Historical Sociology and International Relations: Interdisciplinary Approaches to Large-Scale Historical Change and Global Order

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Besnik Pula ◽  
Yannis A. Stivachtis
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Historical Sociology ◽  
Significant Degree ◽  
Human Condition ◽  
Historical Change ◽  
Modern World ◽  
Theoretical Approaches ◽  
Interdisciplinary Approaches ◽  
Second Wave

Historical Sociology (HS) is a subfield of sociology studying the structures and processes that have shaped important features of the modern world, including the development of the rational bureaucratic state, the emergence of capitalism, international institutions and trade, transnational forces, revolutions, and warfare. HS differs from other approaches in sociology given its distinction between routine social activities and transformative moments that fundamentally reshape social structures and institutions. Within international relations, the relevance of history in the field’s study has been highly disputed. In fact, mainstream international relations (IR)—Neorealism and Liberalism—has downplayed the importance of history. Nevertheless, World History (WH) and HS have exercised a significant degree of influence over certain theoretical approaches to the study of international relations. The history of HS can be traced back to the Enlightenment period and the belief that it was possible to improve the human condition by unmaking and remaking human institutions. HS was then taken up by a second wave of historical sociologists who were asking questions about political power and the state, paving the way for greater engagement between IR and sociology. Third wave HS, meanwhile, emerged from a questioning of received theoretical paradigms, and was thus characterized by theoretical and methodological revisions, but only minor and incremental changes to the research agenda of second wave Historical Sociology.

Historical Sociology and International Relations: Interdisciplinary Approaches to Large-Scale Historical Change and Global Order

2010 ◽  
Author(s):  
Besnik Pula ◽  
Yannis A. Stivachtis
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Historical Sociology ◽  
Significant Degree ◽  
Human Condition ◽  
Historical Change ◽  
Modern World ◽  
Theoretical Approaches ◽  
Interdisciplinary Approaches ◽  
Second Wave

Historical Sociology (HS) is a subfield of sociology studying the structures and processes that have shaped important features of the modern world, including the development of the rational bureaucratic state, the emergence of capitalism, international institutions and trade, transnational forces, revolutions, and warfare. HS differs from other approaches in sociology given its distinction between routine social activities and transformative moments that fundamentally reshape social structures and institutions. Within international relations, the relevance of history in the field’s study has been highly disputed. In fact, mainstream international relations (IR)—Neorealism and Liberalism—has downplayed the importance of history. Nevertheless, World History (WH) and HS have exercised a significant degree of influence over certain theoretical approaches to the study of international relations. The history of HS can be traced back to the Enlightenment period and the belief that it was possible to improve the human condition by unmaking and remaking human institutions. HS was then taken up by a second wave of historical sociologists who were asking questions about political power and the state, paving the way for greater engagement between IR and sociology. Third wave HS, meanwhile, emerged from a questioning of received theoretical paradigms, and was thus characterized by theoretical and methodological revisions, but only minor and incremental changes to the research agenda of second wave Historical Sociology.

Forum: Nonuse of Nuclear Weapons in World Politics: Toward the Third Generation of “Nuclear Taboo” Research

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michal Smetana ◽  
Carmen Wunderlich
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Nuclear Weapons ◽  
First Generation ◽  
Public Attitudes ◽  
World Politics ◽  
Decision Makers ◽  
Theoretical Approaches ◽  
Large N ◽  
Second Wave ◽  
Depth Interviews

Abstract That nuclear weapons have not been used in war since 1945 is one of the most intriguing research puzzles in the field of international relations. It has sparked a fruitful scholarly debate: Can the persistence of the nonuse of nuclear weapons be understood with reference to a normative “taboo” subject to a constructivist logic of appropriateness, or does it rather constitute a prudent tradition based on a logic of consequences as rationalist scholars would have it? Recently, a study by Daryl Press, Scott Sagan, and Benjamin Valentino provided further impetus for this debate and opened up a “second generation” of “taboo” research. Unlike the first generation, the second wave examined attitudes toward nuclear use among the general public rather than elite decision-makers and used large-N experimental surveys rather than in-depth interviews and archival research. In particular, these studies raised several methodological questions on how to capture the “atomic aversion”: Is it meaningful to examine public attitudes in order to grasp the validity of the nuclear “taboo” (as opposed to elite perspectives) and can we infer a weakening of the normative aversion toward nuclear use from public surveys? Bringing together the pioneers of the original debate as well as more recent contributors, this special forum seeks to take stock of the progress that has been made by discussing the theoretical, conceptual, and methodological underpinnings of the research on the nonuse of nuclear weapons. Specifically, the contributions critically reflect upon the second wave of nuclear taboo scholarship with the overall aim to build bridges between different theoretical approaches and to identify avenues for further research in this area. Ultimately, this forum seeks to present the relevance of re-envisioning nuclear taboo research to a broader audience.

Soviet reform and the end of the Cold War: explaining large-scale historical change

1991 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 225-250 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Deudney ◽  
G. John Ikenberry
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Theoretical Perspective ◽  
Historical Change ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Collapse Of Communism ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Theoretical Issues

IntroductionAfter years of retirement in the academy, macro’historical commentary on contemporary events has returned to fashion. Radical domestic changes in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe and new patterns ofEast’West relations-in short, the collapse of communism and the end othe Cold War’mark the end of an era and present an invitation to international theorizing.1 Few would deny that these changes are momentous, but there is little consensus concerning their origins, trajectory, and implications. Explaining these events will necessitate a reweighing of fundamental theoretical issues. Thesize and speed of these changes were largely unexpected,reminding us how primitive our theories really are and encouraging us to broaden our theoretical perspective. To capture these events, theorists must reach across the disciplinary divides of Sovietology, international relations theory political economy, and political sociology.

Historical Sociology

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
John M. Hobson ◽  
George Lawson ◽  
Justin Rosenberg
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Historical Sociology ◽  
Historical Period ◽  
The Core ◽  
The Past ◽  
Modern System ◽  
Constitutive Properties ◽  
International Systems ◽  
Second Wave ◽  
Core Features

Over the past 20 years, historical sociology in international relations (HSIR) has contributed to a number of debates, ranging from examination of the origins of the modern states system to unraveling the core features and relative novelty of the contemporary historical period. By the late 1980s and 1990s, a small number of IR scholars drew explicitly on historical sociological insights in order to counter the direction that the discipline was taking under the auspices of the neo-neo debate. Later scholars moved away from examining the specific interconnections between international geopolitics and domestic social change. A further difference that marked this second wave from the first was that it was driven principally by IR scholars working within IR. To date, HSIR has sought to reveal not only the different forms that international systems have taken in the past, but also the ways in which the modern system cannot be treated as an ontological given. Historical sociologists in IR are unanimous in asserting that rethinking the constitutive properties and dynamics of the contemporary system can be successfully achieved only by applying what amounts to a more sensitive “nontempocentric” historical sociological lens. At the same time, by tracing the historical sociological origins of the present international order, HSIR scholars are able to reveal some of the continuities between the past and the present, thereby dispensing with the dangers of chronofetishism.

scholarly journals Anthropological Dimension of Smart Culture

wisdom ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 184-192
Author(s):  
Yevheniia LEVCHENIUK ◽  
Fedir VLASENKO ◽  
Dmytro TOVMASH ◽  
Ruslana ATASHKADEH ◽  
Svetlana STEZHKO
Keyword(s):  
Information And Communication Technologies ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Modern Society ◽  
Communication Technologies ◽  
Modern World ◽  
Evolutionary Stage ◽  
Human Society ◽  
Living Space ◽  
Theoretical Approaches ◽  
Information And Communication

To carry out socio-philosophical conceptualization of the phenomenon of smart-culture as the newest sphere of human being, which emerges and develops in the era of informatization and technologization of society. The authors prove that the concept of “smart culture” is an evolutionary stage and unity of meanings of theoretical approaches to understanding the essence of modern society (information, virtual, global, etc.). It is proved that the condition and consequence of the emergence of a smart society is the development of a smart culture, which emerges as a unity of value models and technical and technological levels of development of civilization, which, in turn, forms a new subject - a smart person who tries to be realized as an individual through scientific advances, the latest information and communication technologies in a new living space. It is substantiated that the modern world is in a state of systemic, large-scale transformations, the result of which is in the emergence and development of new relations such as human-world, human-society, human-city, human-community, etc.

scholarly journals The Rubik’s cube of postcolonialism: Theory's syncretism and challenges in postcolonial studies

2017 ◽  
Vol 69 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 309-331
Author(s):  
Natasa Jovanovic
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Academic Discipline ◽  
Postcolonial Studies ◽  
Modern World ◽  
Critical Examination ◽  
Question Mark ◽  
The Social ◽  
Medium Level

The paper examines the genesis of postcolonialism in various (mutually conditioned) forms: at the conceptual, humanistic, theoretical and disciplinary level. With the contextualization of the work of the first authors who put the question mark on the established and dominant western-centric perception of global divisions, we will (de)construct various historical and paradigmatic influences on the development of postcolonialism. A special emphasis is put on the position of postcolonialism within the so-called Great Debates in the academic discipline of International Relations. Also, we consider the possibility of development of postcolonialism as a theory on the medium level that has a multiple utility for International Relations. A critical examination of the initial assumptions of postcolonialism as inherently processual, reflexive and subversive, will open up the issues of the contemporary challenges of the social life of former colonies and their relationships with other actors on the international scene. One of the major issues (which can be set as a hypothesis) is how to use the advantage of the epistemological and theoretical postulates of postcolonialism in the research of the modern world in which the orientalist rhetoric largely survives, but due to the rise of terrorism and large-scale migration from the Middle East, the political and social reality is changed?

War in Social Thought

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hans Joas ◽  
Wolfgang Knöbl
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Intellectual History ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Theoretical Work ◽  
German Idealism ◽  
Social Thought ◽  
Social Progress ◽  
Modern World ◽  
Critical History ◽  
Original Argument

This book provides a sweeping critical history of social theories about war and peace from Thomas Hobbes to the present. It presents both a broad intellectual history and an original argument as it traces the development of thinking about war over more than 350 years—from the premodern era to the period of German idealism and the Scottish and French enlightenments, and then from the birth of sociology in the nineteenth century through the twentieth century. While focusing on social thought, the book draws on many disciplines, including philosophy, anthropology, and political science. It demonstrate the profound difficulties most social thinkers—including liberals, socialists, and those intellectuals who could be regarded as the first sociologists—had in coming to terms with the phenomenon of war, the most obvious form of large-scale social violence. With only a few exceptions, these thinkers, who believed deeply in social progress, were unable to account for war because they regarded it as marginal or archaic, and on the verge of disappearing. This overly optimistic picture of the modern world persisted in social theory even in the twentieth century, as most sociologists and social theorists either ignored war and violence in their theoretical work or tried to explain it away. The failure of the social sciences and especially sociology to understand war, the book argues, must be seen as one of the greatest weaknesses of disciplines that claim to give a convincing diagnosis of our times.

Gambling-like video game practices: A cross-sectional study of links with problem gambling and disordered gaming

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Zendle
Keyword(s):  
Video Games ◽  
Problem Gambling ◽  
Video Game ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Significant Degree ◽  
Cross Sectional Study ◽  
Video Gaming ◽  
Cross Sectional ◽  
Streaming Services ◽  
Clinically Significant

A variety of practices have recently emerged which are related to both video games and gambling. Most prominent of these are loot boxes. However, a broad range of other activities have recently emerged which are also related to both gambling and video games: esports betting, real-money video gaming, token wagering, social casino play, and watching videos of both loot box opening and gambling on game streaming services like Twitch.Whilst a nascent body of research has established the robust existence of a relationship between loot box spending and both problem gambling and disordered gaming, little research exists which examines whether similar links may exist for the diverse practices outlined above. Furthermore, no research has thus far attempted to estimate the prevalence of these activities.A large-scale survey of a representative sample of UK adults (n=1081) was therefore conducted in order to investigate these issues. Engagement in all measured forms of gambling-like video game practices were significantly associated with both problem gambling and disordered gaming. An aggregate measure of engagement was associated with both these outcomes to a clinically significant degree (r=0.23 and r=0.43). Engagement in gambling-like video game practices appeared widespread, with a 95% confidence interval estimating that 16.3% – 20.9% of the population engaged in these activities at least once in the last year. Engagement in these practices was highly inter-correlated: Individuals who engaged in one practice were likely to engage in several more.Overall, these results suggest that the potential effects of the blurring of lines between video games and gambling should not primarily be understood to be due to the presence of loot boxes in video games. They suggest the existence of a convergent ecosystem of gambling-like video game practices, whose causal relationships with problem gambling and disordered gaming are currently unclear but must urgently be investigated.

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