Normative Transformation and the War on Terrorism

Pratt investigates the potential erosion of prohibiting assassination, torture, and mercenarism during the US's War on Terrorism. In examining the emergence and history of the US's targeted killing programme, detention and interrogation programme, and employment of armed contractors in warzones, he proposes that a 'normative transformation' has occurred, which has changed the meaning and content of these prohibitions, even though they still exist. Drawing on pragmatist philosophy, practice theory, and relational sociology, this book develops a new theory of normativity and institutional change, and offers new data about the decisions and activities of security practitioners. It is both a critical and constructive addition to the current literature on norm change, and addresses enduring debates about the role of culture and ethical judgement in the use of force. It will appeal to students and scholars of foreign and defence policy, international relations theory, international security, social theory, and American politics.

Events in Networks

Social networks are dynamic structures of expectations that arise and continuously change over the course of social events. The conceptualization of these events with various key notions of sociological theory is discussed: The concepts of behavior, action, and social practices attribute events to individuals, whereas exchange, interaction, communication, transactions, and switchings are located between actors. Action, social practices, interaction, transactions, and communication involve the processing of meaning. I argue that an ideal conceptualization of events in networks should focus on observable processes between actors, and that it has to incorporate meaning, as a key interest of relational sociology. This suggests the concept of communication as a basis for the theory of social networks.

Networks from Communication

Social networks form, stabilize, and change in the process of communication. Rather than start from actors, communicative events are conceptualized as the basic units. In the sequence of communication, these events are attributed to actors, together with underlying dispositions. Relational expectations about the behavior of actors toward others ensue, effectively structuring communication and making for the regularities of communication we observe as relationships and networks. Social relationships do not exist either/or, but as particular bundles of expectations that gradually arise, stabilize, and change over time. The approach combines recent developments in relational sociology around Harrison White with the theory of communication by Niklas Luhmann and others. Three areas of application and extension of this model are discussed: (1) intercultural communication, (2) collective and corporate actors, and (3) methods for studying communication in networks.

Ethnic Categories and Cultural Differences

Ethnic categories and cultural differences are rooted in the structure of social networks. The segregation of migrant groups in networks of personal relationships determines the extent to which cultural differences can be bridged and the salience of ethnic categories in multicultural societies. In line with relational sociology around Harrison White, the chapter develops a theoretical account of interethnic relations that examines the interplay of network patterns and meaning (categories and cultural differences). It draws on diverse theoretical strands from symbolic interactionism and social anthropology to Norbert Elias’s configurational sociology. This combination leads to conjectures about the ethnic pattering of networks and sociocultural constellations that resonate with empirical research from the sociology of migration.

Towards Relational Spatiality: Space, Relation and Simmel’s Modernity

By reconsidering Simmel’s concept of space, this article introduces space into the epistemological field of relational sociology to construct a relational spatiality based on relational sociology, demonstrating the continuity between spatial and relational approaches in the study of modernity. It first explains Simmel’s relational epistemology and the metropolis, and then constructs the relational spatiality vis-a-vis the two main viewpoints of contemporary relational sociology. Space is relational in nature because it is defined by iterative interactions between actors, which go beyond visible geographical cognition to sociologically express the living process people experience in fragmentary forms of social space. Furthermore, this relational spatiality, combined with Michel Foucault’s discourse, reveals the process attribute of space from the perspective of relational sociology, showing the possibility of a spatial epistemology based on relational sociology.

A sociological imagination for a clumsy world: François Dépelteau’s relational sociology

In this paper I introduce the special section on the work of the late Francois Dépelteau (1963-2018), by analyzing an essential tension within the relational sociology which I call the division between “clumsy” and “elegant” relationalism. “Clumsy” relationalism as exemplified most uncompromisingly by Francois is in a way an extreme perspective on social research, prescribing a certain “obsession” with change and unfolding of reality, rather than its stability or firm foundation. As Francois has put it in one of his last published works: “Everything is changing all the time, including ourselves. This is hard to accept since we are looking for some sort of stability often to reassure ourselves.” I ask why should we accept this perspective rather than continue with reassuring ourselves. I also point out that both “elegant” and “clumsy” relationalisms are useful for social research, but that the latter is increasingly pertinent for contemporary world inhabited by “wicked” social problems that have no elegant solutions or even definitions. I also analyse in more detail Francois’s critique of Pierre Bourdieu’s sociology that is the most eminent example of “elegant” relationalism, and the furthering of “clumsy” relational sociology in the contributions to the special section by Nick Crossley and Jean-Sebastien Guy.

The Safe Standing movement in English football: Mobilizing across the political and discursive fields of contention

Twenty-eight years after the Taylor Report into the Hillsborough disaster recommended that all football grounds in the top two divisions in England and Wales should become all-seated, the UK government, in 2018, announced a review into the safety of modern standing areas and whether developments in stadium safety might justify changing the all-seating legislation to permit Safe Standing. These events are the outcome of a 30-year social movement in which a critical mass of supporters, through the relational networks they formed, have built collective action. Drawing upon both archival and fieldwork research to analyse the longer-term impact which all-seated stadia have had on football supporters’ consumption of the game in England, the article uses relational sociology to tell the story of the movement, and studies the working tactics and structure of a small network mobilizing across the political and discursive fields of contention post-Hillsborough. It argues that whilst now a more effective movement with technological and political capital, Safe Standing continues to raise important questions around the historical views on football fans as somehow deviant and reinforces the long-term impact and legacy of Hillsborough on supporters’ modern cultural consumption of the game by moving within the parameters of the all-seating legislation.

The Influence of Simmel on American Sociology Since 1975

Recent decades have seen Georg Simmel's canonical status in American sociology solidify and his impact on research expand. A broad understanding of his influence, however, remains elusive. This review remedies this situation by evaluating Simmel's legacy in American sociology since 1975. We articulate Simmel's sociological orientation by elaborating the concepts of form, interaction, and dualism. Employing a network analysis of references to Simmel since 1975, we examine how Simmelian concepts have been adopted in research. We find Simmel became an anchor for change in urban and conflict studies, where scholars moved from his earlier functionalist reception toward a formalist interpretation. This formalist reception consolidated Simmel's status as a classic in network research and symbolic interactionism during the 1980s. Recent work in economic sociology and the sociology of culture, however, builds on Simmel's growing reception within relational sociology. We conclude with several ways to further articulate Simmel's ideas in the discipline. Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Sociology, Volume 47 is July 2021. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/page/journal/pubdates for revised estimates.

Uneven worlds of hegemony: towards a discursive ontology of societal multiplicity

The neo-Marxist literature on uneven and combined development has made significant progress towards a comprehensive theory of the international. Its point of departure is societal multiplicity as a fundamental condition of the international. This article identifies an important lacuna in the ontology of multiplicity: there is no discussion of what constitutes a ‘society’, or the basic entity capable of entering a relationship with other entities. Existing solutions, including those relying on relational sociology, gravitate towards ontological individualism. Building on poststructuralist neo-Gramscian theories, I propose to ground the conceptualisation of ‘society’ in the notion of hegemony. This implies a discursive ontology, which attributes the inside/outside dynamic to hegemonic formations rather than states or societies. Coupled with the understanding of hegemony as a scalar phenomenon, this ontology can account for the primacy of the state in modern times, while also enabling a research focus on other types of collectivities.

Are relational processes teleological or self-referential? What relational sociology can learn from systems theory

This paper aims at expanding on François Dépelteau's conception of social relation as dynamic processes. I argue that the basic concept of process is in need of further developments. We tend to understand processes as teleological, but I contend that self-referential processes are a more interesting model for relational sociology. Using Niklas Luhmann's theory, we can conceive self-referential processes as systems that self-organise by transforming disorder into order. For this to be possible, systems must harbour within themselves. The paper then explores the various reasons that explain this special feature.