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One of the most widely agreed-upon tenets of the current 'postpositivist' consensus in sociological theory is the categorical dismissal of the pursuit of value neutrality in the social and natural sciences, a pursuit that is seen as both futile and undesirable. This dismissal is based on the rejection of the 'positivist' claim that mainstream scientific knowledge is in some sense more objectively valid than other forms of knowledge. But this results in a 'bias paradox:' on what basis can those denying the possibility of any value-neutral knowledge still claim validity for their own knowledge claims? In this paper, we analyze a series of attempts, broadly going under the label of 'standpoint theory,' to resolve the paradox. We show how each of these is seriously flawed and that efforts to repair those flaws have merely led to a covert return to the kind of 'positivism' the authors claim to reject. We conclude that this is the result of the persistent failure of 'critical' theorists of various stripes to recognize the fact that the 'positivist' ideals of value neutrality and objectivity embody the very principles of egalitarianism and democracy they claim to subscribe to., Author(s): Axel van den Berg [sup.1] , Tay Jeong [sup.1] Author Affiliations: (1) grid.14709.3b, 0000 0004 1936 8649, Department of Sociology, McGill University, , 845 Sherbrooke Street West, H3A 2T7, [...]

Does ethnic empowerment under colonial rule shape ethnic power even after independence? Existing research offers mixed arguments and rarely differentiates between different types of political empowerment. Drawing on the historical observation that the parliament and the security forces were two of the major sources of political power in newly independent states, this preregistered study tests whether ethnic representation in the colonial constabulary force and the receipt of guaranteed communal representation in the colonial legislature reduces the risk of postcolonial ethnic exclusion in ex‐British colonies. It is found that the former has a strong and consistent effect on reducing the odds of postcolonial ethnic exclusion, but the latter, despite its frequent usage as a form of colonial ethnic empowerment, does not prevent political exclusion. The importance of martial vis‐à‐vis rational‐legal power in newly independent states and varying levels of diachronic continuity between the two forms of colonial empowerment may account for the diverging results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent research argued that the colonial policy of community‐based representation in the legislative assembly strongly increases the risk of postcolonial ethnic warfare in former British and French colonies. This paper delves deeper into the relationship by using an updated dataset that codes the receipt or non‐receipt of communal representation for nearly all ethnic groups in former British and French colonies. The results confirm the war‐inducing effect of this communalising colonial policy and additionally find that such an effect applies relatively uniformly to groups that benefited from this policy as well as those that were excluded from it. In addition, based on sociological theory and previous research, it was hypothesised that a combination of precolonial receipt of communal legislative representation and postcolonial political exclusion would make an ethnic group particularly prone to postcolonial ethnic warfare. This hypothesis, however, was not supported by the data. This null result has theoretical implications for our understanding of the conditions that give rise to conflict‐inducing psychological strain in the field of colonialism and ethnic warfare. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]