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Sociology and the Challenges
of the 21st Century
Slovenian Sociological AssociationLjubljana, 6 November 2015
Craig CalhounLSE
Sociology has always been shaped by the world around it
It is specifically a modern invention
There has always been social thought, but not always a science of society based on Systematic empirical observation Methodical analysis Theory-building
But sociology responded not just to intellectual change but material change
The Rise of the Modern State
A complex organization Increasingly self-consciously designed
With intensified capacity to intervene in social life
With new forms and extent of social participation
With increased reliance on “upward” legitimation With projects to make it the people’s:
Democracy Communism
The Rise of Capitalism
Self-regulating markets of ever-larger scale
Economy oriented to continued self-transformation Growth Accumulation Innovation
A new social organization of labor The upheavals of industrialization
New inequalities Massive externalities
Exploration, Empire, and ‘Globalization’
Source for comparative perspectives Denaturalizing views of society Bringing “culture” into the foreground
Development of sociological (and anthropological) knowledge in the administrative projects of empire
Challenge of pluralism and cross-cultural relations Contrast to earlier ‘segmental’
empires
Urbanization and Transformations of Scale
Cities as realms of political freedom Extended into social freedom (pace Simmel)
Cities as realms of sociability Including in new mixtures
The building of infrastructures Making urbanization a design and
investment project Communications Transportation
Anxiety over the loss of community
Transformation of Everyday Life
Family Gender Childhood Education Migration
Rural to urban as well as international Reconstruction of community
Consumption Including increasing cultural goods
Valuing ordinary happiness
Individualism
Not just possessive individualism or illusions of self-sufficiency Deepening the idea and experience of the person
From Protestantism through Romanticism to “the Care of the Self” Inwardness Value
Crucial to the “verstehende” perspective on social relations: Created, chosen, meaningfully interpreted
“Self and society are twinborn” (C.H. Cooley) Both a universal truism and historically specific
Secularism Not in the sense of irreligion nor of a “subtraction
story”
But as the growing capacity of this-worldly institutions to organize social life
From states to business corporations to universities
This-worldly explanations of social life
As in science
Related transformations of religion
By pluralism
Structured as choice rather than tradition
As sources for contending positions on the organization of social life
Nationalism
The mobilization of cultural commonality at the level of the state Whether ethnic or republican
The claim of a pre-political basis for citizenship
The model for the discrete society A world-system of nation-states
A framework for attempts to defend society Usually through identification with older
forms of society
The Rise of Social Movements
With the Protestant Reformation in the foreground
Resistance to capitalist transformations Extending through social revolutions
Not simply replacements of governments but projects of social transformation and constitution
Proliferating projects and mobilizations Addressing states Pursuing direct action
New Problems of Social Cohesion
Differentiation Of “value spheres” Of sectors Of institutions Of fields Of cultures and subcultures
Need for articulation and integration Mirrored in differentiation of sciences Comte on the need for a queen
Initially understood as national But also increasingly global
Science A material factor in the world and its transformations
Crucial to completing the transformation of social thought to science Though sociology is always shaped by both (and torn
between): natural science (objectivism) human science (cultural interpretation)
Grounded in new institutions Universities Academies Professional societies
But never contained entirely by those institutions and now spread more and more widely
All these social sources and foci for sociology remain important
The modern package of basic structuring conditions hasn’t simply vanished, though it is stressed.
Some modern transformations continue Dramatic new scales of urbanization Continued technological revolutions in communications Migration and new challenges to cohesion Renewal of public religion
But there are also epochal changes Not least in relations of “the West” to the rest of the World But also in the nature of capitalism In the prominence of transnational organization In the tacit social contracts shaping citizenship
The dog that didn’t bark Since 2008 much of the world has experienced massive
economic crisis without any major, anti-systemic social movement First European crisis since the early 19th Century in which
socialism didn’t pose a challenging alternative There were many movements, but they didn’t offer a
scalable, systemic alternative
Yet, there is massive disillusionment with governments And often populist responses.
And there are major problems throughout the west in developing effective policies Take the current refugee crisis.
The Need for Sociology Bring the social back in.
After neoliberalism After compartmentalisation of the political,
economic, and social After celebrations of markets and individuals
Ask the question again: what makes society? Crucial if society is being remade Recover macrosociology and relations across
levels and throughout systems
Be part of addressing basic public issues
21st Century Challenges Shifting issues will drive drive sociology’s
development. To start with, sociology has often been national in
focus and needs to develop ways of being more effectively global Comparison But also study of global social organisation
There are lots of challenges to list: Aging populations Urban transformation Refugees and migration Transformations of work and employment National and religious conflicts
Institutions State
Church
Universities And the rest of education and knowledge
Medicine and health care
Corporations
Challenged By costs – and government limits By ‘consumer’ dissatisfaction By disputed authority or legitimacy By bureaucratic dysfunctions
Solidarity
What accomplishes social cohesion? What makes society?
Forms: Identity categories Networks
Direct Indirect
Functional integration Power Public communication
Reinforcement or tension?
Security
Public order In re crime, war, etc.
Public health and safety In re risks from food or pollution
Protection In re unemployment, old age, hunger Or new risks like cyber-security
Metamorphoses We need not just a list but an understanding
of what drives and connects changes and shapes possible solutions. E.g., Capitalism Infrastructure Geopolitics Cultural creativity
Capitalism Not just markets
Drive to expansion Drive to accumulation Massive externalities
Polanyi’s double movement
One approach to problem-solving
Based in social institutions like corporations And reliance on states
Possibly being transformed by ‘state capitalist’ alternatives
Cultural creativity Science and technology
Renewal of religion
Media And the proliferation of new ‘apps’
Nationalism renewed
An enormous economy, but also a basic question about the organisation of social participation.
Infrastructure The most important factor in social organisation that
sociology tends to forget Transport, communications, water, waste The computers behind automation and global finance
Facilitating Connection Concentration Movement
Massive investments With financial impact Government impact Also impact on social relations
The Return of Geopolitics The weakness of global institutions
The growing importance of regional structures – and conflicts Changing relations of local to national
Crossroads, frontiers, and the footprints of old empires Central Asia Ukraine Middle East
New security challenges Small wars Terrorism
The geographies of social solidarity
Will the modern world system be renewed? Chinese hegemony? Multilateral leadership?
How are these connected?
Polanyi’s double movement
The search for responses to achieve social goods: The social (welfare) state
Or socialist transformation Capitalism with inequality and distribution
problems mitigated Philanthropy
Sociology is needed to understand a changing world - but sociology
also needs to change Sociology must be at once national and global
And this involves changing questions, changing relations and learning processes
Sociology needs better integration across some of its own internal divisions Methodological (esp. qualitative and quantitative) Theoretical (redefining objectivity as the maximization of
perspectives – Nietzsche) Subfields
Sociology needs to inform problem-oriented interdisciplinary fields and professions
Sociology needs to engage broad publics and movements