Topic
Social theory
About: Social theory is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 11421 publications have been published within this topic receiving 624898 citations.
Papers published on a yearly basis
Papers
More filters
••
213 citations
•
06 Nov 1997
TL;DR: The second edition of Critical Social Theories as discussed by the authors presents a comprehensive analysis of leading social and cultural theories today, addressing diverse perspectives from feminism and cultural studies to postmodernism and critical theory.
Abstract: Praised for its clarity and accessibility, this fully updated edition of Critical Social Theories presents a comprehensive analysis of leading social and cultural theories today. Diverse perspectives are addressed from feminism and cultural studies to postmodernism and critical theory. Written accessibly for students and faculty, the second edition includes new chapters on the need for a new public sociology in the post 9/11 era--one that moves beyond both positivism and postmodernism. Agger updates and develops for today's world a model for this engaged sociology rooted in sixties activism, when C. Wright Mills and Tom Hayden framed the New Left as a vehicle for the sociological imagination.
212 citations
••
TL;DR: The challenges posed by the economic, cultural, and political transformations that have marked late-nineteenth-century social life are discussed in this paper, with a focus on crime and criminal justice.
Abstract: Contemporary criminology inhabits a rapidly changing world. The speed and profundity of these changes are echoed in the rapidly changing character of criminology’s subject matter—in crime rates, in crime policy, and in the practices of policing, prevention and punishment. And if we look beyond the immediate data of crime and punishment to the processes that underpin them—to routines of social life and social control, the circulation of goods and persons, the organization of families and households, the spatial ecology of cities, the character of work and labour markets, the power of state authorities—it becomes apparent that criminology’s subject matter is centrally implicated in the major transformations of our time. The questions that animate this collection of essays concern the challenges that are posed for criminology by the economic, cultural, and political transformations that have marked late twentieth-century social life. The restructuring of social and economic relations, the fluidity of social process, the speed of technological change, and the remarkable cultural heterogeneity that constitute ‘late modernity’ pose intellectual challenges for criminology that are difficult and sometimes discomfiting but which are ultimately too insistent to ignore. To wish them away, to carry on regardless, to pursue the conventional agendas of criminological enquiry in the accustomed way, would be to turn away from some of the most important issues that face contemporary social thought and public policy. It would also be to depart from the canons of clarity, perspicacity and relevance that worthwhile criminological work has always observed. Ever since its emergence in the industrialized, urbanized world of the mid-nineteenth century, criminology has been, or has sought to be, a contemporary, timely, worldly subject. Criminologists––particularly those who draw upon a sociological tradition––have always sought to ground their analyses in a nuanced sense of the world as it is, and as it is becoming, not least because the phenomena of crime and disorder have so regularly been traced to the effects of social upheaval and dislocation. As the essays in this collection demonstrate, the social transformations of late modernity pose new problems of criminological understanding and relevance, and have definite implications for the intellectual dispositions, strategic aims and political commitments that criminology inevitably entails. How then might criminologists come to terms with the kinds of variation and change that characterize their twenty-first century world? Are criminology’s frameworks of explanation adequate to the changing realities of crime and criminal justice and to the expansive hinterland of political, economic and regulatory activity that encircles them?
211 citations
••
TL;DR: The authors explored the difficulties with both the theoretical content and application of the concept of path dependence in political studies, but suggests that, by combining it with insights from morphogenetic social theory, they can provide a coherent framework for its use.
Abstract: This article explores the difficulties with both the theoretical content and application of the concept of ‘path dependence’ in political studies, but suggests that, by combining it with insights from morphogenetic social theory, we can provide a coherent framework for its use. After providing a brief survey of the literature on path dependence, it presents a summary of the most significant criticisms made of the approach. The article then moves on to examine morphogenetic social theory and its potential to meet these criticisms before concluding by characterising the elements of a path-dependent system incorporating insights from both new institutionalism and morphogenetic social theory.
211 citations
••
TL;DR: In this paper, a case study of case studies of family entrepreneurial teams based in Honduras showed that a shared commitment to entrepreneurial stewardship of the family's assets underpins formation of FETs and that trust and shared values were important for membership.
Abstract: Family entrepreneurial teams are groups of related individuals who engage in entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurial teams studies emphasize the resources that members bring to the team. Family business studies suggest that relationships and social theories are important. Social capital explains the formation and composition of family entrepreneurial teams (FETs). Analysis is of case studies of FETs based in Honduras. A shared commitment to entrepreneurial stewardship of the family's assets underpins formation of FETs. Trust and shared values were important for membership. This study highlights that families are not internally consistent, and family ties are not equally strong.
211 citations