Social theory

About: Social theory is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 11421 publications have been published within this topic receiving 624898 citations.

Time and Social Theory: Towards a Social Theory of Time

Abstract: The paper first discusses fundamental issues raised for social theory by the concept of `social time' and investigates how the concept is delineated from other discipline-embedded ones. The second section reviews the concept of social time in the work of major social theorists, notably Mead, Elias, Giddens and Luhmann. The link or lack thereof to human agency is considered crucial. The third section examines briefly the numerous empirical contributions to the study of time that cover a wide variety of subfields of social research. Finally the present potential for `time studies' in the social sciences is assessed.

Diverse Communities: The Problem with Social Capital

Abstract: 1. Social capital, justice and diversity: an introduction 2. The progressive era: past paradise? 3. The present malaise in civic participation: empirical and normative dimensions 4. The causes of 'decline' in social capital theory 5. Civic trust and shared norms 6. Beyond Bowling Alone: social capital in twenty-first century America 7. Justice in diverse communities: lessons for the future.

The Social Structures of the Economy, Pierre Bourdieu, Cambridge: Polity Press, 2005

Abstract: This paper is divided into two sections. The first section presents a concise survey of the intellectual itinerary of the French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu in the French intellectual field. Then, after a short presentation of Bourdieu’s The Social Structures of the Economy , I proceed to a broader discussion of his economic sociology. After a presentation of Bourdieu’s key conceptual contributions, I question some aspects of Bourdieusian sociology with regard to its ambition of historicising the ‘economic field’. I identify the limitations of this historicising project in the extension of the metaphor of the market to virtually all fields of human activities and in a concept of capital which fails to grasp a social relation specific to the historical development of capitalism.

Drugs, crime and social exclusion: social context and social theory in British drugs-crime research

Abstract: The association between drugs and crime is one of the central concerns of contemporary British drugs research and policy. Another major concern in recent years has been the clustering together of the most serious problems of drugs and crime in neighbourhoods already experiencing multiple social and economic difficulties. This paper seeks, first of all, to re-situate the drug-crime nexus in its full social context in order to provide a new perspective on these two key aspects of the British drug problem today. In doing so, the analysis raises in applied form some important issues in criminological theory and the paper attempts, secondly, to make a contribution to these theoretical debates.

Social Movements: Ideologies, Interest, and Identities

Abstract: More than any other topic in social science, the study of social movements provides an opportunity to combine social theory with political action. Such study is a key to understanding the motivations, successes, and failures of thousands who aspire to high ideals of justice, but who sometimes aid in perpetuating inhumane political acts and systems. Building upon the past twenty years' developments in theory and research, Social Movements combines original theoretical and methodological approaches with penetrating analyses of contemporary movements from the sixties to the present.Anthony Oberschall argues that social movements are central to contemporary politics in both Western and Third World nations. They are not quaint stepchildren to public policy and social change that disappear as nations modernize. Collective action by the citizenry, spilling beyond the boundaries of routine politics is an integral part of the process of creative destruction that Joseph Schumpeter ascribed to modern capitalism and all dynamic, modern societies.Among the subjects that OberschaU examines in Social Movements are the Civil Rights movement, decline of the New Left, the feminist movement, the New Christian Right, the tobacco control movement, collective violence in U.S. industrial relations, and some comparative historical movements, including the Cultural Revolution in China, the abortive 1968 revolution in Czechoslovakia, political strife in postcolonial Africa, and the sixteenth-century European witch craze.In looking beyond the immediate political circumstances of these social movements, Oberschall points the way to achieving the next major task of social movement theory: a more satisfactory understanding of the dynamics and course of social movements and counter movements and a method of accounting for the outcomes of public controversies. Free of jargon and technical terminology, Social Movements is written for sociologists, political scientists, historians, professionals dea