Suchergebnisse

This book builds a theoretical approach to the intractable problem of theory/practice in international relations (IR) and develops tools to study how theory and practice 'hang together' in international security. Drawing on Pierre Bourdieu's political sociology, the book argues that theory and practice take part in struggles over basic understandings (doxa) in international fields through what the book calls doxic battles. In these battles e.g. scientific facts, military hardware and social networks are mobilised as weapons in a fight for recognition. NATO's transformation and fight for surviv.

There is no 'supra-theory', which might synthesise potential theoretical approaches for the study of multi-local living. Three selected theoretical perspectives are discussed: according to rational choice theory (RCT), multiple localisations represent just one of a number of choices, selected on the basis of individual preferences and given restrictions. Sociology of everyday life (SEL) addresses the reproduction of social life by focusing on practices of actors within the various social frameworks of multi-local everyday life. Actor-network theory (ANT) provides a 'toolkit' to 'de-scribe' the hybrid enactment of multi-local households. Materiality, processes, and multiplicity are emphasised. Each perspective reflects partial realities of the multiplicity of multi-local living. It is argued that the modelling of residential multi-locality pursued by the three approaches is highly productive if their results are compared with one another and interpreted as versions of reality differently shaped, which are partly congruent, partly incongruent due to incommensurable ontological and theoretical positions.

Effectively teaching sociological theories to undergraduate students is challenging. Students often enroll in theory courses due to major requirements, not personal interest. Consequently, many students approach the study of theory with anxiety. This study examined the effectiveness of an experiential learning activity designed to teach Karl Marx's theory of alienation. Based on pretest/posttest surveys, responses to open-ended questions, and observational data, students reported that the activity helped them gain a clearer understanding of Marx. They also reported finding the activity interesting, enjoying being able to apply theory, and being able to see how Marx's theory related to real life. Assessment data revealed that students were confident in demonstrating their understanding of Marx's theories on assignments but not always effective in doing so. The findings contribute to literature on active and experiential learning techniques as successful methods for teaching abstract sociological concepts.

Der Band stellt einleitend verschiedene Definitionen von Globalisierung vor und setzt dann die Begriffe Globalisierung, Globalität und Globalismus zueinander in Relation. Anschließend wird die Genese der Globalisierungsdebatte nachgezeichnet. Die Ausführungen schließen Immanuel Wallersteins Weltsystemtheorie, Marshall McLuhans Visionen eines »global village« und Entwürfe einer planetaren ökologischen Einheit durch James Lovelock und Fritjof Capra ein. Als zentrale Beiträge der soziologischen Globalisierungsdebatte werden im dritten Teil u.a. die »radikalisierte Moderne« Anthony Giddens', das »globale Feld« Roland Robertsons und David Harveys »time-space compression« vorgestellt. Um globale Kulturökonomien geht es bei der Diskussion der Ansätze von Arjun Appadurai, Scott Lash und John Urry. Abschließend gibt der Text Einblicke in aktuelle Debatten über das Verhältnis von Moderne und Globalisierung sowie über den Widerspruch zwischen Heterogenisierungs- und Homogenisierungstendenzen im Prozess der Globalisierung.

Bringing together historical, literary and sociological theory, this study recaptures the Victorians' broad sense of epistemological uncertainty about their rapidly changing society, reconstructs novelists' specific attempts to legitimate their traditionally low-status genre and offers fresh readings of novels by Charlotte Brontë, Wilkie Collins, Charles Dickens, George Eliot, Elizabeth Gaskell, William North, Anthony Trollope, William Makepeace Thackeray and Charlotte Yonge, among others.

1. Locating the couple in sociological theory -- 2. Being committed : making the decision to embark on a long-term relationship -- 3. Money matters : work and finances -- 4. Justifying inequality : explaining the division of housework -- 5. Freed from the phallus? : sex in relationships -- 6. What's love got to do with it? : doing intimacy -- 7. Buying into it : self-development, lifestyle and consumption -- 8. Conclusion.

This updated edition contains a selection of chapters based on the original text. Sociology: A South African Introduction. It Includes chapters on sociological theory, socialization and Identity, religion, family, crime and deviance, culture, race, gender, work, politics and governance and the economy. The chapter on poverty and inequality has been extended and split Into two chapters: Social inequality and poverty.

This book provides an interesting and refreshing collection of economic research conducted in the broadly heterodox tradition. A variety of topical issues are addressed, including labor market inequalities, welfare reform, interest rate policies, international trade, and global financial instability. What unites these diverse essays is their common perspective that social institutions and structures ""matter"" to the performance of economies, and hence should receive more attention from economists. Conventional economic thought focuses unduly on the functioning of so-called ""free-markets."" T

Existing research on alternative forms of political participation
does not adequately account for why those forms of participation at
an "everyday" level should be defined as political. In this article we aim to
contribute new conceptual and theoretical depth to this research agenda
by drawing on sociological theory to posit a framework for determining
whether nontraditional forms of political engagement can be defined as genuinely
distinctive from traditional participation. Existing "everyday politics"
frameworks are analytically underdeveloped, and the article argues instead
for drawing upon Michel Maffesoli's theory of "neo-tribal" politics. Applying
Maffesoli's insights, we provide two questions for operationally defining
"everyday" political participation, as expressing autonomy from formal political
institutions, and building new political organizations from the bottom
up. This creates a substantive research agenda of not only operationally defining
political participation, but examining how traditional governmental
institutions and social movements respond to a growth in everyday political
participation: nexus politics.

Written by the new generation of sociologists, these essays chart a course for the future of the discipline, both by revisiting forgotten theories and methods and by suggesting innovative theoretical and methodological approaches. Comprised of seven essays on theory and five on methodology, the volume also attempts to reconnect theorists and methodologists in a discussion about the future of the sociological enterprise

The following is simultaneously an essay in sociological theory, in cultural sociology, and in the empirical reconstruction of postwar Western history. Per theory, it introduces and specifies a model of cultural trauma - a model that combines a strong cultural program with concern for institutional and power effects - and applies it to large-scale collectivities over extended periods of time. Per cultural sociology, the essay demonstrates that even the most calamitous and biological of social facts - the prototypical evil of genocidal mass murder - can be understood only inside of symbolic codes and narratives; that these frames change substantially depending on social circumstances; and that this culture process is critical to establishing understandings of moral responsibility. Empirically, this essay documents, in social and cultural detail, using both secondary and primary sources, how it was that the `Holocaust' gradually became the dominant symbolic representation of evil in the late twentieth century, and what its consequences have been for the development of a supra-national moral universalism that may restrict genocidal acts in the future.