bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Civic Cultures
Authors: Inthorn Sanna
Published: December 2017

Civic culture is a concept used not only to describe but also to measure the attitudes and behaviors of individuals toward the democratic system, its members, and their role within it. In theoretical and empirical approaches citizens in a civic culture tend to be described as well informed and sharing a sense of collective identity. They are said to be subscribing to a set of core democratic values, such as tolerance, and putting these into action by participating in democratic processes, such as elections and public discourse. Traditionally, the community of citizens has been associated with democratic nation‐states. Today, globalization has challenged researchers to reflect on the possibility of a global civic culture.
Class Conflict
Authors: Cassano Graham
Published: December 2017

Class conflict describes the struggle between economic groups, with differing levels of power, over scarce social resources. With the rapid industrialization of Great Britain beginning in the late eighteenth century, then Europe and the United States in the nineteenth century, economic forces unsettled traditional forms of community, solidarity, and work. Proletarianization, or the transformation of male artisans, agricultural workers, and women into wage laborers, produced a traumatic “revolution which altered the whole civil society.” Karl Marx and Frederick Engels argue that in order to understand this revolution, social theory must begin from the premise of class conflict.
Class Consciousness
Authors: Nasir Kamaludeen Mohamed
Published: December 2017

In Marxist theory, “class consciousness” describes the situation when the working class becomes aware of its material position vis‐à‐vis the domination of the capitalist class and realizes its role in bringing about a classless society through revolution. Georg Lukács is renowned for his exegesis on class consciousness. Contemporary social science, however, has generally moved away from class analysis as an overarching theoretical framework, focusing instead on social class alongside other indicators of social identity such as gender, ethnicity, and age.
Classical Criminology
Authors: West Robin
Published: December 2017

Classical criminology is a label applied to a series of writings from the late eighteenth to early nineteenth centuries that paved the way for penal reform in Europe. The key authors were Cesare Beccaria and Jeremy Bentham, whose work radicalized the understanding of crime and punishment. Central themes were the theory of the rational, free‐willed actor and the necessity of effective deterrence established under utilitarian principles. Beccaria and Bentham drew inspiration from social contract theories based on the willed agreement of citizens to surrender a portion of their freedom in return for the protection of their interests. The law, therefore, was a means of enforcing social order by restraining the hedonistic tendencies of a population inclined to criminal activity through calculative self‐interest. The aim was to create a transparent, coherent, and egalitarian justice system in which punishment should be proportionate to the crime, swift and easily understandable by all.
Colonialism
Authors: Dixit Priya
Published: December 2017

Colonialism is, perhaps, better described as colonialism(s) because of its uneven development and impacts across the world. Colonialism operated in different speeds and with differing levels of occupation in various parts of the world. In general, colonialism can be taken to mean the expansion and eventual occupation and domination of various places around the world by European/Western nations in a process that became more systematic after the fifteenth century. Other examples of political and cultural expansions – for example, the spread of Indo‐Buddhist influences in Southeast Asia until around the fifteenth century, the Muslim conquest of South Asia from around the twelfth century, and the expansion of the Mongol empire prior to the fifteenth century – are not considered “colonization” or “colonialism” here. This is mainly because, while their sociopolitical impacts were undeniably deep, these “regimes” were mostly destroyed and replaced by Western colonial enterprises and ensuing imperialist policies. In other words, many economic, social, and political identities and practices across the globe today were established, often by force, through Western acts of colonization.
Communication Theory
Authors: Bailey Steve
Published: December 2017

Communication and media theory refers to a wide range of perspectives used to examine forms and processes of human communication. While having some ancient origins, communication and media theory emerges as a major branch of social theory in the mid‐twentieth century. The major theoretical schools of thought explored in this entry are: the propaganda, public sphere, and audience commodity models that focus on larger systemic and political economic frameworks; the media ecology, ritual communication, and German media theory approaches that focus on technology; rhetorical and textual interpretive theories emphasizing the analysis of specific messages; and audience‐based theoretical approaches, including the Birmingham School “active audience” model that stresses the practices of media consumers, as well as recent theories of convergence culture that focus on the increasing merging of previously separate elements of communication and media culture.
Communitarianism
Authors: Vujnovic Marina
Published: December 2017

The term “communitarian” emerged in the mid‐nineteenth century, but similar ideas could be found in other early philosophical and religious thinking throughout human history. Communitarianism as social philosophy emerged in the 1980s and different thinkers contributed to its philosophical and political variations. The most influential current communitarian thinking is based on the idea of responsive communitarianism, sometimes also referred to as mainstream or orthodox communitarianism, which emerged in the 1990s. Today, there are many variations of communitarianism, and the neoliberal politics of the current historical moment serve as a foundation upon which scholars are, at present, rethinking and redefining the concept.
Control Theory
Authors: Agnew Robert
Published: December 2017

Control theory focuses on those controls that restrain individuals from engaging in crime. Several major controls have been identified, including direct control or the threat of sanction; emotional bonds to conventional others; investments in conventional activities, such as school and work; the belief that crime is wrong; and self‐control or the ability to restrain oneself from acting on immediate impulses and desires. When these controls are weak, individuals are freer to satisfy their needs and desires in the most expedient way, which is often crime.
Converging Technologies
Authors: MacFarlane James Michael
Published: December 2017

Within the first years of the new millennium, a distinctive global wave of science policy initiatives began to emphasize a need to realign traditional disciplinary boundaries for purposes of enhancing human performance and productivity. Opportunity for new, potentially transdisciplinary, collaboration of this kind – encapsulated in the nanotechnology, biotechnology, information technology, and cognitive science (NBIC) version of converging technologies (CT) – was predicated on the “material unity” of the nanoscale. Nanotechnology is then expected to become even more influential through convergence with biotechnology, information technology, and cognitive science. As emerging medical technologies abetted by CT promise unprecedented opportunities for self‐transformation – perhaps pharmaceutically manipulating genetic expression or fine‐tuning neural circuitry – such consumer‐oriented performance upgrades could well furnish individuals with competitive advantages within the labor market while heightening baseline standards of economic productivity. Correspondingly, an appropriate state response will be necessary to ensure that existing socioeconomic inequalities are not further exacerbated by the introduction of enhancement technologies into a market environment.
Cosmopolitanism
Authors: Delanty Gerard
Published: December 2017

With its origins in Greek thought, cosmopolitanism was consolidated in the eighteenth‐century Enlightenment in particular with Kant's ethic of hospitality. In the post‐1945 period it took on a renewed significance in articulating alternatives to war and violent nationalism. The idea of cosmopolitanism was revived in the 1990s and has attracted considerable interest in disciplines as wide as political philosophy, sociology, and anthropology. Its intellectual legacy commits it to a normative and critical view of society and the pursuit of alternatives to narrow nationalist politics.
Counterterrorism Measures
Authors: Spalek Basia , Weeks Doug
Published: December 2017

Counterterrorism might be defined as preventing or reducing the effects of terrorism. Counterterrorism measures, therefore, can be defined as the use of a wide variety of approaches to prevent or reduce the effects of terrorism. Counterterrorism measures can be divided into “hard” and “soft” measures; they can be community focused and community targeted. Counterterrorism measures also can involve families and can be applied toward radicalization and violent extremism.
Crime and Deviance
Authors: Asquith Nicole L.
Published: December 2017

An inventory of the topics and issues most important to social theory reveals that crime is a critical social experience that has been instrumental to the development of the disciplines' theories and methodologies. Deviance and transgression are at the heart of theories aimed at explaining human behavior, and the twinned issues of conformity and deviance are central to the rich sociological theorizing over the last two centuries. This entry considers the scholarship of deviance – necessarily, in abridged form – and critically examines the arguments about the death knell of deviance as they relate to the contemporary landscapes of crime, deviance, and crime control, and questions its relevance to scholarship and practice.
Criminology
Authors: White Rob
Published: December 2017

This entry describes the main theoretical orientations of criminology as a multidisciplinary field. After distinguishing two approaches to the doing of criminology, it notes three broad levels of criminological explanation: the individual, the situational, and the structural. The entry then considers a key conceptual divide within criminology that hinges upon whether crime is explained primarily in terms of individual choice or is seen to be determined by biological, psychological, or social factors, and if so, how.
Cultural Globalization
Authors: Inglis David
Published: December 2017

The term cultural globalization refers to the complex relationships that pertain between culture and globalization. There is no one accepted definition of what cultural globalization is. However, debates in this field are centered on the question of whether cultural globalization involves the homogenization of culture across the world, or the production of cultural heterogeneity, complexity, and mixing. Marxist and other radical accounts stress globalization's homogenizing effect. Non‐Marxist theories, by contrast, tend to assert that globalization is not primarily an economic–political phenomenon that acts upon culture, but rather is made up of multiple, often contradictory, processes, of which cultural globalization is just one, very complex, part.
Cultural Industries
Authors: Mele Vincenzo
Published: December 2017

The term “cultural industries” indicates the combined processes of creation, mass production, and distribution of cultural goods and services on an industrial‐commercial level, that is to say, on a large scale with the main goal of realizing profits. This notion generally includes text, music, television and cinema production and marketing, as well as architecture, design, the visual and performing arts, sport, advertising, and tourism. More than other types of production, the cultural industries are involved in the making and circulating of products – texts, meanings, values – that have a special influence on our understanding of the world.
Data
Authors: Uprichard Emma , Jackson Clare
Published: December 2017

The word “data” originates from Latin, but its meaning has been evolving ever since. Indeed, what data are and come to be and how they are used all change according to how society itself changes. Social data are never neutral and increasingly, in an age of “big data,” they are also a highly commercialized commodity.
Decarceration
Authors: Garland Brett
Published: December 2017

Starting in the mid‐1970s, the US incarceration rate increased rapidly, with state and federal prison populations peaking in 2009 at 1,615,487 prisoners. Although the incarceration rate rose continuously for more than 30 years, the prison population growth began to flatten in the 1990s and many states have experienced reductions during the past 10–15 years. This flattening of and decline in prison populations is known as decarceration. The phenomenon is relatively unstudied, given its recent development, although substantial decreases in crime, weakening support for mass incarceration policies, and economic challenges are likely driving decarceration. Many academics welcome decarceration, hoping that it will motivate improvements in prison management, generate greater program opportunities, and remove pressure from struggling communities affected by mass incarceration and the subsequent reentry of former prisoners.
Dependent and Independent Variables
Authors: Losh Susan Carol
Published: December 2017

Establishing causality in social research is critical; it helps signify what is possible, and what is more difficult, if not impossible, to change. In research, we designate
causal variables
as “
independent
” and
effect variables
as “
dependent
.” Independent variables are also labeled explanatory or predictor variables. Dependent variables may be called outcome, response, or criterion variables. Much of the research process investigates the status of “true” independent variables and eliminating false or “spurious” causality. Although it is more difficult to designate independent variables in observational or correlational research, such as surveys, there are algorithms that can suggest causality.
Determinism
Authors: Raynaud Dominique
Published: December 2017

Determinism is the thesis that the events comply with laws, that is, constant relations by which the same causes produce the same effects.
Digital Cultures
Authors: Mele Vincenzo
Published: December 2017

The term “digital cultures” indicates the lifestyles, practices, artifacts, production and consumption modes, and systems of communication and meaning that largely characterize our contemporary way of life, deeply influenced by digital and computer technology. The debate over digital cultures appears to revolve around some key questions: whether they represent a radical break with what has preceded them; whether they derive from and are determined by the very existence of digital technology (so‐called “technological determinism”); and the effects of virtuality on “self‐construal.” In any event, the “network society” seems to function as a magnifier, amplifying the cultural ambivalence and social contradictions that already characterized classic modernity.
Digital Ethnography
Authors: Hine Christine
Published: December 2017

Ethnography has been used to explore the social formations that arise in and through the use of the Internet and other forms of mediated communication. Ethnographic methodology has been used to document the forms of expression that arise online, the social groups that emerge there, and the embedding of online activities within offline contexts. The terms “digital ethnography,” netnography, and “virtual ethnography” distance online practice from conventional ethnography, highlighting the adaptations that ethnographers are conscious of making to conventional practices in online spaces. These adaptations focus particularly on the definition of field sites, the practices of self‐presentation and interaction with participants that ethnographers adopt, and the authenticity of observations.
Digital Humanities
Authors: Quan‐Haase Anabel , Martin Kim
Published: December 2017

This entry provides a brief overview of the field of the digital humanities. The entry discusses the main tenets of the digital humanities and shows its historical origins. It also discusses key current trends including big data, text analysis, and the development of digital humanities centers. The entry concludes with an examination of future developments in the field of digital humanities, such as information visualization and public digital humanities.
Digital Media
Authors: Toews David
Published: December 2017

Digital media employs digitization to gather information and process and disseminate texts, sounds, and images. Its technical power contributed to an imaginary of absent social constraints. Social media, social networking, and digital game culture continue to spread enthusiasm for digital media. Yet passions have been tempered by digital media's domestication and integration in ordinary everyday social life. A variety of scholarly paradigms for thinking about the influence of digital media on social interaction have emerged, in which a significant number of social theorists have participated.
Dilthey, Wilhelm
Authors: Kostova Iva
Published: December 2017

Wilhelm Dilthey (born November 19, 1833; died October 1, 1911) was a nineteenth‐ and twentieth‐century German philosopher, historian, and psychologist who contributed to Western philosophy and in particular the philosophical movement of hermeneutics. Dilthey developed the argument moving away from the objectivist and positivistic views of the natural sciences that were prominent of his time. Instead, he championed the study of the social world through interpretive inquiry – predominantly hermeneutics. His development of these interpretive methods led to the move away from the theories of Immanuel Kant, who proposed that interpretation was a private and subjective intuition. Instead, Dilthey advocated a more comparative method for examining interpretations.
Dumont, Louis
Authors: Kerbo Harold
Published: December 2017

Louis Dumont was a French anthropologist, born in Greece in 1911 and died in Paris in 1998. He rejected the intellectual life that his mother had hoped for after his father died when Dumont was young, and worked as a manual laborer and at, among other places, the Musée des Arts et Traditions Populaires in Paris in 1936. It was there that he became attracted to history and the social sciences and chose an academic career. His first ethnographic work,
Une Sous‐Caste de l'Inde du Sud
(1957), was followed by other works on kinship theory pertaining to India, especially influenced by the famous French anthropologist Claude Lévi‐Strauss. To all social scientists, however, his most famous work will always be
Homo Hierarchicus: The Caste System and Its Implications
, published in French in 1966 and translated into English in 1970. It has come to be seen as the definitive analysis of the Indian caste system.
Elite(s)
Authors: Pakulski Jan
Published: December 2017

The concept of “elite(s),” typically paired with “non‐elite(s),” emerged in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in critical response to Marxist class analysis and the ideological overtones of early democratic theory. It evolved into a descriptive concept referring to incumbents of the key executive positions in the largest societal organizations and movements, who are the key social and political actors in all large and complex societies, including modern democracies.
Emic and Etic Analysis
Authors: Whitaker Emilie Morwenna
Published: December 2017

This entry explores the origins and usage of the terms “emic” and “etic” as they relate to positions of knowledge in research in the social sciences. The entry explains the origins of the emic–etic distinction and how these have changed over time.
Empiricism
Authors: Gustafsson Stefanie
Published: December 2017

This entry provides an overview of the main propositions postulated by empiricism. It presents the contributions of the three main empiricists, David Hume, John Locke, and George Berkeley. It further makes reference to the difference between empiricism and realism, presents a critique on empiricism, and describes evidence‐based thinking as a contemporary setting in which empiricism has found support.
Environmentalism
Authors: Surak Sarah M.
Published: December 2017

Environmentalism is an ideology, a form of political organization, and a social movement to protect the human and nonhuman environment. While environmentalism arose in the second half of the twentieth century, it responds to changing economic, political, social, and cultural patterns that began in the Enlightenment and Industrial Revolution, notably the ecological degradation produced by modern society. Indeed, climate change will likely frame life and welfare possibilities for future generations and is the object of much social theoretical attention from environmental scholars. Major debates in environmentalism include whether nature has intrinsic value, and if so, humanity's obligation to act accordingly, the allocation of rights to the use of resources, and just and fair distribution of the benefits and harms of development.
Essentialism
Authors: Rishani Diana
Published: December 2017

Essentialism is defined as a view in which certain traits are deemed necessary to the identity of an entity. Essentialism is found in Platonic notions and is integrated into feminist critique. It is a notion in which identities, such as the human, are attempted to be established yet are faced with multiple ontological obscurities.
Evolutionary Epistemology
Authors: Sandstrom Gregory
Published: December 2017

Evolutionary epistemology is a controversial approach to the study of knowledge and scientific theory change. It draws on biological evolutionary theories in natural science, but is sometimes exaggerated into universal evolutionism or general Darwinism. The most popular example of evolutionary epistemology, Richard Dawkins's notion of “memes,” has failed to provide a robust agent‐oriented sociocultural theory. A wide consensus currently holds that evolutionary epistemology is necessarily based on the ideology of naturalism in contrast with theism. Nevertheless, new applications of evolutionary approaches are available for elaboration, including work in Big History and post‐Darwinist biology and genetics, some of which is also being done by theists and nontheists who reject evolutionary naturalism. The entry highlights Russian evolutionary thought in particular as a way of opening new conversations and perceptions of the field.
Falsification
Authors: Zenker Frank
Published: December 2017

In the context of evaluating the empirical adequacy of scientific theories and hypotheses, the term “falsification” denotes having obtained a negative result when testing a comparatively more theoretical prediction against more observational data. The falsifiability and the empirical adequacy of hypotheses and theories remain central goals in all empirical sciences. As falsification always pertains to confronting directly an applied theoretical hypothesis with data, to bring a falsification about always presupposes the trustworthiness of various background assumptions.
Functional Theory of Stratification
Authors: Veliz Philip
Published: December 2017

The functional theory of stratification provided by Kingsley Davis and Wilbert Moore suggests that social inequalities are functional for society because they provide an incentive for the most talented individuals to occupy jobs that are essential to the orderly maintenance of a society. Critics of Davis and Moore's theory suggest that stratification actually undermines the stability within a society due to unequal access to opportunities, the disproportionate amount of power given to elites, and the institutionalization of social distance between diverse members of a society.
Governmentality
Authors: Dean Mitchell
Published: December 2017

This entry describes and analyzes Michel Foucault's concept of governmentality as an object and field of study, a chronological narrative, and a kind of power. It emphasizes the way in which it connects government to self‐government, its distinctive approach to liberalism and neoliberalism as an art of government, and its place within the contemporary social sciences as the subfield “governmentality studies.”
H
all,
S
tuart
Authors: Evans Jessica
Published: December 2017

Stuart Hall, a leading public intellectual and campaigner in the British New Left, was a progenitor of the field of cultural studies, influential critic of the Thatcher governments, and a central voice in discussions of postcolonial identity. As director of the Birmingham Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies and professor of sociology at The Open University, Hall shifted a generation of sociologists toward the politics of representation and its role in the conceptualization of identity formed through difference. Hall's engagement with Althusser and Gramsci led to a critique of “Thatcherism,” the popular authoritarianism of which was anticipated in his investigation of the deviant figure of the black mugger in
Policing the Crisis
(1978). Stuart Hall pioneered an inquiry into the symbolic, ideological, and political work that “race” is made to do at particular historical conjunctures along with a definition of multiculturalism foregrounding the dependency of “Englishness” on its colonial history.
H
ate
C
rime
Authors: Tomsen Stephen
Published: December 2017

In recent decades, activists and researchers have described harassment and violence targeted against minority groups as “hate crime.” They have also petitioned police, courts, and state agencies to react against this form of crime. Nevertheless, the term remains conceptually awkward and is highly contested in debates about what incidents and victim groups it ought refer to, and what new laws and measures reconcile liberal freedom with minority protection.
Hybridity and Hybridization
Authors: Papastergiadis Nikos , Trimboli Daniella
Published: December 2017

Hybridity has a complicated history; however, it has always been associated with notions of identity and cultural origins. In its most rudimentary form, hybridity refers to a person produced when two or more identities “mix.” It first surfaced during colonialism, which hierarchized humans according to biological notions of race, beginning with “whiteness” at the top. Originally, the hybrid was marred by racist assumptions of impurity, and was subsequently marginalized for disturbing the conventional social order. In the 1980s and 1990s, the term was heavily debated, especially in postcolonial theory and art. These debates remapped hybridization as a positive and resistive form of cultural translation. Today, the applicability of the term is being newly critiqued, this time with greater attention to the power imbalances inherent in cultural exchange. Future implications of hybrid studies rest largely on how to address these imbalances, an exploration that continues to be inspired by practices of contemporary art.
Ignorance
Authors: Ruser Alexander
Published: December 2017

Ignorance denotes a deficiency. It usually refers to a lack of knowledge, information, or understanding. In social science research ignorance can have at least three additional meanings: ignorance can be described as the driver of scientific research, be depicted as an integral part of social life, and be used as a heuristic model to analyze the normative aspects of a given society.
Imperialism
Authors: Bakker J. I. (Hans)
Published: December 2017

The term “imperialism” means at least six different things, depending on the historical context and the disciplinary focus. First we have traditional, premodern historical empires like the Sumerian, Egyptian, Indic, Sinitic, and Roman. These were social, political, and economic entities of which little is left, and we usually study them as holistic structures, using whatever information can be obtained. Then we have the various empires of the Middle Ages, such as the Holy Roman (Germanic) Empire of Europe and the Mughal Empire in India. Since the emergence of “modern capitalism” in the sixteenth century empires have become somewhat more variegated. The modern capitalist empires within Europe (2) can be differentiated from overseas empires (3) without colonization. The overseas capitalist empires either involved widespread (4) white settler colonization, or not. But overseas European imperialism (3) without colonization and (4) with colonization are often discussed without any kind of clear separation. The United States and the former Soviet Union were both imperialist powers with white setter colonization but initially within a large geographic land mass. The lack of clear analytic separation of white settler colonies from other kinds of colonies is partially due to the Marxist critique of European imperialism abroad, especially in Asia and Africa. Latin America presents a more complex picture due to racial mixture. Since World War II most colonies have become independent, but many still retain aspects of neocolonial culture and the kind of cultural imperialism associated with globalization (5). In addition, the term “colonization” is now often used to discuss (6) a more metaphorical kind of “coloniality” and “imperialism” that has more to do with mass media and both elite and popular culture in a postmodern globalized cultural setting. One of the first critics of overseas imperialism was the historian J. A. Hobson. However, contemporary critics of imperialism often do not pay attention to historical context. Often the term “imperialism” is not used even when the historical reality can be considered imperialistic; globalization and rationalization have led to what is popularly called “McDonaldization.”
Individualism
Authors: Scerri Andy
Published: December 2017

Individualism is the social value system that gives precedence to the ethical desires, moral norms, and political demands of singular human beings, over those expressed collectively, such as by local communities, religious sects, nationalities, or class groupings. Individualism arose in Western Europe in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and has been carried across the globe by successive waves of industrial and, later, postindustrial modernization. Individualism has historically taken two forms, neither of which is necessarily progressive (left‐wing) or reactionary (right‐wing), but sustain either ideological position. On the one hand, “modern” individualism values objective rationality, order, and control in a relationship of personal domination over nature. On the other hand, “modernist” individualism values subjective self‐realization and personal authenticity in a relationship of harmony with nature.
Inequality
Authors: Kerbo Harold
Published: December 2017

One of the most important characteristics of human societies throughout history has been the level of inequality among people in these societies. The level of inequality is usually related to economic advancement and a stronger position in the world economy, political stability, even civil war and revolution. The level of human inequalities has increased since the earliest simple horticultural societies from about 10,000 years ago. Inequality generally reached its highest historical level in the most advanced agricultural societies before the industrial revolution. As more advanced industrial societies emerged during the twentieth century the level of inequalities within societies were being reduced. However, during the last decades of the twentieth century and into the twenty‐first century these inequalities in many advanced industrial societies began to increase again. Both political policies and a changing global economy help explain this reversal of decreased inequality in many advanced industrial societies.
Innovation
Authors: Pedersen David Budtz
Published: December 2017

Innovation is an inherently complex concept. No definition of innovation can ever claim to be universal or to have the last word on the subject. The phenomenon is too dynamic and adaptive to fit a single framework for any extended period of time. Although not the last word, this entry describes a number of innovation concepts followed by a critical appraisal of the future of innovation studies. Innovation includes business and public innovation, technological and organizational innovation, open and closed innovation, and linear and nonlinear innovation. From an “innovation ecosystem” approach (Bowonder and Miyake) to “networked innovation” (Leydesdorff and Ahrweller), “social innovation” (Mulgan), and “user‐driven innovation” (Von Hippel), numerous scholars have contributed with novel definitions of the innovation processes.
Interdisciplinarity
Authors: Lee Clarissa Ai Ling
Published: December 2017

Interdisciplinarity connects, blends, and integrates disciplines epistemologically and ontologically to serve up new insights into methodology, concepts, platforms, frameworks, and content‐level analytics. Interdisciplinarity, and its cousin transdisciplinarity, encourage moving out of one's disciplinary comfort zone to consider problems and research questions from a variety of disciplinary perspectives to advance the development of new knowledge content that draws on a multiplicity of theoretical and applied knowledge fields and logics. The development of social, cultural, and other forms of critical theoretical frameworks is indebted to insights gained from cross‐disciplinary considerations and observations of social and physical phenomena, and from abstractions distilled out of deep contemplation of these phenomena.
Labeling Theory
Authors: Pastore Gerardo
Published: December 2017

Labeling theory is a sociological and criminological approach to the study of deviance that focuses on the process of the social construction of crime. Labeling theorists attribute a major role to the social definition of the crime and to the process of labeling and stigmatization affecting deviant behavior: by assigning the label of criminal to an offender, a process is engaged that transforms the author of a single offense – or an occasional transgression – into a chronic offender. The core of deviant processes is clearly traceable to the rules that define a given conduct as right or wrong. No behavior is deviant in itself – it becomes so as soon as it is defined as such. The labeling approach therefore calls for serious thought on the power of groups within a society to define a certain behavior as deviant.
L
acan,
J
acques
Authors: Garlitz Dustin
Published: December 2017

This entry focuses on the life and work of French psychiatrist, psychologist, and philosopher Jacques Lacan (1901–1981). Highlighted are his contributions to, and place in, the various trajectories of French structuralism and poststructuralism, his formative influences, and his leading psychoanalytic theories, including their influence on contemporary cultural and social theory.
Language
Authors: Susen Simon
Published: December 2017

The main purpose of this entry is to provide an introduction to the concept of “language,” especially in terms of its place in the social sciences in general and in social theory in particular. To this end, it provides an overview of the main issues arising from the critical enquiry into “language” by focusing on the following issues: (1) thedefinitionof language; (2) thestudyof language; (3) theclassificationof language; (4) thefunctionsof language; (5) thefeaturesof language; (6) theorigin(s)of language; (7) thesignificanceof language; (8) theparadoxof language; (9) thecritical sociologyof language; (10) thediversityof language; (11) thehierarchiesof language; and (12) theendangermentof language. As elucidated in this entry, there are numerous reasons why social theorists should take the analysis of language seriously.
L
azarsfeld,
P
aul
Authors: Servello Jon
Published: December 2017

This entry presents an overview of the life and work of Paul Lazarsfeld, particularly his contributions to methodology in the social sciences. First Lazarsfeld is briefly introduced with biographical details and his best known ideas, then follows a chronological structure detailing his early work in Vienna and his fellowship in the United States, and identifies some of his key contributions to the field of sociology. Figures who would go on to become influential in academia and media are mentioned throughout.
L
e
B
on,
G
ustave
Authors: Borch Christian
Published: December 2017

Gustave Le Bon (1841–1931) was a French physician and crowd psychologist who published extensively on themes such as crowds, war, race, revolution, socialism, and war. His work on crowd psychology in particular was highly influential, including beyond scholarly circles. Le Bon argued that crowds are barbarian, irrational, and suggestible, and constitute a threat to the civilized social order. Subsequent scholars have strongly contested Le Bon's ideas.
L
ippmann,
W
alter
Authors: Duff Alistair S.
Published: December 2017

Walter Lippmann (1889–1974) was America's most distinguished political commentator. He also wrote numerous treatises, notably
Public Opinion
(1922),
The Good Society
(1937), and
The Public Philosophy
(1955), where he was able to address in greater depth key issues facing twentieth‐century liberal democracies. In particular, he tackled the problem of underinformed electorates and the question of the origins of social and political morality. The entry concludes that Lippmann's contributions to both are of enduring interest.
Market Research
Authors: Orozco Mel
Published: December 2017

Market research is the practice of calculating and interpreting the needs, attitudes, thoughts, and opinions of individuals (and organizations) studying economic, cultural, political, and social factors, along with the weight that these factors bear on collective future actions manifesting in the market and the policy. The origins of this practice and its legitimation oppose the normative visions of the distribution of power in society with the extension of asymmetries through the market.
M
arx,
K
arl
Authors: Kerbo Harold
Published: December 2017

Karl Marx was born in Trier, Germany, in 1818 and died in London in 1883. While often referred to as the “father of communism,” he was much more than that. Marx was a historian and social scientist who founded some of the basic social scientific ideas and concepts still used today. At first glance, the main ideas behind Marx's theory of society and social stratification are deceptively simple. But Marxian theory is at the same time both simple
and
very complex. Marx began or built his theory of society from a set of very basic concepts. From this base he then expanded with many elaborations, qualifiers, and amendments, thus producing a complex theory contained in many volumes of work written over a period of about 40 years. It is important to understand these basic concepts of Marxian theory first, but its richness and complexity should not be overlooked.
Mass Society
Authors: Borch Christian
Published: December 2017

Mass society is a societal diagnosis that emphasizes – usually in a pejorative, modernity critical manner – a series of traits allegedly associated with modern society, such as the leveling of individuality, moral decay, alienation, and isolation. As such, the notion of mass society generalizes the negative features usually ascribed by late nineteenth‐century crowd psychology to spontaneous crowds, and attributes these to the entire social fabric. However, in contrast to crowd psychology, theorists of mass society often place greater emphasis on how capitalism, technological advances, or demographic developments condition such negative features, and some theorists argue that mass society produces a propensity to totalitarianism. Discussions of mass society culminated in the early and mid‐twentieth century.
Materialism
Authors: Sassower Raphael
Published: December 2017

Materialism is associated with a set of theories containing a fundamental ontological presupposition as well as epistemological commitments as to its methodology. Influenced in the social sciences primarily by Karl Marx's ideas, materialist approaches insist on the collection of data sets to critically inform their findings. In studying social phenomena in exclusively material terms, materialist theories may suffer from determinism and reductionism.
McL
uhan,
M
arshall
Authors: Burgwin Darryl
Published: December 2017

Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980) was a literary critic known for his media theory that emphasized how communication technology extended and transformed the capabilities of the embodied human subject and how changes in dominant media led to dramatic changes in society. His early work explored the revolutionary effect that moveable type and the printing press had on an orality‐based world. In the 1960s, McLuhan became internationally famous for his prophetic claims about how electronic media was in the process of creating a new interconnected and globally oriented society. Although McLuhan's cultural and academic influence waned in the 1970s and 1980s as he became a popular example of technological determinism, the emergence of the Internet and new media has revived both popular and critical interest in his work.
M
ead,
G
eorge
H
erbert
Authors: Aboulafia Mitchell
Published: December 2017

George Herbert Mead (1863–1931) was an American philosopher, social psychologist, and social theorist. Mead played a significant role in the development of American pragmatism, although his influence has been greater in sociology and social theory than in philosophy. John Dewey was responsible for Mead's appointment at the University of Chicago, where he spent most of his career. Mead is a central figure in the school of symbolic interactionism in sociology. In social theory he has influenced thinkers such as Jürgen Habermas and Hans Joas. Mead argues that the self emerges in social interaction through the use of language and role‐playing. He distinguishes gestures, whose meanings arise from the responses of organisms to each other, from significant symbols, in which human beings become aware of the meanings of symbols through the use of vocal gestures. Mead coined the phrase
the generalized other
to explain how selves develop in relationship to groups.
Measurement
Authors: Martini Carlo
Published: December 2017

Measurement is the scientific and administrative practice of assigning numbers, or other mathematical concepts, to objects, in order to represent some attributes of those objects. According to the International Bureau of Weights and Measures, “metrology” is the “science of measurement and its application” including “theoretical and practical aspects of measurement, whatever the measurement uncertainty and field of application.” What distinguishes measurement from other forms of theorizing is the use of scales and relations between numbers to express relations between objects. There are four basic measurement scales: nominal, ordinal, interval, and ratio scales, ordered by the increasing amount of information each scale is able to convey on the structure of the target system being measured. Scholars share different concerns that motivate their studies of measurement: scientists and philosophers of science have been primarily concerned with the theoretical, conceptual, and experimental aspects of measurement, while historians and sociologists have been mostly focusing on the ethical, historical, and administrative aspects of how humans have used measurement to regulate social living among them.
Methodenstreit
Authors: Klooster Jens Van't
Published: December 2017

The
Methodenstreit
(“battle of methods”) is an academic controversy between the German historical economists led by Gustav Schmoller and the Austrian marginalists led by Carl Menger. The debate concerned a wide range of topics related to the scientific and societal role of economics and the social sciences more generally. Many questions at issue in the debate remain controversial to this day.
Methodological Individualism
Authors: Agassi Joseph
Published: December 2017

Individualism is the basic (nominalist) assumption that only individuals (entities with aims) exist, not social wholes (societies and social institutions). It is also known as ontological individualism. (Ontology is the theory of existence.) Individualism becomes methodological when it takes the existence of social wholes as a working hypothesis, not ontologically. It is then just a means (a heuristic) for generating testable theories while circumventing the question, What are social wholes? When methodological individualism refers to social wholes explicitly, especially in respect to institutional reforms, or when it views institutions as interpersonal means of communication, then it is known as institutional individualism. All versions of individualism share the denial that societies have aims or destinies.
Moral Panics
Authors: Ben‐Yehuda Nachman
Published: December 2017

Moral panic refers to an exaggerated social reaction to what is typically constructed as a grave threat to an existing social order.
New Class Theory
Authors: Sabur Seuty
Published: December 2017

This entry discusses the rise and the transformations of the new class, primarily in the communist countries and in the West. The discussion starts with the Marxist/New Left and conservative formulations of the new class theories. The variations are then examined in accumulations, aspirations, and interest of this class and whether they vary from elite/middle class formations in said countries. Light is shed on how these class formations were translated to vassal/postcolonial states. Finally, a critique is given on the homogenizing tendencies of these theories and non‐engagement with identity politics, which created the fervor for new class theories to emerge, at least in the West.
Nodal Governance
Authors: Holley Cameron , Shearing Clifford
Published: December 2017

This entry describes the concept of nodal governance. After a long history of seeing the state as the main institution responsible for the governance of security, nodal governance provided a way of exploring security governance “beyond the state.” This entry considers the concept, its development, critiques, and different domains of governance within which it has been used as a theoretical framework.
Objectivity
Authors: Axtell Guy
Published: December 2017

In part because the authority of science is assumed to result from the objectivity of its methods and results, objectivity has been described as an essentially contested, and even an “embattled” concept. The concept has been attended in recent decades by vigorous debate, debate that includes but is not restricted to contributions by scientists, philosophers, historians, and social theorists.
Ontology
Authors: Scalambrino Frank
Published: December 2017

This entry discusses ontology in the context of social theory. It discusses various approaches and aims of social ontology with reference to texts historically constitutive of the topic.
Penology
Authors: Carrabine Eamonn
Published: December 2017

Penology is a term covering the clinical, managerial, and social scientific study of punishment and penal institutions, especially imprisonment. It is convenient to distinguish between three very different approaches in the field. One is best described as anadministrative penologyprimarily concerned with the implementation of particular sanctions and monitoring their effectiveness. The kinds of issues it addresses are narrow in scope and often ignore the deeply social character of punishment. Such matters are more to the fore in thephilosophy of punishmentand thesociology of control. In the former, punishment is situated in the classic liberal problem of how the individual should relate to the state in both utilitarian and retributive forms of moral reasoning. In contrast, sociological perspectives focus on the wider aspects of social control to reveal the underlying structures of penal systems, raising fundamental questions over how to understand punishment as a complex social phenomenon.