Search

Young adults who are not in education or work are often depicted as deviating from the norm of gainful employment that is still widely shared across the Nordic countries. While it has been argued that young adults feel that they are being blamed for their NEET situation, this article seeks to identify the variety of interpretations they have of their situation and what kind of explanations can be proposed for the differences. Theoretically, perspectives from Axel Honneth's recognition theory are combined with Thomas Scheff's sociological work on shame to discuss the variations in the sentiments of young adults. Based on this framework, the article illuminates how young adults use the shared semantics available within their immediate circles to enable them to feel worthy of recognition despite their depicted deviation from the norm of gainful employment. Additionally, the article contributes to sociological debates on Honneth's recognition theory – especially its ambiguous concept of shared semantics – by making sense of the role of communities and institutions as providers of shared semantics. The findings are based on an abductive analysis of 35 in-depth interviews with young Finnish adults aged 18–29 who have been or are currently outside of education or employment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Applying theories from sociology and social psychology concerned with the intersection of culture and cognition to in-depth interviews, this paper empirically explores the Norwegian majority population’s perceptions of cultural diversities using a dual-process (DP) methodological and analytic approach. Globalization has produced a mix of new anxieties, opportunities, and curiosities, leaving most people juggling conflicting objectives of self-preservation and selfrealization, and making cognitive self-regulation and behavioural flexibility valorized skills of contemporary life. Instead of identifying xenophobic and cosmopolitan attitudes at opposite ends of a spectrum, the current paper argues in line with current research and theory in studies of DP cognition that they commonly co-exist, albeit in separate automatic and discursive cognitive systems, within the same individual. As a result, people’s perceptions of cultural and ethnic diversities tend to be ambivalent and contextually malleable – for example, in cases where their deep dispositions appear incompatible with their own self-concept or dominant cultural expectations. Most centrally, the current research proposes concrete strategies to elicit responses from both cognitive systems in the context of interpretive interviews. Secondly, the paper proposes clues that help to identify from which cognitive system interviewees’ conflicting cosmopolitan and xenophobic attitudes originate, thereby enabling researchers to further delineate the specific characteristics of these attitudes, including the mode of cultural learning through which they form, their flexibility or robustness to change, their role in behaviour motivation, and the extent to which they are conscious and controllable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the scientific community urgently seeks to understand the uneven geographical patterns of transmission and mortality rates of the COVID-19 pandemic, it has become necessary to challenge the tacit assumption that the pandemic is strictly a public health issue that is primarily reserved for the technocratic expertise of health professionals and officials. These discrepancies in outcome imply that the pandemic yields spatial selectivities (Jessop et al., 2008), which have been revealed through the uneven manifestation of societal impacts between places, localities, communities, and neighbourhoods. For this reason, the pandemic and the management thereof must be deemed as social issues that require the input of sociological theory, insofar as its spread is not only spatially embedded but also socially mediated. To foreground a socio-spatial perspective of the pandemic, I propose that we must start with two analytical premises on socio-spatiality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) has spread globally in a short period of time and quickly developed into a pandemic. In connection with its progress, entire cities and countries have been closed down, people are quarantined, and infrastructure and trade have been suspended. As this is a new virus, no vaccine or antiviral drugs are available, but instead non-medical measures such as social distancing may be used to reduce the spread. The Nordic countries, which are known for their similar welfare systems, have chosen pandemic strategies without coordinating with their neighbours. Over one night, Denmark closed the bridge to Sweden and shut down its society, while Sweden keeps as much open as possible and recommends its residents to comply with general advice on reducing the spread. Notably, this is the second time in a short time where Denmark and Sweden diverge in their pandemic response. In 2009, during the H1N1 (swine flu) outbreak, Denmark only vaccinated risk-groups whereas Sweden pursued a mass vaccination strategy. In a previous research project, we compared Sweden's and Denmark's contrasting pandemic response focusing on pharmaceutical interventions in terms of vaccination and antivirals. The pressing need to find a solution to the COVID-19 pandemic means that risks and shortcuts may have to be taken in order to come up with a vaccine with apparent risks to individual health. We can therefore see the current pandemic as an opportunity to expand sociological research, since Nordic cooperation once again is uncoordinated, despite signals and agreements of otherwise, and different drugs are fast tracked and already tested in human trials. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the sociological importance of expert knowledge in the COVID-19 pandemic. Through this expertise, it is possible to follow patterns of infections, fatalities and recoveries almost in real time, and this knowledge is crucial for countries when deciding on relevant governmental strategies to control the spread. The paper stresses that there was a strong institutional machinery of expertise for data production and dissemination, and despite rather different national ambitions in detection strategies (both concerning infections and mortalities), this machinery produced facts and figures as though they were measured uniformly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hysteresis is a versatile concept for volatile times. Pierre Bourdieu's sociological use recognises hysteresis in times of dislocation and disruption between field and habitus, 'in particular, when a field undergoes a major crisis and its regularities (even its rules) are profoundly changed' (Bourdieu, 2000: 160). In considering the issues and implications of the COVID-19 pandemic, hysteresis renders visible 'multi-level, multi-temporal dynamics' (Strand and Lizardo, 2016: 169). It is attendant to the temporality of work and how workers, workplaces, workforces and fields of work are affected. The COVID-19 crisis may give rise to sudden changes such as no work (e.g. redundancies, mass unemployment), reduced work (e.g. reduced hours, underemployment), suspended work (e.g. going on furlough), or absence from work (e.g. leave and workforce absence rates). The transition to working from home and online, en masse, raises considerations of habitus and taking practice online, with many experiencing rapid digital transformation and remote working. The COVID-19 pandemic raises significant sociological issues of intersectionality and inequality, as precarity, risk and harms are experienced unevenly. There are age and gendered differences, including where working from home is in conflict with concurrent caring and home schooling responsibilities. These issues and changes, their meaning and collateral consequences, urgently warrant sociological analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Nordic countries are renowned for their unique administrative register data that include various aspects of an individual's labour market activities. However, studies of government-led help packages and their effects during the coronavirus crisis in Denmark reveal that the labour market statistics used by government and academics have several blind spots when it comes to some of the most vulnerable groups in the labour market. There are strong signs that we underestimate the scope and depth of atypical work and even lack reliable data. We argue in this piece that the coronavirus crisis is an important lesson for labour market sociology that calls for methodological development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this commentary we provide a selective overview of the kinds of insights that a sociology of expertise can provide in better articulating the stakes of current politico-epistemic conflicts catalysed by COVID-19. In doing so, we argue that one of the ways that sociology can fruitfully engage with the pre-, intra- and post-pandemic societal responses is through its distinctive perspective on expertise. To exemplify the potential of this perspective, we present three dimensions of the pandemic that a sociology of expertise opens up avenues for exploring: (a) the formation of expert publics; (b) transnational expert dynamics; and (c) expert moral authority. Together these three dimensions show how expertise constitutes a crucial nexus for understanding how contemporary societies respond to global crises. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper I borrow from both the transition and cultural perspectives in the sociology of youth to define a new conceptual and empirical framework to analyze independence among young people, accounting for its multifaceted character within the current context of the transition to adulthood in the United States. Applying latent class analysis to data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health, I investigate how objective and subjective indicators of independence relate to one another, and do so differently for different youth. In this way, I empirically extend the understanding of transitions to independence and offer a more nuanced picture than a one-dimensional perspective could do. Accounting for respondents’ age and role transitions marking relevant developmental stages, I identify four groups of youth with different forms of independence. While one group exhibits independence in all the domains considered, most inhabit states of partial independence, with mismatches across indicators. Future research may use this framework to investigate independence, both as an outcome or as an explanatory variable, and to explore differences across subgroups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses systematically different concepts of anomie as an explanation of Group-focused Enmity (GFE) against selected groups in society. The GFE research programme has demonstrated the utility of applying the concept of ‘anomia’ – an individual reaction to disruptions in the normative order – to explain prejudices against vulnerable groups. This paper extends the GFE research programme by incorporating insights from Institutional Anomie Theory, a theoretical perspective originally introduced in the criminological literature. Drawing upon this, it develops a theoretical model that links perceptions of weakened non-economic institutions with prejudices against groups that are readily seen as being ‘unprofitable’. These perceptions are theorized to affect prejudices against such groups via a pathway of ‘marketized’ attitudes and orientations, net of any influence of anomia. This paper’s theoretical model was assessed with data from a representative survey of the German population (n = 840). The results of Structural Equation Modelling support most of the main hypotheses, revealing the additional value for prejudice research of measuring the individual experience of anomie not only as anomia but also with respect to processes of marketization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article I argue against the widespread opinion that social mechanisms and grand theories of Modernity are conflicting approaches to social theory. My main thesis is that even though they clearly differ, they exhibit complementary strengths and weaknesses. Hence, I argue for a cooperative solution to the question of their coexistence within sociology. I present what I call a Weberian solution to this query. More precisely, I claim that a grand theory of Modernity should be conceived of as a constellation of social mechanisms. As a result, grand theories of Modernity may be both more properly articulated and tested empirically, whereas social mechanisms may be reconnected to the classical project of sociology, namely to construct a comprehensive theory of modernity. I illustrate the fruitfulness of my Weberian solution with a particular case, the sociology of freedom. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the social distribution of involvement in highbrow culture in light of three issues being discussed in cultural sociology. One is that highbrow cultural orientation is an indicator of cultural capital or of social status. A second, the ‘meltdown scenario’, suggests that not only the popularity of highbrow activities, but also their distinctiveness, has decreased among younger cohorts in comparison to older cohorts. A third deals with the ‘feminization’ of highbrow culture. These issues are empirically addressed in contemporary Finland using nationally representative survey data. Highbrow culture is measured in three dimensions of cultural practices – knowledge, taste and participation – covering four different fields: music, literature, cinema and the visual arts. The results support all three arguments: First, education and occupational class are important social determinants of involvement in highbrow culture in Finland. Second, younger age cohorts show less interest in highbrow culture than do older Finns. Third, women tend to be more involved in highbrow culture than men. The results indicate considerable stability across the measures of highbrow culture and cultural fields. Social determinants of knowledge and cinema, however, are different from those in other dimensions and fields. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents and discusses the sociology of philosophy as a theorybased empirically practised sociological subdivision that came to the fore in the 1980s. In the first part, the type of empirical material and the forms of data presentation that are available to the sociology of philosophy are discussed. In the second part, the focus is on two important attempts, those of Randall Collins and Pierre Bourdieu, to develop general sociological theories about the relationship between social being and thought. The main lesson to be drawn from them is that in normal circumstances philosophical thought cannot be reduced to socio-political conditions outside the attention space (Collins) or the philosophical field (Bourdieu). In the concluding part, we tentatively sketch a programme for a future sociology of philosophy. All in all, the sociology of philosophy is seen as an emerging new subdivision within sociology, the potential of which is far from exhausted with respect to theoretical development as well as empirical approaches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this theoretical article is to analyse the social construction of order in two connected markets in the production flow of the global garment industry. The consumer market is identified as a status market, while the production market is defined as a 'standard' market. In a 'status' market, order is maintained because the identities of actors on both sides of the market are ranked according to status, which is a more entrenched social construction than the commodity traded in the market. In a market characterized by 'standard', the situation is the reverse: the commodity is a more entrenched social construction than the identity rankings of actors in the market. The study ties together consumption and production of garments through several markets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this analysis of formal and informal social participation in the Netherlands between 1975 and 2000, period, life-cycle and cohort effects are disentangled and the factors that could have driven these changes are examined. Use of diary data enables an assessment of four types of social participation: formal involvement in associations, maintenance of informal contacts within the home and outside the home, and distant social contacts. Our results indicate that several changes have been taking place. A large decrease (of approximately 3 hours per week between 1980 and 2000) is found in the time people spend on social activities within the home (consisting mainly of paying visits and receiving visitors). This trend is connected with increases in work and television watching. Other changes manifest themselves as cohort differences. While younger cohorts reflect considerably less activity in formal participation, they spend more time on informal social activities outside the home. Decreasing levels of religiosity play a role with respect to both trends. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Science is being published increasingly on the web. In this article, we explore how Nordic sociology is represented on Google Scholar (GS), what its output and impact is, and what factors explain it. Our data consist of faculty in 16 Nordic sociology departments in March 2005. The distribution of their publications and citations is skewed. Thirteen per cent of scholars do not appear on GS, whereas only 15 per cent have more than 5 publications. Of scholars with at least 1 publication (n = 240), 75 per cent have at most 10 citations. Both the number of web hits (web visibility) and citations are influenced by the gender of the faculty member, type and age of publication. Web visibility, citations and position are mutually reinforcing. Departmental effect is greater in web visibility than citations. International publications have started to dominate the social sciences, international monographs being particularly frequently cited. The remaining salience of books shows that sociology is still a distinct form of knowledge. The exclusive use of refereed articles and direct comparisons with the natural sciences ignore important aspects of the social sciences. In all, while GS produces findings similar to those in citation databases such as the SSCI, some systematic differences exist. No individual method for measuring scientific output is objective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article is about the erosion of the Norwegian democratic infrastructure, with particular emphasis on the causes and effects of the transformation of the voluntary sector and the decline of social movements. We are seeing a turning away from large-scale ideological mass movements and an increase in smaller and nimbler associations that are better at catering for individual needs and wishes, but poorer in plugging members into the central decision-making institutions. This is putting increasing pressure on the Norwegian social contract, which has been characterized by high levels of institutional centralization balanced by high levels of citizen control. We relate these important changes in the democratic infrastructure to the impact of globalization, highlighting structural similarities between globalization and the new organizational forms of political or civic participation. Our argument is that globalization is a process that has particular structural characteristics, and that these characteristics are giving shape to the new forms of civic participation that are now emerging in Norway (and probably also in the rest of Scandinavia). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Typical of Erik Allardt's quality as a scholar and an intellectual is a willingness and a capacity to take into consideration opposite positions in the same analysis and to act at the interface of the national and international levels. This quality appears most clearly in his theory of the preconditions of solidarity, in which both ‘rational’ and ‘irrational’ reactions to the adversities of modernization are explained by the same set of variables. His best scholarly and other intellectual contributions make a fruitful connection between domestic Finnish concerns and elements of the non-Finnish sociological discussion. This Janus-faced position differentiates Allardt from Stein Rokkan, who in many other respects is comparable to him. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article sorts the various aspects of social capital (networks, trust, civism) theoretically and constructs an instrument for measuring its multifacetedness. The instrument is validated using data from the 1999/2000 wave of the European Values Study survey. Using the same data, the article describes how social capital, by its various aspects, is distributed geographically among European countries and regions (North, West, South, East), and socially among social categories of European citizens. As far as the geographical distribution of social capital is concerned, there are some particular differences, but, on the whole, European countries and regions, with the possible exception of Northern Europe, appear not to be substantially different in aggregate levels of social capital. In Scandinavia, social capital levels tend to be slightly higher, with the exception of family bonding. Some remarkable European patterns are found in regard to the social distribution of social capital. There is evidence of accumulation of human, economic and social capital; social capital is strongly gendered and is related to religious beliefs and behaviour, and to a political left-right stance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the social composition of homicide offenders and victims in Finland between 1960 and 2000. While many prior analyses have been based on victim-based cause-of-death statistics or aggregated rates of geographical units, the present data allowed the analysis of offender and victim populations at individual level. Both the rates and patterns of homicidal behaviour were analysed from the point of view of participants' social characteristics. It was discovered that the social anchoring of homicide remained stable in the relative sense that the typical victims and offenders were males from the lowest stratum. However, the absolute societal position of the lowest stratum male transformed as he was made economically redundant, a change that was reflected in homicide populations. The article concludes with a discussion of the paradox between the rise of the welfare state and the expected but unrealized pacification of the lowest stratum male. Four suppressing mechanisms are suggested: alcohol availability, social selection effects, cultural factors and the unintended consequences of social policy measures. The last category refers to changes in social patterns of homicide, which made the reduction of homicide rates more difficult, meaning that the present homicide situation is particularly resistant to efforts of situational crime prevention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The questions addressed in this study are: first, what factors determine the economic situation among the young, and, second, what aspects in youth have a long-term impact on their economic situation as adults? The empirical analysis builds on a three-wave panel covering a period of 16 years. Growth curve modelling is used to estimate changes over time. The main results are: Young people's incomes say little about their current standard of living or future earnings ability. Economic deprivation during youth is unrelated to the development of deprivation over time. Hence, the finding that young people in general face economic difficulties does not mean a problem with lasting implications. Labour market situation and household characteristics during youth are relativelyl unrelated to development later in life. However, long-term unemployment hampers young people's economy in the long run. Most importantly, the results of this analysis emphasize the importance of the reproduction of class and gender relations. It is these two fundamental aspects, more than anything else, that affect young people on their way into adulthood and in their future life as adults. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Theodor Geiger is one of the sociological discipline's unappreciated classics. This article focuses on a particular and often neglected part of his work, the study of revolutionary crowds. The article has two main objectives. First, it presents and discusses Geiger's subtle and thoroughly sociological account of crowds and their revolutionary character. This includes an outlook to his theory of differentiation and to his critique of communitarian pathos in modem society. Second, the article demonstrates that Geiger's theory has much to offer contemporary debates on revolution. This is shown more specifically by contrasting Geiger's theory with Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri's recent work. According to Hardt and Negri, the present imperial world order may be radically transformed by a new revolutionary subject, the multitude. The article contends that in many respects Geiger's theory provides a more complex picture of the possibility of revolution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This short biography sketches the professional itinerary of Professor Dag Østerberg (1938-), a colleague very well known, respected and much quoted in his native Norway, as well as on the Nordic scene and beyond, as a sociologist, philosopher and musicologist. Østerberg's academic career spans the years as a student from 1957, magister 1961, doctorate 1973, and employment as assistant, associate and professor (in 1981). During several decades of not being employed he devoted his time to free study and writing. In practising a ‘frugal freedom’, he maintained his independence as an intellectual, upholding his original programme as a ‘critic of society’ and of sociology as a whole. The biography is written along Bourdieuvian lines, in seeking to understand his career through the various fields he has passed through. Unlike many others, he has had the boldness of spirit to withdraw, time and again, from situations and fields that did not fit with his programme. A critical spirit, he was one of the initiators of the local Norwegian Positivismusstreit, and, although in changing form, has maintained like stands ever since a critical, interpretive sociology, 'post-positivism'. The best known of his English books is Metasociology (1987). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

abstract: Johan Asplund holds an exceptional position in Swedish sociology. Although widely read, his books do not fit the normal scientific pattern, which makes him into something of a riddle to many sociologists. In this essay, I consider Asplund's work as a whole, sketch the progression of central ideas and portray his way of working. I also attempt to characterize Johan Asplund's position in Swedish sociology, and to delineate some of its consequences for the reception of his work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article reflects on the possibility of a social science that aims at self–referential knowledge–acquisition. This form of social research explores and questions deep–seated presuppositions prevalent in contemporary culture and strives to become aware of other forms of life. This view of social sciences, therefore, is perfectly in line with the pragmatist perspective that language and knowledge, rather than acts of representation, allow people to increase the scope of human possibilities. Various forms of social research, in a wide range of disciplines, have already explored this self–referential knowledge: for instance, genealogical history and sociology, post–processual archaeology and the critical turn in anthropology. The article locates this self–referential knowledge within the context of contemporary American pragmatism (e.g. Rorty, Bernstein). It is argued that this type of knowledge ties in with the radical tradition in neo–pragmatism, in particular its anti–foundationalist notion of critique. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Niklas Luhmann's theory of power is based on two fundamental pillars. First, he analyzes power functionally as a symbolically generalized medium of communication, which endows his conception of power with a strong evolutionary foundation. Second, he claims that power is constitutively tied to negative sanctions. Drawing upon Michel Foucault's analytics of power, the article is a critical examination of Luhmann's theory of power. In particular, Foucault's critique of the so-called discourse of sovereignty is transformed into an immanent critique of the second pillar in Luhmann's theory of power. The argument is that this pillar is converse to Luhmann's evolutionary theoretical objectives, as it reinstalls an Old-European semantics of power. The article contends that systems theory would better redeem its historical goals if it focused primarily upon the functional dimension of power. It is argued that this conceptual revision endows systems theory with a more flexible perspective on power that is both attentive to historical transformations of how power is exercised, and which still carries a strong link to a general theory of society and its evolution. In the article, this openness is demonstrated through a systemic reconstruction of Foucault's notion of subjectification which, in its Luhmannian version, is coined semantic intrusion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the sociology of Zygmunt Bauman, contemporary society, labelled consumer society by Bauman, is viewed as liquid modernity, which underlines mobility as indicative of our time. Globalization encapsulates the increasing mobility of capital and social elites; Bauman stresses that the present consumer society is stratified, and for the poor mobility is not an easy option. Spatial differentiation goes hand in hand with social differentiation. Increasingly, the affluent segments isolate themselves in voluntary ghettos such as gated communities, while the poor are relegated to the enforced ghetto, where they are labelled an underclass and viewed as useless and unwanted. Bauman demonstrates the development in North America as indicative of the situation elsewhere, but suggests an alternative to neo-liberal welfare state dismantling: namely the introduction of a basic income and substitution of the work ethic by an ethic of craftsmanship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although concerns for inequality are at the heart of the sociological tradition, few sociologists have taken a serious interest in the normative and methodological issues involved in the choice between different measures of inequality. It is argued in this article that the widely used but also widely criticized Gini index can be seen to incorporate a particularly sociological conception of inequality. The Gini index has features that are alien to mainstream welfare economics, but perfectly sensible if inequality is understood more sociologically as arising from a state of relative deprivation. However, the commitment to a relativistic conception of inequality leads to serious theoretical and practical complications. The implicit rationale of the Gird index assumes that it is applied to a `reference population' - where everybody compares themselves with everybody else. It is not obvious that the residents of a nation-state always constitute a reference population in this sense, and arguments can be found both for widening and narrowing the scope of the relevant population. Both aggregation and disaggregation from whatever is considered to be the `appropriate' scope of the reference population is problematic and requires different methodological solutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A bibliography related to sociology is presented which includes the books "Orderly Fashion: A Sociology of Markets," by Patrick Aspers, "Social Theory in the Twentieth Century and Beyond," by Patrick Baert and Filipe Carreira da Silva, and "What's Wrong with Social Policy and How to Fix It," by Bill Jordan.

The article lists several books related to sociology including "The Oxford Handbook of Sociology and Organization Studies," by Paul Adler, "The Oxford Handbook of Critical Management Studies," by Mats Alvesson, and "Gender," 2nd Edition, by Raewyn Connell.

The article discusses several topics featured in articles in this issue. The commentary discusses the growth of moral philosophy and the impact it had on sociology in Nordic countries. In the first issue of "Acta Sociologica," co-founder Torgny Segerstedt highlighted the "Uppsala School of Sociology" and went on to outline the theoretical model of the school. Sociologists have continued to expand on the ideas of the "Uppsala School." Scholar Hans Zetterberg has continued this tradition and has expanded it to argue that language is the basis of human society.

The article presents information that the editorial office of ACTA Sociologica will move from Iceland to Denmark. The Social Science Quotation Index now ranges ACTA among the top twenty of all sociology journals. The ambition of the new Danish editors is at least to keep abreast, and possibly also raise the quality of ACTA over the next three years. The first issue of ACTA Sociologica appeared in late 1955. In 2005 and running into 2006, ACTA will celebrate its 50th anniversary. This is quite a challenge as it gives the opportunity to review and highlight what is specific and significant in the progress of Nordic sociology in the past 50 years. Nordic sociology has an impressive history as a building stone in the making of the Nordic modern welfare states. Such a close link can also become a burden, however, as sociology risks its independence and gets too tied in with the state, its welfare bureaucracies and overall world perspectives. Yet, one have to keep in mind that because of this embeddedness Nordic sociologists have on the whole had much better working conditions and career prospects than many of their European colleagues. Finally the article concludes that Nordic regions have always been concerned actors in the world system, and the journal will certainly strive to maintain such a concern.

The article presents a list of books received for review, including "Culture, Religion and Spirituality in Coping: The Example of Cancer Patients in Sweden," by Fereshteh Ahmadi, "New Keywords: A Revised Vocabulary of Culture and Society," edited by Tony Bennett, Lawrence Grossberg and Meaghan Morris, and "The Sociology of the Body," by Kate Cregan.