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Since the financial crisis at the end of the last decade, Germany is regarded again as a successful coordinated market economy. However, a closer look at labour and working conditions reveals disturbing phenomena like an increase of psychical stress, growing shares of low wage employment or the erosion of collective bargaining or works councils' coverage. Finance capitalism has become the most popular concept among German sociologists to explain why and how industrial relations and working conditions have been put under pressure in the last one or two decades. But how coherent is the finance capitalism story? This question is tackled in the paper, based on literature review and empirical findings. The paper argues that the concept is overexpanded and that, first, financial market capitalism is refractured by agency and actors on different instituitonal levels and that, second, there are other and independent developments influencing industrial relations like globalisation or the deregulation of labour markets that have to be taken into account. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the creation of an intellectual biography of the U.S. sociologist Talcott Parsons. The researcher discusses Parsons' doctoral dissertation dealing with capitalism that was analyzed by sociologist Max Weber, and how Parsons' work delivered sociology from social Darwinism at the turn of the twentieth century. The author supports Parsons' work on the basis that he was a thinker and academician who did not use inconsistent analysis. The author utilized Parsons' archives at Harvard University, such as Parsons' paper "The Problem of Controlled Institutional Change."

This overview of the publication market for sociologists in Austria also examines a few recent publications by Austrian sociologists. Writing in German, Austrian sociologists are highly dependent on the market in neighbouring Germany, where approximately one-third of the books written by Austrians are published. Particular deficiencies of books by Austrians published in Austria are careless editing, indexing and copy editing. Among types of publication, most common are volumes of collected papers and monographs. A small number of publications attempt 'diagnoses of the era', addressing a larger audience. Core areas are the history of sociology and the humanities, immigration and the labour market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article reports on the eighteenth biennial congress of the Institut International de Sociologie (IIS), held in Nürnberg, Germany from September 10 to 18, 1958. The congress was attended by 295 participants including 221 from 31 countries. Several hundred papers were discussed during the first four days. After these sessions, the members traveled for five days to see postwar Germany. They viewed the reconstruction of Kassel, East Germany and West and East Berlin. The receiving station at Marienfeld in the West Berlin was also inspected. It is the place where peoples who flee from East Germany are held until their placement in West German industries and occupations. IIS is the oldest sociological organization, founded by René Worms at Paris in 1893. Scientific papers may be written in English, French, Spanish, Italian, or German. They are printed in bound volumes for distribution to the members. Membership is elective but national quotas are limited to prevent one country's domination. Eminent sociologist, Professor Hans Freyer, was president of this congress. Professor K. Valentin, general secretary of the U.S., was host this year.

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Copyright of Max-Planck-Institut für Gesellschaftsforschung Discussion Papers is the property of Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies 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 Sociologie & Sociétés is the property of Presses de l'Universite de Montreal 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.)

ABSTRACT This contribution will attempt to defend the thesis that the `Arbeitsgemeinschaft Sozialwissenschaftlicher Institute e.V.' (ASI) has played a major role in the institutionalization and professionalization of sociology in West Germany after the Second World War. The paper will show that, to date, the significance of the ASI has been grossly underrated in historical assessments of the development of German sociology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Only recently have sociologists begun to examine the social origins of educational mismatches in more detail. This research not only repeatedly found, but also investigated why individuals from lower social origin more often have a higher level of education than required for their job (overeducation), and why individuals from a higher social origin more often realize high positions despite having a lower level of education than required for their job (undereducation). While these studies provide additional and valuable empirical insights into the effect of social origin on both types of mismatch separately, to date there has been no investigation on general sociological meaningful conditions, under which the social origin unfolds an effect on undereducation and overeducation in the first place. This paper addresses this gap by examining the relevance of intergenerational stability for the effect of social origin on mismatches. It does so by drawing on arguments from sociological theories on intergenerational (im-)mobility, data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) for the period 1990–2017, and two different measurement methods for educational mismatches. The empirical results show evidence of substantial heterogeneity in the effect of social origin on educational mismatches: A higher parental status is found to be advantageous only for employees with intergenerational stability in social classes and/or occupational tasks. This indicates that the intergenerational transmission of class-specific traits and occupational skills contribute to the effect of social origin on mismatches. The results show no effect of parental status on educational mismatches among employees who are intergenerationally mobile and make up half of the German labor force under investigation. Since this heterogeneity is also found among workers who immigrated to Germany as adults, parental networks within Germany and the corresponding social capital can be ruled out as the main driver behind this finding. Although educational attainment is the most important pathway of intergenerational status maintenance, the results suggest that educational mismatches offer a means of identifying systematic deviations from this pathway. Individuals who follow in the footsteps of their high-status parents are more likely to be employed either at or above their level of education. In the light of the strong heterogeneity revealed, complementary explanations and routes for further research to investigate the link between intergenerational (im-)mobility, social origin and educational mismatches are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the role of sociologists Max Weber and Rudolf Goldscheid in the turning phase of sociology. Goldscheid emphasized on the role of knowledge for the organization of a new society. After the turning phase of sociology, it was realized that science is a socially caused phenomenon, which is related to cultural, social and individual progress. For Goldscheid, the goal of sociology was not the production of scientific papers or the academic acknowledgment of the research achievements, but sociology had the task to enable humans for will-justified social act on the basis of scientific realization. Together with sociologists Max Adler and William Jerusalem, he created in 1907 the Sociological Society in Vienna. Goldscheid became a member of the Association for Sociopolitics, according to which science should supply the bases for social politics. As a member of this association, he came into contact with the most important representatives of political economy and social sciences in Germany, including Werner Sombart and Weber. They both worked for the association regarding organizational problems but both had their differences. A substantial point of difference between Weber and Goldscheid was related to the naturalistic methodology.

This paper attempts to reassess Norbert Elias's central theme of the `civilizing process' with reference to the Holocaust in Nazi Germany. My argument is that the process of `civilization' must be seen as thoroughly ambivalent, following Zygmunt Bauman's use of the latter term to denote the possibility of assigning an object or event to more than one category. The practice of naming and classifying social behaviours or processes as `civilized' or `barbarous' is am- bivalent, because they can never be placed so unequivocably in one or the other category - certainly not in a social scientific way. I then trace out ambivalences in the three central features of the `civilizing' process as Elias conceives it - the monopolization of means of violence, the removal of physical violence `behind the scenes', and the lengthening chains of interdependence between people. I shall argue that these ambivalent features are as much potential forces of destruction as they are of internal pacification and `civilization'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article develops a theory of interdisciplinarity and examines relations between historians and sociologists in Germany and France over the course of the twentieth century, focusing in on several key moments of interdisciplinary activity. Interdisciplinary engagements are motivated by scholarly problems, field-specific interests and battles, and pressures and inducements coming from states, businesses, and scientific institutions. Analysis of the most productive moments of cross-disciplinary interaction suggests that they occur when disciplines are equal in power and when scholars are motivated by scholarly problems and disciplinary conflicts to move beyond their disciplines. More generative forms of interdisciplinarity are dialogic and processual, characterized by a fusion of perspectives; less productive forms are externally induced, involve asymmetrical partners, and are organized around division of disciplinary labor rather than an interpenetration of perspectives. The most productive interdisciplinary conjunctures result from serendipitous resonances and contingent synchronicities between subfields of semi-autonomous disciplines. It is thus impossible to produce the most fruitful forms of interdisciplinarity deliberately. The article examines three cases of symmetrical, processual interdisciplinarity involving sociology and history. Two of these cases were located in the French academic field, first between the wars, and then again after 1980. The other case of dialogic collaboration between historians and sociologists begins in Nazi Germany and continues after 1945 into the 1960s, leading to the formation of West German Historische Sozialwissenschaft. Examples of unbalanced interdisciplinarity include German “History-Sociology” during the Weimar Republic, in which sociologists’ opening to history was not reciprocated by professional historians and Historische Sozialwissenschaft after 1970. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In 1929, Walter Gropius developed the ‘High-Rise Steel Frame Apartment Building’ that was based on theories about the emergence of a New Man put forward by sociologist Franz Müller-Lyer. In his lecture at the Congrès International d’Architecture Moderne conference in 1929, Gropius appropriated Müller-Lyer's sociology in order to promote and prompt the re-development of high-rise tenements and master households. Gropius’ 1931 contribution to the Deutsche Bauausstellung in Berlin incorporated a full-scale community lounge and a recreation area with sporting equipment, as well as a model and plans for a ‘High-Rise Steel Frame Apartment Building’ that were designed in accordance with Müller-Lyer's theories. While it shows Müller-Lyer's influence, the boxing equipment found in the recreation area reflects the importance that sport, and boxing in particular, had gained after 1900. Boxing was perceived as a sport that would not only further fitness but also raise the spirits and help the inhabitant to succeed in the modern urban environment. By providing boxing equipment, Müller-Lyer's vision, which envisaged master households as furthering a community of peaceful individuals living in a condition of mutual trust, is weakened. In 1923, the sociologist Helmuth Plessner had regarded utopian visions of ideal communities as antithesis to actual events in the Weimar Republic. The embracing of theories that promised an evolutionary and linear development towards peaceful communities can be regarded as a counterreaction to a present that was perceived as an imperfect and temporary condition. Furthermore, Gropius’ appropriation of Müller-Lyer's sociology not only helped to distinguish his position from Marxist and socialist theories but also illustrated the contemporary tendency to accept utopian ideas while simultaneously doubting the practicality of some. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article discusses the implications of communicative rationality theory of Jurgen Habermas, a German sociologist and philosopher to the deliberative politics and policy making in Germany. The theory is based on the human capacity to speak, to validate claims and function in the basic structure of the society. Habermas avoids the fatalistic conclusion of other philosophers Max Horkheimer and Theodor W. Adorno since human being can overcome the pathologies of instrumental reason and can attain progress in human emancipation.

Based on the concept of cognitive mapping, the article addresses the issues of the production, representation, and conceptualization of space. Focusing on emerging concepts of urban space in turn-of-the-century and Weimar Berlin as developed by the sociologist Georg Simmel, the architectural historian Adolf Behne, and the urban designer Martin Wagner, it is shown to what extent these concepts are bound to technological modes of representation like photography and film. Based on these concepts, it is proposed to extend the concept of cognitive mapping, emphasizing that it not just examines but also produces images of the urban. Thus, cognitive mapping is not just analytical but also constructive. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the works of sociologist Hans Gerth. Gerth's most famous article was "The Nazi Party: Its Leadership and Composition." Using data from an internal party survey that he smuggled out of Germany, he showed among other things, that the Nazi had a greater base of support in the middle than working classes. He also had a wide range of other interests that made their way into unpublished and miscellaneous writings, ranging from an analysis of fashion to an appreciation for films. However, despite this range of accomplishments, Gerth is probably better known for his association with C. Wright Mills, the author of the sociological classics "White Collar," "The Power Elite," and "The Sociological Imagination." Mill was not in favor among the sociologist who was then teaching at Oklahoma because of the ideological differences. Over his thirty- year period at Madison, Gerth bewildered the majority of students passing through his classes and deeply influenced the few who did their best to learn from him.

Discusses the legacy of German economist and sociologist Werner Sombart by analyzing his book "The Jews and Modern Capitalism." Reason for the decline of Sombart's popularity in the study of sociology after World War II; Difference in the sociological views of Sombart and his contemporary Max Weber about capitalism; Allegation of anti-Semitism against Sombart; Archival materials discovered in Europe that negate Sombart as anti-Semitic; Influence of Karl Marx on Sombart.

The article reports on elite research in Germany. Elite research is a well-established field in Germany. This is mainly due to German history. After World War II, many intellectuals, politicians, and social scientists argued that the inability of German elites to accommodate the deep sociopolitical cleavages in German society had been a major factor in the failure of the first German democracy. Research on German elites has been carried out by sociologists, political scientists, and increasingly also historians. These three fields can be roughly associated with different methodological approaches, i.e. longitudinal social background studies, cross-sectional studies on career patterns and political attitudes, and historical case studies. While quite a few cross-sectional studies have dealt with the social backgrounds of political and other elites in Germany, there are only two truly longitudinal studies on changes over time. Historical case studies have dealt with various elite groups in different periods. These studies are valuable contributions to the systematic knowledge of German elites until 1945 and on elite continuity in West Germany after 1945.

The article focuses on sociologist Max Weber's model of leadership and its present significance. Weber described leadership as a process involving a bit of magic that defies the social realities, tradition and bureaucracy surrounding its appearance. Before long, however, followers begin to use the illusion as a means to their own comfort and security. Weber's familiar term for the magic was "charisma," and one finds his work cited in discussions of charismatic leadership. His ideas on bureaucracy appear in textbooks on management. It is seldom observed that for Weber the charismatic leader and bureaucracy were parts of the same process. Weber believed that bureaucratic domination could be countered through the development of a truly representative democracy, but he saw that the Chancellor of the German Empire Otto von Bismarck had left behind him a nation that was poorly prepared to assert its freedom. But in addition to a political education there was a need to raise Germans from their apathy to an interest in affairs of the state.

This article highlights the life and works of German sociologist Ferdinand Toennies. Toennies received a thorough primary and secondary education in classical languages and philosophy. Theodore Storm imparted to Toennies a respect for social democracy and freedom of thought. Toennies devoted the years 1881-87 to writing his greatest work called Community and Society. Toennies believed that the liberal ideals of human freedom and democracy would only be realized in a socialist community. In the decade after Community and Society appeared, Toennies joined some modest efforts at social reform, a commitment that precluded a permanent academic post in the deeply conservative Prussian university system. In particular, Toennies actively supported a strike at the Hamburg docks in 1896.

This article provides information about Leon Petrazycki (1861-1931), a legal theorist and sociologist, who came from the Polish gentry of the Witebsk area, a territory historically Polish, but then and now a part of Russia. After 1918, Petrazycki fled to Poland and did so as a professor at the University of Warsaw. Petratycki was a member of the Polish Academy of Science from 1912 until his death in 1931. Despite his achievements and earlier prominence, Petratycki is now relatively unknown, and his work is not well understood. He attracted much attention early in his career in Berlin because of his brilliant critique of the Burgerliches Gesetzbuch (German Civil Code) when its drafting was nearing completion. Because Petratycki's ideas were couched in the psychological language of the beginning of the century, they are regarded today as products of an introspective, psychological methodology. His later ideas were expressed in more recognizably sociological terms. Petrazycki's intention was to build a science of legal policy, which would give a democratic society a new comprehensive and systematic understanding of law necessary for solving conflicts and avoiding disruptive tensions.

This article discusses the history of qualitative sociology in Germany, as of March 1988. The history of qualitative research in Germany, one might think, starts with sociologist Max Weber. In 1904, he published his study on the Protestant ethic and the spirit of capitalism which may justly be called qualitative. Other contenders for the role of first proponent of qualitative research in Germany might be sociologists Georg Simmel or Karl Mannheim. Simmel described many social phenomena such as friendship patterns, the impact of spatial arrangements on social distance and individualization, and fashion, using empirical material in a way that is similar to modern qualitative research. Karl Mannheim made episodic use of empirical material to illustrate theoretical points. In the author's view, the forerunner of qualitative work in Germany was Fritz Schütze's book "Language--Seen Sociologically." This book emphasizes the importance of language to the study of social structure and ventures the hypothesis that linguistic communication may be used to understand constellations of power and authority.

The article presents information on sociologist George Simmel. George Simmel was born in Berlin in 1858 at the corner of Friedrich-strasse and Leipzigentrasse. His parents belonged to the higher middle class, they were already converted and George was baptized into the Christian community. He was and remained the product of a metropolitan civilization, overwhelming through a variety of sensual, intellectual, technological, poetical and artistic impressions which had their on the future author of the "Sociology of the Senses" and of the analysis of the metropolitan structure and intellectual life. He lived under the horizon of subjective and objective culture implying a sentimental altitude towards nature. Simmel studied at Berlin and finished his Ph.D. in 1881, he become a "Privatdzent" at the same university under Dilthey in 1885. Though Simmel was not a Socrates, the accusations against him are the typical reproaches of all traditionalists and reactionaries against innovators, to corrupt the youth. That the Jews should be singled out as such corrupters of the youth belonged to the academic pattern of anti-Semitism in Germany. It was the tragedy of Simmel that he never stuck to his philosophical intentions but always into psychology. All his books dealing with philosophy of history are frustrated because he conceives of the discipline in terms of psychology.

This article explores the different ways in which some of the greatest German sociologist related to key issues in the domains of the sociology of religion and the forms of religiosity. The chief themes at issue in their colloquy, though not always so plainly stated, were the varied patterns of relations of churches, sects, mysticisms, rationalisms, rationalizations, and secularizations on the roads to modernity. Max Weber regularly insisted that it was not possible to understand the varieties of religious structures without grasping the central forms of religiosity within the mix of all other orientations and institutions dominant in different societies and civilizational settings. Weber flatly rejected the overgeneralizations of Ferdinand Toennies that the keys to the rise of sects are to be found in the geographic-economic environments, whether urban or rural. In the main, but not always, Ernst Troeltsch's horizons differ from those of Weber. Troeltsch's problematics are essentially concerned with the complex comminglings of two sorts of laws--the one he described as the sociological natural laws, and the other he called the ideal types of laws presented by idealizing of various kinds. His dominant concern was in the structures of social activity and thought which emerged out of an earlier matrix of Stoic and Christian natural law.

This article analyzes Verstehende Sociology, a development of sociology in Germany whose basic viewpoint was that he processes of interaction could be genuinely understood only through insight into the behavior of people. This movement began with the philosophy of Wilhelm Dilthey. Dilthey was a philosopher and student of society and culture who was severely critical of Comte's conception of sociology as too broad and externalistic. He was the founder of the German Lebensphilosophie or philosophy of life which has some affinity with the French philosopher Bergson's vitalist philosophy and the American philosopher William James's pragmatism. Like Bergson and James he was an intuitist and anti-rationalist. Dilthey's distinction between natural and social sciences was carried a step further by his fellow philosopher Heinrich Rickert. Rickert regarded history as dealing with unique facts and hence not a science, and distinguished the social from the natural sciences on the basis that while these avoid concepts of value, the social sciences must take values into account in order to understand social reality. The most important sociologists who developed this new method were Max Weber and Werner Sombart.

"The German mind" was and is in many instances chameleon-like. The interval between Versailles and Hitler was marked by amazing changes of front on the part of intellectuals -- changes not only from year to year but almost from hour to hour. The social philosopher and sociologist Max Scheler, to choose one example, shifted position many times, and had the power to induce similar shifts among his followers. Failure to recognize this fluidity of German mentality led many observers to take Hitler too lightly: "The Nazis? They'll soon fade out." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents information on Jerome D. Frank, recipient of the Kurt Lewin Memorial Award of the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues for 1972. Early in his career, Frank was directly associated with sociologist Kurt Lewin, studying and working with him first in Germany and then in the U.S. Throughout his career, Frank has exemplified the values and orientations for which Kurt Lewin stood. Frank received his BA from Harvard in 1930 and had planned to go on to medical school. As an undergraduate, however, he had become interested in the work of Kurt Lewin and decided to take a year off to study with him in Germany. As a result of this experience, he was diverted from his original plan and, upon returning to Harvard, entered graduate rather than medical school, obtaining his PhD in psychology in 1934. In the meantime, Lewin had left Germany and come to Cornell University, and Frank joined him there in 1934-35. Frank continued his psychiatric training at the Phipps Psychiatric Clinic at Johns Hopkins, writing up some of his earlier research on the side.

The article presents various issues related to the German blue-collar workers. The main themes of German industrial sociological research between 1950 and 1960 can be divided into two groups one dealing with endogenous, the other with exogenous factors. The most important factor in the first group, reflecting the post-war German situation, was the technique of "co-determination" as the special road to industrial order in the West German coal and steel industries. The development and main themes of German industrial sociology have expanded since 1945 to a degree previously unknown in this country. This diversification in fields of research has already caused many German sociologists to withdraw from the study of industry. One of the reasons why German sociologists have withdrawn from the field of industrial sociology lies in the old argument among scholars about the relation between theory, empiricism and application. Many internal and external forces influence the sociology of German blue-collar workers. It has played a vital role in Federal German sociology and social research; its problems underlie the general social structure and its continuity is certain.

This article presents the author's reply to an invitation to become a corresponding member of the Deutsche Gesellschaft fuer Soziologie. The author says that in the attempt to build a new and sounder Germany out of the physical and moral rubble left by the Nazi regime, Deutsche Gesellschaft fuer Soziologie is apt to play a leading part. Participant observation in the convulsive rise and fall of Nazism should have given German sociologists abundant factual material on the self-defeating nature of violence and conflict. More than any other scientists they should be anxious to cultivate that science of human relationships which can teach the peoples to live together and work together in the same world, at peace. The author says he believes that Deutsche Gesellschaft fuer Soziologie is in a unique position to make a valuable contribution to the so badly needed sociology of cooperation. He says it is with the assumption that Deutsche Gesellschaft fuer Soziologie will live up to this task that he is willing to accept his part in it as a corresponding member.