Middle Range Theory and the Strategies of Theory Construction

Abstract

In 1949 Robert Merton published the first edition of Social Theory and Social Structure (STSS). This volume crystallized a theory construction imperative for the social sciences: a strategy of building theories of the middle range (Merton, 1949, pp. 5–11). Although Merton (1967, 1968, pp. 56–58) would later trace the call for middle range theories (MRTs) to such eminent philosophers as Plato, Francis Bacon, John Stuart Mill, and Karl Mannheim, contemporary concern about the middle range imperative is due almost entirely to Merton’s discussion in the three editions of STSS (1949, 1957, and 1968).1