Sociological Explanations Research Articles

A Peculiar Sociology of Punishment

In Peculiar Institution David Garland offers a sociological explanation for Americas retention of the death penalty in an age of abolition. But the book does much more than that. Peculiar Institution appeared exactly two decades after the publication of Garlands second major study Punishment and Modern Society. In that book he laid the foundations for a multidimensional sociology of punishment. However, Garlands manifesto for a new pluralist sociology of punishment fell to a large extent on deaf ears. It is against that background that I will argue that Peculiar Institution kills two birds with one stone: in addition to its declared intention to describe and explain Americas capital punishment complex, the book can also be read as a direct intervention in a much larger debate on how we should proceed when we aim to understand punishment in all its complexity.

Seasonality of suicide in Shandong China, 1991–2009: Associations with gender, age, area and methods of suicide

Whether suicide in China has significant seasonal variations is unclear. The aim of this study is to examine the seasonality of suicide in Shandong China and to assess the associations of suicide seasonality with gender, residence, age and methods of suicide. Three types of tests (Chi-square, Edwards' T and Roger's Log method) were used to detect the seasonality of the suicide data extracted from the official mortality data of Shandong Disease Surveillance Point (DSP) system. Peak/low ratios (PLRs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were calculated to indicate the magnitude of seasonality. A statistically significant seasonality with a single peak in suicide rates in spring and early summer, and a dip in winter was observed, which remained relatively consistent over years. Regardless of gender, suicide seasonality was more pronounced in rural areas, younger age groups and for non-violent methods, in particular, self-poisoning by pesticide. There are statistically significant seasonal variations of completed suicide for both men and women in Shandong, China. Differences exist between residence (urban/rural), age groups and suicide methods. Results appear to support a sociological explanation of suicide seasonality.

Income Dynamics, Economic Rents, and the Financialization of the U.S. Economy

The 2008 collapse of the world financial system, while proximately linked to the housing bubble and risk-laden mortgage backed securities, was a consequence of the financialization of the U.S. economy since the 1970s. This article examines the institutional and income dynamics associated with the financialization of the U.S. economy, advancing a sociological explanation of income shifts into the finance sector. Complementary developments include banking deregulation, finance industry concentration, increased size and scope of institutional investors, the shareholder value movement, and dominance of the neoliberal policy model. As a result, we estimate that between 5.8 and 6.6 trillion dollars were transferred to the finance sector since 1980. We conclude that understanding inequality dynamics requires attention to market institutions and politics.

Convergence and Persistence in Corporate Insolvency Law: Employee Participation in Corporate Insolvency Restructuring

Systems of corporate governance are not static. Rather, they are constantly evolving and are shaped and redesigned through formal legal rules, judicial decisions, business practices and changes in the prevailing ideological consensus. The 2007–2008 ‘credit crunch’ and the subsequent recession call for a reconsideration of the role of labour within the mechanisms of corporate governance and control. Accordingly, employee voice mechanisms, existing and potential, will be re-assessed in the academic realm and also as part of a wider renewed political discourse. Assessing the potential for implementation and prospects of employee voice is paramount within this process, and central to its success. The analysis made below maintains that regulations and their outcomes are the result of a blend of factors which interact with one another. It constructs a sociological and political explanation for the laws and actual practices concerned with the influence of employees on the firm’s strategic decision-making process. Focusing on the legal regime which governs corporate insolvency restructuring in Germany, the US and the UK, and specifically the legal crossroads where capital and labour interact, this article reaffirms the view that capitalist systems create institutional structures which are difficult to alter, whereas developing mechanisms of employee voice are likely to adjust and ultimately reflect the existing institutional structure.

Teaching and Learning Guide for: A Sociological Alternative to the Psychiatric Conceptualization of Mental Suffering

This guide accompanies the following article: Dena T. Smith, ‘A Sociological Alternative to the Psychiatric Conceptualization of Mental Suffering’, Sociology Compass 5/5 (2011): 351–363, [DOI]. 10.1111/j.1751‐9020.2011.00369.x.Author’s introductionThis article provides an introduction to the utility of sociology for studying suffering, particularly mental suffering. Further, this paper highlights the differences between the sociological and psychiatric approaches to understanding mental illness and mental suffering. The study of suffering is a longstanding tradition in sociology; Macro sociological studies focus on the likelihood to suffer under certain social conditions, while the micro‐level approach attends to definitions, and experiences of suffering. It is the ability to study both the macro and micro that make sociology so well‐equipped to address the complex concept of suffering. In short, this paper highlights the importance of a multidimensional perspective on suffering. As an example of the crucial role for sociologists in fully explicating suffering, I describe the narrow conceptualization of mental suffering (as mental illness) in contemporary psychiatry. While mental illness refers to specific symptom sets as defined by The American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), mental suffering is something much more general and elusive to define and needs an explanation that extends beyond illness. This article provides: a broad overview of sociological understandings of suffering, a brief survey of sociological explanations of mental illness and mental suffering, and an exploration of biological psychiatry’s approach to understanding mental strife.Author recommends Horwitz, Allan 2002. Creating Mental Illness. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Cassell, Eric J. 2004. The Nature of Suffering and the Goals of Medicine. Oxford: Oxford University Press Conrad, Peter 1992. ‘Medicalization and Social Control.’Annual Review of Sociology 18: 209–32. Kleinman, Arthur, Veena Das and Margaret Lock 1997. Social Suffering. Berkeley: University of California Press. DeGloma, Thomas 2009. ‘Expanding Trauma through Space and Time: Mapping the Rhetorical Strategies of Trauma Carrier Groups.’Social Psychology Quarterly 72: 105–21. Wilkinson, Iain 2005. Suffering: A Sociological Introduction. Cambridge, UK: Polity. Online materials Depression, Culture and Genetics – A Podcast with Allan Horwitz: http://thesocietypages.org/officehours/2010/01/19/depression‐culture‐and‐genetics/ The Medicalization of Everything: A Podcast with Peter Conrad: http://thesocietypages.org/officehours/2010/08/02/peter‐conrad‐on‐the‐medicalization‐of‐everything/ http://www.nimh.nih.gov/index.shtml American Psychiatric Publishing: http://www.psychiatryonline.com/ Focus questions What is the difference between a macro and micro approach to studying mental suffering? What does each approach offer? What is the psychiatric notion of mental illness and suffering? How does it differ from a sociological understanding? Why would a multidimensional analysis of mental suffering add to understanding mental illness and suffering? Why is sociology so useful in this endeavour? Seminar/Project ideaStudents identify one kind of mental suffering (specific mental illnesses such as depression or bipolar disorder would be one option) and write a paper on how a multidimensional analysis would be beneficial in order to fully understand their chosen issue. In other words, students would investigate the dominant, biological conceptualization, and then describe what sociological analysis already exists, and how the sociological imagination might more fully address the chosen form of suffering. An option would also be to have students present their case to the class.

A Sociological Alternative to the Psychiatric Conceptualization of Mental Suffering

AbstractUncovering both the structural causes and experiences of suffering is a central sociological endeavor. Sociologists study many different kinds of suffering; after all, strife is experienced both physically and emotionally, because of internal factors such as illness, due to external factors such as trauma, and as a result of economic, political or natural environments. In this paper, I address one form of suffering: mental suffering. In particular, I describe the medicalization of mental suffering in biological psychiatry, which focuses on the genetic factors of illness and equates mental suffering with mental illness. The psychiatric concept of mental illness highlights the continuing, crucial role for sociology in both understanding the experience and identifying the structural roots of suffering. Since the dominant conceptualization of mental suffering is as a medical concept, it is vital for sociology to offer alternative explanations and contribute to a multidimensional analysis. The roots of mental suffering are much more than biological; social comparison, social inequality, and other social stressors are equally important etiological considerations. Therefore, a true understanding of mental suffering requires multiple perspectives, and sociological constructs guard against a total medicalization of mental suffering.

1. CONSTRUCTING A SELECTIONIST PARADIGM

ABSTRACTIn his latest contribution to the application of Darwinian evolutionary thinking to the social sciences, W. G. Runciman conceives of human behavior as resulting from three levels of selection—biological, cultural, and social. These give rise, respectively, to evoked, acquired, and imposed patterns of behavior. The biological level is hardly controversial, but to draw a distinction between separate cultural and social selective processes is more problematic. Runciman takes memes to be the variants competitively selected at the cultural level and the practices constituting rule‐governed roles to be the variants competitively selected at the social level—thus preserving separate spheres of research for anthropology and sociology. It is not clear, however, what drives cultural and social evolution. Nor are the three levels theoretically well integrated. The book's strength lies in the numerous examples provided of how the application of selectionist theory illuminates and enriches sociological and historical explanations and contributes to the construction of historical narrative.

Selection as a Key Tool in Sociological Explanations

For well over two decades, W. G. Runciman (1983-1997) has argued that needs to be a part of sociology. Inter estingly, some early twentieth century text books in American sociology had included chapters or sections of chapters on processes, but with decline of interest in evolution among sociologists for most of century, especially with rise of Social Darwinism, selectionist dynamics were pushed from discipline, as was biology more generally. Still, effects of on sociocultural processes were kept alive in such subdisciplies as urban and, later, organi zational ecology. In his recently published The Theory of Cultural and Social Selection, W. G. Runciman extends application of selec tionist theory beyond relatively narrow confines of urban and organizational ecolo gy, arguing that the agenda of comparative sociology should be reconstituted (p. 3) with a more Darwinian analysis of forces that have driven history. Runciman rejects extreme reductionism of ultra Darwinians who would reduce cultural and social to natural and notions of inclusive fitness, but still, cultural and social dynamics give evidence of clear analogies to natural selection. Runciman begins by outlining three types of selection: natural (on phenotypes and their underlying genotypes), cultural (on memes or strips of symbolic meanings), and social (on practices institutionalized in roles). Runciman retains a heavily Darwinian perspective, seeing competitive selection among alternative phenotypes, cultural memes, and social practices as increasing level of adapta tion, or reproduction of genes, memes, The Theory of Cultural and Social Selection, by W. G. Runciman. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2009. 257pp. $27.99 paper. ISBN: 9780521136143.

"All Things Are Possible": Towards a Sociological Explanation of Pentecostal Miracles and Healings

Pentecostal miracles and healings have often been described and interpreted, but rarely explained in their sociological workings. As former research implies, actual biomedical effects of Pentecostal healings are possible (the so-called placebo effect), but quite limited. In Pentecostal healing services, however, very impressive miracles and healings are routinely produced: paralytics arise from wheelchairs, cancerous ulcers disappear, legs grow, cavities are mysteriously filled, and the deaf suddenly hear. Drawing on a case study and qualitative interviews, this paper offers a sociological, mechanism-based, explanatory scheme for the observed phenomena. It is argued that a number of “social techniques” (e.g., suggestion, rhythm, music), context factors (e.g., audience size and beliefs), and causal mechanisms (e.g., probability, latency, selection, and editing effects) are combined in an ingenious way in order to produce miracles and healings.

Het verval van het pronomen du - Dialectgeografie en de historische syntaxis

From the 16th century onward, the 2nd person singular pronoun du ‘you’ has been replaced by new pronouns gij/jij/jii in many Dutch dialects. The standard explanation attributes the decline to the emerging honorific plural pronouns such as gij in singular use. However, this sociological explanation lacks predictive power: French, German and Frisian honorifics (vous, Sie, jo) did not cause disappearance of tu/du/dou, nor did they do so in various dialects in the Netherlands. Alternatively, language internal triggers have been proposed that situate the trigger in the verbal inflection, e.g. ‘deflection’. These proposals, however, suffer from similar defects. In this study the problem is approached with dialect geographic tools using the GTRP dialect database. A significant correlation is found between the disappearance of du and the rise of double present tense paradigms (direct and inverted). It is found that Zwart’s result of distinct spell-out of V in direct and inverted contexts is paralleled in pronoun spell-out: those dialects that do not have distinct verbal spell-out show distinct pronoun spell-out in direct and inverted contexts. By formulating position dependent spell-out rules, it can be shown that the transition of one dialect type to the other can be held responsible for the loss of the pronoun specific to specCP (du).

Uneven and combined development and the Anglo-German prelude to World War I

This article attempts to situate the approach to World War I within the context of the uneven and combined development of 19th-century European capitalism. Through a comparative analysis of German and British development within the context of the epochal transition from feudalism to capitalism, the article proposes that existing historical materialist and Realist understandings of the roots of World War 1 are inadequate. Realist analyses, stressing the primacy of ‘geopolitics’, fail to provide a convincing explanation of the precise origins of German bellicosity. Instead they assume that expansionist German behaviour was an inevitable consequence of systemic anarchy. Historical materialist accounts, preferring a sociological explanation, overstate the importance of systemic capitalist crisis and the European-wide escalation of class struggle for understanding the genesis of the war. Utilizing Trotsky’s concept of uneven and combined development, I contend, enables a more comprehensive understanding of the origins of the conflict.

Military command in the last decade

On 11 September 2010, the United States commemorated the ninth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. In those nine years, British forces have been engaged in military operations of unexpected location, intensity, scale and duration. While the performance of British troops has been repeatedly praised on these operations, there has been growing disquiet among commentators and, indeed, among the military establishment itself about the conduct of these campaigns. Specifically, the issue of British military command has come under increasing scrutiny. This article examines command frictions at the strategic and operational levels and seeks to provide a sociological explanation of these difficulties. It claims that British commanders have failed to identify a coherent strategy over the past decade while in-theatre operational command has often been characterized by an ad hoc-ery, incoherence and inconsistency. The article suggests that a ‘laissez faire’ command culture has been evident at strategic and operational levels. While individual mistakes may not be irrelevant, the article explores the way in which this command culture may be a product of institutional pressures within defence and, above all, a product of inter-service rivalry. However, the laissez faire system of command in the armed forces may also be a reflection of much deeper cultural presumptions and preferences within British professional society itself which has always had a strong tendency towards pragmatism, decentralization and shorttermism. The article concludes by offering some suggestions as to how military command might be reformed in light of its potentially profound cultural origins.

Forecasting elections in Turkey

Abstract This paper proposes a model for forecasting elections in Turkey. In doing so, this study is based on three theoretical premises: first, that the voters reward or punish parties according to their performances relative to the macroeconomic conditions; second, that the popularity of the political parties in Turkey are closely connected to their performances in local elections; and third, that the centre-periphery distinction affects the fortunes of the political parties in Turkey. The contribution of this analysis is the introduction of an explicit model on which can forecast the impact of economic and political variables on the elections in Turkey by using reliable, public and macro level data. Our findings show that the dynamics of the evaluation of political parties in Turkey follow a similar pattern to those of contemporary democracies, being driven by both economic and political factors. “…why did AKP win? There cannot be a scientific and sociological explanation of this.” Ozdemir Ince, 17 August 2007, Hurriyet, emphasis added.

Through the looking-glass: a critical review of sociology and medicine towards the diagnosis of ADHD1

In the last decades the domain of medicine assumed a central place within social science debates, particularly in Europe and North-America. Analyses of the professional dominance of medicine, the medicalization of sociality, and the categorization of deviance as psychiatric condition were at the onset of medical sociology and historiography. Such critiques aimed at shedding light on the ways we have come to consider not only what is health and illness but also what counts as normal or pathological behavior. In this sense, cases such as attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder [ADHD] exemplify a complex relation between biological and sociological explanations of human behavior. The paper looks at ADHD diagnosis as a heuristics for the critical review of the relationship between social and life sciences. That relationship, often thorny, will be then articulated with a wider hermeneutic and epistemological critique of the real and the constructed, the normal and the pathological, and their reconfigurations. In conclusion, a plea will be left with the intent of debunking conventional suspicions of sociology with regards to medicine through the recovery of an ‘anthroposcientific’ perspective.

From Solidarity to Social Inclusion: The Political Transformations of Durkheimianism

The article begins with Pierre Rosanvallon's account of the mutations of 'Jacobin ideology' and the function of sociology in criticising this in France at the end of the nineteenth century. I suggest it was not Durkheim's intention simply to criticise a 'Jacobin' form of political ideology. Rather, it was to construct an affinity between sociological explanation and social facts, such that sociological discourse would appropriate the sphere of the political and take part, by so doing, in the constitution of a participative social democracy. I then touch on the post-mortem academicisation of Durkheim's work in France between the wars, to ask if the emergent Durkheimianism neutralised Durkheim's original socio-political intentions. This leads to a discussion of the resurgent domination of the discourse of politics in the 1960s, as manifested in Aron's critiques of Durkheim and in his defence of constitutional law at the beginning of the Fifth Republic, but also to an examination of Bourdieu's attempt to retrieve Durkheim's original orientation and to revive the political dynamism of social movements. I comment on the analysis, made in the 1970s by Bourdieu (and Boltanski), of the construction of the dominant postwar ideology in French politics, which includes their critique of 'planification' and of the work, amongst others, of Jacques Delors. They saw the language used by the newly dominant political managers as exploiting the sociological discourse of 'solidarity' and 'social exclusion', not to realize its intentions, but to reinforce their own control. I briefly consider the argument's implications for an analysis of European Commission social policy initiatives during the presidency of Delors, comment on the British Conservative government's objections in the 1980s and 1990s to the very use of this language, and ask if the Labour government's adoption of the discourse of 'social inclusion' in 1997 was indicative of either a political or a social agenda. Finally, I return to Rosanvallon and situate his work politically within the ideological debate of 1995 between him and Bourdieu. It is to conclude with the suggestion that Rosanvallon's apparent disinclination to recognize the importance of Durkheim's work is indicative of his present position-taking, which necessarily entails a suppression of Durkheim's real intentions.

Commentary: Nuancing the Meaning of Cultural Diversity

The featured articles in the section on cultural diversity across the Pacific address important cultural issues in psychology as applied to psychopathology (Marsella & Yamada, 2011), intercultural relations and acculturation (Berry, 2011) and the phenomenon of culture shock (Furnham, 2011). We appreciate how the three articles offer a wide multidisciplinary lens and view mental problems from this broader vantage point. Beyond narratives of biology and individual personality dispositions, the authors include an anthropologists' eye to viewing mental illness (Marsella & Yamada, 2011), use sociological explanations of intergroup relations in a multicultural model of acculturation (Berry, 2011) and refer to demographic migration patterns to elucidate culture shock among foreign students (Furnham, 2011). The contribution of this set of writings lies in its insightful emphasis on how culture interfaces with one's subjective life. Our essay unpacks the cultural lens used in the psychological accounts, points out conceptual spaces that are largely unexplored in cross-cultural psychology (something that is observed and lamented by these authors in their articles here and elsewhere) and suggests avenues for future research about cultural diversity.

Commentary: Nuancing the Meaning of Cultural Diversity

The featured articles in the section on cultural diversity across the Pacific address important cultural issues in psychology as applied to psychopathology (Marsella & Yamada, 2011), intercultural relations and acculturation (Berry, 2011) and the phenomenon of culture shock (Furnham, 2011). We appreciate how the three articles offer a wide multidisciplinary lens and view mental problems from this broader vantage point. Beyond narratives of biology and individual personality dispositions, the authors include an anthropologists' eye to viewing mental illness (Marsella & Yamada, 2011), use sociological explanations of intergroup relations in a multicultural model of acculturation (Berry, 2011) and refer to demographic migration patterns to elucidate culture shock among foreign students (Furnham, 2011). The contribution of this set of writings lies in its insightful emphasis on how culture interfaces with one's subjective life. Our essay unpacks the cultural lens used in the psychological accounts, points out conceptual spaces that are largely unexplored in cross-cultural psychology (something that is observed and lamented by these authors in their articles here and elsewhere) and suggests avenues for future research about cultural diversity.

Income Dynamics, Economic Rents and the Financialization of the US Economy

The 2008 collapse of the world financial system, while proximately linked to the housing bubble and risk laden mortgage backed securities, was a consequence of the financialization of the U.S. economy since the 1970s. This paper examines the institutional and income dynamics associated with financialization, advancing a sociological explanation of the large shifts of income into the finance sector. Complementary developments included banking deregulation, finance industry concentration, the increased size and scope of institutional investors, the shareholder value movement, and the dominance of the neoliberal policy model. As a result we estimate that since 1980 between 5.8 and 6.6 trillion dollars were transferred to the finance sector. We conclude that understanding inequality dynamics requires attention to market institutions and politics.

Learning to Hate the Hun

Review Article| June 01 2011 Learning to Hate the Hun For Home and Country: World War I Propaganda on the Home Front, by Kingsbury, Celia Malone, University of Nebraska Press, 2010. 309 pages. Brooke Horvath Brooke Horvath Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Twentieth-Century Literature (2011) 57 (2): 264–271. https://doi.org/10.1215/0041462X-2011-3006 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Twitter Permissions Search Site Citation Brooke Horvath; Learning to Hate the Hun. Twentieth-Century Literature 1 June 2011; 57 (2): 264–271. doi: https://doi.org/10.1215/0041462X-2011-3006 Download citation file: Zotero Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search Books & JournalsAll JournalsTwentieth-Century Literature Search Advanced Search The text of this article is only available as a PDF. Copyright © Hofstra University2011 Article PDF first page preview Close Modal Issue Section: Reviews You do not currently have access to this content.

Turistas que llegan para quedarse. Una explicación sociológica sobre la movilidad residencial. Raquel Huete Nieves. Alicante: Publicaciones de la Universidad de Alicante. 2009

The book Tourists who come to give themselves. A sociological explanation of residential mobility is one of the most recent results of Raquel Huete’s teaching and research career, focused on opening the analysis and planning of tourism activity to the perspectives of the Sociology of Tourism. For more than a decade the author is part of a consolidated research team that, with center in the University of Ali- It has questioned the nature of residential tourism and made its social and cultural implications visible in many forums. Its publications over the years put at stake experiences accumulated in national and international work networks, as demonstrated by the recent volume Tourism, Urban development and lifestyles published together with professors Tomas Ma- zon and Alejandro Mantecon in 2009 and which compiles the contributions of specialists in the field distributed across different continents (Icaria Editorial, Barcelona). In fact, the empirical material compiled in the book that occupies this review is the result of one of the different research projects that has obtained the economic support of the Spanish government entities.