Historical Sociology - Abstracts

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Have Historical Sociologists Forsaken Theory? Thoughts on the History/Theory Relationship - JILL QUADAGNO, STAN J. KNAPP, Florida State University, Sociological Methods & Research, Vol. 20, No. 4, 481-507 (1992)

The Debate on Historical Sociology: Rational Choice Theory and Its Critics by: Edgar Kiser, Michael Hechter
The American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 104, No. 3. (1998), pp. 785-816.

Historical Sociology and Time RONALD AMINZADE, University of Minnesota
Sociological Methods & Research, Vol. 20, No. 4, 456-480 (1992)

The Fourth Wave in Historical Sociology: Lessons From and For International Relations Lawson, George
Paper presented at the annual meeting of the ISA's 49th ANNUAL CONVENTION.

Time-Sensitivity in Comparative-Historical Sociology: Temporality and the Techniques of the Late “Second Wave” Villegas, Celso, Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Sociological Association

Historical Sociology in International Relations: Open Society, Research Programme and Vocation George Lawsona, Department of Politics, Goldsmiths College, University of London

Why Political Economy Needs Historical Sociology Leonard Seabrookea, International Politics (2007) 44, 390–413. doi:10.1057/palgrave.ip.8800197

Which historical sociology? A Response to Stephen Hobden's 'Theorising the International System' DANIEL NEXON, Review of International Studies (2001), 27:2:273-280 Cambridge University Press

Revisiting general theory in historical sociology Article from:Social Forces Article date:December 1, 2004
The role of general theory in the field of historical sociology has been the subject of a long and heated debate.

Romancing the Field: The Marriage of Feminism and Historical Sociology AVA BARON, Social Politics: International Studies in Gender, State & Society, Volume 5, Number 1, pp. 17-37 © 1998 Oxford University Press

Transforming Localities Reflections on Time, Causality and Narrative In Contemporary Historical Sociology Journal article by Larry W. Isaac, Historical Methods, Vol. 30, 1997

Negotiating a Market, Performing Theory: The Historical Sociology of a Financial Derivatives Exchange Donald MacKenzie, University of Edinburgh - School of Social and Political Studies
Yuval Millo, London School of Economics & Political Science (LSE) - Accounting Department

HISTORY AND SOCIOLOGY by Franz Oppenheimer - in: William Fielding Ogburn, Alexander Goldenweiser, The Social Sciences and their Interrelations, Cambridge 1927

Have Historical Sociologists Forsaken Theory?
Thoughts on the History/Theory Relationship
JILL QUADAGNO, STAN J. KNAPP, Florida State University
Sociological Methods & Research, Vol. 20, No. 4, 481-507 (1992)
With the re-emergence of historical sociology as a dominant focus of inquiry has come a renewed interest in more general methodological, theoretical, and epistemological issues that have long occupied debates about the relationship between history and theory. A recently published article by Edgar Kiser and Michael Hechter brings to the fore several core themes in these debates. Kiser and Hechter claim that comparative historical sociologists not only have turned against general theory but theories in general. The authors argue that these conclusions are based on a narrow definition of the enterprise of historical sociology and on an attempt to confine the definition of theory to general laws. In this article, they first demonstrate that historical sociologists have not forsaken theory. Next, they articulate the dilemmas that general theories defined as general laws pose for historical analysis, and finally, they delineate what methodologically selfconscious historical sociologists have identified as the core elements of a temporally grounded historical sociology.

Historical Sociology and Time
RONALD AMINZADE, University of Minnesota
Sociological Methods & Research, Vol. 20, No. 4, 456-480 (1992)
Historical sociologists have criticized their discipline for a tendency to ignore the temporal dimensions of social life, either by studying the correlates of outcomes rather than the character of temporally connected events or by treating events as surface manifestations of large-scale and long-term processes of change. These critiques have led to a reassessment of the value of narratives and to new methods for mapping historical sequences of events. Yet there has been relatively little discussion of the concepts needed to create a more event-centered historical sociology. This article explores the way in which four different concepts of time-duration, pace, trajectory, and cycle-have been used in recent historical social science. These concepts allow one to analyze the temporal characteristics of connected events that constitute long-term historical processes as well as the way in which actors understand and experience the temporal flow of events. They are most useful, the author argues when employed in a manner that is attentive to the understandings of social actors and the problematic reconstruction of the past. These concepts constitute building blocks for the construction of a more event-centered historical sociology.

The Fourth Wave in Historical Sociology: Lessons From and For International Relations
Lawson, George
Paper presented at the annual meeting of the ISA's 49th ANNUAL CONVENTION.
Abstract: In his groundbreaking study of historical sociology, Dennis Smith argued that there had been three waves of post-war historical sociology, each of which had emerged out of the challenges of a particular historical conjuncture. It is therefore little surprise that the post-Cold War world has seen the emergence of a renewed and re-emboldened historical sociology, both within and beyond IR. This paper examines how five aspects of this renewal ā€“ a turn towards world history, examination of the formative role of the non-West in the making of the modern world, conceptualization of the importance of agency in world historical processes, increasing attention to ideational causative processes, and heightened methodological awareness ā€“ have helped to reinvigorate the historical sociological imagination. The result is a ā€œfourth waveā€ of historical sociology which has far reaching possibilities, both for IR and the wider academy.

Time-Sensitivity in Comparative-Historical Sociology: Temporality and the Techniques of the Late “Second Wave”
Villegas, Celso
Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Sociological Association
Abstract: As comparative-historical sociology moves towards a “Third Wave,” there are implicit tensions between a more formalized comparative-historical sociology, based on “big questions” and an explicitly critical comparative-historical sociology that focuses on rethinking what were once “given” concepts – race, class, gender, group, etc. . Still, while comparative-historical researchers lead the way in developing advanced small-N methods and theorizing about time, explicit methodological discussions about how the specification of methods and the specification of temporal processes affect each other is few and far between. Bracketing causal inference and hypothesis testing, this paper discusses how the methods and strategies one chooses – descriptive-inferential, nominal, ordinal, and sequence analysis – are related to the types of temporal processes that comparative-historical analysis proposes to be so sensitive about.

Historical Sociology in International Relations: Open Society, Research Programme and Vocation
George Lawsona
Department of Politics, Goldsmiths College, University of London, New Cross, London SE14 6NW, UK. E-mail: g.lawson@gold.ac.uk
International Politics (2007) 44, 343–368. doi:10.1057/palgrave.ip.8800195
Abstract: Over the last 20 years, historical sociology has become an increasingly conspicuous part of the broader field of International Relations (IR) theory, with advocates making a series of interventions in subjects as diverse as the origins and varieties of international systems over time and place, to work on the co-constitutive relationship between the international realm and state–society relations in the processes of radical change. However, even as historical sociology in IR (HSIR) has produced substantial gains, so there has also been a concomitant watering down of the underlying approach itself. As a result, it is no longer clear what exactly HSIR entails: should it be seen as operating within the existing pool of available theories or as an attempt to reconvene the discipline on new foundations? This article sets out an identifiable set of assumptions and precepts for HSIR based on deep ontological realism, epistemological relationism, a methodological free range, and an overt normative engagement with the events and processes that make up contemporary world politics. As such, HSIR can be seen as operating as an open society, a research programme and a vocation.

The Debate on Historical Sociology: Rational Choice Theory and Its Critics
by: Edgar Kiser, Michael Hechter
The American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 104, No. 3. (1998), pp. 785-816.
Abstract: In the past two decades, many sociologists have denied the usefulness of general theories in favor of more particularistic approaches to historical explanation, which makes it difficult to specify both the causal relations and the causal mechanisms that account for social outcomes. This article offers some philosophical and theoretical justifications for the use of general theory in historical analysis and contends that general theory guides the selection of facts, provides a source of generalizable causal mechanisms, facilitates the cumulation of knowledge across substantive domains, reveals anomalies that lead to new questions, and creates the conditions under which existing theories can be supplanted by superior ones. The authors further outline the concrete research practices that flow from their approach and discuss several empirical studies that exemplify these five advantages.

Why Political Economy Needs Historical Sociology
Leonard Seabrookea
International Politics (2007) 44, 390–413. doi:10.1057/palgrave.ip.8800197
International Center for Business and Politics, Copenhagen Business School, Steen Blichers Vej 22, 2000 Frederiksberg, Denmark. E-mail: ls.cbp@cbs.dk, L.Seabrooke@anu.edu.au
Abstract: Much of the literature in political economy seeks to capture an essential insight into the evolution of political and economic systems to provide a foundation for policy advice. This article suggests that attempts to nut out the kernels of change often restrict rather than expand policy imagination. Three 'fevers' are identified as involved in the narrowing of policy imagination and two 'tonics' are offered to widen it. The three fevers are: (1) viewing the present as natural; (2) seeing history as overtly path dependent; and (3) viewing history as driven by 'Great Men'. These fevers limit our capacity to see political, social, and economic changes that do not conform to conventional theories, as well as distorting our understanding of how the contemporary world works. What policymakers want, more than prediction or recitation of conventional theories, is context to understand how policy can be implemented. Historical sociology provides a way to generate information about the complexities that make events unique, as 'contextual constellations', through two 'tonics': intentional rationality and social mechanisms. With the assistance of these tonics, historical sociology widens political economy's policy imagination.

Which historical sociology? A Response to Stephen Hobden's 'Theorising the International System'
DANIEL NEXON
Review of International Studies (2001), 27:2:273-280 Cambridge University Press
Copyright © 2001 British International Studies Association doi:10.1017/S0260210500002734
Abstract: In a recent article in the Review of International Studies, Stephen Hobden does a great service by initiating a critical evaluation of the potential for historical sociology in international relations theory. Hobden considers seminal studies by Michael Mann, Theda Skocpol, Charles Tilly, and Immanuel Wallerstein, and concludes that each is inadequate for building an historical sociology of the international system. Articles such as Hobden's are particularly important in international relations, where many major theories are dependent upon the assumptions and methods of other disciplines. From time to time, we need to ask, in a comparative manner, just how useful such methods and assumptions really are.

Revisiting general theory in historical sociology
Article from:Social Forces Article date:December 1, 2004
The role of general theory in the field of historical sociology has been the subject of a long and heated debate. (1) Although one would not necessarily expect this debate to have produced consensus on the merits of general theories, one might hope it would have "clear[ed] up enough confusion for practitioners to decide where to place their bets" (Gould 2005). Yet, this does not appear to have taken place. The debate has tailed to yield a single, intelligible definition of "general theory," much less a solid understanding of the ways in which general theories are intended to contribute to substantive research.

Romancing the Field: The Marriage of Feminism and Historical Sociology
AVA BARON
Social Politics: International Studies in Gender, State & Society, Volume 5, Number 1, pp. 17-37 © 1998 Oxford University Press
This essay explores the diverse ways that the relationship between feminism and historical sociology has been represented. The author notes some of the ways historical sociology has changed over the past few decades and the ways some researchers have incorporated gender into their analyses. But the author concludes that a "feminist revolution" still has not taken place. The underlying theoretical assumptions of historical sociology, particularly its reliance on traditional theories of social change and class analysis, continue to marginalize gender issues. The relationship of feminism and historical sociology raises the broader question of whether feminism should be integrated into traditional disciplinary approaches or whether such integration threatens the basis for feminist critical inquiry.

From Universal History to Historical Sociology
by J. A. Banks © 1989 The London School of Economics and Political Science.
Abstract: The first two professors of sociology in England thought their major research task to be to examine the writings of historians, anthropologists and others in order to write comparative and evolutionary histories of mankind. The first wave of expansion of sociology after the war changed this emphasis. Small scale studies, using detailed primary sources, traced short-term developments in a selected area of interest. Studies of the here and now dominated sociology for some time. Twenty years later a second wave changed the emphasis again towards theoretical speculation, although the concept of time now held primary place, just as it had before the war. Historical sociology nevertheless languished until the impact of second-wave feminism, with its emphasis on women having been hidden from history, gave it an impetus which promises much in the future.

Transforming Localities Reflections on Time, Causality and Narrative In Contemporary Historical Sociology
Journal article by Larry W. Isaac
Historical Methods, Vol. 30, 1997
In the Call for papers for this thematic issue of Historical Methods, I solicited empirical contributions that demonstrate the theoretical and methodological diversity, novelty, utility, and aesthetic that historical sociologists have brought to a wide variety of substantive areas. The only criterion of appropriateness was that analyses should be grounded theoretically in an inferential logic that is systematic, while taking seriously historical process and temporality. Research approaches employing formal and/or nonformal analytic methods were welcome. Of the many proposals and articles I received, four that best fit the parameters of the call are published here.
Three articles employ formal analytic methods but do so to quite different ends. Larry Griffin and associates use qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) to explore the complex of state-specific conditions that lead southern states to formally disfranchise African Americans during the late nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries. In the process, they develop a compelling critique of several cherished tenets of conventional social science methodology, especially the presumed necessity of maximizing case diversity for meaningful analysis. The result is a forceful illustration of the potential of QCA for modeling a case configuration with a smaller number of observations and limited diversity.
Larry Isaac and Kevin Leicht employ a modified form of time-series analysis--temporarily recursive or time-varying parameter models--to illustrate how the power of different analytic...

Negotiating a Market, Performing Theory: The Historical Sociology of a Financial Derivatives Exchange
Donald MacKenzie, University of Edinburgh - School of Social and Political Studies
Yuval Millo, London School of Economics & Political Science (LSE) - Accounting Department
Abstract: This analysis of the origins and development of a key financial derivatives market, the Chicago Board Options Exchange, suggests that social interaction in such markets generates trust, permits solution of collective action problems, and affects pricing. The growing cognitive complexity of option trading implies that the unaided human being cannot be homo economicus: material means of calculation have become constitutive of economic action, and economic theory has become performative. The empirical history of option pricing falls into three distinct periods, and the paper postulates that "cultural memory" of the 1987 crash explains the pattern of pricing in the most recent period.

HISTORY AND SOCIOLOGY - by Franz Oppenheimer - in: William Fielding Ogburn, Alexander Goldenweiser, The Social Sciences and their Interrelations, Cambridge 1927, - Between sociologists and historians there has existed since the first inception of sociological ideas, even since the time of Condorcet, a sharp difference, a state of battle, which grows out of two different sources - a psychological and a scientifico-logical. - The psychological difference is based on the fact that all the older writing of history viewed and evaluated events from the standpoint of the upper class. It was, as soon as it had grown out of the embryonic stage of writing mere annals or chronicles, of three kinds: first, court historiography, with the clearly set task of glorifying the deeds and creations of the ruler; or secondly, it was clerical philosophy of history, which explained events from the standpoint of the ruling church as the carrying out of a divine plan of salvation, and was for this reason necessarily quietistic, conservative, anti-revolutionary; or finally, it was history-writing of the third estate, which had either already gained control of its state or was at least preparing to do so, and if it had not already attained to complete victory politically, at least it already possessed sufficient economic means to want political control and to be able to force it in the not too distant future. On the other hand, the first representatives of sociological thought viewed things as socialists from below, and this attitude has never been entirely lost by their successors, as for example Comte, who had primarily bourgeois tendencies.

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