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Along with Ward, Giddings, and Keller, William Graham Sumner has been considered a social evolutionist. The Science of Society, supposedly written by Sumner with Keller, has been traditionally utilized to document his evolutionary orientation. However, two recently discovered unpublished Sumner manuscripts show that the mature Sumner rejected almost all the basic premises of social evolutionism. This paper concludes that Sumner rejected social evolutionism during the last decade of his career and that the evolutionary orientation found within The Science of Society, which was published 17 years after his death, was the result of Keller's thought. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines ‘alternative institutions’ in a variety of institutional domains as participatory-democratic modes of organization. Grounded in comparative data, it posits structural conditions, both internal to an organization and in its environment, which support or undermine the achievement of its collectivist-democratic ideals. While the literature on social movement organizations well demonstrates the fragility of democratic systems and their tendency toward oligarchization, goal displacement, and organizational maintenance, this work suggests, in propositional form, conditions which militate against these all-too-common transformation patterns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Much has been written to explain the collapse of the former Soviet Union. Little attention, however, has been paid to understanding why post-1991 Russia has maintained stability despite continued economic and political turmoil throughout the 1990s. This paper attempts to answer this question by applying an integrated model of territorial disintegration to examine the political, economic, demographic, and geopolitical changes in the pre-1991 Soviet Union and post-1991 Russia. The integrated model is constructed by synthesizing Goldstone’s demographic-structural model, Skocpol’s and Collins’ geopolitical model, and a modified version of Collins’ argument of the destabilizing potential brought about by rapid market development as three alternative routes to territorial disintegration. It is found that improvement in Russia’s geopolitical condition after 1991 is largely responsible for the decline in disintegrative potential. Slower population growth also rendered the demographic route less disintegrative during the 1990s. More effective taxation and the availability of foreign loans enabled the Russian state to handle its financial crises, thereby curbing the development of destabilizing forces through the dynamics proposed by Collins. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper offers elaborations on current knowledge about social-movement framing processes and cognitive liberation, especially regarding technical controversies and not-in-my-backyard (NIMBY) protest. The social-constructionist lens of the framing perspective also allows refinements in conventional explanations of NIMBY conflicts. Attention is given to the dynamics of emergence, continuity, and change in framing strategies over time in controversy regarding the U.S. Army's chemical-weapons disposal program. I focus specifically on dynamics involved in the development of cognitive liberation, particularly the framing difficulties that occur in the context of cognitive ambiguities produced by an "information haze." These ambiguities create problems for developing and linking the diagnostic, prognostic, and motivational elements of collective-action frames. I also attend to frame transformation, explaining how transformation may be both animated and constrained by a movement's opponent. I conclude that NIMBY is only one possible framing and can be transformed as the context of the dispute shifts. Moreover, framing activities in technical disputes may be particularly difficult due to the role of scientific rhetoric and experts in interpreting risks and shaping understandings of the situation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Utilizing recent research and monographs from participants and observers, this paper reports on the underanalyzed Vietnam antiwar movement. Key events are placed in a historical context that help to explain the origins of the movement. Particular attention is given to the various responses of the state to the challengers and the complex interrelationships with the media. As the antiwar movement grew and developed, there were multiple factors that contributed to solidarity and factionalism within the movement. Despite state repressive actions and internal factionalism, the movement was successful in helping to end the war. The effects on U.S. policies were more indirect than direct. The antiwar movement mobilized millions of citizens to public protest. The demonstrations helped to shift public opinion away from supporting the war and activated third parties to question and demand an end to war policies. The political system did respond to the antiwar movement’s demands. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social Impact Assessment (SIA) is a method of policy analysis that offers great potential for integrating scientific policy analysis into a democratic political process. This potential has not been realized in large part because there has been no theoretical framework to guide SIA. In this paper I propose such a framework, using Habermas' (1970) pragmatistic approach to policy. The framework suggests heavy emphasis on use of SIA early in the policy process and on methods that emphasize impact identification and portrayal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A common criticism of Parsonian theory has been that it is really not a theory but only a classificatory scheme. Critics claim that its concepts are not amenable to operationalization and that low-level empirically testable hypotheses cannot be derived from the theory. We argue that: (1) These criticisms are based upon a limited concept of theory, one that neglects other important Junctions that theory performs. (2) Many concepts in Parsonian theory can and have been operationalized. (3) Empirically testable propositions can be deduced from Parsons's theory. Examples from the areas of social evolution, criminology, small groups, and the sell are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]