Discussions and Reviews : Theorizing about theory in international politics

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/66906/2/10.1177_002200276000400405.pd

The view from everywhere: Disciplining diversity in post–World War II international social science

This paper explores the attempt of social scientists associated with Unesco to create a system of knowledge production to provide the international perspective necessary for democratic governance of a world community. Social scientists constructed a federal system of international associations that institutionalized American disciplines on an international scale. An international perspective emerged through the process of interdisciplinary international research. I call this ideal of coordinating multiple subjectivities to produce objectivity the “view from everywhere.” Influenced by social psychological “action-research,” collaborative research was group therapy. The attempt to operationalize internationalists' rallying slogan, “unity in diversity,” illuminated tensions inherent in the mobilization of science for social and political reform. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/64294/1/20394_ftp.pd

XVIII World Congress of Sociology, Yokohama, Japan, 13-19 July 2014

XVIII World Congress of Sociology : “Facing an unequal world: Challenges for Global Sociology”, Yokohama, Japan, 13-19 July 2014The Program of the World-Congress is now avialable on the official ISA-Website: the official ISA-Website For more details regarding the sessions organised by RC51 please have a look on the RC51-Website &nbsp

Self-help reading: A social ritual of coping withrisk in everyday life

Self-help books have for some decades raised interest (and often criticism) in social sciences. Yet, most authors deduced theoretical implications from analyses based on the texts of these books only. In doing so, they completely overlooked the problematic of the reception and the social uses of the messages imbedded in the books. Drawing on the recent works of Eva Illouz and Alain Ehrenberg, as well as on a large empirical field based on interviews of and letters to authors of self-help books, this communication will attempt to provide new insights into the reason why self-help books are such a successful commodity and why self-help readers endorse their discourse so willingly and playfully. The thesis that I will develop is that self-help reading should be understood as a way of dealing with risk, uncertainties and unpredictable events, an attitude which is particularly adapted to social environments where autonomy and personal responsibility have been erected as key values. Selfhelp books provide their readers with new ways of dealing with all kinds of problems in everyday life. Moreover, the particular translation of these problems offered by the discourse of such books, adapted to the norm of autonomy and responsibility, allows the reader to claim social benefits from his/her new attitude by being considered as a “responsible person” rather than as an “inactive victim”. In order to sustain this argument, I will sketch a comparison between self-help reading and witchcraft practices analysed by Edward Evans-Pritchard and Jeanne Favret-Saada within other societies. I will follow Peter Winch’s plea to understand such practices as “attitudes towards contingencies”. Finally, understanding this practice as a “competence”, I will address the question of the potential social stratification it may induce

Cognition, innovations and knowledge spillovers

Recognition of the importance of social processes has formed the basis of much theorising surrounding the underlying factors that influence regional competitiveness and innovative performance. Social dynamics, for instance, are central to such concepts as innovative milieu and industrial districts as well as regional clusters and regional innovation systems. Much of this work has focused on the role of social networks and institutions. More recent discussions of the nature of regional innovation, however, have continued the quest to understand the social processes that underpin economic relations in terms of territorial knowledge networks, regional knowledge spillovers and knowledge domains. While research on institutions and social networks is very advanced at this stage, sociological research on cognitive processes in their social context is still in its infancy, with only a handful of attempts at systematic cognitive sociology. In this paper, we reflect on these ideas and explore the relevance and usefulness of recent sociological approaches to the innovative economy based on the concepts of cognitive frames and social fields. In particular, we develop theoretical model of cognition in social innovative processes, which explains, firstly, the role of cognition in social dynamics on micro, meso and macro level, secondly, the actual mechanisms behind the knowledge spillovers, thirdly, the mechanisms behind the bounded rationality that is hindering radical innovation, and finally, the relationship between developmental trajectories that lead to path-dependent lock-in and deliberative action leading to path-changing innovations