>> Go to Current Issue

ProtoSociology

Volume 7, 1995
Strukturelle Evoultion

Table of Contents

Already a subscriber? - Login here
Not yet a subscriber? - Subscribe here

Browse by:



Displaying: 1-20 of 42 documents


1. ProtoSociology: Volume > 7
Immanuel Wallerstein

abstract | view |  rights & permissions | cited by
What social scientists study is the evolution of historical systems. Evolution refers to the trajectory of processes inherent in the structure of the system. The structure of a system cannot explain either its genesis nor what happens to it following its inevitable structural crisis. The mechanisms of the evolution of the modern worldsystem, a system structured around the primum mobile of the endless accumulation of capital, is described.

2. ProtoSociology: Volume > 7
Shmuel Noah Eisenstadt

abstract | view |  rights & permissions | cited by
This article critically examines some of the major assumptions of structuralevolutionary theory. This examination has accepted as valid one basic implication of this approach - namely the strong tendency, among human beings, to "expansion”, and has examined the different dimensions of such expansion.But contrary to the classical evolutionary perspective, our approach has emphasized that the different dimensions of such expansions - especially the symbolic and the structural differentiation, need not always go together.Of central importance in such a reappraisal is the distinction between, on the one hand, social division of labor which contains the core of structural differtation and on the other hand what has been called the basic elite functions - those functions or activities which are oriented to the problems generated by the very constitution of social division of labor, i.e. the constants of trust, regulation of power, construction of meaning and legitimation. The social activities oriented to these problems can be defined as elite functions and which are indeed distinct from those engendered by the social division of labor.This distinction has, however, not been fully recognized in the relevant literature and it is the examination of this distinction ana its implications for sociological analysis that constitutes the starting point, or the reappraisal, of structural-evolutionary perspective which is presented in this article and which is based above all on some of the research in comparative macro-sociology which I have undertaken in the last three decades — starting with the analysis of the Political Systems of Empires.This reappraisal has accordingly emphasized that it is indeed the different combination of these dimensions that gives rise to the dynamics of societies and civilization which indicate a much greater variability than has been proposed in classical and contemporary structural-evolutionary analysis.

3. ProtoSociology: Volume > 7
Christopher Chase-Dunn, Thomas D. Hall

abstract | view |  rights & permissions | cited by
This essay explicates a structural theory of the historical evolution of world-systems. Rather than using societies as the unit of analysis the authors use intersocietal interaction networks (world-systems). This enables them to take theoretical account of the systemic development processes that are regional and inter-regional in scope and to formulate a more powerful theory that explains how thousands of egalitarian small-scale world-systems evolved, expanded and merged to become the hierarchical and global world-system of today.

4. ProtoSociology: Volume > 7
Jeffrey C. Alexander

abstract | view |  rights & permissions | cited by
This essay analyzes the principal approaches to culture which are available in the social sciences today and places these debates within the framework of broader theoretical controversies. On the one hand, it is a critical comparison. On the other hand, it has a systematic dimension that casts these arguments in a cumulative form. While the ambition of this essay is to prepare the way for a critical synthesis, such a task will not be attempted here. Far from being aimed at concluding judgments and summary evaluations, the purpose of this essay is to open up doors. In taking up general issues only as they are raised in the readings that follow, this essay will not lose sight of its introductory function.

5. ProtoSociology: Volume > 7
Albert Bergesen

abstract | view |  rights & permissions | cited by
The beliefs and philosophical assumptions that comprise the cultural outlook known as "Postmodernism" are produced by the changing distribution of power within the international system. The collapse of general theory in the arts and humanities reflects the decline of American hegemony ana the rise of a world culture based on relativism, many voices, and no logocentrism. This reflects the plural international system in the period of post hegemony.

6. ProtoSociology: Volume > 7
Rainer C. Baum

abstract | view |  rights & permissions | cited by
The dissolution of the Soviet Union invites re-examination of Parsons' view of democracy as an evolutionary universal. This is done here in three steps. First, it is shown that his central propositions are in line with contemporary evolutionary thought which, problems of measurement notwithstanding, can be subjected to empirical test with indirect evidence. Secondly, and mindful of his commitment to the leading role of ideas in sociocultural evolution, his main argument for democracy as an evolutionary universal is summarized. Lastly, the most pertinent evidence of quantitative work to date is used to test his proposition. Contrary to his reasoning, it is found that hitherto authoritarian regimes have proved as adaptive to internal and external social change as democratic ones.

7. ProtoSociology: Volume > 7
Richard Münch

abstract | view |  rights & permissions | cited by
The negative phenomena accompanying modernization are often put down to the fact that modernization is incomplete ana follows the path of economic and scientific- technological rationalization. We then expect these negative sides to modernization to be eliminated as a result of its completion via moral and/or reflexive modernization and through the moral or reflexive regulation of economic or scientific-technological development. A sober look at a number of the negative manifestations of modernity reveals, however, that moral modernization itself plays a part in them. In the course of moral modernization, "moral respect" develops as a medium of communication that has on the one hand a global range but on the other destabilizes particularistic moral communities and draws them into a moral community which is global in principle but highly unstable. In this way, moral modernization has unintended consequences which can be termed "irrational" if viewed from the standpoint of rationality in its broadest sense.

8. ProtoSociology: Volume > 7
Volker Bornschier

abstract | view |  rights & permissions | cited by
The acceleration and qualitative change of West European integration in the 1980s — as evidenced by the Single European Act — were big events of the world political economy of that decade. They not only paved the way for political union, but also altered the competition in the Triad — United States, Western Europe and Japan. This article analyzes the relaunch of the European Community and later European Union in the framework of conflictive evolutionary theory. Two elements of that theory are combined to explain the timing, the forces behind and the actors involved. The arguments are developed from the theory of the rise and decline of societal models and from the theory of competition among governments in the world market for social order and protection. The thesis of an elite argain among European transnational corporations and the EC-Commission is exposed ana briefly confronted with empirical evidence from the author's research. The article also reflects the competitive position of Western Europe in the Triad and draws conclusions for the future structure of the core: no hegemon similar to Britain's and America's position in the past will emerge since the systemic conditions have changed.

9. ProtoSociology: Volume > 7
Walter L. Bühl

abstract | view |  rights & permissions | cited by
Contrary to political rhetorics of market economy and democracy the so-called "transformation " of the former GDR - attempted to start a quick and nevertheless extensive social change - is in reality a change with little room for spontaneous order or self-organization, for social evolution or development. Analyzing this example this essay tries to work out the structural dynamics of social evolution and to demonstrate the diverse control media and alternative steering strategies available in postindustrial societies.

10. ProtoSociology: Volume > 7
Bernhard Giesen, Kay Junge

abstract | view |  rights & permissions | cited by
Starting from one of the classical criticisms of evolutionary thinking accusing it of being based on tautological reasoning and being unable to predict future events, the authors propose an escape route from this attack by programmatically specifying the notion of fitness with reference to three particular aspects: cultural context, individual choice and social networks. Paralleling recent developments in economics, that try to explain preference formation endogeneously, the authors argue for an endogeneous explanation of the evolutionary fitness landscape to explain the evolution of structural complexity.

11. ProtoSociology: Volume > 7
Gerhard Preyer

abstract | view |  rights & permissions | cited by
Ascriptive solidarity is a fundamental relationship in human societies. Sociologists have often stated this social fact but they have seldom explained this kind of solidarity. Karl Otto Hondrich has elaborated fundamental social laws which are useful for the explanation of the evolutionary dominance of ascriptive solidarity. In the context of sociological knowledge I intend - following this account - to sketch variations of ascriptive solidarity in an evolutionary perspective and to describe structural problems of social integration in modern societies.

12. ProtoSociology: Volume > 7
Erwin Rogier, Gerhard Preyer

view |  rights & permissions | cited by

13. ProtoSociology: Volume > 7
Burkhard Vollmers

abstract | view |  rights & permissions | cited by
Piaget's genetic epistemology claims to be an empirically grounded, universal theory of mental development. This claim is excessive because of Piaget's naturalistic approach. His genetic structuralism explains only a smallpart of human conduct. Communicative theories of action are a necessary completion of the genetic structuralism. If they succeed in combining specific, individual experiences of reality with a theoretical reconstruction of the universal mental development Piaget's abstract biologism can be overcome.

14. ProtoSociology: Volume > 7
Mathias Bös

abstract | view |  rights & permissions | cited by
The evolution of the nation state is described as a process of bordernisation and de-bordernisation of macro-social units. The processes of political and cultural inclusion within the formation of the nation state lea to three paradoxes of implementation. These paradoxes are analysed with the dichotomies: universal - particularistic, affirmative - critical, and traditional - modern. These three kinds of self-description are reasons for both, the contradictions and the flexibility of the evolution of the nation state.

15. ProtoSociology: Volume > 7
Konrad Thomas

abstract | view |  rights & permissions | cited by
The difficulties of sociologists - particularly in Germany - to contribute to the political discussion about 'Nation' and (recent) national movements is suggested do be due to insufficiant theoretical clarity. It is proposed to to define ethnic identity as cultural phenomenon. Political unrest and dangerous movements, however, arise, whenever to be 'ethnic' is associated with state/government in its modern sense. The recent experience of political-cultural hegemony over against socalled minorities' makes requests for ethnic self-determination plausible and necessary.

16. ProtoSociology: Volume > 7
Richard Pieper

abstract | view |  rights & permissions | cited by
The sociology of emotion is still in its infancy and dominated by biological or psychological and social constructivist approaches. This contribution proposes a socio-structural approach integrating structural evolution and elementary processes of structuration with a typology of differential emotions. First, a concept of structural evolution is sketched out following leads by DURKHEIM, SIMMEL and FARARO; second, elementary mechanisms of structuration are combined with the structuration of identifications and perspectives in social networks; third, the processes of structuration are employed to reconstruct the socio-structural dimension of emotions and to develop a typology of structural emotions. The approach is not intended to replace constructivist theory, but to provide a structural basis for socio-cultural conceptions of emotional codes.

17. ProtoSociology: Volume > 7
Michael Schmid

abstract | view |  rights & permissions | cited by
It is argued that sociological evolutionary theory can be regarded as a revised and extended version of classical evolutionism which explains not only structural differentiation but any form of macro-social dynamics. This explanatory programme finds its micro-foundation in an theory of individual and social action which allows for the identification of typical social dilemmata which in turn serve as a selectors for reproducible institutional arrangements. At the same time modern evolutionary dynamics unites quite different social- scientific disciplines into a coherent theoretical frame.

rezensionen

18. ProtoSociology: Volume > 7
Frank Siebelt

view |  rights & permissions | cited by
19. ProtoSociology: Volume > 7
Verena Mayer

view |  rights & permissions | cited by
20. ProtoSociology: Volume > 7
Michael Quante

view |  rights & permissions | cited by