Methodological Holism Research Articles

Communautés d’enquête et création de connaissances dans l’organisation: le modèle de processus en gestion

Organization sciences are interested in the “community “ concept, particularly to overcome the opposition between “methodological individualism “ focused upon the subject and “methodological holism” focused upon the organization. “Communities of practice”, based upon practices common to a group of actors, provide a useful frame to study professional craft communities. They are not so useful to study the cooperation between actors who are involved in a “conjoint activity” — an activity which is not characterized by similar practices, but by their heterogeneous complementarity -, for which we propose to recur to the concept of “community of inquiry “ owed to the pragmatist philosophers Peirce and Dewey.

Structures and mechanisms in sustainable consumption research

In discourses related to sustainable development and consumption, one essential and also controversial field concerns the integration of macro- and micro-level structures into research. The question is to what extent these two levels can be combined and applied to sustainable development research. The question is also methodological, given that one of the most common ways to classify social theories is to divide them into those concerning holistic explanations (methodological holism) and individual actors (methodological individualism). This paper addresses the problem of the conceptualisation of structure and its relationship to sustainable consumption research. The purpose of the research is twofold. Firstly, the different aspects of the notion of structure will be examined. A special interest is taken in the relationship between the macro- and micro-level. Secondly, the role of structures in sustainable consumption research will be discussed. Also, an alternative way to integrate macro- and micro-levels will be introduced.

Socialinės struktūros samprata

Social structure has always been one of the central concepts in classical and contemporary sociological thought. The concept of social structure points to a different articulation of the macro and micro elements of social life. Its meaning has to be understood in the context of the discursive networks in which it is used. The aim of the article is to explore the concept of social structure by making explicit the main conceptual networks from which the different uses of the concept obtain their meaning. We have organized our discussion of social structure around the four paradigms that we have identified as (1) methodological individualism, (2) methodological holism, (3) microsociological ‘theory’, (4) eclectic ‘theory’.

Toward a “Wider and Juster Initiative”: Recent Comparative Work in Buddhist Ethics

AbstractThis essay considers some of the important trends in comparative approaches to Buddhist moral thinking, including early reflections on how and where to place Buddhist thought. It argues that some of the formative gestures shaping the field of Buddhist ethics sprang from contested efforts by historians of religion and philosophical formalists to chart a comparative methodology. The essay describes the methodological holism that characterizes important work in the field and argues against it, pointing instead to more diffuse lines of inquiry that do not efface Buddhism's historical diversity and the distinctiveness of its moral discourses. The essay begins to develop a different orientation in ethics that centers on the ethical study of human nature. To this end, it offers a small exercise in comparative moral psychology to explore the moral sentiment “sympathetic joy.”

The Never Ending Dance: Islamism, Kemalism and the Power of Self‐institution in Turkey

Kemalism in Turkey is often presented as an exemplary case of paternalistic and authoritarian modernisation from above, and lauded or condemned for that very reason. Represented in these terms, certain analytic and political binaries are also activated: state versus society; world‐view versus life‐world; universality versus particularity; inauthenticity versus indigeneity; homogeneity versus heterogeneity/resistance. By contrast, in this paper I seek to sidestep these organising categories to focus on Kemalism and Islamism as rival forms of the same social imaginary signification, and not as shorthand for these polarities. Using a number of representative texts, I argue that the extravagance of Islamist resistance in Turkey post‐1980 brings to light the fantastical power of Kemalism itself, exposed as a project of the triumph of the will. This being the case, what has been written in anthropology about acts of ‘self‐institution’? The work of Nigel Rapport and Cornelius Castoriadis emphasises, in different ways, the arbitrariness and gratuity of social creation out of nothing or self‐institution. Pierre Bourdieu's work, on the other hand, is radically contrary to Rapport's in its structuralist elaboration of agency as guided action. My analysis of processes of change within both the Islamist and Republican social movements in Turkey from the early 1990s to the present seeks a temporary rapprochement, at least in this case, between Rapport's methodological individualism and Bourdieu's methodological holism.

The Status of Social Sciences and Globalization

Globalization and evolving knowledge society are the major fundamental challenge to the social science. Diversification of social life on the all levels of reality - individual, family, community, state, mankind - opens new opportunities and give birth to the new threats. To grasp these two - positive and negative - sides of our life the more precise, relevant cognitive means are needed. Better conceptualized, free of ideological and political influences, cleaned from elements of common sense, conventional wisdom social knowledge would better conform to the requirements of “pure” science and would become more reliable source of viable, effective policies pursued by national states and international organizations.One of preconditions of the success of social science is the settlement of old paradigmatic competition between methodological individualism and methodological holism. Both have mooted historical records. Soviet experiment was based mainly on holistic assumptions; market fundamentalism is the natural outcome (product) of individualistic thinking.Methodological (metatheorical) exploration of all these problems faced by social sciences, though costly they are, would give better cognitive perspective to them, would “harden” them.Having said this we would like to stress that social sciences will never achieve the level of ”hardness” attributed to natural sciences and first of all physics. Social sciences explore social reality which is qualitatively differs from non-living world. The latter is much more weakly structured, less deterministic, pulsating, the link between action and response is not linear etc.The quality social knowledge is a public good, which can contribute substantially to the social progress. Unfortunately in the framework of individualistic thinking the notion of public good is marginalized and knowledge is not treated as economic resource. Author of this article join those researchers who argue for holistic perception of social reality which provides better, wider understanding of modern world and thereby provides more solid foundation for relevant state and global policies.

Social Complexity and the Micro-Macro Link

This article analyses the problem of the micro-macro link. Two alternative frameworks have traditionally been offered to account for this relationship - methodological individualism and methodological holism. The author upholds four theses. First, these two alternatives are incapable of accounting for all possible relationships between microsociological regularities and macrosociological generalizations. Second, there are at least three different ways to formalize micro-macro relationships: parallelism, localism and convergentism. Third, high-level and low-level explanations provide radically different kinds of information. Finally, the author explores a possible naturalization of the debate. The article as a whole can be read as a contribution to the problem of social complexity.

How Oakeshott Became an Oakeshottean

Two ideas lie at the heart of Oakeshott’s philosophy: the notion of the inherent plurality of modern experience and the notion of a modern state as a purposeless civil association. These ideas signify Oakeshott’s rejection of the intellectual tradition of British Idealism by which he was influenced in his twenties. The breaking point was the publication of Experience and its Modes, although, with regard to social philosophy, the process of the abandonment of holistic Idealism lasted longer and was completed only with the publication of On Human Conduct. The main difference between Oakeshott and other British Idealists lies in his radical rejection of methodological holism. It is suggested that this rejection might be an outcome of influences of continental philosophical traditions, and that Oakeshott’s philosophy is especially indebted to the ideas of the fragmentation of experience prevalent in Central European Idealism, and particularly in neo-Kantianism.

Two Paradigms of Economic Development in CEE Countries

The direction of economic development depends on the paradigmatic framework in which economic reality is perceived. In the framework of holistic paradigm also public and not only private goods are understood as economic goods. Correspondingly, the public sector is enclosed into economy. The individualistic approach presupposes reduction of economic reality to market and overtly or covertly negative attitude towards public sector as non-economic. The phenomenon of reflexiveness is present here. Methodological holism and methodological individualism give birth to different strategies of economic policy and finally lead to different outcomes of economic development.

Reforms of Pension System in Lithuania

Lithuania, like other Central European countries, undergoes a deep reform of the old age security system. The reform takes place in a controversial cognitive environment. The controversy is between methodological individualism and methodological holism as peculiar worldviews. The two world outlooks provide different reform perceptions and scenarios.

Market Definition as a Social Construction

Anti-trust cases more often than not hinge upon market definition. The anti-trust authorities use standardised tests for the purpose, like the small but significant and nontransitory increase in price test prevalent in US law. These tests are often read as neoclassical economics, watered down to legal scale. They then are interpreted by economic concepts like cross price elasticities. These interpretations rest on methodological individualism. Social phenomena, like competition, are explained from the perspective of actors maximising their individual utility. If one wants to understand how an individual firm is controlled by competition, this is a most helpful approach. But for defining the effective area of competition, or the relevant market, methodological holism is more powerful. Its basic conceptual unit is not the individual, but communication. Markets are seen as implicitly or explicitly organised entities, giving an industry an identity, and helping the consumers orient themselves in a complex environment. Specifically, a market turns out to be a hybrid between co-operation (for constituting the area of competition) and conflict (within the area thus defined). This alternative approach is important for anti-trust practice. The decisive fact is not whether two products objectively ought to be substitutes. What market participants see as substitutes is the only thing that matters. Consequently, for market definition, anti-trust authorities may not (only) rely on their own wisdom. They must find ways to reconstruct the communication among market participants.

The Political Economy of Lithuania’s Public Finance

Traditionally Lithuania’s public finances are discussed in terms of tax burden and tax administration. Such issues as composition of tax revenues or the structure of public expenditure for some reasons are less atractive both for economists, journalists, politicians and general public at large. The purpose of this article is to fill this gap doing it in the political, cognitive and ideological context existing in our country. The subject is explored in the framework of methodological holism.

Bringing speakers back in? Epistemological reflections on speaker-oriented explanations of language change

From the late 1980s historical linguists have repeatedly criticised autonomous, system-internal historical linguistics and emphasised the need to incorporate human agency and intentionality into our explanations of language change, a concern most clearly articulated in sociolinguistic approaches to language history. The article evaluates the ways in which speaker agency has been conceptualised in these discussions and critically reviews the explanatory status of traditional ‘belief–desire' models of action in the light of evolutionary, neuropsychological and sociological contributions to the question of human agency. Considering the generally accepted definition of language as a collective structure, the article discusses further whether explanations should invoke individuals (‘methodological individualism') or collectives (‘methodological holism') as the agents of linguistic change. It is suggested that Giddens's theory of structuration, which attempts to overcome the dichotomy of individualism vs. holism and to disassociate agency from individual intentionality, is a useful starting point for future theorising. While speaker-oriented approaches to language change are an important part of the explanatory inventory of historical linguistics, not all linguistic changes are equally amenable to explanations in terms of speaker agency. It is argued that there is a cluster of areas (grammaticalisation and reanalysis, language contact, native theories of language as well as standardisation) which should feature prominently in the field of socio-historical linguistics.

Institutional individualism and institutional change: the search for a middle way mode of explanation

After noting the lack of enthusiasm of several well-known scholars concerning the adoption of both methodological holism and methodological individualism in its several versions, this paper shows that institutional individualism is a different mode of explanation from both of these and also that it is not the same thing as the so-called Popperian programme of situational analysis. Institutional individualism is a mode of explanation that yields non-systemic and non-reductionist explanations at the same time as it allows for the incorporation into economic theories and models of the many formal and informal institutional aspects surrounding all human interactions, whether these interactions take place within stable structures of legal rules and social norms or whether they attempt to change the said rules and norms. Finally, the paper shows that it is possible for old institutionalists to make institutional individualist analyses of institutional changes while retaining the remaining methodological assumptions of the school. The same is true for new institutionalists. Some examples are offered from both camps. Copyright 2001 by Oxford University Press.

New Institutionalism: Distilling Some ‘Hard Core’ Propositions in the Works of Williamson and March and Olsen

The efflorescence of work on new institutionalism has encouraged scholars to build bridges between various schools of thought. Such cross-fertilisation enlivens the debate but runs the risk of erecting bridges on shaky foundations. My article seeks to minimise this risk by going back to basics. It narrows the field of inquiry to the economic and the sociological institutionalist tradition represented by Williamson on one side, and the collaborative work of March and Olsen on the other. It explores and assesses their contribution on three interrelated issues fundamental to any analysis of political institutions: the goals attributed to institutions, the theory of action and the commitment to methodological individualism versus methodological holism. I conclude by noting that in the transition from the old to the new institutionalism - as represented in the works of these authors - the role of power conflicts, negotiations and bargaining between individuals seems to have lost its central position.

In Pursuit of the Re‐Engineering Agenda in Public Administration

The article examines the findings from longitudinal case study work conducted in the 1992‐96 period in two organizations in the United Kingdom health care and post office sectors. The study highlights the many cultural, political and technical issues that emerge in the strategy and implementation of IT‐enabled re‐engineering projects. The radical re‐engineering perspective and model for change presented by Hammer and Champy (1993) are compared against empirical findings. These suggest that the Hammer and Champy advice contains many limitations. The cases show the specific circumstances in which radical re‐engineering can be effective, in managerial terms, but also point to conditions under which a unitary perspective on the organization often cannot address adequately many critical political and cultural issues. Moreover, the case histories point to the dangers of an over reliance on a methodological holism that can rarely be delivered in complex large‐scale organizations, given the scale of change envisaged; and the difficulties engendered by over‐emphasizing the need for transformation, and ‘starting again’, and downplaying the role of history and continuity in both the study and management of organizational change.

Information technology and radical re-engineering: Emerging issues in major projects

Abstract The paper examines the findings from longitudinal case study work conducted in the 1992–95 period in two organizations in the United Kingdom insurance and health care sectors. The study highlights the many cultural, political, and technical issues that emerge in the strategy and implementation of large-scale radical re-engineering projects. The radical re-engineering perspective and model for change presented by Hammer and Champy (1993) are compared against empirical findings. These suggest that the Hammer and Champy advice contains many limitations. The cases show the specific circumstances in which radical re-engineering can be effective in managerial terms, but also point to conditions under which a unitary perspective on the organization often cannot address adequately many critical political and cultural issues. Moreover the case histories point to (1) the dangers of an over-reliance on a methodological holism that can be rarely delivered on in complex large-scale organizations, given the scale of change envisaged; and (2) the difficulties engendered by overemphasizing the need for transformation and “starting again”, and downplaying the role of history and continuity in both the study and management of organizational change.

Universal Darwinism and the methodology of social science

Controversy surrounding evolved and rationally organized social structures is fueled by: the failure to appreciate that biological structures are relevant in a social context; the use of indirect evolutionary analogues; a rivalry between methodological holism and individualism; and a belief that individualism pre-empts phylogeny. Seminal contributions by Richard Dawkins and Henry Plotkin show the direct relevance of biological to social evolution. Plotkin's application of the evolutionary thesis to epistemology (following Donald T. Campbell) provides a basis to assess the merits of the rival methodologies.

Analytical Marxism and the Marxian theory of crisis

A new phenomenon, a self-designated school of analytical Marxism, centred in particular around the work of John Roemer, Jon Elster and G.A. Cohen. Analytical Marxism begins with the unsupported premise of methodological individualism. In Marxs methodological holism, investigation of structural limits to individual actions is precisely the result of considering the whole first. This chapter briefly discusses Marx's possibility theory of crisis. Marx has noted that, there would be no crisis without the inner unity of factors that are apparently indifferent to each other. The chapter demonstrates the importance of considering the whole explicitly, and conducts a holistic thought-experiment which represents capitalism as a relationship between one capitalist and his wage-labourers. In the rgime of One Capital, it is assumed that, in order to secure a given increase in surplus-value, the rational capitalist initiates a given increase in the technical composition of capital.Keywords: analytical Marxism; capitalism; G.A. Cohen; holistic thought-experiment; John Roemer; Jon Elster; Marxian theory of crisis; methodological individualism; regime of One Capital

Post-Marxist Alternatives. The Construction of Social Orders

Part 1 Setting the problem: Marxist reductionism and neo-realist epistemology - neo-realist epistemology and historical materialism, monism versus Pluralism Marxism versus post-Marxism - core Marxism - closed or open, the displacement of institutional analysis, the relative autonomy of the political, methodological Holism and authoritarianism. Part 2 The economic and the political - towards a non-reductive framework: technology, appropriation, ideology - beyond the base - superstructure dichotomy - historic materialism - from philosophical to historical analysis, substantive and methodological issues, technology, appropriation, ideology, the mode of domination concept application - sociopolitical transition in 19th and early 20th century Greece - Marxism and the sociology of development, Greek Marxist historiography and the dilemmas of class analysis, pre-capitalist Greece and the consolidation of oligarchic parliamentarianism, the demise of oligarchic parliamentarianism. Appendices: types of reductionism in Marxist theory ideology and class politics - a critique of Laclau.