World Society: A Theory and a Research Program in Context

Abstract

Abstract In explaining the dynamics of world society, John W. Meyer often elaborates on what he calls ‘‘hypothetical worlds,’’ namely, the alternative social orders that might have emerged from the dominance of European powers and the intellectual breakthroughs in religion, science, and politics of the Enlightenment era and the nineteenth century. The description of such alternative world orders overs a glimpse into the possible historical routes, each describing a counterfactual historical trajectory, not to say destiny, for the West and the world. This contemplation of ‘‘worlds that might have been’’ makes possible and directly useful reflections on the ‘‘world that is’’ and on the forces that came to shape it. Meyer’s ‘‘reflections’’ on world history, as much as they draw from and comment on the study of specific sectors or institutions, provide a comprehensive explanation of the history of world society: describing patterns (such as structuration and globalization), detailing particular processes (such as the institutionalization of personhood and education), and pointing to causal mechanisms (such as international organizations and the professions). These historical accounts form the basis for provocative and counter-intuitive theoretical claims about how institutional forces of culture and legitimacy play key roles in sweeping social change and also its companion, local and global inertia of varied kinds. These chronicles of Western, now globalized, society combine into a sustained theoretical research program: a broad-ranging sociological theory of modernity in dialogue with, and generative for, a prolific body of empirical studies. Together, these studies by Meyer and his collaborators compose an integrated scholarship of world affairs, that is known as ‘‘world society theory,’’ and that this book profiles in full form and detail for the first time.