Dead Sociologies
Bring out your dead!
In 2014, I wrote a blog post that explores why some ideas in sociology die. Here is what I wrote, update comments at the end:
“I am now old enough that I have seen three traditions in American sociology die. In describing them, I am not necessarily saying that I don’t like them. In fact, I am a published practitioner in one of them. Rather, these traditions have not been able to reproduce themselves at the core of the profession. They may be popular in other fields, but not in soc:
1. Functionalism/neo-functionalism
2. Postmodernism
3. Rational choice
Each promised a lot and had a moment in American sociology. Munch, Alexander, and others led the charge on neo-functionalism in the 1990s, and Luhmann has a following. Rational choice still has notable adherents, like Doug Heckathorn at Cornell or Richard Breen at Yale. And the AJS and ASR had their share of articles discussing postmodernism (here, for example). But still, it’s hard to say that these traditions aren’t dormant in American sociology. Few students, few placements.
The question is whether there is any commonality. Is American sociology resistant to certain types of theory? If these three cases indicate a deeper process, then I’d make the following guesses:
“Strong assumptions” – American sociologists don’t like models with what appear to be overly strong assumptions. Rational choice models have smart actors; postmodernism has overly complex actors; and the various functionalisms had actors that were hyper sensitive to social norms and communities were overly structured.
“High tech” – With the exception of applied statistics, American sociologists don’t like fancy things. The AGIL system in functionalism; math for RCT; European philosophy/social theory for post-modernism.
So the ideal theory would be one with weak assumptions and requires little machinery. Many of the dominant theories these days seem to fit this: institutionalism/field theory; intersectionality theory; theories of racial privilege; etc. Network theory rests on simple, but weak, assumptions and uses only stats.
It is unclear to me if this is a good or bad state of affairs. However, if you think it’s bad, then you have a real problem. The most obvious way to change it is to recruit different kinds of people into the profession who like demanding theory or high tech tools. That seems like a tall order given our undergraduate audience, which is the major talent pool for the profession.”
UPDATE: I can now list some other types of sociology that died in the last ten years. Population ecology is definitely dead. Folks accept basic ideas about density and firm mortality (more competition, more firm death), but few people write new papers or theory in this vein. The ecologists, like Michael Hannan, don’t even like using the term anymore. Another candidate for idea death. Another candidate might be dual process theory. In sociology, a few folks like Steve Vaisey did very well publishing in that vein, but it’s hard to say that it became dominant, butI haven’t seen a horde of dual process theorists take over the field of social psychology.
It’s also interesting to compare with fields that are experiencing growth. Survey experiments are super popular. And of course, theories of structural inequality are extremely popular. I would hazard that these two indicate a taste for the simple and the politically popular.
Feel free to use the comments to add your own candidates for sociological ideas on life support.
Bottom line: Easy come, easy go in the discipline.
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