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The Social Bases of Politics - Summary Literature
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Summary of all the literature for the course 'The Social Bases of Politics' for the Master Politics and Society.
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Summary Literature – The Social Bases ofPolitics
1.1 Burawoy, M. (2005). For public sociology. American
sociological review, 70(1), pp. 4-28.
Wright Mills wanted to turn all sociology into public sociology. Not possible anymore due to
academic revolution.
Division of sociological labour:
1. Public sociology: dialogic relation between sociologist & public in which agenda of each is
brought to table, in which each adjusts to the other. Discussion often involves values/goals
not automatically shared by both sides so that reciprocity/‘communicative action’ is often
hard to sustain. Goal of public sociology to develop such conversation.
2. Policy sociology: sociology in service of goal defined by client. Provide solutions to problems
presented to us, or legitimate solutions already reached. Broad/narrow focus of research
dependant on client.
These approaches not exclusive/hostile, often complementary. Policypublic when policy
fails. Publicpolicy when there are public issues that need attention.
3. Professional sociology: supplies true & tested methods, accumulated bodies of knowledge,
orienting questions & conceptual frameworks. Necessary for existence public & policy
sociology. Consists of multiple intersecting research programs, with assumptions, exemplars,
defining questions, conceptual apparatuses & evolving theories. Most subfields contain well
established research programs. E.g.: organisation theory research programs within
subfields organisation ecology within organisation theory. Research programs advance by
tackling defining puzzles that come from external anomalies (inconsistencies between
predictions & empirical findings) or from internal contradictions.
4. Critical sociology: examine the foundations – explicit & implicit, normative & descriptive – of
research programs of professional sociology. Makes professional sociology aware of its
biases, silences, promoting new research programs built on alternative foundations.
Critical sociology conscience of professional sociology, like public sociology is conscience of
policy sociology.
Academic audience Extra-academic audience
Instrumental Professional Policy
knowledge*
Reflexive knowledge** Critical Public
* whether it to be the puzzle solving of professional sociology or the problem solving of policy
sociology.
** concerned with dialogue about ends, whether the dialogue takes place within the academic
community about the foundations of its research programs or between academics and various
publics about the direction of society.
These are ideal types, but the distinction can often blur – sociology can simultaneously serve a
client and generate public debate.
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,1.2 Hedström, P., & Swedberg, R. (1998). Social
mechanisms: An introductory essay. In Hedström, P. &
Swedberg R. (1998). Social mechanisms: an analytical
approach to social theory (pp. 1– 25). Cambridge University
Press.
Introduction
Social mechanisms: generate & explain observed associations between events advance social
theory.
Social theories: conceptual/sensitising schemes rather than explanatory theories focus on
explanatory mechanisms – middle-range sociology. Not purely descriptive approach. Explain
particular by general. General types of mechanisms to be found in range of different social settings,
operate according to same logical principles.
Explanatory sociology: ensemble of fundamental mechanisms explanatory purposes in wide
range of social situations.
On the use of the concept of mechanisms in the social
sciences
Mechanism: interdisciplinary used in many (social) sciences economics: equilibrium in markets.
The use of mechanisms in sociology
Mechanisms in sociology frequently used as causal everyday sense proto concept (not concept).
Proto concept: early, rudimentary, particularised, and largely unexplicated idea.
Concept: general idea once defined/tagged/substantially generalised/explicated effectively
guide inquiry into seemingly diverse phenomena.
Mechanisms often present in classical works, but not explicitly defined as such.
Explicit use of mechanism after WW2 by Robert Merton. He brought together the idea of
mechanisms with that of middle-range theorising (Merton, 1967) middle ground between social
laws and description ‘mechanisms’ constitute such middle ground elementary building blocks
of middle-range theories.
Social mechanisms: Social processes having designated consequences for designated parts of the
social structures constitutes the main task of sociology to ‘identify’ mechanisms and to establish
under which conditions they ‘come to being’ or ‘fail to operate’.
Mechanism: bits of theory about entities at different level (e.g. individuals) than the main entities
being theorised about (e.g. groups), which serve to make the higher-level theory more supple, more
accurate, or more general.
The explanatory importance of social mechanisms
Identification & analysis of social mechanisms of crucial importance for progress of social science
theory & research. Difficult to provide precise & sufficient general definition of the concept. One key
defining characteristic is the function it performs in an explanatory account.
Example: systematic relation between ‘I’ and ‘O’. To explain relationship, one must search for a
mechanism ‘M’ the occurrence of the cause/input ‘I’, generates the effect/outcome ‘O’.
Search for mechanisms means dissatisfaction with merely establishing systematic covariation
between variables/events; satisfactory explanation requires specification of social ‘cogs and wheels’
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,that brought relationship into existence mechanism as systematic set of statements that provide
plausible account of how ‘I’ and ‘O’ are linked.
Mechanisms explain why relationship is likely to exist.
Black-box explanations better explanations helps distinguish between genuine causality and
coincidental association + increases understanding of why we observe what we observe.
Difference between black-box explanations and mechanism-based explanations:
Systematic relationship between two types of events/variables, ‘I’ and ‘O’, linked by the mechanism
‘M’.
black-box explanation: link between input and output is assumed to be have no structure or the
structure is not of interest (maybe because it cannot be observed). Most systemised form of black-
box explanation can be found in ‘causal modelling approach’ wherein the explanatory ‘mechanism’ is
a regression coefficient linking ‘I’ and ‘O’ is supposed to describe causal influence of ‘I’ upon ‘O’.
Addresses through what process the relationship was brought about.
Example: poison ('I’) death (‘O’). Regression could be used to predict which dose could
lead to death. But as long as the mechanism is not specified (linking the poison to morbidity
and mortality), there is no explanation. By pointing out how the poison effects specific parts
of the brain which causes paralysis, there is formed mechanism that allows us not only to
describe what is likely to happen but also to explain why it is likely to happen.
Mechanisms have generality gives them explanatory power.
Class in and of itself cannot influence an individual’s income or health no causal agent since it is a
constructed aggregation of occupational titles. Can have statistical associations with other variables,
but does not go in deeper into the explanation why is there association? necessary to have
mechanisms.
Methodological individualism
Mechanism-based explanations usually invoke form of ‘causal agent’ assumed to have generated
relationship between entities.
Methodological individualism: social sciences ‘causal agents’ always individual actors social
science explanations include explicit references to causes (intentions) and consequences of actions
understanding enhanced by making explicit underlying generative mechanisms that link one
state/ event to another actions constitute this link in social sciences.
Strong version: only accepts ‘rock-bottom’ explanations explanations that include no
references to aggregate social phenomena in the explanans (practically impossible).
Weak version: same ontological position as strong version, but accepts for the sake of
realism non-explained social phenomena as part of the explanation.
The primacy of the analytical
Mechanisms: analytical constructs that provide hypothetical links between observable events.
Key characteristic analytical approach: proceeds by constructing analytical model of situation (‘ideal
type’) only includes essential elements. Target of theoretical analysis is the model, not reality it is
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, intended to explain. Will shed light on this situation since it has incorporated essential elements of
the concrete situation.
Impossible to take all details of social situation in account selective about event to
include/exclude from description choice guided by belief about essential elements of situation.
Thus: even most descriptive accounts are ‘models’ of concrete social situations.
Through abstractions & analytical accentuation general mechanisms are made visible. Also distort
descriptive account of what happened, by accentuating certain aspects & by ignoring others.
To produce really good theory see through clutter produced by evolution to basic mechanisms
lying beneath them.
Variables versus social mechanisms
Use & knowledge of survey analysis + statistical techniques improved ability of sociologists to
describe social conditions & to test sociological theories. However, increasing use of these
techniques induced variable-centred type of theorising with little attention to explanatory
mechanisms ‘individualistic behaviourism’ notion that individual behaviour can & should be
explained by various individual and environmental ‘determinants’ + purpose of analysis is to estimate
causal influence of various variables representing these determinants.
Emphasis on ‘causal’ explanations of behaviour represented change describing change: statistical
association between variables largely replaced meaningful connection between events as basic tool
of description & analysis. In causal-modelling tradition, variables (not actors) do the acting.
Quantitative research essential both for descriptive purposes & for testing sociological theories.
However: many sociologists too much faith in statistical analysis as tool for generating theories.
Many quantitative sociologists describe & test hypothesis of others rather than developing own
theoretical foundation of discipline.
Social mechanisms: Some selected examples
1. Self-fulfilling prophecy (Merton): initially false definition of situation evokes behaviour that
eventually makes false conception come true.
Example: Rumours about bank people withdraw savings strengthened belief in
rumour hurts bank financially rumours become true. Due to mechanism, even
initially sound bank may go bankrupt if enough people withdraw money in false
belief that bank is insolvent.
2. Network diffusion (Coleman): Networks important information about innovations diffuse
through them & individual’s propensity to adopt innovation is influenced by what others do,
particularly when there is great deal of uncertainty about true value of innovation.
3. Threshold-based behaviour (Granovetter): individual’s decision to participate in collective
behaviour depends on how many other actors have decided to participate. Actors differ in
terms of number of other actors who already must participate before they decide to do the
same individual’s ‘threshold’ (describe individual heterogeneity). Actor’s threshold
denotes proportion of group which must have joined before actor in question is willing to do
so. Even slight differences in thresholds can produce vastly different collective outcomes.
Theories founded upon belief-formation mechanism: number of individuals who perform
certain act signal to others the likely value or necessity of the act signal will influence
other individuals’ choice of action.
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