Public Spaces, Knowledge, and Sociability

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brian Cowan
Keyword(s):  
Civil Society ◽  
Historical Sociology ◽  
Consumer Society ◽  
Georg Simmel ◽  
Early Modern Europe ◽  
Norbert Elias ◽  
The Social ◽  
German Philosopher ◽  
History Of ◽  
German Sociologist

The concept of sociability was introduced as an analytic term by the German sociologist Georg Simmel. Sociability has figured prominently in recent histories of consumer society and material cultures. It has become increasingly clear to historians and social theorists that the places where consumption took place, or where consumer desires were stimulated, and the social milieux in which consumers were located, are just as important to understand as the actual acts of consumption. The German sociologist Norbert Elias introduced Freudian insights into human psychology into a ‘processual’, or what is sometimes called a ‘figurational’, framework for his historical sociology. His works have had a major impact on the history of sociability and knowledge formation. The history of ‘civil society’ has been a major growth industry in the last few decades, and much of this work has developed under the rubric of explaining and exploring the rise of a ‘public sphere’ in early modern Europe. Unlike Elias, the German philosopher Jürgen Habermas located the origins of modern sociability and civil society outside of the realm of court society.

Establishment and Dissent in Nineteenth-Century Medicine: An Exploration of some Correspondence and Connections Between Religious and Medical Belief-Systems in Early Industrial England

1982 ◽  
Vol 19 ◽  
pp. 165-189 ◽  
Author(s):  
John V. Pickstone
Keyword(s):  
History Of Medicine ◽  
Social History ◽  
Belief Systems ◽  
Historical Sociology ◽  
Sociology Of Religion ◽  
Industrial Society ◽  
Medical Attendant ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
Social History Of Medicine

I know the historical sociology of religion only as an outsider; as an historian of medicine helped by that literature to a better understanding of early industrial society and perhaps to a clearer vision of what the social history of medicine ought to be. To read a recent review of the social history of religion, such as A. D. Gilbert’s Religion and Society in Industrial England, Church, Chapel and Social Change, 1740-1914, is to recognise how underdeveloped by comparison is the social history of medicine. Historians of medicine have the equivalent of church histories, of histories of theology and, of course, biographies of divines, but we lack the quantitative and comprehensive surveys of the chronological and geographical patterns in lay attendance and membership, and in professional recruitment and modes of work. For as long as medicine was generally only a transaction between an individual and his medical attendant, few statistics were produced and there is little national data. Yet there are very few local studies of how diseases were handled and how the various kinds of practitioner interacted with each other and with their various publics, so it will be some time before we shall be able to generalise on such matters.

Morale, Modernity, and British Social Imaginaries

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Ussishkin
Keyword(s):  
Civil Society ◽  
Social Imaginaries ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
Normative Expectations

The first chapter situates the history of morale within the broader trajectories of histories of notions and practices of discipline, and it suggests that what lent the historical concept of morale its force, what made it so appealing for myriad actors across civil society, had to do with the distinctive characteristics of the army as a disciplinary institution. Rather than tracing the history of morale as a history of how it was defined, morale is better examined in terms of what those who argued for management of morale sought to achieve and the social and political visions they sought to promote. The notion of morale provided Britons with a template for thinking about the production of cohesive social bodies, and set normative expectations that underpinned British social imaginaries.

Społeczeństwo obywatelskie w Nowej Zelandii według: International Comparative non-profit research programme

2016 ◽  
Vol 14 (14) ◽  
pp. 99-107
Author(s):  
Konrad Ćwikliński
Keyword(s):  
Civil Society ◽  
New Zealand ◽  
Research Programme ◽  
Colonial Period ◽  
Non Profit ◽  
Johns Hopkins University ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
International Comparative ◽  
Institutional Order

Basic information about history of shaping civil society institution in New Zealand based on International Comparative non-profit research programme, Center for Civil Society Studies at Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore. New Zealand during the colonial period was formed by regulating the social, legal and political from the British legislation,and signing of the Treaty of Waitangi, which gave basis for shaping the social and institutional order.

scholarly journals ON PERFORMATIVITY: OPTION THEORY AND THE RESISTANCE OF FINANCIAL PHENOMENA

2017 ◽  
Vol 39 (4) ◽  
pp. 549-569 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicolas Brisset
Keyword(s):  
Historical Sociology ◽  
Economic Thought ◽  
Real Economy ◽  
Option Prices ◽  
Stock Market Crash ◽  
Correct Conclusion ◽  
The Social ◽  
Black Scholes ◽  
History Of ◽  
Option Theory

The issue of performativity concerns the claim that economics shape rather than merely describe the social world. This idea took hold following a paper by Donald MacKenzie and Yuval Millo entitled “Constructing a Market, Performing Theory: The Historical Sociology of a Financial Derivatives Exchange” (2003). That paper constitutes an important contribution to the history of economic thought, since it provides an original way to focus on the scientific construction of the real economy. The authors discuss the empirical success of the Black–Scholes–Merton (BSM) model on the Chicago Board Options Exchange during the period from 1973 to 1987. They explain this success in part as instead of discovering pre-existing price regularities, the model was used by traders to anticipate option prices in their arbitrages. As a result, option prices came to correspond to the theoretical prices derived from the BSM model. In the present article I show that this is not a completely correct conclusion, since the BSM model never became a self-fulfilling model. I would claim that the October 1987 stock market crash is empirical proof that the financial world never fit with the economic theory underpinning the BSM.

scholarly journals Die Epistemologie der Ausnahme

2017 ◽  
Vol Humanities and social... (Articles) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ivan Ermakoff
Keyword(s):  
Historical Sociology ◽  
Systematic Analysis ◽  
Comparative Historical Sociology ◽  
Relational Patterns ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
Normative Expectations ◽  
International Audience ◽  
Standard Classification ◽  
Characteristic Features

International audience Außergewöhnliche Situationen werden meist als untypisch, komisch und selten dargestellt. Womit lässt sich dann aber ihre systematische Untersuchung rechtfertigen? Ausgehend von der Differenzierung zwischen Abweichungen, Ausnahmen und Sonderfällen, hebt dieser Beitrag drei epistemische Beiträge außergewöhnlicher Fälle hervor. Erstens verdeutlichen außergewöhnliche Fälle die Grenzen von Kategorien und Klassifizierungen. Ihr Beitrag ist kritisch. Zweitens verweisen außergewöhnliche Fälle auf neue Gegenstandsmodelle. Sie erhalten einen paradigmatischen Rang durch das Aufzeigen spezifischer Charakteristika dieser neuen Modelle. Drittens verdeutlichen außergewöhnliche Fälle Beziehungsmodelle, die in gewöhnlicheren Zusammenhängen unsichtbar bleiben. Ihr Beitrag ist hier heuristisch. Diese drei Beiträge sind möglich, wenn wir unsere normativen Verhaltensweisen bezüglich des Vorhersehbaren aufheben und die Fälle in Beziehung zu einem analytischen Raum konstitutiver Dimensionen setzen. Der Beitrag fußt hauptsächlich auf Beispielen aus den Sozialwissenschaften: Organisationssoziologie, Ethnomethodologie, vergleichende Geschichtssoziologie und Wissenschaftsgeschichte Exceptional cases are at odds with the typical : they stand out as bizarre and rare. What then could justify their systematic analysis? Elaborating the analytical distinction between anomalies, exceptions and outliers, this paper outlines three potential epistemic contributions of exceptional cases. First, exceptional cases reveal the limits of standard classification categories. In so doing, they problematize usual classificatory grids. Their input is critical. Second, exceptional cases point to new classes of objects. They acquire paradigmatic status when they exemplify the characteristic features of these new classes with utmost clarity. Third, exceptional cases magnify relational patterns that in more mundane contexts lack visibility. Here their contribution is heuristic. These three contributions become possible when we put at bay normative expectations of what should happen, and specify cases by reference to an analytical space of constitutive dimensions. To underscore the general significance of these observations, I draw on examples borrowed from different quarters of the social sciences: the sociology of organizations, ethnomethodology, comparative historical sociology and the history of science Cet article éclaire trois contributions possibles du cas d’exception défini comme tout objet de considération qui se démarque et se distingue d’un cadre normatif, d’une thèse explicative ou d’une distribution fréquentielle. La contribution est critique lorsque le cas met en doute les fondements d’une taxonomie, le bien-fondé d’un énoncé prédictif ou celui d’une modélisation. Elle est paradigmatique dès lors que le cas exemplifie un ensemble de propriétés caractéristiques d’une classe empirique. Elle devient heuristique à partir du moment où le cas rend visible la logique de rapports restés jusqu’alors non documentés

Kemalism and Beyond

2015 ◽  
pp. 161-179
Author(s):  
Christopher Houston
Keyword(s):  
Civil Society ◽  
Social History ◽  
First World War ◽  
Social Conditions ◽  
Power Struggle ◽  
World War ◽  
The Social ◽  
The First World War ◽  
History Of ◽  
First World

Abstract: Despite the ceaseless efforts of what its supporters name the “Atatürk Cumhuriyeti” (Atatürk Republic), Kemalism is seen by many as a discredited ideology and an oppressive political practice. This chapter explores the social history of Kemalism since 1923 and the background to its now decades-long crisis of legitimacy. It compares the orthodox narrative concerning the Kemalist project with its various deconstructive accounts, many of which zero in on the years after the First World War and the 1920s and 1930s as foundational in present-day conflicts. These orthodox and heterodox histories, allied to the interests of different groups, do politics by another means. The chapter then traces how the power struggle over Kemalism’s futures is developing. Rather than pontificate about what the state or civil society should do, it concludes by drawing attention to emerging lineaments of change in existing civil society and social conditions.

Some Reflections on the Pre-Industrial City

Urban History ◽  
1975 ◽  
Vol 2 ◽  
pp. 13-21 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Burke
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Economic History ◽  
Early Modern Europe ◽  
Industrial City ◽  
The Social ◽  
Tribal Societies ◽  
History Of ◽  
History Of Europe ◽  
The City

In the last few years, a new word has gained popularity among historians: ‘pre-industrial’. Specialists in the social and economic history of Europe before 1800 have become increasingly aware that the object of their studies is simply one case among others of what sociologists call ‘traditional society’, and that it is easier to understand traditional or pre-industrial Europe if it is compared and contrasted with other societies of this type. Thus Keith Thomas and Alan Macfarlane have illuminated English witchcraft by making comparisons with witchcraft in African tribal societies, while Frédéric Mauro and Witold Kula, among others, have compared the economies of early modern Europe with those of the developing countries today. Even Richard Cobb, no great friend to the social sciences, has recorded that he came to understand eighteenth-century Paris better after visiting contemporary Calcutta. In fact, the city is an obvious and splendidly tangible unit of comparison, and it is not surprising that the term ‘pre-industrial city’ is passing into general use.

scholarly journals Neoliberalism and Civil Society: Swedish Exceptionalism in a Comparative Perspective – On the Conceptual and Real History of Civil Society

Stan Rzeczy ◽  
2017 ◽  
pp. 227-253
Author(s):  
Sven Eliaeson
Keyword(s):  
Civil Society ◽  
Social Insurance ◽  
Social Engineering ◽  
The State ◽  
State Agencies ◽  
Deep Roots ◽  
Strong State ◽  
Swedish Model ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of

Social science is a battlefield for the formation of concepts. The Swedish case is particular. “Civil society” re-entered the scene as a neoliberal and social-conservative reaction against the social-democratic ideology of the “strong state,” in which the state and society were conceived to be almost synonymous. The Swedish revival of an old concept is in obvious contrast with the concept’s reception east of the Elbe in recent decades, where “civil society” has often been used as a label for grass roots social movements, which are independent of the state and the nomenklatura, in malfunctioning regimes with low legitimacy and poor output. This idea is lacking in the Swedish case, where we find a characteristic merger between the “top-down” and “bottom-up” perspectives. “Real, existing” civil society in Sweden has a long history. Self-organised initiatives sought support from the state and often received it – in some cases creating institutions that grew into state agencies. Forestry, electrification, and early social insurance provide examples of the interplay between the state, the market, and society. Swedish civil society has deep roots in history, going back at least to late medieval days. Civil society was a formative element in the design of the relatively successful “Swedish model” through social engineering and piecemeal reforms during the period from the 1930s to the late 1960s.

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