bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
G
albraith,
J
ohn
Authors: Reisman David
Published: December 2017

John Kenneth Galbraith (1908–2006) was an American economist and political scientist. He was a prolific author and contributor to national debates. His principal books include
The Affluent Society
(1958),
The New Industrial State
(1967), and
Economics and the Public Purpose
(1973). Galbraith was concerned about the manipulation of demand, the under‐provision of public services, and the neglect of the environment in the pursuit of rapid economic growth. His interest in the symbiosis between state and corporate bureaucracies led him to express doubts about the “military and industrial complex” which he held responsible in part for the arms buildup and the Vietnam conflict.
G
eertz,
C
lifford
Authors: Obadia Lionel
Published: December 2017

Clifford Geertz is a major figure in mid‐twentieth‐century cultural anthropology. His approach to culture and religion, ethnography, and epistemology led to deep debates, not only within, but also beyond, his disciplinary borders. Founding his analysis on hermeneutics, he paved the way for a critical epistemology of cultural description, for writing cultures, and for a constructivist view of reality. He also defended more classical, culturalist conceptions, especially when it came to religion – and these were most radically criticized. His theoretical and methodological contributions are most valued in contemporary anthropology.
Generation(s)
Authors: Attias‐Donfut Claudine
Published: December 2017

The social sciences are experiencing a strong development of academic work referring to the concept of generation. In the extensive literature on this subject, the term “generation” has multiple meanings but two in particular: one anthropological and related to the family, and the other sociological and demographic, linked to the notion of a birth cohort.
Genetic Testing
Authors: Daw Jonathan , Ejem Deborah
Published: December 2017

Genetic testing is relevant for understanding health and ancestry in four key ways: genetic ancestry testing; assisted reproductive technologies; genetic disease susceptibility testing; and the promise of personalized medicine. This entry briefly reviews the key terms and characteristics of each of these forms of genetic testing.
Genetics
Authors: Liz Jordan
Published: December 2017

Beginning in the nineteenth century with the work of Gregor Mendel, genetics is the study of genetic variation and heredity in living organisms. Heredity is a biological process wherein offspring inherit certain genes from each of their parents. The expression of these genes then, in turn, influences the biological traits of the offspring. Many traits, however, depend on the expression of several genes and gene–environment interactions. While some of these traits are phenotypical, such as hair color, eye color, and skin color, other genes may make individuals biologically more susceptible to specific diseases. As such, genetic testing has greatly impacted medical practices by facilitating the discovery of these defective mutants in individual patients. Nevertheless, the growth of genetic studies and testing has prompted numerous criticisms from feminist, race theorists, and disabilities scholars about the social ramifications of genetic discourse.
Genocide
Authors: Short Damien
Published: December 2017

The United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide was the product of the balance of power between political interests and exhaustive work of the term's inventor, Raphael Lemkin (1900–1959), who tirelessly attempted to retain as much of his original conception as possible. During the UN drafting debates the protection of “cultural” groups was consigned to conventions on human rights and minority rights. However, for Lemkin it was cultural identity that animated thegenosin genocide. Consequently, the final text of the UN Convention, and many subsequent definitions, are at odds with Lemkin's own formulation and conceptually incoherent. Too often genocide is equated with mass murder, while “cultural genocide,” or “ethnocide” as it is often called in error, is seen as a lesser form of genocide. A conceptually coherent understanding of genocide views “cultural” destruction as a keymethod, ortechnique, of genocidal practice, rather than a lesserform.
Genomics
Authors: Dupré John
Published: December 2017

Genomics is science concerned with the sequencing and analysis of the genome, the full genetic contents of a cell. It has a number of important applications, ranging from phylogenetics to forensics, based on the possibility of comparing genome sequences. It is also a central component of efforts in “systems biology” to understand the complexities of cellular function. More broadly, it is sometimes seen as superseding a reductionist conception of genetics, and even as marking the demise of the traditional nature/nurture dichotomy.
G
ermani,
G
ino
Authors: Contreras‐Vejar Yuri
Published: December 2017

Gino Germani (1911–1979) was born in Rome, Italy. He studied economics during the years of Benito Mussolini's fascist regime. He was forced to leave Italy for Argentina in 1934, and studied philosophy and sociology at the University of Buenos Aires, where he continued working as a research assistant. In 1944, with the rise of Peronism, he was forced out of academia, and found refuge as editor at the publishing houses Paidós and Abril. His editorial work had a enormous intellectual influence in Argentina and Latin America. In 1955, he published
Estructura Social de la Argentina
, and in 1957 he founded the first sociology department at the University of Buenos Aires. In 1966, he accepted the Monroe Guttman Chair of Latin American Affairs and Sociology at Harvard University. In the calm atmosphere of this North American institution, Germani published his
opus magnum
in three volumes on the nature of the drastic modernization processes that had radically transformed Latin American societies.
Ghetto
Authors: Hugill David
Published: December 2017

The term “ghetto” has been used to describe zones of ethnic, religions, and “racial” concentration in a range of urban contexts, from early modern Venice to the contemporary United States. This entry surveys the varied ways that this contested term has been taken up.
G
offman,
E
rving
Authors: Bakker J. I. (Hans)
Published: December 2017

The sociologist Erving Goffman (1922–1982) became noted for his contributions to the study of interaction in everyday‐life situations. Goffman's
The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life
is one of the “books of the century” according to the International Sociological Association (ISA) poll, and has been translated into many other languages. He was not a psychologist and he did not contribute directly to psychology as a discipline, hence few psychological social psychologists cite him in their work. The social psychological study of everyday life by sociologists contributes to the qualitative sociological study of social psychology, but is rejected by many quantitative psychologists. Goffman is best known for emphasizing the “presentation” of one's self in public places. He differentiates the sociological “front stage” of public life from the “back stage” of one's private life. His approach was eclectic, but as an astute observer he noticed subtle nuances of interaction patterns that others did not see. He has been criticized for too often changing his key terms and for not always making a consistent argument from one book to another. He was consistent in his method, often called a “dramaturgical approach” because it involves seeing the world as a stage. Goffman remains one of the most widely read sociologists and he is often seen as a leading symbolic interactionist theorist.
Gouldner,AlvinWard
Authors: Chriss James
Published: December 2017

Alvin Ward Gouldner (1920–1980) was an American sociologist who contributed to social theory in his criticisms of functionalism, organizational theory, the sociology of strike behavior, and the Marxist theory. He held various professorships in the United States and The Netherlands, and was the president of the Society for the Study of Social Problems (1962).
Guanxi (Chinese networks)
Authors: Barbalet Jack
Published: December 2017

Guanxi
relations, which are affective and obligatory, always involve the provision of a favor for which the benefits are compound, including immediate and also potential or future elements for both the favor seeker and provider that are substantive and also reputational.
Guanxi
relations are cultivated and, as they involve reciprocity, obligation, and affectively charged moral assessments and commitments, endure as a network of structured engagements. The costs of membership in
guanxi
networks are not negligible but are typically regarded as acceptable in terms of the available advantages.
H
albwachs,
M
aurice
Authors: Truc Gérôme
Published: December 2017

Maurice Halbwachs (1877–1945), one of the most important French sociologists of the first half of the twentieth century, appears today as the main contributor to the renewal of the Durkheimian paradigm by making it theoretically less dogmatic and by enlarging the domain of its empirical studies. He is also known as the “inventor” of the sociology of memory. Through the notion of “collective memory,” he brought to light the socialized nature of memory. Against the Bergsonian conception of memory as the reminiscence of the past, he shows that every memory is actually a reconstruction of the past from the present, framed by our social life.
Health Lifestyle Theory
Authors: Cockerham William C.
Published: December 2017

Health lifestyles are defined as collective patterns of health‐related behavior based on choices from options available to people according to their life chances. Health lifestyle theory maintains that health lifestyles choices are not the unconnected random choices of individuals, but cluster in distinct patterns based on class, gender, and other structural variables. The theory, formulated by Cockerham in 2005 and based on the earlier work of Weber (1978) and Bourdieu (1984), emphasizes the manner in which structural variables, such as class circumstances, age, gender, and race/ethnicity, collectivities (social networks), and living conditions provide the social context for socialization and experience that ultimately determine lifestyle dispositions and practices.
Heterosexism and Homophobia
Authors: Moore Laura M.
Published: December 2017

Heterosexism and homophobia are terms commonly used to refer to the prejudice and discrimination exhibited by a society toward nonheterosexuals. Whereas homophobia is defined as negative responses individuals may have when in proximity to homosexuals, heterosexism is deemed to come from shared beliefs in the innate superiority of, or an unexamined bias toward, heterosexuality and not necessarily from an irrational phobia of homosexuals. In addition, the term heterosexism more clearly captures institutionalized discrimination. Debates abound regarding the appropriate terminology and measures that should be used to capture individual‐ and institutional‐level oppression experienced by sexual minorities in the twenty‐first century.
Heterosexuality
Authors: Poole Lisa
Published: December 2017

Heterosexuality is a sexual orientation where there is emotional, romantic, and/or sexual attraction and desire between two people of the “opposite” sex and gender. It is a socially constructed concept, originating in Euro‐Western society and sciences, based on the idea of difference – hetero meaning different – and binary sex, gender, and sexuality. Heterosexuality is situated as the “normal” sexuality, while homosexuality is situated as deviant, but also as binary to heterosexuality. A monolith category of sexuality, heterosexuality has spread globally, obscuring the various ways people are sexual and disallowing sexualities outside of the norm. Heterosexuality has become naturalized, thought as inherent and enduring; all people are typically considered heterosexual until stated otherwise. Queer and feminist theorists disrupt these normative ideas of sexual orientation and the institutionalization of heterosexuality.
H
ohfeld,
W
esley
N
ewcomb
Authors: Turner Bryan S.
Published: December 2017

Wesley Newcomb Hohfeld (1879–1918) was a famous American jurist and author of
Fundamental Legal Conceptions as Applied in Judicial Reasoning and Other Legal Essays
(1919). Throughout his career he published exclusively in law journals and two articles from the
Yale Law Journal
(1913 and 1917) were revised as the basis of
Fundamental Legal Conceptions
. His work became foundational for theories of rights. He was born in California in 1879, graduated from the University of California, Berkeley in 1901and later graduated from Harvard Law School. After a period at Stanford Law School (1905–1913), he taught at Yale Law School until his death in 1918.
Homosexuality
Authors: Kinsman Gary
Published: December 2017

Social theory is the ways in which people have theorized how the “social” works in emerging and developing capitalist social relations. “Homosexuality” is a term that emerges in the later nineteenth century in the “West” among psychiatrists and sexologists to describe the “truth” of people's beings who had sex with members of the same gender, especially men who had sex with other men. Bringing social theory together with “homosexuality” combines broader social analysis with the realm of bodies and eroticism and how “homosexualities” are lived, constructed, and analyzed. It joins together what has often been described as the “public” and “political” realms with what has often been portrayed as a “private” realm of erotic desires. This linkage makes it clear that, as the feminist method puts it, the “personal is political,” making visible links between sexualities and broader social and political relations and extending social theory into terrains of bodies and desires. The bringing together of same‐gender eroticism with social theory has created an explosive and generative terrain for social theorizing about the roots of homosexual oppression, essentialist versus social constructionist theorizing of sexualities, debates over queer theory, and challenges to the universality of homosexuality.
Huizinga,Johan
Authors: Krieken Robert Van
Published: December 2017

Born in Groningen, The Netherlands, Johan Huizinga (1872–1945) was a student of Indo‐German languages and comparative linguistics, becoming a professor of general and Dutch history at Groningen University (1905–1915), and later at the University of Leiden (1915–1941). He was an outspoken critic of Nazi occupation, for which he was held in detention. Huizinga is famous for two publications:The Waning of the Middle Ages(1919; translated 1921) andHomo Ludens(1938; translated 1949).
Human Capital
Authors: Hage Jerald
Published: December 2017

Sociological approaches to human capital theory provide exceptions and qualifications to economic theories about return to wages, inequality, and economic growth. Both cultural capital and social capital explain exceptions about return to wages. Inequality of access to education persists across both race and gender. Also, a specific kind of human capital, technical education, is now most critical for economic growth.
Immigration
Authors: Fowler Rebecca A.
Published: December 2017

Immigration runs as a thread throughout human history. From time immemorial, people have migrated in search of greater economic opportunities and better living conditions. Immigration arises from a host of factors, including civil wars, ethnic cleansing, and natural disasters, and has increased due to the rise of human‐made disasters resulting in the deterioration of ecosystems. At the turn of the twenty‐first century, immigration has gained momentum as a global phenomenon. International movements of workers, refugees, and their families cross state borders in tandem with global exchanges of capital, commodities, and information, all facilitated by a revolution in transportation and communication technologies. More than half of the world's states play a role in a global migratory system composed of sending, receiving, and transit countries. In 2010, the number of immigrants worldwide reached 214 million and permanent migrant flows from the Global South to the Global North number an estimated 2.5 million.
Incomplete Information
Authors: Agassi Joseph
Published: December 2017

The theory of decisions under incomplete information comes to explain and to improve decision processes. It is a part of the methodology of the social sciences and the social technologies. Information may be incomplete as items in it are missing, incorrect, or vague. All sets of information relevant to decisions are incomplete. The theory is developed under strong idealizations that do not impede its applicability.
Industrial/Postindustrial Society
Authors: Deutschmann Christoph
Published: December 2017

The term “industrial society” covers a historical categorization of the industrial mode of social reproduction, in addition to sociological theories on the social conditions and consequences of industrial development. The history of such theories extends from the early nineteenth century (Saint‐Simon, Marx, Spencer) to the 1960s (Rostow, Aron, Galbraith). Theories of “postindustrial society” became influential in the last third of the twentieth century. They focus on the growth of services, the increasing role of knowledge work, and digital information technologies and their social consequences; leading authors are Bell, Beck, Giddens, and Castells.
Industrialization and Deindustrialization
Authors: Pula Besnik
Published: December 2017

Industrialization is the process by which an agrarian and handicraft economy comes to be substituted by an economy in which production is carried out using machine manufacture. Industrialization brought about change not only at the level of the economy, but also of social structure, politics, and culture. Virtually all classical social theorists saw industrialization as a historically disruptive force in British and European society, and also worldwide as European nations exported industrial methods overseas. Deindustrialization refers to the process by which industry comes to play an increasingly smaller role in the structure of the economy owing to the growth of the service sector or the disappearance of industries from national economies as they are trounced by foreign competition or reduced in size owing to technological change.
Inflation
Authors: Smith Michael R.
Published: December 2017

The surge in inflation in the 1970s, followed by stagflation, provoked a significant amount of research on the subject by sociologists and political scientists. That research challenged economists' view that the inflation had been caused by some combination of policy error and political irresponsibility. Instead, it was argued, inflation was caused by a stronger working class, which limited governments' macro‐economic policy choices. Following from this, the countries that succeeded in avoiding stagflation did so by engaging organized labor in the collective pursuit of growing productivity through neocorporatist institutions.
Institutions
Authors: Hodgson Geoffrey M.
Published: December 2017

Discussion of the nature and role of institutions is now ubiquitous in the social sciences. Institutions are widely accepted as important in helping to explain numerous social and economic outcomes. This entry discusses ways of defining institutions and how they relate to human behavior. The definition and analysis of institutions are different tasks, the former being a prerequisite of the latter. A near‐consensus exists that institutions are basically systems of social rules, where rules are understood as involving shared propensities, obligations, and beliefs.
J
ames,
C. L. R
Authors: Smith Delphia S. , Wiggan Greg
Published: December 2017

Cyril Lionel Robert James (1901–1989), also known as C. L. R. James, is recognized as one of the most seminal twentieth‐century theorists on racial and ethnic relations. He is also known as one of the leading figures of the Pan‐African movement and African liberation struggle. Through his writing, James explored issues of race, ethnicity, social class, and politics. Early in his career, James was a major contributor to Marxism and also the organization of trade unions. However, as he evolved he became more of a Pan‐Africanist. James was a social thinker and a political and sports analyst. Today, James's work continues to intrigue and provoke thought sounding the impact of racial and ethnic relations in the world.
Justice
Authors: Dagistanli Selda
Published: December 2017

Justice is an elusive concept whose meaning is contested across disparate institutional contexts and within different schools of thought. Scholarship in the Western tradition, within moral, legal, and political philosophy, and across modernist and postmodernist approaches more generally, is divided on how justice is achieved and for whom, or whether it is even possible to accomplish. While justice is commonly associated with law and criminal justice, it has a much wider scope into the concerns of social justice, encompassing the distribution of social goods and overarching principles of fairness, equality, and rights. How these fundamental rights and goods are distributed within plural societies forms the foundations of different theories and approaches to justice.
K
elsen,
H
ans
Authors: Turner Bryan S.
Published: December 2017

Hans Kelsen (1881–1973) is often regarded as the most influential legal scholar of the twentieth century. He was the legal adviser to the last emperor of the Austro‐Habsburg Empire and its first republican government, the permanent adviser to the Supreme Constitutional Court of Austria, and the author of Austria's constitution. Enacted in 1920, it was abolished during the Nazi
Anschluss
, and then restored in 1945. The author of many books, he is best known for his
Pure Theory of Law
and
General Theory of Law and State
. Dean of the Law Faculty at the University of Vienna, he taught in many universities throughout Europe and the United States.
Labor Law
Authors: Chapman Anna
Published: December 2017

Labor law is the field of law governing work relations. It covers the legal entitlements and duties that exist between workers, who provide their services under contract, and the hirers of those services, in addition to the legal regulation of the activities of trade unions. This entry describes the major intellectual dimensions of labor law, changes over time, and current debates in the field.
Labor Theory of Value
Authors: Rössel Jörg
Published: December 2017

The labor theory of value is a theory of values and prices of products and services, which was developed by classical political economy, especially its main proponents Adam Smith, David Ricardo, and Karl Marx. Its basic assumption is that the value of goods and services is based on the amount of labor embodied in them. Some proponents of the labor theory of value assume that prices and profits have a systematic relationship to the underlying values of goods and services. The main problems of the theory are threefold: first, there is no accepted solution on how to transform values into market prices; second, it is not clear how to reduce all different forms of labor to one abstract value creating labor; and third, it is not necessary to know values to explain prices and profits, thus values are redundant.
Law
Authors: Voyce Malcolm
Published: December 2017

This entry examines law, including natural and customary law, jurisprudence, and Sharia.

Law is defined as a system of rules that are generally recognized by a community of people. Such rules regulate actions of members. Generally, rules must be of a general nature applicable to all similar situations, and must be enforceable by sanctions or by a punishment. Natural law is a form of philosophy of law, which regards law as being subject to higher moral principles. Customary law is a system of practices of indigenous people that have a long consistent usage. Jurisprudence is legal philosophy or theory of law. Sharia is the divine law as expressed in the Qur'an and through the example of the life of the Prophet Muhammad.
L
e
P
lay,
F
rédéric
Authors: Garrigós‐Monerris José Ignacio
Published: December 2017

Frédéric Le Play (1806–1882) pioneered empirical research in sociology. He based his work on the study of specific cases. Within his “family monographs” method he chose average families from each society as his study objects and prepared a practical guide about how to perform social studies. He combined quantitative indicators with qualitative analyses in his work. He was interested in the development of a social reform that could guarantee social stability.
Legal Formalism
Authors: Dagistanli Selda
Published: December 2017

Legal formalism, also commonly known as “black letter law,” refers to an intellectual perspective that asserts the absolute autonomy of law through a separation of law and politics, while positing the law's immanent intelligibility and coherence. Formalist approaches seek determinate legal outcomes through a process of deductive logic where the premises mobilized and conclusions reached are sourced internally, within the law's “immanent moral rationality,” rather than derived from discourses external to law.
Legal Positivism
Authors: Moore Wayne D.
Published: December 2017

The central tenet of legal positivism is that laws are enacted, or “posited,” by human beings. In other words, law derives its authority as such from political and social practices rather than existing “naturally” (independently of such practices). This core idea, that law is socially constructed, has a long and deep pedigree. Leading proponents of legal positivism have included Jeremy Bentham, John Austin, Hans Kelsen, H. L. A. Hart, Joseph Raz, and Leslie Green. Its most prominent critics have included Lon Fuller and Ronald Dworkin. Legal positivism captures well some features of legal systems – especially the ways that constitutions, statutes, and other laws are products of human agency. Even so, it has been highly contested whether the central tenets of this school of thought are adequate to account fully for problems of legal identity and authority, relationships between law and morality, and other matters of legal theory.
Legality
Authors: Crowe Jonathan
Published: December 2017

Legality is the property of being legal. The property is commonly attributed to norms, systems of norms, or actions. The idea of legality can be understood in either a descriptive or a normative sense. There is debate about whether the descriptive and normative senses of legality are distinct or intertwined. A further issue concerns whether legality in the descriptive sense is an all or nothing property or potentially comes in degrees.
Legitimacy
Authors: Ruibal Alba
Published: December 2017

From a sociological perspective, legitimacy is one of the forms of power, grounded on the recognition and acceptance of a system of authority, as well as its rules and decisions, as valid and appropriate by relevant constituencies. It involves judgment by social actors that the relationship between rulers and ruled, as well as existing social arrangements and distributions of power, is justified. Legitimacy lies at the basis of domination and is considered one of the possible grounds for political obligation and voluntary compliance, beyond instrumental explanations based in the influence of rewards and punishment on behavior. The concept of legitimacy has historically been central for political philosophy as well as for modern political sociology. Max Weber advanced a theory of legitimacy, based on people's beliefs, that has dominated twentieth‐century sociological thinking on this issue.
L
évi‐
S
trauss,
C
laude
Authors: Garlitz Dustin
Published: December 2017

This entry focuses on the life and work of French anthropologist and structuralist Claude Lévi‐Strauss (1908–2009). Examined are his formative influences, his place in, and contributions to, French structuralism and modern anthropology, the extent of his theoretical system of structural anthropology, his major publications, his fieldwork, and his time as an émigré scholar in the United States during World War II, including his residency at the New School for Social Research in New York City. His impact in the academic discourses of social theory, continental philosophy, and the arts are evaluated, as are his theories of bricolage, myth, kinship, nature/culture, taboos such as incest, and music.
Lifestyles
Authors: Mele Vincenzo
Published: December 2017

Lifestyle is a means of shaping the individual self by creating cultural and aesthetic forms that consciously or unconsciously express personal identity. The issue surrounding lifestyle is therefore posed as the question of how individuals manage to give a universal form to their individual being. One's body, clothes, speech, leisure pastimes, eating and drinking preferences, home, car, choice of holidays, among other things, can be all considered indicators of the style of an individual. A number of social, biological, and environmental determinants can render lifestyle more than just the resultant of the individual's psychological traits. Postmodern consumer culture has created an incentive to new “lifestyles” to drive the consumption of new commodities as a factor in class distinction and construction. Lifestyles oscillate between the need to express inner self‐consistency and the surrogate of identity propagated by the culture industry.
Life Chances
Authors: Rytina Steven
Published: December 2017

Life chances refer to the range of outcomes open to individuals who share structural locations. Max Weber coined the phrase in his seminal discussion of class, status, and party. Weber's initial usage was narrow, referring to possessions and income opportunities. Since then, usage has widened. While Weber's text fails to cite status honor as a cause for “life chances,” such usage is now very widespread, and life chance differences are attributed to race, to gender, and, more generally, to structural locations of all kinds, that is, to shared social circumstances that are hard, or even impossible, to alter at will. Thus, “life chances” has come to serve as a place‐holder, a sort of wild card, for the wide range of possibilities that are causally influenced by unequal or stratified life situations.
Lipset,SeymourMartin
Authors: Kivisto Peter
Published: December 2017

Seymour Martin Lipset (1918–2006) was born and raised in New York City to Russian‐Jewish immigrants. His father, who met Stalin while in Russia, worked as a typographer in both countries and was favorably disposed toward the Russian Revolution, at one point even contemplating returning to the Soviet Union. On the other hand, both parents encouraged their son to become a dentist, thus they thought ensuring a successful entry into the American mainstream. Lipset did not heed their advice. From this upbringing, Lipset's long career would be shaped by his varied engagements with his Jewish background and socialism.
Luhmann,Niklas
Authors: Moeller Hans‐Georg
Published: December 2017

Niklas Luhmann (1927–1998) was a German social theorist who developed a theory of society as a complex system of communication evolving over time. He presented a highly detailed and conceptually elaborated general description of the functioning of contemporary world society and its various subsystems. Luhmann's social systems theory incorporates elements from a wide spectrum of intellectual traditions including cybernetics, logic, German idealism, phenomenology, postmodernism, and evolutionary biology.
L
ynd,
H
elen and
L
ynd,
R
obert
S
Authors: Turner Bryan S.
Published: December 2017

Helen Merrell Lynd (1896–1982) and Robert Staughton Lynd (1892–1970) were two American sociologists who collaborated on the famous Middletown studies. These were two case studies of Muncie, Indiana, in 1929 and 1937. “Middletown” was chosen on the assumption that Muncie adequately represented an average American city. The period 1929–1937 was significant because Muncie passed from a prosperous city to one that had suffered from the Great Depression. These case studies were important both methodologically in defending the value of an in‐depth empirical study of a single city over time and in providing important evidence of social change and continuity in American culture. The studies identified a powerful Republican elite in the city that had a significant influence on constraining the labor unions and a large working class. This two‐class model suggested that the middle class was weak and small. The Lynds' research, showing a decline in religious belief and practice, was a contribution to the notion that, with the rise of a consumer society, America was also becoming more secular.
Micro‐ and Macro‐Economics
Authors: Martini Carlo
Published: December 2017

Micro‐ and macro‐economics are two of the main branches of economic science, together with economic history, experimental economics, and econometrics. Their difference is primarily a matter of scale: Micro‐economics studies the micro‐scale of economic phenomena, while macro‐economics studies the macro‐scale. While micro‐economics studies how individuals make market decisions in order to satisfy their needs and wants, given the availability of only limited resources, the essential goal of macro‐economics is to look at the global effects of those individual choices. Macro‐economics, in particular Keynesian economics, studies macro‐phenomena in their own respect, trying to detect patterns of relations between measured macro‐economic variables. The choices of billions of single individuals, united in a complex and layered structure of families, firms, governments, and national and international institutions, cause effects at the macro‐level that can be hard to trace back to individual decisions; the goal of the microfoundations literature is to try to connect micro‐ with macro‐economics.
Macro–Micro Split
Authors: Dillon Michele
Published: December 2017

This entry reviews the centrality of macro‐level analysis to the discipline of sociology, and its predominance in sociological theory and social research methodologies. Theoretical perspectives that draw attention to the micro‐dynamics of social life are discussed, as is the difficulty in demarcating the boundaries between macro and micro levels. As highlighted, several theorists transcend this split and in doing so demonstrate the importance of integrating macro and micro if sociological analysis is to provide a comprehensive explanation of social life.
Management, Managerial Revolution, Taylorism
Authors: Smith Kenneth
Published: December 2017

The term “managerialism” is today commonly associated with the work of James Burnham (1905–1987) and in particular with his 1941 book,The Managerial Revolution. However, the lineage of this idea goes back much further than this and probably dates from the time and motion studies of Frederick Taylor (1856–1915). Important here too is the very influential book,The Modern Corporation and Private Property(1932), by Adolf Berle and Gardiner Mean as well as the work of Elton Mayo (1880–1949) the founder of “human resources,” while, more recently, much of this agenda has been taken over by a new, but not dissimilar, emphasis on the “employability” of graduates.
M
annheim,
K
arl
Authors: Kettler David , Loader Colin
Published: December 2017

The continuing theme of Karl Mannheim's social theory is education for rational orientation in a changing world. The central strategy of that endeavor is a distantiation from oneself to gain a more comprehensive perspective. This approach evolved from Mannheim's early cultural sociology to its more political successor, the sociology of knowledge, and finally to the theory of planning.
Markets
Authors: Martini Carlo
Published: December 2017

Originally, markets were venues where goods could be bought and sold. With the development of markets for services, international markets, and other technologies, the word “market” nowadays refers to any system, such as institutions, infrastructures, and social settings, where people exchange goods and services with one another, either directly (as in a barter economy) or through the use of fiat money. Markets are very old institutions, and, as such, they are studied by disciplines like history, sociology, economics, and philosophy. Markets are made up of sellers, buyers, institutions, and infrastructures. The theoretical understanding of the market relations between buyers and sellers is captured by the economic model of demand and supply, while the cultural and ethnocentric aspects of markets are captured by sociological and ethnographic studies.
Matrilineal and Patrilineal Descent
Authors: Ensor Bradley E.
Published: December 2017

Two alternate versions of
unilineal
descent can structure corporate social groups and are related to residence practices. Matrilineal descent restricts group memberships to only those related through mothers and their mothers. Patrilineal descent limits group membership to those who share relationships through fathers. Other kin are excluded. The exclusive corporate unilineal groups (“lineages” or “clans”) provide members with property, spiritual identities, and obligatory social support. The same rights are not found with a father's group (if matrilineal) or a mother's group (if patrilineal). Descent groups are exogamous, which promotes alliances among groups. Residence strategies keep together the gender through which property, inheritance, and succession are determined. The mobile gender contributes to the labor and reproduction of their spouse's and children's group, but with some exceptions they remain members of their own unilineal descent groups. Matrilineal and patrilineal descents have been variably interpreted in evolutionary, historical particularist, functionalist, neo‐Marxist, and feminist perspectives.
Mauss,Marcel
Authors: Komter Aafke Elisabeth
Published: December 2017

The theoretical significance of the insights provided by Marcel Mauss (1872–1950) can hardly be overstated. Originally trained as a philosopher, Marcel Mauss's main contributions lie in the disciplines of social anthropology and sociology. He mostly wrote essays and critiques rather than books, often in collaboration with others. His most famous legacy is his essay onThe Gift, an ethnographic treatise on the social and cultural significance of exchange relations and the principle of reciprocity in so‐called primitive societies. This work is generally recognized as a masterpiece of theoretical thinking about the origins of human bonds and social solidarity.
Theorizing
McDonaldization
Authors: Ritzer George
Published: December 2017

This entry explores some of the theoretical roots of McDonaldization beyond its well‐known basis in Max Weber's work, especially his theory of rationalization. Among the linkages explored are neo‐Marxian theory, including critical theory, poststructural theory (especially Foucault's work), postmodern theory (time–space compression; late capitalism; simulation), and globalization theory.
Medical Model of Illness
Authors: White Kevin
Published: December 2017

The medical model, pivotal to biomedical practice, underpins the way in which sickness and disease is understood within wider society. That is, most of us usually believe that being sick is a straightforward physical event. Dominant since the rise of early germ theory (Pasteur, Koch), the medical model sees illness as a consequence of a germ (virus, parasite, or bacteria) entering the body and causing it to malfunction. The solution to the problem lies in taking professional medical advice and, usually, some form of medication that eradicates the offending organism and restores the body to a stable physical state.
Medicalization
Authors: Davis Joseph E.
Published: December 2017

Medicalization is the designation for the social process by which a very wide range of life problems, behaviors, and emotional experiences, not previously defined as medical, have been descriptively transformed into disorders, illnesses, deficiencies, or targets of medical intervention. Explored by scholars in many fields, medicalization is a powerful process, propelled forward by cultural, political, and economic forces, and raising troubling issues of human good and social welfare.
Mental Health
Authors: DeNora Tia
Published: December 2017

Since Durkheim, mental health has been understood to be a socially systemic and socially produced phenomenon. Sociological investigations on the topic consider cultural classification, medicalization, interpersonal dynamics, and cultural engagement.
M
erleau‐
P
onty,
M
aurice
Authors: Gallagher Shaun , Butler Michael G.
Published: December 2017

Maurice Merleau‐Ponty, French phenomenologist and existential philosopher, emphasized the role of the body in human perception, action, and cognition. He argued against both naturalistic and intellectualistic dualist philosophies. On his view, perception involves bodily engagement; the world appears relative to a situated perspective that is defined by one's pragmatic interests and possibilities. We encounter an ambiguous world to which we help give form through our embodied engagement with it. His concepts of freedom and history follow this same line of thought.
Merton,RobertK
Authors: Deflem Mathieu
Published: December 2017

Among the most influential sociologists of the modern era, Robert K. Merton is best known for his theoretical contributions concerning the idea of the social structure and his critique of functionalism. Seeking to extend sociology beyond the confines of both conflict theories and consensus perspectives, Merton's method of structural analysis is oriented at revealing the central ambiguities, possibilities, and limitations of the location of social actors in their respective social settings. He coined such now famous expressions as manifest and latent functions, dysfunction, and sociological ambivalence. Merton also applied his perspective to develop explanatory theories on a variety of social issues, including deviant behavior, groups, and science.
M
ilgram,
S
tanley
Authors: Salerno Roger A.
Published: December 2017

Stanley Milgram (1933–1984) was one of the most renowned experimental psychologists working in the mid‐twentieth century in the United States. His work on obedience to authority and his unique studies of interpersonal behavior in public spaces were to confirm empirically the theoretical notions of impersonality, authoritarian personality, and social anomie.
Millenarianism
Authors: West Mark Douglas
Published: December 2017

Millenarianism (also millenarism) is the notion that there will eventually occur a major transformation of society, after which that society will be unrecognizable. Despite the Christian origins of its name, millenarianism, understood as apocalyptic expectation, exists in many cultures and religions. After the inevitable failure of the eschatological predictions of the millenarial movements, the faith of the believers often increase as a result of an effort to reduce cognitive dissonance, making millenarialist movements pervasive in social situations of perceived relative deprivation and the deprecation of a group's beliefs and lifeways by the larger culture.
Moore,Barrington
Authors: Turner Bryan S.
Published: December 2017

Barrington Moore (1913–2005) was a political sociologist who became famous through the publication ofSocial Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy(1966) which was a comparative study of revolutionary change and modernization in Britain, the United States, France, Germany, Russia, and India. This study involved a comparison of the historical interrelationships between three social classes: landlord, peasant, and bourgeoisie. His other works includedReflections on the Cause of Human Misery(1972) andInjustice(1978).
Moral Economy
Authors: Etzioni Amitai
Published: December 2017

Every economic decision and public policy has a moral dimension. Capitalism has emerged, following the Cold War, as the most efficient economic system. However, religious leaders, as well as intellectuals on the right and left, differ in their moral evaluations of this system. Its critics associate it with greed and oppression, and its defenders associate it with democracy, pluralism, and liberty. Much attention has been paid to moral issues related to rising inequality. Capitalism benefited from the “legitimacy of affluence.” However, ever higher levels of income and consumption are not clearly associated with contentment. The question arises if people will be able to find more contentment in interpersonal relationships, community involvement, and transcendental pursuits once their basic materialistic needs are sated
Motivation
Authors: Uz Irem
Published: December 2017

Motivation is a process that directs behavior toward a goal. Motives have been broadly classified as extrinsic and intrinsic motives. Extrinsic motives are based not on the intrinsic value of a task but on rewards and punishments that can be accrued upon completion of the task, whereas intrinsic motives are based on the enjoyment of the performance of the task itself. Social psychological contributions to the concept of motivation have largely focused on how humans set their goals and how they make decisions to act or not to act. Theories such as Maslow's hierarchy of needs and Herzberg's two‐factor theory of motivation focus on what motivates people, whereas theories such as Vroom's expectancy theory and Festinger's cognitive dissonance theory focus on the processes underlying motivation.
National Identity
Authors: Kurtiş Tuğçe
Published: December 2017

National identity refers to a sense of collective belonging to an “imagined political community.” Different constructions of national identity delineate a series of inclusions and exclusions with significant implications for understanding self and other, and also group and intergroup dynamics.
New Institutionalism
Authors: Barnes Tom
Published: December 2017

Over the last 40 years, new institutionalism has gradually emerged as an important subdiscipline of economics. This field of “transaction cost” economics offers elegant insights into the world of business and economic history and, in the last 20 years, has strongly influenced the study and practice of economic development. The tradition is underpinned by the simple insight that organizational hierarchies and institutions are crucial to the functioning of market economies. This entry explores the emergence of this field from a specific problem within mainstream or neoclassical economics and how it developed separately from an earlier, much more critical institutional economic tradition. It also suggests that this “old” institutional school, based in heterodox economics, offers at least as many valuable insights as the new variety and that the possibility of a rapprochement between the two traditions should be encouraged and nurtured.
Oligopoly
Authors: Bayar Tuğba Özden
Published: December 2017

Oligopoly indicates a market form in which a few significant companies –oligopolists –dominate. The oligopolists determine the prices by observing and imitating each other, but without any collusion. The prices remain as high as in a monopoly and, to a large extent, the prices remain constant. The situation is not against competition law since the firms do not conclude explicit agreements.
Opportunity Structure
Authors: Latorre‐Catalán Marta
Published: December 2017

Opportunity structure is the framework of socially structured means and rules available for a social group to achieve its aims and interests, which are culturally defined and oriented toward social success. Build on Robert K. Merton's theory of anomie, the concept was developed by Richard A. Cloward and Lloyd E. Ohlin in their works on delinquent subcultures. From the last decades of the twentieth century, the concept was extensively developed in the analysis of collective action under the name of political opportunity structure by authors such as Charles Tilly, Sidney Tarrow, and Doug McAdam.