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The introductory chapter by Rokkan and Lipset in Party Systems and Voter Alignments (1967) and the further development of Rokkan's work in Citizens, Elections, Parties (1970) provide points of departure for a discussion of the impact of Parsonian AGIL theory on Rokkan's political sociology. The AGIL theory would seem to have provided initial inspiration for Rokkan's own thinking rather than premises for strict hypothetico-deductive reasoning closely related to the Parsonian theoretical framework. The present paper, however, attempts to deductively explore certain hidden implications of the AGIL dynamic, thus arriving at notions of structural contradictions similar to those found among some structural Marxists. These notions are then related back to Rokkan's theory of sequential historical junctures and conflicts, the conclusion being that his theory can and must be further developed to take account of the internal contradictions emerging in mature capitalism not only according to Marxists but also according to the hidden implications of AGIL theory explicated in this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Re-interpreting Simmel's work on money as an attempt to develop a critical sociology of consumption from a relativist theory of value, this paper illustrates the extent to which it may be seen as something more, and different than, sociological impressionism. The modern social space of valuation is chiefly defined by the development of money economy within metropolitan settings. This allows for the public commensurability of values and pushes for their private incompatibility. Subjectivism is heightened in so far as individuals' capacity to sustain difference is vital to social, objective exchange. Contrary to neo-classical economics, the appreciation of individual choice entails for Simmel a critical appraisal of the social conditions of its existence which results in a discussion of the risks associated with the pressure to perform as autonomous choosers. The paper concludes with a view on what may be a Simmelian sociology of consumption, one which enriches the classical focus on social distinction with a critical concern for the modern conditions of valuation and self-constitution. Fashion and style may be conceived of as techniques of consumption that, embodying particular combinations of difference and indifference, help govern the modern world of goods. In this view, these mundane practices have the potential to function as a balancing practice of self-constitution, taking place between the indifference of the market which allows individualization, and the risk that the individuality thus constituted remains empty, a reproducer of commensurability unable to bestow value on things. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper the emergence of Cultural Studies is traced and its current place in British intellectual life assessed. Throughout a comparison is drawn between Cultural Studies and British Sociology. In the first part of the paper the 'original curriculum' of Cultural Studies is analysed in its making of a sharp break from previous disciplinary practices. The foundation of Cultural Studies on theoretically defined grounds is then described. In the second part of the paper the changes in Cultural Studies since its inception are described and the current critical potential of the practice assessed, On a pessimistic note the paper ends by noting the threat to the survival of Cultural Studies from the current round of rationalizations of British Higher Education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is another pragmatic attempt to include women in the comparative study of intergenerational class mobility in France and Sweden, two societies that differ in their political history and in the prevalence of women's activity outside the home. In the main, it addresses two questions: How do the mobility patterns of women via marriage compare with those of men via occupational career? How do the mobility patterns of women via marriage compare with those of women via occupational career? These questions are treated in terms of actually observed life chances as well as in relative terms, which shows the impact of the division of labour by sex on differences in life chances by alternative channels of mobility. An attempt is also made to assess the relative importance of interactions between women's social origin, own occupation, and class position by marriage. The association between the latter two proves to be the strongest by far. Rather unexpectedly, social origin does not appear to affect the association between husband's class and wife's occupational category either in France or in Sweden. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The term 'social fluidity' is to be understood as intergenerational occupational mobility net of direct structural effects, i.e. effects of differences in the marginal distributions of the mobility tables. Though not entirely adequate in the case of women, the terminology of earlier studies of class mobility is retained to simplify the task at hand, namely to complement the picture of the stratification process in the occupational system obtained from intergenerational mobility data regarding men. In this paper, log-linear models are used to test possible outcomes to the questions: Do men and women in the same nation have the same pattern of social fluidity? Do women/or men have the same pattern of social fluidity cross-nationally? Is the relation of women's to men's patterns of social fluidity the same cross-nationally? On the basis of data from France and Sweden the first two questions are answered in the negative, though one may be impressed by how small differences are and how important structurally induced variation is. The last question may well be answered affirmatively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The "control-graph" is a method for analyzing the distribution of influence in organizations, which has been developed by A.S. Tannenbaum. The technique has certain methodological assumptions and it is shown that these are not valid in the data, which are analysed in this paper. The aim is to discuss the methodological, but not the theoretical problems of the control-graph, and the paper indicates that the results of previous control graph studies are brought into doubt. Some of the results of the investigation point to the fact that power in organizations has more dimensions and must therefore be taken as too ambiguous when operationalized as in the control graph. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is an outcome of a project that started with exploring theories of development in advanced societies, especially those of functionalism and Marxism, and then moved on to consider the role of knowledge development in the process of societal change. This shift is connected with the presumption of critical humanism. Critical humanism maintains that social inquiry and social theories should also reflect on the social-structural context and context of application-praxis, should relate to the self-reflection and social consciousness of people, and should be oriented towards problems of social transcendence and social emancipation. History is seen as a dialectic process where social conditions create man and man creates history from given conditions. The development of social knowledge and social consciousness plays an important role in this process. The explication of social emancipation should take its point of departure in human conditions in human needs and the exploration of emancipatory means, goals and transcendence should be part of an increasing self-consciousness of society and people. The functionalistic theories of evolution and modernization appear as naturalistic and deterministic notions from the point of view of critical humanism.

The article is based on the idea that the problem of unity or integration of modern society has not yet been solved in sociological theory. The paper attempts a new solution based on a creative synthesis of elements from Talcott Parsons' functionalism, rational choice theory, and Niklas Luhmann's new systems theory. The core idea is that the state and the political sphere work together as an integrating centre of modern societies. Present approaches understand the political allocation of resources either as an exchange process or as solidarity caused by internalized social norms. None of them embodies a concept of collective rationality; therefore they cannot give a dynamic account of the public allocation of collective goods. This dichotomy of individual rationality and norm-guided behaviour will be produced and reproduced on the level of general theory in the discussion on the problem of order or collective action as long as sociology is founded on the assumption that society is made up of individual human beings and their actions. However, by replacing action with Luhmann's concept of communication and rethinking collective action within this new framework, it becomes possible to develop a concept of collective rationality. This new conceptualization is used to clear up problems and overcome shortcomings in Luhmann's own theory of modern society as functionally differentiated. Observed as a consequence of action, function is collective action. A solution to the problem of collective action or social order is found with the emergence of rational solidarity as a medium that symbolizes the difference between individual and collective rationality as a unity: one should sacrifice individual opportunities to achieve collective goals and solve problems for the society to which one belongs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article provides information on the journal Acta Sociologica and its role in the formative years of Scandinavian sociology. Since its foundation in 1955, Acta Sociologica has been open for papers from different orientations and schools. Important paradigmatic changes have been clearly reflected in its pages. In Acta Sociologica's first five volumes, the theoretical papers strongly emphasized the importance of social factors in perceptions and behavior. The description of Acta Sociologica's relation to the studies of the welfare state is revealing in the way it has functioned during the years. A very basic characteristics of Acta has been a kind of pluralism. It was never an organ for just one kind of theoretical and ideological orientation. Positivism, Marxism, structuralism, post-modernism have all been reflected in its pages, but Acta was never a protagonist of just one kind of learning. One of the consequences of such pluralism is that there never has been anything truly dramatic associated with the contents of and in Acta Sociologica. For Scandinavian sociology and sociologists, Acta Sociologica has some special functions. Like all scientists, Scandinavian sociologists should of course aspire to be the best in the world. Acta Sociologica has been one of the important mechanisms for Scandinavian inter-comparisons.

This paper discusses one of the paradoxes of the sociology of health in Finland. On the one hand sociological health research has expanded considerably over the past few decades, during which time there have been a number of changes in the field of health care: the growth of a nation-wide network of health centres, the development and increasing application of medical technology, tendencies towards privatization and concentration, increasing costs of health care, changes in morbidity, and so on. These developments have given rise to a host of new problems which necessitate a social-scientific approach in research and also sociological training for health personnel. On the other hand, within medical faculties there has been growing opposition to sociological health research and education. The paper describes the main features of the sociology of health, the development of the discipline's institutional status, and its relationship to medicine both in countries where the discipline has a strong footing (the United States and Great Britain) and in Finland. In spite of the different circumstances and historical backgrounds, the difficulties encountered by the sociology of health tend to be rather similar in different countries. The development of the sociology of health in Finland is discussed from the point of view of both research and education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses middle managers and administrators--a sizeable and developing stratum in the contemporary capitalist society. Their contradictory class situation leads one to regard them as belonging to the middle strata. Changes in their material conditions in the last decades are briefly considered, and shifts in their moods and attitudes in greater detail. Four main types of their social orientations are suggested. The author concludes that the growing identification of middle managers with their own social group--and the corresponding weakening of identification with the employer's interests--is an advance in their historical development. Winning over middle managers and administrators is rather important for the success of the struggle of the working class for deep-going democratic exchanges in society, for socialism. In practice, however, this involves great difficulties. Middle management has strong social ties with the capitalist establishment. The confrontation between managers and managed, rank-and-file workers, cannot disappear under capitalism, though it may attenuate considerably and is already attenuating. At the same time, changes occurring in the attitudes of managerial cadres create opportunities for an alliance with them or, at least, for a drift of a significant part of them from pro-capitalist to neutral positions.

The purpose of this paper is to problematize earlier class analyses of public employees, and to argue for a new methodological approach, involving new concepts, in such analysis. As a result of the discussion, a typology has been produced which is claimed to be usable in further analyses of the social and political behavior of public employees in the modern welfare states. The contribution therefore has a somewhat theoretical and a priori character, which seems justified, however, because of the considerable clarification needed in especially this area. The general assumption underlying this departure, which the whole analysis can be seen as an attempt to sustain, is that public employees constitute a special group or category and also a special problem, for class analysis, which therefore warrants special analysis. It will thus be argued, that the social division of labor within the state/public sector can be understood neither by assigning, in an ahistorical manner, different functions to the state, nor by analogies with conditions in the private sector. Rather it must be understood through a dynamic historic-institutional analysis of the areas of public regulation and intervention and the growth of these. public employees

In this paper I explore some aspects of the relations between social structures and social struggles, within the context of an overall conceptualisation of the anatomy of capitalist societies. I argue that such societies should be viewed as comprising three interdependent and dissimilar sets of social relations, the economy, civil society and the state. I then examine some of the interrelations between social struggles and changes in social structures. I analyse in particular the logic of collective class actions, and the variety of unintended consequences of such actions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The initial viewpoint of this paper is that one can understand neither the social foundation of the Progress Party nor its future maximum and minimum support from the electorate by abandoning the assumption that it is a class party. The question is whether this selective support forms a total pattern which clearly both designates the Progress Party as a class party and shows that new class distinctions have come to the surface in Denmark. Is the appearance of the Progress Party simply a symptom of new social contradictions splitting up and grouping some of the traditional social classes and, if so, what are these contradictions? A weakness of the material used here is that it only concerns one period of time, the late summer of 1976. Therefore, it does not allow for any changes over time in the social composition of Progress Party or other parties. Nevertheless, the material provides a basis for expressing some doubt about the declining class dependence of the political parties in recent times. These statements are based on analyses which do not normally discuss whether any change has occurred in the content of the classes over time. To what extent, for example, has the working class had to recruit its new members from other social categories than has previously been the case.

This article reports on the state of sociology based on observations made at the 9th World Congress of Sociology held 1978 in Uppsala, Sweden. At the opening session of the Congress, Tom Bottomore, president of the International Sociological Association, described the present state of sociology. The reconstruction work of the post-war years had probably helped to create a belief in economic growth, which was clearly reflected in sociology. The belief in a common goal and in one single course of development, however, had been lost. This could be seen in the methodological orientation of sociology. The predominant trends at present are the various Marxian schools and phenomenology, opposed to which are the positivist schools, with structuralism as the fourth trend. Another way of analyzing the state of sociology is to study the papers presented at the Congress and the reception they got, and on this basis look for areas of emphasis in sociological research as regards both subject matter and regional factors. To do this, it is necessary to calculate the number of papers presented in the Congress; then analyze the questionnaires distributed to Finnish participants during in the Congress.

This paper reviews the development of Network analysis and provides data on several characteristics of personal networks. Using two interrelated data sets of (1) 347 respondents and (2) 71 multi-person networks comprised of these respondents, we report on such measure as durability, content, intensity and the density of the networks. In one of the few attempts to venture into second order networks, we interviewed people named to the networks of our respondents and were therefore able to investigate the reciprocal nature of personal ties. For cases in which reciprocity occurred, the congruence of views held by the two parties about their relationship was investigated. Reciprocation occurred in a minority of the cases and while most of these relationships showed congruent views, all cases of discrepancies resulted from self-enhancing reports. Several network characteristics were found to be interrelated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article is a slightly shortened version of a paper presented at the IX Nordic Congress of Sociology held at Lund, Sweden, 1518 August 1976. It represents an attempt to determine the place of alcohol in society through the state and political processes. The attempt should primarily be viewed in relation to the different traditions of social alcohol research. At the same time, it may he regarded as an example of a study aiming to illustrate factors determining the relationship of the state to a given social phenomenon -- in the present instance, to alcohol. In the first section of this article, several factors are presented for consideration with regard to determining the over-all place of alcohol in any given society: the dominant use values of alcohol, the economic processes involved in the production and distribution of alcohol, the social circumstances and economic resources determining the structure of private consumption, and the social consequences of drinking. Subsequently, the different traditions of social alcohol research are characterized according to the factors which they bring prominently to the fore in the determination of the role of alcohol in society. In the second section of this article, the general tasks of the capitalist state are discussed, and four kinds of interests relative to alcohol are derived from these: state fiscal interests, interests of industrial policy, interests of public order, and social policy interests. In the next four sections, attention is paid to the forms which each of the aforementioned interests take under different circumstances and as to how each interest should be described. At the same time, we have made an attempt to localize those objective factors which determine the relative importance of each interest under different social conditions. The last section contains some general speculation as to the relationship of the state to alcohol under Nordic pre-capitalism, concurrence capitalism and monopoly capit [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper a sociological role theory for the explanation of variations in accident rates is presented, Accident Risk is seen as a combined result of a person's exposure to dangerous situations, here labeled Role Strain, and his ability to avoid and survive potential accidents which is called Individual Capacity. Married women, married men, single (never married) women and single (never married) men are examined with respect to Role Strain and Individual Capacity in middle age years and in old age, and empirical consequences in terms of Accident Risk are derived. Theoretical arguments are tested against Norwegian data from the 1961-69 period and against American data from 1950 and 1960. Thus, tests across national populations as well as over different time periods are carried out. Results from the three data sets support the sociological role theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Among Nordic social scientists during the postwar period, Stein Rokkan made the clearly most important contribution to comparative historical sociology. This article distinguishes three phases of his work: a phase of early experiences in the 1950s, followed by two mature phases in the 1960s and 1970s. In both these phases Rokkan wanted to explain the diversity of European political systems, but in the second mature phase he developed a much broader framework to analyse the economic, territorial and cultural contexts of Europe's political developments. The methodology of his conceptual maps and his model of Europe is discussed in some detail. It is argued that in his mature work, Rokkan increasingly departed both from variables-oriented sociology and mainstream positivist methodology. The notion of theory implied by his mature work corresponds best to the notion found among critics of variables-oriented sociology, and it converges with the notions of grounded theory and thick description as developed in interactionist schools of sociology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper introduces a series of articles which deals with personal accounts of Finnish, Norwegian and Swedish sociology.

Non-welfarist approaches to well-being are often criticized for ignoring personal preferences and suffering from a dictatorial logic. This paper argues that welfarist approaches do not have a special quality of preference neutrality and that non-welfarist/non-dictatorial approaches to well-being and interpersonal comparison are possible. Utility is a function not of goods and preferences, but of goods and tastes, and the latter are decomposed into expectations and preferences. A theory of well-being based on choice is recommended. Choice is defined as a function of personal resources and arena options. A typology of measurement approaches is developed. Indirect measurement is recommended above direct measurement. Implications are discussed for income, social indicators, and capabilities in the measurement of well-being. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the role of promotion prospects in explaining class differences in political preferences at different points in the life-cycle. The argument contains four main propositions. First, that present resources are often discounted in favor of future rewards when making political choices. Second, that the extent of future rewards is a key distinguishing characteristic of social classes, Third, that differential perceptions of future opportunities for rewards will lead to individuals in different classes preferring parties that are at different points along a left-right continuum. Fourth, that with age there is a diminishing utility of future rewards and increasing importance is therefore attached to present resources, which reduces the discounting of present for future rewards when making political choices. These hypotheses are tested using British national survey data. The evidence, although of a limited nature, supports all four propositions. It is concluded, tentatively, that class differences in left-right partisanship among young people are primarily a result of class differences in expectations concerning future occupational rewards. Among older respondents, however, present resources are of considerably greater importance in explaining political divisions between classes. Empirical support is therefore obtained for the role of prospective rewards in providing individuals in different classes with divergent interests, but this role diminishes in importance as the future foreshortens. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, recent research on the economics of institutions is summarized and assessed. The economics of institutions is an attempt to integrate recent research in various sub-fields of economics and the other social sciences in order to present a coherent research program for exploring the link between institutions and wealth. Although the core of the framework is a modified version of neo-classical economics, it is argued that the optimal deviation from the neo-classical model varies with the level of analysis and the types of variables that we seek to endogenize. The unifying theme of the analysis is the introduction of transaction costs and the related concept of property rights, which give organizations and institutions a central role in economic life. The paper provides a summary view of the economics of institutions, and discusses in some detail two common lines of criticism: that the approach ignores power relationships in economic affairs, and that its use of the rational choice model is inappropriate. The need for augmenting the economics of institution with an operational theory of mental models and learning is recognized. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper addresses the problem of aggregating individual choices between three discrete alternatives, and discusses how the likelihood of cyclical aggregate preferences under majority rule depends on social integration in large populations. It is argued that the so-called impartial culture condition gives rather limited information as to the likelihood of the paradox occurring, and an alternative model is outlined. Social structure is introduced, by imposing correlation between the first and second choices. The resulting structure may significantly reduce the likelihood of a cyclical outcome. A measure of similarity between rankings is introduced, and this measure serves as a vehicle for discussing the effects of social integration on the distribution of the population across the six possible rankings of alternatives. It is concluded that integration significantly reduces the likelihood of a cyclical outcome. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One important consequence of the increasing convergence between sociology and economics is that sociologists make increasingly more use of rational choice theories for the explanation of social action. This shift opens up the possibility that sociologists make use of what must be considered to be the most powerful regularity in the social sciences: the relative price effect, which states that behavior depends directly on relative prices (or relative scarcities). This effect is also known as the law of demand: as one good becomes more costly in comparison to others, a person will purchase less of that good. It turns out that crucial sociological questions (for instance the relation of gain-oriented behavior to moral behavior) make it necessary that we know something about the size of the relative price effect. Surprisingly, there is virtually no theory in economics on this point and thus rational choice theory is badly in need of being extended in this direction. In this paper, two such extensions are suggested. First, a theory of alternatives consisting of (a) a theory of social production functions, (b) a theory of non-given alternatives and (c) a theory of 'ipsative' sets of alternatives. Second, a theory of framing is presented which links the relative price effect to the definition of the situation which in turn is theoretically linked to the theory of alternatives. It is argued that these extensions make rational choice theory much more relevant for sociological applications than the neoclassical model in which alternatives are exogenously given and the definition of the situation is implicitly locked to a standard trading situation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The awarding of the 1992 Nobel Prize for Economics to Gary Becker draws attention to Becker's outstanding work in economics. At the same time, it draws attention to a new phenomenon, for which Becker himself is more responsible than anyone else: the use of basic principles of economics to address problems in sociology. Much of the work for which Becker is best known treats problems that are quite outside the field of economics proper and fully within the field of sociology. What is striking about this is that Becker remains committed to the explanatory logic of neo-classical economics; he applies that logic uncompromisingly, using the same tools in examining marriage markets as in examining financial markets. In this paper, some of Becker's work on sociological problems are discussed and assessed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Institutional economics has moved from a position, earlier in the twentieth century, of drawing eclectically on several other disciplines, to a stance of building its arguments almost entirely out of neoclassical materials. This paper argues that such a stance cannot provide a persuasive account of economic institutions, and suggests a broader foundation based on classical sociological arguments about the embeddedness of economic goals and activities in socially oriented goals and structures. Emphasis is placed on how economic activity comes to be coordinated by groups of people rather than carried out by isolated individuals. Firms in developing countries, business groups, and the origins of the electrical utility industry in the United States are posed as cases of the 'social construction of economic institutions'. It is argued that, although proper analysis of such cases involves a high level of contingency, these contingencies can be taken into account in a systematic theoretical argument, and that historicist pitfalls can be avoided. Such an argument is posed as the distinctive agenda for a new economic sociology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The field of sociology can be described as a triangle, the apexes of which are represented by the structure of social organisation (Spencer's theory of the division of labour), the structure of cultural codes (Saussure's theory of language and semiology) and social action (Weber's methodological individualism). This becomes a three-dimensional discursive space when underneath it we place, as the fourth apex, nature. Consequently we have a triangular pyramid standing on its head (nature): its four plans are represented by the field of sociology (the structure of social organisation, the structure of cultural codes, action), structuralist social anthropology (the structure of social organisation, the structure of cultural codes, nature), cultural anthropology (the structure of cultural codes, action, nature) and historical materialism (the structure of social organisation, action, nature). This turned-over tetrahedron is described in the paper as the discursive space of sociology, a space that has taken shape with the attempts at a theoretical synthesis of sociology during the 1980s (Alexander, Bourdieu, Collins, Giddens, Habermas). As in the case of the discursive conditions for all forms of knowledge, the discursive space of sociology is a rhetorical closure which determines who are classical writers and how these classical writers are to be read and understood. At the same time it serves as the basis for the positivity of sociological knowledge. It is suggested that this space will emerge to reorganise the uncertainty produced by the collapse of the Parsonian orthodoxy which was primarily concerned to examine society from the perspective of the structure of social organisation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper starts with an analysis of the three main principles of the social order of 'real socialism': etatistic homogenization, basic dichotomy between the ruling group and all the direct producers as a whole, and politically-defined-from-above income differences among different sectors of employees. The structural crisis of this order is described as gradual undermining of these principles brought about especially by the growth of the second economy. In the last section the dilemmas of the recently started system transformation are described in terms of symbolic support but lack of short-term interests of the most numerous social groups in the market reform. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although best known for his notion of 'conspicuous consumption' in The Theory of the Leisure Class (1899), Thorstein Veblen also offered sociology another unit-idea: 'the instinct of workmanship'. The present paper explores Veblen's 'instinct' both in current scientific theory and, more significantly, in Veblen's own ethnic identity. The primordial sources of the instinct of workmanship were brought to light in the archeology of Stone Age Scandinavia. From his vantage point as a Norwegian-American maverick, Veblen discovered in ancient Baltic wasteheaps clear signs of a peaceable, hard-working society and culture. Juxtaposed with German and English 'predatory' societies, the Nordic spirit seemed benign and idyllic. The Golden Age was indeed made of flintstone. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Economics, political science, and sociology are, in this paper, understood to be not only scientific but also moral languages. An economic approach to moral obligation emphasizes that obligations to the self automatically cover obligations to others. A political approach, by contrast, argues that some kind of centralized coercive authority is necessary so that people will carry out their obligations to each other satisfactorily. Sociology has always understood itself in opposition to both the market and the state, but it has never been clear about its alternative. Many of the classical thinkers in the sociological tradition wished to preserve both modernity (in the form of markets and states) and morality (in the form of strongly inscribed norms and community obligations). This balance is best resolved by emphasizing morality as a learning process requiring 'civil society' — not as an end in itself, but as a place in which the learning of moral obligation can be carried out. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study of children is either totally absent in sociology or is treated within very limited contexts which are considered marginal for sociological theory and research. The paper aims at examining why there is no sociology of childhood and what kind of sociological rethinking is needed to bring children into sociology. First, the conventional approach in child-related themes — recognized as 'socialization' — is discussed. Secondly, sociological notions of 'the family' are taken up and criticized on the basis of the feminist project of deconstructing the family. Finally, childhood is considered as a social construct and some demands for research on children and childhood are developed that may help to avoid the long-held and unnecessarily limiting views on these topics and make way for the emergence of a sociology of childhood. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

According to Ronald Inglchart, post-materialist values are a well-integrated and stable part of the individual's personality, affecting a wide range of attitudes and behaviors. This article focuses on possible effects on the criteria by which individuals evaluate their living conditions; for instance, do materialists - compared to post-materialists - give more weight to such concerns as income or housing standard and less to broader social and political issues, as Inglehart claims? On balance, the results provide some tentative support for Inglehart's theory, although the differences are generally small and not always in the expected direction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article aims to understand the historical and societal circumstances under which age becomes a more important basis of social organization, as cited in the case in Norway. Since World War I Norway has been transformed from a predominantly rural into a highly industrialized urban society, making it an ideal site for examining the relationship between industrial change and the temporal organization of the life course. Of all the primordial bases of social organization, namely age, sex, and race, the least well understood is age. Census manuscripts were analyzed for late nineteenth century Philadelphia and public use tapes for the U.S. in 1970. They focused on historical change in the transition from youth into adulthood. Temporal features of the demographic life events that marked the boundary between adulthood and youth include the prevalence of a transition, timing and spread of a transition, age-congruity of a pair of transitions, and integration. Other dimensions of the life course include reversibility and order. Such data were cross-sectional, not longitudinal, age patterns of exit from school, entrance into the work force, departure from the family or origin, marriage, and the establishment of a household.

Max Weber is the leading representative of an interpretive sociology aiming at an explanation in terms of the motives of the acting individuals. He is also the proponent of the thesis that the Western world is moving in the direction of increasing rationalization, held by many to be the uniting theme of his work. It is the thesis of this paper that there is a conflict between these two themes in Weber's work. The process of rationalization ends in an 'iron cage' of bureaucratic domination. But bureaucracy escapes analysis with Weberian methodology for two reasons: (1) because it is a form of domination which reduces men to means for the bureaucracy and its leaders, thus making their own motives unimportant, and (2) because it is a type of domination which rests upon the acceptance of, and subjection to, a rational legal order. The conclusion is that Weber's methodology is primarily a methodology for the analysis of leaders, since they alone are the determinants of their own actions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In January 1978, a historic event took place in Helsinki. The soviet Union initiated a bilateral cooperation in the field of sociology with a capitalist country--Finland. The main item on the agenda was a two-day symposium on social indicators of way of life. In addition to this, there were official talks which resulted in a cooperation agreement for the next five years. Among other things, this agreement contains a program of biannual symposia and a list of possible research themes which can be carried out in cooperation , and so on. In the symposium, seven papers were presented, four from Soviet Union and three from Finland. The Soviet participants--the most prominent of whom was T. V. Ryabuchkin, director of the Institute of Sociological Research of the Soviet Academy of Sciences in Moscow--presented papers concerned with the concept of way of life, construction of social indicators for the way of life, criticism of bourgeois conceptions of the quality of life, participation and social activity of the people and so on. Ryabuchkin's speech contained interesting viewpoints on the way of life conceptualization and its position in scientific studies. He mentioned that he is of the opinion that the way of life concept cannot and should not be all too all-embracing.

This article expresses the sentiments and reflections of the authors in their two-years as editors of the journal. Two years is a very short time. On re-reading our first editorial about the policy we hoped to follow in Acta, our expectations were perhaps aimed too high. Editing a scientific journal is not so much a matter of policy as one of organization: of finding people willing to read papers on a vast array of themes, of finding people willing to review similar array of new books, while at the same time trying to maintain a certain level of quality. The publication of special issues offers a little leeway, but not much. And they involved at least ten times as much work. Every now and then we pondered over whether it was indeed worthwhile publishing for the most part in English a Scandinavian journal devoted to sociology. Relatively speaking, the costs of producing Acta are not very high, the essential questions are rather whether or not it is being read. Does it have an impact? Does it reflect the development of the sociology of Scandinavia? Those are just thoughts that have crossed our minds during the past two years and do not necessarily reflect the consensus of opinion of Scandinavian sociologists as a whole.

The article discusses the scope and mission of the journal. The journal embraces theoretical and empirical work, micro and macro levels of analysis, quantitative and qualitative methods, and all substantive areas of sociology. The criteria for evaluating papers submitted for publishing are explained. The topics that the editors are in need of further research and clarification are mentioned, including sociology of economic and social change.

Kaare Svalastoga (1914–97) was born in Norway. After World War II he received a PhD in Sociology from the USA and in 1950 he became professor of Sociology at the University of Copenhagen. He founded the Department of Sociology, making it possible for the first time in Denmark for students to obtain degrees in sociology. His most important publications were devoted to social stratification. His scientific point of view was positivistic and he believed that sociology should resemble the natural sciences as closely as possible. This point of view led to strong conflicts between Svalastoga and those scholars who took the approach of Marxism, an approach that became very popular at the Department in the 1970s. Ultimately Svalastoga became isolated within the Department he had founded. Despite the turn of events he maintained strong ties with scholars in his field in countries around the world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Harriet Holter was ahead of her time, and influenced heavily all the research areas she ventured into, such as sex roles, family, sexualized violence, resistance to knowledge and gender perspectives on research and politics. In this article these contributions are presented, illustrated and discussed. It is further argued that the explanation for her particular voice and outstanding contribution to sociology and women's research can be found in her interdisciplinary background, her generation-gendered experiences, her siding with the oppressed and her ways of collaborating intellectually. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Theodor Geiger grew up in Germany and emigrated to Denmark in 1933, threatened by the Nazi regime. He worked at the University of Copenhagen 1933-38 and was the first Professor of Sociology at the University of Aarhus 1938-52. He spent 3 years in exile in Sweden. Geiger is an important figure in German and Scandinavian sociology and also known in English-speaking countries. He was a prolific teacher and writer. Throughout his life as a sociologist Geiger combined theoretical with empirical interest. If he rejected all speculation without a factual basis, he showed an equally strong disdain for empiricism without a theoretical foundation (Mayntz 1969). His works cover a broad spectrum of subjects, still of professional interest, such as: the foundation and fundamental concepts of sociology, the education of working-class people, industrial organization, class structure, stratification and mobility, social origin and functions of the intelligentsia, the sociology of law, critics of ideology and the nature of modern mass-society and democracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Gunnar Myrdal's contribution to social science could be encapsulated in the following key words: secularization, intellectual migration and trans-Atlantic reciprocity, objectivity and value-intrusion (-bias), the role of philanthropy, Protestant reform creed, social engineering, and national styles of research. Myrdal's central role in the history of social thought is his part in facilitating the diffusion of Weberian value-orientation, despite differences in nuances between Myrdal and his neo-Kantian predecessors. His oeuvre is multi-disciplinary and he could himself be characterized in terms of a number of antinomies, such as the parochial cosmopolitan, the patriotic internationalist, the compassionate 'nihilist', the elitist egalitarian, the social Darwinist anti-racist, the male chauvinist feminist, the ahistorical 'historicist', the conservative socialist, etc. He never hesitated to take a controversial position. Essentially he is a theorist of modernity, combining ambiguity and antinomies with anti-metaphysics (anti-natural law, instrumental means-end-analyses). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The argument of the essay has two main parts. First, it reflects on the presumed conflict between action theories and systems theories in sociology. Looking at authors such as James Coleman, Talcott Parsons and Niklas Luhmann, the essay tries to show that there is a natural complementarity of action and systems theories, and therefore the presumed disjunction of 'action' and 'system' is not based on the empirical reality of theory-building ventures. But then another line of conflict becomes visible. Since the information theories of the late 1940s, 'communication theory' has become a viable and universalistic option in social theory, one that indeed conflicts with action theory. In its second part, the essay first gives a brief sketch of the conceptual career of communication theory since Shannon and Weaver. It then presents the sociological theory of Niklas Luhmann as the first major sociological theory that opts for communication as the constitutive element of society and other social systems. Causes and reasons for this theoretical decision are reconstructed, first in terms of problems internal to Niklas Luhmann's social theory (the distinction of psychic and social systems; the distinction of action and experience; formal properties of the concept of communication; the implications of autopoiesis) and secondly in terms of processes of societal change (the rise of the information society; the genesis of world society), which favour the switch towards a communication-based (instead of action-based) systems theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One consistent finding in research on social movement organizations is that new members are recruited along established lines of interaction. Drawing on these findings, I argue that an individual's decision to leave a social movement organization is the result of similar influences. Using information about membership turnover over time in a local Swedish temperance organization, I test whether the dropout propensity of existing members is related to prior members' dropout decisions. I find that existing members' dropout propensity increases when their socially relevant others drop out of the organization. Thus, the results suggest that the decision processes concerning leaving and joining an organization are mirror images. This should have implications for any analysis of social movement organizations because only when this duality of interpersonal influences is considered can we fully understand the social dynamics of social movement organizations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Analyzes the social production of money. Critical account of the `neutral veil' conception of money in the social sciences; Commodity-exchange theory of money; Credit money form and the `dematerialization' of money.

This article examines Jürgen Habermas' critique of Michel Foucault. Habermas and Foucault are the labels we put on two of the most powerful projects within contemporary social analysis. It seems impossible to do social theory or history without--positively or negatively--referring to them. Their discourse constitute landmarks that sometimes appear close to each other. Most often, however, content and form differ extensively. Habermas compares Foucault's discourse formations to the ups and downs of political regimes, and the result of this relativization of every aspect in society to power relations is nothing but a mystification. Thus, according to Habermas, what we have is a transcendental historicism based on transcendental power relations. A second critique of Foucault's method and his notion of power concerns what Habermas calls Foucault's functionalist shift: power and practices constitute the functional fundaments for knowledge in general and human sciences in particular. In Habermas' interpretation of Foucault, there is a universal spatiotemporal will to power at the basis of all knowledge and all truth claims. Foucault's theory of power, Habermas concludes, appears as a dead end, cynical in its undertones, false in its ontology and reductible in its methodological applications.

The specificity of sociological explanations of action and its outcomes is found to reside in their treatment of actors, in contrast to situations, as systematically variable. The variability of actors as the key explaining variable is spelled out in terms of the varying cultural belonging and structural location of actors. The two weakest spots of contemporary sociological theory may be summarized in two propositions. Proposition 1 means breaking out economics and other extra-sociological theories of social interaction such as game theory. The major task of sociological theory is to conceptualize social order and its possibility, and/or social action, according to the second proposition. The social sciences try to explain two sets of phenomena, human social action and outcomes of human social action. The wide span of sociological explanations is an arc with two bridgeheads, identified already in the first major neoclassical synthesis of sociology. To belong to a culture means, most generally, to be part of a universe of shared learning. The enormously scattered tribe of sociologists is interested in all sorts of consequences of human action. Outcomes of future cultural belonging and structural location are also significantly determined by actions bearing upon the actual or potential competition between cultures and structures.

In the last five years space has been reintroduced as a fundamental dimension in sociology, amongst others by Giddens. Vivid discussions take place in Urban Sociology and Geography but clarity and agreement on the definition of space has not yet been reached. Is it more of a material, or more a social matter? To talk of socio-spatial relations is indeed a very complicated enterprise. This article suggests a definition and a model for socio-spatial relations, and illustrates this with data on the increasing local political activity of trade unions branches in Denmark. Especially the changing role of women in production and reproduction seems to contribute to interesting new forms of politics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article describes a theoretical framework in relation to the notion of labor society in response to an article by Simo Aho that was published in a 1985 issue of Acta Sociologica. The term labor society has caused a lot of misunderstanding as one can see from Aho's article. Concerning his criticism of the term labor society, Aho searches for the order principle of labor society, and finds it in the position that work has as the basis of reproduction, socialization, integration and interest articulation of the population in society. He also looks for signs of an erosion of this order principle but cannot find them. The term labor society should be integrated into a socio-theoretical framework which analyzes the order principle of the development of modern industrial societies and its limits. This will help to identify the axis of conflict in these societies, which is where the discussion of labor society should begin. To understand better the nature of conflict, the social development of rationality should be related to the area of work. Finally, an appropriate concept of crisis is needed which allows to interpret some empirical tendencies. The notion labor society emphasizes a special feature of present societies, but it does not provide the order principle of society. If we desire such a principle we have to go back to the Positive Utopists, who were convinced that one could increase individual and social welfare by controlling nature with the help of science, technology and planning. The limits of this principle are becoming obvious in two ways: on the one hand in terms of material limits and on the other hand in terms of social limits. Work in the form of wage labor connects the described order principle of society with reality, and only in this context can the debate of labor society be understood.

This article deals with the changing position of the body and corporeality as part of Order. The order is defined, referring both to socio-practical structures and cultural meaning structures. The approach may be characterized as a synthesis of social, cultural and conceptual history. The historicalness of the body and corporeality is structured in a setting where the body is related to the Other, namely spirit, soul, reason and self. The historical change of the binary oppositions is related to the increasing instrumentalization of the body, which is considered from two aspects, namely one's own body and another's own body. The two aspects are combined in modern society, wherein the body as a means of expression acquires a dominant role on the basis of corporeal equality and individuality. A fundamental distinction is made between the physical body and corporeality, the latter being interpreted as a central area of transgression. The concept of transgression allows an interpretation of corporeality as a cultural dynamics oscillating between the normal and the hyper-normal state. It is possible to conceptualize corporeality in its historicalness. A distinction is made in the two dimensions of corporeality, the expressive and the experience aspect, which explains the paradox of two opposite interpretations of the historical fates of corporeality in modern society.