Suchergebnisse

This is a draft of a chapter that has been accepted for publication by Oxford University Press in the Oxford Research Encyclopedia of International Studies edited by Renée Marlin-Bennett. DOI:10.1093/acrefore/9780190846626.013.371

Sociologists have traditionally paid scant attention to International Relations (IR) as a social-scientific discipline. Conversely, sociology plays a very limited role in IR, particularly in the large, mostly US-based mainstream. Even when IR scholars take ideas and theories from sociology, they are neither particularly interested in this fact nor capable of recognizing the significance of sociology for the history of the discipline as a whole, being as they are generally uninterested in intellectual history, as discussed in the first section. Despite the difficulty that the scarcity of relevant literature represents, in section two we identify some occasionally important traces of social theory on the IR mainstream, which encompasses both a neorealist and a neoliberal paradigm. By contrast, sociology is intrinsic to most IR scholarship outside the mainstream, which is considered here to be part of a third " reflectivist " paradigm, examined in the third section. Here the focus is set on the sociological elements identifiable in IR constructivism, Marxism, and critical theory, as well as in some European national traditions of inquiry. The conclusion buttresses these arguments with some empirical evidence and makes suggestions for further research. Sociologists have traditionally paid scant attention to International Relations (IR) as a social-scientific discipline 1. A small, but telling piece of evidence on sociologists' lack of interest in IR is the absence of an article on this subject in the fifteen-volume International Encyclopedia of Social Sciences (Sills 1968). The successor edition, extended to twenty-six volumes, included only two entries on IR and a few more on area studies (Smelser and Balter 2001); the most recent edition ignored IR altogether, containing not a single entry on the discipline, but included area studies (Wright 2015). This evidence suggests not only that sociologists' ignorance of IR is widespread but also that it has remained fairly constant across time. At least some IR scholars ...

Este estudio evalúa la utilidad y pertinencia de la sociología política platónica, sistematizando los conceptos teóricos subyacentes sobre el cambio político presentes en el libro octavo de la República. Analizamos, primeramente, al estado como idea desde el cual se clasifican las demás formas políticas. Continuamos con la visión del hombre como un ser anímicamente dividido y sujeto a diferentes fuerzas. Finalmente, estudiamos los elementos teóricos transformadores de los regímenes vistos estos desde su forma eidética. Destacamos: la visión cíclico-vital, el cambio interno y la contradicción. En la conclusión destacamos el valor del modelo teórico racional y de ver los regímenes como procesos. ; This essay assesses the usefulness and pertinence of Plato's political sociology, systematizing the subjacent theoretical concepts about political change in the book eight of the Republic. Firstly, we analyze the State as an idea able to measure the other political forms. We continue with his portrait of man as a being with a divided soul and driven by different forces. Finally, from an eidetic standpoint, we study the theoretical elements that bring about the political change. We underscore: the idea of the cycle, the internal transformation and the contradiction. In the conclusions we reflect on the value of the theoretical model and in the study of the political regimens as processes. ; 119-150 ; ortizmar@telcel.net.vet ; anual

Elections in capitalist democracies in Western have changed recently to such an extent that one is inclined to look upon election results as crucial evidence for Alain Touraine's argument in favour of a transformation from a Durkheimian ("structure") to a Weberian world ("actor") in his La fin des societies (2013). The central aspect of party systems in Western Europe is not social structure today but now voter volatility, which can be measured allowing for an empirical application of Touraine's thesis.

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.

Over the past few years, the study of humanitarianism has emerged as an interdisciplinary subfield in international political sociology. This article maps out some preliminary ideas about the role of legal sociology in this project. The study of international humanitarian law has overwhelmingly been the terrain of doctrinal legal scholars, while the apparent lack of other law has meant that, until recently, legal sociologists have paid little attention to the humanitarian sector. There has also been little scholarly concern regarding the consequences of not asking questions about the role of law in the humanitarian project. We argue that legal sociology helps us understand how rules, standards and norms shape and are shaped by practices and interactions within and across humanitarian spaces globally, and how law contributes to humanitarian governance.

This is a book review of: A Political Sociology of the European Union: Reassessing Constructivism, edited by J. Rowell and M. Mangenot (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2010, ISBN 9780719082436); xv+270pp., £65.00 hb. This is the peer reviewed version which has been published in final form at http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-5965.2012.02259_2.x

With the publication of the Southam Report in Canada (1987) showing the widespread functional illiteracy of vast sectors of the Canadian population, and the renewed discussion on the shortcomings of literacy training programmes in the U.S. (Kozol, 1985; Gee, 1986), adult education has become again a priority for policy makers in industrial advanced societies. This article challenges some of the bask assumptions of conventional mainstream adult education, taking advantage of the experience and theories mainly developed in dependent-development societies of Latin America. A political sociology of adult education takes as a starting point the relationships between the capitalist state and adult education. Therefore, the notion of the State should be considered central to any attempt to understand the "new" rationale for policy formation in this field. Some questions and queries on adult education policy formation are advanced here, and a new agenda for research is advocated. ; peer-reviewed

This article outlines a comparative-civilizational multiple modernities perspective on political sociology. In the context of the major currents within political sociology — modernization approaches, critical and neo-Marxist as well as postmodern and global approaches — it is argued that a comparative-civilizational multiple modernities perspective is defined by several characteristics. First, against functionalist-evolutionist modernization approaches it emphasizes the fragility, contradictions and openness as well as civilizational multiplicity of political modernity and political modernization processes. Second, against critical and neo-Marxist approaches, it insists on the cultural and institutional contradictions of political power, social protest and political conflict. Third, against post-modern and post-colonial micro-sociological approaches, often primarily micro-sociological, it holds to a macro-sociological constructivist orientation. Fourth, against the primarily socio-economic and political-institutional approaches to global political sociology, it again emphasizes the historically changing, culturally contradictory and pluri-civilizational dimensions of international relations and world politics. Though sharing with all these major currents in political sociology some common ground, the outlined comparative-civilizational multiple modernities perspective conceptualizes and analyses, more specifically, the varying impacts of civilizations, empires and world religions on the complex dimensions and levels of the political arena and on power relations in a modernizing and globalizing world. ; peerReviewed

The text examines the work of three sociologists that draw heavily on modelizing explanation : Boudon, Elster and Dupuy. All of them alslo make an extensive use of literrary fiction in the core of their sociological explanation. Above the métaphoric use of fictional examples, the texts defends the idea that modelizing sociology, as paradoxical as it may appear, is very at ease with the use of literary examples because the familiarity with explanatory models helps them to make a clear difference between theory and reality.