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This article provides information on the conference on The Sociology of Social Security. Innovation and Change, held by the ISA Research Committee on Poverty, Social Welfare and Social Policy and the Department of Health and Social Policy Studies, University of Bergen, in collaboration with the International Social Security Association, held in Bergen, Norway in June 1984. Forty-eight people from 15 countries and 4 continents participated. The general aim of the conference was an assessment and comparison across national boundaries as to the present situation of social security research. The specific topic was innovation and change. During the last few years social security systems have been under pressure in most countries. Some of the suggestions represent innovations with great potential for change, while others are merely repetitions of recommendations which have accompanied the social security system from its early days. The conference papers touched on several of these issues. In focus were the distributional effects of different kinds of social security benefits, analyses of decision-making forces within the social security system and their relevance--or lack of such to the administration of the system, and the political forces influencing the future of social security.

The first acquaintance of Turks with sociology took place in the 19th century. Auguste Comte paid considerable attention to Turks, seeing them as the bridge between Asia and Europe. Since then sociology has been present sometimes as an idea-oriented and sometimes as a data-oriented or policy-oriented discipline. Le Play and Durkheim have also been influential, while in the 1930s German refugees became prominent; since the 1950s there have been more contacts with US sociology. The journey of sociology in Turkey has been an interrupted one, with six consecutive associations, not all exclusively for sociologists, and its progress has often been involved with political developments in the wider society. The current association, founded in 1990, is described in this article. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article reviews the research trends in welfare sociology (sociological studies on social security and welfare), one of the many subfields of active research in sociology in Japan. For this purpose, several research streams formed from the 1970s to the 2000s are described, and some of the most important research results produced within these in the past two decades are introduced. In the latter part of this article, a broad overview of the research trends in Japanese welfare sociology is attempted by focusing on the contents of the journal published by the Japan Welfare Sociology Association (JWSA). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article reports on the International Sociological Association's (ISA) Second Worldwide Competition for Young Sociologists. Two highlights should be mentioned first in this report on this year's Second Worldwide Competition for Young Sociologists, which was organized by Veronica Stolte-Heiskanen and ended with a two-week colloquium in Oerlinghausen. First, counting all Chinese papers into one, they were the largest group with seven finalist papers. Considering further that, for the first time, sociologists from Beijing were officially permitted to participate, then the strong Chinese participation with finalist quality essays is an important result for the World Congress in Bielefield and a point to note in future sociological ventures. Second, Nigerian sociology was represented by four participants which turned put to be an active, sociologically well trained group in the Oerlinghausen Colloquium organized by Steven Vaitkus. They were filled with the sociological imagination in its best conceptual sense. As already indicated in the Round Table on Nigerian Sociology and crowned by the recent election of Layi Erinosho onto the new Executive Committee of the ISA--Nigeria proves to be the first station of sociology in Africa.

The article presents an update on the "International Sociology" journal as of December 1998. The scholarly criteria of the journal are very high, as befits an official organ of the most significant international association of sociologists. "International Sociology" has, furthermore, become the membership journal for all subscribed members of the International Sociological Association. With this return to its roots, "International Sociology" has become perhaps the widely diffused sociological journal. It is now read in nearly 100 countries. The journal has now reached a level of maturity that is chosen by some of the most significant sociologists as a forum for discussion. The proposal that each issue should have a cover article has gained an interest which is attested to, by the high level of the cover articles submitted for publication. The portraits of sociologists have also elicited a positive response. The journal has approached a wide range of sociological topics, that is, clinical sociology, sociology of religion, globalization, the sociology of consumers and the emotions. Articles covering sociology from Eastern Europe, Russia, Greece, the Middle East, East Asia, among others have also been published. There has been a welcome increase in the number of subscribers to the journal in the last two years as well as a steady increase in the number of papers submitted for publication to the journal.

Copyright of International Sociology is the property of Sage Publications Inc. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of International Sociology is the property of Sage Publications Inc. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

In this article six crucial historical phases of the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Soziologie (DGS) are sketched out: (1) 1909-19, the end of the German Kaiserreich, the foundation phase of the DGS; (2) 1919-33, the Weimar Republic, the phase of academic institutionalization of German sociology; (3) 1933-45, during which National Socialism dominated the German academic system; (4) 1946-68, the postwar period during which different academic systems were established in the two German states; (5) 1968-89, when sociology in West Germany had its greatest quantitative expansion, while in East Germany Soziologie was slowly re-emerging; (6) the period since reunification, with the expansion of a West German conception of sociology to East German universities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article is about the creation, resuscitation and activity of the Russian Sociological Association in the context of the transformation of sociology brought about by the changes in its societal setting from 1916 till the end of the 20th century. The periodization used ('thaw', 'stagnation', 'perestroika' and 'transition period'), is the one recognized in the newest reading of Russian history, and is primarily based upon the degree of liberalism of government and freedom of speech. It shows that in the autocratic (Tsarist and later socialist) state there was no place for civil society organizations. The intelligentsia played the role of opposition, expressing its social and political concerns primarily in literary fiction and the arts. The sociological profession was a very ideological one, and the professional association had to control the presentations made by Soviet sociologists. After the collapse of the Communist regime, the imposed unity of the sociological community disintegrated. The gradual transition to civil society provides new opportunities for sociologists, and first of all opportunities for the conscious and scientifically grounded shaping of social processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Established formally in 1950, the Austrian Society of Sociology did not really exist during its first decade, though at the end of the 1950s one man entered the International Sociological Association under the guise of the Austrian Society of Sociology. In the middle of the 1960s, when the government began a reform of the university system, sociology was established as a full programme and the Society was resuscitated. At the end of the 1960s, the worldwide student movement spilled over into Austria, and self-proclaimed revolutionaries came to power. From the mid-1970s the Society became a more or less normal association: it published a journal and a newsletter, and organized annual conferences and sections for academic discussion. The time-lag between the intellectual beginnings of sociology and the establishment of the Society is remarkable. The Society does not function as a professional organization. Its influence on the university curriculum and the recruitment policies of departments has been weak, the participation of its members is poor, and its international standing is negligible. All in all, the history of the Society seems to confirm what the ex-Austrian Paul F. Lazarsfeld wrote in 1959 about the Austrian situation: 'no brains, no initiative, no collaboration'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Indian Sociological Society was founded in 1951, and in 1967 merged with the All India Sociological Congress. Its development has been very much affected by the cleavage between regional (local-language)and national (English-language) universities, and the tendency for intellectual leaders to make particular departmental schools dominant. After the Delhi World Congress the organization was reconstructed, and became permanently based in Delhi; this is more efficient, and membership has grown, but it has also made it more centralized. The size and diversity of the potential constituency have made it difficult to cater for all interests, and there has also been pressure from a right-wing government with a religious agenda; moves are, however, now under way to bridge the regional and hierarchical divisions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article draws on the preceding seven histories of national associations to examine commonalities and differences among them. The histories portray different strategies of organizing associations and adapting themselves to state control, societal conditions and members' interests. A disciplinary model was the most prevalent organizing strategy, but its viability ebbed and flowed with political oppression, the state of sociology as a discipline and internal associational conditions such as disciplinary composition and dissension. Two of the seven associations have survived continuously since being founded, while the other five have perished and been reborn from one to five times. Political oppression and internal associational dissension are what are mainly responsible for these associational deaths; for the state of sociology and its place in the academy for rebirths; and for the organizational cooptation of member interests for associational survival and growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]