Power, Individualism, and Collective Self Perception in the USA

The thesis of this paper is that the key element in the shaping of the habitus of Americans has been their very long-term, virtually unbroken, experience of their country becoming more and more powerful vis-à-vis its neighbours. An increasing sense of their own powerfulness is related to the "individualism" that has so often been discussed as a key characteristic of the American "national character." The long-term process of habitus formation has had important consequences for the role of the USA in world affairs since the Second World War, and may continue to do so in a future marked for the first time by a long-term decline in American power

Discussing Civilisation and Informalisation: Criteriology

Norbert Elias’s theory of civilising processes has been received only marginally in the USA, one of the obstacles being the absence of figurational or process studies of American society. In the first decade of this century this situation was changed by the publication of Stephen Mennell’s The American Civilizing Process (2007) and Cas Wouters’ Sex and Manners (2004) and Informalization (2007). By 2012, Randall Collins had reviewed the first and the third books in two essays (2009, 2011). His claims and criticism of civilising and informalisation theory are discussed in this paper by placing them in the context of the reception history of Elias’s work since the 1960s, when a first round of discussion centred on criteria to be used for determining the direction of civilising processes. A second round was in the 1990s, and in this paper we contribute to a new round by presenting a summary of earlier critical discussions in an attempt to establish a more solid and subtler body of criteria for studying civilising processes. We use this in critically discussing Collins’s contributions, linking them to symbolic interactionism, American National Ideology, and blind spots in American sociology.Norbert Elias’s theory of civilising processes has been received only marginally in the USA, one of the obstacles being the absence of figurational or process studies of American society. In the first decade of this century this situation was changed by the publication of Stephen Mennell’s The American Civilizing Process (2007) and Cas Wouters’ Sex and Manners (2004) and Informalization (2007). By 2012, Randall Collins had reviewed the first and the third books in two essays (2009, 2011). His claims and criticism of civilising and informalisation theory are discussed in this paper by placing them in the context of the reception history of Elias’s work since the 1960s, when a first round of discussion centred on criteria to be used for determining the direction of civilising processes. A second round was in the 1990s, and in this paper we contribute to a new round by presenting a summary of earlier critical discussions in an attempt to establish a more solid and subtler body of criteria for studying civilising processes. We use this in critically discussing Collins’s contributions, linking them to symbolic interactionism, American National Ideology, and blind spots in American sociology

The Refiguration of Spaces and Methodological Challenges of Cross-Cultural Comparison

In most reflections on cross-cultural comparison, scholars assume that "cultures" can be relatively clearly demarcated spatially and that "space" itself is a given entity. However, theories such as the theory of refiguration of spaces have stressed both that it is important to deconstruct the category "space" itself and that social processes have been characterized by major spatial transformations since the mid-twentieth century. Based on this idea, in two FQS thematic issues scholars from various disciplines will ask what consequences the refiguration of spaces has for cross-cultural comparison and what one can methodologically learn from research on cross-cultural comparison about the analysis of refiguration of spaces. In the first issue, authors from sociology and historical sciences are focusing mostly on the methodological issues. In this article, we provide a frame for this debate by ordering the earlier discussion on cross-cultural comparison along four questions: Why do we compare? Who or what are we comparing where and when? How can we compare? What methodological conclusions can be drawn from the debate on cross-cultural comparison concerning the analysis of social processes across different spatial scales and time layers in order to assess causality?In Debatten zum Kulturvergleich gehen Forschende oft davon aus, dass sich "Kulturen" räumlich relativ klar abgrenzen lassen und dass "Raum" selbst eine gegebene Entität sei. Vertreter*innen von raumsoziologischen Ansätzen wie etwa der Theorie der Refiguration von Räumen unterstreichen jedoch, dass die die Kategorie "Raum" selbst dekonstruiert werden muss und dass empirisch seit der Mitte des zwanzigsten Jahrhunderts große räumliche Transformationen beobachtet werden können. Ausgehend von dieser Beobachtung befassen sich in zwei FQS-Themenschwerpunkten Autor*innen aus verschiedenen Disziplinen damit, was aus der Refiguration von Räumen für den Kulturvergleich folgt und welche methodologischen Lehren man umgekehrt aus der kulturvergleichenden Forschung für die Analyse der Refiguration von Räumen ziehen kann. Im ersten Schwerpunkt fokussieren Autor*innen aus der Soziologie und den Geschichtswissenschaft vorwiegend auf methodologische Fragen. In diesem Beitrag rahmen wir diese Diskussion, indem wir die bisherige Forschung zum Kulturvergleich anhand von vier Fragen ordnen: Warum vergleichen wir? Wen oder was vergleichen wir wo und wann? Wie können wir vergleichen? Welche methodischen Schlussfolgerungen lassen sich aus der Debatte um den kulturübergreifenden Vergleich für die Analyse sozialer Prozesse über verschiedene räumliche Skalierungsebenen und Zeitschichten hinweg ziehen, um Kausalbeziehungen zu analysieren

The Refiguration of Spaces and the Refiguration of Epistemic Cultures: The Changing Balance of Involvement and Engagement in Fundamental and Applied Research

Dieser zweite FQS-Schwerpunkt zum Thema "Die Refiguration von Räumen und Kulturvergleich" unterscheidet sich vom ersten dadurch, dass die Autor*innen 1. aus anderen Disziplinen stammen, 2. weniger die zeitlichen, dafür stärker die räumlichen Aspekte der Refiguration von Räumen betonen sowie sich 3. stärker auf Vergleichspraktiken von Forschenden statt auf den Vergleich substanzieller Unterschiede im Gegenstandbereich konzentrieren. Wie stark sich Praktiken von Forschenden unterscheiden können, wird durch den Vergleich von Grundlagenwissenschaften wie der Soziologie mit angewandten Wissenschaften wie der Stadtplanung deutlich. Wir veranschaulichen dies, indem wir zunächst zeigen, dass Forschende in ihrer Praxis eine Balance zwischen Engagement und Distanzierung im Sinne von Norbert ELIAS (2007 [1987]) herstellen müssen. Wissenskulturen von Disziplinen unterscheiden sich durch spezifische Balancen von Engagement und Distanzierung. Wir erläutern am Beispiel eines Vergleichs der deutschsprachigen Soziologie und der Stadtplanung, wie in Grundlagenwissenschaften und angewandten Wissenschaften in der Forschungspraxis diese Balance zwischen Engagement und Distanzierung austariert wird und wie sich diese Balance im Zuge der Refiguration von Räumen wandelt. Wir diskutieren abschließend, wie Unterschiede in der Balance von Engagement und Distanzierung in verschiedenen Wissenskulturen die Wechselwirkung zwischen Praktiken des Vergleiches und der Refiguration von Räumen beeinflussen sowie welche Fragen sich für die künftige Forschung stellen.The second FQS thematic issue on "The Refiguration of Spaces and Cross-Cultural Comparison" differs from the first as follows: 1. it covers a wider range of disciplines, 2. authors emphasize more strongly the spatial instead of the temporal aspects of the refiguration of spaces, and 3. focus is placed on researchers' practices of comparison rather than on how to compare different subject matters. These practices of comparison become particularly obvious when comparing "fundamental" sciences such as sociology with applied sciences such as urban planning. In research practice, researchers have to balance what Norbert ELIAS (2007 [1987]) called "involvement" and "detachment." In different disciplines with diverging epistemic cultures, involvement and detachment have been balanced differently. Using the examples of German-language sociology and urban planning, we illustrate this by discussing how fundamental and applied scientists weigh involvement and detachment in research practice and how this relationship of involvement and detachment has been changing in the course the refiguration of spaces. We conclude by reflecting on how differences in the balance between involvement and detachment in different epistemic cultures influence the relationship between practices of cross-cultural comparison and the refiguration of spaces, as well as what question should be asked in future research

Moral panic and social theory: Beyond the heuristic

Copyright @ 2011 by International Sociological Association.Critcher has recently conceptualized moral panic as a heuristic device, or 'ideal type'. While he argues that one still has to look beyond the heuristic, despite a few exceptional studies there has been little utilization of recent developments in social theory in order to look 'beyond moral panic'. Explicating two current critical contributions - the first, drawing from the sociologies of governance and risk; the second, from the process/figurational sociology of Norbert Elias - this article highlights the necessity for the continuous theoretical development of the moral panic concept and illustrates how such development is essential to overcome some of the substantial problems with moral panic research: normativity, temporality and (un) intentionality

The United Kingdom and British Empire: A Figurational Approach

Drawing upon the work of Norbert Elias and the process [figurational] sociology perspective, this article examines how state formation processes are related to, and, affected by, expanding and declining chains of international interdependence. In contrast to civic and ethnic conceptions, this approach focuses on the emergence of the nation/nation-state as grounded in broader processes of historical and social development. In doing so, state formation processes within the United Kingdom are related to the expansion and decline of the British Empire. That is, by focusing on the functional dynamics that are embedded in collective groups, one is able to consider how the UK’s ‘state’ and ‘imperial’ figurations were interdependently related to changes in both the UK and the former British Empire. Consequently, by locating contemporary UK relations in the historical context of former imperial relationships, nationalism studies can go ‘beyond’ the nation/nation-state in order to include broader processes of imperial expansion and decline. Here, the relationship between empire and nationalism can offer a valuable insight into contemporary political movements, especially within former imperial groups