Comments from the Special Collection Editor: Global Perspectives on Social Problems—Current Issues and Debates

When the editorial board of Social Problems first conceived of this special collection nearly two years ago, little did we suspect that we would be witnesses to the unprecedented transformation of political and economic systems across the world. Nor did we envision the immense challenges social scientists would confront in trying to identify the causes and consequences of these changes or the possible solutions to the myriad of social problems aggravated by the speed and scale of this transformation. Existing theoretical constructs have been challenged or have taken on new meanings as we try to understand and contextualize phenomena such as the economic restructuring of command economies and the disintegration of nation-states. From this period of global turbulence has emerged a growing interest in the international dimensions of social problems. Indeed, "Social Problems in a Global Economy" became the theme for the Society for the Study of Social Problems' annual meeting, where we have been challenged to examine national and international concerns within the context of a "new world economic and political order." Scholars have suggested that the parochialism of social science in the United States has declined over the past decade in part as a response to the growing dissatisfaction with universal explanations for global phenomena (e.g., Evans and Stephens 1988; Walton 1990). However, there still exists quite a gap between rhetoric and social science research or teaching. While comparative international research has been encouraged, there is still heavy reliance on Western (or U.S.) theoretical frameworks within which research questions are cast and data are analyzed. Indeed, Gusfield warns in his analysis of the social construction of social problems to "take care not to separate the study of meanings from the study of their historical and institutional settings" (1989:439). While we pay lip service to the need to incorporate international dimensions to sociology (or social science) coursework, still only a small fraction of our courses have any international content (see discussion in Groennings and Wiley 1990). In the case of sociology, Armer (1993:8) reports that half of the undergraduate courses taught in 1992 had three hours or less of international content. Furthermore, a recent report from the American Sociological Association Committee on International Sociology Task Force on Undergraduate Education (cited in Armer 1993) calls the lack of cross-cultural components to sociology curricula a "serious shortcoming of education to the discipline." This special collection provides an interdisciplinary view of several phenomena, ranging from alcoholism to urban redevelopment, which have been defined in their respective societies as problems requiring state intervention. They present examples from developed and developing nations in Asia, Central America, and the former Soviet Union. These articles represent a variety of methodological approaches, drawing on case studies, field interviews, published statistical data, and surveys. Each article provides a unique contribution to our understanding of a particular issue and the larger scholarly or policy arena within which it is cast. Further, each contribution provides a greater appreciation for the need to broaden our