Search

José Medina Echavarría is known as one of the most important sociologists of the twentieth century in Latin America. During his exile in México, Puerto Rico, and Chile, he developed vast intellectual networks that contributed to the complex process of institutionalization of sociology in our countries. In this paper, we explain how this was possible through new editorials, translations on social science topics, seminars, debates, and the foundation of important departments of Sociology. These included a double contribution of Medina Echavarría: a reflection on sociology that required a precise conceptual language, and what he called vertical and horizontal theories. And second, his guiding efforts with the critical analysis of the modernization processes in this continent, after the Second World War. We analyze in both these contributions the clear legacy of Weber's theory of action and his economic sociology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the presence and consideration of economics in sociology, specifically its classical version. It identifies certain original and independent economic theories, concepts and approaches in classical sociological theory as central and its derivations, implications and extensions of economics as peripheral. The paper argues and demonstrates that classical sociology is far from being the science of noneconomic or irrational phenomena, as often sociologists conceive it and economists perceive it in counter-distinction from economics defined as the science of rational behavior, and indeed encompasses virtually all economic activities and processes, and thus prefigures New Economic Sociology adopting the same approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social scientists, in particular sociologists, claim that the distinction between universalistic and particularistic values is relevant to explaining the social behaviour of individuals (and societies). This paper provides preliminary empirical evidence that supports the claim. It first defines a number of proxies for the degree of particularism embedded into long-celebrated dimensions of social behaviour (trust, political awareness, and associational activities). Then, it shows that the particularistic measures are positively correlated to each other and negatively correlated to some established generalist measures for all dimensions of social behaviour considered, both across and within countries and regions. Moreover, the paper relates that the various proxies for particularism share the same set of covariates (such as low education and income), which are neatly distinguishable from the determinants of the generalist measures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Ownership Society of the late twentieth century was grounded on the promise that the opening of new investment opportunities would lead to financial expansion and inclusion. It resulted, instead, in mass dispossession. In this paper, I analyze the politics of credit in order to theorize the nexus between finance and inequality, and specifically to understand whether financial inclusion can create opportunities for what we might call 'financial citizenship.' Looking at processes, internal to the financial system itself, that may give rise to the paradox of mass investment and increased inequality, and proposing a general model of the modalities through which the financial system engages with its customers, are my two main goals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]