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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."

Over the past few years, the skepticism against the stance of value neutrality and the reception of the Frankfurt School in the wake of renewed attention to Marxism in a Critical Sociology has once again focused attention on the problem of the integration of theory and praxis in sociology. Bearing in mind social philosopher Karl Marx's famous statement, philosophers have only interpreted the world in different ways, but the point is to change it, members of the Frankfurt School recognized the problem and perhaps difficulty, of praxis in sociology from the very beginning. This paper is primarily an attempt to present a critique of current approaches to field work and especially of participant observation. This particular focus is important for two reasons. First, ethnographic work has become of paramount importance given the sophisticated manipulation of people's lives today. The intricate organization of the work place, the divisive and paralyzing structure especially of the urban setting. The second reason for such an extended critique is that it would guide people to politically and methodologically adequate approaches to field work.

The media as well as the social sciences depict German embryo research policies as unusually strict. The explanation for this is sought in the symbolic values fixed in the constitution and the national-socialist heritage. This interpretation, however, is gained from a number of case studies, whereas this paper analyses the German case in a comparative perspective. We ask whether Germany really is such an unusual case compared to other OECD countries. As a first step classical theories of comparative public policy -- partisan difference hypothesis, institutional, political-economical and cultural theories -- are applied. The article shows that these theories can explain the variation in embryo research policies in the OECD rather well, but fail for the German case. In a second step it is argued that a rationalist-institutionalist account of the German case fails as well. German policies cannot be seen as rational anticipations of the constitutional court's position. By eliminating rival assumptions, a sociological-institutional hypothesis is strengthened. Only the specific constellation of national socialist heritage and constitutional discourse can explain German embryo research policies. For the policy field, the conclusion is that German embryo research policies will exhibit a high degree of stability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present paper deals with two production models: 'the industrial districts of Third Italy' and the 'branch cluster of Baden Wuerttemberg'. Both have been well discussed within the scientific community. The elementary knowledge resulting from the comparison of both models is as follows: the morally communized 'distretti industriali' are much more susceptible to the economical concepts of neo-liberalism than the model of socially and institutionally embedded branch clusters. Because of its dependency on fragile moral inventories the social substance of the industrial districts erodes more and more whereas the social substance of the branch cluster remains stable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

„Social capital" is one of the main topics in the current political and scientific debate in Germany. The framework of the current enthusiasm are the studies of the leading communitarian thinker, Robert D. Putnam, concerning social capital in the United States of America. Surprisingly, in the current debate in Germany a completely different discourse about social capital is being ignored, even though it has played a very important role in France for several decades. The framework is that of Pierre Bourdieu. In this paper, the author discusses these two different approaches of social capital, and points out fundamental contradictions and lacunas in Putnam's approach. Then he criticizes the current debate about social capital in Germany. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In public and popular discourse Berlin is often ascribed a particular atmosphere, sometimes depicted in the idea of 'Berliner Luft.' At the same time, people living and working and visiting Berlin are still aware of the city's recent history. This history is embodied in the city's architecture as well as in the discourse about the need to remove 'the wall in people's heads.' This article is based on a study that has been conducted at the techno club Berghain, which has become a symbol for 'the Berlin spirit,' being embedded in the social and historical tradition of the formerly divided and radical Berlin that is celebrated in popular media. The club stands in a historic tradition of techno music in Berlin that once helped the process of joining two parts of the divided city together, and that today, about 25 years after the fall of the wall, is a reference for a wave of publications on the techno scene. The article examines how this discourse is kept alive by aesthetic practices of interaction in contemporary Berlin techno clubs, which are jointly performed through the intertwining of architecture, DJing, dance, and music. This aesthetic work creates an experience that exists in disembodied form and instantiates 'Berliner Luft,' keeping the discourse going, in the media and in the clubs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This Alfred Schutz Memorial Lecture discusses the relationship between the phenomenological life-world analysis and the methodology of the social sciences, which was the central motive of Schutz's work. I have set two major goals in this lecture. The first is to scrutinize the postulate of adequacy, as this postulate is the most crucial of Schutz's methodological postulates. Max Weber devised the postulate 'adequacy of meaning' in analogy to the postulate of 'causal adequacy' (a concept used in jurisprudence) and regarded both as complementary and, in the context of sociological analysis, critical. Schutz extracted the two postulates from the Neokantian epistemology, dismissed the concept of causality, and reduced Weber's two postulates of adequacy into one, namely, the adequacy of meaning. I discuss the benefits and shortcomings of this reduction. A major problem, in my view, is that Schutz's reformulation lost the empirical concern that was inherent in Weber's 'causal adequacy'. As a result, the models of economics (which shaped Schutz's conception of social science) are considered to be adequate if they are 'understandable' to an everyday actor, even when they are based on the most unrealistic assumptions. To recapture Weber's empirical orientation I recommend a more restrictive interpretation of the postulate of adequacy that links it to qualitative research and unfolds the critical potential of Schutz's phenomenological life-world analysis. My second goal is to report on some current developments in German sociology in which a number of approaches explicitly refer to Schutz's analysis of the life-world and attempt to pursue 'adequate' empirical research. This lecture focuses on three approaches: ethnophenomenology, life-world analytic ethnography, and social scientific hermeneutics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In contemporary societies we observe an increasing interest for the forms of persuasive public communication, for which the term "new rhetoric" has been proposed recently. It includes the analysis of scholarly publications and therefore is related to developments in the sociology of science. Family research is a fruitful field for research on this kind of "scientific rhetoric". A small number of key-terms, among them prominently "pluralization of family forms", play a dominant role in the literature. At the same time, a remarkable rise of family research led to a multiplication of theoretical approaches. Also, speaking and writing on the family unavoidably contains moral and therefore rhetorical connotations, due to the anthropological dimensions of the topic. The article starts with comments on the discourse on the family. Then the theoretical foundations of research on scientific rhetoric in a media society are presented. It is followed by a comparative analysis of three recent articles on the situation of the family and related forms of private life in Germany. Finally, a frame of reference for the analysis of family rhetoric in scholarly texts is sketched out and the utility of rhetorical analyses is discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the series of sociology in various countries in relation to Robert E. Park's essay on practical politics. According to the author, Park's essay centers on the fanatical patriotism, strategic belief and tactical strength of the Third Reich's armed forces. In addition, it is said that he did not only analyze the democratization of officer corps but also locates exactly the social psychology that inspires the military organization in Germany. Furthermore, the author asserts that it is more likely that Parks had the heavier significance in the outgrowth of war.

Geopolitical codes - intellectual tools for practising statecraft - share a certain basic understanding of the world with less articulate, popular representations. Both are influenced by national geographies and histories. The international power game may (particularly in large countries) temporarily alienate codes from popular representations but the ensuing conflicts also prove the solidity of popular visions about the world order. Change is nevertheless possible and should be one of the central themes of research in geopolitical representations. This article concludes with specifying five perspectives that canbe adopted in cross-national research: time/space models of the world, national myths, territorial narratives, active/passive approach ofinternational relations and reactions to international crises. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]