Dlittle30

LATEST ARTICLES ( 893 )

• Guest Post by Dave Elder-Vass

  

  [Dave Elder-Vass accepted my invitation to write a response to my discussion of his recent book, Profit and Gift in the Digital Economy (link). Read more

  Posted on 15 September 2016 SOCIETY

• Tilly on Moving Through History

  

  We have long given up on the idea that history has direction or a fundamental motor driving change. There are no iron laws of history, and there is no... Read more

  Posted on 14 September 2016 SOCIETY

• Capitalism as a Heterogeneous Set of Practices

  

  Image: O. Beauchesnes, "Map of the Geographical Structure of Wikipedia Links" (link)A key part of understanding society is making sense of the "economy" in whic... Read more

  Posted on 05 September 2016 SOCIETY

• Sociology Circa 2008

  

  I often find handbooks in the social sciences to be particularly valuable resources for anyone interested in thinking about the big issues and challenges... Read more

  Posted on 01 September 2016 SOCIETY

• Thurgood Marshall's Future

  

  Thurgood Marshall was awarded the Liberty Medal by the National Constitution Center in 1992 (link). Marshall had stepped down as a justice of the US Supreme... Read more

  Posted on 30 August 2016 SOCIETY

• Interdisciplinary Discussions in Mexico

  

  I've just spent several interesting days at the second science and humanities conference of the Mexican Academy of Sciences in Mexico City (link). My thanks to... Read more

  Posted on 28 August 2016 SOCIETY

• The Rise of Austrofascism

  

  Several recent posts have commented on the rise of a nationalistic, nativist politics in numerous contemporary democracies around the world. Read more

  Posted on 21 August 2016 SOCIETY

• Liberalism and Hate-based Extremism

  

  How should a democratic society handle the increasingly virulent challenges presented by hate groups, anti-government extremists, and organizations that... Read more

  Posted on 17 August 2016 SOCIETY

• Inductive Reasoning and the Philosophy of Science

  

  I've just finished reading Sharon Bertsch McGrayne's book on Bayesian statistics, The Theory That Would Not Die: How Bayes' Rule Cracked the Enigma Code,... Read more

  Posted on 03 August 2016 SOCIETY

• Ethnography of the Far Right

  

  Can we understand the dynamics of far-right extremism without understanding far-right extremists? Probably not; it seems clear we need to have a much more... Read more

  Posted on 02 August 2016 SOCIETY

• Survey Research on Right-wing Extremism in Europe

  

  European research and policy organizations have devoted a fair amount of attention to the rise of extremist movements and intolerance in European countries in... Read more

  Posted on 29 July 2016 SOCIETY

• Accident Analysis and Systems Thinking

  

  Complex socio-technical systems fail; that is, accidents occur. And it is enormously important for engineers and policy makers to have a better way of thinking... Read more

  Posted on 24 July 2016 SOCIETY

• Ideologies and Organizations as Causes of Political Extremism

  

  In a recent post I addressed the issue of the rise of mass intolerance and hate from the point of view of the public -- the processes through which sizable... Read more

  Posted on 19 July 2016 SOCIETY

• Making Sense of ISA 2016

  

  The International Sociological Association hosted its third major forum in Vienna this month. (ISA forums are organized every four years; previous forums took... Read more

  Posted on 14 July 2016 SOCIETY

• Elias on Figurational Sociology

  

  A premise shared by all actor-centered versions of sociology is that individuals and their actions are the rock-bottom level of the social world. Every other... Read more

  Posted on 10 July 2016 SOCIETY

• Social Psychology of Largescale Hate

  

  Many countries are facing a detestable resurgence of racism and ethnic hostility in the current political environment, catalyzed in complicated ways by the... Read more

  Posted on 06 July 2016 SOCIETY

• Karl Polanyi as a Critical Realist?

  

  In The Power of Market Fundamentalism: Karl Polanyi's Critique Fred Block and Peggy Somers focus on a phrase that Karl Polanyi uses in The Great... Read more

  Posted on 01 July 2016 SOCIETY

• Complementarity of Thick and Thin Theories of the Actor

  

  There is a range of approaches to the social sciences that fall under the umbrella of "actor-centered" theories (link). The chief fissure among these theories i... Read more

  Posted on 28 June 2016 SOCIETY

• Systems Management and the War on Poverty

  

  One of the important developments in engineering and management thinking since World War II is the value of approaching large problems as systems rather than... Read more

  Posted on 27 June 2016 SOCIETY

• Errors in Organizations

  

  Organizations do things -- process tax returns, deploy armies, send spacecraft to Mars. And in order to do these various things, organizations have people with... Read more

  Posted on 23 June 2016 SOCIETY