, Stewart Clegg, Amy Allen, and Mark Haugaard. In this analysis, every effort will be made to clarify not only the workings of power but also the relationship between power and other related concepts such as violence, structural constraint, agency, coercion, and democracy.

History, Law and the Rediscovery of Social Theory

Abstract: This chapter argues for the need for both history and law to recommit to the broad tradition of social theory, in order for either to make progress on its own, let alone for one to plausibly reorient the other. From the perspective of this argument for common need rather than crossdisciplinary largesse, it is not going to be good enough to suppose that contemporary historiography is already well-positioned for relevance to other fields. In the last fifty years, it has lost touch with the tradition of social theory, thanks to the linguistic and cultural turns and a certain fetishization of contingent outcomes that have been emphasized in critical and genealogical sorts of history. The chapter proceeds to map three ongoing quandaries in social theory, since it is only within the discussion of each that the relationship of history to law takes on its significance. These are the 1) the dilemma of representations versus practices; 2) the reconciliation of contingency and determination; 3) and the assessment of the normative and the political, both as something to explain in diverse past settings but also what might motivate and orient present inquiry in the first place.

Theory and Ethics: Defining the Field

Abstract: As well as being a set of practices, social work is also comprised of diverse ideas about the social issues and personal problems in which those practices intervene. This introductory chapter presents a review of the two major types of ideas of social work: theory and ethics. Two forms of theory are identified, namely ‘theory for practice’ (that is, theories developed in separate areas of inquiry that are brought to the concerns of social work) and ‘practice theory’ (that is, theories that are developed from the conscious and systematic reflection on practice). The chapter then looks at ethics, first in the ethical principles that have their origins outside social work, and then in critical analysis of specific ethical issues that are encountered in practice, including those now emerging. In this sense, both types of ideas have aspects that are brought into and those that are developed within social work. There is also an interplay between social work theory and ethics, with some common themes that reflect the focus of social workers on the origins of the structural issues and personal problems with which social workers intervene and ways to address such issues and problems. In this way, bringing theory and ethics together as ‘the ideas of social work’ reveals the continuities between the ways in which sense is made of questions concerning the what, how and why of social work.

The Praxis of Change and Theory

Abstract: In this chapter, Mathias Albert prompts a conversation between Kratochwil’s praxis approach and theories of social differentiation that are both concerned with the evolution of societies, domestically and internationally. He contends that Kratochwil’s uses of ‘theory’ are rather ambivalent, lacking a distinction between ‘IR theory’ and other uses and concepts of ‘theory’. He then inquires into Kratochwil’s account of social constitution, particularly with a view to social differentiation as a defining characteristic of social systems. Albert argues that while Kratochwil’s account is quite clear in this respect, it is biased towards the legal system as an integrative force under the condition of functional differentiation. While such a privileging of the legal system might not necessarily be legitimate from a view of ’pure’ functional differentiation, it could be upheld as an empirical argument about social evolution. However, for that purpose Kratochwil, as well as other practice theorists, would need to twist their account of social change in the direction of a theory of social evolution.

Distorted by recognition

Abstract: In this chapter, I subject Axel Honneth’s critical theory of recognition to an extended immanent critique. I argue that Honneth’s vision of critical theory fails on its own terms for social-theoretical, philosophical, and political reasons. The theory of power which the recognition paradigm depends upon is shown to be untenable. The monistic social-theoretical perspective Honneth supports is shown to obscure central social pathologies and impede critique. The political commitments of Honneth’s method are shown to be opposed to the founding aims of a critical theory of society, and the real-world impacts of a recognition politics are shown to be more amenable to neoliberal co-option than his supporters admit.

Criticism of Marxism as a Proto-theory of Cultural Capital and the “New Class”: J. W. Machajski’s Theory of Intelligentsia

Abstract: The article is devoted to the theory of intelligentsia developed by Jan Wacław Machajski (1866–1926) and to the history of its transfer and reception in modern Western social theories. The main thesis of the article is that Machajski’s theory directly influenced the shaping of several Western social theories in the second half of the 20th century, such as the theories of the new class and the post-industrial society. The article includes a review of modern research literature devoted to Machajski, a brief biographical sketch, and an explication of the main thesis of his theory of intelligentsia. A history of the reception and the criticism of Machajski’s theory is analyzed in both the Soviet and post-Soviet periods, the result being that this theory was practically excluded from the Russian conceptual and theoretical context. In the article, the history of the transfer of this theory to the Western context in which Max Nomad played the decisive part is analyzed. As the result of this transfer, these ideas became known and acknowledged by a range of social theorists of the middle of the 20th century, for example, by Daniel Bell and Alvin Gouldner. In the concluding part of the work, it is shown that Machajski’s ideas that considered access to education and knowledge as a certain type of capital can be systematically recognized in later theories, in particular, in the theory of cultural capital by Pierre Bourdieu, and in the theory of society of singularities by Andreas Reckwitz.

The spirit of social pedagogy: the alternative theory base of German child welfare

Abstract: While the term ‘social work’ has established itself internationally, many countries have alternative social professions with rich histories and distinct theory bases. This article examines a German example by theoretically considering a discipline central to child welfare: social pedagogy. The frameworks of key theorists are presented, reconstructing an intellectual lineage in education discourses and Continental philosophy. The case of social pedagogy acts as a reminder of mainstream theory bases quite different to those historically seen in Anglo-Saxon social work. Positivist perspectives are absent; instead, hermeneutics and critical theory have been dominant theoretical sources. Kant’s concept of Mündigkeit (‘maturity’), that is, the ability of a person to be a self-determining subject, reveals itself as the theoretical anchor point, linking the earliest theory making with later emancipatory and lifeworld approaches. The concepts that are recurrent in discourses can be amalgamated to define the discipline, and a tentative composite German social pedagogy definition is cautiously suggested.

Niklas Luhmann’s theory of social systems: the postmodern character of society’s descriptors

Abstract: The article carried out a comparative analysis of the basic provisions of the theory of social systems by N. Luhmann and the principles of the philosophy of postmodernism. Considering the categorical apparatus of N. Luhmann’s concept, the author finds points of semantic intersection with a number of key concepts of modern social philosophy, as well as mutual resonation of basic principles. The article proves that the comparison of the theory of social systems by N. Luhmann and the philosophy of postmodernism can be carried out according to several criteria: subjective (general scope of research), historical (common time and context of occurrence) and meaningful (when the perspective of consideration is shifted, it becomes possible to identify semantic parallels named theories). Thus, the article draws a parallel between N. Luhmann’s subjectless sociology and the postmodern concept of the absent subject. In accordance with the theory of social systems by N. Luhmann, the subject is non-communicative by definition. In the conceptual apparatus of the philosophy of postmodernism, a meaningfully similar rejection of the interpretation of the subject in its classical sense is fundamental. A meaningful connection between the concept of binary truth by N. Luhmann, on the one hand, and the subjectivist theory of truth in postmodernism, on the other hand, is revealed. Thus, the truth in the context of N. Luhmann’s social system depends on its relevance for the individual, fitting into the system of knowledge that is significant for him at the moment, the truth is modeled in a non-static context and can be re-evaluated in a subjective way, depending on the shift in the focus of the relevance of one or another fragment of knowledge of the individual. Similarly, in postmodern philosophy there is a subjectivisation of truth, which turns out to be a variable not only in the socio-cultural frame of reference, but also in the frame of reference of the individual. Thus, the article proves that there are semantic parallels in the theory of social systems of N. Luhmann and postmodern philosophy, which allow us to say that, independently of each other, N. Luhmann, on the one hand, and postmodern authors, on the other, develop a new vision of cognitive processes within the post-non-classical type of rationality.

Social status of the first christians

Abstract: At the beginning of the twentieth century, in academic circle of German protestant theologian and sociologist emerged so cold Deprivation Theory. According to this theory, the first adepts of new religions and new religious movements are poor, marginalized people deprived of social privileges. The theory is based on the assumption that people are driven to religiosity essentially by material problems and hopelessness related with it. The historical facts and the opinions of prominent historians presented in the paper are clearly at odds with the basic tenets of the theory.

Dwelling in epistemic disobedience: A reply to Go.

Abstract: In Thinking Against Empire: Anticolonial Thought as Social Theory, Julian Go continues his vital work on rethinking and redirecting the discipline of sociology. Go's piece relates to his wider oeuvre of postcolonial sociology - found in works such as his Postcolonial Thought and Social Theory (2016) as well as multiple journal articles on epistemic exclusion (Go 2020), Southern theory (Go 2016), metrocentrism (Go 2014), and the history of sociology (Go 2009). In this response article, my aim is to think alongside some of the central themes outlined in Go's paper rather than offering a rebuttal of any sorts. In particular, I want to think through how the recent work on 'decoloniality' may play more of a central role in Go's vision of sociology and social theory than he acknowledges. In doing so, I hope to engage in Go's prodigious scholarship through centering discussions of the geopolitics of knowledge, double translation, and border thinking. Before proceeding to this discussion, I will offer a brief review of my reading of Go's paper.