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The article presents views of several sociologists regarding the future direction of social theory and its task in the 1st century. The growing strength of social theory has now placed it at a crossroads: it will have to decide whether it is going to become an overspecialized undisciplined within sociology or a central dimension to sociology, and to social science more broadly. One of the article authors is of the view that sociology is both a theoretical and an empirical discipline and it is important that these dimensions do not lose sight of each other. A second set of questions relates to the relationship between social theory and its public unction. Today sociologists are witnessing transformation in the production and legitimation of knowledge. Social theory needs to face up to the challenge of the democratic legitimation of knowledge. It will not be enough to resist specialization within sociology and social science. Another author is of the view that all the papers published in the journal should be interested in bridging the gap between the classical tradition of sociological theorizing and the sociologists' need to understand and solve contemporary social problems.

Historians and sociologists have highlighted the importance of skills, local practices and material culture in their studies of experimental sciences. This paper argues that the acquisition and transfer of skills in theoretical sciences should be understood in similar terms. Using the example of Feynman diagrams - first introduced by the US theoretical physicist Richard Feynman in 1948 as an aid for making certain kinds of calculations - we study how physicists in the USA, Japan, and the Soviet Union learned how to use the new tools and put them to work. Something about the diagrammatic tools could be learned from written instructions alone, at a distance from those physicists already 'in the know', although this type of transfer proved to be very difficult slow, and rare. The rate at which new physicists began to use the diagrams in various settings, and the types of uses to which the diagrams were put, reveal the interplay between geopolitics, personal communication, and pedagogical infrastructures in shaping how paper tools spread. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Some texts appear more than once across the corpus of Zygmunt Bauman's work. This has led to accusations of self-plagiarism and a lack of scholarly rigour. This paper is an explanation of why texts reappear. It pays attention to a number of frequently overlooked texts from the 1970s which are of fundamental importance for any understanding of Bauman's work. It is contended that if: (a) there is an understanding of the stakes and purpose of sociology as it is framed in Bauman's work; and (b) attention is paid to the argument of Hermeneutics and Social Science; then (c) the repetition of texts across the work becomes explicable and unproblematic. The paper argues that dealings with Bauman's work need to be more aware of the less well-known texts. They also need to be alert to different – and incommensurable – ways of practising sociology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Geographers have long debated for whom and for what ends academics should research and publish, how geographical knowledge is produced, and the use and value of such knowledges. This paper contributes to these debates through a discussion of an on-going project concerning the financial crisis in Ireland and its legacy of ‘ghost estates’. The analysis is framed with respect to Michael Burawoy’s taxonomy of forms of scholarly knowledge production and details the use of 10 forms of writing praxis, aimed at engaging a variety of audiences. The paper demonstrates that the classes in Burawoy’s taxonomy are far from mutually exclusive, and illustrates how geographical scholarship can make an impact in a variety of registers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper offers a typology of university management roles in the age of permanent austerity. The repackaging of every function within the university administration as a cost centre – meaning of course a potential profit centre – has long been seen as an unsustainable market model. Yet perversely it persists, and we would do well to name the hyperbolic functionaries of this administered institutional reconstruction, in a place where a humourless credentialism prevails. The paper revives the work, and temperament, of the early 20th-century sociologist Thorstein Bunde Veblen as a heuristic aid. With Veblen, the protocols of commercial imperative in the state education sector masquerade as education as a social good while the 'university' itself is skewered with the tragic realism of forms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article questions the validity of simple citation counts as a measure of scientific growth , quality, utility, etc., through viewpoint of sociologist M.J. Moravcsik. He proposes a citation typology, not of the bibliographic references themselves but of contexts in which references are made. The typology is based on content analysis of literature that elaborates on the procedure of scanning computer-generated output or primary source bibliographies, to tally citations to individual scientists or journals. The article, utilizing the distinction between references and citations, characterizes the role of each in the literature of high-energy physics. Analysis of several distributions indicates that referencing behavior does vary, somewhat by form, content and outlet of the article. The etiquette of citation depends very strongly on the particular characteristics of the field and on the style of local community. Stratification of any sort is supposed to be controlled in disciplines of considerable intellectual consensus.

This paper presents a case study of a recent controversy among theoretical physicists modelled on case studies of experimental science conducted in recent times by sociologists and historians. The principal source is a series of interviews with leading participants in the controversy. I have also read published papers pertaining to the debate and the study is informed by my own experience as a researcher in the relevant field of theoretical physics during the earliest period of the controversy. I argue, on the basis of this study, that the work of theorists can be very like the work of experimentalists. Concepts such as 'tacit knowledge', and problems of replicability, may be just as relevant to the study of theorists as they are to experimenters. In analogy with Collins' 'Experimenters' Regress', I propose the existence of a 'Theoreticians' Regress' which expresses the difficulty theorists have in judging the correctness of rival calculations when the best or only test of their validity is their own result, which is itself in dispute. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Countries around the world are developing carbon emission markets as a governance mechanism to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and mitigate anthropogenic climate change. These markets are social institutions, designed to solve the transnational collective action problem of climate change. This paper explores the development of carbon emission markets from an institutional perspective to understand how market networks specifically and social institutions in general are constructed. Drawing on seminal work of institutional theorists and economic sociologists, this paper explores the way in which organizations build the institution of the carbon markets. As this paper aims to demonstrate, a number of public and private organizations, rather than regulatory bodies, build and operationalize the market. The paper analyses how networks of organizations develop the three pillars of the carbon market institution: regulative, normative and cultural-cognitive constructs. Since organizations build the institutional pillars of the carbon market network, the strength of the institution cannot be determined by regulation alone. Certainly regulation gives the carbon markets credibility, but their ability to become an institution of common practice relies on the strength and embeddedness of the organizations that build them. The paper concludes by suggesting that, while the carbon market institution serves to communicate and disseminate a common social value of reducing emissions, it generates a dangerous over-reliance on markets to address environmental concerns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Feminism is well versed in conversations about engaged scholarship and has provided important critical commentary on Michael Burawoy's campaign for public sociology in recent years. This paper draws from feminist perspectives to argue for reflexivity, praxis, and interdisciplinary work as key pillars for public sociology. I then draw from my own experiences doing feminist work in community-engaged settings to consider various limitations of Burawoy's notions of traditional and organic public sociology. To move past this dichotomy, I put forward a conceptual model for understanding public sociologists as public intellectuals, community-engaged scholars, community educators, and/or advocates and activists. In considering how researchers might navigate these various roles, I argue that discussions of expertise and universities as value-laden institutions are important to build sustainable practices. Overall, the strength of public sociology is that it acknowledges these blurred boundaries and allows for the development of collaborative forms of expertise to address social problems. However, there is additional theoretical work to be done, as well as practical supports developed, to enable feminist researchers in particular to successfully navigate these roles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper offers a memoir of living with Zygmunt Bauman. It begins with the early encounter of Bauman and Aleksandra Kania in Warsaw in 1954, where both were Masters students working with the humanist Marxist Adam Schaff. Kania and Bauman followed their separate life paths for decades, though they were both postwar communists and reconstructionists. Much later, the loss of their partners led to union, in Leeds and across the globe in travel. This is a story of friendship and mutual enthusiasms, then intimacy between two working sociologists. There are also some apparent differences, as between the Lark and the Owl, or between Phosphorous and Hesperus. Life together leads especially to Italy, and to Pope Francis. This is a reflection on what Bauman called the art of life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Anarchism has not had a noticeable impact upon sociology. The two traditions diverged in their interest in society and their relationship to it. This paper contrasts the practitioners or thinkers of one tradition against the other. The analysis shows some strong antagonisms, many instances of close analysis and critique of each other’s perspectives, and a number of friendly and supportive relationships between anarchists and sociologists. Anarchists tended to admire the intellectual rigor of sociologists, but thought sociologists were insiders – mere reformers at best, reactionaries at worst – content to study society, but rarely to act for its improvement. Sociologists viewed anarchists with an even wider range of opinion, including considering them principled and admirable revolutionaries, slightly naïve utopians, or criminals and chaos-lovers bent on the destruction of social order. These factors contributed to the exclusion of anarchist ideas and anarchists themselves from the sociological canon. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper utilizes Du Bois’ double consciousness, as well as insights from feminist theory and critical pedagogy, to examine the tensions involved in being both a professional sociologist and a New Orleanian affected by Hurricane Katrina. We argue that sociologists from New Orleans face barriers that prevent us from writing and teaching about Katrina ‘objectively’, as many in our discipline demand, while simultaneously discouraging us from engaging in research and teaching that draw on personal experiences with Katrina. We are told by reviewers, editors, and colleagues that our experiences, construed as biases, are inappropriate for our writing and our classrooms. We contend that much important knowledge about Hurricane Katrina will never be created, and the knowledge that is created will be largely written and taught by those who did not experience the storm first-hand. This paper reconciles two conflicted consciousnesses by deconstructing the situation encountered by sociologists from New Orleans. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper draws a parallel between two contemporary French conceptions of sociology. Each is first considered in terms of the principles and strategies of its sociological method. Through an analogy with Marx's philosophy of social science, critical sociology is shown to make an heuristic use for the analysis of cultures and social structures of the resistance to sociology that the sociologist encounters in the social objects, whereas pragmatic sociology adopts a pluralistic and descriptive strategy towards actions, actors and things. The paper then tries to show how common interests or trading zones could allow both critical and pragmatic sociology to profit from their competitive relation by taking each other as objects of sociological analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines sociologists' current interest in the topics of human rights and globalisation. Some describe a world where everyone has rights (or at least a modicum of rights), because we are all human, and we all interact and communicate with one another in a global environment which will (it is argued), result in greater toleration and recognition of differences. In contrast, this paper emphasises the political instability of rights in a world characterised by vast economic inequalities which does not fit neatly into some of the visions of international or global community being proposed. Rather than the inevitability of rights discourse, I argue that it is the force of law that demands human problems be cast in the language of rights and rights language is legal language. Nonetheless, there has been relatively little attention paid by sociologists to the institutions, especially courts, for example, that will recognise and enforce those rights designated as human rights. The paper closes with some suggestions for further sociological endeavour in this regard. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main purpose of this article is to demonstrate the enduring relevance of the concept of ideology to contemporary sociological analysis. To this end, the article draws upon central arguments put forward by Pierre Bourdieu and Luc Boltanski in ‘La production de l’idéologie dominante’ [‘The Production of the Dominant Ideology’]. Yet, the important theoretical contributions made in this enquiry have been largely ignored by contemporary sociologists, even by those who specialize in the critical study of ideology. This article intends to fill this gap in the literature by illustrating that useful lessons can be learned from Bourdieu and Boltanski’s critical investigation, as it provides crucial insights into the principal characteristics and functions of ideologies, including the ways in which they develop and operate in advanced capitalist societies. The article is divided into two main parts: the first part examines various universal features of ideology; the second part aims to shed light on several particular features of dominant ideology. The paper concludes by arguing that the ‘end of ideology’ thesis, despite the fact that it raises valuable sociological questions, is ultimately untenable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Daniel Bell’s writings are often cast as offering a contemporary jeremiad regarding the corrosive effects of culture upon the modern economic and social order. In this paper, I take the opposite approach and argue that Bell is a sensitive cultural analyst who is claiming that human experience ought not to be deprived of culture – understood as symbol and myth that tap into the felt need for human transcendence. Bell could therefore be seen as a strong advocate for the concept of culture, and for a cultural sociology. It is only that the modern (and postmodern) versions of culture do not realize the full potential of culture to move and inspire human actors. The conclusion is reached that what ails modern culture is neither rationalization nor secularization, but rather what Bell termed the ‘Great Profanization’. Rendering culture profane is much more serious, and deleterious, than any of the other specific dynamics sociologists have diagnosed regarding modern culture. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper argues that sociological engagement with the 2011 summer unrest in England has thus far overlooked an important aspect of the 'rioting': the troubling by 'rioters' of the communitarian publics and moral geographies which constitute marginalised city-space. In response to this knowledge gap, this paper seeks to argue that the unrest was transgressive of governance logics which construct inner city 'communities' as spatialised units housing ethno-class legacies and sociations; environments in which remoralised urban citizenships are increasingly being located by policymakers and urban managers. A key goal of the paper is to briefly unpack and situate these projects within repertoires of urban management within the neoliberal city. Another goal is to reflect on media and policy responses to the 'riots' to illustrate the existence and reinforcement of these projects, evinced by the popular construction of 'rioting' as contravening ordered community practice. By mapping the representation and vectoring of community within these narratives either as a fallen or resurgent entity, the paper contends that they provide important insights into the contested socio-moral management strategies increasingly brought to bear on the urban poor. The paper also considers foregrounding such urban strategies as context to be crucial for a sociological framing of the unrest and the repudiation of depoliticised victim-blaming accounts. The paper also briefly reflects on the periodised, networked and disparate practices of the 'riots' to stress the dangers of boxing unrest, or indeed rest, within narrow spatial or behavioural boundaries or essentialised causal categories. Amongst other things, the diffuseness and multi-scalar nature of the 'riots' revealed the deficiency of this normative reading of the registers of urban citizenship. In this sense, the paper suggests that some academic commentary on the 'riots' has been in danger of reinforcing the same localised and residualised cartographies of citizenship generated by communitarian governance strategies at a time when sociologists should be exposing and resisting such articulations. In developing this discussion therefore, the paper seeks to challenge the formulations and boundaries of 'community' as conceptualised by urban governance strategies driving the functional reproduction of neoliberal marginalities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper assesses the novelty of NSMs--or better, of any social and political movement in contemporary Western societies--in the light of their capacity to develop systems of relationships which cut across established social and political cleavages. It illustrates first the relational bases of Rokkan's concept of cleavage, and its contribution to the understanding of social movements; it then shows how Simmel's concept of the intersection of social circles and his distinction between concentric and crosscutting circles may be fruitfully applied to the analysis of political cleavages and their changing forms. In the conclusions, the elements of an approach to the study of the newness of social movements, based on the integration of Rokkan's and Simmel's principles, are introduced. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A conversation about the different generational experiences of LGBT academics and the changing status of sexuality and queer studies. Ken Plummer, Arlene Stein and Travis Kong, longtime colleagues and sociologists of sexuality, share their insights. They discuss how different generational contexts and geographic locations shape sexuality studies. They acknowledge the ways Ken's work, and the efforts of his generation of activist-scholars, played a pivotal foundational role in establishing LGBT studies. They consider the relationship between queer theory and sociologies of homosexuality, and the growing importance of digital media. In conclusion, they discuss how neoliberalisation and authoritarian movements are impacting intellectual work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on the cooperative initiative between the journal Social Compass and the International Society for the Sociology of Religion (ISSR). From its beginnings, the ISSR has made every endeavour to publish the papers presented at its meetings. This had the advantage of enabling members to prepare for active participation in the meetings. However, there were some disadvantages. The papers, once commissioned, were not subject to editorial review before publication. In addition, the only papers published were those to be delivered in plenary sessions. Cooperation between Social Compass and the ISSR ensures that conference proceedings will appear in subsequent issues of Social Compass. Each year, the first issue of Social Compass will carry papers delivered at the preceding ISSR conference. Two issues are devoted to each biennial conference. As a result of the cooperative initiative, the work of sociologists of religion will be more effectively integrated and the journal and conference will become mutually reinforcing. The journal will bring the work of a larger number of conference participants to the attention of a wider circle of scholars, while the conference will become an effective forum to stimulate and sustain support for the journal.

The article presents comments on the research paper "Representing Biotechnology: An Ethnography of Quebec Science Policy," by Alberto Cambrosio, Camille Limoges and Denyse Pronovost, published in the journal "Social Studies of Science," vol. 20. The author criticize for the insufficient information given in the research paper by Cambrosio and colleagues. According to him Cambrosio and colleagues devoted little attention to interests of actors in determining what is included and what is excluded from the biotechnology dossier. Some of them are, focus on the process through which categories become legitimate, focus on the institutional is particularly important in the area of science policy-making, and others.

This article presents information on sociologist Norbert Elias's issue on figrational sociology. Elias's work has consistently highlighted the omnipresence of power in relations between human beings. The first paper by Norbert Elias featured in this issue deals with "The Retreat of Sociologists into the Present" and disputes the current preoccupation with contemporary social problems and conflicts. Not that these are not important and pressing, but our ability to comprehend these problems and conflicts and therefore our capacity to act or caution against action, is immensely enriched by an understanding of the long-term processes, the development which through the dynamic of unintended forces brings about changes which move in a specific direction. It enables us to see, in his words, that this present into which sociologists are retreating constitutes just one small momentary phase within the vast stream of humanity's development. This paper, with its blend of theoretical and social historical synthesis, represents the ideal rejoinder to the misplaced charges of empiricism.

The article focuses on a recent paper in the journal "Social Studies of Science," in which sociologist Edward Nadel proposes an operationalization of incommensurability in terms of citation behavior. According to Nadel this operationalization should be of service in evaluating the relative historical adequacy of sociologist S. Kuhn's view of competition between theories, according to which incommensurability is an influential factor, as compared to views that deny a role of such a factor. In this response, the author argues that the validity of the operationalization and its merits for discriminating between theories of scientific development under discussion, are throughout in doubt. Kuhn's notion of incommensurability is characterized by Nadel , as incommensurability is an inability on the part of individual scientists or groups of scientists to compare competing theories, due to differences between those scientists in the perception and meaning of various cognitive elements. As a preliminary remark it should be pointed out that, in view of the rest of Nadel's paper, this characterization is not entirely adequate.

The article presents the reply of social scientist Pnina Abir-Am to the responses of other social scientists on her recent paper on the role of the Rockfeller Foundation in molecular biology research. According to Pnina Abir-Am, her questioning of the received view which held that the research policy of the Rockefeller Foundation (RFD) in the 1930's had a direct impact upon the rise of molecular biology, a generation later, seems to have shocked the social studies of science community, or at least its historically minded section. In her reply she argues that all the respondents have missed the basic point that her paper challenged, not only the specific contents of the received view, but also the validity of the accepted procedures for evaluating, on one hand the impact of policy upon scientific change and on the other, the histography of molecular biology. She had addressed the themes which were common to several responses and few unique to a given response. They included the issue whether the physical scientist grantees of the RFD were opportunistic respondents to its policy, or were they genuinely interested in biology.

The article presents author's reply to Larry Lauden's paper titled "Note on Collins' Blend on Relativism and Empiricism," published in the February 1, 1982 issue of the journal "Social Studies of Science." The paper is like some fruits one can buy in supermarkets, shiny crisp and generally appetizing in appearance, but disappointingly soggy when you bite into it. Sociologist Laudan accuses the author of an apparent contradiction, simultaneous espousal of two incompatible points of view. For a variety of reasons, the author does not advice sociologists of science to act on the assumption that the natural world in no way constrains what is believed to be. The author understands why Laudan and others might think that he preaches relativism and empiricism. No claims of reflexivity made in his works. Reflexivity is explicitly disavowed. The author's recommendation is that the social scientist should go about finding out things about the natural world. A relativistic attitude to the natural world, on the part of social scientist, will encourage attentiveness and will help to observe the way that an apparently fixed reality is built up in the community of natural science.

The article presents author's response to criticisms made by sociologists Barry Barnes and Donald MacKenzie in their papers related to explanation of interests. According to the author they both appear to have misunderstood certain key aspects of the author's arguments. Their general conclusion is that the author is negative. Barnes, according to the author, correctly recognizes that the basis for the author's critique of recent socio-historical theorizing in the social study of science has long been discussed in its application to sociology in general. The reformist reaction takes the position that the problem of descriptions is largely inconsequential because it represents a technical difficulty encountered in the course of explanation. Descriptions are acknowledged as unreliable, but the source of this unreliability is located in the process whereby descriptions are generated. Barnes points out that the author has engaged in theorizing. But the author wishes to draw to quite separate endeavors, and in order to do this it is necessary to maintain a vigorous antipathy to theorizing.

This article theorizes the relationship between social movements, public opinion, and presidential power. While sociologists and social movement scholars have long neglected these interconnections, we argue that they form a key foundation of American political life. Drawing on civil sphere theory, we show that, at least in formally democratic regimes, the exercise of state power is continuously subject to public opinion, via social movements that pressure states in the public's name. We demonstrate how social movements compete with one another to speak on behalf of 'public opinion.' In giving expression to the desires of 'the public', imagined as a putative whole, movements exercise what we call 'civil power.' Taking the second-wave feminist movement and the countermovements that arose against it as our empirical case study, we examine their interaction with three particularly illustrative presidential administrations: that of Richard Nixon, Jimmy Carter, and Ronald Reagan. While presidents organize state power, we argue, the effective functioning of this formal power is enabled by the civil power of social movements, whose roots are located in collective meanings and whose generation occurs outside the state. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Debates about the state of Australian sociology have raged for as long as sociology has existed in Australia. Concerns about the discipline's future may be inevitable for a critical, reflexive discipline, but to those entering the discipline, it is neither instructive nor productive to be subjected to lingering disciplinary anxieties. After more than fifty years, it is time to take stock of the differing visions of sociology, and examine the arguments about the health, or otherwise, of Australian sociology. To advance this debate, we consider the signs and benchmarks of a 'successful' sociology as expressed in The Australian Sociological Association magazine, NEXUS, and key writings from Australian sociologists. We suggest that much of the disagreement over the status of sociology derives from the way 'disciplines' and 'success' are defined. Regarding sociology to be an heterogeneous, multi-modal, social institution and practice, we propose a way forward in our efforts to represent ourselves. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sociologists commonly adopt a bifurcated understanding of the neoliberal state, showing how neoliberalism's advance coincides with the growing authority of specific actors and ideas inside the bureaucratic state as others' authority declines. This article complicates this view by probing the dynamics of non-neoliberal action inside the state, demonstrating the ways even demoted state actors can strategically muster power resources to forward distinct policy agendas. Taking a long-term perspective on social policy developments since the early 2000s, this article reviews the case of Israel, where neoliberal policies' new hegemony and adverse outcomes triggered counter-actions inside the state, ultimately leading to policy change. Paying particular attention to the role of ideas, this article argues that by rearticulating their policy mission to align with market conventions, non-neoliberal actors were able to persuade neoliberal actors to support their policy proposals, succeeding to advance creative policy alternatives under hostile political conditions. Highlighting this strategic capacity and ideational resilience and acumen in adapting to neoliberal critique reveals how demoted state actors can manage to sustain entrenched organizational goals and institutional motivations even as they help ease the adaptation of their historical mission to the neoliberal zeitgeist. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Education is an essential aspect of any society in the world. As such, it has been a topic studied by many sociologists since the origins of the discipline. Today it is one of the most common subjects in sociology, in part because it has been recognised as a crucial environment for the (re)production of inequalities. This article explores the role of education in the (re)production of social inequalities and its potential to challenge such inequalities. In addition, the article presents some of the distinctions between research in the Global South and North, both in geographical and metaphorical terms. Since this article is the introduction to the special issue Education and the Production of Inequalities: Dialogues from the Global South and North, a synopsis of the published articles is presented at the end. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This is a commemoration of Ulrich Beck, written originally just after his passing. It understands Beck in terms of Kant’s critiques. Here if, say, Latour incorporates the first critique of instrumentalism and Habermas the second critique of morality, then Ulrich points us to the third critique – hope. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

German sociologist Alfred Vierkandt is hardly remembered today. This may seem surprising. Several prominent sociologists from the German-speaking countries contributed to the Handwörterbuch der Soziologie (1931), which Vierkandt edited and published. However, Vierkandt did not interact with any of them significantly, and this publication brought no recognition of the importance of his sociological oeuvre in Germany, the United States, or elsewhere. His key notion of the social group found no acknowledgment among other contemporary or later sociologists, even though several of them used this notion and discussed social groups in their own writings. Moreover, those who paid close attention to his writings, like Abel and Hochstim, evaluated them quite critically. Both before and after World War II, Vierkandt remained a solitary and relatively unknown author. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents the reply of sociologist Andy Pickering on the question raised by social scientist Diana Crane on his use of the concept of analogy. Diana Crane questions Pickering's use of the concept of analogy and raises specific points of interpretation of historical development in theoretical high energy physics (THEP). Pickering feels that Crane was somewhat miscounted by the concept of analogy and he tries to clarify the doubt in order to clarify the difference in their approaches. Use of the term "analogy," by Pickering refer to the modelling of work in one research tradition on that established on another. The development of THEP is marked out into identifiable traditions, each based upon an exemplary achievement. Crane has provided a list of the major traditions originating in the THEP from 1960 to 1975, but Pickering feels that the process of development of such a tradition is one of increasing sophistication and refinement of the original exemplar. Pickering published a paper to indicate how reconceptualization can be achieved.

A focus on law's role in economic activities was central to many of the classical sociologists, and it remains a key theme in the sociology of law, although no longer central. The view of capitalism as a market economy is reflected in formalist perspectives on economics, law and even sociology, and limits these understandings. Economic sociologists and institutional economists have examined the extensive institutionalisation of economic activity due to the shift to corporate capitalism since the last part of the 19th century, and have focused on law's role in these processes. The neo-liberal phase of capitalism since the 1970s brought a renewed emphasis on property rights and market-based management, but accompanied by an enormous growth of new forms of regulation, often of a hybrid public-private character, leading to a new view of law as reflective or responsive, very different from traditional formalist perspectives. We argue that law's role in the economy can be better understood by examining the social processes of lawyering, mediating between the realms of political and economic power, through practices of legal interpretation that both reflect and shape economic activity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyses the development of the sociology of culture in Czechia. Its focus is on the sociology of the arts and cultural sociology, which, it is argued, are connected through the notion of the relative autonomy of cultural structures. While the Czech sociology of culture may have been rendered less dynamic by the lack of a critical mass of sociologists specialising in this area and by the country's frequent political upheavals and its isolation from the international circulation of ideas, it has experienced moments of considerable vitality. Three periods in the development of the field are identified here, each of them marked by a movement toward a stronger and more sociologically adequate conceptualisation of cultural autonomy: (1) from the diffuse culturalism of the field's founding figures to the functionalist theory of the interwar sociologist Inocenc Arnošt Bláha, whose view of the relationship between art and society was influenced by the work of the Prague School of Structuralism; (2) from the cultural reductionism of Marxist-Leninist theory after 1948 to the eclectic sociology of culture and the arts of the late socialist period; (3) from the demise of this transitional form of a sociology of culture in the 1990s to the increasingly internationalised but also heterogeneous landscape of the 2010s, which is constituted by a semi-institutionalised centre of cultural sociology at Brno and small groups or individuals in Prague and other academic locales. The thread of continuity in an otherwise discontinuous historical development is found in the recurrent motif of the relative autonomy of culture which the Czech sociology of culture absorbed through its exposure to art and literary theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article reports on the relationship of sociology and society. The author noted that the GEODE position had initialized him to comprehend that he never construed sociology as about society. He also manifested that society is an institution which although worthy of being considered is inadequate as a guide to the practice of sociology. In studying sociology, he posed the use of construct, network populations. He also mentioned that in most actual research projects, sociologists need not to trouble themselves with notions of society.

This article examines the recent work of the sociologist Arpad Szakolczai as he attempts to conceptualize the programme of ‘reflexive historical sociology’ in the ‘life-works’ of Max Weber, Eric Voegelin and Michel Foucault as well as Norbert Elias, Lewis Mumford and Franz Borkenau. Particular attention is paid to the innovative manner in which the work of the anthropologist Victor Turner is used to explore the biographies of these social theorists as in effect performative life-works in which crucial liminal periods and experiences are seen as facilitating new understandings. It is suggested that the life-work approach to social theory adds an important reflexive dimension to the analysis of social thought. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this article is to question the nature of the socio-anthropological approach in Lefort's thought. The author explores the complex relationship between Lefort and the Durkheimian French school of sociology in four stages: in the first, he shows Lefort as a sociologist 'worthy of its name' or, in other words, a sociologist interested in questioning the 'institution of the social'. In the second, he focuses on the disturbing elements that Lefort introduces: the political and the division into the French sociological approach. In the third stage, he focuses his attention on the sociological approach in Lefort's way of thinking about democratic society. Finally, he concludes by referring to Lefort's apparent opposition between philosophy and social sciences – and the errors that this may have engendered – in order to demonstrate the continuity of Lefort's sociological approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses economic sociology. Economic sociology has been undergoing a dramatic revival in recent years, partially because American sociologists, in particular, have begun to produce innovative studies of market behavior, but also because sociologists on both sides of the Atlantic have begun to engage with the aggressive claims made by economic models of social behavior. It is somewhat ironic to note that as neo classical economics began to move increasingly towards the mathematical models of economic behavior in the middle of the last century, sociologists gradually realized that their empirical skills equipped them to study that which economists were leaving behind, namely real life markets. Traditionally, only economists were considered capable of addressing intricacies of market exchange while sociologists had to make do with residual cases, such as labour market institutions, or the black box of business administration, both areas where sociology subsequently thrived.

Studies comparing the cognitive status of the sciences have long sought to identify the distinguishing features of 'hard' and 'soft' science. Attempts by philosophers of science to ground such distinctions in abstract principles and by sociologists of science to detect relevant differences (for example, in consensus levels) have met with limited success. However, recent investigations of scientists' concrete practices of data representation provide new leads on this problem. In particular, Bruno Latour has argued that graphs are essential to science due to their ability to render phenomena into compact, transportable and persuasive form. Applying Latour's notion of 'graphism' to the hierarchy of sciences, we found that the use of graphs across seven scientific disciplines correlated almost perfectly with their hardness, and that the same pattern held up across ten specialty fields in psychology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores material loss and develops a new conceptual agenda. Synthesising and developing debates on the sociology of consumption and material culture in combination with those of the sociology of nothing, it argues that material loss is crucial to understanding people's everyday relationships to the material world and to practices of consumption. Abstract notions of absence, nothingness and loss are becoming increasingly intriguing phenomena for sociologists interested in the everyday. However, whilst their theoretical connotations are being discussed more and more, empirical investigation into these phenomena remains somewhat (ironically) absent. This article draws on a recent project exploring lost property, based on qualitative interviews with lost property offices, households and museums. Developing previous work on material affinities and material culture, the authors argue that lost property reveals the enduring relationships people have with objects which are no longer in their possession. These relationships disrupt and develop contemporary debates on the sociology of consumption regarding how objects are devalued, divested and disposed of, as well as how they are acquired, appropriated and appreciated. In turn, we contend that the transformative potential of material loss and absence offers a way of thinking about alternative, non-material practices of accumulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents reply to Daniel Lee Kleinman on his article "Conceptualizing the Politics of Science: A response to Cambrosio, Limoges and Pronovost," published in the November 1, 1991 issue of the journal "Social Studies of Science," vol. 21. According to authors Kleinman could not understand the study properly, they point it to Kleinman's lack of interest in reading the text for what it is. Kleinman tried to redefine the very objective of the study. In their view, opening the black box and accounting for the policy-making process starts with the representational practices themselves, as they are being locally constructed. And they reject Kleinman's blame that they have not given proper attention to actors. There focus was on actors as they encountered them during fieldwork. These include, of course, not only individual human beings but also macro-actors, if and when they were constituted through the science policy process. Kleinman refers to a different kind of actors, such as sides, business, the chemical and biotechnology industry, and others. This may be why Kleinman overlooks one of the central points of authors paper.

The article focuses on the life and works of Karl Mannheim, a sociologist. It is mentioned that having an acquaintance about Mannheim and his relations would help in establishing a relationship with him. The author, influenced by Mannheim opposes to suspend all concepts, views, hypothesis, and ideas related to culture as proposed by Mannheim. Mannheim presented his papers titled "Historicism" in 1924, "The Problem of Sociology of Knowledge" in 1925 and "Competition as a Cultural Phenomenon" in 1928. As mentioned, he also wrote books like "Ideology and Utopia," "Man and Society in an Age of Reconstruction" and "Freedom, Power and Democratic Planning."

The article discusses music as a means of symbolic communication that has impact far beyond the concert hall or the radio. The popular music in the United States, has been examined from three different approaches: the "historic," the "interactive," and the "critical." The author views music as an ordered system of meaning and symbolism, in terms of which social interaction takes place. In popular music, there is a framework of beliefs, expressive symbols, and values in terms of which individuals define their world, express their feelings, and make their judgments. The study of popular music should be the study of the meaning of music to those creating and consuming it. It is important for a sociologist of music to show how, as a world of symbols, music expresses the images, visions and sentiments of the people who find significance in it; as well as how such music reflects the values and norms of the larger social system or the ideology of a social class. The author suggested in this paper the possibility of viewing popular music as a system of meaning of social groups and how music can be utilized as a symbolic resource in the definition of reality projected by these groups.

The article presents a one act play about replication in science and reflexivity in sociology. In the article, the author has tried to present scientists' own words in a way which enables participants to reply and challenge some of the accounts of scientific action that have appeared in the recent sociological literature. In the present text the author has tried to draw attention of interpretative scientific reciprocity. He wants to emphasize that participants and analysts deal with the same topics, that their interpretative resources merge and both parties take over each other's discourse as they engage in the creative dialogue through which sociological meanings are given to participant's actions. The author has used his empirical material to construct an imaginary confrontation. The play is focused around the topic of experimental replication in science. A discussion of replication in science quickly leads to an examination of replication in sociology, and thereby to the more general topic of reflexivity. The dialogue of the play has been taken from research papers written recently by sociologists of science. The stage direction of the show has been discussed.

The article presents replies of social scientist Pnina Abir-Am to comments made on her paper on definition of molecular biology. The role of Rockfeller Foundation in shaping early molecular biology has been a topic of considerable interest in the sociology of science. Abir-Am's demonstration on the role of Rockfeller foundation in the development of molecular biology has been vastly overstated. Her strategy is clear and to the point but it failed to stand up to historical scrutiny. First, she marshals two cases in which considerable research sums were showered on physical scientists, who failed to contribute in an important way to molecular biology and who indeed never developed an interest in biological questions. Secondly, she contrasts this situation with that of the research program of some other sociologists, which truly anticipated molecular biology but failed to receive Foundation support. It seems that the foundation has distributed its largesse in accordance with the path of progress in molecular biology.

The article discusses various issues related to the Sex Ratio Index (SR). In recent papers on the properties of indexes of occupational sex segregation, sociologists J. Siltanen and Z. Tzannatos examine the Sex Ratio index, which was utilized by sociologist C. Hakim. In this article it is argued that Siltanen has failed to identify correctly the shortcomings of the SR index and, at the same time, neglected to examine her Standardized Sex Ratio index, which overcomes some but not all of these problems. Adoption of an appropriate index of occupational sex segregation must enable the researcher to identify the composition effect, which measures the change in the sexual composition of occupations over time after allowance is made for the changing overall sexual shares of employment and the associated change in the occupational structure. The computation of the SR index requires that occupations be divided between those which are disproportionately male and disproportionately female where in the former, the male share of the employment, exceeds the overall male share and vice versa.

An editorial is presented which discusses article on work and life of Maria Márkus, a Polish sociologist and philosopher. Topics discussed include Maria's themes and preoccupations about building civility in our institutions and decency in our relationships; her decisive contribution to the short-lived renaissance of Hungarian critical sociology during the middle of the 1960s; and her analysis of contemporary social life against the background of the personal meaning of a successful life.

In the early twenty-first century, liberal democracies have witnessed their foundational norms of critique and deliberation being disrupted by a combination of populist and technological forces. A distinctive style of dispute has appeared, in which a speaker denounces the unfairness of all liberal and institutional systems of equivalence, including the measures of law, economics and the various other 'tests' which convention scholars have deemed core to organisations. The article reviews how sociologists of critique have tended to treat critical capacities as oriented towards consensus but then considers how technologies of real-time 'control' circumvent liberal critique altogether. In response, a different type of dispute emerges in the digital public sphere, which abandons equivalences in general, instead adopting a non-representational template of warfare. This style of post-liberal dispute is manifest in the rhetoric of populists but does not originate there. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]