Suchergebnisse

"Das Konzept sozialer Mechanismen gilt derzeit als vielversprechende Alternative zum deduktiv-nomologischen Erklärungsmodell und daran orientierten quantitativen und komparativen Forschungsstrategien. Es soll der Historizität des Gegenstandsbereichs der Soziologie Rechnung tragen, ohne dabei den Anspruch generalisierbarer Kausalerklärung aufzugeben. Die grundlagentheoretischen Probleme dieses Versuches, den Gegensatz zwischen nomothetischem und idiographischem Wissenschaftsverständnis zu überwinden, verdienen intensiv diskutiert zu werden. Dazu gehört nicht zuletzt die zugrunde gelegte Sozialontologie. Das der Biologie entlehnte Konzept der Mechanismen ist Bestandteil eines Forschungsprogramms, das beobachtete Phänomene durch Prozesse auf einer 'niedrigeren' Realitätsebene kausal zu rekonstruieren beabsichtigt. In der Soziologie verbindet sich dieses Programm oftmals mit einer 'Mikrofundierung' makrosoziologischer Aussagen. Umstritten ist indessen erstens, ob eine solche Mikrofundierung notwendigerweise an den methodologischen Individualismus gebunden ist oder auch kollektive Akteure berücksichtigen sollte. Kontrovers ist zweitens, ob sie am ehesten mit Rational Choice Theorie oder auch mit anderen, insbesondere interpretativen Handlungstheorien zu leisten sei. Und drittens ist unklar, wie sich mikrofundierte soziale Mechanismen ihrer zeitlichen Struktur nach zu den oft langfristigen Prozessen makrosozialen Wandels verhalten. In diesem Beitrag wird gefragt, ob und inwieweit die drei genannten Probleme von Akteurs-, Sinn- und Zeitbezug sozialer Mechanismen durch die Umstellung auf eine relationale Sozialontologie, wie sie Andrew Abbott und Charles Tilly vertreten, geklärt werden können. Der theoretische Kern dieser Perspektive ist die Privilegierung sozialer Relationen und Interaktionsmuster gegenüber individuellen und kollektiven Akteurseinheiten; letztere werden nicht als gegeben hingenommen, sondern vielmehr als erklärungsbedürftig betrachtet. Dies eröffnet gegenüber methodologisch-individualistischen Konzeptionen sozialer Mechanismen alternative Möglichkeiten kausaler Rekonstruktion. Ihr Ertrag und ihre Grenzen werden in diesem Beitrag diskutiert und anhand von Beispielen aus der historischen Religionssoziologie veranschaulicht." (Autorenreferat)

AbstractWith robots increasingly integrated into various areas of life, the question of relationships with them is gaining prominence. Are friendship and partnership with robots possible? While there is already extensive research on relationships with robots, this article critically examines whether the relationship with non-human entities is sufficiently explored on a deeper level, especially in terms of ethical concepts such as autonomy, agency, and responsibility. In robot ethics, ethical concepts and considerations often presuppose properties such as consciousness, sentience, and intelligence, which are exclusively aligned with humans. I will challenge the understanding of these properties by anchoring them in contexts, bodies, and actions. This approach allows to consider the specific ways of being of various human and non-human entities and to identify these properties in non-human entities as well. My "eco-relational" approach posits that it is crucial to consider the relationality with non-human entities such as animals and technology in central ethical concepts from the beginning. This approach reflects the "eco", the entire house in which we live including animals and robots. To support this, I examine two dominant approaches in robot ethics within the contemporary Western tradition: the "properties approach" and modestly relational approaches. I will develop an eco-relational approach as an alternative. Employing a phenomenological method, I will demonstrate through various examples that our properties and actions are inherently connected with non-human entities. I will show that robots play a central role in our properties and actions, leading to concepts such as hybrid actions and non-human agency. It becomes clear that technology and our relationships with it disrupt traditional ethical concepts.

AbstractThis paper develops a concept of relational linguistic continuity as a new basis to defend the right to linguistic survival. Relational linguistic continuity refers to a condition whereby individuals may continuously form human relations and have social interactions with others with whom they share the language of origin or of socialisation. The paper proceeds as follows. Section 2 critically engages with two distinct arguments that tackle the issue of linguistic survival: one based on equality of autonomy and another based on equality of dignity. Then, I point out that both arguments are insufficient for a full‐fledged defence of linguistic survival. Section 3 develops a concept of relational linguistic continuity. I first introduce the seminal idea of linguistic security proposed by Leslie Green and Denise Réaume, which will be critically revised in order to develop my concept of relational linguistic continuity. I conclude with Section 4 by defending the right to linguistic survival and addressing potential criticisms. I argue that my concept of relational linguistic continuity successfully provides a basis to defend the right to linguistic survival.

"Many social theorists now call themselves 'relational sociologists', but mean entirely different things by it. The majority endorse a 'flat ontology', dealing exclusively with dyadic relations. Consequently, they cannot explain the context in which relationships occur or their consequences, except as resultants of endless 'transactions'. This book adopts a different approach which regards 'the relation' itself as an emergent property, with internal causal effects upon its participants and external ones on others. The authors argue that most 'relationists' seem unaware that analytical philosophers, such as Searle, Gilbert and Tuomela, have spent years trying to conceptualize the 'We' as dependent upon shared intentionality. Donati and Archer change the focus away from 'We thinking' and argue that 'We-ness' derives from subjects' reflexive orientations towards the emergent relational 'goods' and 'evils' they themselves generate. Their approach could be called 'relational realism', though they suggest that realists, too, have failed to explore the 'relational subject'"..

This article is an analysis of three original variants of relational sociology. Jan A. Fuhse's conception, which is part of the tradition of social network research, situates network analyses in the context of connections between culture and symbolic forms and styles. Fuhse's idea involves a communicative base of relations, and he perceives institutions as spheres of communication that reduce uncertainty and activate roles in the process of communication. François Dépelteau's approach, which is inspired by Dewey's pragmatism, recognizes transaction fields as configurations of relations forming interdependency between people. The practices of actors entering transactions within social fields are important, and this makes it possible for an impression of continuity, order, and complexity to be created. Pierpaolo Donati's relational realism is an attempt to describe the relational dimensions of human actions, while at the same time it is a consistent "relationization" of key social categories, and is also useful in understanding after-modernity. This article emphasizes the fruitfulness of new attempts to demarcate sociological genealogies and to read the classics of relational sociology. The author discusses the creation of new puzzles for sociological theory, the necessity of analysing the ontologies of social life, the phenomena of emergency and agency, and the use of relational theory in regard to categories of the common good and social capital. He encourages multidimensional and multilevel analyses of social reality.

John Christman has argued that constitutively relational accounts of autonomy, as defended by some feminist theorists, are problematically perfectionist about the human good. I argue that autonomy is constitutively relational, but not in a way that implies perfectionism: autonomy depends on a dialogical disposition to hold oneself answerable to external, critical perspectives on one's action-guiding commitments. This type of relationality carries no substantive value commitments, yet it does answer to core feminist concerns about autonomy.

Building on black and indigenous feminist scholarship, this essay examines the mutually constitutive processes of racial gendered violence and colonial dispossession undergirding Guyanese statecraft. Through an analysis of the colonial construction of the racial-sexual bodies of Amerindian and Afro-and Indo-creole women, it argues that these imbricated violences may better be understood through a feminist analytic and praxis of relational difference. A departure point that brings the scaffold histories and legacies of colonialism, dispossession, slavery, and indentureship into stark relief, relational difference troubles the overdetermined rhetoric of impending racial disturbance and chaos that haunt the political landscape. Tracing the specificity of indigenous and black dispossession and antiblackness as integral to Guyanese nation formation and the Caribbean more broadly, it ultimately calls for an expansive Caribbean feminist politics that reckons with indigenous political subjectivities and creates awareness of black belonging beyond statist framings toward mutual liberation.

This response refutes point (i) in the Ayres comment's abstract. It argues that at its heart responsive regulation is about seeking strategies that will render regulation more relational when it counts. This is possible even in domains like tax compliance where 99 per cent of the routine regulatory action occurs without face-to-face encounter. A number of critiques in the special issue are embraced. While practitioners who reject civic republican values can learn from the responsive regulation literature, regulation conduces to tyranny if it is not explicit in a value commitment to reducing domination in the world. Concern that the republican elements of the argument have been insufficiently prominent in subsequent writing of the authors is therefore embraced. Freedom as non-domination requires a transnational regulatory vision for strategies with transnational leverage that reduce domination globally, not just nationally. A paradox advanced is that the largest regulatory errors of recent history on the global stage are best corrected by micro relational strategies invented with a global imagination for crafting micro-macro linkages. Adapted from the source document.

"In diesem Beitrag wird die relationale Ethnografie als Untersuchungsansatz vorgestellt, bei dem reflexive, dialogische Aspekte von Forschungsbeziehungen im Vordergrund stehen: Der Autor fand es zwar hilfreich, autoethnografische Methoden als Therapeutin und als Lehrende zu verwenden, bemerkte aber, dass sie seinen Fokus auf relationale Aspekte von Forschungsbeziehungen einschränkten. Erst indem er eine relationale Ethnografie konzipierte und nutzte, wurde es ihm möglich, die grundsätzliche Bedeutung von Beziehung bzw. Bezogenheit in der ethnografischen Forschung zu zeigen. Hierzu hat er insbesondere auf systemische und sozial-konstruktionistische Ansätze zurückgegriffen. In dem Beitrag veranschaulicht er die reflexive, dialogische Beziehung zwischen den 'Stimmen' im inneren und im äußeren Dialog sowie zwischen beiden Dialogformen. Indem wir als Forschende diese inneren Dialoge Lesenden und Forschungsteilnehmer/ innen zugänglich machen, eröffnen wir den Raum für eine transparente Kommunikation und Zusammenarbeit. In einem ersten Schritt arbeitet er die Beziehung zwischen einem/ einer Forschenden und Texten als dialogische Aktivität heraus. Danach wendet er sich der Beziehung zwischen Schreibenden und Lesenden zu, wenn sie in einen antizipativ-reaktiven Dialog miteinander eintreten. Schließlich zeig er, dass Reflexivität immer relational und Grundlage einer relationalen Ethik ist und entwickelt erste Ideen einer Ethik und Ästhetik der Fürsorge als leitenden Prinzipien einer relationalen Ethnografie. Der Autor hat festgestellt, dass Studierende durch den Einbezug der relationalen Ethnografie in die Lehre reflexiver Forschung betreiben und dass sich die relationale und ästhetische Qualität ihres Schreibens verbessert hat." (Autorenreferat)

The authors propose an analytic model that deals with both behavioral considerations between exchange partners and the determination of relational marketing efforts over time. On the basis of the behavioral marketing literature, they consider three main factors that drive the levels of relational commitments between two exchange partners: the trust/distrust component, the opportunism component, and the relational marketing effort of the seller. Incorporating these factors in a well-known model used in appliedmathematics for "love dynamics," the authors claim that the issue of managing relational exchanges is an optimal control problem. Their analysis shows that the seller's optimal policy for determining relational marketing effort over time is either time-invariant or time-variant, depending on whether or not the exchange partners are conservative and the structural and contextual environment of the relationship remains unchanged over time.

"Relational Theories in International Relations" published on by Oxford University Press.

Standard incentive theory models provide a rich framework for studying informational problems but assume that contracts can be perfectly enforced. This paper studies the design of self-enforced relational contracts. I show that optimal contracts often can take a simple stationary form, but that self-enforcement restricts promised compensation and affects incentive provision. With hidden information, it may be optimal for an agent to supply the same inefficient effort regardless of cost conditions. With moral hazard, optimal contracts involve just two levels of compensation. This is true even if performance measures are subjective, in which case optimal contracts terminate following poor performance.

This book contributes to scholarly debates about what peace is and how it can be studied by developing a novel framework and tools for studying peace as relational. Drawing primarily on peace and conflict research and sociology, it defines relational peace as entailing non-domination, deliberation, and cooperation between actors in a dyad, that the actors recognize and trust each other, and that they conceive their relationship as one between fellows or friends. The book provides tools for empirical studies of relational peace and applies the framework in several sites: Cyprus, Cambodia, South Africa, Abkhazia, Transnistria/Russia, Colombia, Sri Lanka, the Philippines, and Myanmar. It shows how the framework can be applied across cases, actors, geographical locations, levels of analysis, types of data, and stages of peace processes. The book offers guidance on how to use the framework empirically with a variety of methods. Each case study in the book also makes unique contributions to specific literatures, such as civil