Beyond the Nation State and the Comparative Method? Decolonizing the Sociological Imagination

ion ‘‘the nation’’ once provided (Sassen 2010:3). Besnik Pula’s essay, ‘‘Urban Planning in the Colonial Cities of Italy’s Fascist Empire’’ is one example of how to challenge ‘‘nation centered’’ ways of viewing the world. Pula demonstrates that urban planners and architects in Italy ‘‘saw in colonial empire the opportunity to demonstrate the social utility and transformative capabilities of their trade’’ (p. 390). In other words, the development of ‘‘national’’ traditions in architecture and urban planning could only be fully realized in the context of transnational engagements. The chapters that make up Part III show the extent to which ‘‘Western’’ modernity is a product of what Bhambra (2013:296) calls ‘‘the colonial global.’’ Essays on topics like ‘‘Nation and Empire in the French Context’’ and ‘‘State Formation in British Malaya and the American Philippines’’ not only explode the myth of Europe and America’s endogenous development, they also throw into question the continued efficacy of theoretical and methodological apparatuses that have, until quite recently, un-problematically accepted this notion. Daniel Goh aptly sums up exactly what is at stake for all sociologists, not just sociologists of empire, when he explains why neo-Weberians have ‘‘carefully avoided the question of colonial state formation.’’ The comparison of empires, he explains, ‘‘poses theoretical problems, since they involved a complex jostling of states, institutions, and social groups that defies the state-society framework. The comparison of colonial states also poses methodological issues, since these involved the extension of metropolitan sovereignty into colonial territories through subsidiary state [sic], thereby complicating the independence of the neo-Weberian unit of analysis’’ (p. 465). Once sociology’s ‘‘imperial entanglements’’ have been un-masked and the ‘‘Pandora’s box’’ of new analytical possibilities has been opened, the question of what this means for the discipline as a whole still remains. Do we finally abandon our quest for ‘‘grand theory’’? Should we do away with the comparative method given its theoretical and methodological utility in displacing ‘‘imperial power over the colonized into an abstract space of difference’’ (Connell 1997:1530)? The four chapters that make up Part II, Current Sociological Theories of Empire, engage specific empirical questions such as the rise of a new security empire post-9/11 (Kim Scheppele) or China’s imperial thrust into Africa (Albert Bergensen) in ways that seek to avoid the theoretical and methodological traps of previous studies. The purpose of the chapters is not to construct a singular, overarching ‘‘grand theory’’ of empire, however. The essays are more in keeping with Merton’s idea of ‘‘middle range’’ theories, which recognize that any attempt to generate sociological generalizations must account for the fact that all complex systems are also historically variable systems. Michael Mann’s essay, which asks whether the ‘‘recent intensification of American economic and military imperialism’’ are connected or not, concludes that ‘‘societies are not systems and states are not cohesive. In fact, they are both a bit of a mess, full of contradictions, muddles, mistakes.’’ This is not to deny that societies have enduring and powerful social structures. Rather, it emphasizes the fact that ‘‘these are plural, with logics that are distinct’’ (p. 243). Bergensen speculates that we ‘‘may be entering a new twenty-first-century phase of neocolonial relations that are qualitatively different from what the world system has seen before’’ (p. 300). Although he cannot say for certain whether the evidence points to definitive proof of a new economic model or a ‘‘momentary instance’’ he nevertheless maintains that China’s pursuit of economic dominance in Africa via stateowned enterprises may mean that ‘‘historical development has outrun the scope of social theory’’ (p. 311). Scheppele’s essay on the ‘‘Terrorism and the New Security Empire After 9/11’’ likewise suggests that ‘‘empires are not what they used to be’’ (p. 244). Since empires are no longer ‘‘predictably universal’’ theories of empire must also seek to synthesize different schools of thought. ‘‘As we rethink this new security empire, we need to recall not just the 16 Review Essays Contemporary Sociology 44, 1 analyses of economic globalization but the lessons learned from postcolonial studies’’ (p. 252). Sociology and Empire should be seen as an important intervention in a longstanding trend whereby sociologists have charted a new course for the future by rewriting the history of the past. As Gurminder Bhambra pointed out in her reflection on ‘‘The Possibilities of, and for, Global Sociology,’’ our only hope of being able to ‘‘understand and address the necessarily postcolonial (and decolonial) present of ‘global sociology’’’ lies in ‘‘reconstruct[ing] backwards’’ our ‘‘historical understandings of modernity and the emergence of sociology’’ (Bhambra 2013:296–297). For at least two decades sociologists have worried about their declining prestige in the academic marketplace. The questions that sociologists have been pondering relating to their ‘‘value’’ in the marketplace have now hit the social sciences and the humanities as a whole. At the same time, the world has grown ever more complex and interdependent and politicians and lay people alike ponder everything from terrorism to ‘‘post-racialism.’’ A century ago sociology emerged in the context of the ‘‘political difficulties’’ and contradictions created by the co-existence of imperialism and liberalism (Connell 1997:1530). Sociology’s theories and models of the world ‘‘offered a resolution’’ (ibid.). Today we find ourselves in a similar position. Sociology stands poised, once again, to provide a level of analysis desperately needed by policymakers and the educated public. As Steinmetz points out in his preface, ‘‘today we are confronting two crises that are often experienced as separate but are actually interwoven: ‘the crisis of the universities’ and the ‘crisis of empire’’’ (p. xiii). With the benefit of hindsight, such as provided by Parts I and III of Sociology and Empire, we can avoid making the mistakes we did in the past. The questions, problems, and theories for understanding the world today, such as provided in Part II, open up the exciting possibility that we can chart a different course for the future.