Research Committee on
Comparative Sociology, RC20
Program Coordinator
- Jean-Pascal DALOZ, CNRS/SAGE Université de Strasbourg, France, jean-pascal.daloz@misha.fr
On-line abstracts submission
June 3, 2013 - September 30, 2013 24:00 GMT.A direct submission link will be provided in due course.
If you have questions about any specific session, please feel free to contact the Session Organizer for more information.
Proposed sessions
in alphabetical order:
Changing Global Values
Session OrganizersMarita CARBALLO, Universidad Católica Argentina, Argentina, marita@maritacarballo.com.ar
Frederick C. TURNER, University of Connecticut, USA, frederick.turner@uconn.edu
Session in English
Papers should be based on survey data on values, either in one nation or among several nations. The emphasis should be on how values have changed over the past decade and what the implications of these changes in values may be.
Civilising and Decivilising Processes in the Financial Crisis
Session OrganizersRobert VAN KRIEKEN, University of Sydney, Australia, robert.van-krieken@sydney.edu.au
Stephen VERTIGANS, Robert Gordon University, United Kingdom, s.vertigans@rgu.ac.uk
Session in English
Although periods of recession tend to be mostly associated with economic downturns, their legacies extend way beyond financial impacts. Deep and global recessions contribute to long term shifts in civilising and decivilising processes as access to resources narrows, parameters of the established and outsiders shift, tensions that financial upturns help to contain become reignited and forms of cultural and political expression become more imaginative and challenging. Therefore this session will explore some of the changing processes which the financial crisis has instigated and will identify local, national and global consequences.
Comparative Sociology: Present Status and Future Directions
Session OrganizerMasamichi SASAKI, Chuo University, Japan, masasaki@tamacc.chuo-u.ac.jp
Session in English
Sociology`s founding fathers were all comparative researchers, firmly committed to the comparative method, whether studying roles, institutions, societies, nations, cultures, groups, or organizations. As the major aim of comparative sociology is to identify similarities and differences between social entities, this session seeks to compare and contrast nations, cultures, societies, and institutions, as well as develop concepts and generalizations based upon identified similarities and differences among the social entities being compared, especially in their characteristic ways of thinking and acting, in their characteristic attitudes, values and ideologies, and in the intrinsic elements of their social structures, which in turn all serve as a means to enhance understanding and awareness of other social entities.
While the purposes of comparative sociology are many, one key task is to support and contribute to theory formation. While theoretical frameworks drive the construction of comparative research endeavors, the results of such research often drive theory re-formation. Another key task is to support policymaking, and yet another is to ascertain whether the same dimension of a given concept (e.g., religious commitment) can be used as a common social indicator. Does a given concept generalize to all nations (or other social entities)?
As the world becomes ever more globalized, the need for such understanding should be clear: national policies need to consider the needs of all global partners. Why are nations different on some characteristic parameters, while they are the same on others? The same question can be asked of other sets of socio-cultural groupings, both across regional boundaries and within national or ethnic boundaries.
Culture and the Media in a Long-Term Perspective
Session OrganizersRobert VAN KRIEKEN, University of Sydney, Australia, robert.van-krieken@sydney.edu.au
Stephen VERTIGANS, Robert Gordon University, United Kingdom, s.vertigans@rgu.ac.uk
Session in English
Cultural forms of behaviour, glorification of celebrity and standards of media reporting are increasingly of cause for political and civil concern. Conversely apologists for the freedom of the press are often the most fervent opponents to shifting forms of cultural and sexual expression.
In this session emergent facets of cultural norms and values and the evolution or regression of media reporting are explored through historical developments. Part of the session will be allocated to analysis of the apparent contradictions between demands for personal freedom and attempts to restrain the cultural opportunities of others.
Current Research in Comparative Sociology. Part I
Session OrganizerHanno SCHOLTZ, University of Fribourg, Switzerland, hanno.scholtz@unifr.ch
Session in English
This session welcomes original papers in the field of Comparative Sociology.
Current Research in Comparative Sociology. Part II
Session OrganizerFrederick C. TURNER, University of Connecticut, USA, frederick.turner@uconn.edu
Session in English
This session welcomes original papers in the field of Comparative Sociology.
Environmental and Energy Shifts in Time and Place
Session OrganizersRobert VAN KRIEKEN, University of Sydney, Australia, robert.van-krieken@sydney.edu.au
Stephen VERTIGANS, Robert Gordon University, United Kingdom, s.vertigans@rgu.ac.uk
Session in English
Session will explore how perceptions of the environment and energy have shifted and the concomitant impact on ways of thinking and behaving across different societies. Papers on a range of issues are invited, including global warming, ‘peak oil’, carbon footprints, risk and desertification that discuss state, NGO, TNCs, civilian and international agency actions and reactions. Contributors could examine what the fundamental arguments mean in terms of de-civilising and civilising processes and the consequences for longer-term forms of human interrelationships.
Expatriates: Comparative Perspectives
Session OrganizerJean-Pascal DALOZ, Université de Strasbourg, France, jean-pascal.daloz@misha.fr
Session in English
There are many social scientists to convey a deductive vision in terms of supranational elites exceeding parochial solidarities whereas the bulk of the people is understood as being lured by local identifications. Despite the picture, readily conjured up in the literature on ‘expatriates’, of transnational groups endowed with a cosmopolitan culture overriding all parochial differences, and ostensibly at ease everywhere, the question arises to what extent ‘expatriates’ with various national background differ in terms of attitudes.
This session aims at gathering sociologists with expertise on such populations with a view to generate discussions of a comparative nature.
RC20 Business Meeting
RC20 Roundtable: Rethinking Social Distinction?
Session OrganizerJean-Pascal DALOZ, Université de Strasbourg, France, jean-pascal.daloz@misha.fr
Session in English
The analysis of social distinction cannot indefinitely remain confined to logics of reasoning that are markedly ethnocentric. To understand 21st-century Dubai, China, Russia, or settings of the past, we need to do more than just apply the consecrated schemes of Veblen or Bourdieu.
Further to the publication of The Sociology of Elite Distinction (2010) and Rethinking Social Distinction (2013) which aim to provide new foundations for the comparative study of this important subject, Jean-Pascal Daloz would like to invite commentators willing to discuss his challenging theoretical, epistemological and methodological views.
Rethinking Comparison in a Global Age: Methodological Issues
Session OrganizersVincenzo CICCHELLI, Université Paris Descartes, France, vcicchelli@msh-paris.fr
Sylvie OCTOBRE, Ministère de la Culture, France, sylvie.octobre@culture.gouv.fr
Session in English
Comparative research is as old as the discipline of sociology itself. We still witness works that seem to assume that social phenomena are nationally determined, culturally homogenous and relatively stable in the countries being compared. We know that the current process of globalisation definitely challenges such a vision. For we social scientists, however, the question also arises to what extent our comparative methods should be revised accordingly.
This session looks for papers dealing with methodological issues raised by the challenge of globalisation. Approaches may be theoretical (e.g. on the limits of grand theories with universalistic ambitions) as well as empirical (e.g. case studies emphasising the complexities of interactions between societies and how this questions the validity of consecrated methods).
Sociological Schools of Thought and Comparative Analysis
Session OrganizerJean-Pascal DALOZ, Université de Strasbourg, France, jean-pascal.daloz@misha.fr
Session in English
The aim of this session is to discuss comparative analysis in relation to the positions taken by different schools of thought. We know that each social theoretician must have a starting point from somewhere and, in this respect, an awareness of the field experiences that have most influenced their scholarly work is always instructive. Quite often, however, there is clearly a tendency to rely on the material from the monographic publications which have given these sociologists prominence.
In reaction to this, the task of the comparativist is to caution against dogmatic one-sidedness and the risk of undue extrapolation. Papers synthesising the point of view of a particular (classical or more recent) theoretical tradition or, on the contrary, insist on the limits of certain traditions from a comparative perspective would be most welcome.
The Rise of Top Incomes: Comparative Perspectives
Session OrganizerDavid WEAKLIEM, University of Connecticut, USA, weakliem@uconn.edu
Session in English
In the past few decades, income inequality – specifically, the concentration of income at the top – has grown in many, although not all, advanced capitalist nations. The proposed session would include papers about the causes and consequences of this development. Both empirical and theoretical papers would be welcome.
Trust: Comparative Perspectives. Part I
Session OrganizerMasamichi SASAKI, Chuo University, Japan, masasaki@tamacc.chuo-u.ac.jp
Session in English
No one denies the importance of trust in social relationships. Many scholars view trust as extraordinarily important because of its influence on interpersonal and group relationships. Our economic system is in many ways entirely dependent upon trust because if there were no trust there would be no economic transactions. Thus trust has profound implications for interpersonal and social cooperation. Without trust, societies really could not exist. As we all know, social systems are becoming increasingly complex and confounded, meaning that trust plays an ever-increasingly important role.
Trust in interpersonal and social cooperation implies commitment, which is intimately tied to obligation, which brings into play basic norms and values at individual and group levels. Norms and values speak to expectations. Expectations are implicit in trust because past and present individual and social behaviors dictate how future actions will unfold. Trust becomes a coping mechanism for societal complexity as it helps to overcome the accompanying uncertainty characteristic of a mushrooming globalized social system.
This session will focus on cross-national perspectives of social trust from micro to macro levels of analysis.
Trust: Comparative Perspectives. Part II
Session OrganizerMasamichi SASAKI, Chuo University, Japan, masasaki@tamacc.chuo-u.ac.jp
Session in English
Joint Sessions
Click on the session title to read its description.The Comparative Sociology of Examinations
Joint session of RC04 Sociology of Education and RC20 Comparative Sociology [host committee]
