Dlittle30

LATEST ARTICLES ( 893 )

• Soviet Nuclear Disasters: Kyshtym

  

  The 1986 meltdown of reactor number 4 at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant was the greatest nuclear disaster the world has yet seen. Read more

  Posted on 27 July 2019 SOCIETY

• Safety and Accident Analysis: Longford

  

  Andrew Hopkins has written a number of fascinating case studies of industrial accidents, usually in the field of petrochemicals. Read more

  Posted on 18 July 2019 SOCIETY

• Thai Politics and Thai Perspectives

  

  One of the benefits of attending international conferences is meeting interesting scholars from different countries and traditions. Read more

  Posted on 17 July 2019 SOCIETY

• How Things Seem and Why

  

  The idea that there is a stark separation between many of our ideas of the social world, on the one hand, and the realities of the social world in which we... Read more

  Posted on 13 July 2019 SOCIETY

• ABM Fundamentalism

  

  I've just had the singular opportunity of participating in the habilitation examination of Gianluca Manzo at the Sorbonne, based on his excellent manuscript on... Read more

  Posted on 09 July 2019 SOCIETY

• Herbert Simon's Theories of Organizations

  

  Image: detail from Family Portrait 2 1965 (Creative Commons license, Richard Rappaport)Herbert Simon made paradigm-changing contributions to the theory of... Read more

  Posted on 20 June 2019 SOCIETY

• Gilbert on Social Facts

  

  I am currently thinking about the topic of "organizational actors", and Margaret Gilbert's arguments about social actors are plainly relevant to this topic. Read more

  Posted on 14 June 2019 SOCIETY

• Asian Conference on the Philosophy of the Social Sciences

  

  photo: Tianjin, ChinaA group of philosophers of social science convened in Tianjin, China, at Nankai University in June to consider some of the ways that the... Read more

  Posted on 09 June 2019 SOCIETY

• Auditing FEMA

  

  Crucial to improving an organization's performance is being able to obtain honest and detailed assessments of its functioning, in normal times and in... Read more

  Posted on 09 June 2019 SOCIETY

• The 737 MAX Disaster as an Organizational Failure

  

  The topic of the organizational causes of technology failure comes up frequently in Understanding Society. The tragic crashes of two Boeing 737 MAX aircraft in... Read more

  Posted on 25 May 2019 SOCIETY

• A Plan for Philosophy of Social Science Circa 1976

  

  image: Imre LakatosMy Ph.D. dissertation in philosophy was written between 1974 and 1977 and was accepted in 1977. The topic was Marx's theory of science as... Read more

  Posted on 13 May 2019 SOCIETY

• My Program of Research, Circa 1976

  

  image: philosopher at workMy Ph.D. dissertation in philosophy was written between 1974 and 1977 and was accepted in 1977. The topic was Marx's theory of... Read more

  Posted on 11 May 2019 SOCIETY

• Theorizing About Organizations

  

  The fields of organizational studies and organizational sociology originated in the early twentieth century but flourished in the post-war period. This makes a... Read more

  Posted on 01 May 2019 SOCIETY

• Retelling US History

  

  images: Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln (from Jill Lepore, These Truths)People who mostly learned American history through their high school education... Read more

  Posted on 18 April 2019 SOCIETY

• Organizations and Dysfunction

  

  A recurring theme in recent months in Understanding Society is organizational dysfunction and the organizational causes of technology failure. Read more

  Posted on 03 April 2019 SOCIETY

• Ethical Disasters

  

  Many examples of technical disasters have been provided in Understanding Society, along with efforts to understand the systemic dysfunctions that contributed... Read more

  Posted on 01 April 2019 SOCIETY

• Development Ethnography and the Life of the Poor

  

  Indian economists V. K. Ramachandran and Madhura Swaminathan have edited a highly interesting volume, Telling the Truth, Taking Sides: Essays for N. Read more

  Posted on 01 April 2019 SOCIETY

• Guest Post: VK Ramachandran on Details of Life as a Day Laborer in India

  

  [V. K. Ramachandran was a Professor of Economics at the Indian Statistical Institute, and is at present vice chairman of the State Planning Board of the state o... Read more

  Posted on 28 March 2019 SOCIETY

• Social Ontology of Government

  

  I am currently writing a book on the topic of the "social ontology of government". My goal is to provide a short treatment of the social mechanisms and... Read more

  Posted on 28 March 2019 SOCIETY

• Regulatory Failure and the 737 MAX Disasters

  

  The recent crashes of two Boeing 737 MAX aircraft raise questions about the safety certification process through which this modified airframe was certified for... Read more

  Posted on 27 March 2019 SOCIETY