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Critical race theory is growing in popularity in Britain. However, critics and advocates of critical race theory (CRT) in Britain have neglected the racialized social system approach. Through ignoring this approach, critics have thus "missed the target" in their rebuttals of CRT, while advocates of CRT have downplayed the strength of critical race analysis. By contrast, in this paper, I argue that that through the racialized social system approach, critical race theory has the conceptual flexibility to study British society. As a practical social theory, critical race theory provides us with the tools to study the realities and reproduction of racial inequality. To demonstrate this strength of CRT, and to demonstrate its theoretical nature, I discuss the conceptual framework of the racialized social system approach, paying specific attention to the notions of social space, the racial structure and racial interests; the racialized interaction order, racialized emotions, and structure and agency; and racial ideology, racial grammar, and racialized cognition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates a puzzling feature of social conventions: the fact that they are both arbitrary and normative. We examine how this tension is addressed in sociological accounts of conventional phenomena. Traditional approaches tend to generate either synchronic accounts that fail to consider the arbitrariness of conventions, or diachronic accounts that miss central aspects of their normativity. As a remedy, we propose a processual conception that considers conventions as both the outcome and material cause of much human activity. This conceptualization, which borrows from the économie des conventions as well as critical realism, provides a novel perspective on how conventions are nested and defined, and on how they are established, maintained and challenged. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores recent arguments about the marketization of female labour, in the context of a wider analysis of the role of concepts like ‘the market’ and ‘individualization’ in sociological accounts of change in employment relations. It will be argued that within sociology there has been a tendency for rapid, large-scale changes in employment relations to be characterized as the breakdown of social influences or structures and as the emergence of atomized, individuated market forces. In the most recent models, change in the nature of gendered positions within employment are presented in terms of a decline of social structuring and social constraint. These emergent accounts hold similarities to classical economics, and to Marx's and Weber's accounts of employment, which also characterized new forms of employment relations in terms of the emptying of their social content and their replacement by market forms. We offer an alternative, moral economy, perspective which foregrounds the continued significance of social relations in the structuring of employment and employment change. We develop the argument through an analysis of gendered patterns of employment and change in family form. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Neo-Weberian closure theory developed principally by Parkin appears at first glance to suffer from two opposing weaknesses — that its central concept of exclusion is either too broad or too narrow. This paper demonstrates that these objections are spurious. It then uncovers several real problems which have not yet been examined by the critics of closure theory. These problems have to do with Parkin's conceptions of usurpation, of the withdrawal of services, and of property, as well as with the ambiguity in the politics of Parkin's closure theory. The paper corrects these weaknesses and clarifies this ambiguity and concludes that closure theory so-corrected provides a promising framework for going beyond analyses focused narrowly on one particular means of domination and one particular set of monopolization and exclusion rules to a focus on monopolization and exclusion per se. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A review is offered of the article "Before theory comes theorizing or how to make social science more interesting," by Richard Swedberg, published in the same issue of the journal.

The article presents a reply to a series of reviews of the article "Before theory comes theorizing or how to make social science more interesting," by Richard Swedberg, published in the same issue of the journal. Emphasis is given to topics such as the methodology of theorizing, the role of concepts in sociology, and pragmatism.

The basic argument in this article is that sociology and social science more generally are today severely hampered by the lack of attention being paid to theory. Methods - qualitative as well as quantitative methods - have proven to be very useful in practical research (as opposed to theory); and as a result they dominate modern social science. They do not, however, do the job that belongs to theory. One way to redress the current imbalance between methods and theory, it is suggested, would be to pay more attention to theorizing, that is, to the actual process that precedes the final formulation of a theory; and in this way improve theory. Students of social science are today primarily exposed to finished theories and are not aware of the process that goes into the production and design of a theory. Students need to be taught how to construct a theory in practical terms ('theorizing'); and one good way to do so is through exercises. This is the way that methods are being taught by tradition; and it helps the students to get a hands-on knowledge, as opposed to just a reading knowledge of what a theory is all about. Students more generally need to learn how to construct a theory while drawing on empirical material. The article contains a suggestion for the steps that need to be taken when you theorize. Being trained in what sociology and social science are all about - an important precondition! - students may proceed as follows. You start out by observing, in an attempt to get a good empirical grip on the topic before any theory is introduced. Once this has been done, it may be time to name the phenomenon; and either turn the name into a concept as the next step or bring in some existing concepts in an attempt to get a handle on the topic. At this stage one can also try to make use of analogies, metaphors and perhaps a typology, in an attempt to both give body to the theory and to invest it with some process. The last element in theorizing is to come up with an explanation; and at this point it may be helpful to draw on some ideas by Charles Peirce, especially his notion of abduction. Before having been properly tested against empirical material, according to the rules of the scientific community, the theory should be considered unproven. Students who are interested in learning more about theorizing may want to consult the works of such people as Everett C. Hughes, C. Wright Mills, Ludwig Wittgenstein and James G. March. Many of the issues that are central to theorizing are today also being studied in cognitive science; and for those who are interested in pursuing this type of literature, handbooks represent a good starting point. The article ends by arguing that more theorizing will not only redress the balance between theory and methods; it will also make sociology and social science more interesting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Positivism has been declared dead in sociological theory circles, yet questions remain as to its viabilily among researchers. The authors present diagnostic evidence ahout positivism in sociological practice through a content analysis of journal articles published in the late 1960s and the late 1980s in the sociological journals of the USA and Britain. Using an index based on seven elements of positivism that were characteristic of the 'theory construction' movement of the late 1960s, the authors find evidence of the effects of time and nation on the use of positivism. Disaggregation of the index reveals that most of the observed change is associated with the elements of 'instrumental' positivism, parlicularly statistics. The results raise questions about the relationship between theory and research and about sociologists' philosophies of science. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rational Choice Theory (RCT) is far from being a simple or unitary set of ideas. In fact, it is a complex set of varied ideas that share a family resemblance. They contain elements of behavioural psychology, exchange theory, game theory and micro-economic theory. This diversity of components is one of the reasons why assessment of the theory's merits proves to be difficult, for there can be no guarantees that commentators are all discussing the same aspect of the theories. This confusion helps to explain why critical responses have tended to fall into two polarized camps. On the one hand are the theory's champions who sometimes represent RCT as the only conceivable hope for progress in sociology. On the other hand, some of their critics have a tendency to reject RCT out of hand for a variety of reasons. There is a high degree of agreement among proponents of RCT that explanation of social phenomena must begin with an examination of individual human beings' rational calculations of the perceived costs and benefits of alternative ways of seeking to attain their goals.

The article presents the author's response to a comment on his article Notes on the Sociology of War. My principal purpose was to make a contribution to clarity. I suggested that certain concepts are needed--notably that of corporate agency--if war is to be described. The inadequacy of existing explanations of war, I maintain, proceeds in part from the inadequacy of existing descriptions. My subsidiary argument was directed against theories of war which, in the interest of structural explanation, overlook the political dimension. War, I argued involves the action of sovereign state, issuing from the very same process of corporate decision-making whereby the state itself is governed. In the explanation of action, we model our ideas of causality according to an implied theory of responsibility. Nor does the extent of the fighting bear on the question of causality. Conditions, I suggested, should be compared to terms in a contract: if they are met, then fighting will cease. But so long as they are not met, fighting will continue. As I tried to emphasize, however, strategic analysis is far less important to the sociology of war than it appears, since it can tell us nothing about the causality of belligerent intentions.

This article talks about the sociology of hair. It attempts to describe developments in hair symbolism in North America and Great Britain. Hair is perhaps our most powerful symbol of individual and group identity. Powerful, because it is physical and therefore extremely personal, and because, although personal, it is also public rather than private. Furthermore, hair symbolism is usually voluntary rather than imposed or given. Finally, hair is malleable, in various ways, and therefore singularly apt to symbolize both differentiations between, and changes in, individual and group identities. The immense social significance of hair is indicated by economics. The hair industry is worth $2.5 billion in the U.S. as of September 1987. Hair symbolism has been extensively researched by anthropologists, particularly in initiation, marriage and mourning rituals, and in magic on a pars pro toto basis. The theory of hair developed in the article can be called the theory of opposites, since symbolic practice can be summarized in three propositions such as opposite sexes have opposite hair, head hair and body hair are opposite and opposite ideologies have opposite hair. This pattern of triple oppositions indicates the complexity and subtlety of hair symbolism and this complexity is possible for two distinct reasons. First, although hair grows all over the body, in terms of body symbolism there are only three zones of social significance: head hair, facial hair and body hair. Second, hair can be modified in four principal ways. Length can be changed. Colors and styles can also be changed and even the quantity of hair can be changed with the use of false or artificial hair.