 While some conflict approaches also gained popularity in the United States, the mainstream of the discipline instead shifted to a variety of empirically oriented middle-range theories with no single overarching, or "grand", theoretical orientation. John Levi Martin refers to this "golden age of methodological unity and theoretical calm" as the Pax Wisconsana, as it reflected the composition of the sociology department at the University of Wisconsin – Madison: numerous scholars working on separate projects with little contention. Omar Lizardo describes the Pax Wisconsana as: "a Midwestern flavored, Mertonian resolution of the theory / method wars in which [sociologists] all agreed on at least two working hypotheses: (1)" grand theory "is a waste of time; (2) [and] good theory has to be good to think with or goes in the trash bin." Despite the aversion to grand theory in the later half of the 20th century, several new traditions have emerged that propose various syntheses: structuralism, post-structuralism, cultural sociology and systems theory.
