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Although recognized for innovations in economics and economic sociology, Emil Lederer's impressive contributions to political sociology have been almost completely ignored. Lederer wrote extensively on questions of practical and theoretical relevance for a sociological analysis of the state and war, especially in response to and anticipation of the World Wars of the last century. This article considers the elements of his political-sociological work in the context of the circumstances under which they developed and concludes with an attempt to construct an outline of the basic tenets of a sociology of the state and war derived from Lederer's writings. This analysis highlights Lederer's sensitivity to a dynamic understanding of the total social configuration and its impact on the individual psyche as central to explicating the characteristics of particular political-sociological phenomena. [Reprinted by permission of Sage Publications Ltd., copyright 2008 Institute of Race Relations.]

This forum opens a debate that is long overdue: for far too long, the fields of international political sociology (IPS) and international political economy (IPE) have been standing apart. Discussions take place in different conference sections, in different networks that publish in different journals. Yet, this divide is surprising given that the two fields share similar trajectories, theoretical concerns, problématiques, and conceptual challenges. This forum starts exploring this shared terrain: we believe that there is no a priori reason to separate the sociocultural, the political and the economic when we aim at making sense of the world in any meaningful way. We propose that bridging the IPE-IPS divide has tremendous potential for the development of a socio-political economy analysis that, we believe, has two benefits. First, it allows for the opening of new empirical terrains or deepening and widening existing ones. Second, bringing IPE/S back together creates reflexive spaces for more holistic, embodied and contextualised conceptual innovation. The contributors to this forum show each in their own way such empirical and conceptual added value of moving beyond the IPE and IPS divide in order to develop what we call here a socio-political economy of the globe. They focus on various issues, such as the transformation of capitalism from an oil- to a data-dependent accumulation regime with the rising of the so-called 'digital age' (Chenou); the profound social, economic and political transformation triggered by urbanisation in the development world (Elias, Rethel and Tilley); emerging global risks and the neglected role of the insurance industry (Lobo-Guerrero); regional development-security nexuses (Lopez Lucia); and business power in climate change diplomacy (Moussu).

This paper uses the growing volume of scholarly work on 'water and politics' to conceptually and methodologically frame an approach to the social analysis of water resources management. This paper sets out the thrust and focus of such a 'political sociology of water resources management'. The framing draws theoretical insights from sociology, development studies, and, obviously, water resources studies. The main theoretical inputs are: a) critical realism as the general ontological and epistemological foundation (Bhaskar, 1989; Sayer, 1984); b) sociological theory on structure-agency dynamics (Giddens, 1984; Archer, 1995) and the notion of public sociology (Burawoy, 2005a); development studies' understanding of the different meanings of 'development' (Thomas, 2000); d) theory on politics and social power (Kerkvliet, 1990; Lukes, 2005); and e) my own reading of the water resources literature through the lens of the boundary concept of 'water control'. The structure of the paper is as follows. Section 1 explains where the attempt at defining a field of water resources management studies in this particular way comes from. The section situates the field in relation to development sociology as the intersection of sociology and development studies; discusses how the notions of discipline and scientific community help to understand the field's characteristics; and briefly presents my own intellectual trajectory as part of this account. Section 2 discusses the object of a political sociology of water resources management. That discussion has four components: a) presenting 'water control' as a boundary concept that captures the multidimensionality of water resources management; b) conceptualising the interplay of structure and agency in water resources management as 'morphogenetic practice', that is, a cyclic process stretched over time and space; c) discussing the embeddedness of water resources management in the broader process of development; and d) showing the inherently political nature of water resources management and presenting a framework to analyse the working of social power in water control. Section 3 maps the field by presenting the five domains in which contested water resources management plays out: a) the everyday politics of water; b) the politics of water policy in the context of sovereign states; c) hydropolitics; d) the global politics of water; and e) the linkages through which water resources management issues travel across domains. Section 4 presents the approach and method of the political sociology of water resources management. The presentation moves in four steps: a) a discussion of Burawoy's notion of 'public sociology' to clarify the 'for what and for whom' of knowledge generation in the field; b) a discussion of the unit of investigation of the field - arguing that 'problemshed' and 'issue network' are more helpful units than 'watershed' and 'basin'; c) an argument for a comparative approach to research in the field given existing regional and sector fragmentation of water resources studies; and d) a look at the challenges for further development of the field.

This paper provides a critical exposition of Raymond Aron's analysis of the distinct characteristics of constitutional-pluralist and totalitarian regimes. These regime types are distinguished by the nature of the party system — respectively, multi-party and monopolistic — and their underlying principles. Aron's approach to the nature of political sociology is, it is argued, deeply influenced by the German — particularly Weberian — understanding of the social sciences as a hermeneutic enterprise concerned with meaning, and by Montesquieu's analysis of regimes in terms of their (essential) nature, principles and the sources of their potential 'corruption'. Aron's analysis provides not only an account of totalitarian regimes in a late, developed stage, but also an analytical snapshot of Western pluralist democracies at the high point of 'sociological liberalism'. The final section of the paper seeks to identify some differences between Aron's account of democracy and that contained in contemporary debates on 'governance'. The striking differences that emerge make Aron's analysis relevant as an account of a high-tide mark of democracy grounded in a particular mix of party competition and compromise.