Social policy and social change – explanations of the development of social policy

1973 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
pp. 209-224 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Carrier ◽  
Ian Kendall
Keyword(s):  
Social Change ◽  
Social Policy ◽  
Social Theory ◽  
Subject Matter ◽  
Social Problems ◽  
Recent Analysis ◽  
General Observation ◽  
Founding Fathers ◽  
The Subject

The resources of sociology do not appear to have been extensively or systematically utilized in the study of social policy and administration. One source of evidence for this statement is the absence of explicit references to sociological theories in some of the most well known general texts on British social policy and administration. Pinker's recent analysis of social theory and social policy also lends support to the view that there has been, and still remains, something of a division between sociologists and students of social policy and administration. He concludes that the ‘founding fathers’ of sociology (Marx, Durkheim, Weber and Spencer) had a tendency to be ‘not greatly interested…(in)…remedies for social problems’, and makes the general observation that ‘sociologists have been oddly diffident about the subject-matter of social administration’, possibly because of the latter's atheoretical nature.

Hume and the Customary Causes of Industry, Knowledge and Humanity

2018 ◽  
pp. 184-207
Author(s):  
Christopher J. Berry
Keyword(s):  
Economic Development ◽  
Social Change ◽  
Human Nature ◽  
Subject Matter ◽  
Causal Analysis ◽  
Test Case ◽  
Treatise Of Human Nature ◽  
Scientific Analysis ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Subject

Examines Hume’s account of economic development as a subset of the history of civilisation, which is presented by him as a history of customs and manners. Since Hume believes that the subject matter of ‘economics’ is amenable to scientific analysis, the focus is on his employment of causal analysis and how he elaborates an analysis of customs as causes to account for social change. This is executed chiefly via an examination Hume’s Essays, though the History of England (as a test case) and the Treatise of Human Nature for its expression of Hume’s seminal analysis of causation are also incorporated.

scholarly journals Periodyki późnej epoki stanisławowskiej jako źródła dla historyka prawa ustrojowego. O „Gazecie Narodowej i Obcej” oraz „Pamiętniku Historyczno-Polityczno-Ekonomicznym”

2018 ◽  
Vol 70 (1) ◽  
pp. 291-312
Author(s):  
Anna Tarnowska
Keyword(s):  
Social Policy ◽  
Subject Matter ◽  
The Other ◽  
Secondary Source ◽  
Political Journalism ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Subject

The following contribution is devoted to the informative and political journalism of the Stanislaw II Augustus era. It may constitute a secondary source for the research of law historians, particularly in the studies of the history of the system of government. Among other things, the article refers to “The Index of Bills” (Polish Seriarz Projektów do Prawa) which may be regarded as the first Polish legal periodical. Special attention is devoted to two landmark journals of the Great Sejm period, namely “The National and Foreign Newspaper” (Polish Gazeta Narodowa i Obca) and “The Historical, Political and Economical Journal” (Polish Pamiętnik Historyczno-Polityczno-Ekonomiczny), as well as to their editors. “The National and Foreign Newspaper” became the most popular contemporary periodical (1791-1792) which promulgated the subject matter of the proceedings and the effects of the legislative work of the Great Sejm. Moreover, it was shaping political sympathies of its readers in a relatively subtle way. On the other hand, particular commitment to politics and social policy was expressed by Piotr Świtkowski who was the editor and the publisher of “The Historical, Political and Economical Journal” (1782-1792). The end of both publications was brought about by the legal acts of the Targowica Confederation.

scholarly journals Implementing government strategies for complex social problems

2009 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ruth Herbert
Keyword(s):  
Social Change ◽  
New Zealand ◽  
Social Policy ◽  
Family Violence ◽  
Religious Belief ◽  
Social Problems ◽  
Belief Systems ◽  
Western Society ◽  
Contributing Factors

Addressing complex social problems that are rooted in multiple causes is difficult. These issues often interact in unpredictable ways with numerous contributing factors, and they do not run along traditional departmental boundaries. For example, family violence is one of the most complex, multifaceted and poorly understood issues in Western society. Addressing family violence requires major social change in individual attitudes and relationships, cultural and religious belief systems and society's opinions, as well as comprehensive government strategies and a comprehensive range of services to support families and individuals affected by family violence. In this respect, it provided a useful case study through which to examine the implementation of complex social policy in New Zealand.

scholarly journals The methodology and subject matter in sociology of the founding fathers of Ibn Khaldoun and Auguste Comte: A comparative study

2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Lara Ahmad Al Hadeed
Keyword(s):  
Subject Matter ◽  
Social Dynamics ◽  
Social Phenomena ◽  
Positive Approach ◽  
Founding Fathers ◽  
The Social ◽  
Study Results ◽  
Auguste Comte ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Historical Comparative

AbstractThis study provides a discussion about the contributions and efforts made by Ibn Khaldoun and Auguste Comte to develop sociology in terms of subject matter and methodology. Since they are the founding fathers of this science, this paper shows their interpretation of the social phenomena. The study is also exposed to the reasons that led Ibn Khaldoun and Auguste Comte to study sociology. Accordingly, the research peculiarity required using historical, comparative, and critical approaches.The central problem of this study is how Ibn Khaldoun and Auguste Comte deal with the development of sociology and its independence from other sciences. The study results showed the accordance of both Ibn Khaldoun and Auguste Comte in terms of the methodology of sociology as being a positive approach consisting of observation and induction. Ibn Khaldoun's distinction, due to his five-century precedence, is vivid though. The results of the study also showed that Ibn Khaldoun and Auguste Comte differed greatly in terms of the divisions of sociology (subject matter of sociology): where Ibn Khaldoun divided the subject of sociology into multiple sections, each section includes a set of homogeneous social phenomena in peculiarity. Ibn Khaldoun studied the phenomenon by mingling the static aspect and dynamic one together, analyzing its parts, elements, and functions and at the same time studying its development and the laws to which it is subject to development. However, Auguste Comte has divided the social phenomenon into two main parts: Social dynamics and social statics.

B. F. Skinner and the Technological Control of Social Behavior

1975 ◽  
Vol 69 (1) ◽  
pp. 214-227 ◽  
Author(s):  
Meredith W. Watts
Keyword(s):  
Social Behavior ◽  
Social Theory ◽  
Subject Matter ◽  
Behavior Control ◽  
Empirical Theory ◽  
Technological Control ◽  
The Subject

Humanist critiques of B. F. Skinner have made valuable contributions to our understanding of his thought, but more attention needs to be paid to his work as potential empirical theory. To evaluate the theoretical merits of Skinner's approach, this paper examines his methodological postulates, his implicit epistemology, and some underlying normative assumptions. It is argued that Skinnerian behaviorism commits a serious error in allowing a methodological presupposition (reduction of the subject matter to observable behavior of the organism) to become a de facto ontology that prematurely forecloses the incorporation of potentially valuable hypothetical constructs at the level of social theory. This theoretical difficulty is critical because the inherent safeguards of science that Skinner proposes as a humane safeguard against misuse would be unlikely to apply to an actual technology of behavior control as employed by political and administrative authorities.

scholarly journals Critiques of the globalization process: The examples of Russia and Serbia

2003 ◽  
pp. 295-312
Author(s):  
Milan Subotic
Keyword(s):  
Social Theory ◽  
Subject Matter ◽  
Research Topic ◽  
Comparative Approach ◽  
Contemporary World ◽  
Cultural Life ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Communist Countries ◽  
Political Economic ◽  
Insight Into

The paper is devoted to outlining the research topic to be dealt with by the author in the incoming period within the project of the Institute for Philosophy and Social Theory. Starting from "globalization" as the keyword of current debates on political, economic and cultural destiny of contemporary world, the author delineates the subject matter of his research as the critiques of the globalization process formulated in Russia and Serbia. In terms of contents, the research will be devoted to analyzing and interpreting different philosophical-theoretical, political and ideological arguments used by the critics of the globalization process in political and cultural life of Russia and Serbia. The proposed comparative approach ought to provide an insight into the influence exerted by Russian opponents of globalization on domestic critics of the process, as well as to help understand the differences in resisting globalization that stem from different political, economic, military, cultural and international positions of the two countries in today's world. The basic aim of the research is to asses theoretical-argumentative and practical-political potentials of the critiques of globalization in these two post-communist countries.

'Rouzing the Faculties to Act': William Blake, Merkabah Mysticism, the Theology of Liberation and the Exegetical Importance of Experience

2003 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 543-554
Author(s):  
Christopher Rowland
Keyword(s):  
Social Justice ◽  
Social Change ◽  
Subject Matter ◽  
William Blake ◽  
Final Part ◽  
Modern World ◽  
Biblical Text ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Way ◽  
Theology Of Liberation

AbstractThis essay is a consideration of the importance of experience and the exegetical possibilities of the allusive nature of the biblical text. It explores the way in which the space was explored by mystics in their visionary experience. In this the interpretative subjects insert themselves into the text as active participants in that which the text describes, so that understanding of the text comes about through experiencing what happens when that imaginative process of identification with the subject matter of the text takes place. The final part of the essay reflects on the way in which, in the modern world, experience of life and the struggle for social justice have informed the way in which the text has functioned as a catalyst for interpretative insight and social change. In the theology of liberation there is a stress on the recognition of the events of one's life and the circumstances in which one lives as ingredients in the exegetical process, so that what one undergoes and learns thereby informs the understanding of the text. The essay is a plea that the widely canvassed view of exegesis which regards it as an exact interpretative science in which meaning can be pinned down by reference to ancient contexts needs to be complemented by a more experienced-based, more imaginative, form of exegesis. What unites these different appeals to experience in exegesis is the importance attached to the contribution of the interpreting subject to exegesis of the biblical text.

scholarly journals The Use and Abuse of Mathematical Economics

2020 ◽  
pp. 192-224
Author(s):  
Michael Hudson
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Subject Matter ◽  
Social Problems ◽  
Mathematical Economics ◽  
Economic Problems ◽  
Statistical Measurement ◽  
Structural Problems ◽  
Classical Political Economy ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Subject

There was no statistical measurement of the debts that wracked the Greek and Roman economies, or of overall output, its distribution and value. We now have such measures, but can we say that mathematics provides the key to understanding the major economic problems of our time? More specifically, has the marginalist and monetarist application of mathematics become so nearsighted as to lose sight of the economy’s structural problems? The education of modern economists consists largely of higher mathematics, which are used more in an abstract metaphysical way than one that aims at empirically measuring society’s underlying trends If today’s economics has become less relevant to the social problems that formed the subject matter of classical political economy a century ago, its scope has narrowed in large part because of the technocratic role played by mathematics. This chapter explores whether this has been an inherent and inevitable development.

An Institutional Theory of Modernity: Johann Gustav Droysen

2020 ◽  
Vol 30 (6) ◽  
pp. 41-96
Keyword(s):  
Civil Society ◽  
Institutional Theory ◽  
Social Theory ◽  
Subject Matter ◽  
Main Part ◽  
Direct Link ◽  
Theoretical Understanding ◽  
Institutional Dynamics ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Legitimate Violence

The article analyzes several crucial aspects of Johann Gustav Droysen"s theory of historiography (as presented in the collection of his lectures published under the title Historik ). The significance and reception of Droysen"s legacy in contemporary historiography are examined primarily in the American and Russian contexts. The fundamental features of Droysen"s theory of historiography are then identified with emphasis on: validation of the autonomy of history as a science; radical constructivism; moderate relativism; presentism; and the extension of the subject matter of hermeneutics to existential and anthropological issues. The main part of the article is devoted to Droysen"s institutional theory and maintains that Historik provides more than a theory and methodology of historiography by also advancing an original institutional theory which serves as a direct link between Hegel"s philosophy and current social and political concepts. Droysen"s position on Hegel"s philosophy is considered, and the derivation of “the ethical world,” Droysen"s the principal category for institutional analysisis traced back to Hegel. Droysen"s theory of the state, which identifies it as the only source of legitimate violence and a mechanism for neutralizing conflicts in civil society and distinguishes between the notions of “power” and “violence,” is treated in detail. Three main aspects of Droysen"s institutional theory are discussed. First, there is an analysis of his formal theoretical understanding of the concept of an “institution” as it compares to the basic modern philosophical and theoretical definitions of that concept. Then, the main substantive features of his institutional theory are examined. These include the three types of institutions (natural, ideal and practical), and the distinction between them will later play a prominent role in modern social theory and sociology. Finally, Droysen"s account of the institutional dynamics of modernity is explicated as a taut equilibrium between the puruist of stability by institutions and the disruption of their stability by normative reflection and criticism.

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