Dlittle30

LATEST ARTICLES ( 866 )

• Unexpected Linkages

  One of the things that I find most interesting in social development is the discovery of unexpected linkages between innovations in one field and outcomes in... Read more

  Posted on 01 June 2013 SOCIETY

• Forum on Rural Areas and Peasants

  

  I've just spent an interesting several days in Wuhan at a conference on China's rural transformation. It was a genuinely productive conference, involving expert... Read more

  Posted on 29 May 2013 SOCIETY

• Levels of the Social

  

  We can examine social life at many levels of granularity -- from ordinary individual social behavior to small groups to cities and regions to the global system... Read more

  Posted on 20 May 2013 SOCIETY

• Observing Character Traits

  

  The key idea of moral character is that the actions individuals choose are influenced by enduring features of their mentality. Read more

  Posted on 19 May 2013 SOCIETY

• What About Marx?

  

  At various points since the death of Karl Marx in 1883 his work has been regarded as a dead issue -- no longer relevant, too ideological, methodologically... Read more

  Posted on 16 May 2013 SOCIETY

• RFP: Research on "understanding"

  

  Here is an exciting RFP for researchers in psychology, philosophy, and religious studies who are interested in "understanding". Read more

  Posted on 16 May 2013 SOCIETY

• Hirschman on the Passions

  

  Numerous previous posts have emphasized the importance of having a theory of the actor when we do social science or history. Are people impulsive, emotional,... Read more

  Posted on 15 May 2013 SOCIETY

• Elster on Tocqueville

  

  Jon Elster is one of the people whose thinking about society and the social sciences has made a consistently important contribution to the philosophy of social... Read more

  Posted on 12 May 2013 SOCIETY

• Urban Futures

  

  I recently spent a half day visiting Detroit with some very perceptive university colleagues. We visited the university's center on Woodward Avenue, the... Read more

  Posted on 03 May 2013 SOCIETY

• Skilled Work

  

  Watch an active construction site for a few minutes and you will see some amazing examples of skilled work and deft problem solving. Read more

  Posted on 01 May 2013 SOCIETY

• Life Quality Across Structural Change

  

  Read more

  Posted on 30 April 2013 SOCIETY

• Urban Marginality

  

  If you live within the reach of a major American city -- and most Americans do -- then you know what "marginality" is. It is the sizable sub-population of... Read more

  Posted on 24 April 2013 SOCIETY

• Actor-centered History

  

  It is easy enough to ask the question, "How can we best explain the fall of the Roman Empire, the rise of German fascism, or the Industrial Revolution in... Read more

  Posted on 24 April 2013 SOCIETY

• Mohamed Cherkaoui on the Micro-macro Debate

  

  The eminent French sociologist Mohamed Cherkaoui addresses the problem of delineating the micro-macro distinction in several works. Read more

  Posted on 20 April 2013 SOCIETY

• Epochs and the Social Actor

  

  It was suggested in an earlier post that important aspects of an individual's mental furniture are influenced by the concrete historical and social circumstance... Read more

  Posted on 16 April 2013 SOCIETY

• Gradual Institutional Change

  

  Here are some very fundamental questions that we can ask about social institutions -- the relatively durable sets of rules, practices, and norms through which... Read more

  Posted on 10 April 2013 SOCIETY

• Are There Online Solutions to Rising College Costs?

  

  There are many, many voices offering observations and criticisms of universities in face of rising costs and tuitions. But none is more qualified than Bill Bowe... Read more

  Posted on 07 April 2013 SOCIETY

• Organizations and Strategic Action Fields

  

  image: Hierarchical modularity of nested bow-ties in metabolic networks, Jing Zhao, Hong Yu, Jian-Hua Luo, Zhi-Wei Cao and Yi-Xue Li (link) Neil Fligstein and... Read more

  Posted on 05 April 2013 SOCIETY

• Moral Intuitions as Evolutionary Modules

  

  People have moral reactions to the situations they observe around themselves -- within the work environment, in the family, on the street, or in international... Read more

  Posted on 02 April 2013 PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY

• Critical Theory in the Frankfurt School

  

  An earlier post raised the question of the meaning of the word "critical" in Roy Bhaskar's theory of critical realism. The most extensive discussions of the... Read more

  Posted on 30 March 2013 SOCIETY